 CHAPTER 30 The Queen's Class is Organized Marilla laid her knitting on her lap and leaned back in her chair. Her eyes were tired, and she thought vaguely that she must see about having her glasses changed the next time she went to town, for her eyes had grown tired very often of late. It was nearly dark, for the full November twilight had fallen around green gables, and the only light in the kitchen came from the dancing red flames in the stove. Anne was curled up Turk fashion on the hearth rug, gazing into that joyous glow where the sunshine of a hundred summers was being distilled from the maple cordwood. She had been reading, but her book had slipped to the floor, and now she was dreaming, with a smile on her parted lips. Living castles in Spain were shaping themselves out of the mists and rainbows of her lively fancy. Adventures wonderful and enthralling were happening to her in Cloudland—adventures that always turned out triumphantly, and never involved her in scrapes like those of actual life. Marilla looked at her with a tenderness that would never have been suffered to reveal itself in any clearer light than that soft mingling of fireshine and shadow. The lesson of a love that should display itself easily in spoken word and open look was one Marilla could never learn, but she had learned to love this slim, grey-eyed girl with an affection all the deeper and stronger from its very undemonstrativeness. Her love made her afraid of being unduly indulgent, indeed. She had an uneasy feeling that it was rather sinful to set one's heart so intensely on any human creature as she had set hers on Anne, and perhaps she performed a sort of unconscious penance for this by being stricter and more critical than if the girl had been last year to her. Certainly Anne herself had no idea how Marilla loved her. She sometimes thought wistfully that Marilla was very hard to please and distinctly lacking in sympathy and understanding, but she always checked the thought reproachfully, remembering what she owed to Marilla. Anne, said Marilla abruptly, Miss Stacy was here this afternoon when you were out with Diana. Anne came back from her other world with a start and a sigh. Was she? Oh, I'm so sorry I wasn't in. Why didn't you call me, Marilla? Diana and I were only over in the haunted wood. It's lovely in the woods now. All the little wood things—the ferns and the satin leaves and the crackerberries—have gone to sleep, just as if somebody had tucked them away until spring under a blanket of leaves. I think it was a little gray fairy with a rainbow scarf that came tiptoeing along the last moonlight night and did it. Diana wouldn't say much about that, though. Diana has never forgotten the scolding her mother gave her about imagining ghosts into the haunted wood. It had a very bad effect on Diana's imagination. It blighted it. Mrs. Lynde says Myrtle Bell is a blighted being. I asked Ruby Gillis why Myrtle was blighted, and Ruby said she guessed it was because her young man had gone back on her. Ruby Gillis thinks of nothing but young men, and the older she gets, the worse she is. Young men are all very well in their place, but it doesn't do to drag them into everything, does it? Diana and I are thinking seriously of promising each other that we will never marry, but be nice old maids and live together forever. Diana hasn't quite made up her mind, though, because she thinks perhaps it would be nobler to marry some wild, dashing, wicked young man and reform him. Diana and I talk a great deal about serious subjects now, you know. We feel that we are so much older than we used to be that it isn't becoming to talk childish matters. It's such a solemn thing to be almost fourteen, Myrtle. Miss Stacy took all us girls who are in our teens down to the brook last Wednesday and talked to us about it. She said we couldn't be too careful what habits we formed and what ideals we acquired in our teens, because by the time we were twenty our characters would be developed and the foundation laid for our whole future life. And she said if the foundation was shaky we could never build anything really worthwhile on it. Diana and I talked the matter over coming home from school. We felt extremely solemn, Myrtle, and we decided that we would try to be very careful indeed and form respectable habits and learn all we could and be as sensible as possible, so that by the time we were twenty our characters would be properly developed, it's perfectly appalling to think of being twenty, Myrtle. It sounds so fearfully old and grown up. But why was Miss Stacy here this afternoon? That is what I want to tell you, Anne, if you'll ever give me a chance to get a word in edgewise. She was talking about you. About me. Anne looked rather scared. Then she flushed and exclaimed, Oh, I know what she was saying. I meant to tell you, Myrtle, honestly I did, but I forgot. Miss Stacy caught me reading Ben-Hur in school yesterday afternoon when I should have been studying my Canadian history. Jane Andrews lent it to me. I was reading it at dinner hour and I had just got to the chariot race when school went in. I was simply wild to know how it turned out, although I felt sure Ben-Hur must win because it wouldn't be poetical justice if he didn't. So I spread the history open on my desk lid and then talked Ben-Hur between the desk and my knee. I just looked as if I were studying Canadian history, you know, while all the while I was reveling in Ben-Hur. I was so interested in it that I never noticed Miss Stacy coming down the aisle until all at once I just looked up and there she was, looking down at me, so reproachful like. I can't tell you how ashamed I felt, Myrtle, especially when I heard Josie Pie giggling. Miss Stacy took Ben-Hur away, but she never said a word then. She kept me in at recess and talked to me. She said I had done very wrong in two respects. First, I was wasting the time I ought to have put on my studies, and secondly, I was deceiving my teacher. In trying to make it appear I was reading a history when it was a storybook instead. I had never realized until that moment, Myrtle, that what I was doing was deceitful. I was shocked. I cried bitterly and asked Miss Stacy to forgive me and I'd never do such a thing again, and I offered to do penance by never so much as looking at Ben-Hur for a whole week, not even to see how the chariot race turned out. But Miss Stacy said she wouldn't require that and she forgave me freely, so I think it wasn't very kind of her to come up here to you about it after all. Miss Stacy never mentioned such a thing to me, Anne, and it's only your guilty conscience that's the matter with you. You have no business to be taking storybooks to school. You read too many novels anyhow. When I was a girl I wasn't so much as allowed to look at a novel. Oh, how can you call Ben-Hur a novel when it's really such a religious book? protested Anne. Of course, it's a little too exciting to be proper reading for Sunday, and I only read it on weekdays. And I never read any book now unless either Miss Stacy or Mrs. Allen thinks it is the proper book for a girl 13 and 3 quarters to read. Miss Stacy made me promise that. She found me reading a book one day called The Lured Mystery of the Haunted Hall. It was one Ruby Gillis had lent me, and oh, Marilla, it was so fascinating and creepy, it just curdled the blood in my veins. But Miss Stacy said it was a very silly, unwholesome book, and she asked me not to read any more of it or any like it. I didn't mind promising not to read any more like it, but it was agonizing to give back that book without knowing how it turned out. My love for Miss Stacy stood the test, and I did. It's really wonderful, Marilla, what you can do when you're truly anxious to please a certain person. Well, I guess I'll light the lamp and get to work, said Marilla. I see plainly that you don't want to hear what Miss Stacy had to say. You're more interested in the sound of your own tongue than in anything else. Oh, indeed, Marilla, I do want to hear it, cried Anne contritely. I won't say another word, not one. I know I talk too much, but I am really trying to overcome it, and although I say far too much, yet if you only knew how many things I want to say and don't, you'd give me some credit for it. Please tell me, Marilla. Well, Miss Stacy wants to organize a class among her advanced students who mean to study for the entrance examination into Queens. She intends to give them extra lessons for an hour after school, and she came to ask Matthew and me if we would like to have you join it. What do you think about it yourself, Anne? Would you like to go to Queens and pass for a teacher? Oh, Marilla! She straightened to her knees and clasped her hands. It's been the dream of my life, that is, for the last six months, ever since Ruby and Jane began to talk of studying for the entrance, but I didn't say anything about it, because I supposed it would be perfectly useless. I'd love to be a teacher, but won't it be dreadfully expensive? Mr. Andrews says it cost him $150 to put Prissy through, and Prissy wasn't a dense in geometry. I guess you needn't worry about that part of it. When Matthew and I took you to bring up, we resolved we would do the best we could for you and give you a good education. I believe in a girl being fitted to earn her own living, whether she ever has to or not. You'll always have a home at Green Gables, as long as Matthew and I are here, but nobody knows what is going to happen in this uncertain world, and it's just as well to be prepared. So you can join the Queen's class if you like, Anne. Oh, Marilla, thank you! Anne flung her arms about Marilla's waist and looked up earnestly into her face. I'm extremely grateful to you and Matthew, and I'll study as hard as I can and do my very best to be a credit to you. I warn you not to expect much in geometry, but I think I can hold my own in anything else if I work hard. I dare say you'll get along well enough. Miss Stacy says you are bright and diligent. Not for worlds would Marilla have told Anne just what Miss Stacy had said about her. That would have been to pamper vanity. You needn't rush to any extreme of killing yourself over your books. There is no hurry. You won't be ready to try the entrance for a year and a half yet, but it's well to begin in time and be thoroughly grounded, Miss Stacy says. I shall take more interest than ever in my studies now, said Anne blissfully, because I have a purpose in life. Mr. Allen says everybody should have a purpose in life and pursue it faithfully. Only he says we must first make sure that it is a worthy purpose. I would call it a worthy purpose to want to be a teacher like Miss Stacy. Wouldn't you, Marilla? I think it's a very noble profession. The Queen's class was organized in due time. Gilbert Blythe, Anne Shirley, Ruby Gillis, Jane Andrews, Josie Pie, Charlie Sloan, and Moody Spurgeon McPherson joined it. Diana Berry did not, as her parents did not intend to send her to Queens. This seemed nothing short of a calamity to Anne, never since the night on which Minnie May had had the crew had she and Diana been separated in anything. On the evening when the Queen's class first remained in school for the extra lessons, and Anne saw Diana go slowly out with the others, to walk home alone through the birch path and violet veil, it was all the former could do to keep her seat and refrain from rushing impulsively after her chum. A lump came into her throat, and she hastily retired behind the pages of her uplifted Latin grammar to hide the tears in her eyes. Not for worlds would Anne have had Gilbert Blythe or Josie Pie see those tears. But, oh, Marilla, I really felt that I had tasted the bitterness of death, as Mr. Allen said in his sermon last Sunday, when I saw Diana go out alone. She said mournfully that night. I thought how splendid it would have been if Diana had only been going to study for the entrance, too. But we can't have things perfect in this imperfect world, as Mrs. Lynde says. Mrs. Lynde isn't exactly a comforting person sometimes, but there's no doubt she says a great many very true things. And I think the Queen's class is going to be extremely interesting. Jane and Ruby are just going to study to be teachers. That is the height of their ambition. Ruby says she will only teach for two years after she gets through, and then she intends to be married. Jane says she will devote her whole life to teaching and never, never marry, because you are paid a salary for teaching, but a husband won't pay you anything, and growls if you ask for a share in the egg and butter money. I expect Jane speaks from mournful experience, for Mrs. Lynde says that her father is a perfect old crank and meaner than second skimmings. Josie Pie says she is just going to college for education's sake, because she won't have to earn her own living. She says, of course, it is different with orphans who are living on charity. They have to hustle. Moody Spurgeon is going to be a minister. Mrs. Lynde says he couldn't be anything else with a name like that to live up to. I hope it isn't wicked of me, Marilla, but really, the thought of Moody Spurgeon being a minister makes me laugh. He's such a funny-looking boy with that big, fat face and his little blue eyes and his ears sticking out like flaps. But perhaps he will be more intellectual looking when he grows up. Charlie Sloan says he is going to go into politics and be a member of parliament, but Mrs. Lynde says he'll never succeed at that, because the Sloans are all honest people and it's only rascals that get on in politics nowadays. What is Gilbert Blythe going to be, queried Marilla, seeing that Anne was opening her Caesar? I don't happen to know what Gilbert Blythe's ambition in life is, if he has any, said Anne scornfully. There was open rivalry between Gilbert and Anne now. Previously the rivalry had been rather one-sided, but there was no longer any doubt that Gilbert was as determined to be first in class as Anne was. He was a foeman worthy of her steel. The other members of the class tacitly acknowledged their superiority and never dreamed of trying to compete with them. Since the day by the pond when she had refused to listen to his plea for forgiveness, Gilbert, saved for the aforesa determined rivalry, had evinced no recognition whatever of the existence of Anne Shirley. He talked and gested with the other girls, exchanged books and puzzles with them, discussed lessons and plans, sometimes walked home with one or the other of them from prayer meeting or debating club. But Anne Shirley he simply ignored, and Anne found out that it is not pleasant to be ignored. It was in vain that she told herself with a toss of her head that she did not care. Deep down in her wayward feminine little heart she knew that she did care, and that if she had that chance of the lake of shining waters again she would answer very differently. All at once, as it seemed, and to her secret dismay, she found that the old resentment she had cherished against him was gone, gone just when she most needed its sustaining power. It was in vain that she recalled every incident and emotion of that memorable occasion, and tried to feel the old satisfying anger. That day by the pond had witnessed its last spasmodic flicker. Anne realized that she had forgiven and forgotten without knowing it. But it was too late. At least neither Gilbert nor anybody else, not even Diana should ever suspect how sorry she was and how much she wished she hadn't been so proud and torrid. She determined to shroud her feelings in deepest oblivion, and it may be stated here and now that she did it, so successfully that Gilbert, who possibly was not quite so indifferent as he seemed, could not console himself with any belief that Anne felt his retaliatory scorn. The only poor comfort he had was that she snubbed Charlie Sloan, unmercifully, continually, and undeservedly. As the winter passed away in a round of pleasant duties and studies, for Anne the days slipped by like golden beads on the necklace of the year. She was happy, eager, interested. There were lessons to be learned and honor to be won, delightful books to read, new pieces to be practiced for the Sunday School Choir, pleasant Saturday afternoons at the Mans with Mrs. Allen, and then, almost before Anne realized it, spring had come again to Green Gables, and all the world was a bloom once more. Mrs. Paul just a wee bit, then. The Queen's class, left behind in school while the others scattered to green lanes and leafy woodcuts and meadow byways, looked wistfully out of the windows, and discovered that Latin verbs and French exercises had somehow lost the tang and zest they had possessed in the crisp winter months. Even Anne and Gilbert lagged and grew indifferent. Teacher and taught were alike glad when the term was ended, and the glad vacation days stretched rosely before them. What you've done good work this past year, Ms. Stacey told them on the last evening, and you deserve a good, jolly vacation. Have the best time you can in the out-of-door world, and lay in a good stock of health and vitality and ambition to carry you through next year. It will be the tug of war, you know. The last year before the entrance. Are you going to be back next year, Ms. Stacey? asked Josie Pye. Josie Pye never scrupled to ask questions. In this instance the rest of the class felt grateful to her. None of them would have dared to ask it of Ms. Stacey, but all wanted to, for there had been alarming rumours running at large through the school for some time, that Ms. Stacey was not coming back the next year, that she had been offered a position in the grade school of her own home district, and meant to accept. The Queen's class listened in breathless suspense for her answer. Yes, I think I will, said Ms. Stacey. I thought of taking another school, but I have decided to come back to Avonlea, to tell the truth I've grown so interested in my pupils here that I found I couldn't leave them, so I'll stay and see you through. Hurrah! said Moody Spurgeon. Moody Spurgeon had never been so carried away by his feelings before, and he blushed uncomfortably every time he thought about it for a week. Oh, I'm so glad, said Anne, with shining eyes. Dear Ms. Stacey, it would be perfectly dreadful if you didn't come back. I don't believe I could have the heart to go on with my studies at all if another teacher came here. When Anne got home that night, she stacked all her textbooks away in an old trunk in the attic, locked it, and threw the key into the blanket-box. I'm not even going to look at a schoolbook in vacation, she told Marilla. I've studied as hard all the term as I possibly could, and I poured over that geometry until I know every proposition in the first book off by heart, even when the letters are changed. I just feel tired of everything sensible, and I'm going to let my imagination run riot for the summer. Oh, you needn't be alarmed, Marilla. I'll only let it run riot within reasonable limits. But I want to have a real good jolly time this summer, for maybe it's the last summer I'll be a little girl. Mrs. Lynn says that if I keep stretching out next year as I've done this, I'll have to put on longer skirts. She says I'm all running to legs and eyes, and when I put on longer skirts I shall feel that I have to live up to them and be very dignified. It won't even do to believe in fairies, then, I'm afraid. So I'm going to believe in them with all my whole heart this summer. I think we're going to have a very gay vacation. Ruby Gillis is going to have a birthday party soon, and there's the Sunday School picnic and the missionary concert next month. And Mr. Berry says that some evening he'll take Diana and me over to the White Sands Hotel and have dinner there. They have dinner there in the evening, you know. Jane Andrews was over once last summer, and she says it was a dazzling sight to see the electric lights and the flowers and all the lady guests in such beautiful dresses. Jane says it was her first glimpse into high life, and she'll never forget it to her dying day. Mrs. Lind came up the next afternoon to find out why Marilla had not been at the aid meeting on Thursday. When Marilla was not at aid meeting, people knew there was something wrong at Green Gables. Matthew had a bad spell with his heart Thursday, Marilla explained, and I didn't feel like leaving him. Oh yes, he's all right again now, but he takes them spells offner than he used to, and I'm anxious about him. The doctor says he must be careful to avoid excitement. That's easy enough, for Matthew doesn't go about looking for excitement by any means and never did, but he's not to do any very heavy work, either, and you might as well tell Matthew not to breathe as not to work. Come and lay off your things, Rachel. You'll stay to tea. Well, seeing you're so pressing, perhaps I might as well stay, said Mrs. Rachel, who had not the slightest intention of doing anything else. Mrs. Rachel and Marilla sat comfortably in the parlor while Anne got the tea, and made hot biscuits that were light and white enough to defy even Mrs. Rachel's criticism. I must say Anne has turned out a real smart girl, admitted Mrs. Rachel, as Marilla accompanied her to the end of the lane at sunset. She must be a great help to you. She is, said Marilla, and she's real steady and reliable now. I used to be afraid she'd never get over her feather-brained ways, but she has, and I wouldn't be afraid to trust her in anything now. I never would have thought she'd have turned out so well that first day I was here three years ago, said Mrs. Rachel. Lawful heart, shall I ever forget that tantrum of hers. When I went home that night, I said to Thomas, as I, mark my words, Thomas, Marilla Cuthbert'll live to rue the steps she's took, but I was mistaken, and I'm real glad of it. I ain't one of those kind of people Marilla has can never be brought to own up that they've made a mistake. Know that never was my way, thank goodness. I did make a mistake in judging Anne, but it weren't no wonder. For an odder, unexpecteder, which of a child there never was in this world, that's what. There was no ciphering her out by the rules that worked with other children. It's nothing short of wonderful how she's improved these three years, but especially in looks. She's a real pretty girl, got to be, though I can't say I'm overly partial to that pale, big-eyed style myself. I like more snap and color, like Diana Berry has, or Ruby Gillis. Ruby Gillis's looks are real showy, but somehow. I don't know how it is, but when Anne and them are together, though she ain't half as handsome, she makes them look kind of common and overdone. Something like them White June Lily she calls Narcissus, alongside of the big red peonies, that's what. Anne had her good summer and enjoyed it wholeheartedly. She and Diana fairly lived outdoors, reveling in all the delights that Lover's Lane and the Dryad's Bubble and Willowmere and Victoria Island afforded. Marilla offered no objections to Anne's gypsy-ings. The Spencervale doctor, who had come the night Mini May had the crew, met Anne at the house of a patient one afternoon early in vacation, looked her over sharply, screwed up his mouth, shook his head, and sent a message to Marilla Cuthbert by another person. It was, Keep that red-headed girl of yours in the open air all summer, and don't let her read books until she gets more spring in her step. This message frightened Marilla wholesomely. She read Anne's death warrant by consumption in it unless it was scrupulously obeyed. As a result, Anne had the golden summer of her life as far as freedom and frolic went. She walked, rode, buried, and dreamed to her heart's content, and when September came she was bright-eyed and alert, with a step that would have satisfied the Spencervale doctor, and a heart full of ambition and zest once more. I feel just like studying with might and main, she declared as she brought her books down from the attic. Oh, you good old friends, I'm glad to see your honest faces once more. Yes, even you, geometry. I've had a perfectly beautiful summer, Marilla, and now I'm rejoicing as a strongman to run a race, as Mr. Allen said last Sunday. Doesn't Mr. Allen preach magnificent sermons? Mrs. Lynch says he is improving every day, and the first thing we know, some city church will gobble him up, and then we'll be left and have to turn two and break in another green preacher. But I don't see the use of meeting trouble halfway to you, Marilla. I think it would be better just to enjoy Mr. Allen while we have him. If I were a man I think I'd be a minister. They can have such an influence for good if their theology is sound, and it must be thrilling to preach splendid sermons and stir your hearer's hearts. Why can't women be ministers, Marilla? I asked Mrs. Lynch that, and she was shocked and said it would be a scandalous thing. She said there might be female ministers in the states and she believed there was, but thank goodness we hadn't got to that stage in Canada yet, and she hoped we never would. But I don't see why. I think women would make splendid ministers. When there is a social to be got up or a church tea or anything else to raise money, the women have to turn two and do the work. I'm sure Mrs. Lynch can pray every bit as well a superintendent bell, and I've no doubt she could preach too with a little practice. Yes, I believe she could, said Marilla dryly. She does plenty of unofficial preaching as it is. Nobody has much of a chance to go wrong in Avonlea with Rachel to oversee them. Marilla, said Anne, in a burst of confidence, I want to tell you something and ask you what you think about it. It has worried me terribly. On Sunday afternoons, that is, when I think specially about such matters, I do really want to be good, and when I'm with you or Mrs. Allen or Mrs. Stacey I want it more than ever, and I want to do just what would please you and what you would approve of. But mostly when I'm with Mrs. Lynch I feel desperately wicked, and as if I wanted to go and do the very thing she tells me I oughtn't to do. I feel irresistibly tempted to do it. Now what do you think is the reason I feel like that? Do you think it's because I'm really bad and unregenerate? Marilla looked dubious for a moment. Then she laughed. If you are, I guess I am too, Anne, for Rachel often has that very effect on me. I sometimes think she'd have more of an influence for good, as you say yourself, if she didn't keep nagging people to do right. There should have been a special commandment against nagging. But there I shouldn't talk so. Rachel is a good Christian woman, and she means well. There isn't a kinder soul in Avonlea, and she never shirks her share of work. I'm very glad you feel the same, said Anne decidedly. It's so encouraging. I shan't worry so much over that after this. But I dare say there'll be other things to worry me. They keep coming up new all the time. Things to perplex you, you know. You settle one question, and there's another right after. There are so many things to be thought over and decided when you're beginning to grow up. It keeps me busy all the time thinking them over and deciding what is right. It's a serious thing to grow up, isn't it, Marilla? But when I have such good friends as you and Matthew and Mrs. Allen and Miss Stacy, I ought to grow up successfully. And I'm sure it will be my own fault if I don't. I feel it's a great responsibility because I have only the one chance. If I don't grow up right, I can't go back and begin over again. I've grown two inches this summer, Marilla. Mr. Gillis measured me at Ruby's party. I'm so glad you made my new dresses longer. That dark green one is so pretty, and it was sweet of you to put on the flounce. Of course I know it wasn't really necessary, but flounces are so stylish this fall, and Josie Pie has flounces on all her dresses. I know I'll be able to study better because of mine. I shall have such a comfortable feeling deep down in my mind about that flounce. It's worth something to have that, admitted Marilla. Miss Stacy came back to Avonlea School and found all her pupils eager for work once more. Especially did the Queen's class gird up their loins for the fray for at the end of the coming year, dimly shadowing their pathway already, loomed up that fateful thing known as the entrance, at the thought of which one and all felt their hearts sink into their very shoes. Suppose they did not pass. That thought was doomed to haunt Anne through the waking hours of that winter, Sunday afternoon's inclusive, to the almost entire exclusion of moral and theological problems. When Anne had bad dreams, she found herself staring miserably at pass lists of the entrance exams, where Gilbert Blythe's name was blazoned at the top and in which hers did not appear at all. But it was a jolly, busy, happy, swift-flying winter. Schoolwork was as interesting, class rivalry as absorbing, as of yore. New worlds of thought, feeling and ambition, fresh, fascinating fields of unexplored knowledge seemed to be opening out before Anne's eager eyes. Hills peeped or hill and alps on alps arose. Much of all this was due to Miss Stacy's tactful, careful broad-minded guidance. She led her class to think and explore and discover for themselves and encouraged straying from the old beaten paths to a degree that quite shocked Mrs. Lind and the school trustees, who viewed all innovations on established methods rather dubiously. Apart from her studies, Anne expanded socially. For Marilla, mindful of the Spencer Vale doctor's dictum, no longer vetoed occasional outings. The debating club flourished and gave several concerts. There were one or two parties almost verging on grown-up affairs. There were sleigh drives and skating frolics galore. Between times Anne grew, shooting up so rapidly. That Marilla was astonished one day, when they were standing side by side, to find the girl was taller than herself. Why, Anne, how you've grown, she said, almost unbelievingly. A sigh followed on the words. Marilla felt a queer regret over Anne's inches. The child she had learned to love had vanished somehow. And here was this tall, serious-eyed girl of 15, with the thoughtful brows and the proudly poised little head in her place. Marilla loved the girl as much as she had loved the child, but she was conscious of a queer, sorrowful sense of loss. And that night, when Anne had gone to prayer meeting with Diana, Marilla sat alone in the wintry twilight and indulged in the weakness of a cry. Matthew, coming in with a lantern, caught her at it and gazed at her in such consternation that Marilla had to laugh through her tears. I was thinking about Anne, she explained. She's got to be such a big girl, and she'll probably be away from us next winter. I'll miss her terrible. She'll be able to come home often, comforted Matthew, to whom Anne was as yet and always would be the little eager girl he had brought home from Bright River on that June evening four years before. The branch railroad will be built to Carmody by that time. It won't be the same thing as having her here all the time, sighed Marilla gloomily, determined to enjoy her luxury of grief uncomforted. But there, men can't understand these things. There were other changes in Anne, no less real than the physical change. For one thing she became much quieter. Perhaps she thought all the more and dreamed as much as ever, but she certainly talked less. Marilla noticed and commented on this also. You don't chatter half as much as you used to, Anne, nor use half as many big words. What has come over you? Anne colored and laughed a little as she dropped her book and looked dreamily out of the window, where big, fat, red buds were bursting out on the creeper in response to the lure of the spring sunshine. I don't know. I don't want to talk as much. She said, denting her chin thoughtfully with her forefinger. It's nicer to think dear, pretty thoughts and keep them in one's heart like treasures. I don't like to have them laughed at or wondered over. And somehow I don't want to use big words anymore. It's almost a pity, isn't it, now that I'm really growing big enough to say them if I did want to. It's fun to be almost grown up in some ways, but it's not the kind of fun I expected, Marilla. There's so much to learn and do and think that there isn't time for big words. Besides, Miss Stacy says the short ones are much stronger and better. She makes us write all our essays as simply as possible. It was hard at first. I was so used to crowding in all the fine big words I could think of, and I thought of any number of them. But I've got used to it now, and I see it so much better. What has become of your story club? I haven't heard you speak of it for a long time. The story club isn't in existence any longer. We hadn't time for it. And anyhow, I think we had got tired of it. It was silly to be writing about love and murder and loatements and mysteries. Miss Stacy sometimes has us write a story for training in composition, but she won't let us write anything but what might happen in Avonlea in our own lives. And she criticizes it very sharply and makes us criticize our own, too. I never thought my compositions had so many faults until I began to look for them myself. I felt so ashamed I wanted to give up altogether. But Miss Stacy said I could learn to write well if I only trained myself to be my own severest critic. And so I am trying to. You've only two more months before the entrance, said Marilla. Do you think you'll be able to get through? Anne shivered. I don't know. Sometimes I think I'll be all right. And then I get horribly afraid. We've studied hard, and Miss Stacy has drilled us thoroughly. But we may not get through for all that. We've each got a stumbling block. Mine is geometry, of course, and Jane's is Latin. And Ruby and Charlie's is algebra, and Josie's is arithmetic. Moody Spurgeon says he feels it in his bones that he is going to fail in English history. Miss Stacy is going to give us examinations in June just as hard as we'll have at the entrance, and mark us just as strictly, so we'll have some idea. I wish it was all over, Marilla. It haunts me. Sometimes I wake up in the night and wonder what I'll do if I don't pass. Why, go to school next year and try again, said Marilla, unconcernedly. Oh, I don't believe I'd have the heart for it. It would be such a disgrace to fail, especially if Gil, if the others, passed. And I get so nervous in an examination that I'm likely to make a mess of it. I wish I had nerves like Jane Andrews. Nothing rattles her. Anne sighed, and dragging her eyes from the witcheries of the spring world, the beckoning day of breeze and blue, and the green things up springing in the garden, buried herself resolutely in her book. There would be other springs, but if she did not succeed in passing the entrance, Anne felt convinced that she would never recover sufficiently to enjoy them. CHAPTER 32 With the end of June came the close of the term and the close of Miss Stacy's rule in Avonlea School. Anne and Diana walked home that evening, feeling very sober indeed. Red eyes and damp handkerchiefs bore convincing testimony to the fact that Miss Stacy's farewell words must have been quite as touching as Mr. Phillips's had been under similar circumstances three years before. Diana looked back at the schoolhouse from the foot of the spruce hill, and sighed deeply, It does seem as if it was the end of everything, doesn't it? she said dismally. You oughtn't to feel half as badly as I do, said Anne, hunting vainly for a dry spot on her handkerchief. You'll be back again next winter, but I suppose I've left the dear old school forever, if I have good luck, that is. It won't be a bit the same. Miss Stacy won't be there, nor you, nor Jane, nor Ruby, probably. I shall have to sit all alone, for I couldn't bear to have another desk made after you. Oh, we have had jolly times, haven't we, Anne? It's dreadful to think they're all over. Two big tears rolled down by Diana's nose. If you would stop crying, I could, said Anne imploringly. Just as soon as I put away my hanky, I see you brimming up, and that starts me off again. As Mrs. Lynn says, if you can't be cheerful, be as cheerful as you can. After all, I daresay I'll be back next year. This is one of the times I know I'm not going to pass. They're getting alarmingly frequent. Why you came out splendidly in the exams, Miss Stacy gave? Yes, but those exams didn't make me nervous. When I think of the real thing, you can't imagine what a horrid, cold, fluttery feeling comes round my heart. And then my number is thirteen, and Josie Pye said it's so unlucky. I am not superstitious, and I know it can make no difference. But still, I wish it wasn't thirteen. I do wish I was going in with you, said Diana. Wouldn't we have a perfectly elegant time? But I suppose you'll have to cram in the evenings. No, Miss Stacy has made us promise not to open a book at all. She says it would only tire and confuse us, and we are to go out walking and not think about the exams at all and go to bed early. It's good advice, but I expect it will be hard to follow. Good advice is apt to be, I think. Prissy Andrews told me that she sat up half the night, every night of her entrance week, and crammed for dear life, and I had determined to sit up at least as long as she did. It was so kind of your Aunt Josephine to ask me to stay at Beachwood while I'm in town. You'll write to me while you're in, won't you? I'll write Tuesday night and tell you how the first day goes, promised Anne. I'll be haunting the Post Office Wednesday, vowed Diana. Anne went to town the following Monday, and on Wednesday Diana haunted the Post Office, as agreed, and got her letter. Dearest Diana, wrote Anne. Here it is Tuesday night, and I'm writing this in the library at Beachwood. Last night it was horribly lonesome all alone in my room, and wish so much you were with me. I couldn't cram, because I'd promised Miss Stacy not to. But it was as hard to keep from opening my history, as it used to be to keep from reading a story before my lessons were learned. This morning Miss Stacy came for me, and we went to the Academy, calling for Jane and Ruby and Josie on our way. Ruby asked me to feel her hands, and they were as cold as ice. Josie said I looked as if I hadn't slept a wink, and she didn't believe I was strong enough to stand the grind of the teacher's course, even if I did get through. There are times and seasons, even yet, when I don't feel that I've made any great headway in learning to like Josie Pie. When we reached the Academy, there were scores of students there from all over the island. The first person we saw was Moody Spurgeon, sitting on the steps and muttering away to himself. Jane asked him what on earth he was doing, and he said he was repeating the multiplication table over and over to steady his nerves and for pity's sake not to interrupt him because if he stopped for a moment he got frightened and forgot everything he ever knew. But the multiplication table kept all his facts firmly in their proper place. When we are assigned to our rooms Miss Stacy had to leave us. Jane and I sat together and Jane was so composed that I envied her. No need of the multiplication table for good steady sensible Jane. I wondered if I looked as I felt, and if they could hear my heart thumping clear across the room. Then a man came in and began distributing the English examination sheets. My hands grew cold then, and my head fairly whirled around as I picked it up. Just one awful moment. Diana I felt exactly as I did four years ago when I asked Marilla if I might say at Green Gables. And then everything cleared up in my mind and my heart began beating again. I forgot to say that it had stopped altogether, for I knew I could do something with that paper anyhow. At noon we went home for dinner and then back again for history in the afternoon. The history was a pretty hard paper and I got dreadfully mixed up in the dates. Well I think I did fairly well today, but oh Diana, tomorrow the geometry exam comes off, and when I think of it it takes every bit of determination I possess to keep from opening my Euclid. If I thought the multiplication table would help me any I would recite it from now till tomorrow morning. I went down to see the other girls this evening. On my way I met Moody Spurgeon wandering distractedly around. He said he knew he had failed in history and he was born to be a disappointment to his parents, and he was going home on the morning train. And it would be easier to be a carpenter than a minister anyhow. I cheered him up and persuaded him to stay to the end because it would be unfair to Miss Stacy if he didn't. Sometimes I have wished I was born a boy, but when I see Moody Spurgeon I'm always glad I'm a girl and not his sister. Ruby was in hysterics when I reached their boarding house. She had just discovered a fearful mistake she had made in her English paper. When she recovered we went up town and had an ice cream, how we wished you had been with us. Oh, Diana, if only the geometry examination were over! But there, as Mrs. Lynde would say, the sun will go on rising and setting whether I fail in geometry or not. That is true, but not especially comforting. I think I'd rather it didn't go on if I failed. Yours devotedly, Anne. The geometry examination and all the others were over in due time. Anne arrived home on Friday evening, rather tired but with an air of chastened triumph about her. Diana was over at Green Gables when she arrived and they met as if they had been parted for years. You old darling, it's perfectly splendid to see you back again. It seems like an age since you went out of town. And oh, Anne, how did you get along? Pretty well, I think, in everything but the geometry. I don't know whether I passed in it or not and I have a creepy-crawly pre-sentiment that I didn't. Oh, how good it is to be back! Green Gables is the dearest, loveliest spot in the world. How did the others do? The girls say they know they didn't pass, but I think they did pretty well. Josie says the geometry was so easy a child of ten could do it. Moody Spurgeon still thinks he failed in history and Charlie says he failed in algebra. But we don't really know anything about it and won't until the past list is out. That won't be for a fortnight. Fancy living a fortnight in such suspense. I wish I could go to sleep and never wake up until it is over. Diana knew it would be useless to ask how Gilbert Blythe had fared so she merely said, Oh, you'll pass all right. Don't worry. I'd rather not pass it all than not come out pretty well up on the list, flashed Anne by which she meant and Diana knew she meant that success would be incomplete and bitter if she did not come out ahead of Gilbert Blythe. With this end in view Anne had strained every nerve during the examinations, so had Gilbert. They had met and passed each other on the street a dozen times without any sign of recognition, and every time Anne had held her head a little higher and wished a little more earnestly that she had made friends with Gilbert when he asked her, and vowed a little more determinedly to surpass him in the examination. She knew that all Avonlea, Jr. was wondering which would come out first. She even knew that Jimmy Glover and Ned Wright had a bet on the question, and that Josie Pye had said there was no doubt in the world that Gilbert would be first, and she felt that her humiliation would be unbearable if she failed. But she had another ennobler motive for wishing to do well. She wanted to pass high for the sake of Matthew and Marilla, especially Matthew. Matthew had declared to her his conviction that she would beat the whole island. That, Anne felt, was something it would be foolish to hope for even in the wildest dreams. But she did hope fervently that she would be among the first ten at least, so that she might see Matthew's kindly brown eyes gleam with pride in her achievement. That, she felt, would be a sweet reward indeed for all her hard work and patient grubbing among unimaginative equations and conjugations. At the end of the fortnight, Anne took to haunting the post office also in the distracted company of Jane, Ruby, and Josie, opening the charlotte town dailies with shaking hands and cold, sink away feelings as bad as any experienced during the entrance week. Charlie and Gilbert were not above doing this, too, but Moody's Spurgeon stayed resolutely away. I haven't got the grit to go there and look at a paper in cold blood, he told Anne. I'm just going to wait until somebody comes and tells me suddenly whether I've passed or not. When three weeks had gone by without the past list appearing, Anne began to feel that she really couldn't stand the strain much longer. Her appetite failed and her interest in avanly doings languished. Mrs. Lynde wanted to know what else she could expect with the Tory Superintendent of Education at the Head of Affairs, and Matthew, noting Anne's palmosin indifference and the lagging steps that bore her home from the post office every afternoon, began seriously to wonder if he hadn't better vote grit at the next election. But one evening the news came. Anne was sitting at her open window, for the time forgetful of the woes of examinations and the cares of the world as she drank in the beauty of the summer dusk, sweet-scented with flower-breaths from the garden below and sibilant and rustling from the stir of poplars. The eastern sky above the furs was flushed faintly pink from the reflection of the west, and Anne was wondering dreamily if the spirit of color looked like that when she saw Diana come flying down through the furs over the log bridge and up the slope with a fluttering newspaper in her hand. Anne sprang to her feet, knowing at once what that paper contained. The pass list was out. Her head whirled and her heart beat until it hurt her. She could not move a step. It seemed an hour to her before Diana came rushing along the hall and burst into the room without even knocking, so great was her excitement. Anne, you've passed, she cried, past the very first. You and Gilbert both. Your ties! But your name is first. Oh, I'm so proud! Diana flung the paper on the table and herself on Anne's bed, utterly breathless and incapable of further speech. Anne lighted the lamp, oversetting the match safe, and using up half a dozen matches before her shaking hands could accomplish the task. Then she snatched up the paper. Yes, she had passed. There was her name at the very top of a list of two hundred. That moment was worth living for. You did just splendidly, Anne, puffed Diana, recovering sufficiently to sit up and speak, for Anne, starry-eyed and wrapped, had not uttered a word. Father brought the paper home from Bright River not ten minutes ago. It came out on the afternoon train, you know, and won't be here till tomorrow by mail. And when I saw the pass list, I just rushed over like a wild thing. You've all passed, every one of you, Moody's Virgin and all. Although he's conditioned in history. Jane and Ruby did pretty well, they're half way up. And so did Charlie. Josie just scraped through with three marks to spare, but you'll see she'll put on as many heirs as if she'd led. Won't Miss Stacy be delighted? Oh, Anne, what does it feel like to see your name at the head of a pass list like that? If it were me, I know I'd go crazy with joy. I am pretty near crazy as it is, but you're as calm and cool as a spring evening. I'm just dazzled inside, said Anne. I want to say a hundred things, and I can't find words to say them in. I never dreamed of this. Yes, I did, too, just once. I let myself think once. What if I should come out first? Quakingly, you know, for it seemed so vain and presumptuous to think I could lead the island. Excuse me a minute, Diana. I must run right out to the field to tell Matthew. Then we'll go up the road and tell the good news to the others. They hurried to the hate-field below the barn where Matthew was coiling hay, and as luck would have it Mrs. Lynde was talking to Marilla at the lane fence. Oh, Matthew, exclaimed Anne, I've passed and I'm first, or one of the first. I'm not vain, but I'm thankful. Well, now I always said it, said Matthew, gazing at the pass list delightedly. I knew you could beat them all easy. You've done pretty well, I must say, Anne, said Marilla, trying to hide her extreme pride in Anne, for Mrs. Rachel's critical eye. But that good soul said heartily, I just guess she has done well and far be it from me to be backward in saying it. Your credit to your friends, Anne, that's what, and we're all proud of you. That night Anne, who had wound up the delightful evening with the serious little talk with Mrs. Allen at the manse, knelt sweetly by her open window in a great sheen of moonshine, and murmured a prayer of gratitude and aspiration that came straight from her heart. There was in it thankfulness for the past and reverent petition for the future, and when she slept on her white pillow her dreams were as fair and bright and beautiful as maidenhood might desire. End of CHAPTER XXXIII. Put on your white organdy by all means, Anne, advised Diana decidedly. They were together in the East Gable Chamber. Outside it was only twilight, a lovely yellowish-green twilight with a clear blue cloudless sky. A big round moon, slowly deepening from her pallet luster into burnished silver, hung over the haunted wood. The air was full of sweet summer sounds, sleepy birds twittering, freakish breezes, faraway voices, and laughter. But in Anne's room the blind was drawn and the lamp lighted, for an important toilet was being made. The East Gable was a very different place from what it had been on that night four years before, when Anne had felt its bareness penetrate to the marrow of her spirit with its inhospitable chill. Changes had crept in, Marilla conniving at them residedly, until it was as sweet and dainty a nest as a young girl could desire. The velvet carpet with the pink roses and the pink silk curtains of Anne's early visions had certainly never materialized, but her dreams had kept pace with her growth, and it is not probable she lamented them. The floor was covered with a pretty matting, and the curtains that softened the high window and fluttered in the vagrant breezes were of pale green art muslin. The walls hung not with gold and silver brocade tapestry, but with a dainty apple blossom paper, were adorned with a few good pictures given Anne by Mrs. Allen. Miss Stacy's photograph occupied the place of honour, and Anne made a sentimental point of keeping fresh flowers on the bracket under it. Tonight a spike of white lilies faintly perfumed the room like the dream of a fragrance. There was no mahogany furniture, but there was a white painted bookcase filled with books, a cushioned wicker rocker, a toilet table be frilled with white muslin, a quaint, gilt-framed mirror with chubby pink cupids and purple grapes painted over its arched top that used to hang in the spare room, and a low white bed. Anne was dressing for a concert at the White Sands Hotel. The guests had got it up in aid of the Charlottetown Hospital, and had hunted out all the available amateur talent in the surrounding districts to help it along. Bertha Sampson and Pearl Clay of the White Sands Baptist Choir had been asked to sing a duet. Milton Clark of Newbridge was to give a violin solo, Winnie Adela Blair of Carmody was to sing a scotch ballad, and Laura Spencer of Spencervale, and Anne Shirley of Avonlea were to recite. As Anne would have said it one time, it was an epoch in her life, and she was deliciously a thrill with the excitement of it. Matthew was in the seventh heaven of gratified pride over the honour conferred on his Anne, and Marilla was not far behind, although she would have died rather than admit it, and said she didn't think it was very proper for a lot of young folks to be gadding over to the hotel without any responsible person with them. Anne and Diana were to drive over with Jane Andrews and her brother Billy in their double-seated buggy, and several other Avonlea girls and boys were going to. There was a party of visitors expected out from town, and after the concert a supper was to be given to the performers. Do you really think the organ-ty will be best? queried Anne anxiously. I don't think it's as pretty as my blue-flowered muslin, and it certainly isn't so fashionable. But it suits you ever so much better, said Diana. It's so soft and frilly and clinging. The muslin is stiff and makes you look too dressed up, but the organ-ty seems as if it grew on you. Anne sighed and yielded. Diana was beginning to have a reputation for notable taste in dressing, and her advice on such subjects was much sought after. She was looking very pretty herself on this particular night in a dress of the lovely wild-rose pink from which Anne was forever debarred, but she was not to take any part in the concert, so her appearance was of minor importance. All her pains were bestowed upon Anne, whose she vowed must for the credit of Avonlea be dressed and combed and adorned to the Queen's taste. Pull out that frill a little more, so. Here, let me tie your sash. Now for your slippers. I'm going to braid your hair in two thick braids, and tie them half way up with big white bows. No, don't pull out a single curl over your forehead. Just have the soft part. There is no way you do your hair suits you so well, Anne. And Mrs. Allen says you look like a Madonna when you part it so. I shall fasten this little white house rose just behind your ear. There was just one on my bush, and I saved it for you. Shall I put my pearl beads on?" asked Anne. Matthew brought me a string from town last week, and I know he'd like to see them on me. Diana pursed up her lips, put her black head on one side critically, and finally pronounced in favour of the beads, which were thereupon tied around Anne's slim milk-white throat. There's something so stylish about you, Anne," said Diana, with unenvious admiration. You hold your head with such an air. I suppose it's your figure. I am just a dumpling. I've always been afraid of it, and now I know it is so. Well I suppose I shall just have to resign myself to it. But you have such dimples," said Anne, smiling affectionately into the pretty, vivacious face so near her own. Lovely dimples! Like little dents and cream. I have given up all hope of dimples. My dimple dream will never come true, but so many of my dreams have that I mustn't complain. Am I all ready now? Already," assured Diana, as Marilla appeared in the doorway, a gaunt figure with grayer hair than of yore, and no fewer angles, but with a much softer face. Come right in and look at our elocutionist, Marilla, doesn't she look lovely? Marilla emitted a sound between a sniff and a grunt. She looks neat and proper—I like that way of fixing her hair—but I expect she'll ruin that dress driving over there in the dust and dew with it, and it looks most too thin for these damp nights. Organdy's the most unserviceable stuff in the world, anyhow, and I told Matthew so when he got it. But there is no use in saying anything to Matthew nowadays. Time was when he would take my advice, but now he just buys things for Anne regardless, and the clerks at Carmody know they can palm anything off on him. Just let them tell him a thing is pretty infashionable, and Matthew plunks his money down for it. Mind you keep your skirt clear of the wheel, Anne, and put your warm jacket on. Anne Marilla stalked downstairs, thinking proudly how sweet Anne looked, with that one moonbeam from the forehead to the crown, and regretting that she could not go to the concert herself to hear her girl recite. I wonder if it is too damp for my dress, said Anne anxiously. Not a bit of it, said Diana, pulling up the window blind. It's a perfect night, and there won't be any dew. Look at the moonlight. I'm so glad my window looks east into the sun rising, said Anne, going over to Diana. It's so splendid to see the morning coming up over those long hills, glowing through those sharp fur tops. It's new every morning, and I feel as if I washed my very soul in that bath of earliest sunshine. Oh, Diana, I love this little room so dearly. I don't know how I'll get along without it when I go to town next month. Don't speak of your going away to-night, begged Diana. I don't want to think of it. It makes me so miserable, and I do want to have a good time this evening. Why are you going to recite, Anne, and are you nervous? Not a bit. I've recited so often in public. I don't mind at all now. I've decided to give the maidens vow. It's so pathetic. Laura Spencer is going to give a comic recitation, but I'd rather make people cry than laugh. What will you recite if they encore you? They won't dream of encoreing me, scoffed Anne, who was not without her own secret hopes that they would, and already visioned herself telling Matthew all about it at the next morning's breakfast-table. There are Billy and Jane now. I hear the wheels. Come on!" Billy Andrews insisted that Anne should ride on the front seat with him, so she unwillingly climbed up. She would have much preferred to sit back with the girls, where she could have laughed and chattered to her heart's content. There was not much of either laughter or chatter in Billy. He was a big, fat, stolid youth of twenty, with a round, expressionless face, and a painful lack of conversational gifts. But he admired Anne immensely, and was puffed up with pride over the prospect of driving to white sands with that slim, upright figure beside him. Anne, by dint of talking over her shoulder to the girls and occasionally passing a sop of civility to Billy, who grinned and chuckled and never could think of any reply until it was too late, contrived to enjoy the drive in spite of it all. It was a night for enjoyment. The road was full of buggies, all bound for the hotel, and laughter, silver clear, echoed and re-echoed along it. When they reached the hotel it was a blaze of light from top to bottom. They were met by the ladies of the concert committee, one of whom took Anne off to the performer's dressing-room, which was filled with the members of a Charlottetown symphony club, among whom Anne felt suddenly shy and frightened and contrived. Her dress, which in the East Gable had seemed so dainty and pretty, now seemed simple and plain. Too simple and plain, she thought, among all the silks and laces that glistened and rustled around her. What were her pearl beads compared to the diamonds of the binkhandsome lady near her, and how poor her one wee white rose must look beside all the hot-house flowers the others wore? Anne laid her hat and jacket away, and shrank miserably into a corner. She wished herself back in the white room at Green Gables. It was still worse on the platform of the big concert hall of the hotel, where she presently found herself. The electric lights dazzled her eyes, the perfume and hum bewildered her. She wished she were sitting down in the audience with Diana and Jane, who seemed to be having a perfectly splendid time away at the back. She was wedged in between a stout lady in pink silk, and a tall, scornful-looking girl in a white lace dress. The stout lady occasionally turned her head squarely around, and surveyed Anne through her eyeglasses, until Anne, acutely sensitive of being so scrutinized, felt that she must scream aloud, and the white lace girl kept talking audibly to her next neighbor about the country bumpkins and rustic bells in the audience, languidly anticipating such fun from the displays of local talent on the program. Anne believed that she would hate that white lace girl to the end of life. Unfortunately for Anne, a professional elocutionist was staying at the hotel, and had consented to recite. She was a lithe, dark-eyed woman in a wonderful gown of shimmering gray stuff like woven moonbeams, with gems on her neck and in her dark hair. She had a marvelously flexible voice and wonderful power of expression. The audience went wild over her selection. Anne, forgetting all about herself and her troubles for the time, listened with rapt and shining eyes, but when the recitation ended she suddenly put her hands over her face. She could never get up and recite after that—never!—had she ever thought she could recite? Oh, if only she were back at Green Gables! At this unpropitious moment her name was called. Somehow Anne, who did not notice the rather guilty little start of surprise the white lace girl gave, and would not have understood the subtle compliment implied therein if she had, got on her feet, and moved dizzily out to the front. She was so pale that Diana and Jane, down in the audience, clasped each other's hands in nervous sympathy. Anne was the victim of an overwhelming attack of stage fright. Often as she had recited in public, she had never before faced such an audience as this, and the sight of it paralyzed her energies completely. Everything was so strange, so brilliant, so bewildering, the rows of ladies in evening dress, the critical faces, the whole atmosphere of wealth and culture about her. Very different this from the plain benches at the debating club, filled with the homely sympathetic faces of friends and neighbors. These people, she thought, would be merciless critics. Perhaps like the white lace girl they anticipated amusement from her rustic efforts. She felt hopelessly, helplessly ashamed, and miserable. Her knees trembled, her heart fluttered, a horrible faintness came over her. Not a word could she utter, and the next moment she would have fled from the platform despite the humiliation, which she felt must ever after be her portion if she did so. But suddenly, as her dilated frightened eyes gazed out over the audience, she saw Gilbert Blythe away at the back of the room, bending forward with a smile on his face, a smile which seemed to Anne at once triumphant and taunting. In reality, it was nothing of the kind. Gilbert was merely smiling with appreciation of the whole affair in general, and of the effect produced by Anne's slender white form and spiritual face against a background of palms in particular. Josie Pye, whom he had driven over, sat beside him, and her face certainly was both triumphant and taunting. But Anne did not see Josie, and would not have cared if she had. She drew a long breath, and flung up her head proudly, courage and determination tingling over her like an electric shock. She would not fail before Gilbert Blythe. He should never be able to laugh at her, never, never. Her fright and nervousness vanished, and she began her recitation, her clear, sweet voice reaching to the farthest corner of the room without a tremor or a break. Self-possession was fully restored to her, and in the reaction from that horrible moment of powerlessness, she recited as she had never done before. When she finished there were bursts of honest applause, and stepping back to her seat, blushing with shyness and delight, found her hand vigorously clasped and shaken by the stout lady in pink silk. My dear, you did splendidly! She puffed. I've been crying like a baby, actually I have. There! They're on-coring you. They're bound to have you back. Oh, I can't go! said Anne, confusedly. But yet I must, or Matthew will be disappointed. He said they would on-core me. Then don't disappoint, Matthew! said the pink lady, laughing. Smiling, blushing, limpid-eyed, Anne tripped back and gave a quaint, funny little selection that captivated her audience still further. The rest of the evening was quite a triumph for her. When the concert was over, the stout pink lady, who was the wife of an American millionaire, took her under her wing and introduced her to everybody, and everybody was very nice to her. The professional elocutionist, Mrs. Evans, came and chatted with her, telling her that she had a charming voice and interpreted her selections beautifully. Even the white lace girl paid her a languid little compliment. They had supper in the big, beautifully decorated dining-room. Diana and Jane were invited to partake of this also, since they had come with Anne, but Billy was nowhere to be found, having de-camped and mortal fear of some such invitation. He was in waiting for them with the team, however, when it was all over, and the three girls came merrily out into the calm white moonshine radiance. Anne breathed deeply, and looked into the clear sky beyond the dark boughs of the furs. Oh! it was good to be out again in the purity and silence of the night! How great and still and wonderful everything was, with the murmur of the sea sounding through it and the darkling cliffs beyond like grim giants guarding enchanted coasts. Hasn't it been a perfectly splendid time? sighed Jane as they drove away. I just wish I was a rich American, and could spend my summer at a hotel, and wear jewels and low-necked dresses, and having ice-cream and chicken salad every blessed day. I'm sure it would be ever so much more fun than teaching school. Anne, your recitation was simply great, although at first I thought you were never going to begin. I think it was better than Mrs. Evans. Oh no, don't say things like that, Jane," said Anne quickly, because it sounds silly. It couldn't be better than Mrs. Evans, you know, for she is a professional, and I'm only a schoolgirl with a little knack of reciting. I'm quite satisfied if the people just liked mine pretty well. I have a compliment for you, Anne," said Diana. At least I think it must be a compliment, because of the tone he set it in. Part of it was, anyway. There was an American sitting behind Jane and me, such a romantic-looking man, with cold black hair and eyes. Josie Pye says he is a distinguished artist, and that her mother's cousin in Boston is married to a man that used to go to school with him. Well, we heard him say, didn't we, Jane? Who is that girl on the platform with the splendid Titian hair? She has a face I should like to paint. There now, Anne. But what does Titian hair mean? Being interpreted, it means plain red, I guess, laughed Anne. Titian was a very famous artist who liked to paint red-haired women. Did you see all the diamonds the ladies wore, side Jane? They were simply dazzling. Wouldn't you just love to be rich, girls? We are rich," said Anne staunchly. Why, we have sixteen years to our credit, and we're happy as queens, and we've all got imaginations, more or less. Look at that sea, girls. All silver and shadow and vision of things not seen. We couldn't enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds. Would you change it to any of those women if you could? Would you want to be that white-laced girl and wear a sour look all your life as if you'd been born turning up your nose at the world? Or the pink lady, kind and nice as she is, so stout and short that you'd really know figure at all? Or even Mrs. Evans with that sad, sad look in her eyes. She must have been dreadfully unhappy some time to have such a look. You know you wouldn't, Jane Andrews. I don't know. Exactly," said Jane, unconvinced. I think diamonds would comfort a person for a good deal. Well, I don't want to be any one but myself, even if I go un-comforted by diamonds all my life," declared Anne. I'm quite content to be Anne of Green Gables with my string of pearl beads. I know Matthew gave me as much love with them as ever went with Madame the Pink Lady's jewels. End of Chapter 33 Chapter 34 of Anne of Green Gables. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Elizabeth Klett. Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Chapter 34. A Queen's Girl. The next three weeks were busy ones at Green Gables, for Anne was getting ready to go to Queens, and there was much sewing to be done, and many things to be talked over and arranged. Anne's outfit was ample and pretty, for Matthew saw to that, and Marilla for once made no objections whatever to anything he purchased or suggested. More! One evening she went up to the East Gable with her arms full of a delicate pale green material. Anne, here's something for a nice light dress for you. I don't suppose you really need it, you've plenty of pretty waists, but I thought maybe you'd like something real dressy to wear if you ever asked out any word of an evening in town, to a party or anything like that. I hear that Jane and Ruby and Josie have got evening dresses, as they call them, and I don't mean you shall be behind them. I got Mrs. Allen to help me pick it in town last week, and we'll get Emily Gillis to make it for you. Emily has got taste, and her fits aren't to be equaled. Oh, Marilla! It's just lovely! said Anne. Thank you so much! I don't believe you ought to be so kind to me. It's making it harder every day for me to go away. The green dress was made up with as many tucks and frills and shearing as Emily's taste permitted. Anne put it on one evening for Matthews and Marilla's benefit, and recited the maidens' vow for them in the kitchen. As Marilla watched the bright animated face and graceful motions, her thoughts went back to the evening Anne had arrived at Green Gables, and memory recalled a vivid picture of the odd frightened child in her preposterous yellowish-brown wincy dress, the heartbreak looking out of her tearful eyes. Something in the memory brought tears to Marilla's own eyes. I declare, my recitation has made you cry, Marilla! said Anne gaily stooping over Marilla's chair to drop a butterfly kiss on that lady's cheek. Now I call that a positive triumph. No, I wasn't crying over your peace, said Marilla, who would have scorned to be betrayed into such weakness by any poetry stuff. I just couldn't help thinking of the little girl you used to be, Anne, and I was wishing you could have stayed a little girl, even with all your queer ways. You're grown up now and you're going away, and you look so tall and stylish and so—so different altogether in that dress, as if you didn't belong in Avonlea at all. And I just got lonesome thinking it all over. Marilla! Anne sat down in Marilla's gingham lap, took Marilla's lined face between her hands, and looked gravely and tenderly into Marilla's eyes. I'm not a bit changed, not really—I'm only just pruned down and branched out. The real me, back here, is just the same. It won't make a bit of difference where I go or how much I change outwardly. At heart I shall always be your little Anne, who will love you and Matthew and dear Green Gables more and better every day of her life. Anne laid her fresh young cheek against Marilla's faded one, and reached out a hand to pat Matthew's shoulder. Marilla would have given much just then to have possessed Anne's power of putting her feelings into words. But nature and habit had wilted otherwise, and she could only put her arms close about her girl and hold her tenderly to her heart, wishing that she need never let her go. Matthew, with a suspicious moisture in his eyes, got up and went out of doors. Under the stars of the blue summer night he walked agitatedly across the yard to the gate under the poplars. Well now, I guess she ain't been much spoiled—he muttered proudly. I guess my putting in my or occasional never did much harm after all. She's smart and pretty and loving too, which is better than all the rest. She's been a blessing to us, and there never was a luckier mistake than what Mrs. Spencer made, if it was luck. I don't believe it was any such thing. It was Providence, because the Almighty saw we needed her, I reckon. The day finally came when Anne must go to town. She and Matthew drove in one fine September morning, after a tearful parting with Diana, and an untearful practical one—on Marilla's side, at least—with Marilla. But when Anne had gone, Diana dried her tears and went to a beach picnic at White Sands, with some of her Carmody cousins, where she contrived to enjoy herself tolerably well. While Marilla plunged fiercely into unnecessary work, and kept at it all day long with the bitterest kind of heartache, the ache that burns and gnaws and cannot wash itself away in ruddy tears. But that night, when Marilla went to bed, acutely and miserably conscious that the little gable room at the end of the hall was untenanted by any vivid young life, and unstirred by any soft breathing, she buried her face in her pillow, and wept for her girl in a passion of sobs that appalled her when she grew calm enough to reflect how very wicked it must be to take on so about a sinful fellow creature. Anne and the rest of the Avonlea scholars reached town just in time to hurry off to the academy. The first day passed pleasantly enough in a whirl of excitement, meeting all the new students, learning to know the professors by sight, and being assorted and organized into classes. Anne intended taking up the second-year work being advised to do so by Miss Stacy, Gilbert Blythe elected to do the same. This meant getting a first-class teacher's license in one year instead of two, if they were successful, but it also meant much more and harder work. Jane, Ruby, Josie, Charlie, and Moody Spurgeon, not being troubled with the stirrings of ambition, were content to take up the second-class work. Anne was conscious of a pang of loneliness when she found herself in a room with fifty other students, not one of whom she knew, except the tall, brown-haired boy across the room, and knowing him in the fashion she did, did not help her much, as she reflected pessimistically. Yet she was undeniably glad that they were in the same class, the old rivalry could still be carried on, and Anne would hardly have known what to do if it had been lacking. I wouldn't feel comfortable without it, she thought. Gilbert looks awfully determined. I suppose he's making up his mind here and now to win the medal. What a splendid chin he has! I never noticed it before. I do wish Jane and Ruby had gone in for first-class, too. I suppose I won't feel so much like a cat in a strange garret when I get acquainted, though. I wonder which of the girls here are going to be my friends. It's really an interesting speculation. Of course, I promised Diana that no queen's girl, no matter how much I liked her, should ever be as dear to me as she is. But I've lots of second-best affections to bestow. I like the look of that girl with the brown eyes and the crimson waist. She looks vivid and red-rosy. There's that pale fair one gazing out of the window. She has lovely hair and looks as if she knew a thing or two about dreams. I'd like to know them both. Know them well. Well enough to walk with my arm about their waist and call them nicknames. But just now I don't know them and they don't know me and probably don't want to know me particularly. Oh! It's lonesome. It was lonesome or still when Anne found herself alone in her hall bedroom that night at twilight. She was not to board with the other girls, who all had relatives in town to take pity on them. Miss Josephine Barry would have liked to board her, but Beachwood was so far from the academy that it was out of the question. So Miss Barry hunted up a boarding-house, assuring Matthew and Marilla that it was the very place for Anne. The lady who keeps it is a reduced gentlewoman, explained Miss Barry. Her husband was a British officer, and she is very careful what sort of border she takes. Anne will not meet with any objectionable persons under her roof. The table is good and the house is near the academy in a quiet neighbourhood. All this might be true, and indeed proved to be so. But it did not materially help Anne in the first agony of homesickness that seized upon her. She looked dismally about her narrow little room, with its dull, papered, pictureless walls, its small iron bedstead and empty bookcase, and a horrible choke came into her throat as she thought of her own white room at Green Gables, where she would have the pleasant consciousness of a great green still-out doors, of sweet peas growing in the garden and moonlight falling on the orchard, of the brook below the slope and the spruce boughs tossing in the night wind beyond it, of a vast starry sky and a light from Diana's window shining out through the gap in the trees. Here there was nothing of this. Anne knew that outside of her window was a hard street, with a network of telephone wires shutting out the sky, the tramp of alien feet, and a thousand lights gleaming on stranger faces. She knew that she was going to cry and fought against it. I won't cry. It's silly and weak. There's a third tear splashing down by my nose. There are more coming. I must think of something funny to stop them. But there's nothing funny except it is connected with Avonlea, and that only makes things worse. Four. Five. I'm going home next Friday. But that seems a hundred years away. Oh, Matthew was nearly home by now, and Marilla is at the gate looking down the lane for him. Six. Seven. Eight. Oh, there's no use in counting them. They're coming in a flood presently. I can't cheer up. I don't want to cheer up. It's nicer to be miserable. The flood of tears would have come, no doubt, had not Josie Pye appeared at that moment. In the joy of seeing a familiar face, Anne forgot that there had never been much love lost between her and Josie. As a part of Avonlea's life, even a pie was welcome. I'm so glad you came up," Anne said sincerely. You've been crying," remarked Josie with aggravating pity. I suppose you're homesick. Some people have so little self-control in that respect. I've no intention of being homesick, I can tell you. Towns too jolly after that pokey old Avonlea. I wonder how I ever existed there so long. You shouldn't cry, Anne. It isn't becoming. For your nose and eyes get red, and then you seem all red. I had a perfectly scrumptious time in the academy today. Our French professor is simply a duck. His mustache would give you curl-ups of the heart. Have you anything eatable around, Anne? I'm literally starving. Ah! I guessed likely Marilla'd load you up with cake. That's why I called round. Otherwise I'd have gone to the park to hear the band play with Frank Stockley. He bored same place as I do, and he's a sport. He noticed you in class today and asked me who the red-headed girl was. I told him you were an orphan that the Cuthberts adopted, and nobody knew very much about what she'd been before that. Anne was wondering if, after all, solitude and tears were not more satisfactory than Josie Pye's companionship. When Jane and Ruby appeared, each with an inch of Queen's colour ribbon, purple and scarlet, pinned proudly to her coat. As Josie was not speaking to Jane just then, she had to subside into comparative harmlessness. Well, said Jane with a sigh, I feel as if I'd lived many moons since the morning. I ought to be home studying my Virgil. That horrid old professor gave us twenty lines to start in on to-morrow. But I simply couldn't settle down to study to-night. Anne, he thinks I see the traces of tears. If you've been crying, do own up. It'll restore my self-respect, for I was shedding tears freely before Ruby came along. I don't mind being a goose so much if somebody else is goosey too. Cake? You'll give me a teeny piece, won't you? Thank you. It has the real Avonlea flavour. Ruby, perceiving the Queen's calendar lying on the table, wanted to know if Anne meant to try for the gold metal. Anne blushed and admitted she was thinking of it. Oh! that reminds me! said Josie. Queen does to get one of the Avery scholarships after all. The word came to-day. Frank Stockley told me. His uncle is one of the board of governors, you know. It will be announced in the academy to-morrow. An Avery scholarship. Anne felt her heart beat more quickly, and the horizons of her ambition shifted and broadened as if by magic. Before Josie had told the news, Anne's highest pinnacle of aspiration had been a teacher's provincial license, first class, at the end of the year, and perhaps the metal. But now, in one moment, Anne saw herself winning the Avery scholarship, taking an arts course at Redmond College, and graduating in a gown and mortarboard before the echo of Josie's words had died away. For the Avery scholarship was in English, and Anne felt that here her foot was on native heath. A wealthy manufacturer of New Brunswick had died and left part of his fortune to endow a large number of scholarships to be distributed among the various high schools and academies of the maritime provinces, according to their respective standings. There had been much doubt whether one be allotted to Queens, but the matter was settled at last, and at the end of the year the graduate who had made the highest mark in English and English literature would win the scholarship. Two hundred and fifty dollars a year for four years at Redmond College. No wonder that Anne went to bed that night with tingling cheeks. I'll win that scholarship if hard work can do it," she resolved. Wouldn't Matthew be proud if I got to be a BA? Oh, it's delightful to have ambitions. I'm so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be any end to them. That's the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one ambition, you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting. End of Chapter 34 Chapter 35 of Anne of Green Gables This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org from recording by Mary Anne. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery Chapter 35 The Winter at Queens This summer off greatly helped in the wearing by her weekend visits home. As long as the open weather lasted, the Avonlia students went out to Carmody on the new branch railway every Friday night. Diana and several other Avonlia young folks were generally on hand to meet them and they all walked over to Avonlia in a merry party. Anne thought those Friday evening gypsies over the autumnal hills in the crisp golden air with the home lights of Avonlia twinkling beyond were the best and dearest hours in the whole week. Gilbert Blythe nearly always walked with Ruby Gillis and carried her satchel for her. Ruby was a very handsome young lady now thinking herself quite as grown up as she really was. She wore her skirts as long as her mother would let her and did her hair up in high town although she had to take it down when she went home. She had large bright blue eyes a brilliant complexion and a plump showy figure. She laughed a great deal, was cheerful and good-tempered and enjoyed the pleasant things of life, frankly. But I shouldn't think she was the sort of girl Gilbert would like, whispered Jane to Anne. Anne did not think so either, but she would not have said so for the Avery scholarship. She could not help thinking, too, that it would be very pleasant to have such a friend as Gilbert to jest with and exchange ideas about books and studies and ambitions. Gilbert had ambitions, she knew, and Ruby Gillis did not seem the sort of person with whom such could be profitably discussed. There was no silly sentiment in Anne's ideas concerning Gilbert. Boys were, to her, when she thought about them at all, merely possible good comrades. If she and Gilbert had been friends, she would not have cared how many other friends he had she had a genius for friendship, girlfriend she had in plenty, but she had a vague consciousness that masculine friendship might also be a good thing to round out one's conceptions of companionship and furnish broader standpoints of judgment and comparison. Not that Anne could have put her feelings on the matter into just such clear definition, but she thought that if Gilbert had ever walked home with her from the train over the crisp fields and many byways, they might have had many and merry and interesting conversations about the new world that was opening around them and their hopes and ambitions therein. Gilbert was a clever young fellow with his own thoughts about things and a determination to get the best out of life and put the best into it. Ruby Gillis told Jane Andrews that she didn't understand half the things Gilbert Blythe said. He'd just talked like Anne surely did and thoughtful fit on and for her part she didn't think it any fun to be bothering about books and that sort of thing when you didn't have to. Frank Stockley had lots more dash and go, but then he wasn't half as good-looking as Gilbert and she really couldn't decide which she liked best. In the Academy, Anne gradually drew a little circle of friends about her, thoughtful, imaginative, ambitious students like herself. With the rose-red girl, and the dream girl, Priscilla Grant, she soon became intimate, finding the latter, pale, spiritual-looking maiden, to be full to the brim of mischief and pranks and fun, while the vivid, black-eyed Stella had a heartful of wistful dreams and fancies as aerial and rainbow-like as Anne's own. After the Christmas holidays the Avonlea students gave up going home on Fridays and settled down to hard work. They had gravitated to their own places in the ranks and the various classes had assumed distinct and settled shadings of individuality. Certain facts had become generally accepted. It was admitted that the metal contestants had practically narrowed down to three, Gilbert Blythe, Anne Shirley, and Lewis Wilson. The Avery Scholarship was more doubtful, any one of a certain six being a possible winner. The bronze medal for mathematics was considered as good as one funny little upcountry boy with a bumpy forehead and a patched coat. Ruby Gillis was the handsomest girl of the year at the Academy. In the second-year classes Stella Maynard carried off the palm for beauty with small but critical minority in favor of Anne Shirley. Ethel Maher was admitted by all competent judges to have the most stylish modes of hairdressing, and Jane Andrews, plain, plodding, conscientious Jane, taking off the honors in the Domestic Science course. Even Josie Pye attained a certain preeminence as the sharpest-tongued young lady in attendance at Queens. So it may be fairly stated that Miss Stacy's old pupils held their own in the wider arena of the Academical course. Anne worked hard and steady. Her rivalry with Gilbert was as intense as it had ever been in Evalnia School, although it was not known in the class at large, but somehow the bitterness had gone out of it and no longer wished to win for the sake of defeating Gilbert rather for the proud consciousness of a well-won victory over a worthy foeman. It would be worthwhile to win, but she no longer thought life would be insupportable if she did not. In spite of lessons the students found opportunities for pleasant times. Anne spent many of her spare hours at Beachwood and generally ate her Sunday dinners there The latter was, as she admitted, growing old, but her black eyes were not dim nor the vigor of her tongue in the least abated. But she never sharpened the latter on Anne, who continued to be a prime favorite with the critical old lady. That Anne girl improves all the time, she said. I get tired of other girls. There is such a provoking and eternal sameness about them. Anne has as many sides as a rainbow and every shade is the prettiest while it lasts. I don't know that she is as amusing as she was when she was a child, but she makes me love her and I like people who make me love them. It saves me so much trouble in making myself love them. Then, almost before anybody realized it, spring had come. Out in Avonlia the May flowers were peeping pinkly out on the Sear Barrens and the mist of green was in the woods and in the valleys. But in Charlottetown harassed Queen's students thought and talked only of examinations. It doesn't seem possible that the term is nearly over, said Anne, why last fall it seems so long to look forward to a whole winter of studies and classes and here we are with the exams looming up next week. Girls, sometimes I feel as if those exams meant everything but when I look at the big buds swelling on those chestnut trees and the misty blue air at the end of the streets they don't seem half so important. Jane and Ruby and Josie who had dropped in did not take this view of it. To them the coming examinations were constantly very important indeed far more important than chestnut buds or maytime hazes. It was all very well for Anne who was sure of passing at least her moments of belittling them. But when your whole future depended on them as the girls truly thought theirs did you could not regard them philosophically. I've lost seven pounds in the last two weeks, side Jane. It's no use to say don't worry. I will worry. Worrying helps you some. It seems as if you're doing something when you're worrying. It would be dreadful if I failed to get my license after going to so much money. I don't care, said Josie Pie. If I don't pass this year I'm coming back next. My father can afford to send me. Anne, Frank Stockley says that Professor Tremaine said Gilbert Blythe was sure to get the medal and that Emily Clay would likely win the Avery Scholarship. That may make me feel very badly tomorrow Josie left in. But just now I honestly feel that as long as I know the violets are coming out of all purple down in the hollow below green gables and that little ferns are poking their heads up in lovers lane it's not a great deal of difference whether I win the Avery or not. I've done my best and I begin to understand what is meant by the joy of the strife. Next to trying and winning the best thing is trying and failing. Girls, don't talk about exams. Look at that arch of pale green sky over those houses and picture to yourself what must look like over the purpley dark beachwoods back of Avonlia. What are you going to wear for commencement, Jane? asked Ruby practically. Jane and Josie both answered at once and the chatter drifted into a side eddy of fashions. But Anne, with her elbows on the windowsill, her soft cheek laid against her clasped hands and her eyes filled with visions looked out unheatingly across city roof and spire to that glorious dome in the sunset sky and wove her dreams of a possible future from the golden tissue of use-own optimism. All the beyond was hers with its possibilities lurking rosely in the oncoming years. Each year a rose of promise to be woven into an immortal chaplet. End of Chapter 35 Chapter 36 of Anne of Green Gables This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Mary Ann Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery Chapter 36 The Glory and the Dream On the morning when the final results of all the examinations were to be posted on the bulletin board at Queens Anne and Jane walked down the street together. Jane was smiling and happy. Examinations were over and she was comfortably sure that she would have made a pass at least. Further considerations troubled Jane not at all. She had no soaring ambitions and consequently was not affected with the unrest attendant thereon. For we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world. And although ambitions are well worth having they are not to be cheaply won but exact their duties of work and self-denial, anxiety and discouragement. Jane was pale and quiet. In ten more minutes she would know who had won the medal and who the Avery. Beyond those ten minutes there did not seem just then to be anything worth being called time. Of course you'll win one of them anyhow said Jane who couldn't understand how the faculty could be so unfair as to order it otherwise. I have not hope of the Avery said Anne. Everybody says Emily Clay will win it and I'm not going to march up to that bulletin board and look at it before everybody. I haven't the moral courage. I'm going straight to the girls dressing room. You must read the announcements and then come and tell me Jane and I implore you in the name of our old friendship to do it as quickly as possible. If I have failed just say so without trying to break it gently and whatever you do don't sympathize with me. Promise me this Jane. I promised solemnly but as it happened there was no necessity for such a promise. When they went up the entrance steps of Queens they found the hall full of boys who were carrying Gilbert Blythe around on their shoulders and yelling at the top of their voices Hurray for Blythe! Metalist! For a moment Anne felt one sickening pang of defeat and disappointment. So she had failed and Gilbert had won. Well she would be sorry. He had been so sure she would win. And then somebody called out three cheers for Miss Shirley winner of the Avery. Oh Anne gasped Jane as they fled to the girls dressing room amid hearty cheers. Oh Anne I'm so proud. Isn't it splendid? And then the girls were all around them and Anne was the center of a laughing congratulating group. She jumped and her hand shaken vigorously. She was pushed and pulled and hugged and among it all she managed to whisper to Jane Oh won't Matthew and Marilla be pleased? I must write the news home right away. Commencement was the next important happening. The exercises were held in the big assembly hall of the academy. Addresses were given essays read songs sung the public award of diplomas, prizes and medals made. Matthew and Marilla were there with eyes and ears for only one student on the platform a tall girl in pale green with faintly flushed cheeks and starry eyes who read the best essay and was pointed out and whispered about as the Avery winner. Wrecking your glad we kept her Marilla whispered Matthew speaking for the first time since he had entered the hall when Anne had finished her essay. The first time I've been glad retorted Marilla you do like to rub things in Matthew Cuthbert? Miss Berry who was sitting behind them leaned forward and poked Marilla in the back with her parasol Aren't you proud of that Anne girl? I am, she said. Anne went home to Avonlia with Matthew and Marilla that evening. She had not been home since April and felt that she could not wait another day. The apple blossoms were out and the world was fresh and young. Diana was at Green Gables to meet her in her own white room where Marilla had set a flowering house rose on the windowsill Anne looked about her and drew a long breath of happiness. Oh Diana it's so good to be back again it's so good to see those pointed furs coming out against the pink sky and that white orchid and the old snow queen isn't the breath of the mint delicious and that tea rose why it's a song and a hope and a prayer all in one and it's good to see you again Diana. I thought you liked that Stella Maynard better than me said Diana reproachfully Josie Pie told me you did Josie said you were infatuated with her Anne laughed and pelted Diana with the faded June lilies of her bouquet Stella Maynard is the dearest girl in the world except one Diana she said I love you more than ever and I have so many things to tell you but just now I feel as if it were joy enough to sit here and look at you I'm tired I think tired of being studious and ambitious I mean to spend at least two hours tomorrow lying out in the orchard grass thinking of absolutely nothing you've done splendidly Anne I suppose you won't be teaching now that you've won the Avery no I'm going to Redmond in September doesn't it seem wonderful I'll have a brand new stock of ambition laid in by that time after three glorious golden months of vacation Jane and Ruby are going to teach isn't it splendid to think we all got through even to Moody Spurgeon and Josie Pie the Newbridge trustees have offered Jane their school already said Diana Gilbert Blythe is going to teach too he has to his father can't afford to send him to college next year after all so he means to earn his way through I expect he'll get the school here if Miss Ames decides to leave Anne felt a queer little sensation of dismayed surprise she had not known this she had expected that Gilbert would be going to Redmond also what would she do without their inspiring rivalry would not work even at a coeducational college with a real degree in prospect be rather flat without her friend the enemy the next morning at breakfast it suddenly struck a man that Matthew was not looking well surely he was much grayer than he had been a year before Marilla she said hesitatingly when he had gone out is Matthew quite well no he isn't said Marilla in a troubled tone he's had some real bad spells with his heart this spring and he won't spare himself a mite I've been real worried about him but he's some better this while back and we've got a good hired man so I'm hoping he'll kind of rest and pick up maybe he will now you're home you always cheer him up Anne leaned across the table and took Marilla's face in her hands you are not looking as well yourself as I'd like to see you Marilla you look tired I'm afraid you've been working too hard you must take a rest now that I'm home I'm just going to take this one day off to visit all the old deer spots and hunt up my old dreams and then it will be your turn to be lazy Marilla smiled affectionately at her girl it's not the work it's my head I've got a pain so often now behind my eyes Dr. Spencer's been fussing with glasses but they don't do me any good there's a distinguished oculus coming to the island the last of June and the doctor says I must see him I guess I'll have to I can't read or so with any comfort now well Anne you've done real well at Queens I must say first class license in one year and win the Avery Scholarship well well Miss Linda says Pride goes before fall and she doesn't believe in the higher education of women at all she says it unfits them for a woman's true sphere I don't believe a word of it speaking of Rachel reminds me did you hear anything about the Abbey Bank lately Anne I heard it was shaky answered Anne why that is what Rachel said she was up here one day last week talk about it Matthew felt real worried all we have saved is in that bank every penny I wanted Matthew to put it in the savings bank in the first place but old Mr. Abbey was a great friend of fathers and he'd always banked with him Matthew said any bank with him at the head of it was good enough for anybody I think he's only been its nominal head for many years said Anne he's a very old man his nephews are really at the head of the institution well Rachel told us I wanted Matthew to draw our money right out and he said he'd think of it but Mr. Russell told him yesterday that the bank was all right Anne had her good day in the companionship of the outdoor world she never forgot that day it was so bright and golden and fair so free from shadow and so lavish of blossom Anne spent some of its rich hours in the orchard she went to the druids bubble at the end of the fair she called at the man's and had a satisfying talk with Mrs. Allen and finally in the evening she went with Matthew for the cows through lovers' lane to the back pasture the woods were all gloried through with sunset and the warm splendor of it streamed down through the hill gaps in the west Matthew walked slowly with bent head Anne tall and erect suited her springing step to his you've been working too hard today Matthew she said reproachfully why won't you take things easier well now I can't seem to said Matthew as he opened the yard gate to let the cows through it's only that I'm getting old Anne and keep forgetting it well I've always worked pretty hard and I'd rather drop in the harness if I had been the boy you sent for said Anne wistfully I'd be able to help you so much now and spare you in a hundred ways find it in my heart to wish I had been just for that well now I'd rather have you than a dozen boys Anne said Matthew patting her hand just mind you that rather than a dozen boys well now I guess it wasn't a boy that took the Avery Scholarship was it? it was a girl my girl my girl that I'm proud of he smiled his shy smile at her as he went into the yard Anne took the memory of it with her when she went to her room that night and sat for a long while at her open window thinking of the past and dreaming of the future outside the snow queen was mistily white in the moonshine the frogs were singing in the marsh beyond orchard slope Anne always remembered the silvery, peaceful beauty and fragrant calm of that night it was the last night before sorrow touched her life and no life is ever quite the same again when once that cold sanctifying touch has been laid upon it End of Chapter 36 Chapter 37 of Anne of Greengabers This is a LibriVox recording Only LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Ellie Anne of Greengabers Belusi Maud Montgomery Chapter 37 The Reaper whose name is death Matthew Matthew, what is the matter? Matthew, are you sick? It was Marilla who spoke alarming every church word Anne came through the hall her hands full of fight nurses It was long before Anne could live the sight or odor of fight nurses again in time to hear her and to see Matthew standing in the porch derby a folded paper in his hand and his face strangely drawn and gray Anne dropped her flowers and sprang across the kitchen to him They were both too late Before they could reach him Matthew had fallen across the threshold He is fainted, gasped Marilla Anne, run for Martin Quick, quick, he's at the barn Martin, the hired man who had just driven home from the post office started at once for the doctor calling at Orchard's slope on his way to send Mr. and Mrs. Barry over Mrs. Lint was there and an errand came to They found Anne and Marilla distractingly trying to restore Mrs. Lint pushed him gently aside tried his pulse and then laid her ear over his heart She looked at the anxious faces sorrowfully and the tears came into her eyes Oh Marilla, she said gravely I don't think we can do anything for him Mrs. Lint, you don't think you can't think Matthew is is Anne couldn't say the rightful word she turned sick and pale Child, yes, I'm afraid of it Look at this face When you've seen that look as often as I have you'll know what it means Anne looked at his still face and there beheld the seal of the great presence When the doctor came, he said that this had been instantaneous and probably painless caused in all likelihood by some sudden shock The secret of the shock was discovered to be in the paper, Matthew had held and which Martin had brought from the office that morning It contained an account of the failure of the Abbey Bank The news spiked quickly through Avalona and all day friends and neighbors drunk Green Gables and came and went on errands of kindness for the dead and the living For the first time shy, quiet Matthew Caspett was a person of central importance The white majesty of death had fallen on him and set him apart as one ground When the calm night came softly down over Green Gables, the old house was hushed in tranquil In the parlour lay Matthew Caspett in his coffin His long gray hair framing his blessed face in which there was a kindly smile as if he but slept dreaming pleasant dreams There were flowers about him sweet old fashioned flowers which his mother had planted in the homestead garden in her bridal days and for which Matthew had always had a secret, wordless love Anne had gathered them and brought them to him Her anguish still his eyes burning in her white face It was the last thing she could do for him The berries and Mrs. Lynn stayed with them that night Diana, going to the east gable looking at her window, said gently Anne dear, would you like to have me sleep with you tonight? Thank you Diana Anne looked earnestly into her friend's face I think you won't misunderstand me when I say I want to be alone I am not afraid, I haven't been alone one minute since it happened and I want to be I want to be quite silent and quiet and try to realize it, I can't realize it Half the time it seems to me that Matthew can't be dead and the other half it seems as if he must have been dead for a long time and I've had this terrible dull ache ever since Diana did not quite understand Marilla's impatient grief breaking all the bounds of natural reserve and lifelong habit in its stormy rush she could comprehend better than Anne's tearless agony but she went away kindly leaving Anne alone to keep her first vigil with sorrow Anne hoped that the tears would come in solitude it seemed to her a terrible thing that she could not shed a tear for Matthew whom she had loved so much and who had been so kind to her Matthew who had walked with her last evening at sunset and was now lying in the dim room below with that awful peace on his brow but no tears came at first even when she knelt by her window in the darkness and prayed looking up to the stars beyond the hills no tears, only the same horrible dull ache of misery that kept on aching until she fell asleep worn out with the day's pain and excitement In the night she awakened with the stillness and darkness about her and the recollection of the day came over her like a wave of sorrow she could see Matthew's face smiling at her as he had smiled when he parted at the gate last evening she could hear his voice saying my girl, my girl that I am proud of then the tears came and Anne wept her heart out Marilla heard her and crept into comfort her they are there don't cry so dearie it can't bring him back it isn't right to cry so I knew that today but I couldn't help it then it always been such a good kind brother to me but God knows best oh just let me cry Marilla sobbed Anne, the tears don't hurt me like that ache did stay here for a little while with me and keep your arm around me so I couldn't have Diana stay she is good and kind and sweet but it's not her sorrow she's outside of it and she couldn't come close enough to my heart to help me oh Marilla, what will you do without him? they've got each other Anne I don't know what I'd do if you weren't here if you'd never come oh Anne, I know I've been kind of strict and harsh with you maybe but you mustn't think I didn't love you as well as mess you did for all of that I want to tell you now when I can it's never been easy for me to say things out of my heart but at times like this it is easier I love you as dear as if you were my own flesh and blood I've been mature in comfort since you came to Crane Gables two days afterwards the carrot messier cuspid over his forms the threshold and the way from the fields he had turned and the orchards he had laughed and the trees he had planted and then Avalona settled back to its usual blessedity and even at Crane Gables a fair slipped into the old grove and work was done and duties fulfilled with regularity as before although always is the aching sense of loss in all familiar things that in brief thought it almost said that it could be so that they could go on in the old way without mess you she felt something like shame and remorse when she discovered that the sun rises behind the first and the pale pink buds opening in the garden gave her the old in rush of gladness when she saw them that Diana's visits were pleasant to her and that Diana's merry words and ways moved her to laughter and smiles that in brief the beautiful world of blossom and laugh and friendship had lost none of its power to please her fancy and thrill her heart that life still called her with many insistent voices it seems like this loyalty to mess you somehow to find pleasure in these things now that he is gone she said wistfully to Mrs. Erlen one evening when they were together in the men's garden I miss him so much all the time and yet Mrs. Erlen the world and life seem very beautiful and interesting to me for all today Diana sensed something funny and found myself loving I thought when it happened I could never laugh again and it somehow seems as if I ordered to when mess you was here he liked to hear your laugh and he liked to know that you found pleasure in the pleasant things around you that Mrs. Erlen gently he is just away now and he likes to know it just the same I am sure we should not shut our hearts against the healing influences that nature offers us but I can understand your feeling I think we all experienced the same thing we recently thought that anything can please us when someone we love is no longer here to share the pleasure with us and we almost feel as if we were unfaithful to our sorrow when we find our interesting life returning to us I was down to the graveyard to plant the rose bush on mess you scraped this afternoon set in dreamily I took a slip of little white scotch rose bush his mother brought out from Scotland long ago mess you always liked those roses the best they were so small and sweet on their sunny stems it made me feel glad that I could plant it by his grave as if I were doing something that was pleasing and taking it there to be near him I hope he has roses like them in heaven perhaps the source of all those little roses that he has left so many summers we are all there to meet him I must go home now Marella is all alone and she gets lonely in Twilight she will be lonely as still I fear when you go away again to college said Mrs. Erlen Erlen did not reply she said good night and went slowly back to Green Gables Marella was sitting on the front steps and ends it down beside her the door was open behind them held back by a pink conch shell with hints of sea sunsets with smooth inner convolutions and gathered some sprays of pale yellow honeysuckle and put them in her hair she liked delicious hint of fragrance as some aerial benediction about every time she moved Dr. Spencer was here while you were away Marella said he says that the specialist will be in town tomorrow and he insists that I must go in and have my eyes examined I suppose I'd better go and have it over I'll be more than thankful if the man can give me the right kind of glasses to soup my eyes you won't mind staying here alone while I'm away, will you? Martin will have to drive me in there's ironing and baking to do I shall be alright the Yenna will come over for company for me I shall attend to the ironing and baking beautifully you needn't fear that I'll start the handkerchiefs or flavor the cake with linear ment Marella laughed what the girl you were for making mistakes in them days N you were always getting into scrapes I did used to think that you were possessed do you mind the time you dyed your hair? yes indeed I shall never forget it smiled N touching a heavy braid of hair that was wound about her shapely head I laugh a little now sometimes when I think what the word in my hair used to be to me but I don't laugh much because it was very real trouble then I did suffer terribly over my hair and my freckles my freckles are rarely gone and people are nice enough to tell me my hair is over now all but Josie Pie she informed me yesterday that she really thought it was rather than ever or at least my black dress made it look rather and she asked me if people who had dyed hair ever got used to having it Marella, I've almost decided to give up trying to like Josie Pie I've made what the word ones have called a heroic effort to like her but Josie Pie won't be liked Josie is a Pie said Marella shapely so she can't help being disagreeable I suppose people of that kind serve some useful purpose in society but I must say I don't know what it is anymore than I know the use of sizzles is Josie going to teach? No, she's going back to Queens next year so Moody Spurgeon and Charlie Sloan Jane and Ruby are going to teach and they've both got schools Jane at Newbridge and Ruby at some place up West Shilpa Blythe is going to teach, isn't he? Yes, briefly What a nice looking fellow he is said Marella absently I saw him in church last Sunday and he really seemed so tall and manly he looks a lot like his father did at the same age John Blythe was a nice boy we used to be real good friends, he and I people called him my boo Anne looked up with swift interest Oh, Marella, and what happened? Why didn't you? We had a quarrel I wouldn't forgive him when he asked me to I meant to, after a while but I was sulk and angry and wanted to punish him first he never came back the Blythe are all mighty independent but I always felt rather sorry I've always kind of wished I'd forgiven him when I had the chance so you've had a bit of romance in your life too said Anne softly Yes, I suppose you might call it that you wouldn't think so to look at me, would you? but you never can tell about people from the outsides everybody has forgot about me and John I'd forgotten myself I would always come back to me when it's so chill with last Sunday End of Chapter 39 Recording by Ellie, November 2009