A TEMPEST IN THE SCHOOL TEAPOT
“What a splendid day!” said Anne, drawing a long breath. “Isn’t it good
just to be alive on a day like this? I pity the people who aren’t born
yet for missing it. They may have good days, of course, but they can
never have this one. And it’s splendider still to have such a lovely
way to go to school by, isn’t it?”
“It’s a lot nicer than going round by the road; that is so dusty and
hot,” said Diana practically, peeping into her dinner basket and
mentally calculating if the three juicy, toothsome, raspberry tarts
reposing there were divided among ten girls how many bites each girl
would have.
The little girls of Avonlea school always pooled their lunches, and to
eat three raspberry tarts all alone or even to share them only with
one’s best chum would have forever and ever branded as “awful mean” the
girl who did it. And yet, when the tarts were divided among ten girls
you just got enough to tantalize you.
The way Anne and Diana went to school _was_ a pretty one. Anne thought
those walks to and from school with Diana couldn’t be improved upon
even by imagination. Going around by the main road would have been so
unromantic; but to go by Lover’s Lane and Willowmere and Violet Vale
and the Birch Path was romantic, if ever anything was.
Lover’s Lane opened out below the orchard at Green Gables and stretched
far up into the woods to the end of the Cuthbert farm. It was the way
by which the cows were taken to the back pasture and the wood hauled
home in winter. Anne had named it Lover’s Lane before she had been a
month at Green Gables.
“Not that lovers ever really walk there,” she explained to Marilla,
“but Diana and I are reading a perfectly magnificent book and there’s a
Lover’s Lane in it. So we want to have one, too. And it’s a very pretty
name, don’t you think? So romantic! We can imagine the lovers into it,
you know. I like that lane because you can think out loud there without
people calling you crazy.”
Anne, starting out alone in the morning, went down Lover’s Lane as far
as the brook. Here Diana met her, and the two little girls went on up
the lane under the leafy arch of maples—“maples are such sociable
trees,” said Anne; “they’re always rustling and whispering to
you,”—until they came to a rustic bridge. Then they left the lane and
walked through Mr. Barry’s back field and past Willowmere. Beyond
Willowmere came Violet Vale—a little green dimple in the shadow of Mr.
Andrew Bell’s big woods. “Of course there are no violets there now,”
Anne told Marilla, “but Diana says there are millions of them in
spring. Oh, Marilla, can’t you just imagine you see them? It actually
takes away my breath. I named it Violet Vale. Diana says she never saw
the beat of me for hitting on fancy names for places. It’s nice to be
clever at something, isn’t it? But Diana named the Birch Path. She
wanted to, so I let her; but I’m sure I could have found something more
poetical than plain Birch Path. Anybody can think of a name like that.
But the Birch Path is one of the prettiest places in the world,
Marilla.”
It was. Other people besides Anne thought so when they stumbled on it.
It was a little narrow, twisting path, winding down over a long hill
straight through Mr. Bell’s woods, where the light came down sifted
through so many emerald screens that it was as flawless as the heart of
a diamond. It was fringed in all its length with slim young birches,
white-stemmed and lissom boughed; ferns and starflowers and wild
lilies-of-the-valley and scarlet tufts of pigeon berries grew thickly
along it; and always there was a delightful spiciness in the air and
music of bird calls and the murmur and laugh of wood winds in the trees
overhead. Now and then you might see a rabbit skipping across the road
if you were quiet—which, with Anne and Diana, happened about once in a
blue moon. Down in the valley the path came out to the main road and
then it was just up the spruce hill to the school.
The Avonlea school was a whitewashed building, low in the eaves and
wide in the windows, furnished inside with comfortable substantial
old-fashioned desks that opened and shut, and were carved all over
their lids with the initials and hieroglyphics of three generations of
school-children. The schoolhouse was set back from the road and behind
it was a dusky fir wood and a brook where all the children put their
bottles of milk in the morning to keep cool and sweet until dinner hour.
Marilla had seen Anne start off to school on the first day of September
with many secret misgivings. Anne was such an odd girl. How would she
get on with the other children? And how on earth would she ever manage
to hold her tongue during school hours?
Things went better than Marilla feared, however. Anne came home that
evening in high spirits.
“I think I’m going to like school here,” she announced. “I don’t think
much of the master, though. He’s all the time curling his moustache and
making eyes at Prissy Andrews. Prissy is grown-up, you know. She’s
sixteen and she’s studying for the entrance examination into Queen’s
Academy at Charlottetown next year. Tillie Boulter says the master is
_dead gone_ on her. She’s got a beautiful complexion and curly brown
hair and she does it up so elegantly. She sits in the long seat at the
back and he sits there, too, most of the time—to explain her lessons,
he says. But Ruby Gillis says she saw him writing something on her
slate and when Prissy read it she blushed as red as a beet and giggled;
and Ruby Gillis says she doesn’t believe it had anything to do with the
lesson.”
“Anne Shirley, don’t let me hear you talking about your teacher in that
way again,” said Marilla sharply. “You don’t go to school to criticize
the master. I guess he can teach _you_ something and it’s your business
to learn. And I want you to understand right off that you are not to
come home telling tales about him. That is something I won’t encourage.
I hope you were a good girl.”
“Indeed I was,” said Anne comfortably. “It wasn’t so hard as you might
imagine, either. I sit with Diana. Our seat is right by the window and
we can look down to the Lake of Shining Waters. There are a lot of nice
girls in school and we had scrumptious fun playing at dinner time. It’s
so nice to have a lot of little girls to play with. But of course I
like Diana best and always will. I _adore_ Diana. I’m dreadfully far
behind the others. They’re all in the fifth book and I’m only in the
fourth. I feel that it’s kind of a disgrace. But there’s not one of
them has such an imagination as I have and I soon found that out. We
had reading and geography and Canadian History and dictation to-day.
Mr. Phillips said my spelling was disgraceful and he held up my slate
so that everybody could see it, all marked over. I felt so mortified,
Marilla; he might have been politer to a stranger, I think. Ruby Gillis
gave me an apple and Sophia Sloane lent me a lovely pink card with ‘May
I see you home?’ on it. I’m to give it back to her to-morrow. And
Tillie Boulter let me wear her bead ring all the afternoon. Can I have
some of those pearl beads off the old pincushion in the garret to make
myself a ring? And oh Marilla, Jane Andrews told me that Minnie
MacPherson told her that she heard Prissy Andrews tell Sara Gillis that
I had a very pretty nose. Marilla, that is the first compliment I have
ever had in my life and you can’t imagine what a strange feeling it
gave me. Marilla, have I really a pretty nose? I know you’ll tell me
the truth.”
“Your nose is well enough,” said Marilla shortly. Secretly she thought
Anne’s nose was a remarkably pretty one; but she had no intention of
telling her so.
That was three weeks ago and all had gone smoothly so far. And now,
this crisp September morning, Anne and Diana were tripping blithely
down the Birch Path, two of the happiest little girls in Avonlea.
“I guess Gilbert Blythe will be in school to-day,” said Diana. “He’s
been visiting his cousins over in New Brunswick all summer and he only
came home Saturday night. He’s _aw’fly_ handsome, Anne. And he teases
the girls something terrible. He just torments our lives out.”
Diana’s voice indicated that she rather liked having her life tormented
out than not.
“Gilbert Blythe?” said Anne. “Isn’t it his name that’s written up on
the porch wall with Julia Bell’s and a big ‘Take Notice’ over them?”
“Yes,” said Diana, tossing her head, “but I’m sure he doesn’t like
Julia Bell so very much. I’ve heard him say he studied the
multiplication table by her freckles.”
“Oh, don’t speak about freckles to me,” implored Anne. “It isn’t
delicate when I’ve got so many. But I do think that writing
take-notices up on the wall about the boys and girls is the silliest
ever. I should just like to see anybody dare to write my name up with a
boy’s. Not, of course,” she hastened to add, “that anybody would.”
Anne sighed. She didn’t want her name written up. But it was a little
humiliating to know that there was no danger of it.
“Nonsense,” said Diana, whose black eyes and glossy tresses had played
such havoc with the hearts of Avonlea schoolboys that her name figured
on the porch walls in half a dozen take-notices. “It’s only meant as a
joke. And don’t you be too sure your name won’t ever be written up.
Charlie Sloane is _dead gone_ on you. He told his mother—his _mother_,
mind you—that you were the smartest girl in school. That’s better than
being good-looking.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Anne, feminine to the core. “I’d rather be pretty
than clever. And I hate Charlie Sloane. I can’t bear a boy with goggle
eyes. If any one wrote my name up with his I’d _never_ get over it,
Diana Barry. But it _is_ nice to keep head of your class.”
“You’ll have Gilbert in your class after this,” said Diana, “and he’s
used to being head of his class, I can tell you. He’s only in the
fourth book although he’s nearly fourteen. Four years ago his father
was sick and had to go out to Alberta for his health and Gilbert went
with him. They were there three years and Gil didn’t go to school
hardly any until they came back. You won’t find it so easy to keep head
after this, Anne.”
“I’m glad,” said Anne quickly. “I couldn’t really feel proud of keeping
head of little boys and girls of just nine or ten. I got up yesterday
spelling ‘ebullition.’ Josie Pye was head and, mind you, she peeped in
her book. Mr. Phillips didn’t see her—he was looking at Prissy
Andrews—but I did. I just swept her a look of freezing scorn and she
got as red as a beet and spelled it wrong after all.”
“Those Pye girls are cheats all round,” said Diana indignantly, as they
climbed the fence of the main road. “Gertie Pye actually went and put
her milk bottle in my place in the brook yesterday. Did you ever? I
don’t speak to her now.”
When Mr. Phillips was in the back of the room hearing Prissy Andrews’
Latin Diana whispered to Anne,
“That’s Gilbert Blythe sitting right across the aisle from you, Anne.
Just look at him and see if you don’t think he’s handsome.”
Anne looked accordingly. She had a good chance to do so, for the said
Gilbert Blythe was absorbed in stealthily pinning the long yellow braid
of Ruby Gillis, who sat in front of him, to the back of her seat. He
was a tall boy, with curly brown hair, roguish hazel eyes and a mouth
twisted into a teasing smile. Presently Ruby Gillis started up to take
a sum to the master; she fell back into her seat with a little shriek,
believing that her hair was pulled out by the roots. Everybody looked
at her and Mr. Phillips glared so sternly that Ruby began to cry.
Gilbert had whisked the pin out of sight and was studying his history
with the soberest face in the world; but when the commotion subsided he
looked at Anne and winked with inexpressible drollery.
“I think your Gilbert Blythe _is_ handsome,” confided Anne to Diana,
“but I think he’s very bold. It isn’t good manners to wink at a strange
girl.”
But it was not until the afternoon that things really began to happen.
Mr. Phillips was back in the corner explaining a problem in algebra to
Prissy Andrews and the rest of the scholars were doing pretty much as
they pleased, eating green apples, whispering, drawing pictures on
their slates, and driving crickets, harnessed to strings, up and down
the aisle. Gilbert Blythe was trying to make Anne Shirley look at him
and failing utterly, because Anne was at that moment totally oblivious,
not only of the very existence of Gilbert Blythe, but of every other
scholar in Avonlea school and of Avonlea school itself. With her chin
propped on her hands and her eyes fixed on the blue glimpse of the Lake
of Shining Waters that the west window afforded, she was far away in a
gorgeous dreamland, hearing and seeing nothing save her own wonderful
visions.
Gilbert Blythe wasn’t used to putting himself out to make a girl look
at him and meeting with failure. She _should_ look at him, that
red-haired Shirley girl with the little pointed chin and the big eyes
that weren’t like the eyes of any other girl in Avonlea school.
Gilbert reached across the aisle, picked up the end of Anne’s long red
braid, held it out at arm’s length and said in a piercing whisper,
“Carrots! Carrots!”
Then Anne looked at him with a vengeance!
She did more than look. She sprang to her feet, her bright fancies
fallen into cureless ruin. She flashed one indignant glance at Gilbert
from eyes whose angry sparkle was swiftly quenched in equally angry
tears.
“You mean, hateful boy!” she exclaimed passionately. “How dare you!”
And then—Thwack! Anne had brought her slate down on Gilbert’s head and
cracked it—slate, not head—clear across.
[Illustration: “Thwack! Anne had brought her slate down on Gilbert’s
head.”]
Avonlea school always enjoyed a scene. This was an especially enjoyable
one. Everybody said, “Oh” in horrified delight. Diana gasped. Ruby
Gillis, who was inclined to be hysterical, began to cry. Tommy Sloane
let his team of crickets escape him altogether while he stared
open-mouthed at the tableau.
Mr. Phillips stalked down the aisle and laid his hand heavily on Anne’s
shoulder.
“Anne Shirley, what does this mean?” he said angrily.
Anne returned no answer. It was asking too much of flesh and blood to
expect her to tell before the whole school that she had been called
“carrots.” Gilbert it was who spoke up stoutly.
“It was my fault, Mr. Phillips. I teased her.”
Mr. Phillips paid no heed to Gilbert.
“I am sorry to see a pupil of mine displaying such a temper and such a
vindictive spirit,” he said in a solemn tone, as if the mere fact of
being a pupil of his ought to root out all evil passions from the
hearts of small imperfect mortals. “Anne, go and stand on the platform
in front of the blackboard for the rest of the afternoon.”
Anne would have infinitely preferred a whipping to this punishment,
under which her sensitive spirit quivered as from a whiplash. With a
white, set face she obeyed. Mr. Phillips took a chalk crayon and wrote
on the blackboard above her head.
“Ann Shirley has a very bad temper. Ann Shirley must learn to control
her temper,” and then read it out loud so that even the primer class,
who couldn’t read writing, should understand it.
Anne stood there the rest of the afternoon with that legend above her.
She did not cry or hang her head. Anger was still too hot in her heart
for that and it sustained her amid all her agony of humiliation. With
resentful eyes and passion-red cheeks she confronted alike Diana’s
sympathetic gaze and Charlie Sloane’s indignant nods and Josie Pye’s
malicious smiles. As for Gilbert Blythe, she would not even look at
him. She would _never_ look at him again! She would never speak to him!!
When school was dismissed Anne marched out with her red head held high.
Gilbert Blythe tried to intercept her at the porch door.
“I’m awful sorry I made fun of your hair, Anne,” he whispered
contritely. “Honest I am. Don’t be mad for keeps, now.”
Anne swept by disdainfully, without look or sign of hearing. “Oh, how
could you, Anne?” breathed Diana as they went down the road, half
reproachfully, half admiringly. Diana felt that _she_ could never have
resisted Gilbert’s plea.
“I shall never forgive Gilbert Blythe,” said Anne firmly. “And Mr.
Phillips spelled my name without an _e_, too. The iron has entered into
my soul, Diana.”
Diana hadn’t the least idea what Anne meant but she understood it was
something terrible.
“You mustn’t mind Gilbert making fun of your hair,” she said
soothingly. “Why, he makes fun of all the girls. He laughs at mine
because it’s so black. He’s called me a crow a dozen times; and I never
heard him apologize for anything before, either.”
“There’s a great deal of difference between being called a crow and
being called carrots,” said Anne with dignity. “Gilbert Blythe has hurt
my feelings _excruciatingly_, Diana.”
It is possible the matter might have blown over without more
excruciation if nothing else had happened. But when things begin to
happen they are apt to keep on.
Avonlea scholars often spent noon hour picking gum in Mr. Bell’s spruce
grove over the hill and across his big pasture field. From there they
could keep an eye on Eben Wright’s house, where the master boarded.
When they saw Mr. Phillips emerging therefrom they ran for the
schoolhouse; but the distance being about three times longer than Mr.
Wright’s lane they were very apt to arrive there, breathless and
gasping, some three minutes too late.
On the following day Mr. Phillips was seized with one of his spasmodic
fits of reform and announced, before going home to dinner, that he
should expect to find all the scholars in their seats when he returned.
Any one who came in late would be punished.
All the boys and some of the girls went to Mr. Bell’s spruce grove as
usual, fully intending to stay only long enough to “pick a chew.” But
spruce groves are seductive and yellow nuts of gum beguiling; they
picked and loitered and strayed; and as usual the first thing that
recalled them to a sense of the flight of time was Jimmy Glover
shouting from the top of a patriarchal old spruce, “Master’s coming.”
The girls, who were on the ground, started first and managed to reach
the schoolhouse in time but without a second to spare. The boys, who
had to wriggle hastily down from the trees, were later; and Anne, who
had not been picking gum at all but was wandering happily in the far
end of the grove, waist deep among the bracken, singing softly to
herself, with a wreath of rice lilies on her hair as if she were some
wild divinity of the shadowy places, was latest of all. Anne could run
like a deer, however; run she did with the impish result that she
overtook the boys at the door and was swept into the schoolhouse among
them just as Mr. Phillips was in the act of hanging up his hat.
Mr. Phillips’ brief reforming energy was over; he didn’t want the
bother of punishing a dozen pupils; but it was necessary to do
something to save his word, so he looked about for a scapegoat and
found it in Anne, who had dropped into her seat, gasping for breath,
with her forgotten lily wreath hanging askew over one ear and giving
her a particularly rakish and dishevelled appearance.
“Anne Shirley, since you seem to be so fond of the boys’ company we
shall indulge your taste for it this afternoon,” he said sarcastically.
“Take those flowers out of your hair and sit with Gilbert Blythe.”
The other boys snickered. Diana, turning pale with pity, plucked the
wreath from Anne’s hair and squeezed her hand. Anne stared at the
master as if turned to stone.
“Did you hear what I said, Anne?” queried Mr. Phillips sternly.
“Yes, sir,” said Anne slowly, “but I didn’t suppose you really meant
it.”
“I assure you I did,”—still with the sarcastic inflection which all the
children, and Anne especially, hated. It flicked on the raw. “Obey me
at once.”
For a moment Anne looked as if she meant to disobey. Then, realizing
that there was no help for it, she rose haughtily, stepped across the
aisle, sat down beside Gilbert Blythe, and buried her face in her arms
on the desk. Ruby Gillis, who got a glimpse of it as it went down, told
the others going home from school that she’d “acksually never seen
anything like it—it was so white, with awful little red spots in it.”
To Anne, this was as the end of all things. It was bad enough to be
singled out for punishment from among a dozen equally guilty ones; it
was worse still to be sent to sit with a boy; but that that boy should
be Gilbert Blythe was heaping insult on injury to a degree utterly
unbearable. Anne felt that she could _not_ bear it and it would be of
no use to try. Her whole being seethed with shame and anger and
humiliation.
At first the other scholars looked and whispered and giggled and
nudged. But as Anne never lifted her head and as Gilbert worked
fractions as if his whole soul was absorbed in them and them only, they
soon returned to their own tasks and Anne was forgotten. When Mr.
Phillips called the history class out Anne should have gone; but Anne
did not move, and Mr. Phillips, who had been writing some verses “To
Priscilla” before he called the class, was thinking about an obstinate
rhyme still and never missed her. Once, when nobody was looking,
Gilbert took from his desk a little pink candy heart with a gold motto
on it, “You are sweet,” and slipped it under the curve of Anne’s arm.
Whereupon Anne arose, took the pink heart gingerly between the tips of
her fingers, dropped it on the floor, ground it to powder beneath her
heel, and resumed her position without deigning to bestow a glance on
Gilbert.
When school went out Anne marched to her desk, ostentatiously took out
everything therein, books and writing tablet, pen and ink, testament
and arithmetic, and piled them neatly on her cracked slate.
“What are you taking all those things home for, Anne?” Diana wanted to
know, as soon as they were out on the road. She had not dared to ask
the question before.
“I am not coming back to school any more,” said Anne.
Diana gasped and stared at Anne to see if she meant it.
“Will Marilla let you stay home?” she asked.
“She’ll have to,” said Anne. “I’ll _never_ go to school to that man
again.”
“Oh, Anne!” Diana looked as if she were ready to cry. “I do think
you’re mean. What shall I do? Mr. Phillips will make me sit with that
horrid Gertie Pye—I know he will because she is sitting alone. Do come
back, Anne.”
“I’d do almost anything in the world for you, Diana,” said Anne sadly.
“I’d let myself be torn limb from limb if it would do you any good. But
I can’t do this, so please don’t ask it. You harrow up my very soul.”
“Just think of all the fun you will miss,” mourned Diana. “We are going
to build the loveliest new house down by the brook; and we’ll be
playing ball next week and you’ve never played ball, Anne. It’s
tremenjusly exciting. And we’re going to learn a new song—Jane Andrews
is practising it up now; and Alice Andrews is going to bring a new
Pansy book next week and we’re all going to read it out loud, chapter
about, down by the brook. And you know you are so fond of reading out
loud, Anne.”
Nothing moved Anne in the least. Her mind was made up. She would not go
to school to Mr. Phillips again; she told Marilla so when she got home.
“Nonsense,” said Marilla.
“It isn’t nonsense at all,” said Anne, gazing at Marilla with solemn,
reproachful eyes. “Don’t you understand, Marilla? I’ve been insulted.”
“Insulted fiddlesticks! You’ll go to school to-morrow as usual.”
“Oh, no.” Anne shook her head gently. “I’m not going back, Marilla.
I’ll learn my lessons at home and I’ll be as good as I can be and hold
my tongue all the time if it’s possible at all. But I will not go back
to school I assure you.”
Marilla saw something remarkably like unyielding stubbornness looking
out of Anne’s small face. She understood that she would have trouble in
overcoming it; but she resolved wisely to say nothing more just then.
“I’ll run down and see Rachel about it this evening,” she thought.
“There’s no use reasoning with Anne now. She’s too worked up and I’ve
an idea she can be awful stubborn if she takes the notion. Far as I can
make out from her story, Mr. Phillips has been carrying matters with a
rather high hand. But it would never do to say so to her. I’ll just
talk it over with Rachel. She’s sent ten children to school and she
ought to know something about it. She’ll have heard the whole story,
too, by this time.”
Marilla found Mrs. Lynde knitting quilts as industriously and
cheerfully as usual.
“I suppose you know what I’ve come about,” she said, a little
shamefacedly.
Mrs. Rachel nodded.
“About Anne’s fuss in school, I reckon,” she said. “Tillie Boulter was
in on her way home from school and told me about it.”
“I don’t know what to do with her,” said Marilla. “She declares she
won’t go back to school. I never saw a child so worked up. I’ve been
expecting trouble ever since she started to school. I knew things were
going too smooth to last. She’s so high-strung. What would you advise,
Rachel?”
“Well, since you’ve asked my advice, Marilla,” said Mrs. Lynde
amiably—Mrs. Lynde dearly loved to be asked for advice—“I’d just humour
her a little at first, that’s what I’d do. It’s my belief that Mr.
Phillips was in the wrong. Of course, it doesn’t do to say so to the
children, you know. And of course he did right to punish her yesterday
for giving way to temper. But to-day it was different. The others who
were late should have been punished as well as Anne, that’s what. And I
don’t believe in making the girls sit with the boys for punishment. It
isn’t modest. Tillie Boulter was real indignant. She took Anne’s part
right through and said all the scholars did, too. Anne seems real
popular among them, somehow. I never thought she’d take with them so
well.”
“Then you really think I’d better let her stay home,” said Marilla in
amazement.
“Yes. That is, I wouldn’t say school to her again until she said it
herself. Depend upon it, Marilla, she’ll cool off in a week or so and
be ready enough to go back of her own accord, that’s what, while, if
you were to make her go back right off, dear knows what freak or
tantrum she’d take next and make more trouble than ever. The less fuss
made the better, in my opinion. She won’t miss much by not going to
school, as far as _that_ goes. Mr. Phillips isn’t any good at all as a
teacher. The order he keeps is scandalous, that’s what, and he neglects
the young fry and puts all his time on those big scholars he’s getting
ready for Queen’s. He’d never have got the school for another year if
his uncle hadn’t been a trustee—_the_ trustee, for he just leads the
other two around by the nose, that’s what. I declare, I don’t know what
education in this Island is coming to.”
Mrs. Rachel shook her head, as much as to say if she were only at the
head of the educational system of the Province things would be much
better managed.
Marilla took Mrs. Rachel’s advice and not another word was said to Anne
about going back to school. She learned her lessons at home, did her
chores, and played with Diana in the chilly purple autumn twilights;
but when she met Gilbert Blythe on the road or encountered him in
Sunday-school she passed him by with an icy contempt that was no whit
thawed by his evident desire to appease her. Even Diana’s efforts as a
peacemaker were of no avail. Anne had evidently made up her mind to
hate Gilbert Blythe to the end of life.
As much as she hated Gilbert, however, did she love Diana, with all the
love of her passionate little heart, equally intense in its likes and
dislikes. One evening Marilla, coming in from the orchard with a basket
of apples, found Anne sitting alone by the east window in the twilight,
crying bitterly.
“Whatever’s the matter now, Anne?” she asked.
“It’s about Diana,” sobbed Anne luxuriously. “I love Diana so, Marilla.
I cannot ever live without her. But I know very well when we grow up
that Diana will get married and go away and leave me. And oh, what
shall I do? I hate her husband—I just hate him furiously. I’ve been
imagining it all out—the wedding and everything—Diana dressed in snowy
garments, with a veil, and looking as beautiful and regal as a queen;
and me the bridesmaid, with a lovely dress, too, and puffed sleeves,
but with a breaking heart hid beneath my smiling face. And then bidding
Diana good-bye-e-e—” Here Anne broke down entirely and wept with
increasing bitterness.
Marilla turned quickly away to hide her twitching face; but it was no
use; she collapsed on the nearest chair and burst into such a hearty
and unusual peal of laughter that Matthew, crossing the yard outside,
halted in amazement. When had he heard Marilla laugh like that before?
“Well, Anne Shirley,” said Marilla as soon as she could speak, “if you
must borrow trouble, for pity’s sake borrow it handier home. I should
think you had an imagination, sure enough.”