CHAPTER XV

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't 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 pigeonberries 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, through. He's all the time curling his
mustache 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 dinnertime. 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 today.
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 tomorrow. 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 remarkable 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 today," 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 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 anyone 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's 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 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 to the very existence of
Gilbert Blythe, but of every other scholar in 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.

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 awfully 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. Anyone 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's 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 a forgotten lily wreath hanging askew over one ear
and giving her a particularly rakish and disheveled 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 tremendously exciting. And we're going to learn a new song--
Jane Andrews is practicing 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 tomorrow 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 re-solved 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 humor 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
today 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 along 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
goodbye-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."

****

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