Please excuse mistakes because my spelling is n't very good yet , although much improoved . Yours until death us do part Anne or Cordelia Shirley . P.S. I shall sleep with your letter under my pillow tonight . A. OR C.S. Marilla pessimistically expected more trouble since Anne had again begun to go to school . But none developed . Perhaps Anne caught something of the `` model '' spirit from Minnie Andrews ; at least she got on very well with Mr. Phillips thenceforth . She flung herself into her studies heart and soul , determined not to be outdone in any class by Gilbert Blythe . The rivalry between them was soon apparent ; it was entirely good natured on Gilbert 's side ; but it is much to be feared that the same thing can not be said of Anne , who had certainly an unpraiseworthy tenacity for holding grudges . She was as intense in her hatreds as in her loves . She would not stoop to admit that she meant to rival Gilbert in schoolwork , because that would have been to acknowledge his existence which Anne persistently ignored ; but the rivalry was there and honors fluctuated between them . Now Gilbert was head of the spelling class ; now Anne , with a toss of her long red braids , spelled him down . One morning Gilbert had all his sums done correctly and had his name written on the blackboard on the roll of honor ; the next morning Anne , having wrestled wildly with decimals the entire evening before , would be first . One awful day they were ties and their names were written up together . It was almost as bad as a take-notice and Anne 's mortification was as evident as Gilbert 's satisfaction . When the written examinations at the end of each month were held the suspense was terrible . The first month Gilbert came out three marks ahead . The second Anne beat him by five . But her triumph was marred by the fact that Gilbert congratulated her heartily before the whole school . It would have been ever so much sweeter to her if he had felt the sting of his defeat . Mr. Phillips might not be a very good teacher ; but a pupil so inflexibly determined on learning as Anne was could hardly escape making progress under any kind of teacher .
By the end XXXXX the term Anne and Gilbert were both promoted into the fifth class and allowed to begin studying the elements of `` the branches '' -- by which Latin , geometry , French , and algebra were meant .
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