It was splendid to fish for trout over the bridge and the two girls learned to row themselves about in the little flat-bottomed dory Mr. Barry kept for duck shooting . It was Anne 's idea that they dramatize Elaine . They had studied Tennyson 's poem in school the preceding winter , the Superintendent of Education having prescribed it in the English course for the Prince Edward Island schools . They had analyzed and parsed it and torn it to pieces in general until it was a wonder there was any meaning at all left in it for them , but at least the fair lily maid and Lancelot and Guinevere and King Arthur had become very real people to them , and Anne was devoured by secret regret that she had not been born in Camelot . Those days , she said , were so much more romantic than the present . Anne 's plan was hailed with enthusiasm . The girls had discovered that if the flat were pushed off from the landing place it would drift down with the current under the bridge and finally strand itself on another headland lower down which ran out at a curve in the pond . They had often gone down like this and nothing could be more convenient for playing Elaine . `` Well , I 'll be Elaine , '' said Anne , yielding reluctantly , for , although she would have been delighted to play the principal character , yet her artistic sense demanded fitness for it and this , she felt , her limitations made impossible . `` Ruby , you must be King Arthur and Jane will be Guinevere and Diana must be Lancelot . But first you must be the brothers and the father . We ca n't have the old dumb servitor because there is n't room for two in the flat when one is lying down . We must pall the barge all its length in blackest samite . That old black shawl of your mother 's will be just the thing , Diana . '' The black shawl having been procured , Anne spread it over the flat and then lay down on the bottom , with closed eyes and hands folded over her breast . `` Oh , she does look really dead , '' whispered Ruby Gillis nervously , watching the still , white little face under the flickering shadows of the birches . `` It makes me feel frightened , girls . Do you suppose it 's really right to act like this ? Mrs. Lynde says that all play-acting is abominably wicked . '' `` Ruby , you should n't talk about Mrs. Lynde , '' said Anne severely .
`` It spoils the effect XXXXX this is hundreds of years before Mrs. Lynde was born .
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