What were her pearl beads compared to the diamonds of the big , handsome lady near her ? And how poor her one wee white rose must look beside all the hothouse 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 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 belles '' 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 she were only 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 XXXXX an overwhelming attack of stage fright .
At about in near of over that through until with