And Ruby Gillis says -- '' `` Anne Shirley , '' interrupted Marilla firmly , `` I never want to hear you talking in this fashion again . I 've had my doubts about that imagination of yours right along , and if this is going to be the outcome of it , I wo n't countenance any such doings . You 'll go right over to Barry 's , and you 'll go through that spruce grove , just for a lesson and a warning to you . And never let me hear a word out of your head about haunted woods again . '' Anne might plead and cry as she liked -- and did , for her terror was very real . Her imagination had run away with her and she held the spruce grove in mortal dread after nightfall . But Marilla was inexorable . She marched the shrinking ghost-seer down to the spring and ordered her to proceed straightaway over the bridge and into the dusky retreats of wailing ladies and headless specters beyond . `` Oh , Marilla , how can you be so cruel ? '' sobbed Anne . `` What would you feel like if a white thing did snatch me up and carry me off ? '' `` I 'll risk it , '' said Marilla unfeelingly . `` You know I always mean what I say . I 'll cure you of imagining ghosts into places . March , now . '' Anne marched . That is , she stumbled over the bridge and went shuddering up the horrible dim path beyond . Anne never forgot that walk . Bitterly did she repent the license she had given to her imagination . The goblins of her fancy lurked in every shadow about her , reaching out their cold , fleshless hands to grasp the terrified small girl who had called them into being .
A white strip of birch bark blowing up from the hollow over the brown floor XXXXX the grove made her heart stand still .
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