I was simply wild to know how it turned out -- although I felt sure Ben Hur must win , because it would n't be poetical justice if he did n't -- so I spread the history open on my desk lid and then tucked Ben Hur between the desk and my knee . I just looked as if I were studying Canadian history , you know , while all the while I was reveling in Ben Hur . I was so interested in it that I never noticed Miss Stacy coming down the aisle until all at once I just looked up and there she was looking down at me , so reproachful-like . I ca n't tell you how ashamed I felt , Marilla , especially when I heard Josie Pye giggling . Miss Stacy took Ben Hur away , but she never said a word then . She kept me in at recess and talked to me . She said I had done very wrong in two respects . First , I was wasting the time I ought to have put on my studies ; and secondly , I was deceiving my teacher in trying to make it appear I was reading a history when it was a storybook instead . I had never realized until that moment , Marilla , that what I was doing was deceitful . I was shocked . I cried bitterly , and asked Miss Stacy to forgive me and I 'd never do such a thing again ; and I offered to do penance by never so much as looking at Ben Hur for a whole week , not even to see how the chariot race turned out . But Miss Stacy said she would n't require that , and she forgave me freely . So I think it was n't very kind of her to come up here to you about it after all . '' `` Miss Stacy never mentioned such a thing to me , Anne , and its only your guilty conscience that 's the matter with you . You have no business to be taking storybooks to school . You read too many novels anyhow . When I was a girl I was n't so much as allowed to look at a novel . '' `` Oh , how can you call Ben Hur a novel when it 's really such a religious book ? '' protested Anne . `` Of course it 's a little too exciting to be proper reading for Sunday , and I only read it on weekdays .
And I never read ANY book now unless either Miss Stacy or Mrs. Allan thinks it is a proper book XXXXX a girl thirteen and three-quarters to read .
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