It was surely time for Priscilla and Mrs. Morgan to arrive . She made frequent trips to the gate and looked as anxiously down the lane as ever her namesake in the Bluebeard story peered from the tower casement . `` Suppose they do n't come at all ? '' she said piteously . `` Do n't suppose it . It would be too mean , '' said Diana , who , however , was beginning to have uncomfortable misgivings on the subject . `` Anne , '' said Marilla , coming out from the parlor , `` Miss Stacy wants to see Miss Barry 's willowware platter . '' Anne hastened to the sitting room closet to get the platter . She had , in accordance with her promise to Mrs. Lynde , written to Miss Barry of Charlottetown , asking for the loan of it . Miss Barry was an old friend of Anne 's , and she promptly sent the platter out , with a letter exhorting Anne to be very careful of it , for she had paid twenty dollars for it . The platter had served its purpose at the Aid bazaar and had then been returned to the Green Gables closet , for Anne would not trust anybody but herself to take it back to town . She carried the platter carefully to the front door where her guests were enjoying the cool breeze that blew up from the brook . It was examined and admired ; then , just as Anne had taken it back into her own hands , a terrific crash and clatter sounded from the kitchen pantry . Marilla , Diana , and Anne fled out , the latter pausing only long enough to set the precious platter hastily down on the second step of the stairs . When they reached the pantry a truly harrowing spectacle met their eyes ... a guilty looking small boy scrambling down from the table , with his clean print blouse liberally plastered with yellow filling , and on the table the shattered remnants of what had been two brave , becreamed lemon pies . Davy had finished ravelling out his herring net and had wound the twine into a ball . Then he had gone into the pantry to put it up on the shelf above the table , where he already kept a score or so of similar balls , which , so far as could be discovered , served no useful purpose save to yield the joy of possession . Davy had to climb on the table and reach over to the shelf at a dangerous angle ... something he had been forbidden by Marilla to do , as he had come to grief once before in the experiment . The result in this instance was disastrous . Davy slipped and came sprawling squarely down on the lemon pies .
His clean blouse was ruined XXXXX that time and the pies for all time .
above as at down for from of on to with