Where have you hurt yourself ? '' demanded Mrs. Barry . `` My ankle , '' gasped Anne . `` Oh , Diana , please find your father and ask him to take me home . I know I can never walk there . And I 'm sure I could n't hop so far on one foot when Jane could n't even hop around the garden . '' Marilla was out in the orchard picking a panful of summer apples when she saw Mr. Barry coming over the log bridge and up the slope , with Mrs. Barry beside him and a whole procession of little girls trailing after him . In his arms he carried Anne , whose head lay limply against his shoulder . At that moment Marilla had a revelation . In the sudden stab of fear that pierced her very heart she realized what Anne had come to mean to her . She would have admitted that she liked Anne -- nay , that she was very fond of Anne . But now she knew as she hurried wildly down the slope that Anne was dearer to her than anything else on earth . `` Mr. Barry , what has happened to her ? '' she gasped , more white and shaken than the self-contained , sensible Marilla had been for many years . Anne herself answered , lifting her head . `` Do n't be very frightened , Marilla . I was walking the ridgepole and I fell off . I expect I have sprained my ankle . But , Marilla , I might have broken my neck . Let us look on the bright side of things . ''
`` I might have known you 'd go and do something XXXXX the sort when I let you go to that party , '' said Marilla , sharp and shrewish in her very relief .
At In as down of on over than that to