prompt:
Chapter: |ALL things great are wound up with all things little. At first glance
it might not seem that the decision of a certain Canadian Premier to
include Prince Edward Island in a political tour could have much or
anything to do with the fortunes of little Anne Shirley at Green Gables.
But it had.

It was a January the Premier came, to address his loyal supporters and
such of his nonsupporters as chose to be present at the monster mass
meeting held in Charlottetown. Most of the Avonlea people were on
Premier's side of politics; hence on the night of the meeting nearly
all the men and a goodly proportion of the women had gone to town thirty
miles away. Mrs. Rachel Lynde had gone too. Mrs. Rachel Lynde was a
red-hot politician and couldn't have believed that the political rally
could be carried through without her, although she was on the opposite
side of politics. So she went to town and took her husband--Thomas would
be useful in looking after the horse--and Marilla Cuthbert with her.
Marilla had a sneaking interest in politics herself, and as she thought
it might be her only chance to see a real live Premier, she promptly
took it, leaving Anne and Matthew to keep house until her return the
following day.

Hence, while Marilla and Mrs. Rachel were enjoying themselves hugely
at the mass meeting, Anne and Matthew had the cheerful kitchen at Green
Gables all to themselves. A bright fire was glowing in the old-fashioned
Waterloo stove and blue-white frost crystals were shining on the
windowpanes. Matthew nodded over a _Farmers' Advocate_ on the sofa and
Anne at the table studied her lessons with grim determination, despite
sundry wistful glances at the clock shelf, where lay a new book that
Jane Andrews had lent her that day. Jane had assured her that it was
warranted to produce any number of thrills, or words to that effect, and
Anne's fingers tingled to reach out for it. But that would mean Gilbert
Blythe's triumph on the morrow. Anne turned her back on the clock shelf
and tried to imagine it wasn't there.

"Matthew, did you ever study geometry when you went to school?"

"Well now, no, I didn't," said Matthew, coming out of his doze with a
start.

"I wish you had," sighed Anne, "because then you'd be able to sympathize
with me. You can't sympathize properly if you've never studied it. It is
casting a cloud over my whole life. I'm such a dunce at it, Matthew."

"Well now, I dunno," said Matthew soothingly. "I guess you're all right
at anything. Mr. Phillips told me last week in Blair's store at Carmody
that you was the smartest scholar in school and was making rapid
progress. 'Rapid progress' was his very words. There's them as runs down
Teddy Phillips and says he ain't much of a teacher, but I guess he's all
right."

Matthew would have thought anyone who praised Anne was "all right."

"I'm sure I'd get on better with geometry if only he wouldn't change
the letters," complained Anne. "I learn the proposition off by heart and
then he draws it on the blackboard and puts different letters from what
are in the book and I get all mixed up. I don't think a teacher should
take such a mean advantage, do you? We're studying agriculture now and
I've found out at last what makes the roads red. It's a great comfort.
I wonder how Marilla and Mrs. Lynde are enjoying themselves. Mrs. Lynde
says Canada is going to the dogs the way things are being run at Ottawa
and that it's an awful warning to the electors. She says if women were
allowed to vote we would soon see a blessed change. What way do you
vote, Matthew?"

"Conservative," said Matthew promptly. To vote Conservative was part of
Matthew's religion.

"Then I'm Conservative too," said Anne decidedly. "I'm glad because
Gil--because some of the boys in school are Grits. I guess Mr. Phillips
is a Grit too because Prissy Andrews's father is one, and Ruby Gillis
says that when a man is courting he always has to agree with the girl's
mother in religion and her father in politics. Is that true, Matthew?"

"Well now, I dunno," said Matthew.

"Did you ever go courting, Matthew?"

"Well now, no, I dunno's I ever did," said Matthew, who had certainly
never thought of such a thing in his whole existence.

Anne reflected with her chin in her hands.

"It must be rather interesting, don't you think, Matthew? Ruby Gillis
says when she grows up she's going to have ever so many beaus on the
string and have them all crazy about her; but I think that would be too
exciting. I'd rather have just one in his right mind. But Ruby Gillis
knows a great deal about such matters because she has so many big
sisters, and Mrs. Lynde says the Gillis girls have gone off like hot
cakes. Mr. Phillips goes up to see Prissy Andrews nearly every evening.
He says it is to help her with her lessons but Miranda Sloane is
studying for Queen's too, and I should think she needed help a lot more
than Prissy because she's ever so much stupider, but he never goes to
help her in the evenings at all. There are a great many things in this
world that I can't understand very well, Matthew."

"Well now, I dunno as I comprehend them all myself," acknowledged
Matthew.

"Well, I suppose I must finish up my lessons. I won't allow myself to
open that new book Jane lent me until I'm through. But it's a terrible
temptation, Matthew. Even when I turn my back on it I can see it there
just as plain. Jane said she cried herself sick over it. I love a book
that makes me cry. But I think I'll carry that book into the sitting
room and lock it in the jam closet and give you the key. And you must
_not_ give it to me, Matthew, until my lessons are done, not even if
I implore you on my bended knees. It's all very well to say resist
temptation, but it's ever so much easier to resist it if you can't get
the key. And then shall I run down the cellar and get some russets,
Matthew? Wouldn't you like some russets?"

"Well now, I dunno but what I would," said Matthew, who never ate
russets but knew Anne's weakness for them.

Just as Anne emerged triumphantly from the cellar with her plateful of
russets came the sound of flying footsteps on the icy board walk outside
and the next moment the kitchen door was flung open and in rushed Diana
Barry, white faced and breathless, with a shawl wrapped hastily around
her head. Anne promptly let go of her candle and plate in her surprise,
and plate, candle, and apples crashed together down the cellar ladder
and were found at the bottom embedded in melted grease, the next day,
by Marilla, who gathered them up and thanked mercy the house hadn't been
set on fire.

"Whatever is the matter, Diana?" cried Anne. "Has your mother relented
at last?"

"Oh, Anne, do come quick," implored Diana nervously. "Minnie May is
awful sick--she's got croup. Young Mary Joe says--and Father and Mother
are away to town and there's nobody to go for the doctor. Minnie May is
awful bad and Young Mary Joe doesn't know what to do--and oh, Anne, I'm
so scared!"

Matthew, without a word, reached out for cap and coat, slipped past
Diana and away into the darkness of the yard.

"He's gone to harness the sorrel mare to go to Carmody for the doctor,"
said Anne, who was hurrying on hood and jacket. "I know it as well as
if he'd said so. Matthew and I are such kindred spirits I can read his
thoughts without words at all."

"I don't believe he'll find the doctor at Carmody," sobbed Diana. "I
know that Dr. Blair went to town and I guess Dr. Spencer would go too.
Young Mary Joe never saw anybody with croup and Mrs. Lynde is away. Oh,
Anne!"

"Don't cry, Di," said Anne cheerily. "I know exactly what to do for
croup. You forget that Mrs. Hammond had twins three times. When you look
after three pairs of twins you naturally get a lot of experience. They
all had croup regularly. Just wait till I get the ipecac bottle--you
mayn't have any at your house. Come on now."

The two little girls hastened out hand in hand and hurried through
Lover's Lane and across the crusted field beyond, for the snow was too
deep to go by the shorter wood way. Anne, although sincerely sorry
for Minnie May, was far from being insensible to the romance of the
situation and to the sweetness of once more sharing that romance with a
kindred spirit.

The night was clear and frosty, all ebony of shadow and silver of snowy
slope; big stars were shining over the silent fields; here and there the
dark pointed firs stood up with snow powdering their branches and the
wind whistling through them. Anne thought it was truly delightful to go
skimming through all this mystery and loveliness with your bosom friend
who had been so long estranged.

Minnie May, aged three, was really very sick. She lay on the kitchen
sofa feverish and restless, while her hoarse breathing could be heard
all over the house. Young Mary Joe, a buxom, broad-faced French girl
from the creek, whom Mrs. Barry had engaged to stay with the children
during her absence, was helpless and bewildered, quite incapable of
thinking what to do, or doing it if she thought of it.

Anne went to work with skill and promptness.

"Minnie May has croup all right; she's pretty bad, but I've seen them
worse. First we must have lots of hot water. I declare, Diana, there
isn't more than a cupful in the kettle! There, I've filled it up, and,
Mary Joe, you may put some wood in the stove. I don't want to hurt your
feelings but it seems to me you might have thought of this before if
you'd any imagination. Now, I'll undress Minnie May and put her to bed
and you try to find some soft flannel cloths, Diana. I'm going to give
her a dose of ipecac first of all."

Minnie May did not take kindly to the ipecac but Anne had not brought up
three pairs of twins for nothing. Down that ipecac went, not only once,
but many times during the long, anxious night when the two little girls
worked patiently over the suffering Minnie May, and Young Mary Joe,
honestly anxious to do all she could, kept up a roaring fire and heated
more water than would have been needed for a hospital of croupy babies.

It was three o'clock when Matthew came with a doctor, for he had been
obliged to go all the way to Spencervale for one. But the pressing need
for assistance was past. Minnie May was much better and was sleeping
soundly.

"I was awfully near giving up in despair," explained Anne. "She got
worse and worse until she was sicker than ever the Hammond twins were,
even the last pair. I actually thought she was going to choke to death.
I gave her every drop of ipecac in that bottle and when the last dose
went down I said to myself--not to Diana or Young Mary Joe, because I
didn't want to worry them any more than they were worried, but I had
to say it to myself just to relieve my feelings--'This is the last
lingering hope and I fear, tis a vain one.' But in about three minutes
she coughed up the phlegm and began to get better right away. You must
just imagine my relief, doctor, because I can't express it in words. You
know there are some things that cannot be expressed in words."

"Yes, I know," nodded the doctor. He looked at Anne as if he were
thinking some things about her that couldn't be expressed in words.
Later on, however, he expressed them to Mr. and Mrs. Barry.

"That little redheaded girl they have over at Cuthbert's is as smart as
they make 'em. I tell you she saved that baby's life, for it would have
been too late by the time I got there. She seems to have a skill and
presence of mind perfectly wonderful in a child of her age. I never saw
anything like the eyes of her when she was explaining the case to me."

Anne had gone home in the wonderful, white-frosted winter morning, heavy
eyed from loss of sleep, but still talking unweariedly to Matthew as
they crossed the long white field and walked under the glittering fairy
arch of the Lover's Lane maples.

"Oh, Matthew, isn't it a wonderful morning? The world looks like
something God had just imagined for His own pleasure, doesn't it? Those
trees look as if I could blow them away with a breath--pouf! I'm so glad
I live in a world where there are white frosts, aren't you? And I'm so
glad Mrs. Hammond had three pairs of twins after all. If she hadn't I
mightn't have known what to do for Minnie May. I'm real sorry I was
ever cross with Mrs. Hammond for having twins. But, oh, Matthew, I'm so
sleepy. I can't go to school. I just know I couldn't keep my eyes open
and I'd be so stupid. But I hate to stay home, for Gil--some of
the others will get head of the class, and it's so hard to get up
again--although of course the harder it is the more satisfaction you
have when you do get up, haven't you?"

"Well now, I guess you'll manage all right," said Matthew, looking at
Anne's white little face and the dark shadows under her eyes. "You just
go right to bed and have a good sleep. I'll do all the chores."

Anne accordingly went to bed and slept so long and soundly that it
was well on in the white and rosy winter afternoon when she awoke and
descended to the kitchen where Marilla, who had arrived home in the
meantime, was sitting knitting.

"Oh, did you see the Premier?" exclaimed Anne at once. "What did he look
like Marilla?"

"Well, he never got to be Premier on account of his looks," said
Marilla. "Such a nose as that man had! But he can speak. I was proud of
being a Conservative. Rachel Lynde, of course, being a Liberal, had no
use for him. Your dinner is in the oven, Anne, and you can get yourself
some blue plum preserve out of the pantry. I guess you're hungry.
Matthew has been telling me about last night. I must say it was
fortunate you knew what to do. I wouldn't have had any idea myself, for
I never saw a case of croup. There now, never mind talking till you've
had your dinner. I can tell by the look of you that you're just full up
with speeches, but they'll keep."

Marilla had something to tell Anne, but she did not tell it just then
for she knew if she did Anne's consequent excitement would lift her
clear out of the region of such material matters as appetite or dinner.
Not until Anne had finished her saucer of blue plums did Marilla say:

"Mrs. Barry was here this afternoon, Anne. She wanted to see you, but I
wouldn't wake you up. She says you saved Minnie May's life, and she is
very sorry she acted as she did in that affair of the currant wine. She
says she knows now you didn't mean to set Diana drunk, and she hopes
you'll forgive her and be good friends with Diana again. You're to go
over this evening if you like for Diana can't stir outside the door
on account of a bad cold she caught last night. Now, Anne Shirley, for
pity's sake don't fly up into the air."

The warning seemed not unnecessary, so uplifted and aerial was Anne's
expression and attitude as she sprang to her feet, her face irradiated
with the flame of her spirit.

"Oh, Marilla, can I go right now--without washing my dishes? I'll wash
them when I come back, but I cannot tie myself down to anything so
unromantic as dishwashing at this thrilling moment."

"Yes, yes, run along," said Marilla indulgently. "Anne Shirley--are you
crazy? Come back this instant and put something on you. I might as well
call to the wind. She's gone without a cap or wrap. Look at her tearing
through the orchard with her hair streaming. It'll be a mercy if she
doesn't catch her death of cold."

Anne came dancing home in the purple winter twilight across the snowy
places. Afar in the southwest was the great shimmering, pearl-like
sparkle of an evening star in a sky that was pale golden and ethereal
rose over gleaming white spaces and dark glens of spruce. The tinkles
of sleigh bells among the snowy hills came like elfin chimes through
the frosty air, but their music was not sweeter than the song in Anne's
heart and on her lips.

"You see before you a perfectly happy person, Marilla," she announced.
"I'm perfectly happy--yes, in spite of my red hair. Just at present I
have a soul above red hair. Mrs. Barry kissed me and cried and said she
was so sorry and she could never repay me. I felt fearfully embarrassed,
Marilla, but I just said as politely as I could, 'I have no hard
feelings for you, Mrs. Barry. I assure you once for all that I did not
mean to intoxicate Diana and henceforth I shall cover the past with the
mantle of oblivion.' That was a pretty dignified way of speaking wasn't
it, Marilla?"

"I felt that I was heaping coals of fire on Mrs. Barry's head. And Diana
and I had a lovely afternoon. Diana showed me a new fancy crochet stitch
her aunt over at Carmody taught her. Not a soul in Avonlea knows it but
us, and we pledged a solemn vow never to reveal it to anyone else. Diana
gave me a beautiful card with a wreath of roses on it and a verse of
poetry:"

      "If you love me as I love you
      Nothing but death can part us two."

"And that is true, Marilla. We're going to ask Mr. Phillips to let us
sit together in school again, and Gertie Pye can go with Minnie Andrews.
We had an elegant tea. Mrs. Barry had the very best china set out,
Marilla, just as if I was real company. I can't tell you what a thrill
it gave me. Nobody ever used their very best china on my account before.
And we had fruit cake and pound cake and doughnuts and two kinds of
preserves, Marilla. And Mrs. Barry asked me if I took tea and said 'Pa,
why don't you pass the biscuits to Anne?' It must be lovely to be grown
up, Marilla, when just being treated as if you were is so nice."

"I don't know about that," said Marilla, with a brief sigh.

"Well, anyway, when I am grown up," said Anne decidedly, "I'm always
going to talk to little girls as if they were too, and I'll never laugh
when they use big words. I know from sorrowful experience how that hurts
one's feelings. After tea Diana and I made taffy. The taffy wasn't very
good, I suppose because neither Diana nor I had ever made any before.
Diana left me to stir it while she buttered the plates and I forgot and
let it burn; and then when we set it out on the platform to cool the cat
walked over one plate and that had to be thrown away. But the making of
it was splendid fun. Then when I came home Mrs. Barry asked me to come
over as often as I could and Diana stood at the window and threw kisses
to me all the way down to Lover's Lane. I assure you, Marilla, that I
feel like praying tonight and I'm going to think out a special brand-new
prayer in honor of the occasion."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: In January, the Canadian Premier comes to Charlottetown, a city near Avonlea. Most of the adults in Avonlea--including Marilla, Mrs. Rachel, and Mr. and Mrs. Barry--go to see him speak. Anne and Matthew choose to stay home. They sit by the fire talking about geometry, politics, and courting. Suddenly, Diana bursts in the door and says her little sister Minnie May is very sick. Anne rushes with Diana to the Barry house while Matthew rides their horse to get the doctor. At the Barry house, Anne's skills from caring for babies throughout her childhood prove essential. She determines that Minnie May has croup and orders Diana and Mary Joe, a French girl babysitting the Barry children, to boil water and find ipecac. By the time the doctor arrives at 3 in the morning, she has given Minnie May the entire bottle of ipecac and the baby's illness has begun to improve. The doctor is very impressed and later tells Mr. and Mrs. Barry that Minnie May would have died without Anne's intervention. In the meantime, Anne goes home in the dawn and decides to go to sleep rather than try to stay awake at school all day. She wakes up in the afternoon to find that Marilla has come home. Marilla praises Anne for knowing how to help Minnie May, gives her lunch, and then tells her that Mrs. Barry has come to Green Gables and said that Anne and Diana can be friends again. Anne is so excited that she asks permission to go to Diana's house right away. Anne comes home at night after spending the rest of the day at Diana's house. She tells Marilla that Mrs. Barry apologized and treated Anne to an elegant tea using their best china. Anne says that it must be lovely to be grown up and vows that when she is an adult, she will treat children as if they were adults as well. Anne says that tonight she will say a special prayer


prompt:
Chapter: |MARILLA, can I go over to see Diana just for a minute?" asked Anne,
running breathlessly down from the east gable one February evening.

"I don't see what you want to be traipsing about after dark for," said
Marilla shortly. "You and Diana walked home from school together and
then stood down there in the snow for half an hour more, your tongues
going the whole blessed time, clickety-clack. So I don't think you're
very badly off to see her again."

"But she wants to see me," pleaded Anne. "She has something very
important to tell me."

"How do you know she has?"

"Because she just signaled to me from her window. We have arranged a
way to signal with our candles and cardboard. We set the candle on the
window sill and make flashes by passing the cardboard back and forth. So
many flashes mean a certain thing. It was my idea, Marilla."

"I'll warrant you it was," said Marilla emphatically. "And the next
thing you'll be setting fire to the curtains with your signaling
nonsense."

"Oh, we're very careful, Marilla. And it's so interesting. Two flashes
mean, 'Are you there?' Three mean 'yes' and four 'no.' Five mean, 'Come
over as soon as possible, because I have something important to reveal.'
Diana has just signaled five flashes, and I'm really suffering to know
what it is."

"Well, you needn't suffer any longer," said Marilla sarcastically. "You
can go, but you're to be back here in just ten minutes, remember that."

Anne did remember it and was back in the stipulated time, although
probably no mortal will ever know just what it cost her to confine the
discussion of Diana's important communication within the limits of ten
minutes. But at least she had made good use of them.

"Oh, Marilla, what do you think? You know tomorrow is Diana's birthday.
Well, her mother told her she could ask me to go home with her from
school and stay all night with her. And her cousins are coming over from
Newbridge in a big pung sleigh to go to the Debating Club concert at
the hall tomorrow night. And they are going to take Diana and me to the
concert--if you'll let me go, that is. You will, won't you, Marilla? Oh,
I feel so excited."

"You can calm down then, because you're not going. You're better at home
in your own bed, and as for that club concert, it's all nonsense, and
little girls should not be allowed to go out to such places at all."

"I'm sure the Debating Club is a most respectable affair," pleaded Anne.

"I'm not saying it isn't. But you're not going to begin gadding about
to concerts and staying out all hours of the night. Pretty doings for
children. I'm surprised at Mrs. Barry's letting Diana go."

"But it's such a very special occasion," mourned Anne, on the verge of
tears. "Diana has only one birthday in a year. It isn't as if birthdays
were common things, Marilla. Prissy Andrews is going to recite 'Curfew
Must Not Ring Tonight.' That is such a good moral piece, Marilla, I'm
sure it would do me lots of good to hear it. And the choir are going to
sing four lovely pathetic songs that are pretty near as good as hymns.
And oh, Marilla, the minister is going to take part; yes, indeed, he is;
he's going to give an address. That will be just about the same thing as
a sermon. Please, mayn't I go, Marilla?"

"You heard what I said, Anne, didn't you? Take off your boots now and go
to bed. It's past eight."

"There's just one more thing, Marilla," said Anne, with the air of
producing the last shot in her locker. "Mrs. Barry told Diana that we
might sleep in the spare-room bed. Think of the honor of your little
Anne being put in the spare-room bed."

"It's an honor you'll have to get along without. Go to bed, Anne, and
don't let me hear another word out of you."

When Anne, with tears rolling over her cheeks, had gone sorrowfully
upstairs, Matthew, who had been apparently sound asleep on the lounge
during the whole dialogue, opened his eyes and said decidedly:

"Well now, Marilla, I think you ought to let Anne go."

"I don't then," retorted Marilla. "Who's bringing this child up,
Matthew, you or me?"

"Well now, you," admitted Matthew.

"Don't interfere then."

"Well now, I ain't interfering. It ain't interfering to have your own
opinion. And my opinion is that you ought to let Anne go."

"You'd think I ought to let Anne go to the moon if she took the notion,
I've no doubt" was Marilla's amiable rejoinder. "I might have let her
spend the night with Diana, if that was all. But I don't approve of this
concert plan. She'd go there and catch cold like as not, and have her
head filled up with nonsense and excitement. It would unsettle her for
a week. I understand that child's disposition and what's good for it
better than you, Matthew."

"I think you ought to let Anne go," repeated Matthew firmly. Argument
was not his strong point, but holding fast to his opinion certainly was.
Marilla gave a gasp of helplessness and took refuge in silence. The
next morning, when Anne was washing the breakfast dishes in the pantry,
Matthew paused on his way out to the barn to say to Marilla again:

"I think you ought to let Anne go, Marilla."

For a moment Marilla looked things not lawful to be uttered. Then she
yielded to the inevitable and said tartly:

"Very well, she can go, since nothing else 'll please you."

Anne flew out of the pantry, dripping dishcloth in hand.

"Oh, Marilla, Marilla, say those blessed words again."

"I guess once is enough to say them. This is Matthew's doings and I
wash my hands of it. If you catch pneumonia sleeping in a strange bed or
coming out of that hot hall in the middle of the night, don't blame me,
blame Matthew. Anne Shirley, you're dripping greasy water all over the
floor. I never saw such a careless child."

"Oh, I know I'm a great trial to you, Marilla," said Anne repentantly.
"I make so many mistakes. But then just think of all the mistakes I
don't make, although I might. I'll get some sand and scrub up the spots
before I go to school. Oh, Marilla, my heart was just set on going to
that concert. I never was to a concert in my life, and when the other
girls talk about them in school I feel so out of it. You didn't know
just how I felt about it, but you see Matthew did. Matthew understands
me, and it's so nice to be understood, Marilla."

Anne was too excited to do herself justice as to lessons that morning in
school. Gilbert Blythe spelled her down in class and left her clear out
of sight in mental arithmetic. Anne's consequent humiliation was
less than it might have been, however, in view of the concert and the
spare-room bed. She and Diana talked so constantly about it all day that
with a stricter teacher than Mr. Phillips dire disgrace must inevitably
have been their portion.

Anne felt that she could not have borne it if she had not been going
to the concert, for nothing else was discussed that day in school. The
Avonlea Debating Club, which met fortnightly all winter, had had several
smaller free entertainments; but this was to be a big affair, admission
ten cents, in aid of the library. The Avonlea young people had been
practicing for weeks, and all the scholars were especially interested in
it by reason of older brothers and sisters who were going to take part.
Everybody in school over nine years of age expected to go, except Carrie
Sloane, whose father shared Marilla's opinions about small girls going
out to night concerts. Carrie Sloane cried into her grammar all the
afternoon and felt that life was not worth living.

For Anne the real excitement began with the dismissal of school and
increased therefrom in crescendo until it reached to a crash of positive
ecstasy in the concert itself. They had a "perfectly elegant tea;" and
then came the delicious occupation of dressing in Diana's little room
upstairs. Diana did Anne's front hair in the new pompadour style and
Anne tied Diana's bows with the especial knack she possessed; and they
experimented with at least half a dozen different ways of arranging
their back hair. At last they were ready, cheeks scarlet and eyes
glowing with excitement.

True, Anne could not help a little pang when she contrasted her plain
black tam and shapeless, tight-sleeved, homemade gray-cloth coat with
Diana's jaunty fur cap and smart little jacket. But she remembered in
time that she had an imagination and could use it.

Then Diana's cousins, the Murrays from Newbridge, came; they all crowded
into the big pung sleigh, among straw and furry robes. Anne reveled in
the drive to the hall, slipping along over the satin-smooth roads with
the snow crisping under the runners. There was a magnificent sunset, and
the snowy hills and deep-blue water of the St. Lawrence Gulf seemed to
rim in the splendor like a huge bowl of pearl and sapphire brimmed with
wine and fire. Tinkles of sleigh bells and distant laughter, that seemed
like the mirth of wood elves, came from every quarter.

"Oh, Diana," breathed Anne, squeezing Diana's mittened hand under the
fur robe, "isn't it all like a beautiful dream? Do I really look the
same as usual? I feel so different that it seems to me it must show in
my looks."

"You look awfully nice," said Diana, who having just received a
compliment from one of her cousins, felt that she ought to pass it on.
"You've got the loveliest color."

The program that night was a series of "thrills" for at least one
listener in the audience, and, as Anne assured Diana, every succeeding
thrill was thrillier than the last. When Prissy Andrews, attired in
a new pink-silk waist with a string of pearls about her smooth white
throat and real carnations in her hair--rumor whispered that the master
had sent all the way to town for them for her--"climbed the slimy
ladder, dark without one ray of light," Anne shivered in luxurious
sympathy; when the choir sang "Far Above the Gentle Daisies" Anne gazed
at the ceiling as if it were frescoed with angels; when Sam Sloane
proceeded to explain and illustrate "How Sockery Set a Hen" Anne laughed
until people sitting near her laughed too, more out of sympathy with her
than with amusement at a selection that was rather threadbare even in
Avonlea; and when Mr. Phillips gave Mark Antony's oration over the
dead body of Caesar in the most heart-stirring tones--looking at Prissy
Andrews at the end of every sentence--Anne felt that she could rise and
mutiny on the spot if but one Roman citizen led the way.

Only one number on the program failed to interest her. When Gilbert
Blythe recited "Bingen on the Rhine" Anne picked up Rhoda Murray's
library book and read it until he had finished, when she sat rigidly
stiff and motionless while Diana clapped her hands until they tingled.

It was eleven when they got home, sated with dissipation, but with the
exceeding sweet pleasure of talking it all over still to come. Everybody
seemed asleep and the house was dark and silent. Anne and Diana tiptoed
into the parlor, a long narrow room out of which the spare room opened.
It was pleasantly warm and dimly lighted by the embers of a fire in the
grate.

"Let's undress here," said Diana. "It's so nice and warm."

"Hasn't it been a delightful time?" sighed Anne rapturously. "It must
be splendid to get up and recite there. Do you suppose we will ever be
asked to do it, Diana?"

"Yes, of course, someday. They're always wanting the big scholars to
recite. Gilbert Blythe does often and he's only two years older than us.
Oh, Anne, how could you pretend not to listen to him? When he came to
the line,

           '_There's Another_, not _a sister_,'

he looked right down at you."

"Diana," said Anne with dignity, "you are my bosom friend, but I cannot
allow even you to speak to me of that person. Are you ready for bed?
Let's run a race and see who'll get to the bed first."

The suggestion appealed to Diana. The two little white-clad figures flew
down the long room, through the spare-room door, and bounded on the bed
at the same moment. And then--something--moved beneath them, there was a
gasp and a cry--and somebody said in muffled accents:

"Merciful goodness!"

Anne and Diana were never able to tell just how they got off that bed
and out of the room. They only knew that after one frantic rush they
found themselves tiptoeing shiveringly upstairs.

"Oh, who was it--_what_ was it?" whispered Anne, her teeth chattering with
cold and fright.

"It was Aunt Josephine," said Diana, gasping with laughter. "Oh, Anne,
it was Aunt Josephine, however she came to be there. Oh, and I know she
will be furious. It's dreadful--it's really dreadful--but did you ever
know anything so funny, Anne?"

"Who is your Aunt Josephine?"

"She's father's aunt and she lives in Charlottetown. She's awfully
old--seventy anyhow--and I don't believe she was _ever_ a little girl. We
were expecting her out for a visit, but not so soon. She's awfully prim
and proper and she'll scold dreadfully about this, I know. Well, we'll
have to sleep with Minnie May--and you can't think how she kicks."

Miss Josephine Barry did not appear at the early breakfast the next
morning. Mrs. Barry smiled kindly at the two little girls.

"Did you have a good time last night? I tried to stay awake until you
came home, for I wanted to tell you Aunt Josephine had come and that you
would have to go upstairs after all, but I was so tired I fell asleep. I
hope you didn't disturb your aunt, Diana."

Diana preserved a discreet silence, but she and Anne exchanged furtive
smiles of guilty amusement across the table. Anne hurried home after
breakfast and so remained in blissful ignorance of the disturbance which
presently resulted in the Barry household until the late afternoon, when
she went down to Mrs. Lynde's on an errand for Marilla.

"So you and Diana nearly frightened poor old Miss Barry to death last
night?" said Mrs. Lynde severely, but with a twinkle in her eye. "Mrs.
Barry was here a few minutes ago on her way to Carmody. She's feeling
real worried over it. Old Miss Barry was in a terrible temper when she
got up this morning--and Josephine Barry's temper is no joke, I can tell
you that. She wouldn't speak to Diana at all."

"It wasn't Diana's fault," said Anne contritely. "It was mine. I
suggested racing to see who would get into bed first."

"I knew it!" said Mrs. Lynde, with the exultation of a correct guesser.
"I knew that idea came out of your head. Well, it's made a nice lot of
trouble, that's what. Old Miss Barry came out to stay for a month, but
she declares she won't stay another day and is going right back to town
tomorrow, Sunday and all as it is. She'd have gone today if they could
have taken her. She had promised to pay for a quarter's music lessons
for Diana, but now she is determined to do nothing at all for such a
tomboy. Oh, I guess they had a lively time of it there this morning. The
Barrys must feel cut up. Old Miss Barry is rich and they'd like to keep
on the good side of her. Of course, Mrs. Barry didn't say just that to
me, but I'm a pretty good judge of human nature, that's what."

"I'm such an unlucky girl," mourned Anne. "I'm always getting into
scrapes myself and getting my best friends--people I'd shed my heart's
blood for--into them too. Can you tell me why it is so, Mrs. Lynde?"

"It's because you're too heedless and impulsive, child, that's what. You
never stop to think--whatever comes into your head to say or do you say
or do it without a moment's reflection."

"Oh, but that's the best of it," protested Anne. "Something just flashes
into your mind, so exciting, and you must out with it. If you stop to
think it over you spoil it all. Haven't you never felt that yourself,
Mrs. Lynde?"

No, Mrs. Lynde had not. She shook her head sagely.

"You must learn to think a little, Anne, that's what. The proverb you
need to go by is 'Look before you leap'--especially into spare-room
beds."

Mrs. Lynde laughed comfortably over her mild joke, but Anne remained
pensive. She saw nothing to laugh at in the situation, which to her
eyes appeared very serious. When she left Mrs. Lynde's she took her way
across the crusted fields to Orchard Slope. Diana met her at the kitchen
door.

"Your Aunt Josephine was very cross about it, wasn't she?" whispered
Anne.

"Yes," answered Diana, stifling a giggle with an apprehensive glance
over her shoulder at the closed sitting-room door. "She was fairly
dancing with rage, Anne. Oh, how she scolded. She said I was the
worst-behaved girl she ever saw and that my parents ought to be ashamed
of the way they had brought me up. She says she won't stay and I'm sure
I don't care. But Father and Mother do."

"Why didn't you tell them it was my fault?" demanded Anne.

"It's likely I'd do such a thing, isn't it?" said Diana with just scorn.
"I'm no telltale, Anne Shirley, and anyhow I was just as much to blame
as you."

"Well, I'm going in to tell her myself," said Anne resolutely.

Diana stared.

"Anne Shirley, you'd never! why--she'll eat you alive!"

"Don't frighten me any more than I am frightened," implored Anne. "I'd
rather walk up to a cannon's mouth. But I've got to do it, Diana. It
was my fault and I've got to confess. I've had practice in confessing,
fortunately."

"Well, she's in the room," said Diana. "You can go in if you want to. I
wouldn't dare. And I don't believe you'll do a bit of good."

With this encouragement Anne bearded the lion in its den--that is to
say, walked resolutely up to the sitting-room door and knocked faintly.
A sharp "Come in" followed.

Miss Josephine Barry, thin, prim, and rigid, was knitting fiercely by
the fire, her wrath quite unappeased and her eyes snapping through her
gold-rimmed glasses. She wheeled around in her chair, expecting to see
Diana, and beheld a white-faced girl whose great eyes were brimmed up
with a mixture of desperate courage and shrinking terror.

"Who are you?" demanded Miss Josephine Barry, without ceremony.

"I'm Anne of Green Gables," said the small visitor tremulously, clasping
her hands with her characteristic gesture, "and I've come to confess, if
you please."

"Confess what?"

"That it was all my fault about jumping into bed on you last night. I
suggested it. Diana would never have thought of such a thing, I am sure.
Diana is a very ladylike girl, Miss Barry. So you must see how unjust it
is to blame her."

"Oh, I must, hey? I rather think Diana did her share of the jumping at
least. Such carryings on in a respectable house!"

"But we were only in fun," persisted Anne. "I think you ought to forgive
us, Miss Barry, now that we've apologized. And anyhow, please forgive
Diana and let her have her music lessons. Diana's heart is set on her
music lessons, Miss Barry, and I know too well what it is to set your
heart on a thing and not get it. If you must be cross with anyone, be
cross with me. I've been so used in my early days to having people cross
at me that I can endure it much better than Diana can."

Much of the snap had gone out of the old lady's eyes by this time
and was replaced by a twinkle of amused interest. But she still said
severely:

"I don't think it is any excuse for you that you were only in fun.
Little girls never indulged in that kind of fun when I was young. You
don't know what it is to be awakened out of a sound sleep, after a long
and arduous journey, by two great girls coming bounce down on you."

"I don't _know_, but I can _imagine_," said Anne eagerly. "I'm sure it must
have been very disturbing. But then, there is our side of it too. Have
you any imagination, Miss Barry? If you have, just put yourself in
our place. We didn't know there was anybody in that bed and you nearly
scared us to death. It was simply awful the way we felt. And then we
couldn't sleep in the spare room after being promised. I suppose you are
used to sleeping in spare rooms. But just imagine what you would feel
like if you were a little orphan girl who had never had such an honor."

All the snap had gone by this time. Miss Barry actually laughed--a
sound which caused Diana, waiting in speechless anxiety in the kitchen
outside, to give a great gasp of relief.

"I'm afraid my imagination is a little rusty--it's so long since I used
it," she said. "I dare say your claim to sympathy is just as strong as
mine. It all depends on the way we look at it. Sit down here and tell me
about yourself."

"I am very sorry I can't," said Anne firmly. "I would like to, because
you seem like an interesting lady, and you might even be a kindred
spirit although you don't look very much like it. But it is my duty to
go home to Miss Marilla Cuthbert. Miss Marilla Cuthbert is a very kind
lady who has taken me to bring up properly. She is doing her best, but
it is very discouraging work. You must not blame her because I jumped on
the bed. But before I go I do wish you would tell me if you will forgive
Diana and stay just as long as you meant to in Avonlea."

"I think perhaps I will if you will come over and talk to me
occasionally," said Miss Barry.

That evening Miss Barry gave Diana a silver bangle bracelet and told the
senior members of the household that she had unpacked her valise.

"I've made up my mind to stay simply for the sake of getting better
acquainted with that Anne-girl," she said frankly. "She amuses me, and
at my time of life an amusing person is a rarity."

Marilla's only comment when she heard the story was, "I told you so."
This was for Matthew's benefit.

Miss Barry stayed her month out and over. She was a more agreeable guest
than usual, for Anne kept her in good humor. They became firm friends.

When Miss Barry went away she said:

"Remember, you Anne-girl, when you come to town you're to visit me and
I'll put you in my very sparest spare-room bed to sleep."

"Miss Barry was a kindred spirit, after all," Anne confided to Marilla.
"You wouldn't think so to look at her, but she is. You don't find it
right out at first, as in Matthew's case, but after a while you come
to see it. Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's
splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: One evening, Anne asks Marilla whether she can go to Diana's house. Anne knows that Diana has something to tell her because they have devised a system of signals by placing candles on their window sills. Marilla lets Anne go to Diana's house for ten minutes, and Anne comes back with the news: it is Diana's birthday the next day and she is inviting Anne to come to her house after school, go to a Debating Club concert in the evening, and then sleep over at her house. Marilla tells Anne "no" multiple times, but Matthew comes in and tells Marilla that she should let Anne go. Marilla eventually gives up arguing with Matthew and tells Anne she can go. The next day, Anne is distracted all day at school. All the students talk about the Debating Club concert since many of their older siblings will be participating. After school, Anne goes to Diana's house; they get dressed and do their hair together. They ride in a sleigh along with Diana's cousins to the Debating Club concert. Anne is greatly moved by many of the recitations, except for the one by Gilbert. When they get back to Diana's house, Diana tells Anne that she thinks Gilbert looked at Anne when reciting a romantic section of his recitation, and Anne changes the subject by suggesting they race to the bed in the spare room. They run to the room and jump on the bed at the same time, and they suddenly find that there is someone sleeping in the bed. They frantically jump out of the bed and hurry upstairs to sleep elsewhere. On the way up, Diana tells Anne that the person in the bed must have been her Aunt Josephine. In the morning, Anne goes home before Mrs. Barry finds out about the girls jumping on Aunt Josephine. However, later in the day, Mrs. Rachel Lynde tells Anne that Diana is in trouble; Aunt Josephine will be leaving the next day and won't pay for Diana's music lessons as she had promised. Anne blames herself for the situation and goes over to the Barry house to try to make things right. Diana does not seem upset when Anne arrives, and she tries to convince Anne not to talk to Aunt Josephine. Anne nevertheless explains what happened to Aunt Josephine and asks for forgiveness. Surprisingly, Aunt Josephine is amused by Anne and even laughs at some of the things Anne says. Aunt Josephine asks Anne to tell her more about herself, but Anne says that she has to go home. Aunt Josephine says that she will stay in Avonlea for a month, as planned, so long as Anne will come over and talk to her again. Over the month, Anne does visit Aunt Josephine many more times, and they become friends. When Aunt Josephine goes back home, she tells Anne to come to visit her


prompt:
Chapter: |SPRING had come once more to Green Gables--the beautiful capricious,
reluctant Canadian spring, lingering along through April and May in a
succession of sweet, fresh, chilly days, with pink sunsets and miracles
of resurrection and growth. The maples in Lover's Lane were red budded
and little curly ferns pushed up around the Dryad's Bubble. Away up in
the barrens, behind Mr. Silas Sloane's place, the Mayflowers blossomed
out, pink and white stars of sweetness under their brown leaves. All the
school girls and boys had one golden afternoon gathering them, coming
home in the clear, echoing twilight with arms and baskets full of
flowery spoil.

"I'm so sorry for people who live in lands where there are no
Mayflowers," said Anne. "Diana says perhaps they have something better,
but there couldn't be anything better than Mayflowers, could there,
Marilla? And Diana says if they don't know what they are like they don't
miss them. But I think that is the saddest thing of all. I think it
would be _tragic_, Marilla, not to know what Mayflowers are like and _not_
to miss them. Do you know what I think Mayflowers are, Marilla? I think
they must be the souls of the flowers that died last summer and this
is their heaven. But we had a splendid time today, Marilla. We had our
lunch down in a big mossy hollow by an old well--such a _romantic_ spot.
Charlie Sloane dared Arty Gillis to jump over it, and Arty did because
he wouldn't take a dare. Nobody would in school. It is very _fashionable_
to dare. Mr. Phillips gave all the Mayflowers he found to Prissy Andrews
and I heard him to say 'sweets to the sweet.' He got that out of a
book, I know; but it shows he has some imagination. I was offered some
Mayflowers too, but I rejected them with scorn. I can't tell you the
person's name because I have vowed never to let it cross my lips. We
made wreaths of the Mayflowers and put them on our hats; and when the
time came to go home we marched in procession down the road, two by two,
with our bouquets and wreaths, singing 'My Home on the Hill.' Oh, it was
so thrilling, Marilla. All Mr. Silas Sloane's folks rushed out to see us
and everybody we met on the road stopped and stared after us. We made a
real sensation."

"Not much wonder! Such silly doings!" was Marilla's response.

After the Mayflowers came the violets, and Violet Vale was empurpled
with them. Anne walked through it on her way to school with reverent
steps and worshiping eyes, as if she trod on holy ground.

"Somehow," she told Diana, "when I'm going through here I don't really
care whether Gil--whether anybody gets ahead of me in class or not. But
when I'm up in school it's all different and I care as much as ever.
There's such a lot of different Annes in me. I sometimes think that is
why I'm such a troublesome person. If I was just the one Anne it would
be ever so much more comfortable, but then it wouldn't be half so
interesting."

One June evening, when the orchards were pink blossomed again, when the
frogs were singing silverly sweet in the marshes about the head of the
Lake of Shining Waters, and the air was full of the savor of clover
fields and balsamic fir woods, Anne was sitting by her gable window.
She had been studying her lessons, but it had grown too dark to see the
book, so she had fallen into wide-eyed reverie, looking out past the
boughs of the Snow Queen, once more bestarred with its tufts of blossom.

In all essential respects the little gable chamber was unchanged. The
walls were as white, the pincushion as hard, the chairs as stiffly
and yellowly upright as ever. Yet the whole character of the room was
altered. It was full of a new vital, pulsing personality that seemed to
pervade it and to be quite independent of schoolgirl books and dresses
and ribbons, and even of the cracked blue jug full of apple blossoms
on the table. It was as if all the dreams, sleeping and waking, of its
vivid occupant had taken a visible although unmaterial form and had
tapestried the bare room with splendid filmy tissues of rainbow and
moonshine. Presently Marilla came briskly in with some of Anne's freshly
ironed school aprons. She hung them over a chair and sat down with
a short sigh. She had had one of her headaches that afternoon, and
although the pain had gone she felt weak and "tuckered out," as she
expressed it. Anne looked at her with eyes limpid with sympathy.

"I do truly wish I could have had the headache in your place, Marilla. I
would have endured it joyfully for your sake."

"I guess you did your part in attending to the work and letting me
rest," said Marilla. "You seem to have got on fairly well and made fewer
mistakes than usual. Of course it wasn't exactly necessary to starch
Matthew's handkerchiefs! And most people when they put a pie in the oven
to warm up for dinner take it out and eat it when it gets hot instead of
leaving it to be burned to a crisp. But that doesn't seem to be your way
evidently."

Headaches always left Marilla somewhat sarcastic.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," said Anne penitently. "I never thought about that
pie from the moment I put it in the oven till now, although I felt
_instinctively_ that there was something missing on the dinner table. I
was firmly resolved, when you left me in charge this morning, not to
imagine anything, but keep my thoughts on facts. I did pretty well until
I put the pie in, and then an irresistible temptation came to me to
imagine I was an enchanted princess shut up in a lonely tower with a
handsome knight riding to my rescue on a coal-black steed. So that
is how I came to forget the pie. I didn't know I starched the
handkerchiefs. All the time I was ironing I was trying to think of a
name for a new island Diana and I have discovered up the brook. It's the
most ravishing spot, Marilla. There are two maple trees on it and the
brook flows right around it. At last it struck me that it would be
splendid to call it Victoria Island because we found it on the Queen's
birthday. Both Diana and I are very loyal. But I'm sorry about that pie
and the handkerchiefs. I wanted to be extra good today because it's an
anniversary. Do you remember what happened this day last year, Marilla?"

"No, I can't think of anything special."

"Oh, Marilla, it was the day I came to Green Gables. I shall never
forget it. It was the turning point in my life. Of course it wouldn't
seem so important to you. I've been here for a year and I've been so
happy. Of course, I've had my troubles, but one can live down troubles.
Are you sorry you kept me, Marilla?"

"No, I can't say I'm sorry," said Marilla, who sometimes wondered how
she could have lived before Anne came to Green Gables, "no, not exactly
sorry. If you've finished your lessons, Anne, I want you to run over and
ask Mrs. Barry if she'll lend me Diana's apron pattern."

"Oh--it's--it's too dark," cried Anne.

"Too dark? Why, it's only twilight. And goodness knows you've gone over
often enough after dark."

"I'll go over early in the morning," said Anne eagerly. "I'll get up at
sunrise and go over, Marilla."

"What has got into your head now, Anne Shirley? I want that pattern to
cut out your new apron this evening. Go at once and be smart too."

"I'll have to go around by the road, then," said Anne, taking up her hat
reluctantly.

"Go by the road and waste half an hour! I'd like to catch you!"

"I can't go through the Haunted Wood, Marilla," cried Anne desperately.

Marilla stared.

"The Haunted Wood! Are you crazy? What under the canopy is the Haunted
Wood?"

"The spruce wood over the brook," said Anne in a whisper.

"Fiddlesticks! There is no such thing as a haunted wood anywhere. Who
has been telling you such stuff?"

"Nobody," confessed Anne. "Diana and I just imagined the wood was
haunted. All the places around here are so--so--_commonplace_. We just got
this up for our own amusement. We began it in April. A haunted wood is
so very romantic, Marilla. We chose the spruce grove because it's so
gloomy. Oh, we have imagined the most harrowing things. There's a white
lady walks along the brook just about this time of the night and wrings
her hands and utters wailing cries. She appears when there is to be a
death in the family. And the ghost of a little murdered child haunts the
corner up by Idlewild; it creeps up behind you and lays its cold fingers
on your hand--so. Oh, Marilla, it gives me a shudder to think of it. And
there's a headless man stalks up and down the path and skeletons glower
at you between the boughs. Oh, Marilla, I wouldn't go through the
Haunted Wood after dark now for anything. I'd be sure that white things
would reach out from behind the trees and grab me."

"Did ever anyone hear the like!" ejaculated Marilla, who had
listened in dumb amazement. "Anne Shirley, do you mean to tell me you
believe all that wicked nonsense of your own imagination?"

"Not believe _exactly_," faltered Anne. "At least, I don't believe it in
daylight. But after dark, Marilla, it's different. That is when ghosts
walk."

"There are no such things as ghosts, Anne."

"Oh, but there are, Marilla," cried Anne eagerly. "I know people who
have seen them. And they are respectable people. Charlie Sloane says
that his grandmother saw his grandfather driving home the cows one night
after he'd been buried for a year. You know Charlie Sloane's grandmother
wouldn't tell a story for anything. She's a very religious woman. And
Mrs. Thomas's father was pursued home one night by a lamb of fire with
its head cut off hanging by a strip of skin. He said he knew it was the
spirit of his brother and that it was a warning he would die within nine
days. He didn't, but he died two years after, so you see it was really
true. 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
won'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 of the grove made her heart stand still. The long-drawn
wail of two old boughs rubbing against each other brought out the
perspiration in beads on her forehead. The swoop of bats in the darkness
over her was as the wings of unearthly creatures. When she reached Mr.
William Bell's field she fled across it as if pursued by an army of
white things, and arrived at the Barry kitchen door so out of breath
that she could hardly gasp out her request for the apron pattern.
Diana was away so that she had no excuse to linger. The dreadful
return journey had to be faced. Anne went back over it with shut eyes,
preferring to take the risk of dashing her brains out among the boughs
to that of seeing a white thing. When she finally stumbled over the log
bridge she drew one long shivering breath of relief.

"Well, so nothing caught you?" said Marilla unsympathetically.

"Oh, Mar--Marilla," chattered Anne, "I'll b-b-be contt-tented with
c-c-commonplace places after this."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Spring begins and Anne is entranced by the beautiful flowers blooming in Avonlea. Soon, it is June, and Anne asks Marilla one night if she knows what it is the anniversary of. Marilla doesn't remember, so Anne tells her: it has been one year since Anne came to Green Gables. Marilla does not make a big fuss over this, but the narratpr notes that Marilla "sometimes wondered how she could have lived before Anne came". Marilla sends Anne to ask Mrs. Barry for a sewing pattern, and Anne says she doesn't want to because it is too dark and she is afraid to go through a wood which she has named the Haunted Wood. Anne has made up elaborate fantasies about the Haunted Wood that do not scare her during the day but make her to afraid to go into it at night. Marilla forces Anne to walk through the wood anyway. Anne fears the entire way to the Barry house that she will be grabbed by a goblin. On the way back from the Barry house, Anne keeps her eyes closed while she walks. When Anne returns, she says to Marilla that she won't imagine so much anymore


prompt:
Chapter: |DEAR ME, there is nothing but meetings and partings in this world, as
Mrs. Lynde says," remarked Anne plaintively, putting her slate and books
down on the kitchen table on the last day of June and wiping her red
eyes with a very damp handkerchief. "Wasn't it fortunate, Marilla, that
I took an extra handkerchief to school today? I had a presentiment that
it would be needed."

"I never thought you were so fond of Mr. Phillips that you'd require two
handkerchiefs to dry your tears just because he was going away," said
Marilla.

"I don't think I was crying because I was really so very fond of him,"
reflected Anne. "I just cried because all the others did. It was
Ruby Gillis started it. Ruby Gillis has always declared she hated Mr.
Phillips, but just as soon as he got up to make his farewell speech she
burst into tears. Then all the girls began to cry, one after the other.
I tried to hold out, Marilla. I tried to remember the time Mr. Phillips
made me sit with Gil--with a boy; and the time he spelled my name
without an 'e' on the blackboard; and how he said I was the worst dunce
he ever saw at geometry and laughed at my spelling; and all the times he
had been so horrid and sarcastic; but somehow I couldn't, Marilla, and I
just had to cry too. Jane Andrews has been talking for a month about how
glad she'd be when Mr. Phillips went away and she declared she'd never
shed a tear. Well, she was worse than any of us and had to borrow a
handkerchief from her brother--of course the boys didn't cry--because
she hadn't brought one of her own, not expecting to need it. Oh,
Marilla, it was heartrending. Mr. Phillips made such a beautiful
farewell speech beginning, 'The time has come for us to part.' It was
very affecting. And he had tears in his eyes too, Marilla. Oh, I felt
dreadfully sorry and remorseful for all the times I'd talked in school
and drawn pictures of him on my slate and made fun of him and Prissy.
I can tell you I wished I'd been a model pupil like Minnie Andrews. She
hadn't anything on her conscience. The girls cried all the way home from
school. Carrie Sloane kept saying every few minutes, 'The time has come
for us to part,' and that would start us off again whenever we were in
any danger of cheering up. I do feel dreadfully sad, Marilla. But one
can't feel quite in the depths of despair with two months' vacation
before them, can they, Marilla? And besides, we met the new minister and
his wife coming from the station. For all I was feeling so bad about Mr.
Phillips going away I couldn't help taking a little interest in a new
minister, could I? His wife is very pretty. Not exactly regally lovely,
of course--it wouldn't do, I suppose, for a minister to have a regally
lovely wife, because it might set a bad example. Mrs. Lynde says the
minister's wife over at Newbridge sets a very bad example because she
dresses so fashionably. Our new minister's wife was dressed in blue
muslin with lovely puffed sleeves and a hat trimmed with roses.
Jane Andrews said she thought puffed sleeves were too worldly for
a minister's wife, but I didn't make any such uncharitable remark,
Marilla, because I know what it is to long for puffed sleeves. Besides,
she's only been a minister's wife for a little while, so one should
make allowances, shouldn't they? They are going to board with Mrs. Lynde
until the manse is ready."

If Marilla, in going down to Mrs. Lynde's that evening, was actuated by
any motive save her avowed one of returning the quilting frames she had
borrowed the preceding winter, it was an amiable weakness shared by most
of the Avonlea people. Many a thing Mrs. Lynde had lent, sometimes
never expecting to see it again, came home that night in charge of the
borrowers thereof. A new minister, and moreover a minister with a wife,
was a lawful object of curiosity in a quiet little country settlement
where sensations were few and far between.

Old Mr. Bentley, the minister whom Anne had found lacking in
imagination, had been pastor of Avonlea for eighteen years. He was a
widower when he came, and a widower he remained, despite the fact that
gossip regularly married him to this, that, or the other one, every year
of his sojourn. In the preceding February he had resigned his charge and
departed amid the regrets of his people, most of whom had the affection
born of long intercourse for their good old minister in spite of his
shortcomings as an orator. Since then the Avonlea church had enjoyed a
variety of religious dissipation in listening to the many and various
candidates and "supplies" who came Sunday after Sunday to preach on
trial. These stood or fell by the judgment of the fathers and mothers
in Israel; but a certain small, red-haired girl who sat meekly in the
corner of the old Cuthbert pew also had her opinions about them and
discussed the same in full with Matthew, Marilla always declining from
principle to criticize ministers in any shape or form.

"I don't think Mr. Smith would have done, Matthew" was Anne's final
summing up. "Mrs. Lynde says his delivery was so poor, but I think his
worst fault was just like Mr. Bentley's--he had no imagination. And Mr.
Terry had too much; he let it run away with him just as I did mine in
the matter of the Haunted Wood. Besides, Mrs. Lynde says his theology
wasn't sound. Mr. Gresham was a very good man and a very religious man,
but he told too many funny stories and made the people laugh in church;
he was undignified, and you must have some dignity about a minister,
mustn't you, Matthew? I thought Mr. Marshall was decidedly attractive;
but Mrs. Lynde says he isn't married, or even engaged, because she made
special inquiries about him, and she says it would never do to have
a young unmarried minister in Avonlea, because he might marry in the
congregation and that would make trouble. Mrs. Lynde is a very farseeing
woman, isn't she, Matthew? I'm very glad they've called Mr. Allan. I
liked him because his sermon was interesting and he prayed as if he
meant it and not just as if he did it because he was in the habit of it.
Mrs. Lynde says he isn't perfect, but she says she supposes we couldn't
expect a perfect minister for seven hundred and fifty dollars a year,
and anyhow his theology is sound because she questioned him thoroughly
on all the points of doctrine. And she knows his wife's people and they
are most respectable and the women are all good housekeepers. Mrs. Lynde
says that sound doctrine in the man and good housekeeping in the woman
make an ideal combination for a minister's family."

The new minister and his wife were a young, pleasant-faced couple, still
on their honeymoon, and full of all good and beautiful enthusiasms for
their chosen lifework. Avonlea opened its heart to them from the start.
Old and young liked the frank, cheerful young man with his high ideals,
and the bright, gentle little lady who assumed the mistress-ship of the
manse. With Mrs. Allan Anne fell promptly and wholeheartedly in love.
She had discovered another kindred spirit.

"Mrs. Allan is perfectly lovely," she announced one Sunday afternoon.
"She's taken our class and she's a splendid teacher. She said right away
she didn't think it was fair for the teacher to ask all the questions,
and you know, Marilla, that is exactly what I've always thought. She
said we could ask her any question we liked and I asked ever so many.
I'm good at asking questions, Marilla."

"I believe you" was Marilla's emphatic comment.

"Nobody else asked any except Ruby Gillis, and she asked if there was
to be a Sunday-school picnic this summer. I didn't think that was a
very proper question to ask because it hadn't any connection with the
lesson--the lesson was about Daniel in the lions' den--but Mrs. Allan
just smiled and said she thought there would be. Mrs. Allan has a
lovely smile; she has such _exquisite_ dimples in her cheeks. I wish I had
dimples in my cheeks, Marilla. I'm not half so skinny as I was when I
came here, but I have no dimples yet. If I had perhaps I could influence
people for good. Mrs. Allan said we ought always to try to influence
other people for good. She talked so nice about everything. I never knew
before that religion was such a cheerful thing. I always thought it
was kind of melancholy, but Mrs. Allan's isn't, and I'd like to be a
Christian if I could be one like her. I wouldn't want to be one like Mr.
Superintendent Bell."

"It's very naughty of you to speak so about Mr. Bell," said Marilla
severely. "Mr. Bell is a real good man."

"Oh, of course he's good," agreed Anne, "but he doesn't seem to get any
comfort out of it. If I could be good I'd dance and sing all day because
I was glad of it. I suppose Mrs. Allan is too old to dance and sing and
of course it wouldn't be dignified in a minister's wife. But I can just
feel she's glad she's a Christian and that she'd be one even if she
could get to heaven without it."

"I suppose we must have Mr. and Mrs. Allan up to tea someday soon," said
Marilla reflectively. "They've been most everywhere but here. Let me
see. Next Wednesday would be a good time to have them. But don't say a
word to Matthew about it, for if he knew they were coming he'd find some
excuse to be away that day. He'd got so used to Mr. Bentley he didn't
mind him, but he's going to find it hard to get acquainted with a new
minister, and a new minister's wife will frighten him to death."

"I'll be as secret as the dead," assured Anne. "But oh, Marilla, will
you let me make a cake for the occasion? I'd love to do something for
Mrs. Allan, and you know I can make a pretty good cake by this time."

"You can make a layer cake," promised Marilla.

Monday and Tuesday great preparations went on at Green Gables.
Having the minister and his wife to tea was a serious and important
undertaking, and Marilla was determined not to be eclipsed by any of
the Avonlea housekeepers. Anne was wild with excitement and delight. She
talked it all over with Diana Tuesday night in the twilight, as they
sat on the big red stones by the Dryad's Bubble and made rainbows in the
water with little twigs dipped in fir balsam.

"Everything is ready, Diana, except my cake which I'm to make in the
morning, and the baking-powder biscuits which Marilla will make just
before teatime. I assure you, Diana, that Marilla and I have had a busy
two days of it. It's such a responsibility having a minister's family to
tea. I never went through such an experience before. You should just see
our pantry. It's a sight to behold. We're going to have jellied chicken
and cold tongue. We're to have two kinds of jelly, red and yellow, and
whipped cream and lemon pie, and cherry pie, and three kinds of cookies,
and fruit cake, and Marilla's famous yellow plum preserves that she
keeps especially for ministers, and pound cake and layer cake, and
biscuits as aforesaid; and new bread and old both, in case the minister
is dyspeptic and can't eat new. Mrs. Lynde says ministers are dyspeptic,
but I don't think Mr. Allan has been a minister long enough for it to
have had a bad effect on him. I just grow cold when I think of my layer
cake. Oh, Diana, what if it shouldn't be good! I dreamed last night that
I was chased all around by a fearful goblin with a big layer cake for a
head."

"It'll be good, all right," assured Diana, who was a very comfortable
sort of friend. "I'm sure that piece of the one you made that we had for
lunch in Idlewild two weeks ago was perfectly elegant."

"Yes; but cakes have such a terrible habit of turning out bad just
when you especially want them to be good," sighed Anne, setting a
particularly well-balsamed twig afloat. "However, I suppose I shall
just have to trust to Providence and be careful to put in the flour. Oh,
look, Diana, what a lovely rainbow! Do you suppose the dryad will come
out after we go away and take it for a scarf?"

"You know there is no such thing as a dryad," said Diana. Diana's mother
had found out about the Haunted Wood and had been decidedly angry over
it. As a result Diana had abstained from any further imitative flights
of imagination and did not think it prudent to cultivate a spirit of
belief even in harmless dryads.

"But it's so easy to imagine there is," said Anne. "Every night before
I go to bed, I look out of my window and wonder if the dryad is really
sitting here, combing her locks with the spring for a mirror. Sometimes
I look for her footprints in the dew in the morning. Oh, Diana, don't
give up your faith in the dryad!"

Wednesday morning came. Anne got up at sunrise because she was too
excited to sleep. She had caught a severe cold in the head by reason of
her dabbling in the spring on the preceding evening; but nothing short
of absolute pneumonia could have quenched her interest in culinary
matters that morning. After breakfast she proceeded to make her cake.
When she finally shut the oven door upon it she drew a long breath.

"I'm sure I haven't forgotten anything this time, Marilla. But do you
think it will rise? Just suppose perhaps the baking powder isn't good? I
used it out of the new can. And Mrs. Lynde says you can never be sure of
getting good baking powder nowadays when everything is so adulterated.
Mrs. Lynde says the Government ought to take the matter up, but she says
we'll never see the day when a Tory Government will do it. Marilla, what
if that cake doesn't rise?"

"We'll have plenty without it" was Marilla's unimpassioned way of
looking at the subject.

The cake did rise, however, and came out of the oven as light and
feathery as golden foam. Anne, flushed with delight, clapped it together
with layers of ruby jelly and, in imagination, saw Mrs. Allan eating it
and possibly asking for another piece!

"You'll be using the best tea set, of course, Marilla," she said. "Can I
fix the table with ferns and wild roses?"

"I think that's all nonsense," sniffed Marilla. "In my opinion it's the
eatables that matter and not flummery decorations."

"Mrs. Barry had _her_ table decorated," said Anne, who was not entirely
guiltless of the wisdom of the serpent, "and the minister paid her an
elegant compliment. He said it was a feast for the eye as well as the
palate."

"Well, do as you like," said Marilla, who was quite determined not to
be surpassed by Mrs. Barry or anybody else. "Only mind you leave enough
room for the dishes and the food."

Anne laid herself out to decorate in a manner and after a fashion that
should leave Mrs. Barry's nowhere. Having abundance of roses and ferns
and a very artistic taste of her own, she made that tea table such a
thing of beauty that when the minister and his wife sat down to it they
exclaimed in chorus over it loveliness.

"It's Anne's doings," said Marilla, grimly just; and Anne felt that Mrs.
Allan's approving smile was almost too much happiness for this world.

Matthew was there, having been inveigled into the party only goodness
and Anne knew how. He had been in such a state of shyness and
nervousness that Marilla had given him up in despair, but Anne took him
in hand so successfully that he now sat at the table in his best clothes
and white collar and talked to the minister not uninterestingly.
He never said a word to Mrs. Allan, but that perhaps was not to be
expected.

All went merry as a marriage bell until Anne's layer cake was passed.
Mrs. Allan, having already been helped to a bewildering variety,
declined it. But Marilla, seeing the disappointment on Anne's face, said
smilingly:

"Oh, you must take a piece of this, Mrs. Allan. Anne made it on purpose
for you."

"In that case I must sample it," laughed Mrs. Allan, helping herself to
a plump triangle, as did also the minister and Marilla.

Mrs. Allan took a mouthful of hers and a most peculiar expression
crossed her face; not a word did she say, however, but steadily ate away
at it. Marilla saw the expression and hastened to taste the cake.

"Anne Shirley!" she exclaimed, "what on earth did you put into that
cake?"

"Nothing but what the recipe said, Marilla," cried Anne with a look of
anguish. "Oh, isn't it all right?"

"All right! It's simply horrible. Mr. Allan, don't try to eat it. Anne,
taste it yourself. What flavoring did you use?"

"Vanilla," said Anne, her face scarlet with mortification after tasting
the cake. "Only vanilla. Oh, Marilla, it must have been the baking
powder. I had my suspicions of that bak--"

"Baking powder fiddlesticks! Go and bring me the bottle of vanilla you
used."

Anne fled to the pantry and returned with a small bottle partially
filled with a brown liquid and labeled yellowly, "Best Vanilla."

Marilla took it, uncorked it, smelled it.

"Mercy on us, Anne, you've flavored that cake with _Anodyne Liniment_. I
broke the liniment bottle last week and poured what was left into an
old empty vanilla bottle. I suppose it's partly my fault--I should have
warned you--but for pity's sake why couldn't you have smelled it?"

Anne dissolved into tears under this double disgrace.

"I couldn't--I had such a cold!" and with this she fairly fled to the
gable chamber, where she cast herself on the bed and wept as one who
refuses to be comforted.

Presently a light step sounded on the stairs and somebody entered the
room.

"Oh, Marilla," sobbed Anne, without looking up, "I'm disgraced forever.
I shall never be able to live this down. It will get out--things always
do get out in Avonlea. Diana will ask me how my cake turned out and I
shall have to tell her the truth. I shall always be pointed at as the
girl who flavored a cake with anodyne liniment. Gil--the boys in school
will never get over laughing at it. Oh, Marilla, if you have a spark
of Christian pity don't tell me that I must go down and wash the dishes
after this. I'll wash them when the minister and his wife are gone, but
I cannot ever look Mrs. Allan in the face again. Perhaps she'll think I
tried to poison her. Mrs. Lynde says she knows an orphan girl who tried
to poison her benefactor. But the liniment isn't poisonous. It's meant
to be taken internally--although not in cakes. Won't you tell Mrs. Allan
so, Marilla?"

"Suppose you jump up and tell her so yourself," said a merry voice.

Anne flew up, to find Mrs. Allan standing by her bed, surveying her with
laughing eyes.

"My dear little girl, you mustn't cry like this," she said, genuinely
disturbed by Anne's tragic face. "Why, it's all just a funny mistake
that anybody might make."

"Oh, no, it takes me to make such a mistake," said Anne forlornly. "And
I wanted to have that cake so nice for you, Mrs. Allan."

"Yes, I know, dear. And I assure you I appreciate your kindness and
thoughtfulness just as much as if it had turned out all right. Now,
you mustn't cry any more, but come down with me and show me your flower
garden. Miss Cuthbert tells me you have a little plot all your own. I
want to see it, for I'm very much interested in flowers."

Anne permitted herself to be led down and comforted, reflecting that it
was really providential that Mrs. Allan was a kindred spirit. Nothing
more was said about the liniment cake, and when the guests went away
Anne found that she had enjoyed the evening more than could have been
expected, considering that terrible incident. Nevertheless, she sighed
deeply.

"Marilla, isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no
mistakes in it yet?"

"I'll warrant you'll make plenty in it," said Marilla. "I never saw your
beat for making mistakes, Anne."

"Yes, and well I know it," admitted Anne mournfully. "But have you ever
noticed one encouraging thing about me, Marilla? I never make the same
mistake twice."

"I don't know as that's much benefit when you're always making new
ones."

"Oh, don't you see, Marilla? There must be a limit to the mistakes one
person can make, and when I get to the end of them, then I'll be through
with them. That's a very comforting thought."

"Well, you'd better go and give that cake to the pigs," said Marilla.
"It isn't fit for any human to eat, not even Jerry Boute."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The school year ends; Anne and many of her classmates weep to see their teacher leave, even though they didn't like him very much. However, Anne says that she isn't too sad because now she has two months of summer vacation--and she got to see the new, young minister of Avonlea and his pretty wife. Many candidates for the minister of Avonlea had come to preach throughout the spring, and eventually, the new minister, Mr. Allan, was chosen by the congregation. Anne is smitten with Mrs. Allan as soon as she takes over her Sunday School class, particularly because Mrs. Allan said that the students could ask her as many questions as they wanted. Marilla tells Anne that they can have Mr. and Mrs. Allen over for tea soon, and she tells Anne that she can make a cake for the occasion. Marilla and Anne are busy making a wide variety of pastries and other delicacies for the day the Allans come over. Finally, the day arrives, and Anne wakes up early to make her cake. She has a cold, but she is still very invested in making the cake as good as possible. When the Allans are over, everything goes well until it comes time for Anne's cake. Mrs. Allan declines to try it at first because she has eaten many other things, but she agrees to have a big slice when she finds out that Anne made it especially for her. When she takes a bite, it is clear that something is wrong with the cake, but she keeps eating it anyway. Marilla takes a bite and immediately asks Anne in shock what she put in the cake. It turns out that Anne added anodyne liniment because it was in a bottle labeled "Best Vanilla". Anne couldn't smell the difference due to her stuffed nose. Anne weeps, thinking about how kids at school will make fun of her. Mrs. Allan comforts her, saying that it was a little mistake and that she still appreciates Anne's thoughtfulness. Mrs. Allan asks to see Anne's garden. After the Allans have left, Anne tells Marilla that a good thing about her is that she never makes the same mistake twice


prompt:
Chapter: |AND what are your eyes popping out of your head about. Now?" asked
Marilla, when Anne had just come in from a run to the post office. "Have
you discovered another kindred spirit?" Excitement hung around Anne like
a garment, shone in her eyes, kindled in every feature. She had come
dancing up the lane, like a wind-blown sprite, through the mellow
sunshine and lazy shadows of the August evening.

"No, Marilla, but oh, what do you think? I am invited to tea at the
manse tomorrow afternoon! Mrs. Allan left the letter for me at the post
office. Just look at it, Marilla. 'Miss Anne Shirley, Green Gables.'
That is the first time I was ever called 'Miss.' Such a thrill as it
gave me! I shall cherish it forever among my choicest treasures."

"Mrs. Allan told me she meant to have all the members of her
Sunday-school class to tea in turn," said Marilla, regarding the
wonderful event very coolly. "You needn't get in such a fever over it.
Do learn to take things calmly, child."

For Anne to take things calmly would have been to change her nature. All
"spirit and fire and dew," as she was, the pleasures and pains of life
came to her with trebled intensity. Marilla felt this and was vaguely
troubled over it, realizing that the ups and downs of existence would
probably bear hardly on this impulsive soul and not sufficiently
understanding that the equally great capacity for delight might more
than compensate. Therefore Marilla conceived it to be her duty to drill
Anne into a tranquil uniformity of disposition as impossible and alien
to her as to a dancing sunbeam in one of the brook shallows. She did not
make much headway, as she sorrowfully admitted to herself. The downfall
of some dear hope or plan plunged Anne into "deeps of affliction." The
fulfillment thereof exalted her to dizzy realms of delight. Marilla had
almost begun to despair of ever fashioning this waif of the world into
her model little girl of demure manners and prim deportment. Neither
would she have believed that she really liked Anne much better as she
was.

Anne went to bed that night speechless with misery because Matthew had
said the wind was round northeast and he feared it would be a rainy day
tomorrow. The rustle of the poplar leaves about the house worried her,
it sounded so like pattering raindrops, and the full, faraway roar of
the gulf, to which she listened delightedly at other times, loving its
strange, sonorous, haunting rhythm, now seemed like a prophecy of storm
and disaster to a small maiden who particularly wanted a fine day. Anne
thought that the morning would never come.

But all things have an end, even nights before the day on which you are
invited to take tea at the manse. The morning, in spite of Matthew's
predictions, was fine and Anne's spirits soared to their highest.
"Oh, Marilla, there is something in me today that makes me just love
everybody I see," she exclaimed as she washed the breakfast dishes.
"You don't know how good I feel! Wouldn't it be nice if it could last? I
believe I could be a model child if I were just invited out to tea every
day. But oh, Marilla, it's a solemn occasion too. I feel so anxious.
What if I shouldn't behave properly? You know I never had tea at a
manse before, and I'm not sure that I know all the rules of etiquette,
although I've been studying the rules given in the Etiquette Department
of the Family Herald ever since I came here. I'm so afraid I'll do
something silly or forget to do something I should do. Would it be
good manners to take a second helping of anything if you wanted to _very_
much?"

"The trouble with you, Anne, is that you're thinking too much about
yourself. You should just think of Mrs. Allan and what would be nicest
and most agreeable to her," said Marilla, hitting for once in her life
on a very sound and pithy piece of advice. Anne instantly realized this.

"You are right, Marilla. I'll try not to think about myself at all."

Anne evidently got through her visit without any serious breach of
"etiquette," for she came home through the twilight, under a great,
high-sprung sky gloried over with trails of saffron and rosy cloud, in
a beatified state of mind and told Marilla all about it happily, sitting
on the big red-sandstone slab at the kitchen door with her tired curly
head in Marilla's gingham lap.

A cool wind was blowing down over the long harvest fields from the rims
of firry western hills and whistling through the poplars. One clear star
hung over the orchard and the fireflies were flitting over in Lover's
Lane, in and out among the ferns and rustling boughs. Anne watched them
as she talked and somehow felt that wind and stars and fireflies were
all tangled up together into something unutterably sweet and enchanting.

"Oh, Marilla, I've had a most _fascinating_ time. I feel that I have not
lived in vain and I shall always feel like that even if I should never
be invited to tea at a manse again. When I got there Mrs. Allan met me
at the door. She was dressed in the sweetest dress of pale-pink organdy,
with dozens of frills and elbow sleeves, and she looked just like a
seraph. I really think I'd like to be a minister's wife when I grow up,
Marilla. A minister mightn't mind my red hair because he wouldn't be
thinking of such worldly things. But then of course one would have to
be naturally good and I'll never be that, so I suppose there's no use in
thinking about it. Some people are naturally good, you know, and others
are not. I'm one of the others. Mrs. Lynde says I'm full of original
sin. No matter how hard I try to be good I can never make such a success
of it as those who are naturally good. It's a good deal like geometry,
I expect. But don't you think the trying so hard ought to count for
something? Mrs. Allan is one of the naturally good people. I love her
passionately. You know there are some people, like Matthew and Mrs.
Allan that you can love right off without any trouble. And there are
others, like Mrs. Lynde, that you have to try very hard to love. You
know you _ought_ to love them because they know so much and are such
active workers in the church, but you have to keep reminding yourself of
it all the time or else you forget. There was another little girl at the
manse to tea, from the White Sands Sunday school. Her name was Laurette
Bradley, and she was a very nice little girl. Not exactly a kindred
spirit, you know, but still very nice. We had an elegant tea, and I
think I kept all the rules of etiquette pretty well. After tea Mrs.
Allan played and sang and she got Lauretta and me to sing too.
Mrs. Allan says I have a good voice and she says I must sing in the
Sunday-school choir after this. You can't think how I was thrilled at
the mere thought. I've longed so to sing in the Sunday-school choir,
as Diana does, but I feared it was an honor I could never aspire to.
Lauretta had to go home early because there is a big concert in the
White Sands Hotel tonight and her sister is to recite at it. Lauretta
says that the Americans at the hotel give a concert every fortnight in
aid of the Charlottetown hospital, and they ask lots of the White
Sands people to recite. Lauretta said she expected to be asked herself
someday. I just gazed at her in awe. After she had gone Mrs. Allan and I
had a heart-to-heart talk. I told her everything--about Mrs. Thomas and
the twins and Katie Maurice and Violetta and coming to Green Gables and
my troubles over geometry. And would you believe it, Marilla? Mrs.
Allan told me she was a dunce at geometry too. You don't know how that
encouraged me. Mrs. Lynde came to the manse just before I left, and what
do you think, Marilla? The trustees have hired a new teacher and it's
a lady. Her name is Miss Muriel Stacy. Isn't that a romantic name? Mrs.
Lynde says they've never had a female teacher in Avonlea before and she
thinks it is a dangerous innovation. But I think it will be splendid
to have a lady teacher, and I really don't see how I'm going to live
through the two weeks before school begins. I'm so impatient to see
her."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: One day over the summer, Anne is very excited to find that Mrs. Allan has sent her an invitation to come over for tea. Marilla worries that Anne's emotions are too strong--both the positive and negative emotions. Anne is anxious that it might rain the next day and she won't be able to go to tea, but the weather is fine in the morning and she goes to the Allans' house after breakfast. Anne returns and tells Marilla all about her time at tea with Mrs. Allan and another little girl named Lauretta. They had tea together and then sang together, leading Mrs. Allan to invite Anne to sing in the church choir. Lauretta left early, so Anne got to have a "heart-to-heart talk" with Mrs. Allan, and she told her all about her difficult childhood, her life at Green Gables, and her struggles in school. At the end of tea, Mrs. Rachel Lynde came by and said that the Avonlea school has hired a new teacher named Miss Stacy