prompt:
Chapter: |ANNE was bringing the cows home from the back pasture by way of Lover's
Lane. It was a September evening and all the gaps and clearings in the
woods were brimmed up with ruby sunset light. Here and there the lane
was splashed with it, but for the most part it was already quite shadowy
beneath the maples, and the spaces under the firs were filled with a
clear violet dusk like airy wine. The winds were out in their tops, and
there is no sweeter music on earth than that which the wind makes in the
fir trees at evening.

The cows swung placidly down the lane, and Anne followed them dreamily,
repeating aloud the battle canto from _Marmion_--which had also been part
of their English course the preceding winter and which Miss Stacy had
made them learn off by heart--and exulting in its rushing lines and the
clash of spears in its imagery. When she came to the lines

       The stubborn spearsmen still made good
       Their dark impenetrable wood,

she stopped in ecstasy to shut her eyes that she might the better fancy
herself one of that heroic ring. When she opened them again it was to
behold Diana coming through the gate that led into the Barry field and
looking so important that Anne instantly divined there was news to be
told. But betray too eager curiosity she would not.

"Isn't this evening just like a purple dream, Diana? It makes me so glad
to be alive. In the mornings I always think the mornings are best; but
when evening comes I think it's lovelier still."

"It's a very fine evening," said Diana, "but oh, I have such news, Anne.
Guess. You can have three guesses."

"Charlotte Gillis is going to be married in the church after all and
Mrs. Allan wants us to decorate it," cried Anne.

"No. Charlotte's beau won't agree to that, because nobody ever has been
married in the church yet, and he thinks it would seem too much like a
funeral. It's too mean, because it would be such fun. Guess again."

"Jane's mother is going to let her have a birthday party?"

Diana shook her head, her black eyes dancing with merriment.

"I can't think what it can be," said Anne in despair, "unless it's that
Moody Spurgeon MacPherson saw you home from prayer meeting last night.
Did he?"

"I should think not," exclaimed Diana indignantly. "I wouldn't be likely
to boast of it if he did, the horrid creature! I knew you couldn't guess
it. Mother had a letter from Aunt Josephine today, and Aunt Josephine
wants you and me to go to town next Tuesday and stop with her for the
Exhibition. There!"

"Oh, Diana," whispered Anne, finding it necessary to lean up against a
maple tree for support, "do you really mean it? But I'm afraid Marilla
won't let me go. She will say that she can't encourage gadding about.
That was what she said last week when Jane invited me to go with them
in their double-seated buggy to the American concert at the White Sands
Hotel. I wanted to go, but Marilla said I'd be better at home learning
my lessons and so would Jane. I was bitterly disappointed, Diana. I felt
so heartbroken that I wouldn't say my prayers when I went to bed. But I
repented of that and got up in the middle of the night and said them."

"I'll tell you," said Diana, "we'll get Mother to ask Marilla. She'll be
more likely to let you go then; and if she does we'll have the time
of our lives, Anne. I've never been to an Exhibition, and it's so
aggravating to hear the other girls talking about their trips. Jane and
Ruby have been twice, and they're going this year again."

"I'm not going to think about it at all until I know whether I can go
or not," said Anne resolutely. "If I did and then was disappointed, it
would be more than I could bear. But in case I do go I'm very glad my
new coat will be ready by that time. Marilla didn't think I needed a new
coat. She said my old one would do very well for another winter and
that I ought to be satisfied with having a new dress. The dress is very
pretty, Diana--navy blue and made so fashionably. Marilla always makes
my dresses fashionably now, because she says she doesn't intend to have
Matthew going to Mrs. Lynde to make them. I'm so glad. It is ever so
much easier to be good if your clothes are fashionable. At least, it is
easier for me. I suppose it doesn't make such a difference to naturally
good people. But Matthew said I must have a new coat, so Marilla
bought a lovely piece of blue broadcloth, and it's being made by a real
dressmaker over at Carmody. It's to be done Saturday night, and I'm
trying not to imagine myself walking up the church aisle on Sunday in
my new suit and cap, because I'm afraid it isn't right to imagine such
things. But it just slips into my mind in spite of me. My cap is so
pretty. Matthew bought it for me the day we were over at Carmody. It is
one of those little blue velvet ones that are all the rage, with gold
cord and tassels. Your new hat is elegant, Diana, and so becoming. When
I saw you come into church last Sunday my heart swelled with pride to
think you were my dearest friend. Do you suppose it's wrong for us to
think so much about our clothes? Marilla says it is very sinful. But it
is such an interesting subject, isn't it?"

Marilla agreed to let Anne go to town, and it was arranged that
Mr. Barry should take the girls in on the following Tuesday. As
Charlottetown was thirty miles away and Mr. Barry wished to go and
return the same day, it was necessary to make a very early start. But
Anne counted it all joy, and was up before sunrise on Tuesday morning.
A glance from her window assured her that the day would be fine, for
the eastern sky behind the firs of the Haunted Wood was all silvery
and cloudless. Through the gap in the trees a light was shining in the
western gable of Orchard Slope, a token that Diana was also up.

Anne was dressed by the time Matthew had the fire on and had the
breakfast ready when Marilla came down, but for her own part was much
too excited to eat. After breakfast the jaunty new cap and jacket were
donned, and Anne hastened over the brook and up through the firs to
Orchard Slope. Mr. Barry and Diana were waiting for her, and they were
soon on the road.

It was a long drive, but Anne and Diana enjoyed every minute of it. It
was delightful to rattle along over the moist roads in the early red
sunlight that was creeping across the shorn harvest fields. The air was
fresh and crisp, and little smoke-blue mists curled through the valleys
and floated off from the hills. Sometimes the road went through woods
where maples were beginning to hang out scarlet banners; sometimes it
crossed rivers on bridges that made Anne's flesh cringe with the old,
half-delightful fear; sometimes it wound along a harbor shore and passed
by a little cluster of weather-gray fishing huts; again it mounted to
hills whence a far sweep of curving upland or misty-blue sky could be
seen; but wherever it went there was much of interest to discuss. It was
almost noon when they reached town and found their way to "Beechwood."
It was quite a fine old mansion, set back from the street in a seclusion
of green elms and branching beeches. Miss Barry met them at the door
with a twinkle in her sharp black eyes.

"So you've come to see me at last, you Anne-girl," she said. "Mercy,
child, how you have grown! You're taller than I am, I declare. And
you're ever so much better looking than you used to be, too. But I dare
say you know that without being told."

"Indeed I didn't," said Anne radiantly. "I know I'm not so freckled as
I used to be, so I've much to be thankful for, but I really hadn't dared
to hope there was any other improvement. I'm so glad you think there is,
Miss Barry." Miss Barry's house was furnished with "great magnificence,"
as Anne told Marilla afterward. The two little country girls were rather
abashed by the splendor of the parlor where Miss Barry left them when
she went to see about dinner.

"Isn't it just like a palace?" whispered Diana. "I never was in Aunt
Josephine's house before, and I'd no idea it was so grand. I just wish
Julia Bell could see this--she puts on such airs about her mother's
parlor."

"Velvet carpet," sighed Anne luxuriously, "and silk curtains! I've
dreamed of such things, Diana. But do you know I don't believe I feel
very comfortable with them after all. There are so many things in this
room and all so splendid that there is no scope for imagination. That is
one consolation when you are poor--there are so many more things you can
imagine about."

Their sojourn in town was something that Anne and Diana dated from for
years. From first to last it was crowded with delights.

On Wednesday Miss Barry took them to the Exhibition grounds and kept
them there all day.

"It was splendid," Anne related to Marilla later on. "I never imagined
anything so interesting. I don't really know which department was the
most interesting. I think I liked the horses and the flowers and the
fancywork best. Josie Pye took first prize for knitted lace. I was
real glad she did. And I was glad that I felt glad, for it shows I'm
improving, don't you think, Marilla, when I can rejoice in Josie's
success? Mr. Harmon Andrews took second prize for Gravenstein apples
and Mr. Bell took first prize for a pig. Diana said she thought it was
ridiculous for a Sunday-school superintendent to take a prize in pigs,
but I don't see why. Do you? She said she would always think of it after
this when he was praying so solemnly. Clara Louise MacPherson took a
prize for painting, and Mrs. Lynde got first prize for homemade butter
and cheese. So Avonlea was pretty well represented, wasn't it? Mrs.
Lynde was there that day, and I never knew how much I really liked her
until I saw her familiar face among all those strangers. There
were thousands of people there, Marilla. It made me feel dreadfully
insignificant. And Miss Barry took us up to the grandstand to see
the horse races. Mrs. Lynde wouldn't go; she said horse racing was an
abomination and, she being a church member, thought it her bounden duty
to set a good example by staying away. But there were so many there I
don't believe Mrs. Lynde's absence would ever be noticed. I don't think,
though, that I ought to go very often to horse races, because they _are_
awfully fascinating. Diana got so excited that she offered to bet me
ten cents that the red horse would win. I didn't believe he would, but
I refused to bet, because I wanted to tell Mrs. Allan all about
everything, and I felt sure it wouldn't do to tell her that. It's always
wrong to do anything you can't tell the minister's wife. It's as good as
an extra conscience to have a minister's wife for your friend. And I was
very glad I didn't bet, because the red horse _did_ win, and I would have
lost ten cents. So you see that virtue was its own reward. We saw a man
go up in a balloon. I'd love to go up in a balloon, Marilla; it would
be simply thrilling; and we saw a man selling fortunes. You paid him ten
cents and a little bird picked out your fortune for you. Miss Barry gave
Diana and me ten cents each to have our fortunes told. Mine was that I
would marry a dark-complected man who was very wealthy, and I would go
across water to live. I looked carefully at all the dark men I saw after
that, but I didn't care much for any of them, and anyhow I suppose
it's too early to be looking out for him yet. Oh, it was a
never-to-be-forgotten day, Marilla. I was so tired I couldn't sleep at
night. Miss Barry put us in the spare room, according to promise. It
was an elegant room, Marilla, but somehow sleeping in a spare room isn't
what I used to think it was. That's the worst of growing up, and I'm
beginning to realize it. The things you wanted so much when you were a
child don't seem half so wonderful to you when you get them."

Thursday the girls had a drive in the park, and in the evening Miss
Barry took them to a concert in the Academy of Music, where a noted
prima donna was to sing. To Anne the evening was a glittering vision of
delight.

"Oh, Marilla, it was beyond description. I was so excited I couldn't
even talk, so you may know what it was like. I just sat in enraptured
silence. Madame Selitsky was perfectly beautiful, and wore white satin
and diamonds. But when she began to sing I never thought about anything
else. Oh, I can't tell you how I felt. But it seemed to me that it could
never be hard to be good any more. I felt like I do when I look up to
the stars. Tears came into my eyes, but, oh, they were such happy tears.
I was so sorry when it was all over, and I told Miss Barry I didn't see
how I was ever to return to common life again. She said she thought if
we went over to the restaurant across the street and had an ice cream
it might help me. That sounded so prosaic; but to my surprise I found
it true. The ice cream was delicious, Marilla, and it was so lovely and
dissipated to be sitting there eating it at eleven o'clock at night.
Diana said she believed she was born for city life. Miss Barry asked
me what my opinion was, but I said I would have to think it over very
seriously before I could tell her what I really thought. So I thought it
over after I went to bed. That is the best time to think things out. And
I came to the conclusion, Marilla, that I wasn't born for city life and
that I was glad of it. It's nice to be eating ice cream at brilliant
restaurants at eleven o'clock at night once in a while; but as a regular
thing I'd rather be in the east gable at eleven, sound asleep, but kind
of knowing even in my sleep that the stars were shining outside and that
the wind was blowing in the firs across the brook. I told Miss Barry
so at breakfast the next morning and she laughed. Miss Barry generally
laughed at anything I said, even when I said the most solemn things. I
don't think I liked it, Marilla, because I wasn't trying to be funny.
But she is a most hospitable lady and treated us royally."

Friday brought going-home time, and Mr. Barry drove in for the girls.

"Well, I hope you've enjoyed yourselves," said Miss Barry, as she bade
them good-bye.

"Indeed we have," said Diana.

"And you, Anne-girl?"

"I've enjoyed every minute of the time," said Anne, throwing her arms
impulsively about the old woman's neck and kissing her wrinkled cheek.
Diana would never have dared to do such a thing and felt rather aghast
at Anne's freedom. But Miss Barry was pleased, and she stood on her
veranda and watched the buggy out of sight. Then she went back into her
big house with a sigh. It seemed very lonely, lacking those fresh young
lives. Miss Barry was a rather selfish old lady, if the truth must
be told, and had never cared much for anybody but herself. She valued
people only as they were of service to her or amused her. Anne had
amused her, and consequently stood high in the old lady's good graces.
But Miss Barry found herself thinking less about Anne's quaint speeches
than of her fresh enthusiasms, her transparent emotions, her little
winning ways, and the sweetness of her eyes and lips.

"I thought Marilla Cuthbert was an old fool when I heard she'd adopted
a girl out of an orphan asylum," she said to herself, "but I guess she
didn't make much of a mistake after all. If I'd a child like Anne in the
house all the time I'd be a better and happier woman."

Anne and Diana found the drive home as pleasant as the drive
in--pleasanter, indeed, since there was the delightful consciousness of
home waiting at the end of it. It was sunset when they passed through
White Sands and turned into the shore road. Beyond, the Avonlea hills
came out darkly against the saffron sky. Behind them the moon was rising
out of the sea that grew all radiant and transfigured in her light.
Every little cove along the curving road was a marvel of dancing
ripples. The waves broke with a soft swish on the rocks below them, and
the tang of the sea was in the strong, fresh air.

"Oh, but it's good to be alive and to be going home," breathed Anne.

When she crossed the log bridge over the brook the kitchen light of
Green Gables winked her a friendly welcome back, and through the open
door shone the hearth fire, sending out its warm red glow athwart the
chilly autumn night. Anne ran blithely up the hill and into the kitchen,
where a hot supper was waiting on the table.

"So you've got back?" said Marilla, folding up her knitting.

"Yes, and oh, it's so good to be back," said Anne joyously. "I could
kiss everything, even to the clock. Marilla, a broiled chicken! You
don't mean to say you cooked that for me!"

"Yes, I did," said Marilla. "I thought you'd be hungry after such
a drive and need something real appetizing. Hurry and take off your
things, and we'll have supper as soon as Matthew comes in. I'm glad
you've got back, I must say. It's been fearful lonesome here without
you, and I never put in four longer days."

After supper Anne sat before the fire between Matthew and Marilla, and
gave them a full account of her visit.

"I've had a splendid time," she concluded happily, "and I feel that it
marks an epoch in my life. But the best of it all was the coming home."

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

completion: It is fall again in Avonlea, and Anne is bringing cows back to Green Gables when she sees Diana walking toward her. Diana has good news: Aunt Josephine has invited both Diana and Anne to visit her in Charlottetown and see the Exhibition. Anne thinks that Marilla will say she can't go, but Diana says she will have her mother ask Marilla. Anne still withholds her excitement, but she reflects that she is glad Marilla now makes her fashionable clothes, ever since Matthew had Mrs. Rachel Lynde make her a dress for Christmas. Marilla agrees that Anne can go on the trip to Charlottetown. Anne gets up early on Tuesday and goes to Diana's house, where they set off with Mr. Barry. The girls enjoy the drive and they are soon in Charlottetown. Aunt Josephine greets them and tells Anne how much better-looking she is now. Anne and Diana, being "little country girls" , are dazzled by her beautiful house. Anne and Diana sleep over that night and spend all of Wednesday at the Exhibition. There are competitions for food and crafts, and Anne is proud of how many people from Avonlea win their categories. Aunt Josephine takes girls to watch horse races, where Anne refuses to bet. After that, the girls have their fortunes told, and Anne's fortune says that she will marry a rich, dark-complected man. To end the day, the girls sleep in Aunt Josephine's spare room as Anne was promised, though she finds it is not as exciting as she imagined it would be when she was young. On Thursday, Aunt Josephine takes the girls to the park and then to see a concert. After the concert, they get ice cream, and Diana says that she was born for city life. Upon reflection, Anne says she was not born for city life, and she is glad for that. On Friday, Mr. Barry comes back and the girls return to Avonlea. When Anne arrives back at Green Gables, Marilla has prepared a nice dinner to welcome Anne home. Anne tells Marilla and Matthew after dinner that she had a great trip, but the best part was coming home


prompt:
Chapter: |MARILLA laid her knitting on her lap and leaned back in her chair. Her
eyes were tired, and she thought vaguely that she must see about having
her glasses changed the next time she went to town, for her eyes had
grown tired very often of late.

It was nearly dark, for the full November twilight had fallen around
Green Gables, and the only light in the kitchen came from the dancing
red flames in the stove.

Anne was curled up Turk-fashion on the hearthrug, gazing into that
joyous glow where the sunshine of a hundred summers was being distilled
from the maple cordwood. She had been reading, but her book had slipped
to the floor, and now she was dreaming, with a smile on her parted lips.
Glittering castles in Spain were shaping themselves out of the mists and
rainbows of her lively fancy; adventures wonderful and enthralling
were happening to her in cloudland--adventures that always turned out
triumphantly and never involved her in scrapes like those of actual
life.

Marilla looked at her with a tenderness that would never have been
suffered to reveal itself in any clearer light than that soft mingling
of fireshine and shadow. The lesson of a love that should display itself
easily in spoken word and open look was one Marilla could never learn.
But she had learned to love this slim, gray-eyed girl with an affection
all the deeper and stronger from its very undemonstrativeness. Her love
made her afraid of being unduly indulgent, indeed. She had an uneasy
feeling that it was rather sinful to set one's heart so intensely on any
human creature as she had set hers on Anne, and perhaps she performed a
sort of unconscious penance for this by being stricter and more critical
than if the girl had been less dear to her. Certainly Anne herself had
no idea how Marilla loved her. She sometimes thought wistfully that
Marilla was very hard to please and distinctly lacking in sympathy
and understanding. But she always checked the thought reproachfully,
remembering what she owed to Marilla.

"Anne," said Marilla abruptly, "Miss Stacy was here this afternoon when
you were out with Diana."

Anne came back from her other world with a start and a sigh.

"Was she? Oh, I'm so sorry I wasn't in. Why didn't you call me, Marilla?
Diana and I were only over in the Haunted Wood. It's lovely in the woods
now. All the little wood things--the ferns and the satin leaves and the
crackerberries--have gone to sleep, just as if somebody had tucked them
away until spring under a blanket of leaves. I think it was a little
gray fairy with a rainbow scarf that came tiptoeing along the last
moonlight night and did it. Diana wouldn't say much about that, though.
Diana has never forgotten the scolding her mother gave her about
imagining ghosts into the Haunted Wood. It had a very bad effect on
Diana's imagination. It blighted it. Mrs. Lynde says Myrtle Bell is a
blighted being. I asked Ruby Gillis why Myrtle was blighted, and Ruby
said she guessed it was because her young man had gone back on her. Ruby
Gillis thinks of nothing but young men, and the older she gets the worse
she is. Young men are all very well in their place, but it doesn't do to
drag them into everything, does it? Diana and I are thinking seriously
of promising each other that we will never marry but be nice old maids
and live together forever. Diana hasn't quite made up her mind though,
because she thinks perhaps it would be nobler to marry some wild,
dashing, wicked young man and reform him. Diana and I talk a great deal
about serious subjects now, you know. We feel that we are so much older
than we used to be that it isn't becoming to talk of childish matters.
It's such a solemn thing to be almost fourteen, Marilla. Miss Stacy took
all us girls who are in our teens down to the brook last Wednesday, and
talked to us about it. She said we couldn't be too careful what habits
we formed and what ideals we acquired in our teens, because by the time
we were twenty our characters would be developed and the foundation laid
for our whole future life. And she said if the foundation was shaky we
could never build anything really worth while on it. Diana and I talked
the matter over coming home from school. We felt extremely solemn,
Marilla. And we decided that we would try to be very careful indeed and
form respectable habits and learn all we could and be as sensible as
possible, so that by the time we were twenty our characters would be
properly developed. It's perfectly appalling to think of being twenty,
Marilla. It sounds so fearfully old and grown up. But why was Miss Stacy
here this afternoon?"

"That is what I want to tell you, Anne, if you'll ever give me a chance
to get a word in edgewise. She was talking about you."

"About me?" Anne looked rather scared. Then she flushed and exclaimed:

"Oh, I know what she was saying. I meant to tell you, Marilla, honestly
I did, but I forgot. Miss Stacy caught me reading Ben Hur in school
yesterday afternoon when I should have been studying my Canadian
history. Jane Andrews lent it to me. I was reading it at dinner hour,
and I had just got to the chariot race when school went in. I was simply
wild to know how it turned out--although I felt sure Ben Hur must win,
because it wouldn't be poetical justice if he didn't--so I spread the
history open on my desk lid and then tucked Ben Hur between the desk and
my knee. I just looked as if I were studying Canadian history, you know,
while all the while I was reveling in Ben Hur. I was so interested in it
that I never noticed Miss Stacy coming down the aisle until all at
once I just looked up and there she was looking down at me, so
reproachful-like. I can't tell you how ashamed I felt, Marilla,
especially when I heard Josie Pye giggling. Miss Stacy took Ben Hur
away, but she never said a word then. She kept me in at recess and
talked to me. She said I had done very wrong in two respects. First, I
was wasting the time I ought to have put on my studies; and secondly,
I was deceiving my teacher in trying to make it appear I was reading a
history when it was a storybook instead. I had never realized until that
moment, Marilla, that what I was doing was deceitful. I was shocked. I
cried bitterly, and asked Miss Stacy to forgive me and I'd never do such
a thing again; and I offered to do penance by never so much as looking
at Ben Hur for a whole week, not even to see how the chariot race turned
out. But Miss Stacy said she wouldn't require that, and she forgave me
freely. So I think it wasn't very kind of her to come up here to you
about it after all."

"Miss Stacy never mentioned such a thing to me, Anne, and its only your
guilty conscience that's the matter with you. You have no business to be
taking storybooks to school. You read too many novels anyhow. When I was
a girl I wasn't so much as allowed to look at a novel."

"Oh, how can you call Ben Hur a novel when it's really such a religious
book?" protested Anne. "Of course it's a little too exciting to be
proper reading for Sunday, and I only read it on weekdays. And I never
read _any_ book now unless either Miss Stacy or Mrs. Allan thinks it is a
proper book for a girl thirteen and three-quarters to read. Miss Stacy
made me promise that. She found me reading a book one day called, The
Lurid Mystery of the Haunted Hall. It was one Ruby Gillis had lent me,
and, oh, Marilla, it was so fascinating and creepy. It just curdled the
blood in my veins. But Miss Stacy said it was a very silly, unwholesome
book, and she asked me not to read any more of it or any like it. I
didn't mind promising not to read any more like it, but it was _agonizing_
to give back that book without knowing how it turned out. But my love
for Miss Stacy stood the test and I did. It's really wonderful, Marilla,
what you can do when you're truly anxious to please a certain person."

"Well, I guess I'll light the lamp and get to work," said Marilla. "I
see plainly that you don't want to hear what Miss Stacy had to say.
You're more interested in the sound of your own tongue than in anything
else."

"Oh, indeed, Marilla, I do want to hear it," cried Anne contritely. "I
won't say another word--not one. I know I talk too much, but I am really
trying to overcome it, and although I say far too much, yet if you only
knew how many things I want to say and don't, you'd give me some credit
for it. Please tell me, Marilla."

"Well, Miss Stacy wants to organize a class among her advanced students
who mean to study for the entrance examination into Queen's. She intends
to give them extra lessons for an hour after school. And she came to ask
Matthew and me if we would like to have you join it. What do you think
about it yourself, Anne? Would you like to go to Queen's and pass for a
teacher?"

"Oh, Marilla!" Anne straightened to her knees and clasped her hands.
"It's been the dream of my life--that is, for the last six months, ever
since Ruby and Jane began to talk of studying for the Entrance. But I
didn't say anything about it, because I supposed it would be perfectly
useless. I'd love to be a teacher. But won't it be dreadfully expensive?
Mr. Andrews says it cost him one hundred and fifty dollars to put Prissy
through, and Prissy wasn't a dunce in geometry."

"I guess you needn't worry about that part of it. When Matthew and I
took you to bring up we resolved we would do the best we could for you
and give you a good education. I believe in a girl being fitted to earn
her own living whether she ever has to or not. You'll always have a home
at Green Gables as long as Matthew and I are here, but nobody knows what
is going to happen in this uncertain world, and it's just as well to be
prepared. So you can join the Queen's class if you like, Anne."

"Oh, Marilla, thank you." Anne flung her arms about Marilla's waist and
looked up earnestly into her face. "I'm extremely grateful to you and
Matthew. And I'll study as hard as I can and do my very best to be a
credit to you. I warn you not to expect much in geometry, but I think I
can hold my own in anything else if I work hard."

"I dare say you'll get along well enough. Miss Stacy says you are bright
and diligent." Not for worlds would Marilla have told Anne just what
Miss Stacy had said about her; that would have been to pamper vanity.
"You needn't rush to any extreme of killing yourself over your books.
There is no hurry. You won't be ready to try the Entrance for a year and
a half yet. But it's well to begin in time and be thoroughly grounded,
Miss Stacy says."

"I shall take more interest than ever in my studies now," said Anne
blissfully, "because I have a purpose in life. Mr. Allan says everybody
should have a purpose in life and pursue it faithfully. Only he says
we must first make sure that it is a worthy purpose. I would call it a
worthy purpose to want to be a teacher like Miss Stacy, wouldn't you,
Marilla? I think it's a very noble profession."

The Queen's class was organized in due time. Gilbert Blythe, Anne
Shirley, Ruby Gillis, Jane Andrews, Josie Pye, Charlie Sloane, and Moody
Spurgeon MacPherson joined it. Diana Barry did not, as her parents
did not intend to send her to Queen's. This seemed nothing short of a
calamity to Anne. Never, since the night on which Minnie May had had the
croup, had she and Diana been separated in anything. On the evening when
the Queen's class first remained in school for the extra lessons and
Anne saw Diana go slowly out with the others, to walk home alone through
the Birch Path and Violet Vale, it was all the former could do to keep
her seat and refrain from rushing impulsively after her chum. A lump
came into her throat, and she hastily retired behind the pages of her
uplifted Latin grammar to hide the tears in her eyes. Not for worlds
would Anne have had Gilbert Blythe or Josie Pye see those tears.

"But, oh, Marilla, I really felt that I had tasted the bitterness of
death, as Mr. Allan said in his sermon last Sunday, when I saw Diana go
out alone," she said mournfully that night. "I thought how splendid it
would have been if Diana had only been going to study for the Entrance,
too. But we can't have things perfect in this imperfect world, as Mrs.
Lynde says. Mrs. Lynde isn't exactly a comforting person sometimes, but
there's no doubt she says a great many very true things. And I think the
Queen's class is going to be extremely interesting. Jane and Ruby
are just going to study to be teachers. That is the height of their
ambition. Ruby says she will only teach for two years after she gets
through, and then she intends to be married. Jane says she will devote
her whole life to teaching, and never, never marry, because you are paid
a salary for teaching, but a husband won't pay you anything, and growls
if you ask for a share in the egg and butter money. I expect Jane speaks
from mournful experience, for Mrs. Lynde says that her father is a
perfect old crank, and meaner than second skimmings. Josie Pye says she
is just going to college for education's sake, because she won't have to
earn her own living; she says of course it is different with orphans who
are living on charity--_they_ have to hustle. Moody Spurgeon is going to
be a minister. Mrs. Lynde says he couldn't be anything else with a name
like that to live up to. I hope it isn't wicked of me, Marilla, but
really the thought of Moody Spurgeon being a minister makes me laugh.
He's such a funny-looking boy with that big fat face, and his little
blue eyes, and his ears sticking out like flaps. But perhaps he will
be more intellectual looking when he grows up. Charlie Sloane says he's
going to go into politics and be a member of Parliament, but Mrs. Lynde
says he'll never succeed at that, because the Sloanes are all honest
people, and it's only rascals that get on in politics nowadays."

"What is Gilbert Blythe going to be?" queried Marilla, seeing that Anne
was opening her Caesar.

"I don't happen to know what Gilbert Blythe's ambition in life is--if he
has any," said Anne scornfully.

There was open rivalry between Gilbert and Anne now. Previously the
rivalry had been rather one-sided, but there was no longer any doubt
that Gilbert was as determined to be first in class as Anne was. He was
a foeman worthy of her steel. The other members of the class tacitly
acknowledged their superiority, and never dreamed of trying to compete
with them.

Since the day by the pond when she had refused to listen to his plea
for forgiveness, Gilbert, save for the aforesaid determined rivalry,
had evinced no recognition whatever of the existence of Anne Shirley. He
talked and jested with the other girls, exchanged books and puzzles with
them, discussed lessons and plans, sometimes walked home with one or the
other of them from prayer meeting or Debating Club. But Anne Shirley
he simply ignored, and Anne found out that it is not pleasant to be
ignored. It was in vain that she told herself with a toss of her head
that she did not care. Deep down in her wayward, feminine little heart
she knew that she did care, and that if she had that chance of the Lake
of Shining Waters again she would answer very differently. All at
once, as it seemed, and to her secret dismay, she found that the old
resentment she had cherished against him was gone--gone just when she
most needed its sustaining power. It was in vain that she recalled every
incident and emotion of that memorable occasion and tried to feel
the old satisfying anger. That day by the pond had witnessed its last
spasmodic flicker. Anne realized that she had forgiven and forgotten
without knowing it. But it was too late.

And at least neither Gilbert nor anybody else, not even Diana, should
ever suspect how sorry she was and how much she wished she hadn't been
so proud and horrid! She determined to "shroud her feelings in deepest
oblivion," and it may be stated here and now that she did it, so
successfully that Gilbert, who possibly was not quite so indifferent as
he seemed, could not console himself with any belief that Anne felt his
retaliatory scorn. The only poor comfort he had was that she snubbed
Charlie Sloane, unmercifully, continually, and undeservedly.

Otherwise the winter passed away in a round of pleasant duties and
studies. For Anne the days slipped by like golden beads on the necklace
of the year. She was happy, eager, interested; there were lessons to be
learned and honor to be won; delightful books to read; new pieces to be
practiced for the Sunday-school choir; pleasant Saturday afternoons at
the manse with Mrs. Allan; and then, almost before Anne realized it,
spring had come again to Green Gables and all the world was abloom once
more.

Studies palled just a wee bit then; the Queen's class, left behind in
school while the others scattered to green lanes and leafy wood cuts and
meadow byways, looked wistfully out of the windows and discovered that
Latin verbs and French exercises had somehow lost the tang and zest they
had possessed in the crisp winter months. Even Anne and Gilbert lagged
and grew indifferent. Teacher and taught were alike glad when the term
was ended and the glad vacation days stretched rosily before them.

"But you've done good work this past year," Miss Stacy told them on the
last evening, "and you deserve a good, jolly vacation. Have the best
time you can in the out-of-door world and lay in a good stock of health
and vitality and ambition to carry you through next year. It will be the
tug of war, you know--the last year before the Entrance."

"Are you going to be back next year, Miss Stacy?" asked Josie Pye.

Josie Pye never scrupled to ask questions; in this instance the rest of
the class felt grateful to her; none of them would have dared to ask
it of Miss Stacy, but all wanted to, for there had been alarming rumors
running at large through the school for some time that Miss Stacy was
not coming back the next year--that she had been offered a position
in the grade school of her own home district and meant to accept. The
Queen's class listened in breathless suspense for her answer.

"Yes, I think I will," said Miss Stacy. "I thought of taking another
school, but I have decided to come back to Avonlea. To tell the truth,
I've grown so interested in my pupils here that I found I couldn't leave
them. So I'll stay and see you through."

"Hurrah!" said Moody Spurgeon. Moody Spurgeon had never been so carried
away by his feelings before, and he blushed uncomfortably every time he
thought about it for a week.

"Oh, I'm so glad," said Anne, with shining eyes. "Dear Stacy, it would
be perfectly dreadful if you didn't come back. I don't believe I could
have the heart to go on with my studies at all if another teacher came
here."

When Anne got home that night she stacked all her textbooks away in an
old trunk in the attic, locked it, and threw the key into the blanket
box.

"I'm not even going to look at a schoolbook in vacation," she told
Marilla. "I've studied as hard all the term as I possibly could and I've
pored over that geometry until I know every proposition in the first
book off by heart, even when the letters _are_ changed. I just feel tired
of everything sensible and I'm going to let my imagination run riot for
the summer. Oh, you needn't be alarmed, Marilla. I'll only let it run
riot within reasonable limits. But I want to have a real good jolly time
this summer, for maybe it's the last summer I'll be a little girl. Mrs.
Lynde says that if I keep stretching out next year as I've done this
I'll have to put on longer skirts. She says I'm all running to legs and
eyes. And when I put on longer skirts I shall feel that I have to live
up to them and be very dignified. It won't even do to believe in fairies
then, I'm afraid; so I'm going to believe in them with all my whole
heart this summer. I think we're going to have a very gay vacation. Ruby
Gillis is going to have a birthday party soon and there's the Sunday
school picnic and the missionary concert next month. And Mr. Barry says
that some evening he'll take Diana and me over to the White Sands Hotel
and have dinner there. They have dinner there in the evening, you know.
Jane Andrews was over once last summer and she says it was a dazzling
sight to see the electric lights and the flowers and all the lady guests
in such beautiful dresses. Jane says it was her first glimpse into high
life and she'll never forget it to her dying day."

Mrs. Lynde came up the next afternoon to find out why Marilla had not
been at the Aid meeting on Thursday. When Marilla was not at Aid meeting
people knew there was something wrong at Green Gables.

"Matthew had a bad spell with his heart Thursday," Marilla explained,
"and I didn't feel like leaving him. Oh, yes, he's all right again now,
but he takes them spells oftener than he used to and I'm anxious about
him. The doctor says he must be careful to avoid excitement. That's easy
enough, for Matthew doesn't go about looking for excitement by any means
and never did, but he's not to do any very heavy work either and you
might as well tell Matthew not to breathe as not to work. Come and lay
off your things, Rachel. You'll stay to tea?"

"Well, seeing you're so pressing, perhaps I might as well, stay" said
Mrs. Rachel, who had not the slightest intention of doing anything else.

Mrs. Rachel and Marilla sat comfortably in the parlor while Anne got the
tea and made hot biscuits that were light and white enough to defy even
Mrs. Rachel's criticism.

"I must say Anne has turned out a real smart girl," admitted Mrs.
Rachel, as Marilla accompanied her to the end of the lane at sunset.
"She must be a great help to you."

"She is," said Marilla, "and she's real steady and reliable now. I used
to be afraid she'd never get over her featherbrained ways, but she has
and I wouldn't be afraid to trust her in anything now."

"I never would have thought she'd have turned out so well that first day
I was here three years ago," said Mrs. Rachel. "Lawful heart, shall I
ever forget that tantrum of hers! When I went home that night I says to
Thomas, says I, 'Mark my words, Thomas, Marilla Cuthbert 'll live to
rue the step she's took.' But I was mistaken and I'm real glad of it. I
ain't one of those kind of people, Marilla, as can never be brought to
own up that they've made a mistake. No, that never was my way, thank
goodness. I did make a mistake in judging Anne, but it weren't no
wonder, for an odder, unexpecteder witch of a child there never was in
this world, that's what. There was no ciphering her out by the rules
that worked with other children. It's nothing short of wonderful how
she's improved these three years, but especially in looks. She's a real
pretty girl got to be, though I can't say I'm overly partial to that
pale, big-eyed style myself. I like more snap and color, like Diana
Barry has or Ruby Gillis. Ruby Gillis's looks are real showy. But
somehow--I don't know how it is but when Anne and them are together,
though she ain't half as handsome, she makes them look kind of common
and overdone--something like them white June lilies she calls narcissus
alongside of the big, red peonies, that's what."

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

completion: One evening in November, Marilla tells Anne that Miss Stacy has come over to talk to her. Anne chatters for a long time without letting Marilla tell her what Miss Stacy came to talk about. When Marilla says that Miss Stacy came to talk about Anne, Anne gets flustered and confesses to reading a novel during Miss Stacy's history class. Marilla says that Miss Stacy did not come over to talk about this, but rather to discuss Anne joining a class of students studying for the entrance examinations for Queen's teachers college. Anne says that this is her dream but that she doesn't think the family has money for it. Marilla says not to worry about that. Anne is grateful and tells Marilla that she will do her very best to be a credit to her. Marilla reminds Anne that she won't be able to take the entrance exam for a year and a half, but she says it is time to really focus on school. The class of advanced students studying for the entrance exam consists of Anne, Gilbert, Ruby, Jane, Josie, Charlie, and Moody. Diana's parents do not plan to send her to Queen's, so she is not included in the group, which makes both Diana and Anne sad. Anne tells Marilla about the desired professions of her classmates, though she skips talking about Gilbert as usual. The narrator says that Anne and Gilbert's rivalry was now well-known and that Gilbert had reciprocated Anne's coldness ever since she rejected his apology by the pond. Anne still regrets that moment, but, since Gilbert is now cold to her, she is too proud to tell anyone this. The winter in Avonlea passes with Anne and her classmates in focused study. When the spring arrives, focus wanes for all the advanced students. Soon, it is time for summer vacation, and Anne tells Marilla she is putting her books away for the whole summer since it may be "the last summer I'll be a little girl". The next afternoon, Mrs. Rachel Lynde comes to Green Gables to see why Marilla had not been at the Aid meeting a few days before. Marilla tells her that "Matthew had a bad spell with his heart" and is not supposed to do any heavy work or get excited. Marilla and Mrs. Rachel sit together and discuss how much Anne has matured in the three years she has lived at Green Gables


prompt:
Chapter: |ANNE had her "good" summer and enjoyed it wholeheartedly. She and Diana
fairly lived outdoors, reveling in all the delights that Lover's Lane
and the Dryad's Bubble and Willowmere and Victoria Island afforded.
Marilla offered no objections to Anne's gypsyings. The Spencervale
doctor who had come the night Minnie May had the croup met Anne at the
house of a patient one afternoon early in vacation, looked her over
sharply, screwed up his mouth, shook his head, and sent a message to
Marilla Cuthbert by another person. It was:

"Keep that redheaded girl of yours in the open air all summer and don't
let her read books until she gets more spring into her step."

This message frightened Marilla wholesomely. She read Anne's death
warrant by consumption in it unless it was scrupulously obeyed. As a
result, Anne had the golden summer of her life as far as freedom and
frolic went. She walked, rowed, berried, and dreamed to her heart's
content; and when September came she was bright-eyed and alert, with a
step that would have satisfied the Spencervale doctor and a heart full
of ambition and zest once more.

"I feel just like studying with might and main," she declared as she
brought her books down from the attic. "Oh, you good old friends, I'm
glad to see your honest faces once more--yes, even you, geometry. I've
had a perfectly beautiful summer, Marilla, and now I'm rejoicing as a
strong man to run a race, as Mr. Allan said last Sunday. Doesn't Mr.
Allan preach magnificent sermons? Mrs. Lynde says he is improving every
day and the first thing we know some city church will gobble him up
and then we'll be left and have to turn to and break in another green
preacher. But I don't see the use of meeting trouble halfway, do you,
Marilla? I think it would be better just to enjoy Mr. Allan while we
have him. If I were a man I think I'd be a minister. They can have
such an influence for good, if their theology is sound; and it must be
thrilling to preach splendid sermons and stir your hearers' hearts. Why
can't women be ministers, Marilla? I asked Mrs. Lynde that and she was
shocked and said it would be a scandalous thing. She said there might
be female ministers in the States and she believed there was, but thank
goodness we hadn't got to that stage in Canada yet and she hoped we
never would. But I don't see why. I think women would make splendid
ministers. When there is a social to be got up or a church tea or
anything else to raise money the women have to turn to and do the work.
I'm sure Mrs. Lynde can pray every bit as well as Superintendent Bell
and I've no doubt she could preach too with a little practice."

"Yes, I believe she could," said Marilla dryly. "She does plenty of
unofficial preaching as it is. Nobody has much of a chance to go wrong
in Avonlea with Rachel to oversee them."

"Marilla," said Anne in a burst of confidence, "I want to tell you
something and ask you what you think about it. It has worried me
terribly--on Sunday afternoons, that is, when I think specially about
such matters. I do really want to be good; and when I'm with you or Mrs.
Allan or Miss Stacy I want it more than ever and I want to do just what
would please you and what you would approve of. But mostly when I'm with
Mrs. Lynde I feel desperately wicked and as if I wanted to go and do the
very thing she tells me I oughtn't to do. I feel irresistibly tempted
to do it. Now, what do you think is the reason I feel like that? Do you
think it's because I'm really bad and unregenerate?"

Marilla looked dubious for a moment. Then she laughed.

"If you are I guess I am too, Anne, for Rachel often has that very
effect on me. I sometimes think she'd have more of an influence for
good, as you say yourself, if she didn't keep nagging people to do
right. There should have been a special commandment against nagging.
But there, I shouldn't talk so. Rachel is a good Christian woman and she
means well. There isn't a kinder soul in Avonlea and she never shirks
her share of work."

"I'm very glad you feel the same," said Anne decidedly. "It's so
encouraging. I shan't worry so much over that after this. But I dare say
there'll be other things to worry me. They keep coming up new all the
time--things to perplex you, you know. You settle one question and
there's another right after. There are so many things to be thought over
and decided when you're beginning to grow up. It keeps me busy all the
time thinking them over and deciding what is right. It's a serious thing
to grow up, isn't it, Marilla? But when I have such good friends as
you and Matthew and Mrs. Allan and Miss Stacy I ought to grow up
successfully, and I'm sure it will be my own fault if I don't. I feel
it's a great responsibility because I have only the one chance. If I
don't grow up right I can't go back and begin over again. I've grown two
inches this summer, Marilla. Mr. Gillis measured me at Ruby's party. I'm
so glad you made my new dresses longer. That dark-green one is so pretty
and it was sweet of you to put on the flounce. Of course I know it
wasn't really necessary, but flounces are so stylish this fall and Josie
Pye has flounces on all her dresses. I know I'll be able to study better
because of mine. I shall have such a comfortable feeling deep down in my
mind about that flounce."

"It's worth something to have that," admitted Marilla.

Miss Stacy came back to Avonlea school and found all her pupils eager
for work once more. Especially did the Queen's class gird up their loins
for the fray, for at the end of the coming year, dimly shadowing their
pathway already, loomed up that fateful thing known as "the Entrance,"
at the thought of which one and all felt their hearts sink into their
very shoes. Suppose they did not pass! That thought was doomed to
haunt Anne through the waking hours of that winter, Sunday afternoons
inclusive, to the almost entire exclusion of moral and theological
problems. When Anne had bad dreams she found herself staring miserably
at pass lists of the Entrance exams, where Gilbert Blythe's name was
blazoned at the top and in which hers did not appear at all.

But it was a jolly, busy, happy swift-flying winter. Schoolwork was
as interesting, class rivalry as absorbing, as of yore. New worlds of
thought, feeling, and ambition, fresh, fascinating fields of unexplored
knowledge seemed to be opening out before Anne's eager eyes.

      "Hills peeped o'er hill and Alps on Alps arose."

Much of all this was due to Miss Stacy's tactful, careful, broadminded
guidance. She led her class to think and explore and discover for
themselves and encouraged straying from the old beaten paths to a degree
that quite shocked Mrs. Lynde and the school trustees, who viewed all
innovations on established methods rather dubiously.

Apart from her studies Anne expanded socially, for Marilla, mindful of
the Spencervale doctor's dictum, no longer vetoed occasional outings.
The Debating Club flourished and gave several concerts; there were one
or two parties almost verging on grown-up affairs; there were sleigh
drives and skating frolics galore.

Between times Anne grew, shooting up so rapidly that Marilla was
astonished one day, when they were standing side by side, to find the
girl was taller than herself.

"Why, Anne, how you've grown!" she said, almost unbelievingly. A sigh
followed on the words. Marilla felt a queer regret over Anne's inches.
The child she had learned to love had vanished somehow and here was this
tall, serious-eyed girl of fifteen, with the thoughtful brows and the
proudly poised little head, in her place. Marilla loved the girl as much
as she had loved the child, but she was conscious of a queer sorrowful
sense of loss. And that night, when Anne had gone to prayer meeting
with Diana, Marilla sat alone in the wintry twilight and indulged in the
weakness of a cry. Matthew, coming in with a lantern, caught her at it
and gazed at her in such consternation that Marilla had to laugh through
her tears.

"I was thinking about Anne," she explained. "She's got to be such a big
girl--and she'll probably be away from us next winter. I'll miss her
terrible."

"She'll be able to come home often," comforted Matthew, to whom Anne was
as yet and always would be the little, eager girl he had brought home
from Bright River on that June evening four years before. "The branch
railroad will be built to Carmody by that time."

"It won't be the same thing as having her here all the time," sighed
Marilla gloomily, determined to enjoy her luxury of grief uncomforted.
"But there--men can't understand these things!"

There were other changes in Anne no less real than the physical change.
For one thing, she became much quieter. Perhaps she thought all the
more and dreamed as much as ever, but she certainly talked less. Marilla
noticed and commented on this also.

"You don't chatter half as much as you used to, Anne, nor use half as
many big words. What has come over you?"

Anne colored and laughed a little, as she dropped her book and looked
dreamily out of the window, where big fat red buds were bursting out on
the creeper in response to the lure of the spring sunshine.

"I don't know--I don't want to talk as much," she said, denting her
chin thoughtfully with her forefinger. "It's nicer to think dear, pretty
thoughts and keep them in one's heart, like treasures. I don't like to
have them laughed at or wondered over. And somehow I don't want to use
big words any more. It's almost a pity, isn't it, now that I'm really
growing big enough to say them if I did want to. It's fun to be almost
grown up in some ways, but it's not the kind of fun I expected, Marilla.
There's so much to learn and do and think that there isn't time for big
words. Besides, Miss Stacy says the short ones are much stronger and
better. She makes us write all our essays as simply as possible. It was
hard at first. I was so used to crowding in all the fine big words I
could think of--and I thought of any number of them. But I've got used
to it now and I see it's so much better."

"What has become of your story club? I haven't heard you speak of it for
a long time."

"The story club isn't in existence any longer. We hadn't time for
it--and anyhow I think we had got tired of it. It was silly to be
writing about love and murder and elopements and mysteries. Miss Stacy
sometimes has us write a story for training in composition, but she
won't let us write anything but what might happen in Avonlea in our own
lives, and she criticizes it very sharply and makes us criticize our own
too. I never thought my compositions had so many faults until I began to
look for them myself. I felt so ashamed I wanted to give up altogether,
but Miss Stacy said I could learn to write well if I only trained myself
to be my own severest critic. And so I am trying to."

"You've only two more months before the Entrance," said Marilla. "Do you
think you'll be able to get through?"

Anne shivered.

"I don't know. Sometimes I think I'll be all right--and then I get
horribly afraid. We've studied hard and Miss Stacy has drilled us
thoroughly, but we mayn't get through for all that. We've each got a
stumbling block. Mine is geometry of course, and Jane's is Latin, and
Ruby and Charlie's is algebra, and Josie's is arithmetic. Moody Spurgeon
says he feels it in his bones that he is going to fail in English
history. Miss Stacy is going to give us examinations in June just as
hard as we'll have at the Entrance and mark us just as strictly, so
we'll have some idea. I wish it was all over, Marilla. It haunts me.
Sometimes I wake up in the night and wonder what I'll do if I don't
pass."

"Why, go to school next year and try again," said Marilla unconcernedly.

"Oh, I don't believe I'd have the heart for it. It would be such a
disgrace to fail, especially if Gil--if the others passed. And I get so
nervous in an examination that I'm likely to make a mess of it. I wish I
had nerves like Jane Andrews. Nothing rattles her."

Anne sighed and, dragging her eyes from the witcheries of the spring
world, the beckoning day of breeze and blue, and the green things
upspringing in the garden, buried herself resolutely in her book.
There would be other springs, but if she did not succeed in passing the
Entrance, Anne felt convinced that she would never recover sufficiently
to enjoy them.

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

completion: Marilla let Anne avoid studies and spend time outside with Diana all summer because the doctor said that Anne needed open air. When September came, Anne was refreshed and eager to return to her studies. As Anne takes her school books down from the attic, she and Marilla discuss why women can't be ministers and how Anne tries to be a good person but feels tempted to do whatever Mrs. Rachel Lynde tells her not to do. School begins and all the students in Anne's class become immediately preoccupied with whether they will pass the entrance exam to Queen's. Throughout the school year, Anne studies hard, participates in Debating Club concerts, socializes, grows taller, and becomes quieter. Marilla feels a sense of sorrow over losing the young version of Anne, but Matthew says that Anne will visit often once she goes away to Queen's. In the spring, Marilla asks Anne about her growing quieter and using shorter words. Anne says that she has begun to enjoy keeping thoughts in her head and that Miss Stacy says short words are stronger. Anne also tells Marilla that the story club disbanded some time ago because everyone needed more time for their studies. With only two months until the entrance exam, Anne wishes she could go outside and enjoy nature, but she focuses on studying instead


prompt:
Chapter: |WITH the end of June came the close of the term and the close of Miss
Stacy's rule in Avonlea school. Anne and Diana walked home that
evening feeling very sober indeed. Red eyes and damp handkerchiefs bore
convincing testimony to the fact that Miss Stacy's farewell words must
have been quite as touching as Mr. Phillips's had been under similar
circumstances three years before. Diana looked back at the schoolhouse
from the foot of the spruce hill and sighed deeply.

"It does seem as if it was the end of everything, doesn't it?" she said
dismally.

"You oughtn't to feel half as badly as I do," said Anne, hunting vainly
for a dry spot on her handkerchief. "You'll be back again next winter,
but I suppose I've left the dear old school forever--if I have good
luck, that is."

"It won't be a bit the same. Miss Stacy won't be there, nor you nor Jane
nor Ruby probably. I shall have to sit all alone, for I couldn't bear
to have another deskmate after you. Oh, we have had jolly times, haven't
we, Anne? It's dreadful to think they're all over."

Two big tears rolled down by Diana's nose.

"If you would stop crying I could," said Anne imploringly. "Just as
soon as I put away my hanky I see you brimming up and that starts me off
again. As Mrs. Lynde says, 'If you can't be cheerful, be as cheerful as
you can.' After all, I dare say I'll be back next year. This is one
of the times I _know_ I'm not going to pass. They're getting alarmingly
frequent."

"Why, you came out splendidly in the exams Miss Stacy gave."

"Yes, but those exams didn't make me nervous. When I think of the real
thing you can't imagine what a horrid cold fluttery feeling comes round
my heart. And then my number is thirteen and Josie Pye says it's so
unlucky. I am _not_ superstitious and I know it can make no difference.
But still I wish it wasn't thirteen."

"I do wish I was going in with you," said Diana. "Wouldn't we have
a perfectly elegant time? But I suppose you'll have to cram in the
evenings."

"No; Miss Stacy has made us promise not to open a book at all. She says
it would only tire and confuse us and we are to go out walking and not
think about the exams at all and go to bed early. It's good advice, but
I expect it will be hard to follow; good advice is apt to be, I think.
Prissy Andrews told me that she sat up half the night every night of her
Entrance week and crammed for dear life; and I had determined to sit up
_at least_ as long as she did. It was so kind of your Aunt Josephine to
ask me to stay at Beechwood while I'm in town."

"You'll write to me while you're in, won't you?"

"I'll write Tuesday night and tell you how the first day goes," promised
Anne.

"I'll be haunting the post office Wednesday," vowed Diana.

Anne went to town the following Monday and on Wednesday Diana haunted
the post office, as agreed, and got her letter.

"Dearest Diana" [wrote Anne],

"Here it is Tuesday night and I'm writing this in the library at
Beechwood. Last night I was horribly lonesome all alone in my room and
wished so much you were with me. I couldn't 'cram' because I'd promised
Miss Stacy not to, but it was as hard to keep from opening my history
as it used to be to keep from reading a story before my lessons were
learned.

"This morning Miss Stacy came for me and we went to the Academy, calling
for Jane and Ruby and Josie on our way. Ruby asked me to feel her hands
and they were as cold as ice. Josie said I looked as if I hadn't slept
a wink and she didn't believe I was strong enough to stand the grind
of the teacher's course even if I did get through. There are times and
seasons even yet when I don't feel that I've made any great headway in
learning to like Josie Pye!

"When we reached the Academy there were scores of students there from
all over the Island. The first person we saw was Moody Spurgeon sitting
on the steps and muttering away to himself. Jane asked him what on earth
he was doing and he said he was repeating the multiplication table over
and over to steady his nerves and for pity's sake not to interrupt
him, because if he stopped for a moment he got frightened and forgot
everything he ever knew, but the multiplication table kept all his facts
firmly in their proper place!

"When we were assigned to our rooms Miss Stacy had to leave us. Jane and
I sat together and Jane was so composed that I envied her. No need of
the multiplication table for good, steady, sensible Jane! I wondered if
I looked as I felt and if they could hear my heart thumping clear
across the room. Then a man came in and began distributing the English
examination sheets. My hands grew cold then and my head fairly whirled
around as I picked it up. Just one awful moment--Diana, I felt exactly
as I did four years ago when I asked Marilla if I might stay at Green
Gables--and then everything cleared up in my mind and my heart began
beating again--I forgot to say that it had stopped altogether!--for I
knew I could do something with _that_ paper anyhow.

"At noon we went home for dinner and then back again for history in
the afternoon. The history was a pretty hard paper and I got dreadfully
mixed up in the dates. Still, I think I did fairly well today. But oh,
Diana, tomorrow the geometry exam comes off and when I think of it
it takes every bit of determination I possess to keep from opening my
Euclid. If I thought the multiplication table would help me any I would
recite it from now till tomorrow morning.

"I went down to see the other girls this evening. On my way I met Moody
Spurgeon wandering distractedly around. He said he knew he had failed in
history and he was born to be a disappointment to his parents and he
was going home on the morning train; and it would be easier to be a
carpenter than a minister, anyhow. I cheered him up and persuaded him to
stay to the end because it would be unfair to Miss Stacy if he didn't.
Sometimes I have wished I was born a boy, but when I see Moody Spurgeon
I'm always glad I'm a girl and not his sister.

"Ruby was in hysterics when I reached their boardinghouse; she had just
discovered a fearful mistake she had made in her English paper. When
she recovered we went uptown and had an ice cream. How we wished you had
been with us.

"Oh, Diana, if only the geometry examination were over! But there, as
Mrs. Lynde would say, the sun will go on rising and setting whether I
fail in geometry or not. That is true but not especially comforting. I
think I'd rather it didn't go on if I failed!

"Yours devotedly,

"Anne"

The geometry examination and all the others were over in due time and
Anne arrived home on Friday evening, rather tired but with an air of
chastened triumph about her. Diana was over at Green Gables when she
arrived and they met as if they had been parted for years.

"You old darling, it's perfectly splendid to see you back again. It
seems like an age since you went to town and oh, Anne, how did you get
along?"

"Pretty well, I think, in everything but the geometry. I don't know
whether I passed in it or not and I have a creepy, crawly presentiment
that I didn't. Oh, how good it is to be back! Green Gables is the
dearest, loveliest spot in the world."

"How did the others do?"

"The girls say they know they didn't pass, but I think they did pretty
well. Josie says the geometry was so easy a child of ten could do it!
Moody Spurgeon still thinks he failed in history and Charlie says he
failed in algebra. But we don't really know anything about it and won't
until the pass list is out. That won't be for a fortnight. Fancy living
a fortnight in such suspense! I wish I could go to sleep and never wake
up until it is over."

Diana knew it would be useless to ask how Gilbert Blythe had fared, so
she merely said:

"Oh, you'll pass all right. Don't worry."

"I'd rather not pass at all than not come out pretty well up on the
list," flashed Anne, by which she meant--and Diana knew she meant--that
success would be incomplete and bitter if she did not come out ahead of
Gilbert Blythe.

With this end in view Anne had strained every nerve during the
examinations. So had Gilbert. They had met and passed each other on the
street a dozen times without any sign of recognition and every time Anne
had held her head a little higher and wished a little more earnestly
that she had made friends with Gilbert when he asked her, and vowed a
little more determinedly to surpass him in the examination. She knew
that all Avonlea junior was wondering which would come out first; she
even knew that Jimmy Glover and Ned Wright had a bet on the question
and that Josie Pye had said there was no doubt in the world that Gilbert
would be first; and she felt that her humiliation would be unbearable if
she failed.

But she had another and nobler motive for wishing to do well. She wanted
to "pass high" for the sake of Matthew and Marilla--especially Matthew.
Matthew had declared to her his conviction that she "would beat the
whole Island." That, Anne felt, was something it would be foolish to
hope for even in the wildest dreams. But she did hope fervently that she
would be among the first ten at least, so that she might see Matthew's
kindly brown eyes gleam with pride in her achievement. That, she
felt, would be a sweet reward indeed for all her hard work and patient
grubbing among unimaginative equations and conjugations.

At the end of the fortnight Anne took to "haunting" the post office
also, in the distracted company of Jane, Ruby, and Josie, opening the
Charlottetown dailies with shaking hands and cold, sinkaway feelings
as bad as any experienced during the Entrance week. Charlie and Gilbert
were not above doing this too, but Moody Spurgeon stayed resolutely
away.

"I haven't got the grit to go there and look at a paper in cold blood,"
he told Anne. "I'm just going to wait until somebody comes and tells me
suddenly whether I've passed or not."

When three weeks had gone by without the pass list appearing Anne began
to feel that she really couldn't stand the strain much longer. Her
appetite failed and her interest in Avonlea doings languished.
Mrs. Lynde wanted to know what else you could expect with a Tory
superintendent of education at the head of affairs, and Matthew, noting
Anne's paleness and indifference and the lagging steps that bore her
home from the post office every afternoon, began seriously to wonder if
he hadn't better vote Grit at the next election.

But one evening the news came. Anne was sitting at her open window,
for the time forgetful of the woes of examinations and the cares of the
world, as she drank in the beauty of the summer dusk, sweet-scented with
flower breaths from the garden below and sibilant and rustling from the
stir of poplars. The eastern sky above the firs was flushed faintly pink
from the reflection of the west, and Anne was wondering dreamily if the
spirit of color looked like that, when she saw Diana come flying
down through the firs, over the log bridge, and up the slope, with a
fluttering newspaper in her hand.

Anne sprang to her feet, knowing at once what that paper contained. The
pass list was out! Her head whirled and her heart beat until it hurt
her. She could not move a step. It seemed an hour to her before Diana
came rushing along the hall and burst into the room without even
knocking, so great was her excitement.

"Anne, you've passed," she cried, "passed the _very first_--you and
Gilbert both--you're ties--but your name is first. Oh, I'm so proud!"

Diana flung the paper on the table and herself on Anne's bed, utterly
breathless and incapable of further speech. Anne lighted the lamp,
oversetting the match safe and using up half a dozen matches before her
shaking hands could accomplish the task. Then she snatched up the paper.
Yes, she had passed--there was her name at the very top of a list of two
hundred! That moment was worth living for.

"You did just splendidly, Anne," puffed Diana, recovering sufficiently
to sit up and speak, for Anne, starry eyed and rapt, had not uttered a
word. "Father brought the paper home from Bright River not ten minutes
ago--it came out on the afternoon train, you know, and won't be here
till tomorrow by mail--and when I saw the pass list I just rushed over
like a wild thing. You've all passed, every one of you, Moody Spurgeon
and all, although he's conditioned in history. Jane and Ruby did pretty
well--they're halfway up--and so did Charlie. Josie just scraped through
with three marks to spare, but you'll see she'll put on as many airs as
if she'd led. Won't Miss Stacy be delighted? Oh, Anne, what does it feel
like to see your name at the head of a pass list like that? If it were
me I know I'd go crazy with joy. I am pretty near crazy as it is, but
you're as calm and cool as a spring evening."

"I'm just dazzled inside," said Anne. "I want to say a hundred things,
and I can't find words to say them in. I never dreamed of this--yes, I
did too, just once! I let myself think _once_, 'What if I should come out
first?' quakingly, you know, for it seemed so vain and presumptuous to
think I could lead the Island. Excuse me a minute, Diana. I must run
right out to the field to tell Matthew. Then we'll go up the road and
tell the good news to the others."

They hurried to the hayfield below the barn where Matthew was coiling
hay, and, as luck would have it, Mrs. Lynde was talking to Marilla at
the lane fence.

"Oh, Matthew," exclaimed Anne, "I've passed and I'm first--or one of the
first! I'm not vain, but I'm thankful."

"Well now, I always said it," said Matthew, gazing at the pass list
delightedly. "I knew you could beat them all easy."

"You've done pretty well, I must say, Anne," said Marilla, trying to
hide her extreme pride in Anne from Mrs. Rachel's critical eye. But that
good soul said heartily:

"I just guess she has done well, and far be it from me to be backward in
saying it. You're a credit to your friends, Anne, that's what, and we're
all proud of you."

That night Anne, who had wound up the delightful evening with a serious
little talk with Mrs. Allan at the manse, knelt sweetly by her open
window in a great sheen of moonshine and murmured a prayer of gratitude
and aspiration that came straight from her heart. There was in it
thankfulness for the past and reverent petition for the future; and when
she slept on her white pillow her dreams were as fair and bright and
beautiful as maidenhood might desire.

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

completion: In June, the school year ends again. Anne and Diana walk home together and cry over Miss Stacy leaving. Anne will be leaving soon to take the entrance exams, which will be proctored in Charlottetown. Diana's Aunt Josephine has invited Anne to stay in her house during her trip. Anne promises Diana that she will send her a letter about how the exams go. Anne's letter to Diana says that all the students were very worried before the exam. Some didn't sleep the night before, while others spent all morning cramming. Students from all over the island had come to take the exam. Anne had exams in English and History on her first day and would take the exam in Geometry the next day. Anne gets through her Geometry exam, and Anne and her classmates return to Avonlea to wait a fortnight for their exam scores. Anne is anxious to get her scores and see whether she beat Gilbert. She also hopes to score high in order to make Marilla and Matthew proud. One evening, Diana comes to Green Gables with a newspaper and tells Anne that she passed her exams. In fact, Anne tied with Gilbert for first place out of all the students who took the exam. The first person to whom Anne runs to tell is Matthew. Matthew, Marilla, and Mrs. Rachel Lynde all express their pride at how well Anne has done


prompt:
Chapter: |PUT on your white organdy, by all means, Anne," advised Diana
decidedly.

They were together in the east gable chamber; outside it was only
twilight--a lovely yellowish-green twilight with a clear-blue cloudless
sky. A big round moon, slowly deepening from her pallid luster into
burnished silver, hung over the Haunted Wood; the air was full of sweet
summer sounds--sleepy birds twittering, freakish breezes, faraway
voices and laughter. But in Anne's room the blind was drawn and the lamp
lighted, for an important toilet was being made.

The east gable was a very different place from what it had been on that
night four years before, when Anne had felt its bareness penetrate to
the marrow of her spirit with its inhospitable chill. Changes had crept
in, Marilla conniving at them resignedly, until it was as sweet and
dainty a nest as a young girl could desire.

The velvet carpet with the pink roses and the pink silk curtains of
Anne's early visions had certainly never materialized; but her dreams
had kept pace with her growth, and it is not probable she lamented
them. The floor was covered with a pretty matting, and the curtains that
softened the high window and fluttered in the vagrant breezes were of
pale-green art muslin. The walls, hung not with gold and silver brocade
tapestry, but with a dainty apple-blossom paper, were adorned with a few
good pictures given Anne by Mrs. Allan. Miss Stacy's photograph occupied
the place of honor, and Anne made a sentimental point of keeping fresh
flowers on the bracket under it. Tonight a spike of white lilies faintly
perfumed the room like the dream of a fragrance. There was no "mahogany
furniture," but there was a white-painted bookcase filled with books, a
cushioned wicker rocker, a toilet table befrilled with white muslin,
a quaint, gilt-framed mirror with chubby pink Cupids and purple grapes
painted over its arched top, that used to hang in the spare room, and a
low white bed.

Anne was dressing for a concert at the White Sands Hotel. The guests had
got it up in aid of the Charlottetown hospital, and had hunted out all
the available amateur talent in the surrounding districts to help it
along. Bertha Sampson and Pearl Clay of the White Sands Baptist choir
had been asked to sing a duet; Milton Clark of Newbridge was to give a
violin solo; Winnie Adella Blair of Carmody was to sing a Scotch ballad;
and Laura Spencer of Spencervale and Anne Shirley of Avonlea were to
recite.

As Anne would have said at one time, it was "an epoch in her life," and
she was deliciously athrill with the excitement of it. Matthew was in
the seventh heaven of gratified pride over the honor conferred on his
Anne and Marilla was not far behind, although she would have died rather
than admit it, and said she didn't think it was very proper for a lot
of young folks to be gadding over to the hotel without any responsible
person with them.

Anne and Diana were to drive over with Jane Andrews and her brother
Billy in their double-seated buggy; and several other Avonlea girls and
boys were going too. There was a party of visitors expected out from
town, and after the concert a supper was to be given to the performers.

"Do you really think the organdy will be best?" queried Anne anxiously.
"I don't think it's as pretty as my blue-flowered muslin--and it
certainly isn't so fashionable."

 "But it suits you ever so much better," said Diana. "It's so soft
and frilly and clinging. The muslin is stiff, and makes you look too
dressed up. But the organdy seems as if it grew on you."

Anne sighed and yielded. Diana was beginning to have a reputation for
notable taste in dressing, and her advice on such subjects was much
sought after. She was looking very pretty herself on this particular
night in a dress of the lovely wild-rose pink, from which Anne was
forever debarred; but she was not to take any part in the concert, so
her appearance was of minor importance. All her pains were bestowed upon
Anne, who, she vowed, must, for the credit of Avonlea, be dressed and
combed and adorned to the Queen's taste.

"Pull out that frill a little more--so; here, let me tie your sash; now
for your slippers. I'm going to braid your hair in two thick braids,
and tie them halfway up with big white bows--no, don't pull out a single
curl over your forehead--just have the soft part. There is no way you do
your hair suits you so well, Anne, and Mrs. Allan says you look like a
Madonna when you part it so. I shall fasten this little white house rose
just behind your ear. There was just one on my bush, and I saved it for
you."

"Shall I put my pearl beads on?" asked Anne. "Matthew brought me a
string from town last week, and I know he'd like to see them on me."

Diana pursed up her lips, put her black head on one side critically,
and finally pronounced in favor of the beads, which were thereupon tied
around Anne's slim milk-white throat.

"There's something so stylish about you, Anne," said Diana, with
unenvious admiration. "You hold your head with such an air. I suppose
it's your figure. I am just a dumpling. I've always been afraid of it,
and now I know it is so. Well, I suppose I shall just have to resign
myself to it."

"But you have such dimples," said Anne, smiling affectionately into the
pretty, vivacious face so near her own. "Lovely dimples, like little
dents in cream. I have given up all hope of dimples. My dimple-dream
will never come true; but so many of my dreams have that I mustn't
complain. Am I all ready now?"

"All ready," assured Diana, as Marilla appeared in the doorway, a gaunt
figure with grayer hair than of yore and no fewer angles, but with a
much softer face. "Come right in and look at our elocutionist, Marilla.
Doesn't she look lovely?"

Marilla emitted a sound between a sniff and a grunt.

"She looks neat and proper. I like that way of fixing her hair. But I
expect she'll ruin that dress driving over there in the dust and dew
with it, and it looks most too thin for these damp nights. Organdy's the
most unserviceable stuff in the world anyhow, and I told Matthew so when
he got it. But there is no use in saying anything to Matthew nowadays.
Time was when he would take my advice, but now he just buys things for
Anne regardless, and the clerks at Carmody know they can palm anything
off on him. Just let them tell him a thing is pretty and fashionable,
and Matthew plunks his money down for it. Mind you keep your skirt clear
of the wheel, Anne, and put your warm jacket on."

Then Marilla stalked downstairs, thinking proudly how sweet Anne looked,
with that

     "One moonbeam from the forehead to the crown"

and regretting that she could not go to the concert herself to hear her
girl recite.

"I wonder if it _is_ too damp for my dress," said Anne anxiously.

"Not a bit of it," said Diana, pulling up the window blind. "It's a
perfect night, and there won't be any dew. Look at the moonlight."

"I'm so glad my window looks east into the sun rising," said Anne, going
over to Diana. "It's so splendid to see the morning coming up over those
long hills and glowing through those sharp fir tops. It's new every
morning, and I feel as if I washed my very soul in that bath of earliest
sunshine. Oh, Diana, I love this little room so dearly. I don't know how
I'll get along without it when I go to town next month."

"Don't speak of your going away tonight," begged Diana. "I don't want to
think of it, it makes me so miserable, and I do want to have a good time
this evening. What are you going to recite, Anne? And are you nervous?"

"Not a bit. I've recited so often in public I don't mind at all now.
I've decided to give 'The Maiden's Vow.' It's so pathetic. Laura Spencer
is going to give a comic recitation, but I'd rather make people cry than
laugh."

"What will you recite if they encore you?"

"They won't dream of encoring me," scoffed Anne, who was not without her
own secret hopes that they would, and already visioned herself telling
Matthew all about it at the next morning's breakfast table. "There are
Billy and Jane now--I hear the wheels. Come on."

Billy Andrews insisted that Anne should ride on the front seat with him,
so she unwillingly climbed up. She would have much preferred to sit
back with the girls, where she could have laughed and chattered to her
heart's content. There was not much of either laughter or chatter
in Billy. He was a big, fat, stolid youth of twenty, with a round,
expressionless face, and a painful lack of conversational gifts. But he
admired Anne immensely, and was puffed up with pride over the prospect
of driving to White Sands with that slim, upright figure beside him.

Anne, by dint of talking over her shoulder to the girls and occasionally
passing a sop of civility to Billy--who grinned and chuckled and never
could think of any reply until it was too late--contrived to enjoy the
drive in spite of all. It was a night for enjoyment. The road was full
of buggies, all bound for the hotel, and laughter, silver clear, echoed
and reechoed along it. When they reached the hotel it was a blaze of
light from top to bottom. They were met by the ladies of the concert
committee, one of whom took Anne off to the performers' dressing room
which was filled with the members of a Charlottetown Symphony Club,
among whom Anne felt suddenly shy and frightened and countrified. Her
dress, which, in the east gable, had seemed so dainty and pretty, now
seemed simple and plain--too simple and plain, she thought, among all
the silks and laces that glistened and rustled around her. What were her
pearl beads compared to the diamonds of the big, handsome lady near her?
And how poor her one wee white rose must look beside all the hothouse
flowers the others wore! Anne laid her hat and jacket away, and shrank
miserably into a corner. She wished herself back in the white room at
Green Gables.

It was still worse on the platform of the big concert hall of the hotel,
where she presently found herself. The electric lights dazzled her eyes,
the perfume and hum bewildered her. She wished she were sitting down
in the audience with Diana and Jane, who seemed to be having a splendid
time away at the back. She was wedged in between a stout lady in pink
silk and a tall, scornful-looking girl in a white-lace dress. The stout
lady occasionally turned her head squarely around and surveyed Anne
through her eyeglasses until Anne, acutely sensitive of being so
scrutinized, felt that she must scream aloud; and the white-lace girl
kept talking audibly to her next neighbor about the "country bumpkins"
and "rustic belles" in the audience, languidly anticipating "such fun"
from the displays of local talent on the program. Anne believed that she
would hate that white-lace girl to the end of life.

Unfortunately for Anne, a professional elocutionist was staying at the
hotel and had consented to recite. She was a lithe, dark-eyed woman in a
wonderful gown of shimmering gray stuff like woven moonbeams, with gems
on her neck and in her dark hair. She had a marvelously flexible voice
and wonderful power of expression; the audience went wild over her
selection. Anne, forgetting all about herself and her troubles for the
time, listened with rapt and shining eyes; but when the recitation ended
she suddenly put her hands over her face. She could never get up and
recite after that--never. Had she ever thought she could recite? Oh, if
she were only back at Green Gables!

At this unpropitious moment her name was called. Somehow Anne--who did
not notice the rather guilty little start of surprise the white-lace
girl gave, and would not have understood the subtle compliment implied
therein if she had--got on her feet, and moved dizzily out to the front.
She was so pale that Diana and Jane, down in the audience, clasped each
other's hands in nervous sympathy.

Anne was the victim of an overwhelming attack of stage fright. Often as
she had recited in public, she had never before faced such an audience
as this, and the sight of it paralyzed her energies completely.
Everything was so strange, so brilliant, so bewildering--the rows of
ladies in evening dress, the critical faces, the whole atmosphere of
wealth and culture about her. Very different this from the plain benches
at the Debating Club, filled with the homely, sympathetic faces of
friends and neighbors. These people, she thought, would be merciless
critics. Perhaps, like the white-lace girl, they anticipated amusement
from her "rustic" efforts. She felt hopelessly, helplessly ashamed and
miserable. Her knees trembled, her heart fluttered, a horrible faintness
came over her; not a word could she utter, and the next moment she would
have fled from the platform despite the humiliation which, she felt,
must ever after be her portion if she did so.

But suddenly, as her dilated, frightened eyes gazed out over the
audience, she saw Gilbert Blythe away at the back of the room, bending
forward with a smile on his face--a smile which seemed to Anne at once
triumphant and taunting. In reality it was nothing of the kind. Gilbert
was merely smiling with appreciation of the whole affair in general and
of the effect produced by Anne's slender white form and spiritual face
against a background of palms in particular. Josie Pye, whom he had
driven over, sat beside him, and her face certainly was both triumphant
and taunting. But Anne did not see Josie, and would not have cared if
she had. She drew a long breath and flung her head up proudly, courage
and determination tingling over her like an electric shock. She _would
not_ fail before Gilbert Blythe--he should never be able to laugh at her,
never, never! Her fright and nervousness vanished; and she began her
recitation, her clear, sweet voice reaching to the farthest corner of
the room without a tremor or a break. Self-possession was fully restored
to her, and in the reaction from that horrible moment of powerlessness
she recited as she had never done before. When she finished there were
bursts of honest applause. Anne, stepping back to her seat, blushing
with shyness and delight, found her hand vigorously clasped and shaken
by the stout lady in pink silk.

"My dear, you did splendidly," she puffed. "I've been crying like a
baby, actually I have. There, they're encoring you--they're bound to
have you back!"

"Oh, I can't go," said Anne confusedly. "But yet--I must, or Matthew
will be disappointed. He said they would encore me."

"Then don't disappoint Matthew," said the pink lady, laughing.

Smiling, blushing, limpid eyed, Anne tripped back and gave a quaint,
funny little selection that captivated her audience still further. The
rest of the evening was quite a little triumph for her.

When the concert was over, the stout, pink lady--who was the wife of
an American millionaire--took her under her wing, and introduced her
to everybody; and everybody was very nice to her. The professional
elocutionist, Mrs. Evans, came and chatted with her, telling her that
she had a charming voice and "interpreted" her selections beautifully.
Even the white-lace girl paid her a languid little compliment. They had
supper in the big, beautifully decorated dining room; Diana and Jane
were invited to partake of this, also, since they had come with Anne,
but Billy was nowhere to be found, having decamped in mortal fear
of some such invitation. He was in waiting for them, with the team,
however, when it was all over, and the three girls came merrily out into
the calm, white moonshine radiance. Anne breathed deeply, and looked
into the clear sky beyond the dark boughs of the firs.

Oh, it was good to be out again in the purity and silence of the night!
How great and still and wonderful everything was, with the murmur of the
sea sounding through it and the darkling cliffs beyond like grim giants
guarding enchanted coasts.

"Hasn't it been a perfectly splendid time?" sighed Jane, as they drove
away. "I just wish I was a rich American and could spend my summer at
a hotel and wear jewels and low-necked dresses and have ice cream and
chicken salad every blessed day. I'm sure it would be ever so much
more fun than teaching school. Anne, your recitation was simply great,
although I thought at first you were never going to begin. I think it
was better than Mrs. Evans's."

"Oh, no, don't say things like that, Jane," said Anne quickly, "because
it sounds silly. It couldn't be better than Mrs. Evans's, you know, for
she is a professional, and I'm only a schoolgirl, with a little knack
of reciting. I'm quite satisfied if the people just liked mine pretty
well."

"I've a compliment for you, Anne," said Diana. "At least I think it
must be a compliment because of the tone he said it in. Part of it
was anyhow. There was an American sitting behind Jane and me--such a
romantic-looking man, with coal-black hair and eyes. Josie Pye says he
is a distinguished artist, and that her mother's cousin in Boston is
married to a man that used to go to school with him. Well, we heard
him say--didn't we, Jane?--'Who is that girl on the platform with the
splendid Titian hair? She has a face I should like to paint.' There now,
Anne. But what does Titian hair mean?"

"Being interpreted it means plain red, I guess," laughed Anne. "Titian
was a very famous artist who liked to paint red-haired women."

"_Did_ you see all the diamonds those ladies wore?" sighed Jane. "They
were simply dazzling. Wouldn't you just love to be rich, girls?"

"We _are_ rich," said Anne staunchly. "Why, we have sixteen years to our
credit, and we're happy as queens, and we've all got imaginations, more
or less. Look at that sea, girls--all silver and shadow and vision of
things not seen. We couldn't enjoy its loveliness any more if we had
millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds. You wouldn't change into any
of those women if you could. Would you want to be that white-lace girl
and wear a sour look all your life, as if you'd been born turning up
your nose at the world? Or the pink lady, kind and nice as she is, so
stout and short that you'd really no figure at all? Or even Mrs. Evans,
with that sad, sad look in her eyes? She must have been dreadfully
unhappy sometime to have such a look. You _know_ you wouldn't, Jane
Andrews!"

"I _don't_ know--exactly," said Jane unconvinced. "I think diamonds would
comfort a person for a good deal."

"Well, I don't want to be anyone but myself, even if I go uncomforted by
diamonds all my life," declared Anne. "I'm quite content to be Anne of
Green Gables, with my string of pearl beads. I know Matthew gave me as
much love with them as ever went with Madame the Pink Lady's jewels."

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

completion: Anne and Diana get ready together for a concert at a hotel in Charlottetown. Anne is the only student from the Avonlea school who has been chosen to perform, and Diana instructs her on how to dress and style her hair for the occasion. Marilla comes to Anne's room and praises Anne as well, though she mixes in criticisms as usual. A young man named Billy Andrews comes to pick up Anne and Diana. He asks Anne to sit in the front with him since she is so slim and beautiful. Anne finds Billy boring and spends the entire car ride talking to Diana and Jane. When they arrive at the hotel, Anne feels "suddenly shy and frightened and countrified". Anne becomes even more embarrassed when she hears the other performers talking about the "country bumpkins" in the audience. A professional elocutionist recites wonderfully, and Anne is rapt with attention. When the recitation ends, Anne is seized with panic, thinking her performance will pale in comparison. Anne is called to the stage and develops a terrible case of stage fright. However, when she sees Gilbert Blythe in the crowd, she tells herself that she can't fail in front of him. She recites so powerfully that she causes the other performers to cry and the audience to call her back for an encore. She does a comical recitation as her encore, which the crowd likes as well. After the concert, the other performers, including the professional elocutionist, dote on Anne. Anne and her friends are invited to a supper for the performers. After the supper, they return to Billy's car and drive back to Avonlea. Jane tells Anne that she thinks her recitation was better than the professional's, and Diana tells Anne that a man in the audience said he would like to paint Anne. The girls spend the rest of the ride arguing about whether they would like to be rich; Anne argues, "I don't want to be anyone but myself, even if I go uncomforted by diamonds all my life. I'm quite content to be Anne of Green Gables"