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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Anne Is Invited Out to Tea Returning from the post office, Anne is filled with excitement because Mrs. Allan has invited her to tea. Marilla explains that Mrs. Allan has invited all the children in her Sunday school class, but this news does not diminish Anne's excitement. As usual, Marilla is troubled by Anne's enthusiasm, believing it will cause Anne pain when reality does not live up to her expectations. Anne is nervous that she will forget her manners and offend Mrs. Allan. Marilla gives her etiquette advice and tells her not to think about how she should behave but to imagine what sorts of behavior would please Mrs. Allan. After tea, Anne describes her time at Mrs. Allan's home. She admires Mrs. Allan so much that she says she wants to become a minister's wife. She tells Marilla that, according to Mrs. Rachel, the school is getting a new teacher named Miss Muriel Stacy

