Chapter V

CHAPTER V

Anne's History

"Do you know," said Anne confidentially, "I've made up
my mind to enjoy this drive. It's been my experience that
you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind
firmly that you will. Of course, you must make it up
FIRMLY. I am not going to think about going back to the
asylum while we're having our drive. I'm just going to
think about the drive. Oh, look, there's one little early
wild rose out! Isn't it lovely? Don't you think it must be
glad to be a rose? Wouldn't it be nice if roses could talk?
I'm sure they could tell us such lovely things. And isn't
pink the most bewitching color in the world? I love it, but
I can't wear it. Redheaded people can't wear pink, not
even in imagination. Did you ever know of anybody whose
hair was red when she was young, but got to be another
color when she grew up?"

"No, I don't know as I ever did," said Marilla mercilessly,
"and I shouldn't think it likely to happen in your case either."

Anne sighed.

"Well, that is another hope gone. 'My life is a perfect
graveyard of buried hopes.' That's a sentence I read in a
book once, and I say it over to comfort myself whenever
I'm disappointed in anything."

"I don't see where the comforting comes in myself,"
said Marilla.

"Why, because it sounds so nice and romantic, just as if
I were a heroine in a book, you know. I am so fond of
romantic things, and a graveyard full of buried hopes is
about as romantic a thing as one can imagine isn't it? I'm
rather glad I have one. Are we going across the Lake of
Shining Waters today?"

"We're not going over Barry's pond, if that's what you
mean by your Lake of Shining Waters. We're going by the
shore road."

"Shore road sounds nice," said Anne dreamily. "Is it as
nice as it sounds? Just when you said 'shore road' I saw it
in a picture in my mind, as quick as that! And White
Sands is a pretty name, too; but I don't like it as well as
Avonlea. Avonlea is a lovely name. It just sounds like
music. How far is it to White Sands?"

"It's five miles; and as you're evidently bent on talking
you might as well talk to some purpose by telling me what
you know about yourself."

"Oh, what I KNOW about myself isn't really worth telling,"
said Anne eagerly. "If you'll only let me tell you
what I IMAGINE about myself you'll think it ever so much
more interesting."

"No, I don't want any of your imaginings. Just you stick
to bald facts. Begin at the beginning. Where were you
born and how old are you?"

"I was eleven last March," said Anne, resigning herself
to bald facts with a little sigh. "And I was born in
Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia. My