Chapter XVII - Page 2

informed Marilla. "I shall never have
another friend. I'm really worse off than ever before, for I
haven't Katie Maurice and Violetta now. And even if I had it
wouldn't be the same. Somehow, little dream girls are not
satisfying after a real friend. Diana and I had such an
affecting farewell down by the spring. It will be sacred in my
memory forever. I used the most pathetic language I could think
of and said 'thou' and 'thee.' 'Thou' and 'thee' seem so much
more romantic than 'you.' Diana gave me a lock of her hair and
I'm going to sew it up in a little bag and wear it around my neck
all my life. Please see that it is buried with me, for I don't
believe I'll live very long. Perhaps when she sees me lying cold
and dead before her Mrs. Barry may feel remorse for what she has
done and will let Diana come to my funeral."

"I don't think there is much fear of your dying of grief as long
as you can talk, Anne," said Marilla unsympathetically.

The following Monday Anne surprised Marilla by coming down from
her room with her basket of books on her arm and hip??? lips primmed
up into a line of determination.

"I'm going back to school," she announced. "That is all there is
left in life for me, now that my friend has been ruthlessly torn
from me. In school I can look at her and muse over days
departed."

"You'd better muse over your lessons and sums," said Marilla,
concealing her delight at this development of the situation. "If
you're going back to school I hope we'll hear no more of breaking
slates over people's heads and such carryings on. Behave
yourself and do just what your teacher tells you."

"I'll try to be a model pupil," agreed Anne dolefully. "There
won't be much fun in it, I expect. Mr. Phillips said Minnie
Andrews was a model pupil and there isn't a spark of imagination
or life in her. She is just dull and poky and never seems to
have a good time. But I feel so depressed that perhaps it will
come easy to me now. I'm going round by the road. I couldn't
bear to go by the Birch Path all alone. I should weep bitter
tears if I did."

Anne was welcomed back to school with open arms. Her imagination
had been sorely missed in games, her voice in the singing and her
dramatic ability in the perusal aloud of books at dinner hour.
Ruby Gillis smuggled three blue plums over to her during
testament reading; Ella May MacPherson gave her an enormous
yellow pansy cut from the covers of a floral catalogue--a species
of desk decoration much prized in Avonlea school. Sophia Sloane
offered to teach her a perfectly elegant new pattern of knit
lace, so nice for trimming aprons. Katie Boulter gave her a
perfume bottle to keep slate water in, and Julia Bell copied