Chapter XXV

CHAPTER XXV

Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves

Matthew was having a bad ten minutes of it. He had come into the
kitchen, in the twilight of a cold, gray December evening, and
had sat down in the woodbox corner to take off his heavy boots,
unconscious of the fact that Anne and a bevy of her schoolmates
were having a practice of "The Fairy Queen" in the sitting room.
Presently they came trooping through the hall and out into the
kitchen, laughing and chattering gaily. They did not see
Matthew, who shrank bashfully back into the shadows beyond the
woodbox with a boot in one hand and a bootjack in the other, and
he watched them shyly for the aforesaid ten minutes as they put on
caps and jackets and talked about the dialogue and the concert.
Anne stood among them, bright eyed and animated as they;
but Matthew suddenly became conscious that there was something
about her different from her mates. And what worried Matthew
was that the difference impressed him as being something that
should not exist. Anne had a brighter face, and bigger,
starrier eyes, and more delicate features than the other; even
shy, unobservant Matthew had learned to take note of these
things; but the difference that disturbed him did not consist in
any of these respects. Then in what did it consist?

Matthew was haunted by this question long after the girls had gone,
arm in arm, down the long, hard-frozen lane and Anne had betaken
herself to her books. He could not refer it to Marilla, who,
he felt, would be quite sure to sniff scornfully and remark that
the only difference she saw between Anne and the other girls was
that they sometimes kept their tongues quiet while Anne never did.
This, Matthew felt, would be no great help.

He had recourse to his pipe that evening to help him study it
out, much to Marilla's disgust. After two hours of smoking and
hard reflection Matthew arrived at a solution of his problem.
Anne was not dressed like the other girls!

The more Matthew thought about the matter the more he was
convinced that Anne never had been dressed like the other
girls--never since she had come to Green Gables. Marilla kept
her clothed in plain, dark dresses, all made after the same
unvarying pattern. If Matthew knew there was such a thing as
fashion in dress it was as much as he did; but he was quite sure
that Anne's sleeves did not look at all like the sleeves the
other girls wore. He recalled the cluster of little girls he had
seen around her that evening--all gay in waists of red and blue
and pink and white--and he wondered why Marilla always kept her
so plainly and soberly gowned.

Of course, it must be all right. Marilla knew best and Marilla was
bringing her up. Probably some