Chapter XXXIV

CHAPTER XXXIV

A Queen's Girl

The next three weeks were busy ones at Green Gables, for
Anne was getting ready to go to Queen's, and there was
much sewing to be done, and many things to be talked
over and arranged. Anne's outfit was ample and pretty, for
Matthew saw to that, and Marilla for once made no objections
whatever to anything he purchased or suggested. More--
one evening she went up to the east gable with her arms full
of a delicate pale green material.

"Anne, here's something for a nice light dress for you.
I don't suppose you really need it; you've plenty of
pretty waists; but I thought maybe you'd like something
real dressy to wear if you were asked out anywhere of an
evening in town, to a party or anything like that. I hear
that Jane and Ruby and Josie have got 'evening dresses,' as
they call them, and I don't mean you shall be behind them.
I got Mrs. Allan to help me pick it in town last week,
and we'll get Emily Gillis to make it for you. Emily
has got taste, and her fits aren't to be equaled."

"Oh, Marilla, it's just lovely," said Anne. "Thank you so
much. I don't believe you ought to be so kind to me--it's
making it harder every day for me to go away."

The green dress was made up with as many tucks and frills
and shirrings as Emily's taste permitted. Anne put it
on one evening for Matthew's and Marilla's benefit,
and recited "The Maiden's Vow" for them in the kitchen.
As Marilla watched the bright, animated face and graceful
motions her thoughts went back to the evening Anne had
arrived at Green Gables, and memory recalled a vivid
picture of the odd, frightened child in her preposterous
yellowish-brown wincey dress, the heartbreak looking out
of her tearful eyes. Something in the memory brought
tears to Marilla's own eyes.

"I declare, my recitation has made you cry, Marilla,"
said Anne gaily stooping over Marilla's chair to drop a
butterfly kiss on that lady's cheek. "Now, I call that a
positive triumph."

"No, I wasn't crying over your piece," said Marilla, who
would have scorned to be betrayed into such weakness by
any poetry stuff. "I just couldn't help thinking of the
little girl you used to be, Anne. And I was wishing you could
have stayed a little girl, even with all your queer ways.
You've grown up now and you're going away; and you look
so tall and stylish and so--so--different altogether
in that dress--as if you didn't belong in Avonlea at all--
and I just got lonesome thinking it all over."

"Marilla!" Anne sat down on Marilla's gingham lap, took
Marilla's lined face between her hands, and looked gravely
and tenderly into Marilla's eyes. "I'm not a bit changed--
not really. I'm only just