everybody will get ahead of me in class. Oh, I am an afflicted

mortal. But I'll try to bear it all bravely if only you won't
be cross with me, Marilla."

"There, there, I'm not cross," said Marilla. "You're an unlucky
child, there's no doubt about that; but as you say, you'll have

the suffering of it. Here now, try and eat some supper."
"Isn't it fortunate I've got such an imagination?" said Anne.

"It will help me through splendidly, I expect. What do people
who haven't any imagination do when they break their bones, do

you suppose, Marilla?"
Anne had good reason to bless her imagination many a time and oft

during the tedious seven weeks that followed. But she was not
solely dependent on it. She had many visitors and not a day

passed without one or more of the schoolgirls dropping in to
bring her flowers and books and tell her all the happenings in

the juvenile world of Avonlea.
"Everybody has been so good and kind, Marilla," sighed Anne

happily, on the day when she could first limp across the floor.
"It isn't very pleasant to be laid up; but there is a bright side

to it, Marilla. You find out how many friends you have. Why,
even Superintendent Bell came to see me, and he's really a very

fine man. Not a kindred spirit, of course; but still I like him
and I'm awfully sorry I ever criticized his prayers. I believe

now he really does mean them, only he has got into the habit of
saying them as if he didn't. He could get over that if he'd take

a little trouble. I gave him a good broad hint. I told him how
hard I tried to make my own little private prayers interesting.

He told me all about the time he broke his ankle when he was a
boy. It does seem so strange to think of Superintendent Bell

ever being a boy. Even my imagination has its limits, for I
can't imagine THAT. When I try to imagine him as a boy I see him

with gray whiskers and spectacles, just as he looks in Sunday
school, only small. Now, it's so easy to imagine Mrs. Allan as

a little girl. Mrs. Allan has been to see me fourteen times.
Isn't that something to be proud of, Marilla? When a minister's

wife has so many claims on her time! She is such a cheerful
person to have visit you, too. She never tells you it's your own

fault and she hopes you'll be a better girl on account of it.
Mrs. Lynde always told me that when she came to see me; and she

said it in a kind of way that made me feel she might hope I'd be
a better girl but didn't really believe I would. Even Josie Pye

came to see me. I received her as politely as I could, because I
think she was sorry she dared me to walk a ridgepole. If I had

been killed she would had to carry a dark burden of remorse all
her life. Diana has been a faithful friend. She's been over

every day to cheer my lonely pillow. But oh, I shall be so glad
when I can go to school for I've heard such exciting things about

the new teacher. The girls all think she is perfectly sweet.
Diana says she has the loveliest fair curly hair and such

fascinating eyes. She dresses beautifully, and her sleeve puffs
are bigger than anybody else's in Avonlea. Every other Friday

afternoon she has recitations and everybody has to say a piece or
take part in a dialogue. Oh, it's just glorious to think of it.

Josie Pye says she hates it but that is just because Josie has so
little imagination. Diana and Ruby Gillis and Jane Andrews are

preparing a dialogue, called `A Morning Visit,' for next Friday.
And the Friday afternoons they don't have recitations Miss Stacy

takes them all to the woods for a `field' day and they study
ferns and flowers and birds. And they have physicalculture

exercises every morning and evening. Mrs. Lynde says she never
heard of such goings on and it all comes of having a lady

teacher. But I think it must be splendid and I believe I shall
find that Miss Stacy is a kindred spirit."

"There's one thing plain to be seen, Anne," said Marilla, "and
that is that your fall off the Barry roof hasn't injured your

tongue at all."
CHAPTER XXIV

Miss Stacy and Her Pupils Get Up a Concert
It was October again when Anne was ready to go back to school--a

glorious October, all red and gold, with mellow mornings when the
valleys were filled with delicate mists as if the spirit of

autumn had poured them in for the sun to drain--amethyst, pearl,
silver, rose, and smoke-blue. The dews were so heavy that the

fields glistened like cloth of silver and there were such heaps
of rustling leaves in the hollows of many-stemmed woods to run

crisply through. The Birch Path was a canopy of yellow and the
ferns were sear and brown all along it. There was a tang in the

very air that inspired the hearts of small maidens tripping,
unlike snails, swiftly and willingly to school; and it WAS jolly

to be back again at the little brown desk beside Diana, with Ruby
Gillis nodding across the aisle and Carrie Sloane sending up

notes and Julia Bell passing a "chew" of gum down from the back
seat. Anne drew a long breath of happiness as she sharpened her

pencil and arranged her picture cards in her desk. Life was
certainly very interesting.

In the new teacher she found another true and helpful friend.
Miss Stacy was a bright, sympathetic young woman with the happy

gift of winning and holding the affections of her pupils and
bringing out the best that was in them mentally and morally.

Anne expanded like a flower under this wholesome influence and
carried home to the admiring Matthew and the critical Marilla

glowing accounts of schoolwork and aims.
"I love Miss Stacy with my whole heart, Marilla. She is so

ladylike and she has such a sweet voice. When she pronounces
my name I feel INSTINCTIVELY that she's spelling it with an E.

We had recitations this afternoon. I just wish you could have
been there to hear me recite `Mary, Queen of Scots.' I just put

my whole soul into it. Ruby Gillis told me coming home that the
way I said the line, `Now for my father's arm,' she said, `my

woman's heart farewell,' just made her blood run cold."
"Well now, you might recite it for me some of these days, out in

the barn," suggested Matthew.
"Of course I will," said Anne meditatively, "but I won't be able

to do it so well, I know. It won't be so exciting as it is when
you have a whole schoolful before you hangingbreathlessly on

your words. I know I won't be able to make your blood run cold."
"Mrs. Lynde says it made HER blood run cold to see the boys

climbing to the very tops of those big trees on Bell's hill after
crows' nests last Friday," said Marilla. "I wonder at Miss Stacy

for encouraging it."
"But we wanted a crow's nest for nature study," explained Anne.

"That was on our field afternoon. Field afternoons are splendid,
Marilla. And Miss Stacy explains everything so beautifully. We

have to write compositions on our field afternoons and I write
the best ones."

"It's very vain of you to say so then. You'd better let your
teacher say it."

"But she DID say it, Marilla. And indeed I'm not vain about it.
How can I be, when I'm such a dunce at geometry? Although I'm

really beginning to see through it a little, too. Miss Stacy
makes it so clear. Still, I'll never be good at it and I

assure you it is a humbling reflection. But I love writing
compositions. Mostly Miss Stacy lets us choose our own subjects;

but next week we are to write a composition on some remarkable
person. It's hard to choose among so many remarkable people who

have lived. Mustn't it be splendid to be remarkable and have