in such sad, sad tones. I had become so attached to her

that I hadn't the heart to imagine a bosom friend at the
asylum, even if there had been any scope for imagination there."

"I think it's just as well there wasn't," said Marilla drily.
"I don't approve of such goings-on. You seem to half believe

your own imaginations. It will be well for you to have a real
live friend to put such nonsense out of your head. But don't

let Mrs. Barry hear you talking about your Katie Maurices and
your Violettas or she'll think you tell stories."

"Oh, I won't. I couldn't talk of them to everybody--their
memories are too sacred for that. But I thought I'd like to

have you know about them. Oh, look, here's a big bee just
tumbled out of an apple blossom. Just think what a lovely

place to live--in an apple blossom! Fancy going to sleep
in it when the wind was rocking it. If I wasn't a human

girl I think I'd like to be a bee and live among the flowers."
"Yesterday you wanted to be a sea gull," sniffed Marilla.

"I think you are very fickleminded. I told you to learn
that prayer and not talk. But it seems impossible for you

to stop talking if you've got anybody that will listen to
you. So go up to your room and learn it."

"Oh, I know it pretty nearly all now--all but just the
last line."

"Well, never mind, do as I tell you. Go to your room and
finish learning it well, and stay there until I call you

down to help me get tea."
"Can I take the apple blossoms with me for company?"

pleaded Anne.
"No; you don't want your room cluttered up with flowers.

You should have left them on the tree in the first place."
"I did feel a little that way, too," said Anne. "I kind of

felt I shouldn't shorten their lovely lives by picking
them--I wouldn't want to be picked if I were an apple blossom.

But the temptation was IRRESISTIBLE. What do you do when
you meet with an irresistibletemptation?"

"Anne, did you hear me tell you to go to your room?"
Anne sighed, retreated to the east gable, and sat down in a

chair by the window.
"There--I know this prayer. I learned that last sentence

coming upstairs. Now I'm going to imagine things into this
room so that they'll always stay imagined. The floor is

covered with a white velvetcarpet with pink roses all over
it and there are pink silk curtains at the windows. The walls

are hung with gold and silver brocade tapestry. The
furniture is mahogany. I never saw any mahogany, but it

does sound SO luxurious. This is a couch all heaped with
gorgeous silken cushions, pink and blue and crimson and

gold, and I am reclining gracefully on it. I can see my
reflection in that splendid big mirror hanging on the wall.

I am tall and regal, clad in a gown of trailing white lace,
with a pearl cross on my breast and pearls in my hair. My

hair is of midnight darkness and my skin is a clear ivory
pallor. My name is the Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald. No, it

isn't--I can't make THAT seem real."
She danced up to the little looking-glass and peered into

it. Her pointedfreckled face and solemn gray eyes peered
back at her.

"You're only Anne of Green Gables," she said earnestly,
"and I see you, just as you are looking now, whenever I

try to imagine I'm the Lady Cordelia. But it's a million
times nicer to be Anne of Green Gables than Anne of

nowhere in particular, isn't it?"
She bent forward, kissed her reflection affectionately,

and betook herself to the open window
"Dear Snow Queen, good afternoon. And good afternoon

dear birches down in the hollow. And good afternoon,
dear gray house up on the hill. I wonder if Diana is to

be my bosom friend. I hope she will, and I shall love
her very much. But I must never quite forget Katie Maurice

and Violetta. They would feel so hurt if I did and I'd
hate to hurt anybody's feelings, even a little bookcase

girl's or a little echo girl's. I must be careful to
remember them and send them a kiss every day."

Anne blew a couple of airy kisses from her fingertips
past the cherryblossoms and then, with her chin in her

hands, drifted luxuriously out on a sea of daydreams.
CHAPTER IX

Mrs. Rachel Lynde Is Properly Horrified
Anne had been a fortnight at Green Gables before Mrs.

Lynde arrived to inspect her. Mrs. Rachel, to do her
justice, was not to blame for this. A severe and unseason

-able attack of grippe had confined that good lady to her
house ever since the occasion of her last visit to Green

Gables. Mrs. Rachel was not often sick and had a well-
defined contempt for people who were; but grippe, she

asserted, was like no other illness on earth and could
only be interpreted as one of the special visitations of

Providence. As soon as her doctor allowed her to put her
foot out-of-doors she hurried up to Green Gables, bursting

with curiosity to see Matthew and Marilla's orphan,
concerning whom all sorts of stories and suppositions had

gone abroad in Avonlea.
Anne had made good use of every waking moment of that fortnight.

Already she was acquainted with every tree and shrub about the
place. She had discovered that a lane opened out below the apple

orchard and ran up through a belt of woodland; and she had
explored it to its furthest end in all its delicious vagaries of

brook and bridge, fir coppice and wild cherry arch, corners thick
with fern, and branching byways of maple and mountain ash.

She had made friends with the spring down in the hollow--
that wonderful deep, clear icy-cold spring; it was set

about with smooth red sandstones and rimmed in by great
palm-like clumps of water fern; and beyond it was a log

bridge over the brook.
That bridge led Anne's dancing feet up over a wooded

hill beyond, where perpetualtwilight reigned under the
straight, thick-growing firs and spruces; the only flowers

there were myriads of delicate "June bells," those shyest
and sweetest of woodland blooms, and a few pale, aerial

starflowers, like the spirits of last year's blossoms.
Gossamers glimmered like threads of silver among the trees

and the fir boughs and tassels seemed to utter friendly speech.
All these raptured voyages of exploration were made in the

odd half hours which she was allowed for play, and Anne
talked Matthew and Marilla halfdeaf over her discoveries.

Not that Matthew complained, to be sure; he listened to
it all with a wordless smile of enjoyment on his face;

Marilla permitted the "chatter" until she found herself
becoming too interested in it, whereupon she always promptly

quenched Anne by a curt command to hold her tongue.
Anne was out in the orchard when Mrs. Rachel came,

wandering at her own sweet will through the lush, tremu-
lous grasses splashed with ruddy evening sunshine; so that

good lady had an excellent chance to talk her illness fully
over, describing every ache and pulse beat with such

evident enjoyment that Marilla thought even grippe must
bring its compensations. When details were exhausted

Mrs. Rachel introduced the real reason of her call.