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if they could hear my heart thumping clear across the room.
Then a man came in and began distributing the English

examination sheets. My hands grew cold then and my head
fairly whirled around as I picked it up. Just one awful

moment--Diana, I felt exactly as I did four years ago when
I asked Marilla if I might stay at Green Gables--and then

everything cleared up in my mind and my heart began beating
again--I forgot to say that it had stopped altogether!--for

I knew I could do something with THAT paper anyhow.
"At noon we went home for dinner and then back again for history

in the afternoon. The history was a pretty hard paper and I got
dreadfully mixed up in the dates. Still, I think I did fairly

well today. But oh, Diana, tomorrow the geometry exam comes off
and when I think of it it takes every bit of determination I

possess to keep from opening my Euclid. If I thought the
multiplication table would help me any I would recite it

from now till tomorrow morning.
"I went down to see the other girls this evening. On my way I met

Moody Spurgeon wandering distractedly around. He said he knew he
had failed in history and he was born to be a disappointment to

his parents and he was going home on the morning train; and it
would be easier to be a carpenter than a minister, anyhow. I

cheered him up and persuaded him to stay to the end because it
would be unfair to Miss Stacy if he didn't. Sometimes I have

wished I was born a boy, but when I see Moody Spurgeon I'm always
glad I'm a girl and not his sister.

"Ruby was in hysterics when I reached their boardinghouse; she had
just discovered a fearful mistake she had made in her English

paper. When she recovered we went uptown and had an ice cream.
How we wished you had been with us.

"Oh, Diana, if only the geometry examination were over!
But there, as Mrs. Lynde would say, the sun will go on

rising and setting whether I fail in geometry or not.
That is true but not especially comforting. I think I'd

rather it didn't go on if I failed!
Yours devotedly,

Anne"
The geometry examination and all the others were over in due time

and Anne arrived home on Friday evening, rather tired but with an
air of chastened triumph about her. Diana was over at Green Gables

when she arrived and they met as if they had been parted for years.
"You old darling, it's perfectly splendid to see you back again.

It seems like an age since you went to town and oh, Anne, how did
you get along?"

"Pretty well, I think, in everything but the geometry. I don't
know whether I passed in it or not and I have a creepy, crawly

presentiment that I didn't. Oh, how good it is to be back! Green
Gables is the dearest, loveliest spot in the world."

"How did the others do?"
"The girls say they know they didn't pass, but I think they did

pretty well. Josie says the geometry was so easy a child of ten
could do it! Moody Spurgeon still thinks he failed in history

and Charlie says he failed in algebra. But we don't really know
anything about it and won't until the pass list is out. That won't

be for a fortnight. Fancy living a fortnight in such suspense!
I wish I could go to sleep and never wake up until it is over."

Diana knew it would be useless to ask how Gilbert Blythe had fared,
so she merely said:

"Oh, you'll pass all right. Don't worry."
"I'd rather not pass at all than not come out pretty well up on

the list," flashed Anne, by which she meant--and Diana knew she
meant--that success would be incomplete and bitter if she did not

come out ahead of Gilbert Blythe.
With this end in view Anne had strained every nerve during the

examinations. So had Gilbert. They had met and passed each
other on the street a dozen times without any sign of recognition

and every time Anne had held her head a little higher and wished
a little more earnestly that she had made friends with Gilbert

when he asked her, and vowed a little more determinedly to
surpass him in the examination. She knew that all Avonlea junior

was wondering which would come out first; she even knew that
Jimmy Glover and Ned Wright had a bet on the question and that

Josie Pye had said there was no doubt in the world that Gilbert
would be first; and she felt that her humiliation would be

unbearable if she failed.
But she had another and nobler motive for wishing to do well.

She wanted to "pass high" for the sake of Matthew and Marilla--
especially Matthew. Matthew had declared to her his conviction

that she "would beat the whole Island." That, Anne felt,
was something it would be foolish to hope for even in the

wildest dreams. But she did hope fervently that she would be
among the first ten at least, so that she might see Matthew's

kindly brown eyes gleam with pride in her achievement. That, she
felt, would be a sweet reward indeed for all her hard work and

patient grubbing among unimaginative equations and conjugations.
At the end of the fortnight Anne took to "haunting" the post

office also, in the distracted company of Jane, Ruby, and Josie,
opening the Charlottetown dailies with shaking hands and cold,

sinkaway feelings as bad as any experienced during the Entrance
week. Charlie and Gilbert were not above doing this too, but

Moody Spurgeon stayed resolutely away.
"I haven't got the grit to go there and look at a paper in cold

blood," he told Anne. "I'm just going to wait until somebody
comes and tells me suddenly whether I've passed or not."

When three weeks had gone by without the pass list appearing Anne
began to feel that she really couldn't stand the strain much longer.

Her appetite failed and her interest in Avonlea doings languished.
Mrs. Lynde wanted to know what else you could expect with a Tory

superintendent of education at the head of affairs, and Matthew,
noting Anne's paleness and indifference and the lagging steps that

bore her home from the post office every afternoon, began seriously
to wonder if he hadn't better vote Grit at the next election.

But one evening the news came. Anne was sitting at her open window,
for the time forgetful of the woes of examinations and the cares

of the world, as she drank in the beauty of the summer dusk,
sweet-scented with flower breaths from the garden below and sibilant

and rustling from the stir of poplars. The eastern sky above the
firs was flushed faintly pink from the reflection of the west,

and Anne was wondering dreamily if the spirit of color looked
like that, when she saw Diana come flying down through the firs,

over the log bridge, and up the slope, with a fluttering newspaper
in her hand.

Anne sprang to her feet, knowing at once what that paper
contained. The pass list was out! Her head whirled and her heart

beat until it hurt her. She could not move a step. It seemed an
hour to her before Diana came rushing along the hall and burst

into the room without even knocking, so great was her excitement.
"Anne, you've passed," she cried, "passed the VERY FIRST--you and

Gilbert both--you're ties--but your name is first. Oh, I'm so proud!"
Diana flung the paper on the table and herself on Anne's bed,

utterly breathless and incapable of further speech. Anne lighted
the lamp, oversetting the match safe and using up half a dozen

matches before her shaking hands could accomplish the task.
Then she snatched up the paper. Yes, she had passed--there was

her name at the very top of a list of two hundred! That moment
was worth living for.

"You did just splendidly, Anne," puffed Diana, recovering
sufficiently to sit up and speak, for Anne, starry eyed and rapt,

had not uttered a word. "Father brought the paper home from
Bright River not ten minutes ago--it came out on the afternoon

train, you know, and won't be here till tomorrow by mail--and
when I saw the pass list I just rushed over like a wild thing.

You've all passed, every one of you, Moody Spurgeon and all,
although he's conditioned in history. Jane and Ruby did pretty

well--they're halfway up--and so did Charlie. Josie just scraped
through with three marks to spare, but you'll see she'll put on

as many airs as if she'd led. Won't Miss Stacy be delighted?
Oh, Anne, what does it feel like to see your name at the head of

a pass list like that? If it were me I know I'd go crazy with joy.
I am pretty near crazy as it is, but you're as calm and cool as a

spring evening."
"I'm just dazzled inside," said Anne. "I want to say a hundred

things, and I can't find words to say them in. I never dreamed
of this--yes, I did too, just once! I let myself think ONCE,

`What if I should come out first?' quakingly, you know, for it
seemed so vain and presumptuous to think I could lead the Island.

Excuse me a minute, Diana. I must run right out to the field to
tell Matthew. Then we'll go up the road and tell the good news

to the others."
They hurried to the hayfield below the barn where Matthew was

coiling hay, and, as luck would have it, Mrs. Lynde was talking
to Marilla at the lane fence.

"Oh, Matthew," exclaimed Anne, "I've passed and I'm first--or one
of the first! I'm not vain, but I'm thankful."

"Well now, I always said it," said Matthew, gazing at the pass
list delightedly. "I knew you could beat them all easy."

"You've done pretty well, I must say, Anne," said Marilla,
trying to hide her extreme pride in Anne from Mrs. Rachel's

critical eye. But that good soul said heartily:
"I just guess she has done well, and far be it from me to be

backward in saying it. You're a credit to your friends, Anne,
that's what, and we're all proud of you."

That night Anne, who had wound up the delightful evening with a
serious little talk with Mrs. Allan at the manse, knelt sweetly

by her open window in a great sheen of moonshine and murmured a
prayer of gratitude and aspiration that came straight from her

heart. There was in it thankfulness for the past and reverent
petition for the future; and when she slept on her white pillow

her dreams were as fair and bright and beautiful as maidenhood
might desire.

CHAPTER XXXIII
The Hotel Concert

Put on your white organdy, by all means, Anne," advised Diana decidedly.
They were together in the east gable chamber; outside it was

only twilight--a lovely yellowish-green twilight with a clear-blue
cloudless sky. A big round moon, slowly deepening from her

pallid luster into burnished silver, hung over the Haunted Wood;
the air was full of sweet summer sounds--sleepy birds twittering,

freakish breezes, faraway voices and laughter. But in Anne's room
the blind was drawn and the lamp lighted, for an important toilet

was being made.
The east gable was a very different place from what it had been

on that night four years before, when Anne had felt its bareness
penetrate to the marrow of her spirit with its inhospitable chill.

Changes had crept in, Marilla conniving at them resignedly, until
it was as sweet and dainty a nest as a young girl could desire.

The velvetcarpet with the pink roses and the pink silk curtains
of Anne's early visions had certainly never materialized; but her

dreams had kept pace with her growth, and it is not probable she
lamented them. The floor was covered with a pretty matting, and

the curtains that softened the high window and fluttered in the
vagrant breezes were of pale-green art muslin. The walls, hung

not with gold and silver brocade tapestry, but with a dainty
apple-blossom paper, were adorned with a few good pictures given

Anne by Mrs. Allan. Miss Stacy's photograph occupied the place
of honor, and Anne made a sentimental point of keeping fresh

flowers on the bracket under it. Tonight a spike of white lilies
faintly perfumed the room like the dream of a fragrance. There

was no "mahogany furniture," but there was a white-painted
bookcase filled with books, a cushioned wicker rocker, a toilet

table befrilled with white muslin, a quaint, gilt-framed mirror


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