Anne of Green Gables L. M. Montgomery (distant reading .TXT) đ
- Author: L. M. Montgomery
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âI dare say youâll get along well enough. Miss Stacy says you are bright and diligent.â Not for worlds would Marilla have told Anne just what Miss Stacy had said about her; that would have been to pamper vanity. âYou neednât rush to any extreme of killing yourself over your books. There is no hurry. You wonât be ready to try the Entrance for a year and a half yet. But itâs well to begin in time and be thoroughly grounded, Miss Stacy says.â
âI shall take more interest than ever in my studies now,â said Anne blissfully, âbecause I have a purpose in life. Mr. Allan says everybody should have a purpose in life and pursue it faithfully. Only he says we must first make sure that it is a worthy purpose. I would call it a worthy purpose to want to be a teacher like Miss Stacy, wouldnât you, Marilla? I think itâs a very noble profession.â
The Queenâs class was organized in due time. Gilbert Blythe, Anne Shirley, Ruby Gillis, Jane Andrews, Josie Pye, Charlie Sloane, and Moody Spurgeon MacPherson joined it. Diana Barry did not, as her parents did not intend to send her to Queenâs. This seemed nothing short of a calamity to Anne. Never, since the night on which Minnie May had had the croup, had she and Diana been separated in anything. On the evening when the Queenâs class first remained in school for the extra lessons and Anne saw Diana go slowly out with the others, to walk home alone through the Birch Path and Violet Vale, it was all the former could do to keep her seat and refrain from rushing impulsively after her chum. A lump came into her throat, and she hastily retired behind the pages of her uplifted Latin grammar to hide the tears in her eyes. Not for worlds would Anne have had Gilbert Blythe or Josie Pye see those tears.
âBut, oh, Marilla, I really felt that I had tasted the bitterness of death, as Mr. Allan said in his sermon last Sunday, when I saw Diana go out alone,â she said mournfully that night. âI thought how splendid it would have been if Diana had only been going to study for the Entrance, too. But we canât have things perfect in this imperfect world, as Mrs. Lynde says. Mrs. Lynde isnât exactly a comforting person sometimes, but thereâs no doubt she says a great many very true things. And I think the Queenâs class is going to be extremely interesting. Jane and Ruby are just going to study to be teachers. That is the height of their ambition. Ruby says she will only teach for two years after she gets through, and then she intends to be married. Jane says she will devote her whole life to teaching, and never, never marry, because you are paid a salary for teaching, but a husband wonât pay you anything, and growls if you ask for a share in the egg and butter money. I expect Jane speaks from mournful experience, for Mrs. Lynde says that her father is a perfect old crank, and meaner than second skimmings. Josie Pye says she is just going to college for educationâs sake, because she wonât have to earn her own living; she says of course it is different with orphans who are living on charityâ âthey have to hustle. Moody Spurgeon is going to be a minister. Mrs. Lynde says he couldnât be anything else with a name like that to live up to. I hope it isnât wicked of me, Marilla, but really the thought of Moody Spurgeon being a minister makes me laugh. Heâs such a funny-looking boy with that big fat face, and his little blue eyes, and his ears sticking out like flaps. But perhaps he will be more intellectual looking when he grows up. Charlie Sloane says heâs going to go into politics and be a member of Parliament, but Mrs. Lynde says heâll never succeed at that, because the Sloanes are all honest people, and itâs only rascals that get on in politics nowadays.â
âWhat is Gilbert Blythe going to be?â queried Marilla, seeing that Anne was opening her Caesar.
âI donât happen to know what Gilbert Blytheâs ambition in life isâ âif he has any,â said Anne scornfully.
There was open rivalry between Gilbert and Anne now. Previously the rivalry had been rather one-sided, but there was no longer any doubt that Gilbert was as determined to be first in class as Anne was. He was a foeman worthy of her steel. The other members of the class tacitly acknowledged their superiority, and never dreamed of trying to compete with them.
Since the day by the pond when she had refused to listen to his plea for forgiveness, Gilbert, save for the aforesaid determined rivalry, had evinced no recognition whatever of the existence of Anne Shirley. He talked and jested with the other girls, exchanged books and puzzles with them, discussed lessons and plans, sometimes walked home with one or the other of them from prayer meeting or Debating Club. But Anne Shirley he simply ignored, and Anne found out that it is not pleasant to be ignored. It was in vain that she told herself with a toss of her head that she did not care. Deep down in her wayward, feminine little heart she knew that she did care, and that if she had that chance of the Lake of Shining Waters again she would answer very differently. All at once, as it seemed, and to her secret dismay, she found that the old resentment she had cherished against him was goneâ âgone just when she most needed its sustaining power. It was in vain that she recalled every incident and emotion of that memorable occasion and tried to feel the old satisfying anger. That day by the pond had witnessed its last spasmodic flicker. Anne realized that she had forgiven and forgotten without knowing it. But it was too
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