with chubby pink Cupids and purple grapes painted over its arched

top, that used to hang in the spare room, and a low white bed.
Anne was dressing for a concert at the White Sands Hotel.

The guests had got it up in aid of the Charlottetown hospital,
and had hunted out all the availableamateurtalent in the

surrounding districts to help it along. Bertha Sampson and
Pearl Clay of the White Sands Baptist choir had been asked to

sing a duet; Milton Clark of Newbridge was to give a violin solo;
Winnie Adella Blair of Carmody was to sing a Scotch ballad; and Laura

Spencer of Spencervale and Anne Shirley of Avonlea were to recite.
As Anne would have said at one time, it was "an epoch in her life,"

and she was deliciously athrill with the excitement of it.
Matthew was in the seventh heaven of gratified pride over the

honor conferred on his Anne and Marilla was not far behind,
although she would have died rather than admit it, and said she

didn't think it was very proper for a lot of young folks to be
gadding over to the hotel without any responsible person with them.

Anne and Diana were to drive over with Jane Andrews and her
brother Billy in their double-seated buggy; and several other

Avonlea girls and boys were going too. There was a party of
visitors expected out from town, and after the concert a supper

was to be given to the performers.
"Do you really think the organdy will be best?" queried Anne anxiously.

"I don't think it's as pretty as my blue-flowered muslin--and it certainly
isn't so fashionable."

"But it suits you ever so much better," said Diana. "It's so soft
and frilly and clinging. The muslin is stiff, and makes you look too

dressed up. But the organdy seems as if it grew on you."
Anne sighed and yielded. Diana was beginning to have a

reputation for notable taste in dressing, and her advice on such
subjects was much sought after. She was looking very pretty

herself on this particular night in a dress of the lovely
wild-rose pink, from which Anne was forever debarred; but she was

not to take any part in the concert, so her appearance was of
minor importance. All her pains were bestowed upon Anne, who,

she vowed, must, for the credit of Avonlea, be dressed and combed
and adorned to the Queen's taste.

"Pull out that frill a little more--so; here, let me tie your
sash; now for your slippers. I'm going to braid your hair in two

thick braids, and tie them halfway up with big white bows--no,
don't pull out a single curl over your forehead--just have the

soft part. There is no way you do your hair suits you so well,
Anne, and Mrs. Allan says you look like a Madonna when you part

it so. I shall fasten this little white house rose just behind
your ear. There was just one on my bush, and I saved it for you."

"Shall I put my pearl beads on?" asked Anne. "Matthew brought me a
string from town last week, and I know he'd like to see them on me."

Diana pursed up her lips, put her black head on one side
critically, and finally pronounced in favor of the beads, which

were thereupon tied around Anne's slim milk-white throat.
"There's something so stylish about you, Anne," said Diana,

with unenvious admiration. "You hold your head with such an air.
I suppose it's your figure. I am just a dumpling. I've always

been afraid of it, and now I know it is so. Well, I suppose I
shall just have to resign myself to it."

"But you have such dimples," said Anne, smiling affectionately
into the pretty, vivacious face so near her own. "Lovely dimples,

like little dents in cream. I have given up all hope of dimples.
My dimple-dream will never come true; but so many of my dreams

have that I mustn't complain. Am I all ready now?"
"All ready," assured Diana, as Marilla appeared in the doorway,

a gaunt figure with grayer hair than of yore and no fewer angles,
but with a much softer face. "Come right in and look at our

elocutionist, Marilla. Doesn't she look lovely?"
Marilla emitted a sound between a sniff and a grunt.

"She looks neat and proper. I like that way of fixing her hair.
But I expect she'll ruin that dress driving over there in the dust

and dew with it, and it looks most too thin for these damp nights.
Organdy's the most unserviceable stuff in the world anyhow, and I

told Matthew so when he got it. But there is no use in saying
anything to Matthew nowadays. Time was when he would take my advice,

but now he just buys things for Anne regardless, and the clerks at
Carmody know they can palm anything off on him. Just let them tell

him a thing is pretty and fashionable, and Matthew plunks his money
down for it. Mind you keep your skirt clear of the wheel, Anne, and

put your warm jacket on."
Then Marilla stalked downstairs, thinking proudly how sweet Anne

looked, with that
"One moonbeam from the forehead to the crown"

and regretting that she could not go to the concert herself to
hear her girl recite.

"I wonder if it IS too damp for my dress," said Anne anxiously.
"Not a bit of it," said Diana, pulling up the window blind.

"It's a perfect night, and there won't be any dew. Look at
the moonlight."

"I'm so glad my window looks east into the sunrising," said Anne,
going over to Diana. "It's so splendid to see the morning coming

up over those long hills and glowing through those sharp fir tops.
It's new every morning, and I feel as if I washed my very soul in

that bath of earliest sunshine. Oh, Diana, I love this little
room so dearly. I don't know how I'll get along without it when

I go to town next month."
"Don't speak of your going away tonight," begged Diana. "I don't

want to think of it, it makes me so miserable, and I do want to
have a good time this evening. What are you going to recite, Anne?

And are you nervous?"
"Not a bit. I've recited so often in public I don't mind at all

now. I've decided to give `The Maiden's Vow.' It's so pathetic.
Laura Spencer is going to give a comic recitation, but I'd rather

make people cry than laugh."
"What will you recite if they encore you?"

"They won't dream of encoring me," scoffed Anne, who was not
without her own secret hopes that they would, and already

visioned herself telling Matthew all about it at the next
morning's breakfast table. "There are Billy and Jane now--

I hear the wheels. Come on."
Billy Andrews insisted that Anne should ride on the front seat

with him, so she unwillingly climbed up. She would have much
preferred to sit back with the girls, where she could have

laughed and chattered to her heart's content. There was not much
of either laughter or chatter in Billy. He was a big, fat,

stolid youth of twenty, with a round, expressionless face, and a
painful lack of conversational gifts. But he admired Anne

immensely, and was puffed up with pride over the prospect of
driving to White Sands with that slim, upright figure beside him.

Anne, by dint of talking over her shoulder to the girls and
occasionally passing a sop of civility to Billy--who grinned and

chuckled and never could think of any reply until it was too
late--contrived to enjoy the drive in spite of all. It was a

night for enjoyment. The road was full of buggies, all bound for
the hotel, and laughter, silver clear, echoed and reechoed along it.

When they reached the hotel it was a blaze of light from top
to bottom. They were met by the ladies of the concert committee,

one of whom took Anne off to the performers' dressing room which
was filled with the members of a Charlottetown Symphony Club,

among whom Anne felt suddenly shy and frightened and countrified.
Her dress, which, in the east gable, had seemed so dainty and

pretty, now seemed simple and plain--too simple and plain, she
thought, among all the silks and laces that glistened and rustled

around her. What were her pearl beads compared to the diamonds
of the big, handsome lady near her? And how poor her one wee white