"I'm so sorry for people who live in lands where there are no

Mayflowers," said Anne. "Diana says perhaps they have something
better, but there couldn't be anything better than Mayflowers,

could there, Marilla? And Diana says if they don't know what
they are like they don't miss them. But I think that is the

saddest thing of all. I think it would be TRAGIC, Marilla, not
to know what Mayflowers are like and NOT to miss them. Do you

know what I think Mayflowers are, Marilla? I think they must be
the souls of the flowers that died last summer and this is their

heaven. But we had a splendid time today, Marilla. We had our
lunch down in a big mossy hollow by an old well--such a ROMANTIC

spot. Charlie Sloane dared Arty Gillis to jump over it, and Arty
did because he wouldn't take a dare. Nobody would in school. It

is very FASHIONABLE to dare. Mr. Phillips gave all the
Mayflowers he found to Prissy Andrews and I heard him to say

`sweets to the sweet.' He got that out of a book, I know; but it
shows he has some imagination. I was offered some Mayflowers

too, but I rejected them with scorn. I can't tell you the
person's name because I have vowed never to let it cross my lips.

We made wreaths of the Mayflowers and put them on our hats; and
when the time came to go home we marched in procession down the

road, two by two, with our bouquets and wreaths, singing `My Home
on the Hill.' Oh, it was so thrilling, Marilla. All Mr. Silas

Sloane's folks rushed out to see us and everybody we met on the
road stopped and stared after us. We made a real sensation."

"Not much wonder! Such silly doings!" was Marilla's response.
After the Mayflowers came the violets, and Violet Vale was empurpled

with them. Anne walked through it on her way to school with reverent
steps and worshiping eyes, as if she trod on holy ground.

"Somehow," she told Diana, "when I'm going through here I don't
really care whether Gil--whether anybody gets ahead of me in

class or not. But when I'm up in school it's all different and I
care as much as ever. There's such a lot of different Annes in me.

I sometimes think that is why I'm such a troublesome person.
If I was just the one Anne it would be ever so much more

comfortable, but then it wouldn't be half so interesting."
One June evening, when the orchards were pink blossomed again,

when the frogs were singing silverly sweet in the marshes about
the head of the Lake of Shining Waters, and the air was full of

the savor of clover fields and balsamic fir woods, Anne was
sitting by her gable window. She had been studying her lessons,

but it had grown too dark to see the book, so she had fallen into
wide-eyed reverie, looking out past the boughs of the Snow Queen,

once more bestarred with its tufts of blossom.
In all essential respects the little gable chamber was unchanged.

The walls were as white, the pincushion as hard, the chairs as
stiffly and yellowly upright as ever. Yet the whole character of

the room was altered. It was full of a new vital, pulsing
personality that seemed to pervade it and to be quite independent

of schoolgirl books and dresses and ribbons, and even of the
cracked blue jug full of apple blossoms on the table. It was as

if all the dreams, sleeping and waking, of its vivid occupant had
taken a visible although unmaterial form and had tapestried the

bare room with splendid filmy tissues of rainbow and moonshine.
Presently Marilla came briskly in with some of Anne's freshly

ironed school aprons. She hung them over a chair and sat down
with a short sigh. She had had one of her headaches that

afternoon, and although the pain had gone she felt weak and
"tuckered out," as she expressed it. Anne looked at her with

eyes limpid with sympathy.
"I do truly wish I could have had the headache in your place,

Marilla. I would have endured it joyfully for your sake."
"I guess you did your part in attending to the work and letting

me rest," said Marilla. "You seem to have got on fairly well and
made fewer mistakes than usual. Of course it wasn't exactly

necessary to starch Matthew's handkerchiefs! And most people when
they put a pie in the oven to warm up for dinner take it out and

eat it when it gets hot instead of leaving it to be burned to a
crisp. But that doesn't seem to be your way evidently."

Headaches always left Marilla somewhat sarcastic.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," said Anne penitently. "I never thought about

that pie from the moment I put it in the oven till now, although
I felt INSTINCTIVELY that there was something missing on the

dinner table. I was firmlyresolved, when you left me in charge
this morning, not to imagine anything, but keep my thoughts on

facts. I did pretty well until I put the pie in, and then an
irresistible temptation came to me to imagine I was an enchanted

princess shut up in a lonely tower with a handsome knight riding
to my rescue on a coal-black steed. So that is how I came to

forget the pie. I didn't know I starched the handkerchiefs. All
the time I was ironing I was trying to think of a name for a new

island Diana and I have discovered up the brook. It's the most
ravishing spot, Marilla. There are two maple trees on it and the

brook flows right around it. At last it struck me that it would
be splendid to call it Victoria Island because we found it on the

Queen's birthday. Both Diana and I are very loyal. But I'm
sorry about that pie and the handkerchiefs. I wanted to be extra

good today because it's an anniversary. Do you remember what
happened this day last year, Marilla?"

"No, I can't think of anything special."
"Oh, Marilla, it was the day I came to Green Gables. I shall

never forget it. It was the turning point in my life. Of course
it wouldn't seem so important to you. I've been here for a year

and I've been so happy. Of course, I've had my troubles, but one
can live down troubles. Are you sorry you kept me, Marilla?"

"No, I can't say I'm sorry," said Marilla, who sometimes wondered
how she could have lived before Anne came to Green Gables, "no,

not exactly sorry. If you've finished your lessons, Anne, I want you
to run over and ask Mrs. Barry if she'll lend me Diana's apron pattern."

"Oh--it's--it's too dark," cried Anne.
"Too dark? Why, it's only twilight. And goodness knows you've

gone over often enough after dark."
"I'll go over early in the morning," said Anne eagerly. "I'll

get up at sunrise and go over, Marilla."
"What has got into your head now, Anne Shirley? I want that pattern

to cut out your new apron this evening. Go at once and be smart too."
"I'll have to go around by the road, then," said Anne, taking up

her hat reluctantly.
"Go by the road and waste half an hour! I'd like to catch you!"

"I can't go through the Haunted Wood, Marilla," cried Anne desperately.
Marilla stared.

"The Haunted Wood! Are you crazy? What under the canopy is the
Haunted Wood?"

"The spruce wood over the brook," said Anne in a whisper.
"Fiddlesticks! There is no such thing as a haunted wood anywhere.

Who has been telling you such stuff?"
"Nobody," confessed Anne. "Diana and I just imagined the wood

was haunted. All the places around here are so--so--COMMONPLACE.
We just got this up for our own amusement. We began it in April.

A haunted wood is so very romantic, Marilla. We chose the spruce
grove because it's so gloomy. Oh, we have imagined the most

harrowing things. There's a white lady walks along the brook
just about this time of the night and wrings her hands and utters

wailing cries. She appears when there is to be a death in the
family. And the ghost of a little murdered child haunts the