章节正文
stylish modes of hair-dressing, and Jane Andrews--plain, plodding,
conscientious Jane--carried off the honors in the domestic science course.
Even Josie Pye attained a certain preeminence as the sharpest-
tongued young lady in attendance at Queen's. So it may be
fairly stated that Miss Stacy's old pupil's held their own in
the wider arena of the academical course.
Anne worked hard and steadily. Her rivalry with Gilbert
was as intense as it had ever been in Avonlea school,
although it was not known in the class at large, but somehow
the bitterness had gone out of it. Anne no longer wished
to win for the sake of defeating Gilbert; rather, for the
proud consciousness of a well-won victory over a worthy foeman.
It would be worth while to win, but she no longer thought life
would be insupportable if she did not.
In spite of lessons the students found opportunities for
pleasant times. Anne spent many of her spare hours at
Beechwood and generally ate her Sunday dinners there and
went to church with Miss Barry. The latter was, as she
admitted, growing old, but her black eyes were not dim nor
the vigor of her tongue in the least abated. But she never
sharpened the latter on Anne, who continued to be a prime
favorite with the critical old lady.
"That Anne-girl improves all the time," she said. "I get
tired of other girls--there is such a provoking and eternal
sameness about them. Anne has as many shades as a rainbow
and every shade is the prettiest while it lasts. I don't
know that she is as amusing as she was when she was a child,
but she makes me love her and I like people who make me love them.
It saves me so much trouble in making myself love them."
Then, almost before anybody realized it, spring had come;
out in Avonlea the Mayflowers were peeping pinkly out
on the sere barrens where snow-wreaths lingered; and
the "mist of green" was on the woods and in the valleys.
But in Charlottetown harassed Queen's students thought
and talked only of examinations.
"It doesn't seem possible that the term is nearly over,"
said Anne. "Why, last fall it seemed so long to look
forward to--a whole winter of studies and classes. And here
we are, with the exams looming up next week. Girls,
sometimes I feel as if those exams meant everything, but
when I look at the big buds swelling on those chestnut trees
and the misty blue air at the end of the streets they don't
seem half so important."
Jane and Ruby and Josie, who had dropped in, did not
take this view of it. To them the coming examinations
were constantly very important indeed--far more important
than chestnut buds or Maytime hazes. It was all very well
for Anne, who was sure of passing at least, to have her
moments of belittling them, but when your whole future
depended on them--as the girls truly thought theirs did--
you could not regard them philosophically.
"I've lost seven pounds in the last two weeks," sighed
Jane. "It's no use to say don't worry. I WILL worry.
Worrying helps you some--it seems as if you were doing
something when you're worrying. It would be dreadful if I
failed to get my license after going to Queen's all winter
and spending so much money."
"_I_ don't care," said Josie Pye. "If I don't pass this year
I'm coming back next. My father can afford to send me.
Anne, Frank Stockley says that Professor Tremaine said
Gilbert Blythe was sure to get the medal and that Emily Clay
would likely win the Avery scholarship."
"That may make me feel badly tomorrow, Josie," laughed
Anne, "but just now I honestly feel that as long as I know
the violets are coming out all purple down in the hollow
below Green Gables and that little ferns are poking their
heads up in Lovers' Lane, it's not a great deal of difference
whether I win the Avery or not. I've done my best and I
begin to understand what is meant by the `joy of the strife.'
Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing.
Girls, don't talk about exams! Look at that arch of pale green
sky over those houses and picture to yourself what it must look
like over the purply-dark beech-woods back of Avonlea."
"What are you going to wear for commencement, Jane?"
asked Ruby practically.
Jane and Josie both answered at once and the chatter
drifted into a side eddy of fashions. But Anne, with her
elbows on the window sill, her soft cheek laid against her
clasped hands, and her eyes filled with visions, looked out
unheedingly across city roof and spire to that glorious dome
of sunset sky and wove her dreams of a possible future from
the golden tissue of youth's own optimism. All the Beyond
was hers with its possibilities lurking rosily in the
oncoming years--each year a rose of promise to be woven into
an immortal chaplet.
CHAPTER XXXVI
The Glory and the Dream
On the morning when the final results of all the examina-
tions were to be posted on the bulletin board at Queen's,
Anne and Jane walked down the street together. Jane was
smiling and happy; examinations were over and she was
comfortably sure she had made a pass at least; further
considerations troubled Jane not at all; she had no soaring
ambitions and consequently was not affected with the
unrest attendant thereon. For we pay a price for everything
we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are
well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won, but
exact their dues of work and self-denial, anxiety and
discouragement. Anne was pale and quiet; in ten more minutes
she would know who had won the medal and who the Avery.
Beyond those ten minutes there did not seem, just then,
to be anything worth being called Time.
"Of course you'll win one of them anyhow," said Jane,
who couldn't understand how the faculty could be so
unfair as to order it otherwise.
"I have not hope of the Avery," said Anne. "Everybody
says Emily Clay will win it. And I'm not going to march
up to that bulletin board and look at it before everybody.
I haven't the moral courage. I'm going straight to the girls'
dressing room. You must read the announcements and then
come and tell me, Jane. And I implore you in the name
of our old friendship to do it as quickly as possible.
If I have failed just say so, without trying to break it
gently; and whatever you do DON'T sympathize with me.
Promise me this, Jane."
Jane promised solemnly; but, as it happened, there was no
necessity for such a promise. When they went up the entrance
steps of Queen's they found the hall full of boys who were
carrying Gilbert Blythe around on their shoulders and yelling
at the tops of their voices, "Hurrah for Blythe, Medalist!"
For a moment Anne felt one sickening pang of defeat and
disappointment. So she had failed and Gilbert had won!
Well, Matthew would be sorry--he had been so sure she
would win.
And then!
Somebody called out:
"Three cheers for Miss Shirley, winner of the Avery!"
"Oh, Anne," gasped Jane, as they fled to the girls' dressing room
amid hearty cheers. "Oh, Anne I'm so proud! Isn't it splendid?"
And then the girls were around them and Anne was the
center of a laughing, congratulating group. Her shoulders
were thumped and her hands shakenvigorously. She was
pushed and pulled and hugged and among it all she managed
to whisper to Jane:
"Oh, won't Matthew and Marilla be pleased! I must write the
news home right away."
Commencement was the next important happening. The exercises
were held in the big assembly hall of the Academy. Addresses
were given, essays read, songs sung, the public award of diplomas,
prizes and medals made.
Matthew and Marilla were there, with eyes and ears for only
one student on the platform--a tall girl in pale green,
with faintly flushed cheeks and starry eyes, who read the
best essay and was pointed out and whispered about as the
Avery winner.
"Reckon you're glad we kept her, Marilla?" whispered Matthew,
speaking for the first time since he had entered the hall,
when Anne had finished her essay.
"It's not the first time I've been glad," retorted Marilla.
"You do like to rub things in, Matthew Cuthbert."
Miss Barry, who was sitting behind them, leaned forward
and poked Marilla in the back with her parasol.
"Aren't you proud of that Anne-girl? I am," she said.
Anne went home to Avonlea with Matthew and Marilla
that evening. She had not been home since April and she
felt that she could not wait another day. The apple blossoms
were out and the world was fresh and young. Diana was at
Green Gables to meet her. In her own white room, where
Marilla had set a flowering house rose on the window sill,
Anne looked about her and drew a long breath of happiness.
"Oh, Diana, it's so good to be back again. It's so good to
see those pointed firs coming out against the pink sky--
and that white orchard and the old Snow Queen. Isn't the
breath of the mint delicious? And that tea rose--why, it's
a song and a hope and a prayer all in one. And it's GOOD to
see you again, Diana!"
"I thought you like that Stella Maynard better than me,"
said Diana reproachfully. "Josie Pye told me you did.
Josie said you were INFATUATED with her."
Anne laughed and pelted Diana with the faded "June lilies"
of her bouquet.
"Stella Maynard is the dearest girl in the world except
one and you are that one, Diana," she said. "I love you
more than ever--and I've so many things to tell you. But
just now I feel as if it were joy enough to sit here and
look at you. I'm tired, I think--tired of being studious
and ambitious. I mean to spend at least two hours tomorrow
lying out in the orchard grass, thinking of absolutely nothing."
"You've done splendidly, Anne. I suppose you won't be teaching
now that you've won the Avery?"
"No. I'm going to Redmond in September. Doesn't it
seem wonderful? I'll have a brand new stock of ambition
laid in by that time after three glorious, golden months of
vacation. Jane and Ruby are going to teach. Isn't it splendid
to think we all got through even to Moody Spurgeon and Josie Pye?"
"The Newbridge trustees have offered Jane their school already,"
said Diana. "Gilbert Blythe is going to teach, too. He has to.
His father can't afford to send him to college next year, after all,
so he means to earn his own way through. I expect he'll get the
school here if Miss Ames decides to leave."
Anne felt a queer little sensation of dismayed surprise.
She had not known this; she had expected that Gilbert
would be going to Redmond also. What would she do without
their inspiring rivalry? Would not work, even at a
coeducational college with a real degree in prospect, be
rather flat without her friend the enemy?
The next morning at breakfast it suddenly struck Anne
that Matthew was not looking well. Surely he was much
grayer than he had been a year before.
"Marilla," she said hesitatingly when he had gone out,
"is Matthew quite well?"
conscientious Jane--carried off the honors in the domestic science course.
Even Josie Pye attained a certain preeminence as the sharpest-
tongued young lady in attendance at Queen's. So it may be
fairly stated that Miss Stacy's old pupil's held their own in
the wider arena of the academical course.
Anne worked hard and steadily. Her rivalry with Gilbert
was as intense as it had ever been in Avonlea school,
although it was not known in the class at large, but somehow
the bitterness had gone out of it. Anne no longer wished
to win for the sake of defeating Gilbert; rather, for the
proud consciousness of a well-won victory over a worthy foeman.
It would be worth while to win, but she no longer thought life
would be insupportable if she did not.
In spite of lessons the students found opportunities for
pleasant times. Anne spent many of her spare hours at
Beechwood and generally ate her Sunday dinners there and
went to church with Miss Barry. The latter was, as she
admitted, growing old, but her black eyes were not dim nor
the vigor of her tongue in the least abated. But she never
sharpened the latter on Anne, who continued to be a prime
favorite with the critical old lady.
"That Anne-girl improves all the time," she said. "I get
tired of other girls--there is such a provoking and eternal
sameness about them. Anne has as many shades as a rainbow
and every shade is the prettiest while it lasts. I don't
know that she is as amusing as she was when she was a child,
but she makes me love her and I like people who make me love them.
It saves me so much trouble in making myself love them."
Then, almost before anybody realized it, spring had come;
out in Avonlea the Mayflowers were peeping pinkly out
on the sere barrens where snow-wreaths lingered; and
the "mist of green" was on the woods and in the valleys.
But in Charlottetown harassed Queen's students thought
and talked only of examinations.
"It doesn't seem possible that the term is nearly over,"
said Anne. "Why, last fall it seemed so long to look
forward to--a whole winter of studies and classes. And here
we are, with the exams looming up next week. Girls,
sometimes I feel as if those exams meant everything, but
when I look at the big buds swelling on those chestnut trees
and the misty blue air at the end of the streets they don't
seem half so important."
Jane and Ruby and Josie, who had dropped in, did not
take this view of it. To them the coming examinations
were constantly very important indeed--far more important
than chestnut buds or Maytime hazes. It was all very well
for Anne, who was sure of passing at least, to have her
moments of belittling them, but when your whole future
depended on them--as the girls truly thought theirs did--
you could not regard them philosophically.
"I've lost seven pounds in the last two weeks," sighed
Jane. "It's no use to say don't worry. I WILL worry.
Worrying helps you some--it seems as if you were doing
something when you're worrying. It would be dreadful if I
failed to get my license after going to Queen's all winter
and spending so much money."
"_I_ don't care," said Josie Pye. "If I don't pass this year
I'm coming back next. My father can afford to send me.
Anne, Frank Stockley says that Professor Tremaine said
Gilbert Blythe was sure to get the medal and that Emily Clay
would likely win the Avery scholarship."
"That may make me feel badly tomorrow, Josie," laughed
Anne, "but just now I honestly feel that as long as I know
the violets are coming out all purple down in the hollow
below Green Gables and that little ferns are poking their
heads up in Lovers' Lane, it's not a great deal of difference
whether I win the Avery or not. I've done my best and I
begin to understand what is meant by the `joy of the strife.'
Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing.
Girls, don't talk about exams! Look at that arch of pale green
sky over those houses and picture to yourself what it must look
like over the purply-dark beech-woods back of Avonlea."
"What are you going to wear for commencement, Jane?"
asked Ruby practically.
Jane and Josie both answered at once and the chatter
drifted into a side eddy of fashions. But Anne, with her
elbows on the window sill, her soft cheek laid against her
clasped hands, and her eyes filled with visions, looked out
unheedingly across city roof and spire to that glorious dome
of sunset sky and wove her dreams of a possible future from
the golden tissue of youth's own optimism. All the Beyond
was hers with its possibilities lurking rosily in the
oncoming years--each year a rose of promise to be woven into
an immortal chaplet.
CHAPTER XXXVI
The Glory and the Dream
On the morning when the final results of all the examina-
tions were to be posted on the bulletin board at Queen's,
Anne and Jane walked down the street together. Jane was
smiling and happy; examinations were over and she was
comfortably sure she had made a pass at least; further
considerations troubled Jane not at all; she had no soaring
ambitions and consequently was not affected with the
unrest attendant thereon. For we pay a price for everything
we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are
well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won, but
exact their dues of work and self-denial, anxiety and
discouragement. Anne was pale and quiet; in ten more minutes
she would know who had won the medal and who the Avery.
Beyond those ten minutes there did not seem, just then,
to be anything worth being called Time.
"Of course you'll win one of them anyhow," said Jane,
who couldn't understand how the faculty could be so
unfair as to order it otherwise.
"I have not hope of the Avery," said Anne. "Everybody
says Emily Clay will win it. And I'm not going to march
up to that bulletin board and look at it before everybody.
I haven't the moral courage. I'm going straight to the girls'
dressing room. You must read the announcements and then
come and tell me, Jane. And I implore you in the name
of our old friendship to do it as quickly as possible.
If I have failed just say so, without trying to break it
gently; and whatever you do DON'T sympathize with me.
Promise me this, Jane."
Jane promised solemnly; but, as it happened, there was no
necessity for such a promise. When they went up the entrance
steps of Queen's they found the hall full of boys who were
carrying Gilbert Blythe around on their shoulders and yelling
at the tops of their voices, "Hurrah for Blythe, Medalist!"
For a moment Anne felt one sickening pang of defeat and
disappointment. So she had failed and Gilbert had won!
Well, Matthew would be sorry--he had been so sure she
would win.
And then!
Somebody called out:
"Three cheers for Miss Shirley, winner of the Avery!"
"Oh, Anne," gasped Jane, as they fled to the girls' dressing room
amid hearty cheers. "Oh, Anne I'm so proud! Isn't it splendid?"
And then the girls were around them and Anne was the
center of a laughing, congratulating group. Her shoulders
were thumped and her hands shakenvigorously. She was
pushed and pulled and hugged and among it all she managed
to whisper to Jane:
"Oh, won't Matthew and Marilla be pleased! I must write the
news home right away."
Commencement was the next important happening. The exercises
were held in the big assembly hall of the Academy. Addresses
were given, essays read, songs sung, the public award of diplomas,
prizes and medals made.
Matthew and Marilla were there, with eyes and ears for only
one student on the platform--a tall girl in pale green,
with faintly flushed cheeks and starry eyes, who read the
best essay and was pointed out and whispered about as the
Avery winner.
"Reckon you're glad we kept her, Marilla?" whispered Matthew,
speaking for the first time since he had entered the hall,
when Anne had finished her essay.
"It's not the first time I've been glad," retorted Marilla.
"You do like to rub things in, Matthew Cuthbert."
Miss Barry, who was sitting behind them, leaned forward
and poked Marilla in the back with her parasol.
"Aren't you proud of that Anne-girl? I am," she said.
Anne went home to Avonlea with Matthew and Marilla
that evening. She had not been home since April and she
felt that she could not wait another day. The apple blossoms
were out and the world was fresh and young. Diana was at
Green Gables to meet her. In her own white room, where
Marilla had set a flowering house rose on the window sill,
Anne looked about her and drew a long breath of happiness.
"Oh, Diana, it's so good to be back again. It's so good to
see those pointed firs coming out against the pink sky--
and that white orchard and the old Snow Queen. Isn't the
breath of the mint delicious? And that tea rose--why, it's
a song and a hope and a prayer all in one. And it's GOOD to
see you again, Diana!"
"I thought you like that Stella Maynard better than me,"
said Diana reproachfully. "Josie Pye told me you did.
Josie said you were INFATUATED with her."
Anne laughed and pelted Diana with the faded "June lilies"
of her bouquet.
"Stella Maynard is the dearest girl in the world except
one and you are that one, Diana," she said. "I love you
more than ever--and I've so many things to tell you. But
just now I feel as if it were joy enough to sit here and
look at you. I'm tired, I think--tired of being studious
and ambitious. I mean to spend at least two hours tomorrow
lying out in the orchard grass, thinking of absolutely nothing."
"You've done splendidly, Anne. I suppose you won't be teaching
now that you've won the Avery?"
"No. I'm going to Redmond in September. Doesn't it
seem wonderful? I'll have a brand new stock of ambition
laid in by that time after three glorious, golden months of
vacation. Jane and Ruby are going to teach. Isn't it splendid
to think we all got through even to Moody Spurgeon and Josie Pye?"
"The Newbridge trustees have offered Jane their school already,"
said Diana. "Gilbert Blythe is going to teach, too. He has to.
His father can't afford to send him to college next year, after all,
so he means to earn his own way through. I expect he'll get the
school here if Miss Ames decides to leave."
Anne felt a queer little sensation of dismayed surprise.
She had not known this; she had expected that Gilbert
would be going to Redmond also. What would she do without
their inspiring rivalry? Would not work, even at a
coeducational college with a real degree in prospect, be
rather flat without her friend the enemy?
The next morning at breakfast it suddenly struck Anne
that Matthew was not looking well. Surely he was much
grayer than he had been a year before.
"Marilla," she said hesitatingly when he had gone out,
"is Matthew quite well?"
- domestic [də´mestik]
a.家庭的；本国的 (初中英语单词) - steadily [´stedili] ad.坚定地；不断地 (初中英语单词)
- victory [´viktəri] n.胜利，战胜 (初中英语单词)
- worthy [´wə:ði] a.有价值的；值得的 (初中英语单词)
- constantly [´kɔnstəntli] ad.经常地；不断地 (初中英语单词)
- dreadful [´dredful] a.可怕的；讨厌的 (初中英语单词)
- honestly [´ɔnistli] ad.诚实地，老实地 (初中英语单词)
- purple [´pə:pl] n.紫色 a.紫(红)的 (初中英语单词)
- glorious [´glɔ:riəs] a.光荣的；辉煌的 (初中英语单词)
- sunset [´sʌnset] n.日落；晚霞 (初中英语单词)
- immortal [i´mɔ:təl] a.不死的n.不朽的人物 (初中英语单词)
- attendant [ə´tendənt] n.随员 a.伴随的 (初中英语单词)
- anxiety [æŋ´zaiəti] n.挂念；渴望；焦虑的事 (初中英语单词)
- faculty [´fækəlti] n.才干；天赋；院，系 (初中英语单词)
- whatever [wɔt´evə] pron.&a.无论什么 (初中英语单词)
- shaken [´ʃeikən] shake的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- whisper [´wispə] v.耳语 n.低语；沙沙声 (初中英语单词)
- assembly [ə´sembli] n.集会；装配；与会者 (初中英语单词)
- academy [ə´kædəmi] n.专科学校；学会；协会 (初中英语单词)
- pointed [´pɔintid] a.尖(锐)的；中肯的 (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- orchard [´ɔ:tʃəd] n.果园 (初中英语单词)
- delicious [di´liʃəs] a.美味的，可口的 (初中英语单词)
- ambitious [æm´biʃəs] a.有雄心的；热望的 (初中英语单词)
- absolutely [´æbsəlu:tli] ad.绝对地；确实 (初中英语单词)
- sensation [sen´seiʃən] n.感觉；轰动；轰动一时 (初中英语单词)
- prospect [´prɔspekt, prəs´pekt] n.景色；境界 v.勘察 (初中英语单词)
- intense [in´tens] a.强烈的；紧张的 (高中英语单词)
- bitterness [´bitənis] n.苦味；辛酸；苦难 (高中英语单词)
- consciousness [´kɔnʃəsnis] n.意识；觉悟；知觉 (高中英语单词)
- critical [´kritikəl] a.批评的；关键性的 (高中英语单词)
- amusing [ə´mju:ziŋ] a.有趣的 (高中英语单词)
- chestnut [´tʃesnʌt] n.栗子；栗树；栗色(马) (高中英语单词)
- theirs [ðeəz] pron.他们的 (高中英语单词)
- tissue [´tiʃu:, -sju:] n.织物，薄绢，纸 (高中英语单词)
- bulletin [´bulətin] n.公报，公告，告示 (高中英语单词)
- consequently [´kɔnsikwəntli] ad.因此，所以 (高中英语单词)
- implore [im´plɔ:] vt.乞求，恳求 (高中英语单词)
- solemnly [´sɔləmli] ad.严肃地，庄严地 (高中英语单词)
- hearty [´hɑ:ti] a.热忱的；强健的 (高中英语单词)
- faintly [´feintli] ad.微弱地，软弱无力的 (高中英语单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- winning [´winiŋ] n.&a.胜利(的) (英语四级单词)
- sickening [´sikəniŋ, ´sikniŋ] a.引起疾病的 (英语四级单词)
- winner [´winə] n.胜利者，得奖者 (英语四级单词)
- vigorously [´vigərəsli] ad.精力旺盛地；健壮地 (英语四级单词)
- happening [´hæpəniŋ] n.事件，偶然发生的事 (英语四级单词)
- starry [´stɑ:ri] a.星光照耀的，闪亮的 (英语四级单词)
- rivalry [´raivəlri] n.竞争；竞赛；敌对 (英语六级单词)
- commencement [kə´mensmənt] n.开始；毕业典礼(日) (英语六级单词)
- affected [ə´fektid] a.做作的；假装的 (英语六级单词)
- splendidly [´splendidli] ad.光彩夺目地；辉煌地 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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