right for a minister to set his affections so much on a mortal
being. But then, Diana, even ministers are human and have their

besetting sins just like everybody else. I had such an
interesting talk with Mrs. Allan about besetting sins last

Sunday afternoon. There are just a few things it's proper to
talk about on Sundays and that is one of them. My besetting sin

is imagining too much and forgetting my duties. I'm striving
very hard to overcome it and now that I'm really thirteen perhaps

I'll get on better."
"In four more years we'll be able to put our hair up," said Diana.

"Alice Bell is only sixteen and she is wearing hers up, but I think
that's ridiculous. I shall wait until I'm seventeen."

"If I had Alice Bell's crooked nose," said Anne decidedly,
"I wouldn't--but there! I won't say what I was going to because

it was extremely uncharitable. Besides, I was comparing it with
my own nose and that's vanity. I'm afraid I think too much about

my nose ever since I heard that compliment about it long ago.
It really is a great comfort to me. Oh, Diana, look, there's a

rabbit. That's something to remember for our woods composition.
I really think the woods are just as lovely in winter as in

summer. They're so white and still, as if they were asleep
and dreaming pretty dreams."

"I won't mind writing that composition when its time comes,"
sighed Diana. "I can manage to write about the woods, but the

one we're to hand in Monday is terrible. The idea of Miss Stacy
telling us to write a story out of our own heads!"

"Why, it's as easy as wink," said Anne.
"It's easy for you because you have an imagination," retorted

Diana, "but what would you do if you had been born without one?
I suppose you have your composition all done?"

Anne nodded, trying hard not to look virtuously complacent and
failing miserably.

"I wrote it last Monday evening. It's called `The Jealous Rival;
or In Death Not Divided.' I read it to Marilla and she said it was

stuff and nonsense. Then I read it to Matthew and he said it was fine.
That is the kind of critic I like. It's a sad, sweet story. I just

cried like a child while I was writing it. It's about two beautiful
maidens called Cordelia Montmorency and Geraldine Seymour who lived

in the same village and were devotedly attached to each other.
Cordelia was a regal brunette with a coronet of midnight hair and

duskly flashing eyes. Geraldine was a queenly blonde with hair like
spun gold and velvety purple eyes."

"I never saw anybody with purple eyes," said Diana dubiously.
"Neither did I. I just imagined them. I wanted something out of the

common. Geraldine had an alabaster brow too. I've found out what an
alabaster brow is. That is one of the advantages of being thirteen.

You know so much more than you did when you were only twelve."
"Well, what became of Cordelia and Geraldine?" asked Diana,

who was beginning to feel rather interested in their fate.
"They grew in beauty side by side until they were sixteen. Then

Bertram DeVere came to their native village and fell in love with
the fair Geraldine. He saved her life when her horse ran away

with her in a carriage, and she fainted in his arms and he
carried her home three miles; because, you understand, the

carriage was all smashed up. I found it rather hard to imagine
the proposal because I had no experience to go by. I asked Ruby

Gillis if she knew anything about how men proposed because I
thought she'd likely be an authority on the subject, having so

many sisters married. Ruby told me she was hid in the hall
pantry when Malcolm Andres proposed to her sister Susan. She

said Malcolm told Susan that his dad had given him the farm in
his own name and then said, `What do you say, darling pet, if we

get hitched this fall?' And Susan said, `Yes--no--I don't
know--let me see'--and there they were, engaged as quick as that.

But I didn't think that sort of a proposal was a very romantic one,
so in the end I had to imagine it out as well as I could. I made

it very flowery and poetical and Bertram went on his knees,
although Ruby Gillis says it isn't done nowadays. Geraldine

accepted him in a speech a page long. I can tell you I took a
lot of trouble with that speech. I rewrote it five times and I

look upon it as my masterpiece. Bertram gave her a diamond ring
and a ruby necklace and told her they would go to Europe for a

wedding tour, for he was immenselywealthy. But then, alas,
shadows began to darken over their path. Cordelia was secretly

in love with Bertram herself and when Geraldine told her about
the engagement she was simply furious, especially when she saw

the necklace and the diamond ring. All her affection for
Geraldine turned to bitter hate and she vowed that she should

never marry Bertram. But she pretended to be Geraldine's friend
the same as ever. One evening they were standing on the bridge

over a rushing turbulentstream and Cordelia, thinking they were
alone, pushed Geraldine over the brink with a wild, mocking, `Ha,

ha, ha.' But Bertram saw it all and he at once plunged into the
current, exclaiming, `I will save thee, my peerless Geraldine.'

But alas, he had forgotten he couldn't swim, and they were both
drowned, clasped in each other's arms. Their bodies were washed

ashore soon afterwards. They were buried in the one grave and
their funeral was most imposing, Diana. It's so much more romantic

to end a story up with a funeral than a wedding. As for Cordelia,
she went insane with remorse and was shut up in a lunatic asylum.

I thought that was a poetical retribution for her crime."
"How perfectly lovely!" sighed Diana, who belonged to Matthew's

school of critics. "I don't see how you can make up such
thrilling things out of your own head, Anne. I wish my

imagination was as good as yours."
"It would be if you'd only cultivate it," said Anne cheeringly.

"I've just thought of a plan, Diana. Let you and me have a story
club all our own and write stories for practice. I'll help you

along until you can do them by yourself. You ought to cultivate
your imagination, you know. Miss Stacy says so. Only we must

take the right way. I told her about the Haunted Wood, but she
said we went the wrong way about it in that."

This was how the story club came into existence. It was limited
to Diana and Anne at first, but soon it was extended to include

Jane Andrews and Ruby Gillis and one or two others who felt that
their imaginations needed cultivating. No boys were allowed in

it--although Ruby Gillis opined that their admission would make
it more exciting--and each member had to produce one story a week.

"It's extremely interesting," Anne told Marilla. "Each girl has
to read her story out loud and then we talk it over. We are going

to keep them all sacredly and have them to read to our descendants.
We each write under a nom-de-plume. Mine is Rosamond Montmorency.

All the girls do pretty well. Ruby Gillis is rather sentimental.
She puts too much lovemaking into her stories and you know too much

is worse than too little. Jane never puts any because she says
it makes her feel so silly when she had to read it out loud.

Jane's stories are extremelysensible. Then Diana puts too many
murders into hers. She says most of the time she doesn't know what

to do with the people so she kills them off to get rid of them.
I mostly always have to tell them what to write about, but that

isn't hard for I've millions of ideas."
"I think this story-writing business is the foolishest yet,"

scoffed Marilla. "You'll get a pack of nonsense into your
heads and waste time that should be put on your lessons.

Reading stories is bad enough but writing them is worse."
"But we're so careful to put a moral into them all, Marilla,"

explained Anne. "I insist upon that. All the good people are
rewarded and all the bad ones are suitably punished. I'm sure

that must have a wholesome effect. The moral is the great thing.