see me last week and says, says she, `Sarah Skinner, I envy you.

I'd rather live in a little hut on the side of the road with a
man I was fond of than in my big house with the one I've got.'

Jane Ann's man ain't such a bad sort, nuther, though he's so
contrary that he wears his fur coat when the thermometer's

at ninety. The only way to git him to do anything is to coax
him to do the opposite. But there ain't any love to smooth

things down and it's a poor way of living. Jog along, black mare.
There's Janet's place in the hollow -- `Wayside,' she calls it.

Quite pictureaskew, ain't it? I guess you'll be glad to git
out of this, with all them mail bags jamming round you."

"Yes, but I have enjoyed my drive with you very much," said
Anne sincerely.

"Git away now!" said Mrs. Skinner, highly flattered. "Wait till
I tell Thomas that. He always feels dretful tickled when I git

a compliment. Jog along, black mare. Well, here we are. I hope
you'll git on well in the school, miss. There's a short cut to

it through the ma'sh back of Janet's. If you take that way be
awful keerful. If you once got stuck in that black mud you'd be

sucked right down and never seen or heard tell of again till the
day of judgment, like Adam Palmer's cow. Jog along, black mare."

Chapter XXXI
Anne to Philippa

"Anne Shirley to Philippa Gordon, greeting.
"Well-beloved, it's high time I was writing you. Here am I,

installed once more as a country `schoolma'am' at Valley Road,
boarding at `Wayside,' the home of Miss Janet Sweet. Janet is a

dear soul and very nicelooking; tall, but not over-tall; stoutish,
yet with a certain restraint of outlinesuggestive of a thrifty

soul who is not going to be overlavish even in the matter of
avoirdupois. She has a knot of soft, crimpy, brown hair with

a thread of gray in it, a sunny face with rosy cheeks, and big,
kind eyes as blue as forget-me-nots. Moreover, she is one of those

delightful, old-fashioned cooks who don't care a bit if they ruin
your digestion as long as they can give you feasts of fat things.

"I like her; and she likes me -- principally, it seems, because
she had a sister named Anne who died young.

"`I'm real glad to see you,' she said briskly, when I landed in her yard.
`My, you don't look a mite like I expected. I was sure you'd be dark --

my sister Anne was dark. And here you're redheaded!'
"For a few minutes I thought I wasn't going to like Janet as much

as I had expected at first sight. Then I reminded myself that I
really must be more sensible than to be prejudiced against any

one simply because she called my hair red. Probably the word
`auburn' was not in Janet's vocabulary at all.

"`Wayside' is a dear sort of little spot. The house is small
and white, set down in a delightful little hollow that drops

away from the road. Between road and house is an orchard and
flower-garden all mixed up together. The front door walk is

bordered with quahog clam-shells -- `cow-hawks,' Janet calls them;
there is Virginia Creeper over the porch and moss on the roof.

My room is a neat little spot `off the parlor' -- just big
enough for the bed and me. Over the head of my bed there is a

picture of Robby Burns standing at Highland Mary's grave,
shadowed by an enormousweepingwillow tree. Robby's face is

so lugubrious that it is no wonder I have bad dreams. Why, the
first night I was here I dreamed I COULDN'T LAUGH.

"The parlor is tiny and neat. Its one window is so shaded by a
huge willow that the room has a grotto-like effect of emerald gloom.

There are wonderful tidies on the chairs, and gay mats on the floor,
and books and cards carefully arranged on a round table, and vases

of dried grass on the mantel-piece. Between the vases is a cheerful
decoration of preserved coffin plates -- five in all, pertaining

respectively to Janet's father and mother, a brother, her sister Anne,
and a hired man who died here once! If I go suddenly insane some of

these days `know all men by these presents' that those coffin-plates
have caused it.

"But it's all delightful and I said so. Janet loved me for it,
just as she detested poor Esther because Esther had said so much

shade was unhygienic and had objected to sleeping on a feather bed.
Now, I glory in feather-beds, and the more unhygienic and feathery

they are the more I glory. Janet says it is such a comfort to see
me eat; she had been so afraid I would be like Miss Haythorne, who

wouldn't eat anything but fruit and hot water for breakfast and tried
to make Janet give up frying things. Esther is really a dear girl,

but she is rather given to fads. The trouble is that she hasn't
enough imagination and HAS a tendency to indigestion.

"Janet told me I could have the use of the parlor when any young
men called! I don't think there are many to call. I haven't

seen a young man in Valley Road yet, except the next-door
hired boy -- Sam Toliver, a very tall, lank, tow-haired youth.

He came over one evening recently and sat for an hour on the
garden fence, near the front porch where Janet and I were doing

fancy-work. The only remarks he volunteered in all that time
were, `Hev a peppermint, miss! Dew now-fine thing for carARRH,

peppermints,' and, `Powerful lot o' jump-grasses round here
ternight. Yep.'

"But there is a love affair going on here. It seems to be my
fortune to be mixed up, more or less actively, with elderly love

affairs. Mr. and Mrs. Irving always say that I brought about
their marriage. Mrs. Stephen Clark of Carmody persists in being

most grateful to me for a suggestion which somebody else would
probably have made if I hadn't. I do really think, though, that

Ludovic Speed would never have got any further along than placid
courtship if I had not helped him and Theodora Dix out.

"In the present affair I am only a passivespectator. I've tried
once to help things along and made an awful mess of it. So I

shall not meddle again. I'll tell you all about it when we meet."
Chapter XXXII

Tea with Mrs. Douglas
On the first Thursday night of Anne's sojourn in Valley Road

Janet asked her to go to prayer-meeting. Janet blossomed out
like a rose to attend that prayer-meeting. She wore a pale-blue,

pansy-sprinkled muslin dress with more ruffles than one would ever
have supposedeconomical Janet could be guilty of, and a white

leghorn hat with pink roses and three ostrichfeathers on it.
Anne felt quite amazed. Later on, she found out Janet's motive

in so arraying herself -- a motive as old as Eden.
Valley Road prayer-meetings seemed to be essentially feminine.

There were thirty-two women present, two half-grown boys, and one
solitary man, beside the minister. Anne found herself studying

this man. He was not handsome or young or graceful; he had
remarkably long legs -- so long that he had to keep them coiled

up under his chair to dispose of them -- and he was stoopshouldered.
His hands were big, his hair wanted barbering, and his moustache

was unkempt. But Anne thought she liked his face; it was kind and
honest and tender; there was something else in it, too -- just what,

Anne found it hard to define. She finally concluded that this man had
suffered and been strong, and it had been made manifest in his face.

There was a sort of patient, humorousendurance in his expression
which indicated that he would go to the stake if need be, but would

keep on looking pleasant until he really had to begin squirming.
When prayer-meeting was over this man came up to Janet and said,

"May I see you home, Janet?"
Janet took his arm -- "as primly and shyly as if she were no more

than sixteen, having her first escort home," Anne told the girls
at Patty's Place later on.

"Miss Shirley, permit me to introduce Mr. Douglas," she said stiffly.
Mr. Douglas nodded and said, "I was looking at you in prayer-meeting,