Matthew was having a bad ten minutes of it. He had come into the
kitchen, in the twilight of a cold, grey December evening, and had sat
down in the wood-box corner to take off his heavy boots, unconscious
of the fact that Anne and a bevy of her schoolmates were having a
practice of "The Fairy Queen" in the sitting-room. Presently they came
trooping through the hall and out into the kitchen, laughing and
chattering gaily. They did not see Matthew, who shrank bashfully back
into the shadows beyond the wood-box with a boot in one hand and a
bootjack in the other, and he watched them shyly for the aforesaid ten
minutes as they put on caps and jackets and talked about the dialogue
and the concert. Anne stood among them, bright eyed and animated as
they; but Matthew suddenly became conscious that there was something
about her different from her mates. And what worried Matthew was that
the difference impressed him as being something that should not exist.
Anne had a brighter face, and bigger, starrier eyes, and more delicate
features than the others; even shy, unobservant Matthew had learned to
take note of these things; but the difference that disturbed him did
not consist in any of these respects. Then in what did it consist?

Matthew was haunted by this question long after the girls had gone,
arm in arm, down the long, hard-frozen lane and Anne had betaken
herself to her books. He could not refer it to Marilla, who, he felt,
would be quite sure to sniff scornfully and remark that the only
difference she saw between Anne and the other girls was that they
sometimes kept their tongues quiet while Anne never did. This, Matthew
felt, would be no great help.

He had recourse to his pipe that evening to help him study it out,
much to Marilla's disgust. After two hours of smoking and hard
reflection Matthew arrived at a solution of his problem. Anne was not
dressed like the other girls!

The more Matthew thought about the matter the more he was convinced
that Anne never had been dressed like the other girls--never since she
had come to Green Gables. Marilla kept her clothed in plain, dark
dresses, all made after the same unvarying pattern. If Matthew knew
there was such a thing as fashion in dress it is as much as he did;
but he was quite sure that Anne's sleeves did not look at all like the
sleeves the other girls wore. He recalled the cluster of little girls
he had seen around her that evening--all gay in waists of red an