vy!"

"Oh--I'll ask Him--I'll ask Him," said Davy quickly, scrambling off the
bed, convinced by Anne's tone that he must have said something dreadful.
"I don't mind asking Him, Anne.--Please, God, I'm awful sorry I behaved
bad today and I'll try to be good on Sundays always and please forgive
me.--There now, Anne."

"Well, now, run off to bed like a good boy."

"All right. Say, I don't feel mis'rubul any more. I feel fine. Good
night."

"Good night."

Anne slipped down on her pillows with a sigh of relief. Oh--how
sleepy--she was! In another second--

"Anne!" Davy was back again by her bed. Anne dragged her eyes open.

"What is it now, dear?" she asked, trying to keep a note of impatience
out of her voice.

"Anne, have you ever noticed how Mr. Harrison spits? Do you s'pose, if I
practice hard, I can learn to spit just like him?"

Anne sat up.

"Davy Keith," she said, "go straight to your bed and don't let me catch
you out of it again tonight! Go, now!"

Davy went, and stood not upon the order of his going.

Chapter XIV

The Summons

Anne was sitting with Ruby Gillis in the Gillis' garden after the day
had crept lingeringly through it and was gone. It had been a warm, smoky
summer afternoon. The world was in a splendor of out-flowering. The idle
valleys were full of hazes. The woodways were pranked with shadows and
the fields with the purple of the asters.

Anne had given up a moonlight drive to the White Sands beach that she
might spend the evening with Ruby. She had so spent many evenings
that summer, although she often wondered what good it did any one, and
sometimes went home deciding that she could not go again.

Ruby grew paler as the summer waned; the White Sands school was given
up--"her father thought it better that she shouldn't teach till New
Year's"--and the fancy work she loved oftener and oftener fell from
hands grown too weary for it. But she was always gay, always hopeful,
always chattering and whispering of her beaux, and their rivalries and
despairs. It was this that made Anne's visits hard for her. What had
once been silly or amusing was gruesome, now; it was death peering
through a wilful mask of life. Yet Ruby seemed to cling to her, and
never let her go until she had promised to come again soon. Mrs. Lynde
grumbled about Anne's frequent visits, and declared she would catch
consumption; even Marilla was dubious.

"Every time you go to see Ruby you come home looking tire