re were nine of them and their
graves were severed far apart, ranging from Newfoundland to Vancouver. I
described the children, pictured their several death beds, and detailed
their tombstones and epitaphs. I had intended to bury the whole nine
but when I had disposed of eight my invention of horrors gave out and I
permitted the ninth to live as a hopeless cripple."

While Stella read My Graves, punctuating its tragic paragraphs with
chuckles, and Rusty slept the sleep of a just cat who has been out all
night curled up on a Jane Andrews tale of a beautiful maiden of fifteen
who went to nurse in a leper colony--of course dying of the loathsome
disease finally--Anne glanced over the other manuscripts and recalled
the old days at Avonlea school when the members of the Story Club,
sitting under the spruce trees or down among the ferns by the brook, had
written them. What fun they had had! How the sunshine and mirth of those
olden summers returned as she read. Not all the glory that was Greece
or the grandeur that was Rome could weave such wizardry as those funny,
tearful tales of the Story Club. Among the manuscripts Anne found one
written on sheets of wrapping paper. A wave of laughter filled her
gray eyes as she recalled the time and place of its genesis. It was the
sketch she had written the day she fell through the roof of the Cobb
duckhouse on the Tory Road.

Anne glanced over it, then fell to reading it intently. It was a little
dialogue between asters and sweet-peas, wild canaries in the lilac bush,
and the guardian spirit of the garden. After she had read it, she
sat, staring into space; and when Stella had gone she smoothed out the
crumpled manuscript.

"I believe I will," she said resolutely.

Chapter XXXVI

The Gardners'Call

"Here is a letter with an Indian stamp for you, Aunt Jimsie," said Phil.
"Here are three for Stella, and two for Pris, and a glorious fat one for
me from Jo. There's nothing for you, Anne, except a circular."

Nobody noticed Anne's flush as she took the thin letter Phil tossed her
carelessly. But a few minutes later Phil looked up to see a transfigured
Anne.

"Honey, what good thing has happened?"

"The Youth's Friend has accepted a little sketch I sent them a fortnight
ago," said Anne, trying hard to speak as if she were accustomed to
having sketches accepted every mail, but not quite succeeding.

"Anne Shirley! How glorious! What was it? When is it to be published?
Did