things."

Marilla felt helplessly that all this should be sternly reproved, but
she was hampered by the undeniable fact that some of the things Anne had
said, especially about the minister's sermons and Mr. Bell's prayers,
were what she herself had really thought deep down in her heart for
years, but had never given expression to. It almost seemed to her that
those secret, unuttered, critical thoughts had suddenly taken visible
and accusing shape and form in the person of this outspoken morsel of
neglected humanity.

CHAPTER XII. A Solemn Vow and Promise

It was not until the next Friday that Marilla heard the story of the
flower-wreathed hat. She came home from Mrs. Lynde's and called Anne to
account.

"Anne, Mrs. Rachel says you went to church last Sunday with your hat
rigged out ridiculous with roses and buttercups. What on earth put you
up to such a caper? A pretty-looking object you must have been!"

"Oh. I know pink and yellow aren't becoming to me," began Anne.

"Becoming fiddlesticks! It was putting flowers on your hat at all,
no matter what color they were, that was ridiculous. You are the most
aggravating child!"

"I don't see why it's any more ridiculous to wear flowers on your hat
than on your dress," protested Anne. "Lots of little girls there had
bouquets pinned on their dresses. What's the difference?"

Marilla was not to be drawn from the safe concrete into dubious paths of
the abstract.

"Don't answer me back like that, Anne. It was very silly of you to do
such a thing. Never let me catch you at such a trick again. Mrs. Rachel
says she thought she would sink through the floor when she saw you come
in all rigged out like that. She couldn't get near enough to tell you
to take them off till it was too late. She says people talked about it
something dreadful. Of course they would think I had no better sense
than to let you go decked out like that."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," said Anne, tears welling into her eyes. "I never
thought you'd mind. The roses and buttercups were so sweet and pretty
I thought they'd look lovely on my hat. Lots of the little girls had
artificial flowers on their hats. I'm afraid I'm going to be a dreadful
trial to you. Maybe you'd better send me back to the asylum. That would
be terrible; I don't think I could endure it; most likely I would go
into consumption; I'm so thin as it is, you see. But that would be
better than being a trial to you."

"Nonsense," said Maril