a came out of your head. Well, it's made a nice lot of
trouble, that's what. Old Miss Barry came out to stay for a month, but
she declares she won't stay another day and is going right back to town
tomorrow, Sunday and all as it is. She'd have gone today if they could
have taken her. She had promised to pay for a quarter's music lessons
for Diana, but now she is determined to do nothing at all for such a
tomboy. Oh, I guess they had a lively time of it there this morning. The
Barrys must feel cut up. Old Miss Barry is rich and they'd like to keep
on the good side of her. Of course, Mrs. Barry didn't say just that to
me, but I'm a pretty good judge of human nature, that's what."

"I'm such an unlucky girl," mourned Anne. "I'm always getting into
scrapes myself and getting my best friends--people I'd shed my heart's
blood for--into them too. Can you tell me why it is so, Mrs. Lynde?"

"It's because you're too heedless and impulsive, child, that's what. You
never stop to think--whatever comes into your head to say or do you say
or do it without a moment's reflection."

"Oh, but that's the best of it," protested Anne. "Something just flashes
into your mind, so exciting, and you must out with it. If you stop to
think it over you spoil it all. Haven't you never felt that yourself,
Mrs. Lynde?"

No, Mrs. Lynde had not. She shook her head sagely.

"You must learn to think a little, Anne, that's what. The proverb you
need to go by is 'Look before you leap'--especially into spare-room
beds."

Mrs. Lynde laughed comfortably over her mild joke, but Anne remained
pensive. She saw nothing to laugh at in the situation, which to her
eyes appeared very serious. When she left Mrs. Lynde's she took her way
across the crusted fields to Orchard Slope. Diana met her at the kitchen
door.

"Your Aunt Josephine was very cross about it, wasn't she?" whispered
Anne.

"Yes," answered Diana, stifling a giggle with an apprehensive glance
over her shoulder at the closed sitting-room door. "She was fairly
dancing with rage, Anne. Oh, how she scolded. She said I was the
worst-behaved girl she ever saw and that my parents ought to be ashamed
of the way they had brought me up. She says she won't stay and I'm sure
I don't care. But Father and Mother do."

"Why didn't you tell them it was my fault?" demanded Anne.

"It's likely I'd do such a thing, isn't it?" said Diana with just scorn.
"I'm no telltale, Anne Shirley, and anyhow I was just as m