th her clothes neatly on, her hair brushed and
braided, her face washed, and a comfortable consciousness pervading her
soul that she had fulfilled all Marilla's requirements. As a matter of
fact, however, she had forgotten to turn back the bedclothes.

"I'm pretty hungry this morning," she announced as she slipped into the
chair Marilla placed for her. "The world doesn't seem such a howling
wilderness as it did last night. I'm so glad it's a sunshiny morning.
But I like rainy mornings real well, too. All sorts of mornings are
interesting, don't you think? You don't know what's going to happen
through the day, and there's so much scope for imagination. But I'm
glad it's not rainy today because it's easier to be cheerful and bear
up under affliction on a sunshiny day. I feel that I have a good deal
to bear up under. It's all very well to read about sorrows and imagine
yourself living through them heroically, but it's not so nice when you
really come to have them, is it?"

"For pity's sake hold your tongue," said Marilla. "You talk entirely too
much for a little girl."

Thereupon Anne held her tongue so obediently and thoroughly that her
continued silence made Marilla rather nervous, as if in the presence of
something not exactly natural. Matthew also held his tongue,--but this
was natural,--so that the meal was a very silent one.

As it progressed Anne became more and more abstracted, eating
mechanically, with her big eyes fixed unswervingly and unseeingly on the
sky outside the window. This made Marilla more nervous than ever; she
had an uncomfortable feeling that while this odd child's body might
be there at the table her spirit was far away in some remote airy
cloudland, borne aloft on the wings of imagination. Who would want such
a child about the place?

Yet Matthew wished to keep her, of all unaccountable things! Marilla
felt that he wanted it just as much this morning as he had the night
before, and that he would go on wanting it. That was Matthew's way--take
a whim into his head and cling to it with the most amazing silent
persistency--a persistency ten times more potent and effectual in its
very silence than if he had talked it out.

When the meal was ended Anne came out of her reverie and offered to wash
the dishes.

"Can you wash dishes right?" asked Marilla distrustfully.

"Pretty well. I'm better at looking after children, though. I've had so
much experience at that. It's such a pity you haven't any