had not yet learned the futility of asking such questions.

"Yes, I want to be good but not TOO good," said Davy cautiously. "You
don't have to be very good to be a Sunday School superintendent. Mr.
Bell's that, and he's a real bad man."

"Indeed he's not," said Marila indignantly.

"He is . . . he says he is himself," asseverated Davy. "He said it when
he prayed in Sunday School last Sunday. He said he was a vile worm and
a miserable sinner and guilty of the blackest 'niquity. What did he do
that was so bad, Marilla? Did he kill anybody? Or steal the collection
cents? I want to know."

Fortunately Mrs. Lynde came driving up the lane at this moment and
Marilla made off, feeling that she had escaped from the snare of the
fowler, and wishing devoutly that Mr. Bell were not quite so highly
figurative in his public petitions, especially in the hearing of small
boys who were always "wanting to know."

Anne, left alone in her glory, worked with a will. The floor was swept,
the beds made, the hens fed, the muslin dress washed and hung out on the
line. Then Anne prepared for the transfer of feathers. She mounted to
the garret and donned the first old dress that came to hand . . . a navy
blue cashmere she had worn at fourteen. It was decidedly on the short
side and as "skimpy" as the notable wincey Anne had worn upon the
occasion of her debut at Green Gables; but at least it would not be
materially injured by down and feathers. Anne completed her toilet by
tying a big red and white spotted handkerchief that had belonged to
Matthew over her head, and, thus accoutred, betook herself to the
kitchen chamber, whither Marilla, before her departure, had helped her
carry the feather bed.

A cracked mirror hung by the chamber window and in an unlucky moment
Anne looked into it. There were those seven freckles on her nose,
more rampant than ever, or so it seemed in the glare of light from the
unshaded window.

"Oh, I forgot to rub that lotion on last night," she thought. "I'd
better run down to the pantry and do it now."

Anne had already suffered many things trying to remove those freckles.
On one occasion the entire skin had peeled off her nose but the freckles
remained. A few days previously she had found a recipe for a freckle
lotion in a magazine and, as the ingredients were within her reach, she
straightway compounded it, much to the disgust of Marilla, who thought
that if Providence had placed freckles on your nose it was