“I won’t say another word—not one.
I know I talk too much, but I am really trying to overcome it, and although I say far too much, yet if you only knew how many things I want to say and don’t, you’d give me some credit for it.
Please tell me, Marilla.”
“Well, Miss Stacy wants to organize a class among her advanced students who mean to study for the entrance examination into Queen’s.
She intends to give them extra lessons for an hour after school.
And she came to ask Matthew and me if we would like to have you join it.
What do you think about it yourself, Anne?
Would you like to go to Queen’s and pass for a teacher?”
“Oh, Marilla!”
Anne straightened to her knees and clasped her hands.
“It’s been the dream of my life—that is, for the last six months, ever since Ruby and Jane began to talk of studying for the Entrance.
But I didn’t say anything about it, because I supposed it would be perfectly useless.
I’d love to be a teacher.
But won’t it be dreadfully expensive?
Mr. Andrews says it cost him one hundred and fifty dollars to put Prissy through, and Prissy wasn’t a dunce in geometry.”
“I guess you needn’t worry about that part of it.
When Matthew and I took you to bring up we resolved we would do the best we could for you and give you a good education.
I believe in a girl being fitted to earn her own living whether she ever has to or not.
You’ll always have a home at Green Gables as long as Matthew and I are here, but nobody knows what is going to happen in this uncertain world, and it’s just as well to be prepared.
So you can join the Queen’s class if you like, Anne.”
“Oh, Marilla, thank you.”
Anne flung her arms about Marilla’s waist and looked up earnestly into her face.
“I’m extremely grateful to you and Matthew.
And I’ll study as hard as I can and do my very best to be a credit to you.
I warn you not to expect much in geometry, but I think I can hold my own in anything else if I work hard.”
“I dare say you’ll get along well enough.
Miss Stacy says you are bright and diligent.” Not for worlds would Marilla have told Anne just what Miss Stacy had said about her; that would have been to pamper vanity.
“You needn’t rush to any extreme of killing yourself over your books.
There is no hurry.
You won’t be ready to try the Entrance for a year and a half yet.
But it’s well to begin in time and be thoroughly grounded, Miss Stacy says.”
“I shall take more interest than ever in my studies now,” said Anne blissfully, “because I have a purpose in life.
Mr. Allan says everybody should have a purpose in life and pursue it faithfully.
Only he says we must first make sure that it is a worthy purpose.
I would call it a worthy purpose to want to be a teacher like Miss Stacy, wouldn’t you, Marilla?
I think it’s a very noble profession.”
The Queen’s class was organized in due time.
Gilbert Blythe, Anne Shirley, Ruby Gillis, Jane Andrews, Josie Pye, Charlie Sloane, and Moody Spurgeon MacPherson joined it.
Diana Barry did not, as her parents did not intend to send her to Queen’s.
This seemed nothing short of a calamity to Anne.
Never, since the night on which Minnie May had had the croup, had she and Diana been separated in anything.
On the evening when the Queen’s class first remained in school for the extra lessons and Anne saw Diana go slowly out with the others, to walk home alone through the Birch Path and Violet Vale, it was all the former could do to keep her seat and refrain from rushing impulsively after her chum.
A lump came into her throat, and she hastily retired behind the pages of her uplifted Latin grammar to hide the tears in her eyes.
Not for worlds would Anne have had Gilbert Blythe or Josie Pye see those tears.
“But, oh, Marilla, I really felt that I had tasted the bitterness of death, as Mr. Allan said in his sermon last Sunday, when I saw Diana go out alone,” she said mournfully that night.
“I thought how splendid it would have been if Diana had only been going to study for the Entrance, too.
But we can’t have things perfect in this imperfect world, as Mrs. Lynde says.
Mrs. Lynde isn’t exactly a comforting person sometimes, but there’s no doubt she says a great many very true things. And I think the Queen’s class is going to be extremely interesting.
Jane and Ruby are just going to study to be teachers.
That is the height of their ambition.