When Mr. Allan called out my name I really cannot tell how I ever got up on that platform.
I felt as if a million eyes were looking at me and through me, and for one dreadful moment I was sure I couldn’t begin at all.
Then I thought of my lovely puffed sleeves and took courage. I knew that I must live up to those sleeves, Diana.
So I started in, and my voice seemed to be coming from ever so far away.
I just felt like a parrot.
It’s providential that I practiced those recitations so often up in the garret, or I’d never have been able to get through.
Did I groan all right?”
“Yes, indeed, you groaned lovely,” assured Diana.
“I saw old Mrs. Sloane wiping away tears when I sat down.
It was splendid to think I had touched somebody’s heart.
It’s so romantic to take part in a concert, isn’t it?
Oh, it’s been a very memorable occasion indeed.”
“Wasn’t the boys’ dialogue fine?” said Diana.
“Gilbert Blythe was just splendid.
Anne, I do think it’s awful mean the way you treat Gil.
Wait till I tell you.
When you ran off the platform after the fairy dialogue one of your roses fell out of your hair.
I saw Gil pick it up and put it in his breast pocket.
There now.
You’re so romantic that I’m sure you ought to be pleased at that.”
“It’s nothing to me what that person does,” said Anne loftily.
“I simply never waste a thought on him, Diana.”
That night Marilla and Matthew, who had been out to a concert for the first time in twenty years, sat for a while by the kitchen fire after Anne had gone to bed.
“Well now, I guess our Anne did as well as any of them,” said Matthew proudly.
“Yes, she did,” admitted Marilla.
“She’s a bright child, Matthew.
And she looked real nice too.
I’ve been kind of opposed to this concert scheme, but I suppose there’s no real harm in it after all.
Anyhow, I was proud of Anne tonight, although I’m not going to tell her so.”
“Well now, I was proud of her and I did tell her so ‘fore she went upstairs,” said Matthew.
“We must see what we can do for her some of these days, Marilla.
I guess she’ll need something more than Avonlea school by and by.”
“There’s time enough to think of that,” said Marilla.
“She’s only thirteen in March.
Though tonight it struck me she was growing quite a big girl.
Mrs. Lynde made that dress a mite too long, and it makes Anne look so tall.
She’s quick to learn and I guess the best thing we can do for her will be to send her to Queen’s after a spell.
But nothing need be said about that for a year or two yet.”
“Well now, it’ll do no harm to be thinking it over off and on,” said Matthew.
“Things like that are all the better for lots of thinking over.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Story Club Is Formed
JUNIOR Avonlea found it hard to settle down to humdrum existence again.
To Anne in particular things seemed fearfully flat, stale, and unprofitable after the goblet of excitement she had been sipping for weeks.
Could she go back to the former quiet pleasures of those faraway days before the concert?
At first, as she told Diana, she did not really think she could.
“I’m positively certain, Diana, that life can never be quite the same again as it was in those olden days,” she said mournfully, as if referring to a period of at least fifty years back.
“Perhaps after a while I’ll get used to it, but I’m afraid concerts spoil people for everyday life.
I suppose that is why Marilla disapproves of them.
Marilla is such a sensible woman.