w. Anne had no business to look so rapt and radiant.

Rapt and radiant Anne continued until they were in the very presence
of Mrs. Lynde, who was sitting knitting by her kitchen window. Then the
radiance vanished. Mournful penitence appeared on every feature. Before
a word was spoken Anne suddenly went down on her knees before the
astonished Mrs. Rachel and held out her hands beseechingly.

"Oh, Mrs. Lynde, I am so extremely sorry," she said with a quiver in
her voice. "I could never express all my sorrow, no, not if I used up
a whole dictionary. You must just imagine it. I behaved terribly to
you--and I've disgraced the dear friends, Matthew and Marilla, who have
let me stay at Green Gables although I'm not a boy. I'm a dreadfully
wicked and ungrateful girl, and I deserve to be punished and cast out
by respectable people forever. It was very wicked of me to fly into a
temper because you told me the truth. It WAS the truth; every word you
said was true. My hair is red and I'm freckled and skinny and ugly.
What I said to you was true, too, but I shouldn't have said it. Oh, Mrs.
Lynde, please, please, forgive me. If you refuse it will be a lifelong
sorrow on a poor little orphan girl, would you, even if she had a
dreadful temper? Oh, I am sure you wouldn't. Please say you forgive me,
Mrs. Lynde."

Anne clasped her hands together, bowed her head, and waited for the word
of judgment.

There was no mistaking her sincerity--it breathed in every tone of her
voice. Both Marilla and Mrs. Lynde recognized its unmistakable ring.
But the former under-stood in dismay that Anne was actually enjoying
her valley of humiliation--was reveling in the thoroughness of her
abasement. Where was the wholesome punishment upon which she, Marilla,
had plumed herself? Anne had turned it into a species of positive
pleasure.

Good Mrs. Lynde, not being overburdened with perception, did not see
this. She only perceived that Anne had made a very thorough apology and
all resentment vanished from her kindly, if somewhat officious, heart.

"There, there, get up, child," she said heartily. "Of course I forgive
you. I guess I was a little too hard on you, anyway. But I'm such an
outspoken person. You just mustn't mind me, that's what. It can't be
denied your hair is terrible red; but I knew a girl once--went to school
with her, in fact--whose hair was every mite as red as yours when she
was young, but when she grew up it darkened to a real handsome a