I'd sooner see you
doing strictly as you're told. As for cooking, I mean to begin giving
you lessons in that some of these days. But you're so featherbrained,
Anne, I've been waiting to see if you'd sober down a little and learn
to be steady before I begin. You've got to keep your wits about you in
cooking and not stop in the middle of things to let your thoughts rove
all over creation. Now, get out your patchwork and have your square done
before teatime."

"I do NOT like patchwork," said Anne dolefully, hunting out her
workbasket and sitting down before a little heap of red and white
diamonds with a sigh. "I think some kinds of sewing would be nice; but
there's no scope for imagination in patchwork. It's just one little seam
after another and you never seem to be getting anywhere. But of course
I'd rather be Anne of Green Gables sewing patchwork than Anne of any
other place with nothing to do but play. I wish time went as quick
sewing patches as it does when I'm playing with Diana, though. Oh, we
do have such elegant times, Marilla. I have to furnish most of the
imagination, but I'm well able to do that. Diana is simply perfect in
every other way. You know that little piece of land across the brook
that runs up between our farm and Mr. Barry's. It belongs to Mr. William
Bell, and right in the corner there is a little ring of white birch
trees--the most romantic spot, Marilla. Diana and I have our playhouse
there. We call it Idlewild. Isn't that a poetical name? I assure you it
took me some time to think it out. I stayed awake nearly a whole night
before I invented it. Then, just as I was dropping off to sleep, it came
like an inspiration. Diana was ENRAPTURED when she heard it. We have got
our house fixed up elegantly. You must come and see it, Marilla--won't
you? We have great big stones, all covered with moss, for seats, and
boards from tree to tree for shelves. And we have all our dishes on
them. Of course, they're all broken but it's the easiest thing in the
world to imagine that they are whole. There's a piece of a plate with a
spray of red and yellow ivy on it that is especially beautiful. We keep
it in the parlor and we have the fairy glass there, too. The fairy glass
is as lovely as a dream. Diana found it out in the woods behind their
chicken house. It's all full of rainbows--just little young rainbows
that haven't grown big yet--and Diana's mother told her it was broken
off a hanging lamp they once had. But i