ries grew thickly
along it; and always there was a delightful spiciness in the air and
music of bird calls and the murmur and laugh of wood winds in the trees
overhead. Now and then you might see a rabbit skipping across the road
if you were quiet--which, with Anne and Diana, happened about once in
a blue moon. Down in the valley the path came out to the main road and
then it was just up the spruce hill to the school.

The Avonlea school was a whitewashed building, low in the eaves and
wide in the windows, furnished inside with comfortable substantial
old-fashioned desks that opened and shut, and were carved all over their
lids with the initials and hieroglyphics of three generations of school
children. The schoolhouse was set back from the road and behind it was
a dusky fir wood and a brook where all the children put their bottles of
milk in the morning to keep cool and sweet until dinner hour.

Marilla had seen Anne start off to school on the first day of September
with many secret misgivings. Anne was such an odd girl. How would she
get on with the other children? And how on earth would she ever manage
to hold her tongue during school hours?

Things went better than Marilla feared, however. Anne came home that
evening in high spirits.

"I think I'm going to like school here," she announced. "I don't think
much of the master, through. He's all the time curling his mustache
and making eyes at Prissy Andrews. Prissy is grown up, you know. She's
sixteen and she's studying for the entrance examination into Queen's
Academy at Charlottetown next year. Tillie Boulter says the master is
DEAD GONE on her. She's got a beautiful complexion and curly brown hair
and she does it up so elegantly. She sits in the long seat at the back
and he sits there, too, most of the time--to explain her lessons, he
says. But Ruby Gillis says she saw him writing something on her slate
and when Prissy read it she blushed as red as a beet and giggled; and
Ruby Gillis says she doesn't believe it had anything to do with the
lesson."

"Anne Shirley, don't let me hear you talking about your teacher in that
way again," said Marilla sharply. "You don't go to school to criticize
the master. I guess he can teach YOU something, and it's your business
to learn. And I want you to understand right off that you are not to
come home telling tales about him. That is something I won't encourage.
I hope you were a good girl."

"Indeed I was," said Anne comfor