cross the aisle from you, Anne.
Just look at him and see if you don't think he's handsome."

Anne looked accordingly. She had a good chance to do so, for the said
Gilbert Blythe was absorbed in stealthily pinning the long yellow braid
of Ruby Gillis, who sat in front of him, to the back of her seat. He
was a tall boy, with curly brown hair, roguish hazel eyes, and a mouth
twisted into a teasing smile. Presently Ruby Gillis started up to take
a sum to the master; she fell back into her seat with a little shriek,
believing that her hair was pulled out by the roots. Everybody looked at
her and Mr. Phillips glared so sternly that Ruby began to cry. Gilbert
had whisked the pin out of sight and was studying his history with the
soberest face in the world; but when the commotion subsided he looked at
Anne and winked with inexpressible drollery.

"I think your Gilbert Blythe IS handsome," confided Anne to Diana,
"but I think he's very bold. It isn't good manners to wink at a strange
girl."

But it was not until the afternoon that things really began to happen.

Mr. Phillips was back in the corner explaining a problem in algebra to
Prissy Andrews and the rest of the scholars were doing pretty much as
they pleased eating green apples, whispering, drawing pictures on their
slates, and driving crickets harnessed to strings, up and down aisle.
Gilbert Blythe was trying to make Anne Shirley look at him and failing
utterly, because Anne was at that moment totally oblivious not only
to the very existence of Gilbert Blythe, but of every other scholar in
Avonlea school itself. With her chin propped on her hands and her eyes
fixed on the blue glimpse of the Lake of Shining Waters that the west
window afforded, she was far away in a gorgeous dreamland hearing and
seeing nothing save her own wonderful visions.

Gilbert Blythe wasn't used to putting himself out to make a girl look
at him and meeting with failure. She SHOULD look at him, that red-haired
Shirley girl with the little pointed chin and the big eyes that weren't
like the eyes of any other girl in Avonlea school.

Gilbert reached across the aisle, picked up the end of Anne's long red
braid, held it out at arm's length and said in a piercing whisper:

"Carrots! Carrots!"

Then Anne looked at him with a vengeance!

She did more than look. She sprang to her feet, her bright fancies
fallen into cureless ruin. She flashed one indignant glance at Gilbert
from eyes whose angry s