aid Marilla.

"It isn't nonsense at all," said Anne, gazing at Marilla with solemn,
reproachful eyes. "Don't you understand, Marilla? I've been insulted."

"Insulted fiddlesticks! You'll go to school tomorrow as usual."

"Oh, no." Anne shook her head gently. "I'm not going back, Marilla. I'll
learn my lessons at home and I'll be as good as I can be and hold my
tongue all the time if it's possible at all. But I will not go back to
school, I assure you."

Marilla saw something remarkably like unyielding stubbornness looking
out of Anne's small face. She understood that she would have trouble in
overcoming it; but she re-solved wisely to say nothing more just then.
"I'll run down and see Rachel about it this evening," she thought.
"There's no use reasoning with Anne now. She's too worked up and I've
an idea she can be awful stubborn if she takes the notion. Far as I can
make out from her story, Mr. Phillips has been carrying matters with a
rather high hand. But it would never do to say so to her. I'll just talk
it over with Rachel. She's sent ten children to school and she ought to
know something about it. She'll have heard the whole story, too, by this
time."

Marilla found Mrs. Lynde knitting quilts as industriously and cheerfully
as usual.

"I suppose you know what I've come about," she said, a little
shamefacedly.

Mrs. Rachel nodded.

"About Anne's fuss in school, I reckon," she said. "Tillie Boulter was
in on her way home from school and told me about it." "I don't know
what to do with her," said Marilla. "She declares she won't go back to
school. I never saw a child so worked up. I've been expecting trouble
ever since she started to school. I knew things were going too smooth to
last. She's so high strung. What would you advise, Rachel?"

"Well, since you've asked my advice, Marilla," said Mrs. Lynde
amiably--Mrs. Lynde dearly loved to be asked for advice--"I'd just
humor her a little at first, that's what I'd do. It's my belief that
Mr. Phillips was in the wrong. Of course, it doesn't do to say so to the
children, you know. And of course he did right to punish her yesterday
for giving way to temper. But today it was different. The others who
were late should have been punished as well as Anne, that's what. And I
don't believe in making the girls sit with the boys for punishment. It
isn't modest. Tillie Boulter was real indignant. She took Anne's part
right through and said all the scholars did too. Anne