serted you, but I
went boldly to your bedside and nursed you back to life; and then I took
the smallpox and died and I was buried under those poplar trees in the
graveyard and you planted a rosebush by my grave and watered it with
your tears; and you never, never forgot the friend of your youth who
sacrificed her life for you. Oh, it was such a pathetic tale, Diana.
The tears just rained down over my cheeks while I mixed the cake. But
I forgot the flour and the cake was a dismal failure. Flour is so
essential to cakes, you know. Marilla was very cross and I don't wonder.
I'm a great trial to her. She was terribly mortified about the pudding
sauce last week. We had a plum pudding for dinner on Tuesday and there
was half the pudding and a pitcherful of sauce left over. Marilla said
there was enough for another dinner and told me to set it on the pantry
shelf and cover it. I meant to cover it just as much as could be, Diana,
but when I carried it in I was imagining I was a nun--of course I'm a
Protestant but I imagined I was a Catholic--taking the veil to bury a
broken heart in cloistered seclusion; and I forgot all about covering
the pudding sauce. I thought of it next morning and ran to the pantry.
Diana, fancy if you can my extreme horror at finding a mouse drowned in
that pudding sauce! I lifted the mouse out with a spoon and threw it out
in the yard and then I washed the spoon in three waters. Marilla was out
milking and I fully intended to ask her when she came in if I'd give the
sauce to the pigs; but when she did come in I was imagining that I was
a frost fairy going through the woods turning the trees red and yellow,
whichever they wanted to be, so I never thought about the pudding sauce
again and Marilla sent me out to pick apples. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Chester
Ross from Spencervale came here that morning. You know they are very
stylish people, especially Mrs. Chester Ross. When Marilla called me in
dinner was all ready and everybody was at the table. I tried to be as
polite and dignified as I could be, for I wanted Mrs. Chester Ross to
think I was a ladylike little girl even if I wasn't pretty. Everything
went right until I saw Marilla coming with the plum pudding in one hand
and the pitcher of pudding sauce WARMED UP, in the other. Diana, that
was a terrible moment. I remembered everything and I just stood up in
my place and shrieked out 'Marilla, you mustn't use that pudding sauce.
There was a mouse drowned in it.