ring to take the risk of dashing her brains out among the boughs
to that of seeing a white thing. When she finally stumbled over the log
bridge she drew one long shivering breath of relief.

"Well, so nothing caught you?" said Marilla unsympathetically.

"Oh, Mar--Marilla," chattered Anne, "I'll b-b-be contt-tented with
c-c-commonplace places after this."

CHAPTER XXI. A New Departure in Flavorings

"Dear me, there is nothing but meetings and partings in this world, as
Mrs. Lynde says," remarked Anne plaintively, putting her slate and books
down on the kitchen table on the last day of June and wiping her red
eyes with a very damp handkerchief. "Wasn't it fortunate, Marilla, that
I took an extra handkerchief to school today? I had a presentiment that
it would be needed."

"I never thought you were so fond of Mr. Phillips that you'd require two
handkerchiefs to dry your tears just because he was going away," said
Marilla.

"I don't think I was crying because I was really so very fond of him,"
reflected Anne. "I just cried because all the others did. It was
Ruby Gillis started it. Ruby Gillis has always declared she hated Mr.
Phillips, but just as soon as he got up to make his farewell speech she
burst into tears. Then all the girls began to cry, one after the other.
I tried to hold out, Marilla. I tried to remember the time Mr. Phillips
made me sit with Gil--with a, boy; and the time he spelled my name
without an e on the blackboard; and how he said I was the worst dunce
he ever saw at geometry and laughed at my spelling; and all the times he
had been so horrid and sarcastic; but somehow I couldn't, Marilla, and I
just had to cry too. Jane Andrews has been talking for a month about how
glad she'd be when Mr. Phillips went away and she declared she'd never
shed a tear. Well, she was worse than any of us and had to borrow a
handkerchief from her brother--of course the boys didn't cry--because
she hadn't brought one of her own, not expecting to need it. Oh,
Marilla, it was heartrending. Mr. Phillips made such a beautiful
farewell speech beginning, 'The time has come for us to part.' It was
very affecting. And he had tears in his eyes too, Marilla. Oh, I felt
dreadfully sorry and remorseful for all the times I'd talked in school
and drawn pictures of him on my slate and made fun of him and Prissy.
I can tell you I wished I'd been a model pupil like Minnie Andrews. She
hadn't anything on her conscience. The girls