and the ferns were sear and brown all along it. There was a
tang in the very air that inspired the hearts of small maidens tripping,
unlike snails, swiftly and willingly to school; and it WAS jolly to
be back again at the little brown desk beside Diana, with Ruby Gillis
nodding across the aisle and Carrie Sloane sending up notes and Julia
Bell passing a "chew" of gum down from the back seat. Anne drew a long
breath of happiness as she sharpened her pencil and arranged her picture
cards in her desk. Life was certainly very interesting.

In the new teacher she found another true and helpful friend. Miss Stacy
was a bright, sympathetic young woman with the happy gift of winning and
holding the affections of her pupils and bringing out the best that was
in them mentally and morally. Anne expanded like a flower under this
wholesome influence and carried home to the admiring Matthew and the
critical Marilla glowing accounts of schoolwork and aims.

"I love Miss Stacy with my whole heart, Marilla. She is so ladylike
and she has such a sweet voice. When she pronounces my name I feel
INSTINCTIVELY that she's spelling it with an E. We had recitations
this afternoon. I just wish you could have been there to hear me recite
'Mary, Queen of Scots.' I just put my whole soul into it. Ruby Gillis
told me coming home that the way I said the line, 'Now for my father's
arm,' she said, 'my woman's heart farewell,' just made her blood run
cold."

"Well now, you might recite it for me some of these days, out in the
barn," suggested Matthew.

"Of course I will," said Anne meditatively, "but I won't be able to do
it so well, I know. It won't be so exciting as it is when you have a
whole schoolful before you hanging breathlessly on your words. I know I
won't be able to make your blood run cold."

"Mrs. Lynde says it made HER blood run cold to see the boys climbing to
the very tops of those big trees on Bell's hill after crows' nests last
Friday," said Marilla. "I wonder at Miss Stacy for encouraging it."

"But we wanted a crow's nest for nature study," explained Anne. "That
was on our field afternoon. Field afternoons are splendid, Marilla.
And Miss Stacy explains everything so beautifully. We have to write
compositions on our field afternoons and I write the best ones."

"It's very vain of you to say so then. You'd better let your teacher say
it."

"But she DID say it, Marilla. And indeed I'm not vain about it. How can
I be, when I'm