e all the better for lots of thinking
over."

CHAPTER XXVI. The Story Club Is Formed

Junior Avonlea found it hard to settle down to humdrum existence
again. To Anne in particular things seemed fearfully flat, stale, and
unprofitable after the goblet of excitement she had been sipping for
weeks. Could she go back to the former quiet pleasures of those faraway
days before the concert? At first, as she told Diana, she did not really
think she could.

"I'm positively certain, Diana, that life can never be quite the
same again as it was in those olden days," she said mournfully, as if
referring to a period of at least fifty years back. "Perhaps after a
while I'll get used to it, but I'm afraid concerts spoil people for
everyday life. I suppose that is why Marilla disapproves of them.
Marilla is such a sensible woman. It must be a great deal better to be
sensible; but still, I don't believe I'd really want to be a sensible
person, because they are so unromantic. Mrs. Lynde says there is no
danger of my ever being one, but you can never tell. I feel just now
that I may grow up to be sensible yet. But perhaps that is only because
I'm tired. I simply couldn't sleep last night for ever so long. I just
lay awake and imagined the concert over and over again. That's one
splendid thing about such affairs--it's so lovely to look back to them."

Eventually, however, Avonlea school slipped back into its old groove
and took up its old interests. To be sure, the concert left traces. Ruby
Gillis and Emma White, who had quarreled over a point of precedence in
their platform seats, no longer sat at the same desk, and a promising
friendship of three years was broken up. Josie Pye and Julia Bell did
not "speak" for three months, because Josie Pye had told Bessie Wright
that Julia Bell's bow when she got up to recite made her think of a
chicken jerking its head, and Bessie told Julia. None of the Sloanes
would have any dealings with the Bells, because the Bells had declared
that the Sloanes had too much to do in the program, and the Sloanes had
retorted that the Bells were not capable of doing the little they had to
do properly. Finally, Charlie Sloane fought Moody Spurgeon MacPherson,
because Moody Spurgeon had said that Anne Shirley put on airs about
her recitations, and Moody Spurgeon was "licked"; consequently Moody
Spurgeon's sister, Ella May, would not "speak" to Anne Shirley all the
rest of the winter. With the exception of