l I'm seventeen."

"If I had Alice Bell's crooked nose," said Anne decidedly, "I
wouldn't--but there! I won't say what I was going to because it was
extremely uncharitable. Besides, I was comparing it with my own nose and
that's vanity. I'm afraid I think too much about my nose ever since I
heard that compliment about it long ago. It really is a great comfort to
me. Oh, Diana, look, there's a rabbit. That's something to remember for
our woods composition. I really think the woods are just as lovely in
winter as in summer. They're so white and still, as if they were asleep
and dreaming pretty dreams."

"I won't mind writing that composition when its time comes," sighed
Diana. "I can manage to write about the woods, but the one we're to
hand in Monday is terrible. The idea of Miss Stacy telling us to write a
story out of our own heads!"

"Why, it's as easy as wink," said Anne.

"It's easy for you because you have an imagination," retorted Diana,
"but what would you do if you had been born without one? I suppose you
have your composition all done?"

Anne nodded, trying hard not to look virtuously complacent and failing
miserably.

"I wrote it last Monday evening. It's called 'The Jealous Rival; or In
Death Not Divided.' I read it to Marilla and she said it was stuff and
nonsense. Then I read it to Matthew and he said it was fine. That is
the kind of critic I like. It's a sad, sweet story. I just cried like
a child while I was writing it. It's about two beautiful maidens called
Cordelia Montmorency and Geraldine Seymour who lived in the same village
and were devotedly attached to each other. Cordelia was a regal brunette
with a coronet of midnight hair and duskly flashing eyes. Geraldine was
a queenly blonde with hair like spun gold and velvety purple eyes."

"I never saw anybody with purple eyes," said Diana dubiously.

"Neither did I. I just imagined them. I wanted something out of the
common. Geraldine had an alabaster brow too. I've found out what an
alabaster brow is. That is one of the advantages of being thirteen. You
know so much more than you did when you were only twelve."

"Well, what became of Cordelia and Geraldine?" asked Diana, who was
beginning to feel rather interested in their fate.

"They grew in beauty side by side until they were sixteen. Then Bertram
DeVere came to their native village and fell in love with the fair
Geraldine. He saved her life when her horse ran away with her in a
carriage