t better when
people cry. Jane and Ruby almost always cry when I come to the pathetic
parts. Diana wrote her Aunt Josephine about our club and her Aunt
Josephine wrote back that we were to send her some of our stories. So
we copied out four of our very best and sent them. Miss Josephine Barry
wrote back that she had never read anything so amusing in her life. That
kind of puzzled us because the stories were all very pathetic and almost
everybody died. But I'm glad Miss Barry liked them. It shows our club
is doing some good in the world. Mrs. Allan says that ought to be our
object in everything. I do really try to make it my object but I forget
so often when I'm having fun. I hope I shall be a little like Mrs. Allan
when I grow up. Do you think there is any prospect of it, Marilla?"

"I shouldn't say there was a great deal" was Marilla's encouraging
answer. "I'm sure Mrs. Allan was never such a silly, forgetful little
girl as you are."

"No; but she wasn't always so good as she is now either," said Anne
seriously. "She told me so herself--that is, she said she was a dreadful
mischief when she was a girl and was always getting into scrapes. I felt
so encouraged when I heard that. Is it very wicked of me, Marilla,
to feel encouraged when I hear that other people have been bad and
mischievous? Mrs. Lynde says it is. Mrs. Lynde says she always feels
shocked when she hears of anyone ever having been naughty, no matter how
small they were. Mrs. Lynde says she once heard a minister confess that
when he was a boy he stole a strawberry tart out of his aunt's pantry
and she never had any respect for that minister again. Now, I wouldn't
have felt that way. I'd have thought that it was real noble of him to
confess it, and I'd have thought what an encouraging thing it would be
for small boys nowadays who do naughty things and are sorry for them
to know that perhaps they may grow up to be ministers in spite of it.
That's how I'd feel, Marilla."

"The way I feel at present, Anne," said Marilla, "is that it's high time
you had those dishes washed. You've taken half an hour longer than
you should with all your chattering. Learn to work first and talk
afterwards."

CHAPTER XXVII. Vanity and Vexation of Spirit

Marilla, walking home one late April evening from an Aid meeting,
realized that the winter was over and gone with the thrill of delight
that spring never fails to bring to the oldest and saddest as well as to
the young