ng her
chin thoughtfully with her forefinger. "It's nicer to think dear, pretty
thoughts and keep them in one's heart, like treasures. I don't like to
have them laughed at or wondered over. And somehow I don't want to use
big words any more. It's almost a pity, isn't it, now that I'm really
growing big enough to say them if I did want to. It's fun to be almost
grown up in some ways, but it's not the kind of fun I expected, Marilla.
There's so much to learn and do and think that there isn't time for big
words. Besides, Miss Stacy says the short ones are much stronger and
better. She makes us write all our essays as simply as possible. It was
hard at first. I was so used to crowding in all the fine big words I
could think of--and I thought of any number of them. But I've got used
to it now and I see it's so much better."

"What has become of your story club? I haven't heard you speak of it for
a long time."

"The story club isn't in existence any longer. We hadn't time for
it--and anyhow I think we had got tired of it. It was silly to be
writing about love and murder and elopements and mysteries. Miss Stacy
sometimes has us write a story for training in composition, but she
won't let us write anything but what might happen in Avonlea in our own
lives, and she criticizes it very sharply and makes us criticize our own
too. I never thought my compositions had so many faults until I began to
look for them myself. I felt so ashamed I wanted to give up altogether,
but Miss Stacy said I could learn to write well if I only trained myself
to be my own severest critic. And so I am trying to."

"You've only two more months before the Entrance," said Marilla. "Do you
think you'll be able to get through?"

Anne shivered.

"I don't know. Sometimes I think I'll be all right--and then I get
horribly afraid. We've studied hard and Miss Stacy has drilled us
thoroughly, but we mayn't get through for all that. We've each got a
stumbling block. Mine is geometry of course, and Jane's is Latin, and
Ruby and Charlie's is algebra, and Josie's is arithmetic. Moody Spurgeon
says he feels it in his bones that he is going to fail in English
history. Miss Stacy is going to give us examinations in June just as
hard as we'll have at the Entrance and mark us just as strictly, so
we'll have some idea. I wish it was all over, Marilla. It haunts me.
Sometimes I wake up in the night and wonder what I'll do if I don't
pass."

"Why, go to school next y