tty waists; but I thought maybe
you'd like something real dressy to wear if you were asked out anywhere
of an evening in town, to a party or anything like that. I hear that
Jane and Ruby and Josie have got 'evening dresses,' as they call them,
and I don't mean you shall be behind them. I got Mrs. Allan to help me
pick it in town last week, and we'll get Emily Gillis to make it for
you. Emily has got taste, and her fits aren't to be equaled."

"Oh, Marilla, it's just lovely," said Anne. "Thank you so much. I don't
believe you ought to be so kind to me--it's making it harder every day
for me to go away."

The green dress was made up with as many tucks and frills and shirrings
as Emily's taste permitted. Anne put it on one evening for Matthew's
and Marilla's benefit, and recited "The Maiden's Vow" for them in the
kitchen. As Marilla watched the bright, animated face and graceful
motions her thoughts went back to the evening Anne had arrived at Green
Gables, and memory recalled a vivid picture of the odd, frightened child
in her preposterous yellowish-brown wincey dress, the heartbreak looking
out of her tearful eyes. Something in the memory brought tears to
Marilla's own eyes.

"I declare, my recitation has made you cry, Marilla," said Anne gaily
stooping over Marilla's chair to drop a butterfly kiss on that lady's
cheek. "Now, I call that a positive triumph."

"No, I wasn't crying over your piece," said Marilla, who would have
scorned to be betrayed into such weakness by any poetry stuff. "I just
couldn't help thinking of the little girl you used to be, Anne. And
I was wishing you could have stayed a little girl, even with all your
queer ways. You've grown up now and you're going away; and you look so
tall and stylish and so--so--different altogether in that dress--as if
you didn't belong in Avonlea at all--and I just got lonesome thinking it
all over."

"Marilla!" Anne sat down on Marilla's gingham lap, took Marilla's lined
face between her hands, and looked gravely and tenderly into Marilla's
eyes. "I'm not a bit changed--not really. I'm only just pruned down and
branched out. The real ME--back here--is just the same. It won't make a
bit of difference where I go or how much I change outwardly; at heart I
shall always be your little Anne, who will love you and Matthew and dear
Green Gables more and better every day of her life."

Anne laid her fresh young cheek against Marilla's faded one, and reached
out a hand t