ow. But the spare room was out of the
question for such a stray waif, so there remained only the east gable
room. Marilla lighted a candle and told Anne to follow her, which Anne
spiritlessly did, taking her hat and carpet-bag from the hall table as
she passed. The hall was fearsomely clean; the little gable chamber in
which she presently found herself seemed still cleaner.

Marilla set the candle on a three-legged, three-cornered table and
turned down the bedclothes.

"I suppose you have a nightgown?" she questioned.

Anne nodded.

"Yes, I have two. The matron of the asylum made them for me. They're
fearfully skimpy. There is never enough to go around in an asylum, so
things are always skimpy--at least in a poor asylum like ours. I hate
skimpy night-dresses. But one can dream just as well in them as
in lovely trailing ones, with frills around the neck, that's one
consolation."

"Well, undress as quick as you can and go to bed. I'll come back in a
few minutes for the candle. I daren't trust you to put it out yourself.
You'd likely set the place on fire."

When Marilla had gone Anne looked around her wistfully. The whitewashed
walls were so painfully bare and staring that she thought they must ache
over their own bareness. The floor was bare, too, except for a round
braided mat in the middle such as Anne had never seen before. In
one corner was the bed, a high, old-fashioned one, with four dark,
low-turned posts. In the other corner was the aforesaid three-corner
table adorned with a fat, red velvet pin-cushion hard enough to turn the
point of the most adventurous pin. Above it hung a little six-by-eight
mirror. Midway between table and bed was the window, with an icy white
muslin frill over it, and opposite it was the wash-stand. The whole
apartment was of a rigidity not to be described in words, but which
sent a shiver to the very marrow of Anne's bones. With a sob she hastily
discarded her garments, put on the skimpy nightgown and sprang into bed
where she burrowed face downward into the pillow and pulled the clothes
over her head. When Marilla came up for the light various skimpy
articles of raiment scattered most untidily over the floor and a certain
tempestuous appearance of the bed were the only indications of any
presence save her own.

She deliberately picked up Anne's clothes, placed them neatly on a prim
yellow chair, and then, taking up the candle, went over to the bed.

"Good night," she said, a li