I was when I came here."

"Anne, you never were bad . . . NEVER. I see that now, when I've learned
what real badness is. You were always getting into terrible scrapes,
I'll admit, but your motive was always good. Davy is just bad from sheer
love of it."

"Oh, no, I don't think it is real badness with him either," pleaded
Anne. "It's just mischief. And it is rather quiet for him here, you
know. He has no other boys to play with and his mind has to have
something to occupy it. Dora is so prim and proper she is no good for
a boy's playmate. I really think it would be better to let them go to
school, Marilla."

"No," said Marilla resolutely, "my father always said that no child
should be cooped up in the four walls of a school until it was seven
years old, and Mr. Allan says the same thing. The twins can have a few
lessons at home but go to school they shan't till they're seven."

"Well, we must try to reform Davy at home then," said Anne cheerfully.
"With all his faults he's really a dear little chap. I can't help loving
him. Marilla, it may be a dreadful thing to say, but honestly, I like
Davy better than Dora, for all she's so good."

"I don't know but that I do, myself," confessed Marilla, "and it isn't
fair, for Dora isn't a bit of trouble. There couldn't be a better child
and you'd hardly know she was in the house."

"Dora is too good," said Anne. "She'd behave just as well if there
wasn't a soul to tell her what to do. She was born already brought up,
so she doesn't need us; and I think," concluded Anne, hitting on a very
vital truth, "that we always love best the people who need us. Davy
needs us badly."

"He certainly needs something," agreed Marilla. "Rachel Lynde would say
it was a good spanking."

XI

Facts and Fancies

"Teaching is really very interesting work," wrote Anne to a Queen's
Academy chum. "Jane says she thinks it is monotonous but I don't find it
so. Something funny is almost sure to happen every day, and the children
say such amusing things. Jane says she punishes her pupils when
they make funny speeches, which is probably why she finds teaching
monotonous. This afternoon little Jimmy Andrews was trying to spell
'speckled' and couldn't manage it. 'Well,' he said finally, 'I can't
spell it but I know what it means.'

"'What?' I asked.

"'St. Clair Donnell's face, miss.'

"St. Clair is certainly very much freckled, although I try to prevent
the others from commenting on it .