ot feel over it as I do. But the truth is, Mrs. Allan,
that I just flew into a temper and whipped him because of that. I wasn't
thinking whether it was just or unjust . . . even if he hadn't deserved it
I'd have done it just the same. That is what humiliates me."
"Well, we all make mistakes, dear, so just put it behind you. We should
regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward
into the future with us. There goes Gilbert Blythe on his wheel . . . home
for his vacation too, I suppose. How are you and he getting on with your
studies?"
"Pretty well. We plan to finish the Virgil tonight . . . there are only
twenty lines to do. Then we are not going to study any more until
September."
"Do you think you will ever get to college?"
"Oh, I don't know." Anne looked dreamily afar to the opal-tinted
horizon. "Marilla's eyes will never be much better than they are now,
although we are so thankful to think that they will not get worse. And
then there are the twins . . . somehow I don't believe their uncle will
ever really send for them. Perhaps college may be around the bend in the
road, but I haven't got to the bend yet and I don't think much about it
lest I might grow discontented."
"Well, I should like to see you go to college, Anne; but if you never
do, don't be discontented about it. We make our own lives wherever we
are, after all . . . college can only help us to do it more easily. They
are broad or narrow according to what we put into them, not what we get
out. Life is rich and full here . . . everywhere . . . if we can only
learn how to open our whole hearts to its richness and fulness."
"I think I understand what you mean," said Anne thoughtfully, "and I
know I have so much to feel thankful for . . . oh, so much . . . my work,
and Paul Irving, and the dear twins, and all my friends. Do you know,
Mrs. Allan, I'm so thankful for friendship. It beautifies life so much."
"True friendship is a very helpful thing indeed," said Mrs. Allan,
"and we should have a very high ideal of it, and never sully it by any
failure in truth and sincerity. I fear the name of friendship is often
degraded to a kind of intimacy that has nothing of real friendship in
it."
"Yes . . . like Gertie Pye's and Julia Bell's. They are very intimate
and go everywhere together; but Gertie is always saying nasty things of
Julia behind her back and everybody thinks she is jealous of her because
she is always so pleased
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