“Oh, there will certainly be something else
nice to say about it,” said Anne easily.
“There always is about a baby.”
The baby was pretty, however, and Mr. White felt
that he got his five dollars’ worth of the girls’
honest delight over the plump little newcomer.
But that was the first, last, and only time that Lorenzo
White ever subscribed to anything.
Anne, tired as she was, made one more effort for the
public weal that night, slipping over the fields to
interview Mr. Harrison, who was as usual smoking his
pipe on the veranda with Ginger beside him. Strickly
speaking he was on the Carmody road; but Jane and Gertie,
who were not acquainted with him save by doubtful
report, had nervously begged Anne to canvass him.
Mr. Harrison, however, flatly refused to subscribe
a cent, and all Anne’s wiles were in vain.
“But I thought you approved of our society,
Mr. Harrison,” she mourned.
“So I do . . . so I do . . . but my approval
doesn’t go as deep as my pocket, Anne.”
“A few more experiences such as I have had today
would make me as much of a pessimist as Miss Eliza
Andrews,” Anne told her reflection in the east
gable mirror at bedtime.
The Pointing of Duty
Anne leaned back in her chair one mild October evening
and sighed. She was sitting at a table covered
with text books and exercises, but the closely written
sheets of paper before her had no apparent connection
with studies or school work.
“What is the matter?” asked Gilbert, who
had arrived at the open kitchen door just in time
to hear the sigh.
Anne colored, and thrust her writing out of sight
under some school compositions.
“Nothing very dreadful. I was just trying
to write out some of my thoughts, as Professor Hamilton
advised me, but I couldn’t get them to please
me. They seem so still and foolish directly they’re
written down on white paper with black ink. Fancies
are like shadows . . . you can’t cage them,
they’re such wayward, dancing things. But
perhaps I’ll learn the secret some day if I
keep on trying. I haven’t a great many spare
moments, you know. By the time I finish correcting
school exercises and compositions, I don’t always
feel like writing any of my own.”
“You are getting on splendidly in school, Anne.
All the children like you,” said Gilbert, sitting
down on the stone step.
“No, not all. Anthony Pye doesn’t
and won’t like me. What is worse, he
doesn’t respect me . . . no, he doesn’t.
He simply holds me in contempt and I don’t mind
confessing to you that it worries me miserably.
It isn’t that he is so very bad . . . he is
only rather mischievous, but no worse than some of
the others. He seldom disobeys me; but he obeys
with a scornful air of toleration as if it wasn’t
worthwhile disputing the point or he would . . . and
it has a bad effect on the others. I’ve
tried every way to win him but I’m beginning
to fear I never shall. I want to, for he’s
rather a cute little lad, if he is a Pye, and
I could like him if he’d let me.”
