Won t you let me see Diana just once to say farewell? she implored.
Diana has gone over to Carmody with her father, said Mrs. Barry, going
in and shutting the door.
Anne went back to Green Gables calm with despair.
My last hope is gone, she told Marilla. I went up and saw Mrs. Barry
myself and she treated me very insultingly. Marilla, I do _not_ think she
is a well-bred woman. There is nothing more to do except to pray and I
haven t much hope that that ll do much good because, Marilla, I do not
believe that God Himself can do very much with such an obstinate person
as Mrs. Barry.
Anne, you shouldn t say such things rebuked Marilla, striving to
overcome that unholy tendency to laughter which she was dismayed to find
growing upon her. And indeed, when she told the whole story to Matthew
that night, she did laugh heartily over Anne s tribulations.
But when she slipped into the east gable before going to bed and found
that Anne had cried herself to sleep an unaccustomed softness crept into
her face.
Poor little soul, she murmured, lifting a loose curl of hair from the
child s tear-stained face. Then she bent down and kissed the flushed
cheek on the pillow.
CHAPTER XVII. A New Interest in Life
THE next afternoon Anne, bending over her patchwork at the kitchen
window, happened to glance out and beheld Diana down by the Dryad s
Bubble beckoning mysteriously. In a trice Anne was out of the house
and flying down to the hollow, astonishment and hope struggling in
her expressive eyes. But the hope faded when she saw Diana s dejected
countenance.
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