ostentatiously wiped her fingers on her handkerchief. The apple lay
untouched on her desk until the next morning, when little Timothy
Andrews, who swept the school and kindled the fire, annexed it as one
of his perquisites. Charlie Sloane s slate pencil, gorgeously bedizened
with striped red and yellow paper, costing two cents where ordinary
pencils cost only one, which he sent up to her after dinner hour, met
with a more favorable reception. Anne was graciously pleased to accept
it and rewarded the donor with a smile which exalted that infatuated
youth straightway into the seventh heaven of delight and caused him to
make such fearful errors in his dictation that Mr. Phillips kept him in
after school to rewrite it.
But as,
The C sar s pageant shorn of Brutus bust
Did but of Rome s best son remind her more,
so the marked absence of any tribute or recognition from Diana Barry who
was sitting with Gertie Pye embittered Anne s little triumph.
Diana might just have smiled at me once, I think, she mourned to
Marilla that night. But the next morning a note most fearfully and
wonderfully twisted and folded, and a small parcel were passed across to
Anne.
Dear Anne, ran the former, Mother says I m not to play with you or
talk to you even in school. It isn t my fault and don t be cross at
me, because I love you as much as ever. I miss you awfully to tell
all my secrets to and I don t like Gertie Pye one bit. I made you
one of the new bookmarkers out of red tissue paper. They are awfully
fashionable now and only three girls in school know how to make
them. When you look at it remember
Your true friend,
Diana Barry.
Anne read the note, kissed the bookmark, and dispatched a prompt reply
back to the other side of the school.
My own darling Diana:--
122