_instinctively_ that she s spelling it with an E. We had recitations
this afternoon. I just wish you could have been there to hear me recite
Mary, Queen of Scots. I just put my whole soul into it. Ruby Gillis
told me coming home that the way I said the line, Now for my father s
arm, she said, my woman s heart farewell, just made her blood run
cold.
Well now, you might recite it for me some of these days, out in the
barn, suggested Matthew.
Of course I will, said Anne meditatively, but I won t be able to do
it so well, I know. It won t be so exciting as it is when you have a
whole schoolful before you hanging breathlessly on your words. I know I
won t be able to make your blood run cold.
Mrs. Lynde says it made _her_ blood run cold to see the boys climbing to
the very tops of those big trees on Bell s hill after crows nests last
Friday, said Marilla. I wonder at Miss Stacy for encouraging it.
But we wanted a crow s nest for nature study, explained Anne. That
was on our field afternoon. Field afternoons are splendid, Marilla.
And Miss Stacy explains everything so beautifully. We have to write
compositions on our field afternoons and I write the best ones.
It s very vain of you to say so then. You d better let your teacher say
it.
But she _did_ say it, Marilla. And indeed I m not vain about it. How can
I be, when I m such a dunce at geometry? Although I m really beginning
to see through it a little, too. Miss Stacy makes it so clear. Still,
I ll never be good at it and I assure you it is a humbling reflection.
But I love writing compositions. Mostly Miss Stacy lets us choose
our own subjects; but next week we are to write a composition on some
remarkable person. It s hard to choose among so many remarkable people
who have lived. Mustn t it be splendid to be remarkable and have
compositions written about you after you re dead? Oh, I would dearly
love to be remarkable. I think when I grow up I ll be a trained nurse
and go with the Red Crosses to the field of battle as a messenger of
mercy. That is, if I don t go out as a foreign missionary. That would
be very romantic, but one would have to be very good to be a missionary,
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