The black shawl having been procured, Anne spread it over the flat and
then lay down on the bottom, with closed eyes and hands folded over her
breast.
Oh, she does look really dead, whispered Ruby Gillis nervously,
watching the still, white little face under the flickering shadows of
the birches. It makes me feel frightened, girls. Do you suppose it s
really right to act like this? Mrs. Lynde says that all play-acting is
abominably wicked.
Ruby, you shouldn t talk about Mrs. Lynde, said Anne severely. It
spoils the effect because this is hundreds of years before Mrs. Lynde
was born. Jane, you arrange this. It s silly for Elaine to be talking
when she s dead.
Jane rose to the occasion. Cloth of gold for coverlet there was none,
but an old piano scarf of yellow Japanese crepe was an excellent
substitute. A white lily was not obtainable just then, but the effect of
a tall blue iris placed in one of Anne s folded hands was all that could
be desired.
Now, she s all ready, said Jane. We must kiss her quiet brows
and, Diana, you say, Sister, farewell forever, and Ruby, you say,
Farewell, sweet sister, both of you as sorrowfully as you possibly
can. Anne, for goodness sake smile a little. You know Elaine lay as
though she smiled. That s better. Now push the flat off.
The flat was accordingly pushed off, scraping roughly over an old
embedded stake in the process. Diana and Jane and Ruby only waited long
enough to see it caught in the current and headed for the bridge before
scampering up through the woods, across the road, and down to the lower
headland where, as Lancelot and Guinevere and the King, they were to be
in readiness to receive the lily maid.
For a few minutes Anne, drifting slowly down, enjoyed the romance of her
situation to the full. Then something happened not at all romantic. The
flat began to leak. In a very few moments it was necessary for Elaine
to scramble to her feet, pick up her cloth of gold coverlet and pall
of blackest samite and gaze blankly at a big crack in the bottom of her
barge through which the water was literally pouring. That sharp stake at
197