the Spencervale doctor s dictum, no longer vetoed occasional outings.
The Debating Club flourished and gave several concerts; there were one
or two parties almost verging on grown-up affairs; there were sleigh
drives and skating frolics galore.
Between times Anne grew, shooting up so rapidly that Marilla was
astonished one day, when they were standing side by side, to find the
girl was taller than herself.
Why, Anne, how you ve grown! she said, almost unbelievingly. A sigh
followed on the words. Marilla felt a queer regret over Anne s inches.
The child she had learned to love had vanished somehow and here was this
tall, serious-eyed girl of fifteen, with the thoughtful brows and the
proudly poised little head, in her place. Marilla loved the girl as much
as she had loved the child, but she was conscious of a queer sorrowful
sense of loss. And that night, when Anne had gone to prayer meeting
with Diana, Marilla sat alone in the wintry twilight and indulged in the
weakness of a cry. Matthew, coming in with a lantern, caught her at it
and gazed at her in such consternation that Marilla had to laugh through
her tears.
I was thinking about Anne, she explained. She s got to be such a big
girl--and she ll probably be away from us next winter. I ll miss her
terrible.
She ll be able to come home often, comforted Matthew, to whom Anne was
as yet and always would be the little, eager girl he had brought home
from Bright River on that June evening four years before. The branch
railroad will be built to Carmody by that time.
It won t be the same thing as having her here all the time, sighed
Marilla gloomily, determined to enjoy her luxury of grief uncomforted.
But there--men can t understand these things!
There were other changes in Anne no less real than the physical change.
For one thing, she became much quieter. Perhaps she thought all the
more and dreamed as much as ever, but she certainly talked less. Marilla
noticed and commented on this also.
You don t chatter half as much as you used to, Anne, nor use half as
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