horribly afraid. We ve studied hard and Miss Stacy has drilled us
thoroughly, but we mayn t get through for all that. We ve each got a
stumbling block. Mine is geometry of course, and Jane s is Latin, and
Ruby and Charlie s is algebra, and Josie s is arithmetic. Moody Spurgeon
says he feels it in his bones that he is going to fail in English
history. Miss Stacy is going to give us examinations in June just as
hard as we ll have at the Entrance and mark us just as strictly, so
we ll have some idea. I wish it was all over, Marilla. It haunts me.
Sometimes I wake up in the night and wonder what I ll do if I don t
pass.
Why, go to school next year and try again, said Marilla unconcernedly.
Oh, I don t believe I d have the heart for it. It would be such a
disgrace to fail, especially if Gil--if the others passed. And I get so
nervous in an examination that I m likely to make a mess of it. I wish I
had nerves like Jane Andrews. Nothing rattles her.
Anne sighed and, dragging her eyes from the witcheries of the spring
world, the beckoning day of breeze and blue, and the green things
upspringing in the garden, buried herself resolutely in her book.
There would be other springs, but if she did not succeed in passing the
Entrance, Anne felt convinced that she would never recover sufficiently
to enjoy them.
CHAPTER XXXII. The Pass List Is Out
WITH the end of June came the close of the term and the close of Miss
Stacy s rule in Avonlea school. Anne and Diana walked home that
evening feeling very sober indeed. Red eyes and damp handkerchiefs bore
convincing testimony to the fact that Miss Stacy s farewell words must
have been quite as touching as Mr. Phillips s had been under similar
circumstances three years before. Diana looked back at the schoolhouse
from the foot of the spruce hill and sighed deeply.
It does seem as if it was the end of everything, doesn t it? she said
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