that she had made friends with Gilbert when he asked her, and vowed a
little more determinedly to surpass him in the examination. She knew
that all Avonlea junior was wondering which would come out first; she
even knew that Jimmy Glover and Ned Wright had a bet on the question
and that Josie Pye had said there was no doubt in the world that Gilbert
would be first; and she felt that her humiliation would be unbearable if
she failed.
But she had another and nobler motive for wishing to do well. She wanted
to pass high for the sake of Matthew and Marilla--especially Matthew.
Matthew had declared to her his conviction that she would beat the
whole Island. That, Anne felt, was something it would be foolish to
hope for even in the wildest dreams. But she did hope fervently that she
would be among the first ten at least, so that she might see Matthew s
kindly brown eyes gleam with pride in her achievement. That, she
felt, would be a sweet reward indeed for all her hard work and patient
grubbing among unimaginative equations and conjugations.
At the end of the fortnight Anne took to haunting the post office
also, in the distracted company of Jane, Ruby, and Josie, opening the
Charlottetown dailies with shaking hands and cold, sinkaway feelings
as bad as any experienced during the Entrance week. Charlie and Gilbert
were not above doing this too, but Moody Spurgeon stayed resolutely
away.
I haven t got the grit to go there and look at a paper in cold blood,
he told Anne. I m just going to wait until somebody comes and tells me
suddenly whether I ve passed or not.
When three weeks had gone by without the pass list appearing Anne began
to feel that she really couldn t stand the strain much longer. Her
appetite failed and her interest in Avonlea doings languished.
Mrs. Lynde wanted to know what else you could expect with a Tory
superintendent of education at the head of affairs, and Matthew, noting
Anne s paleness and indifference and the lagging steps that bore her
home from the post office every afternoon, began seriously to wonder if
he hadn t better vote Grit at the next election.
But one evening the news came. Anne was sitting at her open window,
for the time forgetful of the woes of examinations and the cares of the
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