from going to that, will you? You ll just let me out for the afternoon,
won t you? Then I ll stay here as long as you like _afterwards_
cheerfully. But I _must_ go to the picnic.
You ll not go to picnics nor anywhere else until you ve confessed,
Anne.
Oh, Marilla, gasped Anne.
But Marilla had gone out and shut the door.
Wednesday morning dawned as bright and fair as if expressly made to
order for the picnic. Birds sang around Green Gables; the Madonna lilies
in the garden sent out whiffs of perfume that entered in on viewless
winds at every door and window, and wandered through halls and rooms
like spirits of benediction. The birches in the hollow waved joyful
hands as if watching for Anne s usual morning greeting from the east
gable. But Anne was not at her window. When Marilla took her breakfast
up to her she found the child sitting primly on her bed, pale and
resolute, with tight-shut lips and gleaming eyes.
Marilla, I m ready to confess.
Ah! Marilla laid down her tray. Once again her method had succeeded;
but her success was very bitter to her. Let me hear what you have to
say then, Anne.
I took the amethyst brooch, said Anne, as if repeating a lesson she
had learned. I took it just as you said. I didn t mean to take it when
I went in. But it did look so beautiful, Marilla, when I pinned it on my
breast that I was overcome by an irresistible temptation. I imagined how
perfectly thrilling it would be to take it to Idlewild and play I was
the Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald. It would be so much easier to imagine I
was the Lady Cordelia if I had a real amethyst brooch on. Diana and
I make necklaces of roseberries but what are roseberries compared to
amethysts? So I took the brooch. I thought I could put it back before
you came home. I went all the way around by the road to lengthen out the
time. When I was going over the bridge across the Lake of Shining Waters
I took the brooch off to have another look at it. Oh, how it did shine
in the sunlight! And then, when I was leaning over the bridge, it
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