head of little boys and girls of just nine or ten. I got up yesterday
spelling ebullition. Josie Pye was head and, mind you, she peeped
in her book. Mr. Phillips didn t see her--he was looking at Prissy
Andrews--but I did. I just swept her a look of freezing scorn and she
got as red as a beet and spelled it wrong after all.
Those Pye girls are cheats all round, said Diana indignantly, as they
climbed the fence of the main road. Gertie Pye actually went and put
her milk bottle in my place in the brook yesterday. Did you ever? I
don t speak to her now.
When Mr. Phillips was in the back of the room hearing Prissy Andrews s
Latin, Diana whispered to Anne, That s Gilbert Blythe sitting right
across the aisle from you, Anne. Just look at him and see if you don t
think he s handsome.
Anne looked accordingly. She had a good chance to do so, for the said
Gilbert Blythe was absorbed in stealthily pinning the long yellow braid
of Ruby Gillis, who sat in front of him, to the back of her seat. He
was a tall boy, with curly brown hair, roguish hazel eyes, and a mouth
twisted into a teasing smile. Presently Ruby Gillis started up to take
a sum to the master; she fell back into her seat with a little shriek,
believing that her hair was pulled out by the roots. Everybody looked at
her and Mr. Phillips glared so sternly that Ruby began to cry. Gilbert
had whisked the pin out of sight and was studying his history with the
soberest face in the world; but when the commotion subsided he looked at
Anne and winked with inexpressible drollery.
I think your Gilbert Blythe _is_ handsome, confided Anne to Diana,
but I think he s very bold. It isn t good manners to wink at a strange
girl.
But it was not until the afternoon that things really began to happen.
Mr. Phillips was back in the corner explaining a problem in algebra to
Prissy Andrews and the rest of the scholars were doing pretty much as
they pleased eating green apples, whispering, drawing pictures on their
slates, and driving crickets harnessed to strings, up and down aisle.
Gilbert Blythe was trying to make Anne Shirley look at him and failing
utterly, because Anne was at that moment totally oblivious not only
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