CHAPTER XXII. Anne is Invited Out to Tea
|AND what are your eyes popping out of your head about. Now?" askedMarilla, when Anne had just come in from a run to the post office. "Haveyou discovered another kindred spirit?" Excitement hung around Anne likea garment, shone in her eyes, kindled in every feature. She had comedancing up the lane, like a wind-blown sprite, through the mellowsunshine and lazy shadows of the August evening.
"No, Marilla, but oh, what do you think? I am invited to tea at themanse tomorrow afternoon! Mrs. Allan left the letter for me at the postoffice. Just look at it, Marilla. 'Miss Anne Shirley, Green Gables.'That is the first time I was ever called 'Miss.' Such a thrill as itgave me! I shall cherish it forever among my choicest treasures."
"Mrs. Allan told me she meant to have all the members of herSunday-school class to tea in turn," said Marilla, regarding thewonderful event very coolly. "You needn't get in such a fever over it.Do learn to take things calmly, child."
For Anne to take things calmly would have been to change her nature. All"spirit and fire and dew," as she was, the pleasures and pains of lifecame to her with trebled intensity. Marilla felt this and was vaguelytroubled over it, realizing that the ups and downs of existence wouldprobably bear hardly on this impulsive soul and not sufficientlyunderstanding that the equally great capacity for delight might morethan compensate. Therefore Marilla conceived it to be her duty to drillAnne into a tranquil uniformity of disposition as impossible and aliento her as to a dancing sunbeam in one of the brook shallows. She did notmake much headway, as she sorrowfully admitted to herself. The downfallof some dear hope or plan plunged Anne into "deeps of affliction." Thefulfillment thereof exalted her to dizzy realms of delight. Marilla hadalmost begun to despair of ever fashioning this waif of the world intoher model little girl of demure manners and prim deportment. Neitherwould she have believed that she really liked Anne much better as shewas.
Anne went to bed that night speechless with misery because Matthew hadsaid the wind was round northeast and he feared it would be a rainy daytomorrow. The rustle of the poplar leaves about the house worried her,it sounded so like pattering raindrops, and the full, faraway roar ofthe gulf, to which she listened delightedly at other times, loving itsstrange, sonorous, haunting rhythm, now seemed like a prophecy of stormand disaster to a small maiden who particularly wanted a fine day. Annethought that the morning would never come.
But all things have an end, even nights before the day on which you areinvited to take tea at the manse. The morning, in spite of Matthew'spredictions, was fine and Anne's spirits soared to their highest."Oh, Marilla, there is something in me today that makes me just loveeverybody I see," she exclaimed as she washed the breakfast dishes."You don't know how good I feel! Wouldn't it be nice if it could last? Ibelieve I could be a model child if I were just invited out to tea everyday. But oh, Marilla, it's a solemn occasion too. I feel so anxious.What if I shouldn't behave properly? You know I never had tea at amanse before, and I'm not sure that I know all the rules of etiquette,although I've been studying the rules given in the Etiquette Departmentof the Family Herald ever since I came here. I'm so afraid I'll dosomething silly or forget to do something I should do. Would it begood manners to take a second helping of anything if you wanted to _very_much?"
"The trouble with you, Anne, is that you're thinking too much aboutyourself. You should just think of Mrs. Allan and what would be nicestand most agreeable to her," said Marilla, hitting for once in her lifeon a very sound and pithy piece of advice. Anne instantly realized this.
"You are right, Marilla. I'll try not to think about myself at all."
Anne evidently got through her visit without any serious breach of"etiquette," for she came home through the twilight, under a great,high-sprung sky gloried over with trails of saffron and rosy cloud, ina beatified state of mind and told Marilla all about it happily, sittingon the big red-sandstone slab at the kitchen door with her tired curlyhead in Marilla's gingham lap.
A cool wind was blowing down over the long harvest fields from the rimsof firry western hills and whistling through the poplars. One clear starhung over the orchard and the fireflies were flitting over in Lover'sLane, in and out among the ferns and rustling boughs. Anne watched themas she talked and somehow felt that wind and stars and fireflies wereall tangled up together into something unutterably sweet and enchanting.
"Oh, Marilla, I've had a most _fascinating_ time. I feel that I have notlived in vain and I shall always feel like that even if I should neverbe invited to tea at a manse again. When I got there Mrs. Allan met meat the door. She was dressed in the sweetest dress of pale-pink organdy,with dozens of frills and elbow sleeves, and she looked just like aseraph. I really think I'd like to be a minister's wife when I grow up,Marilla. A minister mightn't mind my red hair because he wouldn't bethinking of such worldly things. But then of course one would have tobe naturally good and I'll never be that, so I suppose there's no use inthinking about it. Some people are naturally good, you know, and othersare not. I'm one of the others. Mrs. Lynde says I'm full of originalsin. No matter how hard I try to be good I can never make such a successof it as those who are naturally good. It's a good deal like geometry,I expect. But don't you think the trying so hard ought to count forsomething? Mrs. Allan is one of the naturally good people. I love herpassionately. You know there are some people, like Matthew and Mrs.Allan that you can love right off without any trouble. And there areothers, like Mrs. Lynde, that you have to try very hard to love. Youknow you _ought_ to love them because they know so much and are suchactive workers in the church, but you have to keep reminding yourself ofit all the time or else you forget. There was another little girl at themanse to tea, from the White Sands Sunday school. Her name was LauretteBradley, and she was a very nice little girl. Not exactly a kindredspirit, you know, but still very nice. We had an elegant tea, and Ithink I kept all the rules of etiquette pretty well. After tea Mrs.Allan played and sang and she got Lauretta and me to sing too.Mrs. Allan says I have a good voice and she says I must sing in theSunday-school choir after this. You can't think how I was thrilled atthe mere thought. I've longed so to sing in the Sunday-school choir,as Diana does, but I feared it was an honor I could never aspire to.Lauretta had to go home early because there is a big concert in theWhite Sands Hotel tonight and her sister is to recite at it. Laurettasays that the Americans at the hotel give a concert every fortnight inaid of the Charlottetown hospital, and they ask lots of the WhiteSands people to recite. Lauretta said she expected to be asked herselfsomeday. I just gazed at her in awe. After she had gone Mrs. Allan and Ihad a heart-to-heart talk. I told her everything--about Mrs. Thomas andthe twins and Katie Maurice and Violetta and coming to Green Gables andmy troubles over geometry. And would you believe it, Marilla? Mrs.Allan told me she was a dunce at geometry too. You don't know how thatencouraged me. Mrs. Lynde came to the manse just before I left, and whatdo you think, Marilla? The trustees have hired a new teacher and it'sa lady. Her name is Miss Muriel Stacy. Isn't that a romantic name? Mrs.Lynde says they've never had a female teacher in Avonlea before and shethinks it is a dangerous innovation. But I think it will be splendidto have a lady teacher, and I really don't see how I'm going to livethrough the two weeks before school begins. I'm so impatient to seeher."