silently got up, tossed her box of chocolates away, went up to Anne, and put her arms about her.
“Anne, I wish I was like you,” she said soberly.
Diana met Anne at the Carmody station the next night, and they drove home together under silent, star-sown depths of sky. Green Gables had a very festal appearance as they drove up the lane. There was a light in every window, the glow breaking out through the darkness like flame-red blossoms swung against the dark background of the Haunted Wood. And in the yard was a brave bonfire with two gay little figures dancing around it, one of which gave an unearthly yell as the buggy turned in under the poplars.
“Davy means that for an Indian war-whoop,” said Diana. “Mr. Harrison’s hired boy taught it to him, and he’s been practicing it up to welcome you with. Mrs. Lynde says it has worn her nerves to a frazzle. He creeps up behind her, you know, and then lets go. He was determined to have a bonfire for you, too. He’s been piling up branches for a fortnight and pestering Marilla to be let pour some kerosene oil over it before setting it on fire. I guess she did, by the smell, though Mrs. Lynde said up to the last that Davy would blow himself and everybody else up if he was let.”
Anne was out of the buggy by this time, and Davy was rapturously hugging her knees, while even Dora was clinging to her hand.
“Isn’t that a bully bonfire, Anne? Just let me show you how to poke it — see the sparks? I did it for you, Anne, ‘cause I was so glad you were coming home.”
The kitchen door opened and Marilla’s spare form darkened against the inner light. She preferred to meet Anne in the shadows, for she was horribly afraid that she was going to cry with joy — she, stern, repressed Marilla, who thought all display of deep emotion unseemly. Mrs. Lynde was behind her, sonsy, kindly, matronly, as of yore. The love that Anne had told Phil was waiting for her surrounded her and enfolded her with its blessing and its sweetness. Nothing, after all, could compare with old ties, old friends, and old Green Gables! How starry Anne’s eyes were as they sat down to the loaded supper table, how pink her cheeks, how silver-clear her laughter! And Diana was going to stay all night, too. How like the dear old times it was! And the rosebud tea-set graced the table! With Marilla the force of nature could no further go.
“I suppose you and Diana will now proceed to talk all night,” said Marilla sarcastically, as the girls went upstairs. Marilla was always sarcastic after any self-betrayal.
“Yes,” agreed Anne gaily, “but I’m going to put Davy to bed first. He insists on that.”
“You bet,” said Davy, as they went along the hall. “I want somebody to say my prayers to again. It’s no fun saying them alone.”
“You don’t say them alone, Davy. God is always with you to hear you.”
“Well, I can’t see Him,” objected Davy. “I want to pray to somebody I can see, but I WON’T say them to Mrs. Lynde or Marilla, there now!”
Nevertheless, when Davy was garbed in his gray flannel nighty, he did not seem in a hurry to begin. He stood before Anne, shuffling one bare foot over the other, and looked undecided.
“Come, dear, kneel down,” said Anne.
Davy came and buried his head in Anne’s lap, but he did not kneel down.
“Anne,” he said in a muffled voice. “I don’t feel like praying after all. I haven’t felt like it for a week now. I — I DIDN’T pray last night nor the night before.”
“Why not, Davy?” asked Anne gently.
“You — you won’t be mad if I tell you?” implored Davy.
Anne lifted the little gray-flannelled body on her knee and cuddled his head on her arm.
“Do I ever get ‘mad’ when you tell me things, Davy?”
“No-o-o, you never do. But you get sorry, and that’s worse. You’ll be awful sorry when I tell you this, Anne — and you’ll be ‘shamed of me, I s’pose.”
“Have you done something naughty, Davy, and is that why you can’t say your prayers?”
“No, I haven’t done anything naughty — yet. But I want to do it.”
“What is it, Davy?”
“I — I want to say a bad word, Anne,” blurted out Davy, with a desperate effort. “I heard Mr. Harrison’s hired boy say it one day last week, and ever since I’ve been wanting to say it ALL the time — even when I’m saying my prayers.”
“Say it then, Davy.”
Davy lifted his flushed face in amazement.
“But, Anne, it’s an AWFUL bad word.”
“SAY IT!”
Davy gave her another incredulous look, then in a low voice he said the dreadful word. The next minute his face was burrowing against her.
“Oh, Anne, I’ll never say it again — never. I’ll never WANT to say it again. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t s’pose it was so — so — I didn’t s’pose it was like THAT.”
“No, I don’t think you’ll ever want to say it again, Davy — or think it, either. And I wouldn’t go about much with Mr. Harrison’s hired boy if I were you.”
“He can make bully war-whoops,” said Davy a little regretfully.
“But you don’t want your mind filled with bad words, do you, Davy — words that will poison it and drive out all that is good and manly?”
“No,” said Davy, owleyed with introspection.
“Then don’t go with those people who use them. And now do you feel as if you could say your prayers, Davy?”
“Oh, yes,” said Davy, eagerly wriggling down on his knees, “I can say them now all right. I ain’t scared now to say ‘if I should die before I wake,’ like I was when I was wanting to say that word.”
Probably Anne and Diana did empty out their souls to each other that night, but no record of their confidences has been preserved. They both looked as fresh and bright-eyed at breakfast as only youth can look after unlawful hours of revelry and confession. There had been no snow up to this time, but as Diana crossed the old log bridge on her homeward way the white flakes were beginning to flutter down over the fields and woods, russet and gray in their dreamless sleep. Soon the faraway slopes and hills were dim and wraithlike through their gauzy scarfing, as if pale autumn had flung a misty bridal veil over her hair and was waiting for her wintry bridegroom. So they had a white Christmas after all, and a very pleasant day it was. In the forenoon letters and gifts came from Miss Lavendar and Paul; Anne opened them in the cheerful Green Gables kitchen, which was filled with what Davy, sniffing in ecstasy, called “pretty smells.”
“Miss Lavendar and Mr. Irving are settled in their new home now,” reported Anne. “I am sure Miss Lavendar is perfectly happy — I know it by the general tone of her letter — but there’s a note from Charlotta the Fourth. She doesn’t like Boston at all, and she is fearfully homesick. Miss Lavendar wants me to go through to Echo Lodge some day while I’m home and light a fire to air it, and see that the cushions aren’t getting moldy. I think I’ll get Diana to go over with me next week, and we can spend the evening with Theodora Dix. I want to see Theodora. By the way, is Ludovic Speed still going to see her?”
“They say so,” said Marilla, “and he’s likely to continue it. Folks have given up expecting that that courtship will ever arrive anywhere.”
“I’d hurry him up a bit, if I was Theodora, that’s what,” said Mrs. Lynde. And there is not the slightest doubt but that she would.
There was also a characteristic scrawl from Philippa, full of Alec and Alonzo, what they said and what they did, and how they looked when they saw her.
“But