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All this might be quite true, and indeed, proved to be so, but it did not materially help Anne in the first agony of homesickness that seized upon her. She looked dismally about her narrow little room, with its dull-papered, pictureless walls, its small iron bedstead and empty book-case; and a horrible choke came into her throat as she thought of her own white room at Green Gables, where she would have the pleasant consciousness of a great green still outdoors, of sweet peas growing in the garden, and moonlight falling on the orchard, of the brook below the slope and the spruce boughs tossing in the night wind beyond it, of a vast starry sky, and the light from Diana’s window shining out through the gap in the trees. Here there was nothing of this; Anne knew that outside of her window was a hard street, with a network of telephone wires shutting out the sky, the tramp of alien feet, and a thousand lights gleaming on stranger faces. She knew that she was going to cry, and fought against it.
“I won’t cry. It’s silly—and weak—there’s the third tear splashing down by my nose. There are more coming! I must think of something funny to stop them. But there’s nothing funny except what is connected with Avonlea, and that only makes things worse—four—five—I’m going home next Friday, but that seems a hundred years away. Oh, Matthew is nearly home by now—and Marilla is at the gate, looking down the lane for him—six—seven—eight—oh, there’s no use in counting them! They’re coming in a flood presently. I can’t cheer up—I don’t want to cheer up. It’s nicer to be miserable!”
The flood of tears would have come, no doubt, had not Josie Pye appeared at that moment. In the joy of seeing a familiar face Anne forgot that there had never been much love lost between her and Josie. As a part of Avonlea life even a Pye was welcome.
“I’m so glad you came up,” Anne said sincerely.
“You’ve been crying,” remarked Josie, with aggravating pity. “I suppose you’re homesick—some people have so little self-control in that respect. I’ve no intention of being homesick, I can tell you. Town’s too jolly after that poky old Avonlea. I wonder how I ever existed there so long. You shouldn’t cry, Anne; it isn’t becoming, for your nose and eyes get red, and then you seem all red. I’d a perfectly scrumptious time in the Academy today. Our French professor is simply a duck. His moustache would give you kerwollowps of the heart. Have you anything eatable around, Anne? I’m literally starving. Ah, I guessed likely Marilla ‘d load you up with cake. That’s why I called round. Otherwise I’d have gone to the park to hear the band play with Frank Stockley. He boards same place as I do, and he’s a sport. He noticed you in class today, and asked me who the red-headed girl was. I told him you were an orphan that the Cuthberts had adopted, and nobody knew very much about what you’d been before that.”
Anne was wondering if, after all, solitude and tears were not more satisfactory than Josie Pye’s companionship when Jane and Ruby appeared, each with an inch of Queen’s color ribbon—purple and scarlet—pinned proudly to her coat. As Josie was not “speaking” to Jane just then she had to subside into comparative harmlessness.
“Well,” said Jane with a sigh, “I feel as if I’d lived many moons since the morning. I ought to be home studying my Virgil—that horrid old professor gave us twenty lines to start in on tomorrow. But I simply couldn’t settle down to study tonight. Anne, methinks I see the traces of tears. If you’ve been crying do own up. It will restore my self-respect, for I was shedding tears freely before Ruby came along. I don’t mind being a goose so much if somebody else is goosey, too. Cake? You’ll give me a teeny piece, won’t you? Thank you. It has the real Avonlea flavor.”
Ruby, perceiving the Queen’s calendar lying on the table, wanted to know if Anne meant to try for the gold medal.
Anne blushed and admitted she was thinking of it.
“Oh, that reminds me,” said Josie, “Queen’s is to get one of the Avery scholarships after all. The word came today. Frank Stockley told me—his uncle is one of the board of governors, you know. It will be announced in the Academy tomorrow.”
An Avery scholarship! Anne felt her heart beat more quickly, and the horizons of her ambition shifted and broadened as if by magic. Before Josie had told the news Anne’s highest pinnacle of aspiration had been a teacher’s provincial license, First Class, at the end of the year, and perhaps the medal! But now in one moment Anne saw herself winning the Avery scholarship, taking an Arts course at Redmond College, and graduating in a gown and mortar board, before the echo of Josie’s words had died away. For the Avery scholarship was in English, and Anne felt that here her foot was on native heath.
A wealthy manufacturer of New Brunswick had died and left part of his fortune to endow a large number of scholarships to be distributed among the various high schools and academies of the Maritime Provinces, according to their respective standings. There had been much doubt whether one would be allotted to Queen’s, but the matter was settled at last, and at the end of the year the graduate who made the highest mark in English and English Literature would win the scholarship—two hundred and fifty dollars a year for four years at Redmond College. No wonder that Anne went to bed that night with tingling cheeks!
“I’ll win that scholarship if hard work can do it,” she resolved. “Wouldn’t Matthew be proud if I got to be a B.A.? Oh, it’s delightful to have ambitions. I’m so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be any end to them—that’s the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting.”
ANNE’S homesickness wore off, greatly helped in the wearing by her weekend visits home. As long as the open weather lasted the Avonlea students went out to Carmody on the new branch railway every Friday night. Diana and several other Avonlea young folks were generally on hand to meet them and they all walked over to Avonlea in a merry party. Anne thought those Friday evening gypsyings over the autumnal hills in the crisp golden air, with the homelights of Avonlea twinkling beyond, were the best and dearest hours in the whole week.
Gilbert Blythe nearly always walked with Ruby Gillis and carried her satchel for her. Ruby was a very handsome young lady, now thinking herself quite as grown up as she really was; she wore her skirts as long as her mother would let her and did her hair up in town, though she had to take it down when she went home. She had large, bright-blue eyes, a brilliant complexion, and a plump showy figure. She laughed a great deal, was cheerful and good-tempered, and enjoyed the pleasant things of life frankly.
