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ANNE OF AVONLEA

all the way back to her garden last night but there wasn’t one. I’m sure she’ll miss them.”

“I don’t think it’s right for you to say such things, Anne, I really don’t,” said Marilla severely. “Hester Gray has been dead for thirty years and her spirit is in heaven . . . I hope.”

“Yes, but I believe she loves and remembers her garden here still,” said Anne. “I’m sure no matter how long I’d lived in heaven I’d like to look down and see somebody putting flowers on my grave. If I had had a garden here like Hester Gray’s it would take me more than thirty years, even in heaven, to forget being homesick for it by spells.”

“Well, don’t let the twins hear you talking like that,” was Marilla’s feeble protest, as she carried her chicken into the house.

Anne pinned her narcissi on her hair and went to the lane gate, where she stood for awhile sunning herself in the June brightness before going in to attend to her Saturday morning duties. The world was growing lovely again; old Mother Nature was doing her best to remove the traces of the storm, and, though she was not to succeed fully for many a moon, she was really accomplishing wonders.

“I wish I could just be idle all day to-day,” Anne told a bluebird, who was singing and swinging on a willow bough, “but a schoolma’am, who is also helping to bring up twins, can’t indulge in laziness, birdie. How sweet you are singing, little bird. You are just putting the feelings of my heart into song ever so

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