第45章

We must have ideals and try to live up to them, even if we never quite succeed. Life would be a sorry business without them.

With them it's grand and great. Hold fast to your ideals, Anne.""I shall try. But I have to let go most of my theories," said Anne, laughing a little. "I had the most beautiful set of theories you ever knew when I started out as a schoolma'am, but every one of them has failed me at some pinch or another.""Even the theory on corporal punishment," teased Mrs. Allan.

But Anne flushed.

"I shall never forgive myself for whipping Anthony.""Nonsense, dear, he deserved it. And it agreed with him. You have had no trouble with him since and he has come to think there's nobody like you. Your kindness won his love after the idea that a 'girl was no good' was rooted out of his stubborn mind.""He may have deserved it, but that is not the point. If I had calmly and deliberately decided to whip him because I thought it a just punishment for him I would not feel over it as I do. But the truth is, Mrs. Allan, that I just flew into a temper and whipped him because of that. I wasn't thinking whether it was just or unjust. . .even if he hadn't deserved it I'd have done it just the same. That is what humiliates me.""Well, we all make mistakes, dear, so just put it behind you. We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us. There goes Gilbert Blythe on his wheel. . .home for his vacation too, I suppose. How are you and he getting on with your studies?""Pretty well. We plan to finish the Virgil tonight. . .there are only twenty lines to do. Then we are not going to study any more until September.""Do you think you will ever get to college?""Oh, I don't know." Anne looked dreamily afar to the opal-tinted horizon. "Marilla's eyes will never be much better than they are now, although we are so thankful to think that they will not get worse.

And then there are the twins. . .somehow I don't believe their uncle will ever really send for them. Perhaps college may be around the bend in the road, but I haven't got to the bend yet and I don't think much about it lest I might grow discontented.""Well, I should like to see you go to college, Anne; but if you never do, don't be discontented about it. We make our own lives wherever we are, after all. . .college can only help us to do it more easily. They are broad or narrow according to what we put into them, not what we get out. Life is rich and full here. . .

everywhere. . .if we can only learn how to open our whole hearts to its richness and fulness.""I think I understand what you mean," said Anne thoughtfully, "and I know I have so much to feel thankful for. . .oh, so much. . .

my work, and Paul Irving, and the dear twins, and all my friends.

Do you know, Mrs. Allan, I'm so thankful for friendship. It beautifies life so much.""True friendship is a very helpfulul thing indeed," said Mrs. Allan, "and we should have a very high ideal of it, and never sully it by any failure in truth and sincerity. I fear the name of friendship is often degraded to a kind of intimacy that has nothing of real friendship in it.""Yes. . .like Gertie Pye's and Julia Bell's. They are very intimate and go everywhere together; but Gertie is always saying nasty things of Julia behind her back and everybody thinks she is jealous of her because she is always so pleased when anybody criticizes Julia.

I think it is desecration to call that friendship. If we have friends we should look only for the best in them and give them the best that is in us, don't you think? Then friendship would be the most beautiful thing in the world.""Friendship IS very beautiful," smiled Mrs. Allan, "but some day. . ."Then she paused abruptly. In the delicate, white-browed face beside her, with its candid eyes and mobile features, there was still far more of the child than of the woman. Anne's heart so far harbored only dreams of friendship and ambition, and Mrs. Allan did not wish to brush the bloom from her sweet unconsciousness.

So she left her sentence for the future years to finish.