room. Marilla lighted a candle and told Anne to follow her,
which Anne spiritlessly did, taking her hat and carpet-bag
from the hall table as she passed. The hall was fearsomely
clean; the little gable chamber in which she presently found
herself seemed still cleaner.

Marilla set the candle on a three-legged, three-cornered
table and turned down the bedclothes.

"I suppose you have a nightgown?" she questioned.

Anne nodded.

"Yes, I have two. The matron of the asylum made them for
me. They're fearfully skimpy. There is never enough to go
around in an asylum, so things are always skimpy--at least
in a poor asylum like ours. I hate skimpy night-dresses.
But one can dream just as well in them as in lovely trailing
ones, with frills around the neck, that's one consolation."

"Well, undress as quick as you can and go to bed. I'll come
back in a few minutes for the candle. I daren't trust you
to put it out yourself. You'd likely set the place on fire."

When Marilla had gone Anne looked around her wistfully.
The whitewashed walls were so painfully bare and staring
that she thought they must ache over their own bareness.
The floor was bare, too, except for a round braided mat in
the middle such as Anne had never seen before. In one corner
was the bed, a high, old-fashioned one, with four dark, low-