real good friends if we make plenty of allowances for each other, and
everything has turned out for the best. But all the same, Marilla, I
shall certainly never again sell a cow before making sure to whom she
belongs. And I do NOT like parrots!"




IV

Different Opinions


One evening at sunset, Jane Andrews, Gilbert Blythe, and Anne Shirley
were lingering by a fence in the shadow of gently swaying spruce boughs,
where a wood cut known as the Birch Path joined the main road. Jane had
been up to spend the afternoon with Anne, who walked part of the way
home with her; at the fence they met Gilbert, and all three were now
talking about the fateful morrow; for that morrow was the first of
September and the schools would open. Jane would go to Newbridge and
Gilbert to White Sands.

"You both have the advantage of me," sighed Anne. "You're going to teach
children who don't know you, but I have to teach my own old schoolmates,
and Mrs. Lynde says she's afraid they won't respect me as they would
a stranger unless I'm very cross from the first. But I don't believe a
teacher should be cross. Oh, it seems to me such a responsibility!"

"I guess we'll get on all right," said Jane comfortably. Jane was not
troubled by any aspirations to be an influence for good. She meant to