“Nor I. But I hope everything will be nice for Miss Stacy’s and Mr. and Mrs. Allan’s sakes,” said Anne listlessly.

When Diana dished the peas she tasted them and a very peculiar expression crossed her face.

“Anne, did you put sugar in these peas?”

“Yes,” said Anne, mashing the potatoes with the air of one expected to do her duty. “I put a spoonful of sugar in. We always do. Don’t you like it?”

“But I put a spoonful in too, when I set them on the stove,” said Diana.

Anne dropped her masher and tasted the peas also. Then she made a grimace.

“How awful! I never dreamed you had put sugar in, because I knew your mother never does. I happened to think of it, for a wonder . . . I’m always forgetting it . . . so I popped a spoonful in.”

“It’s a case of too many cooks, I guess,” said Marilla, who had listened to this dialogue with a rather guilty expression. “I didn’t think you’d remember about the sugar, Anne, for I’m perfectly certain you never did before . . . so I put in a spoonful.”

The guests in the parlor heard peal after peal of laughter from the kitchen, but they never knew what the fun was about. There were no green peas on the dinner table that day, however.

“Well,” said Anne, sobering down again with a sigh of recollection, “we have the salad anyhow and I don’t think anything has happened to the beans. Let’s carry the things in and get it over.”