Anne accordingly went to bed and slept so long and soundly that it was well on in the white and rosy winter afternoon when she awoke and descended to the kitchen where Marilla, who had arrived home in the meantime, was sitting knitting.
“Oh, did you see the Premier?” exclaimed Anne at once. “What did he look like, Marilla?”
“Well, he never got to be Premier on account of his looks,” said Marilla. “Such a nose as that man had! But he can speak. I was proud of being a Conservative. Rachel Lynde, of course, being a Liberal, had no use for him. Your dinner is in the oven, Anne; and you can get yourself some blue plum preserve out of the pantry. I guess you’re hungry. Matthew has been telling me about last night. I must say it was fortunate you knew what to do. I wouldn’t have had any idea myself, for I never saw a case of croup. There now, never mind talking till you’ve had your dinner. I can tell by the look of you that you’re just full up with speeches, but they’ll keep.”
Marilla had something to tell Anne, but she did not tell it just then, for she knew if she did Anne’s consequent excitement would lift her clear out of the region of such material matters as appetite or dinner. Not until Anne had finished her saucer of blue plums did Marilla say:
“Mrs. Barry was here this afternoon, Anne. She wanted to see you, but I wouldn’t wake you up. She says you saved Minnie May’s life, and she is very sorry she acted as she did in that affair of the currant wine. She says she knows now you didn’t mean to set Diana drunk, and she hopes you’ll forgive her and be good friends with Diana again. You’re to go over this evening if you like, for Diana can’t stir outside the door on account of a bad cold she caught last night. Now, Anne Shirley, for pity’s sake don’t fly clean up into the air.”
The warning seemed not unnecessary, so uplifted and aerial was Anne’s expression and attitude as she sprang to her feet, her face irradiated with the flame of her spirit.
“Oh, Marilla, can I go right now—without washing my dishes? I’ll wash them when I come back, but I cannot tie myself down to anything so unromantic as dish-washing at this thrilling moment.”
“Yes, yes, run along,” said Marilla indulgently. “Anne Shirley—are you crazy? Come back this instant and put something on you. I might as well call to the wind. She’s gone without a cap or wrap. Look at her tearing through the orchard with her hair streaming. It’ll be a mercy if she doesn’t catch her death of cold.”
Anne came dancing home in the purple winter twilight across the snowy places. Afar in the southwest was the great shimmering, pearl-like sparkle of an evening star in a sky that was pale golden and ethereal rose over gleaming white spaces and dark glens of spruce. The tinkles of sleigh-bells among the snowy hills came like elfin chimes through the frosty air, but their music was not sweeter than the song in Anne’s heart and on her lips.
“You see before you a perfectly happy person, Marilla,” she announced. “I’m perfectly happy—yes, in spite of my red hair. Just at present I have a soul above red hair. Mrs. Barry kissed me and cried and said she was so sorry and she could never repay me. I felt fearfully embarrassed, Marilla, but I just said as politely as I could, ‘I have no hard feelings for you, Mrs. Barry. I assure you once for all that I did not mean to intoxicate Diana and henceforth I shall cover the past with the mantle of oblivion.’ That was a pretty dignified way of speaking, wasn’t it, Marilla? I felt that I was heaping coals of fire on Mrs. Barry’s head. And Diana and I had a lovely afternoon. Diana showed me a new fancy crochet stitch her aunt over at Carmody taught her. Not a soul in Avonlea knows it but us, and we pledged a solemn vow never to reveal it to any one else. Diana gave me a beautiful card with a wreath of roses on it and a verse of poetry: