Chapter XX
Gilbert Speaks
“This has been a dull, prosy day,” yawned Phil, stretching herself idly on the
sofa, having previously dispossessed two exceedingly indignant cats.
Anne looked up from Pickwick Papers. Now that spring examinations were
over she was treating herself to Dickens.
“It has been a prosy day for us,” she said thoughtfully, “but to some people it
has been a wonderful day. Some one has been rapturously happy in it. Perhaps a
great deed has been done somewhere today—or a great poem written—or a great
man born. And some heart has been broken, Phil.”
“Why did you spoil your pretty thought by tagging that last sentence on,
honey?” grumbled Phil. “I don’t like to think of broken hearts—or anything
unpleasant.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to shirk unpleasant things all your life, Phil?”
“Dear me, no. Am I not up against them now? You don’t call Alec and
Alonzo pleasant things, do you, when they simply plague my life out?”
“You never take anything seriously, Phil.”
“Why should I? There are enough folks who do. The world needs people like
me, Anne, just to amuse it. It would be a terrible place if EVERYBODY were
intellectual and serious and in deep, deadly earnest. MY mission is, as Josiah
Allen says, ‘to charm and allure.’ Confess now. Hasn’t life at Patty’s Place been
really much brighter and pleasanter this past winter because I’ve been here to
leaven you?”
“Yes, it has,” owned Anne.
“And you all love me—even Aunt Jamesina, who thinks I’m stark mad. So
why should I try to be different? Oh, dear, I’m so sleepy. I was awake until one
last night, reading a harrowing ghost story. I read it in bed, and after I had
finished it do you suppose I could get out of bed to put the light out? No! And if
Stella had not fortunately come in late that lamp would have burned good and
bright till morning. When I heard Stella I called her in, explained my
predicament, and got her to put out the light. If I had got out myself to do it I