display of deep emotion unseemly. Mrs. Lynde was behind her, sonsy, kindly,
matronly, as of yore. The love that Anne had told Phil was waiting for her
surrounded her and enfolded her with its blessing and its sweetness. Nothing,
after all, could compare with old ties, old friends, and old Green Gables! How
starry Anne’s eyes were as they sat down to the loaded supper table, how pink
her cheeks, how silver-clear her laughter! And Diana was going to stay all night,
too. How like the dear old times it was! And the rose-bud tea-set graced the
table! With Marilla the force of nature could no further go.
“I suppose you and Diana will now proceed to talk all night,” said Marilla
sarcastically, as the girls went upstairs. Marilla was always sarcastic after any
self-betrayal.
“Yes,” agreed Anne gaily, “but I’m going to put Davy to bed first. He insists
on that.”
“You bet,” said Davy, as they went along the hall. “I want somebody to say
my prayers to again. It’s no fun saying them alone.”
“You don’t say them alone, Davy. God is always with you to hear you.”
“Well, I can’t see Him,” objected Davy. “I want to pray to somebody I can
see, but I WON’T say them to Mrs. Lynde or Marilla, there now!”
Nevertheless, when Davy was garbed in his gray flannel nighty, he did not
seem in a hurry to begin. He stood before Anne, shuffling one bare foot over the
other, and looked undecided.
“Come, dear, kneel down,” said Anne.
Davy came and buried his head in Anne’s lap, but he did not kneel down.
“Anne,” he said in a muffled voice. “I don’t feel like praying after all. I
haven’t felt like it for a week now. I—I DIDN’T pray last night nor the night
before.”
“Why not, Davy?” asked Anne gently.
“You—you won’t be mad if I tell you?” implored Davy.
Anne lifted the little gray-flannelled body on her knee and cuddled his head
on her arm.
“Do I ever get ‘mad’ when you tell me things, Davy?”
“No-o-o, you never do. But you get sorry, and that’s worse. You’ll be awful
sorry when I tell you this, Anne—and you’ll be ‘shamed of me, I s’pose.”
“Have you done something naughty, Davy, and is that why you can’t say your
prayers?”