seclusion of the porch gable. She had achieved her “pathetic scene” without
sacrificing ROBERT RAY, and she kept a watchful eye on Diana as she read it.
Diana rose to the occasion and cried properly; but, when the end came, she
looked a little disappointed.
“Why did you kill MAURICE LENNOX?” she asked reproachfully.
“He was the villain,” protested Anne. “He had to be punished.”
“I like him best of them all,” said unreasonable Diana.
“Well, he’s dead, and he’ll have to stay dead,” said Anne, rather resentfully.
“If I had let him live he’d have gone on persecuting AVERIL and PERCEVAL.”
“Yes—unless you had reformed him.”
“That wouldn’t have been romantic, and, besides, it would have made the
story too long.”
“Well, anyway, it’s a perfectly elegant story, Anne, and will make you
famous, of that I’m sure. Have you got a title for it?”
“Oh, I decided on the title long ago. I call it AVERIL’S ATONEMENT.
Doesn’t that sound nice and alliterative? Now, Diana, tell me candidly, do you
see any faults in my story?”
“Well,” hesitated Diana, “that part where AVERIL makes the cake doesn’t
seem to me quite romantic enough to match the rest. It’s just what anybody
might do. Heroines shouldn’t do cooking, I think.”
“Why, that is where the humor comes in, and it’s one of the best parts of the
whole story,” said Anne. And it may be stated that in this she was quite right.
Diana prudently refrained from any further criticism, but Mr. Harrison was
much harder to please. First he told her there was entirely too much description
in the story.
“Cut out all those flowery passages,” he said unfeelingly.
Anne had an uncomfortable conviction that Mr. Harrison was right, and she
forced herself to expunge most of her beloved descriptions, though it took three
re-writings before the story could be pruned down to please the fastidious Mr.
Harrison.
“I’ve left out ALL the descriptions but the sunset,” she said at last. “I simply
COULDN’T let it go. It was the best of them all.”
“It hasn’t anything to do with the story,” said Mr. Harrison, “and you
shouldn’t have laid the scene among rich city people. What do you know of
them? Why didn’t you lay it right here in Avonlea—changing the name, of