course, or else Mrs. Rachel Lynde would probably think she was the heroine.”
“Oh, that would never have done,” protested Anne. “Avonlea is the dearest
place in the world, but it isn’t quite romantic enough for the scene of a story.”
“I daresay there’s been many a romance in Avonlea—and many a tragedy,
too,” said Mr. Harrison drily. “But your folks ain’t like real folks anywhere.
They talk too much and use too high-flown language. There’s one place where
that DALRYMPLE chap talks even on for two pages, and never lets the girl get
a word in edgewise. If he’d done that in real life she’d have pitched him.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Anne flatly. In her secret soul she thought that the
beautiful, poetical things said to AVERIL would win any girl’s heart completely.
Besides, it was gruesome to hear of AVERIL, the stately, queen-like AVERIL,
“pitching” any one. AVERIL “declined her suitors.”
“Anyhow,” resumed the merciless Mr. Harrison, “I don’t see why MAURICE
LENNOX didn’t get her. He was twice the man the other is. He did bad things,
but he did them. Perceval hadn’t time for anything but mooning.”
“Mooning.” That was even worse than “pitching!”
“MAURICE LENNOX was the villain,” said Anne indignantly. “I don’t see
why every one likes him better than PERCEVAL.”
“Perceval is too good. He’s aggravating. Next time you write about a hero put
a little spice of human nature in him.”
“AVERIL couldn’t have married MAURICE. He was bad.”
“She’d have reformed him. You can reform a man; you can’t reform a jelly-
fish, of course. Your story isn’t bad—it’s kind of interesting, I’ll admit. But
you’re too young to write a story that would be worth while. Wait ten years.”
Anne made up her mind that the next time she wrote a story she wouldn’t ask
anybody to criticize it. It was too discouraging. She would not read the story to
Gilbert, although she told him about it.
“If it is a success you’ll see it when it is published, Gilbert, but if it is a failure
nobody shall ever see it.”
Marilla knew nothing about the venture. In imagination Anne saw herself
reading a story out of a magazine to Marilla, entrapping her into praise of it—for
in imagination all things are possible—and then triumphantly announcing herself
the author.
One day Anne took to the Post Office a long, bulky envelope, addressed, with
the delightful confidence of youth and inexperience, to the very biggest of the
“big” magazines. Diana was as excited over it as Anne herself.