“I must confess I can’t. WHAT is wrong?”
“Everything,” moaned Anne. “I feel as if I were disgraced forever. What do
you think a mother would feel like if she found her child tattooed over with a
baking powder advertisement? I feel just the same. I loved my poor little story,
and I wrote it out of the best that was in me. And it is SACRILEGE to have it
degraded to the level of a baking powder advertisement. Don’t you remember
what Professor Hamilton used to tell us in the literature class at Queen’s? He
said we were never to write a word for a low or unworthy motive, but always to
cling to the very highest ideals. What will he think when he hears I’ve written a
story to advertise Rollings Reliable? And, oh, when it gets out at Redmond!
Think how I’ll be teased and laughed at!”
“That you won’t,” said Gilbert, wondering uneasily if it were that confounded
Junior’s opinion in particular over which Anne was worried. “The Reds will
think just as I thought—that you, being like nine out of ten of us, not
overburdened with worldly wealth, had taken this way of earning an honest
penny to help yourself through the year. I don’t see that there’s anything low or
unworthy about that, or anything ridiculous either. One would rather write
masterpieces of literature no doubt—but meanwhile board and tuition fees have
to be paid.”
This commonsense, matter-of-fact view of the case cheered Anne a little. At
least it removed her dread of being laughed at, though the deeper hurt of an
outraged ideal remained.