“Oh, no.” Anne shook her head gently. “I’m not going back, Marilla. I’ll learn my lessons at home and I’ll be as good as I can be and hold my tongue all the time if it’s possible at all. But I will not go back to school I assure you.”
Marilla saw something remarkably like unyielding stubbornness looking out of Anne’s small face. She understood that she would have trouble in overcoming it; but she resolved wisely to say nothing more just then.
“I’ll run down and see Rachel about it this evening,” she thought. “There’s no use reasoning with Anne now. She’s too worked up and I’ve an idea she can be awful stubborn if she takes the notion. Far as I can make out from her story, Mr. Phillips has been carrying matters with a rather high hand. But it would never do to say so to her. I’ll just talk it over with Rachel. She’s sent ten children to school and she ought to know something about it. She’ll have heard the whole story, too, by this time.”
Marilla found Mrs. Lynde knitting quilts as industriously and cheerfully as usual.
“I suppose you know what I’ve come about,” she said, a little shamefacedly.
Mrs. Rachel nodded.
“About Anne’s fuss in school, I reckon,” she said. “Tillie Boulter was in on her way home from school and told me about it.”
“I don’t know what to do with her,” said Marilla. “She declares she won’t go back to school. I never saw a child so worked up. I’ve been expecting trouble ever since she started to school. I knew things were going too smooth to last. She’s so high-strung. What would you advise, Rachel?”
“Well, since you’ve asked my advice, Marilla,” said Mrs. Lynde amiably— Mrs. Lynde dearly loved to be asked for advice—“I’d just humour her a