26 Cont. Anne Of Avonlea Read By Stephanie Poppins

In this series, Anne discovers the delights and troubles of being a teacher, takes part in the raising of Davy and Dora, and organizes the A.V.I.S. (Avonlea Village Improvement Society) together with Gilbert, Diana, and Fred Wright, through their efforts to improve the town are not always successful.

In this episode, Anne comes to terms with the changes ahead.

Transcript

Hello.

Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph,

Your go-to romantic podcast that guarantees you a calm and entertaining transition into a great night's sleep.

Come with me as we immerse ourselves in a romantic journey to a time long since forgotten.

But before we begin,

Let's take a moment to focus on where we are now.

Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.

Now close your eyes and feel yourself sink deeper into the support beneath you.

It is time to relax and fully let go.

There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.

Happy listening.

Anne of Avonlea This is the second book in the Anne of Green Gables series.

I am delighted to present to you Anne as she has now grown up into an elegant teenager.

Come with me as we hear all the trials and tribulations as she continues on her journey to womanhood.

Chapter 26 Continued Gilbert Blythe was probably the only person to whom the news of Anne's resignation brought unmixed pleasure.

Her pupils looked upon it as a sheer catastrophe.

Annette Bell had hysterics when she went home.

Anthony Pye fought two pitched and unprovoked battles with other boys by way of relieving his feelings.

Barbara Shaw cried all night.

Paul Irving defiantly told his grandmother she needn't expect him to eat any porridge for a week.

I can't do it,

Grandma,

He said.

I don't really know if I can eat anything.

I feel as if there was a dreadful lump in my throat.

I'd have cried coming home from school if Jane Donnell hadn't been watching me.

I believe I will cry after I go to bed.

It wouldn't show on my eyes tomorrow,

Would it?

And it would be such a relief.

But anyway,

I can't eat porridge.

I'm going to need all my strength of mind to bear up against this grandma,

And I won't have any left to grapple with porridge.

Oh,

Grandma,

I don't know what I'll do when my beautiful teacher goes away.

Milty Bolter said he bet Jane Andrews will get the school.

I hope Miss Andrews is very nice,

But I know she won't understand things like Miss Shirley.

Diana also took a very pessimistic view of affairs.

It will be horribly lonesome here next winter,

She mourned one twilight when the moonlight was raining airy silver through the cherry boughs and filling the east gable with a soft dreamlike radiance in which the two girls sat and talked,

Anne on her low rocker by the window,

Diana sitting Turk fashion on the bed.

You and Gilbert will be gone and the Allens too.

They're going to call Mr.

Allen to Charlottetown,

And of course he'll accept.

It's too mean.

We'll be vacant all winter,

I suppose,

And have to listen to a long string of candidates,

And half of them won't be any good.

I hope they won't call Mr.

Baxter from East Grafton here anyhow,

Said Anne decidedly.

He wants the call,

But he does preach such gloomy sermons.

Mr.

Bell said he's a minister of the old school,

But Mrs.

Lynn said there's nothing whatever the matter with him but indigestion.

His wife isn't a very good cook,

It seems,

And Mrs.

Lynn says that when a man has to eat sour bread two weeks out of three,

His theology's bound to get a kink in it somewhere.

Mrs.

Allen feels very bad about going away.

She says everybody's been so kind to her since she came here as a bride that she feels as if she were leaving lifelong friends.

And then there's the baby's grave,

You know.

She says she doesn't see how she can go away and leave that.

It was such a little mite of a thing and only three months old,

And she says she's afraid it will miss its mother,

Although she knows better and wouldn't say anything to Mr.

Allen for anything.

She says she slipped through the birch grove back of the manse nearly every night to the graveyard and sung a little lullaby to it.

She told me all about it last evening when I was up putting some of the early wild roses on Matthew's grave.

I promised her that as long as I was in Avonlea,

I would put flowers on the baby's grave,

And when I was away I felt sure that that I would do it,

Supplied Anne heartily.

Of course I will,

Anne,

And I'll put them on Matthew's grave too for your sake.

Oh,

Thank you.

I meant to ask you if you would.

And on Little Hester Grey's too,

Please don't forget hers.

Do you know,

I've thought and dreamed so much about Little Hester Grey,

She's become strangely real to me.

I think of her back there in her little garden in that cool,

Still green corner,

And I have a fancy that if I could steal back there some spring evening,

Just at the magic time,

Twixt light and dark,

And tiptoe so softly up the beach hill that my footsteps could not frighten her,

I would find the garden just as it used to be,

All sweet with June lilies and early roses,

With a tiny house beyond it all hung with vines,

And Little Hester Grey would be there with her soft eyes and the wind ruffling her dark hair,

Wandering about,

Putting her fingertips under the chins of the lilies and whispering secrets with the roses,

And I would go forward oh so softly and hold out my hands and say to her,

Little Hester Grey,

Won't you let me be your playmate?

But I love the roses too.

And we would sit down on the old bench and talk a little,

And dream a little,

Just be beautifully silent together.

And then the moon would rise and I would look around me,

And there would be no Hester Grey,

And no little vine house,

And no roses,

Only an old waste garden,

Starred with June lilies amid the grasses,

And the wind sighing oh so sorrowfully in the cherry trees.

And I would not know whether it had been real or if I had just imagined it all.

At this,

Diana crawled up and got her back against the headboard of the bed.

When your companion of twilight hours said such spooky things,

It was just as well not to be able to fancy there was anything behind you.

I'm afraid the Improvement Society will go down when you and Gilbert are both gone,

She remarked dolefully.

Not a bit of fear of it,

Said Anne briskly,

Coming back from dreamland to affairs of practical life.

It's too firmly established for that,

Especially since the older people are becoming so enthusiastic.

Look at what they're doing this summer for their lawns and lanes.

Besides,

I'll be watching for hints at Redmond,

And I'll write a paper for it next winter and send it over.

Don't take such a gloomy view of things,

Diana,

And don't grudge me my little hour of gladness and jubilation.

Later on,

When I have to go away,

I'll feel anything but glad.

It's all right for you to be glad.

You're going to college and you'll have a jolly time and make heaps of lovely new friends,

Said Diana.

I hope I shall make new friends,

Said Anne thoughtfully.

The possibilities of making new friends help to make life very fascinating.

But no matter how many friends I make,

They'll never be as dear to me as the old ones,

Especially a certain girl with black eyes and dimples.

Can you guess who she is,

Diana?

But there'll be ever so many clever girls at Redmond,

Sighed Diana,

And I'm only a typical stupid little country girl who says I've seen sometimes,

Though I really know better when I stop to think.

Well,

Of course,

These past two years have been really too pleasant to last.

I know somebody who's glad you're going to Redmond anyhow,

Anne.

I'm going to ask you a question now,

A serious question.

Don't be vexed and do answer seriously.

Do you care anything for Gilbert?

Ever so much as a friend and not a bit in the other way,

You mean,

Said Anne calmly and decidedly.

She also thought she was speaking sincerely.

Diana sighed.

She wished somehow that Anne had answered differently.

Don't you ever mean to be married,

Anne?

Perhaps someday,

When I meet the right one,

Said Anne,

Smiling dreamily up at the moonlight.

But how can you be so sure when you do meet the right one,

Persisted Diana.

Oh,

I should know him.

Something would tell me.

You know what my ideal is,

Diana.

But people's ideals change sometimes.

Mine won't,

And I couldn't care for any man who didn't fulfil it.

What if you never meet him?

Then I shall die an old maid,

Was the cheerful response.

I dare say it isn't the hardest death by any means.

Oh,

I suppose the dying would be easy enough.

It's the living an old maid I shouldn't like,

Said Diana,

With no intention of being humorous.

Although I wouldn't mind being an old maid very much if I could be one like Miss Lavender.

But I never could be.

When I'm 45,

I'll be horribly fat.

While there might be some romance about a thin old maid,

There couldn't possibly be any about a fat one.

Oh,

Mind you,

Nelson Atkins proposed to Ruby Gillis three weeks ago.

Ruby told me all about it.

She says she never had any intention of taking him,

Because anyone who married him will have to go in with the old folks.

But Ruby says he made such a perfectly beautiful and romantic proposal,

It simply swept her off her feet.

But she didn't want to do anything rash,

So she asked for a week to consider.

And two days later,

She was at a meeting of the sewing circle at his mother's,

And there was a book called The Complete Guide to Etiquette lying on the parlour table.

Ruby says she simply couldn't describe her feelings when in a section of it headed The Deportment of Courtship and Marriage,

She found the very proposal Nelson had made word for word.

She went home and wrote him a perfectly scathing refusal,

And she says his father and mother have taken turns watching him ever since,

For fear he'll drown himself in the river.

But Ruby says they needn't be afraid,

For in The Department of Courtship and Marriage,

It told how a rejected lover should behave,

And there's nothing about drowning in that.

She says Wilbur Blair's literally pining away for her,

But she's perfectly helpless in the matter.

Anne made an impatient movement.

I hate to say it,

It seems so disloyal,

But well,

I really don't like Ruby Gillis now.

I liked her when we went to school and queens together,

And not so well as you and Jane of course,

But this last year at Carmody she seemed so different,

So.

.

.

I know,

Nodded Diana,

It's the Gillis coming out in her,

She can't help it.

Mrs Lynn said if ever a Gillis girl thought about anything but the boys,

She never showed it in her walk and conversation.

She talks about nothing but boys and what compliments they pay her,

And how crazy they all are about her at Carmody.

And the strange thing is,

They are too.

Diana admitted this,

Somewhat resentfully.

Last night when I saw her in Mr Blair's store,

She whispered to me she'd just made a new mash.

I wouldn't ask her who it was,

Because I knew she was dying to be asked.

Well,

It's what Ruby always wanted I suppose.

You remember even when she was little she always said she meant to have dozens of bows when she grew up,

And have the very gayest time she could before she settled down.

She's so different from Jane,

Isn't she?

Jane is such a nice,

Sensible,

Ladylike girl.

Dear old Jane is a jewel,

Agreed Anne,

But she added leaning forward to bestow a tender pat on the plump,

Dimpled little hand hanging over her pillow.

There's nobody like my own Diana after all.

Do you remember that evening we first met Diana,

And swore eternal friendship in your garden?

We've kept that oath I think,

We've never had a quarrel or even a coolness.

I shall never forget the thrill that went over me the day you told me you loved me.

I had such a lonely,

Starved heart all through my childhood,

I'm just beginning to realise how starved and lonely it really was.

Nobody cared anything for me,

Or wanted to be bothered by me.

I should have been miserable if it hadn't been for the strange little dreamlike world of mine,

Wherein I imagined all the friends and love that I craved.

But when I came to Green Gables everything was changed,

And then I met you.

You don't know what your friendship meant to me.

I want to thank you here and now dear,

For the warm and true affection you've always given.

And always,

Always will,

Sobbed Diana.

I shall never love anybody,

Any girl half as well as I love you Anne.

And if ever I do marry and have a little girl of my own,

I'm going to name her Anne Witherney.

Reviews

Love these dear friends… thank so much for reading🙏🏼❤️