Welcome to Drift Off Bedtime Stories.
I'm your host Joanne and I'm so glad you've joined me.
Tonight we begin a new journey together as we dive into the timeless classic Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery.
Each Sunday,
I'll be narrating a few chapters,
Offering a gentle escape into the charming world of Anne Shirley and the beautiful landscapes of Prince Edward Island.
Before we begin.
Let's take a moment to relax and settle in.
Find a comfortable position Gently close your eyes.
And take a deep breath in.
And slowly exhale.
Feel your body beginning to unwind as you let go of any tension.
Imagine yourself in a peaceful cozy space ready to drift off into a world of imagination and rest.
And so my friend.
Let's step into the enchanting world now of Anne of Green Gables.
Chapter 17 A New Interest in Life The next afternoon,
Anne was bending over her patchwork at the kitchen window when she happened to glance outside and saw Diana down by the dryads' bubble,
Beckoning mysteriously.
In a flash,
Anne was out of the house and flying down to the hollow,
Her expressive eyes filled with astonishment and hope.
But the hope faded when she saw Diana's dejected expression.
Your mother hasn't relented?
" she gasped.
Diana shook her head mournfully.
No.
And oh,
Anne,
She says I'm never to play with you again.
I've cried and cried and told her it wasn't your fault,
But it wasn't any use.
I had a hard time convincing her to let me come down and say goodbye to you.
She said I can only stay 10 minutes and she's timing me by the clock.
10 minutes isn't very long to say an eternal farewell,
" said Anne tearfully.
Oh,
Diana,
Will you promise faithfully never to forget me,
The friend of your youth,
No matter what dearer friends may caress thee?
Indeed I will,
Sobbed Diana,
And I'll never have another bosom friend.
I don't want to have one.
I couldn't love anybody as I love you.
Oh,
Diana,
Cried Anne,
Clasping her hands.
Do you love me?
Why,
Of course I do.
Didn't you know that?
No,
Anne drew a long breath.
I thought you liked me,
But I never hoped you loved me.
Why,
Diana?
I didn't think anybody could love me.
Nobody has ever loved me since I can remember.
Oh,
This is wonderful.
It's a ray of light that will forever shine on the darkness of a path severed from thee,
Diana.
I'll just say it once again.
I love you devotedly,
Anne,
" said Diana staunchly.
And I always will.
You may be sure of that.
And I will always love thee,
Diana,
" said Anne,
Solemnly extending her hand.
In the years to come,
Thy memory will shine like a star over my lonely life as that last story we read together.
Diana,
Wilt thou give me a lock of thy jet-black tresses,
Imparting to treasure forevermore?
You got anything to cut it with?
" asked Diana,
Wiping away the tears that Anne's affecting words had caused to flow afresh.
Yes,
I've got my patchwork scissors in my apron pocket,
Fortunately,
" said Anne.
She solemnly clipped one of Diana's curls.
Fare thee well,
My beloved friend.
Henceforth we must be strangers,
Though living side by side,
But my heart will ever be faithful to thee.
Anne stood and watched Diana out of sight,
Mournfully waving her hand to her whenever she turned to look back.
Then she returned to the house,
Somewhat consoled by this romantic parting.
It is all over,
" she informed Marilla.
I shall never have another friend.
I'm worse off than ever before.
For I haven't Katie Maurice and Violetta now,
And even if I did,
It wouldn't be the same.
Somehow,
Little dream girls are not satisfying after a real friend.
Diana and I had such an affecting farewell down by the spring.
It will be sacred in my memory forever.
I used the most pathetic language I could think of and said thou and thee.
Thou and thee seem so much more romantic than you.
Diana gave me a lock of her hair,
And I'm gonna sew it up in a little bag and wear it around my neck all my life.
Please see that it is buried with me,
For I don't believe I'll live very long.
Perhaps when she sees me lying cold and dead before her,
Mrs.
Barry may feel remorse for what she has done,
And will let Diana come to my funeral.
I don't think there's much fear of you dying of grief as long as you can talk,
Anne,
" said Marilla,
Unsympathetically.
The following Monday,
Anne surprised Marilla by coming down from her room with a basket of books on her arm,
And her lips primmed up in determination.
I'm going back to school,
She announced.
That is all that is left in life for me now that my friend has been ruthlessly torn from me.
In school,
I can look at her and muse over days departed.
You'd better muse over your lessons and sums,
" said Marilla,
Hiding her delight at this development.
If you're going back to school,
I hope we'll hear no more of breaking slates over people's heads and such carryings on.
Behave yourself.
And do just what your teacher tells you.
I'll try to be a model pupil,
" agreed Anne dolefully.
There won't be much fun in it,
I expect.
Mr.
Phillips said Minnie Andrews was a model pupil.
And there isn't a spark of imagination or life in her.
She is just dull and pokey and never seems to have a good time,
But I feel so depressed that perhaps it will come easy to me now.
I'm going around by the road.
I couldn't bear to go by the birch path all alone.
I should weep bitter tears if I did.
Anne was welcomed back to school with open arms.
Her imagination had been sorely missed in her games,
Her voice in singing,
And her dramatic ability in reading books aloud during dinner hour.
Ruby Gillis smuggled three blue plums to her during Testament reading.
Ella May McPherson gave her an enormous yellow pansy cut from the covers of a floral catalog,
A prized desk decoration in Avonlea School.
Sophia Sloan offered to teach her an elegant new pattern of knit lace,
Perfect for trimming aprons.
Katie Boulter gave her a perfume bottle to keep slate water in.
And Julia Bell,
Carefully copied on a piece of pale pink paper,
Scalloped on the edges the following effusion.
To end.
When Twilight drops her curtain down and pins it with a star.
Remember that you have a friend,
Though she may wander far.
So nice to be appreciated,
" sighed Anne rapturously to Marilla that night.
The girls were not the only ones who appreciated her.
When Anne went to her seat after dinner hour,
She had been told by Mr.
Phillips to sit with the model Minnie Andrews.
She found on her desk a big luscious strawberry apple.
And picked it up.
Ready to take a bite when she remembered that the only place in Avonlea where strawberry apples grew was in the old Blythe Orchard on the other side of the Lake of Shining Waters.
And dropped the apple as if it were a red hot coal and ostentatiously wiped her fingers on her handkerchief.
The apple lay untouched on her desk until the next morning,
When little Timothy Andrews,
Who swept the school and kindled the fire,
Took it as one of his perks.
Charlie Sloane's slate pencil,
Decorated with striped red and yellow paper,
Costing two cents where ordinary pencils cost only one,
Which he sent to her after dinner hour,
Met with a more favorable reception.
And graciously accepted it,
And rewarded the donor with a smile,
And caused him to make such fearful errors in his dictation that Mr.
Phillips kept him after school to rewrite it.
Diana might just have smiled at me once,
I think,
" she mourned to Marilla that night.
But the next morning,
A note most fearfully and wonderfully twisted and folded,
And a small parcel,
Were passed across to Anne.
Dear Anne,
Ran the note,
Mother says I'm not to play with you or talk to you even in school.
It isn't my fault and don't be cross at me because I love you as much as ever.
I miss you awfully to tell all my secrets to,
And I don't like Grootie Pie one bit.
I made you one of the new bookmarkers out of red tissue paper.
They are awfully fashionable now,
And only three girls in school know how to make them.
When you look at it,
Remember your true friend,
Diana Barry.
Anne read the note,
Kissed the bookmark,
And promptly replied.
My own darling Diana.
Of course,
I am not cross at you because you have to obey your mother.
Our spirits can commune.
I shall keep your lovely present forever.
Minnie Andrews is a very nice little girl,
Although she has no imagination.
But after having been Diana's bosom friend,
I cannot be Minnie's.
Please excuse mistakes,
Because my spelling isn't very good yet,
Although much improved.
Yours until death us do part,
Anne or Cordelia Shirley.
P.
S.
I shall sleep with your letter under my pillow tonight.
Marilla pessimistically expected more trouble since Anne had begun going to school again,
But none developed.
Perhaps Anne caught something of the model spirit from Minnie Andrews.
At least she got on well with Mr.
Phillips thenceforth.
She flung herself into her studies,
Heart and soul,
Determined not to be outdone in any class by Gilbert Blythe.
The rivalry between them was soon apparent.
It was entirely good-natured on Gilbert's side,
But it is much to be feared that the same thing cannot be said of Anne,
Who certainly had an unpraiseworthy tenacity for holding grudges.
She was as intense in her hatreds as in her loves.
She would not stoop to admit that she meant to rival Gilbert in schoolwork,
Because that would have been to acknowledge his existence,
Which Anne persistently ignored.
But the rivalry was there,
And honors fluctuated between them.
Now Gilbert was head of the spelling class.
Now Anne,
With a toss of her long red braids,
Spelled him down.
One morning,
Gilbert had all his sums correct and his name written on the blackboard roll of honor.
The next morning,
Anne,
Having wrestled wildly with decimals the entire evening before,
Was first.
One awful day they were ties,
And their names were written up together.
It was almost as bad as a take-notice,
And Anne's mortification was evident as Gilbert's satisfaction.
When the written examinations at the end of each month were held,
The suspense was terrible.
The first month,
Gilbert came out three marks ahead.
The second,
Anne beat him by five.
But her triumph was marred by the fact that Gilbert congratulated her heartily before the whole school.
It would have been ever so much sweeter if he had felt the sting of his defeat.
Mr.
Phillips might not be a very good teacher,
But a pupil as inflexibly determined on learning as Anne could hardly escape making progress under any kind of teacher.
By the end of the term,
Anne and Gilbert were both promoted to the fifth class and allowed to begin studying the elements of the branches,
Latin,
Geometry,
French,
And Algebra.
In geometry and met her Waterloo.
It's perfectly awful stuff,
Marilla,
She groaned.
I'm sure I'll never be able to make head or tail of it.
There is no scope for imagination in it at all.
Mr.
Phillips says I'm the worst dunce he ever saw at it,
And Gil.
.
.
I mean,
Some of the others are so smart at it.
It is extremely mortifying,
Marilla.
Even Diana gets along better than I do.
But I don't mind being beaten by Diana,
Even though we meet as strangers now.
I still love her,
With an inextinguishable love.
It makes me very sad at times to think about her.
But really,
Marilla,
One can't stay sad very long,
Can they?
And as this story now comes to an end.
Pleasant feeling of drowsiness begins to spread through you.
From the top of your head.
All the way down to the tips of your toes.
Your head feels sleepy Your neck and shoulders feel sleepy.
Your arms and legs feel sleepy.
Your whole body and your mind.
Feel so relaxed so at peace and it's so easy to drift deeper and deeper down into that blissful,
Dreamy state.
That's right.
Floating and drifting.
Drifting and floating being carried ever so gently,
Like on a wave.
Lulled back and forth back and forth into a calm and tranquil sleep floating drifting.
.
.
Drifting and floating feeling so peaceful feeling relaxed feeling at ease taking you down down all the way down.
Into a calm.
And tranquil sleep.
Sweet dreams my friends Sleep well.
