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Young men are all very well in their place, but it doesn't do to drag them into everything, does it? Diana and I are thinking seriously of promising each other that we will never marry but be nice old maids and live together forever.

Diana hasn't quite made up her mind though, because she thinks perhaps it would be nobler to marry some wild, dashing, wicked young man and reform him.

Diana and I talk a great deal about serious subjects now, you know.

We feel that we are so much older than we used to be that it isn't becoming to talk of childish matters.

It's such a solemn thing to be almost fourteen, Marilla.

Miss Stacy took all us girls who are in our teens down to the brook last Wednesday, and talked to us about it.

She said we couldn't be too careful what habits we formed and what ideals we acquired in our teens, because by the time we were twenty our characters would be developed and the foundation laid for our whole future life.

And she said if the foundation was shaky we could never build anything really worth while on it.

Diana and I talked the matter over coming home from school.

We felt extremely solemn, Marilla.

And we decided that we would try to be very careful indeed and form respectable habits and learn all we could and be as sensible as possible, so that by the time we were twenty our characters would be properly developed.

It's perfectly appalling to think of being twenty, Marilla.

It sounds so fearfully old and grown up.

But why was Miss Stacy here this afternoon?"

"That is what I want to tell you, Anne, if you'll ever give me a chance to get a word in edgewise. She was talking about you."

"About me?" Anne looked rather scared. Then she flushed and exclaimed:

"Oh, I know what she was saying.

I meant to tell you, Marilla, honestly I did, but I forgot.

Miss Stacy caught me reading Ben Hur in school yesterday afternoon when I should have been studying my Canadian history.

Jane Andrews lent it to me.

I was reading it at dinner hour, and I had just got to the chariot race when school went in.

I was simply wild to know how it turned out-although I felt sure Ben Hur must win, because it wouldn't be poetical justice if he didn't-so I spread the history open on my desk lid and then tucked Ben Hur between the desk and my knee.

I just looked as if I were studying Canadian history, you know, while all the while I was reveling in Ben Hur.

I was so interested in it that I never noticed Miss Stacy coming down the aisle until all at once I just looked up and there she was looking down at me, so reproachful-like.

I can't tell you how ashamed I felt, Marilla, especially when I heard Josie Pye giggling.

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