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Josie says she thinks a red-haired fairy is just as ridiculous as a fat one, but I do not let myself mind what Josie says.

I'm to have a wreath of white roses on my hair and Ruby Gillis is going to lend me her slippers because I haven't any of my own.

It's necessary for fairies to have slippers, you know.

You couldn't imagine a fairy wearing boots, could you? Especially with copper toes? We are going to decorate the hall with creeping spruce and fir mottoes with pink tissue-paper roses in them.

And we are all to march in two by two after the audience is seated, while Emma White plays a march on the organ.

Oh, Marilla, I know you are not so enthusiastic about it as I am, but don't you hope your little Anne will distinguish herself?"

"All I hope is that you'll behave yourself. I'll be heartily glad when all this fuss is over and you'll be able to settle down. You are simply good for nothing just now with your head stuffed full of dialogues and groans and tableaus. As for your tongue, it's a marvel it's not clean worn out."

Anne sighed and betook herself to the back yard, over which a young new moon was shining through the leafless poplar boughs from an apple-green western sky, and where Matthew was splitting wood.

Anne perched herself on a block and talked the concert over with him, sure of an appreciative and sympathetic listener in this instance at least.

"Well now, I reckon it's going to be a pretty good concert.

And I expect you'll do your part fine," he said, smiling down into her eager, vivacious little face.

Anne smiled back at him.

Those two were the best of friends and Matthew thanked his stars many a time and oft that he had nothing to do with bringing her up.

That was Marilla's exclusive duty; if it had been his he would have been worried over frequent conflicts between inclination and said duty.

As it was, he was free to, "spoil Anne"-Marilla's phrasing-as much as he liked.

But it was not such a bad arrangement after all; a little "appreciation" sometimes does quite as much good as all the conscientious "bringing up" in the world.

Matthew was having a bad ten minutes of it.

He had come into the kitchen, in the twilight of a cold, gray December evening, and had sat down in the woodbox corner to take off his heavy boots, unconscious of the fact that Anne and a bevy of her schoolmates were having a practice of "The Fairy Queen" in the sitting room.

Presently they came trooping through the hall and out into the kitchen, laughing and chattering gaily.

They did not see Matthew, who shrank bashfully back into the shadows beyond the woodbox with a boot in one hand and a bootjack in the other, and he watched them shyly for the aforesaid ten minutes as they put on caps and jackets and talked about the dialogue and the concert.

Anne stood among them, bright eyed and animated as they; but Matthew suddenly became conscious that there was something about her different from her mates.

And what worried Matthew was that the difference impressed him as being something that should not exist.

Anne had a brighter face, and bigger, starrier eyes, and more delicate features than the other; even shy, unobservant Matthew had learned to take note of these things; but the difference that disturbed him did not consist in any of these respects.

Then in what did it consist?

CHAPTER XXV. Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves

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