Page:Anne's house of dreams (1920 Canada).djvu/85

 and the Prince danced with her, and all the other women he didn’t dance with were furious about it, because their social standing was higher than hers and they said he shouldn’t have passed them over. Elizabeth was always very proud of that dance. Mean folks said that was why she never married—she couldn’t put up with an ordinary man after dancing with a prince. But that wasn’t so. She told me the reason once—it was because she had such a temper that she was afraid she couldn’t live peaceably with any man. She had an awful temper—she used to have to go upstairs and bite pieces out of her bureau to keep it down by times. But I told her that wasn’t any reason for not marrying if she wanted to. There’s no reason why we should let the men have a monopoly of temper, is there, Mrs. Blythe, dearie?”

“I’ve a bit of temper myself,” sighed Anne.

“It’s well you have, dearie. You won’t be half so likely to be trodden on, believe me! My, how that golden glow of yours is blooming! Your garden looks fine. Poor Elizabeth always took such care of it.”

“I love it,” said Anne. “I’m glad it’s so full of old-fashioned flowers. Speaking of gardening, we want to get a man to dig up that little lot beyond the fir grove and set it out with strawberry plants for us. Gilbert is so busy he will never get time for it this fall. Do you know anyone we can get?”

“Well, Henry Hammond up at the Glen goes out