Page:Anne of Avonlea (1909).djvu/193

 Anne ran across to Orchard Slope that evening to tell the news to Diana, who was also very much excited over it, and they discussed the matter in the hammock swung under the big willow in the Barry garden.

“Oh, Anne, mayn’t I help you cook the dinner?” implored Diana. “You know I can make splendid lettuce salad.”

“Indeed you, may” said Anne unselfishly. “And I shall want you to help me decorate too. I mean to have the parlour simply a of blossoms  and the dining table is to be adorned with wild roses. Oh, I do hope everything will go smoothly. Mrs. Morgan’s heroines get into scrapes or are taken at a disadvantage, and they are always so self-possessed and such good housekeepers. They seem to be good housekeepers. You remember that Gertrude in ‘Edgewood Days’ kept house for her father when she was only eight years old. When I was eight years old I hardly knew how to do a thing except bring up children. Mrs. Morgan must be an authority on girls when she has written so much about them, and I do want her to have a good opinion of us. I’ve imagined it all out a dozen different ways what she’ll look like, and what she’ll say, and what I’ll say. And I’m so anxious about my nose. There are seven freckles on it, as you can see. They came at the A. V. I. S. picnic, when I went around in the sun without my hat. I suppose it’s ungrateful of me to worry over them, when I should be thankful they’re not Rh