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 on that point. “Nor I don’t want to go out to Uncle Richard neither. I’d far rather live here, even if Marilla is that long-tailed word when it comes to jam, ’cause ’re here, Anne. Say, Anne, won’t you tell me a story ’fore I go to sleep? I don’t want a fairy story. They’re all right for girls, I s’pose, but I want something exciting lots of killing and shooting in it, and a house on fire, and in’trusting things like that.”

Fortunately for Anne, Marilla called out at this moment from her room,

“Anne, Diana’s signalling at a great rate. You’d better see what she wants.”

Anne ran to the east gable and saw flashes of light coming through the twilight from Diana’s window in groups of five, which meant, according to their old childish code, “Come over at once for I have something important to reveal.” Anne threw her white shawl over her head and hastened through the Haunted Wood and across Mr. Bell’s pasture corner to Orchard Slope.

“I’ve good news for you, Anne,” said Diana. “Mother and I have just got home from Carmody, and I saw Mary Sentner from Spencervale in Mr. Blair’s store. She says the old Copp girls on the Tory Road have a willow-ware platter and she thinks it’s exactly like the one we had at the supper. She says they’ll likely sell it, for Martha Copp has never been known to keep anything she sell; but if they won’t there’s a platter at Wesley Keyson’s at Spen- Rh