Page:Anneofgreengables-rbsc.djvu/217

 told me last week in Blair’s store at Carmody that you was the smartest scholar in school and was making rapid progress. ‘Rapid progress’ was his very words. There’s them as runs down Teddy Phillips and says he ain’t much of a teacher; but I guess he’s all right.”

Matthew would have thought any one who praised Anne was “all right.”

“I’m sure I’d get on better with geometry if only he wouldn’t change the letters,” complained Anne. “I learn the proposition off by heart, and then he draws it on the blackboard and puts different letters from what are in the book and I get all mixed up. I don’t think a teacher should take such a mean advantage, do you? We’re studying agriculture now and I’ve found out at last what makes the roads red. It’s a great comfort. I wonder how Marilla and Mrs. Lynde are enjoying themselves. Mrs. Lynde says Canada is going to the dogs the way things are being run at Ottawa, and that it’s an awful warning to the electors. She says if women were allowed to vote we would soon see a blessed change. What way do you vote, Matthew?”

“Conservative,” said Matthew promptly. To vote Conservative was part of Matthew’s religion.

“Then I’m Conservative too,” said Anne decidedly. “I’m glad, because Gil— because some of the boys in school are Grits. I guess Mr. Phillips is a Grit too, because Prissy Andrews’ father is one, and Ruby Gillis says that when a man is courting he always