CHAPTER XI. Anne's Impressions of Sunday-School

"Well, how do you like them?" said Marilla. Anne was standing in the gable room,

looking solemnly at three new dresses spread out on the bed.

One was of snuffy colored gingham which Marilla had been tempted to buy from a

peddler the preceding summer because it looked so serviceable; one was of black-

picked up at a bargain counter in the winter; and one was a stiff print of an

ugly blue shade which she had purchased that week at a Carmody store.

She had made them up herself, and they were all made alike--plain skirts fulled tightly

to plain waists, with sleeves as plain as waist and skirt and tight as sleeves could

"I'll imagine that I like them," said Anne soberly.

"I don't want you to imagine it," said Marilla, offended.

"Oh, I can see you don't like the dresses!

What is the matter with them? Aren't they neat and clean and new?"

"They're--they're not--pretty," said Anne reluctantly.

"I didn't trouble my head about getting pretty dresses for you.

I don't believe in pampering vanity, Anne, I'll tell you that right off.

Those dresses are good, sensible, serviceable dresses, without any frills or

furbelows about them, and they're all you'll get this summer.

The brown gingham and the blue print will do you for school when you begin to go.

The sateen is for church and Sunday school. I'll expect you to keep them neat and clean

I should think you'd be grateful to get most anything after those skimpy wincey

things you've been wearing." "Oh, I AM grateful," protested Anne.

"But I'd be ever so much gratefuller if--if you'd made just one of them with puffed

sleeves. Puffed sleeves are so fashionable now.

It would give me such a thrill, Marilla, just to wear a dress with puffed sleeves."

"Well, you'll have to do without your thrill.

I hadn't any material to waste on puffed sleeves.

I think they are ridiculous-looking things anyhow.

"But I'd rather look ridiculous when everybody else does than plain and sensible

all by myself," persisted Anne mournfully. "Trust you for that!

Well, hang those dresses carefully up in your closet, and then sit down and learn

I got a quarterly from Mr. Bell for you and you'll go to Sunday school tomorrow," said

Marilla, disappearing downstairs in high dudgeon.

Anne clasped her hands and looked at the dresses.

"I did hope there would be a white one with puffed sleeves," she whispered

"I prayed for one, but I didn't much expect it on that account.

I didn't suppose God would have time to bother about a little orphan girl's dress.

I knew I'd just have to depend on Marilla for it.

Well, fortunately I can imagine that one of them is of snow-white muslin with lovely

The next morning warnings of a sick headache prevented Marilla from going to

Sunday-school with Anne. "You'll have to go down and call for Mrs.

"She'll see that you get into the right class.

Now, mind you behave yourself properly. Stay to preaching afterwards and ask Mrs.

Here's a cent for collection. Don't stare at people and don't fidget.

I shall expect you to tell me the text when you come home."

Anne started off irreproachable, arrayed in the stiff black-and-white sateen, which,

while decent as regards length and certainly not open to the charge of

skimpiness, contrived to emphasize every corner and angle of her thin figure.

Her hat was a little, flat, glossy, new sailor, the extreme plainness of which had

likewise much disappointed Anne, who had permitted herself secret visions of ribbon

The latter, however, were supplied before Anne reached the main road, for being

confronted halfway down the lane with a golden frenzy of wind-stirred buttercups

and liberally garlanded her hat with a heavy wreath of them.

Whatever other people might have thought of the result it satisfied Anne, and she

tripped gaily down the road, holding her ruddy head with its decoration of pink and

When she had reached Mrs. Lynde's house she found that lady gone.

Nothing daunted, Anne proceeded onward to the church alone.

In the porch she found a crowd of little girls, all more or less gaily attired in

whites and blues and pinks, and all staring with curious eyes at this stranger in their

midst, with her extraordinary head adornment.

Avonlea little girls had already heard queer stories about Anne.

Mrs. Lynde said she had an awful temper; Jerry Buote, the hired boy at Green Gables,

said she talked all the time to herself or to the trees and flowers like a crazy girl.

They looked at her and whispered to each other behind their quarterlies.

Nobody made any friendly advances, then or later on when the opening exercises were

over and Anne found herself in Miss Rogerson's class.

Miss Rogerson was a middle-aged lady who had taught a Sunday-school class for twenty

Her method of teaching was to ask the printed questions from the quarterly and

look sternly over its edge at the particular little girl she thought ought to

She looked very often at Anne, and Anne, thanks to Marilla's drilling, answered

promptly; but it may be questioned if she understood very much about either question

She did not think she liked Miss Rogerson, and she felt very miserable; every other

little girl in the class had puffed sleeves.

Anne felt that life was really not worth living without puffed sleeves.

"Well, how did you like Sunday school?" Marilla wanted to know when Anne came home.

Her wreath having faded, Anne had discarded it in the lane, so Marilla was spared the

knowledge of that for a time. "I didn't like it a bit.

"Anne Shirley!" said Marilla rebukingly. Anne sat down on the rocker with a long

sigh, kissed one of Bonny's leaves, and waved her hand to a blossoming fuchsia.

"They might have been lonesome while I was away," she explained.

"And now about the Sunday school. I behaved well, just as you told me.

Mrs. Lynde was gone, but I went right on myself.

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Part 2 - Anne of Green Gables Audiobook by Lucy Maud Montgomery (Chs 11-18)

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