Hence, while Marilla and Mrs. Rachel were enjoying themselves hugely at the mass meeting, Anne and Matthew had the cheerful kitchen at Green Gables all to themselves. A bright fire was glowing in the old-fashioned Waterloo stove and blue-white frost crystals were shining on the windowpanes. Matthew nodded over a Farmers’ Advocate on the sofa and Anne at the table studied her lessons with grim determination, despite sundry wistful glances at the clock shelf, where lay a new book that Jane Andrews had lent her that day. Jane had assured her that it was warranted to produce any number of thrills, or words to that effect, and Anne’s fingers tingled to reach out for it. But that would mean Gilbert Blythe’s triumph on the morrow. Anne turned her back on the clock shelf and tried to imagine it wasn’t there.
“Matthew, did you ever study geometry when you went to school?”
“Well now, no, I didn’t,” said Matthew, coming out of his doze with a start.
“I wish you had,” sighed Anne, “because then you’d be able to sympathize with me. You can’t sympathize properly if you’ve never studied it. It is casting a cloud over my whole life. I’m such a dunce at it, Matthew.”