Davy-boy, don’t leave those peapods on the back stairs . . . someone might slip on them.  I’ll have a light soup to begin with . . . you know I can make lovely cream-of-onion soup . . . and then a couple of roast fowls.  I’ll have the two white roosters.  I have real affection for those roosters and they’ve been pets ever since the gray hen hatched out just the two of them . . . little balls of yellow down.  But I know they would have to be sacrificed sometime, and surely there couldn’t be a worthier occasion than this.  But oh, Marilla, I cannot kill them . . . not even for Mrs. Morgan’s sake.  I’ll have to ask John Henry Carter to come over and do it for me.”

“I’ll do it,” volunteered Davy, “if Marilla’ll hold them by the legs, ’cause I guess it’d take both my hands to manage the axe.  It’s awful jolly fun to see them hopping about after their heads are cut off.”

“Then I’ll have peas and beans and creamed potatoes and a lettuce salad, for vegetables,” resumed Anne, “and for dessert, lemon pie with whipped cream, and coffee and cheese and lady fingers.  I’ll make the pies and lady fingers tomorrow and do up my white muslin dress.  And I must tell Diana tonight, for she’ll want to do up hers.  Mrs. Morgan’s heroines are nearly always dressed in white muslin, and Diana and I have always resolved that that was what we would wear if we ever met her.  It will be such a delicate compliment, don’t you think?  Davy, dear, you mustn’t poke peapods into the cracks of the floor.  I must ask Mr. and Mrs. Allan and Miss Stacy to dinner, too, for they’re all very anxious to meet Mrs. Morgan.  It’s so fortunate she’s coming while Miss Stacy is here.  Davy dear, don’t sail the peapods in the water bucket . . . go out to the trough.  Oh, I do hope it will be fine Thursday, and I think it will, for Uncle Abe said last night when he called at Mr. Harrison’s, that it was going to rain most of this week.”

“That’s a good sign,” agreed Marilla.

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 parlor simply a bower 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 never get into scrapes or are taken at a disadvantage, and they are always so selfpossessed and such good housekeepers.  They seem to be born 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.