“Well, I’ll see,” said Miss Sarah cautiously.  “That platter is mine fortunately, or I’d never dare to sell it when Martha wasn’t here.  As it is, I daresay she’ll raise a fuss.  Martha’s the boss of this establishment I can tell you.  I’m getting awful tired of living under another woman’s thumb.  But come in, come in.  You must be real tired and hungry.  I’ll do the best I can for you in the way of tea but I warn you not to expect anything but bread and butter and some cowcumbers.  Martha locked up all the cake and cheese and preserves afore she went.  She always does, because she says I’m too extravagant with them if company comes.”

The girls were hungry enough to do justice to any fare, and they enjoyed Miss Sarah’s excellent bread and butter and “cowcumbers” thoroughly.  When the meal was over Miss Sarah said,

“I don’t know as I mind selling the platter.  But it’s worth twenty-five dollars.  It’s a very old platter.”

Diana gave Anne’s foot a gentle kick under the table, meaning, “Don’t agree—­she’ll let it go for twenty if you hold out.”  But Anne was not minded to take any chances in regard to that precious platter.  She promptly agreed to give twenty-five and Miss Sarah looked as if she felt sorry she hadn’t asked for thirty.

“Well, I guess you may have it.  I want all the money I can scare up just now.  The fact is—­” Miss Sarah threw up her head importantly, with a proud flush on her thin cheeks—­“I’m going to be married—­to Luther Wallace.  He wanted me twenty years ago.  I liked him real well but he was poor then and father packed him off.  I s’pose I shouldn’t have let him go so meek but I was timid and frightened of father.  Besides, I didn’t know men were so skurse.”

When the girls were safely away, Diana driving and Anne holding the coveted platter carefully on her lap, the green, rain-freshened solitudes of the Tory Road were enlivened by ripples of girlish laughter.

“I’ll amuse your Aunt Josephine with the ‘strange eventful history’ of this afternoon when I go to town tomorrow.  We’ve had a rather trying time but it’s over now.  I’ve got the platter, and that rain has laid the dust beautifully.  So ‘all’s well that ends well.’”

“We’re not home yet,” said Diana rather pessimistically, “and there’s no telling what may happen before we are.  You’re such a girl to have adventures, Anne.”

“Having adventures comes natural to some people,” said Anne serenely.  “You just have a gift for them or you haven’t.”

XIX

Just a Happy Day

“After all,” Anne had said to Marilla once, “I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.”