Chapter One
*Author's Note - You might find this story quite similar to the actual Anne of Green Gables book. Sara and Anne have a lot of the same adventures as Diana and Anne do, and as Emily and Ilse do in Emily of New Moon. I tried to have it as close to the book as possible, but there were a few things I had to change. Oh, if Someday Sara reads this, no, I didn't use Sara because of you, I just happen to like the name. Well, anyway.
"Over the mountains of the moon,
Down the valley of the shadows."
Sara looked up from her notebook and gazed out of her window at the slowly spreading dawn. This is when Sara liked to write. Each time "in the wee sma's" she'd wake up and write something different. A poem here, a paragraph there, and a chapter in between.
Sara's yellow head was bent over her notebook in concentration. Her blue-gray eyes were squinted, trying to read the page for an idea to write down. She was curled up in her nightgown on the window seat, with her long legs tucked under her small, thin body and her chin rested on her hand.
This cool June morning began with its usual display of brilliant colors painted across the sky. Sara liked this part of the day best. The world was quiet and serene and fresh. That's what made her like it so much.
"Every morn is a fresh beginning,
Every morn is a world made new."
Sara listened to the robin in the willow tree outside her window and glanced back down at her empty page.
"Hmm, what to write, what to write," Sara tapped her pencil against her chin in thought. She glanced out the window and a blue something in the grass caught her eye. It was a tiny flower.
"Ah, perfect!" Sara smiled down at her discovery and then at her notebook and took up her pencil. She wrote swiftly and silently, pausing every now and then to think of a word.
"There, it's done," Sara threw down her notebook on the window seat in triumph and read it over:
"Sweet little flower thy modest face
Is ever lifted towards the sky
And a reflection of its face
Is caught within thine own blue eye.
The meadow queens are tall and fair
The columbines are lovely too
But the poor talent I possess
Shall laurel thee my flower of blue." *A/N - This is from Emily of New Moon.
Sara brushed back a long golden curl from her face and leaned back to watch the sun rise. The bright-colored sphere had reached between the trees, casting shadows of tree branches across the face of the dreaming girl. The sky looked like one round rainbow bowl covering the entire earth with blends of fire and puffy pink cloud. If only Sara could catch that little bit of morning stardust and dew left over from the moonshine.
"Sara! Come on down, girl, you've got to do your chores BEFORE school today!" Sara jumped and sprang up from the window seat. She dressed quickly and made up her bed, then rushed to the landing to fly down the stairs.
If only her little brother had picked up his toys; Sara came tumbling down head over heels to topple in a heap at the bottom step.
"Oh, my! Sara! Are you all right?" Mrs. Holbrook burst through the swinging kitchen door carrying a rolling pin and hands full of flour. Sara groaned and slowly picked herself up, brushing off the dust on her calico dress.
"Really, dear, you ought to be more careful, that's the third time this week," her mother wiped her hands on her apron and put an arm around Sara's shoulder to steer her into the kitchen, where it was warm from the oven. She sat Sara down at the scrubbed wooden table and set a bowl of hot porridge in front of her.
"Oh, Mama, must I?" Sara glanced in the bowl and made a face.
"Yes, you must, I grew up eating porridge every morning and I grew up to be healthy and strong and quite good-looking, I must say." Sara stifled a giggle and forced down the porridge.
"Mrs. Lynde was here yesterday, Mum, calling for you while you were in town. She seemed quite excited about something, but she wouldn't tell it to me. The old gossiper clearly was itching to make a sensation about somebody's life. You know how Rachel Lynde dearly loves to create a sensation."
"Sara, I cannot deny that that is, well, quite, um, true, but you should never speak ill of your elders. I've been telling you that long enough for you to remember sometimes at least."
Sara sighed and brought her porridge bowl to the sink to wash it out before leaving for school. At once, five sets of feet came running down the stairs and into the kitchen. Four heads of blond and one of nut-brown surrounded the table. It was like a bomb had gone off.
"Mum, can you look over this piece of math homework?"
"I'm hungry!"
Mother, I love those cookies you made yesterday, can I have some more for dinner?"
"I need a fork!"
"I'm hungry!"
"Mum, you need to sign this for Mr. Philips. I was late again."
"I'M HUNGRY!"
"That's enough!"
Mrs. Holbrook waved her hand in the air to provoke silence.
"I will do all that you ask, if you please ask politely and one at a time. Now, Elizabeth, what do you need?"
The girl with the nut-brown curls answered, "I need you to check over these sums for me, please, Mother."
"Oh, goody-two-shoes," murmured one of the brothers, "AHEM," Mrs. Holbrook gave her son one of her "looks" that only a mother possesses.
"Danny hungry!" The littlest brother with blond hair and freckles hit his tiny hands on the table.
"Dear, ask nicely and I will get you some nice, hot porridge."
"Oh.Danny not hungry anymore!"
Sara stood by the sink, watching her three brothers and two sisters at the table.
"Oh, Mum, I need to go early, see you this afternoon," she grabbed her dinner pail and made for the door.
"She's not going to school, she's going to Barry's Pond!" a brother yelled out.
"Tattletale," Sara muttered.
"Hush, Peter. Sara, what have I told you about going to Barry's Pond before school? Mr. Philips called on Tuesday to say that you arrive in breathless gasps at the sound of the bell."
"Oh, Mother, please, I'll be early, I swear! I'll make it before the bell, just let me go, please!"
"What do you do at the pond?"
"Oh, stuff."
Mrs. Holbrook gave her a suspicious look and said, "Oh, all right, go but don't be late! There will be consequences!" She shouted after Sara, who set off at a sprint down the lane.
Sara slowed down to a stroll at the corner of Lynde's Hollow, for she knew Mrs. Lynde would be sewing her "cotton-warp" quilts at her window, looking out at the road, waiting for something unusual to happen, so she could tell the world.
Sure enough, Rachel Lynde sat keeping a sharp eye on the hill, squinting in the rising sun. Sara walked comfortably down the dirt road, watching Mrs. Lynde out of the corner of her eye.
Mrs. Lynde saw her come by every morning and wondered about this strange girl with the short, calico cress carrying a load of schoolbooks, notebooks, and a dinner pail. School didn't start until nine, yet here was the child all ready at seven thirty. It was ridiculous, just ridiculous! Even the schoolteacher, Mr. Philips, wouldn't be at the school, so it couldn't be for extra studying. She simply had to find out today.
"Excuse me, Sara dear!" Sara gulped and turned slowly on her heel.
"Where are you off to so early in the morning?"
"Well, ma'am, um, you see, I, um.open the school and light the, um, wood stove." Ah, that sounded all right. She waited for Rachel's reply.
"Well, I pride myself on speakin' my mind, and that just doesn't seem very smart to go and light the wood stove in the middle of June. Why, school's almost over! Wait, where you going?"
Sara ran off towards the pond as fast as she could. Mrs. Lynde shook her head.
"That girl needs a little lesson in manners, that's what."
Yes, the morning was finally hers. She slowed to a walk again and stooped by the side of the road to pick up a buttercup.
"Hmm, you seem like a likely-looking flower. Let me read your thoughts."
Sara looked up at the sky searching her mind for ideas.
"Ah, that's perfect!"
She ran to the edge of Barry's Pond and collapsed on The Rock. Her spot for thinking, reading, and especially writing. Happily, she sighed and looked at her surroundings. There was the brook, gurgling its soft, tuneless music to the ivy hanging off the railing. Sara could see the white roof of Avonlea school sticking out over the green hilltop on the other side of the stream.
Sara opened her notebook for the second time that day and set it on her lap. She gazed at the buttercup again.
"Got it!"
She wrote thus:
"Butter, flower of the yellow dye,
I see thy cheerful face
Greeting and nodding everywhere
Careless of time and place.
In boggy field or public road
Or cultured garden's pale
You sport your petals satin-soft,
And down within the vale.
You cast your loveliness around
Where're you chance to be,
And you shall always, buttercup,
Be a dear flower to me." *A/N - This is also from Emily of New Moon.
With satisfaction, Sara closed her precious notebook and moved to lie down on The Rock.
With the sun higher above the trees, it had grown hotter and a little humid. Sara could care less and breathed in deep the scent of an early summer morning. She heard a bee buzz somewhere and wold flowers near The Rock lightly brushed her fingers as they swayed gently in the breeze. This breeze moved through her long golden curls hanging loosely from under her faded straw hat. Sara closed her eyes and dreamt of her Prince Charming coming to rescue her on noble steed. He was handsome and cunning and perfectly romantic. He opened his lips to say something profound when a bell rang somewhere in the distance.
"Oh no!" Sara groaned. She picked up her things and ran over the bridge, up the hill, down the other side, and stumbled into the schoolyard, now empty except for a few abandoned schoolbooks forgotten on the ground.
Knowing what was coming, Sara stepped slowly up to the large wooden door and pulled it open.
Twenty-five pairs of eyes darted over to her now-reddening face. She swallowed with difficulty and went to sit down.
"Excuse me, Sara Holbrook," Mr. Philips turned around from tutoring a student.
"I believe you are late, again."
"I, um."
"No, I'm sorry, this has gone far enough, stand at the board."
Sara, face turning slowly to purple, stepped up to the black board. Mr. Philip, a tall, gangly man with red hair and round glasses, wrote on the board: Sara will not be late for class again. He turned to face the trembling creature.
"You will write this over one hundred times before leaving school, for my benefit."
Sara, now tearing, picked up a piece of chalk and began to write.
At the end of the day, Sara ran home as fast as she could without a look back at the school. She tried to open the door quietly, but.
"SARA!" Mrs. Holbrook's voice boomed through the parlor, "Sara, I thought I told you to be early for class today! Mr. Philips has just been here telling me of your lack of responsibility. Go to your room."
Sara bade her command, wiping her nose on her sleeve, as she clambered up the stairs, tripping halfway up.
She threw herself on her bed and wept bitter tears. It was a beautiful day and she had to waste it away locked in her room. She went to sit at her usual seat by the window and hugged her knees, staring out past the horizon for a lovely dream that was only hours away, yet seemed years ago. When no more tears could be shed, she sat sulking, her head resting on her knees.
Then she had an idea. She crept to the door and listened, it was quiet, save the squeals of Danny. She tiptoed back to the window and climbed out, placing a foot on sturdy limb. Ah, she was free. The cool air of the on-coming evening felt wonderful on her warm, tear-stained face. Sara walked towards the apple orchards, behind their arm and climbed a tree. These orchards were shared she knew by the Cuthberts who lived at Green Gables, just over the hill. She had never seen the house, Matthew Cuthbert's father had been very shy indeed when he built the house far away into the woods a hundred years before. Sara knew Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, brother and sister, lived there alone.
At the highest limb of the tree, Sara sat and watched the sun go down and the moon slowly rise. She gazed out at the miles of woods filed with lovely scented pines and birch, slim dark oaks that reached the sky.
"The woods were God's first temples," she murmured. Sara jumped down from the tree and started to walk home. All of a sudden, she heard something. It sounded like whistling. She spun around and saw the most peculiar looking girl wearing a tight wincey dress and a faded straw hat with poppies stuck smartly through it. The girl had carrot-red hair and a lovely, turned-up nose covered much with freckles. Why, her face was full of them. The girl was also quite tall and graceful looking. Sara stared astonished at this strangely adorned creature of the twilight. The girl was picking apples and hadn't noticed Sara.
Sara crept forward. The girl turned and saw Sara and burst into jubilant exclamations.
"Oh, I knew something good would happen to me tonight. I just felt it as I saw the full moon. It gave me such a thrill. Oh, isn't the breath of the mint delicious?"
"You look like a nice girl. My name is Anne Shirley. I'd rather call myself Cordelia Fitzgerald with a rose-leaf complexion, lovely starry violet eyes and raven hair. But since my hair is pitifully red, I cannot imagine my hair a raven black. I simply loathe my red hair. It will be my life-long sorrow. I read of a girl in a book once who had a life-long sorrow, but it wasn't red hair, she was beautiful. She had long, golden locks, rather like yours actually. What's your name?"
Sara dumbfounded at this greeting, whispered, "I'm Sara Holbrook."
"Quite glad to meet you," Anne stuck out a slender hand, "I know we are going to be bosom friends. I've never had a bosom friend, except for Katie, but she was only my window-friend. I could see her through the glass of Mrs. Thomas's bookcase, which's where I was before the asylum. Oh, how I longed to step through the glass into Katie's world. It was so beautiful. Oh, I'm sorry for babbling on so much. I do tend to do that, don't I?"
Sara was very shy of this delightful stranger with the shining, laughing eyes and sweet smile.
"Let us take a solemn oath of our friendship, devoting ourselves to each other," Anne said. Sara, wanting to see more of this girl's infinite depths, consented.
"Oh, good, all right, just say this, 'I solemnly swear to be very faithful to my bosom friend, Sara Holbrook, as long as the sun and moon shall endure'."
Sara cleared her throat and said, "I solemnly swear to be very faithful to my bosom friend Anne Shirley, for as long as the sun and moon shall endure."
*Author's Note - You might find this story quite similar to the actual Anne of Green Gables book. Sara and Anne have a lot of the same adventures as Diana and Anne do, and as Emily and Ilse do in Emily of New Moon. I tried to have it as close to the book as possible, but there were a few things I had to change. Oh, if Someday Sara reads this, no, I didn't use Sara because of you, I just happen to like the name. Well, anyway.
"Over the mountains of the moon,
Down the valley of the shadows."
Sara looked up from her notebook and gazed out of her window at the slowly spreading dawn. This is when Sara liked to write. Each time "in the wee sma's" she'd wake up and write something different. A poem here, a paragraph there, and a chapter in between.
Sara's yellow head was bent over her notebook in concentration. Her blue-gray eyes were squinted, trying to read the page for an idea to write down. She was curled up in her nightgown on the window seat, with her long legs tucked under her small, thin body and her chin rested on her hand.
This cool June morning began with its usual display of brilliant colors painted across the sky. Sara liked this part of the day best. The world was quiet and serene and fresh. That's what made her like it so much.
"Every morn is a fresh beginning,
Every morn is a world made new."
Sara listened to the robin in the willow tree outside her window and glanced back down at her empty page.
"Hmm, what to write, what to write," Sara tapped her pencil against her chin in thought. She glanced out the window and a blue something in the grass caught her eye. It was a tiny flower.
"Ah, perfect!" Sara smiled down at her discovery and then at her notebook and took up her pencil. She wrote swiftly and silently, pausing every now and then to think of a word.
"There, it's done," Sara threw down her notebook on the window seat in triumph and read it over:
"Sweet little flower thy modest face
Is ever lifted towards the sky
And a reflection of its face
Is caught within thine own blue eye.
The meadow queens are tall and fair
The columbines are lovely too
But the poor talent I possess
Shall laurel thee my flower of blue." *A/N - This is from Emily of New Moon.
Sara brushed back a long golden curl from her face and leaned back to watch the sun rise. The bright-colored sphere had reached between the trees, casting shadows of tree branches across the face of the dreaming girl. The sky looked like one round rainbow bowl covering the entire earth with blends of fire and puffy pink cloud. If only Sara could catch that little bit of morning stardust and dew left over from the moonshine.
"Sara! Come on down, girl, you've got to do your chores BEFORE school today!" Sara jumped and sprang up from the window seat. She dressed quickly and made up her bed, then rushed to the landing to fly down the stairs.
If only her little brother had picked up his toys; Sara came tumbling down head over heels to topple in a heap at the bottom step.
"Oh, my! Sara! Are you all right?" Mrs. Holbrook burst through the swinging kitchen door carrying a rolling pin and hands full of flour. Sara groaned and slowly picked herself up, brushing off the dust on her calico dress.
"Really, dear, you ought to be more careful, that's the third time this week," her mother wiped her hands on her apron and put an arm around Sara's shoulder to steer her into the kitchen, where it was warm from the oven. She sat Sara down at the scrubbed wooden table and set a bowl of hot porridge in front of her.
"Oh, Mama, must I?" Sara glanced in the bowl and made a face.
"Yes, you must, I grew up eating porridge every morning and I grew up to be healthy and strong and quite good-looking, I must say." Sara stifled a giggle and forced down the porridge.
"Mrs. Lynde was here yesterday, Mum, calling for you while you were in town. She seemed quite excited about something, but she wouldn't tell it to me. The old gossiper clearly was itching to make a sensation about somebody's life. You know how Rachel Lynde dearly loves to create a sensation."
"Sara, I cannot deny that that is, well, quite, um, true, but you should never speak ill of your elders. I've been telling you that long enough for you to remember sometimes at least."
Sara sighed and brought her porridge bowl to the sink to wash it out before leaving for school. At once, five sets of feet came running down the stairs and into the kitchen. Four heads of blond and one of nut-brown surrounded the table. It was like a bomb had gone off.
"Mum, can you look over this piece of math homework?"
"I'm hungry!"
Mother, I love those cookies you made yesterday, can I have some more for dinner?"
"I need a fork!"
"I'm hungry!"
"Mum, you need to sign this for Mr. Philips. I was late again."
"I'M HUNGRY!"
"That's enough!"
Mrs. Holbrook waved her hand in the air to provoke silence.
"I will do all that you ask, if you please ask politely and one at a time. Now, Elizabeth, what do you need?"
The girl with the nut-brown curls answered, "I need you to check over these sums for me, please, Mother."
"Oh, goody-two-shoes," murmured one of the brothers, "AHEM," Mrs. Holbrook gave her son one of her "looks" that only a mother possesses.
"Danny hungry!" The littlest brother with blond hair and freckles hit his tiny hands on the table.
"Dear, ask nicely and I will get you some nice, hot porridge."
"Oh.Danny not hungry anymore!"
Sara stood by the sink, watching her three brothers and two sisters at the table.
"Oh, Mum, I need to go early, see you this afternoon," she grabbed her dinner pail and made for the door.
"She's not going to school, she's going to Barry's Pond!" a brother yelled out.
"Tattletale," Sara muttered.
"Hush, Peter. Sara, what have I told you about going to Barry's Pond before school? Mr. Philips called on Tuesday to say that you arrive in breathless gasps at the sound of the bell."
"Oh, Mother, please, I'll be early, I swear! I'll make it before the bell, just let me go, please!"
"What do you do at the pond?"
"Oh, stuff."
Mrs. Holbrook gave her a suspicious look and said, "Oh, all right, go but don't be late! There will be consequences!" She shouted after Sara, who set off at a sprint down the lane.
Sara slowed down to a stroll at the corner of Lynde's Hollow, for she knew Mrs. Lynde would be sewing her "cotton-warp" quilts at her window, looking out at the road, waiting for something unusual to happen, so she could tell the world.
Sure enough, Rachel Lynde sat keeping a sharp eye on the hill, squinting in the rising sun. Sara walked comfortably down the dirt road, watching Mrs. Lynde out of the corner of her eye.
Mrs. Lynde saw her come by every morning and wondered about this strange girl with the short, calico cress carrying a load of schoolbooks, notebooks, and a dinner pail. School didn't start until nine, yet here was the child all ready at seven thirty. It was ridiculous, just ridiculous! Even the schoolteacher, Mr. Philips, wouldn't be at the school, so it couldn't be for extra studying. She simply had to find out today.
"Excuse me, Sara dear!" Sara gulped and turned slowly on her heel.
"Where are you off to so early in the morning?"
"Well, ma'am, um, you see, I, um.open the school and light the, um, wood stove." Ah, that sounded all right. She waited for Rachel's reply.
"Well, I pride myself on speakin' my mind, and that just doesn't seem very smart to go and light the wood stove in the middle of June. Why, school's almost over! Wait, where you going?"
Sara ran off towards the pond as fast as she could. Mrs. Lynde shook her head.
"That girl needs a little lesson in manners, that's what."
Yes, the morning was finally hers. She slowed to a walk again and stooped by the side of the road to pick up a buttercup.
"Hmm, you seem like a likely-looking flower. Let me read your thoughts."
Sara looked up at the sky searching her mind for ideas.
"Ah, that's perfect!"
She ran to the edge of Barry's Pond and collapsed on The Rock. Her spot for thinking, reading, and especially writing. Happily, she sighed and looked at her surroundings. There was the brook, gurgling its soft, tuneless music to the ivy hanging off the railing. Sara could see the white roof of Avonlea school sticking out over the green hilltop on the other side of the stream.
Sara opened her notebook for the second time that day and set it on her lap. She gazed at the buttercup again.
"Got it!"
She wrote thus:
"Butter, flower of the yellow dye,
I see thy cheerful face
Greeting and nodding everywhere
Careless of time and place.
In boggy field or public road
Or cultured garden's pale
You sport your petals satin-soft,
And down within the vale.
You cast your loveliness around
Where're you chance to be,
And you shall always, buttercup,
Be a dear flower to me." *A/N - This is also from Emily of New Moon.
With satisfaction, Sara closed her precious notebook and moved to lie down on The Rock.
With the sun higher above the trees, it had grown hotter and a little humid. Sara could care less and breathed in deep the scent of an early summer morning. She heard a bee buzz somewhere and wold flowers near The Rock lightly brushed her fingers as they swayed gently in the breeze. This breeze moved through her long golden curls hanging loosely from under her faded straw hat. Sara closed her eyes and dreamt of her Prince Charming coming to rescue her on noble steed. He was handsome and cunning and perfectly romantic. He opened his lips to say something profound when a bell rang somewhere in the distance.
"Oh no!" Sara groaned. She picked up her things and ran over the bridge, up the hill, down the other side, and stumbled into the schoolyard, now empty except for a few abandoned schoolbooks forgotten on the ground.
Knowing what was coming, Sara stepped slowly up to the large wooden door and pulled it open.
Twenty-five pairs of eyes darted over to her now-reddening face. She swallowed with difficulty and went to sit down.
"Excuse me, Sara Holbrook," Mr. Philips turned around from tutoring a student.
"I believe you are late, again."
"I, um."
"No, I'm sorry, this has gone far enough, stand at the board."
Sara, face turning slowly to purple, stepped up to the black board. Mr. Philip, a tall, gangly man with red hair and round glasses, wrote on the board: Sara will not be late for class again. He turned to face the trembling creature.
"You will write this over one hundred times before leaving school, for my benefit."
Sara, now tearing, picked up a piece of chalk and began to write.
At the end of the day, Sara ran home as fast as she could without a look back at the school. She tried to open the door quietly, but.
"SARA!" Mrs. Holbrook's voice boomed through the parlor, "Sara, I thought I told you to be early for class today! Mr. Philips has just been here telling me of your lack of responsibility. Go to your room."
Sara bade her command, wiping her nose on her sleeve, as she clambered up the stairs, tripping halfway up.
She threw herself on her bed and wept bitter tears. It was a beautiful day and she had to waste it away locked in her room. She went to sit at her usual seat by the window and hugged her knees, staring out past the horizon for a lovely dream that was only hours away, yet seemed years ago. When no more tears could be shed, she sat sulking, her head resting on her knees.
Then she had an idea. She crept to the door and listened, it was quiet, save the squeals of Danny. She tiptoed back to the window and climbed out, placing a foot on sturdy limb. Ah, she was free. The cool air of the on-coming evening felt wonderful on her warm, tear-stained face. Sara walked towards the apple orchards, behind their arm and climbed a tree. These orchards were shared she knew by the Cuthberts who lived at Green Gables, just over the hill. She had never seen the house, Matthew Cuthbert's father had been very shy indeed when he built the house far away into the woods a hundred years before. Sara knew Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, brother and sister, lived there alone.
At the highest limb of the tree, Sara sat and watched the sun go down and the moon slowly rise. She gazed out at the miles of woods filed with lovely scented pines and birch, slim dark oaks that reached the sky.
"The woods were God's first temples," she murmured. Sara jumped down from the tree and started to walk home. All of a sudden, she heard something. It sounded like whistling. She spun around and saw the most peculiar looking girl wearing a tight wincey dress and a faded straw hat with poppies stuck smartly through it. The girl had carrot-red hair and a lovely, turned-up nose covered much with freckles. Why, her face was full of them. The girl was also quite tall and graceful looking. Sara stared astonished at this strangely adorned creature of the twilight. The girl was picking apples and hadn't noticed Sara.
Sara crept forward. The girl turned and saw Sara and burst into jubilant exclamations.
"Oh, I knew something good would happen to me tonight. I just felt it as I saw the full moon. It gave me such a thrill. Oh, isn't the breath of the mint delicious?"
"You look like a nice girl. My name is Anne Shirley. I'd rather call myself Cordelia Fitzgerald with a rose-leaf complexion, lovely starry violet eyes and raven hair. But since my hair is pitifully red, I cannot imagine my hair a raven black. I simply loathe my red hair. It will be my life-long sorrow. I read of a girl in a book once who had a life-long sorrow, but it wasn't red hair, she was beautiful. She had long, golden locks, rather like yours actually. What's your name?"
Sara dumbfounded at this greeting, whispered, "I'm Sara Holbrook."
"Quite glad to meet you," Anne stuck out a slender hand, "I know we are going to be bosom friends. I've never had a bosom friend, except for Katie, but she was only my window-friend. I could see her through the glass of Mrs. Thomas's bookcase, which's where I was before the asylum. Oh, how I longed to step through the glass into Katie's world. It was so beautiful. Oh, I'm sorry for babbling on so much. I do tend to do that, don't I?"
Sara was very shy of this delightful stranger with the shining, laughing eyes and sweet smile.
"Let us take a solemn oath of our friendship, devoting ourselves to each other," Anne said. Sara, wanting to see more of this girl's infinite depths, consented.
"Oh, good, all right, just say this, 'I solemnly swear to be very faithful to my bosom friend, Sara Holbrook, as long as the sun and moon shall endure'."
Sara cleared her throat and said, "I solemnly swear to be very faithful to my bosom friend Anne Shirley, for as long as the sun and moon shall endure."