Okay, so we DO have Internet access whilst in China. I feel a little inordinately stupid now. Oh, well. Still, though, I don't want to begin Unromantic Ideal until the end of August as that is when the first chapter actually takes place.

However, I will be posting the second chapter of Crimson Girl, another L.M. Montgomery story, about a character who has captivated me since reading Anne's House of Dreams in middle school. I'm sure those of you who are already some little bit acquainted with Leslie Moore find her as thrilling as I do.

-M.R.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Anne's Atonement

The best laid schemes o' mice and men

Gang aft agley,

An' lea'e us nought but grief and pain,

For promised joy!

-Burns, To A Mouse

"Gil," said his mother exasperatedly, "don't you ever pay any attention? These are flat buttons. Your suit has shank buttons. How on earth am I supposed to help you with your things for Redmond if you can't even tell your buttons apart?!"

"I'm sorry, mother," said Gilbert humbly. He had been so wrapped up in confusion and speculation as to Anne's disappearances, before he'd seen her, the week before, that probably the store clerk could have sold him rutabagas and he would have taken them home to be sewn onto his suit. "I'll just go and return these, then, and buy new ones, shall I?"

Yet Gilbert...as well as the rest of the patrons of Lawson's…would not be able to buy buttons, or for that matter anything else, today.

Covering the top half of Lawson's General Store…including the sign…was a massive banner, proclaiming CONGRATULATIONS ANNE SHIRLEY, AVONLEA'S OWN WINNER OF THE ROLLINGS RELIABLE BAKING POWDER STORY COMPETITION!

At this interesting moment Anne herself dashed up, looking frenzied and distracted. She stopped dead about three yards before the store...and the sign…mouthing Rollings Reliable…? as if she did not know…? and fled into the store.

His curiosity piqued, Gilbert followed discreetly inside.

The store was jam-packed with more or less the entire Island…those who knew Anne, anyways…pyramids of cans of Rollings Reliable Baking Powder…and pink, blue, green, and orange pamphlets.

"Anne Shirley!" exclaimed Alice Lawson, doing a credible imitation of a leech by latching on to Anne's arm and propelling her forwards into the crowd. "We've been looking for you everywhere! Avonlea's famous authoress!"

The store began clapping.

Anne picked up a pamphlet, peered at it, and said, "But I—"

"Father, come out here!" cried Alice, and her father obliged. "Oh! Miss Shirley!"

"I don't understand!" exclaimed Anne.

"You won the contest, you goose!" beamed Alice, "and I knew you'd go into it behind all our backs!"

"It is my great pleasure," said Mr. Lawson, "as official purveyor to Avonlea for the Rollings Reliable Baking Powder Company, to read this, the following tribute, to Miss Anne Shirley, Green Gables, P.E.I.

"'Dear Madam, we have much pleasure in informing you that your charming story, Averil's Atonement, has won the one hundred dollar grand prize in our recent contest for a story introducing the name of our revered product! We have arranged publication of the story in several prominent newspapers across the country and will supply it in pamphlet form for distribution among our patrons! Thanking you for the interest you have shown in our enterprise, we remain, very truly the Rollings Reliable Baking Powder Company."

Lawson handed Anne the check, which she seemed to take dazedly. The entire thing had been punctuated by applause…of which Gilbert had been a hearty contributor…and now a fresh wave broke out as Anne turned, attempting to make her way out of the store, and Gilbert saw her face for the first time.

His own grin faded.

Anne was deathly pale; her freckles stood out in further prominence; she looked at once as though she was going to collapse, and as though she wanted to smash Lawson's entire inventory of slates over some one's head.

Despite this last, extremely unsettling comparison, Gilbert made his way swiftly towards her. "Anne! Are you all right?"

Anne looked at him like a desert traveler would an oasis, and clutched at his arm. "Get me out of here, would you, Gil? I think I may faint."

They…Gilbert, at least…pushed and shoved their way out onto the sidewalk, where Anne fell into an amazed Diana's arms.

"Anne! Oh, I'm wild with delight!" cried Diana, gesticulating at the large sign. "I was sure it would win when I sent it in to the competition!"

"You what?!" exclaimed Gilbert, and "Diana Barry!" ejaculated Anne incredulously.

"Yes, I did! Oh, I thought of your story in a minute when I saw the ad in the paper! I was going to tell you to send it in yourself, but I figured you had so little faith left in you that you wouldn't. So I sent in my copy...then if it didn't work then you'd never know that my idea was a failure…Anne, you don't look a bit pleased!"

Anne said something in reply, but Gilbert was reading Averil's Atonement from one of the pamphlets.

Averil's Atonement

by Anne Shirley

The wind whispered mysteriously through the slim waving birch trees. The moon was a perfect glowing roundel between the tempestuous dark branches.

The clearing in the middle of all the birches was fairly large, and usually empty…except for to-night.

From the shadow of the tallest birch tree stepped a young woman of radiant beauty. Her alabaster brow was as pale and luminescent as the moon above, and her long, billowy, pale gold hair streamed back from her face in the wind like a curtain.

At her wrists and throat were blond lace several shades darker than her lovely tresses. The lace perfectly complimented the rich, bloodred velvet that comprised her princess dress and puffed sleeves. Her eyes were a brilliant blue.

Averil Lester stepped fully into the moonlit clearing, her arms trailing gracefully through the air as she strode.

Gilbert looked 'round at Anne in alarm. Anne might be romantic and melodramatic, but…"alabaster brow"? What was an alabaster brow?

Averil lifted her beautiful eyes up to the moon. She breathed the chilly air deeply, as though the inhalance would bring about some magical change.

In fact, she had been dreaming of the empty clearing in the Grove of Dryads—the birch forest—for three months now, and each time she had the dream she immediately awoke, and could not find sleep again for the rest of the night. Consequently…

The description of Averil went on for several pages, until she was met by Robert Ray, a small boy who was the servant of the man Averil loved.

and as Robert Ray watched in mute horror, Maurice Lennox, lord of the Marble Fields, swept Averil off into the night in his dark phaeton, whose ponies were black as their scoundrel master's heart, and whose eyes were blazing as live embers.

Robert Ray ran swiftly through the night, as though he were one of that wicked band, and woke up his master, Percival Dalrymple, who was in love, though she knew it not, with the fair Averil.

"O my!" moaned dark, handsome Percival. "What ever shall I do without my beloved Averil? O, I shall die! O Averil! My love! My love! O love of my life!"

"You must rescue her," said Robert Ray.

Maurice Lennox, it seemed, was a King of Goblins, and commanded Averil to act as a Queen of Goblins should; i.e., cook, bake, and clean for him. Averil refused, but Maurice tricked her into eating an enchanted peach. Evidently Averil had never heard the popular faerie-tale chant "We must not look at goblin men, we must not eat their fruit".

She could do naught but oblige him; for what might Lord Lennox do to her should she refuse?

Averil carefully arranged her ingredients—her butter, her eggs—and of course, her most important ingredient, ROLLINGS RELIABLE BAKING POWDER, and making sure her pans were all in order, began making a cake for the evil goblins…

But after about half the pamphlet, in which Averil's cake was described for a long, long time, Percival arrived and dumped half a bottle of poison into the cake batter.

Maurice Lennox had only time to utter a wicked "Ha! ha!" before he fell to the ground, writhing in the throes of blackguardery and arsenic…

"Wilt thou give up thy garter, o fairest of the fair?"

"Yes, my Percival!"

Percival clasped his darling, beloved Averil to his breast in an ecstasy of happiness. "Sweetheart, the beautiful coming years will bring us the fulfillment of our home o' dreams, in which we will never use any baking powder except ROLLINGS RELIABLE."

THE END.

Gilbert lowered the story from his eyes with a feeling of…what was it?

Not disgust. Not quite disgust. But…something. Something that boded ill for Averil's atonement. (What had Averil atoned for, anyways? Being beautiful? The story didn't say.)

He'd seen Anne's writing before…sometimes when she was in a good humor, and showed him; other times when he'd peeked at Anne's work and noticed, during a study session at his house, that the papers Anne was bent so diligently over were not sent from Redmond professors, and Gilbert had been subsequently chased about the house with a slate. She could write so much better then this.

Anne owed Gilbert an explanation…