Chapter 3

Upon hearing Anne was to stay in her room until she apologized to Mrs. Lynde, Henry had breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn't believed Marilla would whip her, but it was a relief all the same to hear that was not to be Anne's fate. His next question, took Marilla by surprise. "You, you will let her eat if I share my portion with her, please? She don't need much. Just please? You can even give me a half portion and I'll share that with her."

"Same goes for me," Tommy had spoken up stoutly. "I'll give Anne some of my food, until she can come down and earn her keep again."

"Starve her? What ever can you mean?" Marilla asked in disbelief. "Anne will have regular meals, just the same as the rest of us, in her room. I'll be bringing a full tray up to her. I don't hold with starving anyone as a punishment. A body's got a right to eat."

"At the orphanage if you was in trouble you didn't get to eat," Tommy explained.

"Well this isn't the orphanage," Marilla said with a sniff. Starving children as punishment indeed, Marilla thought with disgust.

"Mrs. Lynde's a bothersome old gossip. It's about time someone let her have it," Matthew opined.

"Matthew Cuthbert!" Marilla exclaimed. "It won't do to talk that way in front of the children."

"Well its the truth," Matthew said stubbornly.

"Don't worry, me and Henry won't tell anyone," Tommy spoke up saying.

The next day the entire household was quite and solemn. Without Anne's infectious presence the two boys were subdued and uncertain. It had been Anne who had fearlessly once again begun to knit strangers into a cohesive whole and without her it appeared no one was certain how to act. Tommy whispered quietly to Henry, his voice sad, ovheared by Matthew, "It's like the world just isn't as bright without Anne. It isn't as gray and lifeless here as it was at the orphanage, but it isn't as colorful as it had been."

"If I could talk to Anne. Maybe make Anne see sense, but Marilla, she ain't like the matron and I don't rightly known if we should go against her and sneak in to see Anne. It seems dishonest, after she expressly told us not to. Her and Matthew have been awful good to us," Henry responded.

"Say, Matthew could talk to Anne!" Tommy exclaimed. "Marilla didn't forbid him like she did us."

"Maybe," Henry said doubtfully, but the idea had been planted in Matthew's mind unknown to the two boys.

That evening Matthew crept carefully up to the East Gable and talked to Anne and Anne agreed to apologize to Mrs. Lynde. Amazed by his own success he crept back down the stairs where he came face to face with Henry. Henry looked at him wide eyed, his eyes trailing up the stairs behind Matthew and then back to Matthew. A look of understanding dawned and Henry looked at Matthew a question writ large across his face. Matthew gave a silent nod in the affirmative and held his fingers to his lips. Henry nodded back, a wide smile blossoming across his face and just like that Henry and Matthew clicked into place. Both all of a sudden relaxed, no longer unsure how to be in each other's presence.

When Marilla came back in Anne dolefully expressed her contrition and repentance, along with her willingness to go and apologize. Marilla rounded up Henry and Tommy to join her and Anne, figuring she had best get introducing the boys to Mrs. Lynde out of the way while Anne preformed her apology. And what a preformance it turned out to be. Marilla could not help but think something had gone very wrong in her well thought out punishment, but seeing as how Anne was at least sincere, there was nothing Marilla really could object too.

Henry watched with a smirk as Anne drew Mrs. Lynde into her orbit. Mrs. Lynde he concluded really wasn't a bad sort or she never would have come round to Anne so quickly. She quickly made all the orphans welcome and expressed her own regret. At the end of it all, she confessed to Marilla that she didn't feel an ounce of pity for her, that there was no need to and that the orphans were a real sweet earnest bunch. That Marilla had done the right thing taking them all on.