"Ah! when the leaves fall it is beautiful, beautiful," said her cousin;
but Anne was sure that it could never be more beautiful than now, in the
green-gold glory of a late summer afternoon.
After a few idle days, Anne was enrolled in the city free school. Miss
Dorcas mourned over the fact that she was unable to send her small
cousin to a select private school, and urged her to study hard, behave
well, and, above all, never to have anything to do with 'the common
herd' of other children. Anne obeyed the last command very unwillingly.
It would be dreadful to be "contaminated,"--which she supposed to mean
infected with a bad kind of measles,--as Cousin Dorcas said she would be
if she played with her grade-mates; but it was hard to sit primly alone
instead of joining the recess games.
At first some of the children tried to make friends with her but, being
met coolly, they left her to lonely dignity.
"It's goot," wonderingly explained Albert Naumann, a sturdy, blond
little German, when she refused a bite of the crimson-cheeked winesap
apple that he offered.
"Why not?" asked merry-faced Peggy Callahan, when Anne declined her dare
to a foot-race.
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