Q: CHAPTER XXIII

CHECK TO THE QUEEN

How long they stood thus, heart to heart, they themselves could never have said. The sound of many voices in the near distance roused them from their dream. Ursula started in alarm.

"Holy Virgin!" she exclaimed under her breath, "if it should be the Queen!"

But Wessex held her tightly, and she struggled in vain.

"Nay! then let the whole Court see that I hold my future wife in my arms," he said proudly.

But with an agitated little cry she contrived to escape him. He seemed much amused at her nervousness; what had she to fear? was she not his own, to protect even from the semblance of ill? But Ursula, now fully awakened to ordinary, everyday surroundings, was fearful lest her own innocent little deception should be too crudely, too suddenly unmasked.

She had so earnestly looked forward to the moment when she would say to him that she in sooth was none other than Lady Ursula Glynde, the woman whom every conventionality had decreed that he should marry, and whom--because of these conventionalities--he had secretly but certainly disliked.

Her woman's heart had already given her a clear insight into the character and the foibles of the man she loved. His passion for her now, sincere and great though it was, was partly dependent on that atmosphere of romance which his poetical temperament craved for, and which had surrounded the half-mysterious personality of exquisite, irresistible "Fanny."

Instinctively she dreaded the rough hand of commonplace, that ugly, coarse destroyer of poetic idylls. A few hastily uttered words might shatter in an hour the mystic shrine wherein Wessex had enthroned her. She had meant to tell him soon, to-morrow perhaps, perhaps only after a few days, but she wished to find her own time for this, when he knew her inner soul better, and the delicate cobwebs of this great love-at-first-sight had fallen away from his eyes.

1. Ursula and Wessex
2. yes
3. no
4. she hears people
5. the Queen
6. no
7. yes
8. her deception might be unmasked.
9. amused
10. yes
11. proud
12. yes
13. yes
14. his character
15. ove-at-first-sight
16. the mystic shrine
17. in her own time for
18. tomorrow or a few days
19. her inner soul better
20. unknown

Numbered questions:
1. Who is embracing?
2. Is Ursula ready to stop?
3. is Wessex?
4. Why does she want free?
5. Who is she worried might be coming?
6. Does Wessex care?
7. Does she get free?
8. What's making her nervous?
9. How does Wessex feel about her fears?
10. Are they planing to get married?
11. How does that make Wessex feel?
12. Would their marriage be the traditional thing to do/
13. Is she thinking that maybe he doesn't like her?
14. What has she gotten a good picture of?
15. What kind of love is he feeling?
16. What does she think might get shattered?
17. When does she want to talk to him about it?
18. What are the possible days she might talk to him?
19. What does she want him to learn about
20. Where are they standing?

Q: CHAPTER XXIII. Anne Comes to Grief in an Affair of Honor

Anne had to live through more than two weeks, as it happened. Almost a month having elapsed since the liniment cake episode, it was high time for her to get into fresh trouble of some sort, little mistakes, such as absentmindedly emptying a pan of skim milk into a basket of yarn balls in the pantry instead of into the pigs' bucket, and walking clean over the edge of the log bridge into the brook while wrapped in imaginative reverie, not really being worth counting.

A week after the tea at the manse Diana Barry gave a party.

"Small and select," Anne assured Marilla. "Just the girls in our class."

They had a very good time and nothing untoward happened until after tea, when they found themselves in the Barry garden, a little tired of all their games and ripe for any enticing form of mischief which might present itself. This presently took the form of "daring."

Daring was the fashionable amusement among the Avonlea small fry just then. It had begun among the boys, but soon spread to the girls, and all the silly things that were done in Avonlea that summer because the doers thereof were "dared" to do them would fill a book by themselves.

First of all Carrie Sloane dared Ruby Gillis to climb to a certain point in the huge old willow tree before the front door; which Ruby Gillis, albeit in mortal dread of the fat green caterpillars with which said tree was infested and with the fear of her mother before her eyes if she should tear her new muslin dress, nimbly did, to the discomfiture of the aforesaid Carrie Sloane. Then Josie Pye dared Jane Andrews to hop on her left leg around the garden without stopping once or putting her right foot to the ground; which Jane Andrews gamely tried to do, but gave out at the third corner and had to confess herself defeated.

1. Ruby Gillis
2. Carrie Sloane
3. a certain point in the huge old willow tree
4. fat green caterpillars
5. no
6. her mother, if she should tear her new muslin dress
7. yes
8. Carrie Sloane
9. to hop on her left leg around the garden without stopping once or putting her right foot to the ground
10. no
11. Josie Pye
12. Diana Barry
13. no
14. Just the girls in the class
15. the boys
16. yes
17. yes
18. A week
19. walking clean over the edge of the log bridge into the brook while wrapped in imaginative reverie
20. yes

Numbered questions:
1. Who was dared to climb something?
2. Who dared her?
3. Where was she supposed to climb to?
4. What was the tree infested with?
5. Did Ruby like them?
6. Besides the caterpillars, what else was Ruby afraid of?
7. Did she end up climbing the tree?
8. Who was a little nervous watching?
9. What was Jane Andrews dared to do?
10. Was she able to do it?
11. Who had dared her to try?
12. Who threw the party?
13. Was it a large public gathering?
14. Who was invited?
15. Who invented the game of daring?
16. Did the girls eventually try it, too?
17. Did it become popular in the town?
18. How much time had passed between the tea and the party?
19. What is one silly mistake that Anna made?
20. Were there any others?