Anne's Apology to Mrs. Lynde

Anne Shirley had been at Green Gables for a fortnight when Mrs. Rachel Lynde, recovering from a severe attack of grippe, arrived to inspect the orphan. Mrs. Lynde, a woman who prided herself on speaking her mind without fear or favor, took one look at Anne—standing in the short, tight, yellowish-gray wincey dress from the asylum, her thin legs ungracefully long, her freckles more numerous than ever, and her hatless red hair blown into over-brilliant disorder—and delivered her emphatic verdict: "Well, they didn't pick you for your looks, that's sure and certain. She's terrible skinny and homely, Marilla. Come here, child, and let me have a look at you. Lawful heart, did any one ever see such freckles? And hair as red as carrots!"

The Outburst

Anne did not come as Mrs. Lynde expected. With one bound she crossed the kitchen floor and stood before the visitor, her face scarlet with anger, her lips quivering, and her whole slender form trembling. "I hate you," she cried in a choked voice, stamping her foot. "I hate you—I hate you—I hate you! How dare you call me skinny and ugly? How dare you say I'm freckled and redheaded? You are a rude, impolite, unfeeling woman!" She continued to face Mrs. Lynde undauntedly, head up, eyes blazing, hands clenched, passionate indignation exhaling from her like an atmosphere. When Marilla ordered her to her room, Anne burst into tears, rushed to the hall door, slammed it until the tins on the porch wall rattled, and fled upstairs like a whirlwind. A subdued slam above told that the door of the east gable had been shut with equal vehemence.

Marilla's Response and the Punishment

Marilla, to her own surprise, did not wholly side with her visitor. "You shouldn't have twitted her about her looks, Rachel," she said, and later admitted, "We must make allowances for her. She's never been taught what is right. And you WERE too hard on her, Rachel." Mrs. Lynde left with offended dignity, suggesting a birch switch as the most effective language for such a child. Marilla, however, found Anne face downward on her bed, crying bitterly. When Anne insisted she could not apologize because she was not sorry—"I'm GLAD I told her just what I did. It was a great satisfaction"—Marilla imposed a sentence: Anne would remain in her room until she was willing to tell Mrs. Lynde she was sorry.

Matthew's Intervention and Anne's Change of Heart

Matthew, who had been hanging about the barns, slipped into the house with the air of a burglar and crept upstairs—a rare venture, for he had not been upstairs in his own house since he helped Marilla paper the spare bedroom four years earlier. He found Anne sitting on the yellow chair by the window, gazing mournfully out into the garden. "Well now, Anne, don't you think you'd better do it and have it over with?" he whispered. "It'll have to be done sooner or later, you know, for Marilla's a dreadful determined woman." Anne, who had woken that morning with her anger gone and only a "dreadful sort of goneness" left, agreed to oblige him. "I suppose I could do it to oblige you," she said thoughtfully. "It would be true enough to say I am sorry, because I AM sorry now."

The Dramatic Apology

When Marilla took Anne to Mrs. Lynde's house, Anne's dejection vanished halfway down the lane; she lifted her head and stepped lightly along, her eyes fixed on the sunset sky, an air of subdued exhilaration about her. Marilla beheld the change disapprovingly—this was no meek penitent. In Mrs. Lynde's kitchen, Anne suddenly went down on her knees before the astonished woman and held out her hands beseechingly. "Oh, Mrs. Lynde, I am so extremely sorry," she said with a quiver in her voice. "I could never express all my sorrow, no, not if I used up a whole dictionary. You must just imagine it. I behaved terribly to you—and I've disgraced the dear friends, Matthew and Marilla, who have let me stay at Green Gables although I'm not a boy. I'm a dreadfully wicked and ungrateful girl, and I deserve to be punished and cast out by respectable people forever. It was very wicked of me to fly into a temper because you told me the truth. It WAS the truth; every word you said was true. My hair is red and I'm freckled and skinny and ugly. What I said to you was true, too, but I shouldn't have said it. Oh, Mrs. Lynde, please, please, forgive me." She clasped her hands together, bowed her head, and waited for the word of judgment.

The Aftermath and Significance

Mrs. Lynde, not being overburdened with perception, did not see that Anne was actually enjoying her valley of humiliation—reveling in the thoroughness of her abasement. She only perceived that Anne had made a very thorough apology and all resentment vanished from her kindly heart. "There, there, get up, child," she said heartily. "Of course I forgive you. I guess I was a little too hard on you, anyway." She even offered Anne hope that her red hair might darken to a handsome auburn when she grew up. Anne, seizing on this, declared Mrs. Lynde a benefactor and went out into the garden. Later, walking home, Anne said proudly, "I apologized pretty well, didn't I? I thought since I had to do it I might as well do it thoroughly." Marilla, dismayed to find herself inclined to laugh, compromised with her conscience by saying severely that she hoped Anne would try to control her temper now. But Anne had turned punishment into a species of positive pleasure, and the event marked the beginning of a more tolerant relationship between the orphan and the community's most formidable gossip.