Dora was dismayed, when she learned that since the twins were staying at Green Gables for another year, they were to start school in September.

"They're old enough for school now, I daresay - and it'll do Dora good to get out and talk to people other than her own friends. When I sent her to see if John Henry Carter could come over to kill our chicken for Mrs. Morgan's dinner, she came back not fifteen minutes later to tell me John Henry couldn't be found. Now, we know how it would take more than fifteen minutes to look through Mr. Harrison's place. And Mrs. Harmon Andrews ran into her on the road, but Dora barely greeted her. Rachel Lynde says that girl is getting as shy as Matthew."

"Davy will be so happy to have boys his own age to play with." Anne rejoined with clasped hands. "I must hunt him out and tell him."

Accordingly they set out, on the first of September - Davy forward and curious as always, Dora trembling and nervous. She was wont to sink further into herself whenever she was surrounded by those who seemed so self-assured - like Anne, or Davy, or Stella Fletcher. Even Mrs. Lynde, who liked Dora and who Dora liked in return, made Dora nervous whenever she talked to her in public. Dora shuddered to be talked to in such a loud voice, which drew so much attention to herself.

Dora did not feel that way with Minnie May, who was sweet and merry. And she even felt a little superior around poor Lily Sloane, who was so much worse than herself, really - bashful Lily Sloane, who Dora was going to sit with in school because Stella Fletcher had claimed Minnie May. Only Lily Sloane was away for the first day of school, so Anne told Dora to sit in the back row with Mirabel Cotton.

Nothing could be more terrible to Dora as she walked up the aisle alone, and climbed into the high-backed seats of the fourth-graders. Her feet did not touch the ground, and the table was so high that she could barely reach her inkwell. She felt very lost.

Mirabel Cotton was not at all helpful. She was loud and boisterous, and she liked to snicker with the boys, throw pencils behind the teacher's back, and pass notes. In short, she made a lot of noise, and that made Dora feel more uncomfortable than ever. She tossed a crumpled note across to row to Timmy Cotton, but accidentally hit Paul Irving's neck.

Paul Irving, having finished his geometry, was gazing dreamily out the window. Dora was - not - gazing in his direction at all, as one might think she would be, because - well, Paul Irving as the intelligent, gentlemanly hero of Anne's stories was one thing, but Paul Irving in the flesh, as a tall, real-live fifth grader was another. Dora trembled to find him just across the aisle, so did not dare turn in his direction at all. Dora thought she would sink of humiliation when Mirabel's missile hit him, and he looked over resentfully at their table, annoyed to be interrupted from his fair daydreams.

Then he saw Dora, and gave her a sympathetic smile. Dora felt that her world wasn't so bad, after all.

But there was still a lot of it to get through. Mirabel stopped passing notes because she was afraid that Paul Irving would tell on her, teacher's pet that he was. So she began whispering loudly to Dora. Dora, who had been envying Stella and Minnie May their shared seat and confidential conversations half-way across the schoolroom, found that it was a very different matter to whisper secrets with someone like Mirabel. In fact, she didn't feel like whispering much, and would rather study her Royal Reader.

Mirabel thought she would rather like to impress this little primer, so she began on an elaborate tale of her dead Uncle, embellishing it to give more thrills.

"Do you know, Dora, that nearly everyone in our family has died. We Cottons have a habit of dying, just like how the Gillises have a habit of getting husbands and the Pyes have a habit of saying mean things." she said boastfully. "Who knows, I might drop dead in this chair right now for heaven knows what I've caught. We're always catching something."

Dora shuddered. She did not want a dead schoolmate in her seat.

"My grandfather died of galloping consumption, and my grandmother - she died of a broken heart. My Aunt Jane had scarlet fever and Uncle Dick had yellow fever and little Peter Ray, well, he was just their hired boy but he was living with us Cottons when he died, so it counts, and he was poisoned. Aunt Elisa dropped dead when she was dancing with a strange man, and everyone was terrible cut up about it - she was our clan beauty. They tell me I take after her," Mirabel preened. "Unlike my Aunt Angie. She was an ugly girl, and when she grew up she was so ugly that no one wanted to look at her. But what did you think? When they laid her out to be buried - why, Mother says she was a gorgeous corpse! There were young men coming to grandfather's house just to have a look at her. So you see she did credit to the family after all. But you don't want me to tell you about Uncle Alf."

Dora's face was white by this time, and she most heartily did not want to hear about Uncle Alf. Mirabel looked at her expectantly - my, did little Dora Keith looked scared! But she loved to talk about Uncle Alf, so she glared expectantly.

"Uncle Alf?" Dora gasped in a barely audible voice.

"Oh! He was a sea-captain, and ever so handsome, I tell you. All the girls in White Sands were simply wild about him. One of them, I don't know her name, but she was - well, I forget the word, but they were going to get married. But before they could he sailed away to the bahamas and she became real good friends with grandmother, missing him they both were. She was always over at our house. On the night that his vessel was due back there was a big storm, and the lighthouse in the harbour went out. You ever seen a lighthouse? My Uncle Joe ran it before he died, but that was when I was five years old. Anyway, Uncle Alf's boat was lost on the rocks all the while his girl and grandmother were waiting and watching at the shore. Do you wonder she went crazy? His body washed ashore and five days after they buried him, when she was visiting Grandma, she left after dark and who do you think she saw coming up the lane? It was handsome, side-whiskered man - and it was Uncle Alf!"

"Did she - re-really - see him?" Dora chattered. "You said she went crazy."
Dora added in a whisper.

" 'Course she saw him!" Mirabel said uncomfortably, not liking having her stories questioned. She searched for some proof. "You know, I think that's why we moved to Avonea." she whispered confidentially. "I bet Father must've seen him, because he said he couldn't stand living in our place any longer. Could you bear living in a haunted house, Dora? What would you do if someone dead creep up on you at night? What if a skeleton hid in your closet?"

Dora put her hands to her ears and implored Mirabel to stop. Mirabel did. Dora looked good and scared, and my, that was fun. That should teach Dora Keith never to question her stories again.

Dora had trouble sleeping that night, and her week did not get much better. Lily never came at all that first week, because - as she confessed tearfully to Dora at Sunday School - she was too afraid. Afraid of walking to school alone, afraid of the "big girls," and most of all, of Anthony Pye, who was a fearful bully. So Dora had been left to bear the lion's den aloner.

She was a lonely soul. Sally Bell had started the girls up on playing "ball," and all the girls joined enthusiastically. "Diana told me about playing 'ball,' and it's tremenjusly exciting, Dora!" she breathed. Dora tried to play, accordingly. But she missed the ball three times, and Stella told her angrily that she was "no good." It was voted that Dora had to sit out the rest of the lunch hour.

There were only so many places to sit. The schoolyard was entirely taken up for a playing field, and one could not sit there without getting in the way, or getting hit by accident. There was the woods, but Dora did not like to ruin her dress by sitting in the bush. There was nothing to do but sit on the steps of the school porch, and cry.

Paul Irving, coming to the porch to read, asked: "Whatever is the matter, Dora?"

Dora started when she saw who it was. But there was nowhere else to go. She buried her face and kept on crying.

"Did Mirabel do anything to you?" he asked, kindly. But Dora shook her head - Mirabel hadn't done anything today, except make her uncomfortable - but the discomfort was Dora's own fault.

"Are you finding school very hard?" Dora gave a tiny nod. Well, school was very trying, in more than one way.

"Do you like playing ball?" Paul asked. Dora shook her head most emphatically.

"But they all think it's tremenjusly exciting, everyone 'cept me." she explained tearfully.

"But 'tremenjus' excitements can be very straining," Paul averred. I bet you must be tired out from it. I'm no good at sports myself," Dora now ceased sobbing, and listened with interest. "I like books far better, you see. I'm reading Ben Hur, and I'm at the chariot race, which is far more exciting than ball. Would you like to hear about it?"

Dora would, and Paul read aloud to her for the next quarter of an hour. Then they talked about it- or rather, Paul talked, telling Dora everything he liked and disliked about Ben Hur. Dora listened in an adoring silence, which Paul did not mind. He found her a very sympathetic listener.

It was a habit they kept up for the rest of the year. Whenever the girls and boys were playing sports, they resorted to the porch, or perched themselves on the wood-pile behind the schoolhouse - which, Paul showed to the ecstatic Dora, explaining that it was his favourite hiding spot, far better because it was quieter. Paul brought his books and Dora brought her lessons when she had questions about something in class that she was too timid to ask out loud, or a japanese bookmark to fold - Minnie May had been teaching her how to fold japanese bookmarks. For Dora found it far easier to go to Paul with her sums, than Anne, because Paul listened to her so kindly, whereas Anne's attention was always commanded by Davy. Anne was surprised how diligently Dora came along in her studies, without ever speaking in class!

As for Dora, she found that she liked school very well - and Paul Irving even more!