Where the Brook and River Meet

"Yes, I believe she could," said Marilla dryly. "She does plenty
of unofficial preaching as it is. Nobody has much of a chance to
go wrong in Avonlea with Rachel to oversee them."

"Marilla," said Anne in a burst of confidence, "I want to tell
you something and ask you what you think about it. It has
worried me terribly--on Sunday afternoons, that is, when I think
specially about such matters. I do really want to be good; and
when I'm with you or Mrs. Allan or Miss Stacy I want it more
than ever and I want to do just what would please you and what
you would approve of. But mostly when I'm with Mrs. Lynde I
feel desperately wicked and as if I wanted to go and do the very
thing she tells me I oughtn't to do. I feel irresistibly tempted
to do it. Now, what do you think is the reason I feel like that?
Do you think it's because I'm really bad and unregenerate?"

Marilla looked dubious for a moment. Then she laughed.

"If you are I guess I am too, Anne, for Rachel often has that
very effect on me. I sometimes think she'd have more of an
influence for good, as you say yourself, if she didn't keep
nagging people to do right. There should have been a special
commandment against nagging. But there, I shouldn't talk so.
Rachel is a good Christian woman and she means well. There isn't
a kinder soul in Avonlea and she never shirks her share of work."