Ruby Gillis has always declared she hated Mr.
Phillips, but just as soon as he got up to make his farewell speech she burst into tears.

Then all the girls began to cry, one after the other.
I tried to hold out, Marilla.

I tried to remember the time Mr.Phillips made me sit with Gil--with a, boy; and the time he spelled my name without an e on the blackboard; and how he said I was the worst dunce he ever saw at geometry and laughed at my spelling; and all the times he had been so horrid and sarcastic; but somehow I couldn't, Marilla, and I just had to cry too.

Jane Andrews has been talking for a month about how glad she'd be when Mr.Phillips went away and she declared she'd never shed a tear.

Well, she was worse than any of us and had to borrow a handkerchief from her brother--of course the boys didn't cry--because she hadn't brought one of her own, not expecting to need it.