{"id":1832387,"date":"2025-05-27T18:00:06","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T18:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/anime\/1832387\/"},"modified":"2025-05-27T18:00:06","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T18:00:06","slug":"anne-of-the-island-%f0%9f%8c%b8-a-heartwarming-tale-of-friendship-love-growth-%f0%9f%8c%bf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/anime\/1832387\/","title":{"rendered":"Anne of the Island \ud83c\udf38 | A Heartwarming Tale of Friendship, Love &#038; Growth \ud83c\udf3f"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\"  width=\"580\" height=\"385\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CwVeg0fCztY\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n<br \/>\nAnne of the Island \ud83c\udf38 | A Heartwarming Tale of Friendship, Love &#038; Growth \ud83c\udf3f<br \/>\n<br \/>\nWelcome to Storytime Haven. Today, we\u2019re diving into L. M. Montgomery\u2019s beloved novel, Anne of the Island. Join Anne Shirley, as she embarks on her journey to university, facing new adventures, friendships, and self-discovery. Follow her as she navigates the ups and downs of life on the beautiful Prince Edward Island, all while keeping her imagination and dreams alive. Let\u2019s get cozy and enjoy the next chapter in Anne\u2019s life together. Chapter 1. The Shadow of Change. \u201cHarvest is ended and summer is gone,\u201d quoted Anne Shirley, gazing across the shorn fields dreamily. She and Diana Barry had been picking apples in the Green Gables orchard, but were now resting from their labors in a sunny corner, where airy fleets of thistledown drifted by on the wings of a wind that was still summer-sweet with the incense of ferns in the Haunted Wood. But everything in the landscape around them spoke of autumn. The sea was roaring hollowly in the distance, the fields were bare and sere, scarfed with golden rod, the brook valley below Green Gables overflowed with asters of ethereal purple, and the Lake of Shining Waters was blue\u2014blue\u2014blue; not the changeful blue of spring, nor the pale azure of summer, but a clear, steadfast, serene blue, as if the water were past all moods and tenses of emotion and had settled down to a tranquility unbroken by fickle dreams. \u201cIt has been a nice summer,\u201d said Diana, twisting the new ring on her left hand with a smile. \u201cAnd Miss Lavendar\u2019s wedding seemed to come as a sort of crown to it. I suppose Mr. and Mrs. Irving are on the Pacific coast now.\u201d \u201cIt seems to me they have been gone long enough to go around the world,\u201d sighed Anne. \u201cI can\u2019t believe it is only a week since they were married. Everything has changed. Miss Lavendar and Mr. and Mrs. Allan gone\u2014how lonely the manse looks with the shutters all closed! I went past it last night, and it made me feel as if everybody in it had died.\u201d \u201cWe\u2019ll never get another minister as nice as Mr. Allan,\u201d said Diana, with gloomy conviction. \u201cI suppose we\u2019ll have all kinds of supplies this winter, and half the Sundays no preaching at all. And you and Gilbert gone\u2014it will be awfully dull.\u201d \u201cFred will be here,\u201d insinuated Anne slyly. \u201cWhen is Mrs. Lynde going to move up?\u201d asked Diana, as if she had not heard Anne\u2019s remark. \u201cTomorrow. I\u2019m glad she\u2019s coming\u2014but it will be another change. Marilla and I cleared everything out of the spare room yesterday. Do you know, I hated to do it? Of course, it was silly\u2014but it did seem as if we were committing sacrilege. That old spare room has always seemed like a shrine to me. When I was a child I thought it the most wonderful apartment in the world. You remember what a consuming desire I had to sleep in a spare room bed\u2014but not the Green Gables spare room. Oh, no, never there! It would have been too terrible\u2014I couldn\u2019t have slept a wink from awe. I never _walked_ through that room when Marilla sent me in on an errand\u2014no, indeed, I tiptoed through it and held my breath, as if I were in church, and felt relieved when I got out of it. The pictures of George Whitefield and the Duke of Wellington hung there, one on each side of the mirror, and frowned so sternly at me all the time I was in, especially if I dared peep in the mirror, which was the only one in the house that didn\u2019t twist my face a little. I always wondered how Marilla dared houseclean that room. And now it\u2019s not only cleaned but stripped bare. George Whitefield and the Duke have been relegated to the upstairs hall. \u2018So passes the glory of this world,\u2019\u201d concluded Anne, with a laugh in which there was a little note of regret. It is never pleasant to have our old shrines desecrated, even when we have outgrown them. \u201cI\u2019ll be so lonesome when you go,\u201d moaned Diana for the hundredth time. \u201cAnd to think you go next week!\u201d \u201cBut we\u2019re together still,\u201d said Anne cheerily. \u201cWe mustn\u2019t let next week rob us of this week\u2019s joy. I hate the thought of going myself\u2014home and I are such good friends. Talk of being lonesome! It\u2019s I who should groan. _You\u2019ll_ be here with any number of your old friends\u2014_and_ Fred! While I shall be alone among strangers, not knowing a soul!\u201d \u201c_Except_ Gilbert\u2014_and_ Charlie Sloane,\u201d said Diana, imitating Anne\u2019s italics and slyness. \u201cCharlie Sloane will be a great comfort, of course,\u201d agreed Anne sarcastically; whereupon both those irresponsible damsels laughed. Diana knew exactly what Anne thought of Charlie Sloane; but, despite sundry confidential talks, she did not know just what Anne thought of Gilbert Blythe. To be sure, Anne herself did not know that. \u201cThe boys may be boarding at the other end of Kingsport, for all I know,\u201d Anne went on. \u201cI am glad I\u2019m going to Redmond, and I am sure I shall like it after a while. But for the first few weeks I know I won\u2019t. I shan\u2019t even have the comfort of looking forward to the weekend visit home, as I had when I went to Queen\u2019s. Christmas will seem like a thousand years away.\u201d \u201cEverything is changing\u2014or going to change,\u201d said Diana sadly. \u201cI have a feeling that things will never be the same again, Anne.\u201d \u201cWe have come to a parting of the ways, I suppose,\u201d said Anne thoughtfully. \u201cWe had to come to it. Do you think, Diana, that being grown-up is really as nice as we used to imagine it would be when we were children?\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t know\u2014there are _some_ nice things about it,\u201d answered Diana, again caressing her ring with that little smile which always had the effect of making Anne feel suddenly left out and inexperienced. \u201cBut there are so many puzzling things, too. Sometimes I feel as if being grown-up just frightened me\u2014and then I would give anything to be a little girl again.\u201d \u201cI suppose we\u2019ll get used to being grownup in time,\u201d said Anne cheerfully. \u201cThere won\u2019t be so many unexpected things about it by and by\u2014though, after all, I fancy it\u2019s the unexpected things that give spice to life. We\u2019re eighteen, Diana. In two more years we\u2019ll be twenty. When I was ten I thought twenty was a green old age. In no time you\u2019ll be a staid, middle-aged matron, and I shall be nice, old maid Aunt Anne, coming to visit you on vacations. You\u2019ll always keep a corner for me, won\u2019t you, Di darling? Not the spare room, of course\u2014old maids can\u2019t aspire to spare rooms, and I shall be as \u2019umble as _Uriah Heep_, and quite content with a little over-the-porch or off-the-parlor cubby hole.\u201d \u201cWhat nonsense you do talk, Anne,\u201d laughed Diana. \u201cYou\u2019ll marry somebody splendid and handsome and rich\u2014and no spare room in Avonlea will be half gorgeous enough for you\u2014and you\u2019ll turn up your nose at all the friends of your youth.\u201d \u201cThat would be a pity; my nose is quite nice, but I fear turning it up would spoil it,\u201d said Anne, patting that shapely organ. \u201cI haven\u2019t so many good features that I could afford to spoil those I have; so, even if I should marry the King of the Cannibal Islands, I promise you I won\u2019t turn up my nose at you, Diana.\u201d With another gay laugh the girls separated, Diana to return to Orchard Slope, Anne to walk to the Post Office. She found a letter awaiting her there, and when Gilbert Blythe overtook her on the bridge over the Lake of Shining Waters she was sparkling with the excitement of it. \u201cPriscilla Grant is going to Redmond, too,\u201d she exclaimed. \u201cIsn\u2019t that splendid? I hoped she would, but she didn\u2019t think her father would consent. He has, however, and we\u2019re to board together. I feel that I can face an army with banners\u2014or all the professors of Redmond in one fell phalanx\u2014with a chum like Priscilla by my side.\u201d \u201cI think we\u2019ll like Kingsport,\u201d said Gilbert. \u201cIt\u2019s a nice old burg, they tell me, and has the finest natural park in the world. I\u2019ve heard that the scenery in it is magnificent. \u201cI wonder if it will be\u2014can be\u2014any more beautiful than this,\u201d murmured Anne, looking around her with the loving, enraptured eyes of those to whom \u201chome\u201d must always be the loveliest spot in the world, no matter what fairer lands may lie under alien stars. They were leaning on the bridge of the old pond, drinking deep of the enchantment of the dusk, just at the spot where Anne had climbed from her sinking Dory on the day Elaine floated down to Camelot. The fine, empurpling dye of sunset still stained the western skies, but the moon was rising and the water lay like a great, silver dream in her light. Remembrance wove a sweet and subtle spell over the two young creatures. \u201cYou are very quiet, Anne,\u201d said Gilbert at last. \u201cI\u2019m afraid to speak or move for fear all this wonderful beauty will vanish just like a broken silence,\u201d breathed Anne. Gilbert suddenly laid his hand over the slender white one lying on the rail of the bridge. His hazel eyes deepened into darkness, his still boyish lips opened to say something of the dream and hope that thrilled his soul. But Anne snatched her hand away and turned quickly. The spell of the dusk was broken for her. \u201cI must go home,\u201d she exclaimed, with a rather overdone carelessness. \u201cMarilla had a headache this afternoon, and I\u2019m sure the twins will be in some dreadful mischief by this time. I really shouldn\u2019t have stayed away so long.\u201d She chattered ceaselessly and inconsequently until they reached the Green Gables lane. Poor Gilbert hardly had a chance to get a word in edgewise. Anne felt rather relieved when they parted. There had been a new, secret self-consciousness in her heart with regard to Gilbert, ever since that fleeting moment of revelation in the garden of Echo Lodge. Something alien had intruded into the old, perfect, school-day comradeship\u2014something that threatened to mar it. \u201cI never felt glad to see Gilbert go before,\u201d she thought, half-resentfully, half-sorrowfully, as she walked alone up the lane. \u201cOur friendship will be spoiled if he goes on with this nonsense. It mustn\u2019t be spoiled\u2014I won\u2019t let it. Oh, _why_ can\u2019t boys be just sensible!\u201d Anne had an uneasy doubt that it was not strictly \u201csensible\u201d that she should still feel on her hand the warm pressure of Gilbert\u2019s, as distinctly as she had felt it for the swift second his had rested there; and still less sensible that the sensation was far from being an unpleasant one\u2014very different from that which had attended a similar demonstration on Charlie Sloane\u2019s part, when she had been sitting out a dance with him at a White Sands party three nights before. Anne shivered over the disagreeable recollection. But all problems connected with infatuated swains vanished from her mind when she entered the homely, unsentimental atmosphere of the Green Gables kitchen where an eight-year-old boy was crying grievously on the sofa. \u201cWhat is the matter, Davy?\u201d asked Anne, taking him up in her arms. \u201cWhere are Marilla and Dora?\u201d \u201cMarilla\u2019s putting Dora to bed,\u201d sobbed Davy, \u201cand I\u2019m crying &#8217;cause Dora fell down the outside cellar steps, heels over head, and scraped all the skin off her nose, and\u2014\u201d \u201cOh, well, don\u2019t cry about it, dear. Of course, you are sorry for her, but crying won\u2019t help her any. She\u2019ll be all right tomorrow. Crying never helps any one, Davy-boy, and\u2014\u201d \u201cI ain\u2019t crying &#8217;cause Dora fell down cellar,\u201d said Davy, cutting short Anne\u2019s wellmeant preachment with increasing bitterness. \u201cI\u2019m crying, cause I wasn\u2019t there to see her fall. I\u2019m always missing some fun or other, seems to me.\u201d \u201cOh, Davy!\u201d Anne choked back an unholy shriek of laughter. \u201cWould you call it fun to see poor little Dora fall down the steps and get hurt?\u201d \u201cShe wasn\u2019t _much_ hurt,\u201d said Davy, defiantly. \u201c\u2019Course, if she\u2019d been killed I\u2019d have been real sorry, Anne. But the Keiths ain\u2019t so easy killed. They\u2019re like the Blewetts, I guess. Herb Blewett fell off the hayloft last Wednesday, and rolled right down through the turnip chute into the box stall, where they had a fearful wild, cross horse, and rolled right under his heels. And still he got out alive, with only three bones broke. Mrs. Lynde says there are some folks you can\u2019t kill with a meat-axe. Is Mrs. Lynde coming here tomorrow, Anne?\u201d \u201cYes, Davy, and I hope you\u2019ll be always very nice and good to her.\u201d \u201cI\u2019ll be nice and good. But will she ever put me to bed at nights, Anne?\u201d \u201cPerhaps. Why?\u201d \u201c\u2019Cause,\u201d said Davy very decidedly, \u201cif she does I won\u2019t say my prayers before her like I do before you, Anne.\u201d \u201cWhy not?\u201d \u201c\u2019Cause I don\u2019t think it would be nice to talk to God before strangers, Anne. Dora can say hers to Mrs. Lynde if she likes, but _I_ won\u2019t. I\u2019ll wait till she\u2019s gone and then say &#8217;em. Won\u2019t that be all right, Anne?\u201d \u201cYes, if you are sure you won\u2019t forget to say them, Davy-boy.\u201d \u201cOh, I won\u2019t forget, you bet. I think saying my prayers is great fun. But it won\u2019t be as good fun saying them alone as saying them to you. I wish you\u2019d stay home, Anne. I don\u2019t see what you want to go away and leave us for.\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t exactly _want_ to, Davy, but I feel I ought to go.\u201d \u201cIf you don\u2019t want to go you needn\u2019t. You\u2019re grown up. When _I_\u2019m grown up I\u2019m not going to do one single thing I don\u2019t want to do, Anne.\u201d \u201cAll your life, Davy, you\u2019ll find yourself doing things you don\u2019t want to do.\u201d \u201cI won\u2019t,\u201d said Davy flatly. \u201cCatch me! I have to do things I don\u2019t want to now &#8217;cause you and Marilla\u2019ll send me to bed if I don\u2019t. But when I grow up you can\u2019t do that, and there\u2019ll be nobody to tell me not to do things. Won\u2019t I have the time! Say, Anne, Milty Boulter says his mother says you\u2019re going to college to see if you can catch a man. Are you, Anne? I want to know.\u201d For a second Anne burned with resentment. Then she laughed, reminding herself that Mrs. Boulter\u2019s crude vulgarity of thought and speech could not harm her. \u201cNo, Davy, I\u2019m not. I\u2019m going to study and grow and learn about many things.\u201d \u201cWhat things?\u201d \u201c\u2018Shoes and ships and sealing wax And cabbages and kings,\u2019\u201d quoted Anne. \u201cBut if you _did_ want to catch a man how would you go about it? I want to know,\u201d persisted Davy, for whom the subject evidently possessed a certain fascination. \u201cYou\u2019d better ask Mrs. Boulter,\u201d said Anne thoughtlessly. \u201cI think it\u2019s likely she knows more about the process than I do.\u201d \u201cI will, the next time I see her,\u201d said Davy gravely. \u201cDavy! If you do!\u201d cried Anne, realizing her mistake. \u201cBut you just told me to,\u201d protested Davy aggrieved. \u201cIt\u2019s time you went to bed,\u201d decreed Anne, by way of getting out of the scrape. After Davy had gone to bed Anne wandered down to Victoria Island and sat there alone, curtained with fine-spun, moonlit gloom, while the water laughed around her in a duet of brook and wind. Anne had always loved that brook. Many a dream had she spun over its sparkling water in days gone by. She forgot lovelorn youths, and the cayenne speeches of malicious neighbors, and all the problems of her girlish existence. In imagination she sailed over storied seas that wash the distant shining shores of \u201cfaery lands forlorn,\u201d where lost Atlantis and Elysium lie, with the evening star for pilot, to the land of Heart\u2019s Desire. And she was richer in those dreams than in realities; for things seen pass away, but the things that are unseen are eternal. Chapter 2. Garlands of Autumn. The following week sped swiftly, crowded with innumerable \u201clast things,\u201d as Anne called them. Good-bye calls had to be made and received, being pleasant or otherwise, according to whether callers and called-upon were heartily in sympathy with Anne\u2019s hopes, or thought she was too much puffed-up over going to college and that it was their duty to \u201ctake her down a peg or two.\u201d The A.V.I.S. gave a farewell party in honor of Anne and Gilbert one evening at the home of Josie Pye, choosing that place, partly because Mr. Pye\u2019s house was large and convenient, partly because it was strongly suspected that the Pye girls would have nothing to do with the affair if their offer of the house for the party was not accepted. It was a very pleasant little time, for the Pye girls were gracious, and said and did nothing to mar the harmony of the occasion\u2014which was not according to their wont. Josie was unusually amiable\u2014so much so that she even remarked condescendingly to Anne, \u201cYour new dress is rather becoming to you, Anne. Really, you look _almost pretty_ in it.\u201d \u201cHow kind of you to say so,\u201d responded Anne, with dancing eyes. Her sense of humor was developing, and the speeches that would have hurt her at fourteen were becoming merely food for amusement now. Josie suspected that Anne was laughing at her behind those wicked eyes; but she contented herself with whispering to Gertie, as they went downstairs, that Anne Shirley would put on more airs than ever now that she was going to college\u2014you\u2019d see! All the \u201cold crowd\u201d was there, full of mirth and zest and youthful lightheartedness. Diana Barry, rosy and dimpled, shadowed by the faithful Fred; Jane Andrews, neat and sensible and plain; Ruby Gillis, looking her handsomest and brightest in a cream silk blouse, with red geraniums in her golden hair; Gilbert Blythe and Charlie Sloane, both trying to keep as near the elusive Anne as possible; Carrie Sloane, looking pale and melancholy because, so it was reported, her father would not allow Oliver Kimball to come near the place; Moody Spurgeon MacPherson, whose round face and objectionable ears were as round and objectionable as ever; and Billy Andrews, who sat in a corner all the evening, chuckled when any one spoke to him, and watched Anne Shirley with a grin of pleasure on his broad, freckled countenance. Anne had known beforehand of the party, but she had not known that she and Gilbert were, as the founders of the Society, to be presented with a very complimentary \u201caddress\u201d and \u201ctokens of respect\u201d\u2014in her case a volume of Shakespeare\u2019s plays, in Gilbert\u2019s a fountain pen. She was so taken by surprise and pleased by the nice things said in the address, read in Moody Spurgeon\u2019s most solemn and ministerial tones, that the tears quite drowned the sparkle of her big gray eyes. She had worked hard and faithfully for the A.V.I.S., and it warmed the cockles of her heart that the members appreciated her efforts so sincerely. And they were all so nice and friendly and jolly\u2014even the Pye girls had their merits; at that moment Anne loved all the world. She enjoyed the evening tremendously, but the end of it rather spoiled all. Gilbert again made the mistake of saying something sentimental to her as they ate their supper on the moonlit verandah; and Anne, to punish him, was gracious to Charlie Sloane and allowed the latter to walk home with her. She found, however, that revenge hurts nobody quite so much as the one who tries to inflict it. Gilbert walked airily off with Ruby Gillis, and Anne could hear them laughing and talking gaily as they loitered along in the still, crisp autumn air. They were evidently having the best of good times, while she was horribly bored by Charlie Sloane, who talked unbrokenly on, and never, even by accident, said one thing that was worth listening to. Anne gave an occasional absent \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno,\u201d and thought how beautiful Ruby had looked that night, how very goggly Charlie\u2019s eyes were in the moonlight\u2014worse even than by daylight\u2014and that the world, somehow, wasn\u2019t quite such a nice place as she had believed it to be earlier in the evening. \u201cI\u2019m just tired out\u2014that is what is the matter with me,\u201d she said, when she thankfully found herself alone in her own room. And she honestly believed it was. But a certain little gush of joy, as from some secret, unknown spring, bubbled up in her heart the next evening, when she saw Gilbert striding down through the Haunted Wood and crossing the old log bridge with that firm, quick step of his. So Gilbert was not going to spend this last evening with Ruby Gillis after all! \u201cYou look tired, Anne,\u201d he said. \u201cI am tired, and, worse than that, I\u2019m disgruntled. I\u2019m tired because I\u2019ve been packing my trunk and sewing all day. But I\u2019m disgruntled because six women have been here to say good-bye to me, and every one of the six managed to say something that seemed to take the color right out of life and leave it as gray and dismal and cheerless as a November morning.\u201d \u201cSpiteful old cats!\u201d was Gilbert\u2019s elegant comment. \u201cOh, no, they weren\u2019t,\u201d said Anne seriously. \u201cThat is just the trouble. If they had been spiteful cats I wouldn\u2019t have minded them. But they are all nice, kind, motherly souls, who like me and whom I like, and that is why what they said, or hinted, had such undue weight with me. They let me see they thought I was crazy going to Redmond and trying to take a B.A., and ever since I\u2019ve been wondering if I am. Mrs. Peter Sloane sighed and said she hoped my strength would hold out till I got through; and at once I saw myself a hopeless victim of nervous prostration at the end of my third year; Mrs. Eben Wright said it must cost an awful lot to put in four years at Redmond; and I felt all over me that it was unpardonable of me to squander Marilla\u2019s money and my own on such a folly. Mrs. Jasper Bell said she hoped I wouldn\u2019t let college spoil me, as it did some people; and I felt in my bones that the end of my four Redmond years would see me a most insufferable creature, thinking I knew it all, and looking down on everything and everybody in Avonlea; Mrs. Elisha Wright said she understood that Redmond girls, especially those who belonged to Kingsport, were \u2018dreadful dressy and stuck-up,\u2019 and she guessed I wouldn\u2019t feel much at home among them; and I saw myself, a snubbed, dowdy, humiliated country girl, shuffling through Redmond\u2019s classic halls in coppertoned boots.\u201d Anne ended with a laugh and a sigh commingled. With her sensitive nature all disapproval had weight, even the disapproval of those for whose opinions she had scant respect. For the time being life was savorless, and ambition had gone out like a snuffed candle. \u201cYou surely don\u2019t care for what they said,\u201d protested Gilbert. \u201cYou know exactly how narrow their outlook on life is, excellent creatures though they are. To do anything _they_ have never done is anathema maranatha. You are the first Avonlea girl who has ever gone to college; and you know that all pioneers are considered to be afflicted with moonstruck madness.\u201d \u201cOh, I know. But _feeling_ is so different from _knowing_. My common sense tells me all you can say, but there are times when common sense has no power over me. Common nonsense takes possession of my soul. Really, after Mrs. Elisha went away I hardly had the heart to finish packing. \u201cYou\u2019re just tired, Anne. Come, forget it all and take a walk with me\u2014a ramble back through the woods beyond the marsh. There should be something there I want to show you.\u201d \u201cShould be! Don\u2019t you know if it is there?\u201d \u201cNo. I only know it should be, from something I saw there in spring. Come on. We\u2019ll pretend we are two children again and we\u2019ll go the way of the wind.\u201d They started gaily off. Anne, remembering the unpleasantness of the preceding evening, was very nice to Gilbert; and Gilbert, who was learning wisdom, took care to be nothing save the schoolboy comrade again. Mrs. Lynde and Marilla watched them from the kitchen window. \u201cThat\u2019ll be a match some day,\u201d Mrs. Lynde said approvingly. Marilla winced slightly. In her heart she hoped it would, but it went against her grain to hear the matter spoken of in Mrs. Lynde\u2019s gossipy matter-of-fact way. \u201cThey\u2019re only children yet,\u201d she said shortly. Mrs. Lynde laughed good-naturedly. \u201cAnne is eighteen; I was married when I was that age. We old folks, Marilla, are too much given to thinking children never grow up, that\u2019s what. Anne is a young woman and Gilbert\u2019s a man, and he worships the ground she walks on, as any one can see. He\u2019s a fine fellow, and Anne can\u2019t do better. I hope she won\u2019t get any romantic nonsense into her head at Redmond. I don\u2019t approve of them coeducational places and never did, that\u2019s what. I don\u2019t believe,\u201d concluded Mrs. Lynde solemnly, \u201cthat the students at such colleges ever do much else than flirt.\u201d \u201cThey must study a little,\u201d said Marilla, with a smile. \u201cPrecious little,\u201d sniffed Mrs. Rachel. \u201cHowever, I think Anne will. She never was flirtatious. But she doesn\u2019t appreciate Gilbert at his full value, that\u2019s what. Oh, I know girls! Charlie Sloane is wild about her, too, but I\u2019d never advise her to marry a Sloane. The Sloanes are good, honest, respectable people, of course. But when all\u2019s said and done, they\u2019re _Sloanes_.\u201d Marilla nodded. To an outsider, the statement that Sloanes were Sloanes might not be very illuminating, but she understood. Every village has such a family; good, honest, respectable people they may be, but _Sloanes_ they are and must ever remain, though they speak with the tongues of men and angels. Gilbert and Anne, happily unconscious that their future was thus being settled by Mrs. Rachel, were sauntering through the shadows of the Haunted Wood. Beyond, the harvest hills were basking in an amber sunset radiance, under a pale, aerial sky of rose and blue. The distant spruce groves were burnished bronze, and their long shadows barred the upland meadows. But around them a little wind sang among the fir tassels, and in it there was the note of autumn. \u201cThis wood really is haunted now\u2014by old memories,\u201d said Anne, stooping to gather a spray of ferns, bleached to waxen whiteness by frost. \u201cIt seems to me that the little girls Diana and I used to be play here still, and sit by the Dryad\u2019s Bubble in the twilights, trysting with the ghosts. Do you know, I can never go up this path in the dusk without feeling a bit of the old fright and shiver? There was one especially horrifying phantom which we created\u2014the ghost of the murdered child that crept up behind you and laid cold fingers on yours. I confess that, to this day, I cannot help fancying its little, furtive footsteps behind me when I come here after nightfall. I\u2019m not afraid of the White Lady or the headless man or the skeletons, but I wish I had never imagined that baby\u2019s ghost into existence. How angry Marilla and Mrs. Barry were over that affair,\u201d concluded Anne, with reminiscent laughter. The woods around the head of the marsh were full of purple vistas, threaded with gossamers. Past a dour plantation of gnarled spruces and a maple-fringed, sun-warm valley they found the \u201csomething\u201d Gilbert was looking for. \u201cAh, here it is,\u201d he said with satisfaction. \u201cAn apple tree\u2014and away back here!\u201d exclaimed Anne delightedly. \u201cYes, a veritable apple-bearing apple tree, too, here in the very midst of pines and beeches, a mile away from any orchard. I was here one day last spring and found it, all white with blossom. So I resolved I\u2019d come again in the fall and see if it had been apples. See, it\u2019s loaded. They look good, too\u2014tawny as russets but with a dusky red cheek. Most wild seedlings are green and uninviting.\u201d \u201cI suppose it sprang years ago from some chance-sown seed,\u201d said Anne dreamily. \u201cAnd how it has grown and flourished and held its own here all alone among aliens, the brave determined thing!\u201d \u201cHere\u2019s a fallen tree with a cushion of moss. Sit down, Anne\u2014it will serve for a woodland throne. I\u2019ll climb for some apples. They all grow high\u2014the tree had to reach up to the sunlight.\u201d The apples proved to be delicious. Under the tawny skin was a white, white flesh, faintly veined with red; and, besides their own proper apple taste, they had a certain wild, delightful tang no orchard-grown apple ever possessed. \u201cThe fatal apple of Eden couldn\u2019t have had a rarer flavor,\u201d commented Anne. \u201cBut it\u2019s time we were going home. See, it was twilight three minutes ago and now it\u2019s moonlight. What a pity we couldn\u2019t have caught the moment of transformation. But such moments never are caught, I suppose.\u201d \u201cLet\u2019s go back around the marsh and home by way of Lover\u2019s Lane. Do you feel as disgruntled now as when you started out, Anne?\u201d \u201cNot I. Those apples have been as manna to a hungry soul. I feel that I shall love Redmond and have a splendid four years there.\u201d \u201cAnd after those four years\u2014what?\u201d \u201cOh, there\u2019s another bend in the road at their end,\u201d answered Anne lightly. \u201cI\u2019ve no idea what may be around it\u2014I don\u2019t want to have. It\u2019s nicer not to know.\u201d Lover\u2019s Lane was a dear place that night, still and mysteriously dim in the pale radiance of the moonlight. They loitered through it in a pleasant chummy silence, neither caring to talk. \u201cIf Gilbert were always as he has been this evening how nice and simple everything would be,\u201d reflected Anne. Gilbert was looking at Anne, as she walked along. In her light dress, with her slender delicacy, she made him think of a white iris. \u201cI wonder if I can ever make her care for me,\u201d he thought, with a pang of self-distrust. Chapter 3. Greeting and Farewell. Charlie Sloane, Gilbert Blythe and Anne Shirley left Avonlea the following Monday morning. Anne had hoped for a fine day. Diana was to drive her to the station and they wanted this, their last drive together for some time, to be a pleasant one. But when Anne went to bed Sunday night the east wind was moaning around Green Gables with an ominous prophecy which was fulfilled in the morning. Anne awoke to find raindrops pattering against her window and shadowing the pond\u2019s gray surface with widening rings; hills and sea were hidden in mist, and the whole world seemed dim and dreary. Anne dressed in the cheerless gray dawn, for an early start was necessary to catch the boat train; she struggled against the tears that _would_ well up in her eyes in spite of herself. She was leaving the home that was so dear to her, and something told her that she was leaving it forever, save as a holiday refuge. Things would never be the same again; coming back for vacations would not be living there. And oh, how dear and beloved everything was\u2014that little white porch room, sacred to the dreams of girlhood, the old Snow Queen at the window, the brook in the hollow, the Dryad\u2019s Bubble, the Haunted Woods, and Lover\u2019s Lane\u2014all the thousand and one dear spots where memories of the old years bided. Could she ever be really happy anywhere else? Breakfast at Green Gables that morning was a rather doleful meal. Davy, for the first time in his life probably, could not eat, but blubbered shamelessly over his porridge. Nobody else seemed to have much appetite, save Dora, who tucked away her rations comfortably. Dora, like the immortal and most prudent Charlotte, who \u201cwent on cutting bread and butter\u201d when her frenzied lover\u2019s body had been carried past on a shutter, was one of those fortunate creatures who are seldom disturbed by anything. Even at eight it took a great deal to ruffle Dora\u2019s placidity. She was sorry Anne was going away, of course, but was that any reason why she should fail to appreciate a poached egg on toast? Not at all. And, seeing that Davy could not eat his, Dora ate it for him. Promptly on time Diana appeared with horse and buggy, her rosy face glowing above her raincoat. The good-byes had to be said then somehow. Mrs. Lynde came in from her quarters to give Anne a hearty embrace and warn her to be careful of her health, whatever she did. Marilla, brusque and tearless, pecked Anne\u2019s cheek and said she supposed they\u2019d hear from her when she got settled. A casual observer might have concluded that Anne\u2019s going mattered very little to her\u2014unless said observer had happened to get a good look in her eyes. Dora kissed Anne primly and squeezed out two decorous little tears; but Davy, who had been crying on the back porch step ever since they rose from the table, refused to say good-bye at all. When he saw Anne coming towards him he sprang to his feet, bolted up the back stairs, and hid in a clothes closet, out of which he would not come. His muffled howls were the last sounds Anne heard as she left Green Gables. It rained heavily all the way to Bright River, to which station they had to go, since the branch line train from Carmody did not connect with the boat train. Charlie and Gilbert were on the station platform when they reached it, and the train was whistling. Anne had just time to get her ticket and trunk check, say a hurried farewell to Diana, and hasten on board. She wished she were going back with Diana to Avonlea; she knew she was going to die of homesickness. And oh, if only that dismal rain would stop pouring down as if the whole world were weeping over summer vanished and joys departed! Even Gilbert\u2019s presence brought her no comfort, for Charlie Sloane was there, too, and Sloanishness could be tolerated only in fine weather. It was absolutely insufferable in rain. But when the boat steamed out of Charlottetown harbor things took a turn for the better. The rain ceased and the sun began to burst out goldenly now and again between the rents in the clouds, burnishing the gray seas with copper-hued radiance, and lighting up the mists that curtained the Island\u2019s red shores with gleams of gold foretokening a fine day after all. Besides, Charlie Sloane promptly became so seasick that he had to go below, and Anne and Gilbert were left alone on deck. \u201cI am very glad that all the Sloanes get seasick as soon as they go on water,\u201d thought Anne mercilessly. \u201cI am sure I couldn\u2019t take my farewell look at the \u2018ould sod\u2019 with Charlie standing there pretending to look sentimentally at it, too.\u201d \u201cWell, we\u2019re off,\u201d remarked Gilbert unsentimentally. \u201cYes, I feel like Byron\u2019s \u2018Childe Harold\u2019\u2014only it isn\u2019t really my \u2018native shore\u2019 that I\u2019m watching,\u201d said Anne, winking her gray eyes vigorously. \u201cNova Scotia is that, I suppose. But one\u2019s native shore is the land one loves the best, and that\u2019s good old P.E.I. for me. I can\u2019t believe I didn\u2019t always live here. Those eleven years before I came seem like a bad dream. It\u2019s seven years since I crossed on this boat\u2014the evening Mrs. Spencer brought me over from Hopetown. I can see myself, in that dreadful old wincey dress and faded sailor hat, exploring decks and cabins with enraptured curiosity. It was a fine evening; and how those red Island shores did gleam in the sunshine. Now I\u2019m crossing the strait again. Oh, Gilbert, I do hope I\u2019ll like Redmond and Kingsport, but I\u2019m sure I won\u2019t!\u201d \u201cWhere\u2019s all your philosophy gone, Anne?\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s all submerged under a great, swamping wave of loneliness and homesickness. I\u2019ve longed for three years to go to Redmond\u2014and now I\u2019m going\u2014and I wish I weren\u2019t! Never mind! I shall be cheerful and philosophical again after I have just one good cry. I _must_ have that, \u2018as a went\u2019\u2014and I\u2019ll have to wait until I get into my boardinghouse bed tonight, wherever it may be, before I can have it. Then Anne will be herself again. I wonder if Davy has come out of the closet yet.\u201d It was nine that night when their train reached Kingsport, and they found themselves in the blue-white glare of the crowded station. Anne felt horribly bewildered, but a moment later she was seized by Priscilla Grant, who had come to Kingsport on Saturday. \u201cHere you are, beloved! And I suppose you\u2019re as tired as I was when I got here Saturday night.\u201d \u201cTired! Priscilla, don\u2019t talk of it. I\u2019m tired, and green, and provincial, and only about ten years old. For pity\u2019s sake take your poor, broken-down chum to some place where she can hear herself think. \u201cI\u2019ll take you right up to our boardinghouse. I\u2019ve a cab ready outside.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s such a blessing you\u2019re here, Prissy. If you weren\u2019t I think I should just sit down on my suitcase, here and now, and weep bitter tears. What a comfort one familiar face is in a howling wilderness of strangers!\u201d \u201cIs that Gilbert Blythe over there, Anne? How he has grown up this past year! He was only a schoolboy when I taught in Carmody. And of course that\u2019s Charlie Sloane. _He_ hasn\u2019t changed\u2014couldn\u2019t! He looked just like that when he was born, and he\u2019ll look like that when he\u2019s eighty. This way, dear. We\u2019ll be home in twenty minutes.\u201d \u201cHome!\u201d groaned Anne. \u201cYou mean we\u2019ll be in some horrible boardinghouse, in a still more horrible hall bedroom, looking out on a dingy back yard.\u201d \u201cIt isn\u2019t a horrible boardinghouse, Anne-girl. Here\u2019s our cab. Hop in\u2014the driver will get your trunk. Oh, yes, the boardinghouse\u2014it\u2019s really a very nice place of its kind, as you\u2019ll admit tomorrow morning when a good night\u2019s sleep has turned your blues rosy pink. It\u2019s a big, old-fashioned, gray stone house on St. John Street, just a nice little constitutional from Redmond. It used to be the \u2018residence\u2019 of great folk, but fashion has deserted St. John Street and its houses only dream now of better days. They\u2019re so big that people living in them have to take boarders just to fill up. At least, that is the reason our landladies are very anxious to impress on us. They\u2019re delicious, Anne\u2014our landladies, I mean.\u201d \u201cHow many are there?\u201d \u201cTwo. Miss Hannah Harvey and Miss Ada Harvey. They were born twins about fifty years ago.\u201d \u201cI can\u2019t get away from twins, it seems,\u201d smiled Anne. \u201cWherever I go they confront me.\u201d \u201cOh, they\u2019re not twins now, dear. After they reached the age of thirty they never were twins again. Miss Hannah has grown old, not too gracefully, and Miss Ada has stayed thirty, less gracefully still. I don\u2019t know whether Miss Hannah can smile or not; I\u2019ve never caught her at it so far, but Miss Ada smiles all the time and that\u2019s worse. However, they\u2019re nice, kind souls, and they take two boarders every year because Miss Hannah\u2019s economical soul cannot bear to \u2018waste room space\u2019\u2014not because they need to or have to, as Miss Ada has told me seven times since Saturday night. As for our rooms, I admit they are hall bedrooms, and mine does look out on the back yard. Your room is a front one and looks out on Old St. John\u2019s graveyard, which is just across the street.\u201d \u201cThat sounds gruesome,\u201d shivered Anne. \u201cI think I\u2019d rather have the back yard view.\u201d \u201cOh, no, you wouldn\u2019t. Wait and see. Old St. John\u2019s is a darling place. It\u2019s been a graveyard so long that it\u2019s ceased to be one and has become one of the sights of Kingsport. I was all through it yesterday for a pleasure exertion. There\u2019s a big stone wall and a row of enormous trees all around it, and rows of trees all through it, and the queerest old tombstones, with the queerest and quaintest inscriptions. You\u2019ll go there to study, Anne, see if you don\u2019t. Of course, nobody is ever buried there now. But a few years ago they put up a beautiful monument to the memory of Nova Scotian soldiers who fell in the Crimean War. It is just opposite the entrance gates and there\u2019s \u2018scope for imagination\u2019 in it, as you used to say. Here\u2019s your trunk at last\u2014and the boys coming to say good night. Must I really shake hands with Charlie Sloane, Anne? His hands are always so cold and fishy-feeling. We must ask them to call occasionally. Miss Hannah gravely told me we could have \u2018young gentlemen callers\u2019 two evenings in the week, if they went away at a reasonable hour; and Miss Ada asked me, smiling, please to be sure they didn\u2019t sit on her beautiful cushions. I promised to see to it; but goodness knows where else they _can_ sit, unless they sit on the floor, for there are cushions on _everything_. Miss Ada even has an elaborate Battenburg one on top of the piano.\u201d Anne was laughing by this time. Priscilla\u2019s gay chatter had the intended effect of cheering her up; homesickness vanished for the time being, and did not even return in full force when she finally found herself alone in her little bedroom. She went to her window and looked out. The street below was dim and quiet. Across it the moon was shining above the trees in Old St. John\u2019s, just behind the great dark head of the lion on the monument. Anne wondered if it could have been only that morning that she had left Green Gables. She had the sense of a long passage of time which one day of change and travel gives. \u201cI suppose that very moon is looking down on Green Gables now,\u201d she mused. \u201cBut I won\u2019t think about it\u2014that way homesickness lies. I\u2019m not even going to have my good cry. I\u2019ll put that off to a more convenient season, and just now I\u2019ll go calmly and sensibly to bed and to sleep.\u201d Chapter 4. April\u2019s Lady. Kingsport is a quaint old town, hearking back to early Colonial days, and wrapped in its ancient atmosphere, as some fine old dame in garments fashioned like those of her youth. Here and there it sprouts out into modernity, but at heart it is still unspoiled; it is full of curious relics, and haloed by the romance of many legends of the past. Once it was a mere frontier station on the fringe of the wilderness, and those were the days when Indians kept life from being monotonous to the settlers. Then it grew to be a bone of contention between the British and the French, being occupied now by the one and now by the other, emerging from each occupation with some fresh scar of battling nations branded on it. It has in its park a martello tower, autographed all over by tourists, a dismantled old French fort on the hills beyond the town, and several antiquated cannon in its public squares. It has other historic spots also, which may be hunted out by the curious, and none is more quaint and delightful than Old St. John\u2019s Cemetery at the very core of the town, with streets of quiet, old-time houses on two sides, and busy, bustling, modern thoroughfares on the others. Every citizen of Kingsport feels a thrill of possessive pride in Old St. John\u2019s, for, if he be of any pretensions at all, he has an ancestor buried there, with a queer, crooked slab at his head, or else sprawling protectively over the grave, on which all the main facts of his history are recorded. For the most part no great art or skill was lavished on those old tombstones. The larger number are of roughly chiselled brown or gray native stone, and only in a few cases is there any attempt at ornamentation. Some are adorned with skull and cross-bones, and this grizzly decoration is frequently coupled with a cherub\u2019s head. Many are prostrate and in ruins. Into almost all Time\u2019s tooth has been gnawing, until some inscriptions have been completely effaced, and others can only be deciphered with difficulty. The graveyard is very full and very bowery, for it is surrounded and intersected by rows of elms and willows, beneath whose shade the sleepers must lie very dreamlessly, forever crooned to by the winds and leaves over them, and quite undisturbed by the clamor of traffic just beyond. Anne took the first of many rambles in Old St. John\u2019s the next afternoon. She and Priscilla had gone to Redmond in the forenoon and registered as students, after which there was nothing more to do that day. The girls gladly made their escape, for it was not exhilarating to be surrounded by crowds of strangers, most of whom had a rather alien appearance, as if not quite sure where they belonged. The \u201cfreshettes\u201d stood about in detached groups of two or three, looking askance at each other; the \u201cfreshies,\u201d wiser in their day and generation, had banded themselves together on the big staircase of the entrance hall, where they were shouting out glees with all the vigor of youthful lungs, as a species of defiance to their traditional enemies, the Sophomores, a few of whom were prowling loftily about, looking properly disdainful of the \u201cunlicked cubs\u201d on the stairs. Gilbert and Charlie were nowhere to be seen. \u201cLittle did I think the day would ever come when I\u2019d be glad of the sight of a Sloane,\u201d said Priscilla, as they crossed the campus, \u201cbut I\u2019d welcome Charlie\u2019s goggle eyes almost ecstatically. At least, they\u2019d be familiar eyes.\u201d \u201cOh,\u201d sighed Anne. \u201cI can\u2019t describe how I felt when I was standing there, waiting my turn to be registered\u2014as insignificant as the teeniest drop in a most enormous bucket. It\u2019s bad enough to feel insignificant, but it\u2019s unbearable to have it grained into your soul that you will never, can never, be anything but insignificant, and that is how I did feel\u2014as if I were invisible to the naked eye and some of those Sophs might step on me. I knew I would go down to my grave unwept, unhonored and unsung.\u201d \u201cWait till next year,\u201d comforted Priscilla. \u201cThen we\u2019ll be able to look as bored and sophisticated as any Sophomore of them all. No doubt it is rather dreadful to feel insignificant; but I think it\u2019s better than to feel as big and awkward as I did\u2014as if I were sprawled all over Redmond. That\u2019s how I felt\u2014I suppose because I was a good two inches taller than any one else in the crowd. I wasn\u2019t afraid a Soph might walk over me; I was afraid they\u2019d take me for an elephant, or an overgrown sample of a potato-fed Islander.\u201d \u201cI suppose the trouble is we can\u2019t forgive big Redmond for not being little Queen\u2019s,\u201d said Anne, gathering about her the shreds of her old cheerful philosophy to cover her nakedness of spirit. \u201cWhen we left Queen\u2019s we knew everybody and had a place of our own. I suppose we have been unconsciously expecting to take life up at Redmond just where we left off at Queen\u2019s, and now we feel as if the ground had slipped from under our feet. I\u2019m thankful that neither Mrs. Lynde nor Mrs. Elisha Wright know, or ever will know, my state of mind at present. They would exult in saying \u2018I told you so,\u2019 and be convinced it was the beginning of the end. Whereas it is just the end of the beginning.\u201d \u201cExactly. That sounds more Anneish. In a little while we\u2019ll be acclimated and acquainted, and all will be well. Anne, did you notice the girl who stood alone just outside the door of the coeds\u2019 dressing room all the morning\u2014the pretty one with the brown eyes and crooked mouth?\u201d \u201cYes, I did. I noticed her particularly because she seemed the only creature there who _looked_ as lonely and friendless as I _felt_. I had _you_, but she had no one.\u201d \u201cI think she felt pretty all-by-herselfish, too. Several times I saw her make a motion as if to cross over to us, but she never did it\u2014too shy, I suppose. I wished she would come. If I hadn\u2019t felt so much like the aforesaid elephant I\u2019d have gone to her. But I couldn\u2019t lumber across that big hall with all those boys howling on the stairs. She was the prettiest freshette I saw today, but probably favor is deceitful and even beauty is vain on your first day at Redmond,\u201d concluded Priscilla with a laugh. \u201cI\u2019m going across to Old St. John\u2019s after lunch,\u201d said Anne. \u201cI don\u2019t know that a graveyard is a very good place to go to get cheered up, but it seems the only get-at-able place where there are trees, and trees I must have. I\u2019ll sit on one of those old slabs and shut my eyes and imagine I\u2019m in the Avonlea woods.\u201d Anne did not do that, however, for she found enough of interest in Old St. John\u2019s to keep her eyes wide open. They went in by the entrance gates, past the simple, massive, stone arch surmounted by the great lion of England. \u201c\u2018And on Inkerman yet the wild bramble is gory, And those bleak heights henceforth shall be famous in story,\u2019\u201d quoted Anne, looking at it with a thrill. They found themselves in a dim, cool, green place where winds were fond of purring. Up and down the long grassy aisles they wandered, reading the quaint, voluminous epitaphs, carved in an age that had more leisure than our own. \u201c\u2018Here lieth the body of Albert Crawford, Esq.,\u2019\u201d read Anne from a worn, gray slab, \u201c\u2018for many years Keeper of His Majesty\u2019s Ordnance at Kingsport. He served in the army till the peace of 1763, when he retired from bad health. He was a brave officer, the best of husbands, the best of fathers, the best of friends. He died October 29th, 1792, aged 84 years.\u2019 There\u2019s an epitaph for you, Prissy. There is certainly some \u2018scope for imagination\u2019 in it. How full such a life must have been of adventure! And as for his personal qualities, I\u2019m sure human eulogy couldn\u2019t go further. I wonder if they told him he was all those best things while he was alive.\u201d \u201cHere\u2019s another,\u201d said Priscilla. \u201cListen\u2014 \u2018To the memory of Alexander Ross, who died on the 22nd of September, 1840, aged 43 years. This is raised as a tribute of affection by one whom he served so faithfully for 27 years that he was regarded as a friend, deserving the fullest confidence and attachment.\u2019\u201d \u201cA very good epitaph,\u201d commented Anne thoughtfully. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t wish a better. We are all servants of some sort, and if the fact that we are faithful can be truthfully inscribed on our tombstones nothing more need be added. Here\u2019s a sorrowful little gray stone, Prissy\u2014\u2018to the memory of a favorite child.\u2019 And here is another \u2018erected to the memory of one who is buried elsewhere.\u2019 I wonder where that unknown grave is. Really, Pris, the graveyards of today will never be as interesting as this. You were right\u2014I shall come here often. I love it already. I see we\u2019re not alone here\u2014there\u2019s a girl down at the end of this avenue.\u201d \u201cYes, and I believe it\u2019s the very girl we saw at Redmond this morning. I\u2019ve been watching her for five minutes. She has started to come up the avenue exactly half a dozen times, and half a dozen times has she turned and gone back. Either she\u2019s dreadfully shy or she has got something on her conscience. Let\u2019s go and meet her. It\u2019s easier to get acquainted in a graveyard than at Redmond, I believe.\u201d They walked down the long grassy arcade towards the stranger, who was sitting on a gray slab under an enormous willow. She was certainly very pretty, with a vivid, irregular, bewitching type of prettiness. There was a gloss as of brown nuts on her satin-smooth hair and a soft, ripe glow on her round cheeks. Her eyes were big and brown and velvety, under oddly-pointed black brows, and her crooked mouth was rose-red. She wore a smart brown suit, with two very modish little shoes peeping from beneath it; and her hat of dull pink straw, wreathed with golden-brown poppies, had the indefinable, unmistakable air which pertains to the \u201ccreation\u201d of an artist in millinery. Priscilla had a sudden stinging consciousness that her own hat had been trimmed by her village store milliner, and Anne wondered uncomfortably if the blouse she had made herself, and which Mrs. Lynde had fitted, looked _very_ countrified and home-made besides the stranger\u2019s smart attire. For a moment both girls felt like turning back. But they had already stopped and turned towards the gray slab. It was too late to retreat, for the brown-eyed girl had evidently concluded that they were coming to speak to her. Instantly she sprang up and came forward with outstretched hand and a gay, friendly smile in which there seemed not a shadow of either shyness or burdened conscience. \u201cOh, I want to know who you two girls are,\u201d she exclaimed eagerly. \u201cI\u2019ve been _dying_ to know. I saw you at Redmond this morning. Say, wasn\u2019t it _awful_ there? For the time I wished I had stayed home and got married.\u201d Anne and Priscilla both broke into unconstrained laughter at this unexpected conclusion. The brown-eyed girl laughed, too. \u201cI really did. I _could_ have, you know. Come, let\u2019s all sit down on this gravestone and get acquainted. It won\u2019t be hard. I know we\u2019re going to adore each other\u2014I knew it as soon as I saw you at Redmond this morning. I wanted so much to go right over and hug you both.\u201d \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you?\u201d asked Priscilla. \u201cBecause I simply couldn\u2019t make up my mind to do it. I never can make up my mind about anything myself\u2014I\u2019m always afflicted with indecision. Just as soon as I decide to do something I feel in my bones that another course would be the correct one. It\u2019s a dreadful misfortune, but I was born that way, and there is no use in blaming me for it, as some people do. So I couldn\u2019t make up my mind to go and speak to you, much as I wanted to.\u201d \u201cWe thought you were too shy,\u201d said Anne. \u201cNo, no, dear. Shyness isn\u2019t among the many failings\u2014or virtues\u2014of Philippa Gordon\u2014Phil for short. Do call me Phil right off. Now, what are your handles?\u201d \u201cShe\u2019s Priscilla Grant,\u201d said Anne, pointing. \u201cAnd _she\u2019s_ Anne Shirley,\u201d said Priscilla, pointing in turn. \u201cAnd we\u2019re from the Island,\u201d said both together. \u201cI hail from Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia,\u201d said Philippa. \u201cBolingbroke!\u201d exclaimed Anne. \u201cWhy, that is where I was born.\u201d \u201cDo you really mean it? Why, that makes you a Bluenose after all.\u201d \u201cNo, it doesn\u2019t,\u201d retorted Anne. \u201cWasn\u2019t it Dan O\u2019Connell who said that if a man was born in a stable it didn\u2019t make him a horse? I\u2019m Island to the core.\u201d \u201cWell, I\u2019m glad you were born in Bolingbroke anyway. It makes us kind of neighbors, doesn\u2019t it? And I like that, because when I tell you secrets it won\u2019t be as if I were telling them to a stranger. I have to tell them. I can\u2019t keep secrets\u2014it\u2019s no use to try. That\u2019s my worst failing\u2014that, and indecision, as aforesaid. Would you believe it?\u2014it took me half an hour to decide which hat to wear when I was coming here\u2014_here_, to a graveyard! At first I inclined to my brown one with the feather; but as soon as I put it on I thought this pink one with the floppy brim would be more becoming. When I got _it_ pinned in place I liked the brown one better. At last I put them close together on the bed, shut my eyes, and jabbed with a hat pin. The pin speared the pink one, so I put it on. It is becoming, isn\u2019t it? Tell me, what do you think of my looks?\u201d At this naive demand, made in a perfectly serious tone, Priscilla laughed again. But Anne said, impulsively squeezing Philippa\u2019s hand, \u201cWe thought this morning that you were the prettiest girl we saw at Redmond.\u201d Philippa\u2019s crooked mouth flashed into a bewitching, crooked smile over very white little teeth. \u201cI thought that myself,\u201d was her next astounding statement, \u201cbut I wanted some one else\u2019s opinion to bolster mine up. I can\u2019t decide even on my own appearance. Just as soon as I\u2019ve decided that I\u2019m pretty I begin to feel miserably that I\u2019m not. Besides, have a horrible old great-aunt who is always saying to me, with a mournful sigh, \u2018You were such a pretty baby. It\u2019s strange how children change when they grow up.\u2019 I adore aunts, but I detest great-aunts. Please tell me quite often that I am pretty, if you don\u2019t mind. I feel so much more comfortable when I can believe I\u2019m pretty. And I\u2019ll be just as obliging to you if you want me to\u2014I _can_ be, with a clear conscience.\u201d \u201cThanks,\u201d laughed Anne, \u201cbut Priscilla and I are so firmly convinced of our own good looks that we don\u2019t need any assurance about them, so you needn\u2019t trouble.\u201d \u201cOh, you\u2019re laughing at me. I know you think I\u2019m abominably vain, but I\u2019m not. There really isn\u2019t one spark of vanity in me. And I\u2019m never a bit grudging about paying compliments to other girls when they deserve them. I\u2019m so glad I know you folks. I came up on Saturday and I\u2019ve nearly died of homesickness ever since. It\u2019s a horrible feeling, isn\u2019t it? In Bolingbroke I\u2019m an important personage, and in Kingsport I\u2019m just nobody! There were times when I could feel my soul turning a delicate blue. Where do you hang out?\u201d \u201cThirty-eight St. John\u2019s Street.\u201d \u201cBetter and better. Why, I\u2019m just around the corner on Wallace Street. I don\u2019t like my boardinghouse, though. It\u2019s bleak and lonesome, and my room looks out on such an unholy back yard. It\u2019s the ugliest place in the world. As for cats\u2014well, surely _all_ the Kingsport cats can\u2019t congregate there at night, but half of them must. I adore cats on hearth rugs, snoozing before nice, friendly fires, but cats in back yards at midnight are totally different animals. The first night I was here I cried all night, and so did the cats. You should have seen my nose in the morning. How I wished I had never left home!\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t know how you managed to make up your mind to come to Redmond at all, if you are really such an undecided person,\u201d said amused Priscilla. \u201cBless your heart, honey, I didn\u2019t. It was father who wanted me to come here. His heart was set on it\u2014why, I don\u2019t know. It seems perfectly ridiculous to think of me studying for a B.A. degree, doesn\u2019t it? Not but what I can do it, all right. I have heaps of brains.\u201d \u201cOh!\u201d said Priscilla vaguely. \u201cYes. But it\u2019s such hard work to use them. And B.A.\u2019s are such learned, dignified, wise, solemn creatures\u2014they must be. No, _I_ didn\u2019t want to come to Redmond. I did it just to oblige father. He _is_ such a duck. Besides, I knew if I stayed home I\u2019d have to get married. Mother wanted that\u2014wanted it decidedly. Mother has plenty of decision. But I really hated the thought of being married for a few years yet. I want to have heaps of fun before I settle down. And, ridiculous as the idea of my being a B.A. is, the idea of my being an old married woman is still more absurd, isn\u2019t it? I\u2019m only eighteen. No, I concluded I would rather come to Redmond than be married. Besides, how could I ever have made up my mind which man to marry?\u201d \u201cWere there so many?\u201d laughed Anne. \u201cHeaps. The boys like me awfully\u2014they really do. But there were only two that mattered. The rest were all too young and too poor. I must marry a rich man, you know.\u201d \u201cWhy must you?\u201d \u201cHoney, you couldn\u2019t imagine _me_ being a poor man\u2019s wife, could you? I can\u2019t do a single useful thing, and I am _very_ extravagant. Oh, no, my husband must have heaps of money. So that narrowed them down to two. But I couldn\u2019t decide between two any easier than between two hundred. I knew perfectly well that whichever one I chose I\u2019d regret all my life that I hadn\u2019t married the other.\u201d \u201cDidn\u2019t you\u2014love\u2014either of them?\u201d asked Anne, a little hesitatingly. It was not easy for her to speak to a stranger of the great mystery and transformation of life. \u201cGoodness, no. _I_ couldn\u2019t love anybody. It isn\u2019t in me. Besides I wouldn\u2019t want to. Being in love makes you a perfect slave, _I_ think. And it would give a man such power to hurt you. I\u2019d be afraid. No, no, Alec and Alonzo are two dear boys, and I like them both so much that I really don\u2019t know which I like the better. That is the trouble. Alec is the best looking, of course, and I simply couldn\u2019t marry a man who wasn\u2019t handsome. He is good-tempered too, and has lovely, curly, black hair. He\u2019s rather too perfect\u2014I don\u2019t believe I\u2019d like a perfect husband\u2014somebody I could never find fault with.\u201d \u201cThen why not marry Alonzo?\u201d asked Priscilla gravely. \u201cThink of marrying a name like Alonzo!\u201d said Phil dolefully. \u201cI don\u2019t believe I could endure it. But he has a classic nose, and it _would_ be a comfort to have a nose in the family that could be depended on. I can\u2019t depend on mine. So far, it takes after the Gordon pattern, but I\u2019m so afraid it will develop Byrne tendencies as I grow older. I examine it every day anxiously to make sure it\u2019s still Gordon. Mother was a Byrne and has the Byrne nose in the Byrnest degree. Wait till you see it. I adore nice noses. Your nose is awfully nice, Anne Shirley. Alonzo\u2019s nose nearly turned the balance in his favor. But _Alonzo!_ No, I couldn\u2019t decide. If I could have done as I did with the hats\u2014stood them both up together, shut my eyes, and jabbed with a hatpin\u2014it would have been quite easy.\u201d \u201cWhat did Alec and Alonzo feel like when you came away?\u201d queried Priscilla. \u201cOh, they still have hope. I told them they\u2019d have to wait till I could make up my mind. They\u2019re quite willing to wait. They both worship me, you know. Meanwhile, I intend to have a good time. I expect I shall have heaps of beaux at Redmond. I can\u2019t be happy unless I have, you know. But don\u2019t you think the freshmen are fearfully homely? I saw only one really handsome fellow among them. He went away before you came. I heard his chum call him Gilbert. His chum had eyes that stuck out _that far_. But you\u2019re not going yet, girls? Don\u2019t go yet.\u201d \u201cI think we must,\u201d said Anne, rather coldly. \u201cIt\u2019s getting late, and I\u2019ve some work to do.\u201d \u201cBut you\u2019ll both come to see me, won\u2019t you?\u201d asked Philippa, getting up and putting an arm around each. \u201cAnd let me come to see you. I want to be chummy with you. I\u2019ve taken such a fancy to you both. And I haven\u2019t quite disgusted you with my frivolity, have I?\u201d \u201cNot quite,\u201d laughed Anne, responding to Phil\u2019s squeeze, with a return of cordiality. \u201cBecause I\u2019m not half so silly as I seem on the surface, you know. You just accept Philippa Gordon, as the Lord made her, with all her faults, and I believe you\u2019ll come to like her. Isn\u2019t this graveyard a sweet place? I\u2019d love to be buried here. Here\u2019s a grave I didn\u2019t see before\u2014this one in the iron railing\u2014oh, girls, look, see\u2014the stone says it\u2019s the grave of a middy who was killed in the fight between the Shannon and the Chesapeake. Just fancy!\u201d Anne paused by the railing and looked at the worn stone, her pulses thrilling with sudden excitement. The old graveyard, with its over-arching trees and long aisles of shadows, faded from her sight. Instead, she saw the Kingsport Harbor of nearly a century agone. Out of the mist came slowly a great frigate, brilliant with \u201cthe meteor flag of England. \u201d Behind her was another, with a still, heroic form, wrapped in his own starry flag, lying on the quarter deck\u2014the gallant Lawrence. Time\u2019s finger had turned back his pages, and that was the Shannon sailing triumphant up the bay with the Chesapeake as her prize. \u201cCome back, Anne Shirley\u2014come back,\u201d laughed Philippa, pulling her arm. \u201cYou\u2019re a hundred years away from us. Come back.\u201d Anne came back with a sigh; her eyes were shining softly. \u201cI\u2019ve always loved that old story,\u201d she said, \u201cand although the English won that victory, I think it was because of the brave, defeated commander I love it. This grave seems to bring it so near and make it so real. This poor little middy was only eighteen. He \u2018died of desperate wounds received in gallant action\u2019\u2014so reads his epitaph. It is such as a soldier might wish for.\u201d Before she turned away, Anne unpinned the little cluster of purple pansies she wore and dropped it softly on the grave of the boy who had perished in the great sea-duel. \u201cWell, what do you think of our new friend?\u201d asked Priscilla, when Phil had left them. \u201cI like her. There is something very lovable about her, in spite of all her nonsense. I believe, as she says herself, that she isn\u2019t half as silly as she sounds. She\u2019s a dear, kissable baby\u2014and I don\u2019t know that she\u2019ll ever really grow up.\u201d \u201cI like her, too,\u201d said Priscilla, decidedly. \u201cShe talks as much about boys as Ruby Gillis does. But it always enrages or sickens me to hear Ruby, whereas I just wanted to laugh good-naturedly at Phil. Now, what is the why of that?\u201d \u201cThere is a difference,\u201d said Anne meditatively. \u201cI think it\u2019s because Ruby is really so _conscious_ of boys. She plays at love and love-making. Besides, you feel, when she is boasting of her beaux that she is doing it to rub it well into you that you haven\u2019t half so many. Now, when Phil talks of her beaux it sounds as if she was just speaking of chums. She really looks upon boys as good comrades, and she is pleased when she has dozens of them tagging round, simply because she likes to be popular and to be thought popular. Even Alex and Alonzo\u2014I\u2019ll never be able to think of those two names separately after this\u2014are to her just two playfellows who want her to play with them all their lives. I\u2019m glad we met her, and I\u2019m glad we went to Old St. John\u2019s. I believe I\u2019ve put forth a tiny soul-root into Kingsport soil this afternoon. I hope so. I hate to feel transplanted.\u201d Chapter 5. Letters from Home. For the next three weeks Anne and Priscilla continued to feel as strangers in a strange land. Then, suddenly, everything seemed to fall into focus\u2014Redmond, professors, classes, students, studies, social doings. Life became homogeneous again, instead of being made up of detached fragments. The Freshmen, instead of being a collection of unrelated individuals, found themselves a class, with a class spirit, a class yell, class interests, class antipathies and class ambitions. They won the day in the annual \u201cArts Rush\u201d against the Sophomores, and thereby gained the respect of all the classes, and an enormous, confidence-giving opinion of themselves. For three years the Sophomores had won in the \u201crush\u201d; that the victory of this year perched upon the Freshmen\u2019s banner was attributed to the strategic generalship of Gilbert Blythe, who marshalled the campaign and originated certain new tactics, which demoralized the Sophs and swept the Freshmen to triumph. As a reward of merit he was elected president of the Freshman Class, a position of honor and responsibility\u2014from a Fresh point of view, at least\u2014coveted by many. He was also invited to join the \u201cLambs\u201d\u2014Redmondese for Lamba Theta\u2014a compliment rarely paid to a Freshman. As a preparatory initiation ordeal he had to parade the principal business streets of Kingsport for a whole day wearing a sunbonnet and a voluminous kitchen apron of gaudily flowered calico. This he did cheerfully, doffing his sunbonnet with courtly grace when he met ladies of his acquaintance. Charlie Sloane, who had not been asked to join the Lambs, told Anne he did not see how Blythe could do it, and _he_, for his part, could never humiliate himself so. \u201cFancy Charlie Sloane in a \u2018caliker\u2019 apron and a \u2018sunbunnit,\u2019\u201d giggled Priscilla. \u201cHe\u2019d look exactly like his old Grandmother Sloane. Gilbert, now, looked as much like a man in them as in his own proper habiliments.\u201d Anne and Priscilla found themselves in the thick of the social life of Redmond. That this came about so speedily was due in great measure to Philippa Gordon. Philippa was the daughter of a rich and well-known man, and belonged to an old and exclusive \u201cBluenose\u201d family. This, combined with her beauty and charm\u2014a charm acknowledged by all who met her\u2014promptly opened the gates of all cliques, clubs and classes in Redmond to her; and where she went Anne and Priscilla went, too. Phil \u201cadored\u201d Anne and Priscilla, especially Anne. She was a loyal little soul, crystal-free from any form of snobbishness. \u201cLove me, love my friends\u201d seemed to be her unconscious motto. Without effort, she took them with her into her ever widening circle of acquaintanceship, and the two Avonlea girls found their social pathway at Redmond made very easy and pleasant for them, to the envy and wonderment of the other freshettes, who, lacking Philippa\u2019s sponsorship, were doomed to remain rather on the fringe of things during their first college year. To Anne and Priscilla, with their more serious views of life, Phil remained the amusing, lovable baby she had seemed on their first meeting. Yet, as she said herself, she had \u201cheaps\u201d of brains. When or where she found time to study was a mystery, for she seemed always in demand for some kind of \u201cfun,\u201d and her home evenings were crowded with callers. She had all the \u201cbeaux\u201d that heart could desire, for nine-tenths of the Freshmen and a big fraction of all the other classes were rivals for her smiles. She was naively delighted over this, and gleefully recounted each new conquest to Anne and Priscilla, with comments that might have made the unlucky lover\u2019s ears burn fiercely. \u201cAlec and Alonzo don\u2019t seem to have any serious rival yet,\u201d remarked Anne, teasingly. \u201cNot one,\u201d agreed Philippa. \u201cI write them both every week and tell them all about my young men here. I\u2019m sure it must amuse them. But, of course, the one I like best I can\u2019t get. Gilbert Blythe won\u2019t take any notice of me, except to look at me as if I were a nice little kitten he\u2019d like to pat. Too well I know the reason. I owe you a grudge, Queen Anne. I really ought to hate you and instead I love you madly, and I\u2019m miserable if I don\u2019t see you every day. You\u2019re different from any girl I ever knew before. When you look at me in a certain way I feel what an insignificant, frivolous little beast I am, and I long to be better and wiser and stronger. And then I make good resolutions; but the first nice-looking mannie who comes my way knocks them all out of my head. Isn\u2019t college life magnificent? It\u2019s so funny to think I hated it that first day. But if I hadn\u2019t I might never got really acquainted with you. Anne, please tell me over again that you like me a little bit. I yearn to hear it.\u201d \u201cI like you a big bit\u2014and I think you\u2019re a dear, sweet, adorable, velvety, clawless, little\u2014kitten,\u201d laughed Anne, \u201cbut I don\u2019t see when you ever get time to learn your lessons.\u201d Phil must have found time for she held her own in every class of her year. Even the grumpy old professor of Mathematics, who detested coeds, and had bitterly opposed their admission to Redmond, couldn\u2019t floor her. She led the freshettes everywhere, except in English, where Anne Shirley left her far behind. Anne herself found the studies of her Freshman year very easy, thanks in great part to the steady work she and Gilbert had put in during those two past years in Avonlea. This left her more time for a social life which she thoroughly enjoyed. But never for a moment did she forget Avonlea and the friends there. To her, the happiest moments in each week were those in which letters came from home. It was not until she had got her first letters that she began to think she could ever like Kingsport or feel at home there. Before they came, Avonlea had seemed thousands of miles away; those letters brought it near and linked the old life to the new so closely that they began to seem one and the same, instead of two hopelessly segregated existences. The first batch contained six letters, from Jane Andrews, Ruby Gillis, Diana Barry, Marilla, Mrs. Lynde and Davy. Jane\u2019s was a copperplate production, with every \u201ct\u201d nicely crossed and every \u201ci\u201d precisely dotted, and not an interesting sentence in it. She never mentioned the school, concerning which Anne was avid to hear; she never answered one of the questions Anne had asked in her letter. But she told Anne how many yards of lace she had recently crocheted, and the kind of weather they were having in Avonlea, and how she intended to have her new dress made, and the way she felt when her head ached. Ruby Gillis wrote a gushing epistle deploring Anne\u2019s absence, assuring her she was horribly missed in everything, asking what the Redmond \u201cfellows\u201d were like, and filling the rest with accounts of her own harrowing experiences with her numerous admirers. It was a silly, harmless letter, and Anne would have laughed over it had it not been for the postscript. \u201cGilbert seems to be enjoying Redmond, judging from his letters,\u201d wrote Ruby. \u201cI don\u2019t think Charlie is so stuck on it.\u201d So Gilbert was writing to Ruby! Very well. He had a perfect right to, of course. Only\u2014!! Anne did not know that Ruby had written the first letter and that Gilbert had answered it from mere courtesy. She tossed Ruby\u2019s letter aside contemptuously. But it took all Diana\u2019s breezy, newsy, delightful epistle to banish the sting of Ruby\u2019s postscript. Diana\u2019s letter contained a little too much Fred, but was otherwise crowded and crossed with items of interest, and Anne almost felt herself back in Avonlea while reading it. Marilla\u2019s was a rather prim and colorless epistle, severely innocent of gossip or emotion. Yet somehow it conveyed to Anne a whiff of the wholesome, simple life at Green Gables, with its savor of ancient peace, and the steadfast abiding love that was there for her. Mrs. Lynde\u2019s letter was full of church news. Having broken up housekeeping, Mrs. Lynde had more time than ever to devote to church affairs and had flung herself into them heart and soul. She was at present much worked up over the poor \u201csupplies\u201d they were having in the vacant Avonlea pulpit. \u201cI don\u2019t believe any but fools enter the ministry nowadays,\u201d she wrote bitterly. \u201cSuch candidates as they have sent us, and such stuff as they preach! Half of it ain\u2019t true, and, what\u2019s worse, it ain\u2019t sound doctrine. The one we have now is the worst of the lot. He mostly takes a text and preaches about something else. And he says he doesn\u2019t believe all the heathen will be eternally lost. The idea! If they won\u2019t all the money we\u2019ve been giving to Foreign Missions will be clean wasted, that\u2019s what! Last Sunday night he announced that next Sunday he\u2019d preach on the axe-head that swam. I think he\u2019d better confine himself to the Bible and leave sensational subjects alone. Things have come to a pretty pass if a minister can\u2019t find enough in Holy Writ to preach about, that\u2019s what. What church do you attend, Anne? I hope you go regularly. People are apt to get so careless about church-going away from home, and I understand college students are great sinners in this respect. I\u2019m told many of them actually study their lessons on Sunday. I hope you\u2019ll never sink that low, Anne. Remember how you were brought up. And be very careful what friends you make. You never know what sort of creatures are in them colleges. Outwardly they may be as whited sepulchers and inwardly as ravening wolves, that\u2019s what. You\u2019d better not have anything to say to any young man who isn\u2019t from the Island. \u201cI forgot to tell you what happened the day the minister called here. It was the funniest thing I ever saw. I said to Marilla, \u2018If Anne had been here wouldn\u2019t she have had a laugh?\u2019 Even Marilla laughed. You know he\u2019s a very short, fat little man with bow legs. Well, that old pig of Mr. Harrison\u2019s\u2014the big, tall one\u2014had wandered over here that day again and broke into the yard, and it got into the back porch, unbeknowns to us, and it was there when the minister appeared in the doorway. It made one wild bolt to get out, but there was nowhere to bolt to except between them bow legs. So there it went, and, being as it was so big and the minister so little, it took him clean off his feet and carried him away. His hat went one way and his cane another, just as Marilla and I got to the door. I\u2019ll never forget the look of him. And that poor pig was near scared to death. I\u2019ll never be able to read that account in the Bible of the swine that rushed madly down the steep place into the sea without seeing Mr. Harrison\u2019s pig careering down the hill with that minister. I guess the pig thought he had the Old Boy on his back instead of inside of him. I was thankful the twins weren\u2019t about. It wouldn\u2019t have been the right thing for them to have seen a minister in such an undignified predicament. Just before they got to the brook the minister jumped off or fell off. The pig rushed through the brook like mad and up through the woods. Marilla and I run down and helped the minister get up and brush his coat. He wasn\u2019t hurt, but he was mad. He seemed to hold Marilla and me responsible for it all, though we told him the pig didn\u2019t belong to us, and had been pestering us all summer. Besides, what did he come to the back door for? You\u2019d never have caught Mr. Allan doing that. It\u2019ll be a long time before we get a man like Mr. Allan. But it\u2019s an ill wind that blows no good. We\u2019ve never seen hoof or hair of that pig since, and it\u2019s my belief we never will. \u201cThings is pretty quiet in Avonlea. I don\u2019t find Green Gables as lonesome as I expected. I think I\u2019ll start another cotton warp quilt this winter. Mrs. Silas Sloane has a handsome new apple-leaf pattern. \u201cWhen I feel that I must have some excitement I read the murder trials in that Boston paper my niece sends me. I never used to do it, but they\u2019re real interesting. The States must be an awful place. I hope you\u2019ll never go there, Anne. But the way girls roam over the earth now is something terrible. It always makes me think of Satan in the Book of Job, going to and fro and walking up and down. I don\u2019t believe the Lord ever intended it, that\u2019s what. \u201cDavy has been pretty good since you went away. One day he was bad and Marilla punished him by making him wear Dora\u2019s apron all day, and then he went and cut all Dora\u2019s aprons up. I spanked him for that and then he went and chased my rooster to death. \u201cThe MacPhersons have moved down to my place. She\u2019s a great housekeeper and very particular. She\u2019s rooted all my June lilies up because she says they make a garden look so untidy. Thomas set them lilies out when we were married. Her husband seems a nice sort of a man, but she can\u2019t get over being an old maid, that\u2019s what. \u201cDon\u2019t study too hard, and be sure and put your winter underclothes on as soon as the weather gets cool. Marilla worries a lot about you, but I tell her you\u2019ve got a lot more sense than I ever thought you would have at one time, and that you\u2019ll be all right.\u201d Davy\u2019s letter plunged into a grievance at the start. \u201cDear anne, please write and tell marilla not to tie me to the rale of the bridge when I go fishing the boys make fun of me when she does. Its awful lonesome here without you but grate fun in school. Jane andrews is crosser than you. I scared mrs. lynde with a jacky lantern last nite. She was offel mad and she was mad cause I chased her old rooster round the yard till he fell down ded. I didn\u2019t mean to make him fall down ded. What made him die, anne, I want to know. mrs. lynde threw him into the pig pen she mite of sold him to mr. blair. mr. blair is giving 50 sense apeace for good ded roosters now. I herd mrs. lynde asking the minister to pray for her. What did she do that was so bad, anne, I want to know. I\u2019ve got a kite with a magnificent tail, anne. Milty bolter told me a grate story in school yesterday. it is troo. old Joe Mosey and Leon were playing cards one nite last week in the woods. The cards were on a stump and a big black man bigger than the trees come along and grabbed the cards and the stump and disapered with a noys like thunder. Ill bet they were skared. Milty says the black man was the old harry. was he, anne, I want to know. Mr. kimball over at spenservale is very sick and will have to go to the hospitable. please excuse me while I ask marilla if thats spelled rite. Marilla says its the silem he has to go to not the other place. He thinks he has a snake inside of him. whats it like to have a snake inside of you, anne. I want to know. mrs. lawrence bell is sick to. mrs. lynde says that all that is the matter with her is that she thinks too much about her insides.\u201d \u201cI wonder,\u201d said Anne, as she folded up her letters, \u201cwhat Mrs. Lynde would think of Philippa.\u201d Chapter 6. In the Park. \u201cWhat are you going to do with yourselves today, girls?\u201d asked Philippa, popping into Anne\u2019s room one Saturday afternoon. \u201cWe are going for a walk in the park,\u201d answered Anne. \u201cI ought to stay in and finish my blouse. But I couldn\u2019t sew on a day like this. There\u2019s something in the air that gets into my blood and makes a sort of glory in my soul. My fingers would twitch and I\u2019d sew a crooked seam. So it\u2019s ho for the park and the pines.\u201d \u201cDoes \u2018we\u2019 include any one but yourself and Priscilla?\u201d \u201cYes, it includes Gilbert and Charlie, and we\u2019ll be very glad if it will include you, also. \u201cBut,\u201d said Philippa dolefully, \u201cif I go I\u2019ll have to be gooseberry, and that will be a new experience for Philippa Gordon.\u201d \u201cWell, new experiences are broadening. Come along, and you\u2019ll be able to sympathize with all poor souls who have to play gooseberry often. But where are all the victims?\u201d \u201cOh, I was tired of them all and simply couldn\u2019t be bothered with any of them today. Besides, I\u2019ve been feeling a little blue\u2014just a pale, elusive azure. It isn\u2019t serious enough for anything darker. I wrote Alec and Alonzo last week. I put the letters into envelopes and addressed them, but I didn\u2019t seal them up. That evening something funny happened. That is, Alec would think it funny, but Alonzo wouldn\u2019t be likely to. I was in a hurry, so I snatched Alec\u2019s letter\u2014as I thought\u2014out of the envelope and scribbled down a postscript. Then I mailed both letters. I got Alonzo\u2019s reply this morning. Girls, I had put that postscript to his letter and he was furious. Of course he\u2019ll get over it\u2014and I don\u2019t care if he doesn\u2019t\u2014but it spoiled my day. So I thought I\u2019d come to you darlings to get cheered up. After the football season opens I won\u2019t have any spare Saturday afternoons. I adore football. I\u2019ve got the most gorgeous cap and sweater striped in Redmond colors to wear to the games. To be sure, a little way off I\u2019ll look like a walking barber\u2019s pole. Do you know that that Gilbert of yours has been elected Captain of the Freshman football team?\u201d \u201cYes, he told us so last evening,\u201d said Priscilla, seeing that outraged Anne would not answer. \u201cHe and Charlie were down. We knew they were coming, so we painstakingly put out of sight or out of reach all Miss Ada\u2019s cushions. That very elaborate one with the raised embroidery I dropped on the floor in the corner behind the chair it was on. I thought it would be safe there. But would you believe it? Charlie Sloane made for that chair, noticed the cushion behind it, solemnly fished it up, and sat on it the whole evening. Such a wreck of a cushion as it was! Poor Miss Ada asked me today, still smiling, but oh, so reproachfully, why I had allowed it to be sat upon. I told her I hadn\u2019t\u2014that it was a matter of predestination coupled with inveterate Sloanishness and I wasn\u2019t a match for both combined.\u201d \u201cMiss Ada\u2019s cushions are really getting on my nerves,\u201d said Anne. \u201cShe finished two new ones last week, stuffed and embroidered within an inch of their lives. There being absolutely no other cushionless place to put them she stood them up against the wall on the stair landing. They topple over half the time and if we come up or down the stairs in the dark we fall over them. Last Sunday, when Dr. Davis prayed for all those exposed to the perils of the sea, I added in thought \u2018and for all those who live in houses where cushions are loved not wisely but too well!\u2019 There! we\u2019re ready, and I see the boys coming through Old St. John\u2019s. Do you cast in your lot with us, Phil?\u201d \u201cI\u2019ll go, if I can walk with Priscilla and Charlie. That will be a bearable degree of gooseberry. That Gilbert of yours is a darling, Anne, but why does he go around so much with Goggle-eyes?\u201d Anne stiffened. She had no great liking for Charlie Sloane; but he was of Avonlea, so no outsider had any business to laugh at him. \u201cCharlie and Gilbert have always been friends,\u201d she said coldly. \u201cCharlie is a nice boy. He\u2019s not to blame for his eyes.\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t tell me that! He is! He must have done something dreadful in a previous existence to be punished with such eyes. Pris and I are going to have such sport with him this afternoon. We\u2019ll make fun of him to his face and he\u2019ll never know it.\u201d Doubtless, \u201cthe abandoned P\u2019s,\u201d as Anne called them, did carry out their amiable intentions. But Sloane was blissfully ignorant; he thought he was quite a fine fellow to be walking with two such coeds, especially Philippa Gordon, the class beauty and belle. It must surely impress Anne. She would see that some people appreciated him at his real value. Gilbert and Anne loitered a little behind the others, enjoying the calm, still beauty of the autumn afternoon under the pines of the park, on the road that climbed and twisted round the harbor shore. \u201cThe silence here is like a prayer, isn\u2019t it?\u201d said Anne, her face upturned to the shining sky. \u201cHow I love the pines! They seem to strike their roots deep into the romance of all the ages. It is so comforting to creep away now and then for a good talk with them. I always feel so happy out here.\u201d \u201c\u2018And so in mountain solitudes o\u2019ertaken As by some spell divine, Their cares drop from them like the needles shaken From out the gusty pine,\u2019\u201d quoted Gilbert. \u201cThey make our little ambitions seem rather petty, don\u2019t they, Anne?\u201d \u201cI think, if ever any great sorrow came to me, I would come to the pines for comfort,\u201d said Anne dreamily. \u201cI hope no great sorrow ever will come to you, Anne,\u201d said Gilbert, who could not connect the idea of sorrow with the vivid, joyous creature beside him, unwitting that those who can soar to the highest heights can also plunge to the deepest depths, and that the natures which enjoy most keenly are those which also suffer most sharply. \u201cBut there must\u2014sometime,\u201d mused Anne. \u201cLife seems like a cup of glory held to my lips just now. But there must be some bitterness in it\u2014there is in every cup. I shall taste mine some day. Well, I hope I shall be strong and brave to meet it. And I hope it won\u2019t be through my own fault that it will come. Do you remember what Dr. Davis said last Sunday evening\u2014that the sorrows God sent us brought comfort and strength with them, while the sorrows we brought on ourselves, through folly or wickedness, were by far the hardest to bear? But we mustn\u2019t talk of sorrow on an afternoon like this. It\u2019s meant for the sheer joy of living, isn\u2019t it?\u201d \u201cIf I had my way I\u2019d shut everything out of your life but happiness and pleasure, Anne,\u201d said Gilbert in the tone that meant \u201cdanger ahead.\u201d \u201cThen you would be very unwise,\u201d rejoined Anne hastily. \u201cI\u2019m sure no life can be properly developed and rounded out without some trial and sorrow\u2014though I suppose it is only when we are pretty comfortable that we admit it. Come\u2014the others have got to the pavilion and are beckoning to us.\u201d They all sat down in the little pavilion to watch an autumn sunset of deep red fire and pallid gold. To their left lay Kingsport, its roofs and spires dim in their shroud of violet smoke. To their right lay the harbor, taking on tints of rose and copper as it stretched out into the sunset. Before them the water shimmered, satin smooth and silver gray, and beyond, clean shaven William\u2019s Island loomed out of the mist, guarding the town like a sturdy bulldog. Its lighthouse beacon flared through the mist like a baleful star, and was answered by another in the far horizon. \u201cDid you ever see such a strong-looking place?\u201d asked Philippa. \u201cI don\u2019t want William\u2019s Island especially, but I\u2019m sure I couldn\u2019t get it if I did. Look at that sentry on the summit of the fort, right beside the flag. Doesn\u2019t he look as if he had stepped out of a romance?\u201d \u201cSpeaking of romance,\u201d said Priscilla, \u201cwe\u2019ve been looking for heather\u2014but, of course, we couldn\u2019t find any. It\u2019s too late in the season, I suppose.\u201d \u201cHeather!\u201d exclaimed Anne. \u201cHeather doesn\u2019t grow in America, does it?\u201d \u201cThere are just two patches of it in the whole continent,\u201d said Phil, \u201cone right here in the park, and one somewhere else in Nova Scotia, I forget where. The famous Highland Regiment, the Black Watch, camped here one year, and, when the men shook out the straw of their beds in the spring, some seeds of heather took root.\u201d \u201cOh, how delightful!\u201d said enchanted Anne. \u201cLet\u2019s go home around by Spofford Avenue,\u201d suggested Gilbert. \u201cWe can see all \u2018the handsome houses where the wealthy nobles dwell.\u2019 Spofford Avenue is the finest residential street in Kingsport. Nobody can build on it unless he\u2019s a millionaire.\u201d \u201cOh, do,\u201d said Phil. \u201cThere\u2019s a perfectly killing little place I want to show you, Anne. _it_ wasn\u2019t built by a millionaire. It\u2019s the first place after you leave the park, and must have grown while Spofford Avenue was still a country road. It _did_ grow\u2014it wasn\u2019t built! I don\u2019t care for the houses on the Avenue. They\u2019re too brand new and plateglassy. But this little spot is a dream\u2014and its name\u2014but wait till you see it.\u201d They saw it as they walked up the pine-fringed hill from the park. Just on the crest, where Spofford Avenue petered out into a plain road, was a little white frame house with groups of pines on either side of it, stretching their arms protectingly over its low roof. It was covered with red and gold vines, through which its green-shuttered windows peeped. Before it was a tiny garden, surrounded by a low stone wall. October though it was, the garden was still very sweet with dear, old-fashioned, unworldly flowers and shrubs\u2014sweet may, southern-wood, lemon verbena, alyssum, petunias, marigolds and chrysanthemums. A tiny brick wall, in herring-bone pattern, led from the gate to the front porch. The whole place might have been transplanted from some remote country village; yet there was something about it that made its nearest neighbor, the big lawn-encircled palace of a tobacco king, look exceedingly crude and showy and ill-bred by contrast. As Phil said, it was the difference between being born and being made. \u201cIt\u2019s the dearest place I ever saw,\u201d said Anne delightedly. \u201cIt gives me one of my old, delightful funny aches. It\u2019s dearer and quainter than even Miss Lavendar\u2019s stone house.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s the name I want you to notice especially,\u201d said Phil. \u201cLook\u2014in white letters, around the archway over the gate. \u2018Patty\u2019s Place.\u2019 Isn\u2019t that killing? Especially on this Avenue of Pinehursts and Elmwolds and Cedarcrofts? \u2018Patty\u2019s Place,\u2019 if you please! I adore it. \u201cHave you any idea who Patty is?\u201d asked Priscilla. \u201cPatty Spofford is the name of the old lady who owns it, I\u2019ve discovered. She lives there with her niece, and they\u2019ve lived there for hundreds of years, more or less\u2014maybe a little less, Anne. Exaggeration is merely a flight of poetic fancy. I understand that wealthy folk have tried to buy the lot time and again\u2014it\u2019s really worth a small fortune now, you know\u2014but \u2018Patty\u2019 won\u2019t sell upon any consideration. And there\u2019s an apple orchard behind the house in place of a back yard\u2014you\u2019ll see it when we get a little past\u2014a real apple orchard on Spofford Avenue!\u201d \u201cI\u2019m going to dream about \u2018Patty\u2019s Place\u2019 tonight,\u201d said Anne. \u201cWhy, I feel as if I belonged to it. I wonder if, by any chance, we\u2019ll ever see the inside of it.\u201d \u201cIt isn\u2019t likely,\u201d said Priscilla. Anne smiled mysteriously. \u201cNo, it isn\u2019t likely. But I believe it will happen. I have a queer, creepy, crawly feeling\u2014you can call it a presentiment, if you like\u2014that \u2018Patty\u2019s Place\u2019 and I are going to be better acquainted yet.\u201d Chapter 7. Home Again. Those first three weeks at Redmond had seemed long; but the rest of the term flew by on wings of wind. Before they realized it the Redmond students found themselves in the grind of Christmas examinations, emerging therefrom more or less triumphantly. The honor of leading in the Freshman classes fluctuated between Anne, Gilbert and Philippa; Priscilla did very well; Charlie Sloane scraped through respectably, and comported himself as complacently as if he had led in everything. \u201cI can\u2019t really believe that this time tomorrow I\u2019ll be in Green Gables,\u201d said Anne on the night before departure. \u201cBut I shall be. And you, Phil, will be in Bolingbroke with Alec and Alonzo.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m longing to see them,\u201d admitted Phil, between the chocolate she was nibbling. \u201cThey really are such dear boys, you know. There\u2019s to be no end of dances and drives and general jamborees. I shall never forgive you, Queen Anne, for not coming home with me for the holidays.\u201d \u201c\u2018Never\u2019 means three days with you, Phil. It was dear of you to ask me\u2014and I\u2019d love to go to Bolingbroke some day. But I can\u2019t go this year\u2014I _must_ go home. You don\u2019t know how my heart longs for it.\u201d \u201cYou won\u2019t have much of a time,\u201d said Phil scornfully. \u201cThere\u2019ll be one or two quilting parties, I suppose; and all the old gossips will talk you over to your face and behind your back. You\u2019ll die of lonesomeness, child.\u201d \u201cIn Avonlea?\u201d said Anne, highly amused. \u201cNow, if you\u2019d come with me you\u2019d have a perfectly gorgeous time. Bolingbroke would go wild over you, Queen Anne\u2014your hair and your style and, oh, everything! You\u2019re so _different_. You\u2019d be such a success\u2014and I would bask in reflected glory\u2014\u2018not the rose but near the rose.\u2019 Do come, after all, Anne.\u201d \u201cYour picture of social triumphs is quite fascinating, Phil, but I\u2019ll paint one to offset it. I\u2019m going home to an old country farmhouse, once green, rather faded now, set among leafless apple orchards. There is a brook below and a December fir wood beyond, where I\u2019ve heard harps swept by the fingers of rain and wind. There is a pond nearby that will be gray and brooding now. There will be two oldish ladies in the house, one tall and thin, one short and fat; and there will be two twins, one a perfect model, the other what Mrs. Lynde calls a \u2018holy terror.\u2019 There will be a little room upstairs over the porch, where old dreams hang thick, and a big, fat, glorious feather bed which will almost seem the height of luxury after a boardinghouse mattress. How do you like my picture, Phil?\u201d \u201cIt seems a very dull one,\u201d said Phil, with a grimace. \u201cOh, but I\u2019ve left out the transforming thing,\u201d said Anne softly. \u201cThere\u2019ll be love there, Phil\u2014faithful, tender love, such as I\u2019ll never find anywhere else in the world\u2014love that\u2019s waiting for me. That makes my picture a masterpiece, doesn\u2019t it, even if the colors are not very brilliant?\u201d Phil silently got up, tossed her box of chocolates away, went up to Anne, and put her arms about her. \u201cAnne, I wish I was like you,\u201d she said soberly. Diana met Anne at the Carmody station the next night, and they drove home together under silent, star-sown depths of sky. Green Gables had a very festal appearance as they drove up the lane. There was a light in every window, the glow breaking out through the darkness like flame-red blossoms swung against the dark background of the Haunted Wood. And in the yard was a brave bonfire with two gay little figures dancing around it, one of which gave an unearthly yell as the buggy turned in under the poplars. \u201cDavy means that for an Indian war-whoop,\u201d said Diana. \u201cMr. Harrison\u2019s hired boy taught it to him, and he\u2019s been practicing it up to welcome you with. Mrs. Lynde says it has worn her nerves to a frazzle. He creeps up behind her, you know, and then lets go. He was determined to have a bonfire for you, too. He\u2019s been piling up branches for a fortnight and pestering Marilla to be let pour some kerosene oil over it before setting it on fire. I guess she did, by the smell, though Mrs. Lynde said up to the last that Davy would blow himself and everybody else up if he was let.\u201d Anne was out of the buggy by this time, and Davy was rapturously hugging her knees, while even Dora was clinging to her hand. \u201cIsn\u2019t that a bully bonfire, Anne? Just let me show you how to poke it\u2014see the sparks? I did it for you, Anne, &#8217;cause I was so glad you were coming home.\u201d The kitchen door opened and Marilla\u2019s spare form darkened against the inner light. She preferred to meet Anne in the shadows, for she was horribly afraid that she was going to cry with joy\u2014she, stern, repressed Marilla, who thought all display of deep emotion unseemly. Mrs. Lynde was behind her, sonsy, kindly, matronly, as of yore. The love that Anne had told Phil was waiting for her surrounded her and enfolded her with its blessing and its sweetness. Nothing, after all, could compare with old ties, old friends, and old Green Gables! How starry Anne\u2019s eyes were as they sat down to the loaded supper table, how pink her cheeks, how silver-clear her laughter! And Diana was going to stay all night, too. How like the dear old times it was! And the rose-bud tea-set graced the table! With Marilla the force of nature could no further go. \u201cI suppose you and Diana will now proceed to talk all night,\u201d said Marilla sarcastically, as the girls went upstairs. Marilla was always sarcastic after any self-betrayal. \u201cYes,\u201d agreed Anne gaily, \u201cbut I\u2019m going to put Davy to bed first. He insists on that.\u201d \u201cYou bet,\u201d said Davy, as they went along the hall. \u201cI want somebody to say my prayers to again. It\u2019s no fun saying them alone.\u201d \u201cYou don\u2019t say them alone, Davy. God is always with you to hear you.\u201d \u201cWell, I can\u2019t see Him,\u201d objected Davy. \u201cI want to pray to somebody I can see, but I _won\u2019t_ say them to Mrs. Lynde or Marilla, there now!\u201d Nevertheless, when Davy was garbed in his gray flannel nighty, he did not seem in a hurry to begin. He stood before Anne, shuffling one bare foot over the other, and looked undecided. \u201cCome, dear, kneel down,\u201d said Anne. Davy came and buried his head in Anne\u2019s lap, but he did not kneel down. \u201cAnne,\u201d he said in a muffled voice. \u201cI don\u2019t feel like praying after all. I haven\u2019t felt like it for a week now. I\u2014I _didnt\u2019t_ pray last night nor the night before.\u201d \u201cWhy not, Davy?\u201d asked Anne gently. \u201cYou\u2014you won\u2019t be mad if I tell you?\u201d implored Davy. Anne lifted the little gray-flannelled body on her knee and cuddled his head on her arm. \u201cDo I ever get \u2018mad\u2019 when you tell me things, Davy?\u201d \u201cNo-o-o, you never do. But you get sorry, and that\u2019s worse. You\u2019ll be awful sorry when I tell you this, Anne\u2014and you\u2019ll be \u2019shamed of me, I s\u2019pose.\u201d \u201cHave you done something naughty, Davy, and is that why you can\u2019t say your prayers?\u201d \u201cNo, I haven\u2019t done anything naughty\u2014yet. But I want to do it.\u201d \u201cWhat is it, Davy?\u201d \u201cI\u2014I want to say a bad word, Anne,\u201d blurted out Davy, with a desperate effort. \u201cI heard Mr. Harrison\u2019s hired boy say it one day last week, and ever since I\u2019ve been wanting to say it _all_ the time\u2014even when I\u2019m saying my prayers.\u201d \u201cSay it then, Davy.\u201d Davy lifted his flushed face in amazement. \u201cBut, Anne, it\u2019s an _awful_ bad word.\u201d \u201c_Say it!_\u201d Davy gave her another incredulous look, then in a low voice he said the dreadful word. The next minute his face was burrowing against her. \u201cOh, Anne, I\u2019ll never say it again\u2014never. I\u2019ll never _want_ to say it again. I knew it was bad, but I didn\u2019t s\u2019pose it was so\u2014so\u2014I didn\u2019t s\u2019pose it was like _that_.\u201d \u201cNo, I don\u2019t think you\u2019ll ever want to say it again, Davy\u2014or think it, either. And I wouldn\u2019t go about much with Mr. Harrison\u2019s hired boy if I were you.\u201d \u201cHe can make bully war-whoops,\u201d said Davy a little regretfully. \u201cBut you don\u2019t want your mind filled with bad words, do you, Davy\u2014words that will poison it and drive out all that is good and manly?\u201d \u201cNo,\u201d said Davy, owl-eyed with introspection. \u201cThen don\u2019t go with those people who use them. And now do you feel as if you could say your prayers, Davy?\u201d \u201cOh, yes,\u201d said Davy, eagerly wriggling down on his knees, \u201cI can say them now all right. I ain\u2019t scared now to say \u2018if I should die before I wake,\u2019 like I was when I was wanting to say that word.\u201d Probably Anne and Diana did empty out their souls to each other that night, but no record of their confidences has been preserved. They both looked as fresh and bright-eyed at breakfast as only youth can look after unlawful hours of revelry and confession. There had been no snow up to this time, but as Diana crossed the old log bridge on her homeward way the white flakes were beginning to flutter down over the fields and woods, russet and gray in their dreamless sleep. Soon the far-away slopes and hills were dim and wraith-like through their gauzy scarfing, as if pale autumn had flung a misty bridal veil over her hair and was waiting for her wintry bridegroom. So they had a white Christmas after all, and a very pleasant day it was. In the forenoon letters and gifts came from Miss Lavendar and Paul; Anne opened them in the cheerful Green Gables kitchen, which was filled with what Davy, sniffing in ecstasy, called \u201cpretty smells.\u201d \u201cMiss Lavendar and Mr. Irving are settled in their new home now,\u201d reported Anne. \u201cI am sure Miss Lavendar is perfectly happy\u2014I know it by the general tone of her letter\u2014but there\u2019s a note from Charlotta the Fourth. She doesn\u2019t like Boston at all, and she is fearfully homesick. Miss Lavendar wants me to go through to Echo Lodge some day while I\u2019m home and light a fire to air it, and see that the cushions aren\u2019t getting moldy. I think I\u2019ll get Diana to go over with me next week, and we can spend the evening with Theodora Dix. I want to see Theodora. By the way, is Ludovic Speed still going to see her?\u201d \u201cThey say so,\u201d said Marilla, \u201cand he\u2019s likely to continue it. Folks have given up expecting that that courtship will ever arrive anywhere.\u201d \u201cI\u2019d hurry him up a bit, if I was Theodora, that\u2019s what,\u201d said Mrs. Lynde. And there is not the slightest doubt but that she would. There was also a characteristic scrawl from Philippa, full of Alec and Alonzo, what they said and what they did, and how they looked when they saw her. \u201cBut I can\u2019t make up my mind yet which to marry,\u201d wrote Phil. \u201cI do wish you had come with me to decide for me. Some one will have to. When I saw Alec my heart gave a great thump and I thought, \u2018He might be the right one.\u2019 And then, when Alonzo came, thump went my heart again. So that\u2019s no guide, though it should be, according to all the novels I\u2019ve ever read. Now, Anne, _your_ heart wouldn\u2019t thump for anybody but the genuine Prince Charming, would it? There must be something radically wrong with mine. But I\u2019m having a perfectly gorgeous time. How I wish you were here! It\u2019s snowing today, and I\u2019m rapturous. I was so afraid we\u2019d have a green Christmas and I loathe them. You know, when Christmas is a dirty grayey-browney affair, looking as if it had been left over a hundred years ago and had been in soak ever since, it is called a _green_ Christmas! Don\u2019t ask me why. As Lord Dundreary says, \u2018there are thome thingth no fellow can underthtand.\u2019 \u201cAnne, did you ever get on a street car and then discover that you hadn\u2019t any money with you to pay your fare? I did, the other day. It\u2019s quite awful. I had a nickel with me when I got on the car. I thought it was in the left pocket of my coat. When I got settled down comfortably I felt for it. It wasn\u2019t there. I had a cold chill. I felt in the other pocket. Not there. I had another chill. Then I felt in a little inside pocket. All in vain. I had two chills at once. \u201cI took off my gloves, laid them on the seat, and went over all my pockets again. It was not there. I stood up and shook myself, and then looked on the floor. The car was full of people, who were going home from the opera, and they all stared at me, but I was past caring for a little thing like that. \u201cBut I could not find my fare. I concluded I must have put it in my mouth and swallowed it inadvertently. \u201cI didn\u2019t know what to do. Would the conductor, I wondered, stop the car and put me off in ignominy and shame? Was it possible that I could convince him that I was merely the victim of my own absentmindedness, and not an unprincipled creature trying to obtain a ride upon false pretenses? How I wished that Alec or Alonzo were there. But they weren\u2019t because I wanted them. If I _hadn\u2019t_ wanted them they would have been there by the dozen. And I couldn\u2019t decide what to say to the conductor when he came around. As soon as I got one sentence of explanation mapped out in my mind I felt nobody could believe it and I must compose another. It seemed there was nothing to do but trust in Providence, and for all the comfort that gave me I might as well have been the old lady who, when told by the captain during a storm that she must put her trust in the Almighty exclaimed, \u2018Oh, Captain, is it as bad as that?\u2019 \u201cJust at the conventional moment, when all hope had fled, and the conductor was holding out his box to the passenger next to me, I suddenly remembered where I had put that wretched coin of the realm. I hadn\u2019t swallowed it after all. I meekly fished it out of the index finger of my glove and poked it in the box. I smiled at everybody and felt that it was a beautiful world.\u201d The visit to Echo Lodge was not the least pleasant of many pleasant holiday outings. Anne and Diana went back to it by the old way of the beech woods, carrying a lunch basket with them. Echo Lodge, which had been closed ever since Miss Lavendar\u2019s wedding, was briefly thrown open to wind and sunshine once more, and firelight glimmered again in the little rooms. The perfume of Miss Lavendar\u2019s rose bowl still filled the air. It was hardly possible to believe that Miss Lavendar would not come tripping in presently, with her brown eyes a-star with welcome, and that Charlotta the Fourth, blue of bow and wide of smile, would not pop through the door. Paul, too, seemed hovering around, with his fairy fancies. \u201cIt really makes me feel a little bit like a ghost revisiting the old time glimpses of the moon,\u201d laughed Anne. \u201cLet\u2019s go out and see if the echoes are at home. Bring the old horn. It is still behind the kitchen door. \u201d The echoes were at home, over the white river, as silver-clear and multitudinous as ever; and when they had ceased to answer the girls locked up Echo Lodge again and went away in the perfect half hour that follows the rose and saffron of a winter sunset. Chapter 8. Anne\u2019s First Proposal. The old year did not slip away in a green twilight, with a pinky-yellow sunset. Instead, it went out with a wild, white bluster and blow. It was one of the nights when the storm-wind hurtles over the frozen meadows and black hollows, and moans around the eaves like a lost creature, and drives the snow sharply against the shaking panes. \u201cJust the sort of night people like to cuddle down between their blankets and count their mercies,\u201d said Anne to Jane Andrews, who had come up to spend the afternoon and stay all night. But when they were cuddled between their blankets, in Anne\u2019s little porch room, it was not her mercies of which Jane was thinking. \u201cAnne,\u201d she said very solemnly, \u201cI want to tell you something. May I\u201d Anne was feeling rather sleepy after the party Ruby Gillis had given the night before. She would much rather have gone to sleep than listen to Jane\u2019s confidences, which she was sure would bore her. She had no prophetic inkling of what was coming. Probably Jane was engaged, too; rumor averred that Ruby Gillis was engaged to the Spencervale schoolteacher, about whom all the girls were said to be quite wild. \u201cI\u2019ll soon be the only fancy-free maiden of our old quartet,\u201d thought Anne, drowsily. Aloud she said, \u201cOf course.\u201d \u201cAnne,\u201d said Jane, still more solemnly, \u201cwhat do you think of my brother Billy?\u201d Anne gasped over this unexpected question, and floundered helplessly in her thoughts. Goodness, what _did_ she think of Billy Andrews? She had never thought _anything_ about him\u2014round-faced, stupid, perpetually smiling, good-natured Billy Andrews. Did _anybody_ ever think about Billy Andrews? \u201cI\u2014I don\u2019t understand, Jane,\u201d she stammered. \u201cWhat do you mean\u2014exactly?\u201d \u201cDo you like Billy?\u201d asked Jane bluntly. \u201cWhy\u2014why\u2014yes, I like him, of course,\u201d gasped Anne, wondering if she were telling the literal truth. Certainly she did not _dis_like Billy. But could the indifferent tolerance with which she regarded him, when he happened to be in her range of vision, be considered positive enough for liking? _What_ was Jane trying to elucidate? \u201cWould you like him for a husband?\u201d asked Jane calmly. \u201cA husband!\u201d Anne had been sitting up in bed, the better to wrestle with the problem of her exact opinion of Billy Andrews. Now she fell flatly back on her pillows, the very breath gone out of her. \u201cWhose husband?\u201d \u201cYours, of course,\u201d answered Jane. \u201cBilly wants to marry you. He\u2019s always been crazy about you\u2014and now father has given him the upper farm in his own name and there\u2019s nothing to prevent him from getting married. But he\u2019s so shy he couldn\u2019t ask you himself if you\u2019d have him, so he got me to do it. I\u2019d rather not have, but he gave me no peace till I said I would, if I got a good chance. What do you think about it, Anne?\u201d Was it a dream? Was it one of those nightmare things in which you find yourself engaged or married to some one you hate or don\u2019t know, without the slightest idea how it ever came about? No, she, Anne Shirley, was lying there, wide awake, in her own bed, and Jane Andrews was beside her, calmly proposing for her brother Billy. Anne did not know whether she wanted to writhe or laugh; but she could do neither, for Jane\u2019s feelings must not be hurt. \u201cI\u2014I couldn\u2019t marry Bill, you know, Jane,\u201d she managed to gasp. \u201cWhy, such an idea never occurred to me\u2014never!\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t suppose it did,\u201d agreed Jane. \u201cBilly has always been far too shy to think of courting. But you might think it over, Anne. Billy is a good fellow. I must say that, if he is my brother. He has no bad habits and he\u2019s a great worker, and you can depend on him. \u2018A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.\u2019 He told me to tell you he\u2019d be quite willing to wait till you got through college, if you insisted, though he\u2019d _rather_ get married this spring before the planting begins. He\u2019d always be very good to you, I\u2019m sure, and you know, Anne, I\u2019d love to have you for a sister.\u201d \u201cI can\u2019t marry Billy,\u201d said Anne decidedly. She had recovered her wits, and was even feeling a little angry. It was all so ridiculous. \u201cThere is no use thinking of it, Jane. I don\u2019t care anything for him in that way, and you must tell him so.\u201d \u201cWell, I didn\u2019t suppose you would,\u201d said Jane with a resigned sigh, feeling that she had done her best. \u201cI told Billy I didn\u2019t believe it was a bit of use to ask you, but he insisted. Well, you\u2019ve made your decision, Anne, and I hope you won\u2019t regret it.\u201d Jane spoke rather coldly. She had been perfectly sure that the enamored Billy had no chance at all of inducing Anne to marry him. Nevertheless, she felt a little resentment that Anne Shirley, who was, after all, merely an adopted orphan, without kith or kin, should refuse her brother\u2014one of the Avonlea Andrews. Well, pride sometimes goes before a fall, Jane reflected ominously. Anne permitted herself to smile in the darkness over the idea that she might ever regret not marrying Billy Andrews. \u201cI hope Billy won\u2019t feel very badly over it,\u201d she said nicely. Jane made a movement as if she were tossing her head on her pillow. \u201cOh, he won\u2019t break his heart. Billy has too much good sense for that. He likes Nettie Blewett pretty well, too, and mother would rather he married her than any one. She\u2019s such a good manager and saver. I think, when Billy is once sure you won\u2019t have him, he\u2019ll take Nettie. Please don\u2019t mention this to any one, will you, Anne?\u201d \u201cCertainly not,\u201d said Anne, who had no desire whatever to publish abroad the fact that Billy Andrews wanted to marry her, preferring her, when all was said and done, to Nettie Blewett. Nettie Blewett! \u201cAnd now I suppose we\u2019d better go to sleep,\u201d suggested Jane. To sleep went Jane easily and speedily; but, though very unlike MacBeth in most respects, she had certainly contrived to murder sleep for Anne. That proposed-to damsel lay on a wakeful pillow until the wee sma\u2019s, but her meditations were far from being romantic. It was not, however, until the next morning that she had an opportunity to indulge in a good laugh over the whole affair. When Jane had gone home\u2014still with a hint of frost in voice and manner because Anne had declined so ungratefully and decidedly the honor of an alliance with the House of Andrews\u2014Anne retreated to the porch room, shut the door, and had her laugh out at last. \u201cIf I could only share the joke with some one!\u201d she thought. \u201cBut I can\u2019t. Diana is the only one I\u2019d want to tell, and, even if I hadn\u2019t sworn secrecy to Jane, I can\u2019t tell Diana things now. She tells everything to Fred\u2014I know she does. Well, I\u2019ve had my first proposal. I supposed it would come some day\u2014but I certainly never thought it would be by proxy. It\u2019s awfully funny\u2014and yet there\u2019s a sting in it, too, somehow.\u201d Anne knew quite well wherein the sting consisted, though she did not put it into words. She had had her secret dreams of the first time some one should ask her the great question. And it had, in those dreams, always been very romantic and beautiful: and the \u201csome one\u201d was to be very handsome and dark-eyed and distinguished-looking and eloquent, whether he were Prince Charming to be enraptured with \u201cyes,\u201d or one to whom a regretful, beautifully worded, but hopeless refusal must be given. If the latter, the refusal was to be expressed so delicately that it would be next best thing to acceptance, and he would go away, after kissing her hand, assuring her of his unalterable, life-long devotion. And it would always be a beautiful memory, to be proud of and a little sad about, also. And now, this thrilling experience had turned out to be merely grotesque. Billy Andrews had got his sister to propose for him because his father had given him the upper farm; and if Anne wouldn\u2019t \u201chave him\u201d Nettie Blewett would. There was romance for you, with a vengeance! Anne laughed\u2014and then sighed. The bloom had been brushed from one little maiden dream. Would the painful process go on until everything became prosaic and hum-drum? Chapter 9. An Unwelcome Lover and a Welcome Friend. The second term at Redmond sped as quickly as had the first\u2014\u201cactually whizzed away,\u201d Philippa said. Anne enjoyed it thoroughly in all its phases\u2014the stimulating class rivalry, the making and deepening of new and helpful friendships, the gay little social stunts, the doings of the various societies of which she was a member, the widening of horizons and interests. She studied hard, for she had made up her mind to win the Thorburn Scholarship in English. This being won, meant that she could come back to Redmond the next year without trenching on Marilla\u2019s small savings\u2014something Anne was determined she would not do. Gilbert, too, was in full chase after a scholarship, but found plenty of time for frequent calls at Thirty-eight, St. John\u2019s. He was Anne\u2019s escort at nearly all the college affairs, and she knew that their names were coupled in Redmond gossip. Anne raged over this but was helpless; she could not cast an old friend like Gilbert aside, especially when he had grown suddenly wise and wary, as behooved him in the dangerous proximity of more than one Redmond youth who would gladly have taken his place by the side of the slender, red-haired coed, whose gray eyes were as alluring as stars of evening. Anne was never attended by the crowd of willing victims who hovered around Philippa\u2019s conquering march through her Freshman year; but there was a lanky, brainy Freshie, a jolly, little, round Sophomore, and a tall, learned Junior who all liked to call at Thirty-eight, St. John\u2019s, and talk over \u2019ologies and \u2019isms, as well as lighter subjects, with Anne, in the becushioned parlor of that domicile. Gilbert did not love any of them, and he was exceedingly careful to give none of them the advantage over him by any untimely display of his real feelings Anne-ward. To her he had become again the boy-comrade of Avonlea days, and as such could hold his own against any smitten swain who had so far entered the lists against him. As a companion, Anne honestly acknowledged nobody could be so satisfactory as Gilbert; she was very glad, so she told herself, that he had evidently dropped all nonsensical ideas\u2014though she spent considerable time secretly wondering why. Only one disagreeable incident marred that winter. Charlie Sloane, sitting bolt upright on Miss Ada\u2019s most dearly beloved cushion, asked Anne one night if she would promise \u201cto become Mrs. Charlie Sloane some day.\u201d Coming after Billy Andrews\u2019 proxy effort, this was not quite the shock to Anne\u2019s romantic sensibilities that it would otherwise have been; but it was certainly another heart-rending disillusion. She was angry, too, for she felt that she had never given Charlie the slightest encouragement to suppose such a thing possible. But what could you expect of a Sloane, as Mrs. Rachel Lynde would ask scornfully? Charlie\u2019s whole attitude, tone, air, words, fairly reeked with Sloanishness. \u201cHe was conferring a great honor\u2014no doubt whatever about that. And when Anne, utterly insensible to the honor, refused him, as delicately and considerately as she could\u2014for even a Sloane had feelings which ought not to be unduly lacerated\u2014Sloanishness still further betrayed itself. Charlie certainly did not take his dismissal as Anne\u2019s imaginary rejected suitors did. Instead, he became angry, and showed it; he said two or three quite nasty things; Anne\u2019s temper flashed up mutinously and she retorted with a cutting little speech whose keenness pierced even Charlie\u2019s protective Sloanishness and reached the quick; he caught up his hat and flung himself out of the house with a very red face; Anne rushed upstairs, falling twice over Miss Ada\u2019s cushions on the way, and threw herself on her bed, in tears of humiliation and rage. Had she actually stooped to quarrel with a Sloane? Was it possible anything Charlie Sloane could say had power to make her angry? Oh, this was degradation, indeed\u2014worse even than being the rival of Nettie Blewett! \u201cI wish I need never see the horrible creature again,\u201d she sobbed vindictively into her pillows. She could not avoid seeing him again, but the outraged Charlie took care that it should not be at very close quarters. Miss Ada\u2019s cushions were henceforth safe from his depredations, and when he met Anne on the street, or in Redmond\u2019s halls, his bow was icy in the extreme. Relations between these two old schoolmates continued to be thus strained for nearly a year! Then Charlie transferred his blighted affections to a round, rosy, snub-nosed, blue-eyed, little Sophomore who appreciated them as they deserved, whereupon he forgave Anne and condescended to be civil to her again; in a patronizing manner intended to show her just what she had lost. One day Anne scurried excitedly into Priscilla\u2019s room. \u201cRead that,\u201d she cried, tossing Priscilla a letter. \u201cIt\u2019s from Stella\u2014and she\u2019s coming to Redmond next year\u2014and what do you think of her idea? I think it\u2019s a perfectly splendid one, if we can only carry it out. Do you suppose we can, Pris?\u201d \u201cI\u2019ll be better able to tell you when I find out what it is,\u201d said Priscilla, casting aside a Greek lexicon and taking up Stella\u2019s letter. Stella Maynard had been one of their chums at Queen\u2019s Academy and had been teaching school ever since. \u201cBut I\u2019m going to give it up, Anne dear,\u201d she wrote, \u201cand go to college next year. As I took the third year at Queen\u2019s I can enter the Sophomore year. I\u2019m tired of teaching in a back country school. Some day I\u2019m going to write a treatise on \u2018The Trials of a Country Schoolmarm.\u2019 It will be a harrowing bit of realism. It seems to be the prevailing impression that we live in clover, and have nothing to do but draw our quarter\u2019s salary. My treatise shall tell the truth about us. Why, if a week should pass without some one telling me that I am doing easy work for big pay I would conclude that I might as well order my ascension robe \u2018immediately and to onct.\u2019 \u2018Well, you get your money easy,\u2019 some rate-payer will tell me, condescendingly. \u2018All you have to do is to sit there and hear lessons.\u2019 I used to argue the matter at first, but I\u2019m wiser now. Facts are stubborn things, but as some one has wisely said, not half so stubborn as fallacies. So I only smile loftily now in eloquent silence. Why, I have nine grades in my school and I have to teach a little of everything, from investigating the interiors of earthworms to the study of the solar system. My youngest pupil is four\u2014his mother sends him to school to \u2018get him out of the way\u2019\u2014and my oldest twenty\u2014it \u2018suddenly struck him\u2019 that it would be easier to go to school and get an education than follow the plough any longer. In the wild effort to cram all sorts of research into six hours a day I don\u2019t wonder if the children feel like the little boy who was taken to see the biograph. \u2018I have to look for what\u2019s coming next before I know what went last,\u2019 he complained. I feel like that myself. \u201cAnd the letters I get, Anne! Tommy\u2019s mother writes me that Tommy is not coming on in arithmetic as fast as she would like. He is only in simple reduction yet, and Johnny Johnson is in fractions, and Johnny isn\u2019t half as smart as her Tommy, and she can\u2019t understand it. And Susy\u2019s father wants to know why Susy can\u2019t write a letter without misspelling half the words, and Dick\u2019s aunt wants me to change his seat, because that bad Brown boy he is sitting with is teaching him to say naughty words. \u201cAs to the financial part\u2014but I\u2019ll not begin on that. Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make country schoolmarms! \u201cThere, I feel better, after that growl. After all, I\u2019ve enjoyed these past two years. But I\u2019m coming to Redmond. \u201cAnd now, Anne, I\u2019ve a little plan. You know how I loathe boarding. I\u2019ve boarded for four years and I\u2019m so tired of it. I don\u2019t feel like enduring three years more of it. \u201cNow, why can\u2019t you and Priscilla and I club together, rent a little house somewhere in Kingsport, and board ourselves? It would be cheaper than any other way. Of course, we would have to have a housekeeper and I have one ready on the spot. You\u2019ve heard me speak of Aunt Jamesina? She\u2019s the sweetest aunt that ever lived, in spite of her name. She can\u2019t help that! She was called Jamesina because her father, whose name was James, was drowned at sea a month before she was born. I always call her Aunt Jimsie. Well, her only daughter has recently married and gone to the foreign mission field. Aunt Jamesina is left alone in a great big house, and she is horribly lonesome. She will come to Kingsport and keep house for us if we want her, and I know you\u2019ll both love her. The more I think of the plan the more I like it. We could have such good, independent times. \u201cNow, if you and Priscilla agree to it, wouldn\u2019t it be a good idea for you, who are on the spot, to look around and see if you can find a suitable house this spring? That would be better than leaving it till the fall. If you could get a furnished one so much the better, but if not, we can scare up a few sticks of finiture between us and old family friends with attics. Anyhow, decide as soon as you can and write me, so that Aunt Jamesina will know what plans to make for next year.\u201d \u201cI think it\u2019s a good idea,\u201d said Priscilla. \u201cSo do I,\u201d agreed Anne delightedly. \u201cOf course, we have a nice boardinghouse here, but, when all\u2019s said and done, a boardinghouse isn\u2019t home. So let\u2019s go house-hunting at once, before exams come on.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m afraid it will be hard enough to get a really suitable house,\u201d warned Priscilla. \u201cDon\u2019t expect too much, Anne. Nice houses in nice localities will probably be away beyond our means. We\u2019ll likely have to content ourselves with a shabby little place on some street whereon live people whom to know is to be unknown, and make life inside compensate for the outside.\u201d Accordingly they went house-hunting, but to find just what they wanted proved even harder than Priscilla had feared. Houses there were galore, furnished and unfurnished; but one was too big, another too small; this one too expensive, that one too far from Redmond. Exams were on and over; the last week of the term came and still their \u201chouse o\u2019dreams,\u201d as Anne called it, remained a castle in the air. \u201cWe shall have to give up and wait till the fall, I suppose,\u201d said Priscilla wearily, as they rambled through the park on one of April\u2019s darling days of breeze and blue, when the harbor was creaming and shimmering beneath the pearl-hued mists floating over it. \u201cWe may find some shack to shelter us then; and if not, boardinghouses we shall have always with us.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m not going to worry about it just now, anyway, and spoil this lovely afternoon,\u201d said Anne, gazing around her with delight. The fresh chill air was faintly charged with the aroma of pine balsam, and the sky above was crystal clear and blue\u2014a great inverted cup of blessing. \u201cSpring is singing in my blood today, and the lure of April is abroad on the air. I\u2019m seeing visions and dreaming dreams, Pris. That\u2019s because the wind is from the west. I do love the west wind. It sings of hope and gladness, doesn\u2019t it? When the east wind blows I always think of sorrowful rain on the eaves and sad waves on a gray shore. When I get old I shall have rheumatism when the wind is east.\u201d \u201cAnd isn\u2019t it jolly when you discard furs and winter garments for the first time and sally forth, like this, in spring attire?\u201d laughed Priscilla. \u201cDon\u2019t you feel as if you had been made over new?\u201d \u201cEverything is new in the spring,\u201d said Anne. \u201cSprings themselves are always so new, too. No spring is ever just like any other spring. It always has something of its own to be its own peculiar sweetness. See how green the grass is around that little pond, and how the willow buds are bursting.\u201d \u201cAnd exams are over and gone\u2014the time of Convocation will come soon\u2014next Wednesday. This day next week we\u2019ll be home.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m glad,\u201d said Anne dreamily. \u201cThere are so many things I want to do. I want to sit on the back porch steps and feel the breeze blowing down over Mr. Harrison\u2019s fields. I want to hunt ferns in the Haunted Wood and gather violets in Violet Vale. Do you remember the day of our golden picnic, Priscilla? I want to hear the frogs singing and the poplars whispering. But I\u2019ve learned to love Kingsport, too, and I\u2019m glad I\u2019m coming back next fall. If I hadn\u2019t won the Thorburn I don\u2019t believe I could have. I _couldn\u2019t_ take any of Marilla\u2019s little hoard.\u201d \u201cIf we could only find a house!\u201d sighed Priscilla. \u201cLook over there at Kingsport, Anne\u2014houses, houses everywhere, and not one for us.\u201d \u201cStop it, Pris. \u2018The best is yet to be.\u2019 Like the old Roman, we\u2019ll find a house or build one. On a day like this there\u2019s no such word as fail in my bright lexicon.\u201d They lingered in the park until sunset, living in the amazing miracle and glory and wonder of the springtide; and they went home as usual, by way of Spofford Avenue, that they might have the delight of looking at Patty\u2019s Place. \u201cI feel as if something mysterious were going to happen right away\u2014\u2018by the pricking of my thumbs,\u2019\u201d said Anne, as they went up the slope. \u201cIt\u2019s a nice story-bookish feeling. Why\u2014why\u2014why! Priscilla Grant, look over there and tell me if it\u2019s true, or am I seein\u2019 things?\u201d Priscilla looked. Anne\u2019s thumbs and eyes had not deceived her. Over the arched gateway of Patty\u2019s Place dangled a little, modest sign. It said \u201cTo Let, Furnished. Inquire Within.\u201d \u201cPriscilla,\u201d said Anne, in a whisper, \u201cdo you suppose it\u2019s possible that we could rent Patty\u2019s Place?\u201d \u201cNo, I don\u2019t,\u201d averred Priscilla. \u201cIt would be too good to be true. Fairy tales don\u2019t happen nowadays. I won\u2019t hope, Anne. The disappointment would be too awful to bear. They\u2019re sure to want more for it than we can afford. Remember, it\u2019s on Spofford Avenue.\u201d \u201cWe must find out anyhow,\u201d said Anne resolutely. \u201cIt\u2019s too late to call this evening, but we\u2019ll come tomorrow. Oh, Pris, if we can get this darling spot! I\u2019ve always felt that my fortunes were linked with Patty\u2019s Place, ever since I saw it first.\u201d Chapter 10. Patty\u2019s Place. The next evening found them treading resolutely the herring-bone walk through the tiny garden. The April wind was filling the pine trees with its roundelay, and the grove was alive with robins\u2014great, plump, saucy fellows, strutting along the paths. The girls rang rather timidly, and were admitted by a grim and ancient handmaiden. The door opened directly into a large living-room, where by a cheery little fire sat two other ladies, both of whom were also grim and ancient. Except that one looked to be about seventy and the other fifty, there seemed little difference between them. Each had amazingly big, light-blue eyes behind steel-rimmed spectacles; each wore a cap and a gray shawl; each was knitting without haste and without rest; each rocked placidly and looked at the girls without speaking; and just behind each sat a large white china dog, with round green spots all over it, a green nose and green ears. Those dogs captured Anne\u2019s fancy on the spot; they seemed like the twin guardian deities of Patty\u2019s Place. For a few minutes nobody spoke. The girls were too nervous to find words, and neither the ancient ladies nor the china dogs seemed conversationally inclined. Anne glanced about the room. What a dear place it was! Another door opened out of it directly into the pine grove and the robins came boldly up on the very step. The floor was spotted with round, braided mats, such as Marilla made at Green Gables, but which were considered out of date everywhere else, even in Avonlea. And yet here they were on Spofford Avenue! A big, polished grandfather\u2019s clock ticked loudly and solemnly in a corner. There were delightful little cupboards over the mantelpiece, behind whose glass doors gleamed quaint bits of china. The walls were hung with old prints and silhouettes. In one corner the stairs went up, and at the first low turn was a long window with an inviting seat. It was all just as Anne had known it must be. By this time the silence had grown too dreadful, and Priscilla nudged Anne to intimate that she must speak. \u201cWe\u2014we\u2014saw by your sign that this house is to let,\u201d said Anne faintly, addressing the older lady, who was evidently Miss Patty Spofford. \u201cOh, yes,\u201d said Miss Patty. \u201cI intended to take that sign down today.\u201d \u201cThen\u2014then we are too late,\u201d said Anne sorrowfully. \u201cYou\u2019ve let it to some one else?\u201d \u201cNo, but we have decided not to let it at all.\u201d \u201cOh, I\u2019m so sorry,\u201d exclaimed Anne impulsively. \u201cI love this place so. I did hope we could have got it.\u201d Then did Miss Patty lay down her knitting, take off her specs, rub them, put them on again, and for the first time look at Anne as at a human being. The other lady followed her example so perfectly that she might as well have been a reflection in a mirror. \u201cYou _love_ it,\u201d said Miss Patty with emphasis. \u201cDoes that mean that you really _love_ it? Or that you merely like the looks of it? The girls nowadays indulge in such exaggerated statements that one never can tell what they _do_ mean. It wasn\u2019t so in my young days. _Then_ a girl did not say she _loved_ turnips, in just the same tone as she might have said she loved her mother or her Savior. \u201d Anne\u2019s conscience bore her up. \u201cI really do love it,\u201d she said gently. \u201cI\u2019ve loved it ever since I saw it last fall. My two college chums and I want to keep house next year instead of boarding, so we are looking for a little place to rent; and when I saw that this house was to let I was so happy.\u201d \u201cIf you love it, you can have it,\u201d said Miss Patty. \u201cMaria and I decided today that we would not let it after all, because we did not like any of the people who have wanted it. We don\u2019t _have_ to let it. We can afford to go to Europe even if we don\u2019t let it. It would help us out, but not for gold will I let my home pass into the possession of such people as have come here and looked at it. _You_ are different. I believe you do love it and will be good to it. You can have it.\u201d \u201cIf\u2014if we can afford to pay what you ask for it,\u201d hesitated Anne. Miss Patty named the amount required. Anne and Priscilla looked at each other. Priscilla shook her head. \u201cI\u2019m afraid we can\u2019t afford quite so much,\u201d said Anne, choking back her disappointment. \u201cYou see, we are only college girls and we are poor.\u201d \u201cWhat were you thinking you could afford?\u201d demanded Miss Patty, ceasing not to knit. Anne named her amount. Miss Patty nodded gravely. \u201cThat will do. As I told you, it is not strictly necessary that we should let it at all. We are not rich, but we have enough to go to Europe on. I have never been in Europe in my life, and never expected or wanted to go. But my niece there, Maria Spofford, has taken a fancy to go. Now, you know a young person like Maria can\u2019t go globetrotting alone.\u201d \u201cNo\u2014I\u2014I suppose not,\u201d murmured Anne, seeing that Miss Patty was quite solemnly in earnest. \u201cOf course not. So I have to go along to look after her. I expect to enjoy it, too; I\u2019m seventy years old, but I\u2019m not tired of living yet. I daresay I\u2019d have gone to Europe before if the idea had occurred to me. We shall be away for two years, perhaps three. We sail in June and we shall send you the key, and leave all in order for you to take possession when you choose. We shall pack away a few things we prize especially, but all the rest will be left.\u201d \u201cWill you leave the china dogs?\u201d asked Anne timidly. \u201cWould you like me to?\u201d \u201cOh, indeed, yes. They are delightful.\u201d A pleased expression came into Miss Patty\u2019s face. \u201cI think a great deal of those dogs,\u201d she said proudly. \u201cThey are over a hundred years old, and they have sat on either side of this fireplace ever since my brother Aaron brought them from London fifty years ago. Spofford Avenue was called after my brother Aaron. \u201cA fine man he was,\u201d said Miss Maria, speaking for the first time. \u201cAh, you don\u2019t see the like of him nowadays.\u201d \u201cHe was a good uncle to you, Maria,\u201d said Miss Patty, with evident emotion. \u201cYou do well to remember him.\u201d \u201cI shall always remember him,\u201d said Miss Maria solemnly. \u201cI can see him, this minute, standing there before that fire, with his hands under his coat-tails, beaming on us.\u201d Miss Maria took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes; but Miss Patty came resolutely back from the regions of sentiment to those of business. \u201cI shall leave the dogs where they are, if you will promise to be very careful of them,\u201d she said. \u201cTheir names are Gog and Magog. Gog looks to the right and Magog to the left. And there\u2019s just one thing more. You don\u2019t object, I hope, to this house being called Patty\u2019s Place?\u201d \u201cNo, indeed. We think that is one of the nicest things about it.\u201d \u201cYou have sense, I see,\u201d said Miss Patty in a tone of great satisfaction. \u201cWould you believe it? All the people who came here to rent the house wanted to know if they couldn\u2019t take the name off the gate during their occupation of it. I told them roundly that the name went with the house. This has been Patty\u2019s Place ever since my brother Aaron left it to me in his will, and Patty\u2019s Place it shall remain until I die and Maria dies. After that happens the next possessor can call it any fool name he likes,\u201d concluded Miss Patty, much as she might have said, \u201cAfter that\u2014the deluge.\u201d \u201cAnd now, wouldn\u2019t you like to go over the house and see it all before we consider the bargain made?\u201d Further exploration still further delighted the girls. Besides the big living-room, there was a kitchen and a small bedroom downstairs. Upstairs were three rooms, one large and two small. Anne took an especial fancy to one of the small ones, looking out into the big pines, and hoped it would be hers. It was papered in pale blue and had a little, old-timey toilet table with sconces for candles. There was a diamond-paned window with a seat under the blue muslin frills that would be a satisfying spot for studying or dreaming. \u201cIt\u2019s all so delicious that I know we are going to wake up and find it a fleeting vision of the night,\u201d said Priscilla as they went away. \u201cMiss Patty and Miss Maria are hardly such stuff as dreams are made of,\u201d laughed Anne. \u201cCan you fancy them \u2018globe-trotting\u2019\u2014especially in those shawls and caps?\u201d \u201cI suppose they\u2019ll take them off when they really begin to trot,\u201d said Priscilla, \u201cbut I know they\u2019ll take their knitting with them everywhere. They simply couldn\u2019t be parted from it. They will walk about Westminster Abbey and knit, I feel sure. Meanwhile, Anne, we shall be living in Patty\u2019s Place\u2014and on Spofford Avenue. I feel like a millionairess even now.\u201d \u201cI feel like one of the morning stars that sang for joy,\u201d said Anne. Phil Gordon crept into Thirty-eight, St. John\u2019s, that night and flung herself on Anne\u2019s bed. \u201cGirls, dear, I\u2019m tired to death. I feel like the man without a country\u2014or was it without a shadow? I forget which. Anyway, I\u2019ve been packing up.\u201d \u201cAnd I suppose you are worn out because you couldn\u2019t decide which things to pack first, or where to put them,\u201d laughed Priscilla. \u201cE-zackly. And when I had got everything jammed in somehow, and my landlady and her maid had both sat on it while I locked it, I discovered I had packed a whole lot of things I wanted for Convocation at the very bottom. I had to unlock the old thing and poke and dive into it for an hour before I fished out what I wanted. I would get hold of something that felt like what I was looking for, and I\u2019d yank it up, and it would be something else. No, Anne, I did _not_ swear.\u201d \u201cI didn\u2019t say you did.\u201d \u201cWell, you looked it. But I admit my thoughts verged on the profane. And I have such a cold in the head\u2014I can do nothing but sniffle, sigh and sneeze. Isn\u2019t that alliterative agony for you? Queen Anne, do say something to cheer me up.\u201d \u201cRemember that next Thursday night, you\u2019ll be back in the land of Alec and Alonzo,\u201d suggested Anne. Phil shook her head dolefully. \u201cMore alliteration. No, I don\u2019t want Alec and Alonzo when I have a cold in the head. But what has happened you two? Now that I look at you closely you seem all lighted up with an internal iridescence. Why, you\u2019re actually _shining!_ What\u2019s up?\u201d \u201cWe are going to live in Patty\u2019s Place next winter,\u201d said Anne triumphantly. \u201cLive, mark you, not board! We\u2019ve rented it, and Stella Maynard is coming, and her aunt is going to keep house for us.\u201d Phil bounced up, wiped her nose, and fell on her knees before Anne. \u201cGirls\u2014girls\u2014let me come, too. Oh, I\u2019ll be so good. If there\u2019s no room for me I\u2019ll sleep in the little doghouse in the orchard\u2014I\u2019ve seen it. Only let me come.\u201d \u201cGet up, you goose.\u201d \u201cI won\u2019t stir off my marrow bones till you tell me I can live with you next winter.\u201d Anne and Priscilla looked at each other. Then Anne said slowly, \u201cPhil dear, we\u2019d love to have you. But we may as well speak plainly. I\u2019m poor\u2014Pris is poor\u2014Stella Maynard is poor\u2014our housekeeping will have to be very simple and our table plain. You\u2019d have to live as we would. Now, you are rich and your boardinghouse fare attests the fact.\u201d \u201cOh, what do I care for that?\u201d demanded Phil tragically. \u201cBetter a dinner of herbs where your chums are than a stalled ox in a lonely boardinghouse. Don\u2019t think I\u2019m _all_ stomach, girls. I\u2019ll be willing to live on bread and water\u2014with just a _leetle_ jam\u2014if you\u2019ll let me come.\u201d \u201cAnd then,\u201d continued Anne, \u201cthere will be a good deal of work to be done. Stella\u2019s aunt can\u2019t do it all. We all expect to have our chores to do. Now, you\u2014\u201d \u201cToil not, neither do I spin,\u201d finished Philippa. \u201cBut I\u2019ll learn to do things. You\u2019ll only have to show me once. I _can_ make my own bed to begin with. And remember that, though I can\u2019t cook, I _can_ keep my temper. That\u2019s something. And I _never_ growl about the weather. That\u2019s more. Oh, please, please! I never wanted anything so much in my life\u2014and this floor is awfully hard.\u201d \u201cThere\u2019s just one more thing,\u201d said Priscilla resolutely. \u201cYou, Phil, as all Redmond knows, entertain callers almost every evening. Now, at Patty\u2019s Place we can\u2019t do that. We have decided that we shall be at home to our friends on Friday evenings only. If you come with us you\u2019ll have to abide by that rule.\u201d \u201cWell, you don\u2019t think I\u2019ll mind that, do you? Why, I\u2019m glad of it. I knew I should have had some such rule myself, but I hadn\u2019t enough decision to make it or stick to it. When I can shuffle off the responsibility on you it will be a real relief. If you won\u2019t let me cast in my lot with you I\u2019ll die of the disappointment and then I\u2019ll come back and haunt you. I\u2019ll camp on the very doorstep of Patty\u2019s Place and you won\u2019t be able to go out or come in without falling over my spook.\u201d Again Anne and Priscilla exchanged eloquent looks. \u201cWell,\u201d said Anne, \u201cof course we can\u2019t promise to take you until we\u2019ve consulted with Stella; but I don\u2019t think she\u2019ll object, and, as far as we are concerned, you may come and glad welcome.\u201d \u201cIf you get tired of our simple life you can leave us, and no questions asked,\u201d added Priscilla. Phil sprang up, hugged them both jubilantly, and went on her way rejoicing. \u201cI hope things will go right,\u201d said Priscilla soberly. \u201cWe must _make_ them go right,\u201d avowed Anne. \u201cI think Phil will fit into our \u2019appy little \u2019ome very well.\u201d \u201cOh, Phil\u2019s a dear to rattle round with and be chums. And, of course, the more there are of us the easier it will be on our slim purses. But how will she be to live with? You have to summer and winter with any one before you know if she\u2019s _livable_ or not.\u201d \u201cOh, well, we\u2019ll all be put to the test, as far as that goes. And we must quit us like sensible folk, living and let live. Phil isn\u2019t selfish, though she\u2019s a little thoughtless, and I believe we will all get on beautifully in Patty\u2019s Place.\u201d Chapter 11. The Round of Life. Anne was back in Avonlea with the luster of the Thorburn Scholarship on her brow. People told her she hadn\u2019t changed much, in a tone which hinted they were surprised and a little disappointed she hadn\u2019t. Avonlea had not changed, either. At least, so it seemed at first. But as Anne sat in the Green Gables pew, on the first Sunday after her return, and looked over the congregation, she saw several little changes which, all coming home to her at once, made her realize that time did not quite stand still, even in Avonlea. A new minister was in the pulpit. In the pews more than one familiar face was missing forever. Old \u201cUncle Abe,\u201d his prophesying over and done with, Mrs. Peter Sloane, who had sighed, it was to be hoped, for the last time, Timothy Cotton, who, as Mrs. Rachel Lynde said \u201chad actually managed to die at last after practicing at it for twenty years,\u201d and old Josiah Sloane, whom nobody knew in his coffin because he had his whiskers neatly trimmed, were all sleeping in the little graveyard behind the church. And Billy Andrews was married to Nettie Blewett! They \u201cappeared out\u201d that Sunday. When Billy, beaming with pride and happiness, showed his be-plumed and be-silked bride into the Harmon Andrews\u2019 pew, Anne dropped her lids to hide her dancing eyes. She recalled the stormy winter night of the Christmas holidays when Jane had proposed for Billy. He certainly had not broken his heart over his rejection. Anne wondered if Jane had also proposed to Nettie for him, or if he had mustered enough spunk to ask the fateful question himself. All the Andrews family seemed to share in his pride and pleasure, from Mrs. Harmon in the pew to Jane in the choir. Jane had resigned from the Avonlea school and intended to go West in the fall. \u201cCan\u2019t get a beau in Avonlea, that\u2019s what,\u201d said Mrs. Rachel Lynde scornfully. \u201c_Says_ she thinks she\u2019ll have better health out West. I never heard her health was poor before.\u201d \u201cJane is a nice girl,\u201d Anne had said loyally. \u201cShe never tried to attract attention, as some did.\u201d \u201cOh, she never chased the boys, if that\u2019s what you mean,\u201d said Mrs. Rachel. \u201cBut she\u2019d like to be married, just as much as anybody, that\u2019s what. What else would take her out West to some forsaken place whose only recommendation is that men are plenty and women scarce? Don\u2019t you tell me!\u201d But it was not at Jane, Anne gazed that day in dismay and surprise. It was at Ruby Gillis, who sat beside her in the choir. What had happened to Ruby? She was even handsomer than ever; but her blue eyes were too bright and lustrous, and the color of her cheeks was hectically brilliant; besides, she was very thin; the hands that held her hymn-book were almost transparent in their delicacy. \u201cIs Ruby Gillis ill?\u201d Anne asked of Mrs. Lynde, as they went home from church. \u201cRuby Gillis is dying of galloping consumption,\u201d said Mrs. Lynde bluntly. \u201cEverybody knows it except herself and her _family_. They won\u2019t give in. If you ask _them_, she\u2019s perfectly well. She hasn\u2019t been able to teach since she had that attack of congestion in the winter, but she says she\u2019s going to teach again in the fall, and she\u2019s after the White Sands school. She\u2019ll be in her grave, poor girl, when White Sands school opens, that\u2019s what.\u201d Anne listened in shocked silence. Ruby Gillis, her old school-chum, dying? Could it be possible? Of late years they had grown apart; but the old tie of school-girl intimacy was there, and made itself felt sharply in the tug the news gave at Anne\u2019s heartstrings. Ruby, the brilliant, the merry, the coquettish! It was impossible to associate the thought of her with anything like death. She had greeted Anne with gay cordiality after church, and urged her to come up the next evening. \u201cI\u2019ll be away Tuesday and Wednesday evenings,\u201d she had whispered triumphantly. \u201cThere\u2019s a concert at Carmody and a party at White Sands. Herb Spencer\u2019s going to take me. He\u2019s my _latest_. Be sure to come up tomorrow. I\u2019m dying for a good talk with you. I want to hear all about your doings at Redmond.\u201d Anne knew that Ruby meant that she wanted to tell Anne all about her own recent flirtations, but she promised to go, and Diana offered to go with her. \u201cI\u2019ve been wanting to go to see Ruby for a long while,\u201d she told Anne, when they left Green Gables the next evening, \u201cbut I really couldn\u2019t go alone. It\u2019s so awful to hear Ruby rattling on as she does, and pretending there is nothing the matter with her, even when she can hardly speak for coughing. She\u2019s fighting so hard for her life, and yet she hasn\u2019t any chance at all, they say.\u201d The girls walked silently down the red, twilit road. The robins were singing vespers in the high treetops, filling the golden air with their jubilant voices. The silver fluting of the frogs came from marshes and ponds, over fields where seeds were beginning to stir with life and thrill to the sunshine and rain that had drifted over them. The air was fragrant with the wild, sweet, wholesome smell of young raspberry copses. White mists were hovering in the silent hollows and violet stars were shining bluely on the brooklands. \u201cWhat a beautiful sunset,\u201d said Diana. \u201cLook, Anne, it\u2019s just like a land in itself, isn\u2019t it? That long, low back of purple cloud is the shore, and the clear sky further on is like a golden sea.\u201d \u201cIf we could sail to it in the moonshine boat Paul wrote of in his old composition\u2014you remember?\u2014how nice it would be,\u201d said Anne, rousing from her reverie. \u201cDo you think we could find all our yesterdays there, Diana\u2014all our old springs and blossoms? The beds of flowers that Paul saw there are the roses that have bloomed for us in the past?\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t!\u201d said Diana. \u201cYou make me feel as if we were old women with everything in life behind us.\u201d \u201cI think I\u2019ve almost felt as if we were since I heard about poor Ruby,\u201d said Anne. \u201cIf it is true that she is dying any other sad thing might be true, too.\u201d \u201cYou don\u2019t mind calling in at Elisha Wright\u2019s for a moment, do you?\u201d asked Diana. \u201cMother asked me to leave this little dish of jelly for Aunt Atossa.\u201d \u201cWho is Aunt Atossa?\u201d \u201cOh, haven\u2019t you heard? She\u2019s Mrs. Samson Coates of Spencervale\u2014Mrs. Elisha Wright\u2019s aunt. She\u2019s father\u2019s aunt, too. Her husband died last winter and she was left very poor and lonely, so the Wrights took her to live with them. Mother thought we ought to take her, but father put his foot down. Live with Aunt Atossa he would not.\u201d \u201cIs she so terrible?\u201d asked Anne absently. \u201cYou\u2019ll probably see what she\u2019s like before we can get away,\u201d said Diana significantly. \u201cFather says she has a face like a hatchet\u2014it cuts the air. But her tongue is sharper still.\u201d Late as it was Aunt Atossa was cutting potato sets in the Wright kitchen. She wore a faded old wrapper, and her gray hair was decidedly untidy. Aunt Atossa did not like being \u201ccaught in a kilter,\u201d so she went out of her way to be disagreeable. \u201cOh, so you\u2019re Anne Shirley?\u201d she said, when Diana introduced Anne. \u201cI\u2019ve heard of you.\u201d Her tone implied that she had heard nothing good. \u201cMrs. Andrews was telling me you were home. She said you had improved a good deal.\u201d There was no doubt Aunt Atossa thought there was plenty of room for further improvement. She ceased not from cutting sets with much energy. \u201cIs it any use to ask you to sit down?\u201d she inquired sarcastically. \u201cOf course, there\u2019s nothing very entertaining here for you. The rest are all away.\u201d \u201cMother sent you this little pot of rhubarb jelly,\u201d said Diana pleasantly. \u201cShe made it today and thought you might like some.\u201d \u201cOh, thanks,\u201d said Aunt Atossa sourly. \u201cI never fancy your mother\u2019s jelly\u2014she always makes it too sweet. However, I\u2019ll try to worry some down. My appetite\u2019s been dreadful poor this spring. I\u2019m far from well,\u201d continued Aunt Atossa solemnly, \u201cbut still I keep a-doing. People who can\u2019t work aren\u2019t wanted here. If it isn\u2019t too much trouble will you be condescending enough to set the jelly in the pantry? I\u2019m in a hurry to get these spuds done tonight. I suppose you two _ladies_ never do anything like this. You\u2019d be afraid of spoiling your hands.\u201d \u201cI used to cut potato sets before we rented the farm,\u201d smiled Anne. \u201cI do it yet,\u201d laughed Diana. \u201cI cut sets three days last week. Of course,\u201d she added teasingly, \u201cI did my hands up in lemon juice and kid gloves every night after it.\u201d Aunt Atossa sniffed. \u201cI suppose you got that notion out of some of those silly magazines you read so many of. I wonder your mother allows you. But she always spoiled you. We all thought when George married her she wouldn\u2019t be a suitable wife for him.\u201d Aunt Atossa sighed heavily, as if all forebodings upon the occasion of George Barry\u2019s marriage had been amply and darkly fulfilled. \u201cGoing, are you?\u201d she inquired, as the girls rose. \u201cWell, I suppose you can\u2019t find much amusement talking to an old woman like me. It\u2019s such a pity the boys ain\u2019t home.\u201d \u201cWe want to run in and see Ruby Gillis a little while,\u201d explained Diana. \u201cOh, anything does for an excuse, of course,\u201d said Aunt Atossa, amiably. \u201cJust whip in and whip out before you have time to say how-do decently. It\u2019s college airs, I s\u2019pose. You\u2019d be wiser to keep away from Ruby Gillis. The doctors say consumption\u2019s catching. I always knew Ruby\u2019d get something, gadding off to Boston last fall for a visit. People who ain\u2019t content to stay home always catch something.\u201d \u201cPeople who don\u2019t go visiting catch things, too. Sometimes they even die,\u201d said Diana solemnly. \u201cThen they don\u2019t have themselves to blame for it,\u201d retorted Aunt Atossa triumphantly. \u201cI hear you are to be married in June, Diana.\u201d \u201cThere is no truth in that report,\u201d said Diana, blushing. \u201cWell, don\u2019t put it off too long,\u201d said Aunt Atossa significantly. \u201cYou\u2019ll fade soon\u2014you\u2019re all complexion and hair. And the Wrights are terrible fickle. You ought to wear a hat, _Miss Shirley_. Your nose is freckling scandalous. My, but you _are_ redheaded! Well, I s\u2019pose we\u2019re all as the Lord made us! Give Marilla Cuthbert my respects. She\u2019s never been to see me since I come to Avonlea, but I s\u2019pose I oughtn\u2019t to complain. The Cuthberts always did think themselves a cut higher than any one else round here.\u201d \u201cOh, isn\u2019t she dreadful?\u201d gasped Diana, as they escaped down the lane. \u201cShe\u2019s worse than Miss Eliza Andrews,\u201d said Anne. \u201cBut then think of living all your life with a name like Atossa! Wouldn\u2019t it sour almost any one? She should have tried to imagine her name was Cordelia. It might have helped her a great deal. It certainly helped me in the days when I didn\u2019t like _Anne_.\u201d \u201cJosie Pye will be just like her when she grows up,\u201d said Diana. \u201cJosie\u2019s mother and Aunt Atossa are cousins, you know. Oh, dear, I\u2019m glad that\u2019s over. She\u2019s so malicious\u2014she seems to put a bad flavor in everything. Father tells such a funny story about her. One time they had a minister in Spencervale who was a very good, spiritual man but very deaf. He couldn\u2019t hear any ordinary conversation at all. Well, they used to have a prayer meeting on Sunday evenings, and all the church members present would get up and pray in turn, or say a few words on some Bible verse. But one evening Aunt Atossa bounced up. She didn\u2019t either pray or preach. Instead, she lit into everybody else in the church and gave them a fearful raking down, calling them right out by name and telling them how they all had behaved, and casting up all the quarrels and scandals of the past ten years. Finally she wound up by saying that she was disgusted with Spencervale church and she never meant to darken its door again, and she hoped a fearful judgment would come upon it. Then she sat down out of breath, and the minister, who hadn\u2019t heard a word she said, immediately remarked, in a very devout voice, \u2018amen! The Lord grant our dear sister\u2019s prayer!\u2019 You ought to hear father tell the story.\u201d \u201cSpeaking of stories, Diana,\u201d remarked Anne, in a significant, confidential tone, \u201cdo you know that lately I have been wondering if I could write a short story\u2014a story that would be good enough to be published?\u201d \u201cWhy, of course you could,\u201d said Diana, after she had grasped the amazing suggestion. \u201cYou used to write perfectly thrilling stories years ago in our old Story Club.\u201d \u201cWell, I hardly meant one of that kind of stories,\u201d smiled Anne. \u201cI\u2019ve been thinking about it a little of late, but I\u2019m almost afraid to try, for, if I should fail, it would be too humiliating.\u201d \u201cI heard Priscilla say once that all Mrs. Morgan\u2019s first stories were rejected. But I\u2019m sure yours wouldn\u2019t be, Anne, for it\u2019s likely editors have more sense nowadays.\u201d \u201cMargaret Burton, one of the Junior girls at Redmond, wrote a story last winter and it was published in the _Canadian Woman_. I really do think I could write one at least as good.\u201d \u201cAnd will you have it published in the _Canadian Woman?_\u201d \u201cI might try one of the bigger magazines first. It all depends on what kind of a story I write.\u201d \u201cWhat is it to be about?\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t know yet. I want to get hold of a good plot. I believe this is very necessary from an editor\u2019s point of view. The only thing I\u2019ve settled on is the heroine\u2019s name. It is to be _Averil Lester_. Rather pretty, don\u2019t you think? Don\u2019t mention this to any one, Diana. I haven\u2019t told anybody but you and Mr. Harrison. _He_ wasn\u2019t very encouraging\u2014he said there was far too much trash written nowadays as it was, and he\u2019d expected something better of me, after a year at college.\u201d \u201cWhat does Mr. Harrison know about it?\u201d demanded Diana scornfully. They found the Gillis home gay with lights and callers. Leonard Kimball, of Spencervale, and Morgan Bell, of Carmody, were glaring at each other across the parlor. Several merry girls had dropped in. Ruby was dressed in white and her eyes and cheeks were very brilliant. She laughed and chattered incessantly, and after the other girls had gone she took Anne upstairs to display her new summer dresses. \u201cI\u2019ve a blue silk to make up yet, but it\u2019s a little heavy for summer wear. I think I\u2019ll leave it until the fall. I\u2019m going to teach in White Sands, you know. How do you like my hat? That one you had on in church yesterday was real dinky. But I like something brighter for myself. Did you notice those two ridiculous boys downstairs? They\u2019ve both come determined to sit each other out. I don\u2019t care a single bit about either of them, you know. Herb Spencer is the one I like. Sometimes I really do think he\u2019s _Mr. Right_. At Christmas I thought the Spencervale schoolmaster was that. But I found out something about him that turned me against him. He nearly went insane when I turned him down. I wish those two boys hadn\u2019t come tonight. I wanted to have a nice good talk with you, Anne, and tell you such heaps of things. You and I were always good chums, weren\u2019t we?\u201d Ruby slipped her arm about Anne\u2019s waist with a shallow little laugh. But just for a moment their eyes met, and, behind all the luster of Ruby\u2019s, Anne saw something that made her heart ache. \u201cCome up often, won\u2019t you, Anne?\u201d whispered Ruby. \u201cCome alone\u2014I want you. \u201cAre you feeling quite well, Ruby?\u201d \u201cMe! Why, I\u2019m perfectly well. I never felt better in my life. Of course, that congestion last winter pulled me down a little. But just see my color. I don\u2019t look much like an invalid, I\u2019m sure.\u201d Ruby\u2019s voice was almost sharp. She pulled her arm away from Anne, as if in resentment, and ran downstairs, where she was gayer than ever, apparently so much absorbed in bantering her two swains that Diana and Anne felt rather out of it and soon went away. Chapter 12. \u201cAveril\u2019s Atonement\u201d. \u201cWhat are you dreaming of, Anne?\u201d The two girls were loitering one evening in a fairy hollow of the brook. Ferns nodded in it, and little grasses were green, and wild pears hung finely-scented, white curtains around it. Anne roused herself from her reverie with a happy sigh. \u201cI was thinking out my story, Diana.\u201d \u201cOh, have you really begun it?\u201d cried Diana, all alight with eager interest in a moment. \u201cYes, I have only a few pages written, but I have it all pretty well thought out. I\u2019ve had such a time to get a suitable plot. None of the plots that suggested themselves suited a girl named _Averil_.\u201d \u201cCouldn\u2019t you have changed her name?\u201d \u201cNo, the thing was impossible. I tried to, but I couldn\u2019t do it, any more than I could change yours. _Averil_ was so real to me that no matter what other name I tried to give her I just thought of her as _Averil_ behind it all. But finally I got a plot that matched her. Then came the excitement of choosing names for all my characters. You have no idea how fascinating that is. I\u2019ve lain awake for hours thinking over those names. The hero\u2019s name is _Perceval Dalrymple_.\u201d \u201cHave you named _all_ the characters?\u201d asked Diana wistfully. \u201cIf you hadn\u2019t I was going to ask you to let me name one\u2014just some unimportant person. I\u2019d feel as if I had a share in the story then.\u201d \u201cYou may name the little hired boy who lived with the _Lesters_,\u201d conceded Anne. \u201cHe is not very important, but he is the only one left unnamed.\u201d \u201cCall him _Raymond Fitzosborne_,\u201d suggested Diana, who had a store of such names laid away in her memory, relics of the old \u201cStory Club,\u201d which she and Anne and Jane Andrews and Ruby Gillis had had in their schooldays. Anne shook her head doubtfully. \u201cI\u2019m afraid that is too aristocratic a name for a chore boy, Diana. I couldn\u2019t imagine a Fitzosborne feeding pigs and picking up chips, could you?\u201d Diana didn\u2019t see why, if you had an imagination at all, you couldn\u2019t stretch it to that extent; but probably Anne knew best, and the chore boy was finally christened _Robert Ray_, to be called _Bobby_ should occasion require. \u201cHow much do you suppose you\u2019ll get for it?\u201d asked Diana. But Anne had not thought about this at all. She was in pursuit of fame, not filthy lucre, and her literary dreams were as yet untainted by mercenary considerations. \u201cYou\u2019ll let me read it, won\u2019t you?\u201d pleaded Diana. \u201cWhen it is finished I\u2019ll read it to you and Mr. Harrison, and I shall want you to criticize it _severely_. No one else shall see it until it is published.\u201d \u201cHow are you going to end it\u2014happily or unhappily?\u201d \u201cI\u2019m not sure. I\u2019d like it to end unhappily, because that would be so much more romantic. But I understand editors have a prejudice against sad endings. I heard Professor Hamilton say once that nobody but a genius should try to write an unhappy ending. And,\u201d concluded Anne modestly, \u201cI\u2019m anything but a genius.\u201d \u201cOh I like happy endings best. You\u2019d better let him marry her,\u201d said Diana, who, especially since her engagement to Fred, thought this was how every story should end. \u201cBut you like to cry over stories?\u201d \u201cOh, yes, in the middle of them. But I like everything to come right at last.\u201d \u201cI must have one pathetic scene in it,\u201d said Anne thoughtfully. \u201cI might let _Robert Ray_ be injured in an accident and have a death scene.\u201d \u201cNo, you mustn\u2019t kill _Bobby_ off,\u201d declared Diana, laughing. \u201cHe belongs to me and I want him to live and flourish. Kill somebody else if you have to.\u201d For the next fortnight Anne writhed or reveled, according to mood, in her literary pursuits. Now she would be jubilant over a brilliant idea, now despairing because some contrary character would _not_ behave properly. Diana could not understand this. \u201c_Make_ them do as you want them to,\u201d she said. \u201cI can\u2019t,\u201d mourned Anne. \u201cAveril is such an unmanageable heroine. She _will_ do and say things I never meant her to. Then that spoils everything that went before and I have to write it all over again.\u201d Finally, however, the story was finished, and Anne read it to Diana in the seclusion of the porch gable. She had achieved her \u201cpathetic scene\u201d without sacrificing _Robert Ray_, and she kept a watchful eye on Diana as she read it. Diana rose to the occasion and cried properly; but, when the end came, she looked a little disappointed. \u201cWhy did you kill _Maurice Lennox?_\u201d she asked reproachfully. \u201cHe was the villain,\u201d protested Anne. \u201cHe had to be punished.\u201d \u201cI like him best of them all,\u201d said unreasonable Diana. \u201cWell, he\u2019s dead, and he\u2019ll have to stay dead,\u201d said Anne, rather resentfully. \u201cIf I had let him live he\u2019d have gone on persecuting _Averil_ and _Perceval_.\u201d \u201cYes\u2014unless you had reformed him.\u201d \u201cThat wouldn\u2019t have been romantic, and, besides, it would have made the story too long.\u201d \u201cWell, anyway, it\u2019s a perfectly elegant story, Anne, and will make you famous, of that I\u2019m sure. Have you got a title for it?\u201d \u201cOh, I decided on the title long ago. I call it _Averil\u2019s atonement_. Doesn\u2019t that sound nice and alliterative? Now, Diana, tell me candidly, do you see any faults in my story?\u201d \u201cWell,\u201d hesitated Diana, \u201cthat part where _Averil_ makes the cake doesn\u2019t seem to me quite romantic enough to match the rest. It\u2019s just what anybody might do. Heroines shouldn\u2019t do cooking, _I_ think.\u201d \u201cWhy, that is where the humor comes in, and it\u2019s one of the best parts of the whole story,\u201d said Anne. And it may be stated that in this she was quite right. Diana prudently refrained from any further criticism, but Mr. Harrison was much harder to please. First he told her there was entirely too much description in the story. \u201cCut out all those flowery passages,\u201d he said unfeelingly. Anne had an uncomfortable conviction that Mr. Harrison was right, and she forced herself to expunge most of her beloved descriptions, though it took three re-writings before the story could be pruned down to please the fastidious Mr. Harrison. \u201cI\u2019ve left out _all_ the descriptions but the sunset,\u201d she said at last. \u201cI simply _couldn\u2019t_ let it go. It was the best of them all.\u201d \u201cIt hasn\u2019t anything to do with the story,\u201d said Mr. Harrison, \u201cand you shouldn\u2019t have laid the scene among rich city people. What do you know of them? Why didn\u2019t you lay it right here in Avonlea\u2014changing the name, of course, or else Mrs. Rachel Lynde would probably think she was the heroine.\u201d \u201cOh, that would never have done,\u201d protested Anne. \u201cAvonlea is the dearest place in the world, but it isn\u2019t quite romantic enough for the scene of a story.\u201d \u201cI daresay there\u2019s been many a romance in Avonlea\u2014and many a tragedy, too,\u201d said Mr. Harrison drily. \u201cBut your folks ain\u2019t like real folks anywhere. They talk too much and use too high-flown language. There\u2019s one place where that _Dalrymple_ chap talks even on for two pages, and never lets the girl get a word in edgewise. If he\u2019d done that in real life she\u2019d have pitched him.\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t believe it,\u201d said Anne flatly. In her secret soul she thought that the beautiful, poetical things said to _Averil_ would win any girl\u2019s heart completely. Besides, it was gruesome to hear of _Averil_, the stately, queen-like _Averil_, \u201cpitching\u201d any one. _Averil_ \u201cdeclined her suitors.\u201d \u201cAnyhow,\u201d resumed the merciless Mr. Harrison, \u201cI don\u2019t see why _Maurice Lennox_ didn\u2019t get her. He was twice the man the other is. He did bad things, but he did them. Perceval hadn\u2019t time for anything but mooning.\u201d \u201cMooning.\u201d That was even worse than \u201cpitching!\u201d \u201c_Maurice Lennox_ was the villain,\u201d said Anne indignantly. \u201cI don\u2019t see why every one likes him better than _Perceval_.\u201d \u201cPerceval is too good. He\u2019s aggravating. Next time you write about a hero put a little spice of human nature in him.\u201d \u201c_Averil_ couldn\u2019t have married _Maurice_. He was bad.\u201d \u201cShe\u2019d have reformed him. You can reform a man; you can\u2019t reform a jelly-fish, of course. Your story isn\u2019t bad\u2014it\u2019s kind of interesting, I\u2019ll admit. But you\u2019re too young to write a story that would be worth while. Wait ten years.\u201d Anne made up her mind that the next time she wrote a story she wouldn\u2019t ask anybody to criticize it. It was too discouraging. She would not read the story to Gilbert, although she told him about it. \u201cIf it is a success you\u2019ll see it when it is published, Gilbert, but if it is a failure nobody shall ever see it.\u201d Marilla knew nothing about the venture. In imagination Anne saw herself reading a story out of a magazine to Marilla, entrapping her into praise of it\u2014for in imagination all things are possible\u2014and then triumphantly announcing herself the author. One day Anne took to the Post Office a long, bulky envelope, addressed, with the delightful confidence of youth and inexperience, to the very biggest of the \u201cbig\u201d magazines. Diana was as excited over it as Anne herself. \u201cHow long do you suppose it will be before you hear from it?\u201d she asked. \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be longer than a fortnight. Oh, how happy and proud I shall be if it is accepted!\u201d \u201cOf course it will be accepted, and they will likely ask you to send them more. You may be as famous as Mrs. Morgan some day, Anne, and then how proud I\u2019ll be of knowing you,\u201d said Diana, who possessed, at least, the striking merit of an unselfish admiration of the gifts and graces of her friends. A week of delightful dreaming followed, and then came a bitter awakening. One evening Diana found Anne in the porch gable, with suspicious-looking eyes. On the table lay a long envelope and a crumpled manuscript. \u201cAnne, your story hasn\u2019t come back?\u201d cried Diana incredulously. \u201cYes, it has,\u201d said Anne shortly. \u201cWell, that editor must be crazy. What reason did he give?\u201d \u201cNo reason at all. There is just a printed slip saying that it wasn\u2019t found acceptable.\u201d \u201cI never thought much of that magazine, anyway,\u201d said Diana hotly. \u201cThe stories in it are not half as interesting as those in the _Canadian Woman_, although it costs so much more. I suppose the editor is prejudiced against any one who isn\u2019t a Yankee. Don\u2019t be discouraged, Anne. Remember how Mrs. Morgan\u2019s stories came back. Send yours to the _Canadian Woman_.\u201d \u201cI believe I will,\u201d said Anne, plucking up heart. \u201cAnd if it is published I\u2019ll send that American editor a marked copy. But I\u2019ll cut the sunset out. I believe Mr. Harrison was right.\u201d Out came the sunset; but in spite of this heroic mutilation the editor of the _Canadian Woman_ sent Averil\u2019s Atonement back so promptly that the indignant Diana declared that it couldn\u2019t have been read at all, and vowed she was going to stop her subscription immediately. Anne took this second rejection with the calmness of despair. She locked the story away in the garret trunk where the old Story Club tales reposed; but first she yielded to Diana\u2019s entreaties and gave her a copy. \u201cThis is the end of my literary ambitions,\u201d she said bitterly. She never mentioned the matter to Mr. Harrison, but one evening he asked her bluntly if her story had been accepted. \u201cNo, the editor wouldn\u2019t take it,\u201d she answered briefly. Mr. Harrison looked sidewise at the flushed, delicate profile. \u201cWell, I suppose you\u2019ll keep on writing them,\u201d he said encouragingly. \u201cNo, I shall never try to write a story again,\u201d declared Anne, with the hopeless finality of nineteen when a door is shut in its face. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t give up altogether,\u201d said Mr. Harrison reflectively. \u201cI\u2019d write a story once in a while, but I wouldn\u2019t pester editors with it. I\u2019d write of people and places like I knew, and I\u2019d make my characters talk everyday English; and I\u2019d let the sun rise and set in the usual quiet way without much fuss over the fact. If I had to have villains at all, I\u2019d give them a chance, Anne\u2014I\u2019d give them a chance. There are some terrible bad men in the world, I suppose, but you\u2019d have to go a long piece to find them\u2014though Mrs. Lynde believes we\u2019re all bad. But most of us have got a little decency somewhere in us. Keep on writing, Anne.\u201d \u201cNo. It was very foolish of me to attempt it. When I\u2019m through Redmond I\u2019ll stick to teaching. I can teach. I can\u2019t write stories.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019ll be time for you to be getting a husband when you\u2019re through Redmond,\u201d said Mr. Harrison. \u201cI don\u2019t believe in putting marrying off too long\u2014like I did.\u201d Anne got up and marched home. There were times when Mr. Harrison was really intolerable. \u201cPitching,\u201d \u201cmooning,\u201d and \u201cgetting a husband.\u201d Ow!! Chapter 13. The Way of Transgressors. Davy and Dora were ready for Sunday School. They were going alone, which did not often happen, for Mrs. Lynde always attended Sunday School. But Mrs. Lynde had twisted her ankle and was lame, so she was staying home this morning. The twins were also to represent the family at church, for Anne had gone away the evening before to spend Sunday with friends in Carmody, and Marilla had one of her headaches. Davy came downstairs slowly. Dora was waiting in the hall for him, having been made ready by Mrs. Lynde. Davy had attended to his own preparations. He had a cent in his pocket for the Sunday School collection, and a five-cent piece for the church collection; he carried his Bible in one hand and his Sunday School quarterly in the other; he knew his lesson and his Golden Text and his catechism question perfectly. Had he not studied them\u2014perforce\u2014in Mrs. Lynde\u2019s kitchen, all last Sunday afternoon? Davy, therefore, should have been in a placid frame of mind. As a matter of fact, despite text and catechism, he was inwardly as a ravening wolf. Mrs. Lynde limped out of her kitchen as he joined Dora. \u201cAre you clean?\u201d she demanded severely. \u201cYes\u2014all of me that shows,\u201d Davy answered with a defiant scowl. Mrs. Rachel sighed. She had her suspicions about Davy\u2019s neck and ears. But she knew that if she attempted to make a personal examination Davy would likely take to his heels and she could not pursue him today. \u201cWell, be sure you behave yourselves,\u201d she warned them. \u201cDon\u2019t walk in the dust. Don\u2019t stop in the porch to talk to the other children. Don\u2019t squirm or wriggle in your places. Don\u2019t forget the Golden Text. Don\u2019t lose your collection or forget to put it in. Don\u2019t whisper at prayer time, and don\u2019t forget to pay attention to the sermon.\u201d Davy deigned no response. He marched away down the lane, followed by the meek Dora. But his soul seethed within. Davy had suffered, or thought he had suffered, many things at the hands and tongue of Mrs. Rachel Lynde since she had come to Green Gables, for Mrs. Lynde could not live with anybody, whether they were nine or ninety, without trying to bring them up properly. And it was only the preceding afternoon that she had interfered to influence Marilla against allowing Davy to go fishing with the Timothy Cottons. Davy was still boiling over this. As soon as he was out of the lane Davy stopped and twisted his countenance into such an unearthly and terrific contortion that Dora, although she knew his gifts in that respect, was honestly alarmed lest he should never in the world be able to get it straightened out again. \u201cDarn her,\u201d exploded Davy. \u201cOh, Davy, don\u2019t swear,\u201d gasped Dora in dismay. \u201c\u2018Darn\u2019 isn\u2019t swearing\u2014not real swearing. And I don\u2019t care if it is,\u201d retorted Davy recklessly. \u201cWell, if you _must_ say dreadful words don\u2019t say them on Sunday,\u201d pleaded Dora. Davy was as yet far from repentance, but in his secret soul he felt that, perhaps, he had gone a little too far. \u201cI\u2019m going to invent a swear word of my own,\u201d he declared. \u201cGod will punish you if you do,\u201d said Dora solemnly. \u201cThen I think God is a mean old scamp,\u201d retorted Davy. \u201cDoesn\u2019t He know a fellow must have some way of \u2019spressing his feelings?\u201d \u201cDavy!!!\u201d said Dora. She expected that Davy would be struck down dead on the spot. But nothing happened. \u201cAnyway, I ain\u2019t going to stand any more of Mrs. Lynde\u2019s bossing,\u201d spluttered Davy. \u201cAnne and Marilla may have the right to boss me, but _she_ hasn\u2019t. I\u2019m going to do every single thing she told me not to do. You watch me.\u201d In grim, deliberate silence, while Dora watched him with the fascination of horror, Davy stepped off the green grass of the roadside, ankle deep into the fine dust which four weeks of rainless weather had made on the road, and marched along in it, shuffling his feet viciously until he was enveloped in a hazy cloud. \u201cThat\u2019s the beginning,\u201d he announced triumphantly. \u201cAnd I\u2019m going to stop in the porch and talk as long as there\u2019s anybody there to talk to. I\u2019m going to squirm and wriggle and whisper, and I\u2019m going to say I don\u2019t know the Golden Text. And I\u2019m going to throw away both of my collections _right now_.\u201d And Davy hurled cent and nickel over Mr. Barry\u2019s fence with fierce delight. \u201cSatan made you do that,\u201d said Dora reproachfully. \u201cHe didn\u2019t,\u201d cried Davy indignantly. \u201cI just thought it out for myself. And I\u2019ve thought of something else. I\u2019m not going to Sunday School or church at all. I\u2019m going up to play with the Cottons. They told me yesterday they weren\u2019t going to Sunday School today, &#8217;cause their mother was away and there was nobody to make them. Come along, Dora, we\u2019ll have a great time.\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t want to go,\u201d protested Dora. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to,\u201d said Davy. \u201cIf you don\u2019t come I\u2019ll tell Marilla that Frank Bell kissed you in school last Monday.\u201d \u201cI couldn\u2019t help it. I didn\u2019t know he was going to,\u201d cried Dora, blushing scarlet. \u201cWell, you didn\u2019t slap him or seem a bit cross,\u201d retorted Davy. \u201cI\u2019ll tell her _that_, too, if you don\u2019t come. We\u2019ll take the short cut up this field.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m afraid of those cows,\u201d protested poor Dora, seeing a prospect of escape. \u201cThe very idea of your being scared of those cows,\u201d scoffed Davy. \u201cWhy, they\u2019re both younger than you.\u201d \u201cThey\u2019re bigger,\u201d said Dora. \u201cThey won\u2019t hurt you. Come along, now. This is great. When I grow up I ain\u2019t going to bother going to church at all. I believe I can get to heaven by myself.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019ll go to the other place if you break the Sabbath day,\u201d said unhappy Dora, following him sorely against her will. But Davy was not scared\u2014yet. Hell was very far off, and the delights of a fishing expedition with the Cottons were very near. He wished Dora had more spunk. She kept looking back as if she were going to cry every minute, and that spoiled a fellow\u2019s fun. Hang girls, anyway. Davy did not say \u201cdarn\u201d this time, even in thought. He was not sorry\u2014yet\u2014that he had said it once, but it might be as well not to tempt the Unknown Powers too far on one day. The small Cottons were playing in their back yard, and hailed Davy\u2019s appearance with whoops of delight. Pete, Tommy, Adolphus, and Mirabel Cotton were all alone. Their mother and older sisters were away. Dora was thankful Mirabel was there, at least. She had been afraid she would be alone in a crowd of boys. Mirabel was almost as bad as a boy\u2014she was so noisy and sunburned and reckless. But at least she wore dresses. \u201cWe\u2019ve come to go fishing,\u201d announced Davy. \u201cWhoop,\u201d yelled the Cottons. They rushed away to dig worms at once, Mirabel leading the van with a tin can. Dora could have sat down and cried. Oh, if only that hateful Frank Bell had never kissed her! Then she could have defied Davy, and gone to her beloved Sunday School. They dared not, of course, go fishing on the pond, where they would be seen by people going to church. They had to resort to the brook in the woods behind the Cotton house. But it was full of trout, and they had a glorious time that morning\u2014at least the Cottons certainly had, and Davy seemed to have it. Not being entirely bereft of prudence, he had discarded boots and stockings and borrowed Tommy Cotton\u2019s overalls. Thus accoutered, bog and marsh and undergrowth had no terrors for him. Dora was frankly and manifestly miserable. She followed the others in their peregrinations from pool to pool, clasping her Bible and quarterly tightly and thinking with bitterness of soul of her beloved class where she should be sitting that very moment, before a teacher she adored. Instead, here she was roaming the woods with those half-wild Cottons, trying to keep her boots clean and her pretty white dress free from rents and stains. Mirabel had offered the loan of an apron but Dora had scornfully refused. The trout bit as they always do on Sundays. In an hour the transgressors had all the fish they wanted, so they returned to the house, much to Dora\u2019s relief. She sat primly on a hencoop in the yard while the others played an uproarious game of tag; and then they all climbed to the top of the pig-house roof and cut their initials on the saddleboard. The flat-roofed henhouse and a pile of straw beneath gave Davy another inspiration. They spent a splendid half hour climbing on the roof and diving off into the straw with whoops and yells. But even unlawful pleasures must come to an end. When the rumble of wheels over the pond bridge told that people were going home from church Davy knew they must go. He discarded Tommy\u2019s overalls, resumed his own rightful attire, and turned away from his string of trout with a sigh. No use to think of taking them home. \u201cWell, hadn\u2019t we a splendid time?\u201d he demanded defiantly, as they went down the hill field. \u201cI hadn\u2019t,\u201d said Dora flatly. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t believe you had\u2014really\u2014either,\u201d she added, with a flash of insight that was not to be expected of her. \u201cI had so,\u201d cried Davy, but in the voice of one who doth protest too much. \u201cNo wonder you hadn\u2019t\u2014just sitting there like a\u2014like a mule.\u201d \u201cI ain\u2019t going to, \u2019sociate with the Cottons,\u201d said Dora loftily. \u201cThe Cottons are all right,\u201d retorted Davy. \u201cAnd they have far better times than we have. They do just as they please and say just what they like before everybody. _I_\u2019m going to do that, too, after this.\u201d \u201cThere are lots of things you wouldn\u2019t dare say before everybody,\u201d averred Dora. \u201cNo, there isn\u2019t.\u201d \u201cThere is, too. Would you,\u201d demanded Dora gravely, \u201cwould you say \u2018tomcat\u2019 before the minister?\u201d This was a staggerer. Davy was not prepared for such a concrete example of the freedom of speech. But one did not have to be consistent with Dora. \u201cOf course not,\u201d he admitted sulkily. \u201c\u2018Tomcat\u2019 isn\u2019t a holy word. I wouldn\u2019t mention such an animal before a minister at all.\u201d \u201cBut if you had to?\u201d persisted Dora. \u201cI\u2019d call it a Thomas pussy,\u201d said Davy. \u201c_I_ think \u2018gentleman cat\u2019 would be more polite,\u201d reflected Dora. \u201c_You_ thinking!\u201d retorted Davy with withering scorn. Davy was not feeling comfortable, though he would have died before he admitted it to Dora. Now that the exhilaration of truant delights had died away, his conscience was beginning to give him salutary twinges. After all, perhaps it would have been better to have gone to Sunday School and church. Mrs. Lynde might be bossy; but there was always a box of cookies in her kitchen cupboard and she was not stingy. At this inconvenient moment Davy remembered that when he had torn his new school pants the week before, Mrs. Lynde had mended them beautifully and never said a word to Marilla about them. But Davy\u2019s cup of iniquity was not yet full. He was to discover that one sin demands another to cover it. They had dinner with Mrs. Lynde that day, and the first thing she asked Davy was, \u201cWere all your class in Sunday School today?\u201d \u201cYes\u2019m,\u201d said Davy with a gulp. \u201cAll were there\u2014\u2019cept one.\u201d \u201cDid you say your Golden Text and catechism?\u201d \u201cYes\u2019m.\u201d \u201cDid you put your collection in?\u201d \u201cYes\u2019m.\u201d \u201cWas Mrs. Malcolm MacPherson in church?\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d This, at least, was the truth, thought wretched Davy. \u201cWas the Ladies\u2019 Aid announced for next week?\u201d \u201cYes\u2019m\u201d\u2014quakingly. \u201cWas prayer-meeting?\u201d \u201cI\u2014I don\u2019t know.\u201d \u201c_You_ should know. You should listen more attentively to the announcements. What was Mr. Harvey\u2019s text?\u201d Davy took a frantic gulp of water and swallowed it and the last protest of conscience together. He glibly recited an old Golden Text learned several weeks ago. Fortunately Mrs. Lynde now stopped questioning him; but Davy did not enjoy his dinner. He could only eat one helping of pudding. \u201cWhat\u2019s the matter with you?\u201d demanded justly astonished Mrs. Lynde. \u201cAre you sick?\u201d \u201cNo,\u201d muttered Davy. \u201cYou look pale. You\u2019d better keep out of the sun this afternoon,\u201d admonished Mrs. Lynde. \u201cDo you know how many lies you told Mrs. Lynde?\u201d asked Dora reproachfully, as soon as they were alone after dinner. Davy, goaded to desperation, turned fiercely. \u201cI don\u2019t know and I don\u2019t care,\u201d he said. \u201cYou just shut up, Dora Keith.\u201d Then poor Davy betook himself to a secluded retreat behind the woodpile to think over the way of transgressors. Green Gables was wrapped in darkness and silence when Anne reached home. She lost no time going to bed, for she was very tired and sleepy. There had been several Avonlea jollifications the preceding week, involving rather late hours. Anne\u2019s head was hardly on her pillow before she was half asleep; but just then her door was softly opened and a pleading voice said, \u201cAnne.\u201d Anne sat up drowsily. \u201cDavy, is that you? What is the matter?\u201d A white-clad figure flung itself across the floor and on to the bed. \u201cAnne,\u201d sobbed Davy, getting his arms about her neck. \u201cI\u2019m awful glad you\u2019re home. I couldn\u2019t go to sleep till I\u2019d told somebody.\u201d \u201cTold somebody what?\u201d \u201cHow mis\u2019rubul I am.\u201d \u201cWhy are you miserable, dear?\u201d \u201c\u2019Cause I was so bad today, Anne. Oh, I was awful bad\u2014badder\u2019n I\u2019ve ever been yet.\u201d \u201cWhat did you do?\u201d \u201cOh, I\u2019m afraid to tell you. You\u2019ll never like me again, Anne. I couldn\u2019t say my prayers tonight. I couldn\u2019t tell God what I\u2019d done. I was \u2019shamed to have Him know.\u201d \u201cBut He knew anyway, Davy.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s what Dora said. But I thought p\u2019raps He mightn\u2019t have noticed just at the time. Anyway, I\u2019d rather tell you first.\u201d \u201c_What_ is it you did?\u201d Out it all came in a rush. \u201cI run away from Sunday School\u2014and went fishing with the Cottons\u2014and I told ever so many whoppers to Mrs. Lynde\u2014oh! \u2019most half a dozen\u2014and\u2014and\u2014I\u2014I said a swear word, Anne\u2014a pretty near swear word, anyhow\u2014and I called God names.\u201d There was silence. Davy didn\u2019t know what to make of it. Was Anne so shocked that she never would speak to him again? \u201cAnne, what are you going to do to me?\u201d he whispered. \u201cNothing, dear. You\u2019ve been punished already, I think.\u201d \u201cNo, I haven\u2019t. Nothing\u2019s been done to me.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019ve been very unhappy ever since you did wrong, haven\u2019t you?\u201d \u201cYou bet!\u201d said Davy emphatically. \u201cThat was your conscience punishing you, Davy.\u201d \u201cWhat\u2019s my conscience? I want to know.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s something in you, Davy, that always tells you when you are doing wrong and makes you unhappy if you persist in doing it. Haven\u2019t you noticed that?\u201d \u201cYes, but I didn\u2019t know what it was. I wish I didn\u2019t have it. I\u2019d have lots more fun. Where is my conscience, Anne? I want to know. Is it in my stomach?\u201d \u201cNo, it\u2019s in your soul,\u201d answered Anne, thankful for the darkness, since gravity must be preserved in serious matters. \u201cI s\u2019pose I can\u2019t get clear of it then,\u201d said Davy with a sigh. \u201cAre you going to tell Marilla and Mrs. Lynde on me, Anne?\u201d \u201cNo, dear, I\u2019m not going to tell any one. You are sorry you were naughty, aren\u2019t you?\u201d \u201cYou bet!\u201d \u201cAnd you\u2019ll never be bad like that again.\u201d \u201cNo, but\u2014\u201d added Davy cautiously, \u201cI might be bad some other way.\u201d \u201cYou won\u2019t say naughty words, or run away on Sundays, or tell falsehoods to cover up your sins?\u201d \u201cNo. It doesn\u2019t pay,\u201d said Davy. \u201cWell, Davy, just tell God you are sorry and ask Him to forgive you.\u201d \u201cHave _you_ forgiven me, Anne?\u201d \u201cYes, dear.\u201d \u201cThen,\u201d said Davy joyously, \u201cI don\u2019t care much whether God does or not.\u201d \u201cDavy!\u201d \u201cOh\u2014I\u2019ll ask Him\u2014I\u2019ll ask Him,\u201d said Davy quickly, scrambling off the bed, convinced by Anne\u2019s tone that he must have said something dreadful. \u201cI don\u2019t mind asking Him, Anne.\u2014Please, God, I\u2019m awful sorry I behaved bad today and I\u2019ll try to be good on Sundays always and please forgive me.\u2014There now, Anne.\u201d \u201cWell, now, run off to bed like a good boy.\u201d \u201cAll right. Say, I don\u2019t feel mis\u2019rubul any more. I feel fine. Good night.\u201d \u201cGood night.\u201d Anne slipped down on her pillows with a sigh of relief. Oh\u2014how sleepy\u2014she was! In another second\u2014 \u201cAnne!\u201d Davy was back again by her bed. Anne dragged her eyes open. \u201cWhat is it now, dear?\u201d she asked, trying to keep a note of impatience out of her voice. \u201cAnne, have you ever noticed how Mr. Harrison spits? Do you s\u2019pose, if I practice hard, I can learn to spit just like him?\u201d Anne sat up. \u201cDavy Keith,\u201d she said, \u201cgo straight to your bed and don\u2019t let me catch you out of it again tonight! Go, now!\u201d Davy went, and stood not upon the order of his going. Chapter 14. The Summons. Anne was sitting with Ruby Gillis in the Gillis\u2019 garden after the day had crept lingeringly through it and was gone. It had been a warm, smoky summer afternoon. The world was in a splendor of out-flowering. The idle valleys were full of hazes. The woodways were pranked with shadows and the fields with the purple of the asters. Anne had given up a moonlight drive to the White Sands beach that she might spend the evening with Ruby. She had so spent many evenings that summer, although she often wondered what good it did any one, and sometimes went home deciding that she could not go again. Ruby grew paler as the summer waned; the White Sands school was given up\u2014\u201cher father thought it better that she shouldn\u2019t teach till New Year\u2019s\u201d\u2014and the fancy work she loved oftener and oftener fell from hands grown too weary for it. But she was always gay, always hopeful, always chattering and whispering of her beaux, and their rivalries and despairs. It was this that made Anne\u2019s visits hard for her. What had once been silly or amusing was gruesome, now; it was death peering through a wilful mask of life. Yet Ruby seemed to cling to her, and never let her go until she had promised to come again soon. Mrs. Lynde grumbled about Anne\u2019s frequent visits, and declared she would catch consumption; even Marilla was dubious. \u201cEvery time you go to see Ruby you come home looking tired out,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s so very sad and dreadful,\u201d said Anne in a low tone. \u201cRuby doesn\u2019t seem to realize her condition in the least. And yet I somehow feel she needs help\u2014craves it\u2014and I want to give it to her and can\u2019t. All the time I\u2019m with her I feel as if I were watching her struggle with an invisible foe\u2014trying to push it back with such feeble resistance as she has. That is why I come home tired.\u201d But tonight Anne did not feel this so keenly. Ruby was strangely quiet. She said not a word about parties and drives and dresses and \u201cfellows.\u201d She lay in the hammock, with her untouched work beside her, and a white shawl wrapped about her thin shoulders. Her long yellow braids of hair\u2014how Anne had envied those beautiful braids in old schooldays!\u2014lay on either side of her. She had taken the pins out\u2014they made her head ache, she said. The hectic flush was gone for the time, leaving her pale and childlike. The moon rose in the silvery sky, empearling the clouds around her. Below, the pond shimmered in its hazy radiance. Just beyond the Gillis homestead was the church, with the old graveyard beside it. The moonlight shone on the white stones, bringing them out in clear-cut relief against the dark trees behind. \u201cHow strange the graveyard looks by moonlight!\u201d said Ruby suddenly. \u201cHow ghostly!\u201d she shuddered. \u201cAnne, it won\u2019t be long now before I\u2019ll be lying over there. You and Diana and all the rest will be going about, full of life\u2014and I\u2019ll be there\u2014in the old graveyard\u2014dead!\u201d The surprise of it bewildered Anne. For a few moments she could not speak. \u201cYou know it\u2019s so, don\u2019t you?\u201d said Ruby insistently. \u201cYes, I know,\u201d answered Anne in a low tone. \u201cDear Ruby, I know.\u201d \u201cEverybody knows it,\u201d said Ruby bitterly. \u201cI know it\u2014I\u2019ve known it all summer, though I wouldn\u2019t give in. And, oh, Anne\u201d\u2014she reached out and caught Anne\u2019s hand pleadingly, impulsively\u2014\u201cI don\u2019t want to die. I\u2019m _afraid_ to die.\u201d \u201cWhy should you be afraid, Ruby?\u201d asked Anne quietly. \u201cBecause\u2014because\u2014oh, I\u2019m not afraid but that I\u2019ll go to heaven, Anne. I\u2019m a church member. But\u2014it\u2019ll be all so different. I think\u2014and think\u2014and I get so frightened\u2014and\u2014and\u2014homesick. Heaven must be very beautiful, of course, the Bible says so\u2014but, Anne, _it won\u2019t be what \u2019ve been used to_.\u201d Through Anne\u2019s mind drifted an intrusive recollection of a funny story she had heard Philippa Gordon tell\u2014the story of some old man who had said very much the same thing about the world to come. It had sounded funny then\u2014she remembered how she and Priscilla had laughed over it. But it did not seem in the least humorous now, coming from Ruby\u2019s pale, trembling lips. It was sad, tragic\u2014and true! Heaven could not be what Ruby had been used to. There had been nothing in her gay, frivolous life, her shallow ideals and aspirations, to fit her for that great change, or make the life to come seem to her anything but alien and unreal and undesirable. Anne wondered helplessly what she could say that would help her. Could she say anything? \u201cI think, Ruby,\u201d she began hesitatingly\u2014for it was difficult for Anne to speak to any one of the deepest thoughts of her heart, or the new ideas that had vaguely begun to shape themselves in her mind, concerning the great mysteries of life here and hereafter, superseding her old childish conceptions, and it was hardest of all to speak of them to such as Ruby Gillis\u2014\u201cI think, perhaps, we have very mistaken ideas about heaven\u2014what it is and what it holds for us. I don\u2019t think it can be so very different from life here as most people seem to think. I believe we\u2019ll just go on living, a good deal as we live here\u2014and be _ourselves_ just the same\u2014only it will be easier to be good and to\u2014follow the highest. All the hindrances and perplexities will be taken away, and we shall see clearly. Don\u2019t be afraid, Ruby.\u201d \u201cI can\u2019t help it,\u201d said Ruby pitifully. \u201cEven if what you say about heaven is true\u2014and you can\u2019t be sure\u2014it may be only that imagination of yours\u2014it won\u2019t be _just_ the same. It _can\u2019t_ be. I want to go on living _here_. I\u2019m so young, Anne. I haven\u2019t had my life. I\u2019ve fought so hard to live\u2014and it isn\u2019t any use\u2014I have to die\u2014and leave _everything_ I care for.\u201d Anne sat in a pain that was almost intolerable. She could not tell comforting falsehoods; and all that Ruby said was so horribly true. She _was_ leaving everything she cared for. She had laid up her treasures on earth only; she had lived solely for the little things of life\u2014the things that pass\u2014forgetting the great things that go onward into eternity, bridging the gulf between the two lives and making of death a mere passing from one dwelling to the other\u2014from twilight to unclouded day. God would take care of her there\u2014Anne believed\u2014she would learn\u2014but now it was no wonder her soul clung, in blind helplessness, to the only things she knew and loved. Ruby raised herself on her arm and lifted up her bright, beautiful blue eyes to the moonlit skies. \u201cI want to live,\u201d she said, in a trembling voice. \u201cI want to live like other girls. I\u2014I want to be married, Anne\u2014and\u2014and\u2014have little children. You know I always loved babies, Anne. I couldn\u2019t say this to any one but you. I know you understand. And then poor Herb\u2014he\u2014he loves me and I love him, Anne. The others meant nothing to me, but _he_ does\u2014and if I could live I would be his wife and be so happy. Oh, Anne, it\u2019s hard.\u201d Ruby sank back on her pillows and sobbed convulsively. Anne pressed her hand in an agony of sympathy\u2014silent sympathy, which perhaps helped Ruby more than broken, imperfect words could have done; for presently she grew calmer and her sobs ceased. \u201cI\u2019m glad I\u2019ve told you this, Anne,\u201d she whispered. \u201cIt has helped me just to say it all out. I\u2019ve wanted to all summer\u2014every time you came. I wanted to talk it over with you\u2014but I _couldn\u2019t_. It seemed as if it would make death so _sure_ if I _said_ I was going to die, or if any one else said it or hinted it. I wouldn\u2019t say it, or even think it. In the daytime, when people were around me and everything was cheerful, it wasn\u2019t so hard to keep from thinking of it. But in the night, when I couldn\u2019t sleep\u2014it was so dreadful, Anne. I couldn\u2019t get away from it then. Death just came and stared me in the face, until I got so frightened I could have screamed. \u201cBut you won\u2019t be frightened any more, Ruby, will you? You\u2019ll be brave, and believe that all is going to be well with you.\u201d \u201cI\u2019ll try. I\u2019ll think over what you have said, and try to believe it. And you\u2019ll come up as often as you can, won\u2019t you, Anne?\u201d \u201cYes, dear.\u201d \u201cIt\u2014it won\u2019t be very long now, Anne. I feel sure of that. And I\u2019d rather have you than any one else. I always liked you best of all the girls I went to school with. You were never jealous, or mean, like some of them were. Poor Em White was up to see me yesterday. You remember Em and I were such chums for three years when we went to school? And then we quarrelled the time of the school concert. We\u2019ve never spoken to each other since. Wasn\u2019t it silly? Anything like that seems silly _now_. But Em and I made up the old quarrel yesterday. She said she\u2019d have spoken years ago, only she thought I wouldn\u2019t. And I never spoke to her because I was sure she wouldn\u2019t speak to me. Isn\u2019t it strange how people misunderstand each other, Anne?\u201d \u201cMost of the trouble in life comes from misunderstanding, I think,\u201d said Anne. \u201cI must go now, Ruby. It\u2019s getting late\u2014and you shouldn\u2019t be out in the damp.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019ll come up soon again.\u201d \u201cYes, very soon. And if there\u2019s anything I can do to help you I\u2019ll be so glad.\u201d \u201cI know. You _have_ helped me already. Nothing seems quite so dreadful now. Good night, Anne.\u201d \u201cGood night, dear.\u201d Anne walked home very slowly in the moonlight. The evening had changed something for her. Life held a different meaning, a deeper purpose. On the surface it would go on just the same; but the deeps had been stirred. It must not be with her as with poor butterfly Ruby. When she came to the end of one life it must not be to face the next with the shrinking terror of something wholly different\u2014something for which accustomed thought and ideal and aspiration had unfitted her. The little things of life, sweet and excellent in their place, must not be the things lived for; the highest must be sought and followed; the life of heaven must be begun here on earth. That good night in the garden was for all time. Anne never saw Ruby in life again. The next night the A.V.I.S. gave a farewell party to Jane Andrews before her departure for the West. And, while light feet danced and bright eyes laughed and merry tongues chattered, there came a summons to a soul in Avonlea that might not be disregarded or evaded. The next morning the word went from house to house that Ruby Gillis was dead. She had died in her sleep, painlessly and calmly, and on her face was a smile\u2014as if, after all, death had come as a kindly friend to lead her over the threshold, instead of the grisly phantom she had dreaded. Mrs. Rachel Lynde said emphatically after the funeral that Ruby Gillis was the handsomest corpse she ever laid eyes on. Her loveliness, as she lay, white-clad, among the delicate flowers that Anne had placed about her, was remembered and talked of for years in Avonlea. Ruby had always been beautiful; but her beauty had been of the earth, earthy; it had had a certain insolent quality in it, as if it flaunted itself in the beholder\u2019s eye; spirit had never shone through it, intellect had never refined it. But death had touched it and consecrated it, bringing out delicate modelings and purity of outline never seen before\u2014doing what life and love and great sorrow and deep womanhood joys might have done for Ruby. Anne, looking down through a mist of tears, at her old playfellow, thought she saw the face God had meant Ruby to have, and remembered it so always. Mrs. Gillis called Anne aside into a vacant room before the funeral procession left the house, and gave her a small packet. \u201cI want you to have this,\u201d she sobbed. \u201cRuby would have liked you to have it. It\u2019s the embroidered centerpiece she was working at. It isn\u2019t quite finished\u2014the needle is sticking in it just where her poor little fingers put it the last time she laid it down, the afternoon before she died.\u201d \u201cThere\u2019s always a piece of unfinished work left,\u201d said Mrs. Lynde, with tears in her eyes. \u201cBut I suppose there\u2019s always some one to finish \u201cHow difficult it is to realize that one we have always known can really be dead,\u201d said Anne, as she and Diana walked home. \u201cRuby is the first of our schoolmates to go. One by one, sooner or later, all the rest of us must follow.\u201d \u201cYes, I suppose so,\u201d said Diana uncomfortably. She did not want to talk of that. She would have preferred to have discussed the details of the funeral\u2014the splendid white velvet casket Mr. Gillis had insisted on having for Ruby\u2014\u201cthe Gillises must always make a splurge, even at funerals,\u201d quoth Mrs. Rachel Lynde\u2014Herb Spencer\u2019s sad face, the uncontrolled, hysteric grief of one of Ruby\u2019s sisters\u2014but Anne would not talk of these things. She seemed wrapped in a reverie in which Diana felt lonesomely that she had neither lot nor part. \u201cRuby Gillis was a great girl to laugh,\u201d said Davy suddenly. \u201cWill she laugh as much in heaven as she did in Avonlea, Anne? I want to know.\u201d \u201cYes, I think she will,\u201d said Anne. \u201cOh, Anne,\u201d protested Diana, with a rather shocked smile. \u201cWell, why not, Diana?\u201d asked Anne seriously. \u201cDo you think we\u2019ll never laugh in heaven?\u201d \u201cOh\u2014I\u2014I don\u2019t know\u201d floundered Diana. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t seem just right, somehow. You know it\u2019s rather dreadful to laugh in church.\u201d \u201cBut heaven won\u2019t be like church\u2014all the time,\u201d said Anne. \u201cI hope it ain\u2019t,\u201d said Davy emphatically. \u201cIf it is I don\u2019t want to go. Church is awful dull. Anyway, I don\u2019t mean to go for ever so long. I mean to live to be a hundred years old, like Mr. Thomas Blewett of White Sands. He says he\u2019s lived so long &#8217;cause he always smoked tobacco and it killed all the germs. Can I smoke tobacco pretty soon, Anne?\u201d \u201cNo, Davy, I hope you\u2019ll never use tobacco,\u201d said Anne absently. \u201cWhat\u2019ll you feel like if the germs kill me then?\u201d demanded Davy. Chapter 15. A Dream Turned Upside Down. \u201cJust one more week and we go back to Redmond,\u201d said Anne. She was happy at the thought of returning to work, classes and Redmond friends. Pleasing visions were also being woven around Patty\u2019s Place. There was a warm pleasant sense of home in the thought of it, even though she had never lived there. But the summer had been a very happy one, too\u2014a time of glad living with summer suns and skies, a time of keen delight in wholesome things; a time of renewing and deepening of old friendships; a time in which she had learned to live more nobly, to work more patiently, to play more heartily. \u201cAll life lessons are not learned at college,\u201d she thought. \u201cLife teaches them everywhere.\u201d But alas, the final week of that pleasant vacation was spoiled for Anne, by one of those impish happenings which are like a dream turned upside down. \u201cBeen writing any more stories lately?\u201d inquired Mr. Harrison genially one evening when Anne was taking tea with him and Mrs. Harrison. \u201cNo,\u201d answered Anne, rather crisply. \u201cWell, no offense meant. Mrs. Hiram Sloane told me the other day that a big envelope addressed to the Rollings Reliable Baking Powder Company of Montreal had been dropped into the post office box a month ago, and she suspicioned that somebody was trying for the prize they\u2019d offered for the best story that introduced the name of their baking powder. She said it wasn\u2019t addressed in your writing, but I thought maybe it was you.\u201d \u201cIndeed, no! I saw the prize offer, but I\u2019d never dream of competing for it. I think it would be perfectly disgraceful to write a story to advertise a baking powder. It would be almost as bad as Judson Parker\u2019s patent medicine fence.\u201d So spake Anne loftily, little dreaming of the valley of humiliation awaiting her. That very evening Diana popped into the porch gable, bright-eyed and rosy cheeked, carrying a letter. \u201cOh, Anne, here\u2019s a letter for you. I was at the office, so I thought I\u2019d bring it along. Do open it quick. If it is what I believe it is I shall just be wild with delight.\u201d Anne, puzzled, opened the letter and glanced over the typewritten contents. Miss Anne Shirley, Green Gables, Avonlea, P.E. Island. \u201cDEAR MADAM: We have much pleasure in informing you that your charming story \u2018Averil\u2019s Atonement\u2019 has won the prize of twenty-five dollars offered in our recent competition. We enclose the check herewith. We are arranging for the publication of the story in several prominent Canadian newspapers, and we also intend to have it printed in pamphlet form for distribution among our patrons. Thanking you for the interest you have shown in our enterprise, \u201cWe remain, \u201cYours very truly, \u201cTHE ROLLINGS RELIABLE BAKING POWDER CO.\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t understand,\u201d said Anne, blankly. Diana clapped her hands. \u201cOh, I _knew_ it would win the prize\u2014I was sure of it. _I_ sent your story into the competition, Anne. \u201cDiana\u2014Barry!\u201d \u201cYes, I did,\u201d said Diana gleefully, perching herself on the bed. \u201cWhen I saw the offer I thought of your story in a minute, and at first I thought I\u2019d ask you to send it in. But then I was afraid you wouldn\u2019t\u2014you had so little faith left in it. So I just decided I\u2019d send the copy you gave me, and say nothing about it. Then, if it didn\u2019t win the prize, you\u2019d never know and you wouldn\u2019t feel badly over it, because the stories that failed were not to be returned, and if it did you\u2019d have such a delightful surprise.\u201d Diana was not the most discerning of mortals, but just at this moment it struck her that Anne was not looking exactly overjoyed. The surprise was there, beyond doubt\u2014but where was the delight? \u201cWhy, Anne, you don\u2019t seem a bit pleased!\u201d she exclaimed. Anne instantly manufactured a smile and put it on. \u201cOf course I couldn\u2019t be anything but pleased over your unselfish wish to give me pleasure,\u201d she said slowly. \u201cBut you know\u2014I\u2019m so amazed\u2014I can\u2019t realize it\u2014and I don\u2019t understand. There wasn\u2019t a word in my story about\u2014about\u2014\u201d Anne choked a little over the word\u2014\u201cbaking powder.\u201d \u201cOh, _I_ put that in,\u201d said Diana, reassured. \u201cIt was as easy as wink\u2014and of course my experience in our old Story Club helped me. You know the scene where Averil makes the cake? Well, I just stated that she used the Rollings Reliable in it, and that was why it turned out so well; and then, in the last paragraph, where _Perceval_ clasps _Averil_ in his arms and says, \u2018Sweetheart, the beautiful coming years will bring us the fulfilment of our home of dreams,\u2019 I added, \u2018in which we will never use any baking powder except Rollings Reliable.\u2019\u201d \u201cOh,\u201d gasped poor Anne, as if some one had dashed cold water on her. \u201cAnd you\u2019ve won the twenty-five dollars,\u201d continued Diana jubilantly. \u201cWhy, I heard Priscilla say once that the _Canadian Woman_ only pays five dollars for a story!\u201d Anne held out the hateful pink slip in shaking fingers. \u201cI can\u2019t take it\u2014it\u2019s yours by right, Diana. You sent the story in and made the alterations. I\u2014I would certainly never have sent it. So you must take the check.\u201d \u201cI\u2019d like to see myself,\u201d said Diana scornfully. \u201cWhy, what I did wasn\u2019t any trouble. The honor of being a friend of the prizewinner is enough for me. Well, I must go. I should have gone straight home from the post office for we have company. But I simply had to come and hear the news. I\u2019m so glad for your sake, Anne.\u201d Anne suddenly bent forward, put her arms about Diana, and kissed her cheek. \u201cI think you are the sweetest and truest friend in the world, Diana,\u201d she said, with a little tremble in her voice, \u201cand I assure you I appreciate the motive of what you\u2019ve done.\u201d Diana, pleased and embarrassed, got herself away, and poor Anne, after flinging the innocent check into her bureau drawer as if it were blood-money, cast herself on her bed and wept tears of shame and outraged sensibility. Oh, she could never live this down\u2014never! Gilbert arrived at dusk, brimming over with congratulations, for he had called at Orchard Slope and heard the news. But his congratulations died on his lips at sight of Anne\u2019s face. \u201cWhy, Anne, what is the matter? I expected to find you radiant over winning Rollings Reliable prize. Good for you!\u201d \u201cOh, Gilbert, not you,\u201d implored Anne, in an _et-tu Brute_ tone. \u201cI thought _you_ would understand. Can\u2019t you see how awful it is?\u201d \u201cI must confess I can\u2019t. _What_ is wrong?\u201d \u201cEverything,\u201d moaned Anne. \u201cI feel as if I were disgraced forever. What do you think a mother would feel like if she found her child tattooed over with a baking powder advertisement? I feel just the same. I loved my poor little story, and I wrote it out of the best that was in me. And it is _sacrilege_ to have it degraded to the level of a baking powder advertisement. Don\u2019t you remember what Professor Hamilton used to tell us in the literature class at Queen\u2019s? He said we were never to write a word for a low or unworthy motive, but always to cling to the very highest ideals. What will he think when he hears I\u2019ve written a story to advertise Rollings Reliable? And, oh, when it gets out at Redmond! Think how I\u2019ll be teased and laughed at!\u201d \u201cThat you won\u2019t,\u201d said Gilbert, wondering uneasily if it were that confounded Junior\u2019s opinion in particular over which Anne was worried. \u201cThe Reds will think just as I thought\u2014that you, being like nine out of ten of us, not overburdened with worldly wealth, had taken this way of earning an honest penny to help yourself through the year. I don\u2019t see that there\u2019s anything low or unworthy about that, or anything ridiculous either. One would rather write masterpieces of literature no doubt\u2014but meanwhile board and tuition fees have to be paid.\u201d This commonsense, matter-of-fact view of the case cheered Anne a little. At least it removed her dread of being laughed at, though the deeper hurt of an outraged ideal remained. Chapter 16. Adjusted Relationships. \u201cIt\u2019s the homiest spot I ever saw\u2014it\u2019s homier than home,\u201d avowed Philippa Gordon, looking about her with delighted eyes. They were all assembled at twilight in the big living-room at Patty\u2019s Place\u2014Anne and Priscilla, Phil and Stella, Aunt Jamesina, Rusty, Joseph, the Sarah-Cat, and Gog and Magog. The firelight shadows were dancing over the walls; the cats were purring; and a huge bowl of hothouse chrysanthemums, sent to Phil by one of the victims, shone through the golden gloom like creamy moons. It was three weeks since they had considered themselves settled, and already all believed the experiment would be a success. The first fortnight after their return had been a pleasantly exciting one; they had been busy setting up their household goods, organizing their little establishment, and adjusting different opinions. Anne was not over-sorry to leave Avonlea when the time came to return to college. The last few days of her vacation had not been pleasant. Her prize story had been published in the Island papers; and Mr. William Blair had, upon the counter of his store, a huge pile of pink, green and yellow pamphlets, containing it, one of which he gave to every customer. He sent a complimentary bundle to Anne, who promptly dropped them all in the kitchen stove. Her humiliation was the consequence of her own ideals only, for Avonlea folks thought it quite splendid that she should have won the prize. Her many friends regarded her with honest admiration; her few foes with scornful envy. Josie Pye said she believed Anne Shirley had just copied the story; she was sure she remembered reading it in a paper years before. The Sloanes, who had found out or guessed that Charlie had been \u201cturned down,\u201d said they didn\u2019t think it was much to be proud of; almost any one could have done it, if she tried. Aunt Atossa told Anne she was very sorry to hear she had taken to writing novels; nobody born and bred in Avonlea would do it; that was what came of adopting orphans from goodness knew where, with goodness knew what kind of parents. Even Mrs. Rachel Lynde was darkly dubious about the propriety of writing fiction, though she was almost reconciled to it by that twenty-five dollar check. \u201cIt is perfectly amazing, the price they pay for such lies, that\u2019s what,\u201d she said, half-proudly, half-severely. All things considered, it was a relief when going-away time came. And it was very jolly to be back at Redmond, a wise, experienced Soph with hosts of friends to greet on the merry opening day. Pris and Stella and Gilbert were there, Charlie Sloane, looking more important than ever a Sophomore looked before, Phil, with the Alec-and-Alonzo question still unsettled, and Moody Spurgeon MacPherson. Moody Spurgeon had been teaching school ever since leaving Queen\u2019s, but his mother had concluded it was high time he gave it up and turned his attention to learning how to be a minister. Poor Moody Spurgeon fell on hard luck at the very beginning of his college career. Half a dozen ruthless Sophs, who were among his fellow-boarders, swooped down upon him one night and shaved half of his head. In this guise the luckless Moody Spurgeon had to go about until his hair grew again. He told Anne bitterly that there were times when he had his doubts as to whether he was really called to be a minister. Aunt Jamesina did not come until the girls had Patty\u2019s Place ready for her. Miss Patty had sent the key to Anne, with a letter in which she said Gog and Magog were packed in a box under the spare-room bed, but might be taken out when wanted; in a postscript she added that she hoped the girls would be careful about putting up pictures. The living room had been newly papered five years before and she and Miss Maria did not want any more holes made in that new paper than was absolutely necessary. For the rest she trusted everything to Anne. How those girls enjoyed putting their nest in order! As Phil said, it was almost as good as getting married. You had the fun of homemaking without the bother of a husband. All brought something with them to adorn or make comfortable the little house. Pris and Phil and Stella had knick-knacks and pictures galore, which latter they proceeded to hang according to taste, in reckless disregard of Miss Patty\u2019s new paper. \u201cWe\u2019ll putty the holes up when we leave, dear\u2014she\u2019ll never know,\u201d they said to protesting Anne. Diana had given Anne a pine needle cushion and Miss Ada had given both her and Priscilla a fearfully and wonderfully embroidered one. Marilla had sent a big box of preserves, and darkly hinted at a hamper for Thanksgiving, and Mrs. Lynde gave Anne a patchwork quilt and loaned her five more. \u201cYou take them,\u201d she said authoritatively. \u201cThey might as well be in use as packed away in that trunk in the garret for moths to gnaw.\u201d No moths would ever have ventured near those quilts, for they reeked of mothballs to such an extent that they had to be hung in the orchard of Patty\u2019s Place a full fortnight before they could be endured indoors. Verily, aristocratic Spofford Avenue had rarely beheld such a display. The gruff old millionaire who lived \u201cnext door\u201d came over and wanted to buy the gorgeous red and yellow \u201ctulip-pattern\u201d one which Mrs. Rachel had given Anne. He said his mother used to make quilts like that, and by Jove, he wanted one to remind him of her. Anne would not sell it, much to his disappointment, but she wrote all about it to Mrs. Lynde. That highly-gratified lady sent word back that she had one just like it to spare, so the tobacco king got his quilt after all, and insisted on having it spread on his bed, to the disgust of his fashionable wife. Mrs. Lynde\u2019s quilts served a very useful purpose that winter. Patty\u2019s Place for all its many virtues, had its faults also. It was really a rather cold house; and when the frosty nights came the girls were very glad to snuggle down under Mrs. Lynde\u2019s quilts, and hoped that the loan of them might be accounted unto her for righteousness. Anne had the blue room she had coveted at sight. Priscilla and Stella had the large one. Phil was blissfully content with the little one over the kitchen; and Aunt Jamesina was to have the downstairs one off the living-room. Rusty at first slept on the doorstep. Anne, walking home from Redmond a few days after her return, became aware that the people that she met surveyed her with a covert, indulgent smile. Anne wondered uneasily what was the matter with her. Was her hat crooked? Was her belt loose? Craning her head to investigate, Anne, for the first time, saw Rusty. Trotting along behind her, close to her heels, was quite the most forlorn specimen of the cat tribe she had ever beheld. The animal was well past kitten-hood, lank, thin, disreputable looking. Pieces of both ears were lacking, one eye was temporarily out of repair, and one jowl ludicrously swollen. As for color, if a once black cat had been well and thoroughly singed the result would have resembled the hue of this waif\u2019s thin, draggled, unsightly fur. Anne \u201cshooed,\u201d but the cat would not \u201cshoo.\u201d As long as she stood he sat back on his haunches and gazed at her reproachfully out of his one good eye; when she resumed her walk he followed. Anne resigned herself to his company until she reached the gate of Patty\u2019s Place, which she coldly shut in his face, fondly supposing she had seen the last of him. But when, fifteen minutes later, Phil opened the door, there sat the rusty-brown cat on the step. More, he promptly darted in and sprang upon Anne\u2019s lap with a half-pleading, half-triumphant \u201cmiaow.\u201d \u201cAnne,\u201d said Stella severely, \u201cdo you own that animal?\u201d \u201cNo, I do _not_,\u201d protested disgusted Anne. \u201cThe creature followed me home from somewhere. I couldn\u2019t get rid of him. Ugh, get down. I like decent cats reasonably well; but I don\u2019t like beasties of your complexion.\u201d Pussy, however, refused to get down. He coolly curled up in Anne\u2019s lap and began to purr. \u201cHe has evidently adopted you,\u201d laughed Priscilla. \u201cI won\u2019t BE adopted,\u201d said Anne stubbornly. \u201cThe poor creature is starving,\u201d said Phil pityingly. \u201cWhy, his bones are almost coming through his skin.\u201d \u201cWell, I\u2019ll give him a square meal and then he must return to whence he came,\u201d said Anne resolutely. The cat was fed and put out. In the morning he was still on the doorstep. On the doorstep he continued to sit, bolting in whenever the door was opened. No coolness of welcome had the least effect on him; of nobody save Anne did he take the least notice. Out of compassion the girls fed him; but when a week had passed they decided that something must be done. The cat\u2019s appearance had improved. His eye and cheek had resumed their normal appearance; he was not quite so thin; and he had been seen washing his face. \u201cBut for all that we can\u2019t keep him,\u201d said Stella. \u201cAunt Jimsie is coming next week and she will bring the Sarah-cat with her. We can\u2019t keep two cats; and if we did this Rusty Coat would fight all the time with the Sarah-cat. He\u2019s a fighter by nature. He had a pitched battle last evening with the tobacco-king\u2019s cat and routed him, horse, foot and artillery.\u201d \u201cWe must get rid of him,\u201d agreed Anne, looking darkly at the subject of their discussion, who was purring on the hearth rug with an air of lamb-like meekness. \u201cBut the question is\u2014how? How can four unprotected females get rid of a cat who won\u2019t be got rid of?\u201d \u201cWe must chloroform him,\u201d said Phil briskly. \u201cThat is the most humane way.\u201d \u201cWho of us knows anything about chloroforming a cat?\u201d demanded Anne gloomily. \u201cI do, honey. It\u2019s one of my few\u2014sadly few\u2014useful accomplishments. I\u2019ve disposed of several at home. You take the cat in the morning and give him a good breakfast. Then you take an old burlap bag\u2014there\u2019s one in the back porch\u2014put the cat on it and turn over him a wooden box. Then take a two-ounce bottle of chloroform, uncork it, and slip it under the edge of the box. Put a heavy weight on top of the box and leave it till evening. The cat will be dead, curled up peacefully as if he were asleep. No pain\u2014no struggle.\u201d \u201cIt sounds easy,\u201d said Anne dubiously. \u201cIt _is_ easy. Just leave it to me. I\u2019ll see to it,\u201d said Phil reassuringly. Accordingly the chloroform was procured, and the next morning Rusty was lured to his doom. He ate his breakfast, licked his chops, and climbed into Anne\u2019s lap. Anne\u2019s heart misgave her. This poor creature loved her\u2014trusted her. How could she be a party to this destruction? \u201cHere, take him,\u201d she said hastily to Phil. \u201cI feel like a murderess.\u201d \u201cHe won\u2019t suffer, you know,\u201d comforted Phil, but Anne had fled. The fatal deed was done in the back porch. Nobody went near it that day. But at dusk Phil declared that Rusty must be buried. \u201cPris and Stella must dig his grave in the orchard,\u201d declared Phil, \u201cand Anne must come with me to lift the box off. That\u2019s the part I always hate.\u201d The two conspirators tip-toed reluctantly to the back porch. Phil gingerly lifted the stone she had put on the box. Suddenly, faint but distinct, sounded an unmistakable mew under the box. \u201cHe\u2014he isn\u2019t dead,\u201d gasped Anne, sitting blankly down on the kitchen doorstep. \u201cHe must be,\u201d said Phil incredulously. Another tiny mew proved that he wasn\u2019t. The two girls stared at each other. \u201cWhat will we do?\u201d questioned Anne. \u201cWhy in the world don\u2019t you come?\u201d demanded Stella, appearing in the doorway. \u201cWe\u2019ve got the grave ready. \u2018What silent still and silent all?\u2019\u201d she quoted teasingly. \u201c\u2018Oh, no, the voices of the dead Sound like the distant torrent\u2019s fall,\u2019\u201d promptly counter-quoted Anne, pointing solemnly to the box. A burst of laughter broke the tension. \u201cWe must leave him here till morning,\u201d said Phil, replacing the stone. \u201cHe hasn\u2019t mewed for five minutes. Perhaps the mews we heard were his dying groan. Or perhaps we merely imagined them, under the strain of our guilty consciences.\u201d But, when the box was lifted in the morning, Rusty bounded at one gay leap to Anne\u2019s shoulder where he began to lick her face affectionately. Never was there a cat more decidedly alive. \u201cHere\u2019s a knot hole in the box,\u201d groaned Phil. \u201cI never saw it. That\u2019s why he didn\u2019t die. Now, we\u2019ve got to do it all over again.\u201d \u201cNo, we haven\u2019t,\u201d declared Anne suddenly. \u201cRusty isn\u2019t going to be killed again. He\u2019s my cat\u2014and you\u2019ve just got to make the best of it.\u201d \u201cOh, well, if you\u2019ll settle with Aunt Jimsie and the Sarah-cat,\u201d said Stella, with the air of one washing her hands of the whole affair. From that time Rusty was one of the family. He slept o\u2019nights on the scrubbing cushion in the back porch and lived on the fat of the land. By the time Aunt Jamesina came he was plump and glossy and tolerably respectable. But, like Kipling\u2019s cat, he \u201cwalked by himself.\u201d His paw was against every cat, and every cat\u2019s paw against him. One by one he vanquished the aristocratic felines of Spofford Avenue. As for human beings, he loved Anne and Anne alone. Nobody else even dared stroke him. An angry spit and something that sounded much like very improper language greeted any one who did. \u201cThe airs that cat puts on are perfectly intolerable,\u201d declared Stella. \u201cHim was a nice old pussens, him was,\u201d vowed Anne, cuddling her pet defiantly. \u201cWell, I don\u2019t know how he and the Sarah-cat will ever make out to live together,\u201d said Stella pesimistically. \u201cCat-fights in the orchard o\u2019nights are bad enough. But cat-fights here in the livingroom are unthinkable.\u201d In due time Aunt Jamesina arrived. Anne and Priscilla and Phil had awaited her advent rather dubiously; but when Aunt Jamesina was enthroned in the rocking chair before the open fire they figuratively bowed down and worshipped her. Aunt Jamesina was a tiny old woman with a little, softly-triangular face, and large, soft blue eyes that were alight with unquenchable youth, and as full of hopes as a girl\u2019s. She had pink cheeks and snow-white hair which she wore in quaint little puffs over her ears. \u201cIt\u2019s a very old-fashioned way,\u201d she said, knitting industriously at something as dainty and pink as a sunset cloud. \u201cBut _I_ am old-fashioned. My clothes are, and it stands to reason my opinions are, too. I don\u2019t say they\u2019re any the better of that, mind you. In fact, I daresay they\u2019re a good deal the worse. But they\u2019ve worn nice and easy. New shoes are smarter than old ones, but the old ones are more comfortable. I\u2019m old enough to indulge myself in the matter of shoes and opinions. I mean to take it real easy here. I know you expect me to look after you and keep you proper, but I\u2019m not going to do it. You\u2019re old enough to know how to behave if you\u2019re ever going to be. So, as far as I am concerned,\u201d concluded Aunt Jamesina, with a twinkle in her young eyes, \u201cyou can all go to destruction in your own way.\u201d \u201cOh, will somebody separate those cats?\u201d pleaded Stella, shudderingly. Aunt Jamesina had brought with her not only the Sarah-cat but Joseph. Joseph, she explained, had belonged to a dear friend of hers who had gone to live in Vancouver. \u201cShe couldn\u2019t take Joseph with her so she begged me to take him. I really couldn\u2019t refuse. He\u2019s a beautiful cat\u2014that is, his disposition is beautiful. She called him Joseph because his coat is of many colors.\u201d It certainly was. Joseph, as the disgusted Stella said, looked like a walking rag-bag. It was impossible to say what his ground color was. His legs were white with black spots on them. His back was gray with a huge patch of yellow on one side and a black patch on the other. His tail was yellow with a gray tip. One ear was black and one yellow. A black patch over one eye gave him a fearfully rakish look. In reality he was meek and inoffensive, of a sociable disposition. In one respect, if in no other, Joseph was like a lily of the field. He toiled not neither did he spin or catch mice. Yet Solomon in all his glory slept not on softer cushions, or feasted more fully on fat things. Joseph and the Sarah-cat arrived by express in separate boxes. After they had been released and fed, Joseph selected the cushion and corner which appealed to him, and the Sarah-cat gravely sat herself down before the fire and proceeded to wash her face. She was a large, sleek, gray-and-white cat, with an enormous dignity which was not at all impaired by any consciousness of her plebian origin. She had been given to Aunt Jamesina by her washerwoman. \u201cHer name was Sarah, so my husband always called puss the Sarah-cat,\u201d explained Aunt Jamesina. \u201cShe is eight years old, and a remarkable mouser. Don\u2019t worry, Stella. The Sarah-cat _never_ fights and Joseph rarely.\u201d \u201cThey\u2019ll have to fight here in self-defense,\u201d said Stella. At this juncture Rusty arrived on the scene. He bounded joyously half way across the room before he saw the intruders. Then he stopped short; his tail expanded until it was as big as three tails. The fur on his back rose up in a defiant arch; Rusty lowered his head, uttered a fearful shriek of hatred and defiance, and launched himself at the Sarah-cat. The stately animal had stopped washing her face and was looking at him curiously. She met his onslaught with one contemptuous sweep of her capable paw. Rusty went rolling helplessly over on the rug; he picked himself up dazedly. What sort of a cat was this who had boxed his ears? He looked dubiously at the Sarah-cat. Would he or would he not? The Sarah-cat deliberately turned her back on him and resumed her toilet operations. Rusty decided that he would not. He never did. From that time on the Sarah-cat ruled the roost. Rusty never again interfered with her. But Joseph rashly sat up and yawned. Rusty, burning to avenge his disgrace, swooped down upon him. Joseph, pacific by nature, could fight upon occasion and fight well. The result was a series of drawn battles. Every day Rusty and Joseph fought at sight. Anne took Rusty\u2019s part and detested Joseph. Stella was in despair. But Aunt Jamesina only laughed. \u201cLet them fight it out,\u201d she said tolerantly. \u201cThey\u2019ll make friends after a bit. Joseph needs some exercise\u2014he was getting too fat. And Rusty has to learn he isn\u2019t the only cat in the world. \u201d Eventually Joseph and Rusty accepted the situation and from sworn enemies became sworn friends. They slept on the same cushion with their paws about each other, and gravely washed each other\u2019s faces. \u201cWe\u2019ve all got used to each other,\u201d said Phil. \u201cAnd I\u2019ve learned how to wash dishes and sweep a floor.\u201d \u201cBut you needn\u2019t try to make us believe you can chloroform a cat,\u201d laughed Anne. \u201cIt was all the fault of the knothole,\u201d protested Phil. \u201cIt was a good thing the knothole was there,\u201d said Aunt Jamesina rather severely. \u201cKittens _have_ to be drowned, I admit, or the world would be overrun. But no decent, grown-up cat should be done to death\u2014unless he sucks eggs.\u201d \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t have thought Rusty very decent if you\u2019d seen him when he came here,\u201d said Stella. \u201cHe positively looked like the Old Nick.\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t believe Old Nick can be so very ugly,\u201d said Aunt Jamesina reflectively. \u201cHe wouldn\u2019t do so much harm if he was. _I_ always think of him as a rather handsome gentleman.\u201d Chapter 17. A Letter from Davy. \u201cIt\u2019s beginning to snow, girls,\u201d said Phil, coming in one November evening, \u201cand there are the loveliest little stars and crosses all over the garden walk. I never noticed before what exquisite things snowflakes really are. One has time to notice things like that in the simple life. Bless you all for permitting me to live it. It\u2019s really delightful to feel worried because butter has gone up five cents a pound.\u201d \u201cHas it?\u201d demanded Stella, who kept the household accounts. \u201cIt has\u2014and here\u2019s your butter. I\u2019m getting quite expert at marketing. It\u2019s better fun than flirting,\u201d concluded Phil gravely. \u201cEverything is going up scandalously,\u201d sighed Stella. \u201cNever mind. Thank goodness air and salvation are still free,\u201d said Aunt Jamesina. \u201cAnd so is laughter,\u201d added Anne. \u201cThere\u2019s no tax on it yet and that is well, because you\u2019re all going to laugh presently. I\u2019m going to read you Davy\u2019s letter. His spelling has improved immensely this past year, though he is not strong on apostrophes, and he certainly possesses the gift of writing an interesting letter. Listen and laugh, before we settle down to the evening\u2019s study-grind.\u201d \u201cDear Anne,\u201d ran Davy\u2019s letter, \u201cI take my pen to tell you that we are all pretty well and hope this will find you the same. It\u2019s snowing some today and Marilla says the old woman in the sky is shaking her feather beds. Is the old woman in the sky God\u2019s wife, Anne? I want to know. \u201cMrs. Lynde has been real sick but she is better now. She fell down the cellar stairs last week. When she fell she grabbed hold of the shelf with all the milk pails and stewpans on it, and it gave way and went down with her and made a splendid crash. Marilla thought it was an earthquake at first. \u201cOne of the stewpans was all dinged up and Mrs. Lynde straned her ribs. The doctor came and gave her medicine to rub on her ribs but she didn\u2019t under stand him and took it all inside instead. The doctor said it was a wonder it dident kill her but it dident and it cured her ribs and Mrs. Lynde says doctors dont know much anyhow. But we couldent fix up the stewpan. Marilla had to throw it out. Thanksgiving was last week. There was no school and we had a great dinner. I et mince pie and rost turkey and frut cake and donuts and cheese and jam and choklut cake. Marilla said I\u2019d die but I dident. Dora had earake after it, only it wasent in her ears it was in her stummick. I dident have earake anywhere. \u201cOur new teacher is a man. He does things for jokes. Last week he made all us third-class boys write a composishun on what kind of a wife we\u2019d like to have and the girls on what kind of a husband. He laughed fit to kill when he read them. This was mine. I thought youd like to see it. \u201c\u2018The kind of a wife I\u2019d like to Have. \u201c\u2018She must have good manners and get my meals on time and do what I tell her and always be very polite to me. She must be fifteen yers old. She must be good to the poor and keep her house tidy and be good tempered and go to church regularly. She must be very handsome and have curly hair. If I get a wife that is just what I like Ill be an awful good husband to her. I think a woman ought to be awful good to her husband. Some poor women haven\u2019t any husbands. \u201c\u2018THE END.\u2019\u201d \u201cI was at Mrs. Isaac Wrights funeral at White Sands last week. The husband of the corpse felt real sorry. Mrs. Lynde says Mrs. Wrights grandfather stole a sheep but Marilla says we mustent speak ill of the dead. Why mustent we, Anne? I want to know. It\u2019s pretty safe, ain\u2019t it? \u201cMrs. Lynde was awful mad the other day because I asked her if she was alive in Noah\u2019s time. I dident mean to hurt her feelings. I just wanted to know. Was she, Anne? \u201cMr. Harrison wanted to get rid of his dog. So he hunged him once but he come to life and scooted for the barn while Mr. Harrison was digging the grave, so he hunged him again and he stayed dead that time. Mr. Harrison has a new man working for him. He\u2019s awful okward. Mr. Harrison says he is left handed in both his feet. Mr. Barry\u2019s hired man is lazy. Mrs. Barry says that but Mr. Barry says he aint lazy exactly only he thinks it easier to pray for things than to work for them. \u201cMrs. Harmon Andrews prize pig that she talked so much of died in a fit. Mrs. Lynde says it was a judgment on her for pride. But I think it was hard on the pig. Milty Boulter has been sick. The doctor gave him medicine and it tasted horrid. I offered to take it for him for a quarter but the Boulters are so mean. Milty says he\u2019d rather take it himself and save his money. I asked Mrs. Boulter how a person would go about catching a man and she got awful mad and said she dident know, shed never chased men. \u201cThe A.V.I.S. is going to paint the hall again. They\u2019re tired of having it blue. \u201cThe new minister was here to tea last night. He took three pieces of pie. If I did that Mrs. Lynde would call me piggy. And he et fast and took big bites and Marilla is always telling me not to do that. Why can ministers do what boys can\u2019t? I want to know. \u201cI haven\u2019t any more news. Here are six kisses. xxxxxx. Dora sends one. Heres hers. x. \u201cYour loving friend DAVID KEITH\u201d \u201cP.S. Anne, who was the devils father? I want to know.\u201d Chapter 18. Miss Josephine Remembers the Anne-girl. When Christmas holidays came the girls of Patty\u2019s Place scattered to their respective homes, but Aunt Jamesina elected to stay where she was. \u201cI couldn\u2019t go to any of the places I\u2019ve been invited and take those three cats,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m not going to leave the poor creatures here alone for nearly three weeks. If we had any decent neighbors who would feed them I might, but there\u2019s nothing except millionaires on this street. So I\u2019ll stay here and keep Patty\u2019s Place warm for you.\u201d Anne went home with the usual joyous anticipations\u2014which were not wholly fulfilled. She found Avonlea in the grip of such an early, cold, and stormy winter as even the \u201coldest inhabitant\u201d could not recall. Green Gables was literally hemmed in by huge drifts. Almost every day of that ill-starred vacation it stormed fiercely; and even on fine days it drifted unceasingly. No sooner were the roads broken than they filled in again. It was almost impossible to stir out. The A.V.I.S. tried, on three evenings, to have a party in honor of the college students, and on each evening the storm was so wild that nobody could go, so they gave up the attempt in despair. Anne, despite her love of and loyalty to Green Gables, could not help thinking longingly of Patty\u2019s Place, its cosy open fire, Aunt Jamesina\u2019s mirthful eyes, the three cats, the merry chatter of the girls, the pleasantness of Friday evenings when college friends dropped in to talk of grave and gay. Anne was lonely; Diana, during the whole of the holidays, was imprisoned at home with a bad attack of bronchitis. She could not come to Green Gables and it was rarely Anne could get to Orchard Slope, for the old way through the Haunted Wood was impassable with drifts, and the long way over the frozen Lake of Shining Waters was almost as bad. Ruby Gillis was sleeping in the white-heaped graveyard; Jane Andrews was teaching a school on western prairies. Gilbert, to be sure, was still faithful, and waded up to Green Gables every possible evening. But Gilbert\u2019s visits were not what they once were. Anne almost dreaded them. It was very disconcerting to look up in the midst of a sudden silence and find Gilbert\u2019s hazel eyes fixed upon her with a quite unmistakable expression in their grave depths; and it was still more disconcerting to find herself blushing hotly and uncomfortably under his gaze, just as if\u2014just as if\u2014well, it was very embarrassing. Anne wished herself back at Patty\u2019s Place, where there was always somebody else about to take the edge off a delicate situation. At Green Gables Marilla went promptly to Mrs. Lynde\u2019s domain when Gilbert came and insisted on taking the twins with her. The significance of this was unmistakable and Anne was in a helpless fury over it. Davy, however, was perfectly happy. He reveled in getting out in the morning and shoveling out the paths to the well and henhouse. He gloried in the Christmas-tide delicacies which Marilla and Mrs. Lynde vied with each other in preparing for Anne, and he was reading an enthralling tale, in a school library book, of a wonderful hero who seemed blessed with a miraculous faculty for getting into scrapes from which he was usually delivered by an earthquake or a volcanic explosion, which blew him high and dry out of his troubles, landed him in a fortune, and closed the story with proper _\u00e9clat_. \u201cI tell you it\u2019s a bully story, Anne,\u201d he said ecstatically. \u201cI\u2019d ever so much rather read it than the Bible.\u201d \u201cWould you?\u201d smiled Anne. Davy peered curiously at her. \u201cYou don\u2019t seem a bit shocked, Anne. Mrs. Lynde was awful shocked when I said it to her.\u201d \u201cNo, I\u2019m not shocked, Davy. I think it\u2019s quite natural that a nine-year-old boy would sooner read an adventure story than the Bible. But when you are older I hope and think that you will realize what a wonderful book the Bible is.\u201d \u201cOh, I think some parts of it are fine,\u201d conceded Davy. \u201cThat story about Joseph now\u2014it\u2019s bully. But if I\u2019d been Joseph _I_ wouldn\u2019t have forgive the brothers. No, siree, Anne. I\u2019d have cut all their heads off. Mrs. Lynde was awful mad when I said that and shut the Bible up and said she\u2019d never read me any more of it if I talked like that. So I don\u2019t talk now when she reads it Sunday afternoons; I just think things and say them to Milty Boulter next day in school. I told Milty the story about Elisha and the bears and it scared him so he\u2019s never made fun of Mr. Harrison\u2019s bald head once. Are there any bears on P.E. Island, Anne? I want to know.\u201d \u201cNot nowadays,\u201d said Anne, absently, as the wind blew a scud of snow against the window. \u201cOh, dear, will it ever stop storming.\u201d \u201cGod knows,\u201d said Davy airily, preparing to resume his reading. Anne _was_ shocked this time. \u201cDavy!\u201d she exclaimed reproachfully. \u201cMrs. Lynde says that,\u201d protested Davy. \u201cOne night last week Marilla said \u2018Will Ludovic Speed and Theodora Dix _ever_ get married?\u201d and Mrs. Lynde said, \u201c\u2018God knows\u2019\u2014just like that.\u201d \u201cWell, it wasn\u2019t right for her to say it,\u201d said Anne, promptly deciding upon which horn of this dilemma to empale herself. \u201cIt isn\u2019t right for anybody to take that name in vain or speak it lightly, Davy. Don\u2019t ever do it again.\u201d \u201cNot if I say it slow and solemn, like the minister?\u201d queried Davy gravely. \u201cNo, not even then.\u201d \u201cWell, I won\u2019t. Ludovic Speed and Theodora Dix live in Middle Grafton and Mrs. Rachel says he has been courting her for a hundred years. Won\u2019t they soon be too old to get married, Anne? I hope Gilbert won\u2019t court _you_ that long. When are you going to be married, Anne? Mrs. Lynde says it\u2019s a sure thing.\u201d \u201cMrs. Lynde is a\u2014\u201d began Anne hotly; then stopped. \u201cAwful old gossip,\u201d completed Davy calmly. \u201cThat\u2019s what every one calls her. But is it a sure thing, Anne? I want to know.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019re a very silly little boy, Davy,\u201d said Anne, stalking haughtily out of the room. The kitchen was deserted and she sat down by the window in the fast falling wintry twilight. The sun had set and the wind had died down. A pale chilly moon looked out behind a bank of purple clouds in the west. The sky faded out, but the strip of yellow along the western horizon grew brighter and fiercer, as if all the stray gleams of light were concentrating in one spot; the distant hills, rimmed with priest-like firs, stood out in dark distinctness against it. Anne looked across the still, white fields, cold and lifeless in the harsh light of that grim sunset, and sighed. She was very lonely; and she was sad at heart; for she was wondering if she would be able to return to Redmond next year. It did not seem likely. The only scholarship possible in the Sophomore year was a very small affair. She would not take Marilla\u2019s money; and there seemed little prospect of being able to earn enough in the summer vacation. \u201cI suppose I\u2019ll just have to drop out next year,\u201d she thought drearily, \u201cand teach a district school again until I earn enough to finish my course. And by that time all my old class will have graduated and Patty\u2019s Place will be out of the question. But there! I\u2019m not going to be a coward. I\u2019m thankful I can earn my way through if necessary.\u201d \u201cHere\u2019s Mr. Harrison wading up the lane,\u201d announced Davy, running out. \u201cI hope he\u2019s brought the mail. It\u2019s three days since we got it. I want to see what them pesky Grits are doing. I\u2019m a Conservative, Anne. And I tell you, you have to keep your eye on them Grits.\u201d Mr. Harrison had brought the mail, and merry letters from Stella and Priscilla and Phil soon dissipated Anne\u2019s blues. Aunt Jamesina, too, had written, saying that she was keeping the hearth-fire alight, and that the cats were all well, and the house plants doing fine. \u201cThe weather has been real cold,\u201d she wrote, \u201cso I let the cats sleep in the house\u2014Rusty and Joseph on the sofa in the living-room, and the Sarah-cat on the foot of my bed. It\u2019s real company to hear her purring when I wake up in the night and think of my poor daughter in the foreign field. If it was anywhere but in India I wouldn\u2019t worry, but they say the snakes out there are terrible. It takes all the Sarah-cats\u2019s purring to drive away the thought of those snakes. I have enough faith for everything but the snakes. I can\u2019t think why Providence ever made them. Sometimes I don\u2019t think He did. I\u2019m inclined to believe the Old Harry had a hand in making _them_.\u201d Anne had left a thin, typewritten communication till the last, thinking it unimportant. When she had read it she sat very still, with tears in her eyes. \u201cWhat is the matter, Anne?\u201d asked Marilla. \u201cMiss Josephine Barry is dead,\u201d said Anne, in a low tone. \u201cSo she has gone at last,\u201d said Marilla. \u201cWell, she has been sick for over a year, and the Barrys have been expecting to hear of her death any time. It is well she is at rest for she has suffered dreadfully, Anne. She was always kind to you.\u201d \u201cShe has been kind to the last, Marilla. This letter is from her lawyer. She has left me a thousand dollars in her will.\u201d \u201cGracious, ain\u2019t that an awful lot of money,\u201d exclaimed Davy. \u201cShe\u2019s the woman you and Diana lit on when you jumped into the spare room bed, ain\u2019t she? Diana told me that story. Is that why she left you so much?\u201d \u201cHush, Davy,\u201d said Anne gently. She slipped away to the porch gable with a full heart, leaving Marilla and Mrs. Lynde to talk over the news to their hearts\u2019 content. \u201cDo you s\u2019pose Anne will ever get married now?\u201d speculated Davy anxiously. \u201cWhen Dorcas Sloane got married last summer she said if she\u2019d had enough money to live on she\u2019d never have been bothered with a man, but even a widower with eight children was better\u2019n living with a sister-in-law.\u201d \u201cDavy Keith, do hold your tongue,\u201d said Mrs. Rachel severely. \u201cThe way you talk is scandalous for a small boy, that\u2019s what.\u201d Chapter 19. An Interlude. \u201cTo think that this is my twentieth birthday, and that I\u2019ve left my teens behind me forever,\u201d said Anne, who was curled up on the hearth-rug with Rusty in her lap, to Aunt Jamesina who was reading in her pet chair. They were alone in the living room. Stella and Priscilla had gone to a committee meeting and Phil was upstairs adorning herself for a party. \u201cI suppose you feel kind of, sorry\u201d said Aunt Jamesina. \u201cThe teens are such a nice part of life. I\u2019m glad I\u2019ve never gone out of them myself.\u201d Anne laughed. \u201cYou never will, Aunty. You\u2019ll be eighteen when you should be a hundred. Yes, I\u2019m sorry, and a little dissatisfied as well. Miss Stacy told me long ago that by the time I was twenty my character would be formed, for good or evil. I don\u2019t feel that it\u2019s what it should be. It\u2019s full of flaws.\u201d \u201cSo\u2019s everybody\u2019s,\u201d said Aunt Jamesina cheerfully. \u201cMine\u2019s cracked in a hundred places. Your Miss Stacy likely meant that when you are twenty your character would have got its permanent bent in one direction or \u2019tother, and would go on developing in that line. Don\u2019t worry over it, Anne. Do your duty by God and your neighbor and yourself, and have a good time. That\u2019s my philosophy and it\u2019s always worked pretty well. Where\u2019s Phil off to tonight?\u201d \u201cShe\u2019s going to a dance, and she\u2019s got the sweetest dress for it\u2014creamy yellow silk and cobwebby lace. It just suits those brown tints of hers.\u201d \u201cThere\u2019s magic in the words \u2018silk\u2019 and \u2018lace,\u2019 isn\u2019t there?\u201d said Aunt Jamesina. \u201cThe very sound of them makes me feel like skipping off to a dance. And _yellow_ silk. It makes one think of a dress of sunshine. I always wanted a yellow silk dress, but first my mother and then my husband wouldn\u2019t hear of it. The very first thing I\u2019m going to do when I get to heaven is to get a yellow silk dress.\u201d Amid Anne\u2019s peal of laughter Phil came downstairs, trailing clouds of glory, and surveyed herself in the long oval mirror on the wall. \u201cA flattering looking glass is a promoter of amiability,\u201d she said. \u201cThe one in my room does certainly make me green. Do I look pretty nice, Anne?\u201d \u201cDo you really know how pretty you are, Phil?\u201d asked Anne, in honest admiration. \u201cOf course I do. What are looking glasses and men for? That wasn\u2019t what I meant. Are all my ends tucked in? Is my skirt straight? And would this rose look better lower down? I\u2019m afraid it\u2019s too high\u2014it will make me look lop-sided. But I hate things tickling my ears.\u201d \u201cEverything is just right, and that southwest dimple of yours is lovely.\u201d \u201cAnne, there\u2019s one thing in particular I like about you\u2014you\u2019re so ungrudging. There isn\u2019t a particle of envy in you.\u201d \u201cWhy should she be envious?\u201d demanded Aunt Jamesina. \u201cShe\u2019s not quite as goodlooking as you, maybe, but she\u2019s got a far handsomer nose.\u201d \u201cI know it,\u201d conceded Phil. \u201cMy nose always has been a great comfort to me,\u201d confessed Anne. \u201cAnd I love the way your hair grows on your forehead, Anne. And that one wee curl, always looking as if it were going to drop, but never dropping, is delicious. But as for noses, mine is a dreadful worry to me. I know by the time I\u2019m forty it will be Byrney. What do you think I\u2019ll look like when I\u2019m forty, Anne?\u201d \u201cLike an old, matronly, married woman,\u201d teased Anne. \u201cI won\u2019t,\u201d said Phil, sitting down comfortably to wait for her escort. \u201cJoseph, you calico beastie, don\u2019t you dare jump on my lap. I won\u2019t go to a dance all over cat hairs. No, Anne, I _won\u2019t_ look matronly. But no doubt I\u2019ll be married.\u201d \u201cTo Alec or Alonzo?\u201d asked Anne. \u201cTo one of them, I suppose,\u201d sighed Phil, \u201cif I can ever decide which.\u201d \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be hard to decide,\u201d scolded Aunt Jamesina. \u201cI was born a see-saw Aunty, and nothing can ever prevent me from teetering.\u201d \u201cYou ought to be more levelheaded, Philippa.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s best to be levelheaded, of course,\u201d agreed Philippa, \u201cbut you miss lots of fun. As for Alec and Alonzo, if you knew them you\u2019d understand why it\u2019s difficult to choose between them. They\u2019re equally nice.\u201d \u201cThen take somebody who is nicer\u201d suggested Aunt Jamesina. \u201cThere\u2019s that Senior who is so devoted to you\u2014Will Leslie. He has such nice, large, mild eyes.\u201d \u201cThey\u2019re a little bit too large and too mild\u2014like a cow\u2019s,\u201d said Phil cruelly. \u201cWhat do you say about George Parker?\u201d \u201cThere\u2019s nothing to say about him except that he always looks as if he had just been starched and ironed.\u201d \u201cMarr Holworthy then. You can\u2019t find a fault with him.\u201d \u201cNo, he would do if he wasn\u2019t poor. I must marry a rich man, Aunt Jamesina. That\u2014and good looks\u2014is an indispensable qualification. I\u2019d marry Gilbert Blythe if he were rich.\u201d \u201cOh, would you?\u201d said Anne, rather viciously. \u201cWe don\u2019t like that idea a little bit, although we don\u2019t want Gilbert ourselves, oh, no,\u201d mocked Phil. \u201cBut don\u2019t let\u2019s talk of disagreeable subjects. I\u2019ll have to marry sometime, I suppose, but I shall put off the evil day as long as I can.\u201d \u201cYou mustn\u2019t marry anybody you don\u2019t love, Phil, when all\u2019s said and done,\u201d said Aunt Jamesina. \u201c\u2018Oh, hearts that loved in the good old way Have been out o\u2019 the fashion this many a day.\u2019\u201d trilled Phil mockingly. \u201cThere\u2019s the carriage. I fly\u2014Bi-bi, you two old-fashioned darlings.\u201d When Phil had gone Aunt Jamesina looked solemnly at Anne. \u201cThat girl is pretty and sweet and goodhearted, but do you think she is quite right in her mind, by spells, Anne?\u201d \u201cOh, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything the matter with Phil\u2019s mind,\u201d said Anne, hiding a smile. \u201cIt\u2019s just her way of talking.\u201d Aunt Jamesina shook her head. \u201cWell, I hope so, Anne. I do hope so, because I love her. But _I_ can\u2019t understand her\u2014she beats me. She isn\u2019t like any of the girls I ever knew, or any of the girls I was myself.\u201d \u201cHow many girls were you, Aunt Jimsie?\u201d \u201cAbout half a dozen, my dear.\u201d Chapter 20. Gilbert Speaks. \u201cThis has been a dull, prosy day,\u201d yawned Phil, stretching herself idly on the sofa, having previously dispossessed two exceedingly indignant cats. Anne looked up from _Pickwick Papers_. Now that spring examinations were over she was treating herself to Dickens. \u201cIt has been a prosy day for us,\u201d she said thoughtfully, \u201cbut to some people it has been a wonderful day. Some one has been rapturously happy in it. Perhaps a great deed has been done somewhere today\u2014or a great poem written\u2014or a great man born. And some heart has been broken, Phil.\u201d \u201cWhy did you spoil your pretty thought by tagging that last sentence on, honey?\u201d grumbled Phil. \u201cI don\u2019t like to think of broken hearts\u2014or anything unpleasant.\u201d \u201cDo you think you\u2019ll be able to shirk unpleasant things all your life, Phil?\u201d \u201cDear me, no. Am I not up against them now? You don\u2019t call Alec and Alonzo pleasant things, do you, when they simply plague my life out?\u201d \u201cYou never take anything seriously, Phil.\u201d \u201cWhy should I? There are enough folks who do. The world needs people like me, Anne, just to amuse it. It would be a terrible place if _everybody_ were intellectual and serious and in deep, deadly earnest. MY mission is, as _Josiah Allen_ says, \u2018to charm and allure.\u2019 Confess now. Hasn\u2019t life at Patty\u2019s Place been really much brighter and pleasanter this past winter because I\u2019ve been here to leaven you?\u201d \u201cYes, it has,\u201d owned Anne. \u201cAnd you all love me\u2014even Aunt Jamesina, who thinks I\u2019m stark mad. So why should I try to be different? Oh, dear, I\u2019m so sleepy. I was awake until one last night, reading a harrowing ghost story. I read it in bed, and after I had finished it do you suppose I could get out of bed to put the light out? No! And if Stella had not fortunately come in late that lamp would have burned good and bright till morning. When I heard Stella I called her in, explained my predicament, and got her to put out the light. If I had got out myself to do it I knew something would grab me by the feet when I was getting in again. By the way, Anne, has Aunt Jamesina decided what to do this summer?\u201d \u201cYes, she\u2019s going to stay here. I know she\u2019s doing it for the sake of those blessed cats, although she says it\u2019s too much trouble to open her own house, and she hates visiting.\u201d \u201cWhat are you reading?\u201d \u201c_Pickwick_.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s a book that always makes me hungry,\u201d said Phil. \u201cThere\u2019s so much good eating in it. The characters seem always to be reveling on ham and eggs and milk punch. I generally go on a cupboard rummage after reading _Pickwick_. The mere thought reminds me that I\u2019m starving. Is there any tidbit in the pantry, Queen Anne?\u201d \u201cI made a lemon pie this morning. You may have a piece of it.\u201d Phil dashed out to the pantry and Anne betook herself to the orchard in company with Rusty. It was a moist, pleasantly-odorous night in early spring. The snow was not quite all gone from the park; a little dingy bank of it yet lay under the pines of the harbor road, screened from the influence of April suns. It kept the harbor road muddy, and chilled the evening air. But grass was growing green in sheltered spots and Gilbert had found some pale, sweet arbutus in a hidden corner. He came up from the park, his hands full of it. Anne was sitting on the big gray boulder in the orchard looking at the poem of a bare, birchen bough hanging against the pale red sunset with the very perfection of grace. She was building a castle in air\u2014a wondrous mansion whose sunlit courts and stately halls were steeped in Araby\u2019s perfume, and where she reigned queen and chatelaine. She frowned as she saw Gilbert coming through the orchard. Of late she had managed not to be left alone with Gilbert. But he had caught her fairly now; and even Rusty had deserted her. Gilbert sat down beside her on the boulder and held out his Mayflowers. \u201cDon\u2019t these remind you of home and our old schoolday picnics, Anne?\u201d Anne took them and buried her face in them. \u201cI\u2019m in Mr. Silas Sloane\u2019s barrens this very minute,\u201d she said rapturously. \u201cI suppose you will be there in reality in a few days?\u201d \u201cNo, not for a fortnight. I\u2019m going to visit with Phil in Bolingbroke before I go home. You\u2019ll be in Avonlea before I will.\u201d \u201cNo, I shall not be in Avonlea at all this summer, Anne. I\u2019ve been offered a job in the Daily News office and I\u2019m going to take it.\u201d \u201cOh,\u201d said Anne vaguely. She wondered what a whole Avonlea summer would be like without Gilbert. Somehow she did not like the prospect. \u201cWell,\u201d she concluded flatly, \u201cit is a good thing for you, of course.\u201d \u201cYes, I\u2019ve been hoping I would get it. It will help me out next year.\u201d \u201cYou mustn\u2019t work _too_ hard,\u201d said Anne, without any very clear idea of what she was saying. She wished desperately that Phil would come out. \u201cYou\u2019ve studied very constantly this winter. Isn\u2019t this a delightful evening? Do you know, I found a cluster of white violets under that old twisted tree over there today? I felt as if I had discovered a gold mine.\u201d \u201cYou are always discovering gold mines,\u201d said Gilbert\u2014also absently. \u201cLet us go and see if we can find some more,\u201d suggested Anne eagerly. \u201cI\u2019ll call Phil and\u2014\u201d \u201cNever mind Phil and the violets just now, Anne,\u201d said Gilbert quietly, taking her hand in a clasp from which she could not free it. \u201cThere is something I want to say to you.\u201d \u201cOh, don\u2019t say it,\u201d cried Anne, pleadingly. \u201cDon\u2019t\u2014_please_, Gilbert.\u201d \u201cI must. Things can\u2019t go on like this any longer. Anne, I love you. You know I do. I\u2014I can\u2019t tell you how much. Will you promise me that some day you\u2019ll be my wife?\u201d \u201cI\u2014I can\u2019t,\u201d said Anne miserably. \u201cOh, Gilbert\u2014you\u2014you\u2019ve spoiled everything.\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t you care for me at all?\u201d Gilbert asked after a very dreadful pause, during which Anne had not dared to look up. \u201cNot\u2014not in that way. I do care a great deal for you as a friend. But I don\u2019t love you, Gilbert.\u201d \u201cBut can\u2019t you give me some hope that you will\u2014yet?\u201d \u201cNo, I can\u2019t,\u201d exclaimed Anne desperately. \u201cI never, never can love you\u2014in that way\u2014Gilbert. You must never speak of this to me again.\u201d There was another pause\u2014so long and so dreadful that Anne was driven at last to look up. Gilbert\u2019s face was white to the lips. And his eyes\u2014but Anne shuddered and looked away. There was nothing romantic about this. Must proposals be either grotesque or\u2014horrible? Could she ever forget Gilbert\u2019s face? \u201cIs there anybody else?\u201d he asked at last in a low voice. \u201cNo\u2014no,\u201d said Anne eagerly. \u201cI don\u2019t care for any one like _that_\u2014and I _like_ you better than anybody else in the world, Gilbert. And we must\u2014we must go on being friends, Gilbert.\u201d Gilbert gave a bitter little laugh. \u201cFriends! Your friendship can\u2019t satisfy me, Anne. I want your love\u2014and you tell me I can never have that.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m sorry. Forgive me, Gilbert,\u201d was all Anne could say. Where, oh, where were all the gracious and graceful speeches wherewith, in imagination, she had been wont to dismiss rejected suitors? Gilbert released her hand gently. \u201cThere isn\u2019t anything to forgive. There have been times when I thought you did care. I\u2019ve deceived myself, that\u2019s all. Goodbye, Anne.\u201d Anne got herself to her room, sat down on her window seat behind the pines, and cried bitterly. She felt as if something incalculably precious had gone out of her life. It was Gilbert\u2019s friendship, of course. Oh, why must she lose it after this fashion? \u201cWhat is the matter, honey?\u201d asked Phil, coming in through the moonlit gloom. Anne did not answer. At that moment she wished Phil were a thousand miles away. \u201cI suppose you\u2019ve gone and refused Gilbert Blythe. You are an idiot, Anne Shirley!\u201d \u201cDo you call it idiotic to refuse to marry a man I don\u2019t love?\u201d said Anne coldly, goaded to reply. \u201cYou don\u2019t know love when you see it. You\u2019ve tricked something out with your imagination that you think love, and you expect the real thing to look like that. There, that\u2019s the first sensible thing I\u2019ve ever said in my life. I wonder how I managed it?\u201d \u201cPhil,\u201d pleaded Anne, \u201cplease go away and leave me alone for a little while. My world has tumbled into pieces. I want to reconstruct it.\u201d \u201cWithout any Gilbert in it?\u201d said Phil, going. A world without any Gilbert in it! Anne repeated the words drearily. Would it not be a very lonely, forlorn place? Well, it was all Gilbert\u2019s fault. He had spoiled their beautiful comradeship. She must just learn to live without it. Chapter 21. Roses of Yesterday. The fortnight Anne spent in Bolingbroke was a very pleasant one, with a little under current of vague pain and dissatisfaction running through it whenever she thought about Gilbert. There was not, however, much time to think about him. \u201cMount Holly,\u201d the beautiful old Gordon homestead, was a very gay place, overrun by Phil\u2019s friends of both sexes. There was quite a bewildering succession of drives, dances, picnics and boating parties, all expressively lumped together by Phil under the head of \u201cjamborees\u201d; Alec and Alonzo were so constantly on hand that Anne wondered if they ever did anything but dance attendance on that will-o\u2019-the-wisp of a Phil. They were both nice, manly fellows, but Anne would not be drawn into any opinion as to which was the nicer. \u201cAnd I depended so on you to help me make up my mind which of them I should promise to marry,\u201d mourned Phil. \u201cYou must do that for yourself. You are quite expert at making up your mind as to whom other people should marry,\u201d retorted Anne, rather caustically. \u201cOh, that\u2019s a very different thing,\u201d said Phil, truly. But the sweetest incident of Anne\u2019s sojourn in Bolingbroke was the visit to her birthplace\u2014the little shabby yellow house in an out-of-the-way street she had so often dreamed about. She looked at it with delighted eyes, as she and Phil turned in at the gate. \u201cIt\u2019s almost exactly as I\u2019ve pictured it,\u201d she said. \u201cThere is no honeysuckle over the windows, but there is a lilac tree by the gate, and\u2014yes, there are the muslin curtains in the windows. How glad I am it is still painted yellow.\u201d A very tall, very thin woman opened the door. \u201cYes, the Shirleys lived here twenty years ago,\u201d she said, in answer to Anne\u2019s question. \u201cThey had it rented. I remember &#8217;em. They both died of fever at onct. It was turrible sad. They left a baby. I guess it\u2019s dead long ago. It was a sickly thing. Old Thomas and his wife took it\u2014as if they hadn\u2019t enough of their own.\u201d \u201cIt didn\u2019t die,\u201d said Anne, smiling. \u201cI was that baby.\u201d \u201cYou don\u2019t say so! Why, you have grown,\u201d exclaimed the woman, as if she were much surprised that Anne was not still a baby. \u201cCome to look at you, I see the resemblance. You\u2019re complected like your pa. He had red hair. But you favor your ma in your eyes and mouth. She was a nice little thing. My darter went to school to her and was nigh crazy about her. They was buried in the one grave and the School Board put up a tombstone to them as a reward for faithful service. Will you come in?\u201d \u201cWill you let me go all over the house?\u201d asked Anne eagerly. \u201cLaws, yes, you can if you like. \u2019Twon\u2019t take you long\u2014there ain\u2019t much of it. I keep at my man to build a new kitchen, but he ain\u2019t one of your hustlers. The parlor\u2019s in there and there\u2019s two rooms upstairs. Just prowl about yourselves. I\u2019ve got to see to the baby. The east room was the one you were born in. I remember your ma saying she loved to see the sunrise; and I mind hearing that you was born just as the sun was rising and its light on your face was the first thing your ma saw.\u201d Anne went up the narrow stairs and into that little east room with a full heart. It was as a shrine to her. Here her mother had dreamed the exquisite, happy dreams of anticipated motherhood; here that red sunrise light had fallen over them both in the sacred hour of birth; here her mother had died. Anne looked about her reverently, her eyes with tears. It was for her one of the jeweled hours of life that gleam out radiantly forever in memory. \u201cJust to think of it\u2014mother was younger than I am now when I was born,\u201d she whispered. When Anne went downstairs the lady of the house met her in the hall. She held out a dusty little packet tied with faded blue ribbon. \u201cHere\u2019s a bundle of old letters I found in that closet upstairs when I came here,\u201d she said. \u201cI dunno what they are\u2014I never bothered to look in &#8217;em, but the address on the top one is \u2018Miss Bertha Willis,\u2019 and that was your ma\u2019s maiden name. You can take &#8217;em if you\u2019d keer to have &#8217;em.\u201d \u201cOh, thank you\u2014thank you,\u201d cried Anne, clasping the packet rapturously. \u201cThat was all that was in the house,\u201d said her hostess. \u201cThe furniture was all sold to pay the doctor bills, and Mrs. Thomas got your ma\u2019s clothes and little things. I reckon they didn\u2019t last long among that drove of Thomas youngsters. They was destructive young animals, as I mind &#8217;em.\u201d \u201cI haven\u2019t one thing that belonged to my mother,\u201d said Anne, chokily. \u201cI\u2014I can never thank you enough for these letters.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019re quite welcome. Laws, but your eyes is like your ma\u2019s. She could just about talk with hers. Your father was sorter homely but awful nice. I mind hearing folks say when they was married that there never was two people more in love with each other\u2014Pore creatures, they didn\u2019t live much longer; but they was awful happy while they was alive, and I s\u2019pose that counts for a good deal.\u201d Anne longed to get home to read her precious letters; but she made one little pilgrimage first. She went alone to the green corner of the \u201cold\u201d Bolingbroke cemetery where her father and mother were buried, and left on their grave the white flowers she carried. Then she hastened back to Mount Holly, shut herself up in her room, and read the letters. Some were written by her father, some by her mother. There were not many\u2014only a dozen in all\u2014for Walter and Bertha Shirley had not been often separated during their courtship. The letters were yellow and faded and dim, blurred with the touch of passing years. No profound words of wisdom were traced on the stained and wrinkled pages, but only lines of love and trust. The sweetness of forgotten things clung to them\u2014the far-off, fond imaginings of those long-dead lovers. Bertha Shirley had possessed the gift of writing letters which embodied the charming personality of the writer in words and thoughts that retained their beauty and fragrance after the lapse of time. The letters were tender, intimate, sacred. To Anne, the sweetest of all was the one written after her birth to the father on a brief absence. It was full of a proud young mother\u2019s accounts of \u201cbaby\u201d\u2014her cleverness, her brightness, her thousand sweetnesses. \u201cI love her best when she is asleep and better still when she is awake,\u201d Bertha Shirley had written in the postscript. Probably it was the last sentence she had ever penned. The end was very near for her. \u201cThis has been the most beautiful day of my life,\u201d Anne said to Phil that night. \u201cI\u2019ve FOUND my father and mother. Those letters have made them REAL to me. I\u2019m not an orphan any longer. I feel as if I had opened a book and found roses of yesterday, sweet and beloved, between its leaves.\u201d Chapter 22. Spring and Anne Return to Green Gables. The firelight shadows were dancing over the kitchen walls at Green Gables, for the spring evening was chilly; through the open east window drifted in the subtly sweet voices of the night. Marilla was sitting by the fire\u2014at least, in body. In spirit she was roaming olden ways, with feet grown young. Of late Marilla had thus spent many an hour, when she thought she should have been knitting for the twins. \u201cI suppose I\u2019m growing old,\u201d she said. Yet Marilla had changed but little in the past nine years, save to grow something thinner, and even more angular; there was a little more gray in the hair that was still twisted up in the same hard knot, with two hairpins\u2014_were_ they the same hairpins?\u2014still stuck through it. But her expression was very different; the something about the mouth which had hinted at a sense of humor had developed wonderfully; her eyes were gentler and milder, her smile more frequent and tender. Marilla was thinking of her whole past life, her cramped but not unhappy childhood, the jealously hidden dreams and the blighted hopes of her girlhood, the long, gray, narrow, monotonous years of dull middle life that followed. And the coming of Anne\u2014the vivid, imaginative, impetuous child with her heart of love, and her world of fancy, bringing with her color and warmth and radiance, until the wilderness of existence had blossomed like the rose. Marilla felt that out of her sixty years she had lived only the nine that had followed the advent of Anne. And Anne would be home tomorrow night. The kitchen door opened. Marilla looked up expecting to see Mrs. Lynde. Anne stood before her, tall and starry-eyed, with her hands full of Mayflowers and violets. \u201cAnne Shirley!\u201d exclaimed Marilla. For once in her life she was surprised out of her reserve; she caught her girl in her arms and crushed her and her flowers against her heart, kissing the bright hair and sweet face warmly. \u201cI never looked for you till tomorrow night. How did you get from Carmody?\u201d \u201cWalked, dearest of Marillas. Haven\u2019t I done it a score of times in the Queen\u2019s days? The mailman is to bring my trunk tomorrow; I just got homesick all at once, and came a day earlier. And oh! I\u2019ve had such a lovely walk in the May twilight; I stopped by the barrens and picked these Mayflowers; I came through Violet-Vale; it\u2019s just a big bowlful of violets now\u2014the dear, sky-tinted things. Smell them, Marilla\u2014drink them in.\u201d Marilla sniffed obligingly, but she was more interested in Anne than in drinking violets. \u201cSit down, child. You must be real tired. I\u2019m going to get you some supper.\u201d \u201cThere\u2019s a darling moonrise behind the hills tonight, Marilla, and oh, how the frogs sang me home from Carmody! I do love the music of the frogs. It seems bound up with all my happiest recollections of old spring evenings. And it always reminds me of the night I came here first. Do you remember it, Marilla?\u201d \u201cWell, yes,\u201d said Marilla with emphasis. \u201cI\u2019m not likely to forget it ever.\u201d \u201cThey used to sing so madly in the marsh and brook that year. I would listen to them at my window in the dusk, and wonder how they could seem so glad and so sad at the same time. Oh, but it\u2019s good to be home again! Redmond was splendid and Bolingbroke delightful\u2014but Green Gables is _home_.\u201d \u201cGilbert isn\u2019t coming home this summer, I hear,\u201d said Marilla. \u201cNo.\u201d Something in Anne\u2019s tone made Marilla glance at her sharply, but Anne was apparently absorbed in arranging her violets in a bowl. \u201cSee, aren\u2019t they sweet?\u201d she went on hurriedly. \u201cThe year is a book, isn\u2019t it, Marilla? Spring\u2019s pages are written in Mayflowers and violets, summer\u2019s in roses, autumn\u2019s in red maple leaves, and winter in holly and evergreen. \u201cDid Gilbert do well in his examinations?\u201d persisted Marilla. \u201cExcellently well. He led his class. But where are the twins and Mrs. Lynde?\u201d \u201cRachel and Dora are over at Mr. Harrison\u2019s. Davy is down at Boulters\u2019. I think I hear him coming now.\u201d Davy burst in, saw Anne, stopped, and then hurled himself upon her with a joyful yell. \u201cOh, Anne, ain\u2019t I glad to see you! Say, Anne, I\u2019ve grown two inches since last fall. Mrs. Lynde measured me with her tape today, and say, Anne, see my front tooth. It\u2019s gone. Mrs. Lynde tied one end of a string to it and the other end to the door, and then shut the door. I sold it to Milty for two cents. Milty\u2019s collecting teeth.\u201d \u201cWhat in the world does he want teeth for?\u201d asked Marilla. \u201cTo make a necklace for playing Indian Chief,\u201d explained Davy, climbing upon Anne\u2019s lap. \u201cHe\u2019s got fifteen already, and everybody\u2019s else\u2019s promised, so there\u2019s no use in the rest of us starting to collect, too. I tell you the Boulters are great business people.\u201d \u201cWere you a good boy at Mrs. Boulter\u2019s?\u201d asked Marilla severely. \u201cYes; but say, Marilla, I\u2019m tired of being good.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019d get tired of being bad much sooner, Davy-boy,\u201d said Anne. \u201cWell, it\u2019d be fun while it lasted, wouldn\u2019t it?\u201d persisted Davy. \u201cI could be sorry for it afterwards, couldn\u2019t I?\u201d \u201cBeing sorry wouldn\u2019t do away with the consequences of being bad, Davy. Don\u2019t you remember the Sunday last summer when you ran away from Sunday School? You told me then that being bad wasn\u2019t worth while. What were you and Milty doing today?\u201d \u201cOh, we fished and chased the cat, and hunted for eggs, and yelled at the echo. There\u2019s a great echo in the bush behind the Boulter barn. Say, what is echo, Anne; I want to know.\u201d \u201cEcho is a beautiful nymph, Davy, living far away in the woods, and laughing at the world from among the hills.\u201d \u201cWhat does she look like?\u201d \u201cHer hair and eyes are dark, but her neck and arms are white as snow. No mortal can ever see how fair she is. She is fleeter than a deer, and that mocking voice of hers is all we can know of her. You can hear her calling at night; you can hear her laughing under the stars. But you can never see her. She flies afar if you follow her, and laughs at you always just over the next hill.\u201d \u201cIs that true, Anne? Or is it a whopper?\u201d demanded Davy staring. \u201cDavy,\u201d said Anne despairingly, \u201chaven\u2019t you sense enough to distinguish between a fairytale and a falsehood?\u201d \u201cThen what is it that sasses back from the Boulter bush? I want to know,\u201d insisted Davy. \u201cWhen you are a little older, Davy, I\u2019ll explain it all to you. \u201d The mention of age evidently gave a new turn to Davy\u2019s thoughts for after a few moments of reflection, he whispered solemnly: \u201cAnne, I\u2019m going to be married.\u201d \u201cWhen?\u201d asked Anne with equal solemnity. \u201cOh, not until I\u2019m grown-up, of course.\u201d \u201cWell, that\u2019s a relief, Davy. Who is the lady?\u201d \u201cStella Fletcher; she\u2019s in my class at school. And say, Anne, she\u2019s the prettiest girl you ever saw. If I die before I grow up you\u2019ll keep an eye on her, won\u2019t you?\u201d \u201cDavy Keith, do stop talking such nonsense,\u201d said Marilla severely. \u201c\u2019Tisn\u2019t nonsense,\u201d protested Davy in an injured tone. \u201cShe\u2019s my promised wife, and if I was to die she\u2019d be my promised widow, wouldn\u2019t she? And she hasn\u2019t got a soul to look after her except her old grandmother.\u201d \u201cCome and have your supper, Anne,\u201d said Marilla, \u201cand don\u2019t encourage that child in his absurd talk.\u201d Chapter 23. Paul Cannot Find the Rock People. Life was very pleasant in Avonlea that summer, although Anne, amid all her vacation joys, was haunted by a sense of \u201csomething gone which should be there.\u201d She would not admit, even in her inmost reflections, that this was caused by Gilbert\u2019s absence. But when she had to walk home alone from prayer meetings and A.V.I.S. pow-wows, while Diana and Fred, and many other gay couples, loitered along the dusky, starlit country roads, there was a queer, lonely ache in her heart which she could not explain away. Gilbert did not even write to her, as she thought he might have done. She knew he wrote to Diana occasionally, but she would not inquire about him; and Diana, supposing that Anne heard from him, volunteered no information. Gilbert\u2019s mother, who was a gay, frank, light-hearted lady, but not overburdened with tact, had a very embarrassing habit of asking Anne, always in a painfully distinct voice and always in the presence of a crowd, if she had heard from Gilbert lately. Poor Anne could only blush horribly and murmur, \u201cnot very lately,\u201d which was taken by all, Mrs. Blythe included, to be merely a maidenly evasion. Apart from this, Anne enjoyed her summer. Priscilla came for a merry visit in June; and, when she had gone, Mr. and Mrs. Irving, Paul and Charlotta the Fourth came \u201chome\u201d for July and August. Echo Lodge was the scene of gaieties once more, and the echoes over the river were kept busy mimicking the laughter that rang in the old garden behind the spruces. \u201cMiss Lavendar\u201d had not changed, except to grow even sweeter and prettier. Paul adored her, and the companionship between them was beautiful to see. \u201cBut I don\u2019t call her \u2018mother\u2019 just by itself,\u201d he explained to Anne. \u201cYou see, _that_ name belongs just to my own little mother, and I can\u2019t give it to any one else. You know, teacher. But I call her \u2018Mother Lavendar\u2019 and I love her next best to father. I\u2014I even love her a _little_ better than you, teacher.\u201d \u201cWhich is just as it ought to be,\u201d answered Anne. Paul was thirteen now and very tall for his years. His face and eyes were as beautiful as ever, and his fancy was still like a prism, separating everything that fell upon it into rainbows. He and Anne had delightful rambles to wood and field and shore. Never were there two more thoroughly \u201ckindred spirits.\u201d Charlotta the Fourth had blossomed out into young ladyhood. She wore her hair now in an enormous pompador and had discarded the blue ribbon bows of auld lang syne, but her face was as freckled, her nose as snubbed, and her mouth and smiles as wide as ever. \u201cYou don\u2019t think I talk with a Yankee accent, do you, Miss Shirley, ma\u2019am?\u201d she demanded anxiously. \u201cI don\u2019t notice it, Charlotta.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m real glad of that. They said I did at home, but I thought likely they just wanted to aggravate me. I don\u2019t want no Yankee accent. Not that I\u2019ve a word to say against the Yankees, Miss Shirley, ma\u2019am. They\u2019re real civilized. But give me old P.E. Island every time.\u201d Paul spent his first fortnight with his grandmother Irving in Avonlea. Anne was there to meet him when he came, and found him wild with eagerness to get to the shore\u2014Nora and the Golden Lady and the Twin Sailors would be there. He could hardly wait to eat his supper. Could he not see Nora\u2019s elfin face peering around the point, watching for him wistfully? But it was a very sober Paul who came back from the shore in the twilight. \u201cDidn\u2019t you find your Rock People?\u201d asked Anne. Paul shook his chestnut curls sorrowfully. \u201cThe Twin Sailors and the Golden Lady never came at all,\u201d he said. \u201cNora was there\u2014but Nora is not the same, teacher. She is changed.\u201d \u201cOh, Paul, it is you who are changed,\u201d said Anne. \u201cYou have grown too old for the Rock People. They like only children for playfellows. I am afraid the Twin Sailors will never again come to you in the pearly, enchanted boat with the sail of moonshine; and the Golden Lady will play no more for you on her golden harp. Even Nora will not meet you much longer. You must pay the penalty of growing-up, Paul. You must leave fairyland behind you.\u201d \u201cYou two talk as much foolishness as ever you did,\u201d said old Mrs. Irving, half-indulgently, half-reprovingly. \u201cOh, no, we don\u2019t,\u201d said Anne, shaking her head gravely. \u201cWe are getting very, very wise, and it is such a pity. We are never half so interesting when we have learned that language is given us to enable us to conceal our thoughts.\u201d \u201cBut it isn\u2019t\u2014it is given us to exchange our thoughts,\u201d said Mrs. Irving seriously. She had never heard of Tallyrand and did not understand epigrams. Anne spent a fortnight of halcyon days at Echo Lodge in the golden prime of August. While there she incidentally contrived to hurry Ludovic Speed in his leisurely courting of Theodora Dix, as related duly in another chronicle of her history.(1) Arnold Sherman, an elderly friend of the Irvings, was there at the same time, and added not a little to the general pleasantness of life. (1 Chronicles of Avonlea.) \u201cWhat a nice play-time this has been,\u201d said Anne. \u201cI feel like a giant refreshed. And it\u2019s only a fortnight more till I go back to Kingsport, and Redmond and Patty\u2019s Place. Patty\u2019s Place is the dearest spot, Miss Lavendar. I feel as if I had two homes\u2014one at Green Gables and one at Patty\u2019s Place. But where has the summer gone? It doesn\u2019t seem a day since I came home that spring evening with the Mayflowers. When I was little I couldn\u2019t see from one end of the summer to the other. It stretched before me like an unending season. Now, \u2018&#8217;tis a handbreadth, &#8217;tis a tale.\u2019\u201d \u201cAnne, are you and Gilbert Blythe as good friends as you used to be?\u201d asked Miss Lavendar quietly. \u201cI am just as much Gilbert\u2019s friend as ever I was, Miss Lavendar.\u201d Miss Lavendar shook her head. \u201cI see something\u2019s gone wrong, Anne. I\u2019m going to be impertinent and ask what. Have you quarrelled?\u201d \u201cNo; it\u2019s only that Gilbert wants more than friendship and I can\u2019t give him more.\u201d \u201cAre you sure of that, Anne?\u201d \u201cPerfectly sure.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m very, very sorry.\u201d \u201cI wonder why everybody seems to think I ought to marry Gilbert Blythe,\u201d said Anne petulantly. \u201cBecause you were made and meant for each other, Anne\u2014that is why. You needn\u2019t toss that young head of yours. It\u2019s a fact.\u201d Chapter 24. Enter Jonas. \u201cPROSPECT POINT, \u201cAugust 20th. \u201cDear Anne\u2014spelled\u2014with\u2014an\u2014E,\u201d wrote Phil, \u201cI must prop my eyelids open long enough to write you. I\u2019ve neglected you shamefully this summer, honey, but all my other correspondents have been neglected, too. I have a huge pile of letters to answer, so I must gird up the loins of my mind and hoe in. Excuse my mixed metaphors. I\u2019m fearfully sleepy. Last night Cousin Emily and I were calling at a neighbor\u2019s. There were several other callers there, and as soon as those unfortunate creatures left, our hostess and her three daughters picked them all to pieces. I knew they would begin on Cousin Emily and me as soon as the door shut behind us. When we came home Mrs. Lilly informed us that the aforesaid neighbor\u2019s hired boy was supposed to be down with scarlet fever. You can always trust Mrs. Lilly to tell you cheerful things like that. I have a horror of scarlet fever. I couldn\u2019t sleep when I went to bed for thinking of it. I tossed and tumbled about, dreaming fearful dreams when I did snooze for a minute; and at three I wakened up with a high fever, a sore throat, and a raging headache. I knew I had scarlet fever; I got up in a panic and hunted up Cousin Emily\u2019s \u2018doctor book\u2019 to read up the symptoms. Anne, I had them all. So I went back to bed, and knowing the worst, slept like a top the rest of the night. Though why a top should sleep sounder than anything else I never could understand. But this morning I was quite well, so it couldn\u2019t have been the fever. I suppose if I did catch it last night it couldn\u2019t have developed so soon. I can remember that in daytime, but at three o\u2019clock at night I never can be logical. \u201cI suppose you wonder what I\u2019m doing at Prospect Point. Well, I always like to spend a month of summer at the shore, and father insists that I come to his second-cousin Emily\u2019s \u2018select boardinghouse\u2019 at Prospect Point. So a fortnight ago I came as usual. And as usual old \u2018Uncle Mark Miller\u2019 brought me from the station with his ancient buggy and what he calls his \u2018generous purpose\u2019 horse. He is a nice old man and gave me a handful of pink peppermints. Peppermints always seem to me such a religious sort of candy\u2014I suppose because when I was a little girl Grandmother Gordon always gave them to me in church. Once I asked, referring to the smell of peppermints, \u2018Is that the odor of sanctity?\u2019 I didn\u2019t like to eat Uncle Mark\u2019s peppermints because he just fished them loose out of his pocket, and had to pick some rusty nails and other things from among them before he gave them to me. But I wouldn\u2019t hurt his dear old feelings for anything, so I carefully sowed them along the road at intervals. When the last one was gone, Uncle Mark said, a little rebukingly, \u2018Ye shouldn\u2019t a\u2019et all them candies to onct, Miss Phil. You\u2019ll likely have the stummick-ache.\u2019 \u201cCousin Emily has only five boarders besides myself\u2014four old ladies and one young man. My right-hand neighbor is Mrs. Lilly. She is one of those people who seem to take a gruesome pleasure in detailing all their many aches and pains and sicknesses. You cannot mention any ailment but she says, shaking her head, \u2018Ah, I know too well what that is\u2019\u2014and then you get all the details. Jonas declares he once spoke of locomotor ataxia in hearing and she said she knew too well what that was. She suffered from it for ten years and was finally cured by a traveling doctor. \u201cWho is Jonas? Just wait, Anne Shirley. You\u2019ll hear all about Jonas in the proper time and place. He is not to be mixed up with estimable old ladies. \u201cMy left-hand neighbor at the table is Mrs. Phinney. She always speaks with a wailing, dolorous voice\u2014you are nervously expecting her to burst into tears every moment. She gives you the impression that life to her is indeed a vale of tears, and that a smile, never to speak of a laugh, is a frivolity truly reprehensible. She has a worse opinion of me than Aunt Jamesina, and she doesn\u2019t love me hard to atone for it, as Aunty J. does, either. \u201cMiss Maria Grimsby sits cati-corner from me. The first day I came I remarked to Miss Maria that it looked a little like rain\u2014and Miss Maria laughed. I said the road from the station was very pretty\u2014and Miss Maria laughed. I said there seemed to be a few mosquitoes left yet\u2014and Miss Maria laughed. I said that Prospect Point was as beautiful as ever\u2014and Miss Maria laughed. If I were to say to Miss Maria, \u2018My father has hanged himself, my mother has taken poison, my brother is in the penitentiary, and I am in the last stages of consumption,\u2019 Miss Maria would laugh. She can\u2019t help it\u2014she was born so; but is very sad and awful. \u201cThe fifth old lady is Mrs. Grant. She is a sweet old thing; but she never says anything but good of anybody and so she is a very uninteresting conversationalist. \u201cAnd now for Jonas, Anne. \u201cThat first day I came I saw a young man sitting opposite me at the table, smiling at me as if he had known me from my cradle. I knew, for Uncle Mark had told me, that his name was Jonas Blake, that he was a Theological Student from St. Columbia, and that he had taken charge of the Point Prospect Mission Church for the summer. \u201cHe is a very ugly young man\u2014really, the ugliest young man I\u2019ve ever seen. He has a big, loose-jointed figure with absurdly long legs. His hair is tow-color and lank, his eyes are green, and his mouth is big, and his ears\u2014but I never think about his ears if I can help it. \u201cHe has a lovely voice\u2014if you shut your eyes he is adorable\u2014and he certainly has a beautiful soul and disposition. \u201cWe were good chums right way. Of course he is a graduate of Redmond, and that is a link between us. We fished and boated together; and we walked on the sands by moonlight. He didn\u2019t look so homely by moonlight and oh, he was nice. Niceness fairly exhaled from him. The old ladies\u2014except Mrs. Grant\u2014don\u2019t approve of Jonas, because he laughs and jokes\u2014and because he evidently likes the society of frivolous me better than theirs. \u201cSomehow, Anne, I don\u2019t want him to think me frivolous. This is ridiculous. Why should I care what a tow-haired person called Jonas, whom I never saw before thinks of me? \u201cLast Sunday Jonas preached in the village church. I went, of course, but I couldn\u2019t realize that Jonas was going to preach. The fact that he was a minister\u2014or going to be one\u2014persisted in seeming a huge joke to me. \u201cWell, Jonas preached. And, by the time he had preached ten minutes, I felt so small and insignificant that I thought I must be invisible to the naked eye. Jonas never said a word about women and he never looked at me. But I realized then and there what a pitiful, frivolous, small-souled little butterfly I was, and how horribly different I must be from Jonas\u2019 ideal woman. _She_ would be grand and strong and noble. He was so earnest and tender and true. He was everything a minister ought to be. I wondered how I could ever have thought him ugly\u2014but he really is!\u2014with those inspired eyes and that intellectual brow which the roughly-falling hair hid on week days. \u201cIt was a splendid sermon and I could have listened to it forever, and it made me feel utterly wretched. Oh, I wish I was like _you_, Anne. \u201cHe caught up with me on the road home, and grinned as cheerfully as usual. But his grin could never deceive me again. I had seen the _real_ Jonas. I wondered if he could ever see the _real Phil_\u2014whom _nobody_, not even you, Anne, has ever seen yet. \u201c\u2018Jonas,\u2019 I said\u2014I forgot to call him Mr. Blake. Wasn\u2019t it dreadful? But there are times when things like that don\u2019t matter\u2014\u2018Jonas, you were born to be a minister. You _couldn\u2019t_ be anything else.\u2019 \u201c\u2018No, I couldn\u2019t,\u2019 he said soberly. \u2018I tried to be something else for a long time\u2014I didn\u2019t want to be a minister. But I came to see at last that it was the work given me to do\u2014and God helping me, I shall try to do it.\u2019 \u201cHis voice was low and reverent. I thought that he would do his work and do it well and nobly; and happy the woman fitted by nature and training to help him do it. _She_ would be no feather, blown about by every fickle wind of fancy. _She_ would always know what hat to put on. Probably she would have only one. Ministers never have much money. But she wouldn\u2019t mind having one hat or none at all, because she would have Jonas. \u201cAnne Shirley, don\u2019t you dare to say or hint or think that I\u2019ve fallen in love with Mr. Blake. Could _I_ care for a lank, poor, ugly theologue\u2014named Jonas? As Uncle Mark says, \u2018It\u2019s impossible, and what\u2019s more it\u2019s improbable.\u2019 \u201cGood night, PHIL.\u201d \u201cP.S. It is impossible\u2014but I am horribly afraid it\u2019s true. I\u2019m happy and wretched and scared. _He_ can _never_ care for me, I know. Do you think I could ever develop into a passable minister\u2019s wife, Anne? And _would_ they expect me to lead in prayer? P G.\u201d Chapter 25. Enter Prince Charming. \u201cI\u2019m contrasting the claims of indoors and out,\u201d said Anne, looking from the window of Patty\u2019s Place to the distant pines of the park. \u201cI\u2019ve an afternoon to spend in sweet doing nothing, Aunt Jimsie. Shall I spend it here where there is a cosy fire, a plateful of delicious russets, three purring and harmonious cats, and two impeccable china dogs with green noses? Or shall I go to the park, where there is the lure of gray woods and of gray water lapping on the harbor rocks?\u201d \u201cIf I was as young as you, I\u2019d decide in favor of the park,\u201d said Aunt Jamesina, tickling Joseph\u2019s yellow ear with a knitting needle. \u201cI thought that you claimed to be as young as any of us, Aunty,\u201d teased Anne. \u201cYes, in my soul. But I\u2019ll admit my legs aren\u2019t as young as yours. You go and get some fresh air, Anne. You look pale lately.\u201d \u201cI think I\u2019ll go to the park,\u201d said Anne restlessly. \u201cI don\u2019t feel like tame domestic joys today. I want to feel alone and free and wild. The park will be empty, for every one will be at the football match.\u201d \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you go to it?\u201d \u201c\u2018Nobody axed me, sir, she said\u2019\u2014at least, nobody but that horrid little Dan Ranger. I wouldn\u2019t go anywhere with him; but rather than hurt his poor little tender feelings I said I wasn\u2019t going to the game at all. I don\u2019t mind. I\u2019m not in the mood for football today somehow.\u201d \u201cYou go and get some fresh air,\u201d repeated Aunt Jamesina, \u201cbut take your umbrella, for I believe it\u2019s going to rain. I\u2019ve rheumatism in my leg.\u201d \u201cOnly old people should have rheumatism, Aunty.\u201d \u201cAnybody is liable to rheumatism in her legs, Anne. It\u2019s only old people who should have rheumatism in their souls, though. Thank goodness, I never have. When you get rheumatism in your soul you might as well go and pick out your coffin.\u201d It was November\u2014the month of crimson sunsets, parting birds, deep, sad hymns of the sea, passionate wind-songs in the pines. Anne roamed through the pineland alleys in the park and, as she said, let that great sweeping wind blow the fogs out of her soul. Anne was not wont to be troubled with soul fog. But, somehow, since her return to Redmond for this third year, life had not mirrored her spirit back to her with its old, perfect, sparkling clearness. Outwardly, existence at Patty\u2019s Place was the same pleasant round of work and study and recreation that it had always been. On Friday evenings the big, fire-lighted livingroom was crowded by callers and echoed to endless jest and laughter, while Aunt Jamesina smiled beamingly on them all. The \u201cJonas\u201d of Phil\u2019s letter came often, running up from St. Columbia on the early train and departing on the late. He was a general favorite at Patty\u2019s Place, though Aunt Jamesina shook her head and opined that divinity students were not what they used to be. \u201cHe\u2019s _very_ nice, my dear,\u201d she told Phil, \u201cbut ministers ought to be graver and more dignified.\u201d \u201cCan\u2019t a man laugh and laugh and be a Christian still?\u201d demanded Phil. \u201cOh, _men_\u2014yes. But I was speaking of _ministers_, my dear,\u201d said Aunt Jamesina rebukingly. \u201cAnd you shouldn\u2019t flirt so with Mr. Blake\u2014you really shouldn\u2019t.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m not flirting with him,\u201d protested Phil. Nobody believed her, except Anne. The others thought she was amusing herself as usual, and told her roundly that she was behaving very badly. \u201cMr. Blake isn\u2019t of the Alec-and-Alonzo type, Phil,\u201d said Stella severely. \u201cHe takes things seriously. You may break his heart.\u201d \u201cDo you really think I could?\u201d asked Phil. \u201cI\u2019d love to think so.\u201d \u201cPhilippa Gordon! I never thought you were utterly unfeeling. The idea of you saying you\u2019d love to break a man\u2019s heart!\u201d \u201cI didn\u2019t say so, honey. Quote me correctly. I said I\u2019d like to think I _could_ break it. I would like to know I had the _power_ to do it.\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t understand you, Phil. You are leading that man on deliberately\u2014and you know you don\u2019t mean anything by it.\u201d \u201cI mean to make him ask me to marry him if I can,\u201d said Phil calmly. \u201cI give you up,\u201d said Stella hopelessly. Gilbert came occasionally on Friday evenings. He seemed always in good spirits, and held his own in the jests and repartee that flew about. He neither sought nor avoided Anne. When circumstances brought them in contact he talked to her pleasantly and courteously, as to any newly-made acquaintance. The old camaraderie was gone entirely. Anne felt it keenly; but she told herself she was very glad and thankful that Gilbert had got so completely over his disappointment in regard to her. She had really been afraid, that April evening in the orchard, that she had hurt him terribly and that the wound would be long in healing. Now she saw that she need not have worried. Men have died and the worms have eaten them but not for love. Gilbert evidently was in no danger of immediate dissolution. He was enjoying life, and he was full of ambition and zest. For him there was to be no wasting in despair because a woman was fair and cold. Anne, as she listened to the ceaseless badinage that went on between him and Phil, wondered if she had only imagined that look in his eyes when she had told him she could never care for him. There were not lacking those who would gladly have stepped into Gilbert\u2019s vacant place. But Anne snubbed them without fear and without reproach. If the real Prince Charming was never to come she would have none of a substitute. So she sternly told herself that gray day in the windy park. Suddenly the rain of Aunt Jamesina\u2019s prophecy came with a swish and rush. Anne put up her umbrella and hurried down the slope. As she turned out on the harbor road a savage gust of wind tore along it. Instantly her umbrella turned wrong side out. Anne clutched at it in despair. And then\u2014there came a voice close to her. \u201cPardon me\u2014may I offer you the shelter of my umbrella?\u201d Anne looked up. Tall and handsome and distinguished-looking\u2014dark, melancholy, inscrutable eyes\u2014melting, musical, sympathetic voice\u2014yes, the very hero of her dreams stood before her in the flesh. He could not have more closely resembled her ideal if he had been made to order. \u201cThank you,\u201d she said confusedly. \u201cWe\u2019d better hurry over to that little pavillion on the point,\u201d suggested the unknown. \u201cWe can wait there until this shower is over. It is not likely to rain so heavily very long.\u201d The words were very commonplace, but oh, the tone! And the smile which accompanied them! Anne felt her heart beating strangely. Together they scurried to the pavilion and sat breathlessly down under its friendly roof. Anne laughingly held up her false umbrella. \u201cIt is when my umbrella turns inside out that I am convinced of the total depravity of inanimate things,\u201d she said gaily. The raindrops sparkled on her shining hair; its loosened rings curled around her neck and forehead. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes big and starry. Her companion looked down at her admiringly. She felt herself blushing under his gaze. Who could he be? Why, there was a bit of the Redmond white and scarlet pinned to his coat lapel. Yet she had thought she knew, by sight at least, all the Redmond students except the Freshmen. And this courtly youth surely was no Freshman. \u201cWe are schoolmates, I see,\u201d he said, smiling at Anne\u2019s colors. \u201cThat ought to be sufficient introduction. My name is Royal Gardner. And you are the Miss Shirley who read the Tennyson paper at the Philomathic the other evening, aren\u2019t you?\u201d \u201cYes; but I cannot place you at all,\u201d said Anne, frankly. \u201cPlease, where _do_ you belong?\u201d \u201cI feel as if I didn\u2019t belong anywhere yet. I put in my Freshman and Sophomore years at Redmond two years ago. I\u2019ve been in Europe ever since. Now I\u2019ve come back to finish my Arts course.\u201d \u201cThis is my Junior year, too,\u201d said Anne. \u201cSo we are classmates as well as collegemates. I am reconciled to the loss of the years that the locust has eaten,\u201d said her companion, with a world of meaning in those wonderful eyes of his. The rain came steadily down for the best part of an hour. But the time seemed really very short. When the clouds parted and a burst of pale November sunshine fell athwart the harbor and the pines Anne and her companion walked home together. By the time they had reached the gate of Patty\u2019s Place he had asked permission to call, and had received it. Anne went in with cheeks of flame and her heart beating to her fingertips. Rusty, who climbed into her lap and tried to kiss her, found a very absent welcome. Anne, with her soul full of romantic thrills, had no attention to spare just then for a crop-eared pussy cat. That evening a parcel was left at Patty\u2019s Place for Miss Shirley. It was a box containing a dozen magnificent roses. Phil pounced impertinently on the card that fell from it, read the name and the poetical quotation written on the back. \u201cRoyal Gardner!\u201d she exclaimed. \u201cWhy, Anne, I didn\u2019t know you were acquainted with Roy Gardner!\u201d \u201cI met him in the park this afternoon in the rain,\u201d explained Anne hurriedly. \u201cMy umbrella turned inside out and he came to my rescue with his.\u201d \u201cOh!\u201d Phil peered curiously at Anne. \u201cAnd is that exceedingly commonplace incident any reason why he should send us longstemmed roses by the dozen, with a very sentimental rhyme? Or why we should blush divinest rosy-red when we look at his card? Anne, thy face betrayeth thee.\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t talk nonsense, Phil. Do you know Mr. Gardner?\u201d \u201cI\u2019ve met his two sisters, and I know of him. So does everybody worthwhile in Kingsport. The Gardners are among the richest, bluest, of Bluenoses. Roy is adorably handsome and clever. Two years ago his mother\u2019s health failed and he had to leave college and go abroad with her\u2014his father is dead. He must have been greatly disappointed to have to give up his class, but they say he was perfectly sweet about it. Fee\u2014fi\u2014fo\u2014fum, Anne. I smell romance. Almost do I envy you, but not quite. After all, Roy Gardner isn\u2019t Jonas.\u201d \u201cYou goose!\u201d said Anne loftily. But she lay long awake that night, nor did she wish for sleep. Her waking fancies were more alluring than any vision of dreamland. Had the real Prince come at last? Recalling those glorious dark eyes which had gazed so deeply into her own, Anne was very strongly inclined to think he had. Chapter 26. Enter Christine. The girls at Patty\u2019s Place were dressing for the reception which the Juniors were giving for the Seniors in February. Anne surveyed herself in the mirror of the blue room with girlish satisfaction. She had a particularly pretty gown on. Originally it had been only a simple little slip of cream silk with a chiffon overdress. But Phil had insisted on taking it home with her in the Christmas holidays and embroidering tiny rosebuds all over the chiffon. Phil\u2019s fingers were deft, and the result was a dress which was the envy of every Redmond girl. Even Allie Boone, whose frocks came from Paris, was wont to look with longing eyes on that rosebud concoction as Anne trailed up the main staircase at Redmond in it. Anne was trying the effect of a white orchid in her hair. Roy Gardner had sent her white orchids for the reception, and she knew no other Redmond girl would have them that night\u2014when Phil came in with admiring gaze. \u201cAnne, this is certainly your night for looking handsome. Nine nights out of ten I can easily outshine you. The tenth you blossom out suddenly into something that eclipses me altogether. How do you manage it?\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s the dress, dear. Fine feathers.\u201d \u201c\u2019Tisn\u2019t. The last evening you flamed out into beauty you wore your old blue flannel shirtwaist that Mrs. Lynde made you. If Roy hadn\u2019t already lost head and heart about you he certainly would tonight. But I don\u2019t like orchids on you, Anne. No; it isn\u2019t jealousy. Orchids don\u2019t seem to _belong_ to you. They\u2019re too exotic\u2014too tropical\u2014too insolent. Don\u2019t put them in your hair, anyway.\u201d \u201cWell, I won\u2019t. I admit I\u2019m not fond of orchids myself. I don\u2019t think they\u2019re related to me. Roy doesn\u2019t often send them\u2014he knows I like flowers I can live with. Orchids are only things you can visit with.\u201d \u201cJonas sent me some dear pink rosebuds for the evening\u2014but\u2014he isn\u2019t coming himself. He said he had to lead a prayer-meeting in the slums! I don\u2019t believe he wanted to come. Anne, I\u2019m horribly afraid Jonas doesn\u2019t really care anything about me. And I\u2019m trying to decide whether I\u2019ll pine away and die, or go on and get my B.A. and be sensible and useful.\u201d \u201cYou couldn\u2019t possibly be sensible and useful, Phil, so you\u2019d better pine away and die,\u201d said Anne cruelly. \u201cHeartless Anne!\u201d \u201cSilly Phil! You know quite well that Jonas loves you.\u201d \u201cBut\u2014he won\u2019t _tell_ me so. And I can\u2019t _make_ him. He _looks_ it, I\u2019ll admit. But speak-to-me-only-with-thine-eyes isn\u2019t a really reliable reason for embroidering doilies and hemstitching tablecloths. I don\u2019t want to begin such work until I\u2019m really engaged. It would be tempting Fate.\u201d \u201cMr. Blake is afraid to ask you to marry him, Phil. He is poor and can\u2019t offer you a home such as you\u2019ve always had. You know that is the only reason he hasn\u2019t spoken long ago.\u201d \u201cI suppose so,\u201d agreed Phil dolefully. \u201cWell\u201d\u2014brightening up\u2014\u201cif he _won\u2019t_ ask me to marry him I\u2019ll ask him, that\u2019s all. So it\u2019s bound to come right. I won\u2019t worry. By the way, Gilbert Blythe is going about constantly with Christine Stuart. Did you know?\u201d Anne was trying to fasten a little gold chain about her throat. She suddenly found the clasp difficult to manage. _What_ was the matter with it\u2014or with her fingers? \u201cNo,\u201d she said carelessly. \u201cWho is Christine Stuart?\u201d \u201cRonald Stuart\u2019s sister. She\u2019s in Kingsport this winter studying music. I haven\u2019t seen her, but they say she\u2019s very pretty and that Gilbert is quite crazy over her. How angry I was when you refused Gilbert, Anne. But Roy Gardner was foreordained for you. I can see that now. You were right, after all.\u201d Anne did not blush, as she usually did when the girls assumed that her eventual marriage to Roy Gardner was a settled thing. All at once she felt rather dull. Phil\u2019s chatter seemed trivial and the reception a bore. She boxed poor Rusty\u2019s ears. \u201cGet off that cushion instantly, you cat, you! Why don\u2019t you stay down where you belong?\u201d Anne picked up her orchids and went downstairs, where Aunt Jamesina was presiding over a row of coats hung before the fire to warm. Roy Gardner was waiting for Anne and teasing the Sarah-cat while he waited. The Sarah-cat did not approve of him. She always turned her back on him. But everybody else at Patty\u2019s Place liked him very much. Aunt Jamesina, carried away by his unfailing and deferential courtesy, and the pleading tones of his delightful voice, declared he was the nicest young man she ever knew, and that Anne was a very fortunate girl. Such remarks made Anne restive. Roy\u2019s wooing had certainly been as romantic as girlish heart could desire, but\u2014she wished Aunt Jamesina and the girls would not take things so for granted. When Roy murmured a poetical compliment as he helped her on with her coat, she did not blush and thrill as usual; and he found her rather silent in their brief walk to Redmond. He thought she looked a little pale when she came out of the coeds\u2019 dressing room; but as they entered the reception room her color and sparkle suddenly returned to her. She turned to Roy with her gayest expression. He smiled back at her with what Phil called \u201chis deep, black, velvety smile.\u201d Yet she really did not see Roy at all. She was acutely conscious that Gilbert was standing under the palms just across the room talking to a girl who must be Christine Stuart. She was very handsome, in the stately style destined to become rather massive in middle life. A tall girl, with large dark-blue eyes, ivory outlines, and a gloss of darkness on her smooth hair. \u201cShe looks just as I\u2019ve always wanted to look,\u201d thought Anne miserably. \u201cRose-leaf complexion\u2014starry violet eyes\u2014raven hair\u2014yes, she has them all. It\u2019s a wonder her name isn\u2019t Cordelia Fitzgerald into the bargain! But I don\u2019t believe her figure is as good as mine, and her nose certainly isn\u2019t.\u201d Anne felt a little comforted by this conclusion. Chapter 27. Mutual Confidences. March came in that winter like the meekest and mildest of lambs, bringing days that were crisp and golden and tingling, each followed by a frosty pink twilight which gradually lost itself in an elfland of moonshine. Over the girls at Patty\u2019s Place was falling the shadow of April examinations. They were studying hard; even Phil had settled down to text and notebooks with a doggedness not to be expected of her. \u201cI\u2019m going to take the Johnson Scholarship in Mathematics,\u201d she announced calmly. \u201cI could take the one in Greek easily, but I\u2019d rather take the mathematical one because I want to prove to Jonas that I\u2019m really enormously clever.\u201d \u201cJonas likes you better for your big brown eyes and your crooked smile than for all the brains you carry under your curls,\u201d said Anne. \u201cWhen I was a girl it wasn\u2019t considered lady-like to know anything about Mathematics,\u201d said Aunt Jamesina. \u201cBut times have changed. I don\u2019t know that it\u2019s all for the better. Can you cook, Phil?\u201d \u201cNo, I never cooked anything in my life except a gingerbread and it was a failure\u2014flat in the middle and hilly round the edges. You know the kind. But, Aunty, when I begin in good earnest to learn to cook don\u2019t you think the brains that enable me to win a mathematical scholarship will also enable me to learn cooking just as well?\u201d \u201cMaybe,\u201d said Aunt Jamesina cautiously. \u201cI am not decrying the higher education of women. My daughter is an M.A. She can cook, too. But I taught her to cook _before_ I let a college professor teach her Mathematics.\u201d In mid-March came a letter from Miss Patty Spofford, saying that she and Miss Maria had decided to remain abroad for another year. \u201cSo you may have Patty\u2019s Place next winter, too,\u201d she wrote. \u201cMaria and I are going to run over Egypt. I want to see the Sphinx once before I die.\u201d \u201cFancy those two dames \u2018running over Egypt\u2019! I wonder if they\u2019ll look up at the Sphinx and knit,\u201d laughed Priscilla. \u201cI\u2019m so glad we can keep Patty\u2019s Place for another year,\u201d said Stella. \u201cI was afraid they\u2019d come back. And then our jolly little nest here would be broken up\u2014and we poor callow nestlings thrown out on the cruel world of boardinghouses again.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m off for a tramp in the park,\u201d announced Phil, tossing her book aside. \u201cI think when I am eighty I\u2019ll be glad I went for a walk in the park tonight.\u201d \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d asked Anne. \u201cCome with me and I\u2019ll tell you, honey.\u201d They captured in their ramble all the mysteries and magics of a March evening. Very still and mild it was, wrapped in a great, white, brooding silence\u2014a silence which was yet threaded through with many little silvery sounds which you could hear if you hearkened as much with your soul as your ears. The girls wandered down a long pineland aisle that seemed to lead right out into the heart of a deep-red, overflowing winter sunset. \u201cI\u2019d go home and write a poem this blessed minute if I only knew how,\u201d declared Phil, pausing in an open space where a rosy light was staining the green tips of the pines. \u201cIt\u2019s all so wonderful here\u2014this great, white stillness, and those dark trees that always seem to be thinking.\u201d \u201c\u2018The woods were God\u2019s first temples,\u2019\u201d quoted Anne softly. \u201cOne can\u2019t help feeling reverent and adoring in such a place. I always feel so near Him when I walk among the pines.\u201d \u201cAnne, I\u2019m the happiest girl in the world,\u201d confessed Phil suddenly. \u201cSo Mr. Blake has asked you to marry him at last?\u201d said Anne calmly. \u201cYes. And I sneezed three times while he was asking me. Wasn\u2019t that horrid? But I said \u2018yes\u2019 almost before he finished\u2014I was so afraid he might change his mind and stop. I\u2019m besottedly happy. I couldn\u2019t really believe before that Jonas would ever care for frivolous me. \u201cPhil, you\u2019re not really frivolous,\u201d said Anne gravely. \u201c\u2018Way down underneath that frivolous exterior of yours you\u2019ve got a dear, loyal, womanly little soul. Why do you hide it so?\u201d \u201cI can\u2019t help it, Queen Anne. You are right\u2014I\u2019m not frivolous at heart. But there\u2019s a sort of frivolous skin over my soul and I can\u2019t take it off. As Mrs. Poyser says, I\u2019d have to be hatched over again and hatched different before I could change it. But Jonas knows the real me and loves me, frivolity and all. And I love him. I never was so surprised in my life as I was when I found out I loved him. I\u2019d never thought it possible to fall in love with an ugly man. Fancy me coming down to one solitary beau. And one named Jonas! But I mean to call him Jo. That\u2019s such a nice, crisp little name. I couldn\u2019t nickname Alonzo.\u201d \u201cWhat about Alec and Alonzo?\u201d \u201cOh, I told them at Christmas that I never could marry either of them. It seems so funny now to remember that I ever thought it possible that I might. They felt so badly I just cried over both of them\u2014howled. But I knew there was only one man in the world I could ever marry. I had made up my own mind for once and it was real easy, too. It\u2019s very delightful to feel so sure, and know it\u2019s your own sureness and not somebody else\u2019s.\u201d \u201cDo you suppose you\u2019ll be able to keep it up?\u201d \u201cMaking up my mind, you mean? I don\u2019t know, but Jo has given me a splendid rule. He says, when I\u2019m perplexed, just to do what I would wish I had done when I shall be eighty. Anyhow, Jo can make up his mind quickly enough, and it would be uncomfortable to have too much mind in the same house.\u201d \u201cWhat will your father and mother say?\u201d \u201cFather won\u2019t say much. He thinks everything I do right. But mother _will_ talk. Oh, her tongue will be as Byrney as her nose. But in the end it will be all right.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019ll have to give up a good many things you\u2019ve always had, when you marry Mr. Blake, Phil.\u201d \u201cBut I\u2019ll have _him_. I won\u2019t miss the other things. We\u2019re to be married a year from next June. Jo graduates from St. Columbia this spring, you know. Then he\u2019s going to take a little mission church down on Patterson Street in the slums. Fancy me in the slums! But I\u2019d go there or to Greenland\u2019s icy mountains with him.\u201d \u201cAnd this is the girl who would _never_ marry a man who wasn\u2019t rich,\u201d commented Anne to a young pine tree. \u201cOh, don\u2019t cast up the follies of my youth to me. I shall be poor as gaily as I\u2019ve been rich. You\u2019ll see. I\u2019m going to learn how to cook and make over dresses. I\u2019ve learned how to market since I\u2019ve lived at Patty\u2019s Place; and once I taught a Sunday School class for a whole summer. Aunt Jamesina says I\u2019ll ruin Jo\u2019s career if I marry him. But I won\u2019t. I know I haven\u2019t much sense or sobriety, but I\u2019ve got what is ever so much better\u2014the knack of making people like me. There is a man in Bolingbroke who lisps and always testifies in prayer-meeting. He says, \u2018If you can\u2019t thine like an electric thtar thine like a candlethtick.\u2019 I\u2019ll be Jo\u2019s little candlestick.\u201d \u201cPhil, you\u2019re incorrigible. Well, I love you so much that I can\u2019t make nice, light, congratulatory little speeches. But I\u2019m heart-glad of your happiness.\u201d \u201cI know. Those big gray eyes of yours are brimming over with real friendship, Anne. Some day I\u2019ll look the same way at you. You\u2019re going to marry Roy, aren\u2019t you, Anne?\u201d \u201cMy dear Philippa, did you ever hear of the famous Betty Baxter, who \u2018refused a man before he\u2019d axed her\u2019? I am not going to emulate that celebrated lady by either refusing or accepting any one before he \u2018axes\u2019 me.\u201d \u201cAll Redmond knows that Roy is crazy about you,\u201d said Phil candidly. \u201cAnd you _do_ love him, don\u2019t you, Anne?\u201d \u201cI\u2014I suppose so,\u201d said Anne reluctantly. She felt that she ought to be blushing while making such a confession; but she was not; on the other hand, she always blushed hotly when any one said anything about Gilbert Blythe or Christine Stuart in her hearing. Gilbert Blythe and Christine Stuart were nothing to her\u2014absolutely nothing. But Anne had given up trying to analyze the reason of her blushes. As for Roy, of course she was in love with him\u2014madly so. How could she help it? Was he not her ideal? Who could resist those glorious dark eyes, and that pleading voice? Were not half the Redmond girls wildly envious? And what a charming sonnet he had sent her, with a box of violets, on her birthday! Anne knew every word of it by heart. It was very good stuff of its kind, too. Not exactly up to the level of Keats or Shakespeare\u2014even Anne was not so deeply in love as to think that. But it was very tolerable magazine verse. And it was addressed to _her_\u2014not to Laura or Beatrice or the Maid of Athens, but to her, Anne Shirley. To be told in rhythmical cadences that her eyes were stars of the morning\u2014that her cheek had the flush it stole from the sunrise\u2014that her lips were redder than the roses of Paradise, was thrillingly romantic. Gilbert would never have dreamed of writing a sonnet to her eyebrows. But then, Gilbert could see a joke. She had once told Roy a funny story\u2014and he had not seen the point of it. She recalled the chummy laugh she and Gilbert had had together over it, and wondered uneasily if life with a man who had no sense of humor might not be somewhat uninteresting in the long run. But who could expect a melancholy, inscrutable hero to see the humorous side of things? It would be flatly unreasonable. Chapter 28. A June Evening. \u201cI wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June,\u201d said Anne, as she came through the spice and bloom of the twilit orchard to the front door steps, where Marilla and Mrs. Rachel were sitting, talking over Mrs. Samson Coates\u2019 funeral, which they had attended that day. Dora sat between them, diligently studying her lessons; but Davy was sitting tailor-fashion on the grass, looking as gloomy and depressed as his single dimple would let him. \u201cYou\u2019d get tired of it,\u201d said Marilla, with a sigh. \u201cI daresay; but just now I feel that it would take me a long time to get tired of it, if it were all as charming as today. Everything loves June. Davy-boy, why this melancholy November face in blossom-time?\u201d \u201cI\u2019m just sick and tired of living,\u201d said the youthful pessimist. \u201cAt ten years? Dear me, how sad!\u201d \u201cI\u2019m not making fun,\u201d said Davy with dignity. \u201cI\u2019m dis\u2014dis\u2014discouraged\u201d\u2014bringing out the big word with a valiant effort. \u201cWhy and wherefore?\u201d asked Anne, sitting down beside him. \u201c\u2019Cause the new teacher that come when Mr. Holmes got sick give me ten sums to do for Monday. It\u2019ll take me all day tomorrow to do them. It isn\u2019t fair to have to work Saturdays. Milty Boulter said he wouldn\u2019t do them, but Marilla says I\u2019ve got to. I don\u2019t like Miss Carson a bit.\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t talk like that about your teacher, Davy Keith,\u201d said Mrs. Rachel severely. \u201cMiss Carson is a very fine girl. There is no nonsense about her.\u201d \u201cThat doesn\u2019t sound very attractive,\u201d laughed Anne. \u201cI like people to have a little nonsense about them. But I\u2019m inclined to have a better opinion of Miss Carson than you have. I saw her in prayer-meeting last night, and she has a pair of eyes that can\u2019t always look sensible. Now, Davy-boy, take heart of grace. \u2018Tomorrow will bring another day\u2019 and I\u2019ll help you with the sums as far as in me lies. Don\u2019t waste this lovely hour \u2019twixt light and dark worrying over arithmetic.\u201d \u201cWell, I won\u2019t,\u201d said Davy, brightening up. \u201cIf you help me with the sums I\u2019ll have &#8217;em done in time to go fishing with Milty. I wish old Aunt Atossa\u2019s funeral was tomorrow instead of today. I wanted to go to it &#8217;cause Milty said his mother said Aunt Atossa would be sure to rise up in her coffin and say sarcastic things to the folks that come to see her buried. But Marilla said she didn\u2019t.\u201d \u201cPoor Atossa laid in her coffin peaceful enough,\u201d said Mrs. Lynde solemnly. \u201cI never saw her look so pleasant before, that\u2019s what. Well, there weren\u2019t many tears shed over her, poor old soul. The Elisha Wrights are thankful to be rid of her, and I can\u2019t say I blame them a mite.\u201d \u201cIt seems to me a most dreadful thing to go out of the world and not leave one person behind you who is sorry you are gone,\u201d said Anne, shuddering. \u201cNobody except her parents ever loved poor Atossa, that\u2019s certain, not even her husband,\u201d averred Mrs. Lynde. \u201cShe was his fourth wife. He\u2019d sort of got into the habit of marrying. He only lived a few years after he married her. The doctor said he died of dyspepsia, but I shall always maintain that he died of Atossa\u2019s tongue, that\u2019s what. Poor soul, she always knew everything about her neighbors, but she never was very well acquainted with herself. Well, she\u2019s gone anyhow; and I suppose the next excitement will be Diana\u2019s wedding.\u201d \u201cIt seems funny and horrible to think of Diana\u2019s being married,\u201d sighed Anne, hugging her knees and looking through the gap in the Haunted Wood to the light that was shining in Diana\u2019s room. \u201cI don\u2019t see what\u2019s horrible about it, when she\u2019s doing so well,\u201d said Mrs. Lynde emphatically. \u201cFred Wright has a fine farm and he is a model young man.\u201d \u201cHe certainly isn\u2019t the wild, dashing, wicked, young man Diana once wanted to marry,\u201d smiled Anne. \u201cFred is extremely good.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s just what he ought to be. Would you want Diana to marry a wicked man? Or marry one yourself?\u201d \u201cOh, no. I wouldn\u2019t want to marry anybody who was wicked, but I think I\u2019d like it if he _could_ be wicked and _wouldn\u2019t_. Now, Fred is _hopelessly_ good.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019ll have more sense some day, I hope,\u201d said Marilla. Marilla spoke rather bitterly. She was grievously disappointed. She knew Anne had refused Gilbert Blythe. Avonlea gossip buzzed over the fact, which had leaked out, nobody knew how. Perhaps Charlie Sloane had guessed and told his guesses for truth. Perhaps Diana had betrayed it to Fred and Fred had been indiscreet. At all events it was known; Mrs. Blythe no longer asked Anne, in public or private, if she had heard lately from Gilbert, but passed her by with a frosty bow. Anne, who had always liked Gilbert\u2019s merry, young-hearted mother, was grieved in secret over this. Marilla said nothing; but Mrs. Lynde gave Anne many exasperated digs about it, until fresh gossip reached that worthy lady, through the medium of Moody Spurgeon MacPherson\u2019s mother, that Anne had another \u201cbeau\u201d at college, who was rich and handsome and good all in one. After that Mrs. Rachel held her tongue, though she still wished in her inmost heart that Anne had accepted Gilbert. Riches were all very well; but even Mrs. Rachel, practical soul though she was, did not consider them the one essential. If Anne \u201cliked\u201d the Handsome Unknown better than Gilbert there was nothing more to be said; but Mrs. Rachel was dreadfully afraid that Anne was going to make the mistake of marrying for money. Marilla knew Anne too well to fear this; but she felt that something in the universal scheme of things had gone sadly awry. \u201cWhat is to be, will be,\u201d said Mrs. Rachel gloomily, \u201cand what isn\u2019t to be happens sometimes. I can\u2019t help believing it\u2019s going to happen in Anne\u2019s case, if Providence doesn\u2019t interfere, that\u2019s what.\u201d Mrs. Rachel sighed. She was afraid Providence wouldn\u2019t interfere; and she didn\u2019t dare to. Anne had wandered down to the Dryad\u2019s Bubble and was curled up among the ferns at the root of the big white birch where she and Gilbert had so often sat in summers gone by. He had gone into the newspaper office again when college closed, and Avonlea seemed very dull without him. He never wrote to her, and Anne missed the letters that never came. To be sure, Roy wrote twice a week; his letters were exquisite compositions which would have read beautifully in a memoir or biography. Anne felt herself more deeply in love with him than ever when she read them; but her heart never gave the queer, quick, painful bound at sight of his letters which it had given one day when Mrs. Hiram Sloane had handed her out an envelope addressed in Gilbert\u2019s black, upright handwriting. Anne had hurried home to the east gable and opened it eagerly\u2014to find a typewritten copy of some college society report\u2014\u201conly that and nothing more.\u201d Anne flung the harmless screed across her room and sat down to write an especially nice epistle to Roy. Diana was to be married in five more days. The gray house at Orchard Slope was in a turmoil of baking and brewing and boiling and stewing, for there was to be a big, old-timey wedding. Anne, of course, was to be bridesmaid, as had been arranged when they were twelve years old, and Gilbert was coming from Kingsport to be best man. Anne was enjoying the excitement of the various preparations, but under it all she carried a little heartache. She was, in a sense, losing her dear old chum; Diana\u2019s new home would be two miles from Green Gables, and the old constant companionship could never be theirs again. Anne looked up at Diana\u2019s light and thought how it had beaconed to her for many years; but soon it would shine through the summer twilights no more. Two big, painful tears welled up in her gray eyes. \u201cOh,\u201d she thought, \u201chow horrible it is that people have to grow up\u2014and marry\u2014and _change!_\u201d Chapter 29. Diana\u2019s Wedding. \u201cAfter all, the only real roses are the pink ones,\u201d said Anne, as she tied white ribbon around Diana\u2019s bouquet in the westward-looking gable at Orchard Slope. \u201cThey are the flowers of love and faith.\u201d Diana was standing nervously in the middle of the room, arrayed in her bridal white, her black curls frosted over with the film of her wedding veil. Anne had draped that veil, in accordance with the sentimental compact of years before. \u201cIt\u2019s all pretty much as I used to imagine it long ago, when I wept over your inevitable marriage and our consequent parting,\u201d she laughed. \u201cYou are the bride of my dreams, Diana, with the \u2018lovely misty veil\u2019; and I am _your_ bridesmaid. But, alas! I haven\u2019t the puffed sleeves\u2014though these short lace ones are even prettier. Neither is my heart wholly breaking nor do I exactly hate Fred.\u201d \u201cWe are not really parting, Anne,\u201d protested Diana. \u201cI\u2019m not going far away. We\u2019ll love each other just as much as ever. We\u2019ve always kept that \u2018oath\u2019 of friendship we swore long ago, haven\u2019t we?\u201d \u201cYes. We\u2019ve kept it faithfully. We\u2019ve had a beautiful friendship, Diana. We\u2019ve never marred it by one quarrel or coolness or unkind word; and I hope it will always be so. But things can\u2019t be quite the same after this. You\u2019ll have other interests. I\u2019ll just be on the outside. But \u2018such is life\u2019 as Mrs. Rachel says. Mrs. Rachel has given you one of her beloved knitted quilts of the \u2018tobacco stripe\u2019 pattern, and she says when I am married she\u2019ll give me one, too.\u201d \u201cThe mean thing about your getting married is that I won\u2019t be able to be your bridesmaid,\u201d lamented Diana. \u201cI\u2019m to be Phil\u2019s bridesmaid next June, when she marries Mr. Blake, and then I must stop, for you know the proverb \u2018three times a bridesmaid, never a bride,\u2019\u201d said Anne, peeping through the window over the pink and snow of the blossoming orchard beneath. \u201cHere comes the minister, Diana.\u201d \u201cOh, Anne,\u201d gasped Diana, suddenly turning very pale and beginning to tremble. \u201cOh, Anne\u2014I\u2019m so nervous\u2014I can\u2019t go through with it\u2014Anne, I know I\u2019m going to faint. \u201cIf you do I\u2019ll drag you down to the rainwater hogshed and drop you in,\u201d said Anne unsympathetically. \u201cCheer up, dearest. Getting married can\u2019t be so very terrible when so many people survive the ceremony. See how cool and composed I am, and take courage.\u201d \u201cWait till your turn comes, Miss Anne. Oh, Anne, I hear father coming upstairs. Give me my bouquet. Is my veil right? Am I very pale?\u201d \u201cYou look just lovely. Di, darling, kiss me good-bye for the last time. Diana Barry will never kiss me again.\u201d \u201cDiana Wright will, though. There, mother\u2019s calling. Come.\u201d Following the simple, old-fashioned way in vogue then, Anne went down to the parlor on Gilbert\u2019s arm. They met at the top of the stairs for the first time since they had left Kingsport, for Gilbert had arrived only that day. Gilbert shook hands courteously. He was looking very well, though, as Anne instantly noted, rather thin. He was not pale; there was a flush on his cheek that had burned into it as Anne came along the hall towards him, in her soft, white dress with lilies-of-the-valley in the shining masses of her hair. As they entered the crowded parlor together a little murmur of admiration ran around the room. \u201cWhat a fine-looking pair they are,\u201d whispered the impressible Mrs. Rachel to Marilla. Fred ambled in alone, with a very red face, and then Diana swept in on her father\u2019s arm. She did not faint, and nothing untoward occurred to interrupt the ceremony. Feasting and merry-making followed; then, as the evening waned, Fred and Diana drove away through the moonlight to their new home, and Gilbert walked with Anne to Green Gables. Something of their old comradeship had returned during the informal mirth of the evening. Oh, it was nice to be walking over that well-known road with Gilbert again! The night was so very still that one should have been able to hear the whisper of roses in blossom\u2014the laughter of daisies\u2014the piping of grasses\u2014many sweet sounds, all tangled up together. The beauty of moonlight on familiar fields irradiated the world. \u201cCan\u2019t we take a ramble up Lovers\u2019 Lane before you go in?\u201d asked Gilbert as they crossed the bridge over the Lake of Shining Waters, in which the moon lay like a great, drowned blossom of gold. Anne assented readily. Lovers\u2019 Lane was a veritable path in a fairyland that night\u2014a shimmering, mysterious place, full of wizardry in the white-woven enchantment of moonlight. There had been a time when such a walk with Gilbert through Lovers\u2019 Lane would have been far too dangerous. But Roy and Christine had made it very safe now. Anne found herself thinking a good deal about Christine as she chatted lightly to Gilbert. She had met her several times before leaving Kingsport, and had been charmingly sweet to her. Christine had also been charmingly sweet. Indeed, they were a most cordial pair. But for all that, their acquaintance had not ripened into friendship. Evidently Christine was not a kindred spirit. \u201cAre you going to be in Avonlea all summer?\u201d asked Gilbert. \u201cNo. I\u2019m going down east to Valley Road next week. Esther Haythorne wants me to teach for her through July and August. They have a summer term in that school, and Esther isn\u2019t feeling well. So I\u2019m going to substitute for her. In one way I don\u2019t mind. Do you know, I\u2019m beginning to feel a little bit like a stranger in Avonlea now? It makes me sorry\u2014but it\u2019s true. It\u2019s quite appalling to see the number of children who have shot up into big boys and girls\u2014really young men and women\u2014these past two years. Half of my pupils are grown up. It makes me feel awfully old to see them in the places you and I and our mates used to fill.\u201d Anne laughed and sighed. She felt very old and mature and wise\u2014which showed how young she was. She told herself that she longed greatly to go back to those dear merry days when life was seen through a rosy mist of hope and illusion, and possessed an indefinable something that had passed away forever. Where was it now\u2014the glory and the dream? \u201c\u2018So wags the world away,\u2019\u201d quoted Gilbert practically, and a trifle absently. Anne wondered if he were thinking of Christine. Oh, Avonlea was going to be so lonely now\u2014with Diana gone! Chapter 30. Mrs. Skinner\u2019s Romance. Anne stepped off the train at Valley Road station and looked about to see if any one had come to meet her. She was to board with a certain Miss Janet Sweet, but she saw no one who answered in the least to her preconception of that lady, as formed from Esther\u2019s letter. The only person in sight was an elderly woman, sitting in a wagon with mail bags piled around her. Two hundred would have been a charitable guess at her weight; her face was as round and red as a harvest-moon and almost as featureless. She wore a tight, black, cashmere dress, made in the fashion of ten years ago, a little dusty black straw hat trimmed with bows of yellow ribbon, and faded black lace mits. \u201cHere, you,\u201d she called, waving her whip at Anne. \u201cAre you the new Valley Road schoolma\u2019am?\u201d \u201cYes.\u201d \u201cWell, I thought so. Valley Road is noted for its good-looking schoolma\u2019ams, just as Millersville is noted for its humly ones. Janet Sweet asked me this morning if I could bring you out. I said, \u2018Sartin I kin, if she don\u2019t mind being scrunched up some. This rig of mine\u2019s kinder small for the mail bags and I\u2019m some heftier than Thomas!\u2019 Just wait, miss, till I shift these bags a bit and I\u2019ll tuck you in somehow. It\u2019s only two miles to Janet\u2019s. Her next-door neighbor\u2019s hired boy is coming for your trunk tonight. My name is Skinner\u2014Amelia Skinner.\u201d Anne was eventually tucked in, exchanging amused smiles with herself during the process. \u201cJog along, black mare,\u201d commanded Mrs. Skinner, gathering up the reins in her pudgy hands. \u201cThis is my first trip on the mail rowte. Thomas wanted to hoe his turnips today so he asked me to come. So I jest sot down and took a standing-up snack and started. I sorter like it. O\u2019 course it\u2019s rather tejus. Part of the time I sits and thinks and the rest I jest sits. Jog along, black mare. I want to git home airly. Thomas is terrible lonesome when I\u2019m away. You see, we haven\u2019t been married very long.\u201d \u201cOh!\u201d said Anne politely. \u201cJust a month. Thomas courted me for quite a spell, though. It was real romantic.\u201d Anne tried to picture Mrs. Skinner on speaking terms with romance and failed. \u201cOh?\u201d she said again. \u201cYes. Y\u2019see, there was another man after me. Jog along, black mare. I\u2019d been a widder so long folks had given up expecting me to marry again. But when my darter\u2014she\u2019s a schoolma\u2019am like you\u2014went out West to teach I felt real lonesome and wasn\u2019t nowise sot against the idea. Bime-by Thomas began to come up and so did the other feller\u2014William Obadiah Seaman, his name was. For a long time I couldn\u2019t make up my mind which of them to take, and they kep\u2019 coming and coming, and I kep\u2019 worrying. Y\u2019see, W.O. was rich\u2014he had a fine place and carried considerable style. He was by far the best match. Jog along, black mare.\u201d \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you marry him?\u201d asked Anne. \u201cWell, y\u2019see, he didn\u2019t love me,\u201d answered Mrs. Skinner, solemnly. Anne opened her eyes widely and looked at Mrs. Skinner. But there was not a glint of humor on that lady\u2019s face. Evidently Mrs. Skinner saw nothing amusing in her own case. \u201cHe\u2019d been a widder-man for three yers, and his sister kept house for him. Then she got married and he just wanted some one to look after his house. It was worth looking after, too, mind you that. It\u2019s a handsome house. Jog along, black mare. As for Thomas, he was poor, and if his house didn\u2019t leak in dry weather it was about all that could be said for it, though it looks kind of pictureaskew. But, y\u2019see, I loved Thomas, and I didn\u2019t care one red cent for W.O. So I argued it out with myself. \u2018Sarah Crowe,\u2019 say I\u2014my first was a Crowe\u2014\u2018you can marry your rich man if you like but you won\u2019t be happy. Folks can\u2019t get along together in this world without a little bit of love. You\u2019d just better tie up to Thomas, for he loves you and you love him and nothing else ain\u2019t going to do you.\u2019 Jog along, black mare. So I told Thomas I\u2019d take him. All the time I was getting ready I never dared drive past W.O.\u2019s place for fear the sight of that fine house of his would put me in the swithers again. But now I never think of it at all, and I\u2019m just that comfortable and happy with Thomas. Jog along, black mare.\u201d \u201cHow did William Obadiah take it?\u201d queried Anne. \u201cOh, he rumpussed a bit. But he\u2019s going to see a skinny old maid in Millersville now, and I guess she\u2019ll take him fast enough. She\u2019ll make him a better wife than his first did. W.O. never wanted to marry her. He just asked her to marry him &#8217;cause his father wanted him to, never dreaming but that she\u2019d say \u2018no.\u2019 But mind you, she said \u2018yes.\u2019 There was a predicament for you. Jog along, black mare. She was a great housekeeper, but most awful mean. She wore the same bonnet for eighteen years. Then she got a new one and W.O. met her on the road and didn\u2019t know her. Jog along, black mare. I feel that I\u2019d a narrer escape. I might have married him and been most awful miserable, like my poor cousin, Jane Ann. Jane Ann married a rich man she didn\u2019t care anything about, and she hasn\u2019t the life of a dog. She come to see me last week and says, says she, \u2018Sarah Skinner, I envy you. I\u2019d rather live in a little hut on the side of the road with a man I was fond of than in my big house with the one I\u2019ve got.\u2019 Jane Ann\u2019s man ain\u2019t such a bad sort, nuther, though he\u2019s so contrary that he wears his fur coat when the thermometer\u2019s at ninety. The only way to git him to do anything is to coax him to do the opposite. But there ain\u2019t any love to smooth things down and it\u2019s a poor way of living. Jog along, black mare. There\u2019s Janet\u2019s place in the hollow\u2014\u2018Wayside,\u2019 she calls it. Quite pictureaskew, ain\u2019t it? I guess you\u2019ll be glad to git out of this, with all them mail bags jamming round you.\u201d \u201cYes, but I have enjoyed my drive with you very much,\u201d said Anne sincerely. \u201cGit away now!\u201d said Mrs. Skinner, highly flattered. \u201cWait till I tell Thomas that. He always feels dretful tickled when I git a compliment. Jog along, black mare. Well, here we are. I hope you\u2019ll git on well in the school, miss. There\u2019s a short cut to it through the ma\u2019sh back of Janet\u2019s. If you take that way be awful keerful. If you once got stuck in that black mud you\u2019d be sucked right down and never seen or heard tell of again till the day of judgment, like Adam Palmer\u2019s cow. Jog along, black mare.\u201d Chapter 31. Anne to Philippa. \u201cAnne Shirley to Philippa Gordon, greeting. \u201cWell-beloved, it\u2019s high time I was writing you. Here am I, installed once more as a country \u2018schoolma\u2019am\u2019 at Valley Road, boarding at \u2018Wayside,\u2019 the home of Miss Janet Sweet. Janet is a dear soul and very nicelooking; tall, but not over-tall; stoutish, yet with a certain restraint of outline suggestive of a thrifty soul who is not going to be overlavish even in the matter of avoirdupois. She has a knot of soft, crimpy, brown hair with a thread of gray in it, a sunny face with rosy cheeks, and big, kind eyes as blue as forget-me-nots. Moreover, she is one of those delightful, old-fashioned cooks who don\u2019t care a bit if they ruin your digestion as long as they can give you feasts of fat things. \u201cI like her; and she likes me\u2014principally, it seems, because she had a sister named Anne who died young. \u201c\u2018I\u2019m real glad to see you,\u2019 she said briskly, when I landed in her yard. \u2018My, you don\u2019t look a mite like I expected. I was sure you\u2019d be dark\u2014my sister Anne was dark. And here you\u2019re redheaded!\u2019 \u201cFor a few minutes I thought I wasn\u2019t going to like Janet as much as I had expected at first sight. Then I reminded myself that I really must be more sensible than to be prejudiced against any one simply because she called my hair red. Probably the word \u2018auburn\u2019 was not in Janet\u2019s vocabulary at all. \u201c\u2018Wayside\u2019 is a dear sort of little spot. The house is small and white, set down in a delightful little hollow that drops away from the road. Between road and house is an orchard and flower-garden all mixed up together. The front door walk is bordered with quahog clam-shells\u2014\u2018cow-hawks,\u2019 Janet calls them; there is Virginia Creeper over the porch and moss on the roof. My room is a neat little spot \u2018off the parlor\u2019\u2014just big enough for the bed and me. Over the head of my bed there is a picture of Robby Burns standing at Highland Mary\u2019s grave, shadowed by an enormous weeping willow tree. Robby\u2019s face is so lugubrious that it is no wonder I have bad dreams. Why, the first night I was here I dreamed I _couldn\u2019t laugh_. \u201cThe parlor is tiny and neat. Its one window is so shaded by a huge willow that the room has a grotto-like effect of emerald gloom. There are wonderful tidies on the chairs, and gay mats on the floor, and books and cards carefully arranged on a round table, and vases of dried grass on the mantel-piece. Between the vases is a cheerful decoration of preserved coffin plates\u2014five in all, pertaining respectively to Janet\u2019s father and mother, a brother, her sister Anne, and a hired man who died here once! If I go suddenly insane some of these days \u2018know all men by these presents\u2019 that those coffin-plates have caused it. \u201cBut it\u2019s all delightful and I said so. Janet loved me for it, just as she detested poor Esther because Esther had said so much shade was unhygienic and had objected to sleeping on a feather bed. Now, I glory in feather-beds, and the more unhygienic and feathery they are the more I glory. Janet says it is such a comfort to see me eat; she had been so afraid I would be like Miss Haythorne, who wouldn\u2019t eat anything but fruit and hot water for breakfast and tried to make Janet give up frying things. Esther is really a dear girl, but she is rather given to fads. The trouble is that she hasn\u2019t enough imagination and HAS a tendency to indigestion. \u201cJanet told me I could have the use of the parlor when any young men called! I don\u2019t think there are many to call. I haven\u2019t seen a young man in Valley Road yet, except the next-door hired boy\u2014Sam Toliver, a very tall, lank, tow-haired youth. He came over one evening recently and sat for an hour on the garden fence, near the front porch where Janet and I were doing fancy-work. The only remarks he volunteered in all that time were, \u2018Hev a peppermint, miss! Dew now-fine thing for car_arrh_, peppermints,\u2019 and, \u2018Powerful lot o\u2019 jump-grasses round here ternight. Yep.\u2019 \u201cBut there is a love affair going on here. It seems to be my fortune to be mixed up, more or less actively, with elderly love affairs. Mr. and Mrs. Irving always say that I brought about their marriage. Mrs. Stephen Clark of Carmody persists in being most grateful to me for a suggestion which somebody else would probably have made if I hadn\u2019t. I do really think, though, that Ludovic Speed would never have got any further along than placid courtship if I had not helped him and Theodora Dix out. \u201cIn the present affair I am only a passive spectator. I\u2019ve tried once to help things along and made an awful mess of it. So I shall not meddle again. I\u2019ll tell you all about it when we meet.\u201d Chapter 32. Tea with Mrs. Douglas. On the first Thursday night of Anne\u2019s sojourn in Valley Road Janet asked her to go to prayer-meeting. Janet blossomed out like a rose to attend that prayer-meeting. She wore a pale-blue, pansy-sprinkled muslin dress with more ruffles than one would ever have supposed economical Janet could be guilty of, and a white leghorn hat with pink roses and three ostrich feathers on it. Anne felt quite amazed. Later on, she found out Janet\u2019s motive in so arraying herself\u2014a motive as old as Eden. Valley Road prayer-meetings seemed to be essentially feminine. There were thirty-two women present, two half-grown boys, and one solitary man, beside the minister. Anne found herself studying this man. He was not handsome or young or graceful; he had remarkably long legs\u2014so long that he had to keep them coiled up under his chair to dispose of them\u2014and he was stoop-shouldered. His hands were big, his hair wanted barbering, and his moustache was unkempt. But Anne thought she liked his face; it was kind and honest and tender; there was something else in it, too\u2014just what, Anne found it hard to define. She finally concluded that this man had suffered and been strong, and it had been made manifest in his face. There was a sort of patient, humorous endurance in his expression which indicated that he would go to the stake if need be, but would keep on looking pleasant until he really had to begin squirming. When prayer-meeting was over this man came up to Janet and said, \u201cMay I see you home, Janet?\u201d Janet took his arm\u2014\u201cas primly and shyly as if she were no more than sixteen, having her first escort home,\u201d Anne told the girls at Patty\u2019s Place later on. \u201cMiss Shirley, permit me to introduce Mr. Douglas,\u201d she said stiffly. Mr. Douglas nodded and said, \u201cI was looking at you in prayer-meeting, miss, and thinking what a nice little girl you were.\u201d Such a speech from ninety-nine people out of a hundred would have annoyed Anne bitterly; but the way in which Mr. Douglas said it made her feel that she had received a very real and pleasing compliment. She smiled appreciatively at him and dropped obligingly behind on the moonlit road. So Janet had a beau! Anne was delighted. Janet would make a paragon of a wife\u2014cheery, economical, tolerant, and a very queen of cooks. It would be a flagrant waste on Nature\u2019s part to keep her a permanent old maid. \u201cJohn Douglas asked me to take you up to see his mother,\u201d said Janet the next day. \u201cShe\u2019s bed-rid a lot of the time and never goes out of the house. But she\u2019s powerful fond of company and always wants to see my boarders. Can you go up this evening?\u201d Anne assented; but later in the day Mr. Douglas called on his mother\u2019s behalf to invite them up to tea on Saturday evening. \u201cOh, why didn\u2019t you put on your pretty pansy dress?\u201d asked Anne, when they left home. It was a hot day, and poor Janet, between her excitement and her heavy black cashmere dress, looked as if she were being broiled alive. \u201cOld Mrs. Douglas would think it terrible frivolous and unsuitable, I\u2019m afraid. John likes that dress, though,\u201d she added wistfully. The old Douglas homestead was half a mile from \u201cWayside\u201d cresting a windy hill. The house itself was large and comfortable, old enough to be dignified, and girdled with maple groves and orchards. There were big, trim barns behind it, and everything bespoke prosperity. Whatever the patient endurance in Mr. Douglas\u2019 face had meant it hadn\u2019t, so Anne reflected, meant debts and duns. John Douglas met them at the door and took them into the sitting-room, where his mother was enthroned in an armchair. Anne had expected old Mrs. Douglas to be tall and thin, because Mr. Douglas was. Instead, she was a tiny scrap of a woman, with soft pink cheeks, mild blue eyes, and a mouth like a baby\u2019s. Dressed in a beautiful, fashionably-made black silk dress, with a fluffy white shawl over her shoulders, and her snowy hair surmounted by a dainty lace cap, she might have posed as a grandmother doll. \u201cHow do you do, Janet dear?\u201d she said sweetly. \u201cI am so glad to see you again, dear.\u201d She put up her pretty old face to be kissed. \u201cAnd this is our new teacher. I\u2019m delighted to meet you. My son has been singing your praises until I\u2019m half jealous, and I\u2019m sure Janet ought to be wholly so.\u201d Poor Janet blushed, Anne said something polite and conventional, and then everybody sat down and made talk. It was hard work, even for Anne, for nobody seemed at ease except old Mrs. Douglas, who certainly did not find any difficulty in talking. She made Janet sit by her and stroked her hand occasionally. Janet sat and smiled, looking horribly uncomfortable in her hideous dress, and John Douglas sat without smiling. At the tea table Mrs. Douglas gracefully asked Janet to pour the tea. Janet turned redder than ever but did it. Anne wrote a description of that meal to Stella. \u201cWe had cold tongue and chicken and strawberry preserves, lemon pie and tarts and chocolate cake and raisin cookies and pound cake and fruit cake\u2014and a few other things, including more pie\u2014caramel pie, I think it was. After I had eaten twice as much as was good for me, Mrs. Douglas sighed and said she feared she had nothing to tempt my appetite. \u201c\u2018I\u2019m afraid dear Janet\u2019s cooking has spoiled you for any other,\u2019 she said sweetly. \u2018Of course nobody in Valley Road aspires to rival _her_. _Won\u2019t_ you have another piece of pie, Miss Shirley? You haven\u2019t eaten _anything_.\u2019 \u201cStella, I had eaten a helping of tongue and one of chicken, three biscuits, a generous allowance of preserves, a piece of pie, a tart, and a square of chocolate cake!\u201d After tea Mrs. Douglas smiled benevolently and told John to take \u201cdear Janet\u201d out into the garden and get her some roses. \u201cMiss Shirley will keep me company while you are out\u2014won\u2019t you?\u201d she said plaintively. She settled down in her armchair with a sigh. \u201cI am a very frail old woman, Miss Shirley. For over twenty years I\u2019ve been a great sufferer. For twenty long, weary years I\u2019ve been dying by inches.\u201d \u201cHow painful!\u201d said Anne, trying to be sympathetic and succeeding only in feeling idiotic. \u201cThere have been scores of nights when they\u2019ve thought I could never live to see the dawn,\u201d went on Mrs. Douglas solemnly. \u201cNobody knows what I\u2019ve gone through\u2014nobody can know but myself. Well, it can\u2019t last very much longer now. My weary pilgrimage will soon be over, Miss Shirley. It is a great comfort to me that John will have such a good wife to look after him when his mother is gone\u2014a great comfort, Miss Shirley.\u201d \u201cJanet is a lovely woman,\u201d said Anne warmly. \u201cLovely! A beautiful character,\u201d assented Mrs. Douglas. \u201cAnd a perfect housekeeper\u2014something I never was. My health would not permit it, Miss Shirley. I am indeed thankful that John has made such a wise choice. I hope and believe that he will be happy. He is my only son, Miss Shirley, and his happiness lies very near my heart.\u201d \u201cOf course,\u201d said Anne stupidly. For the first time in her life she was stupid. Yet she could not imagine why. She seemed to have absolutely nothing to say to this sweet, smiling, angelic old lady who was patting her hand so kindly. \u201cCome and see me soon again, dear Janet,\u201d said Mrs. Douglas lovingly, when they left. \u201cYou don\u2019t come half often enough. But then I suppose John will be bringing you here to stay all the time one of these days.\u201d Anne, happening to glance at John Douglas, as his mother spoke, gave a positive start of dismay. He looked as a tortured man might look when his tormentors gave the rack the last turn of possible endurance. She felt sure he must be ill and hurried poor blushing Janet away. \u201cIsn\u2019t old Mrs. Douglas a sweet woman?\u201d asked Janet, as they went down the road. \u201cM\u2014m,\u201d answered Anne absently. She was wondering why John Douglas had looked so. \u201cShe\u2019s been a terrible sufferer,\u201d said Janet feelingly. \u201cShe takes terrible spells. It keeps John all worried up. He\u2019s scared to leave home for fear his mother will take a spell and nobody there but the hired girl.\u201d Chapter 33. \u201cHe Just Kept Coming and Coming\u201d. Three days later Anne came home from school and found Janet crying. Tears and Janet seemed so incongruous that Anne was honestly alarmed. \u201cOh, what is the matter?\u201d she cried anxiously. \u201cI\u2019m\u2014I\u2019m forty today,\u201d sobbed Janet. \u201cWell, you were nearly that yesterday and it didn\u2019t hurt,\u201d comforted Anne, trying not to smile. \u201cBut\u2014but,\u201d went on Janet with a big gulp, \u201cJohn Douglas won\u2019t ask me to marry him.\u201d \u201cOh, but he will,\u201d said Anne lamely. \u201cYou must give him time, Janet \u201cTime!\u201d said Janet with indescribable scorn. \u201cHe has had twenty years. How much time does he want?\u201d \u201cDo you mean that John Douglas has been coming to see you for twenty years?\u201d \u201cHe has. And he has never so much as mentioned marriage to me. And I don\u2019t believe he ever will now. I\u2019ve never said a word to a mortal about it, but it seems to me I\u2019ve just got to talk it out with some one at last or go crazy. John Douglas begun to go with me twenty years ago, before mother died. Well, he kept coming and coming, and after a spell I begun making quilts and things; but he never said anything about getting married, only just kept coming and coming. There wasn\u2019t anything I could do. Mother died when we\u2019d been going together for eight years. I thought he maybe would speak out then, seeing as I was left alone in the world. He was real kind and feeling, and did everything he could for me, but he never said marry. And that\u2019s the way it has been going on ever since. People blame _me_ for it. They say I won\u2019t marry him because his mother is so sickly and I don\u2019t want the bother of waiting on her. Why, I\u2019d _love_ to wait on John\u2019s mother! But I let them think so. I\u2019d rather they\u2019d blame me than pity me! It\u2019s so dreadful humiliating that John won\u2019t ask me. And _why_ won\u2019t he? Seems to me if I only knew his reason I wouldn\u2019t mind it so much.\u201d \u201cPerhaps his mother doesn\u2019t want him to marry anybody,\u201d suggested Anne. \u201cOh, she does. She\u2019s told me time and again that she\u2019d love to see John settled before her time comes. She\u2019s always giving him hints\u2014you heard her yourself the other day. I thought I\u2019d ha\u2019 gone through the floor.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s beyond me,\u201d said Anne helplessly. She thought of Ludovic Speed. But the cases were not parallel. John Douglas was not a man of Ludovic\u2019s type. \u201cYou should show more spirit, Janet,\u201d she went on resolutely. \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you send him about his business long ago?\u201d \u201cI couldn\u2019t,\u201d said poor Janet pathetically. \u201cYou see, Anne, I\u2019ve always been awful fond of John. He might just as well keep coming as not, for there was never anybody else I\u2019d want, so it didn\u2019t matter.\u201d \u201cBut it might have made him speak out like a man,\u201d urged Anne. Janet shook her head. \u201cNo, I guess not. I was afraid to try, anyway, for fear he\u2019d think I meant it and just go. I suppose I\u2019m a poor-spirited creature, but that is how I feel. And I can\u2019t help it.\u201d \u201cOh, you _could_ help it, Janet. It isn\u2019t too late yet. Take a firm stand. Let that man know you are not going to endure his shillyshallying any longer. _I\u2019ll_ back you up.\u201d \u201cI dunno,\u201d said Janet hopelessly. \u201cI dunno if I could ever get up enough spunk. Things have drifted so long. But I\u2019ll think it over.\u201d Anne felt that she was disappointed in John Douglas. She had liked him so well, and she had not thought him the sort of man who would play fast and loose with a woman\u2019s feelings for twenty years. He certainly should be taught a lesson, and Anne felt vindictively that she would enjoy seeing the process. Therefore she was delighted when Janet told her, as they were going to prayer-meeting the next night, that she meant to show some \u201csperrit.\u201d \u201cI\u2019ll let John Douglas see I\u2019m not going to be trodden on any longer.\u201d \u201cYou are perfectly right,\u201d said Anne emphatically. When prayer-meeting was over John Douglas came up with his usual request. Janet looked frightened but resolute. \u201cNo, thank you,\u201d she said icily. \u201cI know the road home pretty well alone. I ought to, seeing I\u2019ve been traveling it for forty years. So you needn\u2019t trouble yourself, _Mr_. Douglas.\u201d Anne was looking at John Douglas; and, in that brilliant moonlight, she saw the last twist of the rack again. Without a word he turned and strode down the road. \u201cStop! Stop!\u201d Anne called wildly after him, not caring in the least for the other dumbfounded onlookers. \u201cMr. Douglas, stop! Come back.\u201d John Douglas stopped but he did not come back. Anne flew down the road, caught his arm and fairly dragged him back to Janet. \u201cYou must come back,\u201d she said imploringly. \u201cIt\u2019s all a mistake, Mr. Douglas\u2014all my fault. I made Janet do it. She didn\u2019t want to\u2014but it\u2019s all right now, isn\u2019t it, Janet?\u201d Without a word Janet took his arm and walked away. Anne followed them meekly home and slipped in by the back door. \u201cWell, you are a nice person to back me up,\u201d said Janet sarcastically. \u201cI couldn\u2019t help it, Janet,\u201d said Anne repentantly. \u201cI just felt as if I had stood by and seen murder done. I _had_ to run after him.\u201d \u201cOh, I\u2019m just as glad you did. When I saw John Douglas making off down that road I just felt as if every little bit of joy and happiness that was left in my life was going with him. It was an awful feeling.\u201d \u201cDid he ask you why you did it?\u201d asked Anne. \u201cNo, he never said a word about it,\u201d replied Janet dully. Chapter 34. John Douglas Speaks at Last. Anne was not without a feeble hope that something might come of it after all. But nothing did. John Douglas came and took Janet driving, and walked home from prayer-meeting with her, as he had been doing for twenty years, and as he seemed likely to do for twenty years more. The summer waned. Anne taught her school and wrote letters and studied a little. Her walks to and from school were pleasant. She always went by way of the swamp; it was a lovely place\u2014a boggy soil, green with the greenest of mossy hillocks; a silvery brook meandered through it and spruces stood erectly, their boughs a-trail with gray-green mosses, their roots overgrown with all sorts of woodland lovelinesses. Nevertheless, Anne found life in Valley Road a little monotonous. To be sure, there was one diverting incident. She had not seen the lank, tow-headed Samuel of the peppermints since the evening of his call, save for chance meetings on the road. But one warm August night he appeared, and solemnly seated himself on the rustic bench by the porch. He wore his usual working habiliments, consisting of varipatched trousers, a blue jean shirt, out at the elbows, and a ragged straw hat. He was chewing a straw and he kept on chewing it while he looked solemnly at Anne. Anne laid her book aside with a sigh and took up her doily. Conversation with Sam was really out of the question. After a long silence Sam suddenly spoke. \u201cI\u2019m leaving over there,\u201d he said abruptly, waving his straw in the direction of the neighboring house. \u201cOh, are you?\u201d said Anne politely. \u201cYep.\u201d \u201cAnd where are you going now?\u201d \u201cWall, I\u2019ve been thinking some of gitting a place of my own. There\u2019s one that\u2019d suit me over at Millersville. But ef I rents it I\u2019ll want a woman.\u201d \u201cI suppose so,\u201d said Anne vaguely. \u201cYep.\u201d There was another long silence. Finally Sam removed his straw again and said, \u201cWill yeh hev me?\u201d \u201cWh\u2014a\u2014t!\u201d gasped Anne. \u201cWill yeh hev me?\u201d \u201cDo you mean\u2014MARRY you?\u201d queried poor Anne feebly. \u201cYep.\u201d \u201cWhy, I\u2019m hardly acquainted with you,\u201d cried Anne indignantly. \u201cBut yeh\u2019d git acquainted with me after we was married,\u201d said Sam. Anne gathered up her poor dignity. \u201cCertainly I won\u2019t marry you,\u201d she said haughtily. \u201cWall, yeh might do worse,\u201d expostulated Sam. \u201cI\u2019m a good worker and I\u2019ve got some money in the bank.\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t speak of this to me again. Whatever put such an idea into your head?\u201d said Anne, her sense of humor getting the better of her wrath. It was such an absurd situation. \u201cYeh\u2019re a likely-looking girl and hev a right-smart way o\u2019 stepping,\u201d said Sam. \u201cI don\u2019t want no lazy woman. Think it over. I won\u2019t change my mind yit awhile. Wall, I must be gitting. Gotter milk the cows.\u201d Anne\u2019s illusions concerning proposals had suffered so much of late years that there were few of them left. So she could laugh wholeheartedly over this one, not feeling any secret sting. She mimicked poor Sam to Janet that night, and both of them laughed immoderately over his plunge into sentiment. One afternoon, when Anne\u2019s sojourn in Valley Road was drawing to a close, Alec Ward came driving down to \u201cWayside\u201d in hot haste for Janet. \u201cThey want you at the Douglas place quick,\u201d he said. \u201cI really believe old Mrs. Douglas is going to die at last, after pretending to do it for twenty years.\u201d Janet ran to get her hat. Anne asked if Mrs. Douglas was worse than usual. \u201cShe\u2019s not half as bad,\u201d said Alec solemnly, \u201cand that\u2019s what makes me think it\u2019s serious. Other times she\u2019d be screaming and throwing herself all over the place. This time she\u2019s lying still and mum. When Mrs. Douglas is mum she is pretty sick, you bet.\u201d \u201cYou don\u2019t like old Mrs. Douglas?\u201d said Anne curiously. \u201cI like cats as _is_ cats. I don\u2019t like cats as is women,\u201d was Alec\u2019s cryptic reply. Janet came home in the twilight. \u201cMrs. Douglas is dead,\u201d she said wearily. \u201cShe died soon after I got there. She just spoke to me once\u2014\u2018I suppose you\u2019ll marry John now?\u2019 she said. It cut me to the heart, Anne. To think John\u2019s own mother thought I wouldn\u2019t marry him because of her! I couldn\u2019t say a word either\u2014there were other women there. I was thankful John had gone out.\u201d Janet began to cry drearily. But Anne brewed her a hot drink of ginger tea to her comforting. To be sure, Anne discovered later on that she had used white pepper instead of ginger; but Janet never knew the difference. The evening after the funeral Janet and Anne were sitting on the front porch steps at sunset. The wind had fallen asleep in the pinelands and lurid sheets of heat-lightning flickered across the northern skies. Janet wore her ugly black dress and looked her very worst, her eyes and nose red from crying. They talked little, for Janet seemed faintly to resent Anne\u2019s efforts to cheer her up. She plainly preferred to be miserable. Suddenly the gate-latch clicked and John Douglas strode into the garden. He walked towards them straight over the geranium bed. Janet stood up. So did Anne. Anne was a tall girl and wore a white dress; but John Douglas did not see her. \u201cJanet,\u201d he said, \u201cwill you marry me?\u201d The words burst out as if they had been wanting to be said for twenty years and _must_ be uttered now, before anything else. Janet\u2019s face was so red from crying that it couldn\u2019t turn any redder, so it turned a most unbecoming purple. \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you ask me before?\u201d she said slowly. \u201cI couldn\u2019t. She made me promise not to\u2014mother made me promise not to. Nineteen years ago she took a terrible spell. We thought she couldn\u2019t live through it. She implored me to promise not to ask you to marry me while she was alive. I didn\u2019t want to promise such a thing, even though we all thought she couldn\u2019t live very long\u2014the doctor only gave her six months. But she begged it on her knees, sick and suffering. I had to promise.\u201d \u201cWhat had your mother against me?\u201d cried Janet. \u201cNothing\u2014nothing. She just didn\u2019t want another woman\u2014_any_ woman\u2014there while she was living. She said if I didn\u2019t promise she\u2019d die right there and I\u2019d have killed her. So I promised. And she\u2019s held me to that promise ever since, though I\u2019ve gone on my knees to her in my turn to beg her to let me off.\u201d \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you tell me this?\u201d asked Janet chokingly. \u201cIf I\u2019d only _known!_ Why didn\u2019t you just tell me?\u201d \u201cShe made me promise I wouldn\u2019t tell a soul,\u201d said John hoarsely. \u201cShe swore me to it on the Bible; Janet, I\u2019d never have done it if I\u2019d dreamed it was to be for so long. Janet, you\u2019ll never know what I\u2019ve suffered these nineteen years. I know I\u2019ve made you suffer, too, but you\u2019ll marry me for all, won\u2019t you, Janet? Oh, Janet, won\u2019t you? I\u2019ve come as soon as I could to ask you.\u201d At this moment the stupefied Anne came to her senses and realized that she had no business to be there. She slipped away and did not see Janet until the next morning, when the latter told her the rest of the story. \u201cThat cruel, relentless, deceitful old woman!\u201d cried Anne. \u201cHush\u2014she\u2019s dead,\u201d said Janet solemnly. \u201cIf she wasn\u2019t\u2014but she _is_. So we mustn\u2019t speak evil of her. But I\u2019m happy at last, Anne. And I wouldn\u2019t have minded waiting so long a bit if I\u2019d only known why.\u201d \u201cWhen are you to be married?\u201d \u201cNext month. Of course it will be very quiet. I suppose people will talk terrible. They\u2019ll say I made enough haste to snap John up as soon as his poor mother was out of the way. John wanted to let them know the truth but I said, \u2018No, John; after all she was your mother, and we\u2019ll keep the secret between us, and not cast any shadow on her memory. I don\u2019t mind what people say, now that I know the truth myself. It don\u2019t matter a mite. Let it all be buried with the dead\u2019 says I to him. So I coaxed him round to agree with me.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019re much more forgiving than I could ever be,\u201d Anne said, rather crossly. \u201cYou\u2019ll feel differently about a good many things when you get to be my age,\u201d said Janet tolerantly. \u201cThat\u2019s one of the things we learn as we grow older\u2014how to forgive. It comes easier at forty than it did at twenty.\u201d Chapter 35. The Last Redmond Year Opens. \u201cHere we are, all back again, nicely sunburned and rejoicing as a strong man to run a race,\u201d said Phil, sitting down on a suitcase with a sigh of pleasure. \u201cIsn\u2019t it jolly to see this dear old Patty\u2019s Place again\u2014and Aunty\u2014and the cats? Rusty has lost another piece of ear, hasn\u2019t he?\u201d \u201cRusty would be the nicest cat in the world if he had no ears at all,\u201d declared Anne loyally from her trunk, while Rusty writhed about her lap in a frenzy of welcome. \u201cAren\u2019t you glad to see us back, Aunty?\u201d demanded Phil. \u201cYes. But I wish you\u2019d tidy things up,\u201d said Aunt Jamesina plaintively, looking at the wilderness of trunks and suitcases by which the four laughing, chattering girls were surrounded. \u201cYou can talk just as well later on. Work first and then play used to be my motto when I was a girl.\u201d \u201cOh, we\u2019ve just reversed that in this generation, Aunty. _Our_ motto is play your play and then dig in. You can do your work so much better if you\u2019ve had a good bout of play first.\u201d \u201cIf you are going to marry a minister,\u201d said Aunt Jamesina, picking up Joseph and her knitting and resigning herself to the inevitable with the charming grace that made her the queen of housemothers, \u201cyou will have to give up such expressions as \u2018dig in.\u2019\u201d \u201cWhy?\u201d moaned Phil. \u201cOh, why must a minister\u2019s wife be supposed to utter only prunes and prisms? I shan\u2019t. Everybody on Patterson Street uses slang\u2014that is to say, metaphorical language\u2014and if I didn\u2019t they would think me insufferably proud and stuck up.\u201d \u201cHave you broken the news to your family?\u201d asked Priscilla, feeding the Sarah-cat bits from her lunchbasket. Phil nodded. \u201cHow did they take it?\u201d \u201cOh, mother rampaged. But I stood rockfirm\u2014even I, Philippa Gordon, who never before could hold fast to anything. Father was calmer. Father\u2019s own daddy was a minister, so you see he has a soft spot in his heart for the cloth. I had Jo up to Mount Holly, after mother grew calm, and they both loved him. But mother gave him some frightful hints in every conversation regarding what she had hoped for me. Oh, my vacation pathway hasn\u2019t been exactly strewn with roses, girls dear. But\u2014I\u2019ve won out and I\u2019ve got Jo. Nothing else matters.\u201d \u201cTo you,\u201d said Aunt Jamesina darkly. \u201cNor to Jo, either,\u201d retorted Phil. \u201cYou keep on pitying him. Why, pray? I think he\u2019s to be envied. He\u2019s getting brains, beauty, and a heart of gold in _me_.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s well we know how to take your speeches,\u201d said Aunt Jamesina patiently. \u201cI hope you don\u2019t talk like that before strangers. What would they think?\u201d \u201cOh, I don\u2019t want to know what they think. I don\u2019t want to see myself as others see me. I\u2019m sure it would be horribly uncomfortable most of the time. I don\u2019t believe Burns was really sincere in that prayer, either.\u201d \u201cOh, I daresay we all pray for some things that we really don\u2019t want, if we were only honest enough to look into our hearts,\u201d owned Aunt Jamesina candidly. \u201cI\u2019ve a notion that such prayers don\u2019t rise very far. _I_ used to pray that I might be enabled to forgive a certain person, but I know now I really didn\u2019t want to forgive her. When I finally got that I _did_ want to I forgave her without having to pray about it.\u201d \u201cI can\u2019t picture you as being unforgiving for long,\u201d said Stella. \u201cOh, I used to be. But holding spite doesn\u2019t seem worth while when you get along in years.\u201d \u201cThat reminds me,\u201d said Anne, and told the tale of John and Janet. \u201cAnd now tell us about that romantic scene you hinted so darkly at in one of your letters,\u201d demanded Phil. Anne acted out Samuel\u2019s proposal with great spirit. The girls shrieked with laughter and Aunt Jamesina smiled. \u201cIt isn\u2019t in good taste to make fun of your beaux,\u201d she said severely; \u201cbut,\u201d she added calmly, \u201cI always did it myself.\u201d \u201cTell us about your beaux, Aunty,\u201d entreated Phil. \u201cYou must have had any number of them.\u201d \u201cThey\u2019re not in the past tense,\u201d retorted Aunt Jamesina. \u201cI\u2019ve got them yet. There are three old widowers at home who have been casting sheep\u2019s eyes at me for some time. You children needn\u2019t think you own all the romance in the world.\u201d \u201cWidowers and sheep\u2019s eyes don\u2019t sound very romantic, Aunty.\u201d \u201cWell, no; but young folks aren\u2019t always romantic either. Some of my beaux certainly weren\u2019t. I used to laugh at them scandalous, poor boys. There was Jim Elwood\u2014he was always in a sort of day-dream\u2014never seemed to sense what was going on. He didn\u2019t wake up to the fact that I\u2019d said \u2018no\u2019 till a year after I\u2019d said it. When he did get married his wife fell out of the sleigh one night when they were driving home from church and he never missed her. Then there was Dan Winston. He knew too much. He knew everything in this world and most of what is in the next. He could give you an answer to any question, even if you asked him when the Judgment Day was to be. Milton Edwards was real nice and I liked him but I didn\u2019t marry him. For one thing, he took a week to get a joke through his head, and for another he never asked me. Horatio Reeve was the most interesting beau I ever had. But when he told a story he dressed it up so that you couldn\u2019t see it for frills. I never could decide whether he was lying or just letting his imagination run loose.\u201d \u201cAnd what about the others, Aunty?\u201d \u201cGo away and unpack,\u201d said Aunt Jamesina, waving Joseph at them by mistake for a needle. \u201cThe others were too nice to make fun of. I shall respect their memory. There\u2019s a box of flowers in your room, Anne. They came about an hour ago.\u201d After the first week the girls of Patty\u2019s Place settled down to a steady grind of study; for this was their last year at Redmond and graduation honors must be fought for persistently. Anne devoted herself to English, Priscilla pored over classics, and Philippa pounded away at Mathematics. Sometimes they grew tired, sometimes they felt discouraged, sometimes nothing seemed worth the struggle for it. In one such mood Stella wandered up to the blue room one rainy November evening. Anne sat on the floor in a little circle of light cast by the lamp beside her, amid a surrounding snow of crumpled manuscript. \u201cWhat in the world are you doing?\u201d \u201cJust looking over some old Story Club yarns. I wanted something to cheer _and_ inebriate. I\u2019d studied until the world seemed azure. So I came up here and dug these out of my trunk. They are so drenched in tears and tragedy that they are excruciatingly funny.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m blue and discouraged myself,\u201d said Stella, throwing herself on the couch. \u201cNothing seems worthwhile. My very thoughts are old. I\u2019ve thought them all before. What is the use of living after all, Anne?\u201d \u201cHoney, it\u2019s just brain fag that makes us feel that way, and the weather. A pouring rainy night like this, coming after a hard day\u2019s grind, would squelch any one but a Mark Tapley. You know it _is_ worthwhile to live.\u201d \u201cOh, I suppose so. But I can\u2019t prove it to myself just now.\u201d \u201cJust think of all the great and noble souls who have lived and worked in the world,\u201d said Anne dreamily. \u201cIsn\u2019t it worthwhile to come after them and inherit what they won and taught? Isn\u2019t it worthwhile to think we can share their inspiration? And then, all the great souls that will come in the future? Isn\u2019t it worthwhile to work a little and prepare the way for them\u2014make just one step in their path easier?\u201d \u201cOh, my mind agrees with you, Anne. But my soul remains doleful and uninspired. I\u2019m always grubby and dingy on rainy nights.\u201d \u201cSome nights I like the rain\u2014I like to lie in bed and hear it pattering on the roof and drifting through the pines.\u201d \u201cI like it when it stays on the roof,\u201d said Stella. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t always. I spent a gruesome night in an old country farmhouse last summer. The roof leaked and the rain came pattering down on my bed. There was no poetry in _that_. I had to get up in the \u2018mirk midnight\u2019 and chivy round to pull the bedstead out of the drip\u2014and it was one of those solid, old-fashioned beds that weigh a ton\u2014more or less. And then that drip-drop, drip-drop kept up all night until my nerves just went to pieces. You\u2019ve no idea what an eerie noise a great drop of rain falling with a mushy thud on a bare floor makes in the night. It sounds like ghostly footsteps and all that sort of thing. What are you laughing over, Anne?\u201d \u201cThese stories. As Phil would say they are killing\u2014in more senses than one, for everybody died in them. What dazzlingly lovely heroines we had\u2014and how we dressed them! \u201cSilks\u2014satins\u2014velvets\u2014jewels\u2014laces\u2014they never wore anything else. Here is one of Jane Andrews\u2019 stories depicting her heroine as sleeping in a beautiful white satin nightdress trimmed with seed pearls.\u201d \u201cGo on,\u201d said Stella. \u201cI begin to feel that life is worth living as long as there\u2019s a laugh in it.\u201d \u201cHere\u2019s one I wrote. My heroine is disporting herself at a ball \u2018glittering from head to foot with large diamonds of the first water.\u2019 But what booted beauty or rich attire? \u2018The paths of glory lead but to the grave.\u2019 They must either be murdered or die of a broken heart. There was no escape for them.\u201d \u201cLet me read some of your stories.\u201d \u201cWell, here\u2019s my masterpiece. Note its cheerful title\u2014\u2018My Graves.\u2019 I shed quarts of tears while writing it, and the other girls shed gallons while I read it. Jane Andrews\u2019 mother scolded her frightfully because she had so many handkerchiefs in the wash that week. It\u2019s a harrowing tale of the wanderings of a Methodist minister\u2019s wife. I made her a Methodist because it was necessary that she should wander. She buried a child every place she lived in. There were nine of them and their graves were severed far apart, ranging from Newfoundland to Vancouver. I described the children, pictured their several death beds, and detailed their tombstones and epitaphs. I had intended to bury the whole nine but when I had disposed of eight my invention of horrors gave out and I permitted the ninth to live as a hopeless cripple.\u201d While Stella read My Graves, punctuating its tragic paragraphs with chuckles, and Rusty slept the sleep of a just cat who has been out all night curled up on a Jane Andrews tale of a beautiful maiden of fifteen who went to nurse in a leper colony\u2014of course dying of the loathsome disease finally\u2014Anne glanced over the other manuscripts and recalled the old days at Avonlea school when the members of the Story Club, sitting under the spruce trees or down among the ferns by the brook, had written them. What fun they had had! How the sunshine and mirth of those olden summers returned as she read. Not all the glory that was Greece or the grandeur that was Rome could weave such wizardry as those funny, tearful tales of the Story Club. Among the manuscripts Anne found one written on sheets of wrapping paper. A wave of laughter filled her gray eyes as she recalled the time and place of its genesis. It was the sketch she had written the day she fell through the roof of the Cobb duckhouse on the Tory Road. Anne glanced over it, then fell to reading it intently. It was a little dialogue between asters and sweet-peas, wild canaries in the lilac bush, and the guardian spirit of the garden. After she had read it, she sat, staring into space; and when Stella had gone she smoothed out the crumpled manuscript. \u201cI believe I will,\u201d she said resolutely. Chapter 36. The Gardners\u2019Call. \u201cHere is a letter with an Indian stamp for you, Aunt Jimsie,\u201d said Phil. \u201cHere are three for Stella, and two for Pris, and a glorious fat one for me from Jo. There\u2019s nothing for you, Anne, except a circular.\u201d Nobody noticed Anne\u2019s flush as she took the thin letter Phil tossed her carelessly. But a few minutes later Phil looked up to see a transfigured Anne. \u201cHoney, what good thing has happened?\u201d \u201cThe Youth\u2019s Friend has accepted a little sketch I sent them a fortnight ago,\u201d said Anne, trying hard to speak as if she were accustomed to having sketches accepted every mail, but not quite succeeding. \u201cAnne Shirley! How glorious! What was it? When is it to be published? Did they pay you for it?\u201d \u201cYes; they\u2019ve sent a check for ten dollars, and the editor writes that he would like to see more of my work. Dear man, he shall. It was an old sketch I found in my box. I re-wrote it and sent it in\u2014but I never really thought it could be accepted because it had no plot,\u201d said Anne, recalling the bitter experience of Averil\u2019s Atonement. \u201cWhat are you going to do with that ten dollars, Anne? Let\u2019s all go up town and get drunk,\u201d suggested Phil. \u201cI _am_ going to squander it in a wild soulless revel of some sort,\u201d declared Anne gaily. \u201cAt all events it isn\u2019t tainted money\u2014like the check I got for that horrible Reliable Baking Powder story. I spent _it_ usefully for clothes and hated them every time I put them on.\u201d \u201cThink of having a real live author at Patty\u2019s Place,\u201d said Priscilla. \u201cIt\u2019s a great responsibility,\u201d said Aunt Jamesina solemnly. \u201cIndeed it is,\u201d agreed Pris with equal solemnity. \u201cAuthors are kittle cattle. You never know when or how they will break out. Anne may make copy of us.\u201d \u201cI meant that the ability to write for the Press was a great responsibility,\u201d said Aunt Jamesina severely, \u201cand I hope Anne realizes, it. My daughter used to write stories before she went to the foreign field, but now she has turned her attention to higher things. She used to say her motto was \u2018Never write a line you would be ashamed to read at your own funeral.\u2019 You\u2019d better take that for yours, Anne, if you are going to embark in literature. Though, to be sure,\u201d added Aunt Jamesina perplexedly, \u201cElizabeth always used to laugh when she said it. She always laughed so much that I don\u2019t know how she ever came to decide on being a missionary. I\u2019m thankful she did\u2014I prayed that she might\u2014but\u2014I wish she hadn\u2019t.\u201d Then Aunt Jamesina wondered why those giddy girls all laughed. Anne\u2019s eyes shone all that day; literary ambitions sprouted and budded in her brain; their exhilaration accompanied her to Jennie Cooper\u2019s walking party, and not even the sight of Gilbert and Christine, walking just ahead of her and Roy, could quite subdue the sparkle of her starry hopes. Nevertheless, she was not so rapt from things of earth as to be unable to notice that Christine\u2019s walk was decidedly ungraceful. \u201cBut I suppose Gilbert looks only at her face. So like a man,\u201d thought Anne scornfully. \u201cShall you be home Saturday afternoon?\u201d asked Roy. \u201cYes.\u201d \u201cMy mother and sisters are coming to call on you,\u201d said Roy quietly. Something went over Anne which might be described as a thrill, but it was hardly a pleasant one. She had never met any of Roy\u2019s family; she realized the significance of his statement; and it had, somehow, an irrevocableness about it that chilled her. \u201cI shall be glad to see them,\u201d she said flatly; and then wondered if she really would be glad. She ought to be, of course. But would it not be something of an ordeal? Gossip had filtered to Anne regarding the light in which the Gardners viewed the \u201cinfatuation\u201d of son and brother. Roy must have brought pressure to bear in the matter of this call. Anne knew she would be weighed in the balance. From the fact that they had consented to call she understood that, willingly or unwillingly, they regarded her as a possible member of their clan. \u201cI shall just be myself. I shall not _try_ to make a good impression,\u201d thought Anne loftily. But she was wondering what dress she would better wear Saturday afternoon, and if the new style of high hair-dressing would suit her better than the old; and the walking party was rather spoiled for her. By night she had decided that she would wear her brown chiffon on Saturday, but would do her hair low. Friday afternoon none of the girls had classes at Redmond. Stella took the opportunity to write a paper for the Philomathic Society, and was sitting at the table in the corner of the living-room with an untidy litter of notes and manuscript on the floor around her. Stella always vowed she never could write anything unless she threw each sheet down as she completed it. Anne, in her flannel blouse and serge skirt, with her hair rather blown from her windy walk home, was sitting squarely in the middle of the floor, teasing the Sarah-cat with a wishbone. Joseph and Rusty were both curled up in her lap. A warm plummy odor filled the whole house, for Priscilla was cooking in the kitchen. Presently she came in, enshrouded in a huge work-apron, with a smudge of flour on her nose, to show Aunt Jamesina the chocolate cake she had just iced. At this auspicious moment the knocker sounded. Nobody paid any attention to it save Phil, who sprang up and opened it, expecting a boy with the hat she had bought that morning. On the doorstep stood Mrs. Gardner and her daughters. Anne scrambled to her feet somehow, emptying two indignant cats out of her lap as she did so, and mechanically shifting her wishbone from her right hand to her left. Priscilla, who would have had to cross the room to reach the kitchen door, lost her head, wildly plunged the chocolate cake under a cushion on the inglenook sofa, and dashed upstairs. Stella began feverishly gathering up her manuscript. Only Aunt Jamesina and Phil remained normal. Thanks to them, everybody was soon sitting at ease, even Anne. Priscilla came down, apronless and smudgeless, Stella reduced her corner to decency, and Phil saved the situation by a stream of ready small talk. Mrs. Gardner was tall and thin and handsome, exquisitely gowned, cordial with a cordiality that seemed a trifle forced. Aline Gardner was a younger edition of her mother, lacking the cordiality. She endeavored to be nice, but succeeded only in being haughty and patronizing. Dorothy Gardner was slim and jolly and rather tomboyish. Anne knew she was Roy\u2019s favorite sister and warmed to her. She would have looked very much like Roy if she had had dreamy dark eyes instead of roguish hazel ones. Thanks to her and Phil, the call really went off very well, except for a slight sense of strain in the atmosphere and two rather untoward incidents. Rusty and Joseph, left to themselves, began a game of chase, and sprang madly into Mrs. Gardner\u2019s silken lap and out of it in their wild career. Mrs. Gardner lifted her lorgnette and gazed after their flying forms as if she had never seen cats before, and Anne, choking back slightly nervous laughter, apologized as best she could. \u201cYou are fond of cats?\u201d said Mrs. Gardner, with a slight intonation of tolerant wonder. Anne, despite her affection for Rusty, was not especially fond of cats, but Mrs. Gardner\u2019s tone annoyed her. Inconsequently she remembered that Mrs. John Blythe was so fond of cats that she kept as many as her husband would allow. \u201cThey _are_ adorable animals, aren\u2019t they?\u201d she said wickedly. \u201cI have never liked cats,\u201d said Mrs. Gardner remotely. \u201cI love them,\u201d said Dorothy. \u201cThey are so nice and selfish. Dogs are _too_ good and unselfish. They make me feel uncomfortable. But cats are gloriously human.\u201d \u201cYou have two delightful old china dogs there. May I look at them closely?\u201d said Aline, crossing the room towards the fireplace and thereby becoming the unconscious cause of the other accident. Picking up Magog, she sat down on the cushion under which was secreted Priscilla\u2019s chocolate cake. Priscilla and Anne exchanged agonized glances but could do nothing. The stately Aline continued to sit on the cushion and discuss china dogs until the time of departure. Dorothy lingered behind a moment to squeeze Anne\u2019s hand and whisper impulsively. \u201cI _know_ you and I are going to be chums. Oh, Roy has told me all about you. I\u2019m the only one of the family he tells things to, poor boy\u2014nobody _could_ confide in mamma and Aline, you know. What glorious times you girls must have here! Won\u2019t you let me come often and have a share in them?\u201d \u201cCome as often as you like,\u201d Anne responded heartily, thankful that one of Roy\u2019s sisters was likable. She would never like Aline, so much was certain; and Aline would never like her, though Mrs. Gardner might be won. Altogether, Anne sighed with relief when the ordeal was over. \u201c\u2018Of all sad words of tongue or pen The saddest are it might have been,\u2019\u201d quoted Priscilla tragically, lifting the cushion. \u201cThis cake is now what you might call a flat failure. And the cushion is likewise ruined. Never tell me that Friday isn\u2019t unlucky.\u201d \u201cPeople who send word they are coming on Saturday shouldn\u2019t come on Friday,\u201d said Aunt Jamesina. \u201cI fancy it was Roy\u2019s mistake,\u201d said Phil. \u201cThat boy isn\u2019t really responsible for what he says when he talks to Anne. Where _is_ Anne?\u201d Anne had gone upstairs. She felt oddly like crying. But she made herself laugh instead. Rusty and Joseph had been _too_ awful! And Dorothy _was_ a dear. Chapter 37. Full-fledged B.A.\u2019s. \u201cI wish I were dead, or that it were tomorrow night,\u201d groaned Phil. \u201cIf you live long enough both wishes will come true,\u201d said Anne calmly. \u201cIt\u2019s easy for you to be serene. You\u2019re at home in Philosophy. I\u2019m not\u2014and when I think of that horrible paper tomorrow I quail. If I should fail in it what would Jo say?\u201d \u201cYou won\u2019t fail. How did you get on in Greek today?\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t know. Perhaps it was a good paper and perhaps it was bad enough to make Homer turn over in his grave. I\u2019ve studied and mulled over notebooks until I\u2019m incapable of forming an opinion of anything. How thankful little Phil will be when all this examinating is over.\u201d \u201cExaminating? I never heard such a word.\u201d \u201cWell, haven\u2019t I as good a right to make a word as any one else?\u201d demanded Phil. \u201cWords aren\u2019t made\u2014they grow,\u201d said Anne. \u201cNever mind\u2014I begin faintly to discern clear water ahead where no examination breakers loom. Girls, do you\u2014can you realize that our Redmond Life is almost over?\u201d \u201cI can\u2019t,\u201d said Anne, sorrowfully. \u201cIt seems just yesterday that Pris and I were alone in that crowd of Freshmen at Redmond. And now we are Seniors in our final examinations.\u201d \u201c\u2018Potent, wise, and reverend Seniors,\u2019\u201d quoted Phil. \u201cDo you suppose we really are any wiser than when we came to Redmond?\u201d \u201cYou don\u2019t act as if you were by times,\u201d said Aunt Jamesina severely. \u201cOh, Aunt Jimsie, haven\u2019t we been pretty good girls, take us by and large, these three winters you\u2019ve mothered us?\u201d pleaded Phil. \u201cYou\u2019ve been four of the dearest, sweetest, goodest girls that ever went together through college,\u201d averred Aunt Jamesina, who never spoiled a compliment by misplaced economy. \u201cBut I mistrust you haven\u2019t any too much sense yet. It\u2019s not to be expected, of course. Experience teaches sense. You can\u2019t learn it in a college course. You\u2019ve been to college four years and I never was, but I know heaps more than you do, young ladies.\u201d \u201c\u2018There are lots of things that never go by rule, There\u2019s a powerful pile o\u2019 knowledge That you never get at college, There are heaps of things you never learn at school,\u2019\u201d quoted Stella. \u201cHave you learned anything at Redmond except dead languages and geometry and such trash?\u201d queried Aunt Jamesina. \u201cOh, yes. I think we have, Aunty,\u201d protested Anne. \u201cWe\u2019ve learned the truth of what Professor Woodleigh told us last Philomathic,\u201d said Phil. \u201cHe said, \u2018Humor is the spiciest condiment in the feast of existence. Laugh at your mistakes but learn from them, joke over your troubles but gather strength from them, make a jest of your difficulties but overcome them.\u2019 Isn\u2019t that worth learning, Aunt Jimsie?\u201d \u201cYes, it is, dearie. When you\u2019ve learned to laugh at the things that should be laughed at, and not to laugh at those that shouldn\u2019t, you\u2019ve got wisdom and understanding.\u201d \u201cWhat have you got out of your Redmond course, Anne?\u201d murmured Priscilla aside. \u201cI think,\u201d said Anne slowly, \u201cthat I really have learned to look upon each little hindrance as a jest and each great one as the foreshadowing of victory. Summing up, I think that is what Redmond has given me.\u201d \u201cI shall have to fall back on another Professor Woodleigh quotation to express what it has done for me,\u201d said Priscilla. \u201cYou remember that he said in his address, \u2018There is so much in the world for us all if we only have the eyes to see it, and the heart to love it, and the hand to gather it to ourselves\u2014so much in men and women, so much in art and literature, so much everywhere in which to delight, and for which to be thankful.\u2019 I think Redmond has taught me that in some measure, Anne.\u201d \u201cJudging from what you all, say\u201d remarked Aunt Jamesina, \u201cthe sum and substance is that you can learn\u2014if you\u2019ve got natural gumption enough\u2014in four years at college what it would take about twenty years of living to teach you. Well, that justifies higher education in my opinion. It\u2019s a matter I was always dubious about before. \u201cBut what about people who haven\u2019t natural gumption, Aunt Jimsie?\u201d \u201cPeople who haven\u2019t natural gumption never learn,\u201d retorted Aunt Jamesina, \u201cneither in college nor life. If they live to be a hundred they really don\u2019t know anything more than when they were born. It\u2019s their misfortune not their fault, poor souls. But those of us who have some gumption should duly thank the Lord for it.\u201d \u201cWill you please define what gumption is, Aunt Jimsie?\u201d asked Phil. \u201cNo, I won\u2019t, young woman. Any one who has gumption knows what it is, and any one who hasn\u2019t can never know what it is. So there is no need of defining it.\u201d The busy days flew by and examinations were over. Anne took High Honors in English. Priscilla took Honors in Classics, and Phil in Mathematics. Stella obtained a good all-round showing. Then came Convocation. \u201cThis is what I would once have called an epoch in my life,\u201d said Anne, as she took Roy\u2019s violets out of their box and gazed at them thoughtfully. She meant to carry them, of course, but her eyes wandered to another box on her table. It was filled with lilies-of-the-valley, as fresh and fragrant as those which bloomed in the Green Gables yard when June came to Avonlea. Gilbert Blythe\u2019s card lay beside it. Anne wondered why Gilbert should have sent her flowers for Convocation. She had seen very little of him during the past winter. He had come to Patty\u2019s Place only one Friday evening since the Christmas holidays, and they rarely met elsewhere. She knew he was studying very hard, aiming at High Honors and the Cooper Prize, and he took little part in the social doings of Redmond. Anne\u2019s own winter had been quite gay socially. She had seen a good deal of the Gardners; she and Dorothy were very intimate; college circles expected the announcement of her engagement to Roy any day. Anne expected it herself. Yet just before she left Patty\u2019s Place for Convocation she flung Roy\u2019s violets aside and put Gilbert\u2019s lilies-of-the-valley in their place. She could not have told why she did it. Somehow, old Avonlea days and dreams and friendships seemed very close to her in this attainment of her long-cherished ambitions. She and Gilbert had once picturedout merrily the day on which they should be capped and gowned graduates in Arts. The wonderful day had come and Roy\u2019s violets had no place in it. Only her old friend\u2019s flowers seemed to belong to this fruition of old-blossoming hopes which he had once shared. For years this day had beckoned and allured to her; but when it came the one single, keen, abiding memory it left with her was not that of the breathless moment when the stately president of Redmond gave her cap and diploma and hailed her B.A.; it was not of the flash in Gilbert\u2019s eyes when he saw her lilies, nor the puzzled pained glance Roy gave her as he passed her on the platform. It was not of Aline Gardner\u2019s condescending congratulations, or Dorothy\u2019s ardent, impulsive good wishes. It was of one strange, unaccountable pang that spoiled this long-expected day for her and left in it a certain faint but enduring flavor of bitterness. The Arts graduates gave a graduation dance that night. When Anne dressed for it she tossed aside the pearl beads she usually wore and took from her trunk the small box that had come to Green Gables on Christmas day. In it was a thread-like gold chain with a tiny pink enamel heart as a pendant. On the accompanying card was written, \u201cWith all good wishes from your old chum, Gilbert.\u201d Anne, laughing over the memory the enamel heart conjured up the fatal day when Gilbert had called her \u201cCarrots\u201d and vainly tried to make his peace with a pink candy heart, had written him a nice little note of thanks. But she had never worn the trinket. Tonight she fastened it about her white throat with a dreamy smile. She and Phil walked to Redmond together. Anne walked in silence; Phil chattered of many things. Suddenly she said, \u201cI heard today that Gilbert Blythe\u2019s engagement to Christine Stuart was to be announced as soon as Convocation was over. Did you hear anything of it?\u201d \u201cNo,\u201d said Anne. \u201cI think it\u2019s true,\u201d said Phil lightly. Anne did not speak. In the darkness she felt her face burning. She slipped her hand inside her collar and caught at the gold chain. One energetic twist and it gave way. Anne thrust the broken trinket into her pocket. Her hands were trembling and her eyes were smarting. But she was the gayest of all the gay revellers that night, and told Gilbert unregretfully that her card was full when he came to ask her for a dance. Afterwards, when she sat with the girls before the dying embers at Patty\u2019s Place, removing the spring chilliness from their satin skins, none chatted more blithely than she of the day\u2019s events. \u201cMoody Spurgeon MacPherson called here tonight after you left,\u201d said Aunt Jamesina, who had sat up to keep the fire on. \u201cHe didn\u2019t know about the graduation dance. That boy ought to sleep with a rubber band around his head to train his ears not to stick out. I had a beau once who did that and it improved him immensely. It was I who suggested it to him and he took my advice, but he never forgave me for it.\u201d \u201cMoody Spurgeon is a very serious young man,\u201d yawned Priscilla. \u201cHe is concerned with graver matters than his ears. He is going to be a minister, you know.\u201d \u201cWell, I suppose the Lord doesn\u2019t regard the ears of a man,\u201d said Aunt Jamesina gravely, dropping all further criticism of Moody Spurgeon. Aunt Jamesina had a proper respect for the cloth even in the case of an unfledged parson. Chapter 38. False Dawn. \u201cJust imagine\u2014this night week I\u2019ll be in Avonlea\u2014delightful thought!\u201d said Anne, bending over the box in which she was packing Mrs. Rachel Lynde\u2019s quilts. \u201cBut just imagine\u2014this night week I\u2019ll be gone forever from Patty\u2019s Place\u2014horrible thought!\u201d \u201cI wonder if the ghost of all our laughter will echo through the maiden dreams of Miss Patty and Miss Maria,\u201d speculated Phil. Miss Patty and Miss Maria were coming home, after having trotted over most of the habitable globe. \u201cWe\u2019ll be back the second week in May\u201d wrote Miss Patty. \u201cI expect Patty\u2019s Place will seem rather small after the Hall of the Kings at Karnak, but I never did like big places to live in. And I\u2019ll be glad enough to be home again. When you start traveling late in life you\u2019re apt to do too much of it because you know you haven\u2019t much time left, and it\u2019s a thing that grows on you. I\u2019m afraid Maria will never be contented again.\u201d \u201cI shall leave here my fancies and dreams to bless the next comer,\u201d said Anne, looking around the blue room wistfully\u2014her pretty blue room where she had spent three such happy years. She had knelt at its window to pray and had bent from it to watch the sunset behind the pines. She had heard the autumn raindrops beating against it and had welcomed the spring robins at its sill. She wondered if old dreams could haunt rooms\u2014if, when one left forever the room where she had joyed and suffered and laughed and wept, something of her, intangible and invisible, yet nonetheless real, did not remain behind like a voiceful memory. \u201cI think,\u201d said Phil, \u201cthat a room where one dreams and grieves and rejoices and lives becomes inseparably connected with those processes and acquires a personality of its own. I am sure if I came into this room fifty years from now it would say \u2018Anne, Anne\u2019 to me. What nice times we\u2019ve had here, honey! What chats and jokes and good chummy jamborees! Oh, dear me! I\u2019m to marry Jo in June and I know I will be rapturously happy. But just now I feel as if I wanted this lovely Redmond life to go on forever.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m unreasonable enough just now to wish that, too,\u201d admitted Anne. \u201cNo matter what deeper joys may come to us later on we\u2019ll never again have just the same delightful, irresponsible existence we\u2019ve had here. It\u2019s over forever, Phil.\u201d \u201cWhat are you going to do with Rusty?\u201d asked Phil, as that privileged pussy padded into the room. \u201cI am going to take him home with me and Joseph and the Sarah-cat,\u201d announced Aunt Jamesina, following Rusty. \u201cIt would be a shame to separate those cats now that they have learned to live together. It\u2019s a hard lesson for cats and humans to learn.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m sorry to part with Rusty,\u201d said Anne regretfully, \u201cbut it would be no use to take him to Green Gables. Marilla detests cats, and Davy would tease his life out. Besides, I don\u2019t suppose I\u2019ll be home very long. I\u2019ve been offered the principalship of the Summerside High School.\u201d \u201cAre you going to accept it?\u201d asked Phil. \u201cI\u2014I haven\u2019t decided yet,\u201d answered Anne, with a confused flush. Phil nodded understandingly. Naturally Anne\u2019s plans could not be settled until Roy had spoken. He would soon\u2014there was no doubt of that. And there was no doubt that Anne would say \u201cyes\u201d when he said \u201cWill you please?\u201d Anne herself regarded the state of affairs with a seldom-ruffled complacency. She was deeply in love with Roy. True, it was not just what she had imagined love to be. But was anything in life, Anne asked herself wearily, like one\u2019s imagination of it? It was the old diamond disillusion of childhood repeated\u2014the same disappointment she had felt when she had first seen the chill sparkle instead of the purple splendor she had anticipated. \u201cThat\u2019s not my idea of a diamond,\u201d she had said. But Roy was a dear fellow and they would be very happy together, even if some indefinable zest was missing out of life. When Roy came down that evening and asked Anne to walk in the park every one at Patty\u2019s Place knew what he had come to say; and every one knew, or thought they knew, what Anne\u2019s answer would be. \u201cAnne is a very fortunate girl,\u201d said Aunt Jamesina. \u201cI suppose so,\u201d said Stella, shrugging her shoulders. \u201cRoy is a nice fellow and all that. But there\u2019s really nothing in him.\u201d \u201cThat sounds very like a jealous remark, Stella Maynard,\u201d said Aunt Jamesina rebukingly. \u201cIt does\u2014but I am not jealous,\u201d said Stella calmly. \u201cI love Anne and I like Roy. Everybody says she is making a brilliant match, and even Mrs. Gardner thinks her charming now. It all sounds as if it were made in heaven, but I have my doubts. Make the most of that, Aunt Jamesina.\u201d Roy asked Anne to marry him in the little pavilion on the harbor shore where they had talked on the rainy day of their first meeting. Anne thought it very romantic that he should have chosen that spot. And his proposal was as beautifully worded as if he had copied it, as one of Ruby Gillis\u2019 lovers had done, out of a Deportment of Courtship and Marriage. The whole effect was quite flawless. And it was also sincere. There was no doubt that Roy meant what he said. There was no false note to jar the symphony. Anne felt that she ought to be thrilling from head to foot. But she wasn\u2019t; she was horribly cool. When Roy paused for his answer she opened her lips to say her fateful yes. And then\u2014she found herself trembling as if she were reeling back from a precipice. To her came one of those moments when we realize, as by a blinding flash of illumination, more than all our previous years have taught us. She pulled her hand from Roy\u2019s. \u201cOh, I can\u2019t marry you\u2014I can\u2019t\u2014I can\u2019t,\u201d she cried, wildly. Roy turned pale\u2014and also looked rather foolish. He had\u2014small blame to him\u2014felt very sure. \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d he stammered. \u201cI mean that I can\u2019t marry you,\u201d repeated Anne desperately. \u201cI thought I could\u2014but I can\u2019t.\u201d \u201cWhy can\u2019t you?\u201d Roy asked more calmly. \u201cBecause\u2014I don\u2019t care enough for you.\u201d A crimson streak came into Roy\u2019s face. \u201cSo you\u2019ve just been amusing yourself these two years?\u201d he said slowly. \u201cNo, no, I haven\u2019t,\u201d gasped poor Anne. Oh, how could she explain? She _couldn\u2019t_ explain. There are some things that cannot be explained. \u201cI did think I cared\u2014truly I did\u2014but I know now I don\u2019t.\u201d \u201cYou have ruined my life,\u201d said Roy bitterly. \u201cForgive me,\u201d pleaded Anne miserably, with hot cheeks and stinging eyes. Roy turned away and stood for a few minutes looking out seaward. When he came back to Anne, he was very pale again. \u201cYou can give me no hope?\u201d he said. Anne shook her head mutely. \u201cThen\u2014good-bye,\u201d said Roy. \u201cI can\u2019t understand it\u2014I can\u2019t believe you are not the woman I\u2019ve believed you to be. But reproaches are idle between us. You are the only woman I can ever love. I thank you for your friendship, at least. Good-bye, Anne.\u201d \u201cGood-bye,\u201d faltered Anne. When Roy had gone she sat for a long time in the pavilion, watching a white mist creeping subtly and remorselessly landward up the harbor. It was her hour of humiliation and self-contempt and shame. Their waves went over her. And yet, underneath it all, was a queer sense of recovered freedom. She slipped into Patty\u2019s Place in the dusk and escaped to her room. But Phil was there on the window seat. \u201cWait,\u201d said Anne, flushing to anticipate the scene. \u201cWait til you hear what I have to say. Phil, Roy asked me to marry him-and I refused.\u201d \u201cYou\u2014you _refused_ him?\u201d said Phil blankly. \u201cYes.\u201d \u201cAnne Shirley, are you in your senses?\u201d \u201cI think so,\u201d said Anne wearily. \u201cOh, Phil, don\u2019t scold me. You don\u2019t understand.\u201d \u201cI certainly don\u2019t understand. You\u2019ve encouraged Roy Gardner in every way for two years\u2014and now you tell me you\u2019ve refused him. Then you\u2019ve just been flirting scandalously with him. Anne, I couldn\u2019t have believed it of _you_.\u201d \u201cI _wasn\u2019t_ flirting with him\u2014I honestly thought I cared up to the last minute\u2014and then\u2014well, I just knew I _never_ could marry him.\u201d \u201cI suppose,\u201d said Phil cruelly, \u201cthat you intended to marry him for his money, and then your better self rose up and prevented you.\u201d \u201cI _didnt\u2019t_. I never thought about his money. Oh, I can\u2019t explain it to you any more than I could to him.\u201d \u201cWell, I certainly think you have treated Roy shamefully,\u201d said Phil in exasperation. \u201cHe\u2019s handsome and clever and rich and good. What more do you want?\u201d \u201cI want some one who _belongs_ in my life. He doesn\u2019t. I was swept off my feet at first by his good looks and knack of paying romantic compliments; and later on I thought I _must_ be in love because he was my dark-eyed ideal.\u201d \u201cI am bad enough for not knowing my own mind, but you are worse,\u201d said Phil. \u201c_I_ _do_ know my own mind,\u201d protested Anne. \u201cThe trouble is, my mind changes and then I have to get acquainted with it all over again.\u201d \u201cWell, I suppose there is no use in saying anything to you.\u201d \u201cThere is no need, Phil. I\u2019m in the dust. This has spoiled everything backwards. I can never think of Redmond days without recalling the humiliation of this evening. Roy despises me\u2014and you despise me\u2014and I despise myself.\u201d \u201cYou poor darling,\u201d said Phil, melting. \u201cJust come here and let me comfort you. I\u2019ve no right to scold you. I\u2019d have married Alec or Alonzo if I hadn\u2019t met Jo. Oh, Anne, things are so mixed-up in real life. They aren\u2019t clear-cut and trimmed off, as they are in novels.\u201d \u201cI hope that _no_ one will ever again ask me to marry him as long as I live,\u201d sobbed poor Anne, devoutly believing that she meant it. Chapter 39. Deals with Weddings. Anne felt that life partook of the nature of an anticlimax during the first few weeks after her return to Green Gables. She missed the merry comradeship of Patty\u2019s Place. She had dreamed some brilliant dreams during the past winter and now they lay in the dust around her. In her present mood of self-disgust, she could not immediately begin dreaming again. And she discovered that, while solitude with dreams is glorious, solitude without them has few charms. She had not seen Roy again after their painful parting in the park pavilion; but Dorothy came to see her before she left Kingsport. \u201cI\u2019m awfully sorry you won\u2019t marry Roy,\u201d she said. \u201cI did want you for a sister. But you are quite right. He would bore you to death. I love him, and he is a dear sweet boy, but really he isn\u2019t a bit interesting. He looks as if he ought to be, but he isn\u2019t.\u201d \u201cThis won\u2019t spoil _our_ friendship, will it, Dorothy?\u201d Anne had asked wistfully. \u201cNo, indeed. You\u2019re too good to lose. If I can\u2019t have you for a sister I mean to keep you as a chum anyway. And don\u2019t fret over Roy. He is feeling terribly just now\u2014I have to listen to his outpourings every day\u2014but he\u2019ll get over it. He always does.\u201d \u201cOh\u2014_always?_\u201d said Anne with a slight change of voice. \u201cSo he has \u2018got over it\u2019 before?\u201d \u201cDear me, yes,\u201d said Dorothy frankly. \u201cTwice before. And he raved to me just the same both times. Not that the others actually refused him\u2014they simply announced their engagements to some one else. Of course, when he met you he vowed to me that he had never really loved before\u2014that the previous affairs had been merely boyish fancies. But I don\u2019t think you need worry.\u201d Anne decided not to worry. Her feelings were a mixture of relief and resentment. Roy had certainly told her she was the only one he had ever loved. No doubt he believed it. But it was a comfort to feel that she had not, in all likelihood, ruined his life. There were other goddesses, and Roy, according to Dorothy, must needs be worshipping at some shrine. Nevertheless, life was stripped of several more illusions, and Anne began to think drearily that it seemed rather bare. She came down from the porch gable on the evening of her return with a sorrowful face. \u201cWhat has happened to the old Snow Queen, Marilla?\u201d \u201cOh, I knew you\u2019d feel bad over that,\u201d said Marilla. \u201cI felt bad myself. That tree was there ever since I was a young girl. It blew down in the big gale we had in March. It was rotten at the core.\u201d \u201cI\u2019ll miss it so,\u201d grieved Anne. \u201cThe porch gable doesn\u2019t seem the same room without it. I\u2019ll never look from its window again without a sense of loss. And oh, I never came home to Green Gables before that Diana wasn\u2019t here to welcome me.\u201d \u201cDiana has something else to think of just now,\u201d said Mrs. Lynde significantly. \u201cWell, tell me all the Avonlea news,\u201d said Anne, sitting down on the porch steps, where the evening sunshine fell over her hair in a fine golden rain. \u201cThere isn\u2019t much news except what we\u2019ve wrote you,\u201d said Mrs. Lynde. \u201cI suppose you haven\u2019t heard that Simon Fletcher broke his leg last week. It\u2019s a great thing for his family. They\u2019re getting a hundred things done that they\u2019ve always wanted to do but couldn\u2019t as long as he was about, the old crank.\u201d \u201cHe came of an aggravating family,\u201d remarked Marilla. \u201cAggravating? Well, rather! His mother used to get up in prayer-meeting and tell all her children\u2019s shortcomings and ask prayers for them. \u2019Course it made them mad, and worse than ever.\u201d \u201cYou haven\u2019t told Anne the news about Jane,\u201d suggested Marilla. \u201cOh, Jane,\u201d sniffed Mrs. Lynde. \u201cWell,\u201d she conceded grudgingly, \u201cJane Andrews is home from the West\u2014came last week\u2014and she\u2019s going to be married to a Winnipeg millionaire. You may be sure Mrs. Harmon lost no time in telling it far and wide.\u201d \u201cDear old Jane\u2014I\u2019m so glad,\u201d said Anne heartily. \u201cShe deserves the good things of life.\u201d \u201cOh, I ain\u2019t saying anything against Jane. She\u2019s a nice enough girl. But she isn\u2019t in the millionaire class, and you\u2019ll find there\u2019s not much to recommend that man but his money, that\u2019s what. Mrs. Harmon says he\u2019s an Englishman who has made money in mines but _I_ believe he\u2019ll turn out to be a Yankee. He certainly must have money, for he has just showered Jane with jewelry. Her engagement ring is a diamond cluster so big that it looks like a plaster on Jane\u2019s fat paw.\u201d Mrs. Lynde could not keep some bitterness out of her tone. Here was Jane Andrews, that plain little plodder, engaged to a millionaire, while Anne, it seemed, was not yet bespoken by any one, rich or poor. And Mrs. Harmon Andrews did brag insufferably. \u201cWhat has Gilbert Blythe been doing to at college?\u201d asked Marilla. \u201cI saw him when he came home last week, and he is so pale and thin I hardly knew him.\u201d \u201cHe studied very hard last winter,\u201d said Anne. \u201cYou know he took High Honors in Classics and the Cooper Prize. It hasn\u2019t been taken for five years! So I think he\u2019s rather run down. We\u2019re all a little tired.\u201d \u201cAnyhow, you\u2019re a B.A. and Jane Andrews isn\u2019t and never will be,\u201d said Mrs. Lynde, with gloomy satisfaction. A few evenings later Anne went down to see Jane, but the latter was away in Charlottetown\u2014\u201cgetting sewing done,\u201d Mrs. Harmon informed Anne proudly. \u201cOf course an Avonlea dressmaker wouldn\u2019t do for Jane under the circumstances.\u201d \u201cI\u2019ve heard something very nice about Jane,\u201d said Anne. \u201cYes, Jane has done pretty well, even if she isn\u2019t a B.A.,\u201d said Mrs. Harmon, with a slight toss of her head. \u201cMr. Inglis is worth millions, and they\u2019re going to Europe on their wedding tour. When they come back they\u2019ll live in a perfect mansion of marble in Winnipeg. Jane has only one trouble\u2014she can cook so well and her husband won\u2019t let her cook. He is so rich he hires his cooking done. They\u2019re going to keep a cook and two other maids and a coachman and a man-of-all-work. But what about _you_, Anne? I don\u2019t hear anything of your being married, after all your college-going.\u201d \u201cOh,\u201d laughed Anne, \u201cI am going to be an old maid. I really can\u2019t find any one to suit me.\u201d It was rather wicked of her. She deliberately meant to remind Mrs. Andrews that if she became an old maid it was not because she had not had at least one chance of marriage. But Mrs. Harmon took swift revenge. \u201cWell, the over-particular girls generally get left, I notice. And what\u2019s this I hear about Gilbert Blythe being engaged to a Miss Stuart? Charlie Sloane tells me she is perfectly beautiful. Is it true?\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t know if it is true that he is engaged to Miss Stuart,\u201d replied Anne, with Spartan composure, \u201cbut it is certainly true that she is very lovely.\u201d \u201cI once thought you and Gilbert would have made a match of it,\u201d said Mrs. Harmon. \u201cIf you don\u2019t take care, Anne, all of your beaux will slip through your fingers.\u201d Anne decided not to continue her duel with Mrs. Harmon. You could not fence with an antagonist who met rapier thrust with blow of battle axe. \u201cSince Jane is away,\u201d she said, rising haughtily, \u201cI don\u2019t think I can stay longer this morning. I\u2019ll come down when she comes home.\u201d \u201cDo,\u201d said Mrs. Harmon effusively. \u201cJane isn\u2019t a bit proud. She just means to associate with her old friends the same as ever. She\u2019ll be real glad to see you.\u201d Jane\u2019s millionaire arrived the last of May and carried her off in a blaze of splendor. Mrs. Lynde was spitefully gratified to find that Mr. Inglis was every day of forty, and short and thin and grayish. Mrs. Lynde did not spare him in her enumeration of his shortcomings, you may be sure. \u201cIt will take all his gold to gild a pill like him, that\u2019s what,\u201d said Mrs. Rachel solemnly. \u201cHe looks kind and good-hearted,\u201d said Anne loyally, \u201cand I\u2019m sure he thinks the world of Jane.\u201d \u201cHumph!\u201d said Mrs. Rachel. Phil Gordon was married the next week and Anne went over to Bolingbroke to be her bridesmaid. Phil made a dainty fairy of a bride, and the Rev. Jo was so radiant in his happiness that nobody thought him plain. \u201cWe\u2019re going for a lovers\u2019 saunter through the land of Evangeline,\u201d said Phil, \u201cand then we\u2019ll settle down on Patterson Street. Mother thinks it is terrible\u2014she thinks Jo might at least take a church in a decent place. But the wilderness of the Patterson slums will blossom like the rose for me if Jo is there. Oh, Anne, I\u2019m so happy my heart aches with it.\u201d Anne was always glad in the happiness of her friends; but it is sometimes a little lonely to be surrounded everywhere by a happiness that is not your own. And it was just the same when she went back to Avonlea. This time it was Diana who was bathed in the wonderful glory that comes to a woman when her first-born is laid beside her. Anne looked at the white young mother with a certain awe that had never entered into her feelings for Diana before. Could this pale woman with the rapture in her eyes be the little black-curled, rosy-cheeked Diana she had played with in vanished schooldays? It gave her a queer desolate feeling that she herself somehow belonged only in those past years and had no business in the present at all. \u201cIsn\u2019t he perfectly beautiful?\u201d said Diana proudly. The little fat fellow was absurdly like Fred\u2014just as round, just as red. Anne really could not say conscientiously that she thought him beautiful, but she vowed sincerely that he was sweet and kissable and altogether delightful. \u201cBefore he came I wanted a girl, so that I could call her ANNE,\u201d said Diana. \u201cBut now that little Fred is here I wouldn\u2019t exchange him for a million girls. He just _couldn\u2019t_ have been anything but his own precious self.\u201d \u201c\u2018Every little baby is the sweetest and the best,\u2019\u201d quoted Mrs. Allan gaily. \u201cIf little Anne _had_ come you\u2019d have felt just the same about her.\u201d Mrs. Allan was visiting in Avonlea, for the first time since leaving it. She was as gay and sweet and sympathetic as ever. Her old girl friends had welcomed her back rapturously. The reigning minister\u2019s wife was an estimable lady, but she was not exactly a kindred spirit. \u201cI can hardly wait till he gets old enough to talk,\u201d sighed Diana. \u201cI just long to hear him say \u2018mother.\u2019 And oh, I\u2019m determined that his first memory of me shall be a nice one. The first memory I have of my mother is of her slapping me for something I had done. I am sure I deserved it, and mother was always a good mother and I love her dearly. But I do wish my first memory of her was nicer.\u201d \u201cI have just one memory of my mother and it is the sweetest of all my memories,\u201d said Mrs. Allan. \u201cI was five years old, and I had been allowed to go to school one day with my two older sisters. When school came out my sisters went home in different groups, each supposing I was with the other. Instead I had run off with a little girl I had played with at recess. We went to her home, which was near the school, and began making mud pies. We were having a glorious time when my older sister arrived, breathless and angry. \u201c\u2018You naughty girl\u201d she cried, snatching my reluctant hand and dragging me along with her. \u2018Come home this minute. Oh, you\u2019re going to catch it! Mother is awful cross. She is going to give you a good whipping.\u2019 \u201cI had never been whipped. Dread and terror filled my poor little heart. I have never been so miserable in my life as I was on that walk home. I had not meant to be naughty. Phemy Cameron had asked me to go home with her and I had not known it was wrong to go. And now I was to be whipped for it. When we got home my sister dragged me into the kitchen where mother was sitting by the fire in the twilight. My poor wee legs were trembling so that I could hardly stand. And mother\u2014mother just took me up in her arms, without one word of rebuke or harshness, kissed me and held me close to her heart. \u2018I was so frightened you were lost, darling,\u2019 she said tenderly. I could see the love shining in her eyes as she looked down on me. She never scolded or reproached me for what I had done\u2014only told me I must never go away again without asking permission. She died very soon afterwards. That is the only memory I have of her. Isn\u2019t it a beautiful one?\u201d Anne felt lonelier than ever as she walked home, going by way of the Birch Path and Willowmere. She had not walked that way for many moons. It was a darkly-purple bloomy night. The air was heavy with blossom fragrance\u2014almost too heavy. The cloyed senses recoiled from it as from an overfull cup. The birches of the path had grown from the fairy saplings of old to big trees. Everything had changed. Anne felt that she would be glad when the summer was over and she was away at work again. Perhaps life would not seem so empty then. \u201c\u2018I\u2019ve tried the world\u2014it wears no more The coloring of romance it wore,\u2019\u201d sighed Anne\u2014and was straightway much comforted by the romance in the idea of the world being denuded of romance! Chapter 40. A Book of Revelation. The Irvings came back to Echo Lodge for the summer, and Anne spent a happy three weeks there in July. Miss Lavendar had not changed; Charlotta the Fourth was a very grown-up young lady now, but still adored Anne sincerely. \u201cWhen all\u2019s said and done, Miss Shirley, ma\u2019am, I haven\u2019t seen any one in Boston that\u2019s equal to you,\u201d she said frankly. Paul was almost grown up, too. He was sixteen, his chestnut curls had given place to close-cropped brown locks, and he was more interested in football than fairies. But the bond between him and his old teacher still held. Kindred spirits alone do not change with changing years. It was a wet, bleak, cruel evening in July when Anne came back to Green Gables. One of the fierce summer storms which sometimes sweep over the gulf was ravaging the sea. As Anne came in the first raindrops dashed against the panes. \u201cWas that Paul who brought you home?\u201d asked Marilla. \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you make him stay all night. It\u2019s going to be a wild evening.\u201d \u201cHe\u2019ll reach Echo Lodge before the rain gets very heavy, I think. Anyway, he wanted to go back tonight. Well, I\u2019ve had a splendid visit, but I\u2019m glad to see you dear folks again. \u2018East, west, hame\u2019s best.\u2019 Davy, have you been growing again lately?\u201d \u201cI\u2019ve growed a whole inch since you left,\u201d said Davy proudly. \u201cI\u2019m as tall as Milty Boulter now. Ain\u2019t I glad. He\u2019ll have to stop crowing about being bigger. Say, Anne, did you know that Gilbert Blythe is dying?\u201d Anne stood quite silent and motionless, looking at Davy. Her face had gone so white that Marilla thought she was going to faint. \u201cDavy, hold your tongue,\u201d said Mrs. Rachel angrily. \u201cAnne, don\u2019t look like that\u2014_don\u2019t look like that!_ We didn\u2019t mean to tell you so suddenly.\u201d \u201cIs\u2014it\u2014true?\u201d asked Anne in a voice that was not hers. \u201cGilbert is very ill,\u201d said Mrs. Lynde gravely. \u201cHe took down with typhoid fever just after you left for Echo Lodge. Did you never hear of it?\u201d \u201cNo,\u201d said that unknown voice. \u201cIt was a very bad case from the start. The doctor said he\u2019d been terribly run down. They\u2019ve a trained nurse and everything\u2019s been done. _don\u2019t_ look like that, Anne. While there\u2019s life there\u2019s hope.\u201d \u201cMr. Harrison was here this evening and he said they had no hope of him,\u201d reiterated Davy. Marilla, looking old and worn and tired, got up and marched Davy grimly out of the kitchen. \u201cOh, _don\u2019t_ look so, dear,\u201d said Mrs. Rachel, putting her kind old arms about the pallid girl. \u201cI haven\u2019t given up hope, indeed I haven\u2019t. He\u2019s got the Blythe constitution in his favor, that\u2019s what.\u201d Anne gently put Mrs. Lynde\u2019s arms away from her, walked blindly across the kitchen, through the hall, up the stairs to her old room. At its window she knelt down, staring out unseeingly. It was very dark. The rain was beating down over the shivering fields. The Haunted Woods was full of the groans of mighty trees wrung in the tempest, and the air throbbed with the thunderous crash of billows on the distant shore. And Gilbert was dying! There is a book of Revelation in every one\u2019s life, as there is in the Bible. Anne read hers that bitter night, as she kept her agonized vigil through the hours of storm and darkness. She loved Gilbert\u2014had always loved him! She knew that now. She knew that she could no more cast him out of her life without agony than she could have cut off her right hand and cast it from her. And the knowledge had come too late\u2014too late even for the bitter solace of being with him at the last. If she had not been so blind\u2014so foolish\u2014she would have had the right to go to him now. But he would never know that she loved him\u2014he would go away from this life thinking that she did not care. Oh, the black years of emptiness stretching before her! She could not live through them\u2014she could not! She cowered down by her window and wished, for the first time in her gay young life, that she could die, too. If Gilbert went away from her, without one word or sign or message, she could not live. Nothing was of any value without him. She belonged to him and he to her. In her hour of supreme agony she had no doubt of that. He did not love Christine Stuart\u2014never had loved Christine Stuart. Oh, what a fool she had been not to realize what the bond was that had held her to Gilbert\u2014to think that the flattered fancy she had felt for Roy Gardner had been love. And now she must pay for her folly as for a crime. Mrs. Lynde and Marilla crept to her door before they went to bed, shook their heads doubtfully at each other over the silence, and went away. The storm raged all night, but when the dawn came it was spent. Anne saw a fairy fringe of light on the skirts of darkness. Soon the eastern hilltops had a fire-shot ruby rim. The clouds rolled themselves away into great, soft, white masses on the horizon; the sky gleamed blue and silvery. A hush fell over the world. Anne rose from her knees and crept downstairs. The freshness of the rain-wind blew against her white face as she went out into the yard, and cooled her dry, burning eyes. A merry rollicking whistle was lilting up the lane. A moment later Pacifique Buote came in sight. Anne\u2019s physical strength suddenly failed her. If she had not clutched at a low willow bough she would have fallen. Pacifique was George Fletcher\u2019s hired man, and George Fletcher lived next door to the Blythes. Mrs. Fletcher was Gilbert\u2019s aunt. Pacifique would know if\u2014if\u2014Pacifique would know what there was to be known. Pacifique strode sturdily on along the red lane, whistling. He did not see Anne. She made three futile attempts to call him. He was almost past before she succeeded in making her quivering lips call, \u201cPacifique!\u201d Pacifique turned with a grin and a cheerful good morning. \u201cPacifique,\u201d said Anne faintly, \u201cdid you come from George Fletcher\u2019s this morning?\u201d \u201cSure,\u201d said Pacifique amiably. \u201cI got de word las\u2019 night dat my fader, he was seeck. It was so stormy dat I couldn\u2019t go den, so I start vair early dis mornin\u2019. I\u2019m goin\u2019 troo de woods for short cut.\u201d \u201cDid you hear how Gilbert Blythe was this morning?\u201d Anne\u2019s desperation drove her to the question. Even the worst would be more endurable than this hideous suspense. \u201cHe\u2019s better,\u201d said Pacifique. \u201cHe got de turn las\u2019 night. De doctor say he\u2019ll be all right now dis soon while. Had close shave, dough! Dat boy, he jus\u2019 keel himself at college. Well, I mus\u2019 hurry. De old man, he\u2019ll be in hurry to see me.\u201d Pacifique resumed his walk and his whistle. Anne gazed after him with eyes where joy was driving out the strained anguish of the night. He was a very lank, very ragged, very homely youth. But in her sight he was as beautiful as those who bring good tidings on the mountains. Never, as long as she lived, would Anne see Pacifique\u2019s brown, round, black-eyed face without a warm remembrance of the moment when he had given to her the oil of joy for mourning. Long after Pacifique\u2019s gay whistle had faded into the phantom of music and then into silence far up under the maples of Lover\u2019s Lane Anne stood under the willows, tasting the poignant sweetness of life when some great dread has been removed from it. The morning was a cup filled with mist and glamor. In the corner near her was a rich surprise of new-blown, crystal-dewed roses. The trills and trickles of song from the birds in the big tree above her seemed in perfect accord with her mood. A sentence from a very old, very true, very wonderful Book came to her lips, \u201cWeeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning.\u201d Chapter 41. Love Takes Up the Glass of Time. \u201cI\u2019ve come up to ask you to go for one of our old-time rambles through September woods and \u2018over hills where spices grow,\u2019 this afternoon,\u201d said Gilbert, coming suddenly around the porch corner. \u201cSuppose we visit Hester Gray\u2019s garden.\u201d Anne, sitting on the stone step with her lap full of a pale, filmy, green stuff, looked up rather blankly. \u201cOh, I wish I could,\u201d she said slowly, \u201cbut I really can\u2019t, Gilbert. I\u2019m going to Alice Penhallow\u2019s wedding this evening, you know. I\u2019ve got to do something to this dress, and by the time it\u2019s finished I\u2019ll have to get ready. I\u2019m so sorry. I\u2019d love to go.\u201d \u201cWell, can you go tomorrow afternoon, then?\u201d asked Gilbert, apparently not much disappointed. \u201cYes, I think so.\u201d \u201cIn that case I shall hie me home at once to do something I should otherwise have to do tomorrow. So Alice Penhallow is to be married tonight. Three weddings for you in one summer, Anne\u2014Phil\u2019s, Alice\u2019s, and Jane\u2019s. I\u2019ll never forgive Jane for not inviting me to her wedding.\u201d \u201cYou really can\u2019t blame her when you think of the tremendous Andrews connection who had to be invited. The house could hardly hold them all. I was only bidden by grace of being Jane\u2019s old chum\u2014at least on Jane\u2019s part. I think Mrs. Harmon\u2019s motive for inviting me was to let me see Jane\u2019s surpassing gorgeousness.\u201d \u201cIs it true that she wore so many diamonds that you couldn\u2019t tell where the diamonds left off and Jane began?\u201d Anne laughed. \u201cShe certainly wore a good many. What with all the diamonds and white satin and tulle and lace and roses and orange blossoms, prim little Jane was almost lost to sight. But she was _very_ happy, and so was Mr. Inglis\u2014and so was Mrs. Harmon.\u201d \u201cIs that the dress you\u2019re going to wear tonight?\u201d asked Gilbert, looking down at the fluffs and frills. \u201cYes. Isn\u2019t it pretty? And I shall wear starflowers in my hair. The Haunted Wood is full of them this summer.\u201d Gilbert had a sudden vision of Anne, arrayed in a frilly green gown, with the virginal curves of arms and throat slipping out of it, and white stars shining against the coils of her ruddy hair. The vision made him catch his breath. But he turned lightly away. \u201cWell, I\u2019ll be up tomorrow. Hope you\u2019ll have a nice time tonight.\u201d Anne looked after him as he strode away, and sighed. Gilbert was friendly\u2014very friendly\u2014far too friendly. He had come quite often to Green Gables after his recovery, and something of their old comradeship had returned. But Anne no longer found it satisfying. The rose of love made the blossom of friendship pale and scentless by contrast. And Anne had again begun to doubt if Gilbert now felt anything for her but friendship. In the common light of common day her radiant certainty of that rapt morning had faded. She was haunted by a miserable fear that her mistake could never be rectified. It was quite likely that it was Christine whom Gilbert loved after all. Perhaps he was even engaged to her. Anne tried to put all unsettling hopes out of her heart, and reconcile herself to a future where work and ambition must take the place of love. She could do good, if not noble, work as a teacher; and the success her little sketches were beginning to meet with in certain editorial sanctums augured well for her budding literary dreams. But\u2014but\u2014Anne picked up her green dress and sighed again. When Gilbert came the next afternoon he found Anne waiting for him, fresh as the dawn and fair as a star, after all the gaiety of the preceding night. She wore a green dress\u2014not the one she had worn to the wedding, but an old one which Gilbert had told her at a Redmond reception he liked especially. It was just the shade of green that brought out the rich tints of her hair, and the starry gray of her eyes and the iris-like delicacy of her skin. Gilbert, glancing at her sideways as they walked along a shadowy woodpath, thought she had never looked so lovely. Anne, glancing sideways at Gilbert, now and then, thought how much older he looked since his illness. It was as if he had put boyhood behind him forever. The day was beautiful and the way was beautiful. Anne was almost sorry when they reached Hester Gray\u2019s garden, and sat down on the old bench. But it was beautiful there, too\u2014as beautiful as it had been on the faraway day of the Golden Picnic, when Diana and Jane and Priscilla and she had found it. Then it had been lovely with narcissus and violets; now golden rod had kindled its fairy torches in the corners and asters dotted it bluely. The call of the brook came up through the woods from the valley of birches with all its old allurement; the mellow air was full of the purr of the sea; beyond were fields rimmed by fences bleached silvery gray in the suns of many summers, and long hills scarfed with the shadows of autumnal clouds; with the blowing of the west wind old dreams returned. \u201cI think,\u201d said Anne softly, \u201cthat \u2018the land where dreams come true\u2019 is in the blue haze yonder, over that little valley.\u201d \u201cHave you any unfulfilled dreams, Anne?\u201d asked Gilbert. Something in his tone\u2014something she had not heard since that miserable evening in the orchard at Patty\u2019s Place\u2014made Anne\u2019s heart beat wildly. But she made answer lightly. \u201cOf course. Everybody has. It wouldn\u2019t do for us to have all our dreams fulfilled. We would be as good as dead if we had nothing left to dream about. What a delicious aroma that low-descending sun is extracting from the asters and ferns. I wish we could see perfumes as well as smell them. I\u2019m sure they would be very beautiful. \u201d Gilbert was not to be thus sidetracked. \u201cI have a dream,\u201d he said slowly. \u201cI persist in dreaming it, although it has often seemed to me that it could never come true. I dream of a home with a hearth-fire in it, a cat and dog, the footsteps of friends\u2014and _you!_\u201d Anne wanted to speak but she could find no words. Happiness was breaking over her like a wave. It almost frightened her. \u201cI asked you a question over two years ago, Anne. If I ask it again today will you give me a different answer?\u201d Still Anne could not speak. But she lifted her eyes, shining with all the love-rapture of countless generations, and looked into his for a moment. He wanted no other answer. They lingered in the old garden until twilight, sweet as dusk in Eden must have been, crept over it. There was so much to talk over and recall\u2014things said and done and heard and thought and felt and misunderstood. \u201cI thought you loved Christine Stuart,\u201d Anne told him, as reproachfully as if she had not given him every reason to suppose that she loved Roy Gardner. Gilbert laughed boyishly. \u201cChristine was engaged to somebody in her home town. I knew it and she knew I knew it. When her brother graduated he told me his sister was coming to Kingsport the next winter to take music, and asked me if I would look after her a bit, as she knew no one and would be very lonely. So I did. And then I liked Christine for her own sake. She is one of the nicest girls I\u2019ve ever known. I knew college gossip credited us with being in love with each other. I didn\u2019t care. Nothing mattered much to me for a time there, after you told me you could never love me, Anne. There was nobody else\u2014there never could be anybody else for me but you. I\u2019ve loved you ever since that day you broke your slate over my head in school.\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t see how you could keep on loving me when I was such a little fool,\u201d said Anne. \u201cWell, I tried to stop,\u201d said Gilbert frankly, \u201cnot because I thought you what you call yourself, but because I felt sure there was no chance for me after Gardner came on the scene. But I couldn\u2019t\u2014and I can\u2019t tell you, either, what it\u2019s meant to me these two years to believe you were going to marry him, and be told every week by some busybody that your engagement was on the point of being announced. I believed it until one blessed day when I was sitting up after the fever. I got a letter from Phil Gordon\u2014Phil Blake, rather\u2014in which she told me there was really nothing between you and Roy, and advised me to \u2018try again.\u2019 Well, the doctor was amazed at my rapid recovery after that.\u201d Anne laughed\u2014then shivered. \u201cI can never forget the night I thought you were dying, Gilbert. Oh, I knew\u2014I _knew_ then\u2014and I thought it was too late.\u201d \u201cBut it wasn\u2019t, sweetheart. Oh, Anne, this makes up for everything, doesn\u2019t it? Let\u2019s resolve to keep this day sacred to perfect beauty all our lives for the gift it has given us.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s the birthday of our happiness,\u201d said Anne softly. \u201cI\u2019ve always loved this old garden of Hester Gray\u2019s, and now it will be dearer than ever.\u201d \u201cBut I\u2019ll have to ask you to wait a long time, Anne,\u201d said Gilbert sadly. \u201cIt will be three years before I\u2019ll finish my medical course. And even then there will be no diamond sunbursts and marble halls.\u201d Anne laughed. \u201cI don\u2019t want sunbursts and marble halls. I just want _you_. You see I\u2019m quite as shameless as Phil about it. Sunbursts and marble halls may be all very well, but there is more \u2018scope for imagination\u2019 without them. And as for the waiting, that doesn\u2019t matter. We\u2019ll just be happy, waiting and working for each other\u2014and dreaming. Oh, dreams will be very sweet now.\u201d Gilbert drew her close to him and kissed her. Then they walked home together in the dusk, crowned king and queen in the bridal realm of love, along winding paths fringed with the sweetest flowers that ever bloomed, and over haunted meadows where winds of hope and memory blew. Thank you for joining us on this delightful journey through Anne of the Island. We hope you enjoyed Anne\u2019s adventures and the many moments of joy, growth, and heartache she experienced. If you loved this story, don\u2019t forget to like, comment, and subscribe to Storytime Haven for more literary adventures. Until next time, keep dreaming and reading.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nJoin Anne Shirley in her enchanting journey as she navigates through new beginnings, unforgettable friendships, and her evolving dreams at Redmond College. \ud83c\udf1f Anne of the Island by L. M. Montgomery is a captivating story of love, self-discovery, and the challenges of growing up. \ud83d\udcda\u2728 In this timeless classic, Anne faces new challenges and joys while she learns the true meaning of home, love, and the importance of finding her own path. \ud83c\udf39<\/p>\n<p>  \ud83c\udf1f **About the Story** \ud83c\udf1f<br \/>\n  Anne of the Island is the third book in the beloved Anne series. In this heartwarming continuation, Anne Shirley leaves her peaceful home in Avonlea to pursue her studies at Redmond College. \ud83c\udf3a Here, she meets a variety of characters, makes lifelong friends, and faces the trials and tribulations of young adulthood. \ud83d\udcd6 Anne&#8217;s witty, imaginative, and strong-willed nature shines through as she navigates love, friendship, and the personal struggles that come with growing up. \ud83d\udcab<\/p>\n<p>  As Anne grows and matures, she encounters the challenges of balancing her dreams with the realities of life. From her blossoming friendship with Priscilla Grant to her eventual romantic journey, Anne learns about heartache, love, and finding her true self. \ud83c\udf37 Anne&#8217;s growth through the ups and downs of life offers powerful lessons about the importance of following one&#8217;s heart and embracing new experiences. \ud83d\udc96<\/p>\n<p>  \u2728 **What You&#8217;ll Experience in this Video** \u2728<br \/>\n  &#8211; A timeless tale of adventure, friendship, and romance. \ud83d\udc8c<br \/>\n  &#8211; Insights into Anne&#8217;s character development and relationships. \ud83c\udf3f<br \/>\n  &#8211; A nostalgic look at Anne\u2019s college days and the unforgettable moments that shape her future. \ud83c\udf1f<br \/>\n  &#8211; An inspiring journey that will resonate with readers of all ages. \ud83c\udf3b<\/p>\n<p>  \u2728 **Why You Should Watch** \u2728<br \/>\n  &#8211; Relive the magic of Anne Shirley&#8217;s story with a fresh perspective. \ud83c\udfac<br \/>\n  &#8211; Immerse yourself in the beautiful world of Anne of the Island, filled with heartwarming moments. \ud83d\udc95<br \/>\n  &#8211; Get inspired by Anne\u2019s adventures and growth as she faces life\u2019s challenges. \ud83c\udf39<\/p>\n<p>  \ud83d\udc8c **Subscribe for More Timeless Stories!** \ud83d\udc8c<br \/>\n  Don&#8217;t forget to subscribe to **[Storytime Haven](https:\/\/bit.ly\/StorytimeHavenOfficial)** for more literary classics, heartfelt tales, and enchanting adventures! \ud83d\udcd6\u2728 Stay updated and be part of our growing community of book lovers! \ud83d\udcda\ud83d\udcac<\/p>\n<p>-No Hero by E. 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W. Speight (https:\/\/youtu.be\/jz4QAT6GcrQ)<br \/>\n-Crime and Punishment \u2696\ufe0f\ud83d\udd0d (https:\/\/youtu.be\/3Poxm5e13E0)<br \/>\n-The Broken Thread \ud83d\udcda\ud83d\udc94 &#8211; A Gripping Mystery by William Le Queux (https:\/\/youtu.be\/BWqDWK2rkcg)<br \/>\n-Anne of the Island \ud83c\udf38 | A Heartwarming Tale of Friendship, Love &#038; Growth \ud83c\udf3f (https:\/\/youtu.be\/CwVeg0fCztY)<\/p>\n<p>  **Hashtags**:<br \/>\n  #AnneOfTheIsland #LMMontgomery #AnneShirley #AnneOfGreenGables #BookLovers #ClassicLiterature #TimelessTales #LoveAndFriendship #ComingOfAge #RedmondCollege #AnneShirleyFan #LiteratureLovers #BooksToRead #YoungAdultFiction #RomanticTales #SelfDiscovery #AnneSeries #Storytime #HeartwarmingStories #ClassicBooks #LiteraryClassics #FriendshipGoals #LoveStory #CollegeLife #AnneOfGreenGablesSeries #AnneOfTheIslandStory #AnneShirleyQuotes #GrowingUp #AdventureAndLove<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anne of the Island \ud83c\udf38 | A Heartwarming Tale of Friendship, Love &#038; Growth \ud83c\udf3f Welcome to Storytime Haven. 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