he August afternoon; outside, poplar boughs
rustled and tossed in the wind; beyond them were the woods, where
Lover's Lane wound its enchanted path, and the old apple orchard which
still bore its rosy harvests munificently. And, over all, was a great
mountain range of snowy clouds in the blue southern sky. Through the
other window was glimpsed a distant, white-capped, blue sea--the
beautiful St. Lawrence Gulf, on which floats, like a jewel, Abegweit,
whose softer, sweeter Indian name has long been forsaken for the more
prosaic one of Prince Edward Island.

Diana Wright, three years older than when we last saw her, had grown
somewhat matronly in the intervening time. But her eyes were as black
and brilliant, her cheeks as rosy, and her dimples as enchanting, as in
the long-ago days when she and Anne Shirley had vowed eternal
friendship in the garden at Orchard Slope. In her arms she held a
small, sleeping, black-curled creature, who for two happy years had
been known to the world of Avonlea as "Small Anne Cordelia." Avonlea
folks knew why Diana had called her Anne, of course, but Avonlea folks
were puzzled by the Cordelia. There had never been a Cordelia in the
Wright or Barry connections. Mrs. Harmon Andrews said she supposed
Diana had found the name in some trashy novel, and wondered that Fred
hadn't more sense than to allow it. But Diana and Anne smiled at each
other. They knew how Small Anne Cordelia had come by her name.

"You always hated geometry," said Diana with a retrospective smile. "I
should think you'd be real glad to be through with teaching, anyhow."

"Oh, I've always liked teaching, apart from geometry. These past three
years in Summerside have been very pleasant ones. Mrs. Harmon Andrews
told me when I came home that I wouldn't likely find married life as
much better than teaching as I expected. Evidently Mrs. Harmon is of
Hamlet's opinion that it may be better to bear the ills that we have
than fly to others that we know not of."

Anne's laugh, as blithe and irresistible as of yore, with an added note
of sweetness and maturity, rang through the garret. Marilla in the
kitchen below, compounding blue plum preserve, heard it and smiled;
then sighed to think how seldom that dear laugh would echo through
Green Gables in the years to come. Nothing in her life had ever given
Marilla so much happiness as the knowledge that Anne was going to marry
Gilbert Blythe; but every joy must bring with it