ht, Diana. You sent the story in and
made the alterations. I--I would certainly never have sent it. So you
must take the check."

"I'd like to see myself," said Diana scornfully. "Why, what I did wasn't
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'm so glad for your sake, Anne."

Anne suddenly bent forward, put her arms about Diana, and kissed her
cheek.

"I think you are the sweetest and truest friend in the world, Diana,"
she said, with a little tremble in her voice, "and I assure you I
appreciate the motive of what you've done."

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--never!

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's face.

"Why, Anne, what is the matter? I expected to find you radiant over
winning Rollings Reliable prize. Good for you!"

"Oh, Gilbert, not you," implored Anne, in an ET-TU BRUTE tone. "I
thought YOU would understand. Can't you see how awful it is?"

"I must confess I can't. WHAT is wrong?"

"Everything," moaned Anne. "I 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't you remember what Professor Hamilton used to tell
us in the literature class at Queen's? 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've written a story to
advertise Rollings Reliable? And, oh, when it gets out at Redmond! Think
how I'll be teased and laughed at!"

"That you won't," said Gilbert, wondering uneasily if it were that
confounded Junior's opinion in particular over which Anne was worried.
"The Reds will think just as I thought--that you, being like nine out of
ten of us, not overburdened with worldly weal