-is an indispensable qualification. I'd
marry Gilbert Blythe if he were rich."

"Oh, would you?" said Anne, rather viciously.

"We don't like that idea a little bit, although we don't want Gilbert
ourselves, oh, no," mocked Phil. "But don't let's talk of disagreeable
subjects. I'll have to marry sometime, I suppose, but I shall put off
the evil day as long as I can."

"You mustn't marry anybody you don't love, Phil, when all's said and
done," said Aunt Jamesina.

"'Oh, hearts that loved in the good old way
Have been out o' the fashion this many a day.'"

trilled Phil mockingly. "There's the carriage. I fly--Bi-bi, you two
old-fashioned darlings."

When Phil had gone Aunt Jamesina looked solemnly at Anne.

"That girl is pretty and sweet and goodhearted, but do you think she is
quite right in her mind, by spells, Anne?"

"Oh, I don't think there's anything the matter with Phil's mind," said
Anne, hiding a smile. "It's just her way of talking."

Aunt Jamesina shook her head.

"Well, I hope so, Anne. I do hope so, because I love her. But _I_ can't
understand her--she beats me. She isn't like any of the girls I ever
knew, or any of the girls I was myself."

"How many girls were you, Aunt Jimsie?"

"About half a dozen, my dear."

Chapter XX

Gilbert Speaks

"This has been a dull, prosy day," 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.

"It has been a prosy day for us," she said thoughtfully, "but 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--or a great
poem written--or a great man born. And some heart has been broken,
Phil."

"Why did you spoil your pretty thought by tagging that last sentence
on, honey?" grumbled Phil. "I don't like to think of broken hearts--or
anything unpleasant."

"Do you think you'll be able to shirk unpleasant things all your life,
Phil?"

"Dear me, no. Am I not up against them now? You don't call Alec and
Alonzo pleasant things, do you, when they simply plague my life out?"

"You never take anything seriously, Phil."

"Why 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 s