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. "Mount Holly," the beautiful old Gordon homestead,
was a very gay place, overrun by Phil's 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
"jamborees"; Alec and Alonzo were so constantly on hand that Anne
wondered if they ever did anything but dance attendance on that
will-o'-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.

"And I depended so on you to help me make up my mind which of them I
should promise to marry," mourned Phil.

"You must do that for yourself. You are quite expert at making up
your mind as to whom other people should marry," retorted Anne, rather
caustically.

"Oh, that's a very different thing," said Phil, truly.

But the sweetest incident of Anne's sojourn in Bolingbroke was the visit
to her birthplace--the 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.

"It's almost exactly as I've pictured it," she said. "There is no
honeysuckle over the windows, but there is a lilac tree by the gate,
and--yes, there are the muslin curtains in the windows. How glad I am it
is still painted yellow."

A very tall, very thin woman opened the door.

"Yes, the Shirleys lived here twenty years ago," she said, in answer to
Anne's question. "They had it rented. I remember 'em. They both died of
fever at onct. It was turrible sad. They left a baby. I guess it's dead
long ago. It was a sickly thing. Old Thomas and his wife took it--as if
they hadn't enough of their own."

"It didn't die," said Anne, smiling. "I was that baby."

"You don't say so! Why, you have grown," exclaimed the woman, as if she
were much surprised that Anne was not still a baby. "Come to look at
you, I see the resemblance. You're 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?"