cook, too. But
I taught her to cook BEFORE I let a college professor teach her
Mathematics."

In mid-March came a letter from Miss Patty Spofford, saying that she and
Miss Maria had decided to remain abroad for another year.

"So you may have Patty's Place next winter, too," she wrote. "Maria and
I are going to run over Egypt. I want to see the Sphinx once before I
die."

"Fancy those two dames 'running over Egypt'! I wonder if they'll look up
at the Sphinx and knit," laughed Priscilla.

"I'm so glad we can keep Patty's Place for another year," said Stella.
"I was afraid they'd come back. And then our jolly little nest here
would be broken up--and we poor callow nestlings thrown out on the cruel
world of boardinghouses again."

"I'm off for a tramp in the park," announced Phil, tossing her book
aside. "I think when I am eighty I'll be glad I went for a walk in the
park tonight."

"What do you mean?" asked Anne.

"Come with me and I'll tell you, honey."

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--a 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.

"I'd go home and write a poem this blessed minute if I only knew how,"
declared Phil, pausing in an open space where a rosy light was staining
the green tips of the pines. "It's all so wonderful here--this great,
white stillness, and those dark trees that always seem to be thinking."

"'The woods were God's first temples,'" quoted Anne softly. "One can't
help feeling reverent and adoring in such a place. I always feel so near
Him when I walk among the pines."

"Anne, I'm the happiest girl in the world," confessed Phil suddenly.

"So Mr. Blake has asked you to marry him at last?" said Anne calmly.

"Yes. And I sneezed three times while he was asking me. Wasn't that
horrid? But I said 'yes' almost before he finished--I was so afraid he
might change his mind and stop. I'm besottedly happy. I couldn't really
believe before that Jonas would ever care for frivolous me."

"Phil, you're not really frivolous," said Anne gravely. "'Way down
underneath that frivolous exterior of yours you've got a dear, loyal,
womanly little soul. Why do