t passed her by with a frosty bow. Anne, who
had always liked Gilbert's merry, young-hearted mother, was grieved in
secret over this. Marilla said nothing; but Mrs. Lynde gave Anne many
exasperated digs about it, until fresh gossip reached that worthy lady,
through the medium of Moody Spurgeon MacPherson's mother, that Anne had
another "beau" at college, who was rich and handsome and good all in
one. After that Mrs. Rachel held her tongue, though she still wished in
her inmost heart that Anne had accepted Gilbert. Riches were all very
well; but even Mrs. Rachel, practical soul though she was, did not
consider them the one essential. If Anne "liked" the Handsome Unknown
better than Gilbert there was nothing more to be said; but Mrs. Rachel
was dreadfully afraid that Anne was going to make the mistake of
marrying for money. Marilla knew Anne too well to fear this; but she
felt that something in the universal scheme of things had gone sadly
awry.

"What is to be, will be," said Mrs. Rachel gloomily, "and what isn't
to be happens sometimes. I can't help believing it's going to happen in
Anne's case, if Providence doesn't interfere, that's what." Mrs. Rachel
sighed. She was afraid Providence wouldn't interfere; and she didn't
dare to.

Anne had wandered down to the Dryad's Bubble and was curled up among the
ferns at the root of the big white birch where she and Gilbert had so
often sat in summers gone by. He had gone into the newspaper office
again when college closed, and Avonlea seemed very dull without him. He
never wrote to her, and Anne missed the letters that never came. To be
sure, Roy wrote twice a week; his letters were exquisite compositions
which would have read beautifully in a memoir or biography. Anne felt
herself more deeply in love with him than ever when she read them; but
her heart never gave the queer, quick, painful bound at sight of his
letters which it had given one day when Mrs. Hiram Sloane had handed her
out an envelope addressed in Gilbert's black, upright handwriting. Anne
had hurried home to the east gable and opened it eagerly--to find a
typewritten copy of some college society report--"only that and nothing
more." Anne flung the harmless screed across her room and sat down to
write an especially nice epistle to Roy.

Diana was to be married in five more days. The gray house at Orchard
Slope was in a turmoil of baking and brewing and boiling and stewing,
for there was to be a big, old-timey we