ature, so much everywhere in which to delight, and for which to be
thankful.' I think Redmond has taught me that in some measure, Anne."

"Judging from what you all, say" remarked Aunt Jamesina, "the sum
and substance is that you can learn--if you've got natural gumption
enough--in four years at college what it would take about twenty years
of living to teach you. Well, that justifies higher education in my
opinion. It's a matter I was always dubious about before."

"But what about people who haven't natural gumption, Aunt Jimsie?"

"People who haven't natural gumption never learn," retorted Aunt
Jamesina, "neither in college nor life. If they live to be a hundred
they really don't know anything more than when they were born. It's
their misfortune not their fault, poor souls. But those of us who have
some gumption should duly thank the Lord for it."

"Will you please define what gumption is, Aunt Jimsie?" asked Phil.

"No, I won't, young woman. Any one who has gumption knows what it is,
and any one who hasn't can never know what it is. So there is no need of
defining it."

The busy days flew by and examinations were over. Anne took High Honors
in English. Priscilla took Honors in Classics, and Phil in Mathematics.
Stella obtained a good all-round showing. Then came Convocation.

"This is what I would once have called an epoch in my life," said
Anne, as she took Roy's violets out of their box and gazed at them
thoughtfully. She meant to carry them, of course, but her eyes wandered
to another box on her table. It was filled with lilies-of-the-valley, as
fresh and fragrant as those which bloomed in the Green Gables yard when
June came to Avonlea. Gilbert Blythe's card lay beside it.

Anne wondered why Gilbert should have sent her flowers for Convocation.
She had seen very little of him during the past winter. He had come to
Patty's Place only one Friday evening since the Christmas holidays, and
they rarely met elsewhere. She knew he was studying very hard, aiming at
High Honors and the Cooper Prize, and he took little part in the social
doings of Redmond. Anne's own winter had been quite gay socially.
She had seen a good deal of the Gardners; she and Dorothy were very
intimate; college circles expected the announcement of her engagement to
Roy any day. Anne expected it herself. Yet just before she left Patty's
Place for Convocation she flung Roy's violets aside and put Gilbert's
lilies-of-the-valley in their place.