f old dreams could haunt
rooms--if, when one left forever the room where she had joyed and
suffered and laughed and wept, something of her, intangible and
invisible, yet nonetheless real, did not remain behind like a voiceful
memory.

"I think," said Phil, "that a room where one dreams and grieves and
rejoices and lives becomes inseparably connected with those processes
and acquires a personality of its own. I am sure if I came into this
room fifty years from now it would say 'Anne, Anne' to me. What nice
times we've had here, honey! What chats and jokes and good chummy
jamborees! Oh, dear me! I'm to marry Jo in June and I know I will
be rapturously happy. But just now I feel as if I wanted this lovely
Redmond life to go on forever."

"I'm unreasonable enough just now to wish that, too," admitted Anne. "No
matter what deeper joys may come to us later on we'll never again have
just the same delightful, irresponsible existence we've had here. It's
over forever, Phil."

"What are you going to do with Rusty?" asked Phil, as that privileged
pussy padded into the room.

"I am going to take him home with me and Joseph and the Sarah-cat,"
announced Aunt Jamesina, following Rusty. "It would be a shame to
separate those cats now that they have learned to live together. It's a
hard lesson for cats and humans to learn."

"I'm sorry to part with Rusty," said Anne regretfully, "but it would be
no use to take him to Green Gables. Marilla detests cats, and Davy would
tease his life out. Besides, I don't suppose I'll be home very long.
I've been offered the principalship of the Summerside High School."

"Are you going to accept it?" asked Phil.

"I--I haven't decided yet," answered Anne, with a confused flush.

Phil nodded understandingly. Naturally Anne's plans could not be settled
until Roy had spoken. He would soon--there was no doubt of that. And
there was no doubt that Anne would say "yes" when he said "Will
you please?" Anne herself regarded the state of affairs with a
seldom-ruffled complacency. She was deeply in love with Roy. True, it
was not just what she had imagined love to be. But was anything in life,
Anne asked herself wearily, like one's imagination of it? It was the old
diamond disillusion of childhood repeated--the same disappointment she
had felt when she had first seen the chill sparkle instead of the purple
splendor she had anticipated. "That's not my idea of a diamond," she had
said. But Roy was a dear fe