ged to Miss Stuart," replied
Anne, with Spartan composure, "but it is certainly true that she is very
lovely."

"I once thought you and Gilbert would have made a match of it," said
Mrs. Harmon. "If you don't take care, Anne, all of your beaux will slip
through your fingers."

Anne decided not to continue her duel with Mrs. Harmon. You could not
fence with an antagonist who met rapier thrust with blow of battle axe.

"Since Jane is away," she said, rising haughtily, "I don't think I can
stay longer this morning. I'll come down when she comes home."

"Do," said Mrs. Harmon effusively. "Jane isn't a bit proud. She just
means to associate with her old friends the same as ever. She'll be real
glad to see you."

Jane's millionaire arrived the last of May and carried her off in a
blaze of splendor. Mrs. Lynde was spitefully gratified to find that
Mr. Inglis was every day of forty, and short and thin and grayish. Mrs.
Lynde did not spare him in her enumeration of his shortcomings, you may
be sure.

"It will take all his gold to gild a pill like him, that's what," said
Mrs. Rachel solemnly.

"He looks kind and good-hearted," said Anne loyally, "and I'm sure he
thinks the world of Jane."

"Humph!" said Mrs. Rachel.

Phil Gordon was married the next week and Anne went over to Bolingbroke
to be her bridesmaid. Phil made a dainty fairy of a bride, and the Rev.
Jo was so radiant in his happiness that nobody thought him plain.

"We're going for a lovers' saunter through the land of Evangeline," said
Phil, "and then we'll settle down on Patterson Street. Mother thinks
it is terrible--she thinks Jo might at least take a church in a decent
place. But the wilderness of the Patterson slums will blossom like the
rose for me if Jo is there. Oh, Anne, I'm so happy my heart aches with
it."

Anne was always glad in the happiness of her friends; but it is
sometimes a little lonely to be surrounded everywhere by a happiness
that is not your own. And it was just the same when she went back to
Avonlea. This time it was Diana who was bathed in the wonderful glory
that comes to a woman when her first-born is laid beside her. Anne
looked at the white young mother with a certain awe that had never
entered into her feelings for Diana before. Could this pale woman with
the rapture in her eyes be the little black-curled, rosy-cheeked Diana
she had played with in vanished schooldays? It gave her a queer desolate
feeling that she herself some