British Columbia.

"It's probably from the children's uncle," she said excitedly, when she
got home. "Oh, Marilla, I wonder what he says about them."

"The best plan might be to open it and see," said Marilla curtly. A
close observer might have thought that she was excited also, but she
would rather have died than show it.

Anne tore open the letter and glanced over the somewhat untidy and
poorly written contents.

"He says he can't take the children this spring . . . he's been sick most
of the winter and his wedding is put off. He wants to know if we can
keep them till the fall and he'll try and take them then. We will, of
course, won't we Marilla?"

"I don't see that there is anything else for us to do," said Marilla
rather grimly, although she felt a secret relief. "Anyhow they're not so
much trouble as they were . . . or else we've got used to them. Davy has
improved a great deal."

"His MANNERS are certainly much better," said Anne cautiously, as if she
were not prepared to say as much for his morals.

Anne had come home from school the previous evening, to find Marilla
away at an Aid meeting, Dora asleep on the kitchen sofa, and Davy in
the sitting room closet, blissfully absorbing the contents of a jar of
Marilla's famous yellow plum preserves . . . "company jam," Davy called
it . . . which he had been forbidden to touch. He looked very guilty when
Anne pounced on him and whisked him out of the closet.

"Davy Keith, don't you know that it is very wrong of you to be eating
that jam, when you were told never to meddle with anything in THAT
closet?"

"Yes, I knew it was wrong," admitted Davy uncomfortably, "but plum jam
is awful nice, Anne. I just peeped in and it looked so good I thought
I'd take just a weeny taste. I stuck my finger in . . ." Anne groaned
. . . "and licked it clean. And it was so much gooder than I'd ever thought
that I got a spoon and just SAILED IN."

Anne gave him such a serious lecture on the sin of stealing plum jam
that Davy became conscience stricken and promised with repentant kisses
never to do it again.

"Anyhow, there'll be plenty of jam in heaven, that's one comfort," he
said complacently.

Anne nipped a smile in the bud.

"Perhaps there will . . . if we want it," she said, "But what makes you
think so?"

"Why, it's in the catechism," said Davy.

"Oh, no, there is nothing like THAT in the catechism, Davy."

"But I tell you there is," persisted Davy. "It was in t