said Anne, who never hesitated to give
credit where credit was due.

"I KNOW I'm gooder," said Davy confidently, "and I'll tell you how I
know it. Today Marilla give me two pieces of bread and jam, one for me
and one for Dora. One was a good deal bigger than the other and Marilla
didn't say which was mine. But I give the biggest piece to Dora. That
was good of me, wasn't it?"

"Very good, and very manly, Davy."

"Of course," admitted Davy, "Dora wasn't very hungry and she only et
half her slice and then she give the rest to me. But I didn't know she
was going to do that when I give it to her, so I WAS good, Anne."

In the twilight Anne sauntered down to the Dryad's Bubble and saw
Gilbert Blythe coming down through the dusky Haunted Wood. She had a
sudden realization that Gilbert was a schoolboy no longer. And how manly
he looked--the tall, frank-faced fellow, with the clear, straightforward
eyes and the broad shoulders. Anne thought Gilbert was a very handsome
lad, even though he didn't look at all like her ideal man. She and Diana
had long ago decided what kind of a man they admired and their tastes
seemed exactly similar. He must be very tall and distinguished looking,
with melancholy, inscrutable eyes, and a melting, sympathetic voice.
There was nothing either melancholy or inscrutable in Gilbert's
physiognomy, but of course that didn't matter in friendship!

Gilbert stretched himself out on the ferns beside the Bubble and looked
approvingly at Anne. If Gilbert had been asked to describe his ideal
woman the description would have answered point for point to Anne, even
to those seven tiny freckles whose obnoxious presence still continued to
vex her soul. Gilbert was as yet little more than a boy; but a boy has
his dreams as have others, and in Gilbert's future there was always a
girl with big, limpid gray eyes, and a face as fine and delicate as a
flower. He had made up his mind, also, that his future must be worthy of
its goddess. Even in quiet Avonlea there were temptations to be met
and faced. White Sands youth were a rather "fast" set, and Gilbert was
popular wherever he went. But he meant to keep himself worthy of Anne's
friendship and perhaps some distant day her love; and he watched over
word and thought and deed as jealously as if her clear eyes were to
pass in judgment on it. She held over him the unconscious influence that
every girl, whose ideals are high and pure, wields over her friends; an
influence