sn't the hardest death by any means."

"Oh, I suppose the dying would be easy enough; it's the living an old
maid I shouldn't like," said Diana, with no intention of being humorous.
"Although I wouldn't mind being an old maid VERY much if I could be one
like Miss Lavendar. But I never could be. When I'm forty-five I'll be
horribly fat. And while there might be some romance about a thin old
maid there couldn't possibly be any about a fat one. Oh, mind you,
Nelson Atkins proposed to Ruby Gillis three weeks ago. Ruby told me all
about it. She says she never had any intention of taking him, because
any one who married him will have to go in with the old folks; but Ruby
says that he made such a perfectly beautiful and romantic proposal that
it simply swept her off her feet. But she didn't want to do anything
rash so she asked for a week to consider; and two days later she was
at a meeting of the Sewing Circle at his mother's and there was a book
called 'The Complete Guide to Etiquette,' lying on the parlor table.
Ruby said she simply couldn't describe her feelings when in a section
of it headed, 'The Deportment of Courtship and Marriage,' she found the
very proposal Nelson had made, word for word. She went home and wrote
him a perfectly scathing refusal; and she says his father and mother
have taken turns watching him ever since for fear he'll drown himself in
the river; but Ruby says they needn't be afraid; for in the Deportment
of Courtship and Marriage it told how a rejected lover should behave
and there's nothing about drowning in THAT. And she says Wilbur Blair
is literally pining away for her but she's perfectly helpless in the
matter."

Anne made an impatient movement.

"I hate to say it . . . it seems so disloyal . . . but, well, I don't
like Ruby Gillis now. I liked her when we went to school and Queen's
together . . . though not so well as you and Jane of course. But this last
year at Carmody she seems so different . . . so . . . so . . ."

"I know," nodded Diana. "It's the Gillis coming out in her . . . she
can't help it. Mrs. Lynde says that if ever a Gillis girl thought about
anything but the boys she never showed it in her walk and conversation.
She talks about nothing but boys and what compliments they pay her, and
how crazy they all are about her at Carmody. And the strange thing is,
they ARE, too . . ." Diana admitted this somewhat resentfully. "Last
night when I saw her in Mr. Blair's store she whispere