d to me that she'd
just made a new 'mash.' I wouldn't ask her who it was, because I
knew she was dying to BE asked. Well, it's what Ruby always wanted, I
suppose. You remember even when she was little she always said she meant
to have dozens of beaus when she grew up and have the very gayest time
she could before she settled down. She's so different from Jane, isn't
she? Jane is such a nice, sensible, lady-like girl."

"Dear old Jane is a jewel," agreed Anne, "but," she added, leaning
forward to bestow a tender pat on the plump, dimpled little hand hanging
over her pillow, "there's nobody like my own Diana after all. Do
you remember that evening we first met, Diana, and 'swore' eternal
friendship in your garden? We've kept that 'oath,' I think . . . we've
never had a quarrel nor even a coolness. I shall never forget the thrill
that went over me the day you told me you loved me. I had had such a
lonely, starved heart all through my childhood. I'm just beginning to
realize how starved and lonely it really was. Nobody cared anything for
me or wanted to be bothered with me. I should have been miserable if
it hadn't been for that strange little dream-life of mine, wherein I
imagined all the friends and love I craved. But when I came to Green
Gables everything was changed. And then I met you. You don't know what
your friendship meant to me. I want to thank you here and now, dear, for
the warm and true affection you've always given me."

"And always, always will," sobbed Diana. "I shall NEVER love anybody
. . . any GIRL . . . half as well as I love you. And if I ever do marry
and have a little girl of my own I'm going to name her ANNE."

XXVII

An Afternoon at the Stone House

"Where are you going, all dressed up, Anne?" Davy wanted to know. "You
look bully in that dress."

Anne had come down to dinner in a new dress of pale green muslin . . .
the first color she had worn since Matthew's death. It became her
perfectly, bringing out all the delicate, flower-like tints of her face
and the gloss and burnish of her hair.

"Davy, how many times have I told you that you mustn't use that word,"
she rebuked. "I'm going to Echo Lodge."

"Take me with you," entreated Davy.

"I would if I were driving. But I'm going to walk and it's too far for
your eight-year-old legs. Besides, Paul is going with me and I fear you
don't enjoy yourself in his company."

"Oh, I like Paul lots better'n I did," said Davy, beginning to ma