indiscreet. At all events it was known; Mrs. Blythe no longer asked Anne, in
public or private, if she had heard lately from Gilbert, but passed her by with a
frosty bow. Anne, who had always liked Gilbert’s merry, young-hearted mother,
was grieved in secret over this. Marilla said nothing; but Mrs. Lynde gave Anne
many exasperated digs about it, until fresh gossip reached that worthy lady,
through the medium of Moody Spurgeon MacPherson’s mother, that Anne had
another “beau” at college, who was rich and handsome and good all in one. After
that Mrs. Rachel held her tongue, though she still wished in her inmost heart that
Anne had accepted Gilbert. Riches were all very well; but even Mrs. Rachel,
practical soul though she was, did not consider them the one essential. If Anne
“liked” the Handsome Unknown better than Gilbert there was nothing more to
be said; but Mrs. Rachel was dreadfully afraid that Anne was going to make the
mistake of marrying for money. Marilla knew Anne too well to fear this; but she
felt that something in the universal scheme of things had gone sadly awry.
“What is to be, will be,” said Mrs. Rachel gloomily, “and what isn’t to be
happens sometimes. I can’t help believing it’s going to happen in Anne’s case, if
Providence doesn’t interfere, that’s what.” Mrs. Rachel sighed. She was afraid
Providence wouldn’t interfere; and she didn’t dare to.
Anne had wandered down to the Dryad’s Bubble and was curled up among
the ferns at the root of the big white birch where she and Gilbert had so often sat
in summers gone by. He had gone into the newspaper office again when college
closed, and Avonlea seemed very dull without him. He never wrote to her, and
Anne missed the letters that never came. To be sure, Roy wrote twice a week;
his letters were exquisite compositions which would have read beautifully in a
memoir or biography. Anne felt herself more deeply in love with him than ever
when she read them; but her heart never gave the queer, quick, painful bound at
sight of his letters which it had given one day when Mrs. Hiram Sloane had
handed her out an envelope addressed in Gilbert’s black, upright handwriting.
Anne had hurried home to the east gable and opened it eagerly—to find a
typewritten copy of some college society report—“only that and nothing more.”
Anne flung the harmless screed across her room and sat down to write an
especially nice epistle to Roy.
Diana was to be married in five more days. The gray house at Orchard Slope
was in a turmoil of baking and brewing and boiling and stewing, for there was to
be a big, old-timey wedding. Anne, of course, was to be bridesmaid, as had been
arranged when they were twelve years old, and Gilbert was coming from
Kingsport to be best man. Anne was enjoying the excitement of the various
preparations, but under it all she carried a little heartache. She was, in a sense,