ON the morning when the final results of all the examinations were to be

posted on the bulletin board at Queen’s, Anne and Jane walked down the

street together. Jane was smiling and happy; examinations were over

and she was comfortably sure she had made a pass at least; further

considerations troubled Jane not at all; she had no soaring ambitions

and consequently was not affected with the unrest attendant thereon. For

we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although

ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won, but

exact their dues of work and self-denial, anxiety and discouragement.

Anne was pale and quiet; in ten more minutes she would know who had

won the medal and who the Avery. Beyond those ten minutes there did not

seem, just then, to be anything worth being called Time.

“Of course you’ll win one of them anyhow,” said Jane, who couldn’t

understand how the faculty could be so unfair as to order it otherwise.

“I have not hope of the Avery,” said Anne. “Everybody says Emily Clay

will win it. And I’m not going to march up to that bulletin board and

look at it before everybody. I haven’t the moral courage. I’m going

straight to the girls’ dressing room. You must read the announcements

and then come and tell me, Jane. And I implore you in the name of our

old friendship to do it as quickly as possible. If I have failed just

say so, without trying to break it gently; and whatever you do _don’t_

sympathize with me. Promise me this, Jane.”

Jane promised solemnly; but, as it happened, there was no necessity for

such a promise. When they went up the entrance steps of Queen’s they

found the hall full of boys who were carrying Gilbert Blythe around on

their shoulders and yelling at the tops of their voices, “Hurrah for

Blythe, Medalist!”

For a moment Anne felt one sickening pang of defeat and disappointment.

So she had failed and Gilbert had won! Well, Matthew would be sorry--he

had been so sure she would win.

And then!

Somebody called out:

“Three cheers for Miss Shirley, winner of the Avery!”

“Oh, Anne,” gasped Jane, as they fled to the girls’ dressing room amid

hearty cheers. “Oh, Anne I’m so proud! Isn’t it splendid?”

And then the girls were around them and Anne was the center of a

laughing, congratulating group. Her shoulders were thumped and her hands

shaken vigorously. She was pushed and pulled and hugged and among it all

she managed to whisper to Jane:

“Oh, won’t Matthew and Marilla be pleased! I must write the news home

right away.”

Commencement was the next important happening. The exercises were held

in the big assembly hall of the Academy. Addresses were given, essays

read, songs sung, the public award of diplomas, prizes and medals made.

Matthew and Marilla were there, with eyes and ears for only one student

on the platform--a tall girl in pale green, with faintly flushed

cheeks and starry eyes, who read the best essay and was pointed out and

whispered about as the Avery winner.

“Reckon you’re glad we kept her, Marilla?” whispered Matthew, speaking

for the first time since he had entered the hall, when Anne had finished

her essay.

“It’s not the first time I’ve been glad,” retorted Marilla. “You do like

to rub things in, Matthew Cuthbert.”

Miss Barry, who was sitting behind them, leaned forward and poked

Marilla in the back with her parasol.

“Aren’t you proud of that Anne-girl? I am,” she said.

Anne went home to Avonlea with Matthew and Marilla that evening. She had

not been home since April and she felt that she could not wait another

day. The apple blossoms were out and the world was fresh and young.

Diana was at Green Gables to meet her. In her own white room, where

Marilla had set a flowering house rose on the window sill, Anne looked

about her and drew a long breath of happiness.

“Oh, Diana, it’s so good to be back again. It’s so good to see those

pointed firs coming out against the pink sky--and that white orchard and

the old Snow Queen. Isn’t the breath of the mint delicious? And that tea

rose--why, it’s a song and a hope and a prayer all in one. And it’s _good_

to see you again, Diana!”

“I thought you liked that Stella Maynard better than me,” said

Diana reproachfully. “Josie Pye told me you did. Josie said you were

_infatuated_ with her.”

Anne laughed and pelted Diana with the faded “June lilies” of her

bouquet.

“Stella Maynard is the dearest girl in the world except one and you are

that one, Diana,” she said. “I love you more than ever--and I’ve so many

things to tell you. But just now I feel as if it were joy enough to sit

here and look at you. I’m tired, I think--tired of being studious and

ambitious. I mean to spend at least two hours tomorrow lying out in the

orchard grass, thinking of absolutely nothing.”

“You’ve done splendidly, Anne. I suppose you won’t be teaching now that

you’ve won the Avery?”

“No. I’m going to Redmond in September. Doesn’t it seem wonderful? I’ll

have a brand new stock of ambition laid in by that time after three

glorious, golden months of vacation. Jane and Ruby are going to teach.

Isn’t it splendid to think we all got through even to Moody Spurgeon and

Josie Pye?”

“The Newbridge trustees have offered Jane their school already,” said

Diana. “Gilbert Blythe is going to teach, too. He has to. His father

can’t afford to send him to college next year, after all, so he means

to earn his own way through. I expect he’ll get the school here if Miss

Ames decides to leave.”

Anne felt a queer little sensation of dismayed surprise. She had not

known this; she had expected that Gilbert would be going to Redmond

also. What would she do without their inspiring rivalry? Would not

work, even at a coeducational college with a real degree in prospect, be

rather flat without her friend the enemy?

The next morning at breakfast it suddenly struck Anne that Matthew was

not looking well. Surely he was much grayer than he had been a year

before.

“Marilla,” she said hesitatingly when he had gone out, “is Matthew quite

well?”

“No, he isn’t,” said Marilla in a troubled tone. “He’s had some real

bad spells with his heart this spring and he won’t spare himself a mite.

I’ve been real worried about him, but he’s some better this while back

and we’ve got a good hired man, so I’m hoping he’ll kind of rest and

pick up. Maybe he will now you’re home. You always cheer him up.”

Anne leaned across the table and took Marilla’s face in her hands.

“You are not looking as well yourself as I’d like to see you, Marilla.

You look tired. I’m afraid you’ve been working too hard. You must take

a rest, now that I’m home. I’m just going to take this one day off to

visit all the dear old spots and hunt up my old dreams, and then it will

be your turn to be lazy while I do the work.”

Marilla smiled affectionately at her girl.

“It’s not the work--it’s my head. I’ve got a pain so often now--behind

my eyes. Doctor Spencer’s been fussing with glasses, but they don’t do

me any good. There is a distinguished oculist coming to the Island the

last of June and the doctor says I must see him. I guess I’ll have to.

I can’t read or sew with any comfort now. Well, Anne, you’ve done real

well at Queen’s I must say. To take First Class License in one year and

win the Avery scholarship--well, well, Mrs. Lynde says pride goes before

a fall and she doesn’t believe in the higher education of women at all;

she says it unfits them for woman’s true sphere. I don’t believe a word

of it. Speaking of Rachel reminds me--did you hear anything about the

Abbey Bank lately, Anne?”

“I heard it was shaky,” answered Anne. “Why?”

“That is what Rachel said. She was up here one day last week and said

there was some talk about it. Matthew felt real worried. All we have

saved is in that bank--every penny. I wanted Matthew to put it in the

Savings Bank in the first place, but old Mr. Abbey was a great friend of

father’s and he’d always banked with him. Matthew said any bank with him

at the head of it was good enough for anybody.”

“I think he has only been its nominal head for many years,” said

Anne. “He is a very old man; his nephews are really at the head of the

institution.”

“Well, when Rachel told us that, I wanted Matthew to draw our money

right out and he said he’d think of it. But Mr. Russell told him

yesterday that the bank was all right.”

Anne had her good day in the companionship of the outdoor world. She

never forgot that day; it was so bright and golden and fair, so free

from shadow and so lavish of blossom. Anne spent some of its rich hours

in the orchard; she went to the Dryad’s Bubble and Willowmere and Violet

Vale; she called at the manse and had a satisfying talk with Mrs. Allan;

and finally in the evening she went with Matthew for the cows, through

Lovers’ Lane to the back pasture. The woods were all gloried through

with sunset and the warm splendor of it streamed down through the hill

gaps in the west. Matthew walked slowly with bent head; Anne, tall and

erect, suited her springing step to his.

“You’ve been working too hard today, Matthew,” she said reproachfully.

“Why won’t you take things easier?”

“Well now, I can’t seem to,” said Matthew, as he opened the yard gate

to let the cows through. “It’s only that I’m getting old, Anne, and keep

forgetting it. Well, well, I’ve always worked pretty hard and I’d rather

drop in harness.”

“If I had been the boy you sent for,” said Anne wistfully, “I’d be able

to help you so much now and spare you in a hundred ways. I could find it

in my heart to wish I had been, just for that.”

“Well now, I’d rather have you than a dozen boys, Anne,” said Matthew

patting her hand. “Just mind you that--rather than a dozen boys. Well

now, I guess it wasn’t a boy that took the Avery scholarship, was it? It

was a girl--my girl--my girl that I’m proud of.”

He smiled his shy smile at her as he went into the yard. Anne took the

memory of it with her when she went to her room that night and sat for a

long while at her open window, thinking of the past and dreaming of the

future. Outside the Snow Queen was mistily white in the moonshine;

the frogs were singing in the marsh beyond Orchard Slope. Anne always

remembered the silvery, peaceful beauty and fragrant calm of that night.

It was the last night before sorrow touched her life; and no life is

ever quite the same again when once that cold, sanctifying touch has

been laid upon it.