love with an ugly man. Fancy me coming down to one solitary

beau. And one named Jonas! But I mean to call him Jo. That's
such a nice, crisp little name. I couldn't nickname Alonzo."

"What about Alec and Alonzo?"
"Oh, I told them at Christmas that I never could marry either of

them. It seems so funny now to remember that I ever thought it
possible that I might. They felt so badly I just cried over both

of them -- howled. But I knew there was only one man in the
world I could ever marry. I had made up my own mind for once and

it was real easy, too. It's very delightful to feel so sure, and
know it's your own sureness and not somebody else's."

"Do you suppose you'll be able to keep it up?"
"Making up my mind, you mean? I don't know, but Jo has given me

a splendid rule. He says, when I'm perplexed, just to do what I
would wish I had done when I shall be eighty. Anyhow, Jo can

make up his mind quickly enough, and it would be uncomfortable
to have too much mind in the same house."

"What will your father and mother say?"
"Father won't say much. He thinks everything I do right.

But mother WILL talk. Oh, her tongue will be as Byrney as
her nose. But in the end it will be all right."

"You'll have to give up a good many things you've always had,
when you marry Mr. Blake, Phil."

"But I'll have HIM. I won't miss the other things. We're to be
married a year from next June. Jo graduates from St. Columbia

this spring, you know. Then he's going to take a little mission
church down on Patterson Street in the slums. Fancy me in the

slums! But I'd go there or to Greenland's icy mountains with him."
"And this is the girl who would NEVER marry a man who wasn't rich,"

commented Anne to a young pine tree.
"Oh, don't cast up the follies of my youth to me. I shall be

poor as gaily as I've been rich. You'll see. I'm going to learn
how to cook and make over dresses. I've learned how to market

since I've lived at Patty's Place; and once I taught a Sunday
School class for a whole summer. Aunt Jamesina says I'll ruin

Jo's career if I marry him. But I won't. I know I haven't much
sense or sobriety, but I've got what is ever so much better --

the knack of making people like me. There is a man in
Bolingbroke who lisps and always testifies in prayer-meeting.

He says, 'If you can't thine like an electric thtar thine like
a candlethtick.' I'll be Jo's little candlestick."

"Phil, you're incorrigible. Well, I love you so much that
I can't make nice, light, congratulatory little speeches.

But I'm heart-glad of your happiness."
"I know. Those big gray eyes of yours are brimming over with

real friendship, Anne. Some day I'll look the same way at you.
You're going to marry Roy, aren't you, Anne?"

"My dear Philippa, did you ever hear of the famous Betty Baxter,
who `refused a man before he'd axed her'? I am not going to

emulate that celebrated lady by either refusing or accepting any
one before he `axes' me."

"All Redmond knows that Roy is crazy about you," said Phil candidly."
And you DO love him, don't you, Anne?"

"I -- I suppose so," said Anne reluctantly. She felt that she ought
to be blushing while making such a confession; but she was not;

on the other hand, she always blushed hotly when any one said
anything about Gilbert Blythe or Christine Stuart in her hearing.

Gilbert Blythe and Christine Stuart were nothing to her --
absolutely nothing. But Anne had given up trying to analyze

the reason of her blushes. As for Roy, of course she was in
love with him -- madly so. How could she help it? Was he not

her ideal? Who could resist those glorious dark eyes, and that
pleading voice? Were not half the Redmond girls wildly envious?

And what a charmingsonnet he had sent her, with a box of violets,
on her birthday! Anne knew every word of it by heart. It was very

good stuff of its kind, too. Not exactly up to the level of Keats or
Shakespeare -- even Anne was not so deeply in love as to think that.

But it was very tolerable magazine verse. And it was addressed to HER --
not to Laura or Beatrice or the Maid of Athens, but to her, Anne Shirley.

To be told in rhythmical cadences that her eyes were stars of the morning
-- that her cheek had the flush it stole from the sunrise -- that her

lips were redder than the roses of Paradise, was thrillingly romantic.
Gilbert would never have dreamed of writing a sonnet to her eyebrows.

But then, Gilbert could see a joke. She had once told Roy a funny story
-- and he had not seen the point of it. She recalled the chummy laugh

she and Gilbert had had together over it, and wondered uneasily if life
with a man who had no sense of humor might not be somewhat uninteresting

in the long run. But who could expect a melancholy, inscrutable hero to
see the humorous side of things? It would be flatly unreasonable.

Chapter XXVIII
A June Evening

"I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was
always June," said Anne, as she came through the spice and bloom

of the twilit orchard to the front door steps, where Marilla and
Mrs. Rachel were sitting, talking over Mrs. Samson Coates' funeral,

which they had attended that day. Dora sat between them, diligently
studying her lessons; but Davy was sitting tailor-fashion on the grass,

looking as gloomy and depressed as his single dimple would let him.
"You'd get tired of it," said Marilla, with a sigh.

"I daresay; but just now I feel that it would take me a long
time to get tired of it, if it were all as charming as today.

Everything loves June. Davy-boy, why this melancholy November
face in blossom-time?"

"I'm just sick and tired of living," said the youthful pessimist.
"At ten years? Dear me, how sad!"

"I'm not making fun," said Davy with dignity. "I'm dis -- dis --
discouraged" -- bringing out the big word with a valiant effort.

"Why and wherefore?" asked Anne, sitting down beside him.
"'Cause the new teacher that come when Mr. Holmes got sick give

me ten sums to do for Monday. It'll take me all day tomorrow to
do them. It isn't fair to have to work Saturdays. Milty Boulter

said he wouldn't do them, but Marilla says I've got to. I don't
like Miss Carson a bit."

"Don't talk like that about your teacher, Davy Keith," said
Mrs. Rachel severely. "Miss Carson is a very fine girl.

There is no nonsense about her."
"That doesn't sound very attractive," laughed Anne. "I like

people to have a little nonsense about them. But I'm inclined
to have a better opinion of Miss Carson than you have. I saw her

in prayer-meeting last night, and she has a pair of eyes that
can't always look sensible. Now, Davy-boy, take heart of grace.

`Tomorrow will bring another day' and I'll help you with the sums
as far as in me lies. Don't waste this lovely hour `twixt light

and dark worrying over arithmetic."
"Well, I won't," said Davy, brightening up. "If you help me

with the sums I'll have 'em done in time to go fishing with Milty.
I wish old Aunt Atossa's funeral was tomorrow instead of today.

I wanted to go to it 'cause Milty said his mother said Aunt Atossa
would be sure to rise up in her coffin and say sarcastic things to

the folks that come to see her buried. But Marilla said she didn't."
"Poor Atossa laid in her coffinpeaceful enough," said Mrs. Lynde

solemnly. "I never saw her look so pleasant before, that's what.
Well, there weren't many tears shed over her, poor old soul.

The Elisha Wrights are thankful to be rid of her, and I can't
say I blame them a mite."