For the next month Anne lived in what,
For Anne and Lee,
Might be called a world of excitement.
The preparation of her own modest outfit for Redmond was secondary important.
Miss Lavender was getting ready to be married,
And the stone house was the scene of endless consultation and plannings and discussions,
With Charlotte the fourth hovering on the outskirts of things in agitated delight and wonder.
Then the dressmaker came,
And there was the rapture of Anne's righteousness of choosing fashions and being fitted.
Anne and Diana spent half their time at Echo Lodge,
And there were nights when Anne could not sleep for wondering whether she had done right in advising Miss Lavender to select brown rather than the navy blue for her travelling dress,
And to have her grey silk-maid princess.
Everybody concerned in Miss Lavender's story was very happy.
Paul Irving rushed to Green Gables to talk the news over with Anne as soon as his father had told him.
''I knew I could trust father to pick me out a nice little second mother,
'' he said proudly.
''It's a fine thing to have a father you can depend on,
Teacher.
I just love Miss Lavender,
Grandma is pleased too.
'' She says she is real glad father didn't pick out an American for his second wife,
Because although it turned out alright for the first time,
Such a thing wouldn't be likely to happen twice.
Miss Lind says she truly approves of the match and thinks it's likely Miss Lavender will give up her queer notions and be like other people now,
Now that she is going to be married.
But I hope she won't give her queer notions up,
Teacher,
Cause I like them and I don't want her to be like other people.
There are too many other people around as it is,
You know,
Teacher?
'' Charlotte the fourth was another radiant person.
''Oh,
Miss Shirley,
Ma'am,
It has all turned out so beautiful.
When Mr.
Irving and Miss Lavender came back I am to go up to Boston and live with them,
And me only fifteen and the other girls never went till they were sixty.
Ain't Mr.
Irving splendid?
He just worships the crowd she treats on and it makes me feel so queer sometimes to see the look in his eyes when he's watching her.
It beggars description,
Miss Shirley,
Ma'am.
I'm awful thankful they're so fond of each other.
It's the best way and only said and done,
Though some folks can't get along without it.
I've got an aunt who has been married three times and says she married the first time for love and the last two times for strictly business,
And was happy with all three except at the times of the funerals.
But I think she took a risk,
Miss Shirley,
Ma'am.
''Oh,
It is all so romantic,
'' greeted Aunt Marilla that night,
''if I hadn't taken the wrong path that day we went to Mr.
Kimball's.
I never have known Miss Lavender and if I hadn't met her I never have taken Paul there and he'd never have written to his father about visiting Miss Lavender just as Mr.
Irving was starting for San Francisco.
Mr.
Irving says whenever he got the letter he made up his mind to send his partner to San Francisco and come here instead.
He hadn't heard anything of Miss Lavender for fifteen years.
Somebody had told him then that she was to be married and he thought she was and never asked anybody anything about her.
And now everything has come right and I had a hand in bringing it about.
Perhaps as Mrs.
Lynde says,
Everything is for Ordnate and it was bound to happen anyway.
But even so it is nice to think one was an instrument used by predestination.
Yes,
Indeed,
It is very romantic.
'' ''I can't see that it is so terribly romantic at all,
'' said Marilla rather crisply.
Marilla thought Anne was too worked up about it and had plenty to do without getting ready for college,
Without rapesing to Ecolodge two days out of three helping Miss Lavender.
In the first place two young fools quarrel and turn sulky.
Then Steve Irving goes to the States and after a spell gets married up there and is perfectly happy from all accounts.
Then his wife dies and after a decent interval he thinks he'll come home and see if his first fancy will have him.
Meanwhile she's been living single,
Probably because nobody nice enough came along to want her,
And they meet and agree to be married after all.
Now where is the romance in all that?
'' ''Oh,
There isn't any when you put it that way,
'' gasped Anne,
Rather as if somebody had thrown cold water over her.
''I suppose that's how it looks in prose,
But it's very different if you look at it through poetry,
And I think it's nicer.
'' Anne recovered herself and her eyes shone,
And her cheeks flushed to look at it through poetry.
Marilla glanced at the radiant young face and refrained from further sarcastic comments.
Perhaps some realization came to her that after all it was better to have,
Like Anne,
The vision and the faculty divine,
That gift which the world cannot bestow or take away,
Of looking at life through some transfiguring or revealing medium,
Whereby everything seemed appalled in celestial light,
Wearing a glory and a freshness not visible to those who,
Like herself and Charlotte de Fort,
Looked at things only through prose.
''When's the wedding going to be?
'' she asked after a pause.
''The last Wednesday in August they are to be married in the garden under the honeysuckle trellis,
The very spot where Mr.
Irving proposed to her twenty-five years ago.
Marilla,
That is romantic even in prose.
There is to be nobody there except Mrs.
Irving and Paul and Gilbert and Diana and I and Miss Lavender's cousin,
And they will leave on the six o'clock train for a trip to the Pacific coast.
When they come back in the fall,
Paul and Charlotte de Fort are to go up to Boston to live with them,
But Eco Lodge is to be left just as it is.
Only of course they'll sell the hens and cow and board up the windows,
And every summer they're coming down to live in it.
I'm so glad it would have hurt me dreadfully next winter at Redmond.
Think of that dear stone house all stripped and deserted with empty rooms,
Or far worse still,
With other people living in it.
But I can't think of it now,
Chances I've always seen it,
Waiting happily for the summer to bring life and laughter back to it again.
There was more romance in the world than that which had fallen to the share of the middle-aged lovers of the stone house.
Anne stumbled suddenly on it one evening when she went over to Orchard Slope by the woodcut and came out into the berry garden.
Diana Berry and Fred Wright were standing together under the big willow.
Diana was leaning against the grey trunk,
Her lashes cast down on very crimson cheeks.
One hand was held by Fred,
Who stood with his face bent toward her,
Stammering something in low earnest tone.
There were no other people in the world except their two selves at that magic moment,
So neither of them saw Anne,
Who,
After one day's glass of comprehension,
Turned and sped noiselessly back through the spruce wood,
Never stopping till she gained her own gable room,
Where she sat breathlessly down by her window and tried to collect her scattered wits.
Diana and Fred are in love with each other,
She gasped.
Oh,
It does seem so,
So hopelessly grown up.
Anne of late had not been without her suspicions that Diana was proving false to the melancholy,
Ironic hero of her early dreams.
But as things seen are mightier than things heard,
One suspected the realization that it was actually so,
Came to her with almost a shock of perfect surprise.
This was succeeded by a queer,
Little lonely feeling,
As if somehow Diana had gone forward into a new world,
Shutting a gate behind her,
Leaving Anne on the outside.
Things are changing so fast it almost frightens me,
Anne thought a little sadly,
And I am afraid that this can't help making some difference between Diana and me.
I'm sure I cannot tell her all my secrets after this.
She might tell Fred,
And what can she see in Fred?
He is very nice and jolly,
But he is just Fred Wright.
It is always a very bustling question,
What can somebody see in somebody else?
How fortunate after all that it is so,
For if everybody saw alike,
Well in that case,
As the old Indian said,
Everybody would want my skull.
It was plain that Diana did see something in Fred Wright,
However,
Anne's eyes might be holden.
Diana came to Green Gables the next evening,
Pensive,
Shy,
Young lady,
And told Anne the whole story in the dusky seclusion of the East Gable.
Both girls cried and kissed and laughed.
I am so happy,
Said Diana,
But it does seem ridiculous to think of me being engaged.
What is it really like to being engaged,
Asked Anne curiously.
Well,
That all depends on who you are engaged to,
Answered Diana,
With that maddening air of superior wisdom always assumed by those who are engaged over those who are not.
It's perfectly lovely to be engaged to Fred,
But I think it would be simply horrid to be engaged to anyone else.
There is not much comfort for the rest of us in that,
Seeing that there is only one Fred,
Laughed Anne.
Oh,
Anne,
You don't understand,
Said Diana in vexation.
I didn't mean that,
It is so hard to explain.
Never mind,
You'll understand some time when your own turn comes.
Bless you,
Dearest of Diana's,
I understand now what is an imagination for if not to enable you to peep at life through other people's eyes.
You must be my bridesmaid,
You know,
Anne,
Promise me,
Wherever you may be when I'm married.
I'll come from the ends of the earth if necessary,
Promised Anne solemnly.
Of course it won't be forever so long yet,
Said Diana blushing.
Three years at very least,
For I am only eighteen,
And mother says no daughter of hers shall be married before she is twenty-one.
Besides,
Fred's father is going to buy the Abraham Fletcher farm for him,
And he says he's got to have it two-thirds paid for before he'll give it to him in his own name.
But three years isn't any too much time to get ready for housekeeping,
For I haven't the speck of fancy work made yet,
But I am going to begin crushing doilies tomorrow.
Mara Gillies had thirty-seven doilies when she was married,
And I am determined I shall have as many as she had.
I suppose it would be perfectly impossible to keep house with only thirty-six doilies,
Conceded Anne with a solemn face but dancing eyes.
Diana looked hurt.
I didn't think you'd make fun of me,
Anne,
She said reproachfully.
Dearest I wasn't making fun of you,
Cried Anne repentantly.
I was only teasing you a bit.
I think you'll make the sweetest little housekeeper in the world,
And I think it's perfectly lovely of you to be planning already for your little home of dreams.
Anne had no soon uttered the phrase home of dreams,
And it captivated her fancy,
And she immediately began the erection of one of her own.
It was,
Of course,
Tenanted by an ideal master,
Dark,
Proud,
And melancholy,
But oddly enough Gilbert Blythe persisted in hanging about too,
Helping her arrange pictures.
They had gardens and accomplished sundry other tasks,
Which a proud and melancholy hero evidently considered beneath his dignity,
And tried to banish Gilbert's image from her castle in Spain,
But somehow he went on being there.
So Anne,
Being in a hurry,
Gave up the attempt and pursued her aerial architecture with such success that her home of dreams was built and furnished before Diana spoke again.
I suppose,
Anne,
You must think it's funny I should like Fred so well,
When he's so different from the kind of man I always said I would marry,
The tall,
Slender kind.
Somehow I wouldn't want Fred to be tall and slender,
Because,
Don't you see,
He wouldn't be Fred then.
Of course,
Added Diana rather dolefully,
We will be a dreadfully butchy couple,
But after all that's better than one of us being short and fat and the other tall and lean like Morgan Sloane and his wife.
Miss Lynn says it always makes her think of the long and short of it when she sees them together.
Well,
Said Anne to herself that night as she brushed her hair before her gilt-framed mirror,
I am glad Diana is happy and satisfied,
But when my turn comes,
If it ever does,
I do hope there'll be something a little more thrilling about it.
But then Diana thought so,
Too,
Once.
I've heard her say,
Time and again,
She'd never get engaged any pokey,
Commonplace way.
He'd have to do something splendid to win her,
But she has changed.
Perhaps I'll change,
Too,
But I won't,
And I am determined I won't.
Oh,
I think these engagements are dreadfully unsettling,
Things when they happen to your intimate friends.
