Gilbert stretched himself out on the ferns beside the Bubble and looked approvingly at Anne.  If Gilbert had been asked to describe his ideal woman the description would have answered point for point to Anne, even to those seven tiny freckles whose obnoxious presence still continued to vex her soul.  Gilbert was as yet little more than a boy; but a boy has his dreams as have others, and in Gilbert’s future there was always a girl with big, limpid gray eyes, and a face as fine and delicate as a flower.  He had made up his mind, also, that his future must be worthy of its goddess.  Even in quiet Avonlea there were temptations to be met and faced.  White Sands youth were a rather “fast” set, and Gilbert was popular wherever he went.  But he meant to keep himself worthy of Anne’s friendship and perhaps some distant day her love; and he watched over word and thought and deed as jealously as if her clear eyes were to pass in judgment on it.  She held over him the unconscious influence that every girl, whose ideals are high and pure, wields over her friends; an influence which would endure as long as she was faithful to those ideals and which she would as certainly lose if she were ever false to them.  In Gilbert’s eyes Anne’s greatest charm was the fact that she never stooped to the petty practices of so many of the Avonlea girls—­the small jealousies, the little deceits and rivalries, the palpable bids for favor.  Anne held herself apart from all this, not consciously or of design, but simply because anything of the sort was utterly foreign to her transparent, impulsive nature, crystal clear in its motives and aspirations.

But Gilbert did not attempt to put his thoughts into words, for he had already too good reason to know that Anne would mercilessly and frostily nip all attempts at sentiment in the bud—­or laugh at him, which was ten times worse.

“You look like a real dryad under that birch tree,” he said teasingly.

“I love birch trees,” said Anne, laying her cheek against the creamy satin of the slim bole, with one of the pretty, caressing gestures that came so natural to her.

“Then you’ll be glad to hear that Mr. Major Spencer has decided to set out a row of white birches all along the road front of his farm, by way of encouraging the A.V.I.S.,” said Gilbert.  “He was talking to me about it today.  Major Spencer is the most progressive and public-spirited man in Avonlea.  And Mr. William Bell is going to set out a spruce hedge along his road front and up his lane.  Our Society is getting on splendidly, Anne.  It is past the experimental stage and is an accepted fact.  The older folks are beginning to take an interest in it and the White Sands people are talking of starting one too.  Even Elisha Wright has come around since that day the Americans from the hotel had the picnic at the shore.  They praised our roadsides so highly and said they were so much prettier than in any other part of the Island.  And when, in due time, the other farmers follow Mr. Spencer’s good example and plant ornamental trees and hedges along their road fronts Avonlea will be the prettiest settlement in the province.”