with the roses; and I would go forward, oh, so softly, and hold out my hands and say to her, ’Little Hester Gray, won’t you let me be your playmate, for I love the roses too?’ And we would sit down on the old bench and talk a little and dream a little, or just be beautifully silent together.  And then the moon would rise and I would look around me . . . and there would be no Hester Gray and no little vine-hung house, and no roses . . . only an old waste garden starred with June lilies amid the grasses, and the wind sighing, oh, so sorrowfully in the cherry trees.  And I would not know whether it had been real or if I had just imagined it all.”  Diana crawled up and got her back against the headboard of the bed.  When your companion of twilight hour said such spooky things it was just as well not to be able to fancy there was anything behind you.

“I’m afraid the Improvement Society will go down when you and Gilbert are both gone,” she remarked dolefully.

“Not a bit of fear of it,” said Anne briskly, coming back from dreamland to the affairs of practical life.  “It is too firmly established for that, especially since the older people are becoming so enthusiastic about it.  Look what they are doing this summer for their lawns and lanes.  Besides, I’ll be watching for hints at Redmond and I’ll write a paper for it next winter and send it over.  Don’t take such a gloomy view of things, Diana.  And don’t grudge me my little hour of gladness and jubilation now.  Later on, when I have to go away, I’ll feel anything but glad.”

“It’s all right for you to be glad . . . you’re going to college and you’ll have a jolly time and make heaps of lovely new friends.”

“I hope I shall make new friends,” said Anne thoughtfully.  “The possibilities of making new friends help to make life very fascinating.  But no matter how many friends I make they’ll never be as dear to me as the old ones . . . especially a certain girl with black eyes and dimples.  Can you guess who she is, Diana?”

“But there’ll be so many clever girls at Redmond,” sighed Diana, “and I’m only a stupid little country girl who says ‘I seen’ sometimes. . . though I really know better when I stop to think.  Well, of course these past two years have really been too pleasant to last.  I know somebody who is glad you are going to Redmond anyhow.  Anne, I’m going to ask you a question . . . a serious question.  Don’t be vexed and do answer seriously.  Do you care anything for Gilbert?”

“Ever so much as a friend and not a bit in the way you mean,” said Anne calmly and decidedly; she also thought she was speaking sincerely.

Diana sighed.  She wished, somehow, that Anne had answered differently.

“Don’t you mean ever to be married, Anne?”

“Perhaps . . . some day . . . when I meet the right one,” said Anne, smiling dreamily up at the moonlight.

“But how can you be sure when you do meet the right one?” persisted Diana.