“Dear old Jane is a jewel,” agreed Anne, “but,” she added, leaning forward to bestow a tender pat on the plump, dimpled little hand hanging over her pillow, “there’s nobody like my own Diana after all.  Do you remember that evening we first met, Diana, and ‘swore’ eternal friendship in your garden?  We’ve kept that ‘oath,’ I think . . . we’ve never had a quarrel nor even a coolness.  I shall never forget the thrill that went over me the day you told me you loved me.  I had had such a lonely, starved heart all through my childhood.  I’m just beginning to realize how starved and lonely it really was.  Nobody cared anything for me or wanted to be bothered with me.  I should have been miserable if it hadn’t been for that strange little dream-life of mine, wherein I imagined all the friends and love I craved.  But when I came to Green Gables everything was changed.  And then I met you.  You don’t know what your friendship meant to me.  I want to thank you here and now, dear, for the warm and true affection you’ve always given me.”

“And always, always will,” sobbed Diana.  “I shall never love anybody . . . any girl . . . half as well as I love you.  And if I ever do marry and have a little girl of my own I’m going to name her Anne.”

XXVII

An Afternoon at the Stone House

“Where are you going, all dressed up, Anne?” Davy wanted to know.  “You look bully in that dress.”

Anne had come down to dinner in a new dress of pale green muslin . . . the first color she had worn since Matthew’s death.  It became her perfectly, bringing out all the delicate, flower-like tints of her face and the gloss and burnish of her hair.

“Davy, how many times have I told you that you mustn’t use that word,” she rebuked.  “I’m going to Echo Lodge.”

“Take me with you,” entreated Davy.

“I would if I were driving.  But I’m going to walk and it’s too far for your eight-year-old legs.  Besides, Paul is going with me and I fear you don’t enjoy yourself in his company.”

“Oh, I like Paul lots better’n I did,” said Davy, beginning to make fearful inroads into his pudding.  “Since I’ve got pretty good myself I don’t mind his being gooder so much.  If I can keep on I’ll catch up with him some day, both in legs and goodness.  ’Sides, Paul’s real nice to us second primer boys in school.  He won’t let the other big boys meddle with us and he shows us lots of games.”

“How came Paul to fall into the brook at noon hour yesterday?” asked Anne.  “I met him on the playground, such a dripping figure that I sent him promptly home for clothes without waiting to find out what had happened.”