“I’m unreasonable enough just now to wish that, too,” admitted Anne.  “No matter what deeper joys may come to us later on we’ll never again have just the same delightful, irresponsible existence we’ve had here.  It’s over forever, Phil.”

“What are you going to do with Rusty?” asked Phil, as that privileged pussy padded into the room.

“I am going to take him home with me and Joseph and the Sarah-cat,” announced Aunt Jamesina, following Rusty.  “It would be a shame to separate those cats now that they have learned to live together.  It’s a hard lesson for cats and humans to learn.”

“I’m sorry to part with Rusty,” said Anne regretfully, “but it would be no use to take him to Green Gables.  Marilla detests cats, and Davy would tease his life out.  Besides, I don’t suppose I’ll be home very long.  I’ve been offered the principalship of the Summerside High School.”

“Are you going to accept it?” asked Phil.

“I—­I haven’t decided yet,” answered Anne, with a confused flush.

Phil nodded understandingly.  Naturally Anne’s plans could not be settled until Roy had spoken.  He would soon—­there was no doubt of that.  And there was no doubt that Anne would say “yes” when he said “Will you please?” Anne herself regarded the state of affairs with a seldom-ruffled complacency.  She was deeply in love with Roy.  True, it was not just what she had imagined love to be.  But was anything in life, Anne asked herself wearily, like one’s imagination of it?  It was the old diamond disillusion of childhood repeated—­the same disappointment she had felt when she had first seen the chill sparkle instead of the purple splendor she had anticipated.  “That’s not my idea of a diamond,” she had said.  But Roy was a dear fellow and they would be very happy together, even if some indefinable zest was missing out of life.  When Roy came down that evening and asked Anne to walk in the park every one at Patty’s Place knew what he had come to say; and every one knew, or thought they knew, what Anne’s answer would be.

“Anne is a very fortunate girl,” said Aunt Jamesina.

“I suppose so,” said Stella, shrugging her shoulders.  “Roy is a nice fellow and all that.  But there’s really nothing in him.”

“That sounds very like a jealous remark, Stella Maynard,” said Aunt Jamesina rebukingly.

“It does—­but I am not jealous,” said Stella calmly.  “I love Anne and I like Roy.  Everybody says she is making a brilliant match, and even Mrs. Gardner thinks her charming now.  It all sounds as if it were made in heaven, but I have my doubts.  Make the most of that, Aunt Jamesina.”