and her eyes and cheeks were very brilliant. She laughed and
chattered incessantly, and after the other girls had gone she took Anne
upstairs to display her new summer dresses.

"I've a blue silk to make up yet, but it's a little heavy for summer
wear. I think I'll leave it until the fall. I'm going to teach in White
Sands, you know. How do you like my hat? That one you had on in church
yesterday was real dinky. But I like something brighter for myself.
Did you notice those two ridiculous boys downstairs? They've both come
determined to sit each other out. I don't care a single bit about either
of them, you know. Herb Spencer is the one I like. Sometimes I really
do think he's MR. RIGHT. At Christmas I thought the Spencervale
schoolmaster was that. But I found out something about him that turned
me against him. He nearly went insane when I turned him down. I wish
those two boys hadn't come tonight. I wanted to have a nice good talk
with you, Anne, and tell you such heaps of things. You and I were always
good chums, weren't we?"

Ruby slipped her arm about Anne's waist with a shallow little laugh. But
just for a moment their eyes met, and, behind all the luster of Ruby's,
Anne saw something that made her heart ache.

"Come up often, won't you, Anne?" whispered Ruby. "Come alone--I want
you."

"Are you feeling quite well, Ruby?"

"Me! Why, I'm perfectly well. I never felt better in my life. Of course,
that congestion last winter pulled me down a little. But just see my
color. I don't look much like an invalid, I'm sure."

Ruby's voice was almost sharp. She pulled her arm away from Anne, as
if in resentment, and ran downstairs, where she was gayer than ever,
apparently so much absorbed in bantering her two swains that Diana and
Anne felt rather out of it and soon went away.

Chapter XII

"Averil's Atonement"

"What are you dreaming of, Anne?"

The two girls were loitering one evening in a fairy hollow of the brook.
Ferns nodded in it, and little grasses were green, and wild pears hung
finely-scented, white curtains around it.

Anne roused herself from her reverie with a happy sigh.

"I was thinking out my story, Diana."

"Oh, have you really begun it?" cried Diana, all alight with eager
interest in a moment.

"Yes, I have only a few pages written, but I have it all pretty well
thought out. I've had such a time to get a suitable plot. None of the
plots that suggested themselves suited a girl named