d out," she
said.

"It's so very sad and dreadful," said Anne in a low tone. "Ruby doesn't
seem to realize her condition in the least. And yet I somehow feel she
needs help--craves it--and I want to give it to her and can't. All the
time I'm with her I feel as if I were watching her struggle with an
invisible foe--trying to push it back with such feeble resistance as she
has. That is why I come home tired."

But tonight Anne did not feel this so keenly. Ruby was strangely quiet.
She said not a word about parties and drives and dresses and "fellows."
She lay in the hammock, with her untouched work beside her, and a
white shawl wrapped about her thin shoulders. Her long yellow braids of
hair--how Anne had envied those beautiful braids in old schooldays!--lay
on either side of her. She had taken the pins out--they made her head
ache, she said. The hectic flush was gone for the time, leaving her pale
and childlike.

The moon rose in the silvery sky, empearling the clouds around her.
Below, the pond shimmered in its hazy radiance. Just beyond the
Gillis homestead was the church, with the old graveyard beside it. The
moonlight shone on the white stones, bringing them out in clear-cut
relief against the dark trees behind.

"How strange the graveyard looks by moonlight!" said Ruby suddenly.
"How ghostly!" she shuddered. "Anne, it won't be long now before I'll
be lying over there. You and Diana and all the rest will be going about,
full of life--and I'll be there--in the old graveyard--dead!"

The surprise of it bewildered Anne. For a few moments she could not
speak.

"You know it's so, don't you?" said Ruby insistently.

"Yes, I know," answered Anne in a low tone. "Dear Ruby, I know."

"Everybody knows it," said Ruby bitterly. "I know it--I've known it all
summer, though I wouldn't give in. And, oh, Anne"--she reached out and
caught Anne's hand pleadingly, impulsively--"I don't want to die. I'm
AFRAID to die."

"Why should you be afraid, Ruby?" asked Anne quietly.

"Because--because--oh, I'm not afraid but that I'll go to heaven,
Anne. I'm a church member. But--it'll be all so different. I think--and
think--and I get so frightened--and--and--homesick. Heaven must be very
beautiful, of course, the Bible says so--but, Anne, IT WON'T BE WHAT
I'VE BEEN USED TO."

Through Anne's mind drifted an intrusive recollection of a funny story
she had heard Philippa Gordon tell--the story of some old man who had
said very much