call me piggy. And he et fast and
took big bites and Marilla is always telling me not to do that. Why can
ministers do what boys can't? I want to know.

"I haven't any more news. Here are six kisses. xxxxxx. Dora sends one.
Heres hers. x.

"Your loving friend DAVID KEITH"

"P.S. Anne, who was the devils father? I want to know."

Chapter XVIII

Miss Josepine Remembers the Anne-girl

When Christmas holidays came the girls of Patty's Place scattered to
their respective homes, but Aunt Jamesina elected to stay where she was.

"I couldn't go to any of the places I've been invited and take those
three cats," she said. "And I'm not going to leave the poor creatures
here alone for nearly three weeks. If we had any decent neighbors who
would feed them I might, but there's nothing except millionaires on this
street. So I'll stay here and keep Patty's Place warm for you."

Anne went home with the usual joyous anticipations--which were not
wholly fulfilled. She found Avonlea in the grip of such an early, cold,
and stormy winter as even the "oldest inhabitant" could not recall.
Green Gables was literally hemmed in by huge drifts. Almost every day of
that ill-starred vacation it stormed fiercely; and even on fine days it
drifted unceasingly. No sooner were the roads broken than they filled
in again. It was almost impossible to stir out. The A.V.I.S. tried, on
three evenings, to have a party in honor of the college students, and on
each evening the storm was so wild that nobody could go, so they gave up
the attempt in despair. Anne, despite her love of and loyalty to Green
Gables, could not help thinking longingly of Patty's Place, its cosy
open fire, Aunt Jamesina's mirthful eyes, the three cats, the merry
chatter of the girls, the pleasantness of Friday evenings when college
friends dropped in to talk of grave and gay.

Anne was lonely; Diana, during the whole of the holidays, was imprisoned
at home with a bad attack of bronchitis. She could not come to Green
Gables and it was rarely Anne could get to Orchard Slope, for the old
way through the Haunted Wood was impassable with drifts, and the long
way over the frozen Lake of Shining Waters was almost as bad. Ruby
Gillis was sleeping in the white-heaped graveyard; Jane Andrews was
teaching a school on western prairies. Gilbert, to be sure, was still
faithful, and waded up to Green Gables every possible evening. But
Gilbert's visits were not what they once were. An