s of this week's joy. I hate the thought of going myself--home
and I are such good friends. Talk of being lonesome! It's I who should
groan. YOU'LL be here with any number of your old friends--AND Fred!
While I shall be alone among strangers, not knowing a soul!"

"EXCEPT Gilbert--AND Charlie Sloane," said Diana, imitating Anne's
italics and slyness.

"Charlie Sloane will be a great comfort, of course," agreed Anne
sarcastically; whereupon both those irresponsible damsels laughed. Diana
knew exactly what Anne thought of Charlie Sloane; but, despite sundry
confidential talks, she did not know just what Anne thought of Gilbert
Blythe. To be sure, Anne herself did not know that.

"The boys may be boarding at the other end of Kingsport, for all I
know," Anne went on. "I am glad I'm going to Redmond, and I am sure I
shall like it after a while. But for the first few weeks I know I won't.
I shan't even have the comfort of looking forward to the weekend visit
home, as I had when I went to Queen's. Christmas will seem like a
thousand years away."

"Everything is changing--or going to change," said Diana sadly. "I have
a feeling that things will never be the same again, Anne."

"We have come to a parting of the ways, I suppose," said Anne
thoughtfully. "We had to come to it. Do you think, Diana, that being
grown-up is really as nice as we used to imagine it would be when we
were children?"

"I don't know--there are SOME nice things about it," answered Diana,
again caressing her ring with that little smile which always had the
effect of making Anne feel suddenly left out and inexperienced. "But
there are so many puzzling things, too. Sometimes I feel as if being
grown-up just frightened me--and then I would give anything to be a
little girl again."

"I suppose we'll get used to being grownup in time," said Anne
cheerfully. "There won't be so many unexpected things about it by and
by--though, after all, I fancy it's the unexpected things that give
spice to life. We're eighteen, Diana. In two more years we'll be twenty.
When I was ten I thought twenty was a green old age. In no time you'll
be a staid, middle-aged matron, and I shall be nice, old maid Aunt Anne,
coming to visit you on vacations. You'll always keep a corner for me,
won't you, Di darling? Not the spare room, of course--old maids can't
aspire to spare rooms, and I shall be as 'umble as Uriah Heep, and quite
content with a little over-the-porch or off-the-parlor