of
chastened triumph about her. Diana was over at Green Gables when she
arrived and they met as if they had been parted for years.

"You old darling, it's perfectly splendid to see you back again. It
seems like an age since you went to town and oh, Anne, how did you get
along?"

"Pretty well, I think, in everything but the geometry. I don't know
whether I passed in it or not and I have a creepy, crawly presentiment
that I didn't. Oh, how good it is to be back! Green Gables is the
dearest, loveliest spot in the world."

"How did the others do?"

"The girls say they know they didn't pass, but I think they did pretty
well. Josie says the geometry was so easy a child of ten could do it!
Moody Spurgeon still thinks he failed in history and Charlie says he
failed in algebra. But we don't really know anything about it and won't
until the pass list is out. That won't be for a fortnight. Fancy living
a fortnight in such suspense! I wish I could go to sleep and never wake
up until it is over."

Diana knew it would be useless to ask how Gilbert Blythe had fared, so
she merely said:

"Oh, you'll pass all right. Don't worry."

"I'd rather not pass at all than not come out pretty well up on the
list," flashed Anne, by which she meant--and Diana knew she meant--that
success would be incomplete and bitter if she did not come out ahead of
Gilbert Blythe.

With this end in view Anne had strained every nerve during the
examinations. So had Gilbert. They had met and passed each other on the
street a dozen times without any sign of recognition and every time Anne
had held her head a little higher and wished a little more earnestly
that she had made friends with Gilbert when he asked her, and vowed a
little more determinedly to surpass him in the examination. She knew
that all Avonlea junior was wondering which would come out first; she
even knew that Jimmy Glover and Ned Wright had a bet on the question
and that Josie Pye had said there was no doubt in the world that Gilbert
would be first; and she felt that her humiliation would be unbearable if
she failed.

But she had another and nobler motive for wishing to do well. She wanted
to "pass high" for the sake of Matthew and Marilla--especially Matthew.
Matthew had declared to her his conviction that she "would beat the
whole Island." That, Anne felt, was something it would be foolish to
hope for even in the wildest dreams. But she did hope fervently that she
would be among the