could find it
in my heart to wish I had been, just for that."

"Well now, I'd rather have you than a dozen boys, Anne," said Matthew
patting her hand. "Just mind you that--rather than a dozen boys. Well
now, I guess it wasn't a boy that took the Avery scholarship, was it? It
was a girl--my girl--my girl that I'm proud of."

He smiled his shy smile at her as he went into the yard. Anne took the
memory of it with her when she went to her room that night and sat for a
long while at her open window, thinking of the past and dreaming of the
future. Outside the Snow Queen was mistily white in the moonshine;
the frogs were singing in the marsh beyond Orchard Slope. Anne always
remembered the silvery, peaceful beauty and fragrant calm of that night.
It was the last night before sorrow touched her life; and no life is
ever quite the same again when once that cold, sanctifying touch has
been laid upon it.

CHAPTER XXXVII. The Reaper Whose Name Is Death

"Matthew--Matthew--what is the matter? Matthew, are you sick?"

It was Marilla who spoke, alarm in every jerky word. Anne came through
the hall, her hands full of white narcissus,--it was long before Anne
could love the sight or odor of white narcissus again,--in time to hear
her and to see Matthew standing in the porch doorway, a folded paper
in his hand, and his face strangely drawn and gray. Anne dropped her
flowers and sprang across the kitchen to him at the same moment as
Marilla. They were both too late; before they could reach him Matthew
had fallen across the threshold.

"He's fainted," gasped Marilla. "Anne, run for Martin--quick, quick!
He's at the barn."

Martin, the hired man, who had just driven home from the post office,
started at once for the doctor, calling at Orchard Slope on his way to
send Mr. and Mrs. Barry over. Mrs. Lynde, who was there on an errand,
came too. They found Anne and Marilla distractedly trying to restore
Matthew to consciousness.

Mrs. Lynde pushed them gently aside, tried his pulse, and then laid her
ear over his heart. She looked at their anxious faces sorrowfully and
the tears came into her eyes.

"Oh, Marilla," she said gravely. "I don't think--we can do anything for
him."

"Mrs. Lynde, you don't think--you can't think Matthew is--is--" Anne
could not say the dreadful word; she turned sick and pallid.

"Child, yes, I'm afraid of it. Look at his face. When you've seen that
look as often as I have you'll know what it me