g there when a shadow fell over the grass and she
looked up to see Mrs. Allan. They walked home together.

Mrs. Allan's face was not the face of the girlbride whom the minister
had brought to Avonlea five years before. It had lost some of its bloom
and youthful curves, and there were fine, patient lines about eyes and
mouth. A tiny grave in that very cemetery accounted for some of them;
and some new ones had come during the recent illness, now happily over,
of her little son. But Mrs. Allan's dimples were as sweet and sudden as
ever, her eyes as clear and bright and true; and what her face lacked
of girlish beauty was now more than atoned for in added tenderness and
strength.

"I suppose you are looking forward to your vacation, Anne?" she said, as
they left the graveyard.

Anne nodded.

"Yes. . . . I could roll the word as a sweet morsel under my tongue. I
think the summer is going to be lovely. For one thing, Mrs. Morgan is
coming to the Island in July and Priscilla is going to bring her up. I
feel one of my old 'thrills' at the mere thought."

"I hope you'll have a good time, Anne. You've worked very hard this past
year and you have succeeded."

"Oh, I don't know. I've come so far short in so many things. I haven't
done what I meant to do when I began to teach last fall. I haven't lived
up to my ideals."

"None of us ever do," said Mrs. Allan with a sigh. "But then, Anne, you
know what Lowell says, 'Not failure but low aim is crime.' We must have
ideals and try to live up to them, even if we never quite succeed. Life
would be a sorry business without them. With them it's grand and great.
Hold fast to your ideals, Anne."

"I shall try. But I have to let go most of my theories," said Anne,
laughing a little. "I had the most beautiful set of theories you ever
knew when I started out as a schoolma'am, but every one of them has
failed me at some pinch or another."

"Even the theory on corporal punishment," teased Mrs. Allan.

But Anne flushed.

"I shall never forgive myself for whipping Anthony."

"Nonsense, dear, he deserved it. And it agreed with him. You have had no
trouble with him since and he has come to think there's nobody like you.
Your kindness won his love after the idea that a 'girl was no good' was
rooted out of his stubborn mind."

"He may have deserved it, but that is not the point. If I had calmly and
deliberately decided to whip him because I thought it a just punishment
for him I would n