The mention of college gave a new direction to Gilbert’s thoughts and they talked for sometime of their plans and wishes…gravely, earnestly, hopefully, as youth love to talk, as the future is yet an untrodden path full of possibilities.

Gilbert had finally made up his mind to be a doctor.

"It’s a splendid profession," he said enthusiastically. "A fellow has to fight something all through life…didn’t somebody once describe man as a fighting animal?…and I want to fight disease and pain and ignorance which are all members of one another. I want to do my share of honest, real work in the world Anne…add a little to the sum of knowledge that all the good men have been accumulating since it began. The folks who lived before me have done so much for me that I want to show my gratitude by doing something for the folks who will live after me. It seems to me that is the only way a fellow can get square with his obligations to the race."

"I’d like to add some beauty to life," said Anne dreamily. "I don’t exactly want to make people know more…though I know that is the noblest ambition… but I’d love to make them have a pleasanter time because of me… to have some little joy or happy thought that never would have existed if I hadn’t been born." "I think you’re fulfilling that ambition everyday," said Gilbert admiringly.

In the twilight Anne sauntered down to the Dryad’s Bubble and saw Gilbert Blythe coming down through the dusky Haunted Wood. She had a sudden realization that Gilbert was a boy no longer. And how manly he looked- the tall frank faced fellow, with the clear, straightforward eyes and the broad shoulders. Anne thought Gilbert was a very handsome lad, even though he didn’t look at all like her ideal man. She and Diana had decided long ago what kind of man hey admired and their tastes seemed exactly similar. He must be very tall and distinguished looking, with melancholy, inscrutable eyes, and a melting sympathetic voice. There was nothing either melancholy or inscrutable in Gilbert’s physiognomy, but of course that didn’t matter in friendship!

Gilbert stretched himself out in the ferns beside the Bubble and looked approvingly at Anne. If Gilbert would have been asked to describe his ideal woman the description would have answered point for point to Anne, even to those seven tiny freckles whose obnoxious presence still continued to vex her soul. Gilbert was as yet little more than a boy; but a boy has his dreams as have others, and in Gilbert’s future there was a girl with big, limpid gray eyes, and a face as fine and delicate as a flower. He had made up his mind, also, that his future must be worthy of its goddess. Even in quiet Avonlea there were temptations to be met and faced. White Sands youth were a rather "fast" set, and Gilbert was popular wherever he went. But he meant to keep himself worthy of Anne’s friendship and perhaps some distant day her love; and he watched over word and thought and deed as jealously as if her clear eyes were to pass in judgment on it. She held over him the unconscious influence that every girl, whose ideals are high and pure, wields over her friends; an influence which she would surely lose if she were ever false to them. In Gilbert’s eyes Anne’s greatest charm was the fact that she never stooped to the petty jealousies, the little deceits and rivalries, the palpable bids for favor. Anne held herself apart from all this, not consciously or of design, but simply because anything of the sort was utterly foreign to her transparent, impulsive nature, crystal clear in its motives and aspirations.

But Gilbert did not dare attempt put his thoughts into words, for he had already too good reason to know that Anne would mercilessly and frostily nip all attempts at sentiment in the bud- or laugh at him, which was ten times worse.

She locked the door and sat under the silver poplar to wait for Gilbert, very tired but still unweariedly thinking "long, long thoughts."

"Of Miss Lavendar and Mr. Irving," answered Anne dreamily. "Isn’t beautiful to think how everything has turned out…how they have come together again after all the years of separation and misunderstanding?"

"Yes it’s beautiful," said Gilbert, looking steadily down into Anne’s uplifted face, "but wouldn’t it have been more beautiful still, Anne, if there had been no misunderstanding…if they had come hand in hand all the way through life with no memories behind them but those which belong to each other?"

For a moment Anne’s heart fluttered queerly and for the first time her eyes faltered under Gilbert’s gaze and a rosy flush stained the paleness of her face. It was as if a vale that had hung before her inner consciousness had been lifted, giving to her view a revelation of unsuspected feelings and realities. Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one’s life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one’s side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music; perhaps…perhaps…love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden hearted rose slipping from its sheath.

Then the veil dropped again; but the Anne who walked up the dark lane was not quite the same Anne who had driven gaily down it the evening before. The page of girlhood had been turned, as by an unseen finger, and the page of womanhood was before her with all its charm and mystery, its pain and gladness.

Gilbert wisely said nothing more; but in his silence he read the history of the next four years in the light of Anne’s remembered blush. Four years of earnest, happy work… and then the guerdon of a useful knowledge gained and a sweet heart won.

Behind them in the garden the little stone house brooded among the shadows. It was lonely but not forsaken. It had not yet done with dreams and laughter and the joy of life; there were to be future summers for the little stone house; meanwhile, it could wait. And over the river in purple durance the echoes bided their time.