CHAPTER XXXV. The Winter at Queen's
|ANNE'S homesickness wore off, greatly helped in the wearing by herweekend visits home. As long as the open weather lasted the Avonleastudents went out to Carmody on the new branch railway every Fridaynight. Diana and several other Avonlea young folks were generally onhand to meet them and they all walked over to Avonlea in a merry party.Anne thought those Friday evening gypsyings over the autumnal hills inthe crisp golden air, with the homelights of Avonlea twinkling beyond,were the best and dearest hours in the whole week.
Gilbert Blythe nearly always walked with Ruby Gillis and carried hersatchel for her. Ruby was a very handsome young lady, now thinkingherself quite as grown up as she really was; she wore her skirts as longas her mother would let her and did her hair up in town, though she hadto take it down when she went home. She had large, bright-blue eyes,a brilliant complexion, and a plump showy figure. She laughed a greatdeal, was cheerful and good-tempered, and enjoyed the pleasant things oflife frankly.
"But I shouldn't think she was the sort of girl Gilbert would like,"whispered Jane to Anne. Anne did not think so either, but she would nothave said so for the Avery scholarship. She could not help thinking,too, that it would be very pleasant to have such a friend as Gilbertto jest and chatter with and exchange ideas about books and studies andambitions. Gilbert had ambitions, she knew, and Ruby Gillis did not seemthe sort of person with whom such could be profitably discussed.
There was no silly sentiment in Anne's ideas concerning Gilbert. Boyswere to her, when she thought about them at all, merely possible goodcomrades. If she and Gilbert had been friends she would not have caredhow many other friends he had nor with whom he walked. She had a geniusfor friendship; girl friends she had in plenty; but she had a vagueconsciousness that masculine friendship might also be a good thingto round out one's conceptions of companionship and furnish broaderstandpoints of judgment and comparison. Not that Anne could have put herfeelings on the matter into just such clear definition. But she thoughtthat if Gilbert had ever walked home with her from the train, over thecrisp fields and along the ferny byways, they might have had many andmerry and interesting conversations about the new world that was openingaround them and their hopes and ambitions therein. Gilbert was a cleveryoung fellow, with his own thoughts about things and a determination toget the best out of life and put the best into it. Ruby Gillis told JaneAndrews that she didn't understand half the things Gilbert Blythe said;he talked just like Anne Shirley did when she had a thoughtful fit onand for her part she didn't t