Anne’s lips quivered.
“Won’t you let me see Diana just once to say farewell?” she implored.
“Diana has gone over to Carmody with her father,” said Mrs. Barry, going in and shutting the door.
Anne went back to Green Gables calm with despair.
“My last hope is gone,” she told Marilla.
“I went up and saw Mrs. Barry myself and she treated me very insultingly.
Marilla, I do not think she is a well-bred woman.
There is nothing more to do except to pray and I haven’t much hope that that’ll do much good because, Marilla, I do not believe that God Himself can do very much with such an obstinate person as Mrs. Barry.”
“Anne, you shouldn’t say such things” rebuked Marilla, striving to overcome that unholy tendency to laughter which she was dismayed to find growing upon her.
And indeed, when she told the whole story to Matthew that night, she did laugh heartily over Anne’s tribulations.
But when she slipped into the east gable before going to bed and found that Anne had cried herself to sleep an unaccustomed softness crept into her face.
“Poor little soul,” she murmured, lifting a loose curl of hair from the child’s tear-stained face.
Then she bent down and kissed the flushed cheek on the pillow.
CHAPTER XVII.
A New Interest in Life
THE next afternoon Anne, bending over her patchwork at the kitchen window, happened to glance out and beheld Diana down by the Dryad’s Bubble beckoning mysteriously.
In a trice Anne was out of the house and flying down to the hollow, astonishment and hope struggling in her expressive eyes.
But the hope faded when she saw Diana’s dejected countenance.
“Your mother hasn’t relented?” she gasped.
Diana shook her head mournfully.
“No; and oh, Anne, she says I’m never to play with you again.
I’ve cried and cried and I told her it wasn’t your fault, but it wasn’t any use.
I had ever such a time coaxing her to let me come down and say good-bye to you.
She said I was only to stay ten minutes and she’s timing me by the clock.”
“Ten minutes isn’t very long to say an eternal farewell in,” said Anne tearfully.
“Oh, Diana, will you promise faithfully never to forget me, the friend of your youth, no matter what dearer friends may caress thee?”
“Indeed I will,” sobbed Diana, “and I’ll never have another bosom friend—I don’t want to have.
I couldn’t love anybody as I love you.”
“Oh, Diana,” cried Anne, clasping her hands, “do you love me?”
“Why, of course I do.
Didn’t you know that?”
“No.”
Anne drew a long breath.
“I thought you liked me of course but I never hoped you loved me.
Why, Diana, I didn’t think anybody could love me.
Nobody ever has loved me since I can remember.
Oh, this is wonderful!
It’s a ray of light which will forever shine on the darkness of a path severed from thee, Diana. Oh, just say it once again.”
“I love you devotedly, Anne,” said Diana stanchly, “and I always will, you may be sure of that.”
“And I will always love thee, Diana,” said Anne, solemnly extending her hand. “In the years to come thy memory will shine like a star over my lonely life, as that last story we read together says.
Diana, wilt thou give me a lock of thy jet-black tresses in parting to treasure forevermore?”
“Have you got anything to cut it with?” queried Diana, wiping away the tears which Anne’s affecting accents had caused to flow afresh, and returning to practicalities.
“Yes. I’ve got my patchwork scissors in my apron pocket fortunately,” said Anne. She solemnly clipped one of Diana’s curls.
“Fare thee well, my beloved friend.
Henceforth we must be as strangers though living side by side.
But my heart will ever be faithful to thee.”
Anne stood and watched Diana out of sight, mournfully waving her hand to the latter whenever she turned to look back.
Then she returned to the house, not a little consoled for the time being by this romantic parting.
“It is all over,” she informed Marilla.
“I shall never have another friend.