“I’ve heard something very nice about Jane,” said Anne.
“Yes, Jane has done pretty well, even if she isn’t a B.A.,” said Mrs. Harmon, with a slight toss of her head. “Mr. Inglis is worth millions, and they’re going to Europe on their wedding tour. When they come back they’ll live in a perfect mansion of marble in Winnipeg. Jane has only one trouble—she can cook so well and her husband won’t let her cook. He is so rich he hires his cooking done. They’re going to keep a cook and two other maids and a coachman and a man-of-all-work. But what about you, Anne? I don’t hear anything of your being married, after all your college-going.”
“Oh,” laughed Anne, “I am going to be an old maid. I really can’t find any one to suit me.” It was rather wicked of her. She deliberately meant to remind Mrs. Andrews that if she became an old maid it was not because she had not had at least one chance of marriage. But Mrs. Harmon took swift revenge.
“Well, the over-particular girls generally get left, I notice. And what’s this I hear about Gilbert Blythe being engaged to a Miss Stuart? Charlie Sloane tells me she is perfectly beautiful. Is it true?”
“I don’t know if it is true that he is engaged to Miss Stuart,” replied Anne, with Spartan composure, “but it is certainly true that she is very lovely.”
“I once thought you and Gilbert would have made a match of it,” said Mrs. Harmon. “If you don’t take care, Anne, all of your beaux will slip through your fingers.”
Anne decided not to continue her duel with Mrs. Harmon. You could not fence with an antagonist who met rapier thrust with blow of battle axe.
“Since Jane is away,” she said, rising haughtily, “I don’t think I can stay longer this morning. I’ll come down when she comes home.”
“Do,” said Mrs. Harmon effusively. “Jane isn’t a bit proud. She just means to associate with her old friends the same as ever. She’ll be real glad to see you.”
Jane’s millionaire arrived the last of May and carried her off in a blaze of splendor. Mrs. Lynde was spitefully gratified to find that Mr. Inglis was every day of forty, and short and thin and grayish. Mrs. Lynde did not spare him in her enumeration of his shortcomings, you may be sure.