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Studies palled just a wee bit then; the Queen's class, left behind in school while the others scattered to green lanes and leafy wood cuts and meadow byways, looked wistfully out of the windows and discovered that Latin verbs and French exercises had somehow lost the tang and zest they had possessed in the crisp winter months.

Even Anne and Gilbert lagged and grew indifferent.

Teacher and taught were alike glad when the term was ended and the glad vacation days stretched rosily before them.

"But you've done good work this past year," Miss Stacy told them on the last evening, "and you deserve a good, jolly vacation.

Have the best time you can in the out-of-door world and lay in a good stock of health and vitality and ambition to carry you through next year.

It will be the tug of war, you know-the last year before the Entrance."

"Are you going to be back next year, Miss Stacy?" asked Josie Pye.

Josie Pye never scrupled to ask questions; in this instance the rest of the class felt grateful to her; none of them would have dared to ask it of Miss Stacy, but all wanted to, for there had been alarming rumors running at large through the school for some time that Miss Stacy was not coming back the next year-that she had been offered a position in the grade school of her own home district and meant to accept.

The Queen's class listened in breathless suspense for her answer.

"Yes, I think I will," said Miss Stacy. "I thought of taking another school, but I have decided to come back to Avonlea. To tell the truth, I've grown so interested in my pupils here that I found I couldn't leave them. So I'll stay and see you through."

"Hurrah!" said Moody Spurgeon. Moody Spurgeon had never been so carried away by his feelings before, and he blushed uncomfortably every time he thought about it for a week.

"Oh, I'm so glad," said Anne, with shining eyes. "Dear Stacy, it would be perfectly dreadful if you didn't come back. I don't believe I could have the heart to go on with my studies at all if another teacher came here."

When Anne got home that night she stacked all her textbooks away in an old trunk in the attic, locked it, and threw the key into the blanket box.

"I'm not even going to look at a schoolbook in vacation," she told Marilla.

"I've studied as hard all the term as I possibly could and I've pored over that geometry until I know every proposition in the first book off by heart, even when the letters ARE changed.

I just feel tired of everything sensible and I'm going to let my imagination run riot for the summer.

Oh, you needn't be alarmed, Marilla.

I'll only let it run riot within reasonable limits.

But I want to have a real good jolly time this summer, for maybe it's the last summer I'll be a little girl.

Mrs. Lynde says that if I keep stretching out next year as I've done this I'll have to put on longer skirts.

She says I'm all running to legs and eyes.

And when I put on longer skirts I shall feel that I have to live up to them and be very dignified.

It won't even do to believe in fairies then, I'm afraid; so I'm going to believe in them with all my whole heart this summer.

I think we're going to have a very gay vacation.

Ruby Gillis is going to have a birthday party soon and there's the Sunday school picnic and the missionary concert next month.

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