Doctor Gilbert Blythe took one last look into his waiting room. It was unlikely that there would be another patient at this hour, but it would be unfortunate to leave a patient locked in his surgery all night. It had never happened to him before, but he had heard a few horror stories in medical school. The most memorable of these involved a patient who had self-medicated with a decanter of brandy, gotten a bit chilly, and warmed himself by a fire built out of the contents of the filing cabinets.

Of course, it was probably a legend...but legends were usually founded in fact, so it was better not to take any chances.

"Doctor Blythe," a tall, middle-aged man stood up, putting out his hand.

"Mr. Harris," Gil shook his hand, "what can I do for you? More cough medicine?" Mr. Harris' daughter, Millie, had come down with whooping cough two weeks previously, and still needed something to keep down the cough.

"No, not right now, Doctor. I came up to ask if you would do the School Board a favor."

"If it's within my power…"

Mr. Harris nodded. "Are you free tomorrow afternoon? We have the new principal coming on the two o'clock train, and she needs to be picked up and taken to the teacherage. Normally, I'd do it myself, but the apples won't harvest themselves."

"I'll do it," Gil agreed. "What's her name?"

"Miss...er...something. I don't remember her name at the moment, but you can't miss her-she has red hair."

Gilbert blinked once. Red hair...but it couldn't be. Surely there were hundreds of redheaded teachers in Canada. "All right. Tomorrow at two. I'll close up early and meet her."

"You're a good man, Doctor," Mr. Harris turned to leave. "And before I go, I think I'll take some of that cough medicine."

As he watched Mr. Harris go down the lane with his bottle of medicine, Gilbert let his thoughts go to Avonlea, to a time before Joy, before Christine, before Redmond. It was an inconsequential little memory, a snapshot in time. Two forms, bent over books, piles of notes and scribbles all around them. Slowly, the image sharpened, bringing a pale face with its mass of red hair into focus. The girl to whom these featured belonged kept chewing the end of her braid, turning it into a sodden tangle.

Gilbert reached across the table to pull it away. "Anne, if you keep doing that, you'll chew your hair off."

Anne looked up, desperation showing on her face. "Why should I care? It's red! And it's not as if I'll ever be pretty anyways. Right now, my hair is serving the useful, educational purpose of giving me something to vent my maths-related frustrations with!"

Gilbert wanted to laugh-or maybe cry. The most beautiful girl he knew was chewing her hair because she thought she wasn't pretty. Instead of making a remark he knew would earn him ridicule, he said, "Well, being smart is better than being pretty."

Her head snapped up. "Are you calling me ugly, Mister Blythe?"

"No-o," he tried to extricate himself, "but too many girls here seem to think that intelligence is overrated."

"And they don't need any," she countered. "They will marry, have children, and run households. They don't have their sights set on the Avery, the way we do. Besides, with my looks and temper, Mrs. Lynde says that I'll either marry a widower or a heathen. Compared to those, being an old maid looks pretty good, Gil. So that's what I'll do, I think. I'll be an old maid schoolteacher. Imagine, being wed to one's work. There's some romance in that, don't you think?"

Back in the here and now, Gilbert shook his head at the memory and started down the road home. He had a little girl who needed him.

"Papa! Papa!" A little chestnut-curled, violet-eyed cherub shot out of the house to greet him when he stepped onto the porch. "Did you hear? We're going to have a new princ'ple!" She wrapped herself around his knees, effectively rooting him to the spot. At age six, Joyce Blythe was adorable, and took very much after her father.

"Yes, sweetheart, I heard. I'm supposed to go pick her up from the station tomorrow." Gilbert bent down to pry her off his legs. He swung her up, making her giggle. "How's my little girl?"

"I'm not little," she frowned. "I'm six."

"And a very grown-up young lady you are. You'll be starting school this year, you know." He sat down on the porch swing with her in his lap, making the two of them rock back and forth.

Joy snuggled into him. "Can I go meet the principal with you?"

"I can't think of a reason why not," he thought about it for a moment. "Wait-aren't you going to play with Mary Margaret tomorrow?"

"Oh." Joy frowned, then whispered a word that made Gil sit up, spluttering.

"What did you say?"

She said it again, a bit louder this time.

He leaned his head back, torn between shock and gales of laughter. "Joy, sweetheart," he finally managed to gasp, "where did you hear that word?"

"From Jeremy Lee." Jeremy was the hired hand next door, and his extraordinary ability to herd cows was only exceeded by his extraordinarily foul vocabulary. Frankly, thought Gilbert, it was a miracle it had taken this long for his daughter to pick some of it up.

"Joy," he looked her straight in the eye, "I want you to promise me that you will never, ever repeat that word again."

"Why?"

"Because if you do, I will take you down to the surgery and disinfect your mouth with iodine."

This got him a solemn nod. "I won't."

"Good," he felt his heart rate slowly return to normal. "Now, how about we go inside and see what Susan's made for dinner."

Later that evening, after Gilbert had gone through the usual bath-and-bed routine, he settled into his chair next to Joy's bed for her bedtime story. "What story do you want to hear tonight?"

Sleepily, she turned to him. "I want a story about my mama. I don't remember her."

"What do you want to know, sweetheart?"

"Was she pretty?"

Gilbert smiled. "Very. She had very black hair and eyes like yours." With her raven hair and violet eyes, Christine Stuart had been the object of many affections at Redmond, and then in Toronto, where he met her again during medical school.

"Would she like it here?"

He had to laugh at that. "Truthfully? No. Your mama was more of a city type of girl."

Joy nodded. "Did she love me?"

Gil swallowed. "She never got to meet you, but I'm sure she would." He pressed a kiss to his daughter's forehead. "Good night, sweetheart. Sweet dreams."

"Good night, Papa."

He turned off the light, and left the room, only stopping once between his daughter's room and the front porch to get a sweater. He sat down on the swing again, looking up at the moon, wondering if he shouldn't have lied to Joy. Christine had been beautiful, yes, but she was also cold, just what he needed after having his heart broken by Anne. Christine had never wanted children, and Joy had been an...accident. When she found out about her, Christine had been livid, blaming him for all of it. In the end, her fragile body had been unable to endure the rigors of childbirth, and she died just as Joy entered the world.

Maybe it was all for the better, he thought, for a daughter to have stories, instead of a mother who would have always resented her. Gilbert stood up and went back inside. It got colder earlier this time of year, and he had to make an earlier start tomorrow.

At one-thirty the next day, Gilbert drove from his surgery to the train station to collect the new principal. Mr. Harris hadn't shown up again, so all Gil had to work with was "she has red hair." How helpful, he thought. She hadn't been told to expect him, so he would have to look for her on the platform.

He looked at the valley, beginning to turn to rust and gold this time of year, and remembering how Joy described it.

"Look, Papa! It's a second spring-every leaf is a flower now!"

There was only one other person he knew who had been able to describe things that way.

"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn't it?"*

He smiled at the memory as he came to a stop in front of the Glen St. Mary train station. He saw the train pulling away, and knew that the new principal would be waiting on the busy platform.

After hitching his horse to a post, he made his way onto the platform, full of people, porters, baggage and freight. It was hard to make out anyone, but there-that was a flash of red hair.

No, that was Mrs. Aaaron Tremblay's fox stole-definitely not the new principal.

Gilbert looked around, trying to spot someone-anyone-who fit the description of the Glen school's new principal. After five minutes of a fruitless search, he sat down on a bench to wait for the crowd to clear. Maybe then he'd be able to find her.

Anne coughed as she stepped off the train and into a cloud of smoke from the locomotive. Pulling a shawl up over her hat and covering her mouth with it, she retreated to a relatively quiet corner to wait for whoever had been sent to pick her up.

Ten minutes...fifteen...twenty. No one. People still milled on the platform-didn't they have anywhere else to socialize? she asked herself. They made it difficult to find anyone else-although they obviously weren't having any trouble doing so.

Anne was, however, blessed with an imagination that always longed for something to do. Sitting on her bench, she had an excellent view of everyone. She remembered the time she had spent in church "making people beautiful"; this seemed like a good time to bring that pastime back.

The woman there, in the green hat: she could wear her hair in a way that framed her face more, instead of pulled back severely that way-and green really wasn't at all suited to her coloring. Maybe a nice, dark red. Yes, thought Anne, red suited her much better.

And that man there, why, he'd be quite handsome-if only his nose were less droopy. Something more Roman would add a distinguished air to his face.

That woman in the purple ensemble and the fox fur stole...well, maybe she could replace the fox with a grey fur, bordering on silver. That would match her hair better, and put that poor, moth-eaten creature around her neck out of its misery.

By now, the platform had cleared, and she was the only person left. This reminded her eerily of the day Matthew had picked her up from the station. She had waited, and waited, thinking nobody would come for her. Anne looked around for a flowering cherry tree-nary a one. She stood, thinking she would stretch her legs and ask the station master to call her a cab. That was the difference between now and seventeen years ago: she had her own ways of getting home now.

Gilbert watched the crowds thin until only the woman in the blue traveling suit was left. He saw her stand and make her way towards the stationmaster's office. She had gotten off on the two o'clock train, hadn't she? Maybe she had seen the principal at one point.

He strode towards her. "Excuse me, ma'am?"

She turned towards him, pulling the shawl off her hat, revealing a head of bright red hair. "Yes?" A pair of grey eyes looked up at him, slowly growing wider in recognition. A small gasp escaped her lips. He thought he heard her whisper something, but his ears had ceased functioning when he had seen her face, and were now filled with a buzzing noise.

Gil stopped in his tracks, recognizing Glen St. Mary's new principal, a ghost from his past.

"Anne?"

*Anne of Green Gables