As ever, thank you for the reviews and the feedback you give me. I'm glad Faith is more likeable - Inever really meant to make her otherwise, the cast of characters is just too wide to give everyone equal time and I seem to have passed her over without meaning too. Hope this will meet with equal approval.

It was a lovely summer. June came in like a dream and the lilacs burst forth with a vengeance, frothy and reminiscent of bridal lace. Shirley came into the house with the first of the lilac cuttings, 'because I never thought to bring you Mayflowers,' and Una had laughed and said that the only memory she really had of Mayflowers was of Bruce in wartime.

If there were fewer plums that summer than there had been, it proved just as well in the long run because in the end Una took to doing the preserves in snatches. She had not planned to do them that way, but then there was no accounting for children and they cannot be planned around.

It was the middle of July and late in the afternoon when Persis put the call through to the Upper Glen. Faith delayed ringing off long enough to ask 'why is it you doing this, dear?' Persis, laughing her lovely, silvery laugh, had said, 'why do you think? The others are good in every kind of crisis but this one. Cats with live rabbits, fires, anything but children. Just like a man, Miss Cornelia would say, no?'

'Fires?'

'It's a very long story and I haven't got time. Remind me to tell you before I go away.' Then she had got hold of the Manse and of Ingleside, neither of which felt it had the time to spare for such trivialities as who placed the telephone calls.

Tabitha resented that something was happening without her. It was the wish of her heart to get at Una, but the door was determinedly closed on her. They did not understand that Una was her particular person. She swished about the house with an injured air until Shirley picked her up and said, 'come here, you, we'll worry it out together.'

Miriam, who had been sleeping contentedly on the top of the drawing room sofa, now raised her head and giving Shirley a look that said, not without me you won't, launched herself at, and landed neatly on his shoulder. Persis watched them and wondered how two cats and one person could belong so entirely to a world apart from the one unfolding around them. Faith sat and worried a teacup, holding fiercely onto the fact that Persis would not have laughed as she had, or sounded so light over the telephone, if there was any real trouble. Persis thought she looked in that moment like a preoccupied and golden-haired saint, in the late summer sunlight, as they sat at the kitchen table and waited for news.

'Tell me about the fire,' she said now. Persis looked at her sideways.

'If I'm thinking about something else, I can't be worried,' said Faith reasonably enough.

'You've no need to be worried,' said Persis firmly.

'I am anyway,' said Faith.

'It isn't a nice story,' Persis warned, but she acquiesced all the same. Then, because Persis felt it would be unlucky to leave off there, she told Faith about her first forays into baking. That is why they were both laughing when Jem surfaced, beaming and full of good news.

Susan said gloomily, though she hated to say it, 'we are losing that dear boy to the Manse family, Mrs. Dr. Dear, and that you may tie to. I do not know why the Almighty has ordained it so, but I never was in a way to question Him and I won't start now.'

'But Susan,' said Anne, with great effort not to laugh, 'John is a name that runs to both families. Shirley said that was why they settled on it for a boy,' and Susan softened.

'Well that's a different thing altogether,' she said, and entirely forgave little John Blythe his Christian name, even if his middle name was for some Meredith ancestor nobody could remember. No doubt, if you went far enough back into the family Bible, there would be an Andrew listed among the Blythes too. Even if there weren't, Susan was too pleased at the prospect of having another baby to knit for, and Shirley's baby at that, to mind very much what the child was called, especially when he was just as dear and brown as her own little brown boy had been. When she was not thinking up nice things to send round to the house –because she never could believe anyone had time to give to anything besides a baby when it was first born – and she set to knitting a deeply elaborate blanket with a pattern of bears on, and Anne watching amusedly as it grew inches at a time, only remarked that she herself had never had the patience to do projects where the stitches to a row had to be into treble figures.

Persis and Carl did not stay long at Greengage Close after the baby's arrival.

'You can't possibly want company now,' she said resolutely to Una, and when Una protested, Persis said that whatever the capabilities of the house with the greengage tree, she and Carl had made arrangements to go on to India in the autumn.

'Isn't it entirely the wrong time of year for seeing India,' said Una, who really knew very little about geography beyond what she had been taught in school.

'It may be, but we'll be there more than long enough to see it at the right time too –no, don't look like that, you can more than do without having guests again this Christmas. Besides, it's unnerving. It's like being looked at by –I don't know what. Rather like Tabitha when she's denied a treat, all blue wistfulness and always just as I begin to think you've lost the trick of looking like that. I swear the last time I remember your eyes that way we were in Rainbow Valley listening to heaven-knows-what piece of Walter's poetry and to the tree lovers ringing. Don't try to tell me either that it won't be nice to have your house feel like your own again because I simply won't believe it.'

'We've enjoyed having you,' said Una firmly, half closing her eyes self-consciously as she said it, 'you know we'd have you back in a minute.'

'You may have to,' said Persis laughing, 'I don't think we could feel half so at home staying anywhere else; but not for a while yet. You'll want time to get to know this dear lad, and you shan't want me about for that. But I expect to hear all about him in your letters. There isn't anyone so good as you for letter-writing, Una.' Una relented.

'Keep in touch,' she found herself saying.

The trees were aglow with autumnal fire when Carl and Persis said goodbye to the Glen. Carl, looking for the last time over the place he had come to love so much said, 'this is how I shall choose to remember the Island. Nowhere on earth are the leaves half so fierce this time of year.'

'I imagine there's an awful lot of world you haven't seen,' said Persis laughing.

'Ah, but I'll see it yet,' said Carl, eyes shining. 'We both will.'

And so the end of year whirled dizzily onward, and it was Christmas again before anyone had had much time to think of it. Faith found herself making up Bishop's bread determinedly, because it didn't take long and if her sister was prepared to contribute sweet potatoes as usual then Faith felt she could hardly cite Walter and his impending sibling as a reason for not donating something. She seized upon the time given to her while Walter was asleep after lunch, trebled the mixture and thanked all the gods that ever were that there was room in the oven for all three of the loaf tins at once.

Nan put another call through to Burnt Church, the first one since late October, and coaxed her sister's recipe for gingerbread out of her. She asked for the shortbread too, but Di only laughed and said, 'your hands are completely the wrong temperature for shortbread, dearest. Better stick to the gingerbread and maybe some of that sweet, what was it called, Brown Stuff, I 's what Susan called it anyway. What it's real name is I've no idea.'

Nor had Nan, but she knew at once what 'stuff' Di meant, it had been a great treat to them as girls. Susan had made it regularly until their father had protested it would destroy their teeth. It had been dubbed a Christmas delicacy after that.

Rilla rooted out the recipe she used for the vegetables every year and spent a long time deliberating over how to make cabbage bearable to little palates. In the end she capitulated and said to Una as they sat companionably mending, 'how do you make it? I was solemnly informed the other day by Gil that cabbage is only nice the way you do it.'

'I cheat and put bacon in –it's one of mother's old recipes. Seemingly they got put into my hope chest along with all manner of other oddments; I have all her music too.'

Susan fretted the whole time because the goose didn't look nearly big enough and the snow would not come. Anne said soothingly, 'I've never known a green Christmas yet, Susan dear,' and was vindicated when Christmas Eve dawned delicately white and gauzy. It was almost a sin, Anne thought, surveying the view from the front room window, to spoil the snow walking on it. But in fairly short order Jem and Faith were round with Walter, whose small person was still content to spend long hours making snow-angels, and those were just as lovely to look at. They were to stay overnight, so that they would not have to drive out again the next day, and the novelty of having Christmas Eve with his grandparents had made Walter thrill with excitement, so much so, that as he draped his sock lovingly over the foot of his bed, he felt sure he would not be able to sleep. Somehow or other, to his parents tremendous relief, he did, and slept soundly until the light crept through the blinds early the next morning.

Christmas Day itself began like any other. Nan and Jerry came up to spend the day, brimming with news from Lowbridge and the service there, and just as heavily laden with parcels, cards, and good things to eat. Miss Cornelia swept in before the morning had quite worn off, saying, 'Anne, dearie, I simply had to come and look in on you and yours before going over to Mary's. Has Santa been good this year?' This to little Walter and Gil, nestled in paper on the floor, and they had nodded solemnly and looked eagerly at the bundle in her arms.

'Have you come from Santa too,' said Gil impishly and Rilla looked at him sternly.

But that good woman only laughed and said, 'I might have brought a wee minding for you wee people,' and procured from her bundle of parcels, two suitably child-sized ones. Walter looked as if he might reach for his and it was Faith's turn to look firmly at her child, and she did so, in spite of the ache that had started in her back. The ache did not stop the effectiveness of the look, Walter subsided, the perfect picture of cherubic meekness, his mother's eyes shining out of his face, the warm caramel of cats-eye marbles bursting with stiffledf expectation and eagerness.

Miss Cornelia, who did have a sense of humour when she wanted it, looked down into those eyes and said, ' but first, you are to tell me something terribly important. Did Santa remember about the Clementine?' You could hear the capitals in the word. There were clementines, which were a fairly everyday occurrence, and Clementines, of which it was obvious Miss. Cornelia was speaking, and which were deeply associated with Christmas.

'Yes,' said both boys eagerly.

'Well that's all right then,' said Miss Cornelia, relinquishing the parcels. 'You can tell when Santa does your sock, and not your parents, because he always remembers the Clementine.' Ken and Jem, who had been charged with the Christmas socks, both made mental notes to never, under any circumstances, forget that most valuable fruit, ever. Then Miss. Cornelia had pressed something on Una too, saying, 'I know he's too small for gifts really, but it hardly seemed fair to leave him out, and I do like to have a project.'

'So do I,' said Una as she thanked her, and then the figure of Marshall Elliot had appeared in the doorway pressing departure upon his wife. All that could manage it stood in the doorway and waved the pair of them off, crying 'happy Christmas!' as they did so.

They got through most of lunch without mishap. Walter overturned nothing, though he would keep dropping his cutlery, and Gil was docile for once. When they got to the pudding, Faith said, 'will you mind terribly if I go lie down?'

'No, you go,' said Nan, who was privately beginning to have misgivings about that woman's well-being. 'I'll take over with Walter. You look as if you need it,' and they had all but ushered her out of the room.

It was sometime after this that Jem disappeared upstairs to look in on his wife and came back with the news that it would be very helpful if someone could look out clean linen. This was a mistake because the women rose collectively, threatening to go all of them at once. Then Nan took it upon herself to see to the children, and Una, as ever, went to put the kettle on because it seemed highly probable it would be needed for a whole host of reasons in the immediate future. The prospect of tea brought everyone reassuringly back to the moment so that Anne was able to go unhindered and unaccompanied to the linen closet. Rosemary and Susan went to clear the table and Rilla looked in to help with the washing up, but was told there was no room in the kitchen for three people at the sink. She retreated to the drawing room in the hopes that some of the hot water had gone towards making tea. It had.

'You won't be short of news for Persis, at any rate,' Nan was saying as Rilla came in.

'It's been a long time since I was short of news for her,' said Una laughing. 'You know, I can't help feeling it will be rather hard on the baby, having its birthday fall on Christmas.'

'Mn,' said Nan, who had her arms around Walter and was rocking him gently as she spoke.

Mummy,' he said fretfully, 'where's mummy?'

'Mummy is…' Rilla reached for the word as she sat down on the ground next to her sister.

Una glanced at the ceiling for help and said, 'your mum can't come down just yet, love.'

'But why?' Why indeed, thought Nan, who for all her forays into storytelling, did not know how to tell her nephew why the excitement had gone temporarily out of the house and why he was now surrounded by so many nervous relatives. Deftly she handed him to his aunt and took John from her as she did so.

'Because she has a headache and your Gran has gone to see if she can't find something to fix it over in the cabbage patch at the Taylor farm,' said Una desperately. The other two only looked grateful. 'Gran,' was always Anne, who had never been grand enough to be called 'Grandmother' as Rosemary was. Rilla, seeing her about to come into the room, set her teacup down and slipped out to intercept her.

'You're at Mr. Taylor's farm inspecting cabbages,' Rilla told her mother seriously.

'Am I? I do wish someone had said,' said Anne, her eyes gleaming with merriment.

'Who came up with that?'

'Una at very short notice; we were contending with Questions.'

'Ah, I see,' said Anne, eyes still gleaming. 'In that case, I will see what can be done in the kitchen, er, cabbage patch…does Mr. Taylor grow cabbages? Anyway, would you see, do you suppose there is tea among the cabbages?'

'I'll make sure there is,' said Rilla, trying very hard not to laugh.

'Thank you,' said Una out of the side of her mouth as Rilla re-entered the room. She had turned Walter onto his stomach and was playing the piano on his back, singing 'Onward Christian Soldiers' as she did so. Nan had let her hair out of it's plait, and it fell in long brown waves over her shoulders, just out of reach of John, who was making a concerted effort to grab at it. Both boys shrieked with laughter and it began to feel like Christmas again.

Nan, lapsing from childish habit into Arague language, said, 'if his mother's got a headache, hadn't you better try to keep him quiet?'

Rilla looked at her blankly. It was Una, who said laughing, and just as incomprehensibly, so far as Rilla could make out, 'you are trying, dear, to introduce logic into the world of three small children. It will never work.'

'I didn't know you could do that,' said Nan in mercifully plain English.

'Neither did Jerry and Faith,' said Una. 'It was what they used to speak in if they wanted to leave Carl and I out, so we learnt it too, though we never used it.'

'My turn,' says Gil decisively to Una. She let Walter go and took Gil on her lap, and taking Nan literally about her suggestion, swapped the Christian Soldiers for 'As Pants the Hart.' Nan began to rebraid her hair, winding the end result into a cadagon knot, much to the distress of John, who expressed his dismay by crinkling up his eyes in a way that reminded Nan of Jerry. Rilla, suddenly remembering the tea for her mother, went to make a cup and found there was no cup to spare.

It did not matter. They were having tea in the kitchen too when Anne came in.

'I thought you might be up with the others,' said Rosemary to Anne as she appeared in the kitchen.

'So I was going to be, and offer motherly reassurance. But I was dispatched before I could get there to make an excavation of Mr. Taylor's cabbages.'

Rosemary laughed. 'Was that Una? It sounds like her, cabbages had significance for her Aunt Martha.'

'Ah, it begins to make sense. I did wonder how she arrived at something so odd.'

'I'm sure I have heard people tell children stranger things than that little ones can be found in cabbages,' said Susan staunchly.

'And at least you can be certain she didn't take to Persis's idea about parsley. I'm sure it's a heathen notion, that one.'

'I'm not, Susan,' said Anne laughing in her turn, 'I've heard lots of good Christians talk about parsley that way, I'm sure I have. Although for the life of me, I cannot think who. I always favoured the stork, myself.'

'I think Una's had enough birds to last her a lifetime; she says Tabitha kills them and leaves them about the garden whatever the weather,' said Rosemary.

'Cats are shocking creatures, I have said it before, and I will say it yet,' said Susan. 'But that will not get supper made up, and baby or no baby, we must have something to eat.'

Nobody was very hungry. They settled on boiled eggs and toast, and cut the children's into 'fingers' for dipping into the yolk. Susan nearly wept at the thought that this was to be Christmas supper, but then it was only the family and it needn't get about. Then, blessedly, Dr. Blythe, both Dr Blythes, were there, looking quietly at ease, at least Gilbert Blythe was. It was perfectly clear that Jem, for all his surface calm, was bursting with pleasure, though it manifested only at the corners of his mouth. They in any event, were more than happy to accepted Susan's offer of cold ham to go with the boiled eggs, much to her delight. So far as Susan was concerned, they had been working and therefore must have meat, even if the rest of the house had been reduced to birds in their consumption of food.

'They are both well and sleeping,' said Gilbert, sitting down at the table.

'Oh for heaven's sake, Gilbert, you might say what the child's to be called,' said Anne, not really as exasperated as her words suggested, only terribly tired after a long day.

'Jem?' Gilbert prompted, because really the whole business of names was not his.

'He is to be James Matthew, and called Jim so there won't be any confusion.'

What a mercy, thought Susan, that the dear child will have his own name to be getting on with. I'm sure I'm getting into a terrible tangle working out who's who, the way all the children are named for family, nice as that may be.

'We seem to be amassing an army, all these boys,' said Anne laughing and kissing her child, 'but you mustn't take that to mean I'm not pleased. I'm exceedingly so. But if you happen to think of it…before we are terribly outnumbered…'

'There is too much personality between all of you,' said Gilbert, breaking up a piece of toast and dipping it into his egg, 'for you to ever be outnumbered. We shall have our work cut out making them into good upstanding lads that can't be bossed,' but he said it kindly and his eyes twinkled.

'Well, that will keep you busy a while yet,' said Rilla as she pried the pepper from Gil.

'The devil will get in if you do that,' she said, and Una found herself saying 'it's only salt the devil seems to mind about.'

'Well there is no devil here at any rate,' said Jem, 'only a strong, healthy boy with good, sound lungs.' As if to prove his point, the child upstairs began to wail.

'We will never know quiet again,' said Gilbert Blythe to his wife, and smiled as he said it.

They broke up for the night shortly after this. Other years they had sat up carolling, but it had been such a full day that no one had the energy for it this year.

'We can have our sing before the New Year comes in,' said Rosemary as she stood with her family at the door. 'Carols won't be out of season until we reach Epiphany. We've twelve whole days yet. Give our love to Faith, Jem,' and she, with Bruce and his father, disappeared into the dark of the evening.