It takes seventy minutes in good traffic to get from the Station to Everleigh and Josephine Barry talks for every one. Whether this is because she wants to avoid a scene with her niece or needs to entertain her guest no one is about to enquire. All Anne knows is that she aches from all the nodding. And the waving. Everyone seems to know Miss Barry, from the butcher's apprentice who salutes her and calls out, 'We got your blood pudding, Miss B!' to the gentleman passing in another carriage, who waves his gold cane and utters cryptically, 'Josephine Barry, I demand a rematch.'

In between these odd exchanges Miss Barry points out every new building and flowering tree, anxious to impress Anne with the changes Charlottetown had enjoyed since she was here a year ago.

Anne is impressed. She likes this old town with its harbourside and artists' quarter; the bustle and grime of the city, the fine old mansions in their private grounds. Everleigh is situated on Charlottetown's most prestigious hill. From up there one felt they could survey the whole world, which the lady of the house duly did. Once upon a time she had felt like its ruler, expecting her every wish to be carried out just so. That changed with the arrival -shocking and unladylike though it was- of the Anne-girl. Josephine decided it was time she considered more than her own wishes. She calls herself a Patroness, though what she really does is meddle. Either way it is done with an unselfish heart. She truly wants what's best for people even if they are too stupid or stubborn to recognise the road to their own happiness.

If Anne didn't know Josephine had undergone such a transformation before she arrived, she knew it fully the moment she was shown to her room. The last time she stayed Miss Barry had put her in her 'Sparest of Spare Rooms' which was the size of the entire ground floor at Green Gables, with huge picture windows that took in the magnificent city-scape below. Instead of feeling like a princess Anne felt like a goldfish and spent most of the time on her four poster bed with the drapes drawn cosily round her.

She isn't expecting to sleep there this time. Diana's room is on the third floor and Anne assumes she will be sharing with her. Instead the chamber maid leads her to a room that bears little likeness to the opulence Diana's letters describe. Anne's eyes grow wide as she takes in what Martha calls the 'Starflower' room. The walls are decorated with wallpaper in a deep licorice-green and dotted throughout in tiny white blooms with five pointed petals. Here and there are curled tendrils, leaves, ladybirds, dandelion clocks, and tiny spotted toadstools. The rest of the room is furnished with an armoire, two armchairs, a dressing table similar to Mrs Blythe's, and low wide bed covered in a mossy chenille the same colour as the walls. Anne feels herself Queen of her very own forest, and is lying there devouring it all when Diana appears at the door.

'May I come in?'

Anne leaps from the bed and beckons her. 'Darling I'm sorry, I haven't even changed for dinner. It's this room, it's...'

'You don't find it too spooky? Aunt Jo had it all redecorated the moment she sent the telegram.'

'Spooky? No- but Di I don't want to talk about wallpaper I want to talk about you.'

'I'd rather talk about wallpaper.'

Anne unbuttons her dress and throws it over an armchair. 'What about Avonlea then, shall we talk about that? You know just as many things have happened in that dear old place as they have in this grand town.'

Diana sinks onto the bed, she'd like to fall onto it but dares not crumple her gown. She is dressed very elegantly in something Josie might wear, minus all the ribbons Pyes are never seen without. Diana's figure is still as bursting with curves as ever, but the pale blue organdie has been cleverly cut so it accentuates some and diminshes other. Anne is wearing her organdie too, or she would be if she could stop talking.

'Ruby said Myra wanted to name him after Mr Gillis, but you can't call a tiny baby Andrew Andrews. Of course Oren wanted to name him after himself, but Myra thought that could lead to all sorts of misunderstandings. Naturally Mrs Lynde solved the dilemma. Not that she tells people that-'

'Oh no,' says Diana, comfortably, 'Mrs Lynde just hates to take the credit for anything-'

'Exactly. So Myra went to Ladies Meet and Mrs Lynde declared that a woman should please her husband before her father, and if Myra didn't like the name Oren then how about Soren? It's her nephew's name,' Anne adds. 'I may well meet him at the end of summer. He's bringing another bilberry seedling because some jackanapes -Mrs Lynde's word not mine- helped himself to a bit of hers and spoiled the symmetry in her Swedish Corner Garden.'

Diana laughs.

'How is Gilbert Blythe?'

'Ah well, it seems Gilbert may have met his just desserts. He was all set to leave White Sands for the summer when someone broke into his room-'

'No! Was he hurt?'

'He wasn't there when it happened. Just walked into a big mess, or what Mrs Blythe calls an even bigger mess. There wasn't much to take but it was taken anyway. Blanket, clothing, razor, hairbrush-'

'How unhygienic!'

'-the rest was turned over and scattered with paper. It was the blanket Gilbert cared about. He knows who took it, too. The man who owns the boarding house has been trying to buy it off him all year. It's very rare, his great-grandmother made it. Apparently he's devised some trick to catch him out-' Anne says, bending down to look at her hair in the mirror.

'Typical Gil,' says Diana.

'Mmmm,' Anne murmurs, catching sight of her breasts in the mirror. 'Typical Gil.'

Talk of Gilbert Blythe could be expected to augur talk of Frederic Wright. But he doesn't come up till long after dinner. Before they dine another maid, Amelia this time, comes in to say that the first course will be served in ten minutes then offers to 'do' Anne's hair.

Anne readily accepts, curious to what Amelia might conjure and perches on the arm of her chair imagining herself transformed into one of the Godey Girls. Amelia's hands are swift but Anne can't help notice that she makes no braids, twists or coils and hardly uses any pins. She expects to look in the mirror and see a mean little bun like Marilla's. The effect is the opposite. Amelia has undone all the fussy touches and piled Anne's hair in a softly drooping roll, highlighting the thickness and lustre of her hair and the delicate shape of her face. Anne feels eighteen! nineteen! and is so enchanted she kisses Amelia ten times over. An old salt like Amelia is used to giddy girls and stands there stoically whilst Anne makes her cheeks wet.

After much begging to know exactly what Amelia did, she says, 'Something to suit you, Miss, and no one else.'

You are going straight into my story, Anne thinks. She imagines her part in the plot all through dinner. Miss Barry misses the Anne-girl's sparkle but Diana shines enough for both of them. She leads every conversation, from the transcendent volta in Browning's latest, to the public debate between Poincare and Cantor. Granted all Diana's opinions are received wisdom rather than ones she came up with herself, but then so are Mr Wilson's, Mr Olsen's and Miss Barry's. Anne will not be drawn, though she is often invited to, and after dessert when the men escort Miss Barry to her card-game on their way home, Diana asks Anne if she is unhappy here.

'No darling, I'm simply... overwhelmed by the splendour.'

Instead of feeling reassured, Diana's frown deepens. 'You sound like Fred,' she says.

The night is a cool one so they ask for their shawls before heading into the garden. Martha brings both and flutters Anne's over her shoulder.

'Beg pardon, Miss, but that silk is so light, like a butterfly's wings. It almost want to fly!'

Anne finds herself blushing as the shawl lights upon her shoulders the same way it did one morning in January. 'Would you like it,' she blurts, 'my shawl? A friend of mine, Dora, passed it on to me and I'm sure she'd be happy to know I passed it on to you?'

Martha backs away and shoots a look at young Miss Barry.

'It's alright, Martha, Miss Shirley means to be kind.'

The girl bobs quickly then flees, as does Anne, into the candlelit orchard. Diana ordered the boughs of her aunt's ornamental fruit trees to be strung with tiny glass lanterns. The blossoms are aglow with little suns that warm each petal and release a plummy perfume that should thrill Anne to her soul. Instead she hardly notices, mortified by the way she embarrassed the maid.

'Oh Anne, don't take it to heart, you never could help being wonderfully good. Martha just didn't know what to do. It's different in Avonlea, we only have to mind our elders. Here there are convoluted pecking orders, even among the staff-'

'You sound like such a lady, Di-'

Diana frowns again. 'Now you really sound like Fred!'

'Is that bad?'

'Yes -no, I don't know... In his letters he keeps saying how different I sound, how I must have changed so much living in my palace on the hill, while he mucks out the barn and ploughs the fields. He forgets I'm a farmer's daughter just like he's a farmer's son. I think... I think he thinks I don't love him anymore... That's why I have to go back-'

Anne is stunned. She should feel overjoyed, but something about this new development feels wrong. 'Your parents are letting you come back?'

'It's Minnie-May. You know she's been impossible since I left, Mamma's simply worn out. I have to go back, don't you see? I can't choose Queens over my folks -over Fred! That's not love. Love means you sacrifice everything. If Fred has to wait two years to see me again- oh Anne, I just know it would break his heart and I could never do that to him.'

As she says this she wraps her arms around herself and stares not at Anne but the petal-strewn lawn. Anne kneels at her feet and makes Diana look at her.

'Diana, are you saying you want to take the Entrance?'

'A little part of me does... But the biggest part of me wants to see Fred again. If I can't have both then I choose him.'

'And are you saying your parents agree to you courting?'

'Heavens no!' Diana erupts. She throws her arms in the air and strides further into the plum trees. Anne stands there for a moment wondering if she should follow when Diana comes marching straight back. 'Papa wouldn't even loan out his hired boy for the Wright's bean harvest! Oh Anne, I was so ashamed. You know there are only a certain number of days you can pick beans before they go tough. The Barrys and Wrights have no more love for each other than the Capulets and the Montagues.'

Diana pronounces Capulet so that it rhymes with bouquet and Montague with vague, and it makes Anne want to cry. Not because Diana has made one of her loveable mistakes, but because they understand each other in a way that no one else can. Not her Mamma, not Josie, not even Fred have the sort of bond they share. This is why she was summoned, Anne knows this now. She guides Diana to a bench seat and takes hold of both her hands.

'I'm going to say something I think you're afraid to say. But I'm not. You want to go to Queens, want it more than anything you've wanted in your life. That's why you're so scared to try, Diana Barry, that's why you want to run home to Fred-'

'I don't want to run home to Fred, I want to be with Fred-'

'But you wouldn't be, don't you see. You'd be hiding and lying just like before. Sooner or later the two of you will be caught again and then you'll lose Fred and this chance-'

Diana huffs but doesn't pull away. 'Some chance, Anne. You took a chance, you won a scholarship and gave it all up. It's what women do, we're expected to give things up.'

'I did it to save my home. Any man would do the same. Do you think Fred would leave Yellow Birches? If it was the other way round, if you said to Fred if you love me come to Charlottetown and find a job in town, would he do it?'

'I would never expect him to. The farm is everything to Fred-'

'Then why is he asking this of you, why doesn't he want you to take the exam?'

Tears come now, Diana closes her eyes and blinks against them but it's too late, they slip down her cheeks and drip from her chin. Anne can't help thinking of Fred, when he sprinted what must have been five miles because he was afraid for his girl.

'He never asked me anything of the sort,' says Diana shakily. 'I never told him I wanted to teach-'

'Di! What sort of love is it if you can't be honest? Our secrets and dreams, we don't share these with just anyone, we offer them up to the ones we love. If Fred can't accept your dreams-'

'Then it isn't love.'

Once Diana says this she reaches for her handkerchief and loudly blows her nose. Anne stands up and invites her to walk again. When they link arms Anne has this shivery sense they will remember this night forever.

'I dreamed of going to Queens. And you encouraged me to go, even though you knew you'd be left behind in Avonlea... getting fat-'

'Ha ha, Anne Shirley. That's different. You're the smart one, I'm just-'

'The pretty one? Diana Barry, you are so much more than that. Imagine for a moment if you happened to go to Queens for a year or two. Your parents would certainly believe you had forgotten about Fred. And if Fred remains true to you -which I believe with all my heart he will- they couldn't help but be impressed by his devotion. When you come back they are bound to give their blessing, and if they don't... Well, you'll be nineteen by then, and a qualified teacher. You could find work in Carmody or White Sands or Newbridge, and court whoever you like-'

'Anne, stop, stop, this is too much! I need time to take this all in, can I just think about it?'

'Of course, darling. Only promise you'll tell me as soon as you decide.'

'Tell you? Anne I don't think I'll stop pestering you from now until you go home.' Diana plucks a plum blossom and tucks it by Anne's ear, then does the same for herself. 'You always said one day I would have need of the Avonlea schoolmarm.'

'Oh...' Anne says, and bites her lip. 'About that-'

...

The last of the short and sweet chapters, or maybe not. I know that Anotherlea needs thirty (shock horror!) chapters. So for those of you thinking, Hmmm let's see how she winds this up, now you know -by adding five more chapters! Oh fanfiction, you are so much fun!

Lylt girl, yeah I mean you.

k.