"And now she's back to us keeping the baby," Marilla was telling Matthew while Anne was away visiting Gilbert's father.

"How d'you feel about it, Marilla?" her brother asked.

"I don't expect we'd send it away, would we?" Marilla said- as if sending away an unexpected child was something she would never, ever do. This amused Matthew, but he didn't say anything about it.

"Be a lot of work," he pointed out.

"Yes, it certainly would be," Marilla agreed. "Does that mean you think it's a bad decision?"

"Well, now, I wouldn't want to give it to someone else," he said, thinking about it. "Anne's our little girl. And any little one she has is ours, too, in a way. It ought to be here, with us."

Marilla told him, "Rachel thinks Anne's life would be easier if she found another home for it, and she's not wrong."

Matthew thought about this, and finally said, "Having an easier life don't mean a thing if she's miserable for it."

Marilla stared at him. Finally she nodded and said, "No matter what she feels right now, I don't think she'd do well being separated from it."

Matthew said, "Wonder how she'll feel when the time comes."

"We'll have to wait and see," Marilla said with a sigh. "All we can do in the meantime is love her and take care of her."

John Blythe agreed with his son in being happy that Anne had a change of heart. Though he would support Anne in whatever decision she made, he, like Gilbert, worried that if Anne gave it up and later changed her mind, she might not be able to get it back again, and the thought of her having to live with that worried the both of them.

Even though Anne decided she'd better keep the baby, she wasn't happy about it. To her, it was still The Thing, and she frequently referred to it as such, until finally Marilla had enough of hearing that, and exclaimed, "Goodness gracious, Anne, would you please stop referring to the baby as The Thing?! It makes me cringe every time I hear it! Especially the way you make your voice sound so dramatic at the end there- you sound as if you're talking about some ghoulish monster from those dreadful magazines you read with John Blythe!"

"How do you know about those?" Anne asked, looking at her in surprise.

"Because…" Marilla trailed off, then finally sputtered, "Because I read them with him, too!"

And then she went out of the room, because she did not appreciate the way Anne was grinning at her.

The next week, Anne's stomach had expanded a little more, and though Marilla told her it was hardly noticeable at all, Anne worried constantly.

The pinafore was doing very well in hiding it, because any extra fluff in the front could be attributed to all the flounces and ruffles.

But Anne wondered how long it would last before even the pinafore was not enough.

Anne still went to Emily's house to take care of Clara two afternoons a week, but Gilbert came over nearly every day that Anne was at home, to the point that Matthew and Marilla simply expected him to be there and any day he wasn't, they were surprised not to see him.

One afternoon as they sat in the parlor- not doing school work for a change- Anne told him the truth about her pinafore: "Marilla made it for me because it can hide me a little bit," she said mournfully.

"Hide you?" he asked- until her meaning hit him.

"Oh," he said, understanding. "Is it...is it...showing now?"

Anne nodded miserably. "Marilla says it's barely there, but I think it's awful."

Gilbert wasn't sure what to say. "Well," he finally told her, "I wouldn't have known at all- you don't look any different."

"I'm glad you think so."

And Gilbert decided he would keep thinking so- even when her stomach was popped out like a balloon, he would steadfastly tell her that it wasn't a bit noticeable.

"The Thi…" Anne began to say, but she trailed off until finally she whispered, "The baby..."

Gilbert noticed that it was the first time her baby was not The Thing.

Anne saw his expression and said, "Marilla's angry because she doesn't like me calling it The Thing. I don't see why it matters what I call it. It can't hear me, can it?"

"I don't know," Gilbert said, interested in this. "I wonder how much they can hear in the womb. Or see. I wonder if they open their eyes yet."

Then seeing Anne's face, he said quickly, "It doesn't matter if it can hear you or not- it won't understand what you're saying."

"Then it shouldn't matter what I call the wretched little thing," Anne said, disgusted.

Gilbert held in a sigh. He told her- his tone light- "Maybe she just doesn't want you to get in the habit of calling it that. Can you imagine someone coming up to you in town, leaning over the pram and saying 'What a sweet little girl, what's her name?' and you say- out of habit- 'The Thing's name is Cordelia."

Anne laughed at that.

But then her face turned serious.

"What is it?" Gilbert asked.

"I don't have a pram. And I don't need one- I'm not taking it anywhere. Ever!"

"Why not?" Gilbert asked. "What if you want to go into town for something?"

"I won't," Anne said. "Unless I can leave it alone at home. I'll leave it all alone and go out by myself. I'm not taking it anywhere. It's too embarrassing. I know I can't keep it a secret that The Thi- the baby!…exists. But letting anyone see it, that's just too awful!"

Then she looked sad. "Besides, I don't want the Andrews to see it... I mean, I don't think they really want to see it, anyway. But I don't like the way they look at me, like they think I'm revolting! Imagine how they'll look at the baby- it'll probably be even worse. …They'll hate the baby because it made it impossible for them to pretend that Billy didn't do anything."

"Maybe they won't look at it like that," Gilbert suggested. "Maybe if they see it, they'll have nicer feelings toward it. Because they'll realize now they have a-"

Gilbert stopped himself.

He was about to say a grandchild- that the Andrews might become nicer toward Anne and the baby because instead of seeing the baby as a problem, they'd realize that it was- in fact- their grandchild.

But he changed his mind quickly, thinking that even though Anne didn't want the Andrews to be unkind to the baby, them being unkind might be better for her than if they decided they liked the baby and wanted to be involved in it's life.

So all he said was, "I'd say you can all co-exist in this town without having to interact with each other."

"Really," Anne stated, doubt in her voice.

"Sure," Gilbert said. "If you see each other in town, you can just go your separate ways... If you see them in a shop, you can always go on to another shop and wait for them to leave. Or if you have to see each other, you can pass by without any pleasantries exchanged. There's no reason you have to give them any thought at all. Ignoring them works."

Anne nodded slowly, but then shook her head. It was easy to say 'just ignore them and move on'. ...But the thought of being in town, carrying a baby- and Mr. and Mrs. Andrews seeing the baby- ugh, it sounded horrendous.

Anne was not the only one thinking of what it would be like to see the baby around town.

Mrs. Andrews was unable to remove this picture from her head. While she had told Jane she refused to think about Anne's situation, the fact was that she couldn't stop thinking about it.

Knowing when Billy had...done what he had done...Mrs. Andrews was easily able to work out a due date, and when August came, she didn't know how she would cope.