It had been a string of Jonah days. Steady cold rain. Wind gusts that had toppled Anne's favorite apple tree in the old orchard. The very same tree that reminded Anne of the Snow Queen in Avonlea. Children who were tired of being cooped up inside the house. While these children didn't exactly get mouthy, they – well, let's just say they tested all of the adults.

Even Susan went to far as to say, "Shirley, I am losing patience . . . "

Nobody in Glen St. Mary had ever accused Dr. Gilbert Blythe for slacking off in regards to his medical practice. Still, it seemed that there were more sick people than ever calling for his care. Gilbert had been up early and back home late every night for past week.

It was now Friday afternoon. Susan was at a sick relative's house and the older kids were at school. The younger kids were napping.

Anne heard a knocking at Ingleside's door.

She groaned. They did not expect visitors today. Gilbert had left Ingleside on an urgent call in the middle of the night. She had hoped that he would be home before dinner. Maybe he would even be home while the house was still quiet. Then she could give Gilbert some of her own tender loving care . . .

Anne went to the door.

"Oh, Mr. Ford!"

Owen Ford, handsome as ever if a little bit wet and windswept, stood at Ingleside's front door.

"Come in, come in, Mr. Ford! Why – you'll have to excuse me. Leslie didn't say anything about a trip to the island!"

Owen Ford said, "Oh, Leslie and the children are back in Toronto. I came out to the island by myself. The Montgomery Journal hired me to do a series of articles based on the Life-Book of Captain Jim. A kind of travel diary. I'm going to write about my adventures at Captain Jim's favorite pubs, his favorite shops in Charlottetown, that sort of thing. The working title is "Around the Island with Captain Jim."

Anne said, "Oh, how exciting! Well, I'm sorry to tell you that the doctor's not home. He got called out pretty early."

Owen Ford said, "The poor doctor's going to be pretty exhausted. Well, I just wanted to let you know that I will be staying at the House of Dreams for the next few days."

Anne said, "Let me take your coat! Sit down for a few minutes and tell me how everyone is!"

Owen Ford said, "Well, Leslie is as gorgeous as ever. Persis loves to read and she loves her teacher at school. Kenneth seems to have every girl in his class fawn over him. And you?"

Anne said, "The children are growing up fast. Gilbert's medical practice is very . . . busy. I'm blessed. It – it's awfully exciting to hear that you got hired to write a follow-up series on the Life-Book. You've heard me mention this before, but a long time ago, I wanted to be a writer."

Anne looked at Owen Ford. "So, how's the . . . writing world in Toronto?"

Owen told Anne about the latest Toronto literary scandal. A critic had written a bad review for a new book written by a woman named Emily Starr. Ms. Starr had located the critic's home residence, visited said critic unannounced, and then beat the critic with a bottle.

Owen Ford said, "Mrs. Blythe – if you'll forgive me for being so forward – whatever happened with that? You wanting to be a writer, I mean?"

Anne said, "Well, I – well, I – well, you know, I graduated from college and Dr. Blythe and I got engaged and then I was the principal at Summerside for three years. Then I married the doctor."

Owen Ford said, "Yes, but – if you'll forgive me – what really happened? Oh, never mind. I beg your pardon."

Anne said, "Well, you see, it's – it's complicated. But, well, you see – I had – I HAVE, I mean – this really good friend. You've met her. Mrs. Fred Wright. Back then, she was Diana Barry. She was my very first real friend that I ever had. I didn't have any real, in the flesh friends when I was in the orphanage. Then I came to Green Gables, and I met Diana. I called her my bosom friend."

"So, anyway, Diana and I were the best friends in the world. Then, I went to Queen's and Redmond and I left Diana behind. Diana wanted to marry Fred Wright, which she did. However, and this might be a bit presumptuous of me, but I think that she resented me because I went off to college with Dr. Blythe and some other classmates from the island."

"After I went to college, I came back home and wrote a short story. I thought that I would get it published. Silly me. It was such a stupid little short story. I titled it "Averil's Atonement." I sent it off to "the very biggest of the big magazines." I probably sent it off to some of the same magazines that now print your work. Come to think of it, I might have sent it to the Montgomery Journal. Anyway, I expected to hear something back from at least one of the magazines, and I heard . . . crickets. Nobody wanted my little story that I worked SO HARD on."

"So, anyway, THEN Diana submitted my story to a contest held by the Rollings Reliable Baking Powder Company. Diana changed up all of the details so that it became a story about baking powder."

"Mr. Ford, I won the contest! I was so humiliated. I spent the prize money on clothes that I hated every time I wore them! Don't laugh, Mr. Ford!"

Owen Ford said, "But winning a contest is a good, start, Mrs. Blythe. I don't understand – you gave up writing because you won a baking powder contest!"

Anne said, "Oh, there's more. I couldn't forgive Diana for entering my story into that contest. She thought that she was doing something nice for me. I was just so embarrassed that the baking company was the only one who ever wanted my stupid little story. I'm not proud of this, but I started taking it out on Diana. I didn't realize this at the time. I started teasing Diana every time she said or did anything that I thought was stupid, that made her appear less educated than me, whatever that means. It all came to a head when I said something about the ancient Phoenicians and she asked me if that's where Phoenician blinds came from."

Owen Ford threw back his head and laughed.

Anne laughed too. "Yeah, so Diana actually meant Venetian blinds."

Anne continued. "I kept teasing Diana about this, over and over. Finally, Diana lost it and told me to stop being so high and mighty about all of the scholarships that I won and my time at Queens and Redmond. And she was right! She was right! She was my very first friend that I had ever had, and I had treated her horribly. So, I stopped talking about anything school-related around Diana, and I also stopped talking about writing."

Owen Ford said, "But you still continued to write, correct?"

Anne said, "Well. Mr. Ford, if I tell you something, can you promise to never tell anyone? I've never even told Dr. Blythe this. You can't tell ANYBODY about this. Not even Leslie."

Owen Ford said, "Oh, a secret too juicy to tell your husband? How can I turn that down?"

Anne said, "I'm serious."

Owen Ford said, "So am I. Tell me your secret, Mrs. Blythe."

Anne said, "Well, when I was at Redmond, I had this beau named Royal Gardner. Roy. This was before Dr. Blythe and I got engaged, of course."

"Anyway, Roy came from family money. He didn't need to graduate from Redmond in order to make his way in the world. Not really. He was going to manage his family's business interests one day. Roy wasn't like Dr. Blythe. Roy didn't need to win a scholarship so that he could go to medical school and be a doctor. Roy already had his path set in life. So, Roy maybe didn't take his education as seriously as he should have. Also, maybe Roy rubbed off on me a little bit. Maybe I was cruel to Diana after I spent a little bit too much time with Roy."

"Roy had a literature class with me. And I'm not proud of the next thing that I'm going to tell you, Mr. Ford. But, the thing is, I maybe did some of Roy's coursework for him for this one class. Maybe I did a lot of his coursework for him. Maybe I wrote some – or most – of his essays for him."

"So, besides the coursework, we also had a final essay exam. The professor had to run out of the exam early for some sort of family emergency, and he told us to slide our tests under his office door when we were finished. So, anyway, Roy and I waited until all of the other students had finished and left and we were the only ones left in the classroom. Then, I showed Roy all of my answers for the essay test and let him copy my answers off of my paper."

"I trusted that Roy was going to change up what I wrote enough so that when he wrote down his answers, the professor wouldn't figure out what we did. But it seems as if I had too much faith in Roy. He apparently didn't change up the answers enough. The professor must have figured it out. He called everyone from the class back for a special meeting. He told our class that he had reasons to suspect that cheating was going on. He said that he didn't have enough evidence to prove it, and also that he didn't have the energy to try to prove something like that. What he meant was, Roy Gardener's family was so prominent that he didn't want to have to prove that Roy cheated off of the woman that he courted. So, the professor discarded everybody's exams right there in front of us, and told us that he was going to replace that exam grade with a single exam question that we had to write a response for right there on the spot, and that our responses to this single question would replace that exam grade. Somehow, I scored 100 percent on my response to the question. I'm still not sure whether my answer to the question merited a score of 100 percent, or if the professor gave me 100 percent just to make me feel guilty."

"So there, Mr. Ford, I just told you about the thing in my life that makes me the least proud to admit about myself. "

Owen Ford said, "Oh. Well."

Anne said, "I've never even told Dr. Blythe about that. I'm too ashamed to tell him. Mr. Ford, he worked so hard to win the Cooper Prize. He nearly worked himself to death. He almost died that next summer because he wore himself down with school. And while he was working himself to death, I was helping Roy Gardner cheat."

Owen Ford said, "So, then you punished yourself by giving up on being a writer. Do I have that correct?"

Anne said, "Well, I wanted to punish myself. But I was also afraid that other people also wanted to punish me. There were A LOT of people in that class who also wanted to be writers. You think that any of these people got burned when our professor threw out the final essay exams and gave a new exam on the spot? What do you think, Mr. Ford?"

"I tried to lay low about the whole thing, but gossip moves pretty fast at Redmond. People in that class talked. There was a lot of speculation about who cheated. Some people guessed that it was Roy. Everyone thought that I was going to get engaged to Roy at graduation, including Roy. So, maybe people thought that I was also involved in cheating. You think, Mr. Ford?"

"And then, Mr. Ford, I DIDN'T get engaged to Roy Gardner. I got engaged to Gilbert Blythe, the new Cooper Prize winner. I got the principalship at Summerside. I was afraid that if I actually saw my name in print on top of all of that, certain people would find out and start up the talk again about how I cheated at Redmond with Roy. I could get dismissed from Summerside. And Gilbert – Dr. Blythe, I mean – well, I couldn't do that to him."

"So THAT, Mr. Ford, is why I gave up on trying to be a writer."

Owen Ford said, "It was very brave of you to tell me that, Mrs. Blythe."

Anne said, "I don't know if it was brave or foolish of me to tell you that, Mr. Ford. Please don't tell Leslie. The doctor can't ever find out about this."

By then, Owen Ford sat pretty close to Anne. At one point, he touched her hand.

"Anne-girl!"

Owen Ford and Anne jumped up to greet a drenched Dr. Gilbert Blythe.

Gilbert had gotten called out of his warm bed before the night could properly be called morning. He rushed from his first emergency to several other critical patients. He hadn't eaten all day. A patient got sick on him. The rain fell in buckets on his ride home that afternoon. Thanks to the wind it also "fell" sideways. By the time Gilbert drove his horse into the barn, he didn't have a dry inch of clothing on him.

As Gilbert entered his house, he heard the voice of Owen Ford say, "It was very brave of you to tell me that, Mrs. Blythe."