Gwen was surprised, entering Rainbow Valley in the dusk one evening, to see Fanny Elliot there, lurking behind an old leafless maple.

"Jack's not here," she said without preamble, thinking there was no other reason for Fanny to be hanging around.

Fanny flushed and stepped out fully behind the tree. "I know," she said unhappily. "He doesn't ever talk to me anymore, anyway."

"Why not?" Gwen was genuinely curious. Jack was such a friendly fellow; she couldn't imagine why he would suddenly snub Fanny. Had he caught wind of her "crush" on him, and backed off so she wouldn't get the wrong impression?

"It's because of you," Fanny burst out.

"Me?"

"When that rumour started about you this summer, and I didn't say anything in your defence … he still hasn't forgiven me for that."

"He told you that?"

Fanny shrugged. "Not in so many words. When I asked him after class one day, right after school started, if we were going to be in a study group again, he said he couldn't work with someone who abandoned her friends and believed lies about them."

Gwen felt mingled pride and exasperation. She was touched that Jack was so protective of her … but really, did he have to make it so obvious? Why couldn't he just let everything slide into the past? She wasn't bearing a grudge against Fanny, why should he?

She looked again at Fanny's miserable face. "Is that why you're here? To blame me for losing Jack's friendship? Because really, it's not my fault, and I can't do anything about it even if it was."

"No!" Fanny twisted her hands together so hard they were striped red and white. "I came to … to apologize. I never believed the stories, Gwen, not for a moment."

Gwen paused. Then: "Why didn't you say anything, then?"

"Because I was scared! If I started speaking up for you, then people might have started thinking bad things about me, too. You get to go home soon, but I have to live here. I was too afraid of what people would say about me." Fanny's expression was a combination of shame and defiance. "I know I'm a miserable coward. But Gwen, I really have missed you, and missed our friendship. Do you think you could ever forgive me enough to be my friend again?"

Gwen thought about it. She believed Fanny's explanation. It did not, however, make her friend's abandonment any easier. For a moment, she flashed back to those days when no one would speak to her, when girls, including Fanny, would cross the street to avoid meeting her eyes, and she burned with resentment. No, she wouldn't forgive Fanny! She was probably only asking so that she could get close to Jack again, anyway!

But then … if she pushed Fanny away now, wouldn't that mean that Chloe had triumphed, just a little? If her scheming could ruin a promising friendship, she would have won, no matter how much Gwen had lived down the rumours in other ways,

Fanny was a coward—a moral coward, if not a physical one. But she was also sweet and kind, and she had been Gwen's first girl friend there in the Glen. While Gwen didn't think it was quite possible to return to their old camaraderie, perhaps they could build a new friendship from its ashes, accepting each other's weaknesses without judgment.

"All right," she said slowly. "I forgive you."

Fanny surprised her then by burying her face in her hands and bursting into tears.

"What?" Gwen said in bewilderment. "I said I forgive you!"

"I know," Fanny wept. "You're so good, and I don't deserve you for my friend at all!"

Gwen couldn't help but laugh a little at that. "Maybe not," she conceded. "But I like you anyway."

Fanny wiped her eyes with her hanky and tried a tentative smile. "Really?"

"Really," Gwen said decisively. "I can't promise that Jack will forgive you, though. Holding grudges is a bit of a family trait."

Fanny shook her head. "I may be a coward, Gwen, but I would not stoop so low as to ask for your friendship just to get Jack back. If he forgives me ever, I will be delirious with joy, but even if he doesn't, I'm just happy to have you back."

"Girls," Jo muttered, strolling unexpectedly out from behind some bushes. Fanny jumped and shrieked, and Gwen posted her hands on her hips.

"Josiah Blake, what have you been told about spying on people?"

"I was here first," Jo protested. "It's not my fault you two were talking without bothering to look to see if anyone was around. If you don't want people hearing you, you should talk more quietly," he added severely. Then he grinned rakishly. "But I'm glad you didn't."

Fanny knelt down in front of him, her hands clasped to her chest. "Oh Jo, you won't say anything about this to Jack, will you?"

Jo started to speak, caught his sister's eye, and sighed. "No," he said. "I would ask you to give me something for keeping quiet, but Gwen wouldn't let me take it."

"I most certainly would not," Gwen said sternly. "It is not gentlemanly to distress a lady. And it's not Christian to blackmail anyone."

Jo stuck his chin out. "I'm a Christian and a gentleman. Your secret is safe with me, Fanny."

She impulsively kissed his cheek. "Thank you! And just to show you how grateful I am, I will get you a box of chocolates tomorrow."

Jo glanced at Gwen, who rolled her eyes but nodded. "OK," he said cheerfully, and scampered off.

"You really shouldn't have done that," Gwen admonished Fanny.

The other girl got to her feet, brushing dirt and twigs off her skirt. "I'll give him a dozen boxes if only he keeps his mouth shut."

"Jo gave his word—that's the end of it," Gwen said flatly. "He said he wouldn't tell. You don't need to give him anything."

"Oh dear," Fanny mourned. "You are your siblings … you're all good, and I just can't ever live up to you!"

"Well, for heaven's sake don't start treating us like saints," Gwen said in disgust. "That would just be horribly boring, and embarrassing to boot." She motioned with her head toward Ingleside. "Let's go up to the house and coax Lynde into helping us make cookies."

"OK," Fanny said, borrowing the boys' slang, and they laughed together as they walked to the house, friends again.

Lynde sniffed when she saw Fanny (like Jack, Lynde was no so quick to forget the way Glen people had treated Gwen over the summer), but she thawed out enough to lend Fanny her oldest, most stained apron, and then vanish into the pantry while the other two baked, where they could occasionally hear her muttered comments about their conversation.

"Are you excited about this season for running? You've done really well so far," Fanny said, cracking eggs efficiently.

Gwen shrugged as she measured flour. "I am, but it's hard, too. I know I won't be back in the spring, and sometimes I feel guilty about the amount of time Coach is spending with me in training."

Lynde, audibly: "Some other people in this village ought to be feeling guilty, too, about Other Things."

Fanny tried to look like she hadn't heard. "It's not like Miss Flagg doesn't know you aren't going to be back. If she's still choosing to work so hard with you, it must be because she thinks you're worth it, even if you're only here for another season."

"I suppose," Gwen said.

"Are you going to miss us, when you're back in Kingsport?" Fanny asked wistfully.

"I wouldn't, after everything," Lynde announced to the baking supplies.

"Of course," Gwen answered, stifling a giggle as she added baking powder to the dry ingredients. "But I am longing to see Mother and Dad again."

"I don't suppose …" Fanny affected an unsuccessful indifferent air. "I don't suppose you've ever thought about staying?"

"Staying?" Gwen stared at her friend blankly. "What do you mean?"

Lynde: "Yes, what?"

Fanny shifted her feet uncomfortable and kept her eyes on the batter. "I just wondered. Your grandparents would love to have you stay, I know, and if you really have a chance, like Miss Flagg keeps saying, as making something of your running, I thought maybe you would ask your parents if you could finish up High School here in the Glen."

There was a startled silence as Gwen tried to absorb the idea. Lynde poked her head in from the pantry.

"Now there's sense, at last," she said.

"I couldn't do that," Gwen said firmly. "I couldn't be separated from everyone for that long."

"You'd still see them on holidays," Fanny persisted.

"You wouldn't want to throw away your chances at becoming an Olympic athlete, would you?" Lynde said, coming in to the kitchen all the way.

Gwen was still bewilderedly trying to make sense of it all when Grandmother, drawn more by the sound of young voices than the smell of cookies, entered. Fanny turned to her at once.

"Oh! Mrs. Blythe, won't you help us? Tell Gwen she should stay here to finish out High School, so she can get all the athletic training she needs, and so that we here won't lose her. You and Dr. Blythe wouldn't mind keeping her here, would you?"

Grandmother fixed her eyes on Gwen's face—still a very young face, despite her fifteen years. "Dr. Blythe and I always love to have any of our grandchildren stay with us, naturally. But I think that decision ought to be Gwen's, not ours."

"Why, it's not even a question, Grandmother," Gwen said. For just a moment, she had been dazzled by the idea of staying, of having more time with Jack and Oliver and Fanny and Lynde, of really making something of her running … but only a moment. "I couldn't possibly live without Mother and Dad, and Phil and Lee and Jo-Jo for that long. It's awfully sweet of you girls to want me to say, and terrifically kind to offer me a place, Grandmother, but it's simply out of the question. I just couldn't do it."

"Very well, then," Grandmother said promptly, and even with a hint of approval in her voice. She reached for an apron to tie around her own waist, silencing the protests of Fanny and Lynde, who were loath to let go their idea so quickly. "Do you girls mind if I join you? My cookies are never as good as Lynde's, but I do enjoy pretending I am fifteen again and having fun with my chums."

"Tell us about when you were fifteen, Grandmother," Gwen smiled.

"Oh goodness … can I even remember back that far?" Grandmother sat down on a stool and began to ice the cookies out of the oven. She smiled dreamily. "I was at Queen's College, still insisting to myself and everyone else that I hated Gilbert Blythe more than anyone on earth. I was planning on attending Redmond the next year, until Matthew Cuthbert died." Her face shadowed over. "In some ways, fifteen was the last year of my girlhood. I grew up rather quickly after that—though of course, I was still a girl in many ways."

Gwen shivered. She couldn't imagine what she would do if Dad died suddenly, and she was called to give up all her dreams, in the midst of her grief, and help support the family. She wondered if she was just weak, or if Grandmother was exceptionally strong.

"Tell us more about Mr. Cuthbert," Lynde suggested, rolling up her sleeves and filling the sink with water to wash the sticky bowls and spoons. "I've heard stories about Miss Cuthbert, of course, and about you and Dr. Blythe, and my own Lynde grandparents, but nobody ever says much of anything about Mr. Cuthbert."

"Most likely because he was so very, very quiet," Grandmother said, the shadow passing and her eyes brightening again. "He was painfully shy, but he had the biggest heart of anyone I've ever met, and oh, he was so very good to me. He was the first person to ever show me love, in all my life."

The girls fell silent then, musing on what Grandmother's childhood must have been like.

"Marilla loved me too, later," Grandmother hurried on to say. "But Matthew loved me from the first, even when I was a scrawny little red-headed chatterbox from Nova Scotia, not the boy they had requested, dressed in the most hideous wincey dress imaginable. Anyone else would have shipped me right back to the orphanage on the very next train, but not Matthew. And even after that, he always had time for me, always listened, always sympathized. I've told you girls about my brown gloria dress, haven't I?"

Gwen had heard the story, but Fanny and Lynde had not, and so Grandmother told it again, reliving that magical Christmas day when she had received the very first pretty dress she'd ever owned.

"I still love pretty clothes," she confessed, as though to a dark, shameful vice. "I know at my age I shouldn't be thinking of such worldly matters anymore, but I still feel a thrill every time I put on something beautiful."

"I know exactly what you mean," Gwen said, thinking of the lovely blue birthday dress from Aunt Jenny hanging in the wardrobe upstairs. She had only worn it a few times since March, but she felt like a completely different person from her usual self every time she put it on. Once in a while, she even felt almost beautiful in it!