"Diana Barry," said Anne dreamily. "Diana Barry. Diana Barry. Why, if my name really was Cordelia, Diana Barry and I could live together in a dream-name bliss, in an orchard, under trees heavy with apples, or in a field with daffodils and sweet clover and peonies. If my name was Cordelia, I could be Cordelia Barry, and Diana and I --"

Marilla's voice came through the door, sharp and cutting. "Anne. You stop talking to yourself and go to sleep."

Anne sat up in bed. "Oh, Marilla --"

"No, none of that, Anne. You lay down. You lay down right now or I'll go get Matthew." Marilla paused, and in her head Anne pictured Marilla's mouth, drawn tight with disapproval, and her heart sank. "Good night, Anne."

"Good night, Marilla!" said Anna, and she did lay back down. But she couldn't stop her heart from racing. The further away Marilla stepped from her door -- and Anne could hear her, could count every step, and could even, she imagined, hear the swish of Marilla's needle as she pieced together a quilt. Anne thought Marilla would probably sit in her rocking chair with Matthew, and rock back and forth.

Marilla would say, "Oh, Matthew, you should have seen the way that Barry child took to Anne," and Matthew would say, "Well, Marilla, Anne's an awfully nice girl."

Then Marilla would look at Matthew skeptically, and put down her piecing and say, "Matthew, we were both worried and you know it. But Anne's got a light in her, I'll give you that."

And Matthew would reply, his dear face crinkling up with the light of God in his smile, "That's our Anne. She and Diana Barry were made to be friends."

"We were made to be friends," Anne sighed to her ceiling. "We are two pieces that fit entirely together. If it wasn't sacrilegious we could get married. But the Bible would never approve of that, and Mrs. Barry seems like a woman who takes the Bible awful serious. And Mrs. Lynde would never ever stop talking of it to anyone who'd listen and even some of them who wouldn't. No, we'll just -- be friends forever."

Anne closed her eyes, and in the velvety darkness of her eyelids, she could see herself and Diana Barry, finding a small cottage, and although it wouldn't have a romantic gable, perhaps they'd have a romantic fireplace, and a mossy hollow outside it, with a burbling brooke. They would do something to live; perhaps Diana would mind the tea and do the cooking and piecework, while Anne wrote stories and had them published in journals in the States, where they appreciated talent and one's love affair with language. And then maybe Diana would have a baby, and she'd name it Cordelia. Cordelia Diana Barry. It would call Anne "Mother" and Diana "Mommy".

If Diana met a boy she wanted to marry, Anne would allow it. Diana would look lovely in a white gown, with lace falling down over her plump pink face, and pink flowers in her bouquet. Fairies could dance around her -- although, Anne knew, Diana didn't have much of an imagination. But she was perfect in all other ways, and she would look enrapturing walking down the aisle -- under a bower of maple trees, or apple trees, or the Birch Path -- and then she and Anne could hold hands under the tea table, and little Cordelia Diana Barry could pour.

Anne fell asleep thinking of Diana's veil -- there was so much scope for imagination in a veil -- and the scrumptious supper they could eat on the wedding night, jam and pie and tea with cream and sugar, and Anne would wear a blue silk dress, and her hair would be blackest blackest midnight, just like Diana's, and people would look at their baby, the most precious, delicious baby alive, and say, "She looks just like her mommies..."

She woke up beaming with pride, for little Cordelia Diana's first word was "willow" and Anne felt instinctively that it meant Cordelia Diana was just meant to be an artist and wear dresses with puffed sleeves and have long, straight, beautiful hair. And even though Anne had to wash the dishes and sweep the kitchen and cut pattern squares, she smiled the whole time, counting the minutes until she could run up to the Barrys' house to see Diana.