Page:Anne of the Island (1920).djvu/243



came in that winter like the meekest and mildest of lambs, bringing days that were crisp and golden and tingling, each followed by a frosty pink twilight which gradually lost itself in an elfland of moonshine.

Over the girls at Patty’s Place was falling the shadow of April examinations. They were studying hard; even Phil had settled down to text and notebooks with a doggedness not to be expected of her.

“I’m going to take the Johnson Scholarship in Mathematics,” she announced calmly. “I could take the one in Greek easily, but I’d rather take the mathematical one because I want to prove to Jonas that I’m really enormously clever.”

“Jonas likes you better for your big brown eyes and your crooked smile than for all the brains you carry under your curls,” said Anne.

“When I was a girl it wasn’t considered lady-like to know anything about Mathematics,” said Aunt Jamesina. “But times have changed. I don’t know that it’s all for the better. Can you cook, Phil?”

“No, I never cooked anything in my life except a gingerbread and it was a failure—flat in the middle Rh