`` Well ; if she marries Ralph I hope he will be a little more up-and-coming than his brother Billy , '' mused Anne . `` For instance , '' said Gilbert , laughing , `` let us hope he will be able to propose on his own account . Anne , would you have married Billy if he had asked you himself , instead of getting Jane to do it for him ? '' `` I might have . '' Anne went off into a shriek of laughter over the recollection of her first proposal . `` The shock of the whole thing might have hypnotized me into some such rash and foolish act . Let us be thankful he did it by proxy . '' `` I had a letter from George Moore yesterday , '' said Leslie , from the corner where she was reading . `` Oh , how is he ? '' asked Anne interestedly , yet with an unreal feeling that she was inquiring about some one whom she did not know . `` He is well , but he finds it very hard to adapt himself to all the changes in his old home and friends . He is going to sea again in the spring . It 's in his blood , he says , and he longs for it . But he told me something that made me glad for him , poor fellow . Before he sailed on the Four Sisters he was engaged to a girl at home . He did not tell me anything about her in Montreal , because he said he supposed she would have forgotten him and married someone else long ago , and with him , you see , his engagement and love was still a thing of the present . It was pretty hard on him , but when he got home he found she had never married and still cared for him . They are to be married this fall . I 'm going to ask him to bring her over here for a little trip ; he says he wants to come and see the place where he lived so many years without knowing it . '' `` What a nice little romance , '' said Anne , whose love for the romantic was immortal .
`` And to think , '' she added with a sigh of self-reproach , `` that if I had had my way George XXXXX would never have come up from the grave in which his identity was buried .
Anne Billy Gilbert Jane Leslie Montreal Moore Ralph Sisters years