`` You two talk as much foolishness as ever you did , '' said old Mrs. Irving , half-indulgently , half-reprovingly . `` Oh , no , we do n't , '' said Anne , shaking her head gravely . `` We are getting very , very wise , and it is such a pity . We are never half so interesting when we have learned that language is given us to enable us to conceal our thoughts . '' `` But it is n't -- it is given us to exchange our thoughts , '' said Mrs. Irving seriously . She had never heard of Tallyrand and did not understand epigrams . Anne spent a fortnight of halcyon days at Echo Lodge in the golden prime of August . While there she incidentally contrived to hurry Ludovic Speed in his leisurely courting of Theodora Dix , as related duly in another chronicle of her history . -LRB- 1 -RRB- Arnold Sherman , an elderly friend of the Irvings , was there at the same time , and added not a little to the general pleasantness of life . -LRB- 1 Chronicles of Avonlea . -RRB- `` What a nice play-time this has been , '' said Anne . `` I feel like a giant refreshed . And it 's only a fortnight more till I go back to Kingsport , and Redmond and Patty 's Place . Patty 's Place is the dearest spot , Miss Lavendar . I feel as if I had two homes -- one at Green Gables and one at Patty 's Place . But where has the summer gone ? It does n't seem a day since I came home that spring evening with the Mayflowers . When I was little I could n't see from one end of the summer to the other . It stretched before me like an unending season . Now , '' tis a handbreadth , 't is a tale . ' ''
`` Anne , are you and Gilbert Blythe as good friends XXXXX you used to be ? ''
While as at before from like of since that till