`` I know . You HAVE helped me already . Nothing seems quite so dreadful now . Good night , Anne . '' `` Good night , dear . '' Anne walked home very slowly in the moonlight . The evening had changed something for her . Life held a different meaning , a deeper purpose . On the surface it would go on just the same ; but the deeps had been stirred . It must not be with her as with poor butterfly Ruby . When she came to the end of one life it must not be to face the next with the shrinking terror of something wholly different -- something for which accustomed thought and ideal and aspiration had unfitted her . The little things of life , sweet and excellent in their place , must not be the things lived for ; the highest must be sought and followed ; the life of heaven must be begun here on earth . That good night in the garden was for all time . Anne never saw Ruby in life again . The next night the A.V.I.S. gave a farewell party to Jane Andrews before her departure for the West . And , while light feet danced and bright eyes laughed and merry tongues chattered , there came a summons to a soul in Avonlea that might not be disregarded or evaded . The next morning the word went from house to house that Ruby Gillis was dead . She had died in her sleep , painlessly and calmly , and on her face was a smile -- as if , after all , death had come as a kindly friend to lead her over the threshold , instead of the grisly phantom she had dreaded . Mrs. Rachel Lynde said emphatically after the funeral that Ruby Gillis was the handsomest corpse she ever laid eyes on . Her loveliness , as she lay , white-clad , among the delicate flowers that Anne had placed about her , was remembered and talked of for years in Avonlea .
Ruby had always been beautiful ; but her beauty had been XXXXX the earth , earthy ; it had had a certain insolent quality in it , as if it flaunted itself in the beholder 's eye ; spirit had never shone through it , intellect had never refined it .
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