I was getting skeered she did n't , her letters all winter had been so kind of jokey and frivolous , all about the good times she was having , and the parties she went to , and the new dresses she got . New dresses ! When I read that letter of Anne 's , I knew that all the purple and fine linen in the world was just like so much sackcloth and ashes to her as long as Gilbert was sulking out on a prairie farm . Well , I wiped my eyes and polished up my specs , but I might have spared myself the trouble , for in five minutes , Nora May , there was I sobbing again ; over Gilbert 's letter . By the most curious coincidence he had opened his heart to me too . Being a man , he was n't so discursive as Anne ; he said his say in four pages , but I could read the heartache between the lines . He wrote that he was going to Klondike and would start in a month 's time . He was sick of living now that he 'd lost Anne . He said he loved her better than his life and always would , and could never forget her , but he knew she did n't care anything about him now after the way she 'd acted , and he wanted to get as far away from her and the torturing thought of her as he could . So he was going to Klondike -- going to Klondike , Nora May , when his mother was writing to him to come home every week and Anne was breaking her heart for him at St. Mary 's . Well , I folded up them letters and , says I , `` Grandpa Holland , I guess my birthday celebration is here ready to hand . '' I thought real hard . I could n't write myself to explain to those two people that they each thought the world of each other still -- my hands are too stiff ; and I could n't get anyone else to write because I could n't let out what they 'd told me in confidence . So I did a mean , dishonourable thing , Nora May . I sent Anne 's letter to Gilbert and Gilbert 's to Anne . I asked Emma Matilda to address them , and Emma Matilda did it and asked no questions . I brought her up that way . Then I settled down to wait . In less than a month Gilbert 's mother had a letter from him saying that he was coming home to settle down and marry Anne . He arrived home yesterday and last night Anne came to Springdale on her way home from St. Mary 's .
They came XXXXX see me this morning and said things to me I ai n't going to repeat because they would sound fearful vain .
By about at between for from in than that to