`` Maria and I are going to run over Egypt . I want to see the Sphinx once before I die . '' `` Fancy those two dames ` running over Egypt ' ! I wonder if they 'll look up at the Sphinx and knit , '' laughed Priscilla . `` I 'm so glad we can keep Patty 's Place for another year , '' said Stella . `` I was afraid they 'd come back . And then our jolly little nest here would be broken up -- and we poor callow nestlings thrown out on the cruel world of boardinghouses again . '' `` I 'm off for a tramp in the park , '' announced Phil , tossing her book aside . `` I think when I am eighty I 'll be glad I went for a walk in the park tonight . '' `` What do you mean ? '' asked Anne . `` Come with me and I 'll tell you , honey . '' They captured in their ramble all the mysteries and magics of a March evening . Very still and mild it was , wrapped in a great , white , brooding silence -- a silence which was yet threaded through with many little silvery sounds which you could hear if you hearkened as much with your soul as your ears . The girls wandered down a long pineland aisle that seemed to lead right out into the heart of a deep-red , overflowing winter sunset . `` I 'd go home and write a poem this blessed minute if I only knew how , '' declared Phil , pausing in an open space where a rosy light was staining the green tips of the pines . `` It 's all so wonderful here -- this great , white stillness , and those dark trees that always seem to be thinking . '' '' ` The woods were God 's first temples , ' '' quoted Anne softly . `` One ca n't help feeling reverent and adoring in such a place . I always feel so near Him when I walk among the pines . ''
`` Anne , I 'm the happiest girl XXXXX the world , '' confessed Phil suddenly .
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