“Oh, yes.  I think we have, Aunty,” protested Anne.

“We’ve learned the truth of what Professor Woodleigh told us last Philomathic,” said Phil.  “He said, ’Humor is the spiciest condiment in the feast of existence.  Laugh at your mistakes but learn from them, joke over your troubles but gather strength from them, make a jest of your difficulties but overcome them.’  Isn’t that worth learning, Aunt Jimsie?”

“Yes, it is, dearie.  When you’ve learned to laugh at the things that should be laughed at, and not to laugh at those that shouldn’t, you’ve got wisdom and understanding.”

“What have you got out of your Redmond course, Anne?” murmured Priscilla aside.

“I think,” said Anne slowly, “that I really have learned to look upon each little hindrance as a jest and each great one as the foreshadowing of victory.  Summing up, I think that is what Redmond has given me.”

“I shall have to fall back on another Professor Woodleigh quotation to express what it has done for me,” said Priscilla.  “You remember that he said in his address, ’There is so much in the world for us all if we only have the eyes to see it, and the heart to love it, and the hand to gather it to ourselves—­so much in men and women, so much in art and literature, so much everywhere in which to delight, and for which to be thankful.’  I think Redmond has taught me that in some measure, Anne.”

“Judging from what you all, say” remarked Aunt Jamesina, “the sum and substance is that you can learn—­if you’ve got natural gumption enough—­in four years at college what it would take about twenty years of living to teach you.  Well, that justifies higher education in my opinion.  It’s a matter I was always dubious about before.”

“But what about people who haven’t natural gumption, Aunt Jimsie?”

“People who haven’t natural gumption never learn,” retorted Aunt Jamesina, “neither in college nor life.  If they live to be a hundred they really don’t know anything more than when they were born.  It’s their misfortune not their fault, poor souls.  But those of us who have some gumption should duly thank the Lord for it.”

“Will you please define what gumption is, Aunt Jimsie?” asked Phil.

“No, I won’t, young woman.  Any one who has gumption knows what it is, and any one who hasn’t can never know what it is.  So there is no need of defining it.”

The busy days flew by and examinations were over.  Anne took High Honors in English.  Priscilla took Honors in Classics, and Phil in Mathematics.  Stella obtained a good all-round showing.  Then came Convocation.

“This is what I would once have called an epoch in my life,” said Anne, as she took Roy’s violets out of their box and gazed at them thoughtfully.  She meant to carry them, of course, but her eyes wandered to another box on her table.  It was filled with lilies-of-the-valley, as fresh and fragrant as those which bloomed in the Green Gables yard when June came to Avonlea.  Gilbert Blythe’s card lay beside it.