The first summer Mr. Irving and Miss Lavendar—Diana and I could never call her anything else, even after she was married—were at Echo after their marriage, both Diana and I spent a great deal of time with them. We became acquainted with many of the Grafton people whom we had not known before, and among others, the family of Mr. Mack Leith. We often went up to the Leiths in the evening to play croquet. Millie and Margaret Leith were very nice girls, and the boys were nice, too. Indeed, we liked every one in the family, except poor old Miss Emily Leith. We tried hard enough to like her, because she seemed to like Diana and me very much, and always wanted to sit with us and talk to us, when we would much rather have been somewhere else. We often felt a good deal of at these times, but I am very glad to think now that we never showed it.  
In a way, we felt sorry for Miss Emily. She was Mr. Leith's old-maid sister and she was not of much importance in the household. But, though we felt sorry for her, we couldn't like her. She really was and ; she liked to a finger into every one's pie, and she was not at all tactful. Then, too, she had a tongue, and seemed to feel bitter towards all the young folks and their love affairs. Diana and I thought this was because she had never had a lover of her own.
 
Somehow, it seemed impossible to think of lovers in connection with Miss Emily. She was short and and pudgy, with a face so round and fat and red that it seemed quite featureless; and her hair was and gray. She walked with a , just like Mrs. Rachel Lynde, and she was always rather short of breath. It was hard to believe Miss Emily had ever been young; yet old Mr. Murray, who lived next door to the Leiths, not only expected us to believe it, but assured us that she had been very pretty.
 
"THAT, at least, is impossible," said Diana to me.
 
And then, one day, Miss Emily died. I'm afraid no one was very sorry. It seems to me a most dreadful thing to go out of the world and leave not one person behind to be sorry because you have gone. Miss Emily was dead and buried before Diana and I heard of it at all. The first I knew of it was when I came home from Slope one day and found a queer, shabby little black horsehair trunk, all studded with nails, on the floor of my room at Green Gables. Marilla told me that Leith had brought it over, and said that it had belonged to Miss Emily and that, when she was dying, she asked them to send it to me.
 
"But what is in it? And what am I to do with it?" I asked in bewilderment.
 
"There was nothing said about what you were to do with it. Jack said they didn't know what was in it, and hadn't looked into it, seeing that it was your property. It seems a rather queer proceeding—but you're always getting mixed up in queer , Anne. As for what is in it, the easiest way to find out, I reckon, is to open it and see. The key is tied to it. Jack said Miss Emily said she wanted you to have it because she loved you and saw her lost youth in you. I guess she was a bit at the last and wandered a good deal. She said she wanted you 'to understand her.'"
 
I ran over to Orchard Slope and asked Diana to come over and examine the trunk with me. I hadn't received any instructions about keeping its contents secret and I knew Miss Emily wouldn't mind Diana knowing about them, whatever they were.
 
It was a cool, gray afternoon and we got back to Green Gables just as the rain was beginning to fall. When we went up to my room the wind was rising and whistling through the of the big old Snow Queen outside of my window. Diana was excited, and, I really believe, a little bit frightened.
 
We opened the old trunk. It was very small, and there was nothing in it but a big cardboard box. The box was tied up and the knots sealed with wax. We lifted it out and it. I touched Diana's fingers as we did it, and both of us exclaimed at once, "How cold your hand is!"
 
In the box was a , pretty, old-fashioned gown, not at all faded, made of blue muslin, with a little darker blue flower in it. Under it we found a sash, a yellowed feather fan, and an envelope full of flowers. At the bottom of the box was a little brown book.
 
It was small and thin, like a girl's exercise book, with leaves that had once been blue and pink, but were now quite faded, and stained in places. On the fly leaf was written, in a very delicate hand, "Emily Margaret Leith," and the same writing covered the first few pages of the book. The rest were not written on at all. We sat there on the floor, Diana and I, and read the little book together, while the rain thudded against the window .
 
                                                   June 19, 18—
 
    I came to-day to spend a while with Aunt Margaret in
    Charlottetown.  It is so pretty here, where she lives—and
    ever so much nicer than on the farm at home.  I have no cows
    to milk here or pigs to feed.  Aunt Margaret has given me
    such a lovely blue muslin dress, and I am to have it made to
    wear at a garden party out at Brighton next week.  I never
    had a muslin dress before—nothing but ugly prints and dark
    .  I wish we were rich, like Aunt Margaret.  Aunt
    Margaret laughed when I said this, and declared she would
    give all her wealth for my youth and beauty and
    light-heartedness.  I am only eighteen and I know I am very
    merry but I wonder if I am really pretty.  It seems to me
    that I am when I look in Aunt Margaret's beautiful mirrors.
    They make me look very different from the old cracked one in
    my room at home which always twisted my face and turned me
    green.  But Aunt Margaret spoiled her compliment by telling
    me I look exactly as she did at my age.  If I thought I'd
    ever look as Aunt Margaret does now, I don't know what I'd
    do.  She is so fat and red.
 
                                                        June 29.
 
    Last week I went to the garden party and I met a young man
    called Paul Osborne.  He is a young artist from Montreal who
    is boarding over at Heppoch.  He is the handsomest man I have
    ever seen—very tall and slender, with dreamy, dark eyes and
    a pale, clever face.  I have not been able to keep from
    thinking about him ever since, and to-day he came over here
    and asked if he could paint me.  I felt very much flattered
    and so pleased when Aunt Margaret gave him permission.  He
    says he wants to paint me as "Spring," under the
    poplars where a fine rain of sunshine falls through.  I am to
    wear my blue muslin gown and a wreath of flowers on my hair.
    He says I have such beautiful hair.  He has never seen any of
    such a real pale gold.  Somehow it seems even prettier than
    ever to me since he praised it.
 
    I had a letter from home to-day.  Ma says the blue hen stole
    her nest and came off with fourteen chickens, and that pa has
    sold the little .  Somehow those things don't
    interest me like they once did.
 
                                                         July 9.
 
    The picture is coming on very well, Mr. Osborne says.  I know
    he is making me look far too pretty in it, although he
    persists in saying he can't do me justice.  He is going to
    send it to some great exhibition when finished, but he says
    he will make a little water-color copy for me.
 
    He comes every day to paint and we talk a great deal and he
    reads me lovely things out of his books.  I don't understand
    them all, but I try to, and he explains them so nicely and is
    so patient with my stupidity.  And he says any one with ............