A Winter's Ball

Chapter Four: The Butterflies

The snow had begun to gently fall by the time Diana and Anne started their journey home. Unlike most days, Anne was quiet and lost in thought while Diana chirped endlessly about the grand ball.

"Oh, I am beyond excited. I am bursting with joy—no. Not joy. Joy doesn't even suffice, oh Anne, you're good with words. Quickly, what's a better word for joy?"

But Diana received nothing to quench her curiosity . Anne's weary eyes were fixated off into the distance, clearly submerged in her train of thoughts which was unusual because Anne's thoughts were almost never kept private.
She says the imagination withers if it is only kept locked in your head.

"Anne?" Diana asked, worried.

"Hmm?" She weakly breathed, her eyes flying to meet Diana's instantaneously.

"You seem terribly troubled, are you all right?" Diana asked, placing a hand on her friend's shoulder.

"I—" Anne started, contemplating whether she should tell Diana about the strange day she has had.
"There was a note on my table."

Diana's eyebrows knit together in confusion. She blinked in thought. "Whatever do you mean, Anne?"

Anne sighed and reached inside her coat pocket and handed the note to Diana.
She read it and looked up at Anne, her eyes wide, mouth agape and her cheeks turnt up, almost set for a smile.
"Oh, Anne! This is so romantic!"

"No, Diana, it is not! It has given me the jitters all day. There are so many questions! Who, how, when, why? Why me? How cruel is this supposed secret admirer! Leaving me hanging , why I oughta—"

But as Anne vented, Diana sighed dreamily.

"Secret Admirer." Diana said, looking up into the sky, saying the words as if sizing them up. "Oh, such sweet words they are, don't you agree?"

Anne's worried face lit up a bit. "Well, I suppose. But still," She said, trying to reason how this was such an awful situation.

"It's wonderful, isn't it Anne?" Diana skipped, the layers of snow crunching with each step they take.

"What is?"

"The feeling." Diana giggled. "Oh, tell me!" Diana suddenly said in haste, stopping to pull both Anne's mitten covered hands in hers. Now they stood in the white snowy scene, facing each other.

"Did you feel it too?" Diana asked, grinning impossibly wide, her eyes glimmering with pure excitement.
"Feel what?" Anne asked, now laughing. She'd never seen Diana so out of sorts. So far from her composed, well-mannered self.

"The butterflies!" She whispered.

"Whatever do you mean, Diana?"

Diana giggled and took her best friend by the arm and started walking, her chin up high. "Well, you see when Charlie asked me to the ball earlier, I had felt this fluttering sensation inside my stomach. And I seem to only feel it whenever Charlie's around. Then I realized it was what my older cousin, Rosa, was telling me about! You feel the butterflies when you see someone you deeply care about, or someone you like. Or when you someone so boldly adores you." Diana waggled her eyebrows teasingly at Anne who rolled her eyes.

" When Charlie had asked me, I realized I get the butterflies when I'm around him! So tell me, did you feel it when you read the note?"

Anne was silent for a while and was struck once again with the thought of Gilbert.
She'd remembered feeling that foreign fluttering sensation just this morning when Gilbert walked with them, and even the days before that. But it only ever seemed to appear when Gilbert Blythe was around.