The rest of that winter flew by in a breathless haze. One moment Lewis and Evie were born, the next they celebrated Christmas and New Year's, and the next it was spring, and the trees were blossoming and the grass was growing and the Nazis were still fighting with their last breath, though it was obvious to everyone they could not win.

"This is the worst," Meg said in a rare bout of complaining. "All the killing that's happening now is so pointless! We know—and they know—that we're going to win in the end, so why do we have to keep fighting? At least before it meant something."

"Mopping up," Shirley said, looking at her sharply. "It's not the worst, by a long shot, though, Meg. The worst part comes after all the papers have been signed and the fighting stops … and people have to try to rebuild the world from its ruins. It's not like you to complain, love."

"I know," Meg sighed. "I'm just so tired. Of everything. I want something wonderful to happen. For so long we've been living on crumbs of joy and flashes of hope. I'm ready for something big."

"Such as?"

Meg squirmed. "I don't know," she fibbed.

In truth, she did know. She knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted to tell Will Ashton that she loved him—but she had no idea how. The thought of just blurting it out in the middle of a conversation made her feel like she'd swallowed a bucket of worms. She couldn't do that, not if she had to wait ten more years.

If only he would bring the matter up again! But he seemed determined to wait for her to take the next step—that inborn courtesy of his—and she didn't know how to do it.

Besides, there was Papa. Thinking about telling him she loved Will made her feel even worse than if she'd swallowed worms. How could she abandon him, and Green Gables? She'd once thought she would live happily there forever, that nothing would ever lure her away.

In truth, though, Will had. Slowly and steadily, so gradually that Meg hadn't even noticed it happening, he had crept into her heart and taken root, until she could no more imagine life without him than … well, she couldn't think of a good comparison. She simply couldn't imagine life without him at all.

Only it had taken her so long to realize it that now, over a year since he had first told her he loved her, she had no idea how to move on.

And what if he no longer loved her? What if he'd decided that since she was going to treat him as a friend, he'd move on?

Meg was tormenting herself with these matters day in and day out, and she couldn't even talk to anyone about it. Joss, Polly, and Jane were all busy with their little ones, Auntie Di had her hands full with all the people living in her house, and Matt was so far away. There was Papa—but Meg was deathly afraid of hurting him.

Fortunately for her, Shirley took matters into his own hands. The night before Meg's twentieth birthday, he sat down with her on Green Gables' front porch, where so many generations of family had sat before them. Couldn't Meg see Grandmother and Granddad arguing amicably over teaching methods in the corner? And there was Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, she with her lips pursed disapprovingly as he smoked his pipe peacefully. There too was Mrs. Rachel Lynde, officious and kind, showing Dora Keith how to make apple-leaf bedspreads. In another corner, Davy and Millie Keith's young ones squabbled over a toy. And there, if Meg squinted hard enough, were her own parents, looking much younger as they sat in silence and watched the stars.

Meg was so blessed to have lived almost twenty years in such a family, with such a rich heritage. She sat quietly and let the peace of the old ways settle into her soul, making it the perfect opportunity for Shirley to say,

"Meggie, love."

She looked up. He hadn't called her by that pet name in several years, not since she had decided she needed a name that belonged to a woman instead of a child. "What is it, Papa?"

"How much longer are you going to make Will wait for you? It's not fair to him, love, or to yourself."

Meg sputtered incoherently. Papa had spoken as calmly as though he were asking her what she wanted to do to celebrate her birthday. "Why—why—what do you mean?"

"You do love him, don't you?" he asked in his matter-of-fact fashion.

"Yes," Meg answered slowly, feeling the truth of it. "But how did you know?"

"I've been in love before myself, Meg. I know the signs. And," he admitted, "I've been watching for it, ever since he came and asked for permission to marry you this past fall."

"He did?"

"Yes," Shirley confirmed.

"And—what did you say?"

"I told him," with a little catch in his voice, "that if you loved him, he could marry you."

"Oh, Papa!" Meg almost thought she might cry.

"Now then," he soothed, coming over and cuddling her against him as if she were a little child again. "It's nothing to cry over."

"But Papa—I love you so much, and I hate to leave you …"

"I'm not exactly pushing you out the door," he said. "I don't particularly want you to go, either. But it's the way of life, Meg, and that's all there is to it. I wouldn't tie you down here, knowing that your heart was with Will."

Meg did cry then, just a little, over the changes she felt looming in her life. She had wanted something spectacular to happen … but now that it was approaching, she wasn't sure she was ready.

"Now," Shirley said after a few moments, once she had composed herself a bit. "When are you going to tell Will?"

"As soon as I work up enough courage," Meg answered with an embarrassed laugh. "He hasn't said anything to me about it in so long, and now I don't know how to bring it up again!"

"Start with 'um, er,'" Shirley advised. "That alone will be enough to tell him something unusual is happening, and even if you stammer out the rest, he'll understand the gist of it."

Meg laughed. "Oh, Papa!"

The rest of the family seemed to have decided to conspire against them, though, for Meg and Will never had a moment alone for the rest of April. Just as soon as they might have a moment together, and Meg was thinking she might well try that 'um, er,' of Papa's, Davie would run in and want to wrestle with Will, or Joss would sit down and start talking, or Auntie Di and Polly would want Meg in the kitchen. An exasperated Meg started to think that it was a plot.

Then came the new of Hitler's suspected suicide.

"Impossible," Auntie Di declared at once. "That man would never kill himself."

"He was insane, you know," Uncle Patrick reminded her. "Insane to think he could win, but he kept fighting. Maybe the realization that he has already lost proved too much for him."

"It's a Nazi plot to raise our hopes, just to dash them down again," Auntie Di said. "I won't believe it."

But a week later, on May 7, when they heard that the Germans had surrendered, even Auntie Di had to believe.

Meg and Joss and Evie had spent the morning at Echo Lodge, opening it up and airing it out, washing windows and scrubbing floors. Joss, as much as she loved Auntie Di and Uncle Patrick, had decided that if Paul Irving permitted, she would like to move into Echo Lodge that summer. She was, she confessed to Meg, rather too fond of having her own way to be entirely comfortable in someone else's home for very long, and she wanted to welcome Peter home to a place of their own.

Meg wrote to Grandfather, and he wrote back at once saying Echo Lodge was hers to do with as she pleased—if she and Matt wanted Peter and Jocelyn to have it, he would start drawing up the papers that very day.

And so the girls started preparing the house for human habitation again.

They walked into Green Gables' yard to find everyone huddled around. Polly was sobbing into her hands, and Auntie Di had tears in her eyes. The men, instead of being in the fields, were talking soberly, and the children were milling about uncertainly.

"What is it—oh, what has happened?" Meg cried, dropping her bucket and mop as fear gripped her heart. Was it Peter, or Bran, or—no! Nothing could have happened to Matt; she would have felt it if it had.

Will came toward her, a strange light in his eyes. "It is victory, Meg," he said fiercely. "We've won—at last, at last, we've won!"

Meg stared at him. For a minute she couldn't comprehend his words. Won? Victory? Was such a thing even possible.

"Oh, great God," Joss gasped beside her, and suddenly everything fell into place.

Without thinking, without planning, without even considering the several pairs of staring eyes, Meg threw her arms around Will's neck and kissed him full on the mouth.

He, though shocked at first, wasted no time in wrapping his arm around her waist and kissing her in return.

When they finally broke apart, Meg was as dizzy as she had been the day he told her he loved her. Will smiled down into her eyes.

"I take it that's your answer for me, then?"

"Yes," Meg said. "I love you, Will—I love you."

"And I love you, Meg Blythe."

He kissed her again.

"Well," said Auntie Di, recovering from her stunned surprise. "I see we have another wedding to plan."

"Yes," Shirley smiled. "I think we do."

The End