The Winter at Queen's

There was no silly sentiment in Anne's ideas concerning Gilbert.
Boys were to her, when she thought about them at all, merely
possible good comrades. If she and Gilbert had been friends
she would not have cared how many other friends he had
nor with whom he walked. She had a genius for friendship;
girl friends she had in plenty; but she had a vague consciousness
that masculine friendship might also be a good thing to round
out one's conceptions of companionship and furnish broader
standpoints of judgment and comparison. Not that Anne could
have put her feelings on the matter into just such clear definition.
But she thought that if Gilbert had ever walked home with her
from the train, over the crisp fields and along the ferny byways,
they might have had many and merry and interesting conversations
about the new world that was opening around them and their hopes
and ambitions therein. Gilbert was a clever young fellow, with
his own thoughts about things and a determination to get the best
out of life and put the best into it. Ruby Gillis told Jane Andrews
that she didn't understand half the things Gilbert Blythe said;
he talked just like Anne Shirley did when she had a thoughtful fit
on and for her part she didn't think it any fun to be bothering about
books and that sort of thing when you didn't have to. Frank Stockley
had lots more dash and go, but then he wasn't half as good-looking as
Gilbert and she really couldn't decide which she liked best!