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+Project Gutenberg's Anne's House of Dreams, by Lucy Maud Montgomery
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Anne's House of Dreams
+
+Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery
+
+Posting Date: August 3, 2008 [EBook #544]
+Release Date: May, 1996
+[Last updated: March 17, 2012]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANNE'S HOUSE OF DREAMS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Keller.  HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Anne's House of Dreams
+
+
+by
+
+Lucy Maud Montgomery
+
+
+
+"To Laura, in memory of the olden time."
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+Chapter
+
+   1  IN THE GARRET OF GREEN GABLES
+   2  THE HOUSE OF DREAMS
+   3  THE LAND OF DREAMS AMONG
+   4  THE FIRST BRIDE OF GREEN GABLES
+   5  THE HOME COMING
+   6  CAPTAIN JIM
+   7  THE SCHOOLMASTER'S BRIDE
+   8  MISS CORNELIA BRYANT COMES TO CALL
+   9  AN EVENING AT FOUR WINDS POINT
+  10  LESLIE MOORE
+  11  THE STORY OF LESLIE MOORE
+  12  LESLIE COMES OVER
+  13  A GHOSTLY EVENING
+  14  NOVEMBER DAYS
+  15  CHRISTMAS AT FOUR WINDS
+  16  NEW YEAR'S EVE AT THE LIGHT
+  17  A FOUR WINDS WINTER
+  18  SPRING DAYS
+  19  DAWN AND DUSK
+  20  LOST MARGARET
+  21  BARRIERS SWEPT AWAY
+  22  MISS CORNELIA ARRANGES MATTERS
+  23  OWEN FORD COMES
+  24  THE LIFE-BOOK OF CAPTAIN JIM
+  25  THE WRITING OF THE BOOK
+  26  OWEN FORD'S CONFESSION
+  27  ON THE SAND BAR
+  28  ODDS AND ENDS
+  29  GILBERT AND ANNE DISAGREE
+  30  LESLIE DECIDES
+  31  THE TRUTH MAKES FREE
+  32  MISS CORNELIA DISCUSSES THE AFFAIR
+  33  LESLIE RETURNS
+  34  THE SHIP O'DREAMS COMES TO HARBOR
+  35  POLITICS AT FOUR WINDS
+  36  BEAUTY FOR ASHES
+  38  RED ROSES
+  39  CAPTAIN JIM CROSSES THE BAR
+  40  FAREWELL TO THE HOUSE OF DREAMS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1
+
+IN THE GARRET OF GREEN GABLES
+
+"Thanks be, I'm done with geometry, learning or teaching it," said Anne
+Shirley, a trifle vindictively, as she thumped a somewhat battered
+volume of Euclid into a big chest of books, banged the lid in triumph,
+and sat down upon it, looking at Diana Wright across the Green Gables
+garret, with gray eyes that were like a morning sky.
+
+The garret was a shadowy, suggestive, delightful place, as all garrets
+should be. Through the open window, by which Anne sat, blew the sweet,
+scented, sun-warm air of the August afternoon; outside, poplar boughs
+rustled and tossed in the wind; beyond them were the woods, where
+Lover's Lane wound its enchanted path, and the old apple orchard which
+still bore its rosy harvests munificently.  And, over all, was a great
+mountain range of snowy clouds in the blue southern sky.  Through the
+other window was glimpsed a distant, white-capped, blue sea--the
+beautiful St. Lawrence Gulf, on which floats, like a jewel, Abegweit,
+whose softer, sweeter Indian name has long been forsaken for the more
+prosaic one of Prince Edward Island.
+
+Diana Wright, three years older than when we last saw her, had grown
+somewhat matronly in the intervening time.  But her eyes were as black
+and brilliant, her cheeks as rosy, and her dimples as enchanting, as in
+the long-ago days when she and Anne Shirley had vowed eternal
+friendship in the garden at Orchard Slope.  In her arms she held a
+small, sleeping, black-curled creature, who for two happy years had
+been known to the world of Avonlea as "Small Anne Cordelia."  Avonlea
+folks knew why Diana had called her Anne, of course, but Avonlea folks
+were puzzled by the Cordelia.  There had never been a Cordelia in the
+Wright or Barry connections.  Mrs. Harmon Andrews said she supposed
+Diana had found the name in some trashy novel, and wondered that Fred
+hadn't more sense than to allow it.  But Diana and Anne smiled at each
+other.  They knew how Small Anne Cordelia had come by her name.
+
+"You always hated geometry," said Diana with a retrospective smile.  "I
+should think you'd be real glad to be through with teaching, anyhow."
+
+"Oh, I've always liked teaching, apart from geometry.  These past three
+years in Summerside have been very pleasant ones. Mrs. Harmon Andrews
+told me when I came home that I wouldn't likely find married life as
+much better than teaching as I expected.  Evidently Mrs. Harmon is of
+Hamlet's opinion that it may be better to bear the ills that we have
+than fly to others that we know not of."
+
+Anne's laugh, as blithe and irresistible as of yore, with an added note
+of sweetness and maturity, rang through the garret.  Marilla in the
+kitchen below, compounding blue plum preserve, heard it and smiled;
+then sighed to think how seldom that dear laugh would echo through
+Green Gables in the years to come.  Nothing in her life had ever given
+Marilla so much happiness as the knowledge that Anne was going to marry
+Gilbert Blythe; but every joy must bring with it its little shadow of
+sorrow.  During the three Summerside years Anne had been home often for
+vacations and weekends; but, after this, a bi-annual visit would be as
+much as could be hoped for.
+
+"You needn't let what Mrs. Harmon says worry you," said Diana, with the
+calm assurance of the four-years matron.  "Married life has its ups and
+downs, of course.  You mustn't expect that everything will always go
+smoothly.  But I can assure you, Anne, that it's a happy life, when
+you're married to the right man."
+
+Anne smothered a smile.  Diana's airs of vast experience always amused
+her a little.
+
+"I daresay I'll be putting them on too, when I've been married four
+years," she thought.  "Surely my sense of humor will preserve me from
+it, though."
+
+"Is it settled yet where you are going to live?" asked Diana, cuddling
+Small Anne Cordelia with the inimitable gesture of motherhood which
+always sent through Anne's heart, filled with sweet, unuttered dreams
+and hopes, a thrill that was half pure pleasure and half a strange,
+ethereal pain.
+
+"Yes. That was what I wanted to tell you when I 'phoned to you to come
+down today.  By the way, I can't realize that we really have telephones
+in Avonlea now.  It sounds so preposterously up-to-date and modernish
+for this darling, leisurely old place."
+
+"We can thank the A. V. I. S. for them," said Diana.  "We should never
+have got the line if they hadn't taken the matter up and carried it
+through.  There was enough cold water thrown to discourage any society.
+But they stuck to it, nevertheless.  You did a splendid thing for
+Avonlea when you founded that society, Anne.  What fun we did have at
+our meetings!  Will you ever forget the blue hall and Judson Parker's
+scheme for painting medicine advertisements on his fence?"
+
+"I don't know that I'm wholly grateful to the A. V. I.  S. in the
+matter of the telephone," said Anne.  "Oh, I know it's most
+convenient--even more so than our old device of signalling to each
+other by flashes of candlelight!  And, as Mrs. Rachel says, 'Avonlea
+must keep up with the procession, that's what.'  But somehow I feel as
+if I didn't want Avonlea spoiled by what Mr. Harrison, when he wants to
+be witty, calls 'modern inconveniences.'  I should like to have it kept
+always just as it was in the dear old years. That's foolish--and
+sentimental--and impossible.  So I shall immediately become wise and
+practical and possible.  The telephone, as Mr. Harrison concedes, is 'a
+buster of a good thing'--even if you do know that probably half a dozen
+interested people are listening along the line."
+
+"That's the worst of it," sighed Diana.  "It's so annoying to hear the
+receivers going down whenever you ring anyone up.  They say Mrs. Harmon
+Andrews insisted that their 'phone should be put in their kitchen just
+so that she could listen whenever it rang and keep an eye on the dinner
+at the same time.  Today, when you called me, I distinctly heard that
+queer clock of the Pyes' striking.  So no doubt Josie or Gertie was
+listening."
+
+"Oh, so that is why you said, 'You've got a new clock at Green Gables,
+haven't you?'  I couldn't imagine what you meant.  I heard a vicious
+click as soon as you had spoken.  I suppose it was the Pye receiver
+being hung up with profane energy.  Well, never mind the Pyes.  As Mrs.
+Rachel says, 'Pyes they always were and Pyes they always will be, world
+without end, amen.'  I want to talk of pleasanter things.  It's all
+settled as to where my new home shall be."
+
+"Oh, Anne, where?  I do hope it's near here."
+
+"No-o-o, that's the drawback. Gilbert is going to settle at Four Winds
+Harbor--sixty miles from here."
+
+"Sixty!  It might as well be six hundred," sighed Diana.  "I never can
+get further from home now than Charlottetown."
+
+"You'll have to come to Four Winds. It's the most beautiful harbor on
+the Island.  There's a little village called Glen St. Mary at its head,
+and Dr. David Blythe has been practicing there for fifty years.  He is
+Gilbert's great-uncle, you know.  He is going to retire, and Gilbert is
+to take over his practice.  Dr. Blythe is going to keep his house,
+though, so we shall have to find a habitation for ourselves.  I don't
+know yet what it is, or where it will be in reality, but I have a
+little house o'dreams all furnished in my imagination--a tiny,
+delightful castle in Spain."
+
+"Where are you going for your wedding tour?" asked Diana.
+
+"Nowhere.  Don't look horrified, Diana dearest.  You suggest Mrs.
+Harmon Andrews.  She, no doubt, will remark condescendingly that people
+who can't afford wedding 'towers' are real sensible not to take them;
+and then she'll remind me that Jane went to Europe for hers.  I want to
+spend MY honeymoon at Four Winds in my own dear house of dreams."
+
+"And you've decided not to have any bridesmaid?"
+
+"There isn't any one to have.  You and Phil and Priscilla and Jane all
+stole a march on me in the matter of marriage; and Stella is teaching
+in Vancouver.  I have no other 'kindred soul' and I won't have a
+bridesmaid who isn't."
+
+"But you are going to wear a veil, aren't you?" asked Diana, anxiously.
+
+"Yes, indeedy.  I shouldn't feel like a bride without one.  I remember
+telling Matthew, that evening when he brought me to Green Gables, that
+I never expected to be a bride because I was so homely no one would
+ever want to marry me--unless some foreign missionary did.  I had an
+idea then that foreign missionaries couldn't afford to be finicky in
+the matter of looks if they wanted a girl to risk her life among
+cannibals.  You should have seen the foreign missionary Priscilla
+married.  He was as handsome and inscrutable as those daydreams we once
+planned to marry ourselves, Diana; he was the best dressed man I ever
+met, and he raved over Priscilla's 'ethereal, golden beauty.'  But of
+course there are no cannibals in Japan."
+
+"Your wedding dress is a dream, anyhow," sighed Diana rapturously.
+"You'll look like a perfect queen in it--you're so tall and slender.
+How DO you keep so slim, Anne?  I'm fatter than ever--I'll soon have no
+waist at all."
+
+"Stoutness and slimness seem to be matters of predestination," said
+Anne.  "At all events, Mrs. Harmon Andrews can't say to you what she
+said to me when I came home from Summerside, 'Well, Anne, you're just
+about as skinny as ever.'  It sounds quite romantic to be 'slender,'
+but 'skinny' has a very different tang."
+
+"Mrs. Harmon has been talking about your trousseau.  She admits it's as
+nice as Jane's, although she says Jane married a millionaire and you
+are only marrying a 'poor young doctor without a cent to his name.'"
+
+Anne laughed.
+
+"My dresses ARE nice.  I love pretty things.  I remember the first
+pretty dress I ever had--the brown gloria Matthew gave me for our
+school concert.  Before that everything I had was so ugly.  It seemed
+to me that I stepped into a new world that night."
+
+"That was the night Gilbert recited 'Bingen on the Rhine,' and looked
+at you when he said, 'There's another, NOT a sister.'  And you were so
+furious because he put your pink tissue rose in his breast pocket!  You
+didn't much imagine then that you would ever marry him."
+
+"Oh, well, that's another instance of predestination," laughed Anne, as
+they went down the garret stairs.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2
+
+THE HOUSE OF DREAMS
+
+There was more excitement in the air of Green Gables than there had
+ever been before in all its history.  Even Marilla was so excited that
+she couldn't help showing it--which was little short of being
+phenomenal.
+
+"There's never been a wedding in this house," she said, half
+apologetically, to Mrs. Rachel Lynde.  "When I was a child I heard an
+old minister say that a house was not a real home until it had been
+consecrated by a birth, a wedding and a death.  We've had deaths
+here--my father and mother died here as well as Matthew; and we've even
+had a birth here.  Long ago, just after we moved into this house, we
+had a married hired man for a little while, and his wife had a baby
+here.  But there's never been a wedding before.  It does seem so
+strange to think of Anne being married.  In a way she just seems to me
+the little girl Matthew brought home here fourteen years ago.  I can't
+realize that she's grown up.  I shall never forget what I felt when I
+saw Matthew bringing in a GIRL.  I wonder what became of the boy we
+would have got if there hadn't been a mistake.  I wonder what HIS fate
+was."
+
+"Well, it was a fortunate mistake," said Mrs. Rachel Lynde, "though,
+mind you, there was a time I didn't think so--that evening I came up to
+see Anne and she treated us to such a scene.  Many things have changed
+since then, that's what."
+
+Mrs. Rachel sighed, and then brisked up again.  When weddings were in
+order Mrs. Rachel was ready to let the dead past bury its dead.
+
+"I'm going to give Anne two of my cotton warp spreads," she resumed.
+"A tobacco-stripe one and an apple-leaf one.  She tells me they're
+getting to be real fashionable again.  Well, fashion or no fashion, I
+don't believe there's anything prettier for a spare-room bed than a
+nice apple-leaf spread, that's what.  I must see about getting them
+bleached.  I've had them sewed up in cotton bags ever since Thomas
+died, and no doubt they're an awful color.  But there's a month yet,
+and dew-bleaching will work wonders."
+
+Only a month!  Marilla sighed and then said proudly:
+
+"I'm giving Anne that half dozen braided rugs I have in the garret. I
+never supposed she'd want them--they're so old-fashioned, and nobody
+seems to want anything but hooked mats now.  But she asked me for
+them--said she'd rather have them than anything else for her floors.
+They ARE pretty.  I made them of the nicest rags, and braided them in
+stripes.  It was such company these last few winters.  And I'll make
+her enough blue plum preserve to stock her jam closet for a year.  It
+seems real strange.  Those blue plum trees hadn't even a blossom for
+three years, and I thought they might as well be cut down.  And this
+last spring they were white, and such a crop of plums I never remember
+at Green Gables."
+
+"Well, thank goodness that Anne and Gilbert really are going to be
+married after all.  It's what I've always prayed for," said Mrs.
+Rachel, in the tone of one who is comfortably sure that her prayers
+have availed much.  "It was a great relief to find out that she really
+didn't mean to take the Kingsport man.  He was rich, to be sure, and
+Gilbert is poor--at least, to begin with; but then he's an Island boy."
+
+"He's Gilbert Blythe," said Marilla contentedly.  Marilla would have
+died the death before she would have put into words the thought that
+was always in the background of her mind whenever she had looked at
+Gilbert from his childhood up--the thought that, had it not been for
+her own wilful pride long, long ago, he might have been HER son.
+Marilla felt that, in some strange way, his marriage with Anne would
+put right that old mistake.  Good had come out of the evil of the
+ancient bitterness.
+
+As for Anne herself, she was so happy that she almost felt frightened.
+The gods, so says the old superstition, do not like to behold too happy
+mortals.  It is certain, at least, that some human beings do not.  Two
+of that ilk descended upon Anne one violet dusk and proceeded to do
+what in them lay to prick the rainbow bubble of her satisfaction.  If
+she thought she was getting any particular prize in young Dr. Blythe,
+or if she imagined that he was still as infatuated with her as he might
+have been in his salad days, it was surely their duty to put the matter
+before her in another light.  Yet these two worthy ladies were not
+enemies of Anne; on the contrary, they were really quite fond of her,
+and would have defended her as their own young had anyone else attacked
+her.  Human nature is not obliged to be consistent.
+
+Mrs. Inglis--nee Jane Andrews, to quote from the Daily Enterprise--came
+with her mother and Mrs. Jasper Bell.  But in Jane the milk of human
+kindness had not been curdled by years of matrimonial bickerings.  Her
+lines had fallen in pleasant places.  In spite of the fact--as Mrs.
+Rachel Lynde would say--that she had married a millionaire, her
+marriage had been happy.  Wealth had not spoiled her.  She was still
+the placid, amiable, pink-cheeked Jane of the old quartette,
+sympathising with her old chum's happiness and as keenly interested in
+all the dainty details of Anne's trousseau as if it could rival her own
+silken and bejewelled splendors.  Jane was not brilliant, and had
+probably never made a remark worth listening to in her life; but she
+never said anything that would hurt anyone's feelings--which may be a
+negative talent but is likewise a rare and enviable one.
+
+"So Gilbert didn't go back on you after all," said Mrs. Harmon Andrews,
+contriving to convey an expression of surprise in her tone.  "Well, the
+Blythes generally keep their word when they've once passed it, no
+matter what happens.  Let me see--you're twenty-five, aren't you, Anne?
+When I was a girl twenty-five was the first corner.  But you look quite
+young.  Red-headed people always do."
+
+"Red hair is very fashionable now," said Anne, trying to smile, but
+speaking rather coldly.  Life had developed in her a sense of humor
+which helped her over many difficulties; but as yet nothing had availed
+to steel her against a reference to her hair.
+
+"So it is--so it is," conceded Mrs. Harmon.  "There's no telling what
+queer freaks fashion will take.  Well, Anne, your things are very
+pretty, and very suitable to your position in life, aren't they, Jane?
+I hope you'll be very happy.  You have my best wishes, I'm sure.  A
+long engagement doesn't often turn out well.  But, of course, in your
+case it couldn't be helped."
+
+"Gilbert looks very young for a doctor.  I'm afraid people won't have
+much confidence in him," said Mrs. Jasper Bell gloomily.  Then she shut
+her mouth tightly, as if she had said what she considered it her duty
+to say and held her conscience clear.  She belonged to the type which
+always has a stringy black feather in its hat and straggling locks of
+hair on its neck.
+
+Anne's surface pleasure in her pretty bridal things was temporarily
+shadowed; but the deeps of happiness below could not thus be disturbed;
+and the little stings of Mesdames Bell and Andrews were forgotten when
+Gilbert came later, and they wandered down to the birches of the brook,
+which had been saplings when Anne had come to Green Gables, but were
+now tall, ivory columns in a fairy palace of twilight and stars.  In
+their shadows Anne and Gilbert talked in lover-fashion of their new
+home and their new life together.
+
+"I've found a nest for us, Anne."
+
+"Oh, where?  Not right in the village, I hope.  I wouldn't like that
+altogether."
+
+"No.  There was no house to be had in the village.  This is a little
+white house on the harbor shore, half way between Glen St. Mary and
+Four Winds Point.  It's a little out of the way, but when we get a
+'phone in that won't matter so much.  The situation is beautiful.  It
+looks to the sunset and has the great blue harbor before it.  The
+sand-dunes aren't very far away--the sea winds blow over them and the
+sea spray drenches them."
+
+"But the house itself, Gilbert,--OUR first home?  What is it like?"
+
+"Not very large, but large enough for us.  There's a splendid living
+room with a fireplace in it downstairs, and a dining room that looks
+out on the harbor, and a little room that will do for my office.  It is
+about sixty years old--the oldest house in Four Winds.  But it has been
+kept in pretty good repair, and was all done over about fifteen years
+ago--shingled, plastered and re-floored.  It was well built to begin
+with.  I understand that there was some romantic story connected with
+its building, but the man I rented it from didn't know it."
+
+"He said Captain Jim was the only one who could spin that old yarn now."
+
+"Who is Captain Jim?"
+
+"The keeper of the lighthouse on Four Winds Point.  You'll love that
+Four Winds light, Anne.  It's a revolving one, and it flashes like a
+magnificent star through the twilights.  We can see it from our living
+room windows and our front door."
+
+"Who owns the house?"
+
+"Well, it's the property of the Glen St. Mary Presbyterian Church now,
+and I rented it from the trustees.  But it belonged until lately to a
+very old lady, Miss Elizabeth Russell.  She died last spring, and as
+she had no near relatives she left her property to the Glen St. Mary
+Church.  Her furniture is still in the house, and I bought most of
+it--for a mere song you might say, because it was all so old-fashioned
+that the trustees despaired of selling it.  Glen St. Mary folks prefer
+plush brocade and sideboards with mirrors and ornamentations, I fancy.
+But Miss Russell's furniture is very good and I feel sure you'll like
+it, Anne."
+
+"So far, good," said Anne, nodding cautious approval.  "But, Gilbert,
+people cannot live by furniture alone.  You haven't yet mentioned one
+very important thing.  Are there TREES about this house?"
+
+"Heaps of them, oh, dryad!  There is a big grove of fir trees behind
+it, two rows of Lombardy poplars down the lane, and a ring of white
+birches around a very delightful garden.  Our front door opens right
+into the garden, but there is another entrance--a little gate hung
+between two firs.  The hinges are on one trunk and the catch on the
+other.  Their boughs form an arch overhead."
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad!  I couldn't live where there were no trees--something
+vital in me would starve.  Well, after that, there's no use asking you
+if there's a brook anywhere near.  THAT would be expecting too much."
+
+"But there IS a brook--and it actually cuts across one corner of the
+garden."
+
+"Then," said Anne, with a long sigh of supreme satisfaction, "this
+house you have found IS my house of dreams and none other."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3
+
+THE LAND OF DREAMS AMONG
+
+"Have you made up your mind who you're going to have to the wedding,
+Anne?" asked Mrs. Rachel Lynde, as she hemstitched table napkins
+industriously.  "It's time your invitations were sent, even if they are
+to be only informal ones."
+
+"I don't mean to have very many," said Anne.  "We just want those we
+love best to see us married.  Gilbert's people, and Mr. and Mrs. Allan,
+and Mr. and Mrs. Harrison."
+
+"There was a time when you'd hardly have numbered Mr. Harrison among
+your dearest friends," said Marilla drily.
+
+"Well, I wasn't VERY strongly attracted to him at our first meeting,"
+acknowledged Anne, with a laugh over the recollection.  "But Mr.
+Harrison has improved on acquaintance, and Mrs. Harrison is really a
+dear.  Then, of course, there are Miss Lavendar and Paul."
+
+"Have they decided to come to the Island this summer?  I thought they
+were going to Europe."
+
+"They changed their minds when I wrote them I was going to be married.
+I had a letter from Paul today.  He says he MUST come to my wedding, no
+matter what happens to Europe."
+
+"That child always idolised you," remarked Mrs. Rachel.
+
+"That 'child' is a young man of nineteen now, Mrs. Lynde."
+
+"How time does fly!" was Mrs. Lynde's brilliant and original response.
+
+"Charlotta the Fourth may come with them.  She sent word by Paul that
+she would come if her husband would let her.  I wonder if she still
+wears those enormous blue bows, and whether her husband calls her
+Charlotta or Leonora.  I should love to have Charlotta at my wedding.
+Charlotta and I were at a wedding long syne.  They expect to be at Echo
+Lodge next week.  Then there are Phil and the Reverend Jo----"
+
+"It sounds awful to hear you speaking of a minister like that, Anne,"
+said Mrs. Rachel severely.
+
+"His wife calls him that."
+
+"She should have more respect for his holy office, then," retorted Mrs.
+Rachel.
+
+"I've heard you criticise ministers pretty sharply yourself," teased
+Anne.
+
+"Yes, but I do it reverently," protested Mrs. Lynde.  "You never heard
+me NICKNAME a minister."
+
+Anne smothered a smile.
+
+"Well, there are Diana and Fred and little Fred and Small Anne
+Cordelia--and Jane Andrews.  I wish I could have Miss Stacey and Aunt
+Jamesina and Priscilla and Stella.  But Stella is in Vancouver, and
+Pris is in Japan, and Miss Stacey is married in California, and Aunt
+Jamesina has gone to India to explore her daughter's mission field, in
+spite of her horror of snakes.  It's really dreadful--the way people
+get scattered over the globe."
+
+"The Lord never intended it, that's what," said Mrs. Rachel
+authoritatively.  "In my young days people grew up and married and
+settled down where they were born, or pretty near it.  Thank goodness
+you've stuck to the Island, Anne.  I was afraid Gilbert would insist on
+rushing off to the ends of the earth when he got through college, and
+dragging you with him."
+
+"If everybody stayed where he was born places would soon be filled up,
+Mrs. Lynde."
+
+"Oh, I'm not going to argue with you, Anne.  _I_ am not a B.A.  What
+time of the day is the ceremony to be?"
+
+"We have decided on noon--high noon, as the society reporters say.
+That will give us time to catch the evening train to Glen St. Mary."
+
+"And you'll be married in the parlor?"
+
+"No--not unless it rains.  We mean to be married in the orchard--with
+the blue sky over us and the sunshine around us.  Do you know when and
+where I'd like to be married, if I could?  It would be at dawn--a June
+dawn, with a glorious sunrise, and roses blooming in the gardens; and I
+would slip down and meet Gilbert and we would go together to the heart
+of the beech woods,--and there, under the green arches that would be
+like a splendid cathedral, we would be married."
+
+Marilla sniffed scornfully and Mrs. Lynde looked shocked.
+
+"But that would be terrible queer, Anne.  Why, it wouldn't really seem
+legal.  And what would Mrs. Harmon Andrews say?"
+
+"Ah, there's the rub," sighed Anne.  "There are so many things in life
+we cannot do because of the fear of what Mrs. Harmon Andrews would say.
+''Tis true, 'tis pity, and pity 'tis, 'tis true.'  What delightful
+things we might do were it not for Mrs. Harmon Andrews!"
+
+"By times, Anne, I don't feel quite sure that I understand you
+altogether," complained Mrs. Lynde.
+
+"Anne was always romantic, you know," said Marilla apologetically.
+
+"Well, married life will most likely cure her of that," Mrs. Rachel
+responded comfortingly.
+
+Anne laughed and slipped away to Lover's Lane, where Gilbert found her;
+and neither of them seemed to entertain much fear, or hope, that their
+married life would cure them of romance.
+
+The Echo Lodge people came over the next week, and Green Gables buzzed
+with the delight of them.  Miss Lavendar had changed so little that the
+three years since her last Island visit might have been a watch in the
+night; but Anne gasped with amazement over Paul.  Could this splendid
+six feet of manhood be the little Paul of Avonlea schooldays?
+
+"You really make me feel old, Paul," said Anne.  "Why, I have to look
+up to you!"
+
+"You'll never grow old, Teacher," said Paul.  "You are one of the
+fortunate mortals who have found and drunk from the Fountain of
+Youth,--you and Mother Lavendar.  See here!  When you're married I
+WON'T call you Mrs. Blythe.  To me you'll always be 'Teacher'--the
+teacher of the best lessons I ever learned.  I want to show you
+something."
+
+The "something" was a pocketbook full of poems.  Paul had put some of
+his beautiful fancies into verse, and magazine editors had not been as
+unappreciative as they are sometimes supposed to be.  Anne read Paul's
+poems with real delight.  They were full of charm and promise.
+
+"You'll be famous yet, Paul.  I always dreamed of having one famous
+pupil.  He was to be a college president--but a great poet would be
+even better.  Some day I'll be able to boast that I whipped the
+distinguished Paul Irving.  But then I never did whip you, did I, Paul?
+What an opportunity lost!  I think I kept you in at recess, however."
+
+"You may be famous yourself, Teacher.  I've seen a good deal of your
+work these last three years."
+
+"No.  I know what I can do.  I can write pretty, fanciful little
+sketches that children love and editors send welcome cheques for.  But
+I can do nothing big.  My only chance for earthly immortality is a
+corner in your Memoirs."
+
+Charlotta the Fourth had discarded the blue bows but her freckles were
+not noticeably less.
+
+"I never did think I'd come down to marrying a Yankee, Miss Shirley,
+ma'am," she said.  "But you never know what's before you, and it isn't
+his fault.  He was born that way."
+
+"You're a Yankee yourself, Charlotta, since you've married one."
+
+"Miss Shirley, ma'am, I'm NOT!  And I wouldn't be if I was to marry a
+dozen Yankees!  Tom's kind of nice.  And besides, I thought I'd better
+not be too hard to please, for I mightn't get another chance.  Tom
+don't drink and he don't growl because he has to work between meals,
+and when all's said and done I'm satisfied, Miss Shirley, ma'am."
+
+"Does he call you Leonora?" asked Anne.
+
+"Goodness, no, Miss Shirley, ma'am.  I wouldn't know who he meant if he
+did.  Of course, when we got married he had to say, 'I take thee,
+Leonora,' and I declare to you, Miss Shirley, ma'am, I've had the most
+dreadful feeling ever since that it wasn't me he was talking to and I
+haven't been rightly married at all.  And so you're going to be married
+yourself, Miss Shirley, ma'am?  I always thought I'd like to marry a
+doctor.  It would be so handy when the children had measles and croup.
+Tom is only a bricklayer, but he's real good-tempered.  When I said to
+him, says I, 'Tom, can I go to Miss Shirley's wedding?  I mean to go
+anyhow, but I'd like to have your consent,' he just says, 'Suit
+yourself, Charlotta, and you'll suit me.'  That's a real pleasant kind
+of husband to have, Miss Shirley, ma'am."
+
+Philippa and her Reverend Jo arrived at Green Gables the day before the
+wedding.  Anne and Phil had a rapturous meeting which presently
+simmered down to a cosy, confidential chat over all that had been and
+was about to be.
+
+"Queen Anne, you're as queenly as ever.  I've got fearfully thin since
+the babies came.  I'm not half so good-looking; but I think Jo likes
+it.  There's not such a contrast between us, you see.  And oh, it's
+perfectly magnificent that you're going to marry Gilbert.  Roy Gardner
+wouldn't have done at all, at all.  I can see that now, though I was
+horribly disappointed at the time.  You know, Anne, you did treat Roy
+very badly."
+
+"He has recovered, I understand," smiled Anne.
+
+"Oh, yes.  He is married and his wife is a sweet little thing and
+they're perfectly happy.  Everything works together for good.  Jo and
+the Bible say that, and they are pretty good authorities."
+
+"Are Alec and Alonzo married yet?"
+
+"Alec is, but Alonzo isn't.  How those dear old days at Patty's Place
+come back when I'm talking to you, Anne!  What fun we had!"
+
+"Have you been to Patty's Place lately?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I go often.  Miss Patty and Miss Maria still sit by the
+fireplace and knit.  And that reminds me--we've brought you a wedding
+gift from them, Anne.  Guess what it is."
+
+"I never could.  How did they know I was going to be married?"
+
+"Oh, I told them.  I was there last week.  And they were so interested.
+Two days ago Miss Patty wrote me a note asking me to call; and then she
+asked if I would take her gift to you.  What would you wish most from
+Patty's Place, Anne?"
+
+"You can't mean that Miss Patty has sent me her china dogs?"
+
+"Go up head.  They're in my trunk this very moment.  And I've a letter
+for you.  Wait a moment and I'll get it."
+
+"Dear Miss Shirley," Miss Patty had written, "Maria and I were very
+much interested in hearing of your approaching nuptials.  We send you
+our best wishes.  Maria and I have never married, but we have no
+objection to other people doing so.  We are sending you the china dogs.
+I intended to leave them to you in my will, because you seemed to have
+sincere affection for them.  But Maria and I expect to live a good
+while yet (D.V.), so I have decided to give you the dogs while you are
+young.  You will not have forgotten that Gog looks to the right and
+Magog to the left."
+
+"Just fancy those lovely old dogs sitting by the fireplace in my house
+of dreams," said Anne rapturously.  "I never expected anything so
+delightful."
+
+That evening Green Gables hummed with preparations for the following
+day; but in the twilight Anne slipped away.  She had a little
+pilgrimage to make on this last day of her girlhood and she must make
+it alone.  She went to Matthew's grave, in the little poplar-shaded
+Avonlea graveyard, and there kept a silent tryst with old memories and
+immortal loves.
+
+"How glad Matthew would be tomorrow if he were here," she whispered.
+"But I believe he does know and is glad of it--somewhere else.  I've
+read somewhere that 'our dead are never dead until we have forgotten
+them.' Matthew will never be dead to me, for I can never forget him."
+
+She left on his grave the flowers she had brought and walked slowly
+down the long hill.  It was a gracious evening, full of delectable
+lights and shadows.  In the west was a sky of mackerel clouds--crimson
+and amber-tinted, with long strips of apple-green sky between.  Beyond
+was the glimmering radiance of a sunset sea, and the ceaseless voice of
+many waters came up from the tawny shore.  All around her, lying in the
+fine, beautiful country silence, were the hills and fields and woods
+she had known and loved so long.
+
+"History repeats itself," said Gilbert, joining her as she passed the
+Blythe gate.  "Do you remember our first walk down this hill, Anne--our
+first walk together anywhere, for that matter?"
+
+"I was coming home in the twilight from Matthew's grave--and you came
+out of the gate; and I swallowed the pride of years and spoke to you."
+
+"And all heaven opened before me," supplemented Gilbert.  "From that
+moment I looked forward to tomorrow.  When I left you at your gate that
+night and walked home I was the happiest boy in the world.  Anne had
+forgiven me."
+
+"I think you had the most to forgive.  I was an ungrateful little
+wretch--and after you had really saved my life that day on the pond,
+too.  How I loathed that load of obligation at first!  I don't deserve
+the happiness that has come to me."
+
+Gilbert laughed and clasped tighter the girlish hand that wore his
+ring.  Anne's engagement ring was a circlet of pearls.  She had refused
+to wear a diamond.
+
+"I've never really liked diamonds since I found out they weren't the
+lovely purple I had dreamed.  They will always suggest my old
+disappointment."
+
+"But pearls are for tears, the old legend says," Gilbert had objected.
+
+"I'm not afraid of that.  And tears can be happy as well as sad.  My
+very happiest moments have been when I had tears in my eyes--when
+Marilla told me I might stay at Green Gables--when Matthew gave me the
+first pretty dress I ever had--when I heard that you were going to
+recover from the fever.  So give me pearls for our troth ring, Gilbert,
+and I'll willingly accept the sorrow of life with its joy."
+
+But tonight our lovers thought only of joy and never of sorrow.  For
+the morrow was their wedding day, and their house of dreams awaited
+them on the misty, purple shore of Four Winds Harbor.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4
+
+THE FIRST BRIDE OF GREEN GABLES
+
+Anne wakened on the morning of her wedding day to find the sunshine
+winking in at the window of the little porch gable and a September
+breeze frolicking with her curtains.
+
+"I'm so glad the sun will shine on me," she thought happily.
+
+She recalled the first morning she had wakened in that little porch
+room, when the sunshine had crept in on her through the blossom-drift
+of the old Snow Queen.  That had not been a happy wakening, for it
+brought with it the bitter disappointment of the preceding night.  But
+since then the little room had been endeared and consecrated by years
+of happy childhood dreams and maiden visions.  To it she had come back
+joyfully after all her absences; at its window she had knelt through
+that night of bitter agony when she believed Gilbert dying, and by it
+she had sat in speechless happiness the night of her betrothal.  Many
+vigils of joy and some of sorrow had been kept there; and today she
+must leave it forever.  Henceforth it would be hers no more;
+fifteen-year-old Dora was to inherit it when she had gone.  Nor did
+Anne wish it otherwise; the little room was sacred to youth and
+girlhood--to the past that was to close today before the chapter of
+wifehood opened.
+
+Green Gables was a busy and joyous house that forenoon.  Diana arrived
+early, with little Fred and Small Anne Cordelia, to lend a hand.  Davy
+and Dora, the Green Gables twins, whisked the babies off to the garden.
+
+"Don't let Small Anne Cordelia spoil her clothes," warned Diana
+anxiously.
+
+"You needn't be afraid to trust her with Dora," said Marilla.  "That
+child is more sensible and careful than most of the mothers I've known.
+She's really a wonder in some ways.  Not much like that other
+harum-scarum I brought up."
+
+Marilla smiled across her chicken salad at Anne.  It might even be
+suspected that she liked the harum-scarum best after all.
+
+"Those twins are real nice children," said Mrs. Rachel, when she was
+sure they were out of earshot.  "Dora is so womanly and helpful, and
+Davy is developing into a very smart boy.  He isn't the holy terror for
+mischief he used to be."
+
+"I never was so distracted in my life as I was the first six months he
+was here," acknowledged Marilla.  "After that I suppose I got used to
+him.  He's taken a great notion to farming lately, and wants me to let
+him try running the farm next year.  I may, for Mr. Barry doesn't think
+he'll want to rent it much longer, and some new arrangement will have
+to be made."
+
+"Well, you certainly have a lovely day for your wedding, Anne," said
+Diana, as she slipped a voluminous apron over her silken array.  "You
+couldn't have had a finer one if you'd ordered it from Eaton's."
+
+"Indeed, there's too much money going out of this Island to that same
+Eaton's," said Mrs. Lynde indignantly.  She had strong views on the
+subject of octopus-like department stores, and never lost an
+opportunity of airing them.  "And as for those catalogues of theirs,
+they're the Avonlea girls' Bible now, that's what.  They pore over them
+on Sundays instead of studying the Holy Scriptures."
+
+"Well, they're splendid to amuse children with," said Diana.  "Fred and
+Small Anne look at the pictures by the hour."
+
+"_I_ amused ten children without the aid of Eaton's catalogue," said
+Mrs. Rachel severely.
+
+"Come, you two, don't quarrel over Eaton's catalogue," said Anne gaily.
+"This is my day of days, you know.  I'm so happy I want every one else
+to be happy, too."
+
+"I'm sure I hope your happiness will last, child," sighed Mrs. Rachel.
+She did hope it truly, and believed it, but she was afraid it was in
+the nature of a challenge to Providence to flaunt your happiness too
+openly.  Anne, for her own good, must be toned down a trifle.
+
+But it was a happy and beautiful bride who came down the old,
+homespun-carpeted stairs that September noon--the first bride of Green
+Gables, slender and shining-eyed, in the mist of her maiden veil, with
+her arms full of roses.  Gilbert, waiting for her in the hall below,
+looked up at her with adoring eyes.  She was his at last, this evasive,
+long-sought Anne, won after years of patient waiting.  It was to him
+she was coming in the sweet surrender of the bride.  Was he worthy of
+her?  Could he make her as happy as he hoped?  If he failed her--if he
+could not measure up to her standard of manhood--then, as she held out
+her hand, their eyes met and all doubt was swept away in a glad
+certainty.  They belonged to each other; and, no matter what life might
+hold for them, it could never alter that.  Their happiness was in each
+other's keeping and both were unafraid.
+
+They were married in the sunshine of the old orchard, circled by the
+loving and kindly faces of long-familiar friends.  Mr. Allan married
+them, and the Reverend Jo made what Mrs. Rachel Lynde afterwards
+pronounced to be the "most beautiful wedding prayer" she had ever
+heard.  Birds do not often sing in September, but one sang sweetly from
+some hidden bough while Gilbert and Anne repeated their deathless vows.
+Anne heard it and thrilled to it; Gilbert heard it, and wondered only
+that all the birds in the world had not burst into jubilant song; Paul
+heard it and later wrote a lyric about it which was one of the most
+admired in his first volume of verse; Charlotta the Fourth heard it and
+was blissfully sure it meant good luck for her adored Miss Shirley.
+The bird sang until the ceremony was ended and then it wound up with
+one mad little, glad little trill.  Never had the old gray-green house
+among its enfolding orchards known a blither, merrier afternoon.  All
+the old jests and quips that must have done duty at weddings since Eden
+were served up, and seemed as new and brilliant and mirth-provoking as
+if they had never been uttered before.  Laughter and joy had their way;
+and when Anne and Gilbert left to catch the Carmody train, with Paul as
+driver, the twins were ready with rice and old shoes, in the throwing
+of which Charlotta the Fourth and Mr. Harrison bore a valiant part.
+Marilla stood at the gate and watched the carriage out of sight down
+the long lane with its banks of goldenrod.  Anne turned at its end to
+wave her last good-bye.  She was gone--Green Gables was her home no
+more; Marilla's face looked very gray and old as she turned to the
+house which Anne had filled for fourteen years, and even in her
+absence, with light and life.
+
+But Diana and her small fry, the Echo Lodge people and the Allans, had
+stayed to help the two old ladies over the loneliness of the first
+evening; and they contrived to have a quietly pleasant little supper
+time, sitting long around the table and chatting over all the details
+of the day.  While they were sitting there Anne and Gilbert were
+alighting from the train at Glen St. Mary.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 5
+
+THE HOME COMING
+
+Dr. David Blythe had sent his horse and buggy to meet them, and the
+urchin who had brought it slipped away with a sympathetic grin, leaving
+them to the delight of driving alone to their new home through the
+radiant evening.
+
+Anne never forgot the loveliness of the view that broke upon them when
+they had driven over the hill behind the village.  Her new home could
+not yet be seen; but before her lay Four Winds Harbor like a great,
+shining mirror of rose and silver.  Far down, she saw its entrance
+between the bar of sand dunes on one side and a steep, high, grim, red
+sandstone cliff on the other.  Beyond the bar the sea, calm and
+austere, dreamed in the afterlight.  The little fishing village,
+nestled in the cove where the sand-dunes met the harbor shore, looked
+like a great opal in the haze.  The sky over them was like a jewelled
+cup from which the dusk was pouring; the air was crisp with the
+compelling tang of the sea, and the whole landscape was infused with
+the subtleties of a sea evening.  A few dim sails drifted along the
+darkening, fir-clad harbor shores.  A bell was ringing from the tower
+of a little white church on the far side; mellowly and dreamily sweet,
+the chime floated across the water blent with the moan of the sea.  The
+great revolving light on the cliff at the channel flashed warm and
+golden against the clear northern sky, a trembling, quivering star of
+good hope.  Far out along the horizon was the crinkled gray ribbon of a
+passing steamer's smoke.
+
+"Oh, beautiful, beautiful," murmured Anne.  "I shall love Four Winds,
+Gilbert.  Where is our house?"
+
+"We can't see it yet--the belt of birch running up from that little
+cove hides it.  It's about two miles from Glen St. Mary, and there's
+another mile between it and the light-house.  We won't have many
+neighbors, Anne.  There's only one house near us and I don't know who
+lives in it.  Shall you be lonely when I'm away?"
+
+"Not with that light and that loveliness for company.  Who lives in
+that house, Gilbert?"
+
+"I don't know.  It doesn't look--exactly--as if the occupants would be
+kindred spirits, Anne, does it?"
+
+The house was a large, substantial affair, painted such a vivid green
+that the landscape seemed quite faded by contrast.  There was an
+orchard behind it, and a nicely kept lawn before it, but, somehow,
+there was a certain bareness about it.  Perhaps its neatness was
+responsible for this; the whole establishment, house, barns, orchard,
+garden, lawn and lane, was so starkly neat.
+
+"It doesn't seem probable that anyone with that taste in paint could be
+VERY kindred," acknowledged Anne, "unless it were an accident--like our
+blue hall.  I feel certain there are no children there, at least.  It's
+even neater than the old Copp place on the Tory road, and I never
+expected to see anything neater than that."
+
+They had not met anybody on the moist, red road that wound along the
+harbor shore.  But just before they came to the belt of birch which hid
+their home, Anne saw a girl who was driving a flock of snow-white geese
+along the crest of a velvety green hill on the right.  Great, scattered
+firs grew along it.  Between their trunks one saw glimpses of yellow
+harvest fields, gleams of golden sand-hills, and bits of blue sea.  The
+girl was tall and wore a dress of pale blue print.  She walked with a
+certain springiness of step and erectness of bearing.  She and her
+geese came out of the gate at the foot of the hill as Anne and Gilbert
+passed.  She stood with her hand on the fastening of the gate, and
+looked steadily at them, with an expression that hardly attained to
+interest, but did not descend to curiosity.  It seemed to Anne, for a
+fleeting moment, that there was even a veiled hint of hostility in it.
+But it was the girl's beauty which made Anne give a little gasp--a
+beauty so marked that it must have attracted attention anywhere.  She
+was hatless, but heavy braids of burnished hair, the hue of ripe wheat,
+were twisted about her head like a coronet; her eyes were blue and
+star-like; her figure, in its plain print gown, was magnificent; and
+her lips were as crimson as the bunch of blood-red poppies she wore at
+her belt.
+
+"Gilbert, who is the girl we have just passed?" asked Anne, in a low
+voice.
+
+"I didn't notice any girl," said Gilbert, who had eyes only for his
+bride.
+
+"She was standing by that gate--no, don't look back.  She is still
+watching us.  I never saw such a beautiful face."
+
+"I don't remember seeing any very handsome girls while I was here.
+There are some pretty girls up at the Glen, but I hardly think they
+could be called beautiful."
+
+"This girl is.  You can't have seen her, or you would remember her.
+Nobody could forget her.  I never saw such a face except in pictures.
+And her hair!  It made me think of Browning's 'cord of gold' and
+'gorgeous snake'!"
+
+"Probably she's some visitor in Four Winds--likely some one from that
+big summer hotel over the harbor."
+
+"She wore a white apron and she was driving geese."
+
+"She might do that for amusement.  Look, Anne--there's our house."
+
+Anne looked and forgot for a time the girl with the splendid, resentful
+eyes.  The first glimpse of her new home was a delight to eye and
+spirit--it looked so like a big, creamy seashell stranded on the harbor
+shore.  The rows of tall Lombardy poplars down its lane stood out in
+stately, purple silhouette against the sky.  Behind it, sheltering its
+garden from the too keen breath of sea winds, was a cloudy fir wood, in
+which the winds might make all kinds of weird and haunting music.  Like
+all woods, it seemed to be holding and enfolding secrets in its
+recesses,--secrets whose charm is only to be won by entering in and
+patiently seeking.  Outwardly, dark green arms keep them inviolate from
+curious or indifferent eyes.
+
+The night winds were beginning their wild dances beyond the bar and the
+fishing hamlet across the harbor was gemmed with lights as Anne and
+Gilbert drove up the poplar lane.  The door of the little house opened,
+and a warm glow of firelight flickered out into the dusk.  Gilbert
+lifted Anne from the buggy and led her into the garden, through the
+little gate between the ruddy-tipped firs, up the trim, red path to the
+sandstone step.
+
+"Welcome home," he whispered, and hand in hand they stepped over the
+threshold of their house of dreams.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 6
+
+CAPTAIN JIM
+
+"Old Doctor Dave" and "Mrs. Doctor Dave" had come down to the little
+house to greet the bride and groom.  Doctor Dave was a big, jolly,
+white-whiskered old fellow, and Mrs. Doctor was a trim rosy-cheeked,
+silver-haired little lady who took Anne at once to her heart, literally
+and figuratively.
+
+"I'm so glad to see you, dear.  You must be real tired.  We've got a
+bite of supper ready, and Captain Jim brought up some trout for you.
+Captain Jim--where are you?  Oh, he's slipped out to see to the horse,
+I suppose.  Come upstairs and take your things off."
+
+Anne looked about her with bright, appreciative eyes as she followed
+Mrs. Doctor Dave upstairs.  She liked the appearance of her new home
+very much.  It seemed to have the atmosphere of Green Gables and the
+flavor of her old traditions.
+
+"I think I would have found Miss Elizabeth Russell a 'kindred spirit,'"
+she murmured when she was alone in her room.  There were two windows in
+it; the dormer one looked out on the lower harbor and the sand-bar and
+the Four Winds light.
+
+    "A magic casement opening on the foam
+    Of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn,"
+
+quoted Anne softly.  The gable window gave a view of a little
+harvest-hued valley through which a brook ran.  Half a mile up the
+brook was the only house in sight--an old, rambling, gray one
+surrounded by huge willows through which its windows peered, like shy,
+seeking eyes, into the dusk.  Anne wondered who lived there; they would
+be her nearest neighbors and she hoped they would be nice.  She
+suddenly found herself thinking of the beautiful girl with the white
+geese.
+
+"Gilbert thought she didn't belong here," mused Anne, "but I feel sure
+she does.  There was something about her that made her part of the sea
+and the sky and the harbor.  Four Winds is in her blood."
+
+When Anne went downstairs Gilbert was standing before the fireplace
+talking to a stranger.  Both turned as Anne entered.
+
+"Anne, this is Captain Boyd.  Captain Boyd, my wife."
+
+It was the first time Gilbert had said "my wife" to anybody but Anne,
+and he narrowly escaped bursting with the pride of it.  The old captain
+held out a sinewy hand to Anne; they smiled at each other and were
+friends from that moment.  Kindred spirit flashed recognition to
+kindred spirit.
+
+"I'm right down pleased to meet you, Mistress Blythe; and I hope you'll
+be as happy as the first bride was who came here.  I can't wish you no
+better than THAT.  But your husband doesn't introduce me jest exactly
+right.  'Captain Jim' is my week-a-day name and you might as well begin
+as you're sartain to end up--calling me that.  You sartainly are a nice
+little bride, Mistress Blythe.  Looking at you sorter makes me feel
+that I've jest been married myself."
+
+Amid the laughter that followed Mrs. Doctor Dave urged Captain Jim to
+stay and have supper with them.
+
+"Thank you kindly.  'Twill be a real treat, Mistress Doctor.  I mostly
+has to eat my meals alone, with the reflection of my ugly old phiz in a
+looking-glass opposite for company.  'Tisn't often I have a chance to
+sit down with two such sweet, purty ladies."
+
+Captain Jim's compliments may look very bald on paper, but he paid them
+with such a gracious, gentle deference of tone and look that the woman
+upon whom they were bestowed felt that she was being offered a queen's
+tribute in a kingly fashion.
+
+Captain Jim was a high-souled, simple-minded old man, with eternal
+youth in his eyes and heart.  He had a tall, rather ungainly figure,
+somewhat stooped, yet suggestive of great strength and endurance; a
+clean-shaven face deeply lined and bronzed; a thick mane of iron-gray
+hair falling quite to his shoulders, and a pair of remarkably blue,
+deep-set eyes, which sometimes twinkled and sometimes dreamed, and
+sometimes looked out seaward with a wistful quest in them, as of one
+seeking something precious and lost.  Anne was to learn one day what it
+was for which Captain Jim looked.
+
+It could not be denied that Captain Jim was a homely man.  His spare
+jaws, rugged mouth, and square brow were not fashioned on the lines of
+beauty; and he had passed through many hardships and sorrows which had
+marked his body as well as his soul; but though at first sight Anne
+thought him plain she never thought anything more about it--the spirit
+shining through that rugged tenement beautified it so wholly.
+
+They gathered gaily around the supper table.  The hearth fire banished
+the chill of the September evening, but the window of the dining room
+was open and sea breezes entered at their own sweet will.  The view was
+magnificent, taking in the harbor and the sweep of low, purple hills
+beyond.  The table was heaped with Mrs. Doctor's delicacies but the
+piece de resistance was undoubtedly the big platter of sea trout.
+
+"Thought they'd be sorter tasty after travelling," said Captain Jim.
+"They're fresh as trout can be, Mistress Blythe.  Two hours ago they
+were swimming in the Glen Pond."
+
+"Who is attending to the light tonight, Captain Jim?" asked Doctor Dave.
+
+"Nephew Alec.  He understands it as well as I do.  Well, now, I'm real
+glad you asked me to stay to supper.  I'm proper hungry--didn't have
+much of a dinner today."
+
+"I believe you half starve yourself most of the time down at that
+light," said Mrs. Doctor Dave severely.  "You won't take the trouble to
+get up a decent meal."
+
+"Oh, I do, Mistress Doctor, I do," protested Captain Jim.  "Why, I live
+like a king gen'rally.  Last night I was up to the Glen and took home
+two pounds of steak.  I meant to have a spanking good dinner today."
+
+"And what happened to the steak?" asked Mrs. Doctor Dave.  "Did you
+lose it on the way home?"
+
+"No."  Captain Jim looked sheepish.  "Just at bedtime a poor, ornery
+sort of dog came along and asked for a night's lodging.  Guess he
+belonged to some of the fishermen 'long shore.  I couldn't turn the
+poor cur out--he had a sore foot.  So I shut him in the porch, with an
+old bag to lie on, and went to bed.  But somehow I couldn't sleep.
+Come to think it over, I sorter remembered that the dog looked hungry."
+
+"And you got up and gave him that steak--ALL that steak," said Mrs.
+Doctor Dave, with a kind of triumphant reproof.
+
+"Well, there wasn't anything else TO give him," said Captain Jim
+deprecatingly.  "Nothing a dog'd care for, that is.  I reckon he WAS
+hungry, for he made about two bites of it.  I had a fine sleep the rest
+of the night but my dinner had to be sorter scanty--potatoes and point,
+as you might say.  The dog, he lit out for home this morning.  I reckon
+HE weren't a vegetarian."
+
+"The idea of starving yourself for a worthless dog!" sniffed Mrs.
+Doctor.
+
+"You don't know but he may be worth a lot to somebody," protested
+Captain Jim.  "He didn't LOOK of much account, but you can't go by
+looks in jedging a dog.  Like meself, he might be a real beauty inside.
+The First Mate didn't approve of him, I'll allow.  His language was
+right down forcible. But the First Mate is prejudiced.  No use in
+taking a cat's opinion of a dog.  'Tennyrate, I lost my dinner, so this
+nice spread in this dee-lightful company is real pleasant. It's a great
+thing to have good neighbors."
+
+"Who lives in the house among the willows up the brook?" asked Anne.
+
+"Mrs. Dick Moore," said Captain Jim--"and her husband," he added, as if
+by way of an afterthought.
+
+Anne smiled, and deduced a mental picture of Mrs. Dick Moore from
+Captain Jim's way of putting it; evidently a second Mrs. Rachel Lynde.
+
+"You haven't many neighbors, Mistress Blythe," Captain Jim went on.
+"This side of the harbor is mighty thinly settled.  Most of the land
+belongs to Mr. Howard up yander past the Glen, and he rents it out for
+pasture.  The other side of the harbor, now, is thick with
+folks--'specially MacAllisters.  There's a whole colony of MacAllisters
+you can't throw a stone but you hit one.  I was talking to old Leon
+Blacquiere the other day.  He's been working on the harbor all summer.
+'Dey're nearly all MacAllisters over thar,' he told me.  'Dare's Neil
+MacAllister and Sandy MacAllister and William MacAllister and Alec
+MacAllister and Angus MacAllister--and I believe dare's de Devil
+MacAllister.'"
+
+"There are nearly as many Elliotts and Crawfords," said Doctor Dave,
+after the laughter had subsided.  "You know, Gilbert, we folk on this
+side of Four Winds have an old saying--'From the conceit of the
+Elliotts, the pride of the MacAllisters, and the vainglory of the
+Crawfords, good Lord deliver us.'"
+
+"There's a plenty of fine people among them, though," said Captain Jim.
+"I sailed with William Crawford for many a year, and for courage and
+endurance and truth that man hadn't an equal.  They've got brains over
+on that side of Four Winds.  Mebbe that's why this side is sorter
+inclined to pick on 'em.  Strange, ain't it, how folks seem to resent
+anyone being born a mite cleverer than they be."
+
+Doctor Dave, who had a forty years' feud with the over-harbor people,
+laughed and subsided.
+
+"Who lives in that brilliant emerald house about half a mile up the
+road?" asked Gilbert.
+
+Captain Jim smiled delightedly.
+
+"Miss Cornelia Bryant.  She'll likely be over to see you soon, seeing
+you're Presbyterians.  If you were Methodists she wouldn't come at all.
+Cornelia has a holy horror of Methodists."
+
+"She's quite a character," chuckled Doctor Dave.  "A most inveterate
+man-hater!"
+
+"Sour grapes?" queried Gilbert, laughing.
+
+"No, 'tisn't sour grapes," answered Captain Jim seriously.  "Cornelia
+could have had her pick when she was young.  Even yet she's only to say
+the word to see the old widowers jump.  She jest seems to have been
+born with a sort of chronic spite agin men and Methodists.  She's got
+the bitterest tongue and the kindest heart in Four Winds.  Wherever
+there's any trouble, that woman is there, doing everything to help in
+the tenderest way.  She never says a harsh word about another woman,
+and if she likes to card us poor scalawags of men down I reckon our
+tough old hides can stand it."
+
+"She always speaks well of you, Captain Jim," said Mrs. Doctor.
+
+"Yes, I'm afraid so.  I don't half like it.  It makes me feel as if
+there must be something sorter unnateral about me."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 7
+
+THE SCHOOLMASTER'S BRIDE
+
+"Who was the first bride who came to this house, Captain Jim?" Anne
+asked, as they sat around the fireplace after supper.
+
+"Was she a part of the story I've heard was connected with this house?"
+asked Gilbert.  "Somebody told me you could tell it, Captain Jim."
+
+"Well, yes, I know it.  I reckon I'm the only person living in Four
+Winds now that can remember the schoolmaster's bride as she was when
+she come to the Island.  She's been dead this thirty year, but she was
+one of them women you never forget."
+
+"Tell us the story," pleaded Anne.  "I want to find out all about the
+women who have lived in this house before me."
+
+"Well, there's jest been three--Elizabeth Russell, and Mrs. Ned
+Russell, and the schoolmaster's bride.  Elizabeth Russell was a nice,
+clever little critter, and Mrs. Ned was a nice woman, too.  But they
+weren't ever like the schoolmaster's bride.
+
+"The schoolmaster's name was John Selwyn.  He came out from the Old
+Country to teach school at the Glen when I was a boy of sixteen.  He
+wasn't much like the usual run of derelicts who used to come out to
+P.E.I. to teach school in them days.  Most of them were clever, drunken
+critters who taught the children the three R's when they were sober,
+and lambasted them when they wasn't.  But John Selwyn was a fine,
+handsome young fellow.  He boarded at my father's, and he and me were
+cronies, though he was ten years older'n me.  We read and walked and
+talked a heap together.  He knew about all the poetry that was ever
+written, I reckon, and he used to quote it to me along shore in the
+evenings.  Dad thought it an awful waste of time, but he sorter endured
+it, hoping it'd put me off the notion of going to sea.  Well, nothing
+could do THAT--mother come of a race of sea-going folk and it was born
+in me.  But I loved to hear John read and recite.  It's almost sixty
+years ago, but I could repeat yards of poetry I learned from him.
+Nearly sixty years!"
+
+Captain Jim was silent for a space, gazing into the glowing fire in a
+quest of the bygones.  Then, with a sigh, he resumed his story.
+
+"I remember one spring evening I met him on the sand-hills.  He looked
+sorter uplifted--jest like you did, Dr. Blythe, when you brought
+Mistress Blythe in tonight.  I thought of him the minute I seen you.
+And he told me that he had a sweetheart back home and that she was
+coming out to him.  I wasn't more'n half pleased, ornery young lump of
+selfishness that I was; I thought he wouldn't be as much my friend
+after she came.  But I'd enough decency not to let him see it.  He told
+me all about her.  Her name was Persis Leigh, and she would have come
+out with him if it hadn't been for her old uncle.  He was sick, and
+he'd looked after her when her parents died and she wouldn't leave him.
+And now he was dead and she was coming out to marry John Selwyn.
+'Twasn't no easy journey for a woman in them days.  There weren't no
+steamers, you must ricollect.
+
+"'When do you expect her?' says I.
+
+"'She sails on the Royal William, the 20th of June,' says he, 'and so
+she should be here by mid-July.  I must set Carpenter Johnson to
+building me a home for her.  Her letter come today.  I know before I
+opened it that it had good news for me.  I saw her a few nights ago.'
+
+"I didn't understand him, and then he explained--though I didn't
+understand THAT much better.  He said he had a gift--or a curse.  Them
+was his words, Mistress Blythe--a gift or a curse.  He didn't know
+which it was.  He said a great-great-grandmother of his had had it, and
+they burned her for a witch on account of it.  He said queer
+spells--trances, I think was the name he give 'em--come over him now
+and again.  Are there such things, Doctor?"
+
+"There are people who are certainly subject to trances," answered
+Gilbert.  "The matter is more in the line of psychical research than
+medical.  What were the trances of this John Selwyn like?"
+
+"Like dreams," said the old Doctor skeptically.
+
+"He said he could see things in them," said Captain Jim slowly.
+
+"Mind you, I'm telling you jest what HE said--things that were
+happening--things that were GOING to happen.  He said they were
+sometimes a comfort to him and sometimes a horror.  Four nights before
+this he'd been in one--went into it while he was sitting looking at the
+fire.  And he saw an old room he knew well in England, and Persis Leigh
+in it, holding out her hands to him and looking glad and happy.  So he
+knew he was going to hear good news of her."
+
+"A dream--a dream," scoffed the old Doctor.
+
+"Likely--likely," conceded Captain Jim.  "That's what _I_ said to him
+at the time.  It was a vast more comfortable to think so.  I didn't
+like the idea of him seeing things like that--it was real uncanny.
+
+"'No,' says he, 'I didn't dream it.  But we won't talk of this again.
+You won't be so much my friend if you think much about it.'
+
+"I told him nothing could make me any less his friend.  But he jest
+shook his head and says, says he:
+
+"'Lad, I know.  I've lost friends before because of this.  I don't
+blame them.  There are times when I feel hardly friendly to myself
+because of it.  Such a power has a bit of divinity in it--whether of a
+good or an evil divinity who shall say?  And we mortals all shrink from
+too close contact with God or devil.'
+
+"Them was his words.  I remember them as if 'twas yesterday, though I
+didn't know jest what he meant.  What do you s'pose he DID mean,
+doctor?"
+
+"I doubt if he knew what he meant himself," said Doctor Dave testily.
+
+"I think I understand," whispered Anne.  She was listening in her old
+attitude of clasped lips and shining eyes.  Captain Jim treated himself
+to an admiring smile before he went on with his story.
+
+"Well, purty soon all the Glen and Four Winds people knew the
+schoolmaster's bride was coming, and they were all glad because they
+thought so much of him.  And everybody took an interest in his new
+house--THIS house.  He picked this site for it, because you could see
+the harbor and hear the sea from it.  He made the garden out there for
+his bride, but he didn't plant the Lombardies.  Mrs. Ned Russell
+planted THEM.  But there's a double row of rose-bushes in the garden
+that the little girls who went to the Glen school set out there for the
+schoolmaster's bride.  He said they were pink for her cheeks and white
+for her brow and red for her lips.  He'd quoted poetry so much that he
+sorter got into the habit of talking it, too, I reckon.
+
+"Almost everybody sent him some little present to help out the
+furnishing of the house.  When the Russells came into it they were
+well-to-do and furnished it real handsome, as you can see; but the
+first furniture that went into it was plain enough.  This little house
+was rich in love, though.  The women sent in quilts and tablecloths and
+towels, and one man made a chest for her, and another a table and so
+on.  Even blind old Aunt Margaret Boyd wove a little basket for her out
+of the sweet-scented sand-hill grass.  The schoolmaster's wife used it
+for years to keep her handkerchiefs in.
+
+"Well, at last everything was ready--even to the logs in the big
+fireplace ready for lighting.  'Twasn't exactly THIS fireplace, though
+'twas in the same place.  Miss Elizabeth had this put in when she made
+the house over fifteen years ago.  It was a big, old-fashioned
+fireplace where you could have roasted an ox.  Many's the time I've sat
+here and spun yarns, same's I'm doing tonight."
+
+Again there was a silence, while Captain Jim kept a passing tryst with
+visitants Anne and Gilbert could not see--the folks who had sat with
+him around that fireplace in the vanished years, with mirth and bridal
+joy shining in eyes long since closed forever under churchyard sod or
+heaving leagues of sea.  Here on olden nights children had tossed
+laughter lightly to and fro.  Here on winter evenings friends had
+gathered.  Dance and music and jest had been here.  Here youths and
+maidens had dreamed.  For Captain Jim the little house was tenanted
+with shapes entreating remembrance.
+
+"It was the first of July when the house was finished.  The
+schoolmaster began to count the days then.  We used to see him walking
+along the shore, and we'd say to each other, 'She'll soon be with him
+now.'
+
+"She was expected the middle of July, but she didn't come then.  Nobody
+felt anxious.  Vessels were often delayed for days and mebbe weeks.
+The Royal William was a week overdue--and then two--and then three.
+And at last we began to be frightened, and it got worse and worse.
+Fin'lly I couldn't bear to look into John Selwyn's eyes.  D'ye know,
+Mistress Blythe"--Captain Jim lowered his voice--"I used to think that
+they looked just like what his old great-great-grandmother's must have
+been when they were burning her to death.  He never said much but he
+taught school like a man in a dream and then hurried to the shore.
+Many a night he walked there from dark to dawn.  People said he was
+losing his mind.  Everybody had given up hope--the Royal William was
+eight weeks overdue.  It was the middle of September and the
+schoolmaster's bride hadn't come--never would come, we thought.
+
+"There was a big storm then that lasted three days, and on the evening
+after it died away I went to the shore.  I found the schoolmaster
+there, leaning with his arms folded against a big rock, gazing out to
+sea.
+
+"I spoke to him but he didn't answer.  His eyes seemed to be looking at
+something I couldn't see.  His face was set, like a dead man's.
+
+"'John--John,' I called out--jest like that--jest like a frightened
+child, 'wake up--wake up.'
+
+"That strange, awful look seemed to sorter fade out of his eyes.
+
+"He turned his head and looked at me.  I've never forgot his
+face--never will forget it till I ships for my last voyage.
+
+"'All is well, lad,' he says.  'I've seen the Royal William coming
+around East Point.  She will be here by dawn.  Tomorrow night I shall
+sit with my bride by my own hearth-fire.'
+
+"Do you think he did see it?" demanded Captain Jim abruptly.
+
+"God knows," said Gilbert softly.  "Great love and great pain might
+compass we know not what marvels."
+
+"I am sure he did see it," said Anne earnestly.
+
+"Fol-de-rol," said Doctor Dave, but he spoke with less conviction than
+usual.
+
+"Because, you know," said Captain Jim solemnly, "the Royal William came
+into Four Winds Harbor at daylight the next morning.
+
+"Every soul in the Glen and along the shore was at the old wharf to
+meet her.  The schoolmaster had been watching there all night.  How we
+cheered as she sailed up the channel."
+
+Captain Jim's eyes were shining.  They were looking at the Four Winds
+Harbor of sixty years agone, with a battered old ship sailing through
+the sunrise splendor.
+
+"And Persis Leigh was on board?" asked Anne.
+
+"Yes--her and the captain's wife.  They'd had an awful passage--storm
+after storm--and their provisions give out, too.  But there they were
+at last.  When Persis Leigh stepped onto the old wharf John Selwyn took
+her in his arms--and folks stopped cheering and begun to cry.  I cried
+myself, though 'twas years, mind you, afore I'd admit it.  Ain't it
+funny how ashamed boys are of tears?"
+
+"Was Persis Leigh beautiful?" asked Anne.
+
+"Well, I don't know that you'd call her beautiful
+exactly--I--don't--know," said Captain Jim slowly.  "Somehow, you never
+got so far along as to wonder if she was handsome or not.  It jest
+didn't matter.  There was something so sweet and winsome about her that
+you had to love her, that was all.  But she was pleasant to look
+at--big, clear, hazel eyes and heaps of glossy brown hair, and an
+English skin.  John and her were married at our house that night at
+early candle-lighting; everybody from far and near was there to see it
+and we all brought them down here afterwards.  Mistress Selwyn lighted
+the fire, and we went away and left them sitting here, jest as John had
+seen in that vision of his.  A strange thing--a strange thing!  But
+I've seen a turrible lot of strange things in my time."
+
+Captain Jim shook his head sagely.
+
+"It's a dear story," said Anne, feeling that for once she had got
+enough romance to satisfy her.  "How long did they live here?"
+
+"Fifteen years.  I ran off to sea soon after they were married, like
+the young scalawag I was.  But every time I come back from a voyage I'd
+head for here, even before I went home, and tell Mistress Selwyn all
+about it.  Fifteen happy years!  They had a sort of talent for
+happiness, them two.  Some folks are like that, if you've noticed.
+They COULDN'T be unhappy for long, no matter what happened.  They
+quarrelled once or twice, for they was both high-sperrited.  But
+Mistress Selwyn says to me once, says she, laughing in that pretty way
+of hers, 'I felt dreadful when John and I quarrelled, but underneath it
+all I was very happy because I had such a nice husband to quarrel with
+and make it up with.'  Then they moved to Charlottetown, and Ned
+Russell bought this house and brought his bride here.  They were a gay
+young pair, as I remember them.  Miss Elizabeth Russell was Alec's
+sister.  She came to live with them a year or so later, and she was a
+creature of mirth, too.  The walls of this house must be sorter SOAKED
+with laughing and good times.  You're the third bride I've seen come
+here, Mistress Blythe--and the handsomest."
+
+Captain Jim contrived to give his sunflower compliment the delicacy of
+a violet, and Anne wore it proudly.  She was looking her best that
+night, with the bridal rose on her cheeks and the love-light in her
+eyes; even gruff old Doctor Dave gave her an approving glance, and told
+his wife, as they drove home together, that that red-headed wife of the
+boy's was something of a beauty.
+
+"I must be getting back to the light," announced Captain Jim.  "I've
+enj'yed this evening something tremenjus."
+
+"You must come often to see us," said Anne.
+
+"I wonder if you'd give that invitation if you knew how likely I'll be
+to accept it," Captain Jim remarked whimsically.
+
+"Which is another way of saying you wonder if I mean it," smiled Anne.
+"I do, 'cross my heart,' as we used to say at school."
+
+"Then I'll come.  You're likely to be pestered with me at any hour.
+And I'll be proud to have you drop down and visit me now and then, too.
+Gin'rally I haven't anyone to talk to but the First Mate, bless his
+sociable heart.  He's a mighty good listener, and has forgot more'n any
+MacAllister of them all ever knew, but he isn't much of a
+conversationalist.  You're young and I'm old, but our souls are about
+the same age, I reckon.  We both belong to the race that knows Joseph,
+as Cornelia Bryant would say."
+
+"The race that knows Joseph?" puzzled Anne.
+
+"Yes.  Cornelia divides all the folks in the world into two kinds--the
+race that knows Joseph and the race that don't.  If a person sorter
+sees eye to eye with you, and has pretty much the same ideas about
+things, and the same taste in jokes--why, then he belongs to the race
+that knows Joseph."
+
+"Oh, I understand," exclaimed Anne, light breaking in upon her.
+
+"It's what I used to call--and still call in quotation marks 'kindred
+spirits.'"
+
+"Jest so--jest so," agreed Captain Jim.  "We're it, whatever IT is.
+When you come in tonight, Mistress Blythe, I says to myself, says I,
+'Yes, she's of the race that knows Joseph.'  And mighty glad I was, for
+if it wasn't so we couldn't have had any real satisfaction in each
+other's company.  The race that knows Joseph is the salt of the airth,
+I reckon."
+
+The moon had just risen when Anne and Gilbert went to the door with
+their guests.  Four Winds Harbor was beginning to be a thing of dream
+and glamour and enchantment--a spellbound haven where no tempest might
+ever ravin.  The Lombardies down the lane, tall and sombre as the
+priestly forms of some mystic band, were tipped with silver.
+
+"Always liked Lombardies," said Captain Jim, waving a long arm at them.
+"They're the trees of princesses.  They're out of fashion now.  Folks
+complain that they die at the top and get ragged-looking.  So they
+do--so they do, if you don't risk your neck every spring climbing up a
+light ladder to trim them out.  I always did it for Miss Elizabeth, so
+her Lombardies never got out-at-elbows.  She was especially fond of
+them.  She liked their dignity and stand-offishness.  THEY don't hobnob
+with every Tom, Dick and Harry.  If it's maples for company, Mistress
+Blythe, it's Lombardies for society."
+
+"What a beautiful night," said Mrs. Doctor Dave, as she climbed into
+the Doctor's buggy.
+
+"Most nights are beautiful," said Captain Jim.  "But I 'low that
+moonlight over Four Winds makes me sorter wonder what's left for
+heaven.  The moon's a great friend of mine, Mistress Blythe.  I've
+loved her ever since I can remember.  When I was a little chap of eight
+I fell asleep in the garden one evening and wasn't missed.  I woke up
+along in the night and I was most scared to death.  What shadows and
+queer noises there was!  I dursn't move.  Jest crouched there quaking,
+poor small mite.  Seemed 's if there weren't anyone in the world but
+meself and it was mighty big.  Then all at once I saw the moon looking
+down at me through the apple boughs, jest like an old friend.  I was
+comforted right off.  Got up and walked to the house as brave as a
+lion, looking at her.  Many's the night I've watched her from the deck
+of my vessel, on seas far away from here.  Why don't you folks tell me
+to take in the slack of my jaw and go home?"
+
+The laughter of the goodnights died away.  Anne and Gilbert walked hand
+in hand around their garden.  The brook that ran across the corner
+dimpled pellucidly in the shadows of the birches.  The poppies along
+its banks were like shallow cups of moonlight.  Flowers that had been
+planted by the hands of the schoolmaster's bride flung their sweetness
+on the shadowy air, like the beauty and blessing of sacred yesterdays.
+Anne paused in the gloom to gather a spray.
+
+"I love to smell flowers in the dark," she said.  "You get hold of
+their soul then.  Oh, Gilbert, this little house is all I've dreamed
+it.  And I'm so glad that we are not the first who have kept bridal
+tryst here!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 8
+
+MISS CORNELIA BRYANT COMES TO CALL
+
+That September was a month of golden mists and purple hazes at Four
+Winds Harbor--a month of sun-steeped days and of nights that were
+swimming in moonlight, or pulsating with stars.  No storm marred it, no
+rough wind blew.  Anne and Gilbert put their nest in order, rambled on
+the shores, sailed on the harbor, drove about Four Winds and the Glen,
+or through the ferny, sequestered roads of the woods around the harbor
+head; in short, had such a honeymoon as any lovers in the world might
+have envied them.
+
+"If life were to stop short just now it would still have been richly
+worth while, just for the sake of these past four weeks, wouldn't it?"
+said Anne.  "I don't suppose we will ever have four such perfect weeks
+again--but we've HAD them.  Everything--wind, weather, folks, house of
+dreams--has conspired to make our honeymoon delightful.  There hasn't
+even been a rainy day since we came here."
+
+"And we haven't quarrelled once," teased Gilbert.
+
+"Well, 'that's a pleasure all the greater for being deferred,'" quoted
+Anne.  "I'm so glad we decided to spend our honeymoon here.  Our
+memories of it will always belong here, in our house of dreams, instead
+of being scattered about in strange places."
+
+There was a certain tang of romance and adventure in the atmosphere of
+their new home which Anne had never found in Avonlea.  There, although
+she had lived in sight of the sea, it had not entered intimately into
+her life.  In Four Winds it surrounded her and called to her
+constantly.  From every window of her new home she saw some varying
+aspect of it.  Its haunting murmur was ever in her ears.  Vessels
+sailed up the harbor every day to the wharf at the Glen, or sailed out
+again through the sunset, bound for ports that might be half way round
+the globe.  Fishing boats went white-winged down the channel in the
+mornings, and returned laden in the evenings.  Sailors and fisher-folk
+travelled the red, winding harbor roads, light-hearted and content.
+There was always a certain sense of things going to happen--of
+adventures and farings-forth.  The ways of Four Winds were less staid
+and settled and grooved than those of Avonlea; winds of change blew
+over them; the sea called ever to the dwellers on shore, and even those
+who might not answer its call felt the thrill and unrest and mystery
+and possibilities of it.
+
+"I understand now why some men must go to sea," said Anne.  "That
+desire which comes to us all at times--'to sail beyond the bourne of
+sunset'--must be very imperious when it is born in you.  I don't wonder
+Captain Jim ran away because of it.  I never see a ship sailing out of
+the channel, or a gull soaring over the sand-bar, without wishing I
+were on board the ship or had wings, not like a dove 'to fly away and
+be at rest,' but like a gull, to sweep out into the very heart of a
+storm."
+
+"You'll stay right here with me, Anne-girl," said Gilbert lazily.  "I
+won't have you flying away from me into the hearts of storms."
+
+They were sitting on their red sand-stone doorstep in the late
+afternoon.  Great tranquillities were all about them in land and sea
+and sky.  Silvery gulls were soaring over them.  The horizons were
+laced with long trails of frail, pinkish clouds.  The hushed air was
+threaded with a murmurous refrain of minstrel winds and waves.  Pale
+asters were blowing in the sere and misty meadows between them and the
+harbor.
+
+"Doctors who have to be up all night waiting on sick folk don't feel
+very adventurous, I suppose," Anne said indulgently.  "If you had had a
+good sleep last night, Gilbert, you'd be as ready as I am for a flight
+of imagination."
+
+"I did good work last night, Anne," said Gilbert quietly.  "Under God,
+I saved a life.  This is the first time I could ever really claim that.
+In other cases I may have helped; but, Anne, if I had not stayed at
+Allonby's last night and fought death hand to hand, that woman would
+have died before morning.  I tried an experiment that was certainly
+never tried in Four Winds before.  I doubt if it was ever tried
+anywhere before outside of a hospital.  It was a new thing in Kingsport
+hospital last winter.  I could never have dared try it here if I had
+not been absolutely certain that there was no other chance.  I risked
+it--and it succeeded.  As a result, a good wife and mother is saved for
+long years of happiness and usefulness.  As I drove home this morning,
+while the sun was rising over the harbor, I thanked God that I had
+chosen the profession I did.  I had fought a good fight and won--think
+of it, Anne, WON, against the Great Destroyer.  It's what I dreamed of
+doing long ago when we talked together of what we wanted to do in life.
+That dream of mine came true this morning."
+
+"Was that the only one of your dreams that has come true?" asked Anne,
+who knew perfectly well what the substance of his answer would be, but
+wanted to hear it again.
+
+"YOU know, Anne-girl," said Gilbert, smiling into her eyes.  At that
+moment there were certainly two perfectly happy people sitting on the
+doorstep of a little white house on the Four Winds Harbor shore.
+
+Presently Gilbert said, with a change of tone, "Do I or do I not see a
+full-rigged ship sailing up our lane?"
+
+Anne looked and sprang up.
+
+"That must be either Miss Cornelia Bryant or Mrs. Moore coming to
+call," she said.
+
+"I'm going into the office, and if it is Miss Cornelia I warn you that
+I'll eavesdrop," said Gilbert.  "From all I've heard regarding Miss
+Cornelia I conclude that her conversation will not be dull, to say the
+least."
+
+"It may be Mrs. Moore."
+
+"I don't think Mrs. Moore is built on those lines.  I saw her working
+in her garden the other day, and, though I was too far away to see
+clearly, I thought she was rather slender.  She doesn't seem very
+socially inclined when she has never called on you yet, although she's
+your nearest neighbor."
+
+"She can't be like Mrs. Lynde, after all, or curiosity would have
+brought her," said Anne.  "This caller is, I think, Miss Cornelia."
+
+Miss Cornelia it was; moreover, Miss Cornelia had not come to make any
+brief and fashionable wedding call.  She had her work under her arm in
+a substantial parcel, and when Anne asked her to stay she promptly took
+off her capacious sun-hat, which had been held on her head, despite
+irreverent September breezes, by a tight elastic band under her hard
+little knob of fair hair.  No hat pins for Miss Cornelia, an it please
+ye!  Elastic bands had been good enough for her mother and they were
+good enough for HER.  She had a fresh, round, pink-and-white face, and
+jolly brown eyes.  She did not look in the least like the traditional
+old maid, and there was something in her expression which won Anne
+instantly.  With her old instinctive quickness to discern kindred
+spirits she knew she was going to like Miss Cornelia, in spite of
+uncertain oddities of opinion, and certain oddities of attire.
+
+Nobody but Miss Cornelia would have come to make a call arrayed in a
+striped blue-and-white apron and a wrapper of chocolate print, with a
+design of huge, pink roses scattered over it.  And nobody but Miss
+Cornelia could have looked dignified and suitably garbed in it.  Had
+Miss Cornelia been entering a palace to call on a prince's bride, she
+would have been just as dignified and just as wholly mistress of the
+situation.  She would have trailed her rose-spattered flounce over the
+marble floors just as unconcernedly, and she would have proceeded just
+as calmly to disabuse the mind of the princess of any idea that the
+possession of a mere man, be he prince or peasant, was anything to brag
+of.
+
+"I've brought my work, Mrs. Blythe, dearie," she remarked, unrolling
+some dainty material.  "I'm in a hurry to get this done, and there
+isn't any time to lose."
+
+Anne looked in some surprise at the white garment spread over Miss
+Cornelia's ample lap.  It was certainly a baby's dress, and it was most
+beautifully made, with tiny frills and tucks.  Miss Cornelia adjusted
+her glasses and fell to embroidering with exquisite stitches.
+
+"This is for Mrs. Fred Proctor up at the Glen," she announced.  "She's
+expecting her eighth baby any day now, and not a stitch has she ready
+for it.  The other seven have wore out all she made for the first, and
+she's never had time or strength or spirit to make any more.  That
+woman is a martyr, Mrs. Blythe, believe ME.  When she married Fred
+Proctor _I_ knew how it would turn out.  He was one of your wicked,
+fascinating men.  After he got married he left off being fascinating
+and just kept on being wicked.  He drinks and he neglects his family.
+Isn't that like a man?  I don't know how Mrs. Proctor would ever keep
+her children decently clothed if her neighbors didn't help her out."
+
+As Anne was afterwards to learn, Miss Cornelia was the only neighbor
+who troubled herself much about the decency of the young Proctors.
+
+"When I heard this eighth baby was coming I decided to make some things
+for it," Miss Cornelia went on.  "This is the last and I want to finish
+it today."
+
+"It's certainly very pretty," said Anne.  "I'll get my sewing and we'll
+have a little thimble party of two.  You are a beautiful sewer, Miss
+Bryant."
+
+"Yes, I'm the best sewer in these parts," said Miss Cornelia in a
+matter-of-fact tone.  "I ought to be!  Lord, I've done more of it than
+if I'd had a hundred children of my own, believe ME!  I s'pose I'm a
+fool, to be putting hand embroidery on this dress for an eighth baby.
+But, Lord, Mrs. Blythe, dearie, it isn't to blame for being the eighth,
+and I kind of wished it to have one real pretty dress, just as if it
+WAS wanted.  Nobody's wanting the poor mite--so I put some extra fuss
+on its little things just on that account."
+
+"Any baby might be proud of that dress," said Anne, feeling still more
+strongly that she was going to like Miss Cornelia.
+
+"I s'pose you've been thinking I was never coming to call on you,"
+resumed Miss Cornelia.  "But this is harvest month, you know, and I've
+been busy--and a lot of extra hands hanging round, eating more'n they
+work, just like the men.  I'd have come yesterday, but I went to Mrs.
+Roderick MacAllister's funeral.  At first I thought my head was aching
+so badly I couldn't enjoy myself if I did go.  But she was a hundred
+years old, and I'd always promised myself that I'd go to her funeral."
+
+"Was it a successful function?" asked Anne, noticing that the office
+door was ajar.
+
+"What's that?  Oh, yes, it was a tremendous funeral.  She had a very
+large connection.  There was over one hundred and twenty carriages in
+the procession.  There was one or two funny things happened.  I thought
+that die I would to see old Joe Bradshaw, who is an infidel and never
+darkens the door of a church, singing 'Safe in the Arms of Jesus' with
+great gusto and fervor.  He glories in singing--that's why he never
+misses a funeral.  Poor Mrs. Bradshaw didn't look much like
+singing--all wore out slaving.  Old Joe starts out once in a while to
+buy her a present and brings home some new kind of farm machinery.
+Isn't that like a man?  But what else would you expect of a man who
+never goes to church, even a Methodist one?  I was real thankful to see
+you and the young Doctor in the Presbyterian church your first Sunday.
+No doctor for me who isn't a Presbyterian."
+
+"We were in the Methodist church last Sunday evening," said Anne
+wickedly.
+
+"Oh, I s'pose Dr. Blythe has to go to the Methodist church once in a
+while or he wouldn't get the Methodist practice."
+
+"We liked the sermon very much," declared Anne boldly.  "And I thought
+the Methodist minster's prayer was one of the most beautiful I ever
+heard."
+
+"Oh, I've no doubt he can pray.  I never heard anyone make more
+beautiful prayers than old Simon Bentley, who was always drunk, or
+hoping to be, and the drunker he was the better he prayed."
+
+"The Methodist minister is very fine looking," said Anne, for the
+benefit of the office door.
+
+"Yes, he's quite ornamental," agreed Miss Cornelia.  "Oh, and VERY
+ladylike.  And he thinks that every girl who looks at him falls in love
+with him--as if a Methodist minister, wandering about like any Jew, was
+such a prize!  If you and the young doctor take MY advice, you won't
+have much to do with the Methodists.  My motto is--if you ARE a
+Presbyterian, BE a Presbyterian."
+
+"Don't you think that Methodists go to heaven as well as
+Presbyterians?" asked Anne smilelessly.
+
+"That isn't for US to decide.  It's in higher hands than ours," said
+Miss Cornelia solemnly.  "But I ain't going to associate with them on
+earth whatever I may have to do in heaven.  THIS Methodist minister
+isn't married.  The last one they had was, and his wife was the
+silliest, flightiest little thing I ever saw.  I told her husband once
+that he should have waited till she was grown up before he married her.
+He said he wanted to have the training of her.  Wasn't that like a man?"
+
+"It's rather hard to decide just when people ARE grown up," laughed
+Anne.
+
+"That's a true word, dearie.  Some are grown up when they're born, and
+others ain't grown up when they're eighty, believe ME. That same Mrs.
+Roderick I was speaking of never grew up.  She was as foolish when she
+was a hundred as when she was ten."
+
+"Perhaps that was why she lived so long," suggested Anne.
+
+"Maybe 'twas.  _I_'d rather live fifty sensible years than a hundred
+foolish ones."
+
+"But just think what a dull world it would be if everyone was
+sensible," pleaded Anne.
+
+Miss Cornelia disdained any skirmish of flippant epigram.
+
+"Mrs. Roderick was a Milgrave, and the Milgraves never had much sense.
+Her nephew, Ebenezer Milgrave, used to be insane for years.  He
+believed he was dead and used to rage at his wife because she wouldn't
+bury him.  _I_'d a-done it."
+
+Miss Cornelia looked so grimly determined that Anne could almost see
+her with a spade in her hand.
+
+"Don't you know ANY good husbands, Miss Bryant?"
+
+"Oh, yes, lots of them--over yonder," said Miss Cornelia, waving her
+hand through the open window towards the little graveyard of the church
+across the harbor.
+
+"But living--going about in the flesh?" persisted Anne.
+
+"Oh, there's a few, just to show that with God all things are
+possible," acknowledged Miss Cornelia reluctantly.  "I don't deny that
+an odd man here and there, if he's caught young and trained up proper,
+and if his mother has spanked him well beforehand, may turn out a
+decent being.  YOUR husband, now, isn't so bad, as men go, from all I
+hear.  I s'pose"--Miss Cornelia looked sharply at Anne over her
+glasses--"you think there's nobody like him in the world."
+
+"There isn't," said Anne promptly.
+
+"Ah, well, I heard another bride say that once," sighed Miss Cornelia.
+"Jennie Dean thought when she married that there wasn't anybody like
+HER husband in the world.  And she was right--there wasn't!  And a good
+thing, too, believe ME!  He led her an awful life--and he was courting
+his second wife while Jennie was dying.
+
+"Wasn't that like a man?  However, I hope YOUR confidence will be
+better justified, dearie.  The young doctor is taking real well.  I was
+afraid at first he mightn't, for folks hereabouts have always thought
+old Doctor Dave the only doctor in the world.  Doctor Dave hadn't much
+tact, to be sure--he was always talking of ropes in houses where
+someone had hanged himself.  But folks forgot their hurt feelings when
+they had a pain in their stomachs.  If he'd been a minister instead of
+a doctor they'd never have forgiven him.  Soul-ache doesn't worry folks
+near as much as stomach-ache.  Seeing as we're both Presbyterians and
+no Methodists around, will you tell me your candid opinion of OUR
+minister?"
+
+"Why--really--I--well," hesitated Anne.
+
+Miss Cornelia nodded.
+
+"Exactly.  I agree with you, dearie.  We made a mistake when we called
+HIM.  His face just looks like one of those long, narrow stones in the
+graveyard, doesn't it?  'Sacred to the memory' ought to be written on
+his forehead.  I shall never forget the first sermon he preached after
+he came.  It was on the subject of everyone doing what they were best
+fitted for--a very good subject, of course; but such illustrations as
+he used!  He said, 'If you had a cow and an apple tree, and if you tied
+the apple tree in your stable and planted the cow in your orchard, with
+her legs up, how much milk would you get from the apple tree, or how
+many apples from the cow?'  Did you ever hear the like in your born
+days, dearie?  I was so thankful there were no Methodists there that
+day--they'd never have been done hooting over it.  But what I dislike
+most in him is his habit of agreeing with everybody, no matter what is
+said.  If you said to him, 'You're a scoundrel,' he'd say, with that
+smooth smile of his, 'Yes, that's so.'  A minister should have more
+backbone.  The long and the short of it is, I consider him a reverend
+jackass.  But, of course, this is just between you and me.  When there
+are Methodists in hearing I praise him to the skies.  Some folks think
+his wife dresses too gay, but _I_ say when she has to live with a face
+like that she needs something to cheer her up.  You'll never hear ME
+condemning a woman for her dress.  I'm only too thankful when her
+husband isn't too mean and miserly to allow it.  Not that I bother much
+with dress myself.  Women just dress to please the men, and I'd never
+stoop to THAT.  I have had a real placid, comfortable life, dearie, and
+it's just because I never cared a cent what the men thought."
+
+"Why do you hate the men so, Miss Bryant?"
+
+"Lord, dearie, I don't hate them.  They aren't worth it.  I just sort
+of despise them.  I think I'll like YOUR husband if he keeps on as he
+has begun.  But apart from him about the only men in the world I've
+much use for are the old doctor and Captain Jim."
+
+"Captain Jim is certainly splendid," agreed Anne cordially.
+
+"Captain Jim is a good man, but he's kind of vexing in one way.  You
+CAN'T make him mad.  I've tried for twenty years and he just keeps on
+being placid.  It does sort of rile me.  And I s'pose the woman he
+should have married got a man who went into tantrums twice a day."
+
+"Who was she?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know, dearie.  I never remember of Captain Jim making up
+to anybody.  He was edging on old as far as my memory goes.  He's
+seventy-six, you know.  I never heard any reason for his staying a
+bachelor, but there must be one, believe ME.  He sailed all his life
+till five years ago, and there's no corner of the earth he hasn't poked
+his nose into.  He and Elizabeth Russell were great cronies, all their
+lives, but they never had any notion of sweet-hearting.  Elizabeth
+never married, though she had plenty of chances.  She was a great
+beauty when she was young.  The year the Prince of Wales came to the
+Island she was visiting her uncle in Charlottetown and he was a
+Government official, and so she got invited to the great ball.  She was
+the prettiest girl there, and the Prince danced with her, and all the
+other women he didn't dance with were furious about it, because their
+social standing was higher than hers and they said he shouldn't have
+passed them over.  Elizabeth was always very proud of that dance.  Mean
+folks said that was why she never married--she couldn't put up with an
+ordinary man after dancing with a prince.  But that wasn't so.  She
+told me the reason once--it was because she had such a temper that she
+was afraid she couldn't live peaceably with any man.  She HAD an awful
+temper--she used to have to go upstairs and bite pieces out of her
+bureau to keep it down by times.  But I told her that wasn't any reason
+for not marrying if she wanted to.  There's no reason why we should let
+the men have a monopoly of temper, is there, Mrs. Blythe, dearie?"
+
+"I've a bit of temper myself," sighed Anne.
+
+"It's well you have, dearie.  You won't be half so likely to be trodden
+on, believe ME!  My, how that golden glow of yours is blooming!  Your
+garden looks fine.  Poor Elizabeth always took such care of it."
+
+"I love it," said Anne.  "I'm glad it's so full of old-fashioned
+flowers.  Speaking of gardening, we want to get a man to dig up that
+little lot beyond the fir grove and set it out with strawberry plants
+for us.  Gilbert is so busy he will never get time for it this fall.
+Do you know anyone we can get?"
+
+"Well, Henry Hammond up at the Glen goes out doing jobs like that.
+He'll do, maybe.  He's always a heap more interested in his wages than
+in his work, just like a man, and he's so slow in the uptake that he
+stands still for five minutes before it dawns on him that he's stopped.
+His father threw a stump at him when he was small.
+
+"Nice gentle missile, wasn't it?  So like a man!  Course, the boy never
+got over it.  But he's the only one I can recommend at all.  He painted
+my house for me last spring.  It looks real nice now, don't you think?"
+
+Anne was saved by the clock striking five.
+
+"Lord, is it that late?" exclaimed Miss Cornelia.  "How time does slip
+by when you're enjoying yourself!  Well, I must betake myself home."
+
+"No, indeed!  You are going to stay and have tea with us," said Anne
+eagerly.
+
+"Are you asking me because you think you ought to, or because you
+really want to?" demanded Miss Cornelia.
+
+"Because I really want to."
+
+"Then I'll stay.  YOU belong to the race that knows Joseph."
+
+"I know we are going to be friends," said Anne, with the smile that
+only they of the household of faith ever saw.
+
+"Yes, we are, dearie.  Thank goodness, we can choose our friends.  We
+have to take our relatives as they are, and be thankful if there are no
+penitentiary birds among them.  Not that I've many--none nearer than
+second cousins.  I'm a kind of lonely soul, Mrs. Blythe."
+
+There was a wistful note in Miss Cornelia's voice.
+
+"I wish you would call me Anne," exclaimed Anne impulsively.  "It would
+seem more HOMEY.  Everyone in Four Winds, except my husband, calls me
+Mrs. Blythe, and it makes me feel like a stranger.  Do you know that
+your name is very near being the one I yearned after when I was a
+child.  I hated 'Anne' and I called myself 'Cordelia' in imagination."
+
+"I like Anne.  It was my mother's name.  Old-fashioned names are the
+best and sweetest in my opinion.  If you're going to get tea you might
+send the young doctor to talk to me.  He's been lying on the sofa in
+that office ever since I came, laughing fit to kill over what I've been
+saying."
+
+"How did you know?" cried Anne, too aghast at this instance of Miss
+Cornelia's uncanny prescience to make a polite denial.
+
+"I saw him sitting beside you when I came up the lane, and I know men's
+tricks," retorted Miss Cornelia.  "There, I've finished my little
+dress, dearie, and the eighth baby can come as soon as it pleases."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 9
+
+AN EVENING AT FOUR WINDS POINT
+
+It was late September when Anne and Gilbert were able to pay Four Winds
+light their promised visit.  They had often planned to go, but
+something always occurred to prevent them.  Captain Jim had "dropped
+in" several times at the little house.
+
+"I don't stand on ceremony, Mistress Blythe," he told Anne.  "It's a
+real pleasure to me to come here, and I'm not going to deny myself jest
+because you haven't got down to see me.  There oughtn't to be no
+bargaining like that among the race that knows Joseph.  I'll come when
+I can, and you come when you can, and so long's we have our pleasant
+little chat it don't matter a mite what roof's over us."
+
+Captain Jim took a great fancy to Gog and Magog, who were presiding
+over the destinies of the hearth in the little house with as much
+dignity and aplomb as they had done at Patty's Place.
+
+"Aren't they the cutest little cusses?" he would say delightedly; and
+he bade them greeting and farewell as gravely and invariably as he did
+his host and hostess.  Captain Jim was not going to offend household
+deities by any lack of reverence and ceremony.
+
+"You've made this little house just about perfect," he told Anne.  "It
+never was so nice before.  Mistress Selwyn had your taste and she did
+wonders; but folks in those days didn't have the pretty little curtains
+and pictures and nicknacks you have.  As for Elizabeth, she lived in
+the past.  You've kinder brought the future into it, so to speak.  I'd
+be real happy even if we couldn't talk at all, when I come here--jest
+to sit and look at you and your pictures and your flowers would be
+enough of a treat.  It's beautiful--beautiful."
+
+Captain Jim was a passionate worshipper of beauty.  Every lovely thing
+heard or seen gave him a deep, subtle, inner joy that irradiated his
+life.  He was quite keenly aware of his own lack of outward comeliness
+and lamented it.
+
+"Folks say I'm good," he remarked whimsically upon one occasion, "but I
+sometimes wish the Lord had made me only half as good and put the rest
+of it into looks.  But there, I reckon He knew what He was about, as a
+good Captain should.  Some of us have to be homely, or the purty
+ones--like Mistress Blythe here--wouldn't show up so well."
+
+One evening Anne and Gilbert finally walked down to the Four Winds
+light.  The day had begun sombrely in gray cloud and mist, but it had
+ended in a pomp of scarlet and gold.  Over the western hills beyond the
+harbor were amber deeps and crystalline shallows, with the fire of
+sunset below.  The north was a mackerel sky of little, fiery golden
+clouds.  The red light flamed on the white sails of a vessel gliding
+down the channel, bound to a southern port in a land of palms.  Beyond
+her, it smote upon and incarnadined the shining, white, grassless faces
+of the sand dunes.  To the right, it fell on the old house among the
+willows up the brook, and gave it for a fleeting space casements more
+splendid than those of an old cathedral.  They glowed out of its quiet
+and grayness like the throbbing, blood-red thoughts of a vivid soul
+imprisoned in a dull husk of environment.
+
+"That old house up the brook always seems so lonely," said Anne.  "I
+never see visitors there.  Of course, its lane opens on the upper
+road--but I don't think there's much coming and going.  It seems odd
+we've never met the Moores yet, when they live within fifteen minutes'
+walk of us.  I may have seen them in church, of course, but if so I
+didn't know them.  I'm sorry they are so unsociable, when they are our
+only near neighbors."
+
+"Evidently they don't belong to the race that knows Joseph," laughed
+Gilbert.  "Have you ever found out who that girl was whom you thought
+so beautiful?"
+
+"No.  Somehow I have never remembered to ask about her.  But I've never
+seen her anywhere, so I suppose she must have been a stranger.  Oh, the
+sun has just vanished--and there's the light."
+
+As the dusk deepened, the great beacon cut swathes of light through it,
+sweeping in a circle over the fields and the harbor, the sandbar and
+the gulf.
+
+"I feel as if it might catch me and whisk me leagues out to sea," said
+Anne, as one drenched them with radiance; and she felt rather relieved
+when they got so near the Point that they were inside the range of
+those dazzling, recurrent flashes.
+
+As they turned into the little lane that led across the fields to the
+Point they met a man coming out of it--a man of such extraordinary
+appearance that for a moment they both frankly stared.  He was a
+decidedly fine-looking person-tall, broad-shouldered, well-featured,
+with a Roman nose and frank gray eyes; he was dressed in a prosperous
+farmer's Sunday best; in so far he might have been any inhabitant of
+Four Winds or the Glen.  But, flowing over his breast nearly to his
+knees, was a river of crinkly brown beard; and adown his back, beneath
+his commonplace felt hat, was a corresponding cascade of thick, wavy,
+brown hair.
+
+"Anne," murmured Gilbert, when they were out of earshot, "you didn't
+put what Uncle Dave calls 'a little of the Scott Act' in that lemonade
+you gave me just before we left home, did you?"
+
+"No, I didn't," said Anne, stifling her laughter, lest the retreating
+enigma should hear here.  "Who in the world can he be?"
+
+"I don't know; but if Captain Jim keeps apparitions like that down at
+this Point I'm going to carry cold iron in my pocket when I come here.
+He wasn't a sailor, or one might pardon his eccentricity of appearance;
+he must belong to the over-harbor clans.  Uncle Dave says they have
+several freaks over there."
+
+"Uncle Dave is a little prejudiced, I think.  You know all the
+over-harbor people who come to the Glen Church seem very nice.  Oh,
+Gilbert, isn't this beautiful?"
+
+The Four Winds light was built on a spur of red sand-stone cliff
+jutting out into the gulf.  On one side, across the channel, stretched
+the silvery sand shore of the bar; on the other, extended a long,
+curving beach of red cliffs, rising steeply from the pebbled coves.  It
+was a shore that knew the magic and mystery of storm and star.  There
+is a great solitude about such a shore.  The woods are never
+solitary--they are full of whispering, beckoning, friendly life.  But
+the sea is a mighty soul, forever moaning of some great, unshareable
+sorrow, which shuts it up into itself for all eternity.  We can never
+pierce its infinite mystery--we may only wander, awed and spellbound,
+on the outer fringe of it.  The woods call to us with a hundred voices,
+but the sea has one only--a mighty voice that drowns our souls in its
+majestic music.  The woods are human, but the sea is of the company of
+the archangels.
+
+Anne and Gilbert found Uncle Jim sitting on a bench outside the
+lighthouse, putting the finishing touches to a wonderful, full-rigged,
+toy schooner.  He rose and welcomed them to his abode with the gentle,
+unconscious courtesy that became him so well.
+
+"This has been a purty nice day all through, Mistress Blythe, and now,
+right at the last, it's brought its best.  Would you like to sit down
+here outside a bit, while the light lasts?  I've just finished this bit
+of a plaything for my little grand nephew, Joe, up at the Glen.  After
+I promised to make it for him I was kinder sorry, for his mother was
+vexed.  She's afraid he'll be wanting to go to sea later on and she
+doesn't want the notion encouraged in him.  But what could I do,
+Mistress Blythe?  I'd PROMISED him, and I think it's sorter real
+dastardly to break a promise you make to a child.  Come, sit down.  It
+won't take long to stay an hour."
+
+The wind was off shore, and only broke the sea's surface into long,
+silvery ripples, and sent sheeny shadows flying out across it, from
+every point and headland, like transparent wings.  The dusk was hanging
+a curtain of violet gloom over the sand dunes and the headlands where
+gulls were huddling.  The sky was faintly filmed over with scarfs of
+silken vapor.  Cloud fleets rode at anchor along the horizons.  An
+evening star was watching over the bar.
+
+"Isn't that a view worth looking at?" said Captain Jim, with a loving,
+proprietary pride.  "Nice and far from the market-place, ain't it?  No
+buying and selling and getting gain.  You don't have to pay
+anything--all that sea and sky free--'without money and without price.'
+There's going to be a moonrise purty soon, too--I'm never tired of
+finding out what a moonrise can be over them rocks and sea and harbor.
+There's a surprise in it every time."
+
+They had their moonrise, and watched its marvel and magic in a silence
+that asked nothing of the world or each other.  Then they went up into
+the tower, and Captain Jim showed and explained the mechanism of the
+great light.  Finally they found themselves in the dining room, where a
+fire of driftwood was weaving flames of wavering, elusive, sea-born
+hues in the open fireplace.
+
+"I put this fireplace in myself," remarked Captain Jim.  "The
+Government don't give lighthouse keepers such luxuries.  Look at the
+colors that wood makes.  If you'd like some driftwood for your fire,
+Mistress Blythe, I'll bring you up a load some day.  Sit down.  I'm
+going to make you a cup of tea."
+
+Captain Jim placed a chair for Anne, having first removed therefrom a
+huge, orange-colored cat and a newspaper.
+
+"Get down, Matey.  The sofa is your place.  I must put this paper away
+safe till I can find time to finish the story in it.  It's called A Mad
+Love.  'Tisn't my favorite brand of fiction, but I'm reading it jest to
+see how long she can spin it out.  It's at the sixty-second chapter
+now, and the wedding ain't any nearer than when it begun, far's I can
+see.  When little Joe comes I have to read him pirate yarns.  Ain't it
+strange how innocent little creatures like children like the
+blood-thirstiest stories?"
+
+"Like my lad Davy at home," said Anne.  "He wants tales that reek with
+gore."
+
+Captain Jim's tea proved to be nectar.  He was pleased as a child with
+Anne's compliments, but he affected a fine indifference.
+
+"The secret is I don't skimp the cream," he remarked airily.  Captain
+Jim had never heard of Oliver Wendell Holmes, but he evidently agreed
+with that writer's dictum that "big heart never liked little cream pot."
+
+"We met an odd-looking personage coming out of your lane," said Gilbert
+as they sipped.  "Who was he?"
+
+Captain Jim grinned.
+
+"That's Marshall Elliott--a mighty fine man with jest one streak of
+foolishness in him.  I s'pose you wondered what his object was in
+turning himself into a sort of dime museum freak."
+
+"Is he a modern Nazarite or a Hebrew prophet left over from olden
+times?" asked Anne.
+
+"Neither of them.  It's politics that's at the bottom of his freak.
+All those Elliotts and Crawfords and MacAllisters are dyed-in-the-wool
+politicians.  They're born Grit or Tory, as the case may be, and they
+live Grit or Tory, and they die Grit or Tory; and what they're going to
+do in heaven, where there's probably no politics, is more than I can
+fathom.  This Marshall Elliott was born a Grit.  I'm a Grit myself in
+moderation, but there's no moderation about Marshall.  Fifteen years
+ago there was a specially bitter general election.  Marshall fought for
+his party tooth and nail.  He was dead sure the Liberals would win--so
+sure that he got up at a public meeting and vowed that he wouldn't
+shave his face or cut his hair until the Grits were in power.  Well,
+they didn't go in--and they've never got in yet--and you saw the result
+today for yourselves.  Marshall stuck to his word."
+
+"What does his wife think of it?" asked Anne.
+
+"He's a bachelor.  But if he had a wife I reckon she couldn't make him
+break that vow.  That family of Elliotts has always been more stubborn
+than natteral.  Marshall's brother Alexander had a dog he set great
+store by, and when it died the man actilly wanted to have it buried in
+the graveyard, 'along with the other Christians,' he said.  Course, he
+wasn't allowed to; so he buried it just outside the graveyard fence,
+and never darkened the church door again.  But Sundays he'd drive his
+family to church and sit by that dog's grave and read his Bible all the
+time service was going on.  They say when he was dying he asked his
+wife to bury him beside the dog; she was a meek little soul but she
+fired up at THAT.  She said SHE wasn't going to be buried beside no
+dog, and if he'd rather have his last resting place beside the dog than
+beside her, jest to say so.  Alexander Elliott was a stubborn mule, but
+he was fond of his wife, so he give in and said, 'Well, durn it, bury
+me where you please.  But when Gabriel's trump blows I expect my dog to
+rise with the rest of us, for he had as much soul as any durned Elliott
+or Crawford or MacAllister that ever strutted.'  Them was HIS parting
+words.  As for Marshall, we're all used to him, but he must strike
+strangers as right down peculiar-looking.  I've known him ever since he
+was ten--he's about fifty now--and I like him.  Him and me was out
+cod-fishing today.  That's about all I'm good for now--catching trout
+and cod occasional.  But 'tweren't always so--not by no manner of
+means.  I used to do other things, as you'd admit if you saw my
+life-book."
+
+Anne was just going to ask what his life-book was when the First Mate
+created a diversion by springing upon Captain Jim's knee.  He was a
+gorgeous beastie, with a face as round as a full moon, vivid green
+eyes, and immense, white, double paws.  Captain Jim stroked his velvet
+back gently.
+
+"I never fancied cats much till I found the First Mate," he remarked,
+to the accompaniment of the Mate's tremendous purrs.  "I saved his
+life, and when you've saved a creature's life you're bound to love it.
+It's next thing to giving life.  There's some turrible thoughtless
+people in the world, Mistress Blythe.  Some of them city folks who have
+summer homes over the harbor are so thoughtless that they're cruel.
+It's the worst kind of cruelty--the thoughtless kind.  You can't cope
+with it.  They keep cats there in the summer, and feed and pet 'em, and
+doll 'em up with ribbons and collars.  And then in the fall they go off
+and leave 'em to starve or freeze.  It makes my blood boil, Mistress
+Blythe.  One day last winter I found a poor old mother cat dead on the
+shore, lying against the skin-and-bone bodies of her three little
+kittens.  She'd died trying to shelter 'em.  She had her poor stiff
+paws around 'em.  Master, I cried.  Then I swore.  Then I carried them
+poor little kittens home and fed 'em up and found good homes for 'em.
+I knew the woman who left the cat and when she come back this summer I
+jest went over the harbor and told her my opinion of her.  It was rank
+meddling, but I do love meddling in a good cause."
+
+"How did she take it?" asked Gilbert.
+
+"Cried and said she 'didn't think.'  I says to her, says I, 'Do you
+s'pose that'll be held for a good excuse in the day of Jedgment, when
+you'll have to account for that poor old mother's life?  The Lord'll
+ask you what He give you your brains for if it wasn't to think, I
+reckon.'  I don't fancy she'll leave cats to starve another time."
+
+"Was the First Mate one of the forsaken?" asked Anne, making advances
+to him which were responded to graciously, if condescendingly.
+
+"Yes.  I found HIM one bitter cold day in winter, caught in the
+branches of a tree by his durn-fool ribbon collar.  He was almost
+starving.  If you could have seen his eyes, Mistress Blythe!  He was
+nothing but a kitten, and he'd got his living somehow since he'd been
+left until he got hung up.  When I loosed him he gave my hand a pitiful
+swipe with his little red tongue.  He wasn't the able seaman you see
+now.  He was meek as Moses.  That was nine years ago.  His life has
+been long in the land for a cat.  He's a good old pal, the First Mate
+is."
+
+"I should have expected you to have a dog," said Gilbert.
+
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+
+"I had a dog once.  I thought so much of him that when he died I
+couldn't bear the thought of getting another in his place.  He was a
+FRIEND--you understand, Mistress Blythe?  Matey's only a pal.  I'm fond
+of Matey--all the fonder on account of the spice of devilment that's in
+him--like there is in all cats.  But I LOVED my dog.  I always had a
+sneaking sympathy for Alexander Elliott about HIS dog.  There isn't any
+devil in a good dog.  That's why they're more lovable than cats, I
+reckon.  But I'm darned if they're as interesting.  Here I am, talking
+too much.  Why don't you check me?  When I do get a chance to talk to
+anyone I run on turrible.  If you've done your tea I've a few little
+things you might like to look at--picked 'em up in the queer corners I
+used to be poking my nose into."
+
+Captain Jim's "few little things" turned out to be a most interesting
+collection of curios, hideous, quaint and beautiful.  And almost every
+one had some striking story attached to it.
+
+Anne never forgot the delight with which she listened to those old
+tales that moonlit evening by that enchanted driftwood fire, while the
+silver sea called to them through the open window and sobbed against
+the rocks below them.
+
+Captain Jim never said a boastful word, but it was impossible to help
+seeing what a hero the man had been--brave, true, resourceful,
+unselfish.  He sat there in his little room and made those things live
+again for his hearers.  By a lift of the eyebrow, a twist of the lip, a
+gesture, a word, he painted a whole scene or character so that they saw
+it as it was.
+
+Some of Captain Jim's adventures had such a marvellous edge that Anne
+and Gilbert secretly wondered if he were not drawing a rather long bow
+at their credulous expense.  But in this, as they found later, they did
+him injustice.  His tales were all literally true.  Captain Jim had the
+gift of the born storyteller, whereby "unhappy, far-off things" can be
+brought vividly before the hearer in all their pristine poignancy.
+
+Anne and Gilbert laughed and shivered over his tales, and once Anne
+found herself crying.  Captain Jim surveyed her tears with pleasure
+shining from his face.
+
+"I like to see folks cry that way," he remarked.  "It's a compliment.
+But I can't do justice to the things I've seen or helped to do.  I've
+'em all jotted down in my life-book, but I haven't got the knack of
+writing them out properly.  If I could hit on jest the right words and
+string 'em together proper on paper I could make a great book.  It
+would beat A Mad Love holler, and I believe Joe'd like it as well as
+the pirate yarns.  Yes, I've had some adventures in my time; and, do
+you know, Mistress Blythe, I still lust after 'em.  Yes, old and
+useless as I be, there's an awful longing sweeps over me at times to
+sail out--out--out there--forever and ever."
+
+"Like Ulysses, you would
+
+    'Sail beyond the sunset and the baths
+     Of all the western stars until you die,'"
+
+said Anne dreamily.
+
+"Ulysses?  I've read of him.  Yes, that's just how I feel--jest how all
+us old sailors feel, I reckon.  I'll die on land after all, I s'pose.
+Well, what is to be will be.  There was old William Ford at the Glen
+who never went on the water in his life, 'cause he was afraid of being
+drowned.  A fortune-teller had predicted he would be.  And one day he
+fainted and fell with his face in the barn trough and was drowned.
+Must you go?  Well, come soon and come often.  The doctor is to do the
+talking next time.  He knows a heap of things I want to find out.  I'm
+sorter lonesome here by times.  It's been worse since Elizabeth Russell
+died.  Her and me was such cronies."
+
+Captain Jim spoke with the pathos of the aged, who see their old
+friends slipping from them one by one--friends whose place can never be
+quite filled by those of a younger generation, even of the race that
+knows Joseph.  Anne and Gilbert promised to come soon and often.
+
+"He's a rare old fellow, isn't he?" said Gilbert, as they walked home.
+
+"Somehow, I can't reconcile his simple, kindly personality with the
+wild, adventurous life he has lived," mused Anne.
+
+"You wouldn't find it so hard if you had seen him the other day down at
+the fishing village.  One of the men of Peter Gautier's boat made a
+nasty remark about some girl along the shore.  Captain Jim fairly
+scorched the wretched fellow with the lightning of his eyes.  He seemed
+a man transformed.  He didn't say much--but the way he said it!  You'd
+have thought it would strip the flesh from the fellow's bones.  I
+understand that Captain Jim will never allow a word against any woman
+to be said in his presence."
+
+"I wonder why he never married," said Anne.  "He should have sons with
+their ships at sea now, and grandchildren climbing over him to hear his
+stories--he's that kind of a man.  Instead, he has nothing but a
+magnificent cat."
+
+But Anne was mistaken.  Captain Jim had more than that.  He had a
+memory.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 10
+
+LESLIE MOORE
+
+"I'm going for a walk to the outside shore tonight," Anne told Gog and
+Magog one October evening.  There was no one else to tell, for Gilbert
+had gone over the harbor.  Anne had her little domain in the speckless
+order one would expect of anyone brought up by Marilla Cuthbert, and
+felt that she could gad shoreward with a clear conscience.  Many and
+delightful had been her shore rambles, sometimes with Gilbert,
+sometimes with Captain Jim, sometimes alone with her own thoughts and
+new, poignantly-sweet dreams that were beginning to span life with
+their rainbows.  She loved the gentle, misty harbor shore and the
+silvery, wind-haunted sand shore, but best of all she loved the rock
+shore, with its cliffs and caves and piles of surf-worn boulders, and
+its coves where the pebbles glittered under the pools; and it was to
+this shore she hied herself tonight.
+
+There had been an autumn storm of wind and rain, lasting for three
+days.  Thunderous had been the crash of billows on the rocks, wild the
+white spray and spume that blew over the bar, troubled and misty and
+tempest-torn the erstwhile blue peace of Four Winds Harbor.  Now it was
+over, and the shore lay clean-washed after the storm; not a wind
+stirred, but there was still a fine surf on, dashing on sand and rock
+in a splendid white turmoil--the only restless thing in the great,
+pervading stillness and peace.
+
+"Oh, this is a moment worth living through weeks of storm and stress
+for," Anne exclaimed, delightedly sending her far gaze across the
+tossing waters from the top of the cliff where she stood.  Presently
+she scrambled down the steep path to the little cove below, where she
+seemed shut in with rocks and sea and sky.
+
+"I'm going to dance and sing," she said.  "There's no one here to see
+me--the seagulls won't carry tales of the matter.  I may be as crazy as
+I like."
+
+She caught up her skirt and pirouetted along the hard strip of sand
+just out of reach of the waves that almost lapped her feet with their
+spent foam.  Whirling round and round, laughing like a child, she
+reached the little headland that ran out to the east of the cove; then
+she stopped suddenly, blushing crimson; she was not alone; there had
+been a witness to her dance and laughter.
+
+The girl of the golden hair and sea-blue eyes was sitting on a boulder
+of the headland, half-hidden by a jutting rock.  She was looking
+straight at Anne with a strange expression--part wonder, part sympathy,
+part--could it be?--envy.  She was bare-headed, and her splendid hair,
+more than ever like Browning's "gorgeous snake," was bound about her
+head with a crimson ribbon.  She wore a dress of some dark material,
+very plainly made; but swathed about her waist, outlining its fine
+curves, was a vivid girdle of red silk.  Her hands, clasped over her
+knee, were brown and somewhat work-hardened; but the skin of her throat
+and cheeks was as white as cream.  A flying gleam of sunset broke
+through a low-lying western cloud and fell across her hair.  For a
+moment she seemed the spirit of the sea personified--all its mystery,
+all its passion, all its elusive charm.
+
+"You--you must think me crazy," stammered Anne, trying to recover her
+self-possession.  To be seen by this stately girl in such an abandon of
+childishness--she, Mrs. Dr. Blythe, with all the dignity of the matron
+to keep up--it was too bad!
+
+"No," said the girl, "I don't."
+
+She said nothing more; her voice was expressionless; her manner
+slightly repellent; but there was something in her eyes--eager yet shy,
+defiant yet pleading--which turned Anne from her purpose of walking
+away.  Instead, she sat down on the boulder beside the girl.
+
+"Let's introduce ourselves," she said, with the smile that had never
+yet failed to win confidence and friendliness.  "I am Mrs. Blythe--and
+I live in that little white house up the harbor shore."
+
+"Yes, I know," said the girl.  "I am Leslie Moore--Mrs. Dick Moore,"
+she added stiffly.
+
+Anne was silent for a moment from sheer amazement.  It had not occurred
+to her that this girl was married--there seemed nothing of the wife
+about her.  And that she should be the neighbor whom Anne had pictured
+as a commonplace Four Winds housewife!  Anne could not quickly adjust
+her mental focus to this astonishing change.
+
+"Then--then you live in that gray house up the brook," she stammered.
+
+"Yes.  I should have gone over to call on you long ago," said the
+other.  She did not offer any explanation or excuse for not having gone.
+
+"I wish you WOULD come," said Anne, recovering herself somewhat.
+"We're such near neighbors we ought to be friends.  That is the sole
+fault of Four Winds--there aren't quite enough neighbors.  Otherwise it
+is perfection."
+
+"You like it?"
+
+"LIKE it!  I love it.  It is the most beautiful place I ever saw."
+
+"I've never seen many places," said Leslie Moore, slowly, "but I've
+always thought it was very lovely here.  I--I love it, too."
+
+She spoke, as she looked, shyly, yet eagerly.  Anne had an odd
+impression that this strange girl--the word "girl" would persist--could
+say a good deal if she chose.
+
+"I often come to the shore," she added.
+
+"So do I," said Anne.  "It's a wonder we haven't met here before."
+
+"Probably you come earlier in the evening than I do.  It is generally
+late--almost dark--when I come.  And I love to come just after a
+storm--like this.  I don't like the sea so well when it's calm and
+quiet.  I like the struggle--and the crash--and the noise."
+
+"I love it in all its moods," declared Anne.  "The sea at Four Winds is
+to me what Lover's Lane was at home.  Tonight it seemed so free--so
+untamed--something broke loose in me, too, out of sympathy.  That was
+why I danced along the shore in that wild way.  I didn't suppose
+anybody was looking, of course.  If Miss Cornelia Bryant had seen me
+she would have forboded a gloomy prospect for poor young Dr. Blythe."
+
+"You know Miss Cornelia?" said Leslie, laughing.  She had an exquisite
+laugh; it bubbled up suddenly and unexpectedly with something of the
+delicious quality of a baby's.  Anne laughed, too.
+
+"Oh, yes.  She has been down to my house of dreams several times."
+
+"Your house of dreams?"
+
+"Oh, that's a dear, foolish little name Gilbert and I have for our
+home.  We just call it that between ourselves.  It slipped out before I
+thought."
+
+"So Miss Russell's little white house is YOUR house of dreams," said
+Leslie wonderingly.  "_I_ had a house of dreams once--but it was a
+palace," she added, with a laugh, the sweetness of which was marred by
+a little note of derision.
+
+"Oh, I once dreamed of a palace, too," said Anne.  "I suppose all girls
+do.  And then we settle down contentedly in eight-room houses that seem
+to fulfill all the desires of our hearts--because our prince is there.
+YOU should have had your palace really, though--you are so beautiful.
+You MUST let me say it--it has to be said--I'm nearly bursting with
+admiration.  You are the loveliest thing I ever saw, Mrs. Moore."
+
+"If we are to be friends you must call me Leslie," said the other with
+an odd passion.
+
+"Of course I will.  And MY friends call me Anne."
+
+"I suppose I am beautiful," Leslie went on, looking stormily out to
+sea.  "I hate my beauty.  I wish I had always been as brown and plain
+as the brownest and plainest girl at the fishing village over there.
+Well, what do you think of Miss Cornelia?"
+
+The abrupt change of subject shut the door on any further confidences.
+
+"Miss Cornelia is a darling, isn't she?" said Anne.  "Gilbert and I
+were invited to her house to a state tea last week.  You've heard of
+groaning tables."
+
+"I seem to recall seeing the expression in the newspaper reports of
+weddings," said Leslie, smiling.
+
+"Well, Miss Cornelia's groaned--at least, it creaked--positively.  You
+couldn't have believed she would have cooked so much for two ordinary
+people.  She had every kind of pie you could name, I think--except
+lemon pie.  She said she had taken the prize for lemon pies at the
+Charlottetown Exhibition ten years ago and had never made any since for
+fear of losing her reputation for them."
+
+"Were you able to eat enough pie to please her?"
+
+"_I_ wasn't.  Gilbert won her heart by eating--I won't tell you how
+much.  She said she never knew a man who didn't like pie better than
+his Bible.  Do you know, I love Miss Cornelia."
+
+"So do I," said Leslie.  "She is the best friend I have in the world."
+
+Anne wondered secretly why, if this were so, Miss Cornelia had never
+mentioned Mrs. Dick Moore to her.  Miss Cornelia had certainly talked
+freely about every other individual in or near Four Winds.
+
+"Isn't that beautiful?" said Leslie, after a brief silence, pointing to
+the exquisite effect of a shaft of light falling through a cleft in the
+rock behind them, across a dark green pool at its base.  "If I had come
+here--and seen nothing but just that--I would go home satisfied."
+
+"The effects of light and shadow all along these shores are wonderful,"
+agreed Anne.  "My little sewing room looks out on the harbor, and I sit
+at its window and feast my eyes.  The colors and shadows are never the
+same two minutes together."
+
+"And you are never lonely?" asked Leslie abruptly.  "Never--when you
+are alone?"
+
+"No.  I don't think I've ever been really lonely in my life," answered
+Anne.  "Even when I'm alone I have real good company--dreams and
+imaginations and pretendings.  I LIKE to be alone now and then, just to
+think over things and TASTE them.  But I love friendship--and nice,
+jolly little times with people.  Oh, WON'T you come to see me--often?
+Please do.  I believe," Anne added, laughing, "that you'd like me if
+you knew me."
+
+"I wonder if YOU would like ME," said Leslie seriously.  She was not
+fishing for a compliment.  She looked out across the waves that were
+beginning to be garlanded with blossoms of moonlit foam, and her eyes
+filled with shadows.
+
+"I'm sure I would," said Anne.  "And please don't think I'm utterly
+irresponsible because you saw me dancing on the shore at sunset.  No
+doubt I shall be dignified after a time.  You see, I haven't been
+married very long.  I feel like a girl, and sometimes like a child,
+yet."
+
+"I have been married twelve years," said Leslie.
+
+Here was another unbelievable thing.
+
+"Why, you can't be as old as I am!" exclaimed Anne.  "You must have
+been a child when you were married."
+
+"I was sixteen," said Leslie, rising, and picking up the cap and jacket
+lying beside her.  "I am twenty-eight now.  Well, I must go back."
+
+"So must I.  Gilbert will probably be home.  But I'm so glad we both
+came to the shore tonight and met each other."
+
+Leslie said nothing, and Anne was a little chilled.  She had offered
+friendship frankly but it had not been accepted very graciously, if it
+had not been absolutely repelled.  In silence they climbed the cliffs
+and walked across a pasture-field of which the feathery, bleached, wild
+grasses were like a carpet of creamy velvet in the moonlight.  When
+they reached the shore lane Leslie turned.
+
+"I go this way, Mrs. Blythe.  You will come over and see me some time,
+won't you?"
+
+Anne felt as if the invitation had been thrown at her.  She got the
+impression that Leslie Moore gave it reluctantly.
+
+"I will come if you really want me to," she said a little coldly.
+
+"Oh, I do--I do," exclaimed Leslie, with an eagerness which seemed to
+burst forth and beat down some restraint that had been imposed on it.
+
+"Then I'll come.  Good-night--Leslie."
+
+"Good-night, Mrs. Blythe."
+
+Anne walked home in a brown study and poured out her tale to Gilbert.
+
+"So Mrs. Dick Moore isn't one of the race that knows Joseph?" said
+Gilbert teasingly.
+
+"No--o--o, not exactly.  And yet--I think she WAS one of them once, but
+has gone or got into exile," said Anne musingly.  "She is certainly
+very different from the other women about here.  You can't talk about
+eggs and butter to HER.  To think I've been imagining her a second Mrs.
+Rachel Lynde!  Have you ever seen Dick Moore, Gilbert?"
+
+"No.  I've seen several men working about the fields of the farm, but I
+don't know which was Moore."
+
+"She never mentioned him.  I KNOW she isn't happy."
+
+"From what you tell me I suppose she was married before she was old
+enough to know her own mind or heart, and found out too late that she
+had made a mistake.  It's a common tragedy enough, Anne.
+
+"A fine woman would have made the best of it.  Mrs. Moore has evidently
+let it make her bitter and resentful."
+
+"Don't let us judge her till we know," pleaded Anne.  "I don't believe
+her case is so ordinary.  You will understand her fascination when you
+meet her, Gilbert.  It is a thing quite apart from her beauty.  I feel
+that she possesses a rich nature, into which a friend might enter as
+into a kingdom; but for some reason she bars every one out and shuts
+all her possibilities up in herself, so that they cannot develop and
+blossom.  There, I've been struggling to define her to myself ever
+since I left her, and that is the nearest I can get to it.  I'm going
+to ask Miss Cornelia about her."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 11
+
+THE STORY OF LESLIE MOORE
+
+"Yes, the eighth baby arrived a fortnight ago," said Miss Cornelia,
+from a rocker before the fire of the little house one chilly October
+afternoon.  "It's a girl.  Fred was ranting mad--said he wanted a
+boy--when the truth is he didn't want it at all.  If it had been a boy
+he'd have ranted because it wasn't a girl.  They had four girls and
+three boys before, so I can't see that it made much difference what
+this one was, but of course he'd have to be cantankerous, just like a
+man.  The baby is real pretty, dressed up in its nice little clothes.
+It has black eyes and the dearest, tiny hands."
+
+"I must go and see it.  I just love babies," said Anne, smiling to
+herself over a thought too dear and sacred to be put into words.
+
+"I don't say but what they're nice," admitted Miss Cornelia.  "But some
+folks seem to have more than they really need, believe ME.  My poor
+cousin Flora up at the Glen had eleven, and such a slave as she is!
+Her husband suicided three years ago.  Just like a man!"
+
+"What made him do that?" asked Anne, rather shocked.
+
+"Couldn't get his way over something, so he jumped into the well.  A
+good riddance!  He was a born tyrant.  But of course it spoiled the
+well.  Flora could never abide the thought of using it again, poor
+thing!  So she had another dug and a frightful expense it was, and the
+water as hard as nails.  If he HAD to drown himself there was plenty of
+water in the harbor, wasn't there?  I've no patience with a man like
+that.  We've only had two suicides in Four Winds in my recollection.
+The other was Frank West--Leslie Moore's father.  By the way, has
+Leslie ever been over to call on you yet?"
+
+"No, but I met her on the shore a few nights ago and we scraped an
+acquaintance," said Anne, pricking up her ears.
+
+Miss Cornelia nodded.
+
+"I'm glad, dearie.  I was hoping you'd foregather with her.  What do
+you think of her?"
+
+"I thought her very beautiful."
+
+"Oh, of course.  There was never anybody about Four Winds could touch
+her for looks.  Did you ever see her hair?  It reaches to her feet when
+she lets it down.  But I meant how did you like her?"
+
+"I think I could like her very much if she'd let me," said Anne slowly.
+
+"But she wouldn't let you--she pushed you off and kept you at arm's
+length.  Poor Leslie!  You wouldn't be much surprised if you knew what
+her life has been.  It's been a tragedy--a tragedy!" repeated Miss
+Cornelia emphatically.
+
+"I wish you would tell me all about her--that is, if you can do so
+without betraying any confidence."
+
+"Lord, dearie, everybody in Four Winds knows poor Leslie's story.  It's
+no secret--the OUTSIDE, that is.  Nobody knows the INSIDE but Leslie
+herself, and she doesn't take folks into her confidence.  I'm about the
+best friend she has on earth, I reckon, and she's never uttered a word
+of complaint to me.  Have you ever seen Dick Moore?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, I may as well begin at the beginning and tell you everything
+straight through, so you'll understand it.  As I said, Leslie's father
+was Frank West.  He was clever and shiftless--just like a man.  Oh, he
+had heaps of brains--and much good they did him!  He started to go to
+college, and he went for two years, and then his health broke down.
+The Wests were all inclined to be consumptive.  So Frank came home and
+started farming.  He married Rose Elliott from over harbor.  Rose was
+reckoned the beauty of Four Winds--Leslie takes her looks from her
+mother, but she has ten times the spirit and go that Rose had, and a
+far better figure.  Now you know, Anne, I always take the ground that
+us women ought to stand by each other.  We've got enough to endure at
+the hands of the men, the Lord knows, so I hold we hadn't ought to
+clapper-claw one another, and it isn't often you'll find me running
+down another woman.  But I never had much use for Rose Elliott.  She
+was spoiled to begin with, believe ME, and she was nothing but a lazy,
+selfish, whining creature.  Frank was no hand to work, so they were
+poor as Job's turkey.  Poor!  They lived on potatoes and point, believe
+ME.  They had two children--Leslie and Kenneth.  Leslie had her
+mother's looks and her father's brains, and something she didn't get
+from either of them.  She took after her Grandmother West--a splendid
+old lady.  She was the brightest, friendliest, merriest thing when she
+was a child, Anne.  Everybody liked her.  She was her father's favorite
+and she was awful fond of him.  They were 'chums,' as she used to say.
+She couldn't see any of his faults--and he WAS a taking sort of man in
+some ways.
+
+"Well, when Leslie was twelve years old, the first dreadful thing
+happened.  She worshipped little Kenneth--he was four years younger
+than her, and he WAS a dear little chap.  And he was killed one
+day--fell off a big load of hay just as it was going into the barn, and
+the wheel went right over his little body and crushed the life out of
+it.  And mind you, Anne, Leslie saw it.  She was looking down from the
+loft.  She gave one screech--the hired man said he never heard such a
+sound in all his life--he said it would ring in his ears till Gabriel's
+trump drove it out.  But she never screeched or cried again about it.
+She jumped from the loft onto the load and from the load to the floor,
+and caught up the little bleeding, warm, dead body, Anne--they had to
+tear it from her before she would let it go.  They sent for me--I can't
+talk of it."
+
+Miss Cornelia wiped the tears from her kindly brown eyes and sewed in
+bitter silence for a few minutes.
+
+"Well," she resumed, "it was all over--they buried little Kenneth in
+that graveyard over the harbor, and after a while Leslie went back to
+her school and her studies.  She never mentioned Kenneth's name--I've
+never heard it cross her lips from that day to this.  I reckon that old
+hurt still aches and burns at times; but she was only a child and time
+is real kind to children, Anne, dearie.  After a while she began to
+laugh again--she had the prettiest laugh.  You don't often hear it now."
+
+"I heard it once the other night," said Anne.  "It IS a beautiful
+laugh."
+
+"Frank West began to go down after Kenneth's death.  He wasn't strong
+and it was a shock to him, because he was real fond of the child,
+though, as I've said, Leslie was his favorite.  He got mopy and
+melancholy, and couldn't or wouldn't work.  And one day, when Leslie
+was fourteen years of age, he hanged himself--and in the parlor, too,
+mind you, Anne, right in the middle of the parlor from the lamp hook in
+the ceiling.  Wasn't that like a man?  It was the anniversary of his
+wedding day, too.  Nice, tasty time to pick for it, wasn't it?  And, of
+course, that poor Leslie had to be the one to find him.  She went into
+the parlor that morning, singing, with some fresh flowers for the
+vases, and there she saw her father hanging from the ceiling, his face
+as black as a coal.  It was something awful, believe ME!"
+
+"Oh, how horrible!" said Anne, shuddering.  "The poor, poor child!"
+
+"Leslie didn't cry at her father's funeral any more then she had cried
+at Kenneth's.  Rose whooped and howled for two, however, and Leslie had
+all she could do trying to calm and comfort her mother.  I was
+disgusted with Rose and so was everyone else, but Leslie never got out
+of patience.  She loved her mother.  Leslie is clannish--her own could
+never do wrong in her eyes.  Well, they buried Frank West beside
+Kenneth, and Rose put up a great big monument to him.  It was bigger
+than his character, believe ME!  Anyhow, it was bigger than Rose could
+afford, for the farm was mortgaged for more than its value.  But not
+long after Leslie's old grandmother West died and she left Leslie a
+little money--enough to give her a year at Queen's Academy.  Leslie had
+made up her mind to pass for a teacher if she could, and then earn
+enough to put herself through Redmond College.  That had been her
+father's pet scheme--he wanted her to have what he had lost.  Leslie
+was full of ambition and her head was chock full of brains.  She went
+to Queen's, and she took two years' work in one year and got her First;
+and when she came home she got the Glen school.  She was so happy and
+hopeful and full of life and eagerness.  When I think of what she was
+then and what she is now, I say--drat the men!"
+
+Miss Cornelia snipped her thread off as viciously as if, Nero-like, she
+was severing the neck of mankind by the stroke.
+
+"Dick Moore came into her life that summer.  His father, Abner Moore,
+kept store at the Glen, but Dick had a sea-going streak in him from his
+mother; he used to sail in summer and clerk in his father's store in
+winter.  He was a big, handsome fellow, with a little ugly soul.  He
+was always wanting something till he got it, and then he stopped
+wanting it--just like a man.  Oh, he didn't growl at the weather when
+it was fine, and he was mostly real pleasant and agreeable when
+everything went right.  But he drank a good deal, and there were some
+nasty stories told of him and a girl down at the fishing village.  He
+wasn't fit for Leslie to wipe her feet on, that's the long and short of
+it.  And he was a Methodist!  But he was clean mad about her--because
+of her good looks in the first place, and because she wouldn't have
+anything to say to him in the second.  He vowed he'd have her--and he
+got her!"
+
+"How did he bring it about?"
+
+"Oh, it was an iniquitous thing!  I'll never forgive Rose West.  You
+see, dearie, Abner Moore held the mortgage on the West farm, and the
+interest was overdue some years, and Dick just went and told Mrs. West
+that if Leslie wouldn't marry him he'd get his father to foreclose the
+mortgage.  Rose carried on terrible--fainted and wept, and pleaded with
+Leslie not to let her be turned out of her home.  She said it would
+break her heart to leave the home she'd come to as a bride.  I wouldn't
+have blamed her for feeling dreadful bad over it--but you wouldn't have
+thought she'd be so selfish as to sacrifice her own flesh and blood
+because of it, would you?  Well, she was.
+
+"And Leslie gave in--she loved her mother so much she would have done
+anything to save her pain.  She married Dick Moore.  None of us knew
+why at the time.  It wasn't till long afterward that I found out how
+her mother had worried her into it.  I was sure there was something
+wrong, though, because I knew how she had snubbed him time and again,
+and it wasn't like Leslie to turn face--about like that.  Besides, I
+knew that Dick Moore wasn't the kind of man Leslie could ever fancy, in
+spite of his good looks and dashing ways.  Of course, there was no
+wedding, but Rose asked me to go and see them married.  I went, but I
+was sorry I did.  I'd seen Leslie's face at her brother's funeral and
+at her father's funeral--and now it seemed to me I was seeing it at her
+own funeral.  But Rose was smiling as a basket of chips, believe ME!
+
+"Leslie and Dick settled down on the West place--Rose couldn't bear to
+part with her dear daughter!--and lived there for the winter.  In the
+spring Rose took pneumonia and died--a year too late!  Leslie was
+heart-broken enough over it.  Isn't it terrible the way some unworthy
+folks are loved, while others that deserve it far more, you'd think,
+never get much affection?  As for Dick, he'd had enough of quiet
+married life--just like a man.  He was for up and off.  He went over to
+Nova Scotia to visit his relations--his father had come from Nova
+Scotia--and he wrote back to Leslie that his cousin, George Moore, was
+going on a voyage to Havana and he was going too.  The name of the
+vessel was the Four Sisters and they were to be gone about nine weeks.
+
+"It must have been a relief to Leslie.  But she never said anything.
+From the day of her marriage she was just what she is now--cold and
+proud, and keeping everyone but me at a distance.  I won't BE kept at a
+distance, believe ME!  I've just stuck to Leslie as close as I knew how
+in spite of everything."
+
+"She told me you were the best friend she had," said Anne.
+
+"Did she?" exclaimed Miss Cornelia delightedly.  "Well, I'm real
+thankful to hear it.  Sometimes I've wondered if she really did want me
+around at all--she never let me think so.  You must have thawed her out
+more than you think, or she wouldn't have said that much itself to you.
+Oh, that poor, heart-broken girl!  I never see Dick Moore but I want to
+run a knife clean through him."
+
+Miss Cornelia wiped her eyes again and having relieved her feelings by
+her blood-thirsty wish, took up her tale.
+
+"Well, Leslie was left over there alone.  Dick had put in the crop
+before he went, and old Abner looked after it.  The summer went by and
+the Four Sisters didn't come back.  The Nova Scotia Moores
+investigated, and found she had got to Havana and discharged her cargo
+and took on another and left for home; and that was all they ever found
+out about her.  By degrees people began to talk of Dick Moore as one
+that was dead.  Almost everyone believed that he was, though no one
+felt certain, for men have turned up here at the harbor after they'd
+been gone for years.  Leslie never thought he was dead--and she was
+right.  A thousand pities too!  The next summer Captain Jim was in
+Havana--that was before he gave up the sea, of course.  He thought he'd
+poke round a bit--Captain Jim was always meddlesome, just like a
+man--and he went to inquiring round among the sailors' boarding houses
+and places like that, to see if he could find out anything about the
+crew of the Four Sisters.  He'd better have let sleeping dogs lie, in
+my opinion!  Well, he went to one out-of-the-way place, and there he
+found a man he knew at first sight it was Dick Moore, though he had a
+big beard.  Captain Jim got it shaved off and then there was no
+doubt--Dick Moore it was--his body at least.  His mind wasn't there--as
+for his soul, in my opinion he never had one!"
+
+"What had happened to him?"
+
+"Nobody knows the rights of it.  All the folks who kept the boarding
+house could tell was that about a year before they had found him lying
+on their doorstep one morning in an awful condition--his head battered
+to a jelly almost.  They supposed he'd got hurt in some drunken row,
+and likely that's the truth of it.  They took him in, never thinking he
+could live.  But he did--and he was just like a child when he got well.
+He hadn't memory or intellect or reason.  They tried to find out who he
+was but they never could.  He couldn't even tell them his name--he
+could only say a few simple words.  He had a letter on him beginning
+'Dear Dick' and signed 'Leslie,' but there was no address on it and the
+envelope was gone.  They let him stay on--he learned to do a few odd
+jobs about the place--and there Captain Jim found him.  He brought him
+home--I've always said it was a bad day's work, though I s'pose there
+was nothing else he could do.  He thought maybe when Dick got home and
+saw his old surroundings and familiar faces his memory would wake up.
+But it hadn't any effect.  There he's been at the house up the brook
+ever since.  He's just like a child, no more nor less.  Takes fractious
+spells occasionally, but mostly he's just vacant and good humored and
+harmless.  He's apt to run away if he isn't watched.  That's the burden
+Leslie has had to carry for eleven years--and all alone.  Old Abner
+Moore died soon after Dick was brought home and it was found he was
+almost bankrupt.  When things were settled up there was nothing for
+Leslie and Dick but the old West farm.  Leslie rented it to John Ward,
+and the rent is all she has to live on.  Sometimes in summer she takes
+a boarder to help out.  But most visitors prefer the other side of the
+harbor where the hotels and summer cottages are.  Leslie's house is too
+far from the bathing shore.  She's taken care of Dick and she's never
+been away from him for eleven years--she's tied to that imbecile for
+life.  And after all the dreams and hopes she once had!  You can
+imagine what it has been like for her, Anne, dearie--with her beauty
+and spirit and pride and cleverness.  It's just been a living death."
+
+"Poor, poor girl!" said Anne again.  Her own happiness seemed to
+reproach her.  What right had she to be so happy when another human
+soul must be so miserable?
+
+"Will you tell me just what Leslie said and how she acted the night you
+met her on the shore?" asked Miss Cornelia.
+
+She listened intently and nodded her satisfaction.
+
+"YOU thought she was stiff and cold, Anne, dearie, but I can tell you
+she thawed out wonderful for her.  She must have taken to you real
+strong.  I'm so glad.  You may be able to help her a good deal.  I was
+thankful when I heard that a young couple was coming to this house, for
+I hoped it would mean some friends for Leslie; especially if you
+belonged to the race that knows Joseph.  You WILL be her friend, won't
+you, Anne, dearie?"
+
+"Indeed I will, if she'll let me," said Anne, with all her own sweet,
+impulsive earnestness.
+
+"No, you must be her friend, whether she'll let you or not," said Miss
+Cornelia resolutely.  "Don't you mind if she's stiff by times--don't
+notice it.  Remember what her life has been--and is--and must always
+be, I suppose, for creatures like Dick Moore live forever, I
+understand.  You should see how fat he's got since he came home.  He
+used to be lean enough.  Just MAKE her be friends--you can do
+it--you're one of those who have the knack.  Only you mustn't be
+sensitive.  And don't mind if she doesn't seem to want you to go over
+there much.  She knows that some women don't like to be where Dick
+is--they complain he gives them the creeps.  Just get her to come over
+here as often as she can.  She can't get away so very much--she can't
+leave Dick long, for the Lord knows what he'd do--burn the house down
+most likely.  At nights, after he's in bed and asleep, is about the
+only time she's free.  He always goes to bed early and sleeps like the
+dead till next morning.  That is how you came to meet her at the shore
+likely.  She wanders there considerable."
+
+"I will do everything I can for her," said Anne.  Her interest in
+Leslie Moore, which had been vivid ever since she had seen her driving
+her geese down the hill, was intensified a thousand fold by Miss
+Cornelia's narration.  The girl's beauty and sorrow and loneliness drew
+her with an irresistible fascination.  She had never known anyone like
+her; her friends had hitherto been wholesome, normal, merry girls like
+herself, with only the average trials of human care and bereavement to
+shadow their girlish dreams.  Leslie Moore stood apart, a tragic,
+appealing figure of thwarted womanhood.  Anne resolved that she would
+win entrance into the kingdom of that lonely soul and find there the
+comradeship it could so richly give, were it not for the cruel fetters
+that held it in a prison not of its own making.
+
+"And mind you this, Anne, dearie," said Miss Cornelia, who had not yet
+wholly relieved her mind, "You mustn't think Leslie is an infidel
+because she hardly ever goes to church--or even that she's a Methodist.
+She can't take Dick to church, of course--not that he ever troubled
+church much in his best days.  But you just remember that she's a real
+strong Presbyterian at heart, Anne, dearie."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 12
+
+LESLIE COMES OVER
+
+Leslie came over to the house of dreams one frosty October night, when
+moonlit mists were hanging over the harbor and curling like silver
+ribbons along the seaward glens.  She looked as if she repented coming
+when Gilbert answered her knock; but Anne flew past him, pounced on
+her, and drew her in.
+
+"I'm so glad you picked tonight for a call," she said gaily.  "I made
+up a lot of extra good fudge this afternoon and we want someone to help
+us eat it--before the fire--while we tell stories.  Perhaps Captain Jim
+will drop in, too.  This is his night."
+
+"No.  Captain Jim is over home," said Leslie.  "He--he made me come
+here," she added, half defiantly.
+
+"I'll say a thank-you to him for that when I see him," said Anne,
+pulling easy chairs before the fire.
+
+"Oh, I don't mean that I didn't want to come," protested Leslie,
+flushing a little.  "I--I've been thinking of coming--but it isn't
+always easy for me to get away."
+
+"Of course it must be hard for you to leave Mr. Moore," said Anne, in a
+matter-of-fact tone.  She had decided that it would be best to mention
+Dick Moore occasionally as an accepted fact, and not give undue
+morbidness to the subject by avoiding it.  She was right, for Leslie's
+air of constraint suddenly vanished.  Evidently she had been wondering
+how much Anne knew of the conditions of her life and was relieved that
+no explanations were needed.  She allowed her cap and jacket to be
+taken, and sat down with a girlish snuggle in the big armchair by
+Magog.  She was dressed prettily and carefully, with the customary
+touch of color in the scarlet geranium at her white throat.  Her
+beautiful hair gleamed like molten gold in the warm firelight.  Her
+sea-blue eyes were full of soft laughter and allurement. For the
+moment, under the influence of the little house of dreams, she was a
+girl again--a girl forgetful of the past and its bitterness.  The
+atmosphere of the many loves that had sanctified the little house was
+all about her; the companionship of two healthy, happy, young folks of
+her own generation encircled her; she felt and yielded to the magic of
+her surroundings--Miss Cornelia and Captain Jim would scarcely have
+recognized her; Anne found it hard to believe that this was the cold,
+unresponsive woman she had met on the shore--this animated girl who
+talked and listened with the eagerness of a starved soul.  And how
+hungrily Leslie's eyes looked at the bookcases between the windows!
+
+"Our library isn't very extensive," said Anne, "but every book in it is
+a FRIEND.  We've picked our books up through the years, here and there,
+never buying one until we had first read it and knew that it belonged
+to the race of Joseph."
+
+Leslie laughed--beautiful laughter that seemed akin to all the mirth
+that had echoed through the little house in the vanished years.
+
+"I have a few books of father's--not many," she said.  "I've read them
+until I know them almost by heart.  I don't get many books.  There's a
+circulating library at the Glen store--but I don't think the committee
+who pick the books for Mr. Parker know what books are of Joseph's
+race--or perhaps they don't care.  It was so seldom I got one I really
+liked that I gave up getting any."
+
+"I hope you'll look on our bookshelves as your own," said Anne.
+
+"You are entirely and wholeheartedly welcome to the loan of any book on
+them."
+
+"You are setting a feast of fat things before me," said Leslie,
+joyously.  Then, as the clock struck ten, she rose, half unwillingly.
+
+"I must go.  I didn't realise it was so late.  Captain Jim is always
+saying it doesn't take long to stay an hour.  But I've stayed two--and
+oh, but I've enjoyed them," she added frankly.
+
+"Come often," said Anne and Gilbert.  They had risen and stood together
+in the firelight's glow.  Leslie looked at them--youthful, hopeful,
+happy, typifying all she had missed and must forever miss.  The light
+went out of her face and eyes; the girl vanished; it was the sorrowful,
+cheated woman who answered the invitation almost coldly and got herself
+away with a pitiful haste.
+
+Anne watched her until she was lost in the shadows of the chill and
+misty night.  Then she turned slowly back to the glow of her own
+radiant hearthstone.
+
+"Isn't she lovely, Gilbert?  Her hair fascinates me.  Miss Cornelia
+says it reaches to her feet.  Ruby Gillis had beautiful hair--but
+Leslie's is ALIVE--every thread of it is living gold."
+
+"She is very beautiful," agreed Gilbert, so heartily that Anne almost
+wished he were a LITTLE less enthusiastic.
+
+"Gilbert, would you like my hair better if it were like Leslie's?" she
+asked wistfully.
+
+"I wouldn't have your hair any color but just what it is for the
+world," said Gilbert, with one or two convincing accompaniments.
+
+You wouldn't be ANNE if you had golden hair--or hair of any color but"--
+
+"Red," said Anne, with gloomy satisfaction.
+
+"Yes, red--to give warmth to that milk-white skin and those shining
+gray-green eyes of yours.  Golden hair wouldn't suit you at all Queen
+Anne--MY Queen Anne--queen of my heart and life and home."
+
+"Then you may admire Leslie's all you like," said Anne magnanimously.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 13
+
+A GHOSTLY EVENING
+
+One evening, a week later, Anne decided to run over the fields to the
+house up the brook for an informal call.  It was an evening of gray fog
+that had crept in from the gulf, swathed the harbor, filled the glens
+and valleys, and clung heavily to the autumnal meadows.  Through it the
+sea sobbed and shuddered.  Anne saw Four Winds in a new aspect, and
+found it weird and mysterious and fascinating; but it also gave her a
+little feeling of loneliness.  Gilbert was away and would be away until
+the morrow, attending a medical pow-wow in Charlottetown.  Anne longed
+for an hour of fellowship with some girl friend.  Captain Jim and Miss
+Cornelia were "good fellows" each, in their own way; but youth yearned
+to youth.
+
+"If only Diana or Phil or Pris or Stella could drop in for a chat," she
+said to herself, "how delightful it would be!  This is such a GHOSTLY
+night.  I'm sure all the ships that ever sailed out of Four Winds to
+their doom could be seen tonight sailing up the harbor with their
+drowned crews on their decks, if that shrouding fog could suddenly be
+drawn aside.  I feel as if it concealed innumerable mysteries--as if I
+were surrounded by the wraiths of old generations of Four Winds people
+peering at me through that gray veil.  If ever the dear dead ladies of
+this little house came back to revisit it they would come on just such
+a night as this.  If I sit here any longer I'll see one of them there
+opposite me in Gilbert's chair.  This place isn't exactly canny
+tonight.  Even Gog and Magog have an air of pricking up their ears to
+hear the footsteps of unseen guests.  I'll run over to see Leslie
+before I frighten myself with my own fancies, as I did long ago in the
+matter of the Haunted Wood.  I'll leave my house of dreams to welcome
+back its old inhabitants.  My fire will give them my good-will and
+greeting--they will be gone before I come back, and my house will be
+mine once more.  Tonight I am sure it is keeping a tryst with the past."
+
+Laughing a little over her fancy, yet with something of a creepy
+sensation in the region of her spine, Anne kissed her hand to Gog and
+Magog and slipped out into the fog, with some of the new magazines
+under her arm for Leslie.
+
+"Leslie's wild for books and magazines," Miss Cornelia had told her,
+"and she hardly ever sees one.  She can't afford to buy them or
+subscribe for them.  She's really pitifully poor, Anne.  I don't see
+how she makes out to live at all on the little rent the farm brings in.
+She never even hints a complaint on the score of poverty, but I know
+what it must be.  She's been handicapped by it all her life.  She
+didn't mind it when she was free and ambitious, but it must gall now,
+believe ME.  I'm glad she seemed so bright and merry the evening she
+spent with you.  Captain Jim told me he had fairly to put her cap and
+coat on and push her out of the door.  Don't be too long going to see
+her either.  If you are she'll think it's because you don't like the
+sight of Dick, and she'll crawl into her shell again.  Dick's a great,
+big, harmless baby, but that silly grin and chuckle of his do get on
+some people's nerves.  Thank goodness, I've no nerves myself.  I like
+Dick Moore better now than I ever did when he was in his right
+senses--though the Lord knows that isn't saying much.  I was down there
+one day in housecleaning time helping Leslie a bit, and I was frying
+doughnuts.  Dick was hanging round to get one, as usual, and all at
+once he picked up a scalding hot one I'd just fished out and dropped it
+on the back of my neck when I was bending over.  Then he laughed and
+laughed.  Believe ME, Anne, it took all the grace of God in my heart to
+keep me from just whisking up that stew-pan of boiling fat and pouring
+it over his head."
+
+Anne laughed over Miss Cornelia's wrath as she sped through the
+darkness.  But laughter accorded ill with that night.  She was sober
+enough when she reached the house among the willows.  Everything was
+very silent.  The front part of the house seemed dark and deserted, so
+Anne slipped round to the side door, which opened from the veranda into
+a little sitting room.  There she halted noiselessly.
+
+The door was open.  Beyond, in the dimly lighted room, sat Leslie
+Moore, with her arms flung out on the table and her head bent upon
+them.  She was weeping horribly--with low, fierce, choking sobs, as if
+some agony in her soul were trying to tear itself out.  An old black
+dog was sitting by her, his nose resting on his lap, his big doggish
+eyes full of mute, imploring sympathy and devotion.  Anne drew back in
+dismay.  She felt that she could not intermeddle with this bitterness.
+Her heart ached with a sympathy she might not utter.  To go in now
+would be to shut the door forever on any possible help or friendship.
+Some instinct warned Anne that the proud, bitter girl would never
+forgive the one who thus surprised her in her abandonment of despair.
+
+Anne slipped noiselessly from the veranda and found her way across the
+yard.  Beyond, she heard voices in the gloom and saw the dim glow of a
+light.  At the gate she met two men--Captain Jim with a lantern, and
+another who she knew must be Dick Moore--a big man, badly gone to fat,
+with a broad, round, red face, and vacant eyes.  Even in the dull light
+Anne got the impression that there was something unusual about his eyes.
+
+"Is this you, Mistress Blythe?" said Captain Jim.  "Now, now, you
+hadn't oughter be roaming about alone on a night like this.  You could
+get lost in this fog easier than not.  Jest you wait till I see Dick
+safe inside the door and I'll come back and light you over the fields.
+I ain't going to have Dr. Blythe coming home and finding that you
+walked clean over Cape Leforce in the fog.  A woman did that once,
+forty years ago.
+
+"So you've been over to see Leslie," he said, when he rejoined her.
+
+"I didn't go in," said Anne, and told what she had seen.  Captain Jim
+sighed.
+
+"Poor, poor, little girl!  She don't cry often, Mistress Blythe--she's
+too brave for that.  She must feel terrible when she does cry.  A night
+like this is hard on poor women who have sorrows.  There's something
+about it that kinder brings up all we've suffered--or feared."
+
+"It's full of ghosts," said Anne, with a shiver.  "That was why I came
+over--I wanted to clasp a human hand and hear a human voice.
+
+"There seem to be so many INHUMAN presences about tonight.  Even my own
+dear house was full of them.  They fairly elbowed me out.  So I fled
+over here for companionship of my kind."
+
+"You were right not to go in, though, Mistress Blythe.  Leslie wouldn't
+have liked it.  She wouldn't have liked me going in with Dick, as I'd
+have done if I hadn't met you.  I had Dick down with me all day.  I
+keep him with me as much as I can to help Leslie a bit."
+
+"Isn't there something odd about his eyes?" asked Anne.
+
+"You noticed that?  Yes, one is blue and t'other is hazel--his father
+had the same.  It's a Moore peculiarity.  That was what told me he was
+Dick Moore when I saw him first down in Cuby.  If it hadn't a-bin for
+his eyes I mightn't a-known him, with his beard and fat.  You know, I
+reckon, that it was me found him and brought him home.  Miss Cornelia
+always says I shouldn't have done it, but I can't agree with her.  It
+was the RIGHT thing to do--and so 'twas the only thing.  There ain't no
+question in my mind about THAT.  But my old heart aches for Leslie.
+She's only twenty-eight and she's eaten more bread with sorrow than
+most women do in eighty years."
+
+They walked on in silence for a little while.  Presently Anne said, "Do
+you know, Captain Jim, I never like walking with a lantern.  I have
+always the strangest feeling that just outside the circle of light,
+just over its edge in the darkness, I am surrounded by a ring of
+furtive, sinister things, watching me from the shadows with hostile
+eyes.  I've had that feeling from childhood.  What is the reason?  I
+never feel like that when I'm really in the darkness--when it is close
+all around me--I'm not the least frightened."
+
+"I've something of that feeling myself," admitted Captain Jim.  "I
+reckon when the darkness is close to us it is a friend.  But when we
+sorter push it away from us--divorce ourselves from it, so to speak,
+with lantern light--it becomes an enemy.  But the fog is lifting.
+
+"There's a smart west wind rising, if you notice.  The stars will be
+out when you get home."
+
+They were out; and when Anne re-entered her house of dreams the red
+embers were still glowing on the hearth, and all the haunting presences
+were gone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 14
+
+NOVEMBER DAYS
+
+The splendor of color which had glowed for weeks along the shores of
+Four Winds Harbor had faded out into the soft gray-blue of late
+autumnal hills.  There came many days when fields and shores were dim
+with misty rain, or shivering before the breath of a melancholy
+sea-wind--nights, too, of storm and tempest, when Anne sometimes
+wakened to pray that no ship might be beating up the grim north shore,
+for if it were so not even the great, faithful light whirling through
+the darkness unafraid, could avail to guide it into safe haven.
+
+"In November I sometimes feel as if spring could never come again," she
+sighed, grieving over the hopeless unsightliness of her frosted and
+bedraggled flower-plots.  The gay little garden of the schoolmaster's
+bride was rather a forlorn place now, and the Lombardies and birches
+were under bare poles, as Captain Jim said.  But the fir-wood behind
+the little house was forever green and staunch; and even in November
+and December there came gracious days of sunshine and purple hazes,
+when the harbor danced and sparkled as blithely as in midsummer, and
+the gulf was so softly blue and tender that the storm and the wild wind
+seemed only things of a long-past dream.
+
+Anne and Gilbert spent many an autumn evening at the lighthouse.  It
+was always a cheery place.  Even when the east wind sang in minor and
+the sea was dead and gray, hints of sunshine seemed to be lurking all
+about it.  Perhaps this was because the First Mate always paraded it in
+panoply of gold.  He was so large and effulgent that one hardly missed
+the sun, and his resounding purrs formed a pleasant accompaniment to
+the laughter and conversation which went on around Captain Jim's
+fireplace.  Captain Jim and Gilbert had many long discussions and high
+converse on matters beyond the ken of cat or king.
+
+"I like to ponder on all kinds of problems, though I can't solve 'em,"
+said Captain Jim.  "My father held that we should never talk of things
+we couldn't understand, but if we didn't, doctor, the subjects for
+conversation would be mighty few.  I reckon the gods laugh many a time
+to hear us, but what matters so long as we remember that we're only men
+and don't take to fancying that we're gods ourselves, really, knowing
+good and evil.  I reckon our pow-wows won't do us or anyone much harm,
+so let's have another whack at the whence, why and whither this
+evening, doctor."
+
+While they "whacked," Anne listened or dreamed.  Sometimes Leslie went
+to the lighthouse with them, and she and Anne wandered along the shore
+in the eerie twilight, or sat on the rocks below the lighthouse until
+the darkness drove them back to the cheer of the driftwood fire.  Then
+Captain Jim would brew them tea and tell them
+
+    "tales of land and sea
+    And whatsoever might betide
+    The great forgotten world outside."
+
+Leslie seemed always to enjoy those lighthouse carousals very much, and
+bloomed out for the time being into ready wit and beautiful laughter,
+or glowing-eyed silence.  There was a certain tang and savor in the
+conversation when Leslie was present which they missed when she was
+absent.  Even when she did not talk she seemed to inspire others to
+brilliancy.  Captain Jim told his stories better, Gilbert was quicker
+in argument and repartee, Anne felt little gushes and trickles of fancy
+and imagination bubbling to her lips under the influence of Leslie's
+personality.
+
+"That girl was born to be a leader in social and intellectual circles,
+far away from Four Winds," she said to Gilbert as they walked home one
+night.  "She's just wasted here--wasted."
+
+"Weren't you listening to Captain Jim and yours truly the other night
+when we discussed that subject generally?  We came to the comforting
+conclusion that the Creator probably knew how to run His universe quite
+as well as we do, and that, after all, there are no such things as
+'wasted' lives, saving and except when an individual wilfully squanders
+and wastes his own life--which Leslie Moore certainly hasn't done.  And
+some people might think that a Redmond B.A., whom editors were
+beginning to honor, was 'wasted' as the wife of a struggling country
+doctor in the rural community of Four Winds."
+
+"Gilbert!"
+
+"If you had married Roy Gardner, now," continued Gilbert mercilessly,
+"YOU could have been 'a leader in social and intellectual circles far
+away from Four Winds.'"
+
+"Gilbert BLYTHE!"
+
+"You KNOW you were in love with him at one time, Anne."
+
+"Gilbert, that's mean--'pisen mean, just like all the men,' as Miss
+Cornelia says.  I NEVER was in love with him.  I only imagined I was.
+YOU know that.  You KNOW I'd rather be your wife in our house of dreams
+and fulfillment than a queen in a palace."
+
+Gilbert's answer was not in words; but I am afraid that both of them
+forgot poor Leslie speeding her lonely way across the fields to a house
+that was neither a palace nor the fulfillment of a dream.
+
+The moon was rising over the sad, dark sea behind them and
+transfiguring it.  Her light had not yet reached the harbor, the
+further side of which was shadowy and suggestive, with dim coves and
+rich glooms and jewelling lights.
+
+"How the home lights shine out tonight through the dark!" said Anne.
+"That string of them over the harbor looks like a necklace.  And what a
+coruscation there is up at the Glen!  Oh, look, Gilbert; there is ours.
+I'm so glad we left it burning.  I hate to come home to a dark house.
+OUR homelight, Gilbert!  Isn't it lovely to see?"
+
+"Just one of earth's many millions of homes, Anne--girl--but
+ours--OURS--our beacon in 'a naughty world.'  When a fellow has a home
+and a dear, little, red-haired wife in it what more need he ask of
+life?"
+
+"Well, he might ask ONE thing more," whispered Anne happily.  "Oh,
+Gilbert, it seems as if I just COULDN'T wait for the spring."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 15
+
+CHRISTMAS AT FOUR WINDS
+
+At first Anne and Gilbert talked of going home to Avonlea for
+Christmas; but eventually they decided to stay in Four Winds.  "I want
+to spend the first Christmas of our life together in our own home,"
+decreed Anne.
+
+So it fell out that Marilla and Mrs. Rachel Lynde and the twins came to
+Four Winds for Christmas.  Marilla had the face of a woman who had
+circumnavigated the globe.  She had never been sixty miles away from
+home before; and she had never eaten a Christmas dinner anywhere save
+at Green Gables.
+
+Mrs. Rachel had made and brought with her an enormous plum pudding.
+Nothing could have convinced Mrs. Rachel that a college graduate of the
+younger generation could make a Christmas plum pudding properly; but
+she bestowed approval on Anne's house.
+
+"Anne's a good housekeeper," she said to Marilla in the spare room the
+night of their arrival.  "I've looked into her bread box and her scrap
+pail.  I always judge a housekeeper by those, that's what.  There's
+nothing in the pail that shouldn't have been thrown away, and no stale
+pieces in the bread box.  Of course, she was trained up with you--but,
+then, she went to college afterwards.  I notice she's got my tobacco
+stripe quilt on the bed here, and that big round braided mat of yours
+before her living-room fire.  It makes me feel right at home."
+
+Anne's first Christmas in her own house was as delightful as she could
+have wished.  The day was fine and bright; the first skim of snow had
+fallen on Christmas Eve and made the world beautiful; the harbor was
+still open and glittering.
+
+Captain Jim and Miss Cornelia came to dinner.  Leslie and Dick had been
+invited, but Leslie made excuse; they always went to her Uncle Isaac
+West's for Christmas, she said.
+
+"She'd rather have it so," Miss Cornelia told Anne.  "She can't bear
+taking Dick where there are strangers.  Christmas is always a hard time
+for Leslie.  She and her father used to make a lot of it."
+
+Miss Cornelia and Mrs. Rachel did not take a very violent fancy to each
+other.  "Two suns hold not their courses in one sphere."  But they did
+not clash at all, for Mrs. Rachel was in the kitchen helping Anne and
+Marilla with the dinner, and it fell to Gilbert to entertain Captain
+Jim and Miss Cornelia,--or rather to be entertained by them, for a
+dialogue between those two old friends and antagonists was assuredly
+never dull.
+
+"It's many a year since there was a Christmas dinner here, Mistress
+Blythe," said Captain Jim.  "Miss Russell always went to her friends in
+town for Christmas.  But I was here to the first Christmas dinner that
+was ever eaten in this house--and the schoolmaster's bride cooked it.
+That was sixty years ago today, Mistress Blythe--and a day very like
+this--just enough snow to make the hills white, and the harbor as blue
+as June.  I was only a lad, and I'd never been invited out to dinner
+before, and I was too shy to eat enough.  I've got all over THAT."
+
+"Most men do," said Miss Cornelia, sewing furiously.  Miss Cornelia was
+not going to sit with idle hands, even on Christmas.
+
+Babies come without any consideration for holidays, and there was one
+expected in a poverty-stricken household at Glen St. Mary.  Miss
+Cornelia had sent that household a substantial dinner for its little
+swarm, and so meant to eat her own with a comfortable conscience.
+
+"Well, you know, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach,
+Cornelia," explained Captain Jim.
+
+"I believe you--when he HAS a heart," retorted Miss Cornelia.  "I
+suppose that's why so many women kill themselves cooking--just as poor
+Amelia Baxter did.  She died last Christmas morning, and she said it
+was the first Christmas since she was married that she didn't have to
+cook a big, twenty-plate dinner.  It must have been a real pleasant
+change for her.  Well, she's been dead a year, so you'll soon hear of
+Horace Baxter taking notice."
+
+"I heard he was taking notice already," said Captain Jim, winking at
+Gilbert.  "Wasn't he up to your place one Sunday lately, with his
+funeral blacks on, and a boiled collar?"
+
+"No, he wasn't.  And he needn't come neither.  I could have had him
+long ago when he was fresh.  I don't want any second-hand goods,
+believe ME.  As for Horace Baxter, he was in financial difficulties a
+year ago last summer, and he prayed to the Lord for help; and when his
+wife died and he got her life insurance he said he believed it was the
+answer to his prayer.  Wasn't that like a man?"
+
+"Have you really proof that he said that, Cornelia?"
+
+"I have the Methodist minister's word for it--if you call THAT proof.
+Robert Baxter told me the same thing too, but I admit THAT isn't
+evidence.  Robert Baxter isn't often known to tell the truth."
+
+"Come, come, Cornelia, I think he generally tells the truth, but he
+changes his opinion so often it sometimes sounds as if he didn't."
+
+"It sounds like it mighty often, believe ME.  But trust one man to
+excuse another.  I have no use for Robert Baxter.  He turned Methodist
+just because the Presbyterian choir happened to be singing 'Behold the
+bridegroom cometh' for a collection piece when him and Margaret walked
+up the aisle the Sunday after they were married.  Served him right for
+being late!  He always insisted the choir did it on purpose to insult
+him, as if he was of that much importance.  But that family always
+thought they were much bigger potatoes than they really were.  His
+brother Eliphalet imagined the devil was always at his elbow--but _I_
+never believed the devil wasted that much time on him."
+
+"I--don't--know," said Captain Jim thoughtfully.  "Eliphalet Baxter
+lived too much alone--hadn't even a cat or dog to keep him human.  When
+a man is alone he's mighty apt to be with the devil--if he ain't with
+God.  He has to choose which company he'll keep, I reckon.  If the
+devil always was at Life Baxter's elbow it must have been because Life
+liked to have him there."
+
+"Man-like," said Miss Cornelia, and subsided into silence over a
+complicated arrangement of tucks until Captain Jim deliberately stirred
+her up again by remarking in a casual way:
+
+"I was up to the Methodist church last Sunday morning."
+
+"You'd better have been home reading your Bible," was Miss Cornelia's
+retort.
+
+"Come, now, Cornelia, _I_ can't see any harm in going to the Methodist
+church when there's no preaching in your own.  I've been a Presbyterian
+for seventy-six years, and it isn't likely my theology will hoist
+anchor at this late day."
+
+"It's setting a bad example," said Miss Cornelia grimly.
+
+"Besides," continued wicked Captain Jim, "I wanted to hear some good
+singing.  The Methodists have a good choir; and you can't deny,
+Cornelia, that the singing in our church is awful since the split in
+the choir."
+
+"What if the singing isn't good?  They're doing their best, and God
+sees no difference between the voice of a crow and the voice of a
+nightingale."
+
+"Come, come, Cornelia," said Captain Jim mildly, "I've a better opinion
+of the Almighty's ear for music than THAT."
+
+"What caused the trouble in our choir?" asked Gilbert, who was
+suffering from suppressed laughter.
+
+"It dates back to the new church, three years ago," answered Captain
+Jim.  "We had a fearful time over the building of that church--fell out
+over the question of a new site.  The two sites wasn't more'n two
+hundred yards apart, but you'd have thought they was a thousand by the
+bitterness of that fight.  We was split up into three factions--one
+wanted the east site and one the south, and one held to the old.  It
+was fought out in bed and at board, and in church and at market.  All
+the old scandals of three generations were dragged out of their graves
+and aired.  Three matches was broken up by it.  And the meetings we had
+to try to settle the question!  Cornelia, will you ever forget the one
+when old Luther Burns got up and made a speech?  HE stated his opinions
+forcibly."
+
+"Call a spade a spade, Captain.  You mean he got red-mad and raked them
+all, fore and aft.  They deserved it too--a pack of incapables.  But
+what would you expect of a committee of men?  That building committee
+held twenty-seven meetings, and at the end of the twenty-seventh
+weren't no nearer having a church than when they begun--not so near,
+for a fact, for in one fit of hurrying things along they'd gone to work
+and tore the old church down, so there we were, without a church, and
+no place but the hall to worship in."
+
+"The Methodists offered us their church, Cornelia."
+
+"The Glen St. Mary church wouldn't have been built to this day," went
+on Miss Cornelia, ignoring Captain Jim, "if we women hadn't just
+started in and took charge.  We said WE meant to have a church, if the
+men meant to quarrel till doomsday, and we were tired of being a
+laughing-stock for the Methodists.  We held ONE meeting and elected a
+committee and canvassed for subscriptions.  We got them, too.  When any
+of the men tried to sass us we told them they'd tried for two years to
+build a church and it was our turn now.  We shut them up close, believe
+ME, and in six months we had our church.  Of course, when the men saw
+we were determined they stopped fighting and went to work, man-like, as
+soon as they saw they had to, or quit bossing.  Oh, women can't preach
+or be elders; but they can build churches and scare up the money for
+them."
+
+"The Methodists allow women to preach," said Captain Jim.
+
+Miss Cornelia glared at him.
+
+"I never said the Methodists hadn't common sense, Captain. What I say
+is, I doubt if they have much religion."
+
+"I suppose you are in favor of votes for women, Miss Cornelia," said
+Gilbert.
+
+"I'm not hankering after the vote, believe ME," said Miss Cornelia
+scornfully.  "_I_ know what it is to clean up after the men.  But some
+of these days, when the men realize they've got the world into a mess
+they can't get it out of, they'll be glad to give us the vote, and
+shoulder their troubles over on us.  That's THEIR scheme.  Oh, it's
+well that women are patient, believe ME!"
+
+"What about Job?" suggested Captain Jim.
+
+"Job!  It was such a rare thing to find a patient man that when one was
+really discovered they were determined he shouldn't be forgotten,"
+retorted Miss Cornelia triumphantly.  "Anyhow, the virtue doesn't go
+with the name.  There never was such an impatient man born as old Job
+Taylor over harbor."
+
+"Well, you know, he had a good deal to try him, Cornelia.  Even you
+can't defend his wife.  I always remember what old William MacAllister
+said of her at her funeral, 'There's nae doot she was a Chreestian
+wumman, but she had the de'il's own temper.'"
+
+"I suppose she WAS trying," admitted Miss Cornelia reluctantly, "but
+that didn't justify what Job said when she died.  He rode home from the
+graveyard the day of the funeral with my father.  He never said a word
+till they got near home.  Then he heaved a big sigh and said, 'You may
+not believe it, Stephen, but this is the happiest day of my life!'
+Wasn't that like a man?"
+
+"I s'pose poor old Mrs. Job did make life kinder uneasy for him,"
+reflected Captain Jim.
+
+"Well, there's such a thing as decency, isn't there?  Even if a man is
+rejoicing in his heart over his wife being dead, he needn't proclaim it
+to the four winds of heaven.  And happy day or not, Job Taylor wasn't
+long in marrying again, you might notice.  His second wife could manage
+him.  She made him walk Spanish, believe me!  The first thing she did
+was to make him hustle round and put up a tombstone to the first Mrs.
+Job--and she had a place left on it for her own name.  She said there'd
+be nobody to make Job put up a monument to HER."
+
+"Speaking of Taylors, how is Mrs. Lewis Taylor up at the Glen, doctor?"
+asked Captain Jim.
+
+"She's getting better slowly--but she has to work too hard," replied
+Gilbert.
+
+"Her husband works hard too--raising prize pigs," said Miss Cornelia.
+"He's noted for his beautiful pigs.  He's a heap prouder of his pigs
+than of his children.  But then, to be sure, his pigs are the best pigs
+possible, while his children don't amount to much.  He picked a poor
+mother for them, and starved her while she was bearing and rearing
+them.  His pigs got the cream and his children got the skim milk.
+
+"There are times, Cornelia, when I have to agree with you, though it
+hurts me," said Captain Jim.  "That's just exactly the truth about
+Lewis Taylor.  When I see those poor, miserable children of his, robbed
+of all children ought to have, it p'isens my own bite and sup for days
+afterwards."
+
+Gilbert went out to the kitchen in response to Anne's beckoning.  Anne
+shut the door and gave him a connubial lecture.
+
+"Gilbert, you and Captain Jim must stop baiting Miss Cornelia.  Oh,
+I've been listening to you--and I just won't allow it."
+
+'Anne, Miss Cornelia is enjoying herself hugely.  You know she is.'
+
+"Well, never mind.  You two needn't egg her on like that.  Dinner is
+ready now, and, Gilbert, DON'T let Mrs. Rachel carve the geese.  I know
+she means to offer to do it because she doesn't think you can do it
+properly.  Show her you can."
+
+"I ought to be able to.  I've been studying A-B-C-D diagrams of carving
+for the past month," said Gilbert.  "Only don't talk to me while I'm
+doing it, Anne, for if you drive the letters out of my head I'll be in
+a worse predicament than you were in old geometry days when the teacher
+changed them."
+
+Gilbert carved the geese beautifully.  Even Mrs. Rachel had to admit
+that.  And everybody ate of them and enjoyed them.  Anne's first
+Christmas dinner was a great success and she beamed with housewifely
+pride.  Merry was the feast and long; and when it was over they
+gathered around the cheer of the red hearth flame and Captain Jim told
+them stories until the red sun swung low over Four Winds Harbor, and
+the long blue shadows of the Lombardies fell across the snow in the
+lane.
+
+"I must be getting back to the light," he said finally.  "I'll jest
+have time to walk home before sundown.  Thank you for a beautiful
+Christmas, Mistress Blythe.  Bring Master Davy down to the light some
+night before he goes home.
+
+"I want to see those stone gods," said Davy with a relish.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 16
+
+NEW YEAR'S EVE AT THE LIGHT
+
+The Green Gables folk went home after Christmas, Marilla under solemn
+covenant to return for a month in the spring.  More snow came before
+New Year's, and the harbor froze over, but the gulf still was free,
+beyond the white, imprisoned fields.  The last day of the old year was
+one of those bright, cold, dazzling winter days, which bombard us with
+their brilliancy, and command our admiration but never our love.  The
+sky was sharp and blue; the snow diamonds sparkled insistently; the
+stark trees were bare and shameless, with a kind of brazen beauty; the
+hills shot assaulting lances of crystal.  Even the shadows were sharp
+and stiff and clear-cut, as no proper shadows should be.  Everything
+that was handsome seemed ten times handsomer and less attractive in the
+glaring splendor; and everything that was ugly seemed ten times uglier,
+and everything was either handsome or ugly.  There was no soft
+blending, or kind obscurity, or elusive mistiness in that searching
+glitter.  The only things that held their own individuality were the
+firs--for the fir is the tree of mystery and shadow, and yields never
+to the encroachments of crude radiance.
+
+But finally the day began to realise that she was growing old.  Then a
+certain pensiveness fell over her beauty which dimmed yet intensified
+it; sharp angles, glittering points, melted away into curves and
+enticing gleams.  The white harbor put on soft grays and pinks; the
+far-away hills turned amethyst.
+
+"The old year is going away beautifully," said Anne.
+
+She and Leslie and Gilbert were on their way to the Four Winds Point,
+having plotted with Captain Jim to watch the New Year in at the light.
+The sun had set and in the southwestern sky hung Venus, glorious and
+golden, having drawn as near to her earth-sister as is possible for
+her.  For the first time Anne and Gilbert saw the shadow cast by that
+brilliant star of evening, that faint, mysterious shadow, never seen
+save when there is white snow to reveal it, and then only with averted
+vision, vanishing when you gaze at it directly.
+
+"It's like the spirit of a shadow, isn't it?" whispered Anne.  "You can
+see it so plainly haunting your side when you look ahead; but when you
+turn and look at it--it's gone."
+
+"I have heard that you can see the shadow of Venus only once in a
+lifetime, and that within a year of seeing it your life's most
+wonderful gift will come to you," said Leslie.  But she spoke rather
+hardly; perhaps she thought that even the shadow of Venus could bring
+her no gift of life.  Anne smiled in the soft twilight; she felt quite
+sure what the mystic shadow promised her.
+
+They found Marshall Elliott at the lighthouse.  At first Anne felt
+inclined to resent the intrusion of this long-haired, long-bearded
+eccentric into the familiar little circle.  But Marshall Elliott soon
+proved his legitimate claim to membership in the household of Joseph.
+He was a witty, intelligent, well-read man, rivalling Captain Jim
+himself in the knack of telling a good story.  They were all glad when
+he agreed to watch the old year out with them.
+
+Captain Jim's small nephew Joe had come down to spend New Year's with
+his great-uncle, and had fallen asleep on the sofa with the First Mate
+curled up in a huge golden ball at his feet.
+
+"Ain't he a dear little man?" said Captain Jim gloatingly.  "I do love
+to watch a little child asleep, Mistress Blythe.  It's the most
+beautiful sight in the world, I reckon.  Joe does love to get down here
+for a night, because I have him sleep with me.  At home he has to sleep
+with the other two boys, and he doesn't like it.  Why can't I sleep
+with father, Uncle Jim?" says he.  'Everybody in the Bible slept with
+their fathers.'  As for the questions he asks, the minister himself
+couldn't answer them.  They fair swamp me.  'Uncle Jim, if I wasn't ME
+who'd I be?' and, 'Uncle Jim, what would happen if God died?'  He fired
+them two off at me tonight, afore he went to sleep.  As for his
+imagination, it sails away from everything.  He makes up the most
+remarkable yarns--and then his mother shuts him up in the closet for
+telling stories.  And he sits down and makes up another one, and has it
+ready to relate to her when she lets him out.  He had one for me when
+he come down tonight.  'Uncle Jim,' says he, solemn as a tombstone, 'I
+had a 'venture in the Glen today.'  'Yes, what was it?' says I,
+expecting something quite startling, but nowise prepared for what I
+really got.  'I met a wolf in the street,' says he, 'a 'normous wolf
+with a big, red mouf and AWFUL long teeth, Uncle Jim.'  'I didn't know
+there was any wolves up at the Glen,' says I.  'Oh, he comed there from
+far, far away,' says Joe, 'and I fought he was going to eat me up,
+Uncle Jim.'  'Were you scared?' says I.  'No, 'cause I had a big gun,'
+says Joe, 'and I shot the wolf dead, Uncle Jim,--solid dead--and then
+he went up to heaven and bit God,' says he.  Well, I was fair
+staggered, Mistress Blythe."
+
+The hours bloomed into mirth around the driftwood fire.  Captain Jim
+told tales, and Marshall Elliott sang old Scotch ballads in a fine
+tenor voice; finally Captain Jim took down his old brown fiddle from
+the wall and began to play.  He had a tolerable knack of fiddling,
+which all appreciated save the First Mate, who sprang from the sofa as
+if he had been shot, emitted a shriek of protest, and fled wildly up
+the stairs.
+
+"Can't cultivate an ear for music in that cat nohow," said Captain Jim.
+"He won't stay long enough to learn to like it.  When we got the organ
+up at the Glen church old Elder Richards bounced up from his seat the
+minute the organist began to play and scuttled down the aisle and out
+of the church at the rate of no-man's-business.  It reminded me so
+strong of the First Mate tearing loose as soon as I begin to fiddle
+that I come nearer to laughing out loud in church than I ever did
+before or since."
+
+There was something so infectious in the rollicking tunes which Captain
+Jim played that very soon Marshall Elliott's feet began to twitch.  He
+had been a noted dancer in his youth.  Presently he started up and held
+out his hands to Leslie.  Instantly she responded.  Round and round the
+firelit room they circled with a rhythmic grace that was wonderful.
+Leslie danced like one inspired; the wild, sweet abandon of the music
+seemed to have entered into and possessed her.  Anne watched her in
+fascinated admiration.  She had never seen her like this.  All the
+innate richness and color and charm of her nature seemed to have broken
+loose and overflowed in crimson cheek and glowing eye and grace of
+motion.  Even the aspect of Marshall Elliott, with his long beard and
+hair, could not spoil the picture.  On the contrary, it seemed to
+enhance it.  Marshall Elliott looked like a Viking of elder days,
+dancing with one of the blue-eyed, golden-haired daughters of the
+Northland.
+
+"The purtiest dancing I ever saw, and I've seen some in my time,"
+declared Captain Jim, when at last the bow fell from his tired hand.
+Leslie dropped into her chair, laughing, breathless.
+
+"I love dancing," she said apart to Anne.  "I haven't danced since I
+was sixteen--but I love it.  The music seems to run through my veins
+like quicksilver and I forget everything--everything--except the
+delight of keeping time to it.  There isn't any floor beneath me, or
+walls about me, or roof over me--I'm floating amid the stars."
+
+Captain Jim hung his fiddle up in its place, beside a large frame
+enclosing several banknotes.
+
+"Is there anybody else of your acquaintance who can afford to hang his
+walls with banknotes for pictures?" he asked.  "There's twenty
+ten-dollar notes there, not worth the glass over them.  They're old
+Bank of P. E.  Island notes.  Had them by me when the bank failed, and
+I had 'em framed and hung up, partly as a reminder not to put your
+trust in banks, and partly to give me a real luxurious, millionairy
+feeling.  Hullo, Matey, don't be scared.  You can come back now.  The
+music and revelry is over for tonight.  The old year has just another
+hour to stay with us.  I've seen seventy-six New Years come in over
+that gulf yonder, Mistress Blythe."
+
+"You'll see a hundred," said Marshall Elliott.
+
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+
+"No; and I don't want to--at least, I think I don't.  Death grows
+friendlier as we grow older.  Not that one of us really wants to die
+though, Marshall.  Tennyson spoke truth when he said that.  There's old
+Mrs. Wallace up at the Glen.  She's had heaps of trouble all her life,
+poor soul, and she's lost almost everyone she cared about.  She's
+always saying that she'll be glad when her time comes, and she doesn't
+want to sojourn any longer in this vale of tears.  But when she takes a
+sick spell there's a fuss!  Doctors from town, and a trained nurse, and
+enough medicine to kill a dog.  Life may be a vale of tears, all right,
+but there are some folks who enjoy weeping, I reckon."
+
+They spent the old year's last hour quietly around the fire.  A few
+minutes before twelve Captain Jim rose and opened the door.
+
+"We must let the New Year in," he said.
+
+Outside was a fine blue night.  A sparkling ribbon of moonlight
+garlanded the gulf.  Inside the bar the harbor shone like a pavement of
+pearl.  They stood before the door and waited--Captain Jim with his
+ripe, full experience, Marshall Elliott in his vigorous but empty
+middle life, Gilbert and Anne with their precious memories and
+exquisite hopes, Leslie with her record of starved years and her
+hopeless future.  The clock on the little shelf above the fireplace
+struck twelve.
+
+"Welcome, New Year," said Captain Jim, bowing low as the last stroke
+died away.  "I wish you all the best year of your lives, mates.  I
+reckon that whatever the New Year brings us will be the best the Great
+Captain has for us--and somehow or other we'll all make port in a good
+harbor."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 17
+
+A FOUR WINDS WINTER
+
+Winter set in vigorously after New Year's.  Big, white drifts heaped
+themselves about the little house, and palms of frost covered its
+windows.  The harbor ice grew harder and thicker, until the Four Winds
+people began their usual winter travelling over it.  The safe ways were
+"bushed" by a benevolent Government, and night and day the gay tinkle
+of the sleigh-bells sounded on it.  On moonlit nights Anne heard them
+in her house of dreams like fairy chimes.  The gulf froze over, and the
+Four Winds light flashed no more.  During the months when navigation
+was closed Captain Jim's office was a sinecure.
+
+"The First Mate and I will have nothing to do till spring except keep
+warm and amuse ourselves.  The last lighthouse keeper used always to
+move up to the Glen in winter; but I'd rather stay at the Point.  The
+First Mate might get poisoned or chewed up by dogs at the Glen.  It's a
+mite lonely, to be sure, with neither the light nor the water for
+company, but if our friends come to see us often we'll weather it
+through."
+
+Captain Jim had an ice boat, and many a wild, glorious spin Gilbert and
+Anne and Leslie had over the glib harbor ice with him.  Anne and Leslie
+took long snowshoe tramps together, too, over the fields, or across the
+harbor after storms, or through the woods beyond the Glen.  They were
+very good comrades in their rambles and their fireside communings.
+Each had something to give the other--each felt life the richer for
+friendly exchange of thought and friendly silence; each looked across
+the white fields between their homes with a pleasant consciousness of a
+friend beyond.  But, in spite of all this, Anne felt that there was
+always a barrier between Leslie and herself--a constraint that never
+wholly vanished.
+
+"I don't know why I can't get closer to her," Anne said one evening to
+Captain Jim.  "I like her so much--I admire her so much--I WANT to take
+her right into my heart and creep right into hers.  But I can never
+cross the barrier."
+
+"You've been too happy all your life, Mistress Blythe," said Captain
+Jim thoughtfully.  "I reckon that's why you and Leslie can't get real
+close together in your souls.  The barrier between you is her
+experience of sorrow and trouble.  She ain't responsible for it and you
+ain't; but it's there and neither of you can cross it."
+
+"My childhood wasn't very happy before I came to Green Gables," said
+Anne, gazing soberly out of the window at the still, sad, dead beauty
+of the leafless tree-shadows on the moonlit snow.
+
+"Mebbe not--but it was just the usual unhappiness of a child who hasn't
+anyone to look after it properly.  There hasn't been any TRAGEDY in
+your life, Mistress Blythe.  And poor Leslie's has been almost ALL
+tragedy.  She feels, I reckon, though mebbe she hardly knows she feels
+it, that there's a vast deal in her life you can't enter nor
+understand--and so she has to keep you back from it--hold you off, so
+to speak, from hurting her.  You know if we've got anything about us
+that hurts we shrink from anyone's touch on or near it.  It holds good
+with our souls as well as our bodies, I reckon.  Leslie's soul must be
+near raw--it's no wonder she hides it away."
+
+"If that were really all, I wouldn't mind, Captain Jim.  I would
+understand.  But there are times--not always, but now and again--when I
+almost have to believe that Leslie doesn't--doesn't like me.  Sometimes
+I surprise a look in her eyes that seems to show resentment and
+dislike--it goes so quickly--but I've seen it, I'm sure of that.  And
+it hurts me, Captain Jim.  I'm not used to being disliked--and I've
+tried so hard to win Leslie's friendship."
+
+"You have won it, Mistress Blythe.  Don't you go cherishing any foolish
+notion that Leslie don't like you.  If she didn't she wouldn't have
+anything to do with you, much less chumming with you as she does.  I
+know Leslie Moore too well not to be sure of that."
+
+"The first time I ever saw her, driving her geese down the hill on the
+day I came to Four Winds, she looked at me with the same expression,"
+persisted Anne.  "I felt it, even in the midst of my admiration of her
+beauty.  She looked at me resentfully--she did, indeed, Captain Jim."
+
+"The resentment must have been about something else, Mistress Blythe,
+and you jest come in for a share of it because you happened past.
+Leslie DOES take sullen spells now and again, poor girl.  I can't blame
+her, when I know what she has to put up with.  I don't know why it's
+permitted.  The doctor and I have talked a lot abut the origin of evil,
+but we haven't quite found out all about it yet.  There's a vast of
+onunderstandable things in life, ain't there, Mistress Blythe?
+Sometimes things seem to work out real proper-like, same as with you
+and the doctor.  And then again they all seem to go catawampus.
+There's Leslie, so clever and beautiful you'd think she was meant for a
+queen, and instead she's cooped up over there, robbed of almost
+everything a woman'd value, with no prospect except waiting on Dick
+Moore all her life.  Though, mind you, Mistress Blythe, I daresay she'd
+choose her life now, such as it is, rather than the life she lived with
+Dick before he went away.  THAT'S something a clumsy old sailor's
+tongue mustn't meddle with.  But you've helped Leslie a lot--she's a
+different creature since you come to Four Winds.  Us old friends see
+the difference in her, as you can't.  Miss Cornelia and me was talking
+it over the other day, and it's one of the mighty few p'ints that we
+see eye to eye on.  So jest you throw overboard any idea of her not
+liking you."
+
+Anne could hardly discard it completely, for there were undoubtedly
+times when she felt, with an instinct that was not to be combated by
+reason, that Leslie harbored a queer, indefinable resentment towards
+her.  At times, this secret consciousness marred the delight of their
+comradeship; at others it was almost forgotten; but Anne always felt
+the hidden thorn was there, and might prick her at any moment.  She
+felt a cruel sting from it on the day when she told Leslie of what she
+hoped the spring would bring to the little house of dreams.  Leslie
+looked at her with hard, bitter, unfriendly eyes.
+
+"So you are to have THAT, too," she said in a choked voice.  And
+without another word she had turned and gone across the fields
+homeward.  Anne was deeply hurt; for the moment she felt as if she
+could never like Leslie again.  But when Leslie came over a few
+evenings later she was so pleasant, so friendly, so frank, and witty,
+and winsome, that Anne was charmed into forgiveness and forgetfulness.
+Only, she never mentioned her darling hope to Leslie again; nor did
+Leslie ever refer to it.  But one evening, when late winter was
+listening for the word of spring, she came over to the little house for
+a twilight chat; and when she went away she left a small, white box on
+the table.  Anne found it after she was gone and opened it wonderingly.
+In it was a tiny white dress of exquisite workmanship--delicate
+embroidery, wonderful tucking, sheer loveliness.  Every stitch in it
+was handwork; and the little frills of lace at neck and sleeves were of
+real Valenciennes.  Lying on it was a card--"with Leslie's love."
+
+"What hours of work she must have put on it," said Anne.  "And the
+material must have cost more than she could really afford.  It is very
+sweet of her."
+
+But Leslie was brusque and curt when Anne thanked her, and again the
+latter felt thrown back upon herself.
+
+Leslie's gift was not alone in the little house.  Miss Cornelia had,
+for the time being, given up sewing for unwanted, unwelcome eighth
+babies, and fallen to sewing for a very much wanted first one, whose
+welcome would leave nothing to be desired.  Philippa Blake and Diana
+Wright each sent a marvellous garment; and Mrs. Rachel Lynde sent
+several, in which good material and honest stitches took the place of
+embroidery and frills.  Anne herself made many, desecrated by no touch
+of machinery, spending over them the happiest hours of the happy winter.
+
+Captain Jim was the most frequent guest of the little house, and none
+was more welcome.  Every day Anne loved the simple-souled, true-hearted
+old sailor more and more.  He was as refreshing as a sea breeze, as
+interesting as some ancient chronicle.  She was never tired of
+listening to his stories, and his quaint remarks and comments were a
+continual delight to her.  Captain Jim was one of those rare and
+interesting people who "never speak but they say something."  The milk
+of human kindness and the wisdom of the serpent were mingled in his
+composition in delightful proportions.
+
+Nothing ever seemed to put Captain Jim out or depress him in any way.
+
+"I've kind of contracted a habit of enj'ying things," he remarked once,
+when Anne had commented on his invariable cheerfulness.  "It's got so
+chronic that I believe I even enj'y the disagreeable things.  It's
+great fun thinking they can't last.  'Old rheumatiz,' says I, when it
+grips me hard, 'you've GOT to stop aching sometime.  The worse you are
+the sooner you'll stop, mebbe.  I'm bound to get the better of you in
+the long run, whether in the body or out of the body.'"
+
+One night, by the fireside at the light Anne saw Captain Jim's
+"life-book."  He needed no coaxing to show it and proudly gave it to
+her to read.
+
+"I writ it to leave to little Joe," he said.  "I don't like the idea of
+everything I've done and seen being clean forgot after I've shipped for
+my last v'yage.  Joe, he'll remember it, and tell the yarns to his
+children."
+
+It was an old leather-bound book filled with the record of his voyages
+and adventures.  Anne thought what a treasure trove it would be to a
+writer.  Every sentence was a nugget.  In itself the book had no
+literary merit; Captain Jim's charm of storytelling failed him when he
+came to pen and ink; he could only jot roughly down the outline of his
+famous tales, and both spelling and grammar were sadly askew.  But Anne
+felt that if anyone possessed of the gift could take that simple record
+of a brave, adventurous life, reading between the bald lines the tales
+of dangers staunchly faced and duty manfully done, a wonderful story
+might be made from it.  Rich comedy and thrilling tragedy were both
+lying hidden in Captain Jim's "life-book," waiting for the touch of the
+master hand to waken the laughter and grief and horror of thousands.
+
+Anne said something of this to Gilbert as they walked home.
+
+"Why don't you try your hand at it yourself, Anne?"
+
+Anne shook her head.
+
+"No.  I only wish I could.  But it's not in the power of my gift.  You
+know what my forte is, Gilbert--the fanciful, the fairylike, the
+pretty.  To write Captain Jim's life-book as it should be written one
+should be a master of vigorous yet subtle style, a keen psychologist, a
+born humorist and a born tragedian.  A rare combination of gifts is
+needed.  Paul might do it if he were older.  Anyhow, I'm going to ask
+him to come down next summer and meet Captain Jim."
+
+"Come to this shore," wrote Anne to Paul.  "I am afraid you cannot find
+here Nora or the Golden Lady or the Twin Sailors; but you will find one
+old sailor who can tell you wonderful stories."
+
+Paul, however wrote back, saying regretfully that he could not come
+that year.  He was going abroad for two year's study.
+
+"When I return I'll come to Four Winds, dear Teacher," he wrote.
+
+"But meanwhile, Captain Jim is growing old," said Anne, sorrowfully,
+"and there is nobody to write his life-book."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 18
+
+SPRING DAYS
+
+The ice in the harbor grew black and rotten in the March suns; in April
+there were blue waters and a windy, white-capped gulf again; and again
+the Four Winds light begemmed the twilights.
+
+"I'm so glad to see it once more," said Anne, on the first evening of
+its reappearance.  "I've missed it so all winter.  The northwestern sky
+has seemed blank and lonely without it."
+
+The land was tender with brand-new, golden-green, baby leaves.  There
+was an emerald mist on the woods beyond the Glen.  The seaward valleys
+were full of fairy mists at dawn.
+
+Vibrant winds came and went with salt foam in their breath.  The sea
+laughed and flashed and preened and allured, like a beautiful,
+coquettish woman.  The herring schooled and the fishing village woke to
+life.  The harbor was alive with white sails making for the channel.
+The ships began to sail outward and inward again.
+
+"On a spring day like this," said Anne, "I know exactly what my soul
+will feel like on the resurrection morning."
+
+"There are times in spring when I sorter feel that I might have been a
+poet if I'd been caught young," remarked Captain Jim.  "I catch myself
+conning over old lines and verses I heard the schoolmaster reciting
+sixty years ago.  They don't trouble me at other times.  Now I feel as
+if I had to get out on the rocks or the fields or the water and spout
+them."
+
+Captain Jim had come up that afternoon to bring Anne a load of shells
+for her garden, and a little bunch of sweet-grass which he had found in
+a ramble over the sand dunes.
+
+"It's getting real scarce along this shore now," he said.  "When I was
+a boy there was a-plenty of it.  But now it's only once in a while
+you'll find a plot--and never when you're looking for it.  You jest
+have to stumble on it--you're walking along on the sand hills, never
+thinking of sweet-grass--and all at once the air is full of
+sweetness--and there's the grass under your feet.  I favor the smell of
+sweet-grass.  It always makes me think of my mother."
+
+"She was fond of it?" asked Anne.
+
+"Not that I knows on.  Dunno's she ever saw any sweet-grass.  No, it's
+because it has a kind of motherly perfume--not too young, you
+understand--something kind of seasoned and wholesome and
+dependable--jest like a mother.  The schoolmaster's bride always kept
+it among her handkerchiefs.  You might put that little bunch among
+yours, Mistress Blythe.  I don't like these boughten scents--but a
+whiff of sweet-grass belongs anywhere a lady does."
+
+Anne had not been especially enthusiastic over the idea of surrounding
+her flower beds with quahog shells; as a decoration they did not appeal
+to her on first thought.  But she would not have hurt Captain Jim's
+feelings for anything; so she assumed a virtue she did not at first
+feel, and thanked him heartily.  And when Captain Jim had proudly
+encircled every bed with a rim of the big, milk-white shells, Anne
+found to her surprise that she liked the effect.  On a town lawn, or
+even up at the Glen, they would not have been in keeping, but here, in
+the old-fashioned, sea-bound garden of the little house of dreams, they
+BELONGED.
+
+"They DO look nice," she said sincerely.
+
+"The schoolmaster's bride always had cowhawks round her beds," said
+Captain Jim.  "She was a master hand with flowers.  She LOOKED at
+'em--and touched 'em--SO--and they grew like mad.  Some folks have that
+knack--I reckon you have it, too, Mistress Blythe."
+
+"Oh, I don't know--but I love my garden, and I love working in it.  To
+potter with green, growing things, watching each day to see the dear,
+new sprouts come up, is like taking a hand in creation, I think.  Just
+now my garden is like faith--the substance of things hoped for.  But
+bide a wee."
+
+"It always amazes me to look at the little, wrinkled brown seeds and
+think of the rainbows in 'em," said Captain Jim.  "When I ponder on
+them seeds I don't find it nowise hard to believe that we've got souls
+that'll live in other worlds.  You couldn't hardly believe there was
+life in them tiny things, some no bigger than grains of dust, let alone
+color and scent, if you hadn't seen the miracle, could you?"
+
+Anne, who was counting her days like silver beads on a rosary, could
+not now take the long walk to the lighthouse or up the Glen road.  But
+Miss Cornelia and Captain Jim came very often to the little house.
+Miss Cornelia was the joy of Anne's and Gilbert's existence.  They
+laughed side-splittingly over her speeches after every visit.  When
+Captain Jim and she happened to visit the little house at the same time
+there was much sport for the listening.  They waged wordy warfare, she
+attacking, he defending.  Anne once reproached the Captain for his
+baiting of Miss Cornelia.
+
+"Oh, I do love to set her going, Mistress Blythe," chuckled the
+unrepentant sinner.  "It's the greatest amusement I have in life.  That
+tongue of hers would blister a stone.  And you and that young dog of a
+doctor enj'y listening to her as much as I do."
+
+Captain Jim came along another evening to bring Anne some mayflowers.
+The garden was full of the moist, scented air of a maritime spring
+evening.  There was a milk-white mist on the edge of the sea, with a
+young moon kissing it, and a silver gladness of stars over the Glen.
+The bell of the church across the harbor was ringing dreamily sweet.
+The mellow chime drifted through the dusk to mingle with the soft
+spring-moan of the sea.  Captain Jim's mayflowers added the last
+completing touch to the charm of the night.
+
+"I haven't seen any this spring, and I've missed them," said Anne,
+burying her face in them.
+
+"They ain't to be found around Four Winds, only in the barrens away
+behind the Glen up yander.  I took a little trip today to the
+Land-of-nothing-to-do, and hunted these up for you.  I reckon they're
+the last you'll see this spring, for they're nearly done."
+
+"How kind and thoughtful you are, Captain Jim.  Nobody else--not even
+Gilbert"--with a shake of her head at him--"remembered that I always
+long for mayflowers in spring."
+
+"Well, I had another errand, too--I wanted to take Mr. Howard back
+yander a mess of trout.  He likes one occasional, and it's all I can do
+for a kindness he did me once.  I stayed all the afternoon and talked
+to him.  He likes to talk to me, though he's a highly eddicated man and
+I'm only an ignorant old sailor, because he's one of the folks that's
+GOT to talk or they're miserable, and he finds listeners scarce around
+here.  The Glen folks fight shy of him because they think he's an
+infidel.  He ain't that far gone exactly--few men is, I reckon--but
+he's what you might call a heretic.  Heretics are wicked, but they're
+mighty int'resting.  It's jest that they've got sorter lost looking for
+God, being under the impression that He's hard to find--which He ain't
+never.  Most of 'em blunder to Him after awhile, I guess.  I don't
+think listening to Mr. Howard's arguments is likely to do me much harm.
+Mind you, I believe what I was brought up to believe.  It saves a vast
+of bother--and back of it all, God is good.  The trouble with Mr.
+Howard is that he's a leetle TOO clever.  He thinks that he's bound to
+live up to his cleverness, and that it's smarter to thrash out some new
+way of getting to heaven than to go by the old track the common,
+ignorant folks is travelling.  But he'll get there sometime all right,
+and then he'll laugh at himself."
+
+"Mr. Howard was a Methodist to begin with," said Miss Cornelia, as if
+she thought he had not far to go from that to heresy.
+
+"Do you know, Cornelia," said Captain Jim gravely, "I've often thought
+that if I wasn't a Presbyterian I'd be a Methodist."
+
+"Oh, well," conceded Miss Cornelia, "if you weren't a Presbyterian it
+wouldn't matter much what you were.  Speaking of heresy, reminds me,
+doctor--I've brought back that book you lent me--that Natural Law in
+the Spiritual World--I didn't read more'n a third of it.  I can read
+sense, and I can read nonsense, but that book is neither the one nor
+the other."
+
+"It IS considered rather heretical in some quarters," admitted Gilbert,
+"but I told you that before you took it, Miss Cornelia."
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't have minded its being heretical.  I can stand
+wickedness, but I can't stand foolishness," said Miss Cornelia calmly,
+and with the air of having said the last thing there was to say about
+Natural Law.
+
+"Speaking of books, A Mad Love come to an end at last two weeks ago,"
+remarked Captain Jim musingly.  "It run to one hundred and three
+chapters.  When they got married the book stopped right off, so I
+reckon their troubles were all over.  It's real nice that that's the
+way in books anyhow, isn't it, even if 'tistn't so anywhere else?"
+
+"I never read novels," said Miss Cornelia.  "Did you hear how Geordie
+Russell was today, Captain Jim?"
+
+"Yes, I called in on my way home to see him.  He's getting round all
+right--but stewing in a broth of trouble, as usual, poor man.
+
+"'Course he brews up most of it for himself, but I reckon that don't
+make it any easier to bear."
+
+"He's an awful pessimist," said Miss Cornelia.
+
+"Well, no, he ain't a pessimist exactly, Cornelia.  He only jest never
+finds anything that suits him."
+
+"And isn't that a pessimist?"
+
+"No, no.  A pessimist is one who never expects to find anything to suit
+him.  Geordie hain't got THAT far yet."
+
+"You'd find something good to say of the devil himself, Jim Boyd."
+
+"Well, you've heard the story of the old lady who said he was
+persevering.  But no, Cornelia, I've nothing good to say of the devil."
+
+"Do you believe in him at all?" asked Miss Cornelia seriously.
+
+"How can you ask that when you know what a good Presbyterian I am,
+Cornelia?  How could a Presbyterian get along without a devil?"
+
+"DO you?" persisted Miss Cornelia.
+
+Captain Jim suddenly became grave.
+
+"I believe in what I heard a minister once call 'a mighty and malignant
+and INTELLIGENT power of evil working in the universe,'" he said
+solemnly.  "I do THAT, Cornelia.  You can call it the devil, or the
+'principle of evil,' or the Old Scratch, or any name you like.  It's
+THERE, and all the infidels and heretics in the world can't argue it
+away, any more'n they can argue God away.  It's there, and it's
+working.  But, mind you, Cornelia, I believe it's going to get the
+worst of it in the long run."
+
+"I am sure I hope so," said Miss Cornelia, none too hopefully. "But
+speaking of the devil, I am positive that Billy Booth is possessed by
+him now.  Have you heard of Billy's latest performance?"
+
+"No, what was that?"
+
+"He's gone and burned up his wife's new, brown broadcloth suit, that
+she paid twenty-five dollars for in Charlottetown, because he declares
+the men looked too admiring at her when she wore it to church the first
+time.  Wasn't that like a man?"
+
+"Mistress Booth IS mighty pretty, and brown's her color," said Captain
+Jim reflectively.
+
+"Is that any good reason why he should poke her new suit into the
+kitchen stove?  Billy Booth is a jealous fool, and he makes his wife's
+life miserable.  She's cried all the week about her suit.  Oh, Anne, I
+wish I could write like you, believe ME.  Wouldn't I score some of the
+men round here!"
+
+"Those Booths are all a mite queer," said Captain Jim.  "Billy seemed
+the sanest of the lot till he got married and then this queer jealous
+streak cropped out in him.  His brother Daniel, now, was always odd."
+
+"Took tantrums every few days or so and wouldn't get out of bed," said
+Miss Cornelia with a relish.  "His wife would have to do all the barn
+work till he got over his spell.  When he died people wrote her letters
+of condolence; if I'd written anything it would have been one of
+congratulation.  Their father, old Abram Booth, was a disgusting old
+sot.  He was drunk at his wife's funeral, and kept reeling round and
+hiccuping 'I didn't dri--i--i--nk much but I feel a--a--awfully
+que--e--e--r.'  I gave him a good jab in the back with my umbrella when
+he came near me, and it sobered him up until they got the casket out of
+the house.  Young Johnny Booth was to have been married yesterday, but
+he couldn't be because he's gone and got the mumps.  Wasn't that like a
+man?"
+
+"How could he help getting the mumps, poor fellow?"
+
+"I'd poor fellow him, believe ME, if I was Kate Sterns.  I don't know
+how he could help getting the mumps, but I DO know the wedding supper
+was all prepared and everything will be spoiled before he's well again.
+Such a waste!  He should have had the mumps when he was a boy."
+
+"Come, come, Cornelia, don't you think you're a mite unreasonable?"
+
+Miss Cornelia disdained to reply and turned instead to Susan Baker, a
+grim-faced, kind-hearted elderly spinster of the Glen, who had been
+installed as maid-of-all-work at the little house for some weeks.
+Susan had been up to the Glen to make a sick call, and had just
+returned.
+
+"How is poor old Aunt Mandy tonight?" asked Miss Cornelia.
+
+Susan sighed.
+
+"Very poorly--very poorly, Cornelia.  I am afraid she will soon be in
+heaven, poor thing!"
+
+"Oh, surely, it's not so bad as that!" exclaimed Miss Cornelia,
+sympathetically.
+
+Captain Jim and Gilbert looked at each other.  Then they suddenly rose
+and went out.
+
+"There are times," said Captain Jim, between spasms, "when it would be
+a sin NOT to laugh.  Them two excellent women!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 19
+
+DAWN AND DUSK
+
+In early June, when the sand hills were a great glory of pink wild
+roses, and the Glen was smothered in apple blossoms, Marilla arrived at
+the little house, accompanied by a black horsehair trunk, patterned
+with brass nails, which had reposed undisturbed in the Green Gables
+garret for half a century.  Susan Baker, who, during her few weeks'
+sojourn in the little house, had come to worship "young Mrs. Doctor,"
+as she called Anne, with blind fervor, looked rather jealously askance
+at Marilla at first.  But as Marilla did not try to interfere in
+kitchen matters, and showed no desire to interrupt Susan's
+ministrations to young Mrs. Doctor, the good handmaiden became
+reconciled to her presence, and told her cronies at the Glen that Miss
+Cuthbert was a fine old lady and knew her place.
+
+One evening, when the sky's limpid bowl was filled with a red glory,
+and the robins were thrilling the golden twilight with jubilant hymns
+to the stars of evening, there was a sudden commotion in the little
+house of dreams.  Telephone messages were sent up to the Glen, Doctor
+Dave and a white-capped nurse came hastily down, Marilla paced the
+garden walks between the quahog shells, murmuring prayers between her
+set lips, and Susan sat in the kitchen with cotton wool in her ears and
+her apron over her head.
+
+Leslie, looking out from the house up the brook, saw that every window
+of the little house was alight, and did not sleep that night.
+
+The June night was short; but it seemed an eternity to those who waited
+and watched.
+
+"Oh, will it NEVER end?" said Marilla; then she saw how grave the nurse
+and Doctor Dave looked, and she dared ask no more questions.  Suppose
+Anne--but Marilla could not suppose it.
+
+"Do not tell me," said Susan fiercely, answering the anguish in
+Marilla's eyes, "that God could be so cruel as to take that darling
+lamb from us when we all love her so much."
+
+"He has taken others as well beloved," said Marilla hoarsely.
+
+But at dawn, when the rising sun rent apart the mists hanging over the
+sandbar, and made rainbows of them, joy came to the little house.  Anne
+was safe, and a wee, white lady, with her mother's big eyes, was lying
+beside her.  Gilbert, his face gray and haggard from his night's agony,
+came down to tell Marilla and Susan.
+
+"Thank God," shuddered Marilla.
+
+Susan got up and took the cotton wool out of her ears.
+
+"Now for breakfast," she said briskly.  "I am of the opinion that we
+will all be glad of a bite and sup.  You tell young Mrs. Doctor not to
+worry about a single thing--Susan is at the helm.  You tell her just to
+think of her baby."
+
+Gilbert smiled rather sadly as he went away.  Anne, her pale face
+blanched with its baptism of pain, her eyes aglow with the holy passion
+of motherhood, did not need to be told to think of her baby.  She
+thought of nothing else.  For a few hours she tasted of happiness so
+rare and exquisite that she wondered if the angels in heaven did not
+envy her.
+
+"Little Joyce," she murmured, when Marilla came in to see the baby.
+"We planned to call her that if she were a girlie.  There were so many
+we would have liked to name her for; we couldn't choose between them,
+so we decided on Joyce--we can call her Joy for short--Joy--it suits so
+well.  Oh, Marilla, I thought I was happy before.  Now I know that I
+just dreamed a pleasant dream of happiness.  THIS is the reality."
+
+"You mustn't talk, Anne--wait till you're stronger," said Marilla
+warningly.
+
+"You know how hard it is for me NOT to talk," smiled Anne.
+
+At first she was too weak and too happy to notice that Gilbert and the
+nurse looked grave and Marilla sorrowful.  Then, as subtly, and coldly,
+and remorselessly as a sea-fog stealing landward, fear crept into her
+heart.  Why was not Gilbert gladder?  Why would he not talk about the
+baby?  Why would they not let her have it with her after that first
+heavenly--happy hour?  Was--was there anything wrong?
+
+"Gilbert," whispered Anne imploringly, "the baby--is all right--isn't
+she?  Tell me--tell me."
+
+Gilbert was a long while in turning round; then he bent over Anne and
+looked in her eyes.  Marilla, listening fearfully outside the door,
+heard a pitiful, heartbroken moan, and fled to the kitchen where Susan
+was weeping.
+
+"Oh, the poor lamb--the poor lamb!  How can she bear it, Miss Cuthbert?
+I am afraid it will kill her.  She has been that built up and happy,
+longing for that baby, and planning for it.  Cannot anything be done
+nohow, Miss Cuthbert?"
+
+"I'm afraid not, Susan.  Gilbert says there is no hope.  He knew from
+the first the little thing couldn't live."
+
+"And it is such a sweet baby," sobbed Susan.  "I never saw one so
+white--they are mostly red or yallow.  And it opened its big eyes as if
+it was months old.  The little, little thing!  Oh, the poor, young Mrs.
+Doctor!"
+
+At sunset the little soul that had come with the dawning went away,
+leaving heartbreak behind it.  Miss Cornelia took the wee, white lady
+from the kindly but stranger hands of the nurse, and dressed the tiny
+waxen form in the beautiful dress Leslie had made for it.  Leslie had
+asked her to do that.  Then she took it back and laid it beside the
+poor, broken, tear-blinded little mother.
+
+"The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away, dearie," she said
+through her own tears.  "Blessed be the name of the Lord."
+
+Then she went away, leaving Anne and Gilbert alone together with their
+dead.
+
+The next day, the small white Joy was laid in a velvet casket which
+Leslie had lined with apple-blossoms, and taken to the graveyard of the
+church across the harbor.  Miss Cornelia and Marilla put all the little
+love-made garments away, together with the ruffled basket which had
+been befrilled and belaced for dimpled limbs and downy head.  Little
+Joy was never to sleep there; she had found a colder, narrower bed.
+
+"This has been an awful disappointment to me," sighed Miss Cornelia.
+"I've looked forward to this baby--and I did want it to be a girl, too."
+
+"I can only be thankful that Anne's life was spared," said Marilla,
+with a shiver, recalling those hours of darkness when the girl she
+loved was passing through the valley of the shadow.
+
+"Poor, poor lamb!  Her heart is broken," said Susan.
+
+"I ENVY Anne," said Leslie suddenly and fiercely, "and I'd envy her
+even if she had died!  She was a mother for one beautiful day.  I'd
+gladly give my life for THAT!"
+
+"I wouldn't talk like that, Leslie, dearie," said Miss Cornelia
+deprecatingly.  She was afraid that the dignified Miss Cuthbert would
+think Leslie quite terrible.
+
+Anne's convalescence was long, and made bitter for her by many things.
+The bloom and sunshine of the Four Winds world grated harshly on her;
+and yet, when the rain fell heavily, she pictured it beating so
+mercilessly down on that little grave across the harbor; and when the
+wind blew around the eaves she heard sad voices in it she had never
+heard before.
+
+Kindly callers hurt her, too, with the well-meant platitudes with which
+they strove to cover the nakedness of bereavement.  A letter from Phil
+Blake was an added sting.  Phil had heard of the baby's birth, but not
+of its death, and she wrote Anne a congratulatory letter of sweet mirth
+which hurt her horribly.
+
+"I would have laughed over it so happily if I had my baby," she sobbed
+to Marilla.  "But when I haven't it just seems like wanton
+cruelty--though I know Phil wouldn't hurt me for the world.  Oh,
+Marilla, I don't see how I can EVER be happy again--EVERYTHING will
+hurt me all the rest of my life."
+
+"Time will help you," said Marilla, who was racked with sympathy but
+could never learn to express it in other than age-worn formulas.
+
+"It doesn't seem FAIR," said Anne rebelliously.  "Babies are born and
+live where they are not wanted--where they will be neglected--where
+they will have no chance.  I would have loved my baby so--and cared for
+it so tenderly--and tried to give her every chance for good.  And yet I
+wasn't allowed to keep her."
+
+"It was God's will, Anne," said Marilla, helpless before the riddle of
+the universe--the WHY of undeserved pain.  "And little Joy is better
+off."
+
+"I can't believe THAT," cried Anne bitterly.  Then, seeing that Marilla
+looked shocked, she added passionately, "Why should she be born at
+all--why should any one be born at all--if she's better off dead?  I
+DON'T believe it is better for a child to die at birth than to live its
+life out--and love and be loved--and enjoy and suffer--and do its
+work--and develop a character that would give it a personality in
+eternity.  And how do you know it was God's will?  Perhaps it was just
+a thwarting of His purpose by the Power of Evil.  We can't be expected
+to be resigned to THAT."
+
+"Oh, Anne, don't talk so," said Marilla, genuinely alarmed lest Anne
+were drifting into deep and dangerous waters.  "We can't
+understand--but we must have faith--we MUST believe that all is for the
+best.  I know you find it hard to think so, just now.  But try to be
+brave--for Gilbert's sake.  He's so worried about you.  You aren't
+getting strong as fast as you should."
+
+"Oh, I know I've been very selfish," sighed Anne.  "I love Gilbert more
+than ever--and I want to live for his sake.  But it seems as if part of
+me was buried over there in that little harbor graveyard--and it hurts
+so much that I'm afraid of life."
+
+"It won't hurt so much always, Anne."
+
+"The thought that it may stop hurting sometimes hurts me worse than all
+else, Marilla."
+
+"Yes, I know, I've felt that too, about other things.  But we all love
+you, Anne.  Captain Jim has been up every day to ask for you--and Mrs.
+Moore haunts the place--and Miss Bryant spends most of her time, I
+think, cooking up nice things for you.  Susan doesn't like it very
+well.  She thinks she can cook as well as Miss Bryant."
+
+"Dear Susan!  Oh, everybody has been so dear and good and lovely to me,
+Marilla.  I'm not ungrateful--and perhaps--when this horrible ache
+grows a little less--I'll find that I can go on living."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 20
+
+LOST MARGARET
+
+Anne found that she could go on living; the day came when she even
+smiled again over one of Miss Cornelia's speeches.  But there was
+something in the smile that had never been in Anne's smile before and
+would never be absent from it again.
+
+On the first day she was able to go for a drive Gilbert took her down
+to Four Winds Point, and left her there while he rowed over the channel
+to see a patient at the fishing village.  A rollicking wind was
+scudding across the harbor and the dunes, whipping the water into
+white-caps and washing the sandshore with long lines of silvery
+breakers.
+
+"I'm real proud to see you here again, Mistress Blythe," said Captain
+Jim.  "Sit down--sit down.  I'm afeared it's mighty dusty here
+today--but there's no need of looking at dust when you can look at such
+scenery, is there?"
+
+"I don't mind the dust," said Anne, "but Gilbert says I must keep in
+the open air.  I think I'll go and sit on the rocks down there."
+
+"Would you like company or would you rather be alone?"
+
+"If by company you mean yours I'd much rather have it than be alone,"
+said Anne, smiling.  Then she sighed.  She had never before minded
+being alone.  Now she dreaded it.  When she was alone now she felt so
+dreadfully alone.
+
+"Here's a nice little spot where the wind can't get at you," said
+Captain Jim, when they reached the rocks.  "I often sit here.  It's a
+great place jest to sit and dream."
+
+"Oh--dreams," sighed Anne.  "I can't dream now, Captain Jim--I'm done
+with dreams."
+
+"Oh, no, you're not, Mistress Blythe--oh, no, you're not," said Captain
+Jim meditatively.  "I know how you feel jest now--but if you keep on
+living you'll get glad again, and the first thing you know you'll be
+dreaming again--thank the good Lord for it!  If it wasn't for our
+dreams they might as well bury us.  How'd we stand living if it wasn't
+for our dream of immortality?  And that's a dream that's BOUND to come
+true, Mistress Blythe.  You'll see your little Joyce again some day."
+
+"But she won't be my baby," said Anne, with trembling lips.  "Oh, she
+may be, as Longfellow says, 'a fair maiden clothed with celestial
+grace'--but she'll be a stranger to me."
+
+"God will manage better'n THAT, I believe," said Captain Jim.
+
+They were both silent for a little time.  Then Captain Jim said very
+softly:
+
+"Mistress Blythe, may I tell you about lost Margaret?"
+
+"Of course," said Anne gently.  She did not know who "lost Margaret"
+was, but she felt that she was going to hear the romance of Captain
+Jim's life.
+
+"I've often wanted to tell you about her," Captain Jim went on.
+
+"Do you know why, Mistress Blythe?  It's because I want somebody to
+remember and think of her sometime after I'm gone.  I can't bear that
+her name should be forgotten by all living souls.  And now nobody
+remembers lost Margaret but me."
+
+Then Captain Jim told the story--an old, old forgotten story, for it
+was over fifty years since Margaret had fallen asleep one day in her
+father's dory and drifted--or so it was supposed, for nothing was ever
+certainly known as to her fate--out of the channel, beyond the bar, to
+perish in the black thundersquall which had come up so suddenly that
+long-ago summer afternoon.  But to Captain Jim those fifty years were
+but as yesterday when it is past.
+
+"I walked the shore for months after that," he said sadly, "looking to
+find her dear, sweet little body; but the sea never give her back to
+me.  But I'll find her sometime, Mistress Blythe--I'll find her
+sometime.  She's waiting for me.  I wish I could tell you jest how she
+looked, but I can't.  I've seen a fine, silvery mist hanging over the
+bar at sunrise that seemed like her--and then again I've seen a white
+birch in the woods back yander that made me think of her.  She had
+pale, brown hair and a little white, sweet face, and long slender
+fingers like yours, Mistress Blythe, only browner, for she was a shore
+girl.  Sometimes I wake up in the night and hear the sea calling to me
+in the old way, and it seems as if lost Margaret called in it.  And
+when there's a storm and the waves are sobbing and moaning I hear her
+lamenting among them.  And when they laugh on a gay day it's HER
+laugh--lost Margaret's sweet, roguish, little laugh.  The sea took her
+from me, but some day I'll find her.  Mistress Blythe.  It can't keep
+us apart forever."
+
+"I am glad you have told me about her," said Anne.  "I have often
+wondered why you had lived all your life alone."
+
+"I couldn't ever care for anyone else.  Lost Margaret took my heart
+with her--out there," said the old lover, who had been faithful for
+fifty years to his drowned sweetheart.  "You won't mind if I talk a
+good deal about her, will you, Mistress Blythe?  It's a pleasure to
+me--for all the pain went out of her memory years ago and jest left its
+blessing.  I know you'll never forget her, Mistress Blythe.  And if the
+years, as I hope, bring other little folks to your home, I want you to
+promise me that you'll tell THEM the story of lost Margaret, so that
+her name won't be forgotten among humankind."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 21
+
+BARRIERS SWEPT AWAY
+
+ "Anne," said Leslie, breaking abruptly a short
+silence, "you don't know how GOOD it is to be sitting here with you
+again--working--and talking--and being silent together."
+
+They were sitting among the blue-eyed grasses on the bank of the brook
+in Anne's garden.  The water sparkled and crooned past them; the
+birches threw dappled shadows over them; roses bloomed along the walks.
+The sun was beginning to be low, and the air was full of woven music.
+There was one music of the wind in the firs behind the house, and
+another of the waves on the bar, and still another from the distant
+bell of the church near which the wee, white lady slept.  Anne loved
+that bell, though it brought sorrowful thoughts now.
+
+She looked curiously at Leslie, who had thrown down her sewing and
+spoken with a lack of restraint that was very unusual with her.
+
+"On that horrible night when you were so ill," Leslie went on, "I kept
+thinking that perhaps we'd have no more talks and walks and WORKS
+together.  And I realised just what your friendship had come to mean to
+me--just what YOU meant--and just what a hateful little beast I had
+been."
+
+"Leslie!  Leslie!  I never allow anyone to call my friends names."
+
+"It's true.  That's exactly what I am--a hateful little beast. There's
+something I've GOT to tell you, Anne.  I suppose it will make you
+despise me, but I MUST confess it.  Anne, there have been times this
+past winter and spring when I have HATED you."
+
+"I KNEW it," said Anne calmly.
+
+"You KNEW it?"
+
+"Yes, I saw it in your eyes."
+
+"And yet you went on liking me and being my friend."
+
+"Well, it was only now and then you hated me, Leslie.  Between times
+you loved me, I think."
+
+"I certainly did.  But that other horrid feeling was always there,
+spoiling it, back in my heart.  I kept it down--sometimes I forgot
+it--but sometimes it would surge up and take possession of me.  I hated
+you because I ENVIED you--oh, I was sick with envy of you at times.
+You had a dear little home--and love--and happiness--and glad
+dreams--everything I wanted--and never had--and never could have.  Oh,
+never could have!  THAT was what stung.  I wouldn't have envied you, if
+I had had any HOPE that life would ever be different for me.  But I
+hadn't--I hadn't--and it didn't seem FAIR.  It made me rebellious--and
+it hurt me--and so I hated you at times.  Oh, I was so ashamed of
+it--I'm dying of shame now--but I couldn't conquer it.
+
+"That night, when I was afraid you mightn't live--I thought I was going
+to be punished for my wickedness--and I loved you so then.  Anne, Anne,
+I never had anything to love since my mother died, except Dick's old
+dog--and it's so dreadful to have nothing to love--life is so
+EMPTY--and there's NOTHING worse than emptiness--and I might have loved
+you so much--and that horrible thing had spoiled it--"
+
+Leslie was trembling and growing almost incoherent with the violence of
+her emotion.
+
+"Don't, Leslie," implored Anne, "oh, don't.  I understand--don't talk
+of it any more."
+
+"I must--I must.  When I knew you were going to live I vowed that I
+would tell you as soon as you were well--that I wouldn't go on
+accepting your friendship and companionship without telling you how
+unworthy I was of it.  And I've been so afraid--it would turn you
+against me."
+
+"You needn't fear that, Leslie."
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad--so glad, Anne."  Leslie clasped her brown,
+work-hardened hands tightly together to still their shaking.  "But I
+want to tell you everything, now I've begun.  You don't remember the
+first time I saw you, I suppose--it wasn't that night on the shore--"
+
+"No, it was the night Gilbert and I came home.  You were driving your
+geese down the hill.  I should think I DO remember it!  I thought you
+were so beautiful--I longed for weeks after to find out who you were."
+
+"I knew who YOU were, although I had never seen either of you before.
+I had heard of the new doctor and his bride who were coming to live in
+Miss Russell's little house.  I--I hated you that very moment, Anne."
+
+"I felt the resentment in your eyes--then I doubted--I thought I must
+be mistaken--because WHY should it be?"
+
+"It was because you looked so happy.  Oh, you'll agree with me now that
+I AM a hateful beast--to hate another woman just because she was
+happy,--and when her happiness didn't take anything from me!  That was
+why I never went to see you.  I knew quite well I ought to go--even our
+simple Four Winds customs demanded that.  But I couldn't.  I used to
+watch you from my window--I could see you and your husband strolling
+about your garden in the evening--or you running down the poplar lane
+to meet him.  And it hurt me.  And yet in another way I wanted to go
+over.  I felt that, if I were not so miserable, I could have liked you
+and found in you what I've never had in my life--an intimate, REAL
+friend of my own age.  And then you remember that night at the shore?
+You were afraid I would think you crazy.  You must have thought _I_
+was."
+
+"No, but I couldn't understand you, Leslie.  One moment you drew me to
+you--the next you pushed me back."
+
+"I was very unhappy that evening.  I had had a hard day.  Dick had been
+very--very hard to manage that day.  Generally he is quite good-natured
+and easily controlled, you know, Anne.  But some days he is very
+different.  I was so heartsick--I ran away to the shore as soon as he
+went to sleep.  It was my only refuge.  I sat there thinking of how my
+poor father had ended his life, and wondering if I wouldn't be driven
+to it some day.  Oh, my heart was full of black thoughts!  And then you
+came dancing along the cove like a glad, light-hearted child.  I--I
+hated you more then than I've ever done since.  And yet I craved your
+friendship.  The one feeling swayed me one moment; the other feeling
+the next.  When I got home that night I cried for shame of what you
+must think of me.  But it's always been just the same when I came over
+here.  Sometimes I'd be happy and enjoy my visit.  And at other times
+that hideous feeling would mar it all.  There were times when
+everything about you and your house hurt me.  You had so many dear
+little things I couldn't have.  Do you know--it's ridiculous--but I had
+an especial spite at those china dogs of yours.  There were times when
+I wanted to catch up Gog and Magog and bang their pert black noses
+together!  Oh, you smile, Anne--but it was never funny to me.  I would
+come here and see you and Gilbert with your books and your flowers, and
+your household gods, and your little family jokes--and your love for
+each other showing in every look and word, even when you didn't know
+it--and I would go home to--you know what I went home to!  Oh, Anne, I
+don't believe I'm jealous and envious by nature.  When I was a girl I
+lacked many things my schoolmates had, but I never cared--I never
+disliked them for it.  But I seem to have grown so hateful--"
+
+"Leslie, dearest, stop blaming yourself.  You are NOT hateful or
+jealous or envious.  The life you have to live has warped you a little,
+perhaps-but it would have ruined a nature less fine and noble than
+yours.  I'm letting you tell me all this because I believe it's better
+for you to talk it out and rid your soul of it.  But don't blame
+yourself any more."
+
+"Well, I won't.  I just wanted you to know me as I am.  That time you
+told me of your darling hope for the spring was the worst of all, Anne.
+I shall never forgive myself for the way I behaved then.  I repented it
+with tears.  And I DID put many a tender and loving thought of you into
+the little dress I made.  But I might have known that anything I made
+could only be a shroud in the end."
+
+"Now, Leslie, that IS bitter and morbid--put such thoughts away.
+
+"I was so glad when you brought the little dress; and since I had to
+lose little Joyce I like to think that the dress she wore was the one
+you made for her when you let yourself love me."
+
+"Anne, do you know, I believe I shall always love you after this.  I
+don't think I'll ever feel that dreadful way about you again.  Talking
+it all out seems to have done away with it, somehow.  It's very
+strange--and I thought it so real and bitter.  It's like opening the
+door of a dark room to show some hideous creature you've believed to be
+there--and when the light streams in your monster turns out to have
+been just a shadow, vanishing when the light comes.  It will never come
+between us again."
+
+"No, we are real friends now, Leslie, and I am very glad."
+
+"I hope you won't misunderstand me if I say something else.  Anne, I
+was grieved to the core of my heart when you lost your baby; and if I
+could have saved her for you by cutting off one of my hands I would
+have done it.  But your sorrow has brought us closer together.  Your
+perfect happiness isn't a barrier any longer.  Oh, don't misunderstand,
+dearest--I'm NOT glad that your happiness isn't perfect any longer--I
+can say that sincerely; but since it isn't, there isn't such a gulf
+between us."
+
+"I DO understand that, too, Leslie.  Now, we'll just shut up the past
+and forget what was unpleasant in it.  It's all going to be different.
+We're both of the race of Joseph now.  I think you've been
+wonderful--wonderful.  And, Leslie, I can't help believing that life
+has something good and beautiful for you yet."
+
+Leslie shook her head.
+
+"No," she said dully.  "There isn't any hope.  Dick will never be
+better--and even if his memory were to come back--oh, Anne, it would be
+worse, even worse, than it is now.  This is something you can't
+understand, you happy bride.  Anne, did Miss Cornelia ever tell you how
+I came to marry Dick?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'm glad--I wanted you to know--but I couldn't bring myself to talk of
+it if you hadn't known.  Anne, it seems to me that ever since I was
+twelve years old life has been bitter.  Before that I had a happy
+childhood.  We were very poor--but we didn't mind.  Father was so
+splendid--so clever and loving and sympathetic.  We were chums as far
+back as I can remember.  And mother was so sweet.  She was very, very
+beautiful.  I look like her, but I am not so beautiful as she was."
+
+"Miss Cornelia says you are far more beautiful."
+
+"She is mistaken--or prejudiced.  I think my figure IS better--mother
+was slight and bent by hard work--but she had the face of an angel.  I
+used just to look up at her in worship.  We all worshipped her,--father
+and Kenneth and I."
+
+Anne remembered that Miss Cornelia had given her a very different
+impression of Leslie's mother.  But had not love the truer vision?
+Still, it WAS selfish of Rose West to make her daughter marry Dick
+Moore.
+
+"Kenneth was my brother," went on Leslie.  "Oh, I can't tell you how I
+loved him.  And he was cruelly killed.  Do you know how?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Anne, I saw his little face as the wheel went over him.  He fell on
+his back.  Anne--Anne--I can see it now.  I shall always see it.  Anne,
+all I ask of heaven is that that recollection shall be blotted out of
+my memory.  O my God!"
+
+"Leslie, don't speak of it.  I know the story--don't go into details
+that only harrow your soul up unavailingly.  It WILL be blotted out."
+
+After a moment's struggle, Leslie regained a measure of self-control.
+
+"Then father's health got worse and he grew despondent--his mind became
+unbalanced--you've heard all that, too?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"After that I had just mother to live for.  But I was very ambitious.
+I meant to teach and earn my way through college.  I meant to climb to
+the very top--oh, I won't talk of that either.  It's no use.  You know
+what happened.  I couldn't see my dear little heart-broken mother, who
+had been such a slave all her life, turned out of her home.  Of course,
+I could have earned enough for us to live on.  But mother COULDN'T
+leave her home.  She had come there as a bride--and she had loved
+father so--and all her memories were there.  Even yet, Anne, when I
+think that I made her last year happy I'm not sorry for what I did.  As
+for Dick--I didn't hate him when I married him--I just felt for him the
+indifferent, friendly feeling I had for most of my schoolmates.  I knew
+he drank some--but I had never heard the story of the girl down at the
+fishing cove.  If I had, I COULDN'T have married him, even for mother's
+sake.  Afterwards--I DID hate him--but mother never knew.  She
+died--and then I was alone.  I was only seventeen and I was alone.
+Dick had gone off in the Four Sisters.  I hoped he wouldn't be home
+very much more.  The sea had always been in his blood.  I had no other
+hope.  Well, Captain Jim brought him home, as you know--and that's all
+there is to say.  You know me now, Anne--the worst of me--the barriers
+are all down.  And you still want to be my friend?"
+
+Anne looked up through the birches, at the white paper-lantern of a
+half moon drifting downwards to the gulf of sunset.  Her face was very
+sweet.
+
+"I am your friend and you are mine, for always," she said.  "Such a
+friend as I never had before.  I have had many dear and beloved
+friends--but there is a something in you, Leslie, that I never found in
+anyone else.  You have more to offer me in that rich nature of yours,
+and I have more to give you than I had in my careless girlhood.  We are
+both women--and friends forever."
+
+They clasped hands and smiled at each other through the tears that
+filled the gray eyes and the blue.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 22
+
+MISS CORNELIA ARRANGES MATTERS
+
+Gilbert insisted that Susan should be kept on at the little house for
+the summer.  Anne protested at first.
+
+"Life here with just the two of us is so sweet, Gilbert.  It spoils it
+a little to have anyone else.  Susan is a dear soul, but she is an
+outsider.  It won't hurt me to do the work here."
+
+"You must take your doctor's advice," said Gilbert.  "There's an old
+proverb to the effect that shoemakers' wives go barefoot and doctors'
+wives die young.  I don't mean that it shall be true in my household.
+You will keep Susan until the old spring comes back into your step, and
+those little hollows on your cheeks fill out."
+
+"You just take it easy, Mrs. Doctor, dear," said Susan, coming abruptly
+in.  "Have a good time and do not worry about the pantry.  Susan is at
+the helm.  There is no use in keeping a dog and doing your own barking.
+I am going to take your breakfast up to you every morning."
+
+"Indeed you are not," laughed Anne.  "I agree with Miss Cornelia that
+it's a scandal for a woman who isn't sick to eat her breakfast in bed,
+and almost justifies the men in any enormities."
+
+"Oh, Cornelia!" said Susan, with ineffable contempt.  "I think you have
+better sense, Mrs. Doctor, dear, than to heed what Cornelia Bryant
+says.  I cannot see why she must be always running down the men, even
+if she is an old maid.  _I_ am an old maid, but you never hear ME
+abusing the men.  I like 'em.  I would have married one if I could.  Is
+it not funny nobody ever asked me to marry him, Mrs. Doctor, dear?  I
+am no beauty, but I am as good-looking as most of the married women you
+see.  But I never had a beau.  What do you suppose is the reason?"
+
+"It may be predestination," suggested Anne, with unearthly solemnity.
+
+Susan nodded.
+
+"That is what I have often thought, Mrs. Doctor, dear, and a great
+comfort it is.  I do not mind nobody wanting me if the Almighty decreed
+it so for His own wise purposes.  But sometimes doubt creeps in, Mrs.
+Doctor, dear, and I wonder if maybe the Old Scratch has not more to do
+with it than anyone else.  I cannot feel resigned THEN.  But maybe,"
+added Susan, brightening up, "I will have a chance to get married yet.
+I often and often think of the old verse my aunt used to repeat:
+
+    There never was a goose so gray but sometime soon or late
+    Some honest gander came her way and took her for his mate!
+
+A woman cannot ever be sure of not being married till she is buried,
+Mrs. Doctor, dear, and meanwhile I will make a batch of cherry pies.  I
+notice the doctor favors 'em, and I DO like cooking for a man who
+appreciates his victuals."
+
+Miss Cornelia dropped in that afternoon, puffing a little.
+
+"I don't mind the world or the devil much, but the flesh DOES rather
+bother me," she admitted.  "You always look as cool as a cucumber,
+Anne, dearie.  Do I smell cherry pie?  If I do, ask me to stay to tea.
+Haven't tasted a cherry pie this summer.  My cherries have all been
+stolen by those scamps of Gilman boys from the Glen."
+
+"Now, now, Cornelia," remonstrated Captain Jim, who had been reading a
+sea novel in a corner of the living room, "you shouldn't say that about
+those two poor, motherless Gilman boys, unless you've got certain
+proof.  Jest because their father ain't none too honest isn't any
+reason for calling them thieves.  It's more likely it's been the robins
+took your cherries.  They're turrible thick this year."
+
+"Robins!" said Miss Cornelia disdainfully.  "Humph!  Two-legged robins,
+believe ME!"
+
+"Well, most of the Four Winds robins ARE constructed on that
+principle," said Captain Jim gravely.
+
+Miss Cornelia stared at him for a moment.  Then she leaned back in her
+rocker and laughed long and ungrudgingly.
+
+"Well, you HAVE got one on me at last, Jim Boyd, I'll admit.  Just look
+how pleased he is, Anne, dearie, grinning like a Chessy-cat.  As for
+the robins' legs if robins have great, big, bare, sunburned legs, with
+ragged trousers hanging on 'em, such as I saw up in my cherry tree one
+morning at sunrise last week, I'll beg the Gilman boys' pardon.  By the
+time I got down they were gone.  I couldn't understand how they had
+disappeared so quick, but Captain Jim has enlightened me.  They flew
+away, of course."
+
+Captain Jim laughed and went away, regretfully declining an invitation
+to stay to supper and partake of cherry pie.
+
+"I'm on my way to see Leslie and ask her if she'll take a boarder,"
+Miss Cornelia resumed.  "I'd a letter yesterday from a Mrs. Daly in
+Toronto, who boarded a spell with me two years ago.  She wanted me to
+take a friend of hers for the summer.  His name is Owen Ford, and he's
+a newspaper man, and it seems he's a grandson of the schoolmaster who
+built this house.  John Selwyn's oldest daughter married an Ontario man
+named Ford, and this is her son.  He wants to see the old place his
+grandparents lived in.  He had a bad spell of typhoid in the spring and
+hasn't got rightly over it, so his doctor has ordered him to the sea.
+He doesn't want to go to the hotel--he just wants a quiet home place.
+I can't take him, for I have to be away in August.  I've been appointed
+a delegate to the W.F.M.S.  convention in Kingsport and I'm going.  I
+don't know whether Leslie'll want to be bothered with him, either, but
+there's no one else.  If she can't take him he'll have to go over the
+harbor."
+
+"When you've seen her come back and help us eat our cherry pies," said
+Anne.  "Bring Leslie and Dick, too, if they can come.  And so you're
+going to Kingsport?  What a nice time you will have.  I must give you a
+letter to a friend of mine there--Mrs. Jonas Blake."
+
+"I've prevailed on Mrs. Thomas Holt to go with me," said Miss Cornelia
+complacently.  "It's time she had a little holiday, believe ME.  She
+has just about worked herself to death.  Tom Holt can crochet
+beautifully, but he can't make a living for his family.  He never seems
+to be able to get up early enough to do any work, but I notice he can
+always get up early to go fishing.  Isn't that like a man?"
+
+Anne smiled.  She had learned to discount largely Miss Cornelia's
+opinions of the Four Winds men.  Otherwise she must have believed them
+the most hopeless assortment of reprobates and ne'er-do-wells in the
+world, with veritable slaves and martyrs for wives.  This particular
+Tom Holt, for example, she knew to be a kind husband, a much loved
+father, and an excellent neighbor.  If he were rather inclined to be
+lazy, liking better the fishing he had been born for than the farming
+he had not, and if he had a harmless eccentricity for doing fancy work,
+nobody save Miss Cornelia seemed to hold it against him.  His wife was
+a "hustler," who gloried in hustling; his family got a comfortable
+living off the farm; and his strapping sons and daughters, inheriting
+their mother's energy, were all in a fair way to do well in the world.
+There was not a happier household in Glen St. Mary than the Holts'.
+
+Miss Cornelia returned satisfied from the house up the brook.
+
+"Leslie's going to take him," she announced.  "She jumped at the
+chance.  She wants to make a little money to shingle the roof of her
+house this fall, and she didn't know how she was going to manage it.  I
+expect Captain Jim'll be more than interested when he hears that a
+grandson of the Selwyns' is coming here.  Leslie said to tell you she
+hankered after cherry pie, but she couldn't come to tea because she has
+to go and hunt up her turkeys.  They've strayed away.  But she said, if
+there was a piece left, for you to put it in the pantry and she'd run
+over in the cat's light, when prowling's in order, to get it.  You
+don't know, Anne, dearie, what good it did my heart to hear Leslie send
+you a message like that, laughing like she used to long ago.
+
+"There's a great change come over her lately.  She laughs and jokes
+like a girl, and from her talk I gather she's here real often."
+
+"Every day--or else I'm over there," said Anne.  "I don't know what I'd
+do without Leslie, especially just now when Gilbert is so busy.  He's
+hardly ever home except for a few hours in the wee sma's.  He's really
+working himself to death.  So many of the over-harbor people send for
+him now."
+
+"They might better be content with their own doctor," said Miss
+Cornelia.  "Though to be sure I can't blame them, for he's a Methodist.
+Ever since Dr. Blythe brought Mrs. Allonby round folks think he can
+raise the dead.  I believe Dr. Dave is a mite jealous--just like a man.
+He thinks Dr. Blythe has too many new-fangled notions!  'Well,' I says
+to him, 'it was a new-fangled notion saved Rhoda Allonby.  If YOU'D
+been attending her she'd have died, and had a tombstone saying it had
+pleased God to take her away.'  Oh, I DO like to speak my mind to Dr.
+Dave!  He's bossed the Glen for years, and he thinks he's forgotten
+more than other people ever knew.  Speaking of doctors, I wish Dr.
+Blythe'd run over and see to that boil on Dick Moore's neck.  It's
+getting past Leslie's skill.  I'm sure I don't know what Dick Moore
+wants to start in having boils for--as if he wasn't enough trouble
+without that!"
+
+"Do you know, Dick has taken quite a fancy to me," said Anne.  "He
+follows me round like a dog, and smiles like a pleased child when I
+notice him."
+
+"Does it make you creepy?"
+
+"Not at all.  I rather like poor Dick Moore.  He seems so pitiful and
+appealing, somehow."
+
+"You wouldn't think him very appealing if you'd see him on his
+cantankerous days, believe ME.  But I'm glad you don't mind him--it's
+all the nicer for Leslie.  She'll have more to do when her boarder
+comes.  I hope he'll be a decent creature.  You'll probably like
+him--he's a writer."
+
+"I wonder why people so commonly suppose that if two individuals are
+both writers they must therefore be hugely congenial," said Anne,
+rather scornfully.  "Nobody would expect two blacksmiths to be
+violently attracted toward each other merely because they were both
+blacksmiths."
+
+Nevertheless, she looked forward to the advent of Owen Ford with a
+pleasant sense of expectation.  If he were young and likeable he might
+prove a very pleasant addition to society in Four Winds.  The
+latch-string of the little house was always out for the race of Joseph.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 23
+
+OWEN FORD COMES
+
+One evening Miss Cornelia telephoned down to Anne.
+
+"The writer man has just arrived here.  I'm going to drive him down to
+your place, and you can show him the way over to Leslie's.  It's
+shorter than driving round by the other road, and I'm in a mortal
+hurry.  The Reese baby has gone and fallen into a pail of hot water at
+the Glen, and got nearly scalded to death and they want me right
+off--to put a new skin on the child, I presume.  Mrs. Reese is always
+so careless, and then expects other people to mend her mistakes.  You
+won't mind, will you, dearie?  His trunk can go down tomorrow."
+
+"Very well," said Anne.  "What is he like, Miss Cornelia?"
+
+"You'll see what he's like outside when I take him down.  As for what
+he's like inside only the Lord who made him knows THAT.  I'm not going
+to say another word, for every receiver in the Glen is down."
+
+"Miss Cornelia evidently can't find much fault with Mr. Ford's looks,
+or she would find it in spite of the receivers," said Anne.  "I
+conclude therefore, Susan, that Mr. Ford is rather handsome than
+otherwise."
+
+"Well, Mrs. Doctor, dear, I DO enjoy seeing a well-looking man," said
+Susan candidly.  "Had I not better get up a snack for him?  There is a
+strawberry pie that would melt in your mouth."
+
+"No, Leslie is expecting him and has his supper ready.  Besides, I want
+that strawberry pie for my own poor man.  He won't be home till late,
+so leave the pie and a glass of milk out for him, Susan."
+
+"That I will, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Susan is at the helm.  After all, it
+is better to give pie to your own men than to strangers, who may be
+only seeking to devour, and the doctor himself is as well-looking a man
+as you often come across."
+
+When Owen Ford came Anne secretly admitted, as Miss Cornelia towed him
+in, that he was very "well-looking" indeed.  He was tall and
+broad-shouldered, with thick, brown hair, finely-cut nose and chin,
+large and brilliant dark-gray eyes.
+
+"And did you notice his ears and his teeth, Mrs. Doctor, dear?" queried
+Susan later on.  "He has got the nicest-shaped ears I ever saw on a
+man's head.  I am choice about ears.  When I was young I was scared
+that I might have to marry a man with ears like flaps.  But I need not
+have worried, for never a chance did I have with any kind of ears."
+
+Anne had not noticed Owen Ford's ears, but she did see his teeth, as
+his lips parted over them in a frank and friendly smile.  Unsmiling,
+his face was rather sad and absent in expression, not unlike the
+melancholy, inscrutable hero of Anne's own early dreams; but mirth and
+humor and charm lighted it up when he smiled.  Certainly, on the
+outside, as Miss Cornelia said, Owen Ford was a very presentable fellow.
+
+"You cannot realise how delighted I am to be here, Mrs. Blythe," he
+said, looking around him with eager, interested eyes.  "I have an odd
+feeling of coming home.  My mother was born and spent her childhood
+here, you know.  She used to talk a great deal to me of her old home.
+I know the geography of it as well as of the one I lived in, and, of
+course, she told me the story of the building of the house, and of my
+grandfather's agonised watch for the Royal William.  I had thought that
+so old a house must have vanished years ago, or I should have come to
+see it before this."
+
+"Old houses don't vanish easily on this enchanted coast," smiled Anne.
+"This is a 'land where all things always seem the same'--nearly always,
+at least.  John Selwyn's house hasn't even been much changed, and
+outside the rose-bushes your grandfather planted for his bride are
+blooming this very minute."
+
+"How the thought links me with them!  With your leave I must explore
+the whole place soon."
+
+"Our latch-string will always be out for you," promised Anne.  "And do
+you know that the old sea captain who keeps the Four Winds light knew
+John Selwyn and his bride well in his boyhood?  He told me their story
+the night I came here--the third bride of the old house."
+
+"Can it be possible?  This IS a discovery.  I must hunt him up."
+
+"It won't be difficult; we are all cronies of Captain Jim.  He will be
+as eager to see you as you could be to see him.  Your grandmother
+shines like a star in his memory.  But I think Mrs. Moore is expecting
+you.  I'll show you our 'cross-lots' road."
+
+Anne walked with him to the house up the brook, over a field that was
+as white as snow with daisies.  A boat-load of people were singing far
+across the harbor.  The sound drifted over the water like faint,
+unearthly music wind-blown across a starlit sea.  The big light flashed
+and beaconed.  Owen Ford looked around him with satisfaction.
+
+"And so this is Four Winds," he said.  "I wasn't prepared to find it
+quite so beautiful, in spite of all mother's praises.  What
+colors--what scenery--what charm!  I shall get as strong as a horse in
+no time.  And if inspiration comes from beauty, I should certainly be
+able to begin my great Canadian novel here."
+
+"You haven't begun it yet?" asked Anne.
+
+"Alack-a-day, no.  I've never been able to get the right central idea
+for it.  It lurks beyond me--it allures--and beckons--and recedes--I
+almost grasp it and it is gone.  Perhaps amid this peace and
+loveliness, I shall be able to capture it.  Miss Bryant tells me that
+you write."
+
+"Oh, I do little things for children.  I haven't done much since I was
+married.  And--I have no designs on a great Canadian novel," laughed
+Anne.  "That is quite beyond me."
+
+Owen Ford laughed too.
+
+"I dare say it is beyond me as well.  All the same I mean to have a try
+at it some day, if I can ever get time.  A newspaper man doesn't have
+much chance for that sort of thing.  I've done a good deal of short
+story writing for the magazines, but I've never had the leisure that
+seems to be necessary for the writing of a book.  With three months of
+liberty I ought to make a start, though--if I could only get the
+necessary motif for it--the SOUL of the book."
+
+An idea whisked through Anne's brain with a suddenness that made her
+jump.  But she did not utter it, for they had reached the Moore house.
+As they entered the yard Leslie came out on the veranda from the side
+door, peering through the gloom for some sign of her expected guest.
+She stood just where the warm yellow light flooded her from the open
+door.  She wore a plain dress of cheap, cream-tinted cotton voile, with
+the usual girdle of crimson.  Leslie was never without her touch of
+crimson.  She had told Anne that she never felt satisfied without a
+gleam of red somewhere about her, if it were only a flower.  To Anne,
+it always seemed to symbolise Leslie's glowing, pent-up personality,
+denied all expression save in that flaming glint.  Leslie's dress was
+cut a little away at the neck and had short sleeves.  Her arms gleamed
+like ivory-tinted marble.  Every exquisite curve of her form was
+outlined in soft darkness against the light.  Her hair shone in it like
+flame.  Beyond her was a purple sky, flowering with stars over the
+harbor.
+
+Anne heard her companion give a gasp.  Even in the dusk she could see
+the amazement and admiration on his face.
+
+"Who is that beautiful creature?" he asked.
+
+"That is Mrs. Moore," said Anne.  "She is very lovely, isn't she?"
+
+"I--I never saw anything like her," he answered, rather dazedly.  "I
+wasn't prepared--I didn't expect--good heavens, one DOESN'T expect a
+goddess for a landlady! Why, if she were clothed in a gown of
+sea-purple, with a rope of amethysts in her hair, she would be a
+veritable sea-queen.  And she takes in boarders!"
+
+"Even goddesses must live," said Anne.  "And Leslie isn't a goddess.
+She's just a very beautiful woman, as human as the rest of us.  Did
+Miss Bryant tell you about Mr. Moore?"
+
+"Yes,--he's mentally deficient, or something of the sort, isn't he?
+But she said nothing about Mrs. Moore, and I supposed she'd be the
+usual hustling country housewife who takes in boarders to earn an
+honest penny."
+
+"Well, that's just what Leslie is doing," said Anne crisply.  "And it
+isn't altogether pleasant for her, either.  I hope you won't mind Dick.
+If you do, please don't let Leslie see it.  It would hurt her horribly.
+He's just a big baby, and sometimes a rather annoying one."
+
+"Oh, I won't mind him.  I don't suppose I'll be much in the house
+anyhow, except for meals.  But what a shame it all is!  Her life must
+be a hard one."
+
+"It is.  But she doesn't like to be pitied."
+
+Leslie had gone back into the house and now met them at the front door.
+She greeted Owen Ford with cold civility, and told him in a
+business-like tone that his room and his supper were ready for him.
+Dick, with a pleased grin, shambled upstairs with the valise, and Owen
+Ford was installed as an inmate of the old house among the willows.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 24
+
+THE LIFE-BOOK OF CAPTAIN JIM
+
+"I have a little brown cocoon of an idea that may possibly expand into
+a magnificent moth of fulfilment," Anne told Gilbert when she reached
+home.  He had returned earlier than she had expected, and was enjoying
+Susan's cherry pie.  Susan herself hovered in the background, like a
+rather grim but beneficent guardian spirit, and found as much pleasure
+in watching Gilbert eat pie as he did in eating it.
+
+ "What is your idea?" he asked.
+
+"I sha'n't tell you just yet--not till I see if I can bring the thing
+about."
+
+"What sort of a chap is Ford?"
+
+"Oh, very nice, and quite good-looking."
+
+"Such beautiful ears, doctor, dear," interjected Susan with a relish.
+
+"He is about thirty or thirty-five, I think, and he meditates writing a
+novel.  His voice is pleasant and his smile delightful, and he knows
+how to dress.  He looks as if life hadn't been altogether easy for him,
+somehow."
+
+Owen Ford came over the next evening with a note to Anne from Leslie;
+they spent the sunset time in the garden and then went for a moonlit
+sail on the harbor, in the little boat Gilbert had set up for summer
+outings.  They liked Owen immensely and had that feeling of having
+known him for many years which distinguishes the freemasonry of the
+house of Joseph.  "He is as nice as his ears, Mrs. Doctor, dear," said
+Susan, when he had gone.  He had told Susan that he had never tasted
+anything like her strawberry shortcake and Susan's susceptible heart
+was his forever.
+
+"He has got a way with him,"  she reflected, as she cleared up the
+relics of the supper.  "It is real queer he is not married, for a man
+like that could have anybody for the asking.  Well, maybe he is like
+me, and has not met the right one yet."
+
+Susan really grew quite romantic in her musings as she washed the
+supper dishes.
+
+Two nights later Anne took Owen Ford down to Four Winds Point to
+introduce him to Captain Jim.  The clover fields along the harbor shore
+were whitening in the western wind, and Captain Jim had one of his
+finest sunsets on exhibition.  He himself had just returned from a trip
+over the harbor.
+
+"I had to go over and tell Henry Pollack he was dying.  Everybody else
+was afraid to tell him.  They expected he'd take on turrible, for he's
+been dreadful determined to live, and been making no end of plans for
+the fall.  His wife thought he oughter be told and that I'd be the best
+one to break it to him that he couldn't get better.  Henry and me are
+old cronies--we sailed in the Gray Gull for years together.  Well, I
+went over and sat down by Henry's bed and I says to him, says I, jest
+right out plain and simple, for if a thing's got to be told it may as
+well be told first as last, says I, 'Mate, I reckon you've got your
+sailing orders this time,' I was sorter quaking inside, for it's an
+awful thing to have to tell a man who hain't any idea he's dying that
+he is.  But lo and behold, Mistress Blythe, Henry looks up at me, with
+those bright old black eyes of his in his wizened face and says, says
+he, 'Tell me something I don't know, Jim Boyd, if you want to give me
+information.  I've known THAT for a week.'  I was too astonished to
+speak, and Henry, he chuckled.  'To see you coming in here,' says he,
+'with your face as solemn as a tombstone and sitting down there with
+your hands clasped over your stomach, and passing me out a blue-mouldy
+old item of news like that!  It'd make a cat laugh, Jim Boyd,' says he.
+'Who told you?' says I, stupid like.  'Nobody,' says he.  'A week ago
+Tuesday night I was lying here awake--and I jest knew.  I'd suspicioned
+it before, but then I KNEW.  I've been keeping up for the wife's sake.
+And I'd LIKE to have got that barn built, for Eben'll never get it
+right.  But anyhow, now that you've eased your mind, Jim, put on a
+smile and tell me something interesting,' Well, there it was.  They'd
+been so scared to tell him and he knew it all the time.  Strange how
+nature looks out for us, ain't it, and lets us know what we should know
+when the time comes?  Did I never tell you the yarn about Henry getting
+the fish hook in his nose, Mistress Blythe?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, him and me had a laugh over it today.  It happened nigh unto
+thirty years ago.  Him and me and several more was out mackerel fishing
+one day.  It was a great day--never saw such a school of mackerel in
+the gulf--and in the general excitement Henry got quite wild and
+contrived to stick a fish hook clean through one side of his nose.
+Well, there he was; there was barb on one end and a big piece of lead
+on the other, so it couldn't be pulled out.  We wanted to take him
+ashore at once, but Henry was game; he said he'd be jiggered if he'd
+leave a school like that for anything short of lockjaw; then he kept
+fishing away, hauling in hand over fist and groaning between times.
+Fin'lly the school passed and we come in with a load; I got a file and
+begun to try to file through that hook.  I tried to be as easy as I
+could, but you should have heard Henry--no, you shouldn't either.  It
+was well no ladies were around.  Henry wasn't a swearing man, but he'd
+heard some few matters of that sort along shore in his time, and he
+fished 'em all out of his recollection and hurled 'em at me.  Fin'lly
+he declared he couldn't stand it and I had no bowels of compassion.  So
+we hitched up and I drove him to a doctor in Charlottetown, thirty-five
+miles--there weren't none nearer in them days--with that blessed hook
+still hanging from his nose.  When we got there old Dr. Crabb jest took
+a file and filed that hook jest the same as I'd tried to do, only he
+weren't a mite particular about doing it easy!"
+
+Captain Jim's visit to his old friend had revived many recollections
+and he was now in the full tide of reminiscences.
+
+"Henry was asking me today if I remembered the time old Father Chiniquy
+blessed Alexander MacAllister's boat.  Another odd yarn--and true as
+gospel.  I was in the boat myself.  We went out, him and me, in
+Alexander MacAllister's boat one morning at sunrise.  Besides, there
+was a French boy in the boat--Catholic of course.  You know old Father
+Chiniquy had turned Protestant, so the Catholics hadn't much use for
+him.  Well, we sat out in the gulf in the broiling sun till noon, and
+not a bite did we get.  When we went ashore old Father Chiniquy had to
+go, so he said in that polite way of his, 'I'm very sorry I cannot go
+out with you dis afternoon, Mr. MacAllister, but I leave you my
+blessing.  You will catch a t'ousand dis afternoon.  'Well, we did not
+catch a thousand, but we caught exactly nine hundred and
+ninety-nine--the biggest catch for a small boat on the whole north
+shore that summer.  Curious, wasn't it?  Alexander MacAllister, he says
+to Andrew Peters, 'Well, and what do you think of Father Chiniquy now?'
+'Vell,' growled Andrew, 'I t'ink de old devil has got a blessing left
+yet.'  Laws, how Henry did laugh over that today!"
+
+"Do you know who Mr. Ford is, Captain Jim?" asked Anne, seeing that
+Captain Jim's fountain of reminiscence had run out for the present.  "I
+want you to guess."
+
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+
+"I never was any hand at guessing, Mistress Blythe, and yet somehow
+when I come in I thought, 'Where have I seen them eyes before?'--for I
+HAVE seen 'em."
+
+"Think of a September morning many years ago," said Anne, softly.
+"Think of a ship sailing up the harbor--a ship long waited for and
+despaired of.  Think of the day the Royal William came in and the first
+look you had at the schoolmaster's bride."
+
+Captain Jim sprang up.
+
+"They're Persis Selwyn's eyes," he almost shouted.  "You can't be her
+son--you must be her--"
+
+"Grandson; yes, I am Alice Selwyn's son."
+
+Captain Jim swooped down on Owen Ford and shook his hand over again.
+
+"Alice Selwyn's son!  Lord, but you're welcome!  Many's the time I've
+wondered where the descendants of the schoolmaster were living.  I knew
+there was none on the Island.  Alice--Alice--the first baby ever born
+in that little house.  No baby ever brought more joy!  I've dandled her
+a hundred times.  It was from my knee she took her first steps alone.
+Can't I see her mother's face watching her--and it was near sixty years
+ago.  Is she living yet?"
+
+"No, she died when I was only a boy."
+
+"Oh, it doesn't seem right that I should be living to hear that,"
+sighed Captain Jim.  "But I'm heart-glad to see you.  It's brought back
+my youth for a little while.  You don't know yet what a boon THAT is.
+Mistress Blythe here has the trick--she does it quite often for me."
+
+Captain Jim was still more excited when he discovered that Owen Ford
+was what he called a "real writing man."  He gazed at him as at a
+superior being.  Captain Jim knew that Anne wrote, but he had never
+taken that fact very seriously.  Captain Jim thought women were
+delightful creatures, who ought to have the vote, and everything else
+they wanted, bless their hearts; but he did not believe they could
+write.
+
+"Jest look at A Mad Love," he would protest.  "A woman wrote that and
+jest look at it--one hundred and three chapters when it could all have
+been told in ten.  A writing woman never knows when to stop; that's the
+trouble.  The p'int of good writing is to know when to stop."
+
+"Mr. Ford wants to hear some of your stories, Captain Jim" said Anne.
+"Tell him the one about the captain who went crazy and imagined he was
+the Flying Dutchman."
+
+This was Captain Jim's best story.  It was a compound of horror and
+humor, and though Anne had heard it several times she laughed as
+heartily and shivered as fearsomely over it as Mr. Ford did.  Other
+tales followed, for Captain Jim had an audience after his own heart.
+He told how his vessel had been run down by a steamer; how he had been
+boarded by Malay pirates; how his ship had caught fire; how he helped a
+political prisoner escape from a South African republic; how he had
+been wrecked one fall on the Magdalens and stranded there for the
+winter; how a tiger had broken loose on board ship; how his crew had
+mutinied and marooned him on a barren island--these and many other
+tales, tragic or humorous or grotesque, did Captain Jim relate.  The
+mystery of the sea, the fascination of far lands, the lure of
+adventure, the laughter of the world--his hearers felt and realised
+them all.  Owen Ford listened, with his head on his hand, and the First
+Mate purring on his knee, his brilliant eyes fastened on Captain Jim's
+rugged, eloquent face.
+
+"Won't you let Mr. Ford see your life-book, Captain Jim?" asked Anne,
+when Captain Jim finally declared that yarn-spinning must end for the
+time.
+
+"Oh, he don't want to be bothered with THAT," protested Captain Jim,
+who was secretly dying to show it.
+
+"I should like nothing better than to see it, Captain Boyd," said Owen.
+"If it is half as wonderful as your tales it will be worth seeing."
+
+With pretended reluctance Captain Jim dug his life-book out of his old
+chest and handed it to Owen.
+
+"I reckon you won't care to wrastle long with my old hand o' write.  I
+never had much schooling," he observed carelessly.  "Just wrote that
+there to amuse my nephew Joe.  He's always wanting stories.  Comes here
+yesterday and says to me, reproachful-like, as I was lifting a
+twenty-pound codfish out of my boat, 'Uncle Jim, ain't a codfish a dumb
+animal?'  I'd been a-telling him, you see, that he must be real kind to
+dumb animals, and never hurt 'em in any way.  I got out of the scrape
+by saying a codfish was dumb enough but it wasn't an animal, but Joe
+didn't look satisfied, and I wasn't satisfied myself.  You've got to be
+mighty careful what you tell them little critters.  THEY can see
+through you."
+
+While talking, Captain Jim watched Owen Ford from the corner of his eye
+as the latter examined the life-book; and presently observing that his
+guest was lost in its pages, he turned smilingly to his cupboard and
+proceeded to make a pot of tea.  Owen Ford separated himself from the
+life-book, with as much reluctance as a miser wrenches himself from his
+gold, long enough to drink his tea, and then returned to it hungrily.
+
+"Oh, you can take that thing home with you if you want to," said
+Captain Jim, as if the "thing" were not his most treasured possession.
+"I must go down and pull my boat up a bit on the skids.  There's a wind
+coming.  Did you notice the sky tonight?
+
+    Mackerel skies and mares' tails
+    Make tall ships carry short sails."
+
+Owen Ford accepted the offer of the life-book gladly.  On their way
+home Anne told him the story of lost Margaret.
+
+"That old captain is a wonderful old fellow," he said.  "What a life he
+has led!  Why, the man had more adventures in one week of his life than
+most of us have in a lifetime.  Do you really think his tales are all
+true?"
+
+"I certainly do.  I am sure Captain Jim could not tell a lie; and
+besides, all the people about here say that everything happened as he
+relates it.  There used to be plenty of his old shipmates alive to
+corroborate him.  He's one of the last of the old type of P.E. Island
+sea-captains.  They are almost extinct now."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 25
+
+THE WRITING OF THE BOOK
+
+Owen Ford came over to the little house the next morning in a state of
+great excitement.  "Mrs. Blythe, this is a wonderful book--absolutely
+wonderful.  If I could take it and use the material for a book I feel
+certain I could make the novel of the year out of it.  Do you suppose
+Captain Jim would let me do it?"
+
+"Let you!  I'm sure he would be delighted," cried Anne.  "I admit that
+it was what was in my head when I took you down last night.  Captain
+Jim has always been wishing he could get somebody to write his
+life-book properly for him."
+
+"Will you go down to the Point with me this evening, Mrs. Blythe?  I'll
+ask him about that life-book myself, but I want you to tell him that
+you told me the story of lost Margaret and ask him if he will let me
+use it as a thread of romance with which to weave the stories of the
+life-book into a harmonious whole."
+
+Captain Jim was more excited than ever when Owen Ford told him of his
+plan.  At last his cherished dream was to be realized and his
+"life-book" given to the world.  He was also pleased that the story of
+lost Margaret should be woven into it.
+
+"It will keep her name from being forgotten," he said wistfully.
+
+"That's why I want it put in."
+
+"We'll collaborate," cried Owen delightedly.  "You will give the soul
+and I the body.  Oh, we'll write a famous book between us, Captain Jim.
+And we'll get right to work."
+
+"And to think my book is to be writ by the schoolmaster's grandson!"
+exclaimed Captain Jim.  "Lad, your grandfather was my dearest friend.
+I thought there was nobody like him.  I see now why I had to wait so
+long.  It couldn't be writ till the right man come.  You BELONG
+here--you've got the soul of this old north shore in you--you're the
+only one who COULD write it."
+
+It was arranged that the tiny room off the living room at the
+lighthouse should be given over to Owen for a workshop.  It was
+necessary that Captain Jim should be near him as he wrote, for
+consultation upon many matters of sea-faring and gulf lore of which
+Owen was quite ignorant.
+
+He began work on the book the very next morning, and flung himself into
+it heart and soul.  As for Captain Jim, he was a happy man that summer.
+He looked upon the little room where Owen worked as a sacred shrine.
+Owen talked everything over with Captain Jim, but he would not let him
+see the manuscript.
+
+"You must wait until it is published," he said.  "Then you'll get it
+all at once in its best shape."
+
+He delved into the treasures of the life-book and used them freely.  He
+dreamed and brooded over lost Margaret until she became a vivid reality
+to him and lived in his pages.  As the book progressed it took
+possession of him and he worked at it with feverish eagerness.  He let
+Anne and Leslie read the manuscript and criticise it; and the
+concluding chapter of the book, which the critics, later on, were
+pleased to call idyllic, was modelled upon a suggestion of Leslie's.
+
+Anne fairly hugged herself with delight over the success of her idea.
+
+"I knew when I looked at Owen Ford that he was the very man for it,"
+she told Gilbert.  "Both humor and passion were in his face, and that,
+together with the art of expression, was just what was necessary for
+the writing of such a book.  As Mrs. Rachel would say, he was
+predestined for the part."
+
+Owen Ford wrote in the mornings.  The afternoons were generally spent
+in some merry outing with the Blythes.  Leslie often went, too, for
+Captain Jim took charge of Dick frequently, in order to set her free.
+They went boating on the harbor and up the three pretty rivers that
+flowed into it; they had clambakes on the bar and mussel-bakes on the
+rocks; they picked strawberries on the sand-dunes; they went out
+cod-fishing with Captain Jim; they shot plover in the shore fields and
+wild ducks in the cove--at least, the men did.  In the evenings they
+rambled in the low-lying, daisied, shore fields under a golden moon, or
+they sat in the living room at the little house where often the
+coolness of the sea breeze justified a driftwood fire, and talked of
+the thousand and one things which happy, eager, clever young people can
+find to talk about.
+
+Ever since the day on which she had made her confession to Anne Leslie
+had been a changed creature.  There was no trace of her old coldness
+and reserve, no shadow of her old bitterness.  The girlhood of which
+she had been cheated seemed to come back to her with the ripeness of
+womanhood; she expanded like a flower of flame and perfume; no laugh
+was readier than hers, no wit quicker, in the twilight circles of that
+enchanted summer.  When she could not be with them all felt that some
+exquisite savor was lacking in their intercourse.  Her beauty was
+illumined by the awakened soul within, as some rosy lamp might shine
+through a flawless vase of alabaster.  There were hours when Anne's
+eyes seemed to ache with the splendor of her.  As for Owen Ford, the
+"Margaret" of his book, although she had the soft brown hair and elfin
+face of the real girl who had vanished so long ago, "pillowed where
+lost Atlantis sleeps," had the personality of Leslie Moore, as it was
+revealed to him in those halcyon days at Four Winds Harbor.
+
+All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer--one of those summers
+which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful
+memories in their going--one of those summers which, in a fortunate
+combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful
+doings, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world.
+
+"Too good to last," Anne told herself with a little sigh, on the
+September day when a certain nip in the wind and a certain shade of
+intense blue on the gulf water said that autumn was hard by.
+
+That evening Owen Ford told them that he had finished his book and that
+his vacation must come to an end.
+
+"I have a good deal to do to it yet--revising and pruning and so
+forth," he said, "but in the main it's done.  I wrote the last sentence
+this morning.  If I can find a publisher for it it will probably be out
+next summer or fall."
+
+Owen had not much doubt that he would find a publisher.  He knew that
+he had written a great book--a book that would score a wonderful
+success--a book that would LIVE.  He knew that it would bring him both
+fame and fortune; but when he had written the last line of it he had
+bowed his head on the manuscript and so sat for a long time.  And his
+thoughts were not of the good work he had done.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 26
+
+OWEN FORD'S CONFESSION
+
+"I'm so sorry Gilbert is away," said Anne.  "He had to go--Allan Lyons
+at the Glen has met with a serious accident.  He will not likely be
+home till very late.  But he told me to tell you he'd be up and over
+early enough in the morning to see you before you left.  It's too
+provoking.  Susan and I had planned such a nice little jamboree for
+your last night here."
+
+She was sitting beside the garden brook on the little rustic seat
+Gilbert had built.  Owen Ford stood before her, leaning against the
+bronze column of a yellow birch.  He was very pale and his face bore
+the marks of the preceding sleepless night.  Anne, glancing up at him,
+wondered if, after all, his summer had brought him the strength it
+should.  Had he worked too hard over his book?  She remembered that for
+a week he had not been looking well.
+
+"I'm rather glad the doctor is away," said Owen slowly.  "I wanted to
+see you alone, Mrs. Blythe.  There is something I must tell somebody,
+or I think it will drive me mad.  I've been trying for a week to look
+it in the face--and I can't.  I know I can trust you--and, besides, you
+will understand.  A woman with eyes like yours always understands.  You
+are one of the folks people instinctively tell things to.  Mrs. Blythe,
+I love Leslie.  LOVE her!  That seems too weak a word!"
+
+His voice suddenly broke with the suppressed passion of his utterance.
+He turned his head away and hid his face on his arm.  His whole form
+shook.  Anne sat looking at him, pale and aghast.  She had never
+thought of this!  And yet--how was it she had never thought of it?  It
+now seemed a natural and inevitable thing.  She wondered at her own
+blindness.  But--but--things like this did not happen in Four Winds.
+Elsewhere in the world human passions might set at defiance human
+conventions and laws--but not HERE, surely.  Leslie had kept summer
+boarders off and on for ten years, and nothing like this had happened.
+But perhaps they had not been like Owen Ford; and the vivid, LIVING
+Leslie of this summer was not the cold, sullen girl of other years.
+Oh, SOMEBODY should have thought of this!  Why hadn't Miss Cornelia
+thought of it?  Miss Cornelia was always ready enough to sound the
+alarm where men were concerned. Anne felt an unreasonable resentment
+against Miss Cornelia.  Then she gave a little inward groan.  No matter
+who was to blame the mischief was done.  And Leslie--what of Leslie?
+It was for Leslie Anne felt most concerned.
+
+"Does Leslie know this, Mr. Ford?" she asked quietly.
+
+"No--no,--unless she has guessed it.  You surely don't think I'd be cad
+and scoundrel enough to tell her, Mrs. Blythe.  I couldn't help loving
+her--that's all--and my misery is greater than I can bear."
+
+"Does SHE care?" asked Anne.  The moment the question crossed her lips
+she felt that she should not have asked it.  Owen Ford answered it with
+overeager protest.
+
+"No--no, of course not.  But I could make her care if she were free--I
+know I could."
+
+"She does care--and he knows it," thought Anne.  Aloud she said,
+sympathetically but decidedly:
+
+"But she is not free, Mr. Ford.  And the only thing you can do is to go
+away in silence and leave her to her own life."
+
+"I know--I know," groaned Owen.  He sat down on the grassy bank and
+stared moodily into the amber water beneath him.  "I know there's
+nothing to do--nothing but to say conventionally, 'Good-bye, Mrs.
+Moore.  Thank you for all your kindness to me this summer,' just as I
+would have said it to the sonsy, bustling, keen-eyed housewife I
+expected her to be when I came.  Then I'll pay my board money like any
+honest boarder and go!  Oh, it's very simple.  No doubt--no
+perplexity--a straight road to the end of the world!
+
+"And I'll walk it--you needn't fear that I won't, Mrs. Blythe.  But it
+would be easier to walk over red-hot ploughshares."
+
+Anne flinched with the pain of his voice.  And there was so little she
+could say that would be adequate to the situation.  Blame was out of
+the question--advice was not needed--sympathy was mocked by the man's
+stark agony.  She could only feel with him in a maze of compassion and
+regret.  Her heart ached for Leslie!  Had not that poor girl suffered
+enough without this?
+
+"It wouldn't be so hard to go and leave her if she were only happy,"
+resumed Owen passionately.  "But to think of her living death--to
+realise what it is to which I do leave her!  THAT is the worst of all.
+I would give my life to make her happy--and I can do nothing even to
+help her--nothing.  She is bound forever to that poor wretch--with
+nothing to look forward to but growing old in a succession of empty,
+meaningless, barren years.  It drives me mad to think of it.  But I
+must go through my life, never seeing her, but always knowing what she
+is enduring.  It's hideous--hideous!"
+
+"It is very hard," said Anne sorrowfully.  "We--her friends here--all
+know how hard it is for her."
+
+"And she is so richly fitted for life," said Owen rebelliously.
+
+"Her beauty is the least of her dower--and she is the most beautiful
+woman I've ever known.  That laugh of hers!  I've angled all summer to
+evoke that laugh, just for the delight of hearing it.  And her
+eyes--they are as deep and blue as the gulf out there.  I never saw
+such blueness--and gold!  Did you ever see her hair down, Mrs. Blythe?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I did--once.  I had gone down to the Point to go fishing with Captain
+Jim but it was too rough to go out, so I came back.  She had taken the
+opportunity of what she expected to be an afternoon alone to wash her
+hair, and she was standing on the veranda in the sunshine to dry it.
+It fell all about her to her feet in a fountain of living gold.  When
+she saw me she hurried in, and the wind caught her hair and swirled it
+all around her--Danae in her cloud.  Somehow, just then the knowledge
+that I loved her came home to me--and realised that I had loved her
+from the moment I first saw her standing against the darkness in that
+glow of light.  And she must live on here--petting and soothing Dick,
+pinching and saving for a mere existence, while I spend my life longing
+vainly for her, and debarred, by that very fact, from even giving her
+the little help a friend might.  I walked the shore last night, almost
+till dawn, and thrashed it all out over and over again.  And yet, in
+spite of everything, I can't find it in my heart to be sorry that I
+came to Four Winds.  It seems to me that, bad as everything is, it
+would be still worse never to have known Leslie.  It's burning, searing
+pain to love her and leave her--but not to have loved her is
+unthinkable.  I suppose all this sounds very crazy--all these terrible
+emotions always do sound foolish when we put them into our inadequate
+words.  They are not meant to be spoken--only felt and endured.  I
+shouldn't have spoken--but it has helped--some.  At least, it has given
+me strength to go away respectably tomorrow morning, without making a
+scene.  You'll write me now and then, won't you, Mrs. Blythe, and give
+me what news there is to give of her?"
+
+"Yes," said Anne.  "Oh, I'm so sorry you are going--we'll miss you
+so--we've all been such friends!  If it were not for this you could
+come back other summers.  Perhaps, even yet--by-and-by--when you've
+forgotten, perhaps--"
+
+"I shall never forget--and I shall never come back to Four Winds," said
+Owen briefly.
+
+Silence and twilight fell over the garden.  Far away the sea was
+lapping gently and monotonously on the bar.  The wind of evening in the
+poplars sounded like some sad, weird, old rune--some broken dream of
+old memories.  A slender shapely young aspen rose up before them
+against the fine maize and emerald and paling rose of the western sky,
+which brought out every leaf and twig in dark, tremulous, elfin
+loveliness.
+
+"Isn't that beautiful?" said Owen, pointing to it with the air of a man
+who puts a certain conversation behind him.
+
+"It's so beautiful that it hurts me," said Anne softly.  "Perfect
+things like that always did hurt me--I remember I called it 'the queer
+ache' when I was a child.  What is the reason that pain like this seems
+inseparable from perfection?  Is it the pain of finality--when we
+realise that there can be nothing beyond but retrogression?"
+
+"Perhaps," said Owen dreamily, "it is the prisoned infinite in us
+calling out to its kindred infinite as expressed in that visible
+perfection."
+
+"You seem to have a cold in the head.  Better rub some tallow on your
+nose when you go to bed," said Miss Cornelia, who had come in through
+the little gate between the firs in time to catch Owen's last remark.
+Miss Cornelia liked Owen; but it was a matter of principle with her to
+visit any "high-falutin" language from a man with a snub.
+
+Miss Cornelia personated the comedy that ever peeps around the corner
+at the tragedy of life.  Anne, whose nerves had been rather strained,
+laughed hysterically, and even Owen smiled.  Certainly, sentiment and
+passion had a way of shrinking out of sight in Miss Cornelia's
+presence.  And yet to Anne nothing seemed quite as hopeless and dark
+and painful as it had seemed a few moments before.  But sleep was far
+from her eyes that night.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 27
+
+ON THE SAND BAR
+
+Owen Ford left Four Winds the next morning.  In the evening Anne went
+over to see Leslie, but found nobody.  The house was locked and there
+was no light in any window.  It looked like a home left soulless.
+Leslie did not run over on the following day--which Anne thought a bad
+sign.
+
+Gilbert having occasion to go in the evening to the fishing cove, Anne
+drove with him to the Point, intending to stay awhile with Captain Jim.
+But the great light, cutting its swathes through the fog of the autumn
+evening, was in care of Alec Boyd and Captain Jim was away.
+
+"What will you do?" asked Gilbert.  "Come with me?"
+
+"I don't want to go to the cove--but I'll go over the channel with you,
+and roam about on the sand shore till you come back.  The rock shore is
+too slippery and grim tonight."
+
+Alone on the sands of the bar Anne gave herself up to the eerie charm
+of the night.  It was warm for September, and the late afternoon had
+been very foggy; but a full moon had in part lessened the fog and
+transformed the harbor and the gulf and the surrounding shores into a
+strange, fantastic, unreal world of pale silver mist, through which
+everything loomed phantom-like.  Captain Josiah Crawford's black
+schooner sailing down the channel, laden with potatoes for Bluenose
+ports, was a spectral ship bound for a far uncharted land, ever
+receding, never to be reached.  The calls of unseen gulls overhead were
+the cries of the souls of doomed seamen.  The little curls of foam that
+blew across the sand were elfin things stealing up from the sea-caves.
+The big, round-shouldered sand-dunes were the sleeping giants of some
+old northern tale.  The lights that glimmered palely across the harbor
+were the delusive beacons on some coast of fairyland.  Anne pleased
+herself with a hundred fancies as she wandered through the mist.  It
+was delightful--romantic--mysterious to be roaming here alone on this
+enchanted shore.
+
+But was she alone?  Something loomed in the mist before her--took shape
+and form--suddenly moved towards her across the wave-rippled sand.
+
+"Leslie!" exclaimed Anne in amazement.  "Whatever are you
+doing--HERE--tonight?"
+
+"If it comes to that, whatever are YOU doing here?" said Leslie, trying
+to laugh.  The effort was a failure.  She looked very pale and tired;
+but the love locks under her scarlet cap were curling about her face
+and eyes like little sparkling rings of gold.
+
+"I'm waiting for Gilbert--he's over at the Cove.  I intended to stay at
+the light, but Captain Jim is away."
+
+"Well, _I_ came here because I wanted to walk--and walk--and WALK,"
+said Leslie restlessly.  "I couldn't on the rock shore--the tide was
+too high and the rocks prisoned me.  I had to come here--or I should
+have gone mad, I think.  I rowed myself over the channel in Captain
+Jim's flat.  I've been here for an hour.  Come--come--let us walk.  I
+can't stand still.  Oh, Anne!"
+
+"Leslie, dearest, what is the trouble?" asked Anne, though she knew too
+well already.
+
+"I can't tell you--don't ask me.  I wouldn't mind your knowing--I wish
+you did know--but I can't tell you--I can't tell anyone.  I've been
+such a fool, Anne--and oh, it hurts so terribly to be a fool.  There's
+nothing so painful in the world."
+
+She laughed bitterly.  Anne slipped her arm around her.
+
+"Leslie, is it that you have learned to care for Mr. Ford?"
+
+Leslie turned herself about passionately.
+
+"How did you know?" she cried.  "Anne, how did you know?  Oh, is it
+written in my face for everyone to see?  Is it as plain as that?"
+
+"No, no.  I--I can't tell you how I knew.  It just came into my mind,
+somehow.  Leslie, don't look at me like that!"
+
+"Do you despise me?" demanded Leslie in a fierce, low tone.  "Do you
+think I'm wicked--unwomanly?  Or do you think I'm just plain fool?"
+
+"I don't think you any of those things.  Come, dear, let's just talk it
+over sensibly, as we might talk over any other of the great crises of
+life.  You've been brooding over it and let yourself drift into a
+morbid view of it.  You know you have a little tendency to do that
+about everything that goes wrong, and you promised me that you would
+fight against it."
+
+"But--oh, it's so--so shameful," murmured Leslie.  "To love
+him--unsought--and when I'm not free to love anybody."
+
+"There's nothing shameful about it.  But I'm very sorry that you have
+learned to care for Owen, because, as things are, it will only make you
+more unhappy."
+
+"I didn't LEARN to care," said Leslie, walking on and speaking
+passionately.  "If it had been like that I could have prevented it.  I
+never dreamed of such a thing until that day, a week ago, when he told
+me he had finished his book and must soon go away.  Then--then I knew.
+I felt as if someone had struck me a terrible blow.  I didn't say
+anything--I couldn't speak--but I don't know what I looked like.  I'm
+so afraid my face betrayed me.  Oh, I would die of shame if I thought
+he knew--or suspected."
+
+Anne was miserably silent, hampered by her deductions from her
+conversation with Owen.  Leslie went on feverishly, as if she found
+relief in speech.
+
+"I was so happy all this summer, Anne--happier than I ever was in my
+life.  I thought it was because everything had been made clear between
+you and me, and that it was our friendship which made life seem so
+beautiful and full once more.  And it WAS, in part--but not all--oh,
+not nearly all.  I know now why everything was so different.  And now
+it's all over--and he has gone.  How can I live, Anne?  When I turned
+back into the house this morning after he had gone the solitude struck
+me like a blow in the face."
+
+"It won't seem so hard by and by, dear," said Anne, who always felt the
+pain of her friends so keenly that she could not speak easy, fluent
+words of comforting.  Besides, she remembered how well-meant speeches
+had hurt her in her own sorrow and was afraid.
+
+"Oh, it seems to me it will grow harder all the time," said Leslie
+miserably.  "I've nothing to look forward to.  Morning will come after
+morning--and he will not come back--he will never come back.  Oh, when
+I think that I will never see him again I feel as if a great brutal
+hand had twisted itself among my heartstrings, and was wrenching them.
+Once, long ago, I dreamed of love--and I thought it must be
+beautiful--and NOW--its like THIS.  When he went away yesterday morning
+he was so cold and indifferent.  He said 'Good-bye, Mrs. Moore' in the
+coldest tone in the world--as if we had not even been friends--as if I
+meant absolutely nothing to him.  I know I don't--I didn't want him to
+care--but he MIGHT have been a little kinder."
+
+"Oh, I wish Gilbert would come," thought Anne.  She was racked between
+her sympathy for Leslie and the necessity of avoiding anything that
+would betray Owen's confidence.  She knew why his good-bye had been so
+cold--why it could not have the cordiality that their good-comradeship
+demanded--but she could not tell Leslie.
+
+"I couldn't help it, Anne--I couldn't help it," said poor Leslie.
+
+"I know that."
+
+"Do you blame me so very much?"
+
+"I don't blame you at all."
+
+"And you won't--you won't tell Gilbert?"
+
+"Leslie!  Do you think I would do such a thing?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know--you and Gilbert are such CHUMS.  I don't see how you
+could help telling him everything."
+
+"Everything about my own concerns--yes.  But not my friends' secrets."
+
+"I couldn't have HIM know.  But I'm glad YOU know.  I would feel guilty
+if there were anything I was ashamed to tell you.  I hope Miss Cornelia
+won't find out.  Sometimes I feel as if those terrible, kind brown eyes
+of hers read my very soul.  Oh, I wish this mist would never lift--I
+wish I could just stay in it forever, hidden away from every living
+being.  I don't see how I can go on with life.  This summer has been so
+full.  I never was lonely for a moment.  Before Owen came there used to
+be horrible moments--when I had been with you and Gilbert--and then had
+to leave you.  You two would walk away together and I would walk away
+ALONE.  After Owen came he was always there to walk home with me--we
+would laugh and talk as you and Gilbert were doing--there were no more
+lonely, envious moments for me.  And NOW!  Oh, yes, I've been a fool.
+Let's have done talking about my folly.  I'll never bore you with it
+again."
+
+"Here is Gilbert, and you are coming back with us," said Anne, who had
+no intention of leaving Leslie to wander alone on the sand-bar on such
+a night and in such a mood.  "There's plenty of room in our boat for
+three, and we'll tie the flat on behind."
+
+"Oh, I suppose I must reconcile myself to being the odd one again,"
+said poor Leslie with another bitter laugh.  "Forgive me, Anne--that
+was hateful.  I ought to be thankful--and I AM--that I have two good
+friends who are glad to count me in as a third.  Don't mind my hateful
+speeches.  I just seem to be one great pain all over and everything
+hurts me."
+
+"Leslie seemed very quiet tonight, didn't she?" said Gilbert, when he
+and Anne reached home.  "What in the world was she doing over there on
+the bar alone?"
+
+"Oh, she was tired--and you know she likes to go to the shore after one
+of Dick's bad days."
+
+"What a pity she hadn't met and married a fellow like Ford long ago,"
+ruminated Gilbert.  "They'd have made an ideal couple, wouldn't they?"
+
+"For pity's sake, Gilbert, don't develop into a match-maker.  It's an
+abominable profession for a man," cried Anne rather sharply, afraid
+that Gilbert might blunder on the truth if he kept on in this strain.
+
+"Bless us, Anne-girl, I'm not matchmaking," protested Gilbert, rather
+surprised at her tone.  "I was only thinking of one of the
+might-have-beens."
+
+"Well, don't.  It's a waste of time," said Anne.  Then she added
+suddenly:
+
+"Oh, Gilbert, I wish everybody could be as happy as we are."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 28
+
+ODDS AND ENDS
+
+"I've been reading obituary notices," said Miss Cornelia, laying down
+the Daily Enterprise and taking up her sewing.
+
+The harbor was lying black and sullen under a dour November sky; the
+wet, dead leaves clung drenched and sodden to the window sills; but the
+little house was gay with firelight and spring-like with Anne's ferns
+and geraniums.
+
+"It's always summer here, Anne," Leslie had said one day; and all who
+were the guests of that house of dreams felt the same.
+
+"The Enterprise seems to run to obituaries these days," quoth Miss
+Cornelia.  "It always has a couple of columns of them, and I read every
+line.  It's one of my forms of recreation, especially when there's some
+original poetry attached to them.  Here's a choice sample for you:
+
+    She's gone to be with her Maker,
+    Never more to roam.
+    She used to play and sing with joy
+    The song of Home, Sweet Home.
+
+Who says we haven't any poetical talent on the Island!  Have you ever
+noticed what heaps of good people die, Anne, dearie?  It's kind of
+pitiful.  Here's ten obituaries, and every one of them saints and
+models, even the men.  Here's old Peter Stimson, who has 'left a large
+circle of friends to mourn his untimely loss.' Lord, Anne, dearie, that
+man was eighty, and everybody who knew him had been wishing him dead
+these thirty years.  Read obituaries when you're blue, Anne,
+dearie--especially the ones of folks you know.  If you've any sense of
+humor at all they'll cheer you up, believe ME.  I just wish _I_ had the
+writing of the obituaries of some people.  Isn't 'obituary' an awful
+ugly word?  This very Peter I've been speaking of had a face exactly
+like one.  I never saw it but I thought of the word OBITUARY then and
+there.  There's only one uglier word that I know of, and that's RELICT.
+Lord, Anne, dearie, I may be an old maid, but there's this comfort in
+it--I'll never be any man's 'relict.'"
+
+"It IS an ugly word," said Anne, laughing.  "Avonlea graveyard was full
+of old tombstones 'sacred to the memory of So-and-So, RELICT of the
+late So-and-So.'  It always made me think of something worn out and
+moth eaten.  Why is it that so many of the words connected with death
+are so disagreeable?  I do wish that the custom of calling a dead body
+'the remains' could be abolished.  I positively shiver when I hear the
+undertaker say at a funeral, 'All who wish to see the remains please
+step this way.'  It always gives me the horrible impression that I am
+about to view the scene of a cannibal feast."
+
+"Well, all I hope," said Miss Cornelia calmly, "is that when I'm dead
+nobody will call me 'our departed sister.'  I took a scunner at this
+sister-and-brothering business five years ago when there was a
+travelling evangelist holding meetings at the Glen.  I hadn't any use
+for him from the start.  I felt in my bones that there was something
+wrong with him.  And there was.  Mind you, he was pretending to be a
+Presbyterian--PresbyTARian, HE called it--and all the time he was a
+Methodist.  He brothered and sistered everybody.  He had a large circle
+of relations, that man had.  He clutched my hand fervently one night,
+and said imploringly, 'My DEAR sister Bryant, are you a Christian?'  I
+just looked him over a bit, and then I said calmly, 'The only brother I
+ever had, MR. Fiske, was buried fifteen years ago, and I haven't
+adopted any since.  As for being a Christian, I was that, I hope and
+believe, when you were crawling about the floor in petticoats.'  THAT
+squelched him, believe ME.  Mind you, Anne dearie, I'm not down on all
+evangelists.  We've had some real fine, earnest men, who did a lot of
+good and made the old sinners squirm.  But this Fiske-man wasn't one of
+them.  I had a good laugh all to myself one evening.  Fiske had asked
+all who were Christians to stand up.  _I_ didn't, believe me!  I never
+had any use for that sort of thing.  But most of them did, and then he
+asked all who wanted to be Christians to stand up.  Nobody stirred for
+a spell, so Fiske started up a hymn at the top of his voice.  Just in
+front of me poor little Ikey Baker was sitting in the Millison pew.  He
+was a home boy, ten years old, and Millison just about worked him to
+death.  The poor little creature was always so tired he fell asleep
+right off whenever he went to church or anywhere he could sit still for
+a few minutes.  He'd been sleeping all through the meeting, and I was
+thankful to see the poor child getting a rest, believe ME.  Well, when
+Fiske's voice went soaring skyward and the rest joined in, poor Ikey
+wakened with a start.  He thought it was just an ordinary singing and
+that everybody ought to stand up, so he scrambled to his feet mighty
+quick, knowing he'd get a combing down from Maria Millison for sleeping
+in meeting.  Fiske saw him, stopped and shouted, 'Another soul saved!
+Glory Hallelujah!'  And there was poor, frightened Ikey, only half
+awake and yawning, never thinking about his soul at all.  Poor child,
+he never had time to think of anything but his tired, overworked little
+body.
+
+"Leslie went one night and the Fiske-man got right after her--oh, he
+was especially anxious about the souls of the nice-looking girls,
+believe me!--and he hurt her feelings so she never went again.  And
+then he prayed every night after that, right in public, that the Lord
+would soften her hard heart.  Finally I went to Mr. Leavitt, our
+minister then, and told him if he didn't make Fiske stop that I'd just
+rise up the next night and throw my hymn book at him when he mentioned
+that 'beautiful but unrepentant young woman.'  I'd have done it too,
+believe ME.  Mr. Leavitt did put a stop to it, but Fiske kept on with
+his meetings until Charley Douglas put an end to his career in the
+Glen.  Mrs. Charley had been out in California all winter.  She'd been
+real melancholy in the fall--religious melancholy--it ran in her
+family.  Her father worried so much over believing that he had
+committed the unpardonable sin that he died in the asylum.  So when
+Rose Douglas got that way Charley packed her off to visit her sister in
+Los Angeles.  She got perfectly well and came home just when the Fiske
+revival was in full swing.  She stepped off the train at the Glen, real
+smiling and chipper, and the first thing she saw staring her in the
+face on the black, gable-end of the freight shed, was the question, in
+big white letters, two feet high, 'Whither goest thou--to heaven or
+hell?' That had been one of Fiske's ideas, and he had got Henry Hammond
+to paint it.  Rose just gave a shriek and fainted; and when they got
+her home she was worse than ever.  Charley Douglas went to Mr. Leavitt
+and told him that every Douglas would leave the church if Fiske was
+kept there any longer.  Mr. Leavitt had to give in, for the Douglases
+paid half his salary, so Fiske departed, and we had to depend on our
+Bibles once more for instructions on how to get to heaven.  After he
+was gone Mr. Leavitt found out he was just a masquerading Methodist,
+and he felt pretty sick, believe ME.  Mr. Leavitt fell short in some
+ways, but he was a good, sound Presbyterian."
+
+"By the way, I had a letter from Mr. Ford yesterday," said Anne.  "He
+asked me to remember him kindly to you."
+
+"I don't want his remembrances," said Miss Cornelia, curtly.
+
+"Why?" said Anne, in astonishment.  "I thought you liked him."
+
+"Well, so I did, in a kind of way.  But I'll never forgive him for what
+he done to Leslie.  There's that poor child eating her heart out about
+him--as if she hadn't had trouble enough--and him ranting round
+Toronto, I've no doubt, enjoying himself same as ever.  Just like a
+man."
+
+"Oh, Miss Cornelia, how did you find out?"
+
+"Lord, Anne, dearie, I've got eyes, haven't I?  And I've known Leslie
+since she was a baby.  There's been a new kind of heartbreak in her
+eyes all the fall, and I know that writer-man was behind it somehow.
+I'll never forgive myself for being the means of bringing him here.
+But I never expected he'd be like he was.  I thought he'd just be like
+the other men Leslie had boarded--conceited young asses, every one of
+them, that she never had any use for.  One of them did try to flirt
+with her once and she froze him out--so bad, I feel sure he's never got
+himself thawed since.  So I never thought of any danger."
+
+"Don't let Leslie suspect you know her secret," said Anne hurriedly.
+"I think it would hurt her."
+
+"Trust me, Anne, dearie.  _I_ wasn't born yesterday.  Oh, a plague on
+all the men!  One of them ruined Leslie's life to begin with, and now
+another of the tribe comes and makes her still more wretched.  Anne,
+this world is an awful place, believe me."
+
+    "There's something in the world amiss
+    Will be unriddled by and by,"
+
+quoted Anne dreamily.
+
+"If it is, it'll be in a world where there aren't any men," said Miss
+Cornelia gloomily.
+
+"What have the men been doing now?" asked Gilbert, entering.
+
+"Mischief--mischief!  What else did they ever do?"
+
+"It was Eve ate the apple, Miss Cornelia."
+
+"'Twas a he-creature tempted her," retorted Miss Cornelia triumphantly.
+
+Leslie, after her first anguish was over, found it possible to go on
+with life after all, as most of us do, no matter what our particular
+form of torment has been.  It is even possible that she enjoyed moments
+of it, when she was one of the gay circle in the little house of
+dreams.  But if Anne ever hoped that she was forgetting Owen Ford she
+would have been undeceived by the furtive hunger in Leslie's eyes
+whenever his name was mentioned.  Pitiful to that hunger, Anne always
+contrived to tell Captain Jim or Gilbert bits of news from Owen's
+letters when Leslie was with them.  The girl's flush and pallor at such
+moments spoke all too eloquently of the emotion that filled her being.
+But she never spoke of him to Anne, or mentioned that night on the
+sand-bar.
+
+One day her old dog died and she grieved bitterly over him.
+
+"He's been my friend so long," she said sorrowfully to Anne.  "He was
+Dick's old dog, you know--Dick had him for a year or so before we were
+married.  He left him with me when he sailed on the Four Sisters.
+Carlo got very fond of me--and his dog-love helped me through that
+first dreadful year after mother died, when I was alone.  When I heard
+that Dick was coming back I was afraid Carlo wouldn't be so much mine.
+But he never seemed to care for Dick, though he had been so fond of him
+once.  He would snap and growl at him as if he were a stranger.  I was
+glad.  It was nice to have one thing whose love was all mine.  That old
+dog has been such a comfort to me, Anne.  He got so feeble in the fall
+that I was afraid he couldn't live long--but I hoped I could nurse him
+through the winter.  He seemed pretty well this morning.  He was lying
+on the rug before the fire; then, all at once, he got up and crept over
+to me; he put his head on my lap and gave me one loving look out of his
+big, soft, dog eyes--and then he just shivered and died.  I shall miss
+him so."
+
+"Let me give you another dog, Leslie," said Anne.  "I'm getting a
+lovely Gordon setter for a Christmas present for Gilbert.  Let me give
+you one too."
+
+Leslie shook her head.
+
+"Not just now, thank you, Anne.  I don't feel like having another dog
+yet.  I don't seem to have any affection left for another.  Perhaps--in
+time--I'll let you give me one.  I really need one as a kind of
+protection.  But there was something almost human about Carlo--it
+wouldn't be DECENT to fill his place too hurriedly, dear old fellow."
+
+Anne went to Avonlea a week before Christmas and stayed until after the
+holidays.  Gilbert came up for her, and there was a glad New Year
+celebration at Green Gables, when Barrys and Blythes and Wrights
+assembled to devour a dinner which had cost Mrs. Rachel and Marilla
+much careful thought and preparation.  When they went back to Four
+Winds the little house was almost drifted over, for the third storm of
+a winter that was to prove phenomenally stormy had whirled up the
+harbor and heaped huge snow mountains about everything it encountered.
+But Captain Jim had shovelled out doors and paths, and Miss Cornelia
+had come down and kindled the hearth-fire.
+
+"It's good to see you back, Anne, dearie!  But did you ever see such
+drifts?  You can't see the Moore place at all unless you go upstairs.
+Leslie'll be so glad you're back.  She's almost buried alive over
+there.  Fortunately Dick can shovel snow, and thinks it's great fun.
+Susan sent me word to tell you she would be on hand tomorrow.  Where
+are you off to now, Captain?"
+
+"I reckon I'll plough up to the Glen and sit a bit with old Martin
+Strong.  He's not far from his end and he's lonesome.  He hasn't many
+friends--been too busy all his life to make any.  He's made heaps of
+money, though."
+
+"Well, he thought that since he couldn't serve God and Mammon he'd
+better stick to Mammon," said Miss Cornelia crisply.  "So he shouldn't
+complain if he doesn't find Mammon very good company now."
+
+Captain Jim went out, but remembered something in the yard and turned
+back for a moment.
+
+"I'd a letter from Mr. Ford, Mistress Blythe, and he says the life-book
+is accepted and is going to be published next fall.  I felt fair
+uplifted when I got the news.  To think that I'm to see it in print at
+last."
+
+"That man is clean crazy on the subject of his life-book," said Miss
+Cornelia compassionately.  "For my part, I think there's far too many
+books in the world now."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 29
+
+GILBERT AND ANNE DISAGREE
+
+Gilbert laid down the ponderous medical tome over which he had been
+poring until the increasing dusk of the March evening made him desist.
+He leaned back in his chair and gazed meditatively out of the window.
+It was early spring--probably the ugliest time of the year.  Not even
+the sunset could redeem the dead, sodden landscape and rotten black
+harbor ice upon which he looked.  No sign of life was visible, save a
+big black crow winging his solitary way across a leaden field.  Gilbert
+speculated idly concerning that crow.  Was he a family crow, with a
+black but comely crow wife awaiting him in the woods beyond the Glen?
+Or was he a glossy young buck of a crow on courting thoughts intent?
+Or was he a cynical bachelor crow, believing that he travels the
+fastest who travels alone?  Whatever he was, he soon disappeared in
+congenial gloom and Gilbert turned to the cheerier view indoors.
+
+The firelight flickered from point to point, gleaming on the white and
+green coats of Gog and Magog, on the sleek, brown head of the beautiful
+setter basking on the rug, on the picture frames on the walls, on the
+vaseful of daffodils from the window garden, on Anne herself, sitting
+by her little table, with her sewing beside her and her hands clasped
+over her knee while she traced out pictures in the fire--Castles in
+Spain whose airy turrets pierced moonlit cloud and sunset bar-ships
+sailing from the Haven of Good Hopes straight to Four Winds Harbor with
+precious burthen.  For Anne was again a dreamer of dreams, albeit a
+grim shape of fear went with her night and day to shadow and darken her
+visions.
+
+Gilbert was accustomed to refer to himself as "an old married man."
+But he still looked upon Anne with the incredulous eyes of a lover.  He
+couldn't wholly believe yet that she was really his.  It MIGHT be only
+a dream after all, part and parcel of this magic house of dreams.  His
+soul still went on tip-toe before her, lest the charm be shattered and
+the dream dispelled.
+
+"Anne," he said slowly, "lend me your ears.  I want to talk with you
+about something."
+
+Anne looked across at him through the fire-lit gloom.
+
+"What is it?" she asked gaily.  "You look fearfully solemn, Gilbert.  I
+really haven't done anything naughty today.  Ask Susan."
+
+"It's not of you--or ourselves--I want to talk.  It's about Dick Moore."
+
+"Dick Moore?" echoed Anne, sitting up alertly.  "Why, what in the world
+have you to say about Dick Moore?"
+
+"I've been thinking a great deal about him lately.  Do you remember
+that time last summer I treated him for those carbuncles on his neck?"
+
+"Yes--yes."
+
+"I took the opportunity to examine the scars on his head thoroughly.
+I've always thought Dick was a very interesting case from a medical
+point of view.  Lately I've been studying the history of trephining and
+the cases where it has been employed.  Anne, I have come to the
+conclusion that if Dick Moore were taken to a good hospital and the
+operation of trephining performed on several places in his skull, his
+memory and faculties might be restored."
+
+"Gilbert!" Anne's voice was full of protest.  "Surely you don't mean
+it!"
+
+"I do, indeed.  And I have decided that it is my duty to broach the
+subject to Leslie."
+
+"Gilbert Blythe, you shall NOT do any such thing," cried Anne
+vehemently.  "Oh, Gilbert, you won't--you won't.  You couldn't be so
+cruel.  Promise me you won't."
+
+"Why, Anne-girl, I didn't suppose you would take it like this.  Be
+reasonable--"
+
+"I won't be reasonable--I can't be reasonable--I AM reasonable.  It is
+you who are unreasonable.  Gilbert, have you ever once thought what it
+would mean for Leslie if Dick Moore were to be restored to his right
+senses?  Just stop and think!  She's unhappy enough now; but life as
+Dick's nurse and attendant is a thousand times easier for her than life
+as Dick's wife.  I know--I KNOW!  It's unthinkable.  Don't you meddle
+with the matter.  Leave well enough alone."
+
+"I HAVE thought over that aspect of the case thoroughly, Anne.  But I
+believe that a doctor is bound to set the sanctity of a patient's mind
+and body above all other considerations, no matter what the
+consequences may be.  I believe it his duty to endeavor to restore
+health and sanity, if there is any hope whatever of it."
+
+"But Dick isn't your patient in that respect," cried Anne, taking
+another tack.  "If Leslie had asked you if anything could be done for
+him, THEN it might be your duty to tell her what you really thought.
+But you've no right to meddle."
+
+"I don't call it meddling.  Uncle Dave told Leslie twelve years ago
+that nothing could be done for Dick.  She believes that, of course."
+
+"And why did Uncle Dave tell her that, if it wasn't true?" cried Anne,
+triumphantly.  "Doesn't he know as much about it as you?"
+
+"I think not--though it may sound conceited and presumptuous to say it.
+And you know as well as I that he is rather prejudiced against what he
+calls 'these new-fangled notions of cutting and carving.' He's even
+opposed to operating for appendicitis."
+
+"He's right," exclaimed Anne, with a complete change of front.  'I
+believe myself that you modern doctors are entirely too fond of making
+experiments with human flesh and blood."
+
+"Rhoda Allonby would not be a living woman today if I had been afraid
+of making a certain experiment," argued Gilbert.  "I took the risk--and
+saved her life."
+
+"I'm sick and tired of hearing about Rhoda Allonby," cried Anne--most
+unjustly, for Gilbert had never mentioned Mrs. Allonby's name since the
+day he had told Anne of his success in regard to her.  And he could not
+be blamed for other people's discussion of it.
+
+Gilbert felt rather hurt.
+
+"I had not expected you to look at the matter as you do, Anne," he said
+a little stiffly, getting up and moving towards the office door.  It
+was their first approach to a quarrel.
+
+But Anne flew after him and dragged him back.
+
+"Now, Gilbert, you are not 'going off mad.'  Sit down here and I'll
+apologise bee-YEW-ti-fully, I shouldn't have said that.  But--oh, if
+you knew--"
+
+Anne checked herself just in time.  She had been on the very verge of
+betraying Leslie's secret.
+
+"Knew what a woman feels about it," she concluded lamely.
+
+"I think I do know.  I've looked at the matter from every point of
+view--and I've been driven to the conclusion that it is my duty to tell
+Leslie that I believe it is possible that Dick can be restored to
+himself; there my responsibility ends.  It will be for her to decide
+what she will do."
+
+"I don't think you've any right to put such a responsibility on her.
+She has enough to bear.  She is poor--how could she afford such an
+operation?"
+
+"That is for her to decide," persisted Gilbert stubbornly.
+
+"You say you think that Dick can be cured.  But are you SURE of it?"
+
+"Certainly not.  Nobody could be sure of such a thing.  There may have
+been lesions of the brain itself, the effect of which can never be
+removed.  But if, as I believe, his loss of memory and other faculties
+is due merely to the pressure on the brain centers of certain depressed
+areas of bone, then he can be cured."
+
+"But it's only a possibility!" insisted Anne.  "Now, suppose you tell
+Leslie and she decides to have the operation.  It will cost a great
+deal.  She will have to borrow the money, or sell her little property.
+And suppose the operation is a failure and Dick remains the same.
+
+"How will she be able to pay back the money she borrows, or make a
+living for herself and that big helpless creature if she sells the
+farm?"
+
+"Oh, I know--I know.  But it is my duty to tell her.  I can't get away
+from that conviction."
+
+"Oh, I know the Blythe stubbornness," groaned Anne.  "But don't do this
+solely on your own responsibility.  Consult Doctor Dave."
+
+"I HAVE done so," said Gilbert reluctantly.
+
+"And what did he say?"
+
+"In brief--as you say--leave well enough alone.  Apart from his
+prejudice against new-fangled surgery, I'm afraid he looks at the case
+from your point of view--don't do it, for Leslie's sake."
+
+"There now," cried Anne triumphantly.  "I do think, Gilbert, that you
+ought to abide by the judgment of a man nearly eighty, who has seen a
+great deal and saved scores of lives himself--surely his opinion ought
+to weigh more than a mere boy's."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+"Don't laugh.  It's too serious."
+
+"That's just my point.  It IS serious.  Here is a man who is a helpless
+burden.  He may be restored to reason and usefulness--"
+
+"He was so very useful before," interjected Anne witheringly.
+
+"He may be given a chance to make good and redeem the past.  His wife
+doesn't know this.  I do.  It is therefore my duty to tell her that
+there is such a possibility.  That, boiled down, is my decision."
+
+"Don't say 'decision' yet, Gilbert.  Consult somebody else.  Ask
+Captain Jim what he thinks about it."
+
+"Very well.  But I'll not promise to abide by his opinion, Anne.
+
+"This is something a man must decide for himself.  My conscience would
+never be easy if I kept silent on the subject."
+
+"Oh, your conscience!" moaned Anne.  "I suppose that Uncle Dave has a
+conscience too, hasn't he?"
+
+"Yes.  But I am not the keeper of his conscience.  Come, Anne, if this
+affair did not concern Leslie--if it were a purely abstract case, you
+would agree with me,--you know you would."
+
+"I wouldn't," vowed Anne, trying to believe it herself.  "Oh, you can
+argue all night, Gilbert, but you won't convince me.  Just you ask Miss
+Cornelia what she thinks of it."
+
+"You're driven to the last ditch, Anne, when you bring up Miss Cornelia
+as a reinforcement.  She will say, 'Just like a man,' and rage
+furiously.  No matter.  This is no affair for Miss Cornelia to settle.
+Leslie alone must decide it."
+
+"You know very well how she will decide it," said Anne, almost in
+tears.  "She has ideals of duty, too.  I don't see how you can take
+such a responsibility on your shoulders.  _I_ couldn't."
+
+    "'Because right is right to follow right
+    Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence,'"
+
+quoted Gilbert.
+
+"Oh, you think a couplet of poetry a convincing argument!" scoffed
+Anne.  "That is so like a man."
+
+And then she laughed in spite of herself.  It sounded so like an echo
+of Miss Cornelia.
+
+"Well, if you won't accept Tennyson as an authority, perhaps you will
+believe the words of a Greater than he," said Gilbert seriously.  "'Ye
+shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.'  I believe
+that, Anne, with all my heart.  It's the greatest and grandest verse in
+the Bible--or in any literature--and the TRUEST, if there are
+comparative degrees of trueness.  And it's the first duty of a man to
+tell the truth, as he sees it and believes it."
+
+"In this case the truth won't make poor Leslie free," sighed Anne.  "It
+will probably end in still more bitter bondage for her.  Oh, Gilbert, I
+CAN'T think you are right."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 30
+
+LESLIE DECIDES
+
+A sudden outbreak of a virulent type of influenza at the Glen and down
+at the fishing village kept Gilbert so busy for the next fortnight that
+he had no time to pay the promised visit to Captain Jim.  Anne hoped
+against hope that he had abandoned the idea about Dick Moore, and,
+resolving to let sleeping dogs lie, she said no more about the subject.
+But she thought of it incessantly.
+
+"I wonder if it would be right for me to tell him that Leslie cares for
+Owen," she thought.  "He would never let her suspect that he knew, so
+her pride would not suffer, and it MIGHT convince him that he should
+let Dick Moore alone.  Shall I--shall I?  No, after all, I cannot.  A
+promise is sacred, and I've no right to betray Leslie's secret.  But
+oh, I never felt so worried over anything in my life as I do over this.
+It's spoiling the spring--it's spoiling everything."
+
+One evening Gilbert abruptly proposed that they go down and see Captain
+Jim.  With a sinking heart Anne agreed, and they set forth.  Two weeks
+of kind sunshine had wrought a miracle in the bleak landscape over
+which Gilbert's crow had flown.  The hills and fields were dry and
+brown and warm, ready to break into bud and blossom; the harbor was
+laughter-shaken again; the long harbor road was like a gleaming red
+ribbon; down on the dunes a crowd of boys, who were out smelt fishing,
+were burning the thick, dry sandhill grass of the preceding summer.
+The flames swept over the dunes rosily, flinging their cardinal banners
+against the dark gulf beyond, and illuminating the channel and the
+fishing village.  It was a picturesque scene which would at other times
+have delighted Anne's eyes; but she was not enjoying this walk.
+Neither was Gilbert.  Their usual good-comradeship and Josephian
+community of taste and viewpoint were sadly lacking.  Anne's
+disapproval of the whole project showed itself in the haughty uplift of
+her head and the studied politeness of her remarks.  Gilbert's mouth
+was set in all the Blythe obstinacy, but his eyes were troubled.  He
+meant to do what he believed to be his duty; but to be at outs with
+Anne was a high price to pay.  Altogether, both were glad when they
+reached the light--and remorseful that they should be glad.
+
+Captain Jim put away the fishing net upon which he was working, and
+welcomed them joyfully.  In the searching light of the spring evening
+he looked older than Anne had ever seen him.  His hair had grown much
+grayer, and the strong old hand shook a little.  But his blue eyes were
+clear and steady, and the staunch soul looked out through them gallant
+and unafraid.
+
+Captain Jim listened in amazed silence while Gilbert said what he had
+come to say.  Anne, who knew how the old man worshipped Leslie, felt
+quite sure that he would side with her, although she had not much hope
+that this would influence Gilbert.  She was therefore surprised beyond
+measure when Captain Jim, slowly and sorrowfully, but unhesitatingly,
+gave it as his opinion that Leslie should be told.
+
+"Oh, Captain Jim, I didn't think you'd say that," she exclaimed
+reproachfully.  "I thought you wouldn't want to make more trouble for
+her."
+
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+
+"I don't want to.  I know how you feel about it, Mistress Blythe--just
+as I feel meself.  But it ain't our feelings we have to steer by
+through life--no, no, we'd make shipwreck mighty often if we did that.
+There's only the one safe compass and we've got to set our course by
+that--what it's right to do.  I agree with the doctor.  If there's a
+chance for Dick, Leslie should be told of it.  There's no two sides to
+that, in my opinion."
+
+"Well," said Anne, giving up in despair, "wait until Miss Cornelia gets
+after you two men."
+
+"Cornelia'll rake us fore and aft, no doubt," assented Captain Jim.
+"You women are lovely critters, Mistress Blythe, but you're just a mite
+illogical.  You're a highly eddicated lady and Cornelia isn't, but
+you're like as two peas when it comes to that.  I dunno's you're any
+the worse for it.  Logic is a sort of hard, merciless thing, I reckon.
+Now, I'll brew a cup of tea and we'll drink it and talk of pleasant
+things, jest to calm our minds a bit."
+
+At least, Captain Jim's tea and conversation calmed Anne's mind to such
+an extent that she did not make Gilbert suffer so acutely on the way
+home as she had deliberately intended to do.  She did not refer to the
+burning question at all, but she chatted amiably of other matters, and
+Gilbert understood that he was forgiven under protest.
+
+"Captain Jim seems very frail and bent this spring.  The winter has
+aged him," said Anne sadly.  "I am afraid that he will soon be going to
+seek lost Margaret.  I can't bear to think of it."
+
+"Four Winds won't be the same place when Captain Jim 'sets out to
+sea,'" agreed Gilbert.
+
+The following evening he went to the house up the brook.  Anne wandered
+dismally around until his return.
+
+"Well, what did Leslie say?" she demanded when he came in.
+
+"Very little.  I think she felt rather dazed."
+
+"And is she going to have the operation?"
+
+"She is going to think it over and decide very soon."
+
+Gilbert flung himself wearily into the easy chair before the fire.  He
+looked tired.  It had not been an easy thing for him to tell Leslie.
+And the terror that had sprung into her eyes when the meaning of what
+he told her came home to her was not a pleasant thing to remember.
+Now, when the die was cast, he was beset with doubts of his own wisdom.
+
+Anne looked at him remorsefully; then she slipped down on the rug
+beside him and laid her glossy red head on his arm.
+
+"Gilbert, I've been rather hateful over this.  I won't be any more.
+Please just call me red-headed and forgive me."
+
+By which Gilbert understood that, no matter what came of it, there
+would be no I-told-you-so's.  But he was not wholly comforted.  Duty in
+the abstract is one thing; duty in the concrete is quite another,
+especially when the doer is confronted by a woman's stricken eyes.
+
+Some instinct made Anne keep away from Leslie for the next three days.
+On the third evening Leslie came down to the little house and told
+Gilbert that she had made up her mind; she would take Dick to Montreal
+and have the operation.
+
+She was very pale and seemed to have wrapped herself in her old mantle
+of aloofness.  But her eyes had lost the look which had haunted
+Gilbert; they were cold and bright; and she proceeded to discuss
+details with him in a crisp, business-like way.  There were plans to be
+made and many things to be thought over.  When Leslie had got the
+information she wanted she went home.  Anne wanted to walk part of the
+way with her.
+
+"Better not," said Leslie curtly.  "Today's rain has made the ground
+damp.  Good-night."
+
+"Have I lost my friend?" said Anne with a sigh.  "If the operation is
+successful and Dick Moore finds himself again Leslie will retreat into
+some remote fastness of her soul where none of us can ever find her."
+
+"Perhaps she will leave him," said Gilbert.
+
+"Leslie would never do that, Gilbert.  Her sense of duty is very
+strong.  She told me once that her Grandmother West always impressed
+upon her the fact that when she assumed any responsibility she must
+never shirk it, no matter what the consequences might be.  That is one
+of her cardinal rules.  I suppose it's very old-fashioned."
+
+"Don't be bitter, Anne-girl.  You know you don't think it
+old-fashioned--you know you have the very same idea of sacredness of
+assumed responsibilities yourself.  And you are right.  Shirking
+responsibilities is the curse of our modern life--the secret of all the
+unrest and discontent that is seething in the world."
+
+"Thus saith the preacher," mocked Anne.  But under the mockery she felt
+that he was right; and she was very sick at heart for Leslie.
+
+A week later Miss Cornelia descended like an avalanche upon the little
+house.  Gilbert was away and Anne was compelled to bear the shock of
+the impact alone.
+
+Miss Cornelia hardly waited to get her hat off before she began.
+
+"Anne, do you mean to tell me it's true what I've heard--that Dr.
+Blythe has told Leslie Dick can be cured, and that she is going to take
+him to Montreal to have him operated on?"
+
+"Yes, it is quite true, Miss Cornelia," said Anne bravely.
+
+"Well, it's inhuman cruelty, that's what it is," said Miss Cornelia,
+violently agitated.  "I did think Dr. Blythe was a decent man.  I
+didn't think he could have been guilty of this."
+
+"Dr. Blythe thought it was his duty to tell Leslie that there was a
+chance for Dick," said Anne with spirit, "and," she added, loyalty to
+Gilbert getting the better of her, "I agree with him."
+
+"Oh, no, you don't, dearie," said Miss Cornelia.  "No person with any
+bowels of compassion could."
+
+"Captain Jim does."
+
+"Don't quote that old ninny to me," cried Miss Cornelia.  "And I don't
+care who agrees with him.  Think--THINK what it means to that poor
+hunted, harried girl."
+
+"We DO think of it.  But Gilbert believes that a doctor should put the
+welfare of a patient's mind and body before all other considerations."
+
+"That's just like a man.  But I expected better things of you, Anne,"
+said Miss Cornelia, more in sorrow than in wrath; then she proceeded to
+bombard Anne with precisely the same arguments with which the latter
+had attacked Gilbert; and Anne valiantly defended her husband with the
+weapons he had used for his own protection.  Long was the fray, but
+Miss Cornelia made an end at last.
+
+"It's an iniquitous shame," she declared, almost in tears.  "That's
+just what it is--an iniquitous shame.  Poor, poor Leslie!"
+
+"Don't you think Dick should be considered a little too?" pleaded Anne.
+
+"Dick!  Dick Moore!  HE'S happy enough.  He's a better behaved and more
+reputable member of society now than he ever was before.
+
+"Why, he was a drunkard and perhaps worse.  Are you going to set him
+loose again to roar and to devour?"
+
+"He may reform," said poor Anne, beset by foe without and traitor
+within.
+
+"Reform your grandmother!" retorted Miss Cornelia.  "Dick Moore got the
+injuries that left him as he is in a drunken brawl.  He DESERVES his
+fate.  It was sent on him for a punishment.  I don't believe the doctor
+has any business to tamper with the visitations of God."
+
+"Nobody knows how Dick was hurt, Miss Cornelia.  It may not have been
+in a drunken brawl at all.  He may have been waylaid and robbed."
+
+"Pigs MAY whistle, but they've poor mouths for it," said Miss Cornelia.
+"Well, the gist of what you tell me is that the thing is settled and
+there's no use in talking.  If that's so I'll hold my tongue.  I don't
+propose to wear MY teeth out gnawing files.  When a thing has to be I
+give in to it.  But I like to make mighty sure first that it HAS to be.
+Now, I'll devote MY energies to comforting and sustaining Leslie.  And
+after all," added Miss Cornelia, brightening up hopefully, "perhaps
+nothing can be done for Dick."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 31
+
+THE TRUTH MAKES FREE
+
+Leslie, having once made up her mind what to do, proceeded to do it
+with characteristic resolution and speed.  House-cleaning must be
+finished with first, whatever issues of life and death might await
+beyond.  The gray house up the brook was put into flawless order and
+cleanliness, with Miss Cornelia's ready assistance.  Miss Cornelia,
+having said her say to Anne, and later on to Gilbert and Captain
+Jim--sparing neither of them, let it be assured--never spoke of the
+matter to Leslie.  She accepted the fact of Dick's operation, referred
+to it when necessary in a business-like way, and ignored it when it was
+not.  Leslie never attempted to discuss it.  She was very cold and
+quiet during these beautiful spring days.  She seldom visited Anne, and
+though she was invariably courteous and friendly, that very courtesy
+was as an icy barrier between her and the people of the little house.
+The old jokes and laughter and chumminess of common things could not
+reach her over it.  Anne refused to feel hurt.  She knew that Leslie
+was in the grip of a hideous dread--a dread that wrapped her away from
+all little glimpses of happiness and hours of pleasure.  When one great
+passion seizes possession of the soul all other feelings are crowded
+aside.  Never in all her life had Leslie Moore shuddered away from the
+future with more intolerable terror.  But she went forward as
+unswervingly in the path she had elected as the martyrs of old walked
+their chosen way, knowing the end of it to be the fiery agony of the
+stake.
+
+The financial question was settled with greater ease than Anne had
+feared.  Leslie borrowed the necessary money from Captain Jim, and, at
+her insistence, he took a mortgage on the little farm.
+
+"So that is one thing off the poor girl's mind," Miss Cornelia told
+Anne, "and off mine too.  Now, if Dick gets well enough to work again
+he'll be able to earn enough to pay the interest on it; and if he
+doesn't I know Captain Jim'll manage someway that Leslie won't have to.
+He said as much to me.  'I'm getting old, Cornelia,' he said, 'and I've
+no chick or child of my own.  Leslie won't take a gift from a living
+man, but mebbe she will from a dead one.'  So it will be all right as
+far as THAT goes.  I wish everything else might be settled as
+satisfactorily.  As for that wretch of a Dick, he's been awful these
+last few days.  The devil was in him, believe ME!  Leslie and I
+couldn't get on with our work for the tricks he'd play.  He chased all
+her ducks one day around the yard till most of them died.  And not one
+thing would he do for us.  Sometimes, you know, he'll make himself
+quite handy, bringing in pails of water and wood.  But this week if we
+sent him to the well he'd try to climb down into it.  I thought once,
+'If you'd only shoot down there head-first everything would be nicely
+settled.'"
+
+"Oh, Miss Cornelia!"
+
+"Now, you needn't Miss Cornelia me, Anne, dearie.  ANYBODY would have
+thought the same.  If the Montreal doctors can make a rational creature
+out of Dick Moore they're wonders."
+
+Leslie took Dick to Montreal early in May.  Gilbert went with her, to
+help her, and make the necessary arrangements for her.  He came home
+with the report that the Montreal surgeon whom they had consulted
+agreed with him that there was a good chance of Dick's restoration.
+
+"Very comforting," was Miss Cornelia's sarcastic comment.
+
+Anne only sighed.  Leslie had been very distant at their parting.
+
+But she had promised to write.  Ten days after Gilbert's return the
+letter came.  Leslie wrote that the operation had been successfully
+performed and that Dick was making a good recovery.
+
+"What does she mean by 'successfully?'" asked Anne.  "Does she mean
+that Dick's memory is really restored?"
+
+"Not likely--since she says nothing of it," said Gilbert.  "She uses
+the word 'successfully' from the surgeon's point of view.  The
+operation has been performed and followed by normal results.  But it is
+too soon to know whether Dick's faculties will be eventually restored,
+wholly or in part.  His memory would not be likely to return to him all
+at once.  The process will be gradual, if it occurs at all.  Is that
+all she says?"
+
+"Yes--there's her letter.  It's very short.  Poor girl, she must be
+under a terrible strain.  Gilbert Blythe, there are heaps of things I
+long to say to you, only it would be mean."
+
+"Miss Cornelia says them for you," said Gilbert with a rueful smile.
+"She combs me down every time I encounter her.  She makes it plain to
+me that she regards me as little better than a murderer, and that she
+thinks it a great pity that Dr. Dave ever let me step into his shoes.
+She even told me that the Methodist doctor over the harbor was to be
+preferred before me.  With Miss Cornelia the force of condemnation can
+no further go."
+
+"If Cornelia Bryant was sick, it would not be Doctor Dave or the
+Methodist doctor she would send for," sniffed Susan.  "She would have
+you out of your hard-earned bed in the middle of the night, doctor,
+dear, if she took a spell of misery, that she would.  And then she
+would likely say your bill was past all reason.  But do not mind her,
+doctor, dear.  It takes all kinds of people to make a world."
+
+No further word came from Leslie for some time.  The May days crept
+away in a sweet succession and the shores of Four Winds Harbor greened
+and bloomed and purpled.  One day in late May Gilbert came home to be
+met by Susan in the stable yard.
+
+"I am afraid something has upset Mrs. Doctor, doctor, dear," she said
+mysteriously.  "She got a letter this afternoon and since then she has
+just been walking round the garden and talking to herself.  You know it
+is not good for her to be on her feet so much, doctor, dear.  She did
+not see fit to tell me what her news was, and I am no pry, doctor,
+dear, and never was, but it is plain something has upset her.  And it
+is not good for her to be upset."
+
+Gilbert hurried rather anxiously to the garden.  Had anything happened
+at Green Gables?  But Anne, sitting on the rustic seat by the brook,
+did not look troubled, though she was certainly much excited.  Her eyes
+were their grayest, and scarlet spots burned on her cheeks.
+
+"What has happened, Anne?"
+
+Anne gave a queer little laugh.
+
+"I think you'll hardly believe it when I tell you, Gilbert.  _I_ can't
+believe it yet.  As Susan said the other day, 'I feel like a fly coming
+to live in the sun--dazed-like.'  It's all so incredible.  I've read
+the letter a score of times and every time it's just the same--I can't
+believe my own eyes.  Oh, Gilbert, you were right--so right.  I can see
+that clearly enough now--and I'm so ashamed of myself--and will you
+ever really forgive me?"
+
+"Anne, I'll shake you if you don't grow coherent.  Redmond would be
+ashamed of you.  WHAT has happened?"
+
+"You won't believe it--you won't believe it--"
+
+"I'm going to phone for Uncle Dave," said Gilbert, pretending to start
+for the house.
+
+"Sit down, Gilbert.  I'll try to tell you.  I've had a letter, and oh,
+Gilbert, it's all so amazing--so incredibly amazing--we never
+thought--not one of us ever dreamed--"
+
+"I suppose," said Gilbert, sitting down with a resigned air, "the only
+thing to do in a case of this kind is to have patience and go at the
+matter categorically.  Whom is your letter from?"
+
+"Leslie--and, oh, Gilbert--"
+
+"Leslie!  Whew!  What has she to say?  What's the news about Dick?"
+
+Anne lifted the letter and held it out, calmly dramatic in a moment.
+
+"There is NO Dick!  The man we have thought Dick Moore--whom everybody
+in Four Winds has believed for twelve years to be Dick Moore--is his
+cousin, George Moore, of Nova Scotia, who, it seems, always resembled
+him very strikingly.  Dick Moore died of yellow fever thirteen years
+ago in Cuba."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 32
+
+MISS CORNELIA DISCUSSES THE AFFAIR
+
+"And do you mean to tell me, Anne, dearie, that Dick Moore has turned
+out not to be Dick Moore at all but somebody else?  Is THAT what you
+phoned up to me today?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Cornelia.  It is very amazing, isn't it?"
+
+"It's--it's--just like a man," said Miss Cornelia helplessly.  She took
+off her hat with trembling fingers.  For once in her life Miss Cornelia
+was undeniably staggered.
+
+"I can't seem to sense it, Anne," she said.  "I've heard you say
+it--and I believe you--but I can't take it in.  Dick Moore is dead--has
+been dead all these years--and Leslie is free?"
+
+"Yes.  The truth has made her free.  Gilbert was right when he said
+that verse was the grandest in the Bible."
+
+"Tell me everything, Anne, dearie.  Since I got your phone I've been in
+a regular muddle, believe ME.  Cornelia Bryant was never so
+kerflummuxed before."
+
+"There isn't a very great deal to tell.  Leslie's letter was short.
+She didn't go into particulars.  This man--George Moore--has recovered
+his memory and knows who he is.  He says Dick took yellow fever in
+Cuba, and the Four Sisters had to sail without him.  George stayed
+behind to nurse him.  But he died very shortly afterwards.
+
+"George did not write Leslie because he intended to come right home and
+tell her himself."
+
+"And why didn't he?"
+
+"I suppose his accident must have intervened.  Gilbert says it is quite
+likely that George Moore remembers nothing of his accident, or what led
+to it, and may never remember it.  It probably happened very soon after
+Dick's death.  We may find out more particulars when Leslie writes
+again."
+
+"Does she say what she is going to do?  When is she coming home?"
+
+"She says she will stay with George Moore until he can leave the
+hospital.  She has written to his people in Nova Scotia.  It seems that
+George's only near relative is a married sister much older than
+himself.  She was living when George sailed on the Four Sisters, but of
+course we do not know what may have happened since.  Did you ever see
+George Moore, Miss Cornelia?"
+
+"I did.  It is all coming back to me.  He was here visiting his Uncle
+Abner eighteen years ago, when he and Dick would be about seventeen.
+They were double cousins, you see.  Their fathers were brothers and
+their mothers were twin sisters, and they did look a terrible lot
+alike.  Of course," added Miss Cornelia scornfully, "it wasn't one of
+those freak resemblances you read of in novels where two people are so
+much alike that they can fill each other's places and their nearest and
+dearest can't tell between them.  In those days you could tell easy
+enough which was George and which was Dick, if you saw them together
+and near at hand.  Apart, or some distance away, it wasn't so easy.
+They played lots of tricks on people and thought it great fun, the two
+scamps.  George Moore was a little taller and a good deal fatter than
+Dick--though neither of them was what you would call fat--they were
+both of the lean kind.  Dick had higher color than George, and his hair
+was a shade lighter.  But their features were just alike, and they both
+had that queer freak of eyes--one blue and one hazel.  They weren't
+much alike in any other way, though.  George was a real nice fellow,
+though he was a scalawag for mischief, and some said he had a liking
+for a glass even then.  But everybody liked him better than Dick.  He
+spent about a month here.  Leslie never saw him; she was only about
+eight or nine then and I remember now that she spent that whole winter
+over harbor with her grandmother West.  Captain Jim was away, too--that
+was the winter he was wrecked on the Magdalens.  I don't suppose either
+he or Leslie had ever heard about the Nova Scotia cousin looking so
+much like Dick.  Nobody ever thought of him when Captain Jim brought
+Dick--George, I should say--home.  Of course, we all thought Dick had
+changed considerable--he'd got so lumpish and fat.  But we put that
+down to what had happened to him, and no doubt that was the reason,
+for, as I've said, George wasn't fat to begin with either.  And there
+was no other way we could have guessed, for the man's senses were clean
+gone.  I can't see that it is any wonder we were all deceived.  But
+it's a staggering thing.  And Leslie has sacrificed the best years of
+her life to nursing a man who hadn't any claim on her!  Oh, drat the
+men!  No matter what they do, it's the wrong thing.  And no matter who
+they are, it's somebody they shouldn't be.  They do exasperate me."
+
+"Gilbert and Captain Jim are men, and it is through them that the truth
+has been discovered at last," said Anne.
+
+"Well, I admit that," conceded Miss Cornelia reluctantly.  "I'm sorry I
+raked the doctor off so.  It's the first time in my life I've ever felt
+ashamed of anything I said to a man.  I don't know as I shall tell him
+so, though.  He'll just have to take it for granted.  Well, Anne,
+dearie, it's a mercy the Lord doesn't answer all our prayers.  I've
+been praying hard right along that the operation wouldn't cure Dick.
+Of course I didn't put it just quite so plain.  But that was what was
+in the back of my mind, and I have no doubt the Lord knew it."
+
+"Well, He has answered the spirit of your prayer.  You really wished
+that things shouldn't be made any harder for Leslie.  I'm afraid that
+in my secret heart I've been hoping the operation wouldn't succeed, and
+I am wholesomely ashamed of it."
+
+"How does Leslie seem to take it?"
+
+"She writes like one dazed.  I think that, like ourselves, she hardly
+realises it yet.  She says, 'It all seems like a strange dream to me,
+Anne.'  That is the only reference she makes to herself."
+
+"Poor child!  I suppose when the chains are struck off a prisoner he'd
+feel queer and lost without them for a while.  Anne, dearie, here's a
+thought keeps coming into my mind.  What about Owen Ford?  We both know
+Leslie was fond of him.  Did it ever occur to you that he was fond of
+her?"
+
+"It--did--once," admitted Anne, feeling that she might say so much.
+
+"Well, I hadn't any reason to think he was, but it just appeared to me
+he MUST be.  Now, Anne, dearie, the Lord knows I'm not a match-maker,
+and I scorn all such doings.  But if I were you and writing to that
+Ford man I'd just mention, casual-like, what has happened.  That is
+what _I_'d do."
+
+"Of course I will mention it when I write him," said Anne, a trifle
+distantly.  Somehow, this was a thing she could not discuss with Miss
+Cornelia.  And yet, she had to admit that the same thought had been
+lurking in her mind ever since she had heard of Leslie's freedom.  But
+she would not desecrate it by free speech.
+
+"Of course there is no great rush, dearie.  But Dick Moore's been dead
+for thirteen years and Leslie has wasted enough of her life for him.
+We'll just see what comes of it.  As for this George Moore, who's gone
+and come back to life when everyone thought he was dead and done for,
+just like a man, I'm real sorry for him.  He won't seem to fit in
+anywhere."
+
+"He is still a young man, and if he recovers completely, as seems
+likely, he will be able to make a place for himself again.  It must be
+very strange for him, poor fellow.  I suppose all these years since his
+accident will not exist for him."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 33
+
+LESLIE RETURNS
+
+A fortnight later Leslie Moore came home alone to the old house where
+she had spent so many bitter years.  In the June twilight she went over
+the fields to Anne's, and appeared with ghost-like suddenness in the
+scented garden.
+
+"Leslie!" cried Anne in amazement.  "Where have you sprung from?  We
+never knew you were coming.  Why didn't you write?  We would have met
+you."
+
+"I couldn't write somehow, Anne.  It seemed so futile to try to say
+anything with pen and ink.  And I wanted to get back quietly and
+unobserved."
+
+Anne put her arms about Leslie and kissed her.  Leslie returned the
+kiss warmly.  She looked pale and tired, and she gave a little sigh as
+she dropped down on the grasses beside a great bed of daffodils that
+were gleaming through the pale, silvery twilight like golden stars.
+
+"And you have come home alone, Leslie?"
+
+"Yes.  George Moore's sister came to Montreal and took him home with
+her.  Poor fellow, he was sorry to part with me--though I was a
+stranger to him when his memory first came back.  He clung to me in
+those first hard days when he was trying to realise that Dick's death
+was not the thing of yesterday that it seemed to him.  It was all very
+hard for him.  I helped him all I could.  When his sister came it was
+easier for him, because it seemed to him only the other day that he had
+seen her last.  Fortunately she had not changed much, and that helped
+him, too."
+
+"It is all so strange and wonderful, Leslie.  I think we none of us
+realise it yet."
+
+"I cannot.  When I went into the house over there an hour ago, I felt
+that it MUST be a dream--that Dick must be there, with his childish
+smile, as he had been for so long.  Anne, I seem stunned yet. I'm not
+glad or sorry--or ANYTHING.  I feel as if something had been torn
+suddenly out of my life and left a terrible hole.  I feel as if I
+couldn't be _I_--as if I must have changed into somebody else and
+couldn't get used to it.  It gives me a horrible lonely, dazed,
+helpless feeling.  It's good to see you again--it seems as if you were
+a sort of anchor for my drifting soul.  Oh, Anne, I dread it all--the
+gossip and wonderment and questioning.  When I think of that, I wish
+that I need not have come home at all.  Dr. Dave was at the station
+when I came off the train--he brought me home.  Poor old man, he feels
+very badly because he told me years ago that nothing could be done for
+Dick.  'I honestly thought so, Leslie,' he said to me today.  'But I
+should have told you not to depend on my opinion--I should have told
+you to go to a specialist.  If I had, you would have been saved many
+bitter years, and poor George Moore many wasted ones.  I blame myself
+very much, Leslie.'  I told him not to do that--he had done what he
+thought right.  He has always been so kind to me--I couldn't bear to
+see him worrying over it."
+
+"And Dick--George, I mean?  Is his memory fully restored?"
+
+"Practically.  Of course, there are a great many details he can't
+recall yet--but he remembers more and more every day.  He went out for
+a walk on the evening after Dick was buried.  He had Dick's money and
+watch on him; he meant to bring them home to me, along with my letter.
+He admits he went to a place where the sailors resorted--and he
+remembers drinking--and nothing else.  Anne, I shall never forget the
+moment he remembered his own name.  I saw him looking at me with an
+intelligent but puzzled expression.  I said, 'Do you know me, Dick?'
+He answered, 'I never saw you before.  Who are you?  And my name is not
+Dick.  I am George Moore, and Dick died of yellow fever yesterday!
+Where am I?  What has happened to me?'  I--I fainted, Anne.  And ever
+since I have felt as if I were in a dream."
+
+"You will soon adjust yourself to this new state of things, Leslie.
+And you are young--life is before you--you will have many beautiful
+years yet."
+
+"Perhaps I shall be able to look at it in that way after a while, Anne.
+Just now I feel too tired and indifferent to think about the future.
+I'm--I'm--Anne, I'm lonely.  I miss Dick.  Isn't it all very strange?
+Do you know, I was really fond of poor Dick--George, I suppose I should
+say--just as I would have been fond of a helpless child who depended on
+me for everything.  I would never have admitted it--I was really
+ashamed of it--because, you see, I had hated and despised Dick so much
+before he went away.  When I heard that Captain Jim was bringing him
+home I expected I would just feel the same to him.  But I never
+did--although I continued to loathe him as I remembered him before.
+From the time he came home I felt only pity--a pity that hurt and wrung
+me.  I supposed then that it was just because his accident had made him
+so helpless and changed.  But now I believe it was because there was
+really a different personality there.  Carlo knew it, Anne--I know now
+that Carlo knew it.  I always thought it strange that Carlo shouldn't
+have known Dick.  Dogs are usually so faithful.  But HE knew it was not
+his master who had come back, although none of the rest of us did.  I
+had never seen George Moore, you know.  I remember now that Dick once
+mentioned casually that he had a cousin in Nova Scotia who looked as
+much like him as a twin; but the thing had gone out of my memory, and
+in any case I would never have thought it of any importance.  You see,
+it never occurred to me to question Dick's identity.  Any change in him
+seemed to me just the result of the accident.
+
+"Oh, Anne, that night in April when Gilbert told me he thought Dick
+might be cured!  I can never forget it.  It seemed to me that I had
+once been a prisoner in a hideous cage of torture, and then the door
+had been opened and I could get out.  I was still chained to the cage
+but I was not in it.  And that night I felt that a merciless hand was
+drawing me back into the cage--back to a torture even more terrible
+than it had once been.  I didn't blame Gilbert.  I felt he was right.
+And he had been very good--he said that if, in view of the expense and
+uncertainty of the operation, I should decide not to risk it, he would
+not blame me in the least.  But I knew how I ought to decide--and I
+couldn't face it.  All night I walked the floor like a mad woman,
+trying to compel myself to face it.  I couldn't, Anne--I thought I
+couldn't--and when morning broke I set my teeth and resolved that I
+WOULDN'T.  I would let things remain as they were.  It was very wicked,
+I know.  It would have been just punishment for such wickedness if I
+had just been left to abide by that decision.  I kept to it all day.
+That afternoon I had to go up to the Glen to do some shopping.  It was
+one of Dick's quiet, drowsy days, so I left him alone.  I was gone a
+little longer than I had expected, and he missed me.  He felt lonely.
+And when I got home, he ran to meet me just like a child, with such a
+pleased smile on his face.  Somehow, Anne, I just gave way then.  That
+smile on his poor vacant face was more than I could endure.  I felt as
+if I were denying a child the chance to grow and develop.  I knew that
+I must give him his chance, no matter what the consequences might be.
+So I came over and told Gilbert.  Oh, Anne, you must have thought me
+hateful in those weeks before I went away.  I didn't mean to be--but I
+couldn't think of anything except what I had to do, and everything and
+everybody about me were like shadows."
+
+"I know--I understood, Leslie.  And now it is all over--your chain is
+broken--there is no cage."
+
+"There is no cage," repeated Leslie absently, plucking at the fringing
+grasses with her slender, brown hands.  "But--it doesn't seem as if
+there were anything else, Anne.  You--you remember what I told you of
+my folly that night on the sand-bar?  I find one doesn't get over being
+a fool very quickly.  Sometimes I think there are people who are fools
+forever.  And to be a fool--of that kind--is almost as bad as being
+a--a dog on a chain."
+
+"You will feel very differently after you get over being tired and
+bewildered," said Anne, who, knowing a certain thing that Leslie did
+not know, did not feel herself called upon to waste overmuch sympathy.
+
+Leslie laid her splendid golden head against Anne's knee.
+
+"Anyhow, I have YOU," she said.  "Life can't be altogether empty with
+such a friend.  Anne, pat my head--just as if I were a little
+girl--MOTHER me a bit--and let me tell you while my stubborn tongue is
+loosed a little just what you and your comradeship have meant to me
+since that night I met you on the rock shore."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 34
+
+THE SHIP O'DREAMS COMES TO HARBOR
+
+One morning, when a windy golden sunrise was billowing over the gulf in
+waves of light, a certain weary stork flew over the bar of Four Winds
+Harbor on his way from the Land of Evening Stars.  Under his wing was
+tucked a sleepy, starry-eyed, little creature.  The stork was tired,
+and he looked wistfully about him.  He knew he was somewhere near his
+destination, but he could not yet see it.  The big, white light-house
+on the red sandstone cliff had its good points; but no stork possessed
+of any gumption would leave a new, velvet baby there.  An old gray
+house, surrounded by willows, in a blossomy brook valley, looked more
+promising, but did not seem quite the thing either.  The staring green
+abode further on was manifestly out of the question.  Then the stork
+brightened up.  He had caught sight of the very place--a little white
+house nestled against a big, whispering firwood, with a spiral of blue
+smoke winding up from its kitchen chimney--a house which just looked as
+if it were meant for babies.  The stork gave a sigh of satisfaction,
+and softly alighted on the ridge-pole.
+
+Half an hour later Gilbert ran down the hall and tapped on the
+spare-room door.  A drowsy voice answered him and in a moment Marilla's
+pale, scared face peeped out from behind the door.
+
+"Marilla, Anne has sent me to tell you that a certain young gentleman
+has arrived here.  He hasn't brought much luggage with him, but he
+evidently means to stay."
+
+"For pity's sake!" said Marilla blankly.  "You don't mean to tell me,
+Gilbert, that it's all over.  Why wasn't I called?"
+
+"Anne wouldn't let us disturb you when there was no need.  Nobody was
+called until about two hours ago.  There was no 'passage perilous' this
+time."
+
+"And--and--Gilbert--will this baby live?"
+
+"He certainly will.  He weighs ten pounds and--why, listen to him.
+Nothing wrong with his lungs, is there?  The nurse says his hair will
+be red.  Anne is furious with her, and I'm tickled to death."
+
+That was a wonderful day in the little house of dreams.
+
+"The best dream of all has come true," said Anne, pale and rapturous.
+"Oh, Marilla, I hardly dare believe it, after that horrible day last
+summer.  I have had a heartache ever since then--but it is gone now."
+
+"This baby will take Joy's place," said Marilla.
+
+"Oh, no, no, NO, Marilla.  He can't--nothing can ever do that.  He has
+his own place, my dear, wee man-child.  But little Joy has hers, and
+always will have it.  If she had lived she would have been over a year
+old.  She would have been toddling around on her tiny feet and lisping
+a few words.  I can see her so plainly, Marilla.  Oh, I know now that
+Captain Jim was right when he said God would manage better than that my
+baby would seem a stranger to me when I found her Beyond.  I've learned
+THAT this past year.  I've followed her development day by day and week
+by week--I always shall.  I shall know just how she grows from year to
+year--and when I meet her again I'll know her--she won't be a stranger.
+Oh, Marilla, LOOK at his dear, darling toes!  Isn't it strange they
+should be so perfect?"
+
+"It would be stranger if they weren't," said Marilla crisply.  Now that
+all was safely over, Marilla was herself again.
+
+"Oh, I know--but it seems as if they couldn't be quite FINISHED, you
+know--and they are, even to the tiny nails.  And his hands--JUST look
+at his hands, Marilla."
+
+"They appear to be a good deal like hands," Marilla conceded.
+
+"See how he clings to my finger.  I'm sure he knows me already.  He
+cries when the nurse takes him away.  Oh, Marilla, do you think--you
+don't think, do you--that his hair is going to be red?"
+
+"I don't see much hair of any color," said Marilla.  "I wouldn't worry
+about it, if I were you, until it becomes visible."
+
+"Marilla, he HAS hair--look at that fine little down all over his head.
+Anyway, nurse says his eyes will be hazel and his forehead is exactly
+like Gilbert's."
+
+"And he has the nicest little ears, Mrs. Doctor, dear," said Susan.
+"The first thing I did was to look at his ears.  Hair is deceitful and
+noses and eyes change, and you cannot tell what is going to come of
+them, but ears is ears from start to finish, and you always know where
+you are with them.  Just look at their shape--and they are set right
+back against his precious head.  You will never need to be ashamed of
+his ears, Mrs. Doctor, dear."
+
+Anne's convalescence was rapid and happy.  Folks came and worshipped
+the baby, as people have bowed before the kingship of the new-born
+since long before the Wise Men of the East knelt in homage to the Royal
+Babe of the Bethlehem manger.  Leslie, slowly finding herself amid the
+new conditions of her life, hovered over it, like a beautiful,
+golden-crowned Madonna.  Miss Cornelia nursed it as knackily as could
+any mother in Israel.  Captain Jim held the small creature in his big
+brown hands and gazed tenderly at it, with eyes that saw the children
+who had never been born to him.
+
+"What are you going to call him?" asked Miss Cornelia.
+
+"Anne has settled his name," answered Gilbert.
+
+"James Matthew--after the two finest gentlemen I've ever known--not
+even saving your presence," said Anne with a saucy glance at Gilbert.
+
+Gilbert smiled.
+
+"I never knew Matthew very well; he was so shy we boys couldn't get
+acquainted with him--but I quite agree with you that Captain Jim is one
+of the rarest and finest souls God ever clothed in clay.  He is so
+delighted over the fact that we have given his name to our small lad.
+It seems he has no other namesake."
+
+"Well, James Matthew is a name that will wear well and not fade in the
+washing," said Miss Cornelia.  "I'm glad you didn't load him down with
+some highfalutin, romantic name that he'd be ashamed of when he gets to
+be a grandfather.  Mrs. William Drew at the Glen has called her baby
+Bertie Shakespeare.  Quite a combination, isn't it?  And I'm glad you
+haven't had much trouble picking on a name.  Some folks have an awful
+time.  When the Stanley Flaggs' first boy was born there was so much
+rivalry as to who the child should be named for that the poor little
+soul had to go for two years without a name.  Then a brother came along
+and there it was--'Big Baby' and 'Little Baby.' Finally they called Big
+Baby Peter and Little Baby Isaac, after the two grandfathers, and had
+them both christened together.  And each tried to see if it couldn't
+howl the other down.  You know that Highland Scotch family of MacNabs
+back of the Glen?  They've got twelve boys and the oldest and the
+youngest are both called Neil--Big Neil and Little Neil in the same
+family.  Well, I s'pose they ran out of names."
+
+"I have read somewhere," laughed Anne, "that the first child is a poem
+but the tenth is very prosy prose.  Perhaps Mrs. MacNab thought that
+the twelfth was merely an old tale re-told."
+
+"Well, there's something to be said for large families," said Miss
+Cornelia, with a sigh.  "I was an only child for eight years and I did
+long for a brother and sister.  Mother told me to pray for one--and
+pray I did, believe ME.  Well, one day Aunt Nellie came to me and said,
+'Cornelia, there is a little brother for you upstairs in your ma's
+room.  You can go up and see him.'  I was so excited and delighted I
+just flew upstairs.  And old Mrs. Flagg lifted up the baby for me to
+see.  Lord, Anne, dearie, I never was so disappointed in my life.  You
+see, I'd been praying for A BROTHER TWO YEARS OLDER THAN MYSELF."
+
+"How long did it take you to get over your disappointment?" asked Anne,
+amid her laughter.
+
+"Well, I had a spite at Providence for a good spell, and for weeks I
+wouldn't even look at the baby.  Nobody knew why, for I never told.
+Then he began to get real cute, and held out his wee hands to me and I
+began to get fond of him.  But I didn't get really reconciled to him
+until one day a school chum came to see him and said she thought he was
+awful small for his age.  I just got boiling mad, and I sailed right
+into her, and told her she didn't know a nice baby when she saw one,
+and ours was the nicest baby in the world.  And after that I just
+worshipped him.  Mother died before he was three years old and I was
+sister and mother to him both.  Poor little lad, he was never strong,
+and he died when he wasn't much over twenty.  Seems to me I'd have
+given anything on earth, Anne, dearie, if he'd only lived."
+
+Miss Cornelia sighed.  Gilbert had gone down and Leslie, who had been
+crooning over the small James Matthew in the dormer window, laid him
+asleep in his basket and went her way.  As soon as she was safely out
+of earshot, Miss Cornelia bent forward and said in a conspirator's
+whisper:
+
+"Anne, dearie, I'd a letter from Owen Ford yesterday.  He's in
+Vancouver just now, but he wants to know if I can board him for a month
+later on.  YOU know what that means.  Well, I hope we're doing right."
+
+"We've nothing to do with it--we couldn't prevent him from coming to
+Four Winds if he wanted to," said Anne quickly.  She did not like the
+feeling of match-making Miss Cornelia's whispers gave her; and then she
+weakly succumbed herself.
+
+"Don't let Leslie know he is coming until he is here," she said.  "If
+she found out I feel sure she would go away at once.  She intends to go
+in the fall anyhow--she told me so the other day.  She is going to
+Montreal to take up nursing and make what she can of her life."
+
+"Oh, well, Anne, dearie," said Miss Cornelia, nodding sagely "that is
+all as it may be.  You and I have done our part and we must leave the
+rest to Higher Hands."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 35
+
+POLITICS AT FOUR WINDS
+
+When Anne came downstairs again, the Island, as well as all Canada, was
+in the throes of a campaign preceding a general election.  Gilbert, who
+was an ardent Conservative, found himself caught in the vortex, being
+much in demand for speech-making at the various county rallies.  Miss
+Cornelia did not approve of his mixing up in politics and told Anne so.
+
+"Dr. Dave never did it.  Dr. Blythe will find he is making a mistake,
+believe ME.  Politics is something no decent man should meddle with."
+
+"Is the government of the country to be left solely to the rogues
+then?" asked Anne.
+
+"Yes--so long as it's Conservative rogues," said Miss Cornelia,
+marching off with the honors of war.  "Men and politicians are all
+tarred with the same brush.  The Grits have it laid on thicker than the
+Conservatives, that's all--CONSIDERABLY thicker.  But Grit or Tory, my
+advice to Dr. Blythe is to steer clear of politics.  First thing you
+know, he'll be running an election himself, and going off to Ottawa for
+half the year and leaving his practice to go to the dogs."
+
+"Ah, well, let's not borrow trouble," said Anne.  "The rate of interest
+is too high.  Instead, let's look at Little Jem.  It should be spelled
+with a G.  Isn't he perfectly beautiful?  Just see the dimples in his
+elbows.  We'll bring him up to be a good Conservative, you and I, Miss
+Cornelia."
+
+"Bring him up to be a good man," said Miss Cornelia.  "They're scarce
+and valuable; though, mind you, I wouldn't like to see him a Grit.  As
+for the election, you and I may be thankful we don't live over harbor.
+The air there is blue these days.  Every Elliott and Crawford and
+MacAllister is on the warpath, loaded for bear.  This side is peaceful
+and calm, seeing there's so few men.  Captain Jim's a Grit, but it's my
+opinion he's ashamed of it, for he never talks politics.  There isn't
+any earthly doubt that the Conservatives will be returned with a big
+majority again."
+
+Miss Cornelia was mistaken.  On the morning after the election Captain
+Jim dropped in at the little house to tell the news.  So virulent is
+the microbe of party politics, even in a peaceable old man, that
+Captain Jim's cheeks were flushed and his eyes were flashing with all
+his old-time fire.
+
+"Mistress Blythe, the Liberals are in with a sweeping majority.  After
+eighteen years of Tory mismanagement this down-trodden country is going
+to have a chance at last."
+
+"I never heard you make such a bitter partisan speech before, Captain
+Jim.  I didn't think you had so much political venom in you," laughed
+Anne, who was not much excited over the tidings.  Little Jem had said
+"Wow-ga" that morning.  What were principalities and powers, the rise
+and fall of dynasties, the overthrow of Grit or Tory, compared with
+that miraculous occurrence?
+
+"It's been accumulating for a long while," said Captain Jim, with a
+deprecating smile.  "I thought I was only a moderate Grit, but when the
+news came that we were in I found out how Gritty I really was."
+
+"You know the doctor and I are Conservatives."
+
+"Ah, well, it's the only bad thing I know of either of you, Mistress
+Blythe.  Cornelia is a Tory, too.  I called in on my way from the Glen
+to tell her the news."
+
+"Didn't you know you took your life in your hands?"
+
+"Yes, but I couldn't resist the temptation."
+
+"How did she take it?"
+
+"Comparatively calm, Mistress Blythe, comparatively calm.  She says,
+says she, 'Well, Providence sends seasons of humiliation to a country,
+same as to individuals.  You Grits have been cold and hungry for many a
+year.  Make haste to get warmed and fed, for you won't be in long.'
+'Well, now Cornelia,' I says, 'mebbe Providence thinks Canada needs a
+real long spell of humiliation.'  Ah, Susan, have YOU heard the news?
+The Liberals are in."
+
+Susan had just come in from the kitchen, attended by the odor of
+delectable dishes which always seemed to hover around her.
+
+"Now, are they?" she said, with beautiful unconcern.  "Well, I never
+could see but that my bread rose just as light when Grits were in as
+when they were not.  And if any party, Mrs. Doctor, dear, will make it
+rain before the week is out, and save our kitchen garden from entire
+ruination, that is the party Susan will vote for.  In the meantime,
+will you just step out and give me your opinion on the meat for dinner?
+I am fearing that it is very tough, and I think that we had better
+change our butcher as well as our government."
+
+One evening, a week later, Anne walked down to the Point, to see if she
+could get some fresh fish from Captain Jim, leaving Little Jem for the
+first time.  It was quite a tragedy.  Suppose he cried?  Suppose Susan
+did not know just exactly what to do for him?  Susan was calm and
+serene.
+
+"I have had as much experience with him as you, Mrs. Doctor, dear, have
+I not?"
+
+"Yes, with him--but not with other babies.  Why, I looked after three
+pairs of twins, when I was a child, Susan.  When they cried, I gave
+them peppermint or castor oil quite coolly.  It's quite curious now to
+recall how lightly I took all those babies and their woes."
+
+"Oh, well, if Little Jem cries, I will just clap a hot water bag on his
+little stomach," said Susan.
+
+"Not too hot, you know," said Anne anxiously.  Oh, was it really wise
+to go?
+
+"Do not you fret, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Susan is not the woman to burn a
+wee man.  Bless him, he has no notion of crying."
+
+Anne tore herself away finally and enjoyed her walk to the Point after
+all, through the long shadows of the sun-setting.  Captain Jim was not
+in the living room of the lighthouse, but another man was--a handsome,
+middle-aged man, with a strong, clean-shaven chin, who was unknown to
+Anne.  Nevertheless, when she sat down, he began to talk to her with
+all the assurance of an old acquaintance.  There was nothing amiss in
+what he said or the way he said it, but Anne rather resented such a
+cool taking-for-granted in a complete stranger.  Her replies were
+frosty, and as few as decency required.  Nothing daunted, her companion
+talked on for several minutes, then excused himself and went away.
+Anne could have sworn there was a twinkle in his eye and it annoyed
+her.  Who was the creature?  There was something vaguely familiar about
+him but she was certain she had never seen him before.
+
+"Captain Jim, who was that who just went out?" she asked, as Captain
+Jim came in.
+
+"Marshall Elliott," answered the captain.
+
+"Marshall Elliott!" cried Anne.  "Oh, Captain Jim--it wasn't--yes, it
+WAS his voice--oh, Captain Jim, I didn't know him--and I was quite
+insulting to him!  WHY didn't he tell me?  He must have seen I didn't
+know him."
+
+"He wouldn't say a word about it--he'd just enjoy the joke.  Don't
+worry over snubbing him--he'll think it fun.  Yes, Marshall's shaved
+off his beard at last and cut his hair.  His party is in, you know.  I
+didn't know him myself first time I saw him.  He was up in Carter
+Flagg's store at the Glen the night after election day, along with a
+crowd of others, waiting for the news.  About twelve the 'phone came
+through--the Liberals were in.  Marshall just got up and walked out--he
+didn't cheer or shout--he left the others to do that, and they nearly
+lifted the roof off Carter's store, I reckon.  Of course, all the
+Tories were over in Raymond Russell's store.  Not much cheering THERE.
+Marshall went straight down the street to the side door of Augustus
+Palmer's barber shop.  Augustus was in bed asleep, but Marhall hammered
+on the door until he got up and come down, wanting to know what all the
+racket was about.
+
+"Come into your shop and do the best job you ever did in your life,
+Gus,' said Marshall.  'The Liberals are in and you're going to barber a
+good Grit before the sun rises.'
+
+"Gus was mad as hops--partly because he'd been dragged out of bed, but
+more because he's a Tory.  He vowed he wouldn't shave any man after
+twelve at night.
+
+"'You'll do what I want you to do, sonny,' said Marshall, 'or I'll jest
+turn you over my knee and give you one of those spankings your mother
+forgot.'
+
+"He'd have done it, too, and Gus knew it, for Marshall is as strong as
+an ox and Gus is only a midget of a man.  So he gave in and towed
+Marshall in to the shop and went to work.  'Now,' says he, 'I'll barber
+you up, but if you say one word to me about the Grits getting in while
+I'm doing it I'll cut your throat with this razor,' says he.  You
+wouldn't have thought mild little Gus could be so bloodthirsty, would
+you?  Shows what party politics will do for a man.  Marshall kept quiet
+and got his hair and beard disposed of and went home.  When his old
+housekeeper heard him come upstairs she peeked out of her bedroom door
+to see whether 'twas him or the hired boy.  And when she saw a strange
+man striding down the hall with a candle in his hand she screamed blue
+murder and fainted dead away.  They had to send for the doctor before
+they could bring her to, and it was several days before she could look
+at Marshall without shaking all over."
+
+Captain Jim had no fish.  He seldom went out in his boat that summer,
+and his long tramping expeditions were over.  He spent a great deal of
+his time sitting by his seaward window, looking out over the gulf, with
+his swiftly-whitening head leaning on his hand.  He sat there tonight
+for many silent minutes, keeping some tryst with the past which Anne
+would not disturb.  Presently he pointed to the iris of the West:
+
+"That's beautiful, isn't, it, Mistress Blythe?  But I wish you could
+have seen the sunrise this morning.  It was a wonderful
+thing--wonderful.  I've seen all kinds of sunrises come over that gulf.
+I've been all over the world, Mistress Blythe, and take it all in all,
+I've never seen a finer sight than a summer sunrise over the gulf.  A
+man can't pick his time for dying, Mistress Blythe--jest got to go when
+the Great Captain gives His sailing orders.  But if I could I'd go out
+when the morning comes across that water.  I've watched it many a time
+and thought what a thing it would be to pass out through that great
+white glory to whatever was waiting beyant, on a sea that ain't mapped
+out on any airthly chart.  I think, Mistress Blythe, that I'd find lost
+Margaret there."
+
+Captain Jim had often talked to Anne of lost Margaret since he had told
+her the old story.  His love for her trembled in every tone--that love
+that had never grown faint or forgetful.
+
+"Anyway, I hope when my time comes I'll go quick and easy.  I don't
+think I'm a coward, Mistress Blythe--I've looked an ugly death in the
+face more than once without blenching.  But the thought of a lingering
+death does give me a queer, sick feeling of horror."
+
+"Don't talk about leaving us, dear, DEAR Captain, Jim," pleaded Anne,
+in a choked voice, patting the old brown hand, once so strong, but now
+grown very feeble.  "What would we do without you?"
+
+Captain Jim smiled beautifully.
+
+"Oh, you'd get along nicely--nicely--but you wouldn't forget the old
+man altogether, Mistress Blythe--no, I don't think you'll ever quite
+forget him.  The race of Joseph always remembers one another.  But
+it'll be a memory that won't hurt--I like to think that my memory won't
+hurt my friends--it'll always be kind of pleasant to them, I hope and
+believe.  It won't be very long now before lost Margaret calls me, for
+the last time.  I'll be all ready to answer.  I jest spoke of this
+because there's a little favor I want to ask you.  Here's this poor old
+Matey of mine"--Captain Jim reached out a hand and poked the big, warm,
+velvety, golden ball on the sofa.  The First Mate uncoiled himself like
+a spring with a nice, throaty, comfortable sound, half purr, half meow,
+stretched his paws in air, turned over and coiled himself up again.
+"HE'll miss me when I start on the V'yage.  I can't bear to think of
+leaving the poor critter to starve, like he was left before.  If
+anything happens to me will you give Matey a bite and a corner,
+Mistress Blythe?"
+
+"Indeed I will."
+
+"Then that is all I had on my mind.  Your Little Jem is to have the few
+curious things I picked up--I've seen to that.  And now I don't like to
+see tears in those pretty eyes, Mistress Blythe.  I'll mebbe hang on
+for quite a spell yet.  I heard you reading a piece of poetry one day
+last winter--one of Tennyson's pieces.  I'd sorter like to hear it
+again, if you could recite it for me."
+
+Softly and clearly, while the seawind blew in on them, Anne repeated
+the beautiful lines of Tennyson's wonderful swan song--"Crossing the
+Bar."  The old captain kept time gently with his sinewy hand.
+
+"Yes, yes, Mistress Blythe," he said, when she had finished, "that's
+it, that's it.  He wasn't a sailor, you tell me--I dunno how he could
+have put an old sailor's feelings into words like that, if he wasn't
+one.  He didn't want any 'sadness o' farewells' and neither do I,
+Mistress Blythe--for all will be well with me and mine beyant the bar."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 36
+
+BEAUTY FOR ASHES
+
+"Any news from Green Gables, Anne?"
+
+"Nothing very especial," replied Anne, folding up Marilla's letter.
+"Jake Donnell has been there shingling the roof.  He is a full-fledged
+carpenter now, so it seems he has had his own way in regard to the
+choice of a life-work.  You remember his mother wanted him to be a
+college professor.  I shall never forget the day she came to the school
+and rated me for failing to call him St. Clair."
+
+"Does anyone ever call him that now?"
+
+"Evidently not.  It seems that he has completely lived it down.  Even
+his mother has succumbed.  I always thought that a boy with Jake's chin
+and mouth would get his own way in the end.  Diana writes me that Dora
+has a beau.  Just think of it--that child!"
+
+"Dora is seventeen," said Gilbert.  "Charlie Sloane and I were both mad
+about you when you were seventeen, Anne."
+
+"Really, Gilbert, we must be getting on in years," said Anne, with a
+half-rueful smile, "when children who were six when we thought
+ourselves grown up are old enough now to have beaux.  Dora's is Ralph
+Andrews--Jane's brother.  I remember him as a little, round, fat,
+white-headed fellow who was always at the foot of his class.  But I
+understand he is quite a fine-looking young man now."
+
+"Dora will probably marry young.  She's of the same type as Charlotta
+the Fourth--she'll never miss her first chance for fear she might not
+get another."
+
+"Well; if she marries Ralph I hope he will be a little more
+up-and-coming than his brother Billy," mused Anne.
+
+"For instance," said Gilbert, laughing, "let us hope he will be able to
+propose on his own account.  Anne, would you have married Billy if he
+had asked you himself, instead of getting Jane to do it for him?"
+
+"I might have." Anne went off into a shriek of laughter over the
+recollection of her first proposal.  "The shock of the whole thing
+might have hypnotized me into some such rash and foolish act.  Let us
+be thankful he did it by proxy."
+
+"I had a letter from George Moore yesterday," said Leslie, from the
+corner where she was reading.
+
+"Oh, how is he?" asked Anne interestedly, yet with an unreal feeling
+that she was inquiring about some one whom she did not know.
+
+"He is well, but he finds it very hard to adapt himself to all the
+changes in his old home and friends.  He is going to sea again in the
+spring.  It's in his blood, he says, and he longs for it.  But he told
+me something that made me glad for him, poor fellow.  Before he sailed
+on the Four Sisters he was engaged to a girl at home.  He did not tell
+me anything about her in Montreal, because he said he supposed she
+would have forgotten him and married someone else long ago, and with
+him, you see, his engagement and love was still a thing of the present.
+It was pretty hard on him, but when he got home he found she had never
+married and still cared for him.  They are to be married this fall.
+I'm going to ask him to bring her over here for a little trip; he says
+he wants to come and see the place where he lived so many years without
+knowing it."
+
+"What a nice little romance," said Anne, whose love for the romantic
+was immortal.  "And to think," she added with a sigh of self-reproach,
+"that if I had had my way George Moore would never have come up from
+the grave in which his identity was buried.  How I did fight against
+Gilbert's suggestion!  Well, I am punished:  I shall never be able to
+have a different opinion from Gilbert's again!  If I try to have, he
+will squelch me by casting George Moore's case up to me!"
+
+"As if even that would squelch a woman!" mocked Gilbert.  "At least do
+not become my echo, Anne.  A little opposition gives spice to life.  I
+do not want a wife like John MacAllister's over the harbor.  No matter
+what he says, she at once remarks in that drab, lifeless little voice
+of hers, 'That is very true, John, dear me!'"
+
+Anne and Leslie laughed.  Anne's laughter was silver and Leslie's
+golden, and the combination of the two was as satisfactory as a perfect
+chord in music.
+
+Susan, coming in on the heels of the laughter, echoed it with a
+resounding sigh.
+
+"Why, Susan, what is the matter?" asked Gilbert.
+
+"There's nothing wrong with little Jem, is there, Susan?" cried Anne,
+starting up in alarm.
+
+"No, no, calm yourself, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Something has happened,
+though.  Dear me, everything has gone catawampus with me this week.  I
+spoiled the bread, as you know too well--and I scorched the doctor's
+best shirt bosom--and I broke your big platter.  And now, on the top of
+all this, comes word that my sister Matilda has broken her leg and
+wants me to go and stay with her for a spell."
+
+"Oh, I'm very sorry--sorry that your sister has met with such an
+accident, I mean," exclaimed Anne.
+
+"Ah, well, man was made to mourn, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  That sounds as if
+it ought to be in the Bible, but they tell me a person named Burns
+wrote it.  And there is no doubt that we are born to trouble as the
+sparks fly upward.  As for Matilda, I do not know what to think of her.
+None of our family ever broke their legs before.  But whatever she has
+done she is still my sister, and I feel that it is my duty to go and
+wait on her, if you can spare me for a few weeks, Mrs. Doctor, dear."
+
+"Of course, Susan, of course.  I can get someone to help me while you
+are gone."
+
+"If you cannot I will not go, Mrs. Doctor, dear, Matilda's leg to the
+contrary notwithstanding.  I will not have you worried, and that
+blessed child upset in consequence, for any number of legs."
+
+"Oh, you must go to your sister at once, Susan.  I can get a girl from
+the cove, who will do for a time."
+
+"Anne, will you let me come and stay with you while Susan is away?"
+exclaimed Leslie.  "Do!  I'd love to--and it would be an act of charity
+on your part.  I'm so horribly lonely over there in that big barn of a
+house.  There's so little to do--and at night I'm worse than
+lonely--I'm frightened and nervous in spite of locked doors.  There was
+a tramp around two days ago."
+
+Anne joyfully agreed, and next day Leslie was installed as an inmate of
+the little house of dreams.  Miss Cornelia warmly approved of the
+arrangement.
+
+"It seems Providential," she told Anne in confidence.  "I'm sorry for
+Matilda Clow, but since she had to break her leg it couldn't have
+happened at a better time.  Leslie will be here while Owen Ford is in
+Four Winds, and those old cats up at the Glen won't get the chance to
+meow, as they would if she was living over there alone and Owen going
+to see her.  They are doing enough of it as it is, because she doesn't
+put on mourning.  I said to one of them, 'If you mean she should put on
+mourning for George Moore, it seems to me more like his resurrection
+than his funeral; and if it's Dick you mean, I confess _I_ can't see
+the propriety of going into weeds for a man who died thirteen years ago
+and good riddance then!'  And when old Louisa Baldwin remarked to me
+that she thought it very strange that Leslie should never have
+suspected it wasn't her own husband _I_ said, 'YOU never suspected it
+wasn't Dick Moore, and you were next-door neighbor to him all his life,
+and by nature you're ten times as suspicious as Leslie.'  But you can't
+stop some people's tongues, Anne, dearie, and I'm real thankful Leslie
+will be under your roof while Owen is courting her."
+
+Owen Ford came to the little house one August evening when Leslie and
+Anne were absorbed in worshipping the baby.  He paused at the open door
+of the living room, unseen by the two within, gazing with greedy eyes
+at the beautiful picture.  Leslie sat on the floor with the baby in her
+lap, making ecstatic dabs at his fat little hands as he fluttered them
+in the air.
+
+"Oh, you dear, beautiful, beloved baby," she mumbled, catching one wee
+hand and covering it with kisses.
+
+"Isn't him ze darlingest itty sing," crooned Anne, hanging over the arm
+of her chair adoringly.  "Dem itty wee pads are ze very tweetest
+handies in ze whole big world, isn't dey, you darling itty man."
+
+Anne, in the months before Little Jem's coming, had pored diligently
+over several wise volumes, and pinned her faith to one in especial,
+"Sir Oracle on the Care and Training of Children."  Sir Oracle implored
+parents by all they held sacred never to talk "baby talk" to their
+children.  Infants should invariably be addressed in classical language
+from the moment of their birth.  So should they learn to speak English
+undefiled from their earliest utterance.  "How," demanded Sir Oracle,
+"can a mother reasonably expect her child to learn correct speech, when
+she continually accustoms its impressionable gray matter to such absurd
+expressions and distortions of our noble tongue as thoughtless mothers
+inflict every day on the helpless creatures committed to their care?
+Can a child who is constantly called 'tweet itty wee singie' ever
+attain to any proper conception of his own being and possibilities and
+destiny?"
+
+Anne was vastly impressed with this, and informed Gilbert that she
+meant to make it an inflexible rule never, under any circumstances, to
+talk "baby talk" to her children.  Gilbert agreed with her, and they
+made a solemn compact on the subject--a compact which Anne shamelessly
+violated the very first moment Little Jem was laid in her arms.  "Oh,
+the darling itty wee sing!" she had exclaimed.  And she had continued
+to violate it ever since.  When Gilbert teased her she laughed Sir
+Oracle to scorn.
+
+"He never had any children of his own, Gilbert--I am positive he hadn't
+or he would never have written such rubbish.  You just can't help
+talking baby talk to a baby.  It comes natural--and it's RIGHT.  It
+would be inhuman to talk to those tiny, soft, velvety little creatures
+as we do to great big boys and girls.  Babies want love and cuddling
+and all the sweet baby talk they can get, and Little Jem is going to
+have it, bless his dear itty heartums."
+
+"But you're the worst I ever heard, Anne," protested Gilbert, who, not
+being a mother but only a father, was not wholly convinced yet that Sir
+Oracle was wrong.  "I never heard anything like the way you talk to
+that child."
+
+"Very likely you never did.  Go away--go away.  Didn't I bring up three
+pairs of Hammond twins before I was eleven?  You and Sir Oracle are
+nothing but cold-blooded theorists.  Gilbert, JUST look at him!  He's
+smiling at me--he knows what we're talking about.  And oo dest agwees
+wif evy word muzzer says, don't oo, angel-lover?"
+
+Gilbert put his arm about them.  "Oh you mothers!" he said.  "You
+mothers!  God knew what He was about when He made you."
+
+So Little Jem was talked to and loved and cuddled; and he throve as
+became a child of the house of dreams.  Leslie was quite as foolish
+over him as Anne was.  When their work was done and Gilbert was out of
+the way, they gave themselves over to shameless orgies of love-making
+and ecstasies of adoration, such as that in which Owen Ford had
+surprised them.
+
+Leslie was the first to become aware of him.  Even in the twilight
+Anne could see the sudden whiteness that swept over her beautiful face,
+blotting out the crimson of lip and cheeks.
+
+Owen came forward, eagerly, blind for a moment to Anne.
+
+"Leslie!" he said, holding out his hand.  It was the first time he had
+ever called her by her name; but the hand Leslie gave him was cold; and
+she was very quiet all the evening, while Anne and Gilbert and Owen
+laughed and talked together.  Before his call ended she excused herself
+and went upstairs.  Owen's gay spirits flagged and he went away soon
+after with a downcast air.
+
+Gilbert looked at Anne.
+
+"Anne, what are you up to?  There's something going on that I don't
+understand.  The whole air here tonight has been charged with
+electricity.  Leslie sits like the muse of tragedy; Owen Ford jokes and
+laughs on the surface, and watches Leslie with the eyes of his soul.
+You seem all the time to be bursting with some suppressed excitement.
+Own up.  What secret have you been keeping from your deceived husband?"
+
+"Don't be a goose, Gilbert," was Anne's conjugal reply.  "As for
+Leslie, she is absurd and I'm going up to tell her so."
+
+Anne found Leslie at the dormer window of her room.  The little place
+was filled with the rhythmic thunder of the sea.  Leslie sat with
+locked hands in the misty moonshine--a beautiful, accusing presence.
+
+"Anne," she said in a low, reproachful voice, "did you know Owen Ford
+was coming to Four Winds?"
+
+"I did," said Anne brazenly.
+
+"Oh, you should have told me, Anne," Leslie cried passionately. "If I
+had known I would have gone away--I wouldn't have stayed here to meet
+him.  You should have told me.  It wasn't fair of you, Anne--oh, it
+wasn't fair!"
+
+Leslie's lips were trembling and her whole form was tense with emotion.
+But Anne laughed heartlessly.  She bent over and kissed Leslie's
+upturned reproachful face.
+
+"Leslie, you are an adorable goose.  Owen Ford didn't rush from the
+Pacific to the Atlantic from a burning desire to see ME.  Neither do I
+believe that he was inspired by any wild and frenzied passion for Miss
+Cornelia.  Take off your tragic airs, my dear friend, and fold them up
+and put them away in lavender.  You'll never need them again.  There
+are some people who can see through a grindstone when there is a hole
+in it, even if you cannot.  I am not a prophetess, but I shall venture
+on a prediction.  The bitterness of life is over for you.  After this
+you are going to have the joys and hopes--and I daresay the sorrows,
+too--of a happy woman.  The omen of the shadow of Venus did come true
+for you, Leslie.  The year in which you saw it brought your life's best
+gift for you--your love for Owen Ford.  Now, go right to bed and have a
+good sleep."
+
+Leslie obeyed orders in so far that she went to bed: but it may be
+questioned if she slept much.  I do not think she dared to dream
+wakingly; life had been so hard for this poor Leslie, the path on which
+she had had to walk had been so strait, that she could not whisper to
+her own heart the hopes that might wait on the future.  But she watched
+the great revolving light bestarring the short hours of the summer
+night, and her eyes grew soft and bright and young once more.  Nor,
+when Owen Ford came next day, to ask her to go with him to the shore,
+did she say him nay.
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER 37
+
+MISS CORNELIA MAKES A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT
+
+Miss Cornelia sailed down to the little house one drowsy afternoon,
+when the gulf was the faint, bleached blue of the August seas, and the
+orange lilies at the gate of Anne's garden held up their imperial cups
+to be filled with the molten gold of August sunshine.  Not that Miss
+Cornelia concerned herself with painted oceans or sun-thirsty lilies.
+She sat in her favorite rocker in unusual idleness.  She sewed not,
+neither did she spin.  Nor did she say a single derogatory word
+concerning any portion of mankind.  In short, Miss Cornelia's
+conversation was singularly devoid of spice that day, and Gilbert, who
+had stayed home to listen to her, instead of going a-fishing, as he had
+intended, felt himself aggrieved.  What had come over Miss Cornelia?
+She did not look cast down or worried.  On the contrary, there was a
+certain air of nervous exultation about her.
+
+"Where is Leslie?" she asked--not as if it mattered much either.
+
+"Owen and she went raspberrying in the woods back of her farm,"
+answered Anne.  "They won't be back before supper time--if then."
+
+"They don't seem to have any idea that there is such a thing as a
+clock," said Gilbert.  "I can't get to the bottom of that affair.  I'm
+certain you women pulled strings.  But Anne, undutiful wife, won't tell
+me.  Will you, Miss Cornelia?"
+
+"No, I shall not.  But," said Miss Cornelia, with the air of one
+determined to take the plunge and have it over, "I will tell you
+something else.  I came today on purpose to tell it.  I am going to be
+married."
+
+Anne and Gilbert were silent.  If Miss Cornelia had announced her
+intention of going out to the channel and drowning herself the thing
+might have been believable.  This was not.  So they waited.  Of course
+Miss Cornelia had made a mistake.
+
+"Well, you both look sort of kerflummexed," said Miss Cornelia, with a
+twinkle in her eyes.  Now that the awkward moment of revelation was
+over, Miss Cornelia was her own woman again.  "Do you think I'm too
+young and inexperienced for matrimony?"
+
+"You know--it IS rather staggering," said Gilbert, trying to gather his
+wits together.  "I've heard you say a score of times that you wouldn't
+marry the best man in the world."
+
+"I'm not going to marry the best man in the world," retorted Miss
+Cornelia.  "Marshall Elliott is a long way from being the best."
+
+"Are you going to marry Marshall Elliott?" exclaimed Anne, recovering
+her power of speech under this second shock.
+
+"Yes.  I could have had him any time these twenty years if I'd lifted
+my finger.  But do you suppose I was going to walk into church beside a
+perambulating haystack like that?"
+
+"I am sure we are very glad--and we wish you all possible happiness,"
+said Anne, very flatly and inadequately, as she felt.  She was not
+prepared for such an occasion.  She had never imagined herself offering
+betrothal felicitations to Miss Cornelia.
+
+"Thanks, I knew you would," said Miss Cornelia.  "You are the first of
+my friends to know it."
+
+"We shall be so sorry to lose you, though, dear Miss Cornelia," said
+Anne, beginning to be a little sad and sentimental.
+
+"Oh, you won't lose me," said Miss Cornelia unsentimentally.  "You
+don't suppose I would live over harbor with all those MacAllisters and
+Elliotts and Crawfords, do you? 'From the conceit of the Elliotts, the
+pride of the MacAllisters and the vain-glory of the Crawfords, good
+Lord deliver us.'  Marshall is coming to live at my place.  I'm sick
+and tired of hired men.  That Jim Hastings I've got this summer is
+positively the worst of the species.  He would drive anyone to getting
+married.  What do you think?  He upset the churn yesterday and spilled
+a big churning of cream over the yard.  And not one whit concerned
+about it was he!  Just gave a foolish laugh and said cream was good for
+the land.  Wasn't that like a man?  I told him I wasn't in the habit of
+fertilising my back yard with cream."
+
+"Well, I wish you all manner of happiness too, Miss Cornelia," said
+Gilbert, solemnly; "but," he added, unable to resist the temptation to
+tease Miss Cornelia, despite Anne's imploring eyes, "I fear your day of
+independence is done.  As you know, Marshall Elliott is a very
+determined man."
+
+"I like a man who can stick to a thing," retorted Miss Cornelia.  "Amos
+Grant, who used to be after me long ago, couldn't.  You never saw such
+a weather-vane.  He jumped into the pond to drown himself once and then
+changed his mind and swum out again.  Wasn't that like a man?  Marshall
+would have stuck to it and drowned."
+
+"And he has a bit of a temper, they tell me," persisted Gilbert.
+
+"He wouldn't be an Elliott if he hadn't.  I'm thankful he has.  It will
+be real fun to make him mad.  And you can generally do something with a
+tempery man when it comes to repenting time.  But you can't do anything
+with a man who just keeps placid and aggravating."
+
+"You know he's a Grit, Miss Cornelia."
+
+"Yes, he IS," admitted Miss Cornelia rather sadly.  "And of course
+there is no hope of making a Conservative of him.  But at least he is a
+Presbyterian.  So I suppose I shall have to be satisfied with that."
+
+"Would you marry him if he were a Methodist, Miss Cornelia?"
+
+"No, I would not.  Politics is for this world, but religion is for
+both."
+
+"And you may be a 'relict' after all, Miss Cornelia."
+
+"Not I.  Marshall will live me out.  The Elliotts are long-lived, and
+the Bryants are not."
+
+"When are you to be married?" asked Anne.
+
+"In about a month's time.  My wedding dress is to be navy blue silk.
+And I want to ask you, Anne, dearie, if you think it would be all right
+to wear a veil with a navy blue dress.  I've always thought I'd like to
+wear a veil if I ever got married.  Marshall says to have it if I want
+to.  Isn't that like a man?"
+
+"Why shouldn't you wear it if you want to?" asked Anne.
+
+"Well, one doesn't want to be different from other people," said Miss
+Cornelia, who was not noticeably like anyone else on the face of the
+earth.  "As I say, I do fancy a veil.  But maybe it shouldn't be worn
+with any dress but a white one.  Please tell me, Anne, dearie, what you
+really think.  I'll go by your advice."
+
+"I don't think veils are usually worn with any but white dresses,"
+admitted Anne, "but that is merely a convention; and I am like Mr.
+Elliott, Miss Cornelia.  I don't see any good reason why you shouldn't
+have a veil if you want one."
+
+But Miss Cornelia, who made her calls in calico wrappers, shook her
+head.
+
+"If it isn't the proper thing I won't wear it," she said, with a sigh
+of regret for a lost dream.
+
+"Since you are determined to be married, Miss Cornelia," said Gilbert
+solemnly, "I shall give you the excellent rules for the management of a
+husband which my grandmother gave my mother when she married my father."
+
+"Well, I reckon I can manage Marshall Elliott," said Miss Cornelia
+placidly.  "But let us hear your rules."
+
+"The first one is, catch him."
+
+"He's caught.  Go on."
+
+"The second one is, feed him well."
+
+"With enough pie.  What next?"
+
+"The third and fourth are--keep your eye on him."
+
+"I believe you," said Miss Cornelia emphatically.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 38
+
+RED ROSES
+
+The garden of the little house was a haunt beloved of bees and reddened
+by late roses that August.  The little house folk lived much in it, and
+were given to taking picnic suppers in the grassy corner beyond the
+brook and sitting about in it through the twilights when great night
+moths sailed athwart the velvet gloom.  One evening Owen Ford found
+Leslie alone in it.  Anne and Gilbert were away, and Susan, who was
+expected back that night, had not yet returned.
+
+The northern sky was amber and pale green over the fir tops.  The air
+was cool, for August was nearing September, and Leslie wore a crimson
+scarf over her white dress.  Together they wandered through the little,
+friendly, flower-crowded paths in silence.  Owen must go soon.  His
+holiday was nearly over.  Leslie found her heart beating wildly.  She
+knew that this beloved garden was to be the scene of the binding words
+that must seal their as yet unworded understanding.
+
+"Some evenings a strange odor blows down the air of this garden, like a
+phantom perfume," said Owen.  "I have never been able to discover from
+just what flower it comes.  It is elusive and haunting and wonderfully
+sweet.  I like to fancy it is the soul of Grandmother Selwyn passing on
+a little visit to the old spot she loved so well.  There should be a
+lot of friendly ghosts about this little old house."
+
+"I have lived under its roof only a month," said Leslie, "but I love it
+as I never loved the house over there where I have lived all my life."
+
+"This house was builded and consecrated by love," said Owen.  "Such
+houses, MUST exert an influence over those who live in them.  And this
+garden--it is over sixty years old and the history of a thousand hopes
+and joys is written in its blossoms.  Some of those flowers were
+actually set out by the schoolmaster's bride, and she has been dead for
+thirty years.  Yet they bloom on every summer.  Look at those red
+roses, Leslie--how they queen it over everything else!"
+
+"I love the red roses," said Leslie.  "Anne likes the pink ones best,
+and Gilbert likes the white.  But I want the crimson ones.  They
+satisfy some craving in me as no other flower does."
+
+"These roses are very late--they bloom after all the others have
+gone--and they hold all the warmth and soul of the summer come to
+fruition," said Owen, plucking some of the glowing, half-opened buds.
+
+"The rose is the flower of love--the world has acclaimed it so for
+centuries.  The pink roses are love hopeful and expectant--the white
+roses are love dead or forsaken--but the red roses--ah, Leslie, what
+are the red roses?"
+
+"Love triumphant," said Leslie in a low voice.
+
+"Yes--love triumphant and perfect.  Leslie, you know--you understand.
+I have loved you from the first.  And I KNOW you love me--I don't need
+to ask you.  But I want to hear you say it--my darling--my darling!"
+
+Leslie said something in a very low and tremulous voice.  Their hands
+and lips met; it was life's supreme moment for them and as they stood
+there in the old garden, with its many years of love and delight and
+sorrow and glory, he crowned her shining hair with the red, red rose of
+a love triumphant.
+
+Anne and Gilbert returned presently, accompanied by Captain Jim.  Anne
+lighted a few sticks of driftwood in the fireplace, for love of the
+pixy flames, and they sat around it for an hour of good fellowship.
+
+"When I sit looking at a driftwood fire it's easy to believe I'm young
+again," said Captain Jim.
+
+"Can you read futures in the fire, Captain Jim?" asked Owen.
+
+Captain Jim looked at them all affectionately and then back again at
+Leslie's vivid face and glowing eyes.
+
+"I don't need the fire to read your futures," he said.  "I see
+happiness for all of you--all of you--for Leslie and Mr. Ford--and the
+doctor here and Mistress Blythe--and Little Jem--and children that
+ain't born yet but will be.  Happiness for you all--though, mind you, I
+reckon you'll have your troubles and worries and sorrows, too.  They're
+bound to come--and no house, whether it's a palace or a little house of
+dreams, can bar 'em out.  But they won't get the better of you if you
+face 'em TOGETHER with love and trust.  You can weather any storm with
+them two for compass and pilot."
+
+The old man rose suddenly and placed one hand on Leslie's head and one
+on Anne's.
+
+"Two good, sweet women," he said.  "True and faithful and to be
+depended on.  Your husbands will have honor in the gates because of
+you--your children will rise up and call you blessed in the years to
+come."
+
+There was a strange solemnity about the little scene.  Anne and Leslie
+bowed as those receiving a benediction.  Gilbert suddenly brushed his
+hand over his eyes; Owen Ford was rapt as one who can see visions.  All
+were silent for a space.  The little house of dreams added another
+poignant and unforgettable moment to its store of memories.
+
+"I must be going now," said Captain Jim slowly at last.  He took up his
+hat and looked lingeringly about the room.
+
+"Good night, all of you," he said, as he went out.
+
+Anne, pierced by the unusual wistfulness of his farewell, ran to the
+door after him.
+
+"Come back soon, Captain Jim," she called, as he passed through the
+little gate hung between the firs.
+
+"Ay, ay," he called cheerily back to her.  But Captain Jim had sat by
+the old fireside of the house of dreams for the last time.
+
+Anne went slowly back to the others.
+
+"It's so--so pitiful to think of him going all alone down to that
+lonely Point," she said.  "And there is no one to welcome him there."
+
+"Captain Jim is such good company for others that one can't imagine him
+being anything but good company for himself," said Owen.  "But he must
+often be lonely.  There was a touch of the seer about him tonight--he
+spoke as one to whom it had been given to speak.  Well, I must be
+going, too."
+
+Anne and Gilbert discreetly melted away; but when Owen had gone Anne
+returned, to find Leslie standing by the hearth.
+
+"Oh, Leslie--I know--and I'm so glad, dear," she said, putting her arms
+about her.
+
+"Anne, my happiness frightens me," whispered Leslie.  "It seems too
+great to be real--I'm afraid to speak of it--to think of it.  It seems
+to me that it must just be another dream of this house of dreams and it
+will vanish when I leave here."
+
+"Well, you are not going to leave here--until Owen takes you.  You are
+going to stay with me until that times comes.  Do you think I'd let you
+go over to that lonely, sad place again?"
+
+"Thank you, dear.  I meant to ask you if I might stay with you.  I
+didn't want to go back there--it would seem like going back into the
+chill and dreariness of the old life again.  Anne, Anne, what a friend
+you've been to me--'a good, sweet woman--true and faithful and to be
+depended on'--Captain Jim summed you up."
+
+"He said 'women,' not 'woman,'" smiled Anne.  "Perhaps Captain Jim sees
+us both through the rose-colored spectacles of his love for us.  But we
+can try to live up to his belief in us, at least."
+
+"Do you remember, Anne," said Leslie slowly, "that I once said--that
+night we met on the shore--that I hated my good looks?  I did--then.
+It always seemed to me that if I had been homely Dick would never have
+thought of me.  I hated my beauty because it had attracted him, but
+now--oh, I'm glad that I have it.  It's all I have to offer Owen,--his
+artist soul delights in it.  I feel as if I do not come to him quite
+empty-handed."
+
+"Owen loves your beauty, Leslie.  Who would not?  But it's foolish of
+you to say or think that that is all you bring him.  HE will tell you
+that--I needn't.  And now I must lock up.  I expected Susan back
+tonight, but she has not come."
+
+"Oh, yes, here I am, Mrs. Doctor, dear," said Susan, entering
+unexpectedly from the kitchen, "and puffing like a hen drawing rails at
+that!  It's quite a walk from the Glen down here."
+
+"I'm glad to see you back, Susan.  How is your sister?"
+
+"She is able to sit up, but of course she cannot walk yet.  However,
+she is very well able to get on without me now, for her daughter has
+come home for her vacation.  And I am thankful to be back, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear.  Matilda's leg was broken and no mistake, but her tongue was not.
+She would talk the legs off an iron pot, that she would, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear, though I grieve to say it of my own sister.  She was always a
+great talker and yet she was the first of our family to get married.
+She really did not care much about marrying James Clow, but she could
+not bear to disoblige him.  Not but what James is a good man--the only
+fault I have to find with him is that he always starts in to say grace
+with such an unearthly groan, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  It always frightens
+my appetite clear away.  And speaking of getting married, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear, is it true that Cornelia Bryant is going to be married to
+Marshall Elliott?"
+
+"Yes, quite true, Susan."
+
+"Well, Mrs. Doctor, dear, it does NOT seem to me fair.  Here is me, who
+never said a word against the men, and I cannot get married nohow.  And
+there is Cornelia Bryant, who is never done abusing them, and all she
+has to do is to reach out her hand and pick one up, as it were.  It is
+a very strange world, Mrs. Doctor, dear."
+
+"There's another world, you know, Susan."
+
+"Yes," said Susan with a heavy sigh, "but, Mrs. Doctor, dear, there is
+neither marrying nor giving in marriage there."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 39
+
+CAPTAIN JIM CROSSES THE BAR
+
+One day in late September Owen Ford's book came at last.  Captain Jim
+had gone faithfully to the Glen post office every day for a month,
+expecting it.  This day he had not gone, and Leslie brought his copy
+home with hers and Anne's.
+
+"We'll take it down to him this evening," said Anne, excited as a
+schoolgirl.
+
+The long walk to the Point on that clear, beguiling evening along the
+red harbor road was very pleasant.  Then the sun dropped down behind
+the western hills into some valley that must have been full of lost
+sunsets, and at the same instant the big light flashed out on the white
+tower of the point.
+
+"Captain Jim is never late by the fraction of a second," said Leslie.
+
+Neither Anne nor Leslie ever forgot Captain Jim's face when they gave
+him the book--HIS book, transfigured and glorified.  The cheeks that
+had been blanched of late suddenly flamed with the color of boyhood;
+his eyes glowed with all the fire of youth; but his hands trembled as
+he opened it.
+
+It was called simply The Life-Book of Captain Jim, and on the title
+page the names of Owen Ford and James Boyd were printed as
+collaborators.  The frontispiece was a photograph of Captain Jim
+himself, standing at the door of the lighthouse, looking across the
+gulf.  Owen Ford had "snapped" him one day while the book was being
+written.  Captain Jim had known this, but he had not known that the
+picture was to be in the book.
+
+"Just think of it," he said, "the old sailor right there in a real
+printed book.  This is the proudest day of my life.  I'm like to bust,
+girls.  There'll be no sleep for me tonight.  I'll read my book clean
+through before sun-up."
+
+"We'll go right away and leave you free to begin it," said Anne.
+
+Captain Jim had been handling the book in a kind of reverent rapture.
+Now he decidedly closed it and laid it aside.
+
+"No, no, you're not going away before you take a cup of tea with the
+old man," he protested.  "I couldn't hear to that--could you, Matey?
+The life-book will keep, I reckon.  I've waited for it this many a
+year.  I can wait a little longer while I'm enjoying my friends."
+
+Captain Jim moved about getting his kettle on to boil, and setting out
+his bread and butter.  Despite his excitement he did not move with his
+old briskness.  His movements were slow and halting.  But the girls did
+not offer to help him.  They knew it would hurt his feelings.
+
+"You just picked the right evening to visit me," he said, producing a
+cake from his cupboard.  "Leetle Joe's mother sent me down a big basket
+full of cakes and pies today.  A blessing on all good cooks, says I.
+Look at this purty cake, all frosting and nuts.  'Tain't often I can
+entertain in such style.  Set in, girls, set in!  We'll 'tak a cup o'
+kindness yet for auld lang syne.'"
+
+The girls "set in" right merrily.  The tea was up to Captain Jim's best
+brewing.  Little Joe's mother's cake was the last word in cakes;
+Captain Jim was the prince of gracious hosts, never even permitting his
+eyes to wander to the corner where the life-book lay, in all its
+bravery of green and gold.  But when his door finally closed behind
+Anne and Leslie they knew that he went straight to it, and as they
+walked home they pictured the delight of the old man poring over the
+printed pages wherein his own life was portrayed with all the charm and
+color of reality itself.
+
+"I wonder how he will like the ending--the ending I suggested," said
+Leslie.
+
+She was never to know.  Early the next morning Anne awakened to find
+Gilbert bending over her, fully dressed, and with an expression of
+anxiety on his face.
+
+"Are you called out?" she asked drowsily.
+
+"No.  Anne, I'm afraid there's something wrong at the Point.  It's an
+hour after sunrise now, and the light is still burning.  You know it
+has always been a matter of pride with Captain Jim to start the light
+the moment the sun sets, and put it out the moment it rises."
+
+Anne sat up in dismay.  Through her window she saw the light blinking
+palely against the blue skies of dawn.
+
+"Perhaps he has fallen asleep over his life-book," she said anxiously,
+"or become so absorbed in it that he has forgotten the light."
+
+Gilbert shook his head.
+
+"That wouldn't be like Captain Jim.  Anyway, I'm going down to see."
+
+"Wait a minute and I'll go with you," exclaimed Anne.  "Oh, yes, I
+must--Little Jem will sleep for an hour yet, and I'll call Susan.  You
+may need a woman's help if Captain Jim is ill."
+
+It was an exquisite morning, full of tints and sounds at once ripe and
+delicate.  The harbor was sparkling and dimpling like a girl; white
+gulls were soaring over the dunes; beyond the bar was a shining,
+wonderful sea.  The long fields by the shore were dewy and fresh in
+that first fine, purely-tinted light.  The wind came dancing and
+whistling up the channel to replace the beautiful silence with a music
+more beautiful still.  Had it not been for the baleful star on the
+white tower that early walk would have been a delight to Anne and
+Gilbert.  But they went softly with fear.
+
+Their knock was not responded to.  Gilbert opened the door and they
+went in.
+
+The old room was very quiet.  On the table were the remnants of the
+little evening feast.  The lamp still burned on the corner stand.  The
+First Mate was asleep in a square of sunshine by the sofa.
+
+Captain Jim lay on the sofa, with his hands clasped over the life-book,
+open at the last page, lying on his breast.  His eyes were closed and
+on his face was a look of the most perfect peace and happiness--the
+look of one who has long sought and found at last.
+
+"He is asleep?" whispered Anne tremulously.
+
+Gilbert went to the sofa and bent over him for a few moments.  Then he
+straightened up.
+
+"Yes, he sleeps--well," he added quietly.  "Anne, Captain Jim has
+crossed the bar."
+
+They could not know precisely at what hour he had died, but Anne always
+believed that he had had his wish, and went out when the morning came
+across the gulf.  Out on that shining tide his spirit drifted, over the
+sunrise sea of pearl and silver, to the haven where lost Margaret
+waited, beyond the storms and calms.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 40
+
+FAREWELL TO THE HOUSE OF DREAMS
+
+Captain Jim was buried in the little over-harbor graveyard, very near
+to the spot where the wee white lady slept.  His relatives put up a
+very expensive, very ugly "monument"--a monument at which he would have
+poked sly fun had he seen it in life.  But his real monument was in the
+hearts of those who knew him, and in the book that was to live for
+generations.
+
+Leslie mourned that Captain Jim had not lived to see the amazing
+success of it.
+
+"How he would have delighted in the reviews--they are almost all so
+kindly.  And to have seen his life-book heading the lists of the best
+sellers--oh, if he could just have lived to see it, Anne!"
+
+But Anne, despite her grief, was wiser.
+
+"It was the book itself he cared for, Leslie--not what might be said of
+it--and he had it.  He had read it all through.  That last night must
+have been one of the greatest happiness for him--with the quick,
+painless ending he had hoped for in the morning.  I am glad for Owen's
+sake and yours that the book is such a success--but Captain Jim was
+satisfied--I KNOW."
+
+The lighthouse star still kept a nightly vigil; a substitute keeper had
+been sent to the Point, until such time as an all-wise government could
+decide which of many applicants was best fitted for the place--or had
+the strongest pull.  The First Mate was at home in the little house,
+beloved by Anne and Gilbert and Leslie, and tolerated by a Susan who
+had small liking for cats.
+
+"I can put up with him for the sake of Captain Jim, Mrs. Doctor, dear,
+for I liked the old man.  And I will see that he gets bite and sup, and
+every mouse the traps account for.  But do not ask me to do more than
+that, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Cats is cats, and take my word for it, they
+will never be anything else.  And at least, Mrs. Doctor, dear, do keep
+him away from the blessed wee man.  Picture to yourself how awful it
+would be if he was to suck the darling's breath."
+
+"That might be fitly called a CAT-astrophe," said Gilbert.
+
+"Oh, you may laugh, doctor, dear, but it would be no laughing matter."
+
+"Cats never suck babies' breaths," said Gilbert.  "That is only an old
+superstition, Susan."
+
+"Oh, well, it may be a superstition or it may not, doctor, dear.  All
+that I know is, it has happened.  My sister's husband's nephew's wife's
+cat sucked their baby's breath, and the poor innocent was all but gone
+when they found it.  And superstition or not, if I find that yellow
+beast lurking near our baby I will whack him with the poker, Mrs.
+Doctor, dear."
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Elliott were living comfortably and harmoniously
+in the green house.  Leslie was busy with sewing, for she and Owen were
+to be married at Christmas.  Anne wondered what she would do when
+Leslie was gone.
+
+"Changes come all the time.  Just as soon as things get really nice
+they change," she said with a sigh.
+
+"The old Morgan place up at the Glen is for sale," said Gilbert,
+apropos of nothing in especial.
+
+"Is it?" asked Anne indifferently.
+
+"Yes.  Now that Mr. Morgan has gone, Mrs. Morgan wants to go to live
+with her children in Vancouver.  She will sell cheaply, for a big place
+like that in a small village like the Glen will not be very easy to
+dispose of."
+
+"Well, it's certainly a beautiful place, so it is likely she will find
+a purchaser," said Anne, absently, wondering whether she should
+hemstitch or feather-stitch little Jem's "short" dresses.  He was to be
+shortened the next week, and Anne felt ready to cry at the thought of
+it.
+
+"Suppose we buy it, Anne?" remarked Gilbert quietly.
+
+Anne dropped her sewing and stared at him.
+
+"You're not in earnest, Gilbert?"
+
+"Indeed I am, dear."
+
+"And leave this darling spot--our house of dreams?" said Anne
+incredulously.  "Oh, Gilbert, it's--it's unthinkable!"
+
+"Listen patiently to me, dear.  I know just how you feel about it.  I
+feel the same.  But we've always known we would have to move some day."
+
+"Oh, but not so soon, Gilbert--not just yet."
+
+"We may never get such a chance again.  If we don't buy the Morgan
+place someone else will--and there is no other house in the Glen we
+would care to have, and no other really good site on which to build.
+This little house is--well, it is and has been what no other house can
+ever be to us, I admit, but you know it is out-of-the-way down here for
+a doctor.  We have felt the inconvenience, though we've made the best
+of it.  And it's a tight fit for us now.  Perhaps, in a few years, when
+Jem wants a room of his own, it will be entirely too small."
+
+"Oh, I know--I know," said Anne, tears filling her eyes.  "I know all
+that can be said against it, but I love it so--and it's so beautiful
+here."
+
+"You would find it very lonely here after Leslie goes--and Captain Jim
+has gone too.  The Morgan place is beautiful, and in time we would love
+it.  You know you have always admired it, Anne."
+
+"Oh, yes, but--but--this has all seemed to come up so suddenly,
+Gilbert.  I'm dizzy.  Ten minutes ago I had no thought of leaving this
+dear spot.  I was planning what I meant to do for it in the
+spring--what I meant to do in the garden.  And if we leave this place
+who will get it?  It IS out-of-the-way, so it's likely some poor,
+shiftless, wandering family will rent it--and over-run it--and oh, that
+would be desecration.  It would hurt me horribly."
+
+"I know.  But we cannot sacrifice our own interests to such
+considerations, Anne-girl.  The Morgan place will suit us in every
+essential particular--we really can't afford to miss such a chance.
+Think of that big lawn with those magnificent old trees; and of that
+splendid hardwood grove behind it--twelve acres of it.  What a play
+place for our children!  There's a fine orchard, too, and you've always
+admired that high brick wall around the garden with the door in
+it--you've thought it was so like a story-book garden.  And there is
+almost as fine a view of the harbor and the dunes from the Morgan place
+as from here."
+
+"You can't see the lighthouse star from it."
+
+"Yes, You can see it from the attic window.  THERE'S another advantage,
+Anne-girl--you love big garrets."
+
+ "There's no brook in the garden."
+
+"Well, no, but there is one running through the maple grove into the
+Glen pond.  And the pond itself isn't far away.  You'll be able to
+fancy you have your own Lake of Shining Waters again."
+
+"Well, don't say anything more about it just now, Gilbert.  Give me
+time to think--to get used to the idea."
+
+"All right.  There is no great hurry, of course.  Only--if we decide to
+buy, it would be well to be moved in and settled before winter."
+
+Gilbert went out, and Anne put away Little Jem's short dresses with
+trembling hands.  She could not sew any more that day.  With tear-wet
+eyes she wandered over the little domain where she had reigned so happy
+a queen.  The Morgan place was all that Gilbert claimed.  The grounds
+were beautiful, the house old enough to have dignity and repose and
+traditions, and new enough to be comfortable and up-to-date.  Anne had
+always admired it; but admiring is not loving; and she loved this house
+of dreams so much.  She loved EVERYTHING about it--the garden she had
+tended, and which so many women had tended before her--the gleam and
+sparkle of the little brook that crept so roguishly across the
+corner--the gate between the creaking fir trees--the old red sandstone
+step--the stately Lombardies--the two tiny quaint glass cupboards over
+the chimney-piece in the living-room--the crooked pantry door in the
+kitchen--the two funny dormer windows upstairs--the little jog in the
+staircase--why, these things were a part of her!  How could she leave
+them?
+
+And how this little house, consecrated aforetime by love and joy, had
+been re-consecrated for her by her happiness and sorrow!  Here she had
+spent her bridal moon; here wee Joyce had lived her one brief day; here
+the sweetness of motherhood had come again with Little Jem; here she
+had heard the exquisite music of her baby's cooing laughter; here
+beloved friends had sat by her fireside.  Joy and grief, birth and
+death, had made sacred forever this little house of dreams.
+
+And now she must leave it.  She knew that, even while she had contended
+against the idea to Gilbert.  The little house was outgrown.  Gilbert's
+interests made the change necessary; his work, successful though it had
+been, was hampered by his location.  Anne realised that the end of
+their life in this dear place drew nigh, and that she must face the
+fact bravely.  But how her heart ached!
+
+"It will be just like tearing something out of my life," she sobbed.
+"And oh, if I could hope that some nice folk would come here in our
+place--or even that it would be left vacant.  That itself would be
+better than having it overrun with some horde who know nothing of the
+geography of dreamland, and nothing of the history that has given this
+house its soul and its identity.  And if such a tribe come here the
+place will go to rack and ruin in no time--an old place goes down so
+quickly if it is not carefully attended to.  They'll tear up my
+garden--and let the Lombardies get ragged--and the paling will come to
+look like a mouth with half the teeth missing--and the roof will
+leak--and the plaster fall--and they'll stuff pillows and rags in
+broken window panes--and everything will be out-at-elbows."
+
+Anne's imagination pictured forth so vividly the coming degeneration of
+her dear little house that it hurt her as severely as if it had already
+been an accomplished fact.  She sat down on the stairs and had a long,
+bitter cry.  Susan found her there and enquired with much concern what
+the trouble was.
+
+"You have not quarrelled with the doctor, have you now, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear?  But if you have, do not worry.  It is a thing quite likely to
+happen to married couples, I am told, although I have had no experience
+that way myself.  He will be sorry, and you can soon make it up."
+
+"No, no, Susan, we haven't quarrelled.  It's only--Gilbert is going to
+buy the Morgan place, and we'll have to go and live at the Glen.  And
+it will break my heart."
+
+Susan did not enter into Anne's feelings at all.  She was, indeed,
+quite rejoiced over the prospect of living at the Glen.  Her one
+grievance against her place in the little house was its lonesome
+location.
+
+"Why, Mrs. Doctor, dear, it will be splendid.  The Morgan house is such
+a fine, big one."
+
+"I hate big houses," sobbed Anne.
+
+"Oh, well, you will not hate them by the time you have half a dozen
+children," remarked Susan calmly.  "And this house is too small already
+for us.  We have no spare room, since Mrs. Moore is here, and that
+pantry is the most aggravating place I ever tried to work in.  There is
+a corner every way you turn.  Besides, it is out-of-the-world down
+here.  There is really nothing at all but scenery."
+
+"Out of your world perhaps, Susan--but not out of mine," said Anne with
+a faint smile.
+
+"I do not quite understand you, Mrs. Doctor, dear, but of course I am
+not well educated.  But if Dr. Blythe buys the Morgan place he will
+make no mistake, and that you may tie to.  They have water in it, and
+the pantries and closets are beautiful, and there is not another such
+cellar in P. E.  Island, so I have been told.  Why, the cellar here,
+Mrs. Doctor, dear, has been a heart-break to me, as well you know."
+
+"Oh, go away, Susan, go away," said Anne forlornly.  "Cellars and
+pantries and closets don't make a HOME.  Why don't you weep with those
+who weep?"
+
+"Well, I never was much hand for weeping, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  I would
+rather fall to and cheer people up than weep with them.  Now, do not
+you cry and spoil your pretty eyes.  This house is very well and has
+served your turn, but it is high time you had a better."
+
+Susan's point of view seemed to be that of most people.  Leslie was the
+only one who sympathised understandingly with Anne.  She had a good
+cry, too, when she heard the news.  Then they both dried their tears
+and went to work at the preparations for moving.
+
+"Since we must go let us go as soon as we can and have it over," said
+poor Anne with bitter resignation.
+
+"You know you will like that lovely old place at the Glen after you
+have lived in it long enough to have dear memories woven about it,"
+said Leslie.  "Friends will come there, as they have come
+here--happiness will glorify it for you.  Now, it's just a house to
+you--but the years will make it a home."
+
+Anne and Leslie had another cry the next week when they shortened
+Little Jem.  Anne felt the tragedy of it until evening when in his long
+nightie she found her own dear baby again.
+
+"But it will be rompers next--and then trousers--and in no time he will
+be grown-up," she sighed.
+
+"Well, you would not want him to stay a baby always, Mrs. Doctor, dear,
+would you?" said Susan.  "Bless his innocent heart, he looks too sweet
+for anything in his little short dresses, with his dear feet sticking
+out.  And think of the save in the ironing, Mrs. Doctor, dear."
+
+"Anne, I have just had a letter from Owen," said Leslie, entering with
+a bright face.  "And, oh! I have such good news.  He writes me that he
+is going to buy this place from the church trustees and keep it to
+spend our summer vacations in.  Anne, are you not glad?"
+
+"Oh, Leslie, 'glad' isn't the word for it!  It seems almost too good to
+be true.  I sha'n't feel half so badly now that I know this dear spot
+will never be desecrated by a vandal tribe, or left to tumble down in
+decay.  Why, it's lovely!  It's lovely!"
+
+One October morning Anne wakened to the realisation that she had slept
+for the last time under the roof of her little house.  The day was too
+busy to indulge regret and when evening came the house was stripped and
+bare.  Anne and Gilbert were alone in it to say farewell.  Leslie and
+Susan and Little Jem had gone to the Glen with the last load of
+furniture.  The sunset light streamed in through the curtainless
+windows.
+
+"It has all such a heart-broken, reproachful look, hasn't it?" said
+Anne.  "Oh, I shall be so homesick at the Glen tonight!"
+
+"We have been very happy here, haven't we, Anne-girl?" said Gilbert,
+his voice full of feeling.
+
+Anne choked, unable to answer.  Gilbert waited for her at the fir-tree
+gate, while she went over the house and said farewell to every room.
+She was going away; but the old house would still be there, looking
+seaward through its quaint windows.  The autumn winds would blow around
+it mournfully, and the gray rain would beat upon it and the white mists
+would come in from the sea to enfold it; and the moonlight would fall
+over it and light up the old paths where the schoolmaster and his bride
+had walked.  There on that old harbor shore the charm of story would
+linger; the wind would still whistle alluringly over the silver
+sand-dunes; the waves would still call from the red rock-coves.
+
+"But we will be gone," said Anne through her tears.
+
+She went out, closing and locking the door behind her.  Gilbert was
+waiting for her with a smile.  The lighthouse star was gleaming
+northward.  The little garden, where only marigolds still bloomed, was
+already hooding itself in shadows.
+
+Anne knelt down and kissed the worn old step which she had crossed as a
+bride.
+
+"Good-bye, dear little house of dreams," she said.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Anne's House of Dreams, by Lucy Maud Montgomery
+
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+*****The Project Gutenberg Etext of Anne's House of Dreams*****
+#5 in our series by Lucy Maud Montgomery
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+
+Anne's House of Dreams
+
+by Lucy Maud Montgomery
+
+
+
+"To Laura, in memory of the olden time."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1
+
+IN THE GARRET OF GREEN GABLES
+
+"Thanks be, I'm done with geometry, learning or teaching it,"
+said Anne Shirley, a trifle vindictively, as she thumped
+a somewhat battered volume of Euclid into a big chest of books,
+banged the lid in triumph, and sat down upon it, looking at
+Diana Wright across the Green Gables garret, with gray eyes
+that were like a morning sky.
+
+The garret was a shadowy, suggestive, delightful place,
+as all garrets should be. Through the open window, by
+which Anne sat, blew the sweet, scented, sun-warm air
+of the August afternoon; outside, poplar boughs rustled
+and tossed in the wind; beyond them were the woods,
+where Lover's Lane wound its enchanted path, and the
+old apple orchard which still bore its rosy harvests
+munificently.  And, over all, was a great mountain
+range of snowy clouds in the blue southern sky. 
+Through the other window was glimpsed a distant,
+white-capped, blue sea--the beautiful St. Lawrence
+Gulf, on which floats, like a jewel, Abegweit, whose
+softer, sweeter Indian name has long been forsaken for
+the more prosaic one of Prince Edward Island.
+
+Diana Wright, three years older than when we last saw
+her, had grown somewhat matronly in the intervening
+time.  But her eyes were as black and brilliant, her
+cheeks as rosy, and her dimples as enchanting, as in
+the long-ago days when she and Anne Shirley had vowed
+eternal friendship in the garden at Orchard Slope.  In
+her arms she held a small, sleeping, black-curled
+creature, who for two happy years had been known to the
+world of Avonlea as "Small Anne Cordelia."  Avonlea
+folks knew why Diana had called her Anne, of course,
+but Avonlea folks were puzzled by the Cordelia.  There
+had never been a Cordelia in the Wright or Barry
+connections.  Mrs. Harmon Andrews said she supposed
+Diana had found the name in some trashy novel, and
+wondered that Fred hadn't more sense than to allow it. 
+But Diana and Anne smiled at each other.  They knew how
+Small Anne Cordelia had come by her name.
+
+"You always hated geometry," said Diana with a
+retrospective smile.  "I should think you'd be real
+glad to be through with teaching, anyhow."
+
+"Oh, I've always liked teaching, apart from geometry. 
+These past three years in Summerside have been very
+pleasant ones. Mrs. Harmon Andrews told me when I came
+home that I wouldn't likely find married life as much
+better than teaching as I expected.  Evidently Mrs.
+Harmon is of Hamlet's opinion that it may be better to
+bear the ills that we have than fly to others that we
+know not of."
+
+Anne's laugh, as blithe and irresistible as of yore,
+with an added note of sweetness and maturity, rang
+through the garret.  Marilla in the kitchen below,
+compounding blue plum preserve, heard it and smiled;
+then sighed to think how seldom that dear laugh would
+echo through Green Gables in the years to come. 
+Nothing in her life had ever given Marilla so much
+happiness as the knowledge that Anne was going to marry
+Gilbert Blythe; but every joy must bring with it its
+little shadow of sorrow.  During the three Summerside
+years Anne had been home often for vacations and
+weekends; but, after this, a bi-annual visit would be
+as much as could be hoped for.
+
+"You needn't let what Mrs. Harmon says worry you,"
+said Diana, with the calm assurance of the four-years
+matron.  "Married life has its ups and downs, of
+course.  You mustn't expect that everything will always
+go smoothly.  But I can assure you, Anne, that it's a
+happy life, when you're married to the right man."
+
+Anne smothered a smile.  Diana's airs of vast
+experience always amused her a little.
+
+"I daresay I'll be putting them on too, when I've been
+married four years," she thought.  "Surely my sense of
+humor will preserve me from it, though."
+
+"Is it settled yet where you are going to live?" asked
+Diana, cuddling Small Anne Cordelia with the
+inimitable gesture of motherhood which always sent
+through Anne's heart, filled with sweet, unuttered
+dreams and hopes, a thrill that was half pure pleasure
+and half a strange, ethereal pain.
+
+"Yes. That was what I wanted to tell you when I
+'phoned to you to come down today.  By the way, I can't
+realize that we really have telephones in Avonlea now. 
+It sounds so preposterously up-to-date and modernish
+for this darling, leisurely old place."
+
+"We can thank the A. V. I. S. for them," said Diana. 
+"We should never have got the line if they hadn't
+taken the matter up and carried it through.  There was
+enough cold water thrown to discourage any society. 
+But they stuck to it, nevertheless.  You did a splendid
+thing for Avonlea when you founded that society, Anne. 
+What fun we did have at our meetings!  Will you ever
+forget the blue hall and Judson Parker's scheme for
+painting medicine advertisements on his fence?"
+
+"I don't know that I'm wholly grateful to the A. V. I.
+S. in the matter of the telephone," said Anne.  "Oh, I
+know it's most convenient-- even more so than our old
+device of signalling to each other by flashes of
+candlelight!  And, as Mrs. Rachel says, `Avonlea must
+keep up with the procession, that's what.'  But somehow
+I feel as if I didn't want Avonlea spoiled by what Mr.
+Harrison, when he wants to be witty, calls `modern
+inconveniences.'  I should like to have it kept always
+just as it was in the dear old years. That's
+foolish--and sentimental--and impossible.  So I shall
+immediately become wise and practical and possible. 
+The telephone, as Mr. Harrison concedes, is `a buster
+of a good thing'--even if you do know that probably
+half a dozen interested people are listening along the
+line."
+
+"That's the worst of it," sighed Diana.  "It's so
+annoying to hear the receivers going down whenever you
+ring anyone up.  They say Mrs. Harmon Andrews insisted
+that their `phone should be put in their kitchen just
+so that she could listen whenever it rang and keep an
+eye on the dinner at the same time.  Today, when you
+called me, I distinctly heard that queer clock of the
+Pyes' striking.  So no doubt Josie or Gertie was
+listening."
+
+"Oh, so that is why you said, `You've got a new clock
+at Green Gables, haven't you?'  I couldn't imagine what
+you meant.  I heard a vicious click as soon as you had
+spoken.  I suppose it was the Pye receiver being hung
+up with profane energy.  Well, never mind the Pyes.  As
+Mrs. Rachel says, `Pyes they always were and Pyes they
+always will be, world without end, amen.'  I want to
+talk of pleasanter things.  It's all settled as to
+where my new home shall be."
+
+"Oh, Anne, where?  I do hope it's near here."
+
+"No-o-o, that's the drawback. Gilbert is going to
+settle at Four Winds Harbor--sixty miles from here."
+
+"Sixty!  It might as well be six hundred," sighed
+Diana.  "I never can get further from home now than
+Charlottetown."
+
+"You'll have to come to Four Winds. It's the most
+beautiful harbor on the Island.  There's a little
+village called Glen St. Mary at its head, and Dr. David
+Blythe has been practicing there for fifty years.  He
+is Gilbert's great-uncle, you know.  He is going to
+retire, and Gilbert is to take over his practice.  Dr.
+Blythe is going to keep his house, though, so we shall
+have to find a habitation for ourselves.  I don't know
+yet what it is, or where it will be in reality, but I
+have a little house o'dreams all furnished in my
+imagination--a tiny, delightful castle in Spain."
+
+"Where are you going for your wedding tour?" asked
+Diana.
+
+"Nowhere.  Don't look horrified, Diana dearest.  You
+suggest Mrs. Harmon Andrews.  She, no doubt, will
+remark condescendingly that people who can't afford
+wedding `towers' are real sensible not to take them;
+and then she'll remind me that Jane went to Europe for
+hers.  I want to spend MY honeymoon at Four Winds in my
+own dear house of dreams."
+
+"And you've decided not to have any bridesmaid?"
+
+"There isn't any one to have.  You and Phil and
+Priscilla and Jane all stole a march on me in the
+matter of marriage; and Stella is teaching in
+Vancouver.  I have no other `kindred soul' and I won't
+have a bridesmaid who isn't."
+
+"But you are going to wear a veil, aren't you?" asked
+Diana, anxiously.
+
+"Yes, indeedy.  I shouldn't feel like a bride without
+one.  I remember telling Matthew, that evening when he
+brought me to Green Gables, that I never expected to be
+a bride because I was so homely no one would ever want
+to marry me--unless some foreign missionary did.  I had
+an idea then that foreign missionaries couldn't afford
+to be finicky in the matter of looks if they wanted a
+girl to risk her life among cannibals.  You should have
+seen the foreign missionary Priscilla married.  He was
+as handsome and inscrutable as those daydreams we once
+planned to marry ourselves, Diana; he was the best
+dressed man I ever met, and he raved over Priscilla's
+`ethereal, golden beauty.'  But of course there are no
+cannibals in Japan."
+
+"Your wedding dress is a dream, anyhow," sighed Diana
+rapturously.  "You'll look like a perfect queen in
+it--you're so tall and slender.  How DO you keep so
+slim, Anne?  I'm fatter than ever--I'll soon have no
+waist at all."
+
+"Stoutness and slimness seem to be matters of
+predestination," said Anne.  "At all events, Mrs.
+Harmon Andrews can't say to you what she said to me
+when I came home from Summerside, `Well, Anne, you're
+just about as skinny as ever.'  It sounds quite
+romantic to be `slender,' but `skinny' has a very
+different tang."
+
+"Mrs. Harmon has been talking about your trousseau. 
+She admits it's as nice as Jane's, although she says
+Jane married a millionaire and you are only marrying a
+`poor young doctor without a cent to his name.'"
+
+Anne laughed.
+
+"My dresses ARE nice.  I love pretty things.  I
+remember the first pretty dress I ever had--the brown
+gloria Matthew gave me for our school concert.  Before
+that everything I had was so ugly.  It seemed to me
+that I stepped into a new world that night."
+
+"That was the night Gilbert recited `Bingen on the
+Rhine,' and looked at you when he said, `There's
+another, NOT a sister.'  And you were so furious
+because he put your pink tissue rose in his breast
+pocket!  You didn't much imagine then that you would
+ever marry him."
+
+"Oh, well, that's another instance of predestination,"
+laughed Anne, as they went down the garret stairs.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2
+
+THE HOUSE OF DREAMS
+
+There was more excitement in the air of Green Gables
+than there had ever been before in all its history. 
+Even Marilla was so excited that she couldn't help
+showing it--which was little short of being phenomenal.
+
+"There's never been a wedding in this house," she
+said, half apologetically, to Mrs. Rachel Lynde. 
+"When I was a child I heard an old minister say that a
+house was not a real home until it had been consecrated
+by a birth, a wedding and a death.  We've had deaths
+here--my father and mother died here as well as
+Matthew; and we've even had a birth here.  Long ago,
+just after we moved into this house, we had a married
+hired man for a little while, and his wife had a baby
+here.  But there's never been a wedding before.  It
+does seem so strange to think of Anne being married. 
+In a way she just seems to me the little girl Matthew
+brought home here fourteen years ago.  I can't realize
+that she's grown up.  I shall never forget what I felt
+when I saw Matthew bringing in a GIRL.  I wonder what
+became of the boy we would have got if there hadn't
+been a mistake.  I wonder what HIS fate was."
+
+"Well, it was a fortunate mistake," said Mrs. Rachel
+Lynde, "though, mind you, there was a time I didn't
+think so--that evening I came up to see Anne and she
+treated us to such a scene.  Many things have changed
+since then, that's what."
+
+Mrs. Rachel sighed, and then brisked up again.  When
+weddings were in order Mrs. Rachel was ready to let the
+dead past bury its dead.
+
+"I'm going to give Anne two of my cotton warp
+spreads," she resumed.  "A tobacco-stripe one and an
+apple-leaf one.  She tells me they're getting to be
+real fashionable again.  Well, fashion or no fashion, I
+don't believe there's anything prettier for a
+spare-room bed than a nice apple-leaf spread, that's
+what.  I must see about getting them bleached.  I've
+had them sewed up in cotton bags ever since Thomas
+died, and no doubt they're an awful color.  But
+there's a month yet, and dew-bleaching will work
+wonders."
+
+Only a month!  Marilla sighed and then said proudly:
+
+"I'm giving Anne that half dozen braided rugs I have
+in the garret. I never supposed she'd want
+them--they're so old-fashioned, and nobody seems to
+want anything but hooked mats now.  But she asked me
+for them--said she'd rather have them than anything
+else for her floors.  They ARE pretty.  I made them of
+the nicest rags, and braided them in stripes.  It was
+such company these last few winters.  And I'll make
+her enough blue plum preserve to stock her jam closet
+for a year.  It seems real strange.  Those blue plum
+trees hadn't even a blossom for three years, and I
+thought they might as well be cut down.  And this last
+spring they were white, and such a crop of plums I
+never remember at Green Gables."
+
+"Well, thank goodness that Anne and Gilbert really are
+going to be married after all.  It's what I've always
+prayed for," said Mrs. Rachel, in the tone of one who
+is comfortably sure that her prayers have availed much. 
+"It was a great relief to find out that she really
+didn't mean to take the Kingsport man.  He was rich, to
+be sure, and Gilbert is poor--at least, to begin with;
+but then he's an Island boy."
+
+"He's Gilbert Blythe," said Marilla contentedly. 
+Marilla would have died the death before she would have
+put into words the thought that was always in the
+background of her mind whenever she had looked at
+Gilbert from his childhood up--the thought that, had it
+not been for her own wilful pride long, long ago, he
+might have been HER son.  Marilla felt that, in some
+strange way, his marriage with Anne would put right
+that old mistake.  Good had come out of the evil of the
+ancient bitterness.
+
+As for Anne herself, she was so happy that she almost
+felt frightened.  The gods, so says the old
+superstition, do not like to behold too happy mortals. 
+It is certain, at least, that some human beings do not. 
+Two of that ilk descended upon Anne one violet dusk and
+proceeded to do what in them lay to prick the rainbow
+bubble of her satisfaction.  If she thought she was
+getting any particular prize in young Dr. Blythe, or if
+she imagined that he was still as infatuated with her
+as he might have been in his salad days, it was surely
+their duty to put the matter before her in another
+light.  Yet these two worthy ladies were not enemies
+of Anne; on the contrary, they were really quite fond
+of her, and would have defended her as their own young
+had anyone else attacked her.  Human nature is not
+obliged to be consistent.
+
+Mrs. Inglis--nee Jane Andrews, to quote from the Daily
+Enterprise--came with her mother and Mrs. Jasper Bell. 
+But in Jane the milk of human kindness had not been
+curdled by years of matrimonial bickerings.  Her lines
+had fallen in pleasant places.  In spite of the
+fact--as Mrs. Rachel Lynde would say--that she had
+married a millionaire, her marriage had been happy. 
+Wealth had not spoiled her.  She was still the placid,
+amiable, pink-cheeked Jane of the old quartette,
+sympathising with her old chum's happiness and as
+keenly interested in all the dainty details of Anne's
+trousseau as if it could rival her own silken and
+bejewelled splendors.  Jane was not brilliant, and had
+probably never made a remark worth listening to in her
+life; but she never said anything that would hurt
+anyone's feelings-- which may be a negative talent but
+is likewise a rare and enviable one.
+
+"So Gilbert didn't go back on you after all," said
+Mrs. Harmon Andrews, contriving to convey an expression
+of surprise in her tone.  "Well, the Blythes generally
+keep their word when they've once passed it, no matter
+what happens.  Let me see--you're twenty-five, aren't
+you, Anne?  When I was a girl twenty-five was the first
+corner.  But you look quite young.  Red-headed people
+always do."
+
+"Red hair is very fashionable now," said Anne, trying
+to smile, but speaking rather coldly.  Life had
+developed in her a sense of humor which helped her over
+many difficulties; but as yet nothing had availed to
+steel her against a reference to her hair.
+
+"So it is--so it is," conceded Mrs. Harmon.  "There's
+no telling what queer freaks fashion will take.  Well,
+Anne, your things are very pretty, and very suitable to
+your position in life, aren't they, Jane?  I hope
+you'll be very happy.  You have my best wishes, I'm
+sure.  A long engagement doesn't often turn out well. 
+But, of course, in your case it couldn't be helped."
+
+"Gilbert looks very young for a doctor.  I'm afraid
+people won't have much confidence in him," said Mrs.
+Jasper Bell gloomily.  Then she shut her mouth tightly,
+as if she had said what she considered it her duty to
+say and held her conscience clear.  She belonged to the
+type which always has a stringy black feather in its
+hat and straggling locks of hair on its neck.
+
+Anne's surface pleasure in her pretty bridal things was
+temporarily shadowed; but the deeps of happiness below
+could not thus be disturbed; and the little stings of
+Mesdames Bell and Andrews were forgotten when Gilbert
+came later, and they wandered down to the birches of
+the brook, which had been saplings when Anne had come
+to Green Gables, but were now tall, ivory columns in a
+fairy palace of twilight and stars.  In their shadows
+Anne and Gilbert talked in lover-fashion of their new
+home and their new life together.
+
+"I've found a nest for us, Anne."
+
+"Oh, where?  Not right in the village, I hope.  I
+wouldn't like that altogether."
+
+"No.  There was no house to be had in the village. 
+This is a little white house on the harbor shore, half
+way between Glen St. Mary and Four Winds Point.  It's a
+little out of the way, but when we get a 'phone in that
+won't matter so much.  The situation is beautiful.  It
+looks to the sunset and has the great blue harbor
+before it.  The sand-dunes aren't very far away--the
+sea winds blow over them and the sea spray drenches
+them."
+
+"But the house itself, Gilbert,--OUR first home?  What
+is it like?"
+
+"Not very large, but large enough for us.  There's a
+splendid living room with a fireplace in it downstairs,
+and a dining room that looks out on the harbor, and a
+little room that will do for my office.  It is about
+sixty years old--the oldest house in Four Winds.  But
+it has been kept in pretty good repair, and was all
+done over about fifteen years ago--shingled, plastered
+and re-floored.  It was well built to begin with.  I
+understand that there was some romantic story connected
+with its building, but the man I rented it from didn't
+know it.
+
+He said Captain Jim was the only one who could spin
+that old yarn now."
+
+"Who is Captain Jim?"
+
+"The keeper of the lighthouse on Four Winds Point. 
+You'll love that Four Winds light, Anne.  It's a
+revolving one, and it flashes like a magnificent star
+through the twilights.  We can see it from our living
+room windows and our front door."
+
+"Who owns the house?"
+
+"Well, it's the property of the Glen St. Mary
+Presbyterian Church now, and I rented it from the
+trustees.  But it belonged until lately to a very old
+lady, Miss Elizabeth Russell.  She died last spring,
+and as she had no near relatives she left her property
+to the Glen St. Mary Church.  Her furniture is still in
+the house, and I bought most of it--for a mere song you
+might say, because it was all so old- fashioned that
+the trustees despaired of selling it.  Glen St. Mary
+folks prefer plush brocade and sideboards with mirrors
+and ornamentations, I fancy.  But Miss Russell's
+furniture is very good and I feel sure you'll like it,
+Anne."
+
+"So far, good," said Anne, nodding cautious approval. 
+"But, Gilbert, people cannot live by furniture alone. 
+You haven't yet mentioned one very important thing. 
+Are there TREES about this house?"
+
+"Heaps of them, oh, dryad!  There is a big grove of
+fir trees behind it, two rows of Lombardy poplars down
+the lane, and a ring of white birches around a very
+delightful garden.  Our front door opens right into the
+garden, but there is another entrance--a little gate
+hung between two firs.  The hinges are on one trunk and
+the catch on the other.  Their boughs form an arch
+overhead."
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad!  I couldn't live where there were no
+trees-- something vital in me would starve.  Well,
+after that, there's no use asking you if there's a
+brook anywhere near.  THAT would be expecting too
+much."
+
+"But there IS a brook--and it actually cuts across one
+corner of the garden."
+
+"Then," said Anne, with a long sigh of supreme
+satisfaction, "this house you have found IS my house
+of dreams and none other."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3
+
+THE LAND OF DREAMS AMONG
+
+"Have you made up your mind who you're going to have
+to the wedding, Anne?" asked Mrs. Rachel Lynde, as she
+hemstitched table napkins industriously.  "It's time
+your invitations were sent, even if they are to be only
+informal ones."
+
+"I don't mean to have very many," said Anne.  "We just
+want those we love best to see us married.  Gilbert's
+people, and Mr. and Mrs. Allan, and Mr. and Mrs.
+Harrison."
+
+"There was a time when you'd hardly have numbered Mr.
+Harrison among your dearest friends," said Marilla
+drily.
+
+"Well, I wasn't VERY strongly attracted to him at our
+first meeting," acknowledged Anne, with a laugh over
+the recollection.  "But Mr. Harrison has improved on
+acquaintance, and Mrs. Harrison is really a dear. 
+Then, of course, there are Miss Lavendar and Paul."
+
+"Have they decided to come to the Island this summer? 
+I thought they were going to Europe."
+
+"They changed their minds when I wrote them I was
+going to be married.  I had a letter from Paul today. 
+He says he MUST come to my wedding, no matter what
+happens to Europe."
+
+"That child always idolised you," remarked Mrs.
+Rachel.
+
+"That `child' is a young man of nineteen now, Mrs.
+Lynde."
+
+"How time does fly!" was Mrs. Lynde's brilliant and
+original response.
+
+"Charlotta the Fourth may come with them.  She sent
+word by Paul that she would come if her husband would
+let her.  I wonder if she still wears those enormous
+blue bows, and whether her husband calls her Charlotta
+or Leonora.  I should love to have Charlotta at my
+wedding.  Charlotta and I were at a wedding long syne. 
+They expect to be at Echo Lodge next week.  Then there
+are Phil and the Reverend Jo----"
+
+"It sounds awful to hear you speaking of a minister
+like that, Anne," said Mrs. Rachel severely.
+
+"His wife calls him that."
+
+"She should have more respect for his holy office,
+then," retorted Mrs. Rachel.
+
+"I've heard you criticise ministers pretty sharply
+yourself," teased Anne.
+
+"Yes, but I do it reverently," protested Mrs. Lynde. 
+"You never heard me NICKNAME a minister."
+
+Anne smothered a smile.
+
+"Well, there are Diana and Fred and little Fred and
+Small Anne Cordelia--and Jane Andrews.  I wish I could
+have Miss Stacey and Aunt Jamesina and Priscilla and
+Stella.  But Stella is in Vancouver, and Pris is in
+Japan, and Miss Stacey is married in California, and
+Aunt Jamesina has gone to India to explore her
+daughter's mission field, in spite of her horror of
+snakes.  It's really dreadful--the way people get
+scattered over the globe."
+
+"The Lord never intended it, that's what," said Mrs.
+Rachel authoritatively.  "In my young days people grew
+up and married and settled down where they were born,
+or pretty near it.  Thank goodness you've stuck to the
+Island, Anne.  I was afraid Gilbert would insist on
+rushing off to the ends of the earth when he got
+through college, and dragging you with him."
+
+"If everybody stayed where he was born places would
+soon be filled up, Mrs. Lynde."
+
+"Oh, I'm not going to argue with you, Anne.  _I_ am
+not a B.A.  What time of the day is the ceremony to
+be?"
+
+"We have decided on noon--high noon, as the society
+reporters say.  That will give us time to catch the
+evening train to Glen St. Mary."
+
+"And you'll be married in the parlor?"
+
+"No--not unless it rains.  We mean to be married in
+the orchard-- with the blue sky over us and the
+sunshine around us.  Do you know when and where I'd
+like to be married, if I could?  It would be at dawn--a
+June dawn, with a glorious sunrise, and roses blooming
+in the gardens; and I would slip down and meet Gilbert
+and we would go together to the heart of the beech
+woods,--and there, under the green arches that would be
+like a splendid cathedral, we would be married."
+
+Marilla sniffed scornfully and Mrs. Lynde looked
+shocked.
+
+"But that would be terrible queer, Anne.  Why, it
+wouldn't really seem legal.  And what would Mrs. Harmon
+Andrews say?"
+
+"Ah, there's the rub," sighed Anne.  "There are so
+many things in life we cannot do because of the fear of
+what Mrs. Harmon Andrews would say.  ` 'Tis true, 'tis
+pity, and pity 'tis, 'tis true.'  What delightful
+things we might do were it not for Mrs. Harmon
+Andrews!"
+
+"By times, Anne, I don't feel quite sure that I
+understand you altogether," complained Mrs. Lynde.
+
+"Anne was always romantic, you know," said Marilla
+apologetically.
+
+"Well, married life will most likely cure her of
+that," Mrs. Rachel responded comfortingly.
+
+Anne laughed and slipped away to Lover's Lane, where
+Gilbert found her; and neither of them seemed to
+entertain much fear, or hope, that their married life
+would cure them of romance.
+
+The Echo Lodge people came over the next week, and
+Green Gables buzzed with the delight of them.  Miss
+Lavendar had changed so little that the three years
+since her last Island visit might have been a watch in
+the night; but Anne gasped with amazement over Paul. 
+Could this splendid six feet of manhood be the little
+Paul of Avonlea schooldays?
+
+"You really make me feel old, Paul," said Anne.  "Why,
+I have to look up to you!"
+
+"You'll never grow old, Teacher," said Paul.  "You are
+one of the fortunate mortals who have found and drunk
+from the Fountain of Youth,--you and Mother Lavendar. 
+See here!  When you're married I WON'T call you Mrs.
+Blythe.  To me you'll always be `Teacher'--the teacher
+of the best lessons I ever learned.  I want to show you
+something."
+
+The "something" was a pocketbook full of poems.  Paul
+had put some of his beautiful fancies into verse, and
+magazine editors had not been as unappreciative as they
+are sometimes supposed to be.  Anne read Paul's poems
+with real delight.  They were full of charm and
+promise.
+
+"You'll be famous yet, Paul.  I always dreamed of
+having one famous pupil.  He was to be a college
+president--but a great poet would be even better.  Some
+day I'll be able to boast that I whipped the
+distinguished Paul Irving.  But then I never did whip
+you, did I, Paul?  What an opportunity lost!  I think I
+kept you in at recess, however."
+
+"You may be famous yourself, Teacher.  I've seen a
+good deal of your work these last three years."
+
+"No.  I know what I can do.  I can write pretty,
+fanciful little sketches that children love and editors
+send welcome cheques for.  But I can do nothing big. 
+My only chance for earthly immortality is a corner in
+your Memoirs."
+
+Charlotta the Fourth had discarded the blue bows but
+her freckles were not noticeably less.
+
+"I never did think I'd come down to marrying a Yankee,
+Miss Shirley, ma'am," she said.  "But you never know
+what's before you, and it isn't his fault.  He was born
+that way."
+
+"You're a Yankee yourself, Charlotta, since you've
+married one."
+
+"Miss Shirley, ma'am, I'm NOT!  And I wouldn't be if I
+was to marry a dozen Yankees!  Tom's kind of nice.  And
+besides, I thought I'd better not be too hard to
+please, for I mightn't get another chance.  Tom don't
+drink and he don't growl because he has to work between
+meals, and when all's said and done I'm satisfied, Miss
+Shirley, ma'am."
+
+"Does he call you Leonora?" asked Anne.
+
+"Goodness, no, Miss Shirley, ma'am.  I wouldn't know
+who he meant if he did.  Of course, when we got married
+he had to say, `I take thee, Leonora,' and I declare to
+you, Miss Shirley, ma'am, I've had the most dreadful
+feeling ever since that it wasn't me he was talking to
+and I haven't been rightly married at all.  And so
+you're going to be married yourself, Miss Shirley,
+ma'am?  I always thought I'd like to marry a doctor. 
+It would be so handy when the children had measles and
+croup.  Tom is only a bricklayer, but he's real good-
+tempered.  When I said to him, says I, `Tom, can I go
+to Miss Shirley's wedding?  I mean to go anyhow, but
+I'd like to have your consent,' he just says, `Suit
+yourself, Charlotta, and you'll suit me.'  That's a
+real pleasant kind of husband to have, Miss Shirley,
+ma'am."
+
+Philippa and her Reverend Jo arrived at Green Gables
+the day before the wedding.  Anne and Phil had a
+rapturous meeting which presently simmered down to a
+cosy, confidential chat over all that had been and was
+about to be.
+
+"Queen Anne, you're as queenly as ever.  I've got
+fearfully thin since the babies came.  I'm not half so
+good-looking; but I think Jo likes it.  There's not
+such a contrast between us, you see.  And oh, it's
+perfectly magnificent that you're going to marry
+Gilbert.  Roy Gardner wouldn't have done at all, at
+all.  I can see that now, though I was horribly
+disappointed at the time.  You know, Anne, you did
+treat Roy very badly."
+
+"He has recovered, I understand," smiled Anne.
+
+"Oh, yes.  He is married and his wife is a sweet
+little thing and they're perfectly happy.  Everything
+works together for good.  Jo and the Bible say that,
+and they are pretty good authorities."
+
+"Are Alec and Alonzo married yet?"
+
+"Alec is, but Alonzo isn't.  How those dear old days
+at Patty's Place come back when I'm talking to you,
+Anne!  What fun we had!"
+
+"Have you been to Patty's Place lately?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I go often.  Miss Patty and Miss Maria still
+sit by the fireplace and knit.  And that reminds
+me--we've brought you a wedding gift from them, Anne. 
+Guess what it is."
+
+"I never could.  How did they know I was going to be
+married?"
+
+"Oh, I told them.  I was there last week.  And they
+were so interested.  Two days ago Miss Patty wrote me a
+note asking me to call; and then she asked if I would
+take her gift to you.  What would you wish most from
+Patty's Place, Anne?"
+
+"You can't mean that Miss Patty has sent me her china
+dogs?"
+
+"Go up head.  They're in my trunk this very moment. 
+And I've a letter for you.  Wait a moment and I'll get
+it."
+
+"Dear Miss Shirley," Miss Patty had written, "Maria
+and I were very much interested in hearing of your
+approaching nuptials.  We send you our best wishes. 
+Maria and I have never married, but we have no
+objection to other people doing so.  We are sending you
+the china dogs.  I intended to leave them to you in my
+will, because you seemed to have sincere affection for
+them.  But Maria and I expect to live a good while yet
+(D.V.), so I have decided to give you the dogs while
+you are young.  You will not have forgotten that Gog
+looks to the right and Magog to the left."
+
+"Just fancy those lovely old dogs sitting by the
+fireplace in my house of dreams," said Anne
+rapturously.  "I never expected anything so
+delightful."
+
+That evening Green Gables hummed with preparations for
+the following day; but in the twilight Anne slipped
+away.  She had a little pilgrimage to make on this last
+day of her girlhood and she must make it alone.  She
+went to Matthew's grave, in the little poplar-shaded
+Avonlea graveyard, and there kept a silent tryst with
+old memories and immortal loves.
+
+"How glad Matthew would be tomorrow if he were here,"
+she whispered.  "But I believe he does know and is
+glad of it-- somewhere else.  I've read somewhere that
+`our dead are never dead until we have forgotten them.' 
+Matthew will never be dead to me, for I can never
+forget him."
+
+She left on his grave the flowers she had brought and
+walked slowly down the long hill.  It was a gracious
+evening, full of delectable lights and shadows.  In the
+west was a sky of mackerel clouds-- crimson and
+amber-tinted, with long strips of apple-green sky
+between.  Beyond was the glimmering radiance of a
+sunset sea, and the ceaseless voice of many waters came
+up from the tawny shore.  All around her, lying in the
+fine, beautiful country silence, were the hills and
+fields and woods she had known and loved so long.
+
+"History repeats itself," said Gilbert, joining her as
+she passed the Blythe gate.  "Do you remember our
+first walk down this hill, Anne--our first walk
+together anywhere, for that matter?"
+
+"I was coming home in the twilight from Matthew's
+grave--and you came out of the gate; and I swallowed
+the pride of years and spoke to you."
+
+"And all heaven opened before me," supplemented
+Gilbert.  "From that moment I looked forward to
+tomorrow.  When I left you at your gate that night and
+walked home I was the happiest boy in the world.  Anne
+had forgiven me."
+
+"I think you had the most to forgive.  I was an
+ungrateful little wretch--and after you had really
+saved my life that day on the pond, too.  How I loathed
+that load of obligation at first!  I don't deserve the
+happiness that has come to me."
+
+Gilbert laughed and clasped tighter the girlish hand
+that wore his ring.  Anne's engagement ring was a
+circlet of pearls.  She had refused to wear a diamond.
+
+"I've never really liked diamonds since I found out
+they weren't the lovely purple I had dreamed.  They
+will always suggest my old disappointment ."
+
+"But pearls are for tears, the old legend says,"
+Gilbert had objected.
+
+"I'm not afraid of that.  And tears can be happy as
+well as sad.  My very happiest moments have been when I
+had tears in my eyes-- when Marilla told me I might
+stay at Green Gables--when Matthew gave me the first
+pretty dress I ever had--when I heard that you were
+going to recover from the fever.  So give me pearls for
+our troth ring, Gilbert, and I'll willingly accept the
+sorrow of life with its joy."
+
+But tonight our lovers thought only of joy and never of
+sorrow.  For the morrow was their wedding day, and
+their house of dreams awaited them on the misty, purple
+shore of Four Winds Harbor.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4
+
+THE FIRST BRIDE OF GREEN GABLES
+
+Anne wakened on the morning of her wedding day to find
+the sunshine winking in at the window of the little
+porch gable and a September breeze frolicking with her
+curtains.
+
+"I'm so glad the sun will shine on me," she thought happily.
+
+She recalled the first morning she had wakened in that
+little porch room, when the sunshine had crept in on
+her through the blossom- drift of the old Snow Queen. 
+That had not been a happy wakening, for it brought with
+it the bitter disappointment of the preceding night.
+But since then the little room had been endeared and
+consecrated by years of happy childhood dreams and
+maiden visions.  To it she had come back joyfully after
+all her absences; at its window she had knelt through
+that night of bitter agony when she believed Gilbert
+dying, and by it she had sat in speechless happiness
+the night of her betrothal.  Many vigils of joy and
+some of sorrow had been kept there; and today she must
+leave it forever.  Henceforth it would be hers no more;
+fifteen-year-old Dora was to inherit it when she had
+gone.  Nor did Anne wish it otherwise; the little room
+was sacred to youth and girlhood--to the past that was
+to close today before the chapter of wifehood opened.
+
+Green Gables was a busy and joyous house that forenoon. 
+Diana arrived early, with little Fred and Small Anne
+Cordelia, to lend a hand.  Davy and Dora, the Green
+Gables twins, whisked the babies off to the garden.
+
+"Don't let Small Anne Cordelia spoil her clothes,"
+warned Diana anxiously.
+
+"You needn't be afraid to trust her with Dora," said
+Marilla.  "That child is more sensible and careful
+than most of the mothers I've known.  She's really a
+wonder in some ways.  Not much like that other
+harum-scarum I brought up."
+
+Marilla smiled across her chicken salad at Anne.  It
+might even be suspected that she liked the harum-scarum
+best after all.
+
+"Those twins are real nice children," said Mrs.
+Rachel, when she was sure they were out of earshot. 
+"Dora is so womanly and helpful, and Davy is
+developing into a very smart boy.  He isn't the holy
+terror for mischief he used to be."
+
+"I never was so distracted in my life as I was the
+first six months he was here," acknowledged Marilla. 
+"After that I suppose I got used to him.  He's taken a
+great notion to farming lately, and wants me to let him
+try running the farm next year.  I may, for Mr. Barry
+doesn't think he'll want to rent it much longer, and
+some new arrangement will have to be made."
+
+"Well, you certainly have a lovely day for your
+wedding, Anne," said Diana, as she slipped a
+voluminous apron over her silken array.  "You couldn't
+have had a finer one if you'd ordered it from
+Eaton's."
+
+"Indeed, there's too much money going out of this
+Island to that same Eaton's," said Mrs. Lynde
+indignantly.  She had strong views on the subject of
+octopus-like department stores, and never lost an
+opportunity of airing them.  "And as for those
+catalogues of theirs, they're the Avonlea girls' Bible
+now, that's what.  They pore over them on Sundays
+instead of studying the Holy Scriptures."
+
+"Well, they're splendid to amuse children with," said
+Diana.  "Fred and Small Anne look at the pictures by
+the hour."
+
+"_I_ amused ten children without the aid of Eaton's
+catalogue," said Mrs. Rachel severely.
+
+"Come, you two, don't quarrel over Eaton's catalogue,"
+said Anne gaily.  "This is my day of days, you know. 
+I'm so happy I want every one else to be happy, too."
+
+"I'm sure I hope your happiness will last, child,"
+sighed Mrs. Rachel.  She did hope it truly, and
+believed it, but she was afraid it was in the nature of
+a challenge to Providence to flaunt your happiness too
+openly.  Anne, for her own good, must be toned down a
+trifle.
+
+But it was a happy and beautiful bride who came down
+the old, homespun-carpeted stairs that September
+noon--the first bride of Green Gables, slender and
+shining-eyed, in the mist of her maiden veil, with her
+arms full of roses.  Gilbert, waiting for her in the
+hall below, looked up at her with adoring eyes.  She
+was his at last, this evasive, long-sought Anne, won
+after years of patient waiting.  It was to him she was
+coming in the sweet surrender of the bride.  Was he
+worthy of her?  Could he make her as happy as he hoped? 
+If he failed her--if he could not measure up to her
+standard of manhood--then, as she held out her hand,
+their eyes met and all doubt was swept away in a glad
+certainty.  They belonged to each other; and, no matter
+what life might hold for them, it could never alter
+that.  Their happiness was in each other's keeping and
+both were unafraid.
+
+They were married in the sunshine of the old orchard,
+circled by the loving and kindly faces of long-familiar
+friends.  Mr. Allan married them, and the Reverend Jo
+made what Mrs. Rachel Lynde afterwards pronounced to be
+the "most beautiful wedding prayer" she had ever
+heard.  Birds do not often sing in September, but one
+sang sweetly from some hidden bough while Gilbert and
+Anne repeated their deathless vows.  Anne heard it and
+thrilled to it; Gilbert heard it, and wondered only
+that all the birds in the world had not burst into
+jubilant song; Paul heard it and later wrote a lyric
+about it which was one of the most admired in his first
+volume of verse; Charlotta the Fourth heard it and was
+blissfully sure it meant good luck for her adored Miss
+Shirley.  The bird sang until the ceremony was ended
+and then it wound up with one mad little, glad little
+trill.  Never had the old gray-green house among its
+enfolding orchards known a blither, merrier afternoon. 
+All the old jests and quips that must have done duty at
+weddings since Eden were served up, and seemed as new
+and brilliant and mirth-provoking as if they had never
+been uttered before.  Laughter and joy had their way;
+and when Anne and Gilbert left to catch the Carmody
+train, with Paul as driver, the twins were ready with
+rice and old shoes, in the throwing of which Charlotta
+the Fourth and Mr. Harrison bore a valiant part. 
+Marilla stood at the gate and watched the carriage out
+of sight down the long lane with its banks of
+goldenrod.  Anne turned at its end to wave her last
+good-bye.  She was gone--Green Gables was her home no
+more; Marilla's face looked very gray and old as she
+turned to the house which Anne had filled for fourteen
+years, and even in her absence, with light and life.
+
+But Diana and her small fry, the Echo Lodge people and
+the Allans, had stayed to help the two old ladies over
+the loneliness of the first evening; and they contrived
+to have a quietly pleasant little supper time, sitting
+long around the table and chatting over all the details
+of the day.  While they were sitting there Anne and
+Gilbert were alighting from the train at Glen St. Mary.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 5
+
+THE HOME COMING
+
+Dr. David Blythe had sent his horse and buggy to meet
+them, and the urchin who had brought it slipped away
+with a sympathetic grin, leaving them to the delight of
+driving alone to their new home through the radiant evening.
+
+Anne never forgot the loveliness of the view that broke
+upon them when they had driven over the hill behind the
+village.  Her new home could not yet be seen; but
+before her lay Four Winds Harbor like a great, shining
+mirror of rose and silver.  Far down, she saw its
+entrance between the bar of sand dunes on one side and
+a steep, high, grim, red sandstone cliff on the other. 
+Beyond the bar the sea, calm and austere, dreamed in
+the afterlight.  The little fishing village, nestled in
+the cove where the sand-dunes met the harbor shore,
+looked like a great opal in the haze.  The sky over
+them was like a jewelled cup from which the dusk was
+pouring; the air was crisp with the compelling tang of
+the sea, and the whole landscape was infused with the
+subtleties of a sea evening.  A few dim sails drifted
+along the darkening, fir-clad harbor shores.  A bell
+was ringing from the tower of a little white church on
+the far side; mellowly and dreamily sweet, the chime
+floated across the water blent with the moan of the
+sea.  The great revolving light on the cliff at the
+channel flashed warm and golden against the clear
+northern sky, a trembling, quivering star of good hope. 
+Far out along the horizon was the crinkled gray ribbon
+of a passing steamer's smoke.
+
+"Oh, beautiful, beautiful," murmured Anne.  "I shall
+love Four Winds, Gilbert.  Where is our house?"
+
+"We can't see it yet--the belt of birch running up
+from that little cove hides it.  It's about two miles
+from Glen St. Mary, and there's another mile between it
+and the light-house.  We won't have many neighbors,
+Anne.  There's only one house near us and I don't know
+who lives in it.  Shall you be lonely when I'm away?"
+
+"Not with that light and that loveliness for company. 
+Who lives in that house, Gilbert?"
+
+"I don't know.  It doesn't look--exactly--as if the
+occupants would be kindred spirits, Anne, does it?"
+
+The house was a large, substantial affair, painted such
+a vivid green that the landscape seemed quite faded by
+contrast.  There was an orchard behind it, and a nicely
+kept lawn before it, but, somehow, there was a certain
+bareness about it.  Perhaps its neatness was
+responsible for this; the whole establishment, house,
+barns, orchard, garden, lawn and lane, was so starkly
+neat.
+
+"It doesn't seem probable that anyone with that taste
+in paint could be VERY kindred," acknowledged Anne,
+"unless it were an accident--like our blue hall.  I
+feel certain there are no children there, at least. 
+It's even neater than the old Copp place on the Tory
+road, and I never expected to see anything neater than
+that."
+
+They had not met anybody on the moist, red road that
+wound along the harbor shore.  But just before they
+came to the belt of birch which hid their home, Anne
+saw a girl who was driving a flock of snow- white
+geese along the crest of a velvety green hill on the
+right.  Great, scattered firs grew along it.  Between
+their trunks one saw glimpses of yellow harvest fields,
+gleams of golden sand-hills, and bits of blue sea.  The
+girl was tall and wore a dress of pale blue print.  She
+walked with a certain springiness of step and erectness
+of bearing.  She and her geese came out of the gate at
+the foot of the hill as Anne and Gilbert passed.  She
+stood with her hand on the fastening of the gate, and
+looked steadily at them, with an expression that hardly
+attained to interest, but did not descend to curiosity. 
+It seemed to Anne, for a fleeting moment, that there
+was even a veiled hint of hostility in it.  But it was
+the girl's beauty which made Anne give a little gasp--a
+beauty so marked that it must have attracted attention
+anywhere.  She was hatless, but heavy braids of
+burnished hair, the hue of ripe wheat, were twisted
+about her head like a coronet; her eyes were blue and
+star-like; her figure, in its plain print gown, was
+magnificent; and her lips were as crimson as the bunch
+of blood-red poppies she wore at her belt.
+
+"Gilbert, who is the girl we have just passed?" asked
+Anne, in a low voice.
+
+"I didn't notice any girl," said Gilbert, who had eyes
+only for his bride.
+
+"She was standing by that gate--no, don't look back. 
+She is still watching us.  I never saw such a beautiful
+face."
+
+"I don't remember seeing any very handsome girls while
+I was here.  There are some pretty girls up at the
+Glen, but I hardly think they could be called
+beautiful."
+
+"This girl is.  You can't have seen her, or you would
+remember her.  Nobody could forget her.  I never saw
+such a face except in pictures.  And her hair!  It made
+me think of Browning's `cord of gold' and `gorgeous
+snake'!"
+
+"Probably she's some visitor in Four Winds--likely
+some one from that big summer hotel over the harbor."
+
+"She wore a white apron and she was driving geese."
+
+"She might do that for amusement.  Look, Anne--there's
+our house."
+
+Anne looked and forgot for a time the girl with the
+splendid, resentful eyes.  The first glimpse of her new
+home was a delight to eye and spirit--it looked so like
+a big, creamy seashell stranded on the harbor shore. 
+The rows of tall Lombardy poplars down its lane stood
+out in stately, purple silhouette against the sky. 
+Behind it, sheltering its garden from the too keen
+breath of sea winds, was a cloudy fir wood, in which
+the winds might make all kinds of weird and haunting
+music.  Like all woods, it seemed to be holding and
+enfolding secrets in its recesses,--secrets whose charm
+is only to be won by entering in and patiently seeking. 
+Outwardly, dark green arms keep them inviolate from
+curious or indifferent eyes.
+
+The night winds were beginning their wild dances beyond
+the bar and the fishing hamlet across the harbor was
+gemmed with lights as Anne and Gilbert drove up the
+poplar lane.  The door of the little house opened, and
+a warm glow of firelight flickered out into the dusk. 
+Gilbert lifted Anne from the buggy and led her into the
+garden, through the little gate between the
+ruddy-tipped firs, up the trim, red path to the
+sandstone step.
+
+"Welcome home," he whispered, and hand in hand they
+stepped over the threshold of their house of dreams.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 6
+
+CAPTAIN JIM
+
+"Old Doctor Dave" and "Mrs. Doctor Dave" had come down
+to the little house to greet the bride and groom. 
+Doctor Dave was a big, jolly, white-whiskered old
+fellow, and Mrs. Doctor was a trim rosy-cheeked,
+silver-haired little lady who took Anne at once
+to her heart, literally and figuratively.
+
+"I'm so glad to see you, dear.  You must be real
+tired.  We've got a bite of supper ready, and Captain
+Jim brought up some trout for you.  Captain Jim--where
+are you?  Oh, he's slipped out to see to the horse, I
+suppose.  Come upstairs and take your things off."
+
+Anne looked about her with bright, appreciative eyes as
+she followed Mrs. Doctor Dave upstairs.  She liked the
+appearance of her new home very much.  It seemed to
+have the atmosphere of Green Gables and the flavor of
+her old traditions.
+
+"I think I would have found Miss Elizabeth Russell a
+`kindred spirit,'" she murmured when she was alone in
+her room.  There were two windows in it; the dormer one
+looked out on the lower harbor and the sand-bar and the
+Four Winds light.
+
+    "A magic casement opening on the foam     Of
+perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn,"
+
+quoted Anne softly.  The gable window gave a view of a
+little harvest-hued valley through which a brook ran. 
+Half a mile up the brook was the only house in
+sight--an old, rambling, gray one surrounded by huge
+willows through which its windows peered, like shy,
+seeking eyes, into the dusk.  Anne wondered who lived
+there; they would be her nearest neighbors and she
+hoped they would be nice.  She suddenly found herself
+thinking of the beautiful girl with the white geese.
+
+"Gilbert thought she didn't belong here," mused Anne,
+"but I feel sure she does.  There was something about
+her that made her part of the sea and the sky and the
+harbor.  Four Winds is in her blood."
+
+When Anne went downstairs Gilbert was standing before
+the fireplace talking to a stranger.  Both turned as
+Anne entered.
+
+"Anne, this is Captain Boyd.  Captain Boyd, my wife."
+
+It was the first time Gilbert had said "my wife" to
+anybody but Anne, and he narrowly escaped bursting with
+the pride of it.  The old captain held out a sinewy
+hand to Anne; they smiled at each other and were
+friends from that moment.  Kindred spirit flashed
+recognition to kindred spirit.
+
+"I'm right down pleased to meet you, Mistress Blythe;
+and I hope you'll be as happy as the first bride was
+who came here.  I can't wish you no better than THAT. 
+But your husband doesn't introduce me jest exactly
+right.  `Captain Jim' is my week-a-day name and you
+might as well begin as you're sartain to end
+up--calling me that.  You sartainly are a nice little
+bride, Mistress Blythe.  Looking at you sorter makes
+me feel that I've jest been married myself."
+
+Amid the laughter that followed Mrs. Doctor Dave urged
+Captain Jim to stay and have supper with them.
+
+"Thank you kindly.  'Twill be a real treat, Mistress
+Doctor.  I mostly has to eat my meals alone, with the
+reflection of my ugly old phiz in a looking-glass
+opposite for company.  'Tisn't often I have a chance to
+sit down with two such sweet, purty ladies."
+
+Captain Jim's compliments may look very bald on paper,
+but he paid them with such a gracious, gentle deference
+of tone and look that the woman upon whom they were
+bestowed felt that she was being offered a queen's
+tribute in a kingly fashion.
+
+Captain Jim was a high-souled, simple-minded old man,
+with eternal youth in his eyes and heart.  He had a
+tall, rather ungainly figure, somewhat stooped, yet
+suggestive of great strength and endurance; a
+clean-shaven face deeply lined and bronzed; a thick
+mane of iron-gray hair falling quite to his shoulders,
+and a pair of remarkably blue, deep-set eyes, which
+sometimes twinkled and sometimes dreamed, and
+sometimes looked out seaward with a wistful quest in
+them, as of one seeking something precious and lost. 
+Anne was to learn one day what it was for which Captain
+Jim looked.
+
+It could not be denied that Captain Jim was a homely
+man.  His spare jaws, rugged mouth, and square brow
+were not fashioned on the lines of beauty; and he had
+passed through many hardships and sorrows which had
+marked his body as well as his soul; but though at
+first sight Anne thought him plain she never thought
+anything more about it--the spirit shining through that
+rugged tenement beautified it so wholly.
+
+They gathered gaily around the supper table.  The
+hearth fire banished the chill of the September
+evening, but the window of the dining room was open and
+sea breezes entered at their own sweet will.  The view
+was magnificent, taking in the harbor and the sweep of
+low, purple hills beyond.  The table was heaped with
+Mrs. Doctor's delicacies but the piece de resistance
+was undoubtedly the big platter of sea trout.
+
+"Thought they'd be sorter tasty after travelling,"
+said Captain Jim.  "They're fresh as trout can be,
+Mistress Blythe.  Two hours ago they were swimming in
+the Glen Pond."
+
+"Who is attending to the light tonight, Captain Jim?"
+asked Doctor Dave.
+
+"Nephew Alec.  He understands it as well as I do. 
+Well, now, I'm real glad you asked me to stay to
+supper.  I'm proper hungry--didn't have much of a
+dinner today."
+
+"I believe you half starve yourself most of the time
+down at that light," said Mrs. Doctor Dave severely. 
+"You won't take the trouble to get up a decent meal."
+
+"Oh, I do, Mistress Doctor, I do," protested Captain
+Jim.  "Why, I live like a king gen'rally.  Last night
+I was up to the Glen and took home two pounds of steak. 
+I meant to have a spanking good dinner today."
+
+"And what happened to the steak?" asked Mrs. Doctor
+Dave.  "Did you lose it on the way home?"
+
+"No."  Captain Jim looked sheepish.  "Just at bedtime
+a poor, ornery sort of dog came along and asked for a
+night's lodging.  Guess he belonged to some of the
+fishermen 'long shore.  I couldn't turn the poor cur
+out--he had a sore foot.  So I shut him in the porch,
+with an old bag to lie on, and went to bed.  But
+somehow I couldn't sleep.  Come to think it over, I
+sorter remembered that the dog looked hungry."
+
+"And you got up and gave him that steak--ALL that
+steak," said Mrs. Doctor Dave, with a kind of
+triumphant reproof.
+
+"Well, there wasn't anything else TO give him," said
+Captain Jim deprecatingly.  "Nothing a dog'd care for,
+that is.  I reckon he WAS hungry, for he made about two
+bites of it.  I had a fine sleep the rest of the night
+but my dinner had to be sorter scanty--potatoes and
+point, as you might say.  The dog, he lit out for home
+this morning.  I reckon HE weren't a vegetarian."
+
+"The idea of starving yourself for a worthless dog!"
+sniffed Mrs. Doctor.
+
+"You don't know but he may be worth a lot to
+somebody," protested Captain Jim.  "He didn't LOOK of
+much account, but you can't go by looks in jedging a
+dog.  Like meself, he might be a real beauty inside. 
+The First Mate didn't approve of him, I'll allow.  His
+language was right down forcible. But the First Mate is
+prejudiced.  No use in taking a cat's opinion of a dog.
+'Tennyrate, I lost my dinner, so this nice spread in
+this dee-lightful company is real pleasant. It' s a
+great thing to have good neighbors."
+
+"Who lives in the house among the willows up the
+brook?" asked Anne.
+
+"Mrs. Dick Moore," said Captain Jim--"and her
+husband," he added, as if by way of an afterthought.
+
+Anne smiled, and deduced a mental picture of Mrs. Dick
+Moore from Captain Jim's way of putting it; evidently a
+second Mrs. Rachel Lynde.
+
+"You haven't many neighbors, Mistress Blythe," Captain
+Jim went on.  "This side of the harbor is mighty thinly
+settled.  Most of the land belongs to Mr. Howard up
+yander past the Glen, and he rents it out for pasture.
+The other side of the harbor, now, is thick with
+folks--'specially MacAllisters.  There's a whole
+colony of MacAllisters you can't throw a stone but you
+hit one.  I was talking to old Leon Blacquiere the
+other day.  He's been working on the harbor all summer. 
+`Dey're nearly all MacAllisters over thar,' he told me. 
+`Dare's Neil MacAllister and Sandy MacAllister and
+William MacAllister and Alec MacAllister and Angus
+MacAllister--and I believe dare's de Devil
+MacAllister.'"
+
+"There are nearly as many Elliotts and Crawfords,"
+said Doctor Dave, after the laughter had subsided. 
+"You know, Gilbert, we folk on this side of Four Winds
+have an old saying--`From the conceit of the Elliotts,
+the pride of the MacAllisters, and the vainglory of the
+Crawfords, good Lord deliver us.'"
+
+"There's a plenty of fine people among them, though,"
+said Captain Jim.  "I sailed with William Crawford for
+many a year, and for courage and endurance and truth
+that man hadn't an equal.  They've got brains over on
+that side of Four Winds.  Mebbe that's why this side is
+sorter inclined to pick on 'em.  Strange, ain't it, how
+folks seem to resent anyone being born a mite cleverer
+than they be."
+
+Doctor Dave, who had a forty years' feud with the
+over-harbor people, laughed and subsided.
+
+"Who lives in that brilliant emerald house about half
+a mile up the road?" asked Gilbert.
+
+Captain Jim smiled delightedly.
+
+"Miss Cornelia Bryant.  She'll likely be over to see
+you soon, seeing you're Presbyterians.  If you were
+Methodists she wouldn't come at all.  Cornelia has a
+holy horror of Methodists."
+
+"She's quite a character," chuckled Doctor Dave.  "A
+most inveterate man-hater!"
+
+"Sour grapes?" queried Gilbert, laughing.
+
+"No, 'tisn't sour grapes," answered Captain Jim
+seriously.  "Cornelia could have had her pick when she
+was young.  Even yet she's only to say the word to see
+the old widowers jump.  She jest seems to have been
+born with a sort of chronic spite agin men and
+Methodists.  She's got the bitterest tongue and the
+kindest heart in Four Winds.  Wherever there's any
+trouble, that woman is there, doing everything to help
+in the tenderest way.  She never says a harsh word
+about another woman, and if she likes to card us poor
+scalawags of men down I reckon our tough old hides can
+stand it."
+
+"She always speaks well of you, Captain Jim," said
+Mrs. Doctor.
+
+"Yes, I'm afraid so.  I don't half like it.  It makes
+me feel as if there must be something sorter unnateral
+about me."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 7
+
+THE SCHOOLMASTER'S BRIDE
+
+"Who was the first bride who came to this house,
+Captain Jim?" Anne asked, as they sat around the
+fireplace after supper.
+
+"Was she a part of the story I've heard was connected
+with this house?" asked Gilbert.  "Somebody told me
+you could tell it, Captain Jim."
+
+"Well, yes, I know it.  I reckon I'm the only person
+living in Four Winds now that can remember the
+schoolmaster's bride as she was when she come to the
+Island.  She's been dead this thirty year, but she was
+one of them women you never forget."
+
+"Tell us the story," pleaded Anne.  "I want to find
+out all about the women who have lived in this house
+before me."
+
+"Well, there's jest been three--Elizabeth Russell, and
+Mrs. Ned Russell, and the schoolmaster's bride. 
+Elizabeth Russell was a nice, clever little critter,
+and Mrs. Ned was a nice woman, too.  But they weren't
+ever like the schoolmaster's bride.
+
+"The schoolmaster's name was John Selwyn.  He came out
+from the Old Country to teach school at the Glen when I
+was a boy of sixteen.  He wasn't much like the usual
+run of derelicts who used to come out to P.E.I. to
+teach school in them days.  Most of them were clever,
+drunken critters who taught the children the three R's
+when they were sober, and lambasted them when they
+wasn't.  But John Selwyn was a fine, handsome young
+fellow.  He boarded at my father's, and he and me were
+cronies, though he was ten years older'n me.  We read
+and walked and talked a heap together.  He knew about
+all the poetry that was ever written, I reckon, and he
+used to quote it to me along shore in the evenings. 
+Dad thought it an awful waste of time, but he sorter
+endured it, hoping it'd put me off the notion of going
+to sea.  Well, nothing could do THAT--mother come of a
+race of sea-going folk and it was born in me.  But I
+loved to hear John read and recite.  It's almost sixty
+years ago, but I could repeat yards of poetry I learned
+from him.  Nearly sixty years!"
+
+Captain Jim was silent for a space, gazing into the
+glowing fire in a quest of the bygones.  Then, with a
+sigh, he resumed his story.
+
+"I remember one spring evening I met him on the
+sand-hills.  He looked sorter uplifted--jest like you
+did, Dr. Blythe, when you brought Mistress Blythe in
+tonight.  I thought of him the minute I seen you.  And
+he told me that he had a sweetheart back home and that
+she was coming out to him.  I wasn't more'n half
+pleased, ornery young lump of selfishness that I was; I
+thought he wouldn't be as much my friend after she
+came.  But I'd enough decency not to let him see it. 
+He told me all about her.  Her name was Persis Leigh,
+and she would have come out with him if it hadn't been
+for her old uncle.  He was sick, and he'd looked after
+her when her parents died and she wouldn't leave him. 
+And now he was dead and she was coming out to marry
+John Selwyn.  'Twasn't no easy journey for a woman in
+them days.  There weren't no steamers, you must
+ricollect.
+
+"`When do you expect her?' says I.
+
+"`She sails on the Royal William, the 20th of June,'
+says he, `and so she should be here by mid-July.  I
+must set Carpenter Johnson to building me a home for
+her.  Her letter come today.  I know before I opened it
+that it had good news for me.  I saw her a few nights
+ago.'
+
+"I didn't understand him, and then he
+explained--though I didn't understand THAT much better. 
+He said he had a gift--or a curse.  Them was his words,
+Mistress Blythe--a gift or a curse.  He didn't know
+which it was.  He said a great-great-grandmother of his
+had had it, and they burned her for a witch on account
+of it.  He said queer spells--trances, I think was the
+name he give 'em--come over him now and again.  Are
+there such things, Doctor?"
+
+"There are people who are certainly subject to
+trances," answered Gilbert.  "The matter is more in
+the line of psychical research than medical.  What were
+the trances of this John Selwyn like?"
+
+"Like dreams," said the old Doctor skeptically.
+
+"He said he could see things in them," said Captain
+Jim slowly.
+
+"Mind you, I'm telling you jest what HE said--things
+that were happening--things that were GOING to happen. 
+He said they were sometimes a comfort to him and
+sometimes a horror.  Four nights before this he'd been
+in one--went into it while he was sitting looking at
+the fire.  And he saw an old room he knew well in
+England, and Persis Leigh in it, holding out her hands
+to him and looking glad and happy.  So he knew he was
+going to hear good news of her."
+
+"A dream--a dream," scoffed the old Doctor.
+
+"Likely--likely," conceded Captain Jim.  "That's what
+_I_ said to him at the time.  It was a vast more
+comfortable to think so.  I didn't like the idea of him
+seeing things like that--it was real uncanny.
+
+"`No,' says he, `I didn't dream it.  But we won't talk
+of this again.  You won't be so much my friend if you
+think much about it.'
+
+"I told him nothing could make me any less his friend. 
+But he jest shook his head and says, says he:
+
+"`Lad, I know.  I've lost friends before because of
+this.  I don't blame them.  There are times when I feel
+hardly friendly to myself because of it.  Such a power
+has a bit of divinity in it--whether of a good or an
+evil divinity who shall say?  And we mortals all shrink
+from too close contact with God or devil.'
+
+"Them was his words.  I remember them as if 'twas
+yesterday, though I didn't know jest what he meant. 
+What do you s'pose he DID mean, doctor?"
+
+"I doubt if he knew what he meant himself," said
+Doctor Dave testily.
+
+"I think I understand," whispered Anne.  She was
+listening in her old attitude of clasped lips and
+shining eyes.  Captain Jim treated himself to an
+admiring smile before he went on with his story.
+
+"Well, purty soon all the Glen and Four Winds people
+knew the schoolmaster's bride was coming, and they were
+all glad because they thought so much of him.  And
+everybody took an interest in his new house--THIS
+house.  He picked this site for it, because you could
+see the harbor and hear the sea from it.  He made the
+garden out there for his bride, but he didn't plant the
+Lombardies.  Mrs. Ned Russell planted THEM.  But
+there's a double row of rose-bushes in the garden that
+the little girls who went to the Glen school set out
+there for the schoolmaster's bride.  He said they were
+pink for her cheeks and white for her brow and red for
+her lips.  He'd quoted poetry so much that he sorter
+got into the habit of talking it, too, I reckon.
+
+"Almost everybody sent him some little present to help
+out the furnishing of the house.  When the Russells
+came into it they were well-to-do and furnished it real
+handsome, as you can see; but the first furniture that
+went into it was plain enough.  This little house was
+rich in love, though.  The women sent in quilts and
+tablecloths and towels, and one man made a chest for
+her, and another a table and so on.  Even blind old
+Aunt Margaret Boyd wove a little basket for her out of
+the sweet-scented sand-hill grass.  The schoolmaster's
+wife used it for years to keep her handkerchiefs in.
+
+"Well, at last everything was ready--even to the logs
+in the big fireplace ready for lighting.  'Twasn't
+exactly THIS fireplace, though 'twas in the same place. 
+Miss Elizabeth had this put in when she made the house
+over fifteen years ago.  It was a big, old-fashioned
+fireplace where you could have roasted an ox.  Many's
+the time I've sat here and spun yarns, same's I'm doing
+tonight."
+
+Again there was a silence, while Captain Jim kept a
+passing tryst with visitants Anne and Gilbert could not
+see--the folks who had sat with him around that
+fireplace in the vanished years, with mirth and bridal
+joy shining in eyes long since closed forever under
+churchyard sod or heaving leagues of sea.  Here on
+olden nights children had tossed laughter lightly to
+and fro.  Here on winter evenings friends had
+gathered.  Dance and music and jest had been here. 
+Here youths and maidens had dreamed.  For Captain Jim
+the little house was tenanted with shapes entreating
+remembrance.
+
+"It was the first of July when the house was finished. 
+The schoolmaster began to count the days then.  We used
+to see him walking along the shore, and we'd say to
+each other, `She'll soon be with him now.'
+
+"She was expected the middle of July, but she didn't
+come then.  Nobody felt anxious.  Vessels were often
+delayed for days and mebbe weeks.  The Royal William
+was a week overdue--and then two--and then three.  And
+at last we began to be frightened, and it got worse and
+worse.  Fin'lly I couldn't bear to look into John
+Selwyn's eyes.  D'ye know, Mistress Blythe"--Captain
+Jim lowered his voice--"I used to think that they
+looked just like what his old great-great-grandmother's
+must have been when they were burning her to death.  He
+never said much but he taught school like a man in a
+dream and then hurried to the shore.  Many a night he
+walked there from dark to dawn.  People said he was
+losing his mind.  Everybody had given up hope--the
+Royal William was eight weeks overdue.  It was the
+middle of September and the schoolmaster's bride hadn't
+come-- never would come, we thought.
+
+"There was a big storm then that lasted three days, and
+on the evening after it died away I went to the shore. 
+I found the schoolmaster there, leaning with his arms
+folded against a big rock, gazing out to sea.
+
+"I spoke to him but he didn't answer.  His eyes seemed
+to be looking at something I couldn't see.  His face
+was set, like a dead man's.
+
+"`John--John,' I called out--jest like that--jest like
+a frightened child, `wake up--wake up.'
+
+"That strange, awful look seemed to sorter fade out of
+his eyes.
+
+He turned his head and looked at me.  I've never forgot
+his face-- never will forget it till I ships for my
+last voyage.
+
+"`All is well, lad,' he says.  `I've seen the Royal
+William coming around East Point.  She will be here by
+dawn.  Tomorrow night I shall sit with my bride by my
+own hearth-fire.'
+
+"Do you think he did see it?" demanded Captain Jim
+abruptly. 
+
+"God knows," said Gilbert softly.  "Great love and
+great pain might compass we know not what marvels."
+
+"I am sure he did see it," said Anne earnestly.
+
+"Fol-de-rol," said Doctor Dave, but he spoke with less
+conviction than usual.
+
+"Because, you know," said Captain Jim solemnly, "the
+Royal William came into Four Winds Harbor at daylight
+the next morning.
+
+Every soul in the Glen and along the shore was at the
+old wharf to meet her.  The schoolmaster had been
+watching there all night.  How we cheered as she sailed
+up the channel."
+
+Captain Jim's eyes were shining.  They were looking at
+the Four Winds Harbor of sixty years agone, with a
+battered old ship sailing through the sunrise splendor.
+
+"And Persis Leigh was on board?" asked Anne.
+
+"Yes--her and the captain's wife.  They'd had an awful
+passage-- storm after storm--and their provisions give
+out, too.  But there they were at last.  When Persis
+Leigh stepped onto the old wharf John Selwyn took her
+in his arms--and folks stopped cheering and begun to
+cry.  I cried myself, though 'twas years, mind you,
+afore I'd admit it.  Ain't it funny how ashamed boys
+are of tears?"
+
+"Was Persis Leigh beautiful?" asked Anne.
+
+"Well, I don't know that you'd call her beautiful
+exactly--I-- don't--know," said Captain Jim slowly. 
+"Somehow, you never got so far along as to wonder if
+she was handsome or not.  It jest didn't matter.  There
+was something so sweet and winsome about her that you
+had to love her, that was all.  But she was pleasant to
+look at--big, clear, hazel eyes and heaps of glossy
+brown hair, and an English skin.  John and her were
+married at our house that night at early
+candle-lighting; everybody from far and near was there
+to see it and we all brought them down here afterwards. 
+Mistress Selwyn lighted the fire, and we went away and
+left them sitting here, jest as John had seen in that
+vision of his.  A strange thing--a strange thing!  But
+I've seen a turrible lot of strange things in my
+time."
+
+Captain Jim shook his head sagely.
+
+"It's a dear story," said Anne, feeling that for once
+she had got enough romance to satisfy her.  "How long
+did they live here?"
+
+"Fifteen years.  I ran off to sea soon after they were
+married, like the young scalawag I was.  But every time
+I come back from a voyage I'd head for here, even
+before I went home, and tell Mistress Selwyn all about
+it.  Fifteen happy years!  They had a sort of talent
+for happiness, them two.  Some folks are like that, if
+you've noticed.  They COULDN'T be unhappy for long, no
+matter what happened.  They quarrelled once or twice,
+for they was both high-sperrited.  But Mistress Selwyn
+says to me once, says she, laughing in that pretty way
+of hers, `I felt dreadful when John and I quarrelled,
+but underneath it all I was very happy because I had
+such a nice husband to quarrel with and make it up
+with.'  Then they moved to Charlottetown, and Ned
+Russell bought this house and brought his bride here. 
+They were a gay young pair, as I remember them.  Miss
+Elizabeth Russell was Alec's sister.  She came to live
+with them a year or so later, and she was a creature of
+mirth, too.  The walls of this house must be sorter
+SOAKED with laughing and good times.  You're the third
+bride I've seen come here, Mistress Blythe--and the
+handsomest."
+
+Captain Jim contrived to give his sunflower compliment
+the delicacy of a violet, and Anne wore it proudly. 
+She was looking her best that night, with the bridal
+rose on her cheeks and the love-light in her eyes; even
+gruff old Doctor Dave gave her an approving glance, and
+told his wife, as they drove home together, that that
+red-headed wife of the boy's was something of a beauty.
+
+"I must be getting back to the light," announced
+Captain Jim.  "I've enj'yed this evening something
+tremenjus."
+
+" You must come often to see us," said Anne.
+
+"I wonder if you'd give that invitation if you knew how
+likely I'll be to accept it," Captain Jim remarked
+whimsically.
+
+"Which is another way of saying you wonder if I mean
+it," smiled Anne.  "I do, `cross my heart,' as we used
+to say at school."
+
+"Then I'll come.  You're likely to be pestered with me
+at any hour.  And I'll be proud to have you drop down
+and visit me now and then, too.  Gin'rally I haven't
+anyone to talk to but the First Mate, bless his
+sociable heart.  He's a mighty good listener, and has
+forgot more'n any MacAllister of them all ever knew,
+but he isn't much of a conversationalist.  You're young
+and I'm old, but our souls are about the same age, I
+reckon.  We both belong to the race that knows Joseph,
+as Cornelia Bryant would say."
+
+"The race that knows Joseph?" puzzled Anne.
+
+"Yes.  Cornelia divides all the folks in the world into
+two kinds-- the race that knows Joseph and the race
+that don't.  If a person sorter sees eye to eye with
+you, and has pretty much the same ideas about things,
+and the same taste in jokes--why, then he belongs to
+the race that knows Joseph."
+
+"Oh, I understand," exclaimed Anne, light breaking in
+upon her.
+
+"It's what I used to call--and still call in quotation
+marks `kindred spirits.'"
+
+"Jest so--jest so," agreed Captain Jim.  "We're it,
+whatever IT is.  When you come in tonight, Mistress
+Blythe, I says to myself, says I, `Yes, she's of the
+race that knows Joseph.'  And mighty glad I was, for
+if it wasn't so we couldn't have had any real
+satisfaction in each other's company.  The race that
+knows Joseph is the salt of the airth, I reckon."
+
+The moon had just risen when Anne and Gilbert went to
+the door with their guests.  Four Winds Harbor was
+beginning to be a thing of dream and glamour and
+enchantment--a spellbound haven where no tempest might
+ever ravin.  The Lombardies down the lane, tall and
+sombre as the priestly forms of some mystic band, were
+tipped with silver.
+
+"Always liked Lombardies," said Captain Jim, waving a
+long arm at them.  "They're the trees of princesses. 
+They're out of fashion now.  Folks complain that they
+die at the top and get ragged-looking.  So they do--so
+they do, if you don't risk your neck every spring
+climbing up a light ladder to trim them out.  I always
+did it for Miss Elizabeth, so her Lombardies never got
+out-at-elbows.  She was especially fond of them.  She
+liked their dignity and stand-offishness.  THEY don't
+hobnob with every Tom, Dick and Harry.  If it's maples
+for company, Mistress Blythe, it's Lombardies for
+society."
+
+"What a beautiful night," said Mrs. Doctor Dave, as
+she climbed into the Doctor's buggy.
+
+"Most nights are beautiful," said Captain Jim.  "But I
+'low that moonlight over Four Winds makes me sorter
+wonder what's left for heaven.  The moon's a great
+friend of mine, Mistress Blythe.  I've loved her ever
+since I can remember.  When I was a little chap of
+eight I fell asleep in the garden one evening and
+wasn't missed.  I woke up along in the night and I was
+most scared to death.  What shadows and queer noises
+there was!  I dursn't move.  Jest crouched there
+quaking, poor small mite.  Seemed 'sif there weren't
+anyone in the world but meself and it was mighty big. 
+Then all at once I saw the moon looking down at me
+through the apple boughs, jest like an old friend.  I
+was comforted right off.  Got up and walked to the
+house as brave as a lion, looking at her.  Many's the
+night I've watched her from the deck of my vessel, on
+seas far away from here.  Why don't you folks tell me
+to take in the slack of my jaw and go home?"
+
+The laughter of the goodnights died away.  Anne and
+Gilbert walked hand in hand around their garden.  The
+brook that ran across the corner dimpled pellucidly in
+the shadows of the birches.  The poppies along its
+banks were like shallow cups of moonlight.  Flowers
+that had been planted by the hands of the
+schoolmaster's bride flung their sweetness on the
+shadowy air, like the beauty and blessing of sacred
+yesterdays.  Anne paused in the gloom to gather a
+spray.
+
+"I love to smell flowers in the dark," she said.  "You
+get hold of their soul then.  Oh, Gilbert, this little
+house is all I've dreamed it.  And I'm so glad that we
+are not the first who have kept bridal tryst here!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 8
+
+MISS CORNELIA BRYANT COMES TO CALL
+
+That September was a month of golden mists and purple
+hazes at Four Winds Harbor--a month of sun-steeped days
+and of nights that were swimming in moonlight, or
+pulsating with stars.  No storm marred it, no rough
+wind blew.  Anne and Gilbert put their nest in order,
+rambled on the shores, sailed on the harbor, drove
+about Four Winds and the Glen, or through the ferny,
+sequestered roads of the woods around the harbor head;
+in short, had such a honeymoon as any lovers in the
+world might have envied them.
+
+"If life were to stop short just now it would still
+have been richly worth while, just for the sake of
+these past four weeks, wouldn't it?" said Anne.  "I
+don't suppose we will ever have four such perfect weeks
+again--but we've HAD them.  Everything--wind, weather,
+folks, house of dreams--has conspired to make our
+honeymoon delightful.  There hasn't even been a rainy
+day since we came here."
+
+"And we haven't quarrelled once," teased Gilbert.
+
+"Well, `that's a pleasure all the greater for being
+deferred,'" quoted Anne.  "I'm so glad we decided to
+spend our honeymoon here.  Our memories of it will
+always belong here, in our house of dreams, instead of
+being scattered about in strange places."
+
+There was a certain tang of romance and adventure in
+the atmosphere of their new home which Anne had never
+found in Avonlea.  There, although she had lived in
+sight of the sea, it had not entered intimately into
+her life.  In Four Winds it surrounded her and called
+to her constantly.  From every window of her new home
+she saw some varying aspect of it.  Its haunting murmur
+was ever in her ears.  Vessels sailed up the harbor
+every day to the wharf at the Glen, or sailed out
+again through the sunset, bound for ports that might be
+half way round the globe.  Fishing boats went
+white-winged down the channel in the mornings, and
+returned laden in the evenings.  Sailors and
+fisher-folk travelled the red, winding harbor roads,
+light-hearted and content.  There was always a certain
+sense of things going to happen--of adventures and
+farings-forth.  The ways of Four Winds were less staid
+and settled and grooved than those of Avonlea; winds of
+change blew over them; the sea called ever to the
+dwellers on shore, and even those who might not answer
+its call felt the thrill and unrest and mystery and
+possibilities of it.
+
+"I understand now why some men must go to sea," said
+Anne.  "That desire which comes to us all at times--`to
+sail beyond the bourne of sunset'--must be very
+imperious when it is born in you.  I don't wonder
+Captain Jim ran away because of it.  I never see a ship
+sailing out of the channel, or a gull soaring over the
+sand-bar, without wishing I were on board the ship or
+had wings, not like a dove `to fly away and be at
+rest,' but like a gull, to sweep out into the very
+heart of a storm."
+
+"You'll stay right here with me, Anne-girl," said
+Gilbert lazily.  "I won't have you flying away from me
+into the hearts of storms."
+
+They were sitting on their red sand-stone doorstep in
+the late afternoon.  Great tranquillities were all
+about them in land and sea and sky.  Silvery gulls were
+soaring over them.  The horizons were laced with long
+trails of frail, pinkish clouds.  The hushed air was
+threaded with a murmurous refrain of minstrel winds and
+waves.  Pale asters were blowing in the sere and misty
+meadows between them and the harbor.
+
+"Doctors who have to be up all night waiting on sick
+folk don't feel very adventurous, I suppose," Anne
+said indulgently.  "If you had had a good sleep last
+night, Gilbert, you'd be as ready as I am for a flight
+of imagination."
+
+"I did good work last night, Anne," said Gilbert
+quietly.  "Under God, I saved a life.  This is the
+first time I could ever really claim that.  In other
+cases I may have helped; but, Anne, if I had not stayed
+at Allonby's last night and fought death hand to hand,
+that woman would have died before morning.  I tried an
+experiment that was certainly never tried in Four Winds
+before.  I doubt if it was ever tried anywhere before
+outside of a hospital.  It was a new thing in Kingsport
+hospital last winter.  I could never have dared try it
+here if I had not been absolutely certain that there
+was no other chance.  I risked it--and it succeeded. 
+As a result, a good wife and mother is saved for long
+years of happiness and usefulness.  As I drove home
+this morning, while the sun was rising over the harbor,
+I thanked God that I had chosen the profession I did. 
+I had fought a good fight and won--think of it, Anne,
+WON, against the Great Destroyer.  It's what I dreamed
+of doing long ago when we talked together of what we
+wanted to do in life.  That dream of mine came true
+this morning."
+
+"Was that the only one of your dreams that has come
+true?" asked Anne, who knew perfectly well what the
+substance of his answer would be, but wanted to hear it
+again.
+
+"YOU know, Anne-girl," said Gilbert, smiling into her
+eyes.  At that moment there were certainly two
+perfectly happy people sitting on the doorstep of a
+little white house on the Four Winds Harbor shore.
+
+Presently Gilbert said, with a change of tone, "Do I or
+do I not see a full-rigged ship sailing up our lane?"
+
+Anne looked and sprang up.
+
+"That must be either Miss Cornelia Bryant or Mrs. Moore
+coming to call," she said.
+
+"I'm going into the office, and if it is Miss Cornelia
+I warn you that I'll eavesdrop," said Gilbert.  "From
+all I've heard regarding Miss Cornelia I conclude that
+her conversation will not be dull, to say the least."
+
+"It may be Mrs. Moore."
+
+"I don't think Mrs. Moore is built on those lines.  I
+saw her working in her garden the other day, and,
+though I was too far away to see clearly, I thought she
+was rather slender.  She doesn't seem very socially
+inclined when she has never called on you yet, although
+she's your nearest neighbor."
+
+"She can't be like Mrs. Lynde, after all, or curiosity
+would have brought her," said Anne.  "This caller is,
+I think, Miss Cornelia."
+
+Miss Cornelia it was; moreover, Miss Cornelia had not
+come to make any brief and fashionable wedding call. 
+She had her work under her arm in a substantial parcel,
+and when Anne asked her to stay she promptly took off
+her capacious sun-hat, which had been held on her head,
+despite irreverent September breezes, by a tight
+elastic band under her hard little knob of fair hair. 
+No hat pins for Miss Cornelia, an it please ye! 
+Elastic bands had been good enough for her mother and
+they were good enough for HER.  She had a fresh, round,
+pink-and-white face, and jolly brown eyes.  She did not
+look in the least like the traditional old maid, and
+there was something in her expression which won Anne
+instantly.  With her old instinctive quickness to
+discern kindred spirits she knew she was going to like
+Miss Cornelia, in spite of uncertain oddities of
+opinion, and certain oddities of attire.
+
+Nobody but Miss Cornelia would have come to make a call
+arrayed in a striped blue-and-white apron and a wrapper
+of chocolate print, with a design of huge, pink roses
+scattered over it.  And nobody but Miss Cornelia could
+have looked dignified and suitably garbed in it.  Had
+Miss Cornelia been entering a palace to call on a
+prince's bride, she would have been just as dignified
+and just as wholly mistress of the situation.  She
+would have trailed her rose-spattered flounce over the
+marble floors just as unconcernedly, and she would have
+proceeded just as calmly to disabuse the mind of the
+princess of any idea that the possession of a mere man,
+be he prince or peasant, was anything to brag of.
+
+"I've brought my work, Mrs. Blythe, dearie," she
+remarked, unrolling some dainty material.  "I'm in a
+hurry to get this done, and there isn't any time to
+lose."
+
+Anne looked in some surprise at the white garment
+spread over Miss Cornelia's ample lap.  It was
+certainly a baby's dress, and it was most beautifully
+made, with tiny frills and tucks.  Miss Cornelia
+adjusted her glasses and fell to embroidering with
+exquisite stitches.
+
+"This is for Mrs. Fred Proctor up at the Glen," she
+announced.  "She's expecting her eighth baby any day
+now, and not a stitch has she ready for it.  The other
+seven have wore out all she made for the first, and
+she's never had time or strength or spirit to make any
+more.  That woman is a martyr, Mrs. Blythe, believe ME. 
+When she married Fred Proctor _I_ knew how it would
+turn out.  He was one of your wicked, fascinating men. 
+After he got married he left off being fascinating and
+just kept on being wicked.  He drinks and he neglects
+his family.  Isn't that like a man?  I don't know how
+Mrs. Proctor would ever keep her children decently
+clothed if her neighbors didn't help her out."
+
+As Anne was afterwards to learn, Miss Cornelia was the
+only neighbor who troubled herself much about the
+decency of the young Proctors.
+
+"When I heard this eighth baby was coming I decided to
+make some things for it," Miss Cornelia went on. 
+"This is the last and I want to finish it today."
+
+"It's certainly very pretty," said Anne.  "I'll get my
+sewing and we'll have a little thimble party of two. 
+You are a beautiful sewer, Miss Bryant."
+
+"Yes, I'm the best sewer in these parts," said Miss
+Cornelia in a matter-of-fact tone.  "I ought to be! 
+Lord, I've done more of it than if I'd had a hundred
+children of my own, believe ME!  I s'pose I'm a fool,
+to be putting hand embroidery on this dress for an
+eighth baby.  But, Lord, Mrs. Blythe, dearie, it isn't
+to blame for being the eighth, and I kind of wished it
+to have one real pretty dress, just as if it WAS
+wanted.  Nobody's wanting the poor mite--so I put some
+extra fuss on its little things just on that account."
+
+"Any baby might be proud of that dress," said Anne,
+feeling still more strongly that she was going to like
+Miss Cornelia.
+
+"I s'pose you've been thinking I was never coming to
+call on you," resumed Miss Cornelia.  "But this is
+harvest month, you know, and I've been busy--and a lot
+of extra hands hanging round, eating more'n they work,
+just like the men.  I'd have come yesterday, but I went
+to Mrs. Roderick MacAllister's funeral.  At first I
+thought my head was aching so badly I couldn't enjoy
+myself if I did go.  But she was a hundred years old,
+and I'd always promised myself that I'd go to her
+funeral."
+
+"Was it a successful function?" asked Anne, noticing
+that the office door was ajar.
+
+"What's that?  Oh, yes, it was a tremendous funeral. 
+She had a very large connection.  There was over one
+hundred and twenty carriages in the procession.  There
+was one or two funny things happened.  I thought that
+die I would to see old Joe Bradshaw, who is an infidel
+and never darkens the door of a church, singing `Safe
+in the Arms of Jesus' with great gusto and fervor.  He
+glories in singing-- that's why he never misses a
+funeral.  Poor Mrs. Bradshaw didn't look much like
+singing--all wore out slaving.  Old Joe starts out once
+in a while to buy her a present and brings home some
+new kind of farm machinery.  Isn't that like a man? 
+But what else would you expect of a man who never goes
+to church, even a Methodist one?  I was real thankful
+to see you and the young Doctor in the Presbyterian
+church your first Sunday.  No doctor for me who isn't a
+Presbyterian."
+
+"We were in the Methodist church last Sunday evening,"
+said Anne wickedly.
+
+"Oh, I s'pose Dr. Blythe has to go to the Methodist
+church once in a while or he wouldn't get the Methodist
+practice."
+
+"We liked the sermon very much," declared Anne boldly. 
+"And I thought the Methodist minster's prayer was one
+of the most beautiful I ever heard."
+
+"Oh, I've no doubt he can pray.  I never heard anyone
+make more beautiful prayers than old Simon Bentley, who
+was always drunk, or hoping to be, and the drunker he
+was the better he prayed."
+
+"The Methodist minister is very fine looking," said
+Anne, for the benefit of the office door.
+
+"Yes, he's quite ornamental," agreed Miss Cornelia. 
+"Oh, and VERY ladylike.  And he thinks that every girl
+who looks at him falls in love with him--as if a
+Methodist minister, wandering about like any Jew, was
+such a prize!  If you and the young doctor take MY
+advice, you won't have much to do with the Methodists. 
+My motto is--if you ARE a Presbyterian, BE a
+Presbyterian."
+
+"Don't you think that Methodists go to heaven as well
+as Presbyterians?" asked Anne smilelessly.
+
+"That isn't for US to decide.  It's in higher hands
+than ours," said Miss Cornelia solemnly.  "But I ain't
+going to associate with them on earth whatever I may
+have to do in heaven.  THIS Methodist minister isn't
+married.  The last one they had was, and his wife was
+the silliest, flightiest little thing I ever saw.  I
+told her husband once that he should have waited till
+she was grown up before he married her.  He said he
+wanted to have the training of her.  Wasn't that like a
+man?"
+
+"It's rather hard to decide just when people ARE grown
+up," laughed Anne.
+
+"That's a true word, dearie.  Some are grown up when
+they're born, and others ain't grown up when they're
+eighty, believe ME. That same Mrs. Roderick I was
+speaking of never grew up.  She was as foolish when she
+was a hundred as when she was ten."
+
+"Perhaps that was why she lived so long," suggested
+Anne.
+
+"Maybe 'twas.  _I_'d rather live fifty sensible years
+than a hundred foolish ones."
+
+"But just think what a dull world it would be if
+everyone was sensible," pleaded Anne.
+
+Miss Cornelia disdained any skirmish of flippant
+epigram.
+
+"Mrs. Roderick was a Milgrave, and the Milgraves never
+had much sense.  Her nephew, Ebenezer Milgrave, used to
+be insane for years.  He believed he was dead and used
+to rage at his wife because she wouldn't bury him. 
+_I_'d a-done it."
+
+Miss Cornelia looked so grimly determined that Anne
+could almost see her with a spade in her hand.
+
+"Don't you know ANY good husbands, Miss Bryant?"
+
+"Oh, yes, lots of them--over yonder," said Miss
+Cornelia, waving her hand through the open window
+towards the little graveyard of the church across the
+harbor.
+
+"But living--going about in the flesh?" persisted
+Anne.
+
+"Oh, there's a few, just to show that with God all
+things are possible," acknowledged Miss Cornelia
+reluctantly.  "I don't deny that an odd man here and
+there, if he's caught young and trained up proper, and
+if his mother has spanked him well beforehand, may turn
+out a decent being.  YOUR husband, now, isn't so bad,
+as men go, from all I hear.  I s'pose"--Miss Cornelia
+looked sharply at Anne over her glasses--"you think
+there's nobody like him in the world."
+
+"There isn't," said Anne promptly.
+
+"Ah, well, I heard another bride say that once,"
+sighed Miss Cornelia.  "Jennie Dean thought when she
+married that there wasn't anybody like HER husband in
+the world.  And she was right--there wasn't!  And a
+good thing, too, believe ME!  He led her an awful
+life--and he was courting his second wife while Jennie
+was dying.
+
+Wasn't that like a man?  However, I hope YOUR
+confidence will be better justified, dearie.  The young
+doctor is taking real well.  I was afraid at first he
+mightn't, for folks hereabouts have always thought old
+Doctor Dave the only doctor in the world.  Doctor Dave
+hadn't much tact, to be sure--he was always talking of
+ropes in houses where someone had hanged himself.  But
+folks forgot their hurt feelings when they had a pain
+in their stomachs.  If he'd been a minister instead of
+a doctor they'd never have forgiven him.  Soul-ache
+doesn't worry folks near as much as stomach-ache. 
+Seeing as we're both Presbyterians and no Methodists
+around, will you tell me your candid opinion of OUR
+minister?"
+
+"Why--really--I--well," hesitated Anne.
+
+Miss Cornelia nodded.
+
+"Exactly.  I agree with you, dearie.  We made a mistake
+when we called HIM.  His face just looks like one of
+those long, narrow stones in the graveyard, doesn't it? 
+`Sacred to the memory' ought to be written on his
+forehead.  I shall never forget the first sermon he
+preached after he came.  It was on the subject of
+everyone doing what they were best fitted for--a very
+good subject, of course; but such illustrations as he
+used!  He said, `If you had a cow and an apple tree,
+and if you tied the apple tree in your stable and
+planted the cow in your orchard, with her legs up, how
+much milk would you get from the apple tree, or how
+many apples from the cow?'  Did you ever hear the like
+in your born days, dearie?  I was so thankful there
+were no Methodists there that day--they'd never have
+been done hooting over it.  But what I dislike most in
+him is his habit of agreeing with everybody, no matter
+what is said.  If you said to him, `You're a
+scoundrel,' he'd say, with that smooth smile of his,
+`Yes, that's so.'  A minister should have more
+backbone.  The long and the short of it is, I consider
+him a reverend jackass.  But, of course, this is just
+between you and me.  When there are Methodists in
+hearing I praise him to the skies.  Some folks think
+his wife dresses too gay, but _I_ say when she has to
+live with a face like that she needs something to cheer
+her up.  You'll never hear ME condemning a woman for
+her dress.  I'm only too thankful when her husband
+isn't too mean and miserly to allow it.  Not that I
+bother much with dress myself.  Women just dress to
+please the men, and I'd never stoop to THAT.  I have
+had a real placid, comfortable life, dearie, and it's
+just because I never cared a cent what the men
+thought."
+
+"Why do you hate the men so, Miss Bryant?"
+
+"Lord, dearie, I don't hate them.  They aren't worth
+it.  I just sort of despise them.  I think I'll like
+YOUR husband if he keeps on as he has begun.  But apart
+from him about the only men in the world I've much use
+for are the old doctor and Captain Jim."
+
+"Captain Jim is certainly splendid," agreed Anne
+cordially.
+
+"Captain Jim is a good man, but he's kind of vexing in
+one way.  You CAN'T make him mad.  I've tried for
+twenty years and he just keeps on being placid.  It
+does sort of rile me.  And I s'pose the woman he
+should have married got a man who went into tantrums
+twice a day."
+
+"Who was she?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know, dearie.  I never remember of Captain
+Jim making up to anybody.  He was edging on old as far
+as my memory goes.  He's seventy-six, you know.  I
+never heard any reason for his staying a bachelor, but
+there must be one, believe ME.  He sailed all his life
+till five years ago, and there's no corner of the earth
+he hasn't poked his nose into.  He and Elizabeth
+Russell were great cronies, all their lives, but they
+never had any notion of sweet-hearting.  Elizabeth
+never married, though she had plenty of chances.  She
+was a great beauty when she was young.  The year the
+Prince of Wales came to the Island she was visiting her
+uncle in Charlottetown and he was a Government
+official, and so she got invited to the great ball. 
+She was the prettiest girl there, and the Prince danced
+with her, and all the other women he didn't dance with
+were furious about it, because their social standing
+was higher than hers and they said he shouldn't have
+passed them over.  Elizabeth was always very proud of
+that dance.  Mean folks said that was why she never
+married--she couldn't put up with an ordinary man after
+dancing with a prince.  But that wasn't so.  She told
+me the reason once--it was because she had such a
+temper that she was afraid she couldn't live peaceably
+with any man.  She HAD an awful temper--she used to
+have to go upstairs and bite pieces out of her bureau
+to keep it down by times.  But I told her that wasn't
+any reason for not marrying if she wanted to.  There's
+no reason why we should let the men have a monopoly of
+temper, is there, Mrs. Blythe, dearie?"
+
+"I've a bit of temper myself," sighed Anne.
+
+"It's well you have, dearie.  You won't be half so
+likely to be trodden on, believe ME!  My, how that
+golden glow of yours is blooming!  Your garden looks
+fine.  Poor Elizabeth always took such care of it."
+
+"I love it," said Anne.  "I'm glad it's so full of
+old-fashioned flowers.  Speaking of gardening, we want
+to get a man to dig up that little lot beyond the fir
+grove and set it out with strawberry plants for us. 
+Gilbert is so busy he will never get time for it this
+fall.  Do you know anyone we can get?"
+
+"Well, Henry Hammond up at the Glen goes out doing jobs
+like that.  He'll do, maybe.  He's always a heap more
+interested in his wages than in his work, just like a
+man, and he's so slow in the uptake that he stands
+still for five minutes before it dawns on him that he's
+stopped.  His father threw a stump at him when he was
+small.
+
+Nice gentle missile, wasn't it?  So like a man! 
+Course, the boy never got over it.  But he's the only
+one I can recommend at all.  He painted my house for me
+last spring.  It looks real nice now, don't you
+think?"
+
+Anne was saved by the clock striking five.
+
+"Lord, is it that late?" exclaimed Miss Cornelia. 
+"How time does slip by when you're enjoying yourself! 
+Well, I must betake myself home."
+
+"No, indeed!  You are going to stay and have tea with
+us," said Anne eagerly.
+
+"Are you asking me because you think you ought to, or
+because you really want to?" demanded Miss Cornelia.
+
+"Because I really want to."
+
+"Then I'll stay.  YOU belong to the race that knows
+Joseph."
+
+"I know we are going to be friends," said Anne, with
+the smile that only they of the household of faith ever
+saw.
+
+"Yes, we are, dearie.  Thank goodness, we can choose
+our friends.  We have to take our relatives as they
+are, and be thankful if there are no penitentiary birds
+among them.  Not that I've many-- none nearer than
+second cousins.  I'm a kind of lonely soul, Mrs.
+Blythe."
+
+There was a wistful note in Miss Cornelia's voice.
+
+"I wish you would call me Anne," exclaimed Anne
+impulsively.  "It would seem more HOMEY.  Everyone in
+Four Winds, except my husband, calls me Mrs. Blythe,
+and it makes me feel like a stranger.  Do you know that
+your name is very near being the one I yearned after
+when I was a child.  I hated `Anne' and I called myself
+`Cordelia' in imagination."
+
+"I like Anne.  It was my mother's name.  Old-fashioned
+names are the best and sweetest in my opinion.  If
+you're going to get tea you might send the young doctor
+to talk to me.  He's been lying on the sofa in that
+office ever since I came, laughing fit to kill over
+what I've been saying."
+
+"How did you know?" cried Anne, too aghast at this
+instance of Miss Cornelia's uncanny prescience to make
+a polite denial.
+
+"I saw him sitting beside you when I came up the lane,
+and I know men's tricks," retorted Miss Cornelia. 
+"There, I've finished my little dress, dearie, and the
+eighth baby can come as soon as it pleases."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 9
+
+AN EVENING AT FOUR WINDS POINT
+
+It was late September when Anne and Gilbert were able
+to pay Four Winds light their promised visit.  They had
+often planned to go, but something always occurred to
+prevent them.  Captain Jim had "dropped in" several
+times at the little house.
+
+"I don't stand on ceremony, Mistress Blythe," he told
+Anne.  "It's a real pleasure to me to come here, and
+I'm not going to deny myself jest because you haven't
+got down to see me.  There oughtn't to be no
+bargaining like that among the race that knows Joseph. 
+I'll come when I can, and you come when you can, and so
+long's we have our pleasant little chat it don't matter
+a mite what roof's over us."
+
+Captain Jim took a great fancy to Gog and Magog, who
+were presiding over the destinies of the hearth in the
+little house with as much dignity and aplomb as they
+had done at Patty's Place.
+
+"Aren't they the cutest little cusses?" he would say
+delightedly; and he bade them greeting and farewell as
+gravely and invariably as he did his host and hostess. 
+Captain Jim was not going to offend household deities
+by any lack of reverence and ceremony.
+
+"You've made this little house just about perfect," he
+told Anne.  "It never was so nice before.  Mistress
+Selwyn had your taste and she did wonders; but folks in
+those days didn't have the pretty little curtains and
+pictures and nicknacks you have.  As for Elizabeth, she
+lived in the past.  You've kinder brought the future
+into it, so to speak.  I'd be real happy even if we
+couldn't talk at all, when I come here--jest to sit and
+look at you and your pictures and your flowers would be
+enough of a treat.  It's beautiful--beautiful."
+
+Captain Jim was a passionate worshipper of beauty. 
+Every lovely thing heard or seen gave him a deep,
+subtle, inner joy that irradiated his life.  He was
+quite keenly aware of his own lack of outward
+comeliness and lamented it.
+
+"Folks say I'm good," he remarked whimsically upon one
+occasion, "but I sometimes wish the Lord had made me
+only half as good and put the rest of it into looks. 
+But there, I reckon He knew what He was about, as a
+good Captain should.  Some of us have to be homely, or
+the purty ones--like Mistress Blythe here--wouldn't
+show up so well."
+
+One evening Anne and Gilbert finally walked down to the
+Four Winds light.  The day had begun sombrely in gray
+cloud and mist, but it had ended in a pomp of scarlet
+and gold.  Over the western hills beyond the harbor
+were amber deeps and crystalline shallows, with the
+fire of sunset below.  The north was a mackerel sky of
+little, fiery golden clouds.  The red light flamed on
+the white sails of a vessel gliding down the channel,
+bound to a southern port in a land of palms.  Beyond
+her, it smote upon and incarnadined the shining, white,
+grassless faces of the sand dunes.  To the right, it
+fell on the old house among the willows up the brook,
+and gave it for a fleeting space casements more
+splendid than those of an old cathedral.  They glowed
+out of its quiet and grayness like the throbbing,
+blood-red thoughts of a vivid soul imprisoned in a dull
+husk of environment.
+
+"That old house up the brook always seems so lonely,"
+said Anne.  "I never see visitors there.  Of course,
+its lane opens on the upper road--but I don't think
+there's much coming and going.  It seems odd we've
+never met the Moores yet, when they live within fifteen
+minutes' walk of us.  I may have seen them in church,
+of course, but if so I didn't know them.  I'm sorry
+they are so unsociable, when they are our only near
+neighbors."
+
+"Evidently they don't belong to the race that knows
+Joseph," laughed Gilbert.  "Have you ever found out
+who that girl was whom you thought so beautiful?"
+
+"No.  Somehow I have never remembered to ask about her. 
+But I've never seen her anywhere, so I suppose she must
+have been a stranger.  Oh, the sun has just
+vanished--and there's the light."
+
+As the dusk deepened, the great beacon cut swathes of
+light through it, sweeping in a circle over the fields
+and the harbor, the sandbar and the gulf.
+
+"I feel as if it might catch me and whisk me leagues
+out to sea," said Anne, as one drenched them with
+radiance; and she felt rather relieved when they got so
+near the Point that they were inside the range of those
+dazzling, recurrent flashes.
+
+As they turned into the little lane that led across the
+fields to the Point they met a man coming out of it--a
+man of such extraordinary appearance that for a moment
+they both frankly stared.  He was a decidedly
+fine-looking person-tall, broad-shouldered, well-
+featured, with a Roman nose and frank gray eyes; he was
+dressed in a prosperous farmer's Sunday best; in so far
+he might have been any inhabitant of Four Winds or the
+Glen.  But, flowing over his breast nearly to his
+knees, was a river of crinkly brown beard; and adown
+his back, beneath his commonplace felt hat, was a
+corresponding cascade of thick, wavy, brown hair.
+
+"Anne," murmured Gilbert, when they were out of
+earshot, "you didn't put what Uncle Dave calls `a
+little of the Scott Act' in that lemonade you gave me
+just before we left home, did you?"
+
+"No, I didn't," said Anne, stifling her laughter, lest
+the retreating enigma should hear here.  "Who in the
+world can he be?"
+
+"I don't know; but if Captain Jim keeps apparitions
+like that down at this Point I'm going to carry cold
+iron in my pocket when I come here.  He wasn't a
+sailor, or one might pardon his eccentricity of
+appearance; he must belong to the over-harbor clans. 
+Uncle Dave says they have several freaks over there."
+
+"Uncle Dave is a little prejudiced, I think.  You know
+all the over-harbor people who come to the Glen Church
+seem very nice.  Oh, Gilbert, isn't this beautiful?"
+
+The Four Winds light was built on a spur of red
+sand-stone cliff jutting out into the gulf.  On one
+side, across the channel, stretched the silvery sand
+shore of the bar; on the other, extended a long,
+curving beach of red cliffs, rising steeply from the
+pebbled coves.  It was a shore that knew the magic and
+mystery of storm and star.  There is a great solitude
+about such a shore.  The woods are never solitary--
+they are full of whispering, beckoning, friendly life. 
+But the sea is a mighty soul, forever moaning of some
+great, unshareable sorrow, which shuts it up into
+itself for all eternity.  We can never pierce its
+infinite mystery--we may only wander, awed and
+spellbound, on the outer fringe of it.  The woods call
+to us with a hundred voices, but the sea has one
+only--a mighty voice that drowns our souls in its
+majestic music.  The woods are human, but the sea is of
+the company of the archangels.
+
+Anne and Gilbert found Uncle Jim sitting on a bench
+outside the lighthouse, putting the finishing touches
+to a wonderful, full-rigged, toy schooner.  He rose and
+welcomed them to his abode with the gentle,
+unconscious courtesy that became him so well.
+
+"This has been a purty nice day all through, Mistress
+Blythe, and now, right at the last, it's brought its
+best.  Would you like to sit down here outside a bit,
+while the light lasts?  I've just finished this bit of
+a plaything for my little grand nephew, Joe, up at the
+Glen.  After I promised to make it for him I was kinder
+sorry, for his mother was vexed.  She's afraid he'll be
+wanting to go to sea later on and she doesn't want the
+notion encouraged in him.  But what could I do,
+Mistress Blythe?  I'd PROMISED him, and I think it's
+sorter real dastardly to break a promise you make to a
+child.  Come, sit down.  It won't take long to stay an
+hour."
+
+The wind was off shore, and only broke the sea's
+surface into long, silvery ripples, and sent sheeny
+shadows flying out across it, from every point and
+headland, like transparent wings.  The dusk was
+hanging a curtain of violet gloom over the sand dunes
+and the headlands where gulls were huddling.  The sky
+was faintly filmed over with scarfs of silken vapor. 
+Cloud fleets rode at anchor along the horizons.  An
+evening star was watching over the bar.
+
+"Isn't that a view worth looking at?" said Captain
+Jim, with a loving, proprietary pride.  "Nice and far
+from the market-place, ain't it?  No buying and selling
+and getting gain.  You don't have to pay anything--all
+that sea and sky free--`without money and without
+price.'  There's going to be a moonrise purty soon,
+too--I'm never tired of finding out what a moonrise can
+be over them rocks and sea and harbor.  There's a
+surprise in it every time."
+
+They had their moonrise, and watched its marvel and
+magic in a silence that asked nothing of the world or
+each other.  Then they went up into the tower, and
+Captain Jim showed and explained the mechanism of the
+great light.  Finally they found themselves in the
+dining room, where a fire of driftwood was weaving
+flames of wavering, elusive, sea-born hues in the open
+fireplace.
+
+"I put this fireplace in myself," remarked Captain
+Jim.  "The Government don't give lighthouse keepers
+such luxuries.  Look at the colors that wood makes.  If
+you'd like some driftwood for your fire, Mistress
+Blythe, I'll bring you up a load some day.  Sit down. 
+I'm going to make you a cup of tea."
+
+Captain Jim placed a chair for Anne, having first
+removed therefrom a huge, orange-colored cat and a
+newspaper.
+
+"Get down, Matey.  The sofa is your place.  I must put
+this paper away safe till I can find time to finish the
+story in it.  It's called A Mad Love.  'Tisn't my
+favorite brand of fiction, but I'm reading it jest to
+see how long she can spin it out.  It's at the
+sixty-second chapter now, and the wedding ain't any
+nearer than when it begun, far's I can see.  When
+little Joe comes I have to read him pirate yarns. 
+Ain't it strange how innocent little creatures like
+children like the blood-thirstiest stories?"
+
+"Like my lad Davy at home," said Anne.  "He wants
+tales that reek with gore."
+
+Captain Jim's tea proved to be nectar.  He was pleased
+as a child with Anne's compliments, but he affected a
+fine indifference.
+
+"The secret is I don't skimp the cream," he remarked
+airily.  Captain Jim had never heard of Oliver Wendell
+Holmes, but he evidently agreed with that writer's
+dictum that "big heart never liked little cream pot."
+
+"We met an odd-looking personage coming out of your
+lane," said Gilbert as they sipped.  "Who was he?"
+
+Captain Jim grinned.
+
+"That's Marshall Elliott--a mighty fine man with jest
+one streak of foolishness in him.  I s'pose you
+wondered what his object was in turning himself into a
+sort of dime museum freak."
+
+"Is he a modern Nazarite or a Hebrew prophet left over
+from olden times?" asked Anne.
+
+"Neither of them.  It's politics that's at the bottom
+of his freak.  All those Elliotts and Crawfords and
+MacAllisters are dyed-in-the-wool politicians.  They're
+born Grit or Tory, as the case may be, and they live
+Grit or Tory, and they die Grit or Tory; and what
+they're going to do in heaven, where there's probably
+no politics, is more than I can fathom.  This Marshall
+Elliott was born a Grit.  I'm a Grit myself in
+moderation, but there's no moderation about Marshall. 
+Fifteen years ago there was a specially bitter general
+election.  Marshall fought for his party tooth and
+nail.  He was dead sure the Liberals would win--so
+sure that he got up at a public meeting and vowed that
+he wouldn't shave his face or cut his hair until the
+Grits were in power.  Well, they didn't go in--and
+they've never got in yet--and you saw the result today
+for yourselves.  Marshall stuck to his word."
+
+"What does his wife think of it?" asked Anne.
+
+"He's a bachelor.  But if he had a wife I reckon she
+couldn't make him break that vow.  That family of
+Elliotts has always been more stubborn than natteral. 
+Marshall's brother Alexander had a dog he set great
+store by, and when it died the man actilly wanted to
+have it buried in the graveyard, `along with the other
+Christians,' he said.  Course, he wasn't allowed to; so
+he buried it just outside the graveyard fence, and
+never darkened the church door again.  But Sundays he'd
+drive his family to church and sit by that dog's grave
+and read his Bible all the time service was going on. 
+They say when he was dying he asked his wife to bury
+him beside the dog; she was a meek little soul but she
+fired up at THAT.  She said SHE wasn't going to be
+buried beside no dog, and if he'd rather have his last
+resting place beside the dog than beside her, jest to
+say so.  Alexander Elliott was a stubborn mule, but he
+was fond of his wife, so he give in and said, `Well,
+durn it, bury me where you please.  But when Gabriel's
+trump blows I expect my dog to rise with the rest of
+us, for he had as much soul as any durned Elliott or
+Crawford or MacAllister that ever strutted.'  Them was
+HIS parting words.  As for Marshall, we're all used to
+him, but he must strike strangers as right down
+peculiar- looking.  I've known him ever since he was
+ten--he's about fifty now--and I like him.  Him and me
+was out cod-fishing today.  That's about all I'm good
+for now--catching trout and cod occasional.  But
+'tweren't always so--not by no manner of means.  I used
+to do other things, as you'd admit if you saw my
+life-book."
+
+Anne was just going to ask what his life-book was when
+the First Mate created a diversion by springing upon
+Captain Jim's knee.  He was a gorgeous beastie, with a
+face as round as a full moon, vivid green eyes, and
+immense, white, double paws.  Captain Jim stroked his
+velvet back gently.
+
+"I never fancied cats much till I found the First
+Mate," he remarked, to the accompaniment of the Mate's
+tremendous purrs.  "I saved his life, and when you've
+saved a creature's life you're bound to love it.  It's
+next thing to giving life.  There's some turrible
+thoughtless people in the world, Mistress Blythe.  Some
+of them city folks who have summer homes over the
+harbor are so thoughtless that they're cruel.  It's the
+worst kind of cruelty--the thoughtless kind.  You can't
+cope with it.  They keep cats there in the summer, and
+feed and pet 'em, and doll 'em up with ribbons and
+collars.  And then in the fall they go off and leave
+'em to starve or freeze.  It makes my blood boil,
+Mistress Blythe.  One day last winter I found a poor
+old mother cat dead on the shore, lying against the
+skin-and-bone bodies of her three little kittens. 
+She'd died trying to shelter 'em.  She had her poor
+stiff paws around 'em.  Master, I cried.  Then I swore. 
+Then I carried them poor little kittens home and fed
+'em up and found good homes for 'em.  I knew the woman
+who left the cat and when she come back this summer I
+jest went over the harbor and told her my opinion of
+her.  It was rank meddling, but I do love meddling in a
+good cause."
+
+"How did she take it?" asked Gilbert.
+
+"Cried and said she `didn't think.'  I says to her,
+says I, `Do you s'pose that'll be held for a good
+excuse in the day of Jedgment, when you'll have to
+account for that poor old mother's life?  The Lord'll
+ask you what He give you your brains for if it wasn't
+to think, I reckon.'  I don't fancy she'll leave cats
+to starve another time."
+
+"Was the First Mate one of the forsaken?" asked Anne,
+making advances to him which were responded to
+graciously, if condescendingly.
+
+"Yes.  I found HIM one bitter cold day in winter,
+caught in the branches of a tree by his durn-fool
+ribbon collar.  He was almost starving.  If you could
+have seen his eyes, Mistress Blythe!  He was nothing
+but a kitten, and he'd got his living somehow since
+he'd been left until he got hung up.  When I loosed him
+he gave my hand a pitiful swipe with his little red
+tongue.  He wasn't the able seaman you see now.  He was
+meek as Moses.  That was nine years ago.  His life has
+been long in the land for a cat.  He's a good old pal,
+the First Mate is."
+
+"I should have expected you to have a dog," said
+Gilbert.
+
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+
+"I had a dog once.  I thought so much of him that when
+he died I couldn't bear the thought of getting another
+in his place.  He was a FRIEND--you understand,
+Mistress Blythe?  Matey's only a pal.  I'm fond of
+Matey--all the fonder on account of the spice of
+devilment that's in him--like there is in all cats. 
+But I LOVED my dog.  I always had a sneaking sympathy
+for Alexander Elliott about HIS dog.  There isn't any
+devil in a good dog.  That's why they're more lovable
+than cats, I reckon.  But I'm darned if they're as
+interesting.  Here I am, talking too much.  Why don't
+you check me?  When I do get a chance to talk to
+anyone I run on turrible.  If you've done your tea I've
+a few little things you might like to look at--picked
+'em up in the queer corners I used to be poking my nose
+into."
+
+Captain Jim's "few little things" turned out to be a
+most interesting collection of curios, hideous, quaint
+and beautiful.  And almost every one had some striking
+story attached to it.
+
+Anne never forgot the delight with which she listened
+to those old tales that moonlit evening by that
+enchanted driftwood fire, while the silver sea called
+to them through the open window and sobbed against the
+rocks below them.
+
+Captain Jim never said a boastful word, but it was
+impossible to help seeing what a hero the man had
+been--brave, true, resourceful, unselfish.  He sat
+there in his little room and made those things live
+again for his hearers.  By a lift of the eyebrow, a
+twist of the lip, a gesture, a word, he painted a whole
+scene or character so that they saw it as it was.
+
+Some of Captain Jim's adventures had such a marvellous
+edge that Anne and Gilbert secretly wondered if he were
+not drawing a rather long bow at their credulous
+expense.  But in this, as they found later, they did
+him injustice.  His tales were all literally true. 
+Captain Jim had the gift of the born storyteller,
+whereby "unhappy, far-off things" can be brought
+vividly before the hearer in all their pristine
+poignancy.
+
+Anne and Gilbert laughed and shivered over his tales,
+and once Anne found herself crying.  Captain Jim
+surveyed her tears with pleasure shining from his face.
+
+"I like to see folks cry that way," he remarked. 
+"It's a compliment.  But I can't do justice to the
+things I've seen or helped to do.  I've 'em all jotted
+down in my life-book, but I haven't got the knack of
+writing them out properly.  If I could hit on jest the
+right words and string 'em together proper on paper I
+could make a great book.  It would beat A Mad Love
+holler, and I believe Joe'd like it as well as the
+pirate yarns.  Yes, I've had some adventures in my
+time; and, do you know, Mistress Blythe, I still lust
+after 'em.  Yes, old and useless as I be, there's an
+awful longing sweeps over me at times to sail
+out--out--out there--forever and ever."
+
+"Like Ulysses, you would
+
+    `Sail beyond the sunset and the baths     Of all
+the western stars until you die,'"
+
+said Anne dreamily.
+
+"Ulysses?  I've read of him.  Yes, that's just how I
+feel--jest how all us old sailors feel, I reckon.  I'll
+die on land after all, I s'pose.  Well, what is to be
+will be.  There was old William Ford at the Glen who
+never went on the water in his life, 'cause he was
+afraid of being drowned.  A fortune-teller had
+predicted he would be.  And one day he fainted and fell
+with his face in the barn trough and was drowned.  Must
+you go?  Well, come soon and come often.  The doctor is
+to do the talking next time.  He knows a heap of things
+I want to find out.  I'm sorter lonesome here by times. 
+It's been worse since Elizabeth Russell died.  Her and
+me was such cronies."
+
+Captain Jim spoke with the pathos of the aged, who see
+their old friends slipping from them one by
+one--friends whose place can never be quite filled by
+those of a younger generation, even of the race that
+knows Joseph.  Anne and Gilbert promised to come soon
+and often.
+
+"He's a rare old fellow, isn't he?" said Gilbert, as
+they walked home.
+
+"Somehow, I can't reconcile his simple, kindly
+personality with the wild, adventurous life he has
+lived," mused Anne.
+
+"You wouldn't find it so hard if you had seen him the
+other day down at the fishing village.  One of the men
+of Peter Gautier's boat made a nasty remark about some
+girl along the shore.  Captain Jim fairly scorched the
+wretched fellow with the lightning of his eyes.  He
+seemed a man transformed.  He didn't say much--but the
+way he said it!  You'd have thought it would strip the
+flesh from the fellow's bones.  I understand that
+Captain Jim will never allow a word against any woman
+to be said in his presence."
+
+"I wonder why he never married," said Anne.  "He
+should have sons with their ships at sea now, and
+grandchildren climbing over him to hear his
+stories--he's that kind of a man.  Instead, he has
+nothing but a magnificent cat."
+
+But Anne was mistaken.  Captain Jim had more than that. 
+He had a memory.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 10
+
+LESLIE MOORE
+
+"I'm going for a walk to the outside shore tonight,"
+Anne told Gog and Magog one October evening.  There was
+no one else to tell, for Gilbert had gone over the
+harbor.  Anne had her little domain in the speckless
+order one would expect of anyone brought up by Marilla
+Cuthbert, and felt that she could gad shoreward with a
+clear conscience.  Many and delightful had been her
+shore rambles, sometimes with Gilbert, sometimes with
+Captain Jim, sometimes alone with her own thoughts and
+new, poignantly-sweet dreams that were beginning to
+span life with their rainbows.  She loved the gentle,
+misty harbor shore and the silvery, wind-haunted sand
+shore, but best of all she loved the rock shore, with
+its cliffs and caves and piles of surf-worn boulders,
+and its coves where the pebbles glittered under the
+pools; and it was to this shore she hied herself
+tonight.
+
+There had been an autumn storm of wind and rain,
+lasting for three days.  Thunderous had been the crash
+of billows on the rocks, wild the white spray and spume
+that blew over the bar, troubled and misty and
+tempest-torn the erstwhile blue peace of Four Winds
+Harbor.  Now it was over, and the shore lay
+clean-washed after the storm; not a wind stirred, but
+there was still a fine surf on, dashing on sand and
+rock in a splendid white turmoil--the only restless
+thing in the great, pervading stillness and peace.
+
+"Oh, this is a moment worth living through weeks of
+storm and stress for," Anne exclaimed, delightedly
+sending her far gaze across the tossing waters from the
+top of the cliff where she stood.  Presently she
+scrambled down the steep path to the little cove below,
+where she seemed shut in with rocks and sea and sky.
+
+"I'm going to dance and sing," she said.  "There's no
+one here to see me--the seagulls won't carry tales of
+the matter.  I may be as crazy as I like."
+
+She caught up her skirt and pirouetted along the hard
+strip of sand just out of reach of the waves that
+almost lapped her feet with their spent foam.  Whirling
+round and round, laughing like a child, she reached the
+little headland that ran out to the east of the cove;
+then she stopped suddenly, blushing crimson; she was
+not alone; there had been a witness to her dance and
+laughter.
+
+The girl of the golden hair and sea-blue eyes was
+sitting on a boulder of the headland, half-hidden by a
+jutting rock.  She was looking straight at Anne with a
+strange expression--part wonder, part sympathy,
+part--could it be?--envy.  She was bare-headed, and her
+splendid hair, more than ever like Browning's "gorgeous
+snake," was bound about her head with a crimson
+ribbon.  She wore a dress of some dark material, very
+plainly made; but swathed about her waist, outlining
+its fine curves, was a vivid girdle of red silk.  Her
+hands, clasped over her knee, were brown and somewhat
+work- hardened; but the skin of her throat and cheeks
+was as white as cream.  A flying gleam of sunset broke
+through a low-lying western cloud and fell across her
+hair.  For a moment she seemed the spirit of the sea
+personified--all its mystery, all its passion, all its
+elusive charm.
+
+"You--you must think me crazy," stammered Anne, trying
+to recover her self-possession.  To be seen by this
+stately girl in such an abandon of childishness--she,
+Mrs. Dr. Blythe, with all the dignity of the matron to
+keep up--it was too bad!
+
+"No," said the girl, "I don't."
+
+She said nothing more; her voice was expressionless;
+her manner slightly repellent; but there was something
+in her eyes--eager yet shy, defiant yet pleading--which
+turned Anne from her purpose of walking away.  Instead,
+she sat down on the boulder beside the girl.
+
+"Let's introduce ourselves," she said, with the smile
+that had never yet failed to win confidence and
+friendliness.  "I am Mrs. Blythe--and I live in that
+little white house up the harbor shore."
+
+"Yes, I know," said the girl.  "I am Leslie
+Moore--Mrs. Dick Moore," she added stiffly.
+
+Anne was silent for a moment from sheer amazement.  It
+had not occurred to her that this girl was
+married--there seemed nothing of the wife about her. 
+And that she should be the neighbor whom Anne had
+pictured as a commonplace Four Winds housewife!  Anne
+could not quickly adjust her mental focus to this
+astonishing change.
+
+"Then--then you live in that gray house up the brook,"
+she stammered.
+
+"Yes.  I should have gone over to call on you long
+ago," said the other.  She did not offer any
+explanation or excuse for not having gone.
+
+"I wish you WOULD come," said Anne, recovering herself
+somewhat.  "We're such near neighbors we ought to be
+friends.  That is the sole fault of Four Winds--there
+aren't quite enough neighbors.  Otherwise it is
+perfection."
+
+"You like it?"
+
+"LIKE it!  I love it.  It is the most beautiful place I
+ever saw."
+
+"I've never seen many places," said Leslie Moore,
+slowly, "but I've always thought it was very lovely
+here.  I--I love it, too."
+
+She spoke, as she looked, shyly, yet eagerly.  Anne had
+an odd impression that this strange girl--the word
+"girl" would persist-- could say a good deal if she
+chose.
+
+"I often come to the shore," she added.
+
+"So do I," said Anne.  "It's a wonder we haven't met
+here before."
+
+"Probably you come earlier in the evening than I do. 
+It is generally late--almost dark--when I come.  And I
+love to come just after a storm--like this.  I don't
+like the sea so well when it's calm and quiet.  I like
+the struggle--and the crash--and the noise."
+
+"I love it in all its moods," declared Anne.  "The sea
+at Four Winds is to me what Lover's Lane was at home. 
+Tonight it seemed so free--so untamed--something broke
+loose in me, too, out of sympathy.  That was why I
+danced along the shore in that wild way.  I didn't
+suppose anybody was looking, of course.  If Miss
+Cornelia Bryant had seen me she would have forboded a
+gloomy prospect for poor young Dr. Blythe."
+
+"You know Miss Cornelia?" said Leslie, laughing.  She
+had an exquisite laugh; it bubbled up suddenly and
+unexpectedly with something of the delicious quality of
+a baby's.  Anne laughed, too.
+
+"Oh, yes.  She has been down to my house of dreams
+several times."
+
+"Your house of dreams?"
+
+"Oh, that's a dear, foolish little name Gilbert and I
+have for our home.  We just call it that between
+ourselves.  It slipped out before I thought."
+
+"So Miss Russell's little white house is YOUR house of
+dreams," said Leslie wonderingly.  "_I_ had a house of
+dreams once--but it was a palace," she added, with a
+laugh, the sweetness of which was marred by a little
+note of derision.
+
+"Oh, I once dreamed of a palace, too," said Anne.  "I
+suppose all girls do.  And then we settle down
+contentedly in eight-room houses that seem to fulfill
+all the desires of our hearts--because our prince is
+there.  YOU should have had your palace really,
+though--you are so beautiful.  You MUST let me say
+it--it has to be said--I'm nearly bursting with
+admiration.  You are the loveliest thing I ever saw,
+Mrs. Moore."
+
+"If we are to be friends you must call me Leslie,"
+said the other with an odd passion.
+
+"Of course I will.  And MY friends call me Anne."
+
+"I suppose I am beautiful," Leslie went on, looking
+stormily out to sea.  "I hate my beauty.  I wish I had
+always been as brown and plain as the brownest and
+plainest girl at the fishing village over there. 
+Well, what do you think of Miss Cornelia?"
+
+The abrupt change of subject shut the door on any
+further confidences.
+
+"Miss Cornelia is a darling, isn't she?" said Anne. 
+"Gilbert and I were invited to her house to a state tea
+last week.  You've heard of groaning tables."
+
+"I seem to recall seeing the expression in the
+newspaper reports of weddings," said Leslie, smiling.
+
+"Well, Miss Cornelia's groaned--at least, it
+creaked--positively.  You couldn't have believed she
+would have cooked so much for two ordinary people.  She
+had every kind of pie you could name, I think--except
+lemon pie.  She said she had taken the prize for lemon
+pies at the Charlottetown Exhibition ten years ago and
+had never made any since for fear of losing her
+reputation for them."
+
+"Were you able to eat enough pie to please her?"
+
+"_I_ wasn't.  Gilbert won her heart by eating--I won't
+tell you how much.  She said she never knew a man who
+didn't like pie better than his Bible.  Do you know, I
+love Miss Cornelia."
+
+"So do I," said Leslie.  "She is the best friend I
+have in the world."
+
+Anne wondered secretly why, if this were so, Miss
+Cornelia had never mentioned Mrs. Dick Moore to her. 
+Miss Cornelia had certainly talked freely about every
+other individual in or near Four Winds.
+
+"Isn't that beautiful?" said Leslie, after a brief
+silence, pointing to the exquisite effect of a shaft of
+light falling through a cleft in the rock behind them,
+across a dark green pool at its base.  "If I had come
+here--and seen nothing but just that--I would go home
+satisfied."
+
+"The effects of light and shadow all along these shores
+are wonderful," agreed Anne.  "My little sewing room
+looks out on the harbor, and I sit at its window and
+feast my eyes.  The colors and shadows are never the
+same two minutes together."
+
+"And you are never lonely?" asked Leslie abruptly. 
+"Never-- when you are alone?"
+
+"No.  I don't think I've ever been really lonely in my
+life," answered Anne.  "Even when I'm alone I have
+real good company-- dreams and imaginations and
+pretendings.  I LIKE to be alone now and then, just to
+think over things and TASTE them.  But I love
+friendship-- and nice, jolly little times with people. 
+Oh, WON'T you come to see me--often?  Please do.  I
+believe," Anne added, laughing, "that you'd like me if
+you knew me."
+
+"I wonder if YOU would like ME," said Leslie
+seriously.  She was not fishing for a compliment.  She
+looked out across the waves that were beginning to be
+garlanded with blossoms of moonlit foam, and her eyes
+filled with shadows.
+
+"I'm sure I would," said Anne.  "And please don't
+think I'm utterly irresponsible because you saw me
+dancing on the shore at sunset.  No doubt I shall be
+dignified after a time.  You see, I haven't been
+married very long.  I feel like a girl, and sometimes
+like a child, yet."
+
+"I have been married twelve years," said Leslie.
+
+Here was another unbelievable thing.
+
+"Why, you can't be as old as I am!" exclaimed Anne. 
+"You must have been a child when you were married."
+
+"I was sixteen," said Leslie, rising, and picking up
+the cap and jacket lying beside her.  "I am
+twenty-eight now.  Well, I must go back."
+
+"So must I.  Gilbert will probably be home.  But I'm so
+glad we both came to the shore tonight and met each
+other."
+
+Leslie said nothing, and Anne was a little chilled. 
+She had offered friendship frankly but it had not been
+accepted very graciously, if it had not been absolutely
+repelled.  In silence they climbed the cliffs and
+walked across a pasture-field of which the feathery,
+bleached, wild grasses were like a carpet of creamy
+velvet in the moonlight.  When they reached the shore
+lane Leslie turned.
+
+"I go this way, Mrs. Blythe.  You will come over and
+see me some time, won't you?"
+
+Anne felt as if the invitation had been thrown at her. 
+She got the impression that Leslie Moore gave it
+reluctantly.
+
+"I will come if you really want me to," she said a
+little coldly.
+
+"Oh, I do--I do," exclaimed Leslie, with an eagerness
+which seemed to burst forth and beat down some
+restraint that had been imposed on it.
+
+"Then I'll come.  Good-night--Leslie."
+
+"Good-night, Mrs. Blythe."
+
+Anne walked home in a brown study and poured out her
+tale to Gilbert.
+
+"So Mrs. Dick Moore isn't one of the race that knows
+Joseph?" said Gilbert teasingly.
+
+"No--o--o, not exactly.  And yet--I think she WAS one
+of them once, but has gone or got into exile," said
+Anne musingly.  "She is certainly very different from
+the other women about here.  You can't talk about eggs
+and butter to HER.  To think I've been imagining her a
+second Mrs. Rachel Lynde!  Have you ever seen Dick
+Moore, Gilbert?"
+
+"No.  I've seen several men working about the fields of
+the farm, but I don't know which was Moore."
+
+"She never mentioned him.  I KNOW she isn't happy."
+
+"From what you tell me I suppose she was married before
+she was old enough to know her own mind or heart, and
+found out too late that she had made a mistake.  It's a
+common tragedy enough, Anne.
+
+A fine woman would have made the best of it.  Mrs.
+Moore has evidently let it make her bitter and
+resentful."
+
+"Don't let us judge her till we know," pleaded Anne. 
+"I don't believe her case is so ordinary.  You will
+understand her fascination when you meet her, Gilbert. 
+It is a thing quite apart from her beauty.  I feel that
+she possesses a rich nature, into which a friend might
+enter as into a kingdom; but for some reason she bars
+every one out and shuts all her possibilities up in
+herself, so that they cannot develop and blossom. 
+There, I've been struggling to define her to myself
+ever since I left her, and that is the nearest I can
+get to it.  I'm going to ask Miss Cornelia about her."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 11
+
+THE STORY OF LESLIE MOORE
+
+"Yes, the eighth baby arrived a fortnight ago," said
+Miss Cornelia, from a rocker before the fire of the
+little house one chilly October afternoon.  "It's a
+girl.  Fred was ranting mad--said he wanted a
+boy--when the truth is he didn't want it at all.  If it
+had been a boy he'd have ranted because it wasn't a
+girl.  They had four girls and three boys before, so I
+can't see that it made much difference what this one
+was, but of course he'd have to be cantankerous, just
+like a man.  The baby is real pretty, dressed up in its
+nice little clothes.  It has black eyes and the
+dearest, tiny hands."
+
+"I must go and see it.  I just love babies," said
+Anne, smiling to herself over a thought too dear and
+sacred to be put into words.
+
+"I don't say but what they're nice," admitted Miss
+Cornelia.  "But some folks seem to have more than they
+really need, believe ME.  My poor cousin Flora up at
+the Glen had eleven, and such a slave as she is!  Her
+husband suicided three years ago.  Just like a man!"
+
+"What made him do that?" asked Anne, rather shocked.
+
+"Couldn't get his way over something, so he jumped into
+the well .  A good riddance!  He was a born tyrant. 
+But of course it spoiled the well.  Flora could never
+abide the thought of using it again, poor thing!  So
+she had another dug and a frightful expense it was, and
+the water as hard as nails.  If he HAD to drown himself
+there was plenty of water in the harbor, wasn't there? 
+I've no patience with a man like that.  We've only had
+two suicides in Four Winds in my recollection.  The
+other was Frank West--Leslie Moore's father.  By the
+way, has Leslie ever been over to call on you yet?"
+
+"No, but I met her on the shore a few nights ago and we
+scraped an acquaintance," said Anne, pricking up her
+ears.
+
+Miss Cornelia nodded.
+
+"I'm glad, dearie.  I was hoping you'd foregather with
+her.  What do you think of her?"
+
+"I thought her very beautiful."
+
+"Oh, of course.  There was never anybody about Four
+Winds could touch her for looks.  Did you ever see her
+hair?  It reaches to her feet when she lets it down. 
+But I meant how did you like her?"
+
+"I think I could like her very much if she'd let me,"
+said Anne slowly.
+
+"But she wouldn't let you--she pushed you off and kept
+you at arm's length.  Poor Leslie!  You wouldn't be
+much surprised if you knew what her life has been. 
+It's been a tragedy--a tragedy!" repeated Miss
+Cornelia emphatically.
+
+"I wish you would tell me all about her--that is, if
+you can do so without betraying any confidence."
+
+"Lord, dearie, everybody in Four Winds knows poor
+Leslie's story.  It's no secret--the OUTSIDE, that is. 
+Nobody knows the INSIDE but Leslie herself, and she
+doesn't take folks into her confidence.  I'm about the
+best friend she has on earth, I reckon, and she's never
+uttered a word of complaint to me.  Have you ever seen
+Dick Moore?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, I may as well begin at the beginning and tell
+you everything straight through, so you'll understand
+it.  As I said, Leslie's father was Frank West.  He was
+clever and shiftless--just like a man.  Oh, he had
+heaps of brains--and much good they did him!  He
+started to go to college, and he went for two years,
+and then his health broke down.  The Wests were all
+inclined to be consumptive.  So Frank came home and
+started farming.  He married Rose Elliott from over
+harbor.  Rose was reckoned the beauty of Four
+Winds--Leslie takes her looks from her mother, but she
+has ten times the spirit and go that Rose had, and a
+far better figure.  Now you know, Anne, I always take
+the ground that us women ought to stand by each other. 
+We've got enough to endure at the hands of the men, the
+Lord knows, so I hold we hadn't ought to clapper-claw
+one another, and it isn't often you'll find me running
+down another woman.  But I never had much use for Rose
+Elliott.  She was spoiled to begin with, believe ME,
+and she was nothing but a lazy, selfish, whining
+creature.  Frank was no hand to work, so they were
+poor as Job's turkey.  Poor!  They lived on potatoes
+and point, believe ME.  They had two children--Leslie
+and Kenneth.  Leslie had her mother's looks and her
+father's brains, and something she didn't get from
+either of them.  She took after her Grandmother West--a
+splendid old lady.  She was the brightest, friendliest,
+merriest thing when she was a child, Anne.  Everybody
+liked her.  She was her father's favorite and she was
+awful fond of him.  They were `chums,' as she used to
+say.  She couldn't see any of his faults--and he WAS a
+taking sort of man in some ways.
+
+"Well, when Leslie was twelve years old, the first
+dreadful thing happened.  She worshipped little
+Kenneth--he was four years younger than her, and he WAS
+a dear little chap.  And he was killed one day--fell
+off a big load of hay just as it was going into the
+barn, and the wheel went right over his little body and
+crushed the life out of it.  And mind you, Anne, Leslie
+saw it.  She was looking down from the loft.  She gave
+one screech--the hired man said he never heard such a
+sound in all his life--he said it would ring in his
+ears till Gabriel's trump drove it out.  But she never
+screeched or cried again about it.  She jumped from the
+loft onto the load and from the load to the floor, and
+caught up the little bleeding, warm, dead body,
+Anne--they had to tear it from her before she would let
+it go.  They sent for me--I can't talk of it."
+
+Miss Cornelia wiped the tears from her kindly brown
+eyes and sewed in bitter silence for a few minutes.
+
+"Well," she resumed, "it was all over--they buried
+little Kenneth in that graveyard over the harbor, and
+after a while Leslie went back to her school and her
+studies.  She never mentioned Kenneth's name--I've
+never heard it cross her lips from that day to this.  I
+reckon that old hurt still aches and burns at times;
+but she was only a child and time is real kind to
+children, Anne, dearie.  After a while she began to
+laugh again--she had the prettiest laugh.  You don't
+often hear it now."
+
+"I heard it once the other night," said Anne.  "It IS
+a beautiful laugh."
+
+"Frank West began to go down after Kenneth's death.  He
+wasn't strong and it was a shock to him, because he was
+real fond of the child, though, as I've said, Leslie
+was his favorite.  He got mopy and melancholy, and
+couldn't or wouldn't work.  And one day, when Leslie
+was fourteen years of age, he hanged himself--and in
+the parlor, too, mind you, Anne, right in the middle of
+the parlor from the lamp hook in the ceiling.  Wasn't
+that like a man?  It was the anniversary of his
+wedding day, too.  Nice, tasty time to pick for it,
+wasn't it?  And, of course, that poor Leslie had to be
+the one to find him.  She went into the parlor that
+morning, singing, with some fresh flowers for the
+vases, and there she saw her father hanging from the
+ceiling, his face as black as a coal.  It was something
+awful, believe ME!"
+
+"Oh, how horrible!" said Anne, shuddering.  "The poor,
+poor child!"
+
+"Leslie didn't cry at her father's funeral any more
+then she had cried at Kenneth's.  Rose whooped and
+howled for two, however, and Leslie had all she could
+do trying to calm and comfort her mother.  I was
+disgusted with Rose and so was everyone else, but
+Leslie never got out of patience.  She loved her
+mother.  Leslie is clannish--her own could never do
+wrong in her eyes.  Well, they buried Frank West beside
+Kenneth, and Rose put up a great big monument to him. 
+It was bigger than his character, believe ME!  Anyhow,
+it was bigger than Rose could afford, for the farm was
+mortgaged for more than its value.  But not long after
+Leslie's old grandmother West died and she left Leslie
+a little money--enough to give her a year at Queen's
+Academy.  Leslie had made up her mind to pass for a
+teacher if she could, and then earn enough to put
+herself through Redmond College.  That had been her
+father's pet scheme--he wanted her to have what he had
+lost.  Leslie was full of ambition and her head was
+chock full of brains.  She went to Queen's, and she
+took two years' work in one year and got her First;
+and when she came home she got the Glen school.  She
+was so happy and hopeful and full of life and
+eagerness.  When I think of what she was then and what
+she is now, I say--drat the men!"
+
+Miss Cornelia snipped her thread off as viciously as
+if, Nero-like, she was severing the neck of mankind by
+the stroke.
+
+"Dick Moore came into her life that summer.  His
+father, Abner Moore, kept store at the Glen, but Dick
+had a sea-going streak in him from his mother; he used
+to sail in summer and clerk in his father's store in
+winter.  He was a big, handsome fellow, with a little
+ugly soul.  He was always wanting something till he got
+it, and then he stopped wanting it--just like a man. 
+Oh, he didn't growl at the weather when it was fine,
+and he was mostly real pleasant and agreeable when
+everything went right.  But he drank a good deal, and
+there were some nasty stories told of him and a girl
+down at the fishing village.  He wasn't fit for Leslie
+to wipe her feet on, that's the long and short of it. 
+And he was a Methodist!  But he was clean mad about
+her--because of her good looks in the first place, and
+because she wouldn't have anything to say to him in the
+second.  He vowed he'd have her--and he got her!"
+
+"How did he bring it about?"
+
+"Oh, it was an iniquitous thing!  I'll never forgive
+Rose West.  You see, dearie, Abner Moore held the
+mortgage on the West farm, and the interest was overdue
+some years, and Dick just went and told Mrs. West that
+if Leslie wouldn't marry him he'd get his father to
+foreclose the mortgage.  Rose carried on
+terrible--fainted and wept, and pleaded with Leslie not
+to let her be turned out of her home.  She said it
+would break her heart to leave the home she'd come to
+as a bride.  I wouldn't have blamed her for feeling
+dreadful bad over it--but you wouldn't have thought
+she'd be so selfish as to sacrifice her own flesh and
+blood because of it, would you?  Well, she was.
+
+And Leslie gave in--she loved her mother so much she
+would have done anything to save her pain.  She married
+Dick Moore.  None of us knew why at the time.  It
+wasn't till long afterward that I found out how her
+mother had worried her into it.  I was sure there was
+something wrong, though, because I knew how she had
+snubbed him time and again, and it wasn't like Leslie
+to turn face--about like that.  Besides, I knew that
+Dick Moore wasn't the kind of man Leslie could ever
+fancy, in spite of his good looks and dashing ways.  Of
+course, there was no wedding, but Rose asked me to go
+and see them married.  I went, but I was sorry I did. 
+I'd seen Leslie's face at her brother's funeral and at
+her father's funeral--and now it seemed to me I was
+seeing it at her own funeral.  But Rose was smiling as
+a basket of chips, believe ME!
+
+"Leslie and Dick settled down on the West place--Rose
+couldn't bear to part with her dear daughter!--and
+lived there for the winter.  In the spring Rose took
+pneumonia and died--a year too late!  Leslie was
+heart-broken enough over it.  Isn't it terrible the way
+some unworthy folks are loved, while others that
+deserve it far more, you'd think, never get much
+affection?  As for Dick, he'd had enough of quiet
+married life--just like a man.  He was for up and off. 
+He went over to Nova Scotia to visit his relations--his
+father had come from Nova Scotia--and he wrote back to
+Leslie that his cousin, George Moore, was going on a
+voyage to Havana and he was going too.  The name of the
+vessel was the Four Sisters and they were to be gone
+about nine weeks.
+
+"It must have been a relief to Leslie.  But she never
+said anything.  From the day of her marriage she was
+just what she is now--cold and proud, and keeping
+everyone but me at a distance.  I won't BE kept at a
+distance, believe ME!  I've just stuck to Leslie as
+close as I knew how in spite of everything."
+
+"She told me you were the best friend she had," said
+Anne.
+
+"Did she?" exclaimed Miss Cornelia delightedly. 
+"Well, I'm real thankful to hear it.  Sometimes I've
+wondered if she really did want me around at all--she
+never let me think so.  You must have thawed her out
+more than you think, or she wouldn't have said that
+much itself to you.  Oh, that poor, heart-broken girl! 
+I never see Dick Moore but I want to run a knife clean
+through him."
+
+Miss Cornelia wiped her eyes again and having relieved
+her feelings by her blood-thirsty wish, took up her
+tale.
+
+"Well, Leslie was left over there alone.  Dick had put
+in the crop before he went, and old Abner looked after
+it.  The summer went by and the Four Sisters didn't
+come back.  The Nova Scotia Moores investigated, and
+found she had got to Havana and discharged her cargo
+and took on another and left for home; and that was all
+they ever found out about her.  By degrees people began
+to talk of Dick Moore as one that was dead.  Almost
+everyone believed that he was, though no one felt
+certain, for men have turned up here at the harbor
+after they'd been gone for years.  Leslie never thought
+he was dead--and she was right.  A thousand pities too! 
+The next summer Captain Jim was in Havana--that was
+before he gave up the sea, of course.  He thought he'd
+poke round a bit--Captain Jim was always meddlesome,
+just like a man--and he went to inquiring round among
+the sailors' boarding houses and places like that, to
+see if he could find out anything about the crew of the
+Four Sisters.  He'd better have let sleeping dogs lie,
+in my opinion!  Well, he went to one out-of-the-way
+place, and there he found a man he knew at first sight
+it was Dick Moore, though he had a big beard.  Captain
+Jim got it shaved off and then there was no
+doubt--Dick Moore it was--his body at least.  His mind
+wasn't there--as for his soul, in my opinion he never
+had one!"
+
+"What had happened to him?"
+
+"Nobody knows the rights of it.  All the folks who kept
+the boarding house could tell was that about a year
+before they had found him lying on their doorstep one
+morning in an awful condition--his head battered to a
+jelly almost.  They supposed he'd got hurt in some
+drunken row, and likely that's the truth of it.  They
+took him in, never thinking he could live.  But he
+did--and he was just like a child when he got well. 
+He hadn't memory or intellect or reason.  They tried to
+find out who he was but they never could.  He couldn't
+even tell them his name--he could only say a few simple
+words.  He had a letter on him beginning `Dear Dick'
+and signed `Leslie,' but there was no address on it and
+the envelope was gone.  They let him stay on--he
+learned to do a few odd jobs about the place--and there
+Captain Jim found him.  He brought him home-- I've
+always said it was a bad day's work, though I s'pose
+there was nothing else he could do.  He thought maybe
+when Dick got home and saw his old surroundings and
+familiar faces his memory would wake up.  But it hadn't
+any effect.  There he's been at the house up the brook
+ever since.  He's just like a child, no more nor less. 
+Takes fractious spells occasionally, but mostly he's
+just vacant and good humored and harmless.  He's apt to
+run away if he isn't watched.  That's the burden
+Leslie has had to carry for eleven years--and all
+alone.  Old Abner Moore died soon after Dick was
+brought home and it was found he was almost bankrupt. 
+When things were settled up there was nothing for
+Leslie and Dick but the old West farm.  Leslie rented
+it to John Ward, and the rent is all she has to live
+on.  Sometimes in summer she takes a boarder to help
+out.  But most visitors prefer the other side of the
+harbor where the hotels and summer cottages are. 
+Leslie's house is too far from the bathing shore. 
+She's taken care of Dick and she's never been away from
+him for eleven years--she's tied to that imbecile for
+life.  And after all the dreams and hopes she once had! 
+You can imagine what it has been like for her, Anne,
+dearie--with her beauty and spirit and pride and
+cleverness.  It's just been a living death."
+
+"Poor, poor girl!" said Anne again.  Her own happiness
+seemed to reproach her.  What right had she to be so
+happy when another human soul must be so miserable?
+
+"Will you tell me just what Leslie said and how she
+acted the night you met her on the shore?" asked Miss
+Cornelia.
+
+She listened intently and nodded her satisfaction.
+
+"YOU thought she was stiff and cold, Anne, dearie, but
+I can tell you she thawed out wonderful for her.  She
+must have taken to you real strong.  I'm so glad.  You
+may be able to help her a good deal.  I was thankful
+when I heard that a young couple was coming to this
+house, for I hoped it would mean some friends for
+Leslie; especially if you belonged to the race that
+knows Joseph.  You WILL be her friend, won't you, Anne,
+dearie?"
+
+"Indeed I will, if she'll let me," said Anne, with all
+her own sweet, impulsive earnestness.
+
+"No, you must be her friend, whether she'll let you or
+not," said Miss Cornelia resolutely.  "Don't you mind
+if she's stiff by times-- don't notice it.  Remember
+what her life has been--and is--and must always be, I
+suppose, for creatures like Dick Moore live forever, I
+understand.  You should see how fat he's got since he
+came home.  He used to be lean enough.  Just MAKE her
+be friends--you can do it--you're one of those who have
+the knack.  Only you mustn't be sensitive.  And don't
+mind if she doesn't seem to want you to go over there
+much.  She knows that some women don't like to be where
+Dick is--they complain he gives them the creeps.  Just
+get her to come over here as often as she can.  She
+can't get away so very much--she can't leave Dick long,
+for the Lord knows what he'd do--burn the house down
+most likely.  At nights, after he's in bed and asleep,
+is about the only time she's free.  He always goes to
+bed early and sleeps like the dead till next morning. 
+That is how you came to meet her at the shore likely. 
+She wanders there considerable."
+
+"I will do everything I can for her," said Anne.  Her
+interest in Leslie Moore, which had been vivid ever
+since she had seen her driving her geese down the hill,
+was intensified a thousand fold by Miss Cornelia's
+narration.  The girl's beauty and sorrow and loneliness
+drew her with an irresistible fascination.  She had
+never known anyone like her; her friends had hitherto
+been wholesome, normal, merry girls like herself, with
+only the average trials of human care and bereavement
+to shadow their girlish dreams.  Leslie Moore stood
+apart, a tragic, appealing figure of thwarted
+womanhood.  Anne resolved that she would win entrance
+into the kingdom of that lonely soul and find there the
+comradeship it could so richly give, were it not for
+the cruel fetters that held it in a prison not of its
+own making.
+
+"And mind you this, Anne, dearie," said Miss Cornelia,
+who had not yet wholly relieved her mind, "You mustn't
+think Leslie is an infidel because she hardly ever goes
+to church--or even that she's a Methodist.  She can't
+take Dick to church, of course--not that he ever
+troubled church much in his best days.  But you just
+remember that she's a real strong Presbyterian at
+heart, Anne, dearie."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 12
+
+LESLIE COMES OVER
+
+Leslie came over to the house of dreams one frosty
+October night, when moonlit mists were hanging over the
+harbor and curling like silver ribbons along the
+seaward glens.  She looked as if she repented coming
+when Gilbert answered her knock; but Anne flew past
+him, pounced on her, and drew her in.
+
+"I'm so glad you picked tonight for a call," she said
+gaily.  "I made up a lot of extra good fudge this
+afternoon and we want someone to help us eat it--before
+the fire--while we tell stories.  Perhaps Captain Jim
+will drop in, too.  This is his night."
+
+"No.  Captain Jim is over home," said Leslie.  "He--he
+made me come here," she added, half defiantly.
+
+"I'll say a thank-you to him for that when I see him,"
+said Anne, pulling easy chairs before the fire.
+
+"Oh, I don't mean that I didn't want to come,"
+protested Leslie, flushing a little.  "I--I've been
+thinking of coming--but it isn't always easy for me to
+get away."
+
+"Of course it must be hard for you to leave Mr.
+Moore," said Anne, in a matter-of-fact tone.  She had
+decided that it would be best to mention Dick Moore
+occasionally as an accepted fact, and not give undue
+morbidness to the subject by avoiding it.  She was
+right, for Leslie's air of constraint suddenly
+vanished.  Evidently she had been wondering how much
+Anne knew of the conditions of her life and was
+relieved that no explanations were needed.  She allowed
+her cap and jacket to be taken, and sat down with a
+girlish snuggle in the big armchair by Magog.  She was
+dressed prettily and carefully, with the customary
+touch of color in the scarlet geranium at her white
+throat.  Her beautiful hair gleamed like molten gold in
+the warm firelight.  Her sea-blue eyes were full of
+soft laughter and allurement. For the moment, under the
+influence of the little house of dreams, she was a
+girl again--a girl forgetful of the past and its
+bitterness.  The atmosphere of the many loves that had
+sanctified the little house was all about her; the
+companionship of two healthy, happy, young folks of
+her own generation encircled her; she felt and yielded
+to the magic of her surroundings--Miss Cornelia and
+Captain Jim would scarcely have recognized her; Anne
+found it hard to believe that this was the cold,
+unresponsive woman she had met on the shore--this
+animated girl who talked and listened with the
+eagerness of a starved soul.  And how hungrily Leslie's
+eyes looked at the bookcases between the windows!
+
+"Our library isn't very extensive," said Anne, "but
+every book in it is a FRIEND.  We've picked our books
+up through the years, here and there, never buying one
+until we had first read it and knew that it belonged to
+the race of Joseph."
+
+Leslie laughed--beautiful laughter that seemed akin to
+all the mirth that had echoed through the little house
+in the vanished years.
+
+"I have a few books of father's--not many," she said. 
+"I've read them until I know them almost by heart.  I
+don't get many books.  There's a circulating library at
+the Glen store--but I don't think the committee who
+pick the books for Mr. Parker know what books are of
+Joseph's race--or perhaps they don't care.  It was so
+seldom I got one I really liked that I gave up getting
+any."
+
+"I hope you'll look on our bookshelves as your own,"
+said Anne.
+
+"You are entirely and wholeheartedly welcome to the
+loan of any book on them."
+
+"You are setting a feast of fat things before me,"
+said Leslie, joyously.  Then, as the clock struck ten,
+she rose, half unwillingly.
+
+"I must go.  I didn't realise it was so late.  Captain
+Jim is always saying it doesn't take long to stay an
+hour.  But I've stayed two--and oh, but I've enjoyed
+them," she added frankly.
+
+"Come often," said Anne and Gilbert.  They had risen
+and stood together in the firelight's glow.  Leslie
+looked at them--youthful, hopeful, happy, typifying all
+she had missed and must forever miss.  The light went
+out of her face and eyes; the girl vanished; it was the
+sorrowful, cheated woman who answered the invitation
+almost coldly and got herself away with a pitiful
+haste.
+
+Anne watched her until she was lost in the shadows of
+the chill and misty night.  Then she turned slowly back
+to the glow of her own radiant hearthstone.
+
+"Isn't she lovely, Gilbert?  Her hair fascinates me. 
+Miss Cornelia says it reaches to her feet.  Ruby Gillis
+had beautiful hair--but Leslie's is ALIVE--every thread
+of it is living gold."
+
+"She is very beautiful," agreed Gilbert, so heartily
+that Anne almost wished he were a LITTLE less
+enthusiastic.
+
+"Gilbert, would you like my hair better if it were like
+Leslie's?" she asked wistfully.
+
+"I wouldn't have your hair any color but just what it
+is for the world," said Gilbert, with one or two
+convincing accompaniments.
+
+You wouldn't be ANNE if you had golden hair--or hair of
+any color but"--
+
+"Red," said Anne, with gloomy satisfaction.
+
+"Yes, red--to give warmth to that milk-white skin and
+those shining gray-green eyes of yours.  Golden hair
+wouldn't suit you at all Queen Anne--MY Queen
+Anne--queen of my heart and life and home."
+
+"Then you may admire Leslie's all you like," said Anne
+magnanimously.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 13
+
+A GHOSTLY EVENING
+
+One evening, a week later, Anne decided to run over the
+fields to the house up the brook for an informal call. 
+It was an evening of gray fog that had crept in from
+the gulf, swathed the harbor, filled the glens and
+valleys, and clung heavily to the autumnal meadows. 
+Through it the sea sobbed and shuddered.  Anne saw Four
+Winds in a new aspect, and found it weird and
+mysterious and fascinating; but it also gave her a
+little feeling of loneliness.  Gilbert was away and
+would be away until the morrow, attending a medical
+pow-wow in Charlottetown.  Anne longed for an hour of
+fellowship with some girl friend.  Captain Jim and Miss
+Cornelia were "good fellows" each, in their own way;
+but youth yearned to youth.
+
+"If only Diana or Phil or Pris or Stella could drop in
+for a chat," she said to herself, "how delightful it
+would be!  This is such a GHOSTLY night.  I'm sure all
+the ships that ever sailed out of Four Winds to their
+doom could be seen tonight sailing up the harbor with
+their drowned crews on their decks, if that shrouding
+fog could suddenly be drawn aside.  I feel as if it
+concealed innumerable mysteries--as if I were
+surrounded by the wraiths of old generations of Four
+Winds people peering at me through that gray veil.  If
+ever the dear dead ladies of this little house came
+back to revisit it they would come on just such a night
+as this.  If I sit here any longer I'll see one of them
+there opposite me in Gilbert's chair.  This place isn't
+exactly canny tonight.  Even Gog and Magog have an air
+of pricking up their ears to hear the footsteps of
+unseen guests.  I'll run over to see Leslie before I
+frighten myself with my own fancies, as I did long ago
+in the matter of the Haunted Wood.  I'll leave my house
+of dreams to welcome back its old inhabitants.  My fire
+will give them my good-will and greeting--they will be
+gone before I come back, and my house will be mine once
+more.  Tonight I am sure it is keeping a tryst with the
+past."
+
+Laughing a little over her fancy, yet with something of
+a creepy sensation in the region of her spine, Anne
+kissed her hand to Gog and Magog and slipped out into
+the fog, with some of the new magazines under her arm
+for Leslie.
+
+"Leslie's wild for books and magazines," Miss Cornelia
+had told her, "and she hardly ever sees one.  She can't
+afford to buy them or subscribe for them.  She's really
+pitifully poor, Anne.  I don't see how she makes out to
+live at all on the little rent the farm brings in. 
+She never even hints a complaint on the score of
+poverty, but I know what it must be.  She's been
+handicapped by it all her life.  She didn't mind it
+when she was free and ambitious, but it must gall now,
+believe ME.  I'm glad she seemed so bright and merry
+the evening she spent with you.  Captain Jim told me he
+had fairly to put her cap and coat on and push her out
+of the door.  Don't be too long going to see her
+either.  If you are she'll think it's because you don't
+like the sight of Dick, and she'll crawl into her shell
+again.  Dick's a great, big, harmless baby, but that
+silly grin and chuckle of his do get on some people's
+nerves.  Thank goodness, I've no nerves myself.  I like
+Dick Moore better now than I ever did when he was in
+his right senses--though the Lord knows that isn't
+saying much.  I was down there one day in housecleaning
+time helping Leslie a bit, and I was frying doughnuts. 
+Dick was hanging round to get one, as usual, and all at
+once he picked up a scalding hot one I'd just fished
+out and dropped it on the back of my neck when I was
+bending over.  Then he laughed and laughed.  Believe
+ME, Anne, it took all the grace of God in my heart to
+keep me from just whisking up that stew-pan of boiling
+fat and pouring it over his head."
+
+Anne laughed over Miss Cornelia's wrath as she sped
+through the darkness.  But laughter accorded ill with
+that night.  She was sober enough when she reached the
+house among the willows.  Everything was very silent. 
+The front part of the house seemed dark and deserted,
+so Anne slipped round to the side door, which opened
+from the veranda into a little sitting room.  There she
+halted noiselessly.
+
+The door was open.  Beyond, in the dimly lighted room,
+sat Leslie Moore, with her arms flung out on the table
+and her head bent upon them.  She was weeping
+horribly--with low, fierce, choking sobs, as if some
+agony in her soul were trying to tear itself out.  An
+old black dog was sitting by her, his nose resting on
+his lap, his big doggish eyes full of mute, imploring
+sympathy and devotion.  Anne drew back in dismay.  She
+felt that she could not intermeddle with this
+bitterness.  Her heart ached with a sympathy she might
+not utter.  To go in now would be to shut the door
+forever on any possible help or friendship.  Some
+instinct warned Anne that the proud, bitter girl would
+never forgive the one who thus surprised her in her
+abandonment of despair.
+
+Anne slipped noiselessly from the veranda and found her
+way across the yard.  Beyond, she heard voices in the
+gloom and saw the dim glow of a light.  At the gate she
+met two men--Captain Jim with a lantern, and another
+who she knew must be Dick Moore--a big man, badly gone
+to fat, with a broad, round, red face, and vacant eyes. 
+Even in the dull light Anne got the impression that
+there was something unusual about his eyes.
+
+"Is this you, Mistress Blythe?" said Captain Jim. 
+"Now, now, you hadn't oughter be roaming about alone on
+a night like this.  You could get lost in this fog
+easier than not.  Jest you wait till I see Dick safe
+inside the door and I'll come back and light you over
+the fields.  I ain't going to have Dr. Blythe coming
+home and finding that you walked clean over Cape
+Leforce in the fog.  A woman did that once, forty years
+ago.
+
+"So you've been over to see Leslie," he said, when he
+rejoined her.
+
+"I didn't go in," said Anne, and told what she had
+seen.  Captain Jim sighed.
+
+"Poor, poor, little girl!  She don't cry often,
+Mistress Blythe-- she's too brave for that.  She must
+feel terrible when she does cry.  A night like this is
+hard on poor women who have sorrows.  There's
+something about it that kinder brings up all we've
+suffered--or feared."
+
+"It's full of ghosts," said Anne, with a shiver. 
+"That was why I came over--I wanted to clasp a human
+hand and hear a human voice.
+
+There seem to be so many INHUMAN presences about
+tonight.  Even my own dear house was full of them. 
+They fairly elbowed me out.  So I fled over here for
+companionship of my kind."
+
+"You were right not to go in, though, Mistress Blythe. 
+Leslie wouldn't have liked it.  She wouldn't have liked
+me going in with Dick, as I'd have done if I hadn't met
+you.  I had Dick down with me all day.  I keep him with
+me as much as I can to help Leslie a bit."
+
+"Isn't there something odd about his eyes?" asked
+Anne.
+
+"You noticed that?  Yes, one is blue and t'other is
+hazel--his father had the same.  It's a Moore
+peculiarity.  That was what told me he was Dick Moore
+when I saw him first down in Cuby.  If it hadn't a-bin
+for his eyes I mightn't a-known him, with his beard and
+fat.  You know, I reckon, that it was me found him and
+brought him home.  Miss Cornelia always says I
+shouldn't have done it, but I can't agree with her.  It
+was the RIGHT thing to do--and so 'twas the only thing. 
+There ain't no question in my mind about THAT.  But my
+old heart aches for Leslie.  She's only twenty-eight
+and she's eaten more bread with sorrow than most women
+do in eighty years."
+
+They walked on in silence for a little while. 
+Presently Anne said, "Do you know, Captain Jim, I never
+like walking with a lantern.  I have always the
+strangest feeling that just outside the circle of
+light, just over its edge in the darkness, I am
+surrounded by a ring of furtive, sinister things,
+watching me from the shadows with hostile eyes.  I've
+had that feeling from childhood.  What is the reason? 
+I never feel like that when I'm really in the
+darkness--when it is close all around me--I'm not the
+least frightened."
+
+"I've something of that feeling myself," admitted
+Captain Jim.  "I reckon when the darkness is close to
+us it is a friend.  But when we sorter push it away
+from us--divorce ourselves from it, so to speak, with
+lantern light--it becomes an enemy.  But the fog is
+lifting.
+
+There's a smart west wind rising, if you notice.  The
+stars will be out when you get home."
+
+They were out; and when Anne re-entered her house of
+dreams the red embers were still glowing on the hearth,
+and all the haunting presences were gone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 14
+
+NOVEMBER DAYS
+
+The splendor of color which had glowed for weeks along
+the shores of Four Winds Harbor had faded out into the
+soft gray-blue of late autumnal hills.  There came many
+days when fields and shores were dim with misty rain,
+or shivering before the breath of a melancholy
+sea-wind--nights, too, of storm and tempest, when Anne
+sometimes wakened to pray that no ship might be beating
+up the grim north shore, for if it were so not even the
+great, faithful light whirling through the darkness
+unafraid, could avail to guide it into safe haven.
+
+"In November I sometimes feel as if spring could never
+come again," she sighed, grieving over the hopeless
+unsightliness of her frosted and bedraggled
+flower-plots.  The gay little garden of the
+schoolmaster's bride was rather a forlorn place now,
+and the Lombardies and birches were under bare poles,
+as Captain Jim said.  But the fir-wood behind the
+little house was forever green and staunch; and even in
+November and December there came gracious days of
+sunshine and purple hazes, when the harbor danced and
+sparkled as blithely as in midsummer, and the gulf was
+so softly blue and tender that the storm and the wild
+wind seemed only things of a long-past dream.
+
+Anne and Gilbert spent many an autumn evening at the
+lighthouse.  It was always a cheery place.  Even when
+the east wind sang in minor and the sea was dead and
+gray, hints of sunshine seemed to be lurking all about
+it.  Perhaps this was because the First Mate always
+paraded it in panoply of gold.  He was so large and
+effulgent that one hardly missed the sun, and his
+resounding purrs formed a pleasant accompaniment to
+the laughter and conversation which went on around
+Captain Jim's fireplace.  Captain Jim and Gilbert had
+many long discussions and high converse on matters
+beyond the ken of cat or king.
+
+"I like to ponder on all kinds of problems, though I
+can't solve 'em," said Captain Jim.  "My father held
+that we should never talk of things we couldn't
+understand, but if we didn't, doctor, the subjects for
+conversation would be mighty few.  I reckon the gods
+laugh many a time to hear us, but what matters so long
+as we remember that we're only men and don't take to
+fancying that we're gods ourselves, really, knowing
+good and evil.  I reckon our pow- wows won't do us or
+anyone much harm, so let's have another whack at the
+whence, why and whither this evening, doctor."
+
+While they "whacked," Anne listened or dreamed. 
+Sometimes Leslie went to the lighthouse with them, and
+she and Anne wandered along the shore in the eerie
+twilight, or sat on the rocks below the lighthouse
+until the darkness drove them back to the cheer of the
+driftwood fire.  Then Captain Jim would brew them tea
+and tell them
+
+      "tales of land and sea     And whatsoever might
+betide   The great forgotten world outside."
+
+ Leslie seemed always to enjoy those lighthouse
+carousals very much, and bloomed out for the time being
+into ready wit and beautiful laughter, or glowing-eyed
+silence.  There was a certain tang and savor in the
+conversation when Leslie was present which they missed
+when she was absent.  Even when she did not talk she
+seemed to inspire others to brilliancy.  Captain Jim
+told his stories better, Gilbert was quicker in
+argument and repartee, Anne felt little gushes and
+trickles of fancy and imagination bubbling to her lips
+under the influence of Leslie's personality.
+
+"That girl was born to be a leader in social and
+intellectual circles, far away from Four Winds," she
+said to Gilbert as they walked home one night.  "She's
+just wasted here--wasted."
+
+"Weren't you listening to Captain Jim and yours truly
+the other night when we discussed that subject
+generally?  We came to the comforting conclusion that
+the Creator probably knew how to run His universe quite
+as well as we do, and that, after all, there are no
+such things as `wasted' lives, saving and except when
+an individual wilfully squanders and wastes his own
+life--which Leslie Moore certainly hasn't done.  And
+some people might think that a Redmond B.A., whom
+editors were beginning to honor, was `wasted' as the
+wife of a struggling country doctor in the rural
+community of Four Winds."
+
+"Gilbert!"
+
+"If you had married Roy Gardner, now," continued
+Gilbert mercilessly, "YOU could have been `a leader in
+social and intellectual circles far away from Four
+Winds.'"
+
+"Gilbert BLYTHE!"
+
+"You KNOW you were in love with him at one time,
+Anne."
+
+"Gilbert, that's mean--`pisen mean, just like all the
+men,' as Miss Cornelia says.  I NEVER was in love with
+him.  I only imagined I was.  YOU know that.  You KNOW
+I'd rather be your wife in our house of dreams and
+fulfillment than a queen in a palace."
+
+Gilbert's answer was not in words; but I am afraid that
+both of them forgot poor Leslie speeding her lonely way
+across the fields to a house that was neither a palace
+nor the fulfillment of a dream.
+
+The moon was rising over the sad, dark sea behind them
+and transfiguring it.  Her light had not yet reached
+the harbor, the further side of which was shadowy and
+suggestive, with dim coves and rich glooms and
+jewelling lights.
+
+"How the home lights shine out tonight through the
+dark!" said Anne.  "That string of them over the
+harbor looks like a necklace.  And what a coruscation
+there is up at the Glen!  Oh, look, Gilbert; there is
+ours.  I'm so glad we left it burning.  I hate to come
+home to a dark house.  OUR homelight, Gilbert!  Isn't
+it lovely to see?"
+
+"Just one of earth's many millions of homes,
+Anne--girl--but ours-- OURS--our beacon in `a naughty
+world.'  When a fellow has a home and a dear, little,
+red-haired wife in it what more need he ask of life?"
+
+"Well, he might ask ONE thing more," whispered Anne
+happily.  "Oh, Gilbert, it seems as if I just COULDN'T
+wait for the spring."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 15
+
+CHRISTMAS AT FOUR WINDS
+
+At first Anne and Gilbert talked of going home to
+Avonlea for Christmas; but eventually they decided to
+stay in Four Winds.  "I want to spend the first
+Christmas of our life together in our own home,"
+decreed Anne.
+
+So it fell out that Marilla and Mrs. Rachel Lynde and
+the twins came to Four Winds for Christmas.  Marilla
+had the face of a woman who had circumnavigated the
+globe.  She had never been sixty miles away from home
+before; and she had never eaten a Christmas dinner
+anywhere save at Green Gables.
+
+Mrs. Rachel had made and brought with her an enormous
+plum pudding.  Nothing could have convinced Mrs. Rachel
+that a college graduate of the younger generation could
+make a Christmas plum pudding properly; but she
+bestowed approval on Anne's house.
+
+"Anne's a good housekeeper," she said to Marilla in
+the spare room the night of their arrival.  "I've
+looked into her bread box and her scrap pail.  I always
+judge a housekeeper by those, that's what.  There's
+nothing in the pail that shouldn't have been thrown
+away, and no stale pieces in the bread box.  Of course,
+she was trained up with you--but, then, she went to
+college afterwards.  I notice she's got my tobacco
+stripe quilt on the bed here, and that big round
+braided mat of yours before her living-room fire.  It
+makes me feel right at home."
+
+Anne's first Christmas in her own house was as
+delightful as she could have wished.  The day was fine
+and bright; the first skim of snow had fallen on
+Christmas Eve and made the world beautiful; the harbor
+was still open and glittering.
+
+Captain Jim and Miss Cornelia came to dinner.  Leslie
+and Dick had been invited, but Leslie made excuse; they
+always went to her Uncle Isaac West's for Christmas,
+she said.
+
+"She'd rather have it so," Miss Cornelia told Anne. 
+"She can't bear taking Dick where there are strangers. 
+Christmas is always a hard time for Leslie.  She and
+her father used to make a lot of it."
+
+Miss Cornelia and Mrs. Rachel did not take a very
+violent fancy to each other.  "Two suns hold not their
+courses in one sphere."  But they did not clash at
+all, for Mrs. Rachel was in the kitchen helping Anne
+and Marilla with the dinner, and it fell to Gilbert to
+entertain Captain Jim and Miss Cornelia,--or rather to
+be entertained by them, for a dialogue between those
+two old friends and antagonists was assuredly never
+dull.
+
+"It's many a year since there was a Christmas dinner
+here, Mistress Blythe," said Captain Jim.  "Miss
+Russell always went to her friends in town for
+Christmas.  But I was here to the first Christmas
+dinner that was ever eaten in this house--and the
+schoolmaster's bride cooked it.  That was sixty years
+ago today, Mistress Blythe--and a day very like
+this--just enough snow to make the hills white, and the
+harbor as blue as June.  I was only a lad, and I'd
+never been invited out to dinner before, and I was too
+shy to eat enough.  I've got all over THAT."
+
+"Most men do," said Miss Cornelia, sewing furiously. 
+Miss Cornelia was not going to sit with idle hands,
+even on Christmas.
+
+Babies come without any consideration for holidays, and
+there was one expected in a poverty-stricken household
+at Glen St. Mary.  Miss Cornelia had sent that
+household a substantial dinner for its little swarm,
+and so meant to eat her own with a comfortable
+conscience.
+
+"Well, you know, the way to a man's heart is through
+his stomach, Cornelia," explained Captain Jim.
+
+"I believe you--when he HAS a heart," retorted Miss
+Cornelia.  "I suppose that's why so many women kill
+themselves cooking--just as poor Amelia Baxter did. 
+She died last Christmas morning, and she said it was
+the first Christmas since she was married that she
+didn't have to cook a big, twenty-plate dinner.  It
+must have been a real pleasant change for her.  Well,
+she's been dead a year, so you'll soon hear of Horace
+Baxter taking notice."
+
+"I heard he was taking notice already," said Captain
+Jim, winking at Gilbert.  "Wasn't he up to your place
+one Sunday lately, with his funeral blacks on, and a
+boiled collar?"
+
+"No, he wasn't.  And he needn't come neither.  I could
+have had him long ago when he was fresh.  I don't want
+any second-hand goods, believe ME.  As for Horace
+Baxter, he was in financial difficulties a year ago
+last summer, and he prayed to the Lord for help; and
+when his wife died and he got her life insurance he
+said he believed it was the answer to his prayer. 
+Wasn't that like a man?"
+
+"Have you really proof that he said that, Cornelia?"
+
+"I have the Methodist minister's word for it--if you
+call THAT proof.  Robert Baxter told me the same thing
+too, but I admit THAT isn't evidence.  Robert Baxter
+isn't often known to tell the truth."
+
+"Come, come, Cornelia, I think he generally tells the
+truth, but he changes his opinion so often it sometimes
+sounds as if he didn't."
+
+"It sounds like it mighty often, believe ME.  But trust
+one man to excuse another.  I have no use for Robert
+Baxter.  He turned Methodist just because the
+Presbyterian choir happened to be singing `Behold the
+bridegroom cometh' for a collection piece when him and
+Margaret walked up the aisle the Sunday after they were
+married.  Served him right for being late!  He always
+insisted the choir did it on purpose to insult him, as
+if he was of that much importance.  But that family
+always thought they were much bigger potatoes than they
+really were.  His brother Eliphalet imagined the devil
+was always at his elbow--but _I_ never believed the
+devil wasted that much time on him."
+
+"I--don't--know," said Captain Jim thoughtfully. 
+"Eliphalet Baxter lived too much alone--hadn't even a
+cat or dog to keep him human.  When a man is alone he's
+mighty apt to be with the devil--if he ain't with God. 
+He has to choose which company he'll keep, I reckon. 
+If the devil always was at Life Baxter's elbow it must
+have been because Life liked to have him there."
+
+"Man-like," said Miss Cornelia, and subsided into
+silence over a complicated arrangement of tucks until
+Captain Jim deliberately stirred her up again by
+remarking in a casual way:
+
+"I was up to the Methodist church last Sunday
+morning."
+
+"You'd better have been home reading your Bible," was
+Miss Cornelia's retort.
+
+"Come, now, Cornelia, _I_ can't see any harm in going
+to the Methodist church when there's no preaching in
+your own.  I've been a Presbyterian for seventy-six
+years, and it isn't likely my theology will hoist
+anchor at this late day."
+
+"It's setting a bad example," said Miss Cornelia
+grimly.
+
+"Besides," continued wicked Captain Jim, "I wanted to
+hear some good singing.  The Methodists have a good
+choir; and you can't deny, Cornelia, that the singing
+in our church is awful since the split in the choir."
+
+"What if the singing isn't good?  They're doing their
+best, and God sees no difference between the voice of a
+crow and the voice of a nightingale."
+
+"Come, come, Cornelia," said Captain Jim mildly, "I've
+a better opinion of the Almighty's ear for music than
+THAT."
+
+"What caused the trouble in our choir?" asked Gilbert,
+who was suffering from suppressed laughter.
+
+"It dates back to the new church, three years ago,"
+answered Captain Jim.  "We had a fearful time over the
+building of that church--fell out over the question of
+a new site.  The two sites wasn't more'n two hundred
+yards apart, but you'd have thought they was a thousand
+by the bitterness of that fight.  We was split up into
+three factions--one wanted the east site and one the
+south, and one held to the old.  It was fought out in
+bed and at board, and in church and at market.  All
+the old scandals of three generations were dragged out
+of their graves and aired.  Three matches was broken up
+by it.  And the meetings we had to try to settle the
+question!  Cornelia, will you ever forget the one when
+old Luther Burns got up and made a speech?  HE stated
+his opinions forcibly."
+
+"Call a spade a spade, Captain.  You mean he got
+red-mad and raked them all, fore and aft.  They
+deserved it too--a pack of incapables.  But what would
+you expect of a committee of men?  That building
+committee held twenty-seven meetings, and at the end of
+the twenty-seventh weren't no nearer having a church
+than when they begun--not so near, for a fact, for in
+one fit of hurrying things along they'd gone to work
+and tore the old church down, so there we were,
+without a church, and no place but the hall to worship
+in."
+
+"The Methodists offered us their church, Cornelia."
+
+"The Glen St. Mary church wouldn't have been built to
+this day," went on Miss Cornelia, ignoring Captain
+Jim, "if we women hadn't just started in and took
+charge.  We said WE meant to have a church, if the men
+meant to quarrel till doomsday, and we were tired of
+being a laughing-stock for the Methodists.  We held ONE
+meeting and elected a committee and canvassed for
+subscriptions.  We got them, too.  When any of the men
+tried to sass us we told them they'd tried for two
+years to build a church and it was our turn now.  We
+shut them up close, believe ME, and in six months we
+had our church.  Of course, when the men saw we were
+determined they stopped fighting and went to work,
+man-like, as soon as they saw they had to, or quit
+bossing.  Oh, women can't preach or be elders; but they
+can build churches and scare up the money for them."
+
+"The Methodists allow women to preach," said Captain
+Jim.
+
+Miss Cornelia glared at him.
+
+"I never said the Methodists hadn't common sense,
+Captain. What I say is, I doubt if they have much
+religion."
+
+"I suppose you are in favor of votes for women, Miss
+Cornelia," said Gilbert.
+
+"I'm not hankering after the vote, believe ME," said
+Miss Cornelia scornfully.  "_I_ know what it is to
+clean up after the men.  But some of these days, when
+the men realize they've got the world into a mess they
+can't get it out of, they'll be glad to give us the
+vote, and shoulder their troubles over on us.  That's
+THEIR scheme.  Oh, it's well that women are patient,
+believe ME!"
+
+"What about Job?" suggested Captain Jim.
+
+"Job!  It was such a rare thing to find a patient man
+that when one was really discovered they were
+determined he shouldn't be forgotten," retorted Miss
+Cornelia triumphantly.  "Anyhow, the virtue doesn't go
+with the name.  There never was such an impatient man
+born as old Job Taylor over harbor."
+
+"Well, you know, he had a good deal to try him,
+Cornelia.  Even you can't defend his wife.  I always
+remember what old William MacAllister said of her at
+her funeral, `There's nae doot she was a Chreestian
+wumman, but she had the de'il's own temper.'"
+
+"I suppose she WAS trying," admitted Miss Cornelia
+reluctantly, "but that didn't justify what Job said
+when she died.  He rode home from the graveyard the day
+of the funeral with my father.  He never said a word
+till they got near home.  Then he heaved a big sigh and
+said, `You may not believe it, Stephen, but this is the
+happiest day of my life!'  Wasn't that like a man?"
+
+"I s'pose poor old Mrs. Job did make life kinder uneasy
+for him," reflected Captain Jim.
+
+"Well, there's such a thing as decency, isn't there? 
+Even if a man is rejoicing in his heart over his wife
+being dead, he needn't proclaim it to the four winds of
+heaven.  And happy day or not, Job Taylor wasn't long
+in marrying again, you might notice.  His second wife
+could manage him.  She made him walk Spanish, believe
+me!  The first thing she did was to make him hustle
+round and put up a tombstone to the first Mrs.
+Job--and she had a place left on it for her own name. 
+She said there'd be nobody to make Job put up a
+monument to HER."
+
+"Speaking of Taylors, how is Mrs. Lewis Taylor up at
+the Glen, doctor?" asked Captain Jim.
+
+"She's getting better slowly--but she has to work too
+hard," replied Gilbert.
+
+"Her husband works hard too--raising prize pigs," said
+Miss Cornelia.  "He's noted for his beautiful pigs. 
+He's a heap prouder of his pigs than of his children. 
+But then, to be sure, his pigs are the best pigs
+possible, while his children don't amount to much.  He
+picked a poor mother for them, and starved her while
+she was bearing and rearing them.  His pigs got the
+cream and his children got the skim milk.
+
+"There are times, Cornelia, when I have to agree with
+you, though it hurts me," said Captain Jim.  "That's
+just exactly the truth about Lewis Taylor.  When I see
+those poor, miserable children of his, robbed of all
+children ought to have, it p'isens my own bite and sup
+for days afterwards."
+
+Gilbert went out to the kitchen in response to Anne's
+beckoning.  Anne shut the door and gave him a connubial
+lecture.
+
+"Gilbert, you and Captain Jim must stop baiting Miss
+Cornelia.  Oh, I've been listening to you--and I just
+won't allow it."
+
+`Anne, Miss Cornelia is enjoying herself hugely.  You
+know she is.'
+
+"Well, never mind.  You two needn't egg her on like
+that.  Dinner is ready now, and, Gilbert, DON'T let
+Mrs. Rachel carve the geese.  I know she means to offer
+to do it because she doesn't think you can do it
+properly.  Show her you can."
+
+"I ought to be able to.  I've been studying A-B-C-D
+diagrams of carving for the past month," said Gilbert. 
+"Only don't talk to me while I'm doing it, Anne, for if
+you drive the letters out of my head I'll be in a worse
+predicament than you were in old geometry days when
+the teacher changed them."
+
+Gilbert carved the geese beautifully.  Even Mrs. Rachel
+had to admit that.  And everybody ate of them and
+enjoyed them.  Anne's first Christmas dinner was a
+great success and she beamed with housewifely pride. 
+Merry was the feast and long; and when it was over they
+gathered around the cheer of the red hearth flame and
+Captain Jim told them stories until the red sun swung
+low over Four Winds Harbor, and the long blue shadows
+of the Lombardies fell across the snow in the lane.
+
+"I must be getting back to the light," he said
+finally.  "I'll jest have time to walk home before
+sundown.  Thank you for a beautiful Christmas, Mistress
+Blythe.  Bring Master Davy down to the light some
+night before he goes home.
+
+"I want to see those stone gods," said Davy with a
+relish.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 16
+
+NEW YEAR'S EVE AT THE LIGHT
+
+The Green Gables folk went home after Christmas,
+Marilla under solemn covenant to return for a month in
+the spring.  More snow came before New Year's, and the
+harbor froze over, but the gulf still was free, beyond
+the white, imprisoned fields.  The last day of the old
+year was one of those bright, cold, dazzling winter
+days, which bombard us with their brilliancy, and
+command our admiration but never our love.  The sky was
+sharp and blue; the snow diamonds sparkled insistently;
+the stark trees were bare and shameless, with a kind of
+brazen beauty; the hills shot assaulting lances of
+crystal.  Even the shadows were sharp and stiff and
+clear-cut, as no proper shadows should be.  Everything
+that was handsome seemed ten times handsomer and less
+attractive in the glaring splendor; and everything that
+was ugly seemed ten times uglier, and everything was
+either handsome or ugly.  There was no soft blending,
+or kind obscurity, or elusive mistiness in that
+searching glitter.  The only things that held their own
+individuality were the firs--for the fir is the tree of
+mystery and shadow, and yields never to the
+encroachments of crude radiance.
+
+But finally the day began to realise that she was
+growing old.  Then a certain pensiveness fell over her
+beauty which dimmed yet intensified it; sharp angles,
+glittering points, melted away into curves and
+enticing gleams.  The white harbor put on soft grays
+and pinks; the far-away hills turned amethyst.
+
+"The old year is going away beautifully," said Anne.
+
+She and Leslie and Gilbert were on their way to the
+Four Winds Point, having plotted with Captain Jim to
+watch the New Year in at the light.  The sun had set
+and in the southwestern sky hung Venus, glorious and
+golden, having drawn as near to her earth-sister as is
+possible for her.  For the first time Anne and Gilbert
+saw the shadow cast by that brilliant star of evening,
+that faint, mysterious shadow, never seen save when
+there is white snow to reveal it, and then only with
+averted vision, vanishing when you gaze at it directly.
+
+"It's like the spirit of a shadow, isn't it?"
+whispered Anne.  "You can see it so plainly haunting
+your side when you look ahead; but when you turn and
+look at it--it's gone."
+
+"I have heard that you can see the shadow of Venus only
+once in a lifetime, and that within a year of seeing it
+your life's most wonderful gift will come to you,"
+said Leslie.  But she spoke rather hardly; perhaps she
+thought that even the shadow of Venus could bring her
+no gift of life.  Anne smiled in the soft twilight; she
+felt quite sure what the mystic shadow promised her.
+
+They found Marshall Elliott at the lighthouse.  At
+first Anne felt inclined to resent the intrusion of
+this long-haired, long-bearded eccentric into the
+familiar little circle.  But Marshall Elliott soon
+proved his legitimate claim to membership in the
+household of Joseph.  He was a witty, intelligent,
+well-read man, rivalling Captain Jim himself in the
+knack of telling a good story.  They were all glad when
+he agreed to watch the old year out with them.
+
+Captain Jim's small nephew Joe had come down to spend
+New Year's with his great-uncle, and had fallen asleep
+on the sofa with the First Mate curled up in a huge
+golden ball at his feet.
+
+"Ain't he a dear little man?" said Captain Jim
+gloatingly.  "I do love to watch a little child asleep,
+Mistress Blythe.  It's the most beautiful sight in the
+world, I reckon.  Joe does love to get down here for a
+night, because I have him sleep with me.  At home he
+has to sleep with the other two boys, and he doesn't
+like it.  "Why can't I sleep with father, Uncle Jim?"
+says he.  `Everybody in the Bible slept with their
+fathers.'  As for the questions he asks, the minister
+himself couldn't answer them.  They fair swamp me. 
+`Uncle Jim, if I wasn't ME who'd I be?' and, `Uncle
+Jim, what would happen if God died?'  He fired them two
+off at me tonight, afore he went to sleep.  As for his
+imagination, it sails away from everything.  He makes
+up the most remarkable yarns--and then his mother shuts
+him up in the closet for telling stories .  And he sits
+down and makes up another one, and has it ready to
+relate to her when she lets him out.  He had one for me
+when he come down tonight.  `Uncle Jim,' says he,
+solemn as a tombstone, `I had a 'venture in the Glen
+today.'  `Yes, what was it?' says I, expecting
+something quite startling, but nowise prepared for
+what I really got.  `I met a wolf in the street,' says
+he, `a 'normous wolf with a big, red mouf and AWFUL
+long teeth, Uncle Jim.'  `I didn't know there was any
+wolves up at the Glen,' says I.  `Oh, he comed there
+from far, far away,' says Joe, `and I fought he was
+going to eat me up, Uncle Jim.'  `Were you scared?'
+says I.  `No, 'cause I had a big gun,' says Joe, `and I
+shot the wolf dead, Uncle Jim,--solid dead--and then
+he went up to heaven and bit God,' says he.  Well, I
+was fair staggered, Mistress Blythe."
+
+The hours bloomed into mirth around the driftwood fire. 
+Captain Jim told tales, and Marshall Elliott sang old
+Scotch ballads in a fine tenor voice; finally Captain
+Jim took down his old brown fiddle from the wall and
+began to play.  He had a tolerable knack of fiddling,
+which all appreciated save the First Mate, who sprang
+from the sofa as if he had been shot, emitted a shriek
+of protest, and fled wildly up the stairs.
+
+"Can't cultivate an ear for music in that cat nohow,"
+said Captain Jim.  "He won't stay long enough to learn
+to like it.  When we got the organ up at the Glen
+church old Elder Richards bounced up from his seat the
+minute the organist began to play and scuttled down the
+aisle and out of the church at the rate of
+no-man's-business.  It reminded me so strong of the
+First Mate tearing loose as soon as I begin to fiddle
+that I come nearer to laughing out loud in church than
+I ever did before or since."
+
+There was something so infectious in the rollicking
+tunes which Captain Jim played that very soon Marshall
+Elliott's feet began to twitch.  He had been a noted
+dancer in his youth.  Presently he started up and held
+out his hands to Leslie.  Instantly she responded. 
+Round and round the firelit room they circled with a
+rhythmic grace that was wonderful.  Leslie danced like
+one inspired; the wild, sweet abandon of the music
+seemed to have entered into and possessed her.  Anne
+watched her in fascinated admiration.  She had never
+seen her like this.  All the innate richness and color
+and charm of her nature seemed to have broken loose and
+overflowed in crimson cheek and glowing eye and grace
+of motion.  Even the aspect of Marshall Elliott, with
+his long beard and hair, could not spoil the picture. 
+On the contrary, it seemed to enhance it.  Marshall
+Elliott looked like a Viking of elder days, dancing
+with one of the blue-eyed, golden-haired daughters of
+the Northland.
+
+"The purtiest dancing I ever saw, and I've seen some in
+my time," declared Captain Jim, when at last the bow
+fell from his tired hand.  Leslie dropped into her
+chair, laughing, breathless.
+
+"I love dancing," she said apart to Anne.  "I haven't
+danced since I was sixteen--but I love it.  The music
+seems to run through my veins like quicksilver and I
+forget everything--everything--except the delight of
+keeping time to it.  There isn't any floor beneath me,
+or walls about me, or roof over me--I'm floating amid
+the stars."
+
+Captain Jim hung his fiddle up in its place, beside a
+large frame enclosing several banknotes.
+
+"Is there anybody else of your acquaintance who can
+afford to hang his walls with banknotes for pictures?"
+he asked.  "There's twenty ten-dollar notes there, not
+worth the glass over them.  They're old Bank of P. E.
+Island notes.  Had them by me when the bank failed, and
+I had 'em framed and hung up, partly as a reminder not
+to put your trust in banks, and partly to give me a
+real luxurious, millionairy feeling.  Hullo, Matey,
+don't be scared.  You can come back now.  The music and
+revelry is over for tonight.  The old year has just
+another hour to stay with us.  I've seen seventy-six
+New Years come in over that gulf yonder, Mistress
+Blythe."
+
+"You'll see a hundred," said Marshall Elliott.
+
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+
+"No; and I don't want to--at least, I think I don't. 
+Death grows friendlier as we grow older.  Not that one
+of us really wants to die though, Marshall.  Tennyson
+spoke truth when he said that.  There's old Mrs.
+Wallace up at the Glen.  She's had heaps of trouble all
+her life, poor soul, and she's lost almost everyone she
+cared about.  She's always saying that she'll be glad
+when her time comes, and she doesn't want to sojourn
+any longer in this vale of tears.  But when she takes a
+sick spell there's a fuss!  Doctors from town, and a
+trained nurse, and enough medicine to kill a dog.  Life
+may be a vale of tears, all right, but there are some
+folks who enjoy weeping, I reckon."
+
+They spent the old year's last hour quietly around the
+fire.  A few minutes before twelve Captain Jim rose and
+opened the door.
+
+"We must let the New Year in," he said.
+
+Outside was a fine blue night.  A sparkling ribbon of
+moonlight garlanded the gulf.  Inside the bar the
+harbor shone like a pavement of pearl.  They stood
+before the door and waited--Captain Jim with his ripe,
+full experience, Marshall Elliott in his vigorous but
+empty middle life, Gilbert and Anne with their precious
+memories and exquisite hopes, Leslie with her record of
+starved years and her hopeless future.  The clock on
+the little shelf above the fireplace struck twelve.
+
+"Welcome, New Year," said Captain Jim, bowing low as
+the last stroke died away.  "I wish you all the best
+year of your lives, mates.  I reckon that whatever the
+New Year brings us will be the best the Great Captain
+has for us--and somehow or other we'll all make port in
+a good harbor."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 17
+
+A FOUR WINDS WINTER
+
+Winter set in vigorously after New Year's.  Big, white
+drifts heaped themselves about the little house, and
+palms of frost covered its windows.  The harbor ice
+grew harder and thicker, until the Four Winds people
+began their usual winter travelling over it.  The safe
+ways were "bushed" by a benevolent Government, and
+night and day the gay tinkle of the sleigh-bells
+sounded on it.  On moonlit nights Anne heard them in
+her house of dreams like fairy chimes.  The gulf froze
+over, and the Four Winds light flashed no more.  During
+the months when navigation was closed Captain Jim's
+office was a sinecure.
+
+"The First Mate and I will have nothing to do till
+spring except keep warm and amuse ourselves.  The last
+lighthouse keeper used always to move up to the Glen in
+winter; but I'd rather stay at the Point.  The First
+Mate might get poisoned or chewed up by dogs at the
+Glen.  It's a mite lonely, to be sure, with neither the
+light nor the water for company, but if our friends
+come to see us often we'll weather it through."
+
+Captain Jim had an ice boat, and many a wild, glorious
+spin Gilbert and Anne and Leslie had over the glib
+harbor ice with him.  Anne and Leslie took long
+snowshoe tramps together, too, over the fields, or
+across the harbor after storms, or through the woods
+beyond the Glen.  They were very good comrades in their
+rambles and their fireside communings.  Each had
+something to give the other--each felt life the richer
+for friendly exchange of thought and friendly silence;
+each looked across the white fields between their homes
+with a pleasant consciousness of a friend beyond.  But,
+in spite of all this, Anne felt that there was always a
+barrier between Leslie and herself--a constraint that
+never wholly vanished.
+
+"I don't know why I can't get closer to her," Anne
+said one evening to Captain Jim.  "I like her so
+much--I admire her so much--I WANT to take her right
+into my heart and creep right into hers.  But I can
+never cross the barrier."
+
+"You've been too happy all your life, Mistress
+Blythe," said Captain Jim thoughtfully.  "I reckon
+that's why you and Leslie can't get real close together
+in your souls.  The barrier between you is her
+experience of sorrow and trouble.  She ain't
+responsible for it and you ain't; but it's there and
+neither of you can cross it."
+
+"My childhood wasn't very happy before I came to Green
+Gables," said Anne, gazing soberly out of the window
+at the still, sad, dead beauty of the leafless
+tree-shadows on the moonlit snow.
+
+"Mebbe not--but it was just the usual unhappiness of a
+child who hasn't anyone to look after it properly. 
+There hasn't been any TRAGEDY in your life, Mistress
+Blythe.  And poor Leslie's has been almost ALL
+tragedy.  She feels, I reckon, though mebbe she hardly
+knows she feels it, that there's a vast deal in her
+life you can't enter nor understand--and so she has to
+keep you back from it--hold you off, so to speak, from
+hurting her.  You know if we've got anything about us
+that hurts we shrink from anyone's touch on or near it. 
+It holds good with our souls as well as our bodies, I
+reckon.  Leslie's soul must be near raw--it's no wonder
+she hides it away."
+
+"If that were really all, I wouldn't mind, Captain Jim. 
+I would understand.  But there are times--not always,
+but now and again-- when I almost have to believe that
+Leslie doesn't--doesn't like me.  Sometimes I surprise
+a look in her eyes that seems to show resentment and
+dislike--it goes so quickly--but I've seen it, I'm sure
+of that.  And it hurts me, Captain Jim.  I'm not used
+to being disliked-- and I've tried so hard to win
+Leslie's friendship."
+
+"You have won it, Mistress Blythe.  Don't you go
+cherishing any foolish notion that Leslie don't like
+you.  If she didn't she wouldn't have anything to do
+with you, much less chumming with you as she does.  I
+know Leslie Moore too well not to be sure of that."
+
+"The first time I ever saw her, driving her geese down
+the hill on the day I came to Four Winds, she looked at
+me with the same expression," persisted Anne.  "I felt
+it, even in the midst of my admiration of her beauty. 
+She looked at me resentfully--she did, indeed, Captain
+Jim."
+
+"The resentment must have been about something else,
+Mistress Blythe, and you jest come in for a share of it
+because you happened past.  Leslie DOES take sullen
+spells now and again, poor girl.  I can't blame her,
+when I know what she has to put up with.  I don't know
+why it's permitted.  The doctor and I have talked a lot
+abut the origin of evil, but we haven't quite found out
+all about it yet.  There's a vast of onunderstandable
+things in life, ain't there, Mistress Blythe?
+Sometimes things seem to work out real proper-like,
+same as with you and the doctor.  And then again they
+all seem to go catawampus.  There's Leslie, so clever
+and beautiful you'd think she was meant for a queen,
+and instead she's cooped up over there, robbed of
+almost everything a woman'd value, with no prospect
+except waiting on Dick Moore all her life.  Though,
+mind you, Mistress Blythe, I daresay she'd choose her
+life now, such as it is, rather than the life she
+lived with Dick before he went away.  THAT'S something
+a clumsy old sailor's tongue mustn't meddle with.  But
+you've helped Leslie a lot--she's a different creature
+since you come to Four Winds.  Us old friends see the
+difference in her, as you can't.  Miss Cornelia and me
+was talking it over the other day, and it's one of the
+mighty few p'ints that we see eye to eye on.  So jest
+you throw overboard any idea of her not liking you."
+
+Anne could hardly discard it completely, for there were
+undoubtedly times when she felt, with an instinct that
+was not to be combated by reason, that Leslie harbored
+a queer, indefinable resentment towards her.  At times,
+this secret consciousness marred the delight of their
+comradeship; at others it was almost forgotten; but
+Anne always felt the hidden thorn was there, and might
+prick her at any moment.  She felt a cruel sting from
+it on the day when she told Leslie of what she hoped
+the spring would bring to the little house of dreams. 
+Leslie looked at her with hard, bitter, unfriendly
+eyes.
+
+"So you are to have THAT, too," she said in a choked
+voice.  And without another word she had turned and
+gone across the fields homeward.  Anne was deeply hurt;
+for the moment she felt as if she could never like
+Leslie again.  But when Leslie came over a few
+evenings later she was so pleasant, so friendly, so
+frank, and witty, and winsome, that Anne was charmed
+into forgiveness and forgetfulness.  Only, she never
+mentioned her darling hope to Leslie again; nor did
+Leslie ever refer to it.  But one evening, when late
+winter was listening for the word of spring, she came
+over to the little house for a twilight chat; and when
+she went away she left a small, white box on the table. 
+Anne found it after she was gone and opened it
+wonderingly.  In it was a tiny white dress of exquisite
+workmanship-- delicate embroidery, wonderful tucking,
+sheer loveliness.  Every stitch in it was handwork; and
+the little frills of lace at neck and sleeves were of
+real Valenciennes.  Lying on it was a card--"with
+Leslie's love."
+
+"What hours of work she must have put on it," said
+Anne.  "And the material must have cost more than she
+could really afford.  It is very sweet of her."
+
+But Leslie was brusque and curt when Anne thanked her,
+and again the latter felt thrown back upon herself.
+
+Leslie's gift was not alone in the little house.  Miss
+Cornelia had, for the time being, given up sewing for
+unwanted, unwelcome eighth babies, and fallen to sewing
+for a very much wanted first one, whose welcome would
+leave nothing to be desired.  Philippa Blake and Diana
+Wright each sent a marvellous garment; and Mrs. Rachel
+Lynde sent several, in which good material and honest
+stitches took the place of embroidery and frills.  Anne
+herself made many, desecrated by no touch of machinery,
+spending over them the happiest hours of the happy
+winter.
+
+Captain Jim was the most frequent guest of the little
+house, and none was more welcome.  Every day Anne loved
+the simple-souled, true-hearted old sailor more and
+more.  He was as refreshing as a sea breeze, as
+interesting as some ancient chronicle.  She was never
+tired of listening to his stories, and his quaint
+remarks and comments were a continual delight to her. 
+Captain Jim was one of those rare and interesting
+people who "never speak but they say something."  The
+milk of human kindness and the wisdom of the serpent
+were mingled in his composition in delightful
+proportions.
+
+Nothing ever seemed to put Captain Jim out or depress
+him in any way.
+
+"I've kind of contracted a habit of enj'ying things,"
+he remarked once, when Anne had commented on his
+invariable cheerfulness.  "It's got so chronic that I
+believe I even enj'y the disagreeable things.  It's
+great fun thinking they can't last.  `Old rheumatiz,'
+says I, when it grips me hard, `you've GOT to stop
+aching sometime.  The worse you are the sooner you'll
+stop, mebbe.  I'm bound to get the better of you in the
+long run, whether in the body or out of the body.'"
+
+One night, by the fireside at the light Anne saw
+Captain Jim's "life-book."  He needed no coaxing to
+show it and proudly gave it to her to read.
+
+"I writ it to leave to little Joe," he said.  "I don't
+like the idea of everything I've done and seen being
+clean forgot after I've shipped for my last v'yage. 
+Joe, he'll remember it, and tell the yarns to his
+children."
+
+It was an old leather-bound book filled with the record
+of his voyages and adventures.  Anne thought what a
+treasure trove it would be to a writer.  Every sentence
+was a nugget.  In itself the book had no literary
+merit; Captain Jim's charm of storytelling failed him
+when he came to pen and ink; he could only jot roughly
+down the outline of his famous tales, and both spelling
+and grammar were sadly askew.  But Anne felt that if
+anyone possessed of the gift could take that simple
+record of a brave, adventurous life, reading between
+the bald lines the tales of dangers staunchly faced and
+duty manfully done, a wonderful story might be made
+from it.  Rich comedy and thrilling tragedy were both
+lying hidden in Captain Jim's "life-book," waiting for
+the touch of the master hand to waken the laughter and
+grief and horror of thousands.
+
+Anne said something of this to Gilbert as they walked
+home.
+
+"Why don't you try your hand at it yourself, Anne?"
+
+Anne shook her head.
+
+" No.  I only wish I could.  But it's not in the power
+of my gift.  You know what my forte is, Gilbert--the
+fanciful, the fairylike, the pretty.  To write Captain
+Jim's life-book as it should be written one should be a
+master of vigorous yet subtle style, a keen
+psychologist, a born humorist and a born tragedian.  A
+rare combination of gifts is needed.  Paul might do it
+if he were older.  Anyhow, I'm going to ask him to come
+down next summer and meet Captain Jim."
+
+"Come to this shore," wrote Anne to Paul.  "I am
+afraid you cannot find here Nora or the Golden Lady or
+the Twin Sailors; but you will find one old sailor who
+can tell you wonderful stories."
+
+Paul, however wrote back, saying regretfully that he
+could not come that year.  He was going abroad for two
+year's study.
+
+"When I return I'll come to Four Winds, dear Teacher,"
+he wrote.
+
+"But meanwhile, Captain Jim is growing old," said
+Anne, sorrowfully, "and there is nobody to write his
+life-book."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 18
+
+SPRING DAYS
+
+The ice in the harbor grew black and rotten in the
+March suns; in April there were blue waters and a
+windy, white-capped gulf again; and again the Four
+Winds light begemmed the twilights.
+
+"I'm so glad to see it once more," said Anne, on the
+first evening of its reappearance.  "I've missed it so
+all winter.  The northwestern sky has seemed blank and
+lonely without it."
+
+The land was tender with brand-new, golden-green, baby
+leaves.  There was an emerald mist on the woods beyond
+the Glen.  The seaward valleys were full of fairy mists
+at dawn.
+
+Vibrant winds came and went with salt foam in their
+breath.  The sea laughed and flashed and preened and
+allured, like a beautiful, coquettish woman.  The
+herring schooled and the fishing village woke to life. 
+The harbor was alive with white sails making for the
+channel.  The ships began to sail outward and inward
+again.
+
+"On a spring day like this," said Anne, "I know
+exactly what my soul will feel like on the resurrection
+morning."
+
+"There are times in spring when I sorter feel that I
+might have been a poet if I'd been caught young,"
+remarked Captain Jim.  "I catch myself conning over old
+lines and verses I heard the schoolmaster reciting
+sixty years ago.  They don't trouble me at other times. 
+Now I feel as if I had to get out on the rocks or the
+fields or the water and spout them."
+
+Captain Jim had come up that afternoon to bring Anne a
+load of shells for her garden, and a little bunch of
+sweet-grass which he had found in a ramble over the
+sand dunes.
+
+"It's getting real scarce along this shore now," he
+said.  "When I was a boy there was a-plenty of it.  But
+now it's only once in a while you'll find a plot--and
+never when you're looking for it.  You jest have to
+stumble on it--you're walking along on the sand hills,
+never thinking of sweet-grass--and all at once the air
+is full of sweetness-- and there's the grass under your
+feet.  I favor the smell of sweet-grass.  It always
+makes me think of my mother."
+
+"She was fond of it?" asked Anne.
+
+"Not that I knows on.  Dunno's she ever saw any
+sweet-grass.  No, it's because it has a kind of
+motherly perfume--not too young, you
+understand--something kind of seasoned and wholesome
+and dependable--jest like a mother.  The schoolmaster's
+bride always kept it among her handkerchiefs.  You
+might put that little bunch among yours, Mistress
+Blythe.  I don't like these boughten scents-- but a
+whiff of sweet-grass belongs anywhere a lady does."
+
+Anne had not been especially enthusiastic over the idea
+of surrounding her flower beds with quahog shells; as a
+decoration they did not appeal to her on first thought. 
+But she would not have hurt Captain Jim's feelings for
+anything; so she assumed a virtue she did not at first
+feel, and thanked him heartily.  And when Captain Jim
+had proudly encircled every bed with a rim of the big,
+milk-white shells, Anne found to her surprise that she
+liked the effect.  On a town lawn, or even up at the
+Glen, they would not have been in keeping, but here, in
+the old-fashioned, sea-bound garden of the little house
+of dreams, they BELONGED.
+
+"They DO look nice," she said sincerely.
+
+"The schoolmaster's bride always had cowhawks round her
+beds," said Captain Jim.  "She was a master hand with
+flowers.  She LOOKED at 'em--and touched 'em--SO--and
+they grew like mad.  Some folks have that knack--I
+reckon you have it, too, Mistress Blythe."
+
+"Oh, I don't know--but I love my garden, and I love
+working in it.  To potter with green, growing things,
+watching each day to see the dear, new sprouts come up,
+is like taking a hand in creation, I think.  Just now
+my garden is like faith--the substance of things hoped
+for.  But bide a wee."
+
+"It always amazes me to look at the little, wrinkled
+brown seeds and think of the rainbows in 'em," said
+Captain Jim.  "When I ponder on them seeds I don't find
+it nowise hard to believe that we've got souls that'll
+live in other worlds.  You couldn't hardly believe
+there was life in them tiny things, some no bigger than
+grains of dust, let alone color and scent, if you
+hadn't seen the miracle, could you?"
+
+Anne, who was counting her days like silver beads on a
+rosary, could not now take the long walk to the
+lighthouse or up the Glen road.  But Miss Cornelia and
+Captain Jim came very often to the little house.  Miss
+Cornelia was the joy of Anne's and Gilbert's existence. 
+They laughed side-splittingly over her speeches after
+every visit.  When Captain Jim and she happened to
+visit the little house at the same time there was much
+sport for the listening.  They waged wordy warfare, she
+attacking, he defending.  Anne once reproached the
+Captain for his baiting of Miss Cornelia.
+
+"Oh, I do love to set her going, Mistress Blythe,"
+chuckled the unrepentant sinner.  "It's the greatest
+amusement I have in life.  That tongue of hers would
+blister a stone.  And you and that young dog of a
+doctor enj'y listening to her as much as I do."
+
+Captain Jim came along another evening to bring Anne
+some mayflowers.  The garden was full of the moist,
+scented air of a maritime spring evening.  There was a
+milk-white mist on the edge of the sea, with a young
+moon kissing it, and a silver gladness of stars over
+the Glen.  The bell of the church across the harbor was
+ringing dreamily sweet.  The mellow chime drifted
+through the dusk to mingle with the soft spring-moan of
+the sea.  Captain Jim's mayflowers added the last
+completing touch to the charm of the night.
+
+"I haven't seen any this spring, and I've missed
+them," said Anne, burying her face in them.
+
+"They ain't to be found around Four Winds, only in the
+barrens away behind the Glen up yander.  I took a
+little trip today to the Land-of-nothing-to-do, and
+hunted these up for you.  I reckon they're the last
+you'll see this spring, for they're nearly done."
+
+"How kind and thoughtful you are, Captain Jim.  Nobody
+else-- not even Gilbert"--with a shake of her head at
+him--"remembered that I always long for mayflowers in
+spring."
+
+"Well, I had another errand, too--I wanted to take Mr.
+Howard back yander a mess of trout.  He likes one
+occasional, and it's all I can do for a kindness he did
+me once.  I stayed all the afternoon and talked to him. 
+He likes to talk to me, though he's a highly eddicated
+man and I'm only an ignorant old sailor, because he's
+one of the folks that's GOT to talk or they're
+miserable, and he finds listeners scarce around here. 
+The Glen folks fight shy of him because they think he's
+an infidel.  He ain't that far gone exactly--few men
+is, I reckon--but he's what you might call a heretic. 
+Heretics are wicked, but they're mighty int'resting. 
+It's jest that they've got sorter lost looking for
+God, being under the impression that He's hard to
+find--which He ain't never.  Most of 'em blunder to Him
+after awhile, I guess.  I don't think listening to Mr.
+Howard's arguments is likely to do me much harm.  Mind
+you, I believe what I was brought up to believe.  It
+saves a vast of bother--and back of it all, God is
+good.  The trouble with Mr. Howard is that he's a
+leetle TOO clever.  He thinks that he's bound to live
+up to his cleverness, and that it's smarter to thrash
+out some new way of getting to heaven than to go by the
+old track the common, ignorant folks is travelling. 
+But he'll get there sometime all right, and then he'll
+laugh at himself."
+
+"Mr. Howard was a Methodist to begin with," said Miss
+Cornelia, as if she thought he had not far to go from
+that to heresy.
+
+"Do you know, Cornelia," said Captain Jim gravely,
+"I've often thought that if I wasn't a Presbyterian I'd
+be a Methodist."
+
+"Oh, well," conceded Miss Cornelia, "if you weren't a
+Presbyterian it wouldn't matter much what you were. 
+Speaking of heresy, reminds me, doctor--I've brought
+back that book you lent me--that Natural Law in the
+Spiritual World--I didn't read more'n a third of it.  I
+can read sense, and I can read nonsense, but that book
+is neither the one nor the other."
+
+"It IS considered rather heretical in some quarters,"
+admitted Gilbert, "but I told you that before you took
+it, Miss Cornelia."
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't have minded its being heretical.  I can
+stand wickedness, but I can't stand foolishness," said
+Miss Cornelia calmly, and with the air of having said
+the last thing there was to say about Natural Law.
+
+"Speaking of books, A Mad Love come to an end at last
+two weeks ago," remarked Captain Jim musingly.  "It
+run to one hundred and three chapters.  When they got
+married the book stopped right off, so I reckon their
+troubles were all over.  It's real nice that that's the
+way in books anyhow, isn't it, even if 'tistn't so
+anywhere else?"
+
+"I never read novels," said Miss Cornelia.  "Did you
+hear how Geordie Russell was today, Captain Jim?"
+
+"Yes, I called in on my way home to see him.  He's
+getting round all right--but stewing in a broth of
+trouble, as usual, poor man.
+
+'Course he brews up most of it for himself, but I
+reckon that don't make it any easier to bear."
+
+"He's an awful pessimist," said Miss Cornelia.
+
+"Well, no, he ain't a pessimist exactly, Cornelia.  He
+only jest never finds anything that suits him."
+
+"And isn't that a pessimist?"
+
+"No, no.  A pessimist is one who never expects to find
+anything to suit him.  Geordie hain't got THAT far
+yet."
+
+"You'd find something good to say of the devil himself,
+Jim Boyd."
+
+"Well, you've heard the story of the old lady who said
+he was persevering.  But no, Cornelia, I've nothing
+good to say of the devil."
+
+"Do you believe in him at all?" asked Miss Cornelia
+seriously.
+
+"How can you ask that when you know what a good
+Presbyterian I am, Cornelia?  How could a Presbyterian
+get along without a devil?"
+
+"DO you?" persisted Miss Cornelia.
+
+Captain Jim suddenly became grave.
+
+"I believe in what I heard a minister once call `a
+mighty and malignant and INTELLIGENT power of evil
+working in the universe,'" he said solemnly.  "I do
+THAT, Cornelia.  You can call it the devil, or the
+`principle of evil,' or the Old Scratch, or any name
+you like.  It's THERE, and all the infidels and
+heretics in the world can't argue it away, any more'n
+they can argue God away.  It's there, and it's
+working.  But, mind you, Cornelia, I believe it's going
+to get the worst of it in the long run."
+
+"I am sure I hope so," said Miss Cornelia, none too
+hopefully. "But speaking of the devil, I am positive
+that Billy Booth is possessed by him now.  Have you
+heard of Billy's latest performance?"
+
+"No, what was that?"
+
+"He's gone and burned up his wife's new, brown
+broadcloth suit, that she paid twenty-five dollars for
+in Charlottetown, because he declares the men looked
+too admiring at her when she wore it to church the
+first time.  Wasn't that like a man?"
+
+"Mistress Booth IS mighty pretty, and brown's her
+color," said Captain Jim reflectively.
+
+"Is that any good reason why he should poke her new
+suit into the kitchen stove?  Billy Booth is a jealous
+fool, and he makes his wife's life miserable.  She's
+cried all the week about her suit.  Oh, Anne, I wish I
+could write like you, believe ME.  Wouldn't I score
+some of the men round here!"
+
+"Those Booths are all a mite queer," said Captain Jim. 
+"Billy seemed the sanest of the lot till he got married
+and then this queer jealous streak cropped out in him. 
+His brother Daniel, now, was always odd."
+
+"Took tantrums every few days or so and wouldn't get
+out of bed," said Miss Cornelia with a relish.  "His
+wife would have to do all the barn work till he got
+over his spell.  When he died people wrote her letters
+of condolence; if I'd written anything it would have
+been one of congratulation.  Their father, old Abram
+Booth, was a disgusting old sot.  He was drunk at his
+wife's funeral, and kept reeling round and hiccuping `I
+didn't dri--i--i--nk much but I feel a--a-- awfully
+que--e--e--r.'  I gave him a good jab in the back with
+my umbrella when he came near me, and it sobered him up
+until they got the casket out of the house.  Young
+Johnny Booth was to have been married yesterday, but
+he couldn't be because he's gone and got the mumps. 
+Wasn't that like a man?"
+
+"How could he help getting the mumps, poor fellow?"
+
+"I'd poor fellow him, believe ME, if I was Kate Sterns. 
+I don't know how he could help getting the mumps, but I
+DO know the wedding supper was all prepared and
+everything will be spoiled before he's well again. 
+Such a waste!  He should have had the mumps when he was
+a boy."
+
+"Come, come, Cornelia, don't you think you're a mite
+unreasonable?"
+
+Miss Cornelia disdained to reply and turned instead to
+Susan Baker, a grim-faced, kind-hearted elderly
+spinster of the Glen, who had been installed as
+maid-of-all-work at the little house for some weeks. 
+Susan had been up to the Glen to make a sick call, and
+had just returned.
+
+"How is poor old Aunt Mandy tonight?" asked Miss
+Cornelia.
+
+Susan sighed.
+
+"Very poorly--very poorly, Cornelia.  I am afraid she
+will soon be in heaven, poor thing!"
+
+"Oh, surely, it's not so bad as that!" exclaimed Miss
+Cornelia, sympathetically .
+
+Captain Jim and Gilbert looked at each other.  Then
+they suddenly rose and went out.
+
+"There are times," said Captain Jim, between spasms,
+"when it would be a sin NOT to laugh.  Them two
+excellent women!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 19
+
+DAWN AND DUSK
+
+In early June, when the sand hills were a great glory
+of pink wild roses, and the Glen was smothered in apple
+blossoms, Marilla arrived at the little house,
+accompanied by a black horsehair trunk, patterned with
+brass nails, which had reposed undisturbed in the Green
+Gables garret for half a century.  Susan Baker, who,
+during her few weeks' sojourn in the little house, had
+come to worship "young Mrs. Doctor," as she called
+Anne, with blind fervor, looked rather jealously
+askance at Marilla at first.  But as Marilla did not
+try to interfere in kitchen matters, and showed no
+desire to interrupt Susan's ministrations to young Mrs.
+Doctor, the good handmaiden became reconciled to her
+presence, and told her cronies at the Glen that Miss
+Cuthbert was a fine old lady and knew her place.
+
+One evening, when the sky's limpid bowl was filled with
+a red glory, and the robins were thrilling the golden
+twilight with jubilant hymns to the stars of evening,
+there was a sudden commotion in the little house of
+dreams.  Telephone messages were sent up to the Glen,
+Doctor Dave and a white-capped nurse came hastily down,
+Marilla paced the garden walks between the quahog
+shells, murmuring prayers between her set lips, and
+Susan sat in the kitchen with cotton wool in her ears
+and her apron over her head.
+
+Leslie, looking out from the house up the brook, saw
+that every window of the little house was alight, and
+did not sleep that night.
+
+The June night was short; but it seemed an eternity to
+those who waited and watched.
+
+"Oh, will it NEVER end?" said Marilla; then she saw
+how grave the nurse and Doctor Dave looked, and she
+dared ask no more questions.  Suppose Anne--but Marilla
+could not suppose it.
+
+"Do not tell me," said Susan fiercely, answering the
+anguish in Marilla's eyes, "that God could be so cruel
+as to take that darling lamb from us when we all love
+her so much."
+
+"He has taken others as well beloved," said Marilla
+hoarsely.
+
+But at dawn, when the rising sun rent apart the mists
+hanging over the sandbar, and made rainbows of them,
+joy came to the little house.  Anne was safe, and a
+wee, white lady, with her mother's big eyes, was lying
+beside her.  Gilbert, his face gray and haggard from
+his night's agony, came down to tell Marilla and Susan.
+
+"Thank God," shuddered Marilla.
+
+Susan got up and took the cotton wool out of her ears.
+
+"Now for breakfast," she said briskly.  "I am of the
+opinion that we will all be glad of a bite and sup. 
+You tell young Mrs. Doctor not to worry about a single
+thing--Susan is at the helm.  You tell her just to
+think of her baby."
+
+Gilbert smiled rather sadly as he went away.  Anne, her
+pale face blanched with its baptism of pain, her eyes
+aglow with the holy passion of motherhood, did not need
+to be told to think of her baby.  She thought of
+nothing else.  For a few hours she tasted of happiness
+so rare and exquisite that she wondered if the angels
+in heaven did not envy her.
+
+"Little Joyce," she murmured, when Marilla came in to
+see the baby.  "We planned to call her that if she were
+a girlie.  There were so many we would have liked to
+name her for; we couldn't choose between them, so we
+decided on Joyce--we can call her Joy for
+short--Joy--it suits so well.  Oh, Marilla, I thought I
+was happy before.  Now I know that I just dreamed a
+pleasant dream of happiness.  THIS is the reality."
+
+"You mustn't talk, Anne--wait till you're stronger,"
+said Marilla warningly.
+
+"You know how hard it is for me NOT to talk," smiled
+Anne.
+
+At first she was too weak and too happy to notice that
+Gilbert and the nurse looked grave and Marilla
+sorrowful.  Then, as subtly, and coldly, and
+remorselessly as a sea-fog stealing landward, fear
+crept into her heart.  Why was not Gilbert gladder? 
+Why would he not talk about the baby?  Why would they
+not let her have it with her after that first
+heavenly--happy hour?  Was--was there anything wrong?
+
+"Gilbert," whispered Anne imploringly, "the baby--is
+all right--isn't she?  Tell me--tell me."
+
+Gilbert was a long while in turning round; then he bent
+over Anne and looked in her eyes.  Marilla, listening
+fearfully outside the door, heard a pitiful,
+heartbroken moan, and fled to the kitchen where Susan
+was weeping.
+
+"Oh, the poor lamb--the poor lamb!  How can she bear
+it, Miss Cuthbert?  I am afraid it will kill her.  She
+has been that built up and happy, longing for that
+baby, and planning for it.  Cannot anything be done
+nohow, Miss Cuthbert?"
+
+"I'm afraid not, Susan.  Gilbert says there is no hope. 
+He knew from the first the little thing couldn't
+live."
+
+"And it is such a sweet baby," sobbed Susan.  "I never
+saw one so white--they are mostly red or yallow.  And
+it opened its big eyes as if it was months old.  The
+little, little thing!  Oh, the poor, young Mrs.
+Doctor!"
+
+At sunset the little soul that had come with the
+dawning went away, leaving heartbreak behind it.  Miss
+Cornelia took the wee, white lady from the kindly but
+stranger hands of the nurse, and dressed the tiny
+waxen form in the beautiful dress Leslie had made for
+it.  Leslie had asked her to do that.  Then she took it
+back and laid it beside the poor, broken, tear-blinded
+little mother.
+
+"The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away,
+dearie," she said through her own tears.  "Blessed be
+the name of the Lord."
+
+Then she went away, leaving Anne and Gilbert alone
+together with their dead.
+
+The next day, the small white Joy was laid in a velvet
+casket which Leslie had lined with apple-blossoms, and
+taken to the graveyard of the church across the harbor. 
+Miss Cornelia and Marilla put all the little love-made
+garments away, together with the ruffled basket which
+had been befrilled and belaced for dimpled limbs and
+downy head.  Little Joy was never to sleep there; she
+had found a colder, narrower bed.
+
+"This has been an awful disappointment to me," sighed
+Miss Cornelia.  "I've looked forward to this baby--and
+I did want it to be a girl, too."
+
+"I can only be thankful that Anne's life was spared,"
+said Marilla, with a shiver, recalling those hours of
+darkness when the girl she loved was passing through
+the valley of the shadow.
+
+"Poor, poor lamb!  Her heart is broken," said Susan.
+
+"I ENVY Anne," said Leslie suddenly and fiercely, "and
+I'd envy her even if she had died!  She was a mother
+for one beautiful day.  I'd gladly give my life for
+THAT!"
+
+"I wouldn't talk like that, Leslie, dearie," said Miss
+Cornelia deprecatingly.  She was afraid that the
+dignified Miss Cuthbert would think Leslie quite
+terrible.
+
+Anne's convalescence was long, and made bitter for her
+by many things.  The bloom and sunshine of the Four
+Winds world grated harshly on her; and yet, when the
+rain fell heavily, she pictured it beating so
+mercilessly down on that little grave across the
+harbor; and when the wind blew around the eaves she
+heard sad voices in it she had never heard before.
+
+Kindly callers hurt her, too, with the well-meant
+platitudes with which they strove to cover the
+nakedness of bereavement.  A letter from Phil Blake was
+an added sting.  Phil had heard of the baby's birth,
+but not of its death, and she wrote Anne a
+congratulatory letter of sweet mirth which hurt her
+horribly.
+
+"I would have laughed over it so happily if I had my
+baby," she sobbed to Marilla.  "But when I haven't it
+just seems like wanton cruelty--though I know Phil
+wouldn't hurt me for the world.  Oh, Marilla, I don't
+see how I can EVER be happy again--EVERYTHING will
+hurt me all the rest of my life."
+
+"Time will help you," said Marilla, who was racked
+with sympathy but could never learn to express it in
+other than age-worn formulas.
+
+"It doesn't seem FAIR," said Anne rebelliously. 
+"Babies are born and live where they are not
+wanted--where they will be neglected-- where they will
+have no chance.  I would have loved my baby so--and
+cared for it so tenderly--and tried to give her every
+chance for good.  And yet I wasn't allowed to keep
+her."
+
+"It was God's will, Anne," said Marilla, helpless
+before the riddle of the universe--the WHY of
+undeserved pain.  "And little Joy is better off."
+
+"I can't believe THAT," cried Anne bitterly.  Then,
+seeing that Marilla looked shocked, she added
+passionately, "Why should she be born at all--why
+should any one be born at all--if she's better off
+dead?  I DON'T believe it is better for a child to die
+at birth than to live its life out--and love and be
+loved--and enjoy and suffer--and do its work--and
+develop a character that would give it a personality in
+eternity.  And how do you know it was God's will? 
+Perhaps it was just a thwarting of His purpose by the
+Power of Evil.  We can't be expected to be resigned to
+THAT."
+
+"Oh, Anne, don't talk so," said Marilla, genuinely
+alarmed lest Anne were drifting into deep and dangerous
+waters.  "We can't understand--but we must have
+faith--we MUST believe that all is for the best.  I
+know you find it hard to think so, just now.  But try
+to be brave--for Gilbert's sake.  He's so worried about
+you.  You aren't getting strong as fast as you
+should."
+
+"Oh, I know I've been very selfish," sighed Anne.  "I
+love Gilbert more than ever--and I want to live for his
+sake.  But it seems as if part of me was buried over
+there in that little harbor graveyard-- and it hurts so
+much that I'm afraid of life."
+
+"It won't hurt so much always, Anne."
+
+"The thought that it may stop hurting sometimes hurts
+me worse than all else, Marilla."
+
+"Yes, I know, I've felt that too, about other things. 
+But we all love you, Anne.  Captain Jim has been up
+every day to ask for you--and Mrs. Moore haunts the
+place--and Miss Bryant spends most of her time, I
+think, cooking up nice things for you.  Susan doesn't
+like it very well.  She thinks she can cook as well as
+Miss Bryant."
+
+"Dear Susan!  Oh, everybody has been so dear and good
+and lovely to me, Marilla.  I'm not ungrateful--and
+perhaps--when this horrible ache grows a little
+less--I'll find that I can go on living."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 20
+
+LOST MARGARET
+
+Anne found that she could go on living; the day came
+when she even smiled again over one of Miss Cornelia's
+speeches.  But there was something in the smile that
+had never been in Anne's smile before and would never
+be absent from it again.
+
+On the first day she was able to go for a drive Gilbert
+took her down to Four Winds Point, and left her there
+while he rowed over the channel to see a patient at the
+fishing village.  A rollicking wind was scudding across
+the harbor and the dunes, whipping the water into
+white-caps and washing the sandshore with long lines of
+silvery breakers.
+
+"I'm real proud to see you here again, Mistress
+Blythe," said Captain Jim.  "Sit down--sit down.  I'm
+afeared it's mighty dusty here today--but there's no
+need of looking at dust when you can look at such
+scenery, is there?"
+
+"I don't mind the dust," said Anne, "but Gilbert says
+I must keep in the open air.  I think I'll go and sit
+on the rocks down there."
+
+"Would you like company or would you rather be alone?"
+
+"If by company you mean yours I'd much rather have it
+than be alone," said Anne, smiling.  Then she sighed. 
+She had never before minded being alone.  Now she
+dreaded it.  When she was alone now she felt so
+dreadfully alone.
+
+"Here's a nice little spot where the wind can't get at
+you," said Captain Jim, when they reached the rocks. 
+"I often sit here.  It's a great place jest to sit and
+dream."
+
+"Oh--dreams," sighed Anne.  "I can't dream now,
+Captain Jim--I'm done with dreams."
+
+"Oh, no, you're not, Mistress Blythe--oh, no, you're
+not," said Captain Jim meditatively.  "I know how you
+feel jest now--but if you keep on living you'll get
+glad again, and the first thing you know you'll be
+dreaming again--thank the good Lord for it!  If it
+wasn't for our dreams they might as well bury us. 
+How'd we stand living if it wasn't for our dream of
+immortality?  And that's a dream that's BOUND to come
+true, Mistress Blythe.  You'll see your little Joyce
+again some day."
+
+"But she won't be my baby," said Anne, with trembling
+lips.  "Oh, she may be, as Longfellow says, `a fair
+maiden clothed with celestial grace'--but she'll be a
+stranger to me."
+
+"God will manage better'n THAT, I believe," said
+Captain Jim.
+
+They were both silent for a little time.  Then Captain
+Jim said very softly:
+
+"Mistress Blythe, may I tell you about lost Margaret?"
+
+"Of course," said Anne gently.  She did not know who
+"lost Margaret" was, but she felt that she was going
+to hear the romance of Captain Jim's life.
+
+"I've often wanted to tell you about her," Captain Jim
+went on.
+
+"Do you know why, Mistress Blythe?  It's because I want
+somebody to remember and think of her sometime after
+I'm gone.  I can't bear that her name should be
+forgotten by all living souls.  And now nobody
+remembers lost Margaret but me."
+
+Then Captain Jim told the story--an old, old forgotten
+story, for it was over fifty years since Margaret had
+fallen asleep one day in her father's dory and
+drifted--or so it was supposed, for nothing was ever
+certainly known as to her fate--out of the channel,
+beyond the bar, to perish in the black thundersquall
+which had come up so suddenly that long-ago summer
+afternoon.  But to Captain Jim those fifty years were
+but as yesterday when it is past.
+
+"I walked the shore for months after that," he said
+sadly, "looking to find her dear, sweet little body;
+but the sea never give her back to me.  But I'll find
+her sometime, Mistress Blythe--I'll find her sometime . 
+She's waiting for me.  I wish I could tell you jest how
+she looked, but I can't.  I've seen a fine, silvery
+mist hanging over the bar at sunrise that seemed like
+her--and then again I've seen a white birch in the
+woods back yander that made me think of her.  She had
+pale, brown hair and a little white, sweet face, and
+long slender fingers like yours, Mistress Blythe, only
+browner, for she was a shore girl.  Sometimes I wake up
+in the night and hear the sea calling to me in the old
+way, and it seems as if lost Margaret called in it. 
+And when there's a storm and the waves are sobbing and
+moaning I hear her lamenting among them.  And when they
+laugh on a gay day it's HER laugh--lost Margaret's
+sweet, roguish, little laugh.  The sea took her from
+me, but some day I'll find her.  Mistress Blythe.  It
+can't keep us apart forever."
+
+"I am glad you have told me about her," said Anne.  "I
+have often wondered why you had lived all your life
+alone."
+
+"I couldn't ever care for anyone else.  Lost Margaret
+took my heart with her--out there," said the old
+lover, who had been faithful for fifty years to his
+drowned sweetheart.  "You won't mind if I talk a good
+deal about her, will you, Mistress Blythe?  It's a
+pleasure to me--for all the pain went out of her memory
+years ago and jest left its blessing.  I know you'll
+never forget her, Mistress Blythe.  And if the years,
+as I hope, bring other little folks to your home, I
+want you to promise me that you'll tell THEM the story
+of lost Margaret, so that her name won't be forgotten
+among humankind."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 21
+
+BARRIERS SWEPT AWAY
+
+ "Anne," said Leslie, breaking abruptly a short
+silence, "you don't know how GOOD it is to be sitting
+here with you again--working-- and talking--and being
+silent together."
+
+They were sitting among the blue-eyed grasses on the
+bank of the brook in Anne's garden.  The water sparkled
+and crooned past them; the birches threw dappled
+shadows over them; roses bloomed along the walks.  The
+sun was beginning to be low, and the air was full of
+woven music.  There was one music of the wind in the
+firs behind the house, and another of the waves on the
+bar, and still another from the distant bell of the
+church near which the wee, white lady slept.  Anne
+loved that bell, though it brought sorrowful thoughts
+now.
+
+She looked curiously at Leslie, who had thrown down her
+sewing and spoken with a lack of restraint that was
+very unusual with her.
+
+"On that horrible night when you were so ill," Leslie
+went on, "I kept thinking that perhaps we'd have no
+more talks and walks and WORKS together.  And I
+realised just what your friendship had come to mean to
+me--just what YOU meant--and just what a hateful little
+beast I had been."
+
+"Leslie!  Leslie!  I never allow anyone to call my
+friends names."
+
+"It's true.  That's exactly what I am--a hateful little
+beast. There's something I've GOT to tell you, Anne.  I
+suppose it will make you despise me, but I MUST confess
+it.  Anne, there have been times this past winter and
+spring when I have HATED you."
+
+"I KNEW it," said Anne calmly.
+
+"You KNEW it?"
+
+"Yes, I saw it in your eyes."
+
+" And yet you went on liking me and being my friend."
+
+"Well, it was only now and then you hated me, Leslie. 
+Between times you loved me, I think."
+
+"I certainly did.  But that other horrid feeling was
+always there, spoiling it, back in my heart.  I kept it
+down--sometimes I forgot it-- but sometimes it would
+surge up and take possession of me.  I hated you
+because I ENVIED you--oh, I was sick with envy of you
+at times.  You had a dear little home--and love--and
+happiness--and glad dreams--everything I wanted--and
+never had--and never could have.  Oh, never could have! 
+THAT was what stung.  I wouldn't have envied you, if I
+had had any HOPE that life would ever be different for
+me.  But I hadn't--I hadn't--and it didn't seem FAIR. 
+It made me rebellious--and it hurt me--and so I hated
+you at times.  Oh, I was so ashamed of it--I'm dying of
+shame now--but I couldn't conquer it.
+
+That night, when I was afraid you mightn't live--I
+thought I was going to be punished for my
+wickedness--and I loved you so then.  Anne, Anne, I
+never had anything to love since my mother died, except
+Dick's old dog--and it's so dreadful to have nothing to
+love--life is so EMPTY--and there's NOTHING worse than
+emptiness-- and I might have loved you so much--and
+that horrible thing had spoiled it--"
+
+Leslie was trembling and growing almost incoherent with
+the violence of her emotion.
+
+"Don't, Leslie," implored Anne, "oh, don't.  I
+understand-- don't talk of it any more."
+
+"I must--I must.  When I knew you were going to live I
+vowed that I would tell you as soon as you were
+well--that I wouldn't go on accepting your friendship
+and companionship without telling you how unworthy I
+was of it.  And I've been so afraid--it would turn you
+against me."
+
+"You needn't fear that, Leslie."
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad--so glad, Anne."  Leslie clasped her
+brown, work-hardened hands tightly together to still
+their shaking.  "But I want to tell you everything, now
+I've begun.  You don't remember the first time I saw
+you, I suppose--it wasn't that night on the shore--"
+
+"No, it was the night Gilbert and I came home.  You
+were driving your geese down the hill.  I should think
+I DO remember it!  I thought you were so beautiful--I
+longed for weeks after to find out who you were."
+
+"I knew who YOU were, although I had never seen either
+of you before.  I had heard of the new doctor and his
+bride who were coming to live in Miss Russell's little
+house.  I--I hated you that very moment, Anne."
+
+"I felt the resentment in your eyes--then I doubted--I
+thought I must be mistaken--because WHY should it be?"
+
+"It was because you looked so happy.  Oh, you'll agree
+with me now that I AM a hateful beast--to hate another
+woman just because she was happy,--and when her
+happiness didn't take anything from me!  That was why I
+never went to see you.  I knew quite well I ought to
+go--even our simple Four Winds customs demanded that. 
+But I couldn't.  I used to watch you from my window--I
+could see you and your husband strolling about your
+garden in the evening--or you running down the poplar
+lane to meet him.  And it hurt me.  And yet in another
+way I wanted to go over.  I felt that, if I were not so
+miserable, I could have liked you and found in you what
+I've never had in my life--an intimate, REAL friend of
+my own age.  And then you remember that night at the
+shore?  You were afraid I would think you crazy.  You
+must have thought _I_ was."
+
+"No, but I couldn't understand you, Leslie.  One moment
+you drew me to you--the next you pushed me back."
+
+"I was very unhappy that evening.  I had had a hard
+day.  Dick had been very--very hard to manage that day. 
+Generally he is quite good-natured and easily
+controlled, you know, Anne.  But some days he is very
+different.  I was so heartsick--I ran away to the shore
+as soon as he went to sleep.  It was my only refuge.  I
+sat there thinking of how my poor father had ended his
+life, and wondering if I wouldn't be driven to it some
+day.  Oh, my heart was full of black thoughts!  And
+then you came dancing along the cove like a glad,
+light-hearted child.  I--I hated you more then than
+I've ever done since.  And yet I craved your
+friendship.  The one feeling swayed me one moment; the
+other feeling the next.  When I got home that night I
+cried for shame of what you must think of me.  But it's
+always been just the same when I came over here. 
+Sometimes I'd be happy and enjoy my visit.  And at
+other times that hideous feeling would mar it all. 
+There were times when everything about you and your
+house hurt me.  You had so many dear little things I
+couldn't have.  Do you know--it's ridiculous-- but I
+had an especial spite at those china dogs of yours. 
+There were times when I wanted to catch up Gog and
+Magog and bang their pert black noses together!  Oh,
+you smile, Anne--but it was never funny to me.  I would
+come here and see you and Gilbert with your books and
+your flowers, and your household goods, and your little
+family jokes--and your love for each other showing in
+every look and word, even when you didn't know it--and
+I would go home to--you know what I went home to!  Oh,
+Anne, I don't believe I'm jealous and envious by
+nature.  When I was a girl I lacked many things my
+schoolmates had, but I never cared--I never disliked
+them for it.  But I seem to have grown so hateful--"
+
+"Leslie, dearest, stop blaming yourself.  You are NOT
+hateful or jealous or envious.  The life you have to
+live has warped you a little, perhaps-but it would have
+ruined a nature less fine and noble than yours.  I'm
+letting you tell me all this because I believe it's
+better for you to talk it out and rid your soul of it. 
+But don't blame yourself any more."
+
+"Well, I won't.  I just wanted you to know me as I am. 
+That time you told me of your darling hope for the
+spring was the worst of all, Anne.  I shall never
+forgive myself for the way I behaved then.  I repented
+it with tears.  And I DID put many a tender and loving
+thought of you into the little dress I made.  But I
+might have known that anything I made could only be a
+shroud in the end."
+
+"Now, Leslie, that IS bitter and morbid--put such
+thoughts away.
+
+I was so glad when you brought the little dress; and
+since I had to lose little Joyce I like to think that
+the dress she wore was the one you made for her when
+you let yourself love me."
+
+"Anne, do you know, I believe I shall always love you
+after this.  I don't think I'll ever feel that dreadful
+way about you again.  Talking it all out seems to have
+done away with it, somehow.  It's very strange --and I
+thought it so real and bitter.  It's like opening the
+door of a dark room to show some hideous creature
+you've believed to be there--and when the light streams
+in your monster turns out to have been just a shadow,
+vanishing when the light comes.  It will never come
+between us again."
+
+"No, we are real friends now, Leslie, and I am very
+glad."
+
+"I hope you won't misunderstand me if I say something
+else.  Anne, I was grieved to the core of my heart when
+you lost your baby; and if I could have saved her for
+you by cutting off one of my hands I would have done
+it.  But your sorrow has brought us closer together. 
+Your perfect happiness isn't a barrier any longer.  Oh,
+don't misunderstand, dearest--I'm NOT glad that your
+happiness isn't perfect any longer--I can say that
+sincerely; but since it isn't, there isn't such a gulf
+between us."
+
+"I DO understand that, too, Leslie.  Now, we'll just
+shut up the past and forget what was unpleasant in it. 
+It's all going to be different.  We're both of the race
+of Joseph now.  I think you've been wonderful
+--wonderful.  And, Leslie, I can't help believing that
+life has something good and beautiful for you yet."
+
+Leslie shook her head.
+
+"No," she said dully.  "There isn't any hope.  Dick
+will never be better--and even if his memory were to
+come back--oh, Anne, it would be worse, even worse,
+than it is now.  This is something you can't
+understand, you happy bride.  Anne, did Miss Cornelia
+ever tell you how I came to marry Dick?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'm glad--I wanted you to know--but I couldn't bring
+myself to talk of it if you hadn't known.  Anne, it
+seems to me that ever since I was twelve years old life
+has been bitter.  Before that I had a happy childhood. 
+We were very poor--but we didn't mind.  Father was so
+splendid--so clever and loving and sympathetic.  We
+were chums as far back as I can remember.  And mother
+was so sweet.  She was very, very beautiful.  I look
+like her, but I am not so beautiful as she was."
+
+"Miss Cornelia says you are far more beautiful."
+
+"She is mistaken--or prejudiced.  I think my figure IS
+better-- mother was slight and bent by hard work--but
+she had the face of an angel.  I used just to look up
+at her in worship.  We all worshipped her,--father and
+Kenneth and I."
+
+Anne remembered that Miss Cornelia had given her a very
+different impression of Leslie's mother.  But had not
+love the truer vision?  Still, it WAS selfish of Rose
+West to make her daughter marry Dick Moore.
+
+"Kenneth was my brother," went on Leslie.  "Oh, I
+can't tell you how I loved him.  And he was cruelly
+killed.  Do you know how?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Anne, I saw his little face as the wheel went over
+him.  He fell on his back.  Anne--Anne--I can see it
+now.  I shall always see it.  Anne, all I ask of heaven
+is that that recollection shall be blotted out of my
+memory.  O my God!"
+
+"Leslie, don't speak of it.  I know the story--don't go
+into details that only harrow your soul up
+unavailingly.  It WILL be blotted out."
+
+After a moment's struggle, Leslie regained a measure of
+self- control.
+
+"Then father's health got worse and he grew
+despondent--his mind became unbalanced--you've heard
+all that, too?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"After that I had just mother to live for.  But I was
+very ambitious.  I meant to teach and earn my way
+through college.  I meant to climb to the very top--oh,
+I won't talk of that either.  It's no use.  You know
+what happened.  I couldn't see my dear little
+heart-broken mother, who had been such a slave all her
+life, turned out of her home.  Of course, I could have
+earned enough for us to live on.  But mother COULDN'T
+leave her home.  She had come there as a bride--and she
+had loved father so--and all her memories were there. 
+Even yet, Anne, when I think that I made her last year
+happy I'm not sorry for what I did.  As for Dick--I
+didn't hate him when I married him--I just felt for him
+the indifferent, friendly feeling I had for most of my
+schoolmates.  I knew he drank some--but I had never
+heard the story of the girl down at the fishing cove. 
+If I had, I COULDN'T have married him, even for
+mother's sake.  Afterwards--I DID hate him--but mother
+never knew.  She died--and then I was alone.  I was
+only seventeen and I was alone.  Dick had gone off in
+the Four Sisters.  I hoped he wouldn't be home very
+much more.  The sea had always been in his blood.  I
+had no other hope.  Well, Captain Jim brought him home,
+as you know--and that's all there is to say.  You know
+me now, Anne--the worst of me--the barriers are all
+down.  And you still want to be my friend?"
+
+Anne looked up through the birches, at the white
+paper-lantern of a half moon drifting downwards to the
+gulf of sunset.  Her face was very sweet.
+
+"I am your friend and you are mine, for always," she
+said.  "Such a friend as I never had before.  I have
+had many dear and beloved friends--but there is a
+something in you, Leslie, that I never found in anyone
+else.  You have more to offer me in that rich nature of
+yours, and I have more to give you than I had in my
+careless girlhood.  We are both women--and friends
+forever."
+
+They clasped hands and smiled at each other through the
+tears that filled the gray eyes and the blue.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 22
+
+MISS CORNELIA ARRANGES MATTERS
+
+Gilbert insisted that Susan should be kept on at the
+little house for the summer.  Anne protested at first.
+
+"Life here with just the two of us is so sweet,
+Gilbert.  It spoils it a little to have anyone else. 
+Susan is a dear soul, but she is an outsider.  It won't
+hurt me to do the work here."
+
+"You must take your doctor's advice," said Gilbert. 
+"There's an old proverb to the effect that shoemakers'
+wives go barefoot and doctors' wives die young.  I
+don't mean that it shall be true in my household.  You
+will keep Susan until the old spring comes back into
+your step, and those little hollows on your cheeks fill
+out."
+
+"You just take it easy, Mrs. Doctor, dear," said
+Susan, coming abruptly in.  "Have a good time and do
+not worry about the pantry.  Susan is at the helm. 
+There is no use in keeping a dog and doing your own
+barking.  I am going to take your breakfast up to you
+every morning."
+
+"Indeed you are not," laughed Anne.  "I agree with
+Miss Cornelia that it's a scandal for a woman who isn't
+sick to eat her breakfast in bed, and almost justifies
+the men in any enormities."
+
+"Oh, Cornelia!" said Susan, with ineffable contempt. 
+"I think you have better sense, Mrs. Doctor, dear, than
+to heed what Cornelia Bryant says.  I cannot see why
+she must be always running down the men, even if she is
+an old maid.  _I_ am an old maid, but you never hear ME
+abusing the men.  I like 'em.  I would have married one
+if I could.  Is it not funny nobody ever asked me to
+marry him, Mrs. Doctor, dear?  I am no beauty, but I am
+as good-looking as most of the married women you see. 
+But I never had a beau.  What do you suppose is the
+reason?"
+
+"It may be predestination," suggested Anne, with
+unearthly solemnity.
+
+Susan nodded.
+
+"That is what I have often thought, Mrs. Doctor, dear,
+and a great comfort it is.  I do not mind nobody
+wanting me if the Almighty decreed it so for His own
+wise purposes.  But sometimes doubt creeps in, Mrs.
+Doctor, dear, and I wonder if maybe the Old Scratch has
+not more to do with it than anyone else.  I cannot feel
+resigned THEN.  But maybe," added Susan, brightening
+up, "I will have a chance to get married yet.  I often
+and often think of the old verse my aunt used to
+repeat:
+
+There never was a goose so gray but sometime soon or
+late Some honest gander came her way and took her for
+his mate!
+
+A woman cannot ever be sure of not being married till
+she is buried, Mrs. Doctor, dear, and meanwhile I will
+make a batch of cherry pies.  I notice the doctor
+favors 'em, and I DO like cooking for a man who
+appreciates his victuals."
+
+Miss Cornelia dropped in that afternoon, puffing a
+little.
+
+"I don't mind the world or the devil much, but the
+flesh DOES rather bother me," she admitted.  "You
+always look as cool as a cucumber, Anne, dearie.  Do I
+smell cherry pie?  If I do, ask me to stay to tea. 
+Haven't tasted a cherry pie this summer.  My cherries
+have all been stolen by those scamps of Gilman boys
+from the Glen."
+
+"Now, now, Cornelia," remonstrated Captain Jim, who
+had been reading a sea novel in a corner of the living
+room, "you shouldn't say that about those two poor,
+motherless Gilman boys, unless you've got certain
+proof.  Jest because their father ain't none too honest
+isn't any reason for calling them thieves.  It's more
+likely it's been the robins took your cherries. 
+They're turrible thick this year."
+
+"Robins!" said Miss Cornelia disdainfully.  "Humph! 
+Two- legged robins, believe ME!"
+
+"Well, most of the Four Winds robins ARE constructed on
+that principle," said Captain Jim gravely.
+
+Miss Cornelia stared at him for a moment.  Then she
+leaned back in her rocker and laughed long and
+ungrudgingly.
+
+"Well, you HAVE got one on me at last, Jim Boyd, I'll
+admit.  Just look how pleased he is, Anne, dearie,
+grinning like a Chessy-cat.  As for the robins' legs if
+robins have great, big, bare, sunburned legs, with
+ragged trousers hanging on 'em, such as I saw up in my
+cherry tree one morning at sunrise last week, I'll beg
+the Gilman boys' pardon.  By the time I got down they
+were gone.  I couldn't understand how they had
+disappeared so quick, but Captain Jim has enlightened
+me.  They flew away, of course."
+
+Captain Jim laughed and went away, regretfully
+declining an invitation to stay to supper and partake
+of cherry pie.
+
+"I'm on my way to see Leslie and ask her if she'll take
+a boarder," Miss Cornelia resumed.  "I'd a letter
+yesterday from a Mrs. Daly in Toronto, who boarded a
+spell with me two years ago.  She wanted me to take a
+friend of hers for the summer.  His name is Owen Ford,
+and he's a newspaper man, and it seems he's a grandson
+of the schoolmaster who built this house.  John
+Selwyn's oldest daughter married an Ontario man named
+Ford, and this is her son.  He wants to see the old
+place his grandparents lived in.  He had a bad spell of
+typhoid in the spring and hasn't got rightly over it,
+so his doctor has ordered him to the sea.  He doesn't
+want to go to the hotel--he just wants a quiet home
+place.  I can't take him, for I have to be away in
+August.  I've been appointed a delegate to the W.F.M.S.
+convention in Kingsport and I'm going.  I don't know
+whether Leslie'll want to be bothered with him, either,
+but there's no one else.  If she can't take him he'll
+have to go over the harbor."
+
+"When you've seen her come back and help us eat our
+cherry pies," said Anne.  "Bring Leslie and Dick, too,
+if they can come.  And so you're going to Kingsport? 
+What a nice time you will have.  I must give you a
+letter to a friend of mine there--Mrs. Jonas Blake."
+
+"I've prevailed on Mrs. Thomas Holt to go with me,"
+said Miss Cornelia complacently.  "It's time she had a
+little holiday, believe ME.  She has just about worked
+herself to death.  Tom Holt can crochet beautifully,
+but he can't make a living for his family.  He never
+seems to be able to get up early enough to do any work,
+but I notice he can always get up early to go fishing. 
+Isn't that like a man?"
+
+Anne smiled.  She had learned to discount largely Miss
+Cornelia's opinions of the Four Winds men.  Otherwise
+she must have believed them the most hopeless
+assortment of reprobates and ne'er-do-wells in the
+world, with veritable slaves and martyrs for wives. 
+This particular Tom Holt, for example, she knew to be a
+kind husband, a much loved father, and an excellent
+neighbor.  If he were rather inclined to be lazy,
+liking better the fishing he had been born for than the
+farming he had not, and if he had a harmless
+eccentricity for doing fancy work, nobody save Miss
+Cornelia seemed to hold it against him.  His wife was
+a "hustler," who gloried in hustling; his family got a
+comfortable living off the farm; and his strapping sons
+and daughters, inheriting their mother's energy, were
+all in a fair way to do well in the world.  There was
+not a happier household in Glen St. Mary than the
+Holts'.
+
+Miss Cornelia returned satisfied from the house up the
+brook.
+
+"Leslie's going to take him," she announced.  "She
+jumped at the chance.  She wants to make a little money
+to shingle the roof of her house this fall, and she
+didn't know how she was going to manage it.  I expect
+Captain Jim'll be more than interested when he hears
+that a grandson of the Selwyns' is coming here.  Leslie
+said to tell you she hankered after cherry pie, but she
+couldn't come to tea because she has to go and hunt up
+her turkeys.  They've strayed away.  But she said, if
+there was a piece left, for you to put it in the pantry
+and she'd run over in the cat's light, when prowling's
+in order, to get it.  You don't know, Anne, dearie,
+what good it did my heart to hear Leslie send you a
+message like that, laughing like she used to long ago.
+
+There's a great change come over her lately.  She
+laughs and jokes like a girl, and from her talk I
+gather she's here real often."
+
+"Every day--or else I'm over there," said Anne.  "I
+don't know what I'd do without Leslie, especially just
+now when Gilbert is so busy.  He's hardly ever home
+except for a few hours in the wee sma's.  He's really
+working himself to death.  So many of the over-harbor
+people send for him now."
+
+"They might better be content with their own doctor,"
+said Miss Cornelia.  "Though to be sure I can't blame
+them, for he's a Methodist.  Ever since Dr. Blythe
+brought Mrs. Allonby round folks think he can raise the
+dead.  I believe Dr. Dave is a mite jealous--just like
+a man.  He thinks Dr. Blythe has too many new-fangled
+notions!  `Well,' I says to him, `it was a new-fangled
+notion saved Rhoda Allonby.  If YOU'D been attending
+her she'd have died, and had a tombstone saying it had
+pleased God to take her away.'  Oh, I DO like to speak
+my mind to Dr. Dave!  He's bossed the Glen for years,
+and he thinks he's forgotten more than other people
+ever knew.  Speaking of doctors, I wish Dr. Blythe'd
+run over and see to that boil on Dick Moore's neck. 
+It's getting past Leslie's skill.  I'm sure I don't
+know what Dick Moore wants to start in having boils
+for--as if he wasn't enough trouble without that!"
+
+"Do you know, Dick has taken quite a fancy to me,"
+said Anne.  "He follows me round like a dog, and smiles
+like a pleased child when I notice him."
+
+"Does it make you creepy?"
+
+"Not at all.  I rather like poor Dick Moore.  He seems
+so pitiful and appealing, somehow."
+
+"You wouldn't think him very appealing if you'd see him
+on his cantankerous days, believe ME.  But I'm glad you
+don't mind him-- it's all the nicer for Leslie.  She'll
+have more to do when her boarder comes.  I hope he'll
+be a decent creature.  You'll probably like him--he's a
+writer."
+
+"I wonder why people so commonly suppose that if two
+individuals are both writers they must therefore be
+hugely congenial," said Anne, rather scornfully. 
+"Nobody would expect two blacksmiths to be violently
+attracted toward each other merely because they were
+both blacksmiths."
+
+Nevertheless, she looked forward to the advent of Owen
+Ford with a pleasant sense of expectation.  If he were
+young and likeable he might prove a very pleasant
+addition to society in Four Winds.  The latch-string of
+the little house was always out for the race of Joseph.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 23
+
+OWEN FORD COMES
+
+One evening Miss Cornelia telephoned down to Anne.
+
+"The writer man has just arrived here.  I'm going to
+drive him down to your place, and you can show him the
+way over to Leslie's.  It's shorter than driving round
+by the other road, and I'm in a mortal hurry.  The
+Reese baby has gone and fallen into a pail of hot water
+at the Glen, and got nearly scalded to death and they
+want me right off--to put a new skin on the child, I
+presume.  Mrs. Reese is always so careless, and then
+expects other people to mend her mistakes.  You won't
+mind, will you, dearie?  His trunk can go down
+tomorrow."
+
+"Very well," said Anne.  "What is he like, Miss
+Cornelia?"
+
+"You'll see what he's like outside when I take him
+down.  As for what he's like inside only the Lord who
+made him knows THAT.  I'm not going to say another
+word, for every receiver in the Glen is down."
+
+"Miss Cornelia evidently can't find much fault with Mr.
+Ford's looks, or she would find it in spite of the
+receivers," said Anne.  "I conclude therefore, Susan,
+that Mr. Ford is rather handsome than otherwise."
+
+"Well, Mrs. Doctor, dear, I DO enjoy seeing a
+well-looking man," said Susan candidly.  "Had I not
+better get up a snack for him?  There is a strawberry
+pie that would melt in your mouth."
+
+"No, Leslie is expecting him and has his supper ready. 
+Besides, I want that strawberry pie for my own poor
+man.  He won't be home till late, so leave the pie and
+a glass of milk out for him, Susan."
+
+"That I will, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Susan is at the helm. 
+After all, it is better to give pie to your own men
+than to strangers, who may be only seeking to devour,
+and the doctor himself is as well-looking a man as you
+often come across."
+
+When Owen Ford came Anne secretly admitted, as Miss
+Cornelia towed him in, that he was very "well-looking"
+indeed.  He was tall and broad-shouldered, with thick,
+brown hair, finely-cut nose and chin, large and
+brilliant dark-gray eyes.
+
+"And did you notice his ears and his teeth, Mrs.
+Doctor, dear?" queried Susan later on.  "He has got
+the nicest-shaped ears I ever saw on a man's head.  I
+am choice about ears.  When I was young I was scared
+that I might have to marry a man with ears like flaps. 
+But I need not have worried, for never a chance did I
+have with any kind of ears."
+
+Anne had not noticed Owen Ford's ears, but she did see
+his teeth, as his lips parted over them in a frank and
+friendly smile.  Unsmiling, his face was rather sad and
+absent in expression, not unlike the melancholy,
+inscrutable hero of Anne's own early dreams; but mirth
+and humor and charm lighted it up when he smiled. 
+Certainly, on the outside, as Miss Cornelia said, Owen
+Ford was a very presentable fellow.
+
+"You cannot realise how delighted I am to be here, Mrs.
+Blythe," he said, looking around him with eager,
+interested eyes.  "I have an odd feeling of coming
+home.  My mother was born and spent her childhood
+here, you know.  She used to talk a great deal to me of
+her old home.  I know the geography of it as well as of
+the one I lived in, and, of course, she told me the
+story of the building of the house, and of my
+grandfather's agonised watch for the Royal William.  I
+had thought that so old a house must have vanished
+years ago, or I should have come to see it before
+this."
+
+"Old houses don't vanish easily on this enchanted
+coast," smiled Anne.  "This is a `land where all
+things always seem the same'-- nearly always, at least. 
+John Selwyn's house hasn't even been much changed, and
+outside the rose-bushes your grandfather planted for
+his bride are blooming this very minute."
+
+"How the thought links me with them!  With your leave I
+must explore the whole place soon."
+
+"Our latch-string will always be out for you,"
+promised Anne.  "And do you know that the old sea
+captain who keeps the Four Winds light knew John Selwyn
+and his bride well in his boyhood?  He told me their
+story the night I came here--the third bride of the old
+house."
+
+"Can it be possible?  This IS a discovery.  I must hunt
+him up."
+
+"It won't be difficult; we are all cronies of Captain
+Jim.  He will be as eager to see you as you could be to
+see him.  Your grandmother shines like a star in his
+memory.  But I think Mrs. Moore is expecting you.  I'll
+show you our `cross-lots' road."
+
+Anne walked with him to the house up the brook, over a
+field that was as white as snow with daisies.  A
+boat-load of people were singing far across the harbor. 
+The sound drifted over the water like faint, unearthly
+music wind-blown across a starlit sea.  The big light
+flashed and beaconed.  Owen Ford looked around him with
+satisfaction.
+
+"And so this is Four Winds," he said.  "I wasn't
+prepared to find it quite so beautiful, in spite of all
+mother's praises.  What colors-- what scenery--what
+charm!  I shall get as strong as a horse in no time. 
+And if inspiration comes from beauty, I should
+certainly be able to begin my great Canadian novel
+here."
+
+"You haven't begun it yet?" asked Anne.
+
+"Alack-a-day, no.  I've never been able to get the
+right central idea for it.  It lurks beyond me--it
+allures--and beckons--and recedes-- I almost grasp it
+and it is gone.  Perhaps amid this peace and
+loveliness, I shall be able to capture it.  Miss Bryant
+tells me that you write."
+
+"Oh, I do little things for children.  I haven't done
+much since I was married.  And--I have no designs on a
+great Canadian novel," laughed Anne.  "That is quite
+beyond me."
+
+Owen Ford laughed too.
+
+"I dare say it is beyond me as well.  All the same I
+mean to have a try at it some day, if I can ever get
+time.  A newspaper man doesn't have much chance for
+that sort of thing.  I've done a good deal of short
+story writing for the magazines, but I've never had the
+leisure that seems to be necessary for the writing of a
+book.  With three months of liberty I ought to make a
+start, though--if I could only get the necessary motif
+for it--the SOUL of the book."
+
+An idea whisked through Anne's brain with a suddenness
+that made her jump.  But she did not utter it, for they
+had reached the Moore house.  As they entered the yard
+Leslie came out on the veranda from the side door,
+peering through the gloom for some sign of her expected
+guest.  She stood just where the warm yellow light
+flooded her from the open door.  She wore a plain dress
+of cheap, cream-tinted cotton voile, with the usual
+girdle of crimson.  Leslie was never without her touch
+of crimson.  She had told Anne that she never felt
+satisfied without a gleam of red somewhere about her,
+if it were only a flower.  To Anne, it always seemed to
+symbolise Leslie's glowing, pent-up personality,
+denied all expression save in that flaming glint. 
+Leslie's dress was cut a little away at the neck and
+had short sleeves.  Her arms gleamed like ivory-tinted
+marble.  Every exquisite curve of her form was
+outlined in soft darkness against the light.  Her hair
+shone in it like flame.  Beyond her was a purple sky,
+flowering with stars over the harbor.
+
+Anne heard her companion give a gasp.  Even in the dusk
+she could see the amazement and admiration on his face.
+
+"Who is that beautiful creature?" he asked.
+
+"That is Mrs. Moore," said Anne.  "She is very lovely,
+isn't she?"
+
+"I--I never saw anything like her," he answered,
+rather dazedly.  "I wasn't prepared--I didn't
+expect--good heavens, one DOESN'T expect a goddess for
+a landlady ! Why, if she were clothed in a gown of
+sea-purple, with a rope of amethysts in her hair, she
+would be a veritable sea-queen.  And she takes in
+boarders!"
+
+"Even goddesses must live," said Anne.  "And Leslie
+isn't a goddess.  She's just a very beautiful woman, as
+human as the rest of us.  Did Miss Bryant tell you
+about Mr. Moore?"
+
+"Yes,--he's mentally deficient, or something of the
+sort, isn't he?  But she said nothing about Mrs. Moore,
+and I supposed she'd be the usual hustling country
+housewife who takes in boarders to earn an honest
+penny."
+
+"Well, that's just what Leslie is doing," said Anne
+crisply.  "And it isn't altogether pleasant for her,
+either.  I hope you won't mind Dick.  If you do, please
+don't let Leslie see it.  It would hurt her horribly. 
+He's just a big baby, and sometimes a rather annoying
+one."
+
+"Oh, I won't mind him.  I don't suppose I'll be much in
+the house anyhow, except for meals.  But what a shame
+it all is!  Her life must be a hard one."
+
+"It is.  But she doesn't like to be pitied."
+
+Leslie had gone back into the house and now met them at
+the front door.  She greeted Owen Ford with cold
+civility, and told him in a business-like tone that his
+room and his supper were ready for him.  Dick, with a
+pleased grin, shambled upstairs with the valise, and
+Owen Ford was installed as an inmate of the old house
+among the willows.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 24
+
+THE LIFE-BOOK OF CAPTAIN JIM
+
+"I have a little brown cocoon of an idea that may
+possibly expand into a magnificent moth of
+fulfilment," Anne told Gilbert when she reached home. 
+He had returned earlier than she had expected, and was
+enjoying Susan's cherry pie.  Susan herself hovered in
+the background, like a rather grim but beneficent
+guardian spirit, and found as much pleasure in watching
+Gilbert eat pie as he did in eating it.
+
+ "What is your idea?" he asked.
+
+"I sha'n't tell you just yet--not till I see if I can
+bring the thing about."
+
+"What sort of a chap is Ford?"
+
+"Oh, very nice, and quite good-looking."
+
+"Such beautiful ears, doctor, dear," interjected Susan
+with a relish.
+
+"He is about thirty or thirty-five, I think, and he
+meditates writing a novel.  His voice is pleasant and
+his smile delightful, and he knows how to dress.  He
+looks as if life hadn't been altogether easy for him,
+somehow."
+
+Owen Ford came over the next evening with a note to
+Anne from Leslie; they spent the sunset time in the
+garden and then went for a moonlit sail on the harbor,
+in the little boat Gilbert had set up for summer
+outings.  They liked Owen immensely and had that
+feeling of having known him for many years which
+distinguishes the freemasonry of the house of Joseph. 
+"He is as nice as his ears, Mrs. Doctor, dear," said
+Susan, when he had gone.  He had told Susan that he had
+never tasted anything like her strawberry shortcake and
+Susan's susceptible heart was his forever.
+
+"He has got a way with him."  she reflected, as she
+cleared up the relics of the supper.  "It is real queer
+he is not married, for a man like that could have
+anybody for the asking.  Well, maybe he is like me, and
+has not met the right one yet."
+
+Susan really grew quite romantic in her musings as she
+washed the supper dishes.
+
+Two nights later Anne took Owen Ford down to Four Winds
+Point to introduce him to Captain Jim.  The clover
+fields along the harbor shore were whitening in the
+western wind, and Captain Jim had one of his finest
+sunsets on exhibition.  He himself had just returned
+from a trip over the harbor.
+
+"I had to go over and tell Henry Pollack he was dying. 
+Everybody else was afraid to tell him.  They expected
+he'd take on turrible, for he's been dreadful
+determined to live, and been making no end of plans for
+the fall.  His wife thought he oughter be told and that
+I'd be the best one to break it to him that he couldn't
+get better.  Henry and me are old cronies--we sailed in
+the Gray Gull for years together.  Well, I went over
+and sat down by Henry's bed and I says to him, says I,
+jest right out plain and simple, for if a thing's got
+to be told it may as well be told first as last, says
+I, `Mate, I reckon you've got your sailing orders this
+time,' I was sorter quaking inside, for it's an awful
+thing to have to tell a man who hain't any idea he's
+dying that he is.  But lo and behold, Mistress Blythe,
+Henry looks up at me, with those bright old black eyes
+of his in his wizened face and says, says he, `Tell me
+something I don't know, Jim Boyd, if you want to give
+me information.  I've known THAT for a week.'  I was
+too astonished to speak, and Henry, he chuckled.  `To
+see you coming in here,' says he, `with your face as
+solemn as a tombstone and sitting down there with your
+hands clasped over your stomach, and passing me out a
+blue-mouldy old item of news like that!  It'd make a
+cat laugh, Jim Boyd,' says he.  `Who told you?' says I,
+stupid like.  `Nobody,' says he.  `A week ago Tuesday
+night I was lying here awake--and I jest knew.  I'd
+suspicioned it before, but then I KNEW.  I've been
+keeping up for the wife's sake.  And I'd LIKE to have
+got that barn built, for Eben'll never get it right. 
+But anyhow, now that you've eased your mind, Jim, put
+on a smile and tell me something interesting,' Well,
+there it was.  They'd been so scared to tell him and he
+knew it all the time.  Strange how nature looks out for
+us, ain't it, and lets us know what we should know when
+the time comes?  Did I never tell you the yarn about
+Henry getting the fish hook in his nose, Mistress
+Blythe?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, him and me had a laugh over it today.  It
+happened nigh unto thirty years ago.  Him and me and
+several more was out mackerel fishing one day.  It was
+a great day--never saw such a school of mackerel in
+the gulf--and in the general excitement Henry got quite
+wild and contrived to stick a fish hook clean through
+one side of his nose.  Well, there he was; there was
+barb on one end and a big piece of lead on the other,
+so it couldn't be pulled out.  We wanted to take him
+ashore at once, but Henry was game; he said he'd be
+jiggered if he'd leave a school like that for anything
+short of lockjaw; then he kept fishing away, hauling in
+hand over fist and groaning between times.  Fin'lly the
+school passed and we come in with a load; I got a file
+and begun to try to file through that hook.  I tried to
+be as easy as I could, but you should have heard
+Henry--no, you shouldn't either.  It was well no ladies
+were around.  Henry wasn't a swearing man, but he'd
+heard some few matters of that sort along shore in his
+time, and he fished 'em all out of his recollection and
+hurled 'em at me.  Fin'lly he declared he couldn't
+stand it and I had no bowels of compassion.  So we
+hitched up and I drove him to a doctor in
+Charlottetown, thirty-five miles--there weren't none
+nearer in them days--with that blessed hook still
+hanging from his nose.  When we got there old Dr. Crabb
+jest took a file and filed that hook jest the same as
+I'd tried to do, only he weren't a mite particular
+about doing it easy!"
+
+Captain Jim's visit to his old friend had revived many
+recollections and he was now in the full tide of
+reminiscences.
+
+"Henry was asking me today if I remembered the time old
+Father Chiniquy blessed Alexander MacAllister's boat. 
+Another odd yarn--and true as gospel.  I was in the
+boat myself.  We went out, him and me, in Alexander
+MacAllister's boat one morning at sunrise.  Besides,
+there was a French boy in the boat--Catholic of course. 
+You know old Father Chiniquy had turned Protestant, so
+the Catholics hadn't much use for him.  Well, we sat
+out in the gulf in the broiling sun till noon, and not
+a bite did we get.  When we went ashore old Father
+Chiniquy had to go, so he said in that polite way of
+his, `I'm very sorry I cannot go out with you dis
+afternoon, Mr. MacAllister, but I leave you my
+blessing.  You will catch a t'ousand dis afternoon. 
+`Well, we did not catch a thousand, but we caught
+exactly nine hundred and ninety-nine--the biggest catch
+for a small boat on the whole north shore that summer. 
+Curious, wasn't it?  Alexander MacAllister, he says to
+Andrew Peters, `Well, and what do you think of Father
+Chiniquy now?'  `Vell,' growled Andrew, `I t'ink de old
+devil has got a blessing left yet.'  Laws, how Henry
+did laugh over that today!"
+
+"Do you know who Mr. Ford is, Captain Jim?" asked
+Anne, seeing that Captain Jim's fountain of
+reminiscence had run out for the present.  "I want you
+to guess."
+
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+
+"I never was any hand at guessing, Mistress Blythe, and
+yet somehow when I come in I thought, `Where have I
+seen them eyes before?'--for I HAVE seen 'em."
+
+"Think of a September morning many years ago," said
+Anne, softly.  "Think of a ship sailing up the
+harbor--a ship long waited for and despaired of.  Think
+of the day the Royal William came in and the first
+look you had at the schoolmaster's bride."
+
+Captain Jim sprang up.
+
+"They're Persis Selwyn's eyes," he almost shouted. 
+"You can't be her son--you must be her--"
+
+"Grandson; yes, I am Alice Selwyn's son."
+
+Captain Jim swooped down on Owen Ford and shook his
+hand over again.
+
+"Alice Selwyn's son!  Lord, but you're welcome!  Many's
+the time I've wondered where the descendants of the
+schoolmaster were living.  I knew there was none on the
+Island.  Alice--Alice--the first baby ever born in that
+little house.  No baby ever brought more joy!  I've
+dandled her a hundred times.  It was from my knee she
+took her first steps alone.  Can't I see her mother's
+face watching her--and it was near sixty years ago.  Is
+she living yet?"
+
+"No, she died when I was only a boy."
+
+"Oh, it doesn't seem right that I should be living to
+hear that," sighed Captain Jim.  "But I'm heart-glad
+to see you.  It's brought back my youth for a little
+while.  You don't know yet what a boon THAT is. 
+Mistress Blythe here has the trick--she does it quite
+often for me."
+
+Captain Jim was still more excited when he discovered
+that Owen Ford was what he called a "real writing
+man."  He gazed at him as at a superior being. 
+Captain Jim knew that Anne wrote, but he had never
+taken that fact very seriously.  Captain Jim thought
+women were delightful creatures, who ought to have the
+vote, and everything else they wanted, bless their
+hearts; but he did not believe they could write.
+
+"Jest look at A Mad Love," he would protest.  "A woman
+wrote that and jest look at it--one hundred and three
+chapters when it could all have been told in ten.  A
+writing woman never knows when to stop; that's the
+trouble.  The p'int of good writing is to know when to
+stop."
+
+"Mr. Ford wants to hear some of your stories, Captain
+Jim" said Anne.  "Tell him the one about the captain
+who went crazy and imagined he was the Flying
+Dutchman."
+
+This was Captain Jim's best story.  It was a compound
+of horror and humor, and though Anne had heard it
+several times she laughed as heartily and shivered as
+fearsomely over it as Mr. Ford did.  Other tales
+followed, for Captain Jim had an audience after his own
+heart.  He told how his vessel had been run down by a
+steamer; how he had been boarded by Malay pirates; how
+his ship had caught fire; how he helped a political
+prisoner escape from a South African republic; how he
+had been wrecked one fall on the Magdalens and stranded
+there for the winter; how a tiger had broken loose on
+board ship; how his crew had mutinied and marooned him
+on a barren island--these and many other tales, tragic
+or humorous or grotesque, did Captain Jim relate.  The
+mystery of the sea, the fascination of far lands, the
+lure of adventure, the laughter of the world--his
+hearers felt and realised them all.  Owen Ford
+listened, with his head on his hand, and the First
+Mate purring on his knee, his brilliant eyes fastened
+on Captain Jim's rugged, eloquent face.
+
+"Won't you let Mr. Ford see your life-book, Captain
+Jim?" asked Anne, when Captain Jim finally declared
+that yarn-spinning must end for the time.
+
+"Oh, he don't want to be bothered with THAT,"
+protested Captain Jim, who was secretly dying to show
+it.
+
+"I should like nothing better than to see it, Captain
+Boyd," said Owen.  "If it is half as wonderful as your
+tales it will be worth seeing."
+
+With pretended reluctance Captain Jim dug his life-book
+out of his old chest and handed it to Owen.
+
+"I reckon you won't care to wrastle long with my old
+hand o' write.  I never had much schooling," he
+observed carelessly.  "Just wrote that there to amuse
+my nephew Joe.  He's always wanting stories.  Comes
+here yesterday and says to me, reproachful-like, as I
+was lifting a twenty-pound codfish out of my boat,
+`Uncle Jim, ain't a codfish a dumb animal?'  I'd been
+a-telling him, you see, that he must be real kind to
+dumb animals, and never hurt 'em in any way.  I got out
+of the scrape by saying a codfish was dumb enough but
+it wasn't an animal, but Joe didn't look satisfied, and
+I wasn't satisfied myself.  You've got to be mighty
+careful what you tell them little critters.  THEY can
+see through you."
+
+While talking, Captain Jim watched Owen Ford from the
+corner of his eye as the latter examined the life-book;
+and presently observing that his guest was lost in its
+pages, he turned smilingly to his cupboard and
+proceeded to make a pot of tea.  Owen Ford separated
+himself from the life-book, with as much reluctance as
+a miser wrenches himself from his gold, long enough to
+drink his tea, and then returned to it hungrily.
+
+"Oh, you can take that thing home with you if you want
+to," said Captain Jim, as if the "thing" were not his
+most treasured possession.  "I must go down and pull my
+boat up a bit on the skids.  There's a wind coming. 
+Did you notice the sky tonight?
+
+    Mackerel skies and mares' tails     Make tall ships
+carry short sails."
+
+ Owen Ford accepted the offer of the life-book gladly. 
+On their way home Anne told him the story of lost
+Margaret.
+
+"That old captain is a wonderful old fellow," he said. 
+"What a life he has led!  Why, the man had more
+adventures in one week of his life than most of us have
+in a lifetime.  Do you really think his tales are all
+true?"
+
+"I certainly do.  I am sure Captain Jim could not tell
+a lie; and besides, all the people about here say that
+everything happened as he relates it.  There used to be
+plenty of his old shipmates alive to corroborate him. 
+He's one of the last of the old type of P.E. Island
+sea-captains.  They are almost extinct now."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 25
+
+THE WRITING OF THE BOOK
+
+Owen Ford came over to the little house the next
+morning in a state of great excitement.  "Mrs. Blythe,
+this is a wonderful book--absolutely wonderful.  If I
+could take it and use the material for a book I feel
+certain I could make the novel of the year out of it. 
+Do you suppose Captain Jim would let me do it?"
+
+"Let you!  I'm sure he would be delighted," cried
+Anne.  "I admit that it was what was in my head when I
+took you down last night.  Captain Jim has always been
+wishing he could get somebody to write his life-book
+properly for him."
+
+"Will you go down to the Point with me this evening,
+Mrs. Blythe?  I'll ask him about that life-book myself,
+but I want you to tell him that you told me the story
+of lost Margaret and ask him if he will let me use it
+as a thread of romance with which to weave the stories
+of the life-book into a harmonious whole."
+
+Captain Jim was more excited than ever when Owen Ford
+told him of his plan.  At last his cherished dream was
+to be realized and his "life-book" given to the world. 
+He was also pleased that the story of lost Margaret
+should be woven into it.
+
+"It will keep her name from being forgotten," he said
+wistfully.
+
+"That's why I want it put in."
+
+"We'll collaborate," cried Owen delightedly.  "You
+will give the soul and I the body.  Oh, we'll write a
+famous book between us, Captain Jim.  And we'll get
+right to work."
+
+"And to think my book is to be writ by the
+schoolmaster's grandson!" exclaimed Captain Jim. 
+"Lad, your grandfather was my dearest friend.  I
+thought there was nobody like him.  I see now why I had
+to wait so long.  It couldn't be writ till the right
+man come.  You BELONG here--you've got the soul of this
+old north shore in you-- you're the only one who COULD
+write it."
+
+It was arranged that the tiny room off the living room
+at the lighthouse should be given over to Owen for a
+workshop.  It was necessary that Captain Jim should be
+near him as he wrote, for consultation upon many
+matters of sea-faring and gulf lore of which Owen was
+quite ignorant.
+
+He began work on the book the very next morning, and
+flung himself into it heart and soul.  As for Captain
+Jim, he was a happy man that summer.  He looked upon
+the little room where Owen worked as a sacred shrine. 
+Owen talked everything over with Captain Jim, but he
+would not let him see the manuscript.
+
+"You must wait until it is published," he said.  "Then
+you'll get it all at once in its best shape."
+
+He delved into the treasures of the life-book and used
+them freely.  He dreamed and brooded over lost Margaret
+until she became a vivid reality to him and lived in
+his pages.  As the book progressed it took possession
+of him and he worked at it with feverish eagerness.  He
+let Anne and Leslie read the manuscript and criticise
+it; and the concluding chapter of the book, which the
+critics, later on, were pleased to call idyllic, was
+modelled upon a suggestion of Leslie's.
+
+Anne fairly hugged herself with delight over the
+success of her idea.
+
+"I knew when I looked at Owen Ford that he was the very
+man for it," she told Gilbert.  "Both humor and
+passion were in his face, and that, together with the
+art of expression, was just what was necessary for the
+writing of such a book.  As Mrs. Rachel would say, he
+was predestined for the part."
+
+Owen Ford wrote in the mornings.  The afternoons were
+generally spent in some merry outing with the Blythes. 
+Leslie often went, too, for Captain Jim took charge of
+Dick frequently, in order to set her free.  They went
+boating on the harbor and up the three pretty rivers
+that flowed into it; they had clambakes on the bar and
+mussel-bakes on the rocks; they picked strawberries on
+the sand-dunes; they went out cod-fishing with Captain
+Jim; they shot plover in the shore fields and wild
+ducks in the cove--at least, the men did.  In the
+evenings they rambled in the low-lying, daisied, shore
+fields under a golden moon, or they sat in the living
+room at the little house where often the coolness of
+the sea breeze justified a driftwood fire, and talked
+of the thousand and one things which happy, eager,
+clever young people can find to talk about.
+
+Ever since the day on which she had made her confession
+to Anne Leslie had been a changed creature.  There was
+no trace of her old coldness and reserve, no shadow of
+her old bitterness.  The girlhood of which she had been
+cheated seemed to come back to her with the ripeness of
+womanhood; she expanded like a flower of flame and
+perfume; no laugh was readier than hers, no wit
+quicker, in the twilight circles of that enchanted
+summer.  When she could not be with them all felt that
+some exquisite savor was lacking in their intercourse. 
+Her beauty was illumined by the awakened soul within,
+as some rosy lamp might shine through a flawless vase
+of alabaster.  There were hours when Anne's eyes seemed
+to ache with the splendor of her.  As for Owen Ford,
+the "Margaret" of his book, although she had the soft
+brown hair and elfin face of the real girl who had
+vanished so long ago, "pillowed where lost Atlantis
+sleeps," had the personality of Leslie Moore, as it
+was revealed to him in those halcyon days at Four Winds
+Harbor.
+
+All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer--one
+of those summers which come seldom into any life, but
+leave a rich heritage of beautiful memories in their
+going--one of those summers which, in a fortunate
+combination of delightful weather, delightful friends
+and delightful doings, come as near to perfection as
+anything can come in this world.
+
+"Too good to last," Anne told herself with a little
+sigh, on the September day when a certain nip in the
+wind and a certain shade of intense blue on the gulf
+water said that autumn was hard by.
+
+That evening Owen Ford told them that he had finished
+his book and that his vacation must come to an end.
+
+"I have a good deal to do to it yet--revising and
+pruning and so forth," he said, "but in the main it's
+done.  I wrote the last sentence this morning.  If I
+can find a publisher for it it will probably be out
+next summer or fall."
+
+Owen had not much doubt that he would find a publisher. 
+He knew that he had written a great book--a book that
+would score a wonderful success--a book that would
+LIVE.  He knew that it would bring him both fame and
+fortune; but when he had written the last line of it he
+had bowed his head on the manuscript and so sat for a
+long time.  And his thoughts were not of the good work
+he had done.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 26
+
+OWEN FORD'S CONFESSION
+
+"I'm so sorry Gilbert is away," said Anne.  "He had to
+go--Allan Lyons at the Glen has met with a serious
+accident.  He will not likely be home till very late. 
+But he told me to tell you he'd be up and over early
+enough in the morning to see you before you left.  It's
+too provoking.  Susan and I had planned such a nice
+little jamboree for your last night here."
+
+She was sitting beside the garden brook on the little
+rustic seat Gilbert had built.  Owen Ford stood before
+her, leaning against the bronze column of a yellow
+birch.  He was very pale and his face bore the marks of
+the preceding sleepless night.  Anne, glancing up at
+him, wondered if, after all, his summer had brought him
+the strength it should.  Had he worked too hard over
+his book?  She remembered that for a week he had not
+been looking well.
+
+"I'm rather glad the doctor is away," said Owen
+slowly.  "I wanted to see you alone, Mrs. Blythe. 
+There is something I must tell somebody, or I think it
+will drive me mad.  I've been trying for a week to look
+it in the face--and I can't.  I know I can trust
+you--and, besides, you will understand.  A woman with
+eyes like yours always understands.  You are one of the
+folks people instinctively tell things to.  Mrs.
+Blythe, I love Leslie.  LOVE her!  That seems too weak
+a word!"
+
+His voice suddenly broke with the suppressed passion of
+his utterance.  He turned his head away and hid his
+face on his arm.  His whole form shook.  Anne sat
+looking at him, pale and aghast.  She had never
+thought of this!  And yet--how was it she had never
+thought of it?  It now seemed a natural and inevitable
+thing.  She wondered at her own blindness. 
+But--but--things like this did not happen in Four
+Winds.  Elsewhere in the world human passions might set
+at defiance human conventions and laws--but not HERE,
+surely.  Leslie had kept summer boarders off and on for
+ten years, and nothing like this had happened.  But
+perhaps they had not been like Owen Ford; and the
+vivid, LIVING Leslie of this summer was not the cold,
+sullen girl of other years.  Oh, SOMEBODY should have
+thought of this!  Why hadn't Miss Cornelia thought of
+it?  Miss Cornelia was always ready enough to sound the
+alarm where men were concerned. Anne felt an
+unreasonable resentment against Miss Cornelia.  Then
+she gave a little inward groan.  No matter who was to
+blame the mischief was done.  And Leslie--what of
+Leslie?  It was for Leslie Anne felt most concerned.
+
+"Does Leslie know this, Mr. Ford?" she asked quietly.
+
+"No--no,--unless she has guessed it.  You surely don't
+think I'd be cad and scoundrel enough to tell her, Mrs.
+Blythe.  I couldn't help loving her--that's all--and my
+misery is greater than I can bear."
+
+"Does SHE care?" asked Anne.  The moment the question
+crossed her lips she felt that she should not have
+asked it.  Owen Ford answered it with overeager
+protest.
+
+"No--no, of course not.  But I could make her care if
+she were free--I know I could."
+
+"She does care--and he knows it," thought Anne.  Aloud
+she said, sympathetically but decidedly:
+
+"But she is not free, Mr. Ford.  And the only thing you
+can do is to go away in silence and leave her to her
+own life."
+
+"I know--I know," groaned Owen.  He sat down on the
+grassy bank and stared moodily into the amber water
+beneath him.  "I know there's nothing to do--nothing
+but to say conventionally, `Good- bye, Mrs. Moore. 
+Thank you for all your kindness to me this summer,'
+just as I would have said it to the sonsy, bustling,
+keen-eyed housewife I expected her to be when I came. 
+Then I'll pay my board money like any honest boarder
+and go!  Oh, it's very simple.  No doubt--no
+perplexity--a straight road to the end of the world!
+
+And I'll walk it--you needn't fear that I won't, Mrs.
+Blythe.  But it would be easier to walk over red-hot
+ploughshares."
+
+Anne flinched with the pain of his voice.  And there
+was so little she could say that would be adequate to
+the situation.  Blame was out of the question--advice
+was not needed--sympathy was mocked by the man's stark
+agony.  She could only feel with him in a maze of
+compassion and regret.  Her heart ached for Leslie! 
+Had not that poor girl suffered enough without this?
+
+"It wouldn't be so hard to go and leave her if she were
+only happy," resumed Owen passionately.  "But to think
+of her living death--to realise what it is to which I
+do leave her!  THAT is the worst of all.  I would give
+my life to make her happy--and I can do nothing even to
+help her--nothing.  She is bound forever to that poor
+wretch--with nothing to look forward to but growing old
+in a succession of empty, meaningless, barren years. 
+It drives me mad to think of it.  But I must go through
+my life, never seeing her, but always knowing what she
+is enduring.  It's hideous--hideous!"
+
+"It is very hard," said Anne sorrowfully.  "We--her
+friends here--all know how hard it is for her."
+
+"And she is so richly fitted for life," said Owen
+rebelliously.
+
+"Her beauty is the least of her dower--and she is the
+most beautiful woman I've ever known.  That laugh of
+hers!  I've angled all summer to evoke that laugh, just
+for the delight of hearing it.  And her eyes-- they are
+as deep and blue as the gulf out there.  I never saw
+such blueness--and gold!  Did you ever see her hair
+down, Mrs. Blythe?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I did--once.  I had gone down to the Point to go
+fishing with Captain Jim but it was too rough to go
+out, so I came back.  She had taken the opportunity of
+what she expected to be an afternoon alone to wash her
+hair, and she was standing on the veranda in the
+sunshine to dry it.  It fell all about her to her feet
+in a fountain of living gold.  When she saw me she
+hurried in, and the wind caught her hair and swirled it
+all around her--Danae in her cloud.  Somehow, just then
+the knowledge that I loved her came home to me--and
+realised that I had loved her from the moment I first
+saw her standing against the darkness in that glow of
+light.  And she must live on here--petting and soothing
+Dick, pinching and saving for a mere existence, while I
+spend my life longing vainly for her, and debarred, by
+that very fact, from even giving her the little help a
+friend might.  I walked the shore last night, almost
+till dawn, and thrashed it all out over and over again. 
+And yet, in spite of everything, I can't find it in my
+heart to be sorry that I came to Four Winds.  It seems
+to me that, bad as everything is, it would be still
+worse never to have known Leslie.  It's burning,
+searing pain to love her and leave her--but not to have
+loved her is unthinkable.  I suppose all this sounds
+very crazy--all these terrible emotions always do sound
+foolish when we put them into our inadequate words. 
+They are not meant to be spoken--only felt and endured. 
+I shouldn't have spoken--but it has helped-- some.  At
+least, it has given me strength to go away respectably
+tomorrow morning, without making a scene.  You'll write
+me now and then, won't you, Mrs. Blythe, and give me
+what news there is to give of her?"
+
+"Yes," said Anne.  "Oh, I'm so sorry you are
+going--we'll miss you so--we've all been such friends! 
+If it were not for this you could come back other
+summers.  Perhaps, even yet--by-and-by--when you've
+forgotten, perhaps--"
+
+"I shall never forget--and I shall never come back to
+Four Winds," said Owen briefly.
+
+Silence and twilight fell over the garden.  Far away
+the sea was lapping gently and monotonously on the bar. 
+The wind of evening in the poplars sounded like some
+sad, weird, old rune--some broken dream of old
+memories.  A slender shapely young aspen rose up before
+them against the fine maize and emerald and paling rose
+of the western sky, which brought out every leaf and
+twig in dark, tremulous, elfin loveliness.
+
+"Isn't that beautiful?" said Owen, pointing to it with
+the air of a man who puts a certain conversation behind
+him.
+
+"It's so beautiful that it hurts me," said Anne
+softly.  "Perfect things like that always did hurt
+me--I remember I called it `the queer ache' when I was
+a child.  What is the reason that pain like this seems
+inseparable from perfection?  Is it the pain of
+finality--when we realise that there can be nothing
+beyond but retrogression?"
+
+"Perhaps," said Owen dreamily, "it is the prisoned
+infinite in us calling out to its kindred infinite as
+expressed in that visible perfection."
+
+"You seem to have a cold in the head.  Better rub some
+tallow on your nose when you go to bed," said Miss
+Cornelia, who had come in through the little gate
+between the firs in time to catch Owen's last remark. 
+Miss Cornelia liked Owen; but it was a matter of
+principle with her to visit any "high-falutin"
+language from a man with a snub.
+
+Miss Cornelia personated the comedy that ever peeps
+around the corner at the tragedy of life.  Anne, whose
+nerves had been rather strained, laughed hysterically,
+and even Owen smiled.  Certainly, sentiment and
+passion had a way of shrinking out of sight in Miss
+Cornelia's presence.  And yet to Anne nothing seemed
+quite as hopeless and dark and painful as it had seemed
+a few moments before.  But sleep was far from her eyes
+that night.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 27
+
+ON THE SAND BAR
+
+Owen Ford left Four Winds the next morning.  In the
+evening Anne went over to see Leslie, but found nobody. 
+The house was locked and there was no light in any
+window.  It looked like a home left soulless.  Leslie
+did not run over on the following day--which Anne
+thought a bad sign.
+
+Gilbert having occasion to go in the evening to the
+fishing cove, Anne drove with him to the Point,
+intending to stay awhile with Captain Jim.  But the
+great light, cutting its swathes through the fog of the
+autumn evening, was in care of Alec Boyd and Captain
+Jim was away.
+
+"What will you do?" asked Gilbert.  "Come with me?"
+
+"I don't want to go to the cove--but I'll go over the
+channel with you, and roam about on the sand shore till
+you come back.  The rock shore is too slippery and grim
+tonight."
+
+Alone on the sands of the bar Anne gave herself up to
+the eerie charm of the night.  It was warm for
+September, and the late afternoon had been very foggy;
+but a full moon had in part lessened the fog and
+transformed the harbor and the gulf and the surrounding
+shores into a strange, fantastic, unreal world of pale
+silver mist, through which everything loomed
+phantom-like.  Captain Josiah Crawford's black
+schooner sailing down the channel, laden with potatoes
+for Bluenose ports, was a spectral ship bound for a far
+uncharted land, ever receding, never to be reached. 
+The calls of unseen gulls overhead were the cries of
+the souls of doomed seamen.  The little curls of foam
+that blew across the sand were elfin things stealing up
+from the sea-caves.  The big, round-shouldered
+sand-dunes were the sleeping giants of some old
+northern tale.  The lights that glimmered palely across
+the harbor were the delusive beacons on some coast of
+fairyland.  Anne pleased herself with a hundred fancies
+as she wandered through the mist.  It was
+delightful--romantic-- mysterious to be roaming here
+alone on this enchanted shore.
+
+But was she alone?  Something loomed in the mist before
+her--took shape and form--suddenly moved towards her
+across the wave-rippled sand.
+
+"Leslie!" exclaimed Anne in amazement.  "Whatever are
+you doing--HERE--tonight?"
+
+"If it comes to that, whatever are YOU doing here?"
+said Leslie, trying to laugh.  The effort was a
+failure.  She looked very pale and tired; but the love
+locks under her scarlet cap were curling about her
+face and eyes like little sparkling rings of gold.
+
+"I'm waiting for Gilbert--he's over at the Cove.  I
+intended to stay at the light, but Captain Jim is
+away."
+
+"Well, _I_ came here because I wanted to walk--and
+walk--and WALK," said Leslie restlessly.  "I couldn't
+on the rock shore--the tide was too high and the rocks
+prisoned me.  I had to come here--or I should have gone
+mad, I think.  I rowed myself over the channel in
+Captain Jim's flat.  I've been here for an hour. 
+Come--come--let us walk.  I can't stand still.  Oh,
+Anne!"
+
+"Leslie, dearest, what is the trouble?" asked Anne,
+though she knew too well already.
+
+"I can't tell you--don't ask me .  I wouldn't mind your
+knowing-- I wish you did know--but I can't tell you--I
+can't tell anyone.  I've been such a fool, Anne--and
+oh, it hurts so terribly to be a fool.  There's nothing
+so painful in the world."
+
+She laughed bitterly.  Anne slipped her arm around her.
+
+"Leslie, is it that you have learned to care for Mr.
+Ford?"
+
+Leslie turned herself about passionately.
+
+"How did you know?" she cried.  "Anne, how did you
+know?  Oh, is it written in my face for everyone to
+see?  Is it as plain as that?"
+
+"No, no.  I--I can't tell you how I knew.  It just came
+into my mind, somehow.  Leslie, don't look at me like
+that!"
+
+"Do you despise me?" demanded Leslie in a fierce, low
+tone.  "Do you think I'm wicked--unwomanly?  Or do you
+think I'm just plain fool?"
+
+"I don't think you any of those things.  Come, dear,
+let's just talk it over sensibly, as we might talk over
+any other of the great crises of life.  You've been
+brooding over it and let yourself drift into a morbid
+view of it.  You know you have a little tendency to do
+that about everything that goes wrong, and you promised
+me that you would fight against it."
+
+"But--oh, it's so--so shameful," murmured Leslie.  "To
+love him--unsought--and when I'm not free to love
+anybody."
+
+"There's nothing shameful about it.  But I'm very sorry
+that you have learned to care for Owen, because, as
+things are, it will only make you more unhappy."
+
+"I didn't LEARN to care," said Leslie, walking on and
+speaking passionately.  "If it had been like that I
+could have prevented it.  I never dreamed of such a
+thing until that day, a week ago, when he told me he
+had finished his book and must soon go away.  Then--
+then I knew.  I felt as if someone had struck me a
+terrible blow.  I didn't say anything--I couldn't
+speak--but I don't know what I looked like.  I'm so
+afraid my face betrayed me.  Oh, I would die of shame
+if I thought he knew--or suspected."
+
+Anne was miserably silent, hampered by her deductions
+from her conversation with Owen.  Leslie went on
+feverishly, as if she found relief in speech.
+
+"I was so happy all this summer, Anne--happier than I
+ever was in my life.  I thought it was because
+everything had been made clear between you and me, and
+that it was our friendship which made life seem so
+beautiful and full once more.  And it WAS, in part--but
+not all--oh, not nearly all.  I know now why everything
+was so different.  And now it's all over--and he has
+gone.  How can I live, Anne?  When I turned back into
+the house this morning after he had gone the solitude
+struck me like a blow in the face."
+
+"It won't seem so hard by and by, dear," said Anne,
+who always felt the pain of her friends so keenly that
+she could not speak easy, fluent words of comforting. 
+Besides, she remembered how well- meant speeches had
+hurt her in her own sorrow and was afraid.
+
+"Oh, it seems to me it will grow harder all the time,"
+said Leslie miserably.  "I've nothing to look forward
+to.  Morning will come after morning--and he will not
+come back--he will never come back.  Oh, when I think
+that I will never see him again I feel as if a great
+brutal hand had twisted itself among my heartstrings,
+and was wrenching them.  Once, long ago, I dreamed of
+love--and I thought it must be beautiful--and NOW--its
+like THIS.  When he went away yesterday morning he was
+so cold and indifferent.  He said `Good- bye, Mrs.
+Moore' in the coldest tone in the world--as if we had
+not even been friends--as if I meant absolutely nothing
+to him.  I know I don't--I didn't want him to
+care--but he MIGHT have been a little kinder."
+
+"Oh, I wish Gilbert would come," thought Anne.  She
+was racked between her sympathy for Leslie and the
+necessity of avoiding anything that would betray Owen's
+confidence.  She knew why his good-bye had been so
+cold--why it could not have the cordiality that their
+good-comradeship demanded--but she could not tell
+Leslie.
+
+"I couldn't help it, Anne--I couldn't help it," said
+poor Leslie.
+
+"I know that."
+
+"Do you blame me so very much?"
+
+"I don't blame you at all."
+
+"And you won't--you won't tell Gilbert?"
+
+" Leslie!  Do you think I would do such a thing?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know--you and Gilbert are such CHUMS.  I
+don't see how you could help telling him everything."
+
+"Everything about my own concerns--yes.  But not my
+friends' secrets."
+
+"I couldn't have HIM know.  But I'm glad YOU know.  I
+would feel guilty if there were anything I was ashamed
+to tell you.  I hope Miss Cornelia won't find out. 
+Sometimes I feel as if those terrible, kind brown eyes
+of hers read my very soul.  Oh, I wish this mist would
+never lift--I wish I could just stay in it forever,
+hidden away from every living being.  I don't see how I
+can go on with life.  This summer has been so full.  I
+never was lonely for a moment.  Before Owen came there
+used to be horrible moments--when I had been with you
+and Gilbert--and then had to leave you.  You two would
+walk away together and I would walk away ALONE.  After
+Owen came he was always there to walk home with me--we
+would laugh and talk as you and Gilbert were
+doing--there were no more lonely, envious moments for
+me.  And NOW!  Oh, yes, I've been a fool.  Let's have
+done talking about my folly.  I'll never bore you with
+it again."
+
+"Here is Gilbert, and you are coming back with us,"
+said Anne, who had no intention of leaving Leslie to
+wander alone on the sand-bar on such a night and in
+such a mood.  "There's plenty of room in our boat for
+three, and we'll tie the flat on behind."
+
+"Oh, I suppose I must reconcile myself to being the odd
+one again," said poor Leslie with another bitter
+laugh.  "Forgive me, Anne--that was hateful.  I ought
+to be thankful--and I AM--that I have two good friends
+who are glad to count me in as a third.  Don't mind my
+hateful speeches.  I just seem to be one great pain all
+over and everything hurts me."
+
+"Leslie seemed very quiet tonight, didn't she?" said
+Gilbert, when he and Anne reached home.  "What in the
+world was she doing over there on the bar alone?"
+
+"Oh, she was tired--and you know she likes to go to the
+shore after one of Dick's bad days."
+
+"What a pity she hadn't met and married a fellow like
+Ford long ago," ruminated Gilbert.  "They'd have made
+an ideal couple, wouldn't they?"
+
+"For pity's sake, Gilbert, don't develop into a
+match-maker.  It's an abominable profession for a
+man," cried Anne rather sharply, afraid that Gilbert
+might blunder on the truth if he kept on in this
+strain.
+
+"Bless us, Anne-girl, I'm not matchmaking," protested
+Gilbert, rather surprised at her tone.  "I was only
+thinking of one of the might-have-beens."
+
+"Well, don't.  It's a waste of time," said Anne.  Then
+she added suddenly:
+
+"Oh, Gilbert, I wish everybody could be as happy as we
+are."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 28
+
+ODDS AND ENDS
+
+"I've been reading obituary notices," said Miss
+Cornelia, laying down the Daily Enterprise and taking
+up her sewing.
+
+The harbor was lying black and sullen under a dour
+November sky; the wet, dead leaves clung drenched and
+sodden to the window sills; but the little house was
+gay with firelight and spring-like with Anne's ferns
+and geraniums.
+
+"It's always summer here, Anne," Leslie had said one
+day; and all who were the guests of that house of
+dreams felt the same.
+
+"The Enterprise seems to run to obituaries these
+days," quoth Miss Cornelia.  "It always has a couple
+of columns of them, and I read every line.  It's one of
+my forms of recreation, especially when there's some
+original poetry attached to them.  Here's a choice
+sample for you:
+
+    She's gone to be with her Maker,     Never more to
+roam.     She used to play and sing with joy     The
+song of Home, Sweet Home.
+
+Who says we haven't any poetical talent on the Island! 
+Have you ever noticed what heaps of good people die,
+Anne, dearie?  It's kind of pitiful.  Here's ten
+obituaries, and every one of them saints and models,
+even the men.  Here's old Peter Stimson, who has `left
+a large circle of friends to mourn his untimely loss.' 
+Lord, Anne, dearie, that man was eighty, and everybody
+who knew him had been wishing him dead these thirty
+years.  Read obituaries when you're blue, Anne,
+dearie--especially the ones of folks you know.  If
+you've any sense of humor at all they'll cheer you up,
+believe ME.  I just wish _I_ had the writing of the
+obituaries of some people.  Isn't `obituary' an awful
+ugly word?  This very Peter I've been speaking of had a
+face exactly like one.  I never saw it but I thought of
+the word OBITUARY then and there.  There's only one
+uglier word that I know of, and that's RELICT.  Lord,
+Anne, dearie, I may be an old maid, but there's this
+comfort in it--I'll never be any man's `relict.'"
+
+"It IS an ugly word," said Anne, laughing.  "Avonlea
+graveyard was full of old tombstones `sacred to the
+memory of So-and-So, RELICT of the late So-and-So.'  It
+always made me think of something worn out and moth
+eaten.  Why is it that so many of the words connected
+with death are so disagreeable?  I do wish that the
+custom of calling a dead body `the remains' could be
+abolished.  I positively shiver when I hear the
+undertaker say at a funeral, `All who wish to see the
+remains please step this way.'  It always gives me the
+horrible impression that I am about to view the scene
+of a cannibal feast."
+
+"Well, all I hope," said Miss Cornelia calmly, "is
+that when I'm dead nobody will call me `our departed
+sister.'  I took a scunner at this
+sister-and-brothering business five years ago when
+there was a travelling evangelist holding meetings at
+the Glen.  I hadn't any use for him from the start.  I
+felt in my bones that there was something wrong with
+him.  And there was.  Mind you, he was pretending to be
+a Presbyterian--PresbyTARian, HE called it--and all the
+time he was a Methodist.  He brothered and sistered
+everybody.  He had a large circle of relations, that
+man had.  He clutched my hand fervently one night, and
+said imploringly, `My DEAR sister Bryant, are you a
+Christian?'  I just looked him over a bit, and then I
+said calmly, `The only brother I ever had, MR. Fiske,
+was buried fifteen years ago, and I haven't adopted any
+since.  As for being a Christian, I was that, I hope
+and believe, when you were crawling about the floor in
+petticoats.'  THAT squelched him, believe ME.  Mind
+you, Anne dearie, I'm not down on all evangelists. 
+We've had some real fine, earnest men, who did a lot of
+good and made the old sinners squirm.  But this
+Fiske-man wasn't one of them.  I had a good laugh all
+to myself one evening.  Fiske had asked all who were
+Christians to stand up.  _I_ didn't, believe me!  I
+never had any use for that sort of thing.  But most of
+them did, and then he asked all who wanted to be
+Christians to stand up.  Nobody stirred for a spell, so
+Fiske started up a hymn at the top of his voice.  Just
+in front of me poor little Ikey Baker was sitting in
+the Millison pew.  He was a home boy, ten years old,
+and Millison just about worked him to death.  The poor
+little creature was always so tired he fell asleep
+right off whenever he went to church or anywhere he
+could sit still for a few minutes.  He'd been sleeping
+all through the meeting, and I was thankful to see the
+poor child getting a rest, believe ME.  Well, when
+Fiske's voice went soaring skyward and the rest joined
+in, poor Ikey wakened with a start.  He thought it was
+just an ordinary singing and that everybody ought to
+stand up, so he scrambled to his feet mighty quick,
+knowing he'd get a combing down from Maria Millison for
+sleeping in meeting.  Fiske saw him, stopped and
+shouted, `Another soul saved!  Glory Hallelujah!'  And
+there was poor, frightened Ikey, only half awake and
+yawning, never thinking about his soul at all.  Poor
+child, he never had time to think of anything but his
+tired, overworked little body.
+
+"Leslie went one night and the Fiske-man got right
+after her--oh, he was especially anxious about the
+souls of the nice-looking girls, believe me!--and he
+hurt her feelings so she never went again.  And then he
+prayed every night after that, right in public, that
+the Lord would soften her hard heart.  Finally I went
+to Mr. Leavitt, our minister then, and told him if he
+didn't make Fiske stop that I'd just rise up the next
+night and throw my hymn book at him when he mentioned
+that `beautiful but unrepentant young woman.'  I'd have
+done it too, believe ME.  Mr. Leavitt did put a stop to
+it, but Fiske kept on with his meetings until Charley
+Douglas put an end to his career in the Glen.  Mrs.
+Charley had been out in California all winter.  She'd
+been real melancholy in the fall--religious
+melancholy--it ran in her family.  Her father worried
+so much over believing that he had committed the
+unpardonable sin that he died in the asylum.  So when
+Rose Douglas got that way Charley packed her off to
+visit her sister in Los Angeles.  She got perfectly
+well and came home just when the Fiske revival was in
+full swing.  She stepped off the train at the Glen,
+real smiling and chipper, and the first thing she saw
+staring her in the face on the black, gable-end of the
+freight shed, was the question, in big white letters,
+two feet high, `Whither goest thou--to heaven or hell?' 
+That had been one of Fiske's ideas, and he had got
+Henry Hammond to paint it.  Rose just gave a shriek and
+fainted; and when they got her home she was worse than
+ever.  Charley Douglas went to Mr. Leavitt and told him
+that every Douglas would leave the church if Fiske was
+kept there any longer.  Mr. Leavitt had to give in, for
+the Douglases paid half his salary, so Fiske departed,
+and we had to depend on our Bibles once more for
+instructions on how to get to heaven.  After he was
+gone Mr. Leavitt found out he was just a masquerading
+Methodist, and he felt pretty sick, believe ME.  Mr.
+Leavitt fell short in some ways, but he was a good,
+sound Presbyterian."
+
+"By the way, I had a letter from Mr. Ford yesterday,"
+said Anne.  "He asked me to remember him kindly to
+you."
+
+"I don't want his remembrances," said Miss Cornelia,
+curtly.
+
+"Why?" said Anne, in astonishment.  "I thought you
+liked him."
+
+"Well, so I did, in a kind of way.  But I'll never
+forgive him for what he done to Leslie.  There's that
+poor child eating her heart out about him--as if she
+hadn't had trouble enough--and him ranting round
+Toronto, I've no doubt, enjoying himself same as ever. 
+Just like a man."
+
+"Oh, Miss Cornelia, how did you find out?"
+
+"Lord, Anne, dearie, I've got eyes, haven't I?  And
+I've known Leslie since she was a baby .  There's been
+a new kind of heartbreak in her eyes all the fall, and
+I know that writer-man was behind it somehow.  I'll
+never forgive myself for being the means of bringing
+him here.  But I never expected he'd be like he was.  I
+thought he'd just be like the other men Leslie had
+boarded--conceited young asses, every one of them, that
+she never had any use for.  One of them did try to
+flirt with her once and she froze him out--so bad, I
+feel sure he's never got himself thawed since.  So I
+never thought of any danger."
+
+"Don't let Leslie suspect you know her secret," said
+Anne hurriedly.  "I think it would hurt her."
+
+"Trust me, Anne, dearie.  _I_ wasn't born yesterday. 
+Oh, a plague on all the men!  One of them ruined
+Leslie's life to begin with, and now another of the
+tribe comes and makes her still more wretched.  Anne,
+this world is an awful place, believe me."
+
+    "There's something in the world amiss     Will be
+unriddled by and by,"
+
+quoted Anne dreamily.
+
+"If it is, it'll be in a world where there aren't any
+men," said Miss Cornelia gloomily.
+
+"What have the men been doing now?" asked Gilbert,
+entering.
+
+"Mischief--mischief!  What else did they ever do?"
+
+"It was Eve ate the apple, Miss Cornelia."
+
+" 'Twas a he-creature tempted her," retorted Miss
+Cornelia triumphantly.
+
+Leslie, after her first anguish was over, found it
+possible to go on with life after all, as most of us
+do, no matter what our particular form of torment has
+been.  It is even possible that she enjoyed moments of
+it, when she was one of the gay circle in the little
+house of dreams.  But if Anne ever hoped that she was
+forgetting Owen Ford she would have been undeceived by
+the furtive hunger in Leslie's eyes whenever his name
+was mentioned.  Pitiful to that hunger, Anne always
+contrived to tell Captain Jim or Gilbert bits of news
+from Owen's letters when Leslie was with them.  The
+girl's flush and pallor at such moments spoke all too
+eloquently of the emotion that filled her being.  But
+she never spoke of him to Anne, or mentioned that night
+on the sand-bar.
+
+One day her old dog died and she grieved bitterly over
+him.
+
+"He's been my friend so long," she said sorrowfully to
+Anne.  "He was Dick's old dog, you know--Dick had him
+for a year or so before we were married.  He left him
+with me when he sailed on the Four Sisters.  Carlo got
+very fond of me--and his dog-love helped me through
+that first dreadful year after mother died, when I was
+alone.  When I heard that Dick was coming back I was
+afraid Carlo wouldn't be so much mine.  But he never
+seemed to care for Dick, though he had been so fond of
+him once.  He would snap and growl at him as if he were
+a stranger.  I was glad.  It was nice to have one thing
+whose love was all mine.  That old dog has been such a
+comfort to me, Anne.  He got so feeble in the fall that
+I was afraid he couldn't live long--but I hoped I could
+nurse him through the winter.  He seemed pretty well
+this morning.  He was lying on the rug before the fire;
+then, all at once, he got up and crept over to me; he
+put his head on my lap and gave me one loving look out
+of his big, soft, dog eyes--and then he just shivered
+and died.  I shall miss him so."
+
+"Let me give you another dog, Leslie," said Anne . 
+"I'm getting a lovely Gordon setter for a Christmas
+present for Gilbert.  Let me give you one too."
+
+Leslie shook her head.
+
+"Not just now, thank you, Anne.  I don't feel like
+having another dog yet.  I don't seem to have any
+affection left for another.  Perhaps--in time--I'll let
+you give me one.  I really need one as a kind of
+protection.  But there was something almost human about
+Carlo-- it wouldn't be DECENT to fill his place too
+hurriedly, dear old fellow ."
+
+Anne went to Avonlea a week before Christmas and stayed
+until after the holidays.  Gilbert came up for her, and
+there was a glad New Year celebration at Green Gables,
+when Barrys and Blythes and Wrights assembled to devour
+a dinner which had cost Mrs. Rachel and Marilla much
+careful thought and preparation.  When they went back
+to Four Winds the little house was almost drifted over,
+for the third storm of a winter that was to prove
+phenomenally stormy had whirled up the harbor and
+heaped huge snow mountains about everything it
+encountered.  But Captain Jim had shovelled out doors
+and paths, and Miss Cornelia had come down and kindled
+the hearth-fire.
+
+"It's good to see you back, Anne, dearie!  But did you
+ever see such drifts?  You can't see the Moore place at
+all unless you go upstairs.  Leslie'll be so glad
+you're back.  She's almost buried alive over there. 
+Fortunately Dick can shovel snow, and thinks it's great
+fun.  Susan sent me word to tell you she would be on
+hand tomorrow.  Where are you off to now, Captain?"
+
+"I reckon I'll plough up to the Glen and sit a bit with
+old Martin Strong.  He's not far from his end and he's
+lonesome.  He hasn't many friends--been too busy all
+his life to make any.  He's made heaps of money,
+though."
+
+"Well, he thought that since he couldn't serve God and
+Mammon he'd better stick to Mammon," said Miss
+Cornelia crisply.  "So he shouldn't complain if he
+doesn't find Mammon very good company now."
+
+Captain Jim went out, but remembered something in the
+yard and turned back for a moment.
+
+"I'd a letter from Mr. Ford, Mistress Blythe, and he
+says the life-book is accepted and is going to be
+published next fall.  I felt fair uplifted when I got
+the news.  To think that I'm to see it in print at
+last."
+
+"That man is clean crazy on the subject of his
+life-book," said Miss Cornelia compassionately.  "For
+my part, I think there's far too many books in the
+world now."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 29
+
+GILBERT AND ANNE DISAGREE
+
+Gilbert laid down the ponderous medical tome over which
+he had been poring until the increasing dusk of the
+March evening made him desist.  He leaned back in his
+chair and gazed meditatively out of the window.  It was
+early spring--probably the ugliest time of the year. 
+Not even the sunset could redeem the dead, sodden
+landscape and rotten black harbor ice upon which he
+looked.  No sign of life was visible, save a big black
+crow winging his solitary way across a leaden field. 
+Gilbert speculated idly concerning that crow.  Was he a
+family crow, with a black but comely crow wife
+awaiting him in the woods beyond the Glen?  Or was he a
+glossy young buck of a crow on courting thoughts
+intent?  Or was he a cynical bachelor crow, believing
+that he travels the fastest who travels alone? 
+Whatever he was, he soon disappeared in congenial gloom
+and Gilbert turned to the cheerier view indoors.
+
+The firelight flickered from point to point, gleaming
+on the white and green coats of Gog and Magog, on the
+sleek, brown head of the beautiful setter basking on
+the rug, on the picture frames on the walls, on the
+vaseful of daffodils from the window garden, on Anne
+herself, sitting by her little table, with her sewing
+beside her and her hands clasped over her knee while
+she traced out pictures in the fire--Castles in Spain
+whose airy turrets pierced moonlit cloud and sunset
+bar-ships sailing from the Haven of Good Hopes straight
+to Four Winds Harbor with precious burthen.  For Anne
+was again a dreamer of dreams, albeit a grim shape of
+fear went with her night and day to shadow and darken
+her visions.
+
+Gilbert was accustomed to refer to himself as "an old
+married man."  But he still looked upon Anne with the
+incredulous eyes of a lover.  He couldn't wholly
+believe yet that she was really his.  It MIGHT be only
+a dream after all, part and parcel of this magic house
+of dreams.  His soul still went on tip-toe before her,
+lest the charm be shattered and the dream dispelled.
+
+"Anne," he said slowly, "lend me your ears.  I want to
+talk with you about something."
+
+Anne looked across at him through the fire-lit gloom.
+
+"What is it?" she asked gaily.  "You look fearfully
+solemn, Gilbert.  I really haven't done anything
+naughty today.  Ask Susan."
+
+"It's not of you--or ourselves--I want to talk.  It's
+about Dick Moore."
+
+"Dick Moore?" echoed Anne, sitting up alertly.  "Why,
+what in the world have you to say about Dick Moore?"
+
+"I've been thinking a great deal about him lately.  Do
+you remember that time last summer I treated him for
+those carbuncles on his neck?"
+
+"Yes--yes."
+
+" I took the opportunity to examine the scars on his
+head thoroughly.  I've always thought Dick was a very
+interesting case from a medical point of view.  Lately
+I've been studying the history of trephining and the
+cases where it has been employed.  Anne, I have come to
+the conclusion that if Dick Moore were taken to a good
+hospital and the operation of trephining performed on
+several places in his skull, his memory and faculties
+might be restored."
+
+"Gilbert!" Anne's voice was full of protest.  "Surely
+you don't mean it!"
+
+"I do, indeed.  And I have decided that it is my duty
+to broach the subject to Leslie."
+
+"Gilbert Blythe, you shall NOT do any such thing,"
+cried Anne vehemently.  "Oh, Gilbert, you won't--you
+won't.  You couldn't be so cruel.  Promise me you
+won't."
+
+"Why, Anne-girl, I didn't suppose you would take it
+like this.  Be reasonable--"
+
+"I won't be reasonable--I can't be reasonable--I AM
+reasonable.  It is you who are unreasonable.  Gilbert,
+have you ever once thought what it would mean for
+Leslie if Dick Moore were to be restored to his right
+senses?  Just stop and think!  She's unhappy enough
+now; but life as Dick's nurse and attendant is a
+thousand times easier for her than life as Dick's wife. 
+I know--I KNOW!  It's unthinkable.  Don't you meddle
+with the matter.  Leave well enough alone."
+
+"I HAVE thought over that aspect of the case
+thoroughly, Anne.  But I believe that a doctor is
+bound to set the sanctity of a patient's mind and body
+above all other considerations, no matter what the
+consequences may be.  I believe it his duty to endeavor
+to restore health and sanity, if there is any hope
+whatever of it."
+
+"But Dick isn't your patient in that respect," cried
+Anne, taking another tack.  "If Leslie had asked you if
+anything could be done for him, THEN it might be your
+duty to tell her what you really thought.  But you've
+no right to meddle ."
+
+"I don't call it meddling.  Uncle Dave told Leslie
+twelve years ago that nothing could be done for Dick. 
+She believes that, of course."
+
+"And why did Uncle Dave tell her that, if it wasn't
+true?" cried Anne, triumphantly.  "Doesn't he know as
+much about it as you?"
+
+"I think not--though it may sound conceited and
+presumptuous to say it.  And you know as well as I
+that he is rather prejudiced against what he calls
+`these new-fangled notions of cutting and carving.' 
+He's even opposed to operating for appendicitis."
+
+"He's right," exclaimed Anne, with a complete change
+of front.  `I believe myself that you modern doctors
+are entirely too fond of making experiments with human
+flesh and blood."
+
+"Rhoda Allonby would not be a living woman today if I
+had been afraid of making a certain experiment,"
+argued Gilbert.  "I took the risk--and saved her
+life."
+
+"I'm sick and tired of hearing about Rhoda Allonby,"
+cried Anne--most unjustly, for Gilbert had never
+mentioned Mrs. Allonby's name since the day he had told
+Anne of his success in regard to her.  And he could not
+be blamed for other people's discussion of it. 
+
+Gilbert felt rather hurt.
+
+"I had not expected you to look at the matter as you
+do, Anne," he said a little stiffly, getting up and
+moving towards the office door.  It was their first
+approach to a quarrel.
+
+But Anne flew after him and dragged him back.
+
+"Now, Gilbert, you are not `going off mad.'  Sit down
+here and I'll apologise bee-YEW-ti-fully, I shouldn't
+have said that.  But--oh, if you knew--"
+
+Anne checked herself just in time.  She had been on the
+very verge of betraying Leslie's secret.
+
+"Knew what a woman feels about it," she concluded
+lamely.
+
+"I think I do know.  I've looked at the matter from
+every point of view--and I've been driven to the
+conclusion that it is my duty to tell Leslie that I
+believe it is possible that Dick can be restored to
+himself; there my responsibility ends.  It will be for
+her to decide what she will do."
+
+"I don't think you've any right to put such a
+responsibility on her. She has enough to bear.  She is
+poor--how could she afford such an operation?"
+
+"That is for her to decide," persisted Gilbert
+stubbornly.
+
+"You say you think that Dick can be cured.  But are you
+SURE of it?"
+
+"Certainly not.  Nobody could be sure of such a thing. 
+There may have been lesions of the brain itself, the
+effect of which can never be removed.  But if, as I
+believe, his loss of memory and other faculties is due
+merely to the pressure on the brain centers of certain
+depressed areas of bone, then he can be cured."
+
+"But it's only a possibility!" insisted Anne.  "Now,
+suppose you tell Leslie and she decides to have the
+operation.  It will cost a great deal.  She will have
+to borrow the money, or sell her little property.  And
+suppose the operation is a failure and Dick remains the
+same.
+
+How will she be able to pay back the money she borrows,
+or make a living for herself and that big helpless
+creature if she sells the farm?"
+
+"Oh, I know--I know.  But it is my duty to tell her.  I
+can't get away from that conviction."
+
+"Oh, I know the Blythe stubbornness," groaned Anne. 
+"But don't do this solely on your own responsibility. 
+Consult Doctor Dave."
+
+"I HAVE done so," said Gilbert reluctantly.
+
+"And what did he say?"
+
+"In brief--as you say--leave well enough alone.  Apart
+from his prejudice against new-fangled surgery, I'm
+afraid he looks at the case from your point of
+view--don't do it, for Leslie's sake."
+
+"There now," cried Anne triumphantly.  "I do think,
+Gilbert, that you ought to abide by the judgment of a
+man nearly eighty, who has seen a great deal and saved
+scores of lives himself--surely his opinion ought to
+weigh more than a mere boy's."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+"Don't laugh.  It's too serious."
+
+"That's just my point.  It IS serious.  Here is a man
+who is a helpless burden.  He may be restored to reason
+and usefulness--"
+
+"He was so very useful before," interjected Anne
+witheringly.
+
+"He may be given a chance to make good and redeem the
+past.  His wife doesn't know this.  I do.  It is
+therefore my duty to tell her that there is such a
+possibility.  That, boiled down, is my decision."
+
+"Don't say `decision' yet, Gilbert.  Consult somebody
+else.  Ask Captain Jim what he thinks about it."
+
+"Very well.  But I'll not promise to abide by his
+opinion, Anne.
+
+This is something a man must decide for himself.  My
+conscience would never be easy if I kept silent on the
+subject."
+
+"Oh, your conscience!" moaned Anne.  "I suppose that
+Uncle Dave has a conscience too, hasn't he?"
+
+"Yes.  But I am not the keeper of his conscience. 
+Come, Anne, if this affair did not concern Leslie--if
+it were a purely abstract case, you would agree with
+me,--you know you would."
+
+"I wouldn't," vowed Anne, trying to believe it
+herself.  "Oh, you can argue all night, Gilbert, but
+you won't convince me.  Just you ask Miss Cornelia what
+she thinks of it."
+
+"You're driven to the last ditch, Anne, when you bring
+up Miss Cornelia as a reinforcement.  She will say,
+`Just like a man,' and rage furiously.  No matter. 
+This is no affair for Miss Cornelia to settle.  Leslie
+alone must decide it."
+
+"You know very well how she will decide it," said
+Anne, almost in tears.  "She has ideals of duty, too. 
+I don't see how you can take such a responsibility on
+your shoulders.  _I_ couldn't."
+
+    "`Because right is right to follow right     Were
+wisdom in the scorn of consequence,'"
+
+quoted Gilbert.
+
+"Oh, you think a couplet of poetry a convincing
+argument!" scoffed Anne.  "That is so like a man."
+
+And then she laughed in spite of herself.  It sounded
+so like an echo of Miss Cornelia.
+
+"Well, if you won't accept Tennyson as an authority,
+perhaps you will believe the words of a Greater than
+he," said Gilbert seriously.  "`Ye shall know the
+truth and the truth shall make you free.'  I believe
+that, Anne, with all my heart.  It's the greatest and
+grandest verse in the Bible--or in any literature--and
+the TRUEST, if there are comparative degrees of
+trueness.  And it's the first duty of a man to tell the
+truth, as he sees it and believes it."
+
+"In this case the truth won't make poor Leslie free,"
+sighed Anne.  "It will probably end in still more
+bitter bondage for her.  Oh, Gilbert, I CAN'T think you
+are right."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 30
+
+LESLIE DECIDES
+
+A sudden outbreak of a virulent type of influenza at
+the Glen and down at the fishing village kept Gilbert
+so busy for the next fortnight that he had no time to
+pay the promised visit to Captain Jim.  Anne hoped
+against hope that he had abandoned the idea about Dick
+Moore, and, resolving to let sleeping dogs lie, she
+said no more about the subject.  But she thought of it
+incessantly.
+
+"I wonder if it would be right for me to tell him that
+Leslie cares for Owen," she thought.  "He would never
+let her suspect that he knew, so her pride would not
+suffer, and it MIGHT convince him that he should let
+Dick Moore alone.  Shall I--shall I?  No, after all, I
+cannot.  A promise is sacred, and I've no right to
+betray Leslie's secret.  But oh, I never felt so
+worried over anything in my life as I do over this. 
+It's spoiling the spring--it's spoiling everything."
+
+One evening Gilbert abruptly proposed that they go down
+and see Captain Jim.  With a sinking heart Anne agreed,
+and they set forth.  Two weeks of kind sunshine had
+wrought a miracle in the bleak landscape over which
+Gilbert's crow had flown.  The hills and fields were
+dry and brown and warm, ready to break into bud and
+blossom; the harbor was laughter-shaken again; the long
+harbor road was like a gleaming red ribbon; down on the
+dunes a crowd of boys, who were out smelt fishing, were
+burning the thick, dry sandhill grass of the preceding
+summer.  The flames swept over the dunes rosily,
+flinging their cardinal banners against the dark gulf
+beyond, and illuminating the channel and the fishing
+village.  It was a picturesque scene which would at
+other times have delighted Anne's eyes; but she was not
+enjoying this walk.  Neither was Gilbert.  Their usual
+good-comradeship and Josephian community of taste and
+viewpoint were sadly lacking.  Anne's disapproval of
+the whole project showed itself in the haughty uplift
+of her head and the studied politeness of her remarks. 
+Gilbert's mouth was set in all the Blythe obstinacy,
+but his eyes were troubled.  He meant to do what he
+believed to be his duty; but to be at outs with Anne
+was a high price to pay.  Altogether, both were glad
+when they reached the light--and remorseful that they
+should be glad.
+
+Captain Jim put away the fishing net upon which he was
+working, and welcomed them joyfully.  In the searching
+light of the spring evening he looked older than Anne
+had ever seen him.  His hair had grown much grayer, and
+the strong old hand shook a little.  But his blue eyes
+were clear and steady, and the staunch soul looked out
+through them gallant and unafraid.
+
+Captain Jim listened in amazed silence while Gilbert
+said what he had come to say.  Anne, who knew how the
+old man worshipped Leslie, felt quite sure that he
+would side with her, although she had not much hope
+that this would influence Gilbert.  She was therefore
+surprised beyond measure when Captain Jim, slowly and
+sorrowfully, but unhesitatingly, gave it as his opinion
+that Leslie should be told.
+
+"Oh, Captain Jim, I didn't think you'd say that," she
+exclaimed reproachfully.  "I thought you wouldn't want
+to make more trouble for her."
+
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+
+"I don't want to.  I know how you feel about it,
+Mistress Blythe-- just as I feel meself.  But it ain't
+our feelings we have to steer by through life--no, no,
+we'd make shipwreck mighty often if we did that. 
+There's only the one safe compass and we've got to set
+our course by that--what it's right to do.  I agree
+with the doctor.  If there's a chance for Dick, Leslie
+should be told of it.  There's no two sides to that, in
+my opinion."
+
+"Well," said Anne, giving up in despair, "wait until
+Miss Cornelia gets after you two men."
+
+"Cornelia'll rake us fore and aft, no doubt," assented
+Captain Jim.  "You women are lovely critters, Mistress
+Blythe, but you're just a mite illogical.  You're a
+highly eddicated lady and Cornelia isn't, but you're
+like as two peas when it comes to that.  I dunno's
+you're any the worse for it.  Logic is a sort of hard,
+merciless thing, I reckon.  Now, I'll brew a cup of tea
+and we'll drink it and talk of pleasant things, jest to
+calm our minds a bit."
+
+At least, Captain Jim's tea and conversation calmed
+Anne's mind to such an extent that she did not make
+Gilbert suffer so acutely on the way home as she had
+deliberately intended to do.  She did not refer to the
+burning question at all, but she chatted amiably of
+other matters, and Gilbert understood that he was
+forgiven under protest.
+
+"Captain Jim seems very frail and bent this spring. 
+The winter has aged him," said Anne sadly.  "I am
+afraid that he will soon be going to seek lost
+Margaret.  I can't bear to think of it."
+
+"Four Winds won't be the same place when Captain Jim
+`sets out to sea,'" agreed Gilbert.
+
+The following evening he went to the house up the
+brook.  Anne wandered dismally around until his
+return.
+
+"Well, what did Leslie say?" she demanded when he came
+in.
+
+"Very little.  I think she felt rather dazed."
+
+"And is she going to have the operation?"
+
+"She is going to think it over and decide very soon."
+
+Gilbert flung himself wearily into the easy chair
+before the fire.  He looked tired.  It had not been an
+easy thing for him to tell Leslie.  And the terror that
+had sprung into her eyes when the meaning of what he
+told her came home to her was not a pleasant thing to
+remember.  Now, when the die was cast, he was beset
+with doubts of his own wisdom.
+
+Anne looked at him remorsefully; then she slipped down
+on the rug beside him and laid her glossy red head on
+his arm.
+
+"Gilbert, I've been rather hateful over this.  I won't
+be any more.  Please just call me red-headed and
+forgive me."
+
+By which Gilbert understood that, no matter what came
+of it, there would be no I-told-you-so's.  But he was
+not wholly comforted.  Duty in the abstract is one
+thing; duty in the concrete is quite another,
+especially when the doer is confronted by a woman's
+stricken eyes.
+
+Some instinct made Anne keep away from Leslie for the
+next three days.  On the third evening Leslie came down
+to the little house and told Gilbert that she had made
+up her mind; she would take Dick to Montreal and have
+the operation.
+
+She was very pale and seemed to have wrapped herself in
+her old mantle of aloofness.  But her eyes had lost the
+look which had haunted Gilbert; they were cold and
+bright; and she proceeded to discuss details with him
+in a crisp, business-like way.  There were plans to be
+made and many things to be thought over.  When Leslie
+had got the information she wanted she went home.  Anne
+wanted to walk part of the way with her.
+
+"Better not," said Leslie curtly.  "Today's rain has
+made the ground damp.  Good-night."
+
+"Have I lost my friend?" said Anne with a sigh.  "If
+the operation is successful and Dick Moore finds
+himself again Leslie will retreat into some remote
+fastness of her soul where none of us can ever find
+her."
+
+"Perhaps she will leave him," said Gilbert.
+
+"Leslie would never do that, Gilbert.  Her sense of
+duty is very strong.  She told me once that her
+Grandmother West always impressed upon her the fact
+that when she assumed any responsibility she must never
+shirk it, no matter what the consequences might be. 
+That is one of her cardinal rules.  I suppose it's very
+old-fashioned ."
+
+"Don't be bitter, Anne-girl.  You know you don't think
+it old- fashioned--you know you have the very same idea
+of sacredness of assumed responsibilities yourself. 
+And you are right.  Shirking responsibilities is the
+curse of our modern life--the secret of all the unrest
+and discontent that is seething in the world."
+
+"Thus saith the preacher," mocked Anne.  But under the
+mockery she felt that he was right; and she was very
+sick at heart for Leslie.
+
+A week later Miss Cornelia descended like an avalanche
+upon the little house.  Gilbert was away and Anne was
+compelled to bear the shock of the impact alone.
+
+Miss Cornelia hardly waited to get her hat off before
+she began.
+
+"Anne, do you mean to tell me it's true what I've
+heard--that Dr. Blythe has told Leslie Dick can be
+cured, and that she is going to take him to Montreal to
+have him operated on?"
+
+"Yes, it is quite true, Miss Cornelia," said Anne
+bravely.
+
+"Well, it's inhuman cruelty, that's what it is," said
+Miss Cornelia, violently agitated.  "I did think Dr.
+Blythe was a decent man.  I didn't think he could have
+been guilty of this."
+
+"Dr. Blythe thought it was his duty to tell Leslie that
+there was a chance for Dick," said Anne with spirit,
+"and," she added, loyalty to Gilbert getting the
+better of her, "I agree with him."
+
+"Oh, no, you don't, dearie," said Miss Cornelia.  "No
+person with any bowels of compassion could."
+
+"Captain Jim does."
+
+"Don't quote that old ninny to me," cried Miss
+Cornelia.  "And I don't care who agrees with him. 
+Think--THINK what it means to that poor hunted, harried
+girl."
+
+"We DO think of it.  But Gilbert believes that a doctor
+should put the welfare of a patient's mind and body
+before all other considerations."
+
+"That's just like a man.  But I expected better things
+of you, Anne," said Miss Cornelia, more in sorrow than
+in wrath; then she proceeded to bombard Anne with
+precisely the same arguments with which the latter had
+attacked Gilbert; and Anne valiantly defended her
+husband with the weapons he had used for his own
+protection.  Long was the fray, but Miss Cornelia made
+an end at last.
+
+"It's an iniquitous shame," she declared, almost in
+tears.  "That's just what it is--an iniquitous shame. 
+Poor, poor Leslie!"
+
+"Don't you think Dick should be considered a little
+too?" pleaded Anne.
+
+"Dick!  Dick Moore!  HE'S happy enough.  He's a better
+behaved and more reputable member of society now than
+he ever was before.
+
+Why, he was a drunkard and perhaps worse.  Are you
+going to set him loose again to roar and to devour?"
+
+"He may reform," said poor Anne, beset by foe without
+and traitor within.
+
+"Reform your grandmother!" retorted Miss Cornelia. 
+"Dick Moore got the injuries that left him as he is in
+a drunken brawl.  He DESERVES his fate.  It was sent on
+him for a punishment.  I don't believe the doctor has
+any business to tamper with the visitations of God."
+
+"Nobody knows how Dick was hurt, Miss Cornelia.  It may
+not have been in a drunken brawl at all.  He may have
+been waylaid and robbed."
+
+"Pigs MAY whistle, but they've poor mouths for it,"
+said Miss Cornelia.  "Well, the gist of what you tell
+me is that the thing is settled and there's no use in
+talking.  If that's so I'll hold my tongue.  I don't
+propose to wear MY teeth out gnawing files.  When a
+thing has to be I give in to it.  But I like to make
+mighty sure first that it HAS to be.  Now, I'll devote
+MY energies to comforting and sustaining Leslie.  And
+after all," added Miss Cornelia, brightening up
+hopefully, "perhaps nothing can be done for Dick."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 31
+
+THE TRUTH MAKES FREE
+
+Leslie, having once made up her mind what to do,
+proceeded to do it with characteristic resolution and
+speed.  House-cleaning must be finished with first,
+whatever issues of life and death might await beyond. 
+The gray house up the brook was put into flawless order
+and cleanliness, with Miss Cornelia's ready assistance. 
+Miss Cornelia, having said her say to Anne, and later
+on to Gilbert and Captain Jim--sparing neither of them,
+let it be assured--never spoke of the matter to Leslie. 
+She accepted the fact of Dick's operation, referred to
+it when necessary in a business-like way, and ignored
+it when it was not.  Leslie never attempted to discuss
+it.  She was very cold and quiet during these beautiful
+spring days.  She seldom visited Anne, and though she
+was invariably courteous and friendly, that very
+courtesy was as an icy barrier between her and the
+people of the little house.  The old jokes and laughter
+and chumminess of common things could not reach her
+over it.  Anne refused to feel hurt.  She knew that
+Leslie was in the grip of a hideous dread--a dread
+that wrapped her away from all little glimpses of
+happiness and hours of pleasure.  When one great
+passion seizes possession of the soul all other
+feelings are crowded aside.  Never in all her life had
+Leslie Moore shuddered away from the future with more
+intolerable terror.  But she went forward as
+unswervingly in the path she had elected as the martyrs
+of old walked their chosen way, knowing the end of it
+to be the fiery agony of the stake.
+
+The financial question was settled with greater ease
+than Anne had feared.  Leslie borrowed the necessary
+money from Captain Jim, and, at her insistence, he took
+a mortgage on the little farm.
+
+"So that is one thing off the poor girl's mind," Miss
+Cornelia told Anne, "and off mine too.  Now, if Dick
+gets well enough to work again he'll be able to earn
+enough to pay the interest on it; and if he doesn't I
+know Captain Jim'll manage someway that Leslie won't
+have to.  He said as much to me.  `I'm getting old,
+Cornelia,' he said, `and I've no chick or child of my
+own.  Leslie won't take a gift from a living man, but
+mebbe she will from a dead one.'  So it will be all
+right as far as THAT goes.  I wish everything else
+might be settled as satisfactorily.  As for that wretch
+of a Dick, he's been awful these last few days.  The
+devil was in him, believe ME!  Leslie and I couldn't
+get on with our work for the tricks he'd play.  He
+chased all her ducks one day around the yard till most
+of them died.  And not one thing would he do for us. 
+Sometimes, you know, he'll make himself quite handy,
+bringing in pails of water and wood.  But this week if
+we sent him to the well he'd try to climb down into it. 
+I thought once, `If you'd only shoot down there
+head-first everything would be nicely settled.'"
+
+"Oh, Miss Cornelia!"
+
+"Now, you needn't Miss Cornelia me, Anne, dearie. 
+ANYBODY would have thought the same.  If the Montreal
+doctors can make a rational creature out of Dick Moore
+they're wonders."
+
+Leslie took Dick to Montreal early in May.  Gilbert
+went with her, to help her, and make the necessary
+arrangements for her.  He came home with the report
+that the Montreal surgeon whom they had consulted
+agreed with him that there was a good chance of Dick's
+restoration.
+
+"Very comforting," was Miss Cornelia's sarcastic
+comment.
+
+Anne only sighed.  Leslie had been very distant at
+their parting.
+
+But she had promised to write.  Ten days after
+Gilbert's return the letter came.  Leslie wrote that
+the operation had been successfully performed and that
+Dick was making a good recovery.
+
+"What does she mean by `successfully?'" asked Anne. 
+"Does she mean that Dick's memory is really restored?"
+
+"Not likely--since she says nothing of it," said
+Gilbert.  "She uses the word `successfully' from the
+surgeon's point of view.  The operation has been
+performed and followed by normal results.  But it is
+too soon to know whether Dick's faculties will be
+eventually restored, wholly or in part.  His memory
+would not be likely to return to him all at once.  The
+process will be gradual, if it occurs at all.  Is that
+all she says?"
+
+"Yes--there's her letter.  It's very short.  Poor girl,
+she must be under a terrible strain.  Gilbert Blythe,
+there are heaps of things I long to say to you, only it
+would be mean."
+
+"Miss Cornelia says them for you," said Gilbert with a
+rueful smile.  "She combs me down every time I
+encounter her.  She makes it plain to me that she
+regards me as little better than a murderer, and that
+she thinks it a great pity that Dr. Dave ever let me
+step into his shoes.  She even told me that the
+Methodist doctor over the harbor was to be preferred
+before me.  With Miss Cornelia the force of
+condemnation can no further go."
+
+"If Cornelia Bryant was sick, it would not be Doctor
+Dave or the Methodist doctor she would send for,"
+sniffed Susan.  "She would have you out of your
+hard-earned bed in the middle of the night, doctor,
+dear, if she took a spell of misery, that she would. 
+And then she would likely say your bill was past all
+reason.  But do not mind her, doctor, dear.  It takes
+all kinds of people to make a world."
+
+No further word came from Leslie for some time.  The
+May days crept away in a sweet succession and the
+shores of Four Winds Harbor greened and bloomed and
+purpled.  One day in late May Gilbert came home to be
+met by Susan in the stable yard.
+
+"I am afraid something has upset Mrs. Doctor, doctor,
+dear," she said mysteriously.  "She got a letter this
+afternoon and since then she has just been walking
+round the garden and talking to herself.  You know it
+is not good for her to be on her feet so much, doctor,
+dear.  She did not see fit to tell me what her news
+was, and I am no pry, doctor, dear, and never was, but
+it is plain something has upset her.  And it is not
+good for her to be upset."
+
+Gilbert hurried rather anxiously to the garden.  Had
+anything happened at Green Gables?  But Anne, sitting
+on the rustic seat by the brook, did not look troubled,
+though she was certainly much excited.  Her eyes were
+their grayest, and scarlet spots burned on her cheeks.
+
+"What has happened, Anne?"
+
+Anne gave a queer little laugh.
+
+"I think you'll hardly believe it when I tell you,
+Gilbert.  _I_ can't believe it yet.  As Susan said the
+other day, `I feel like a fly coming to live in the
+sun--dazed-like.'  It's all so incredible.  I've read
+the letter a score of times and every time it's just
+the same--I can't believe my own eyes.  Oh, Gilbert,
+you were right--so right.  I can see that clearly
+enough now--and I'm so ashamed of myself--and will you
+ever really forgive me?"
+
+"Anne, I'll shake you if you don't grow coherent. 
+Redmond would be ashamed of you.  WHAT has happened?"
+
+"You won't believe it--you won't believe it--"
+
+"I'm going to phone for Uncle Dave," said Gilbert,
+pretending to start for the house.
+
+"Sit down, Gilbert.  I'll try to tell you.  I've had a
+letter, and oh, Gilbert, it's all so amazing--so
+incredibly amazing--we never thought--not one of us
+ever dreamed--"
+
+"I suppose," said Gilbert, sitting down with a
+resigned air, "the only thing to do in a case of this
+kind is to have patience and go at the matter
+categorically.  Whom is your letter from?"
+
+"Leslie--and, oh, Gilbert--"
+
+"Leslie!  Whew!  What has she to say?  What's the news
+about Dick?"
+
+Anne lifted the letter and held it out, calmly dramatic
+in a moment.
+
+"There is NO Dick!  The man we have thought Dick
+Moore-- whom everybody in Four Winds has believed for
+twelve years to be Dick Moore--is his cousin, George
+Moore, of Nova Scotia, who, it seems, always resembled
+him very strikingly.  Dick Moore died of yellow fever
+thirteen years ago in Cuba."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 32
+
+MISS CORNELIA DISCUSSES THE AFFAIR
+
+"And do you mean to tell me, Anne, dearie, that Dick
+Moore has turned out not to be Dick Moore at all but
+somebody else?  Is THAT what you phoned up to me
+today?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Cornelia.  It is very amazing, isn't it?"
+
+"It's--it's--just like a man," said Miss Cornelia
+helplessly.  She took off her hat with trembling
+fingers.  For once in her life Miss Cornelia was
+undeniably staggered.
+
+"I can't seem to sense it, Anne," she said.  "I've
+heard you say it--and I believe you--but I can't take
+it in.  Dick Moore is dead-- has been dead all these
+years--and Leslie is free?"
+
+"Yes.  The truth has made her free.  Gilbert was right
+when he said that verse was the grandest in the
+Bible."
+
+"Tell me everything, Anne, dearie.  Since I got your
+phone I've been in a regular muddle, believe ME. 
+Cornelia Bryant was never so kerflummuxed before."
+
+"There isn't a very great deal to tell.  Leslie's
+letter was short.  She didn't go into particulars. 
+This man--George Moore--has recovered his memory and
+knows who he is.  He says Dick took yellow fever in
+Cuba, and the Four Sisters had to sail without him. 
+George stayed behind to nurse him.  But he died very
+shortly afterwards.
+
+George did not write Leslie because he intended to come
+right home and tell her himself."
+
+"And why didn't he?"
+
+"I suppose his accident must have intervened.  Gilbert
+says it is quite likely that George Moore remembers
+nothing of his accident, or what led to it, and may
+never remember it.  It probably happened very soon
+after Dick's death.  We may find out more particulars
+when Leslie writes again."
+
+"Does she say what she is going to do?  When is she
+coming home?"
+
+"She says she will stay with George Moore until he can
+leave the hospital.  She has written to his people in
+Nova Scotia.  It seems that George's only near relative
+is a married sister much older than himself.  She was
+living when George sailed on the Four Sisters, but of
+course we do not know what may have happened since. 
+Did you ever see George Moore, Miss Cornelia?"
+
+"I did.  It is all coming back to me.  He was here
+visiting his Uncle Abner eighteen years ago, when he
+and Dick would be about seventeen.  They were double
+cousins, you see.  Their fathers were brothers and
+their mothers were twin sisters, and they did look a
+terrible lot alike.  Of course," added Miss Cornelia
+scornfully, "it wasn't one of those freak resemblances
+you read of in novels where two people are so much
+alike that they can fill each other's places and their
+nearest and dearest can't tell between them.  In those
+days you could tell easy enough which was George and
+which was Dick, if you saw them together and near at
+hand.  Apart, or some distance away, it wasn't so easy. 
+They played lots of tricks on people and thought it
+great fun, the two scamps.  George Moore was a little
+taller and a good deal fatter than Dick--though neither
+of them was what you would call fat--they were both of
+the lean kind.  Dick had higher color than George, and
+his hair was a shade lighter.  But their features were
+just alike, and they both had that queer freak of
+eyes--one blue and one hazel.  They weren't much alike
+in any other way, though.  George was a real nice
+fellow, though he was a scalawag for mischief, and some
+said he had a liking for a glass even then.  But
+everybody liked him better than Dick.  He spent about a
+month here.  Leslie never saw him; she was only about
+eight or nine then and I remember now that she spent
+that whole winter over harbor with her grandmother
+West.  Captain Jim was away, too--that was the winter
+he was wrecked on the Magdalens.  I don't suppose
+either he or Leslie had ever heard about the Nova
+Scotia cousin looking so much like Dick.  Nobody ever
+thought of him when Captain Jim brought Dick--George, I
+should say--home.  Of course, we all thought Dick had
+changed considerable--he'd got so lumpish and fat.  But
+we put that down to what had happened to him, and no
+doubt that was the reason, for, as I've said, George
+wasn't fat to begin with either.  And there was no
+other way we could have guessed, for the man's senses
+were clean gone.  I can't see that it is any wonder we
+were all deceived.  But it's a staggering thing.  And
+Leslie has sacrificed the best years of her life to
+nursing a man who hadn't any claim on her!  Oh, drat
+the men!  No matter what they do, it's the wrong thing. 
+And no matter who they are, it's somebody they
+shouldn't be.  They do exasperate me."
+
+"Gilbert and Captain Jim are men, and it is through
+them that the truth has been discovered at last," said
+Anne.
+
+"Well, I admit that," conceded Miss Cornelia
+reluctantly.  "I'm sorry I raked the doctor off so. 
+It's the first time in my life I've ever felt ashamed
+of anything I said to a man.  I don't know as I shall
+tell him so, though.  He'll just have to take it for
+granted.  Well, Anne, dearie, it's a mercy the Lord
+doesn't answer all our prayers.  I've been praying hard
+right along that the operation wouldn't cure Dick.  Of
+course I didn't put it just quite so plain.  But that
+was what was in the back of my mind, and I have no
+doubt the Lord knew it."
+
+"Well, He has answered the spirit of your prayer.  You
+really wished that things shouldn't be made any harder
+for Leslie.  I'm afraid that in my secret heart I've
+been hoping the operation wouldn't succeed, and I am
+wholesomely ashamed of it."
+
+"How does Leslie seem to take it?"
+
+"She writes like one dazed.  I think that, like
+ourselves, she hardly realises it yet.  She says, `It
+all seems like a strange dream to me, Anne.'  That is
+the only reference she makes to herself."
+
+"Poor child!  I suppose when the chains are struck off
+a prisoner he'd feel queer and lost without them for a
+while.  Anne, dearie, here's a thought keeps coming
+into my mind.  What about Owen Ford?  We both know
+Leslie was fond of him.  Did it ever occur to you that
+he was fond of her?"
+
+"It--did--once," admitted Anne, feeling that she might
+say so much.
+
+"Well, I hadn't any reason to think he was, but it just
+appeared to me he MUST be.  Now, Anne, dearie, the Lord
+knows I'm not a match-maker, and I scorn all such
+doings.  But if I were you and writing to that Ford man
+I'd just mention, casual-like, what has happened.  That
+is what _I_'d do."
+
+"Of course I will mention it when I write him," said
+Anne, a trifle distantly.  Somehow, this was a thing
+she could not discuss with Miss Cornelia.  And yet, she
+had to admit that the same thought had been lurking in
+her mind ever since she had heard of Leslie's freedom. 
+But she would not desecrate it by free speech.
+
+"Of course there is no great rush, dearie.  But Dick
+Moore's been dead for thirteen years and Leslie has
+wasted enough of her life for him.  We'll just see what
+comes of it.  As for this George Moore, who's gone and
+come back to life when everyone thought he was dead and
+done for, just like a man, I'm real sorry for him.  He
+won't seem to fit in anywhere."
+
+"He is still a young man, and if he recovers
+completely, as seems likely, he will be able to make a
+place for himself again.  It must be very strange for
+him, poor fellow.  I suppose all these years since his
+accident will not exist for him."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 33
+
+LESLIE RETURNS
+
+A fortnight later Leslie Moore came home alone to the
+old house where she had spent so many bitter years.  In
+the June twilight she went over the fields to Anne's,
+and appeared with ghost-like suddenness in the scented
+garden.
+
+"Leslie!" cried Anne in amazement.  "Where have you
+sprung from?  We never knew you were coming.  Why
+didn't you write?  We would have met you."
+
+"I couldn't write somehow, Anne.  It seemed so futile
+to try to say anything with pen and ink.  And I wanted
+to get back quietly and unobserved."
+
+Anne put her arms about Leslie and kissed her.  Leslie
+returned the kiss warmly.  She looked pale and tired,
+and she gave a little sigh as she dropped down on the
+grasses beside a great bed of daffodils that were
+gleaming through the pale, silvery twilight like golden
+stars.
+
+"And you have come home alone, Leslie?"
+
+"Yes.  George Moore's sister came to Montreal and took
+him home with her.  Poor fellow, he was sorry to part
+with me--though I was a stranger to him when his memory
+first came back.  He clung to me in those first hard
+days when he was trying to realise that Dick's death
+was not the thing of yesterday that it seemed to him. 
+It was all very hard for him.  I helped him all I
+could.  When his sister came it was easier for him,
+because it seemed to him only the other day that he had
+seen her last.  Fortunately she had not changed much,
+and that helped him, too."
+
+"It is all so strange and wonderful, Leslie.  I think
+we none of us realise it yet."
+
+"I cannot.  When I went into the house over there an
+hour ago, I felt that it MUST be a dream--that Dick
+must be there, with his childish smile, as he had been
+for so long.  Anne, I seem stunned yet. I'm not glad or
+sorry--or ANYTHING.  I feel as if something had been
+torn suddenly out of my life and left a terrible hole. 
+I feel as if I couldn't be _I_--as if I must have
+changed into somebody else and couldn't get used to it. 
+It gives me a horrible lonely, dazed, helpless feeling. 
+It's good to see you again--it seems as if you were a
+sort of anchor for my drifting soul.  Oh, Anne, I
+dread it all--the gossip and wonderment and
+questioning.  When I think of that, I wish that I need
+not have come home at all.  Dr. Dave was at the station
+when I came off the train--he brought me home.  Poor
+old man, he feels very badly because he told me years
+ago that nothing could be done for Dick.  `I honestly
+thought so, Leslie,' he said to me today.  `But I
+should have told you not to depend on my opinion--I
+should have told you to go to a specialist.  If I had,
+you would have been saved many bitter years, and poor
+George Moore many wasted ones.  I blame myself very
+much, Leslie.'  I told him not to do that--he had done
+what he thought right.  He has always been so kind to
+me--I couldn't bear to see him worrying over it."
+
+"And Dick--George, I mean?  Is his memory fully
+restored?"
+
+"Practically.  Of course, there are a great many
+details he can't recall yet--but he remembers more and
+more every day.  He went out for a walk on the evening
+after Dick was buried.  He had Dick's money and watch
+on him; he meant to bring them home to me, along with
+my letter.  He admits he went to a place where the
+sailors resorted--and he remembers drinking--and
+nothing else.  Anne, I shall never forget the moment he
+remembered his own name.  I saw him looking at me with
+an intelligent but puzzled expression.  I said, `Do you
+know me, Dick?'  He answered, `I never saw you before. 
+Who are you?  And my name is not Dick.  I am George
+Moore, and Dick died of yellow fever yesterday!  Where
+am I?  What has happened to me?'  I--I fainted, Anne. 
+And ever since I have felt as if I were in a dream."
+
+"You will soon adjust yourself to this new state of
+things, Leslie.  And you are young--life is before
+you--you will have many beautiful years yet."
+
+"Perhaps I shall be able to look at it in that way
+after a while, Anne.  Just now I feel too tired and
+indifferent to think about the future.  I'm--I'm--Anne,
+I'm lonely.  I miss Dick.  Isn't it all very strange? 
+Do you know, I was really fond of poor Dick--George, I
+suppose I should say--just as I would have been fond of
+a helpless child who depended on me for everything.  I
+would never have admitted it--I was really ashamed of
+it--because, you see, I had hated and despised Dick so
+much before he went away.  When I heard that Captain
+Jim was bringing him home I expected I would just feel
+the same to him.  But I never did--although I continued
+to loathe him as I remembered him before.  From the
+time he came home I felt only pity--a pity that hurt
+and wrung me.  I supposed then that it was just because
+his accident had made him so helpless and changed.  But
+now I believe it was because there was really a
+different personality there.  Carlo knew it, Anne--I
+know now that Carlo knew it.  I always thought it
+strange that Carlo shouldn't have known Dick.  Dogs are
+usually so faithful.  But HE knew it was not his master
+who had come back, although none of the rest of us
+did.  I had never seen George Moore, you know.  I
+remember now that Dick once mentioned casually that he
+had a cousin in Nova Scotia who looked as much like him
+as a twin; but the thing had gone out of my memory, and
+in any case I would never have thought it of any
+importance.  You see, it never occurred to me to
+question Dick's identity.  Any change in him seemed to
+me just the result of the accident.
+
+"Oh, Anne, that night in April when Gilbert told me he
+thought Dick might be cured!  I can never forget it. 
+It seemed to me that I had once been a prisoner in a
+hideous cage of torture, and then the door had been
+opened and I could get out.  I was still chained to the
+cage but I was not in it.  And that night I felt that a
+merciless hand was drawing me back into the cage--back
+to a torture even more terrible than it had once been. 
+I didn't blame Gilbert.  I felt he was right.  And he
+had been very good--he said that if, in view of the
+expense and uncertainty of the operation, I should
+decide not to risk it, he would not blame me in the
+least.  But I knew how I ought to decide--and I
+couldn't face it.  All night I walked the floor like a
+mad woman, trying to compel myself to face it.  I
+couldn't, Anne--I thought I couldn't--and when morning
+broke I set my teeth and resolved that I WOULDN'T.  I
+would let things remain as they were.  It was very
+wicked, I know.  It would have been just punishment for
+such wickedness if I had just been left to abide by
+that decision.  I kept to it all day.  That afternoon I
+had to go up to the Glen to do some shopping.  It was
+one of Dick's quiet, drowsy days, so I left him alone. 
+I was gone a little longer than I had expected, and he
+missed me.  He felt lonely.  And when I got home, he
+ran to meet me just like a child, with such a pleased
+smile on his face.  Somehow, Anne, I just gave way
+then.  That smile on his poor vacant face was more than
+I could endure.  I felt as if I were denying a child
+the chance to grow and develop.  I knew that I must
+give him his chance, no matter what the consequences
+might be.  So I came over and told Gilbert.  Oh, Anne,
+you must have thought me hateful in those weeks before
+I went away.  I didn't mean to be--but I couldn't think
+of anything except what I had to do, and everything and
+everybody about me were like shadows."
+
+"I know--I understood, Leslie.  And now it is all
+over--your chain is broken--there is no cage."
+
+"There is no cage," repeated Leslie absently, plucking
+at the fringing grasses with her slender, brown hands. 
+"But--it doesn't seem as if there were anything else,
+Anne.  You--you remember what I told you of my folly
+that night on the sand-bar?  I find one doesn't get
+over being a fool very quickly.  Sometimes I think
+there are people who are fools forever.  And to be a
+fool--of that kind--is almost as bad as being a--a dog
+on a chain."
+
+"You will feel very differently after you get over
+being tired and bewildered," said Anne, who, knowing a
+certain thing that Leslie did not know, did not feel
+herself called upon to waste overmuch sympathy.
+
+Leslie laid her splendid golden head against Anne's
+knee.
+
+"Anyhow, I have YOU," she said.  "Life can't be
+altogether empty with such a friend.  Anne, pat my
+head--just as if I were a little girl--MOTHER me a
+bit--and let me tell you while my stubborn tongue is
+loosed a little just what you and your comradeship have
+meant to me since that night I met you on the rock
+shore."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 34
+
+THE SHIP O'DREAMS COMES TO HARBOR
+
+One morning, when a windy golden sunrise was billowing
+over the gulf in waves of light, a certain weary stork
+flew over the bar of Four Winds Harbor on his way from
+the Land of Evening Stars.  Under his wing was tucked a
+sleepy, starry-eyed, little creature.  The stork was
+tired, and he looked wistfully about him.  He knew he
+was somewhere near his destination, but he could not
+yet see it.  The big, white light-house on the red
+sandstone cliff had its good points; but no stork
+possessed of any gumption would leave a new, velvet
+baby there.  An old gray house, surrounded by willows,
+in a blossomy brook valley, looked more promising, but
+did not seem quite the thing either.  The staring
+green abode further on was manifestly out of the
+question.  Then the stork brightened up.  He had
+caught sight of the very place--a little white house
+nestled against a big, whispering firwood, with a
+spiral of blue smoke winding up from its kitchen
+chimney--a house which just looked as if it were meant
+for babies.  The stork gave a sigh of satisfaction, and
+softly alighted on the ridge-pole.
+
+Half an hour later Gilbert ran down the hall and tapped
+on the spare-room door.  A drowsy voice answered him
+and in a moment Marilla's pale, scared face peeped out
+from behind the door.
+
+"Marilla, Anne has sent me to tell you that a certain
+young gentleman has arrived here.  He hasn't brought
+much luggage with him, but he evidently means to
+stay."
+
+"For pity's sake!" said Marilla blankly.  "You don't
+mean to tell me, Gilbert, that it's all over.  Why
+wasn't I called?"
+
+"Anne wouldn't let us disturb you when there was no
+need.  Nobody was called until about two hours ago. 
+There was no `passage perilous' this time."
+
+"And--and--Gilbert--will this baby live?"
+
+"He certainly will.  He weighs ten pounds and--why,
+listen to him.  Nothing wrong with his lungs, is there? 
+The nurse says his hair will be red.  Anne is furious
+with her, and I'm tickled to death."
+
+That was a wonderful day in the little house of dreams.
+
+"The best dream of all has come true," said Anne, pale
+and rapturous.  "Oh, Marilla, I hardly dare believe it,
+after that horrible day last summer.  I have had a
+heartache ever since then--but it is gone now."
+
+"This baby will take Joy's place," said Marilla.
+
+"Oh, no, no, NO, Marilla.  He can't--nothing can ever
+do that.  He has his own place, my dear, wee
+man-child.  But little Joy has hers, and always will
+have it.  If she had lived she would have been over a
+year old.  She would have been toddling around on her
+tiny feet and lisping a few words.  I can see her so
+plainly, Marilla.  Oh, I know now that Captain Jim was
+right when he said God would manage better than that my
+baby would seem a stranger to me when I found her
+Beyond.  I've learned THAT this past year.  I've
+followed her development day by day and week by week--I
+always shall.  I shall know just how she grows from
+year to year--and when I meet her again I'll know
+her--she won't be a stranger.  Oh, Marilla, LOOK at his
+dear, darling toes!  Isn't it strange they should be so
+perfect?"
+
+"It would be stranger if they weren't," said Marilla
+crisply.  Now that all was safely over, Marilla was
+herself again.
+
+"Oh, I know--but it seems as if they couldn't be quite
+FINISHED, you know--and they are, even to the tiny
+nails.  And his hands--JUST look at his hands,
+Marilla."
+
+"They appear to be a good deal like hands," Marilla
+conceded.
+
+"See how he clings to my finger.  I'm sure he knows me
+already.  He cries when the nurse takes him away.  Oh,
+Marilla, do you think--you don't think, do you--that
+his hair is going to be red?"
+
+"I don't see much hair of any color," said Marilla. 
+"I wouldn't worry about it, if I were you, until it
+becomes visible."
+
+"Marilla, he HAS hair--look at that fine little down
+all over his head.  Anyway, nurse says his eyes will be
+hazel and his forehead is exactly like Gilbert's."
+
+"And he has the nicest little ears, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear," said Susan.  "The first thing I did was to look
+at his ears.  Hair is deceitful and noses and eyes
+change, and you cannot tell what is going to come of
+them, but ears is ears from start to finish, and you
+always know where you are with them.  Just look at
+their shape--and they are set right back against his
+precious head.  You will never need to be ashamed of
+his ears, Mrs. Doctor, dear."
+
+Anne's convalescence was rapid and happy.  Folks came
+and worshipped the baby, as people have bowed before
+the kingship of the new-born since long before the Wise
+Men of the East knelt in homage to the Royal Babe of
+the Bethlehem manger.  Leslie, slowly finding herself
+amid the new conditions of her life, hovered over it,
+like a beautiful, golden-crowned Madonna.  Miss
+Cornelia nursed it as knackily as could any mother in
+Israel.  Captain Jim held the small creature in his big
+brown hands and gazed tenderly at it, with eyes that
+saw the children who had never been born to him.
+
+"What are you going to call him?" asked Miss Cornelia.
+
+"Anne has settled his name," answered Gilbert.
+
+"James Matthew--after the two finest gentlemen I've
+ever known--not even saving your presence," said Anne
+with a saucy glance at Gilbert.
+
+Gilbert smiled.
+
+"I never knew Matthew very well; he was so shy we boys
+couldn't get acquainted with him--but I quite agree
+with you that Captain Jim is one of the rarest and
+finest souls God ever clothed in clay.  He is so
+delighted over the fact that we have given his name to
+our small lad.  It seems he has no other namesake."
+
+"Well, James Matthew is a name that will wear well and
+not fade in the washing," said Miss Cornelia.  "I'm
+glad you didn't load him down with some highfalutin,
+romantic name that he'd be ashamed of when he gets to
+be a grandfather.  Mrs. William Drew at the Glen has
+called her baby Bertie Shakespeare.  Quite a
+combination, isn't it?  And I'm glad you haven't had
+much trouble picking on a name.  Some folks have an
+awful time.  When the Stanley Flaggs' first boy was
+born there was so much rivalry as to who the child
+should be named for that the poor little soul had to
+go for two years without a name.  Then a brother came
+along and there it was--`Big Baby' and `Little Baby.' 
+Finally they called Big Baby Peter and Little Baby
+Isaac, after the two grandfathers, and had them both
+christened together.  And each tried to see if it
+couldn't howl the other down.  You know that Highland
+Scotch family of MacNabs back of the Glen?  They've got
+twelve boys and the oldest and the youngest are both
+called Neil--Big Neil and Little Neil in the same
+family.  Well, I s'pose they ran out of names."
+
+"I have read somewhere," laughed Anne, "that the first
+child is a poem but the tenth is very prosy prose. 
+Perhaps Mrs. MacNab thought that the twelfth was merely
+an old tale re-told."
+
+"Well, there's something to be said for large
+families," said Miss Cornelia, with a sigh.  "I was an
+only child for eight years and I did long for a
+brother and sister.  Mother told me to pray for
+one--and pray I did, believe ME.  Well, one day Aunt
+Nellie came to me and said, `Cornelia, there is a
+little brother for you upstairs in your ma's room.  You
+can go up and see him.'  I was so excited and delighted
+I just flew upstairs.  And old Mrs. Flagg lifted up the
+baby for me to see.  Lord, Anne, dearie, I never was so
+disappointed in my life.  You see, I'd been praying for
+A BROTHER TWO YEARS OLDER THAN MYSELF."
+
+"How long did it take you to get over your
+disappointment?" asked Anne, amid her laughter.
+
+"Well, I had a spite at Providence for a good spell,
+and for weeks I wouldn't even look at the baby.  Nobody
+knew why, for I never told.  Then he began to get real
+cute, and held out his wee hands to me and I began to
+get fond of him.  But I didn't get really reconciled to
+him until one day a school chum came to see him and
+said she thought he was awful small for his age.  I
+just got boiling mad, and I sailed right into her, and
+told her she didn't know a nice baby when she saw one,
+and ours was the nicest baby in the world.  And after
+that I just worshipped him.  Mother died before he was
+three years old and I was sister and mother to him
+both.  Poor little lad, he was never strong, and he
+died when he wasn't much over twenty.  Seems to me I'd
+have given anything on earth, Anne, dearie, if he'd
+only lived."
+
+Miss Cornelia sighed.  Gilbert had gone down and
+Leslie, who had been crooning over the small James
+Matthew in the dormer window, laid him asleep in his
+basket and went her way.  As soon as she was safely out
+of earshot, Miss Cornelia bent forward and said in a
+conspirator's whisper:
+
+"Anne, dearie, I'd a letter from Owen Ford yesterday. 
+He's in Vancouver just now, but he wants to know if I
+can board him for a month later on.  YOU know what that
+means.  Well, I hope we're doing right."
+
+"We've nothing to do with it--we couldn't prevent him
+from coming to Four Winds if he wanted to," said Anne
+quickly.  She did not like the feeling of match-making
+Miss Cornelia's whispers gave her; and then she weakly
+succumbed herself.
+
+"Don't let Leslie know he is coming until he is here,"
+she said.  "If she found out I feel sure she would go
+away at once.  She intends to go in the fall
+anyhow--she told me so the other day.  She is going to
+Montreal to take up nursing and make what she can of
+her life."
+
+"Oh, well, Anne, dearie," said Miss Cornelia, nodding
+sagely "that is all as it may be.  You and I have done
+our part and we must leave the rest to Higher Hands."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 35
+
+POLITICS AT FOUR WINDS
+
+When anne came downstairs again, the Island, as well as
+all Canada, was in the throes of a campaign preceding a
+general election.  Gilbert, who was an ardent
+Conservative, found himself caught in the vortex, being
+much in demand for speech-making at the various county
+rallies.  Miss Cornelia did not approve of his mixing
+up in politics and told Anne so.
+
+"Dr. Dave never did it.  Dr. Blythe will find he is
+making a mistake, believe ME.  Politics is something no
+decent man should meddle with."
+
+"Is the government of the country to be left solely to
+the rogues then?" asked Anne.
+
+"Yes--so long as it's Conservative rogues," said Miss
+Cornelia, marching off with the honors of war.  "Men
+and politicians are all tarred with the same brush. 
+The Grits have it laid on thicker than the
+Conservatives, that's all--CONSIDERABLY thicker.  But
+Grit or Tory, my advice to Dr. Blythe is to steer clear
+of politics.  First thing you know, he'll be running an
+election himself, and going off to Ottawa for half the
+year and leaving his practice to go to the dogs."
+
+"Ah, well, let's not borrow trouble," said Anne.  "The
+rate of interest is too high.  Instead, let's look at
+Little Jem.  It should be spelled with a G.  Isn't he
+perfectly beautiful?  Just see the dimples in his
+elbows.  We'll bring him up to be a good Conservative,
+you and I, Miss Cornelia."
+
+"Bring him up to be a good man," said Miss Cornelia. 
+"They're scarce and valuable; though, mind you, I
+wouldn't like to see him a Grit.  As for the election,
+you and I may be thankful we don't live over harbor. 
+The air there is blue these days.  Every Elliott and
+Crawford and MacAllister is on the warpath, loaded for
+bear.  This side is peaceful and calm, seeing there's
+so few men.  Captain Jim's a Grit, but it's my opinion
+he's ashamed of it, for he never talks politics.  There
+isn't any earthly doubt that the Conservatives will be
+returned with a big majority again."
+
+Miss Cornelia was mistaken.  On the morning after the
+election Captain Jim dropped in at the little house to
+tell the news.  So virulent is the microbe of party
+politics, even in a peaceable old man, that Captain
+Jim's cheeks were flushed and his eyes were flashing
+with all his old-time fire.
+
+"Mistress Blythe, the Liberals are in with a sweeping
+majority.  After eighteen years of Tory mismanagement
+this down-trodden country is going to have a chance at
+last."
+
+"I never heard you make such a bitter partisan speech
+before, Captain Jim.  I didn't think you had so much
+political venom in you," laughed Anne, who was not
+much excited over the tidings.  Little Jem had said
+"Wow-ga" that morning.  What were principalities and
+powers, the rise and fall of dynasties, the overthrow
+of Grit or Tory, compared with that miraculous
+occurrence?
+
+"It's been accumulating for a long while," said
+Captain Jim, with a deprecating smile.  "I thought I
+was only a moderate Grit, but when the news came that
+we were in I found out how Gritty I really was."
+
+"You know the doctor and I are Conservatives."
+
+"Ah, well, it's the only bad thing I know of either of
+you, Mistress Blythe.  Cornelia is a Tory, too.  I
+called in on my way from the Glen to tell her the
+news."
+
+"Didn't you know you took your life in your hands?"
+
+"Yes, but I couldn't resist the temptation."
+
+"How did she take it?"
+
+"Comparatively calm, Mistress Blythe, comparatively
+calm.  She says, says she, `Well, Providence sends
+seasons of humiliation to a country, same as to
+individuals.  You Grits have been cold and hungry for
+many a year.  Make haste to get warmed and fed, for you
+won't be in long.'  `Well, now Cornelia,' I says,
+`mebbe Providence thinks Canada needs a real long spell
+of humiliation.'  Ah, Susan, have YOU heard the news? 
+The Liberals are in."
+
+Susan had just come in from the kitchen, attended by
+the odor of delectable dishes which always seemed to
+hover around her.
+
+"Now, are they?" she said, with beautiful unconcern. 
+"Well, I never could see but that my bread rose just as
+light when Grits were in as when they were not.  And if
+any party, Mrs. Doctor, dear, will make it rain before
+the week is out, and save our kitchen garden from
+entire ruination, that is the party Susan will vote
+for.  In the meantime, will you just step out and give
+me your opinion on the meat for dinner?  I am fearing
+that it is very tough, and I think that we had better
+change our butcher as well as our government."
+
+One evening, a week later, Anne walked down to the
+Point, to see if she could get some fresh fish from
+Captain Jim, leaving Little Jem for the first time.  It
+was quite a tragedy.  Suppose he cried?  Suppose Susan
+did not know just exactly what to do for him?  Susan
+was calm and serene.
+
+"I have had as much experience with him as you, Mrs.
+Doctor, dear, have I not?"
+
+"Yes, with him--but not with other babies.  Why, I
+looked after three pairs of twins, when I was a child,
+Susan.  When they cried, I gave them peppermint or
+castor oil quite coolly.  It's quite curious now to
+recall how lightly I took all those babies and their
+woes."
+
+"Oh, well, if Little Jem cries, I will just clap a hot
+water bag on his little stomach," said Susan.
+
+"Not too hot, you know," said Anne anxiously.  Oh, was
+it really wise to go?
+
+"Do not you fret, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Susan is not the
+woman to burn a wee man.  Bless him, he has no notion
+of crying."
+
+Anne tore herself away finally and enjoyed her walk to
+the Point after all, through the long shadows of the
+sun-setting.  Captain Jim was not in the living room of
+the lighthouse, but another man was--a handsome,
+middle-aged man, with a strong, clean-shaven chin, who
+was unknown to Anne.  Nevertheless, when she sat down,
+he began to talk to her with all the assurance of an
+old acquaintance.  There was nothing amiss in what he
+said or the way he said it, but Anne rather resented
+such a cool taking-for-granted in a complete stranger. 
+Her replies were frosty, and as few as decency
+required.  Nothing daunted, her companion talked on for
+several minutes, then excused himself and went away. 
+Anne could have sworn there was a twinkle in his eye
+and it annoyed her.  Who was the creature?  There was
+something vaguely familiar about him but she was
+certain she had never seen him before.
+
+"Captain Jim, who was that who just went out?" she
+asked, as Captain Jim came in.
+
+"Marshall Elliott," answered the captain.
+
+"Marshall Elliott!" cried Anne.  "Oh, Captain Jim--it
+wasn't-- yes, it WAS his voice--oh, Captain Jim, I
+didn't know him--and I was quite insulting to him!  WHY
+didn't he tell me?  He must have seen I didn't know
+him."
+
+"He wouldn't say a word about it--he'd just enjoy the
+joke.  Don't worry over snubbing him--he'll think it
+fun.  Yes, Marshall's shaved off his beard at last and
+cut his hair.  His party is in, you know.  I didn't
+know him myself first time I saw him.  He was up in
+Carter Flagg's store at the Glen the night after
+election day, along with a crowd of others, waiting for
+the news.  About twelve the 'phone came through--the
+Liberals were in.  Marshall just got up and walked
+out--he didn't cheer or shout--he left the others to do
+that, and they nearly lifted the roof off Carter's
+store, I reckon.  Of course, all the Tories were over
+in Raymond Russell's store.  Not much cheering THERE. 
+Marshall went straight down the street to the side door
+of Augustus Palmer's barber shop.  Augustus was in bed
+asleep, but Marhall hammered on the door until he got
+up and come down, wanting to know what all the racket
+was about.
+
+"Come into your shop and do the best job you ever did
+in your life, Gus,' said Marshall.  `The Liberals are
+in and you're going to barber a good Grit before the
+sun rises.'
+
+"Gus was mad as hops--partly because he'd been dragged
+out of bed, but more because he's a Tory.  He vowed he
+wouldn't shave any man after twelve at night.
+
+"`You'll do what I want you to do, sonny,' said
+Marshall, `or I'll jest turn you over my knee and give
+you one of those spankings your mother forgot.'
+
+"He'd have done it, too, and Gus knew it, for Marshall
+is as strong as an ox and Gus is only a midget of a
+man.  So he gave in and towed Marshall in to the shop
+and went to work.  `Now,' says he, `I'll barber you up,
+but if you say one word to me about the Grits getting
+in while I'm doing it I'll cut your throat with this
+razor,' says he.  You wouldn't have thought mild little
+Gus could be so bloodthirsty, would you?  Shows what
+party politics will do for a man.  Marshall kept quiet
+and got his hair and beard disposed of and went home. 
+When his old housekeeper heard him come upstairs she
+peeked out of her bedroom door to see whether 'twas him
+or the hired boy.  And when she saw a strange man
+striding down the hall with a candle in his hand she
+screamed blue murder and fainted dead away.  They had
+to send for the doctor before they could bring her to,
+and it was several days before she could look at
+Marshall without shaking all over."
+
+Captain Jim had no fish.  He seldom went out in his
+boat that summer, and his long tramping expeditions
+were over.  He spent a great deal of his time sitting
+by his seaward window, looking out over the gulf, with
+his swiftly-whitening head leaning on his hand.  He sat
+there tonight for many silent minutes, keeping some
+tryst with the past which Anne would not disturb. 
+Presently he pointed to the iris of the West:
+
+"That's beautiful, isn't, it, Mistress Blythe?  But I
+wish you could have seen the sunrise this morning.  It
+was a wonderful thing--wonderful.  I've seen all kinds
+of sunrises come over that gulf.  I've been all over
+the world, Mistress Blythe, and take it all in all,
+I've never seen a finer sight than a summer sunrise
+over the gulf.  A man can't pick his time for dying,
+Mistress Blythe--jest got to go when the Great Captain
+gives His sailing orders.  But if I could I'd go out
+when the morning comes across that water.  I've watched
+it many a time and thought what a thing it would be to
+pass out through that great white glory to whatever was
+waiting beyant, on a sea that ain't mapped out on any
+airthly chart.  I think, Mistress Blythe, that I'd find
+lost Margaret there."
+
+Captain Jim had often talked to Anne of lost Margaret
+since he had told her the old story.  His love for her
+trembled in every tone--that love that had never grown
+faint or forgetful.
+
+"Anyway, I hope when my time comes I'll go quick and
+easy.  I don't think I'm a coward, Mistress
+Blythe--I've looked an ugly death in the face more than
+once without blenching.  But the thought of a lingering
+death does give me a queer, sick feeling of horror."
+
+"Don't talk about leaving us, dear, DEAR Captain,
+Jim," pleaded Anne, in a choked voice, patting the old
+brown hand, once so strong, but now grown very feeble. 
+"What would we do without you?"
+
+Captain Jim smiled beautifully.
+
+"Oh, you'd get along nicely--nicely--but you wouldn't
+forget the old man altogether, Mistress Blythe--no, I
+don't think you'll ever quite forget him.  The race of
+Joseph always remembers one another.  But it'll be a
+memory that won't hurt--I like to think that my memory
+won't hurt my friends--it'll always be kind of pleasant
+to them, I hope and believe.  It won't be very long now
+before lost Margaret calls me, for the last time.  I'll
+be all ready to answer.  I jest spoke of this because
+there's a little favor I want to ask you.  Here's this
+poor old Matey of mine"--Captain Jim reached out a
+hand and poked the big, warm, velvety, golden ball on
+the sofa.  The First Mate uncoiled himself like a
+spring with a nice, throaty, comfortable sound, half
+purr, half meow, stretched his paws in air, turned over
+and coiled himself up again.  "HE'll miss me when I
+start on the V'yage.  I can't bear to think of leaving
+the poor critter to starve, like he was left before. 
+If anything happens to me will you give Matey a bite
+and a corner, Mistress Blythe?"
+
+"Indeed I will."
+
+"Then that is all I had on my mind.  Your Little Jem is
+to have the few curious things I picked up--I've seen
+to that.  And now I don't like to see tears in those
+pretty eyes, Mistress Blythe.  I'll mebbe hang on for
+quite a spell yet.  I heard you reading a piece of
+poetry one day last winter--one of Tennyson's pieces. 
+I'd sorter like to hear it again, if you could recite
+it for me."
+
+Softly and clearly, while the seawind blew in on them,
+Anne repeated the beautiful lines of Tennyson's
+wonderful swan song-- "Crossing the Bar."  The old
+captain kept time gently with his sinewy hand.
+
+"Yes, yes, Mistress Blythe," he said, when she had
+finished, "that's it, that's it.  He wasn't a sailor,
+you tell me--I dunno how he could have put an old
+sailor's feelings into words like that, if he wasn't
+one.  He didn't want any `sadness o' farewells' and
+neither do I, Mistress Blythe--for all will be well
+with me and mine beyant the bar."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 36
+
+BEAUTY FOR ASHES
+
+"Any news from Green Gables, Anne?"
+
+"Nothing very especial," replied Anne, folding up
+Marilla's letter.  "Jake Donnell has been there
+shingling the roof.  He is a full-fledged carpenter
+now, so it seems he has had his own way in regard to
+the choice of a life-work.  You remember his mother
+wanted him to be a college professor.  I shall never
+forget the day she came to the school and rated me for
+failing to call him St. Clair."
+
+"Does anyone ever call him that now?"
+
+"Evidently not.  It seems that he has completely lived
+it down.  Even his mother has succumbed.  I always
+thought that a boy with Jake's chin and mouth would get
+his own way in the end.  Diana writes me that Dora has
+a beau.  Just think of it--that child!"
+
+"Dora is seventeen," said Gilbert.  "Charlie Sloane
+and I were both mad about you when you were seventeen,
+Anne."
+
+"Really, Gilbert, we must be getting on in years,"
+said Anne, with a half-rueful smile, "when children who
+were six when we thought ourselves grown up are old
+enough now to have beaux.  Dora's is Ralph
+Andrews--Jane's brother.  I remember him as a little,
+round, fat, white-headed fellow who was always at the
+foot of his class.  But I understand he is quite a
+fine-looking young man now."
+
+"Dora will probably marry young.  She's of the same
+type as Charlotta the Fourth--she'll never miss her
+first chance for fear she might not get another."
+
+"Well; if she marries Ralph I hope he will be a little
+more up-and-coming than his brother Billy," mused
+Anne.
+
+"For instance," said Gilbert, laughing, "let us hope
+he will be able to propose on his own account.  Anne,
+would you have married Billy if he had asked you
+himself, instead of getting Jane to do it for him?"
+
+"I might have." Anne went off into a shriek of
+laughter over the recollection of her first proposal. 
+"The shock of the whole thing might have hypnotized me
+into some such rash and foolish act.  Let us be
+thankful he did it by proxy."
+
+"I had a letter from George Moore yesterday," said
+Leslie, from the corner where she was reading.
+
+"Oh, how is he?" asked Anne interestedly, yet with an
+unreal feeling that she was inquiring about some one
+whom she did not know.
+
+"He is well, but he finds it very hard to adapt himself
+to all the changes in his old home and friends.  He is
+going to sea again in the spring.  It's in his blood,
+he says, and he longs for it.  But he told me something
+that made me glad for him, poor fellow.  Before he
+sailed on the Four Sisters he was engaged to a girl at
+home.  He did not tell me anything about her in
+Montreal, because he said he supposed she would have
+forgotten him and married someone else long ago, and
+with him, you see, his engagement and love was still a
+thing of the present.  It was pretty hard on him, but
+when he got home he found she had never married and
+still cared for him.  They are to be married this fall. 
+I'm going to ask him to bring her over here for a
+little trip; he says he wants to come and see the place
+where he lived so many years without knowing it."
+
+"What a nice little romance," said Anne, whose love
+for the romantic was immortal.  "And to think," she
+added with a sigh of self-reproach, "that if I had had
+my way George Moore would never have come up from the
+grave in which his identity was buried.  How I did
+fight against Gilbert's suggestion!  Well, I am
+punished:  I shall never be able to have a different
+opinion from Gilbert's again!  If I try to have, he
+will squelch me by casting George Moore's case up to
+me!"
+
+"As if even that would squelch a woman!" mocked
+Gilbert.  "At least do not become my echo, Anne.  A
+little opposition gives spice to life .  I do not want
+a wife like John MacAllister's over the harbor.  No
+matter what he says, she at once remarks in that drab,
+lifeless little voice of hers, `That is very true,
+John, dear me!'"
+
+Anne and Leslie laughed.  Anne's laughter was silver
+and Leslie's golden, and the combination of the two was
+as satisfactory as a perfect chord in music.
+
+Susan, coming in on the heels of the laughter, echoed
+it with a resounding sigh.
+
+"Why, Susan, what is the matter?" asked Gilbert.
+
+"There's nothing wrong with little Jem, is there,
+Susan?" cried Anne, starting up in alarm.
+
+"No, no, calm yourself, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Something
+has happened, though.  Dear me, everything has gone
+catawampus with me this week.  I spoiled the bread, as
+you know too well--and I scorched the doctor's best
+shirt bosom--and I broke your big platter.  And now, on
+the top of all this, comes word that my sister Matilda
+has broken her leg and wants me to go and stay with her
+for a spell."
+
+"Oh, I'm very sorry--sorry that your sister has met
+with such an accident, I mean," exclaimed Anne.
+
+"Ah, well, man was made to mourn, Mrs. Doctor, dear. 
+That sounds as if it ought to be in the Bible, but they
+tell me a person named Burns wrote it.  And there is no
+doubt that we are born to trouble as the sparks fly
+upward.  As for Matilda, I do not know what to think of
+her.  None of our family ever broke their legs before. 
+But whatever she has done she is still my sister, and I
+feel that it is my duty to go and wait on her, if you
+can spare me for a few weeks, Mrs. Doctor, dear."
+
+"Of course, Susan, of course.  I can get someone to
+help me while you are gone."
+
+"If you cannot I will not go, Mrs. Doctor, dear,
+Matilda's leg to the contrary notwithstanding.  I will
+not have you worried, and that blessed child upset in
+consequence, for any number of legs."
+
+"Oh, you must go to your sister at once, Susan.  I can
+get a girl from the cove, who will do for a time."
+
+"Anne, will you let me come and stay with you while
+Susan is away?" exclaimed Leslie.  "Do!  I'd love
+to--and it would be an act of charity on your part. 
+I'm so horribly lonely over there in that big barn of a
+house.  There's so little to do--and at night I'm worse
+than lonely--I'm frightened and nervous in spite of
+locked doors.  There was a tramp around two days ago."
+
+Anne joyfully agreed, and next day Leslie was installed
+as an inmate of the little house of dreams.  Miss
+Cornelia warmly approved of the arrangement.
+
+"It seems Providential," she told Anne in confidence. 
+"I'm sorry for Matilda Clow, but since she had to break
+her leg it couldn't have happened at a better time. 
+Leslie will be here while Owen Ford is in Four Winds,
+and those old cats up at the Glen won't get the chance
+to meow, as they would if she was living over there
+alone and Owen going to see her.  They are doing enough
+of it as it is, because she doesn't put on mourning.  I
+said to one of them, `If you mean she should put on
+mourning for George Moore, it seems to me more like his
+resurrection than his funeral; and if it's Dick you
+mean, I confess _I_ can't see the propriety of going
+into weeds for a man who died thirteen years ago and
+good riddance then!'  And when old Louisa Baldwin
+remarked to me that she thought it very strange that
+Leslie should never have suspected it wasn't her own
+husband _I_ said, `YOU never suspected it wasn't Dick
+Moore, and you were next-door neighbor to him all his
+life, and by nature you're ten times as suspicious as
+Leslie.'  But you can't stop some people's tongues,
+Anne, dearie, and I'm real thankful Leslie will be
+under your roof while Owen is courting her."
+
+Owen Ford came to the little house one August evening
+when Leslie and Anne were absorbed in worshipping the
+baby.  He paused at the open door of the living room,
+unseen by the two within, gazing with greedy eyes at
+the beautiful picture.  Leslie sat on the floor with
+the baby in her lap, making ecstatic dabs at his fat
+little hands as he fluttered them in the air.
+
+"Oh, you dear, beautiful, beloved baby," she mumbled,
+catching one wee hand and covering it with kisses.
+
+"Isn't him ze darlingest itty sing," crooned Anne,
+hanging over the arm of her chair adoringly.  "Dem itty
+wee pads are ze very tweetest handies in ze whole big
+world, isn't dey, you darling itty man."
+
+Anne, in the months before Little Jem's coming, had
+pored diligently over several wise volumes, and pinned
+her faith to one in especial, "Sir Oracle on the Care
+and Training of Children."  Sir Oracle implored
+parents by all they held sacred never to talk "baby
+talk" to their children.  Infants should invariably be
+addressed in classical language from the moment of
+their birth.  So should they learn to speak English
+undefiled from their earliest utterance.  "How,"
+demanded Sir Oracle, "can a mother reasonably expect
+her child to learn correct speech, when she continually
+accustoms its impressionable gray matter to such absurd
+expressions and distortions of our noble tongue as
+thoughtless mothers inflict every day on the helpless
+creatures committed to their care?  Can a child who is
+constantly called `tweet itty wee singie' ever attain
+to any proper conception of his own being and
+possibilities and destiny?"
+
+Anne was vastly impressed with this, and informed
+Gilbert that she meant to make it an inflexible rule
+never, under any circumstances, to talk "baby talk" to
+her children.  Gilbert agreed with her, and they made a
+solemn compact on the subject--a compact which Anne
+shamelessly violated the very first moment Little Jem
+was laid in her arms.  "Oh, the darling itty wee
+sing!" she had exclaimed.  And she had continued to
+violate it ever since.  When Gilbert teased her she
+laughed Sir Oracle to scorn.
+
+"He never had any children of his own, Gilbert--I am
+positive he hadn't or he would never have written such
+rubbish.  You just can't help talking baby talk to a
+baby.  It comes natural--and it's RIGHT.  It would be
+inhuman to talk to those tiny, soft, velvety little
+creatures as we do to great big boys and girls.  Babies
+want love and cuddling and all the sweet baby talk they
+can get, and Little Jem is going to have it, bless his
+dear itty heartums."
+
+"But you're the worst I ever heard, Anne," protested
+Gilbert, who, not being a mother but only a father, was
+not wholly convinced yet that Sir Oracle was wrong.  "I
+never heard anything like the way you talk to that
+child."
+
+"Very likely you never did.  Go away--go away.  Didn't
+I bring up three pairs of Hammond twins before I was
+eleven?  You and Sir Oracle are nothing but
+cold-blooded theorists.  Gilbert, JUST look at him! 
+He's smiling at me--he knows what we're talking about. 
+And oo dest agwees wif evy word muzzer says, don't oo,
+angel-lover?"
+
+Gilbert put his arm about them.  "Oh you mothers!" he
+said.  "You mothers!  God knew what He was about when
+He made you."
+
+So Little Jem was talked to and loved and cuddled; and
+he throve as became a child of the house of dreams. 
+Leslie was quite as foolish over him as Anne was.  When
+their work was done and Gilbert was out of the way,
+they gave themselves over to shameless orgies of
+love-making and ecstasies of adoration, such as that in
+which Owen Ford had surprised them.
+
+Leslie was the first to become aware of him.  Even in
+the twilight  Anne could see the sudden whiteness that
+swept over her beautiful face, blotting out the crimson
+of lip and cheeks.
+
+Owen came forward, eagerly, blind for a moment to Anne.
+
+"Leslie!" he said, holding out his hand.  It was the
+first time he had ever called her by her name; but the
+hand Leslie gave him was cold; and she was very quiet
+all the evening, while Anne and Gilbert and Owen
+laughed and talked together.  Before his call ended she
+excused herself and went upstairs .  Owen's gay spirits
+flagged and he went away soon after with a downcast
+air.
+
+Gilbert looked at Anne.
+
+"Anne, what are you up to?  There's something going on
+that I don't understand.  The whole air here tonight
+has been charged with electricity.  Leslie sits like
+the muse of tragedy; Owen Ford jokes and laughs on the
+surface, and watches Leslie with the eyes of his soul. 
+You seem all the time to be bursting with some
+suppressed excitement.  Own up.  What secret have you
+been keeping from your deceived husband?"
+
+"Don't be a goose, Gilbert," was Anne's conjugal
+reply.  "As for Leslie, she is absurd and I'm going up
+to tell her so."
+
+Anne found Leslie at the dormer window of her room. 
+The little place was filled with the rhythmic thunder
+of the sea.  Leslie sat with locked hands in the misty
+moonshine--a beautiful, accusing presence.
+
+"Anne," she said in a low, reproachful voice, "did you
+know Owen Ford was coming to Four Winds?"
+
+"I did," said Anne brazenly.
+
+"Oh, you should have told me, Anne," Leslie cried
+passionately. "If I had known I would have gone
+away--I wouldn't have stayed here to meet him.  You
+should have told me.  It wasn't fair of you, Anne--oh,
+it wasn't fair!"
+
+Leslie's lips were trembling and her whole form was
+tense with emotion.  But Anne laughed heartlessly.  She
+bent over and kissed Leslie's upturned reproachful
+face.
+
+"Leslie, you are an adorable goose.  Owen Ford didn't
+rush from the Pacific to the Atlantic from a burning
+desire to see ME.  Neither do I believe that he was
+inspired by any wild and frenzied passion for Miss
+Cornelia.  Take off your tragic airs, my dear friend,
+and fold them up and put them away in lavender.  You'll
+never need them again.  There are some people who can
+see through a grindstone when there is a hole in it,
+even if you cannot.  I am not a prophetess, but I shall
+venture on a prediction.  The bitterness of life is
+over for you.  After this you are going to have the
+joys and hopes--and I daresay the sorrows, too--of a
+happy woman.  The omen of the shadow of Venus did come
+true for you, Leslie.  The year in which you saw it
+brought your life's best gift for you--your love for
+Owen Ford.  Now, go right to bed and have a good
+sleep."
+
+Leslie obeyed orders in so far that she went to bed:
+but it may be questioned if she slept much.  I do not
+think she dared to dream wakingly; life had been so
+hard for this poor Leslie, the path on which she had
+had to walk had been so strait, that she could not
+whisper to her own heart the hopes that might wait on
+the future.  But she watched the great revolving light
+bestarring the short hours of the summer night, and her
+eyes grew soft and bright and young once more.  Nor,
+when Owen Ford came next day, to ask her to go with him
+to the shore, did she say him nay.
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER 37
+
+MISS CORNELIA MAKES A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT
+
+Miss Cornelia sailed down to the little house one
+drowsy afternoon, when the gulf was the faint,
+bleached blue of the August seas, and the orange lilies
+at the gate of Anne's garden held up their imperial
+cups to be filled with the molten gold of August
+sunshine.  Not that Miss Cornelia concerned herself
+with painted oceans or sun-thirsty lilies.  She sat in
+her favorite rocker in unusual idleness.  She sewed
+not, neither did she spin.  Nor did she say a single
+derogatory word concerning any portion of mankind.  In
+short, Miss Cornelia's conversation was singularly
+devoid of spice that day, and Gilbert, who had stayed
+home to listen to her, instead of going a-fishing, as
+he had intended, felt himself aggrieved.  What had come
+over Miss Cornelia?  She did not look cast down or
+worried.  On the contrary, there was a certain air of
+nervous exultation about her.
+
+"Where is Leslie?" she asked--not as if it mattered
+much either.
+
+"Owen and she went raspberrying in the woods back of
+her farm," answered Anne.  "They won't be back before
+supper time-- if then."
+
+"They don't seem to have any idea that there is such a
+thing as a clock," said Gilbert.  "I can't get to the
+bottom of that affair.  I'm certain you women pulled
+strings.  But Anne, undutiful wife, won't tell me. 
+Will you, Miss Cornelia?"
+
+"No, I shall not.  But," said Miss Cornelia, with the
+air of one determined to take the plunge and have it
+over, "I will tell you something else.  I came today on
+purpose to tell it.  I am going to be married."
+
+Anne and Gilbert were silent.  If Miss Cornelia had
+announced her intention of going out to the channel and
+drowning herself the thing might have been believable. 
+This was not.  So they waited.  Of course Miss Cornelia
+had made a mistake.
+
+"Well, you both look sort of kerflummexed," said Miss
+Cornelia, with a twinkle in her eyes.  Now that the
+awkward moment of revelation was over, Miss Cornelia
+was her own woman again.  "Do you think I'm too young
+and inexperienced for matrimony?"
+
+"You know--it IS rather staggering," said Gilbert,
+trying to gather his wits together.  "I've heard you
+say a score of times that you wouldn't marry the best
+man in the world."
+
+"I'm not going to marry the best man in the world,"
+retorted Miss Cornelia.  "Marshall Elliott is a long
+way from being the best."
+
+"Are you going to marry Marshall Elliott?" exclaimed
+Anne, recovering her power of speech under this second
+shock.
+
+"Yes.  I could have had him any time these twenty years
+if I'd lifted my finger.  But do you suppose I was
+going to walk into church beside a perambulating
+haystack like that?"
+
+"I am sure we are very glad--and we wish you all
+possible happiness," said Anne, very flatly and
+inadequately, as she felt.  She was not prepared for
+such an occasion.  She had never imagined herself
+offering betrothal felicitations to Miss Cornelia.
+
+"Thanks, I knew you would," said Miss Cornelia.  "You
+are the first of my friends to know it."
+
+"We shall be so sorry to lose you, though, dear Miss
+Cornelia," said Anne, beginning to be a little sad and
+sentimental.
+
+"Oh, you won't lose me," said Miss Cornelia
+unsentimentally.  "You don't suppose I would live over
+harbor with all those MacAllisters and Elliotts and
+Crawfords, do you? `From the conceit of the Elliotts,
+the pride of the MacAllisters and the vain-glory of the
+Crawfords, good Lord deliver us.'  Marshall is coming
+to live at my place.  I'm sick and tired of hired men. 
+That Jim Hastings I've got this summer is positively
+the worst of the species.  He would drive anyone to
+getting married.  What do you think?  He upset the
+churn yesterday and spilled a big churning of cream
+over the yard.  And not one whit concerned about it was
+he!  Just gave a foolish laugh and said cream was good
+for the land.  Wasn't that like a man?  I told him I
+wasn't in the habit of fertilising my back yard with
+cream."
+
+"Well, I wish you all manner of happiness too, Miss
+Cornelia," said Gilbert, solemnly; "but," he added,
+unable to resist the temptation to tease Miss Cornelia,
+despite Anne's imploring eyes, "I fear your day of
+independence is done.  As you know, Marshall Elliott is
+a very determined man."
+
+"I like a man who can stick to a thing," retorted Miss
+Cornelia.  "Amos Grant, who used to be after me long
+ago, couldn't.  You never saw such a weather-vane.  He
+jumped into the pond to drown himself once and then
+changed his mind and swum out again.  Wasn't that like
+a man?  Marshall would have stuck to it and drowned."
+
+"And he has a bit of a temper, they tell me,"
+persisted Gilbert.
+
+"He wouldn't be an Elliott if he hadn't.  I'm thankful
+he has.  It will be real fun to make him mad.  And you
+can generally do something with a tempery man when it
+comes to repenting time.  But you can't do anything
+with a man who just keeps placid and aggravating."
+
+"You know he's a Grit, Miss Cornelia."
+
+"Yes, he IS," admitted Miss Cornelia rather sadly. 
+"And of course there is no hope of making a
+Conservative of him.  But at least he is a
+Presbyterian.  So I suppose I shall have to be
+satisfied with that."
+
+"Would you marry him if he were a Methodist, Miss
+Cornelia?"
+
+"No, I would not.  Politics is for this world, but
+religion is for both."
+
+"And you may be a `relict' after all, Miss Cornelia."
+
+"Not I.  Marshall will live me out.  The Elliotts are
+long-lived, and the Bryants are not."
+
+"When are you to be married?" asked Anne.
+
+"In about a month's time.  My wedding dress is to be
+navy blue silk.  And I want to ask you, Anne, dearie,
+if you think it would be all right to wear a veil with
+a navy blue dress.  I've always thought I'd like to
+wear a veil if I ever got married.  Marshall says to
+have it if I want to.  Isn't that like a man?"
+
+"Why shouldn't you wear it if you want to?" asked
+Anne.
+
+"Well, one doesn't want to be different from other
+people," said Miss Cornelia, who was not noticeably
+like anyone else on the face of the earth.  "As I say,
+I do fancy a veil.  But maybe it shouldn't be worn with
+any dress but a white one.  Please tell me, Anne,
+dearie, what you really think.  I'll go by your
+advice."
+
+"I don't think veils are usually worn with any but
+white dresses," admitted Anne, "but that is merely a
+convention; and I am like Mr. Elliott, Miss Cornelia. 
+I don't see any good reason why you shouldn't have a
+veil if you want one."
+
+But Miss Cornelia, who made her calls in calico
+wrappers, shook her head.
+
+"If it isn't the proper thing I won't wear it," she
+said, with a sigh of regret for a lost dream.
+
+"Since you are determined to be married, Miss
+Cornelia," said Gilbert solemnly, "I shall give you
+the excellent rules for the management of a husband
+which my grandmother gave my mother when she married my
+father."
+
+"Well, I reckon I can manage Marshall Elliott," said
+Miss Cornelia placidly.  "But let us hear your rules."
+
+"The first one is, catch him."
+
+"He's caught.  Go on."
+
+"The second one is, feed him well."
+
+"With enough pie.  What next?"
+
+"The third and fourth are--keep your eye on him."
+
+"I believe you," said Miss Cornelia emphatically.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 38
+
+RED ROSES
+
+The garden of the little house was a haunt beloved of
+bees and reddened by late roses that August.  The
+little house folk lived much in it, and were given to
+taking picnic suppers in the grassy corner beyond the
+brook and sitting about in it through the twilights
+when great night moths sailed athwart the velvet gloom. 
+One evening Owen Ford found Leslie alone in it.  Anne
+and Gilbert were away, and Susan, who was expected back
+that night, had not yet returned.
+
+The northern sky was amber and pale green over the fir
+tops.  The air was cool, for August was nearing
+September, and Leslie wore a crimson scarf over her
+white dress.  Together they wandered through the
+little, friendly, flower-crowded paths in silence. 
+Owen must go soon.  His holiday was nearly over. 
+Leslie found her heart beating wildly.  She knew that
+this beloved garden was to be the scene of the binding
+words that must seal their as yet unworded
+understanding.
+
+" Some evenings a strange odor blows down the air of
+this garden, like a phantom perfume," said Owen.  "I
+have never been able to discover from just what flower
+it comes.  It is elusive and haunting and wonderfully
+sweet.  I like to fancy it is the soul of Grandmother
+Selwyn passing on a little visit to the old spot she
+loved so well.  There should be a lot of friendly
+ghosts about this little old house."
+
+"I have lived under its roof only a month," said
+Leslie, "but I love it as I never loved the house over
+there where I have lived all my life."
+
+"This house was builded and consecrated by love," said
+Owen.  "Such houses, MUST exert an influence over those
+who live in them.  And this garden--it is over sixty
+years old and the history of a thousand hopes and joys
+is written in its blossoms.  Some of those flowers were
+actually set out by the schoolmaster's bride, and she
+has been dead for thirty years.  Yet they bloom on
+every summer.  Look at those red roses, Leslie--how
+they queen it over everything else!"
+
+"I love the red roses," said Leslie.  "Anne likes the
+pink ones best, and Gilbert likes the white.  But I
+want the crimson ones.  They satisfy some craving in me
+as no other flower does."
+
+"These roses are very late--they bloom after all the
+others have gone--and they hold all the warmth and soul
+of the summer come to fruition," said Owen, plucking
+some of the glowing, half-opened buds.
+
+"The rose is the flower of love--the world has
+acclaimed it so for centuries.  The pink roses are
+love hopeful and expectant--the white roses are love
+dead or forsaken--but the red roses--ah, Leslie, what
+are the red roses?"
+
+"Love triumphant," said Leslie in a low voice.
+
+"Yes--love triumphant and perfect.  Leslie, you
+know--you understand.  I have loved you from the
+first.  And I KNOW you love me--I don't need to ask
+you.  But I want to hear you say it--my darling-- my
+darling!"
+
+Leslie said something in a very low and tremulous
+voice.  Their hands and lips met; it was life's
+supreme moment for them and as they stood there in the
+old garden, with its many years of love and delight and
+sorrow and glory, he crowned her shining hair with the
+red, red rose of a love triumphant.
+
+Anne and Gilbert returned presently, accompanied by
+Captain Jim.  Anne lighted a few sticks of driftwood in
+the fireplace, for love of the pixy flames, and they
+sat around it for an hour of good fellowship.
+
+"When I sit looking at a driftwood fire it's easy to
+believe I'm young again," said Captain Jim.
+
+"Can you read futures in the fire, Captain Jim?" asked
+Owen.
+
+Captain Jim looked at them all affectionately and then
+back again at Leslie's vivid face and glowing eyes.
+
+"I don't need the fire to read your futures," he said. 
+"I see happiness for all of you--all of you--for Leslie
+and Mr. Ford--and the doctor here and Mistress
+Blythe--and Little Jem--and children that ain't born
+yet but will be.  Happiness for you all--though, mind
+you, I reckon you'll have your troubles and worries and
+sorrows, too.  They're bound to come--and no house,
+whether it's a palace or a little house of dreams, can
+bar 'em out.  But they won't get the better of you if
+you face 'em TOGETHER with love and trust.  You can
+weather any storm with them two for compass and
+pilot."
+
+The old man rose suddenly and placed one hand on
+Leslie's head and one on Anne's.
+
+"Two good, sweet women," he said.  "True and faithful
+and to be depended on.  Your husbands will have honor
+in the gates because of you--your children will rise up
+and call you blessed in the years to come."
+
+There was a strange solemnity about the little scene. 
+Anne and Leslie bowed as those receiving a
+benediction.  Gilbert suddenly brushed his hand over
+his eyes; Owen Ford was rapt as one who can see
+visions.  All were silent for a space.  The little
+house of dreams added another poignant and
+unforgettable moment to its store of memories.
+
+"I must be going now," said Captain Jim slowly at
+last.  He took up his hat and looked lingeringly about
+the room.
+
+"Good night, all of you," he said, as he went out.
+
+Anne, pierced by the unusual wistfulness of his
+farewell, ran to the door after him.
+
+"Come back soon, Captain Jim," she called, as he
+passed through the little gate hung between the firs.
+
+"Ay, ay," he called cheerily back to her.  But Captain
+Jim had sat by the old fireside of the house of dreams
+for the last time.
+
+Anne went slowly back to the others.
+
+"It's so--so pitiful to think of him going all alone
+down to that lonely Point," she said.  "And there is
+no one to welcome him there."
+
+"Captain Jim is such good company for others that one
+can't imagine him being anything but good company for
+himself," said Owen.  "But he must often be lonely. 
+There was a touch of the seer about him tonight--he
+spoke as one to whom it had been given to speak.  Well,
+I must be going, too."
+
+Anne and Gilbert discreetly melted away; but when Owen
+had gone Anne returned, to find Leslie standing by the
+hearth.
+
+"Oh, Leslie--I know--and I'm so glad, dear," she said,
+putting her arms about her.
+
+"Anne, my happiness frightens me," whispered Leslie. 
+"It seems too great to be real--I'm afraid to speak of
+it--to think of it.  It seems to me that it must just
+be another dream of this house of dreams and it will
+vanish when I leave here."
+
+"Well, you are not going to leave here--until Owen
+takes you.  You are going to stay with me until that
+times comes.  Do you think I'd let you go over to that
+lonely, sad place again?"
+
+"Thank you, dear.  I meant to ask you if I might stay
+with you.  I didn't want to go back there--it would
+seem like going back into the chill and dreariness of
+the old life again.  Anne, Anne, what a friend you've
+been to me--`a good, sweet woman--true and faithful and
+to be depended on'--Captain Jim summed you up."
+
+"He said `women,' not `woman,'" smiled Anne.  "Perhaps
+Captain Jim sees us both through the rose-colored
+spectacles of his love for us.  But we can try to live
+up to his belief in us, at least."
+
+"Do you remember, Anne," said Leslie slowly, "that I
+once said--that night we met on the shore--that I hated
+my good looks?  I did--then.  It always seemed to me
+that if I had been homely Dick would never have thought
+of me.  I hated my beauty because it had attracted him,
+but now--oh, I'm glad that I have it.  It's all I have
+to offer Owen,--his artist soul delights in it.  I feel
+as if I do not come to him quite empty-handed."
+
+"Owen loves your beauty, Leslie.  Who would not?  But
+it's foolish of you to say or think that that is all
+you bring him.  HE will tell you that--I needn't.  And
+now I must lock up.  I expected Susan back tonight, but
+she has not come."
+
+"Oh, yes, here I am, Mrs. Doctor, dear," said Susan,
+entering unexpectedly from the kitchen, "and puffing
+like a hen drawing rails at that!  It's quite a walk
+from the Glen down here."
+
+"I'm glad to see you back, Susan.  How is your
+sister?"
+
+"She is able to sit up, but of course she cannot walk
+yet.  However, she is very well able to get on without
+me now, for her daughter has come home for her
+vacation.  And I am thankful to be back, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear.  Matilda's leg was broken and no mistake, but her
+tongue was not.  She would talk the legs off an iron
+pot, that she would, Mrs. Doctor, dear, though I grieve
+to say it of my own sister.  She was always a great
+talker and yet she was the first of our family to get
+married.  She really did not care much about marrying
+James Clow, but she could not bear to disoblige him. 
+Not but what James is a good man--the only fault I have
+to find with him is that he always starts in to say
+grace with such an unearthly groan, Mrs. Doctor, dear. 
+It always frightens my appetite clear away.  And
+speaking of getting married, Mrs. Doctor, dear, is it
+true that Cornelia Bryant is going to be married to
+Marshall Elliott?"
+
+"Yes, quite true, Susan."
+
+"Well, Mrs. Doctor, dear, it does NOT seem to me fair. 
+Here is me, who never said a word against the men, and
+I cannot get married nohow.  And there is Cornelia
+Bryant, who is never done abusing them, and all she has
+to do is to reach out her hand and pick one up, as it
+were.  It is a very strange world, Mrs. Doctor, dear."
+
+"There's another world, you know, Susan."
+
+"Yes," said Susan with a heavy sigh, "but, Mrs.
+Doctor, dear, there is neither marrying nor giving in
+marriage there."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 39
+
+CAPTAIN JIM CROSSES THE BAR
+
+One day in late September Owen Ford's book came at
+last.  Captain Jim had gone faithfully to the Glen post
+office every day for a month, expecting it.  This day
+he had not gone, and Leslie brought his copy home with
+hers and Anne's.
+
+"We'll take it down to him this evening," said Anne,
+excited as a schoolgirl.
+
+The long walk to the Point on that clear, beguiling
+evening along the red harbor road was very pleasant. 
+Then the sun dropped down behind the western hills into
+some valley that must have been full of lost sunsets,
+and at the same instant the big light flashed out on
+the white tower of the point.
+
+"Captain Jim is never late by the fraction of a
+second," said Leslie.
+
+Neither Anne nor Leslie ever forgot Captain Jim's face
+when they gave him the book--HIS book, transfigured and
+glorified.  The cheeks that had been blanched of late
+suddenly flamed with the color of boyhood; his eyes
+glowed with all the fire of youth; but his hands
+trembled as he opened it.
+
+It was called simply The Life-Book of Captain Jim, and
+on the title page the names of Owen Ford and James Boyd
+were printed as collaborators.  The frontispiece was a
+photograph of Captain Jim himself, standing at the door
+of the lighthouse, looking across the gulf.  Owen Ford
+had "snapped" him one day while the book was being
+written.  Captain Jim had known this, but he had not
+known that the picture was to be in the book.
+
+"Just think of it," he said, "the old sailor right
+there in a real printed book.  This is the proudest day
+of my life.  I'm like to bust, girls.  There'll be no
+sleep for me tonight.  I'll read my book clean through
+before sun-up."
+
+"We'll go right away and leave you free to begin it,"
+said Anne.
+
+Captain Jim had been handling the book in a kind of
+reverent rapture.  Now he decidedly closed it and laid
+it aside.
+
+"No, no, you're not going away before you take a cup of
+tea with the old man," he protested.  "I couldn't hear
+to that--could you, Matey?  The life-book will keep, I
+reckon.  I've waited for it this many a year.  I can
+wait a little longer while I'm enjoying my friends."
+
+Captain Jim moved about getting his kettle on to boil,
+and setting out his bread and butter.  Despite his
+excitement he did not move with his old briskness.  His
+movements were slow and halting.  But the girls did not
+offer to help him.  They knew it would hurt his
+feelings.
+
+"You just picked the right evening to visit me," he
+said, producing a cake from his cupboard.  "Leetle
+Joe's mother sent me down a big basket full of cakes
+and pies today.  A blessing on all good cooks, says I. 
+Look at this purty cake, all frosting and nuts. 
+'Tain't often I can entertain in such style.  Set in,
+girls, set in!  We'll `tak a cup o' kindness yet for
+auld lang syne.'"
+
+The girls "set in" right merrily.  The tea was up to
+Captain Jim's best brewing.  Little Joe's mother's cake
+was the last word in cakes; Captain Jim was the prince
+of gracious hosts, never even permitting his eyes to
+wander to the corner where the life-book lay, in all
+its bravery of green and gold.  But when his door
+finally closed behind Anne and Leslie they knew that he
+went straight to it, and as they walked home they
+pictured the delight of the old man poring over the
+printed pages wherein his own life was portrayed with
+all the charm and color of reality itself.
+
+"I wonder how he will like the ending--the ending I
+suggested," said Leslie.
+
+She was never to know.  Early the next morning Anne
+awakened to find Gilbert bending over her, fully
+dressed, and with an expression of anxiety on his face.
+
+"Are you called out?" she asked drowsily.
+
+"No.  Anne, I'm afraid there's something wrong at the
+Point.  It's an hour after sunrise now, and the light
+is still burning.  You know it has always been a matter
+of pride with Captain Jim to start the light the moment
+the sun sets, and put it out the moment it rises."
+
+Anne sat up in dismay.  Through her window she saw the
+light blinking palely against the blue skies of dawn.
+
+"Perhaps he has fallen asleep over his life-book," she
+said anxiously, "or become so absorbed in it that he
+has forgotten the light."
+
+Gilbert shook his head.
+
+"That wouldn't be like Captain Jim.  Anyway, I'm going
+down to see."
+
+"Wait a minute and I'll go with you," exclaimed Anne. 
+"Oh, yes, I must--Little Jem will sleep for an hour
+yet, and I'll call Susan.  You may need a woman's help
+if Captain Jim is ill."
+
+It was an exquisite morning, full of tints and sounds
+at once ripe and delicate.  The harbor was sparkling
+and dimpling like a girl; white gulls were soaring over
+the dunes; beyond the bar was a shining, wonderful sea. 
+The long fields by the shore were dewy and fresh in
+that first fine, purely-tinted light.  The wind came
+dancing and whistling up the channel to replace the
+beautiful silence with a music more beautiful still. 
+Had it not been for the baleful star on the white tower
+that early walk would have been a delight to Anne and
+Gilbert.  But they went softly with fear.
+
+Their knock was not responded to.  Gilbert opened the
+door and they went in.
+
+The old room was very quiet.  On the table were the
+remnants of the little evening feast.  The lamp still
+burned on the corner stand.  The First Mate was asleep
+in a square of sunshine by the sofa.
+
+Captain Jim lay on the sofa, with his hands clasped
+over the life-book, open at the last page, lying on his
+breast.  His eyes were closed and on his face was a
+look of the most perfect peace and happiness--the look
+of one who has long sought and found at last.
+
+"He is asleep?" whispered Anne tremulously.
+
+Gilbert went to the sofa and bent over him for a few
+moments.  Then he straightened up.
+
+"Yes, he sleeps--well," he added quietly.  "Anne,
+Captain Jim has crossed the bar."
+
+They could not know precisely at what hour he had died,
+but Anne always believed that he had had his wish, and
+went out when the morning came across the gulf.  Out on
+that shining tide his spirit drifted, over the sunrise
+sea of pearl and silver, to the haven where lost
+Margaret waited, beyond the storms and calms.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 40
+
+FAREWELL TO THE HOUSE OF DREAMS
+
+Captain Jim was buried in the little over-harbor
+graveyard, very near to the spot where the wee white
+lady slept.  His relatives put up a very expensive,
+very ugly "monument"--a monument at which he would
+have poked sly fun had he seen it in life.  But his
+real monument was in the hearts of those who knew him,
+and in the book that was to live for generations.
+
+Leslie mourned that Captain Jim had not lived to see
+the amazing success of it.
+
+"How he would have delighted in the reviews--they are
+almost all so kindly.  And to have seen his life-book
+heading the lists of the best sellers--oh, if he could
+just have lived to see it, Anne!"
+
+But Anne, despite her grief, was wiser.
+
+"It was the book itself he cared for, Leslie--not what
+might be said of it--and he had it.  He had read it all
+through.  That last night must have been one of the
+greatest happiness for him--with the quick, painless
+ending he had hoped for in the morning.  I am glad for
+Owen's sake and yours that the book is such a
+success--but Captain Jim was satisfied--I KNOW."
+
+The lighthouse star still kept a nightly vigil; a
+substitute keeper had been sent to the Point, until
+such time as an all-wise government could decide which
+of many applicants was best fitted for the place--or
+had the strongest pull.  The First Mate was at home in
+the little house, beloved by Anne and Gilbert and
+Leslie, and tolerated by a Susan who had small liking
+for cats.
+
+"I can put up with him for the sake of Captain Jim,
+Mrs. Doctor, dear, for I liked the old man.  And I will
+see that he gets bite and sup, and every mouse the
+traps account for.  But do not ask me to do more than
+that, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Cats is cats, and take my
+word for it, they will never be anything else.  And at
+least, Mrs. Doctor, dear, do keep him away from the
+blessed wee man.  Picture to yourself how awful it
+would be if he was to suck the darling's breath."
+
+"That might be fitly called a CAT-astrophe," said
+Gilbert.
+
+"Oh, you may laugh, doctor, dear, but it would be no
+laughing matter."
+
+"Cats never suck babies' breaths," said Gilbert. 
+"That is only an old superstition, Susan."
+
+"Oh, well, it may be a superstition or it may not,
+doctor, dear.  All that I know is, it has happened.  My
+sister's husband's nephew's wife's cat sucked their
+baby's breath, and the poor innocent was all but gone
+when they found it.  And superstition or not, if I find
+that yellow beast lurking near our baby I will whack
+him with the poker, Mrs. Doctor, dear."
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Elliott were living comfortably
+and harmoniously in the green house.  Leslie was busy
+with sewing, for she and Owen were to be married at
+Christmas.  Anne wondered what she would do when Leslie
+was gone.
+
+"Changes come all the time.  Just as soon as things get
+really nice they change," she said with a sigh.
+
+"The old Morgan place up at the Glen is for sale,"
+said Gilbert, apropos of nothing in especial.
+
+"Is it?" asked Anne indifferently.
+
+"Yes.  Now that Mr. Morgan has gone, Mrs. Morgan wants
+to go to live with her children in Vancouver.  She will
+sell cheaply, for a big place like that in a small
+village like the Glen will not be very easy to dispose
+of."
+
+"Well, it's certainly a beautiful place, so it is
+likely she will find a purchaser," said Anne,
+absently, wondering whether she should hemstitch or
+feather-stitch little Jem's "short" dresses.  He was
+to be shortened the next week, and Anne felt ready to
+cry at the thought of it.
+
+"Suppose we buy it, Anne?" remarked Gilbert quietly.
+
+Anne dropped her sewing and stared at him.
+
+"You're not in earnest, Gilbert?"
+
+"Indeed I am, dear."
+
+"And leave this darling spot--our house of dreams?"
+said Anne incredulously.  "Oh, Gilbert, it's--it's
+unthinkable!"
+
+"Listen patiently to me, dear.  I know just how you
+feel about it.  I feel the same.  But we've always
+known we would have to move some day."
+
+"Oh, but not so soon, Gilbert--not just yet."
+
+"We may never get such a chance again.  If we don't buy
+the Morgan place someone else will--and there is no
+other house in the Glen we would care to have, and no
+other really good site on which to build.  This little
+house is--well, it is and has been what no other house
+can ever be to us, I admit, but you know it is
+out-of-the-way down here for a doctor.  We have felt
+the inconvenience, though we've made the best of it. 
+And it's a tight fit for us now.  Perhaps, in a few
+years, when Jem wants a room of his own, it will be
+entirely too small."
+
+"Oh, I know--I know," said Anne, tears filling her
+eyes.  "I know all that can be said against it, but I
+love it so--and it's so beautiful here."
+
+"You would find it very lonely here after Leslie
+goes--and Captain Jim has gone too.  The Morgan place
+is beautiful, and in time we would love it.  You know
+you have always admired it, Anne."
+
+"Oh, yes, but--but--this has all seemed to come up so
+suddenly, Gilbert.  I'm dizzy.  Ten minutes ago I had
+no thought of leaving this dear spot.  I was planning
+what I meant to do for it in the spring-- what I meant
+to do in the garden.  And if we leave this place who
+will get it?  It IS out-of-the-way, so it's likely some
+poor, shiftless, wandering family will rent it--and
+over-run it--and oh, that would be desecration.  It
+would hurt me horribly."
+
+"I know.  But we cannot sacrifice our own interests to
+such considerations, Anne-girl.  The Morgan place will
+suit us in every essential particular--we really can't
+afford to miss such a chance.  Think of that big lawn
+with those magnificent old trees; and of that splendid
+hardwood grove behind it--twelve acres of it.  What a
+play place for our children!  There's a fine orchard,
+too, and you've always admired that high brick wall
+around the garden with the door in it--you've thought
+it was so like a story-book garden.  And there is
+almost as fine a view of the harbor and the dunes from
+the Morgan place as from here."
+
+"You can't see the lighthouse star from it."
+
+"Yes, You can see it from the attic window.  THERE'S
+another advantage, Anne-girl--you love big garrets."
+
+ "There's no brook in the garden."
+
+"Well, no, but there is one running through the maple
+grove into the Glen pond.  And the pond itself isn't
+far away.  You'll be able to fancy you have your own
+Lake of Shining Waters again."
+
+"Well, don't say anything more about it just now,
+Gilbert.  Give me time to think--to get used to the
+idea."
+
+"All right.  There is no great hurry, of course. 
+Only--if we decide to buy, it would be well to be
+moved in and settled before winter."
+
+Gilbert went out, and Anne put away Little Jem's short
+dresses with trembling hands.  She could not sew any
+more that day.  With tear-wet eyes she wandered over
+the little domain where she had reigned so happy a
+queen.  The Morgan place was all that Gilbert claimed. 
+The grounds were beautiful, the house old enough to
+have dignity and repose and traditions, and new enough
+to be comfortable and up-to-date.  Anne had always
+admired it; but admiring is not loving; and she loved
+this house of dreams so much.  She loved EVERYTHING
+about it--the garden she had tended, and which so many
+women had tended before her--the gleam and sparkle of
+the little brook that crept so roguishly across the
+corner--the gate between the creaking fir trees--the
+old red sandstone step--the stately Lombardies-- the
+two tiny quaint glass cupboards over the chimney- piece
+in the living-room--the crooked pantry door in the
+kitchen-- the two funny dormer windows upstairs--the
+little jog in the staircase-- why, these things were a
+part of her!  How could she leave them?
+
+And how this little house, consecrated aforetime by
+love and joy, had been re-consecrated for her by her
+happiness and sorrow!  Here she had spent her bridal
+moon; here wee Joyce had lived her one brief day; here
+the sweetness of motherhood had come again with Little
+Jem; here she had heard the exquisite music of her
+baby's cooing laughter; here beloved friends had sat by
+her fireside.  Joy and grief, birth and death, had made
+sacred forever this little house of dreams.
+
+And now she must leave it.  She knew that, even while
+she had contended against the idea to Gilbert.  The
+little house was outgrown.  Gilbert's interests made
+the change necessary; his work, successful though it
+had been, was hampered by his location.  Anne realised
+that the end of their life in this dear place drew
+nigh, and that she must face the fact bravely.  But how
+her heart ached!
+
+"It will be just like tearing something out of my
+life," she sobbed.  "And oh, if I could hope that some
+nice folk would come here in our place--or even that it
+would be left vacant.  That itself would be better than
+having it overrun with some horde who know nothing of
+the geography of dreamland, and nothing of the history
+that has given this house its soul and its identity. 
+And if such a tribe come here the place will go to rack
+and ruin in no time--an old place goes down so quickly
+if it is not carefully attended to.  They'll tear up my
+garden--and let the Lombardies get ragged--and the
+paling will come to look like a mouth with half the
+teeth missing--and the roof will leak--and the plaster
+fall--and they'll stuff pillows and rags in broken
+window panes--and everything will be out-at-elbows."
+
+Anne's imagination pictured forth so vividly the coming
+degeneration of her dear little house that it hurt her
+as severely as if it had already been an accomplished
+fact.  She sat down on the stairs and had a long,
+bitter cry.  Susan found her there and enquired with
+much concern what the trouble was.
+
+"You have not quarrelled with the doctor, have you now,
+Mrs. Doctor, dear?  But if you have, do not worry.  It
+is a thing quite likely to happen to married couples, I
+am told, although I have had no experience that way
+myself.  He will be sorry, and you can soon make it
+up."
+
+"No, no, Susan, we haven't quarrelled.  It's
+only--Gilbert is going to buy the Morgan place, and
+we'll have to go and live at the Glen.  And it will
+break my heart."
+
+Susan did not enter into Anne's feelings at all.  She
+was, indeed, quite rejoiced over the prospect of living
+at the Glen.  Her one grievance against her place in
+the little house was its lonesome location.
+
+"Why, Mrs. Doctor, dear, it will be splendid.  The
+Morgan house is such a fine, big one."
+
+"I hate big houses," sobbed Anne.
+
+"Oh, well, you will not hate them by the time you have
+half a dozen children," remarked Susan calmly.  "And
+this house is too small already for us.  We have no
+spare room, since Mrs. Moore is here, and that pantry
+is the most aggravating place I ever tried to work in. 
+There is a corner every way you turn.  Besides, it is
+out-of-the-world down here.  There is really nothing at
+all but scenery."
+
+"Out of your world perhaps, Susan--but not out of
+mine," said Anne with a faint smile.
+
+"I do not quite understand you, Mrs. Doctor, dear, but
+of course I am not well educated.  But if Dr. Blythe
+buys the Morgan place he will make no mistake, and that
+you may tie to.  They have water in it, and the
+pantries and closets are beautiful, and there is not
+another such cellar in P. E.  Island, so I have been
+told.  Why, the cellar here, Mrs. Doctor, dear, has
+been a heart-break to me, as well you know."
+
+"Oh, go away, Susan, go away," said Anne forlornly. 
+"Cellars and pantries and closets don't make a HOME. 
+Why don't you weep with those who weep?"
+
+"Well, I never was much hand for weeping, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear.  I would rather fall to and cheer people up than
+weep with them.  Now, do not you cry and spoil your
+pretty eyes.  This house is very well and has served
+your turn, but it is high time you had a better."
+
+Susan's point of view seemed to be that of most people. 
+Leslie was the only one who sympathised
+understandingly with Anne.  She had a good cry, too,
+when she heard the news.  Then they both dried their
+tears and went to work at the preparations for moving.
+
+"Since we must go let us go as soon as we can and have
+it over," said poor Anne with bitter resignation.
+
+"You know you will like that lovely old place at the
+Glen after you have lived in it long enough to have
+dear memories woven about it," said Leslie.  "Friends
+will come there, as they have come here-- happiness
+will glorify it for you.  Now, it's just a house to
+you--but the years will make it a home."
+
+Anne and Leslie had another cry the next week when they
+shortened Little Jem.  Anne felt the tragedy of it
+until evening when in his long nightie she found her
+own dear baby again.
+
+"But it will be rompers next--and then trousers--and in
+no time he will be grown-up," she sighed.
+
+"Well, you would not want him to stay a baby always,
+Mrs. Doctor, dear, would you?" said Susan.  "Bless his
+innocent heart, he looks too sweet for anything in his
+little short dresses, with his dear feet sticking out. 
+And think of the save in the ironing, Mrs. Doctor, dear."
+
+"Anne, I have just had a letter from Owen," said
+Leslie, entering with a bright face.  "And, oh! I have
+such good news.  He writes me that he is going to buy
+this place from the church trustees and keep it to
+spend our summer vacations in.  Anne, are you not glad?"
+
+"Oh, Leslie, `glad' isn't the word for it!  It seems
+almost too good to be true.  I sha'n't feel half so
+badly now that I know this dear spot will never be
+desecrated by a vandal tribe, or left to tumble down in
+decay.  Why, it's lovely!  It's lovely!"
+
+One October morning Anne wakened to the realisation
+that she had slept for the last time under the roof of
+her little house.  The day was too busy to indulge
+regret and when evening came the house was stripped and
+bare.  Anne and Gilbert were alone in it to say
+farewell.  Leslie and Susan and Little Jem had gone to
+the Glen with the last load of furniture.  The sunset
+light streamed in through the curtainless windows.
+
+"It has all such a heart-broken, reproachful look,
+hasn't it?" said Anne.  "Oh, I shall be so homesick at
+the Glen tonight!"
+
+"We have been very happy here, haven't we, Anne-girl?"
+said Gilbert, his voice full of feeling.
+
+Anne choked, unable to answer.  Gilbert waited for her
+at the fir-tree gate, while she went over the house and
+said farewell to every room.  She was going away; but
+the old house would still be there, looking seaward
+through its quaint windows.  The autumn winds would
+blow around it mournfully, and the gray rain would beat
+upon it and the white mists would come in from the sea
+to enfold it; and the moonlight would fall over it and
+light up the old paths where the schoolmaster and his
+bride had walked.  There on that old harbor shore the
+charm of story would linger; the wind would still
+whistle alluringly over the silver sand-dunes; the
+waves would still call from the red rock-coves.
+
+"But we will be gone," said Anne through her tears.
+
+She went out, closing and locking the door behind her. 
+Gilbert was waiting for her with a smile.  The
+lighthouse star was gleaming northward.  The little
+garden, where only marigolds still bloomed, was already
+hooding itself in shadows.
+
+Anne knelt down and kissed the worn old step which she
+had crossed as a bride.
+
+"Good-bye, dear little house of dreams," she said.
+
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Anne’s House of Dreams, by Lucy Maud
+Montgomery
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Anne’s House of Dreams
+
+Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery
+
+Release Date: August 3, 2008 [EBook #544]
+Last Updated: September 1, 2023
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Charles Keller.  HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANNE’S HOUSE OF DREAMS ***
+
+
+
+
+Anne’s House of Dreams
+
+
+by
+
+Lucy Maud Montgomery
+
+
+“To Laura, in memory of the olden time.”
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+Chapter
+
+   1  IN THE GARRET OF GREEN GABLES
+   2  THE HOUSE OF DREAMS
+   3  THE LAND OF DREAMS AMONG
+   4  THE FIRST BRIDE OF GREEN GABLES
+   5  THE HOME COMING
+   6  CAPTAIN JIM
+   7  THE SCHOOLMASTER’S BRIDE
+   8  MISS CORNELIA BRYANT COMES TO CALL
+   9  AN EVENING AT FOUR WINDS POINT
+  10  LESLIE MOORE
+  11  THE STORY OF LESLIE MOORE
+  12  LESLIE COMES OVER
+  13  A GHOSTLY EVENING
+  14  NOVEMBER DAYS
+  15  CHRISTMAS AT FOUR WINDS
+  16  NEW YEAR’S EVE AT THE LIGHT
+  17  A FOUR WINDS WINTER
+  18  SPRING DAYS
+  19  DAWN AND DUSK
+  20  LOST MARGARET
+  21  BARRIERS SWEPT AWAY
+  22  MISS CORNELIA ARRANGES MATTERS
+  23  OWEN FORD COMES
+  24  THE LIFE-BOOK OF CAPTAIN JIM
+  25  THE WRITING OF THE BOOK
+  26  OWEN FORD’S CONFESSION
+  27  ON THE SAND BAR
+  28  ODDS AND ENDS
+  29  GILBERT AND ANNE DISAGREE
+  30  LESLIE DECIDES
+  31  THE TRUTH MAKES FREE
+  32  MISS CORNELIA DISCUSSES THE AFFAIR
+  33  LESLIE RETURNS
+  34  THE SHIP O’DREAMS COMES TO HARBOR
+  35  POLITICS AT FOUR WINDS
+  36  BEAUTY FOR ASHES
+  37  MISS CORNELIA MAKES A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT
+  38  RED ROSES
+  39  CAPTAIN JIM CROSSES THE BAR
+  40  FAREWELL TO THE HOUSE OF DREAMS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1
+
+IN THE GARRET OF GREEN GABLES
+
+“Thanks be, I’m done with geometry, learning or teaching it,” said Anne
+Shirley, a trifle vindictively, as she thumped a somewhat battered
+volume of Euclid into a big chest of books, banged the lid in triumph,
+and sat down upon it, looking at Diana Wright across the Green Gables
+garret, with gray eyes that were like a morning sky.
+
+The garret was a shadowy, suggestive, delightful place, as all garrets
+should be. Through the open window, by which Anne sat, blew the sweet,
+scented, sun-warm air of the August afternoon; outside, poplar boughs
+rustled and tossed in the wind; beyond them were the woods, where
+Lover’s Lane wound its enchanted path, and the old apple orchard which
+still bore its rosy harvests munificently.  And, over all, was a great
+mountain range of snowy clouds in the blue southern sky.  Through the
+other window was glimpsed a distant, white-capped, blue sea--the
+beautiful St. Lawrence Gulf, on which floats, like a jewel, Abegweit,
+whose softer, sweeter Indian name has long been forsaken for the more
+prosaic one of Prince Edward Island.
+
+Diana Wright, three years older than when we last saw her, had grown
+somewhat matronly in the intervening time.  But her eyes were as black
+and brilliant, her cheeks as rosy, and her dimples as enchanting, as in
+the long-ago days when she and Anne Shirley had vowed eternal
+friendship in the garden at Orchard Slope.  In her arms she held a
+small, sleeping, black-curled creature, who for two happy years had
+been known to the world of Avonlea as “Small Anne Cordelia.”  Avonlea
+folks knew why Diana had called her Anne, of course, but Avonlea folks
+were puzzled by the Cordelia.  There had never been a Cordelia in the
+Wright or Barry connections.  Mrs. Harmon Andrews said she supposed
+Diana had found the name in some trashy novel, and wondered that Fred
+hadn’t more sense than to allow it.  But Diana and Anne smiled at each
+other.  They knew how Small Anne Cordelia had come by her name.
+
+“You always hated geometry,” said Diana with a retrospective smile.  “I
+should think you’d be real glad to be through with teaching, anyhow.”
+
+“Oh, I’ve always liked teaching, apart from geometry.  These past three
+years in Summerside have been very pleasant ones. Mrs. Harmon Andrews
+told me when I came home that I wouldn’t likely find married life as
+much better than teaching as I expected.  Evidently Mrs. Harmon is of
+Hamlet’s opinion that it may be better to bear the ills that we have
+than fly to others that we know not of.”
+
+Anne’s laugh, as blithe and irresistible as of yore, with an added note
+of sweetness and maturity, rang through the garret.  Marilla in the
+kitchen below, compounding blue plum preserve, heard it and smiled;
+then sighed to think how seldom that dear laugh would echo through
+Green Gables in the years to come.  Nothing in her life had ever given
+Marilla so much happiness as the knowledge that Anne was going to marry
+Gilbert Blythe; but every joy must bring with it its little shadow of
+sorrow.  During the three Summerside years Anne had been home often for
+vacations and weekends; but, after this, a bi-annual visit would be as
+much as could be hoped for.
+
+“You needn’t let what Mrs. Harmon says worry you,” said Diana, with the
+calm assurance of the four-years matron.  “Married life has its ups and
+downs, of course.  You mustn’t expect that everything will always go
+smoothly.  But I can assure you, Anne, that it’s a happy life, when
+you’re married to the right man.”
+
+Anne smothered a smile.  Diana’s airs of vast experience always amused
+her a little.
+
+“I daresay I’ll be putting them on too, when I’ve been married four
+years,” she thought.  “Surely my sense of humor will preserve me from
+it, though.”
+
+“Is it settled yet where you are going to live?” asked Diana, cuddling
+Small Anne Cordelia with the inimitable gesture of motherhood which
+always sent through Anne’s heart, filled with sweet, unuttered dreams
+and hopes, a thrill that was half pure pleasure and half a strange,
+ethereal pain.
+
+“Yes. That was what I wanted to tell you when I ’phoned to you to come
+down today.  By the way, I can’t realize that we really have telephones
+in Avonlea now.  It sounds so preposterously up-to-date and modernish
+for this darling, leisurely old place.”
+
+“We can thank the A. V. I. S. for them,” said Diana.  “We should never
+have got the line if they hadn’t taken the matter up and carried it
+through.  There was enough cold water thrown to discourage any society.
+But they stuck to it, nevertheless.  You did a splendid thing for
+Avonlea when you founded that society, Anne.  What fun we did have at
+our meetings!  Will you ever forget the blue hall and Judson Parker’s
+scheme for painting medicine advertisements on his fence?”
+
+“I don’t know that I’m wholly grateful to the A. V. I.  S. in the
+matter of the telephone,” said Anne.  “Oh, I know it’s most
+convenient--even more so than our old device of signalling to each
+other by flashes of candlelight!  And, as Mrs. Rachel says, ‘Avonlea
+must keep up with the procession, that’s what.’  But somehow I feel as
+if I didn’t want Avonlea spoiled by what Mr. Harrison, when he wants to
+be witty, calls ‘modern inconveniences.’  I should like to have it kept
+always just as it was in the dear old years. That’s foolish--and
+sentimental--and impossible.  So I shall immediately become wise and
+practical and possible.  The telephone, as Mr. Harrison concedes, is ‘a
+buster of a good thing’--even if you do know that probably half a dozen
+interested people are listening along the line.”
+
+“That’s the worst of it,” sighed Diana.  “It’s so annoying to hear the
+receivers going down whenever you ring anyone up.  They say Mrs. Harmon
+Andrews insisted that their ’phone should be put in their kitchen just
+so that she could listen whenever it rang and keep an eye on the dinner
+at the same time.  Today, when you called me, I distinctly heard that
+queer clock of the Pyes’ striking.  So no doubt Josie or Gertie was
+listening.”
+
+“Oh, so that is why you said, ‘You’ve got a new clock at Green Gables,
+haven’t you?’  I couldn’t imagine what you meant.  I heard a vicious
+click as soon as you had spoken.  I suppose it was the Pye receiver
+being hung up with profane energy.  Well, never mind the Pyes.  As Mrs.
+Rachel says, ‘Pyes they always were and Pyes they always will be, world
+without end, amen.’  I want to talk of pleasanter things.  It’s all
+settled as to where my new home shall be.”
+
+“Oh, Anne, where?  I do hope it’s near here.”
+
+“No-o-o, that’s the drawback. Gilbert is going to settle at Four Winds
+Harbor--sixty miles from here.”
+
+“Sixty!  It might as well be six hundred,” sighed Diana.  “I never can
+get further from home now than Charlottetown.”
+
+“You’ll have to come to Four Winds. It’s the most beautiful harbor on
+the Island.  There’s a little village called Glen St. Mary at its head,
+and Dr. David Blythe has been practicing there for fifty years.  He is
+Gilbert’s great-uncle, you know.  He is going to retire, and Gilbert is
+to take over his practice.  Dr. Blythe is going to keep his house,
+though, so we shall have to find a habitation for ourselves.  I don’t
+know yet what it is, or where it will be in reality, but I have a
+little house o’dreams all furnished in my imagination--a tiny,
+delightful castle in Spain.”
+
+“Where are you going for your wedding tour?” asked Diana.
+
+“Nowhere.  Don’t look horrified, Diana dearest.  You suggest Mrs.
+Harmon Andrews.  She, no doubt, will remark condescendingly that people
+who can’t afford wedding ‘towers’ are real sensible not to take them;
+and then she’ll remind me that Jane went to Europe for hers.  I want to
+spend MY honeymoon at Four Winds in my own dear house of dreams.”
+
+“And you’ve decided not to have any bridesmaid?”
+
+“There isn’t any one to have.  You and Phil and Priscilla and Jane all
+stole a march on me in the matter of marriage; and Stella is teaching
+in Vancouver.  I have no other ‘kindred soul’ and I won’t have a
+bridesmaid who isn’t.”
+
+“But you are going to wear a veil, aren’t you?” asked Diana, anxiously.
+
+“Yes, indeedy.  I shouldn’t feel like a bride without one.  I remember
+telling Matthew, that evening when he brought me to Green Gables, that
+I never expected to be a bride because I was so homely no one would
+ever want to marry me--unless some foreign missionary did.  I had an
+idea then that foreign missionaries couldn’t afford to be finicky in
+the matter of looks if they wanted a girl to risk her life among
+cannibals.  You should have seen the foreign missionary Priscilla
+married.  He was as handsome and inscrutable as those daydreams we once
+planned to marry ourselves, Diana; he was the best dressed man I ever
+met, and he raved over Priscilla’s ‘ethereal, golden beauty.’  But of
+course there are no cannibals in Japan.”
+
+“Your wedding dress is a dream, anyhow,” sighed Diana rapturously.
+“You’ll look like a perfect queen in it--you’re so tall and slender.
+How DO you keep so slim, Anne?  I’m fatter than ever--I’ll soon have no
+waist at all.”
+
+“Stoutness and slimness seem to be matters of predestination,” said
+Anne.  “At all events, Mrs. Harmon Andrews can’t say to you what she
+said to me when I came home from Summerside, ‘Well, Anne, you’re just
+about as skinny as ever.’  It sounds quite romantic to be ‘slender,’
+but ‘skinny’ has a very different tang.”
+
+“Mrs. Harmon has been talking about your trousseau.  She admits it’s as
+nice as Jane’s, although she says Jane married a millionaire and you
+are only marrying a ‘poor young doctor without a cent to his name.’”
+
+Anne laughed.
+
+“My dresses ARE nice.  I love pretty things.  I remember the first
+pretty dress I ever had--the brown gloria Matthew gave me for our
+school concert.  Before that everything I had was so ugly.  It seemed
+to me that I stepped into a new world that night.”
+
+“That was the night Gilbert recited ‘Bingen on the Rhine,’ and looked
+at you when he said, ‘There’s another, NOT a sister.’  And you were so
+furious because he put your pink tissue rose in his breast pocket!  You
+didn’t much imagine then that you would ever marry him.”
+
+“Oh, well, that’s another instance of predestination,” laughed Anne, as
+they went down the garret stairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2
+
+THE HOUSE OF DREAMS
+
+There was more excitement in the air of Green Gables than there had
+ever been before in all its history.  Even Marilla was so excited that
+she couldn’t help showing it--which was little short of being
+phenomenal.
+
+“There’s never been a wedding in this house,” she said, half
+apologetically, to Mrs. Rachel Lynde.  “When I was a child I heard an
+old minister say that a house was not a real home until it had been
+consecrated by a birth, a wedding and a death.  We’ve had deaths
+here--my father and mother died here as well as Matthew; and we’ve even
+had a birth here.  Long ago, just after we moved into this house, we
+had a married hired man for a little while, and his wife had a baby
+here.  But there’s never been a wedding before.  It does seem so
+strange to think of Anne being married.  In a way she just seems to me
+the little girl Matthew brought home here fourteen years ago.  I can’t
+realize that she’s grown up.  I shall never forget what I felt when I
+saw Matthew bringing in a GIRL.  I wonder what became of the boy we
+would have got if there hadn’t been a mistake.  I wonder what HIS fate
+was.”
+
+“Well, it was a fortunate mistake,” said Mrs. Rachel Lynde, “though,
+mind you, there was a time I didn’t think so--that evening I came up to
+see Anne and she treated us to such a scene.  Many things have changed
+since then, that’s what.”
+
+Mrs. Rachel sighed, and then brisked up again.  When weddings were in
+order Mrs. Rachel was ready to let the dead past bury its dead.
+
+“I’m going to give Anne two of my cotton warp spreads,” she resumed.
+“A tobacco-stripe one and an apple-leaf one.  She tells me they’re
+getting to be real fashionable again.  Well, fashion or no fashion, I
+don’t believe there’s anything prettier for a spare-room bed than a
+nice apple-leaf spread, that’s what.  I must see about getting them
+bleached.  I’ve had them sewed up in cotton bags ever since Thomas
+died, and no doubt they’re an awful color.  But there’s a month yet,
+and dew-bleaching will work wonders.”
+
+Only a month!  Marilla sighed and then said proudly:
+
+“I’m giving Anne that half dozen braided rugs I have in the garret. I
+never supposed she’d want them--they’re so old-fashioned, and nobody
+seems to want anything but hooked mats now.  But she asked me for
+them--said she’d rather have them than anything else for her floors.
+They ARE pretty.  I made them of the nicest rags, and braided them in
+stripes.  It was such company these last few winters.  And I’ll make
+her enough blue plum preserve to stock her jam closet for a year.  It
+seems real strange.  Those blue plum trees hadn’t even a blossom for
+three years, and I thought they might as well be cut down.  And this
+last spring they were white, and such a crop of plums I never remember
+at Green Gables.”
+
+“Well, thank goodness that Anne and Gilbert really are going to be
+married after all.  It’s what I’ve always prayed for,” said Mrs.
+Rachel, in the tone of one who is comfortably sure that her prayers
+have availed much.  “It was a great relief to find out that she really
+didn’t mean to take the Kingsport man.  He was rich, to be sure, and
+Gilbert is poor--at least, to begin with; but then he’s an Island boy.”
+
+“He’s Gilbert Blythe,” said Marilla contentedly.  Marilla would have
+died the death before she would have put into words the thought that
+was always in the background of her mind whenever she had looked at
+Gilbert from his childhood up--the thought that, had it not been for
+her own wilful pride long, long ago, he might have been HER son.
+Marilla felt that, in some strange way, his marriage with Anne would
+put right that old mistake.  Good had come out of the evil of the
+ancient bitterness.
+
+As for Anne herself, she was so happy that she almost felt frightened.
+The gods, so says the old superstition, do not like to behold too happy
+mortals.  It is certain, at least, that some human beings do not.  Two
+of that ilk descended upon Anne one violet dusk and proceeded to do
+what in them lay to prick the rainbow bubble of her satisfaction.  If
+she thought she was getting any particular prize in young Dr. Blythe,
+or if she imagined that he was still as infatuated with her as he might
+have been in his salad days, it was surely their duty to put the matter
+before her in another light.  Yet these two worthy ladies were not
+enemies of Anne; on the contrary, they were really quite fond of her,
+and would have defended her as their own young had anyone else attacked
+her.  Human nature is not obliged to be consistent.
+
+Mrs. Inglis--nee Jane Andrews, to quote from the Daily Enterprise--came
+with her mother and Mrs. Jasper Bell.  But in Jane the milk of human
+kindness had not been curdled by years of matrimonial bickerings.  Her
+lines had fallen in pleasant places.  In spite of the fact--as Mrs.
+Rachel Lynde would say--that she had married a millionaire, her
+marriage had been happy.  Wealth had not spoiled her.  She was still
+the placid, amiable, pink-cheeked Jane of the old quartette,
+sympathising with her old chum’s happiness and as keenly interested in
+all the dainty details of Anne’s trousseau as if it could rival her own
+silken and bejewelled splendors.  Jane was not brilliant, and had
+probably never made a remark worth listening to in her life; but she
+never said anything that would hurt anyone’s feelings--which may be a
+negative talent but is likewise a rare and enviable one.
+
+“So Gilbert didn’t go back on you after all,” said Mrs. Harmon Andrews,
+contriving to convey an expression of surprise in her tone.  “Well, the
+Blythes generally keep their word when they’ve once passed it, no
+matter what happens.  Let me see--you’re twenty-five, aren’t you, Anne?
+When I was a girl twenty-five was the first corner.  But you look quite
+young.  Red-headed people always do.”
+
+“Red hair is very fashionable now,” said Anne, trying to smile, but
+speaking rather coldly.  Life had developed in her a sense of humor
+which helped her over many difficulties; but as yet nothing had availed
+to steel her against a reference to her hair.
+
+“So it is--so it is,” conceded Mrs. Harmon.  “There’s no telling what
+queer freaks fashion will take.  Well, Anne, your things are very
+pretty, and very suitable to your position in life, aren’t they, Jane?
+I hope you’ll be very happy.  You have my best wishes, I’m sure.  A
+long engagement doesn’t often turn out well.  But, of course, in your
+case it couldn’t be helped.”
+
+“Gilbert looks very young for a doctor.  I’m afraid people won’t have
+much confidence in him,” said Mrs. Jasper Bell gloomily.  Then she shut
+her mouth tightly, as if she had said what she considered it her duty
+to say and held her conscience clear.  She belonged to the type which
+always has a stringy black feather in its hat and straggling locks of
+hair on its neck.
+
+Anne’s surface pleasure in her pretty bridal things was temporarily
+shadowed; but the deeps of happiness below could not thus be disturbed;
+and the little stings of Mesdames Bell and Andrews were forgotten when
+Gilbert came later, and they wandered down to the birches of the brook,
+which had been saplings when Anne had come to Green Gables, but were
+now tall, ivory columns in a fairy palace of twilight and stars.  In
+their shadows Anne and Gilbert talked in lover-fashion of their new
+home and their new life together.
+
+“I’ve found a nest for us, Anne.”
+
+“Oh, where?  Not right in the village, I hope.  I wouldn’t like that
+altogether.”
+
+“No.  There was no house to be had in the village.  This is a little
+white house on the harbor shore, half way between Glen St. Mary and
+Four Winds Point.  It’s a little out of the way, but when we get a
+’phone in that won’t matter so much.  The situation is beautiful.  It
+looks to the sunset and has the great blue harbor before it.  The
+sand-dunes aren’t very far away--the sea winds blow over them and the
+sea spray drenches them.”
+
+“But the house itself, Gilbert,--OUR first home?  What is it like?”
+
+“Not very large, but large enough for us.  There’s a splendid living
+room with a fireplace in it downstairs, and a dining room that looks
+out on the harbor, and a little room that will do for my office.  It is
+about sixty years old--the oldest house in Four Winds.  But it has been
+kept in pretty good repair, and was all done over about fifteen years
+ago--shingled, plastered and re-floored.  It was well built to begin
+with.  I understand that there was some romantic story connected with
+its building, but the man I rented it from didn’t know it.”
+
+“He said Captain Jim was the only one who could spin that old yarn now.”
+
+“Who is Captain Jim?”
+
+“The keeper of the lighthouse on Four Winds Point.  You’ll love that
+Four Winds light, Anne.  It’s a revolving one, and it flashes like a
+magnificent star through the twilights.  We can see it from our living
+room windows and our front door.”
+
+“Who owns the house?”
+
+“Well, it’s the property of the Glen St. Mary Presbyterian Church now,
+and I rented it from the trustees.  But it belonged until lately to a
+very old lady, Miss Elizabeth Russell.  She died last spring, and as
+she had no near relatives she left her property to the Glen St. Mary
+Church.  Her furniture is still in the house, and I bought most of
+it--for a mere song you might say, because it was all so old-fashioned
+that the trustees despaired of selling it.  Glen St. Mary folks prefer
+plush brocade and sideboards with mirrors and ornamentations, I fancy.
+But Miss Russell’s furniture is very good and I feel sure you’ll like
+it, Anne.”
+
+“So far, good,” said Anne, nodding cautious approval.  “But, Gilbert,
+people cannot live by furniture alone.  You haven’t yet mentioned one
+very important thing.  Are there TREES about this house?”
+
+“Heaps of them, oh, dryad!  There is a big grove of fir trees behind
+it, two rows of Lombardy poplars down the lane, and a ring of white
+birches around a very delightful garden.  Our front door opens right
+into the garden, but there is another entrance--a little gate hung
+between two firs.  The hinges are on one trunk and the catch on the
+other.  Their boughs form an arch overhead.”
+
+“Oh, I’m so glad!  I couldn’t live where there were no trees--something
+vital in me would starve.  Well, after that, there’s no use asking you
+if there’s a brook anywhere near.  THAT would be expecting too much.”
+
+“But there IS a brook--and it actually cuts across one corner of the
+garden.”
+
+“Then,” said Anne, with a long sigh of supreme satisfaction, “this
+house you have found IS my house of dreams and none other.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3
+
+THE LAND OF DREAMS AMONG
+
+“Have you made up your mind who you’re going to have to the wedding,
+Anne?” asked Mrs. Rachel Lynde, as she hemstitched table napkins
+industriously.  “It’s time your invitations were sent, even if they are
+to be only informal ones.”
+
+“I don’t mean to have very many,” said Anne.  “We just want those we
+love best to see us married.  Gilbert’s people, and Mr. and Mrs. Allan,
+and Mr. and Mrs. Harrison.”
+
+“There was a time when you’d hardly have numbered Mr. Harrison among
+your dearest friends,” said Marilla drily.
+
+“Well, I wasn’t VERY strongly attracted to him at our first meeting,”
+acknowledged Anne, with a laugh over the recollection.  “But Mr.
+Harrison has improved on acquaintance, and Mrs. Harrison is really a
+dear.  Then, of course, there are Miss Lavendar and Paul.”
+
+“Have they decided to come to the Island this summer?  I thought they
+were going to Europe.”
+
+“They changed their minds when I wrote them I was going to be married.
+I had a letter from Paul today.  He says he MUST come to my wedding, no
+matter what happens to Europe.”
+
+“That child always idolised you,” remarked Mrs. Rachel.
+
+“That ‘child’ is a young man of nineteen now, Mrs. Lynde.”
+
+“How time does fly!” was Mrs. Lynde’s brilliant and original response.
+
+“Charlotta the Fourth may come with them.  She sent word by Paul that
+she would come if her husband would let her.  I wonder if she still
+wears those enormous blue bows, and whether her husband calls her
+Charlotta or Leonora.  I should love to have Charlotta at my wedding.
+Charlotta and I were at a wedding long syne.  They expect to be at Echo
+Lodge next week.  Then there are Phil and the Reverend Jo----”
+
+“It sounds awful to hear you speaking of a minister like that, Anne,”
+said Mrs. Rachel severely.
+
+“His wife calls him that.”
+
+“She should have more respect for his holy office, then,” retorted Mrs.
+Rachel.
+
+“I’ve heard you criticise ministers pretty sharply yourself,” teased
+Anne.
+
+“Yes, but I do it reverently,” protested Mrs. Lynde.  “You never heard
+me NICKNAME a minister.”
+
+Anne smothered a smile.
+
+“Well, there are Diana and Fred and little Fred and Small Anne
+Cordelia--and Jane Andrews.  I wish I could have Miss Stacey and Aunt
+Jamesina and Priscilla and Stella.  But Stella is in Vancouver, and
+Pris is in Japan, and Miss Stacey is married in California, and Aunt
+Jamesina has gone to India to explore her daughter’s mission field, in
+spite of her horror of snakes.  It’s really dreadful--the way people
+get scattered over the globe.”
+
+“The Lord never intended it, that’s what,” said Mrs. Rachel
+authoritatively.  “In my young days people grew up and married and
+settled down where they were born, or pretty near it.  Thank goodness
+you’ve stuck to the Island, Anne.  I was afraid Gilbert would insist on
+rushing off to the ends of the earth when he got through college, and
+dragging you with him.”
+
+“If everybody stayed where he was born places would soon be filled up,
+Mrs. Lynde.”
+
+“Oh, I’m not going to argue with you, Anne.  _I_ am not a B.A.  What
+time of the day is the ceremony to be?”
+
+“We have decided on noon--high noon, as the society reporters say.
+That will give us time to catch the evening train to Glen St. Mary.”
+
+“And you’ll be married in the parlor?”
+
+“No--not unless it rains.  We mean to be married in the orchard--with
+the blue sky over us and the sunshine around us.  Do you know when and
+where I’d like to be married, if I could?  It would be at dawn--a June
+dawn, with a glorious sunrise, and roses blooming in the gardens; and I
+would slip down and meet Gilbert and we would go together to the heart
+of the beech woods,--and there, under the green arches that would be
+like a splendid cathedral, we would be married.”
+
+Marilla sniffed scornfully and Mrs. Lynde looked shocked.
+
+“But that would be terrible queer, Anne.  Why, it wouldn’t really seem
+legal.  And what would Mrs. Harmon Andrews say?”
+
+“Ah, there’s the rub,” sighed Anne.  “There are so many things in life
+we cannot do because of the fear of what Mrs. Harmon Andrews would say.
+‘’Tis true, ’tis pity, and pity ’tis, ’tis true.’  What delightful
+things we might do were it not for Mrs. Harmon Andrews!”
+
+“By times, Anne, I don’t feel quite sure that I understand you
+altogether,” complained Mrs. Lynde.
+
+“Anne was always romantic, you know,” said Marilla apologetically.
+
+“Well, married life will most likely cure her of that,” Mrs. Rachel
+responded comfortingly.
+
+Anne laughed and slipped away to Lover’s Lane, where Gilbert found her;
+and neither of them seemed to entertain much fear, or hope, that their
+married life would cure them of romance.
+
+The Echo Lodge people came over the next week, and Green Gables buzzed
+with the delight of them.  Miss Lavendar had changed so little that the
+three years since her last Island visit might have been a watch in the
+night; but Anne gasped with amazement over Paul.  Could this splendid
+six feet of manhood be the little Paul of Avonlea schooldays?
+
+“You really make me feel old, Paul,” said Anne.  “Why, I have to look
+up to you!”
+
+“You’ll never grow old, Teacher,” said Paul.  “You are one of the
+fortunate mortals who have found and drunk from the Fountain of
+Youth,--you and Mother Lavendar.  See here!  When you’re married I
+WON’T call you Mrs. Blythe.  To me you’ll always be ‘Teacher’--the
+teacher of the best lessons I ever learned.  I want to show you
+something.”
+
+The “something” was a pocketbook full of poems.  Paul had put some of
+his beautiful fancies into verse, and magazine editors had not been as
+unappreciative as they are sometimes supposed to be.  Anne read Paul’s
+poems with real delight.  They were full of charm and promise.
+
+“You’ll be famous yet, Paul.  I always dreamed of having one famous
+pupil.  He was to be a college president--but a great poet would be
+even better.  Some day I’ll be able to boast that I whipped the
+distinguished Paul Irving.  But then I never did whip you, did I, Paul?
+What an opportunity lost!  I think I kept you in at recess, however.”
+
+“You may be famous yourself, Teacher.  I’ve seen a good deal of your
+work these last three years.”
+
+“No.  I know what I can do.  I can write pretty, fanciful little
+sketches that children love and editors send welcome cheques for.  But
+I can do nothing big.  My only chance for earthly immortality is a
+corner in your Memoirs.”
+
+Charlotta the Fourth had discarded the blue bows but her freckles were
+not noticeably less.
+
+“I never did think I’d come down to marrying a Yankee, Miss Shirley,
+ma’am,” she said.  “But you never know what’s before you, and it isn’t
+his fault.  He was born that way.”
+
+“You’re a Yankee yourself, Charlotta, since you’ve married one.”
+
+“Miss Shirley, ma’am, I’m NOT!  And I wouldn’t be if I was to marry a
+dozen Yankees!  Tom’s kind of nice.  And besides, I thought I’d better
+not be too hard to please, for I mightn’t get another chance.  Tom
+don’t drink and he don’t growl because he has to work between meals,
+and when all’s said and done I’m satisfied, Miss Shirley, ma’am.”
+
+“Does he call you Leonora?” asked Anne.
+
+“Goodness, no, Miss Shirley, ma’am.  I wouldn’t know who he meant if he
+did.  Of course, when we got married he had to say, ‘I take thee,
+Leonora,’ and I declare to you, Miss Shirley, ma’am, I’ve had the most
+dreadful feeling ever since that it wasn’t me he was talking to and I
+haven’t been rightly married at all.  And so you’re going to be married
+yourself, Miss Shirley, ma’am?  I always thought I’d like to marry a
+doctor.  It would be so handy when the children had measles and croup.
+Tom is only a bricklayer, but he’s real good-tempered.  When I said to
+him, says I, ‘Tom, can I go to Miss Shirley’s wedding?  I mean to go
+anyhow, but I’d like to have your consent,’ he just says, ‘Suit
+yourself, Charlotta, and you’ll suit me.’  That’s a real pleasant kind
+of husband to have, Miss Shirley, ma’am.”
+
+Philippa and her Reverend Jo arrived at Green Gables the day before the
+wedding.  Anne and Phil had a rapturous meeting which presently
+simmered down to a cosy, confidential chat over all that had been and
+was about to be.
+
+“Queen Anne, you’re as queenly as ever.  I’ve got fearfully thin since
+the babies came.  I’m not half so good-looking; but I think Jo likes
+it.  There’s not such a contrast between us, you see.  And oh, it’s
+perfectly magnificent that you’re going to marry Gilbert.  Roy Gardner
+wouldn’t have done at all, at all.  I can see that now, though I was
+horribly disappointed at the time.  You know, Anne, you did treat Roy
+very badly.”
+
+“He has recovered, I understand,” smiled Anne.
+
+“Oh, yes.  He is married and his wife is a sweet little thing and
+they’re perfectly happy.  Everything works together for good.  Jo and
+the Bible say that, and they are pretty good authorities.”
+
+“Are Alec and Alonzo married yet?”
+
+“Alec is, but Alonzo isn’t.  How those dear old days at Patty’s Place
+come back when I’m talking to you, Anne!  What fun we had!”
+
+“Have you been to Patty’s Place lately?”
+
+“Oh, yes, I go often.  Miss Patty and Miss Maria still sit by the
+fireplace and knit.  And that reminds me--we’ve brought you a wedding
+gift from them, Anne.  Guess what it is.”
+
+“I never could.  How did they know I was going to be married?”
+
+“Oh, I told them.  I was there last week.  And they were so interested.
+Two days ago Miss Patty wrote me a note asking me to call; and then she
+asked if I would take her gift to you.  What would you wish most from
+Patty’s Place, Anne?”
+
+“You can’t mean that Miss Patty has sent me her china dogs?”
+
+“Go up head.  They’re in my trunk this very moment.  And I’ve a letter
+for you.  Wait a moment and I’ll get it.”
+
+“Dear Miss Shirley,” Miss Patty had written, “Maria and I were very
+much interested in hearing of your approaching nuptials.  We send you
+our best wishes.  Maria and I have never married, but we have no
+objection to other people doing so.  We are sending you the china dogs.
+I intended to leave them to you in my will, because you seemed to have
+sincere affection for them.  But Maria and I expect to live a good
+while yet (D.V.), so I have decided to give you the dogs while you are
+young.  You will not have forgotten that Gog looks to the right and
+Magog to the left.”
+
+“Just fancy those lovely old dogs sitting by the fireplace in my house
+of dreams,” said Anne rapturously.  “I never expected anything so
+delightful.”
+
+That evening Green Gables hummed with preparations for the following
+day; but in the twilight Anne slipped away.  She had a little
+pilgrimage to make on this last day of her girlhood and she must make
+it alone.  She went to Matthew’s grave, in the little poplar-shaded
+Avonlea graveyard, and there kept a silent tryst with old memories and
+immortal loves.
+
+“How glad Matthew would be tomorrow if he were here,” she whispered.
+“But I believe he does know and is glad of it--somewhere else.  I’ve
+read somewhere that ‘our dead are never dead until we have forgotten
+them.’ Matthew will never be dead to me, for I can never forget him.”
+
+She left on his grave the flowers she had brought and walked slowly
+down the long hill.  It was a gracious evening, full of delectable
+lights and shadows.  In the west was a sky of mackerel clouds--crimson
+and amber-tinted, with long strips of apple-green sky between.  Beyond
+was the glimmering radiance of a sunset sea, and the ceaseless voice of
+many waters came up from the tawny shore.  All around her, lying in the
+fine, beautiful country silence, were the hills and fields and woods
+she had known and loved so long.
+
+“History repeats itself,” said Gilbert, joining her as she passed the
+Blythe gate.  “Do you remember our first walk down this hill, Anne--our
+first walk together anywhere, for that matter?”
+
+“I was coming home in the twilight from Matthew’s grave--and you came
+out of the gate; and I swallowed the pride of years and spoke to you.”
+
+“And all heaven opened before me,” supplemented Gilbert.  “From that
+moment I looked forward to tomorrow.  When I left you at your gate that
+night and walked home I was the happiest boy in the world.  Anne had
+forgiven me.”
+
+“I think you had the most to forgive.  I was an ungrateful little
+wretch--and after you had really saved my life that day on the pond,
+too.  How I loathed that load of obligation at first!  I don’t deserve
+the happiness that has come to me.”
+
+Gilbert laughed and clasped tighter the girlish hand that wore his
+ring.  Anne’s engagement ring was a circlet of pearls.  She had refused
+to wear a diamond.
+
+“I’ve never really liked diamonds since I found out they weren’t the
+lovely purple I had dreamed.  They will always suggest my old
+disappointment.”
+
+“But pearls are for tears, the old legend says,” Gilbert had objected.
+
+“I’m not afraid of that.  And tears can be happy as well as sad.  My
+very happiest moments have been when I had tears in my eyes--when
+Marilla told me I might stay at Green Gables--when Matthew gave me the
+first pretty dress I ever had--when I heard that you were going to
+recover from the fever.  So give me pearls for our troth ring, Gilbert,
+and I’ll willingly accept the sorrow of life with its joy.”
+
+But tonight our lovers thought only of joy and never of sorrow.  For
+the morrow was their wedding day, and their house of dreams awaited
+them on the misty, purple shore of Four Winds Harbor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4
+
+THE FIRST BRIDE OF GREEN GABLES
+
+Anne wakened on the morning of her wedding day to find the sunshine
+winking in at the window of the little porch gable and a September
+breeze frolicking with her curtains.
+
+“I’m so glad the sun will shine on me,” she thought happily.
+
+She recalled the first morning she had wakened in that little porch
+room, when the sunshine had crept in on her through the blossom-drift
+of the old Snow Queen.  That had not been a happy wakening, for it
+brought with it the bitter disappointment of the preceding night.  But
+since then the little room had been endeared and consecrated by years
+of happy childhood dreams and maiden visions.  To it she had come back
+joyfully after all her absences; at its window she had knelt through
+that night of bitter agony when she believed Gilbert dying, and by it
+she had sat in speechless happiness the night of her betrothal.  Many
+vigils of joy and some of sorrow had been kept there; and today she
+must leave it forever.  Henceforth it would be hers no more;
+fifteen-year-old Dora was to inherit it when she had gone.  Nor did
+Anne wish it otherwise; the little room was sacred to youth and
+girlhood--to the past that was to close today before the chapter of
+wifehood opened.
+
+Green Gables was a busy and joyous house that forenoon.  Diana arrived
+early, with little Fred and Small Anne Cordelia, to lend a hand.  Davy
+and Dora, the Green Gables twins, whisked the babies off to the garden.
+
+“Don’t let Small Anne Cordelia spoil her clothes,” warned Diana
+anxiously.
+
+“You needn’t be afraid to trust her with Dora,” said Marilla.  “That
+child is more sensible and careful than most of the mothers I’ve known.
+She’s really a wonder in some ways.  Not much like that other
+harum-scarum I brought up.”
+
+Marilla smiled across her chicken salad at Anne.  It might even be
+suspected that she liked the harum-scarum best after all.
+
+“Those twins are real nice children,” said Mrs. Rachel, when she was
+sure they were out of earshot.  “Dora is so womanly and helpful, and
+Davy is developing into a very smart boy.  He isn’t the holy terror for
+mischief he used to be.”
+
+“I never was so distracted in my life as I was the first six months he
+was here,” acknowledged Marilla.  “After that I suppose I got used to
+him.  He’s taken a great notion to farming lately, and wants me to let
+him try running the farm next year.  I may, for Mr. Barry doesn’t think
+he’ll want to rent it much longer, and some new arrangement will have
+to be made.”
+
+“Well, you certainly have a lovely day for your wedding, Anne,” said
+Diana, as she slipped a voluminous apron over her silken array.  “You
+couldn’t have had a finer one if you’d ordered it from Eaton’s.”
+
+“Indeed, there’s too much money going out of this Island to that same
+Eaton’s,” said Mrs. Lynde indignantly.  She had strong views on the
+subject of octopus-like department stores, and never lost an
+opportunity of airing them.  “And as for those catalogues of theirs,
+they’re the Avonlea girls’ Bible now, that’s what.  They pore over them
+on Sundays instead of studying the Holy Scriptures.”
+
+“Well, they’re splendid to amuse children with,” said Diana.  “Fred and
+Small Anne look at the pictures by the hour.”
+
+“_I_ amused ten children without the aid of Eaton’s catalogue,” said
+Mrs. Rachel severely.
+
+“Come, you two, don’t quarrel over Eaton’s catalogue,” said Anne gaily.
+“This is my day of days, you know.  I’m so happy I want every one else
+to be happy, too.”
+
+“I’m sure I hope your happiness will last, child,” sighed Mrs. Rachel.
+She did hope it truly, and believed it, but she was afraid it was in
+the nature of a challenge to Providence to flaunt your happiness too
+openly.  Anne, for her own good, must be toned down a trifle.
+
+But it was a happy and beautiful bride who came down the old,
+homespun-carpeted stairs that September noon--the first bride of Green
+Gables, slender and shining-eyed, in the mist of her maiden veil, with
+her arms full of roses.  Gilbert, waiting for her in the hall below,
+looked up at her with adoring eyes.  She was his at last, this evasive,
+long-sought Anne, won after years of patient waiting.  It was to him
+she was coming in the sweet surrender of the bride.  Was he worthy of
+her?  Could he make her as happy as he hoped?  If he failed her--if he
+could not measure up to her standard of manhood--then, as she held out
+her hand, their eyes met and all doubt was swept away in a glad
+certainty.  They belonged to each other; and, no matter what life might
+hold for them, it could never alter that.  Their happiness was in each
+other’s keeping and both were unafraid.
+
+They were married in the sunshine of the old orchard, circled by the
+loving and kindly faces of long-familiar friends.  Mr. Allan married
+them, and the Reverend Jo made what Mrs. Rachel Lynde afterwards
+pronounced to be the “most beautiful wedding prayer” she had ever
+heard.  Birds do not often sing in September, but one sang sweetly from
+some hidden bough while Gilbert and Anne repeated their deathless vows.
+Anne heard it and thrilled to it; Gilbert heard it, and wondered only
+that all the birds in the world had not burst into jubilant song; Paul
+heard it and later wrote a lyric about it which was one of the most
+admired in his first volume of verse; Charlotta the Fourth heard it and
+was blissfully sure it meant good luck for her adored Miss Shirley.
+The bird sang until the ceremony was ended and then it wound up with
+one mad little, glad little trill.  Never had the old gray-green house
+among its enfolding orchards known a blither, merrier afternoon.  All
+the old jests and quips that must have done duty at weddings since Eden
+were served up, and seemed as new and brilliant and mirth-provoking as
+if they had never been uttered before.  Laughter and joy had their way;
+and when Anne and Gilbert left to catch the Carmody train, with Paul as
+driver, the twins were ready with rice and old shoes, in the throwing
+of which Charlotta the Fourth and Mr. Harrison bore a valiant part.
+Marilla stood at the gate and watched the carriage out of sight down
+the long lane with its banks of goldenrod.  Anne turned at its end to
+wave her last good-bye.  She was gone--Green Gables was her home no
+more; Marilla’s face looked very gray and old as she turned to the
+house which Anne had filled for fourteen years, and even in her
+absence, with light and life.
+
+But Diana and her small fry, the Echo Lodge people and the Allans, had
+stayed to help the two old ladies over the loneliness of the first
+evening; and they contrived to have a quietly pleasant little supper
+time, sitting long around the table and chatting over all the details
+of the day.  While they were sitting there Anne and Gilbert were
+alighting from the train at Glen St. Mary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 5
+
+THE HOME COMING
+
+Dr. David Blythe had sent his horse and buggy to meet them, and the
+urchin who had brought it slipped away with a sympathetic grin, leaving
+them to the delight of driving alone to their new home through the
+radiant evening.
+
+Anne never forgot the loveliness of the view that broke upon them when
+they had driven over the hill behind the village.  Her new home could
+not yet be seen; but before her lay Four Winds Harbor like a great,
+shining mirror of rose and silver.  Far down, she saw its entrance
+between the bar of sand dunes on one side and a steep, high, grim, red
+sandstone cliff on the other.  Beyond the bar the sea, calm and
+austere, dreamed in the afterlight.  The little fishing village,
+nestled in the cove where the sand-dunes met the harbor shore, looked
+like a great opal in the haze.  The sky over them was like a jewelled
+cup from which the dusk was pouring; the air was crisp with the
+compelling tang of the sea, and the whole landscape was infused with
+the subtleties of a sea evening.  A few dim sails drifted along the
+darkening, fir-clad harbor shores.  A bell was ringing from the tower
+of a little white church on the far side; mellowly and dreamily sweet,
+the chime floated across the water blent with the moan of the sea.  The
+great revolving light on the cliff at the channel flashed warm and
+golden against the clear northern sky, a trembling, quivering star of
+good hope.  Far out along the horizon was the crinkled gray ribbon of a
+passing steamer’s smoke.
+
+“Oh, beautiful, beautiful,” murmured Anne.  “I shall love Four Winds,
+Gilbert.  Where is our house?”
+
+“We can’t see it yet--the belt of birch running up from that little
+cove hides it.  It’s about two miles from Glen St. Mary, and there’s
+another mile between it and the light-house.  We won’t have many
+neighbors, Anne.  There’s only one house near us and I don’t know who
+lives in it.  Shall you be lonely when I’m away?”
+
+“Not with that light and that loveliness for company.  Who lives in
+that house, Gilbert?”
+
+“I don’t know.  It doesn’t look--exactly--as if the occupants would be
+kindred spirits, Anne, does it?”
+
+The house was a large, substantial affair, painted such a vivid green
+that the landscape seemed quite faded by contrast.  There was an
+orchard behind it, and a nicely kept lawn before it, but, somehow,
+there was a certain bareness about it.  Perhaps its neatness was
+responsible for this; the whole establishment, house, barns, orchard,
+garden, lawn and lane, was so starkly neat.
+
+“It doesn’t seem probable that anyone with that taste in paint could be
+VERY kindred,” acknowledged Anne, “unless it were an accident--like our
+blue hall.  I feel certain there are no children there, at least.  It’s
+even neater than the old Copp place on the Tory road, and I never
+expected to see anything neater than that.”
+
+They had not met anybody on the moist, red road that wound along the
+harbor shore.  But just before they came to the belt of birch which hid
+their home, Anne saw a girl who was driving a flock of snow-white geese
+along the crest of a velvety green hill on the right.  Great, scattered
+firs grew along it.  Between their trunks one saw glimpses of yellow
+harvest fields, gleams of golden sand-hills, and bits of blue sea.  The
+girl was tall and wore a dress of pale blue print.  She walked with a
+certain springiness of step and erectness of bearing.  She and her
+geese came out of the gate at the foot of the hill as Anne and Gilbert
+passed.  She stood with her hand on the fastening of the gate, and
+looked steadily at them, with an expression that hardly attained to
+interest, but did not descend to curiosity.  It seemed to Anne, for a
+fleeting moment, that there was even a veiled hint of hostility in it.
+But it was the girl’s beauty which made Anne give a little gasp--a
+beauty so marked that it must have attracted attention anywhere.  She
+was hatless, but heavy braids of burnished hair, the hue of ripe wheat,
+were twisted about her head like a coronet; her eyes were blue and
+star-like; her figure, in its plain print gown, was magnificent; and
+her lips were as crimson as the bunch of blood-red poppies she wore at
+her belt.
+
+“Gilbert, who is the girl we have just passed?” asked Anne, in a low
+voice.
+
+“I didn’t notice any girl,” said Gilbert, who had eyes only for his
+bride.
+
+“She was standing by that gate--no, don’t look back.  She is still
+watching us.  I never saw such a beautiful face.”
+
+“I don’t remember seeing any very handsome girls while I was here.
+There are some pretty girls up at the Glen, but I hardly think they
+could be called beautiful.”
+
+“This girl is.  You can’t have seen her, or you would remember her.
+Nobody could forget her.  I never saw such a face except in pictures.
+And her hair!  It made me think of Browning’s ‘cord of gold’ and
+‘gorgeous snake’!”
+
+“Probably she’s some visitor in Four Winds--likely some one from that
+big summer hotel over the harbor.”
+
+“She wore a white apron and she was driving geese.”
+
+“She might do that for amusement.  Look, Anne--there’s our house.”
+
+Anne looked and forgot for a time the girl with the splendid, resentful
+eyes.  The first glimpse of her new home was a delight to eye and
+spirit--it looked so like a big, creamy seashell stranded on the harbor
+shore.  The rows of tall Lombardy poplars down its lane stood out in
+stately, purple silhouette against the sky.  Behind it, sheltering its
+garden from the too keen breath of sea winds, was a cloudy fir wood, in
+which the winds might make all kinds of weird and haunting music.  Like
+all woods, it seemed to be holding and enfolding secrets in its
+recesses,--secrets whose charm is only to be won by entering in and
+patiently seeking.  Outwardly, dark green arms keep them inviolate from
+curious or indifferent eyes.
+
+The night winds were beginning their wild dances beyond the bar and the
+fishing hamlet across the harbor was gemmed with lights as Anne and
+Gilbert drove up the poplar lane.  The door of the little house opened,
+and a warm glow of firelight flickered out into the dusk.  Gilbert
+lifted Anne from the buggy and led her into the garden, through the
+little gate between the ruddy-tipped firs, up the trim, red path to the
+sandstone step.
+
+“Welcome home,” he whispered, and hand in hand they stepped over the
+threshold of their house of dreams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 6
+
+CAPTAIN JIM
+
+“Old Doctor Dave” and “Mrs. Doctor Dave” had come down to the little
+house to greet the bride and groom.  Doctor Dave was a big, jolly,
+white-whiskered old fellow, and Mrs. Doctor was a trim rosy-cheeked,
+silver-haired little lady who took Anne at once to her heart, literally
+and figuratively.
+
+“I’m so glad to see you, dear.  You must be real tired.  We’ve got a
+bite of supper ready, and Captain Jim brought up some trout for you.
+Captain Jim--where are you?  Oh, he’s slipped out to see to the horse,
+I suppose.  Come upstairs and take your things off.”
+
+Anne looked about her with bright, appreciative eyes as she followed
+Mrs. Doctor Dave upstairs.  She liked the appearance of her new home
+very much.  It seemed to have the atmosphere of Green Gables and the
+flavor of her old traditions.
+
+“I think I would have found Miss Elizabeth Russell a ‘kindred spirit,’”
+she murmured when she was alone in her room.  There were two windows in
+it; the dormer one looked out on the lower harbor and the sand-bar and
+the Four Winds light.
+
+    “A magic casement opening on the foam
+    Of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn,”
+
+quoted Anne softly.  The gable window gave a view of a little
+harvest-hued valley through which a brook ran.  Half a mile up the
+brook was the only house in sight--an old, rambling, gray one
+surrounded by huge willows through which its windows peered, like shy,
+seeking eyes, into the dusk.  Anne wondered who lived there; they would
+be her nearest neighbors and she hoped they would be nice.  She
+suddenly found herself thinking of the beautiful girl with the white
+geese.
+
+“Gilbert thought she didn’t belong here,” mused Anne, “but I feel sure
+she does.  There was something about her that made her part of the sea
+and the sky and the harbor.  Four Winds is in her blood.”
+
+When Anne went downstairs Gilbert was standing before the fireplace
+talking to a stranger.  Both turned as Anne entered.
+
+“Anne, this is Captain Boyd.  Captain Boyd, my wife.”
+
+It was the first time Gilbert had said “my wife” to anybody but Anne,
+and he narrowly escaped bursting with the pride of it.  The old captain
+held out a sinewy hand to Anne; they smiled at each other and were
+friends from that moment.  Kindred spirit flashed recognition to
+kindred spirit.
+
+“I’m right down pleased to meet you, Mistress Blythe; and I hope you’ll
+be as happy as the first bride was who came here.  I can’t wish you no
+better than THAT.  But your husband doesn’t introduce me jest exactly
+right.  ‘Captain Jim’ is my week-a-day name and you might as well begin
+as you’re sartain to end up--calling me that.  You sartainly are a nice
+little bride, Mistress Blythe.  Looking at you sorter makes me feel
+that I’ve jest been married myself.”
+
+Amid the laughter that followed Mrs. Doctor Dave urged Captain Jim to
+stay and have supper with them.
+
+“Thank you kindly.  ’Twill be a real treat, Mistress Doctor.  I mostly
+has to eat my meals alone, with the reflection of my ugly old phiz in a
+looking-glass opposite for company.  ’Tisn’t often I have a chance to
+sit down with two such sweet, purty ladies.”
+
+Captain Jim’s compliments may look very bald on paper, but he paid them
+with such a gracious, gentle deference of tone and look that the woman
+upon whom they were bestowed felt that she was being offered a queen’s
+tribute in a kingly fashion.
+
+Captain Jim was a high-souled, simple-minded old man, with eternal
+youth in his eyes and heart.  He had a tall, rather ungainly figure,
+somewhat stooped, yet suggestive of great strength and endurance; a
+clean-shaven face deeply lined and bronzed; a thick mane of iron-gray
+hair falling quite to his shoulders, and a pair of remarkably blue,
+deep-set eyes, which sometimes twinkled and sometimes dreamed, and
+sometimes looked out seaward with a wistful quest in them, as of one
+seeking something precious and lost.  Anne was to learn one day what it
+was for which Captain Jim looked.
+
+It could not be denied that Captain Jim was a homely man.  His spare
+jaws, rugged mouth, and square brow were not fashioned on the lines of
+beauty; and he had passed through many hardships and sorrows which had
+marked his body as well as his soul; but though at first sight Anne
+thought him plain she never thought anything more about it--the spirit
+shining through that rugged tenement beautified it so wholly.
+
+They gathered gaily around the supper table.  The hearth fire banished
+the chill of the September evening, but the window of the dining room
+was open and sea breezes entered at their own sweet will.  The view was
+magnificent, taking in the harbor and the sweep of low, purple hills
+beyond.  The table was heaped with Mrs. Doctor’s delicacies but the
+piece de resistance was undoubtedly the big platter of sea trout.
+
+“Thought they’d be sorter tasty after travelling,” said Captain Jim.
+“They’re fresh as trout can be, Mistress Blythe.  Two hours ago they
+were swimming in the Glen Pond.”
+
+“Who is attending to the light tonight, Captain Jim?” asked Doctor Dave.
+
+“Nephew Alec.  He understands it as well as I do.  Well, now, I’m real
+glad you asked me to stay to supper.  I’m proper hungry--didn’t have
+much of a dinner today.”
+
+“I believe you half starve yourself most of the time down at that
+light,” said Mrs. Doctor Dave severely.  “You won’t take the trouble to
+get up a decent meal.”
+
+“Oh, I do, Mistress Doctor, I do,” protested Captain Jim.  “Why, I live
+like a king gen’rally.  Last night I was up to the Glen and took home
+two pounds of steak.  I meant to have a spanking good dinner today.”
+
+“And what happened to the steak?” asked Mrs. Doctor Dave.  “Did you
+lose it on the way home?”
+
+“No.”  Captain Jim looked sheepish.  “Just at bedtime a poor, ornery
+sort of dog came along and asked for a night’s lodging.  Guess he
+belonged to some of the fishermen ’long shore.  I couldn’t turn the
+poor cur out--he had a sore foot.  So I shut him in the porch, with an
+old bag to lie on, and went to bed.  But somehow I couldn’t sleep.
+Come to think it over, I sorter remembered that the dog looked hungry.”
+
+“And you got up and gave him that steak--ALL that steak,” said Mrs.
+Doctor Dave, with a kind of triumphant reproof.
+
+“Well, there wasn’t anything else TO give him,” said Captain Jim
+deprecatingly.  “Nothing a dog’d care for, that is.  I reckon he WAS
+hungry, for he made about two bites of it.  I had a fine sleep the rest
+of the night but my dinner had to be sorter scanty--potatoes and point,
+as you might say.  The dog, he lit out for home this morning.  I reckon
+HE weren’t a vegetarian.”
+
+“The idea of starving yourself for a worthless dog!” sniffed Mrs.
+Doctor.
+
+“You don’t know but he may be worth a lot to somebody,” protested
+Captain Jim.  “He didn’t LOOK of much account, but you can’t go by
+looks in jedging a dog.  Like meself, he might be a real beauty inside.
+The First Mate didn’t approve of him, I’ll allow.  His language was
+right down forcible. But the First Mate is prejudiced.  No use in
+taking a cat’s opinion of a dog.  ‘Tennyrate, I lost my dinner, so this
+nice spread in this dee-lightful company is real pleasant. It’s a great
+thing to have good neighbors.”
+
+“Who lives in the house among the willows up the brook?” asked Anne.
+
+“Mrs. Dick Moore,” said Captain Jim--“and her husband,” he added, as if
+by way of an afterthought.
+
+Anne smiled, and deduced a mental picture of Mrs. Dick Moore from
+Captain Jim’s way of putting it; evidently a second Mrs. Rachel Lynde.
+
+“You haven’t many neighbors, Mistress Blythe,” Captain Jim went on.
+“This side of the harbor is mighty thinly settled.  Most of the land
+belongs to Mr. Howard up yander past the Glen, and he rents it out for
+pasture.  The other side of the harbor, now, is thick with
+folks--’specially MacAllisters.  There’s a whole colony of MacAllisters
+you can’t throw a stone but you hit one.  I was talking to old Leon
+Blacquiere the other day.  He’s been working on the harbor all summer.
+‘Dey’re nearly all MacAllisters over thar,’ he told me.  ‘Dare’s Neil
+MacAllister and Sandy MacAllister and William MacAllister and Alec
+MacAllister and Angus MacAllister--and I believe dare’s de Devil
+MacAllister.’”
+
+“There are nearly as many Elliotts and Crawfords,” said Doctor Dave,
+after the laughter had subsided.  “You know, Gilbert, we folk on this
+side of Four Winds have an old saying--‘From the conceit of the
+Elliotts, the pride of the MacAllisters, and the vainglory of the
+Crawfords, good Lord deliver us.’”
+
+“There’s a plenty of fine people among them, though,” said Captain Jim.
+“I sailed with William Crawford for many a year, and for courage and
+endurance and truth that man hadn’t an equal.  They’ve got brains over
+on that side of Four Winds.  Mebbe that’s why this side is sorter
+inclined to pick on ’em.  Strange, ain’t it, how folks seem to resent
+anyone being born a mite cleverer than they be.”
+
+Doctor Dave, who had a forty years’ feud with the over-harbor people,
+laughed and subsided.
+
+“Who lives in that brilliant emerald house about half a mile up the
+road?” asked Gilbert.
+
+Captain Jim smiled delightedly.
+
+“Miss Cornelia Bryant.  She’ll likely be over to see you soon, seeing
+you’re Presbyterians.  If you were Methodists she wouldn’t come at all.
+Cornelia has a holy horror of Methodists.”
+
+“She’s quite a character,” chuckled Doctor Dave.  “A most inveterate
+man-hater!”
+
+“Sour grapes?” queried Gilbert, laughing.
+
+“No, ’tisn’t sour grapes,” answered Captain Jim seriously.  “Cornelia
+could have had her pick when she was young.  Even yet she’s only to say
+the word to see the old widowers jump.  She jest seems to have been
+born with a sort of chronic spite agin men and Methodists.  She’s got
+the bitterest tongue and the kindest heart in Four Winds.  Wherever
+there’s any trouble, that woman is there, doing everything to help in
+the tenderest way.  She never says a harsh word about another woman,
+and if she likes to card us poor scalawags of men down I reckon our
+tough old hides can stand it.”
+
+“She always speaks well of you, Captain Jim,” said Mrs. Doctor.
+
+“Yes, I’m afraid so.  I don’t half like it.  It makes me feel as if
+there must be something sorter unnateral about me.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 7
+
+THE SCHOOLMASTER’S BRIDE
+
+“Who was the first bride who came to this house, Captain Jim?” Anne
+asked, as they sat around the fireplace after supper.
+
+“Was she a part of the story I’ve heard was connected with this house?”
+asked Gilbert.  “Somebody told me you could tell it, Captain Jim.”
+
+“Well, yes, I know it.  I reckon I’m the only person living in Four
+Winds now that can remember the schoolmaster’s bride as she was when
+she come to the Island.  She’s been dead this thirty year, but she was
+one of them women you never forget.”
+
+“Tell us the story,” pleaded Anne.  “I want to find out all about the
+women who have lived in this house before me.”
+
+“Well, there’s jest been three--Elizabeth Russell, and Mrs. Ned
+Russell, and the schoolmaster’s bride.  Elizabeth Russell was a nice,
+clever little critter, and Mrs. Ned was a nice woman, too.  But they
+weren’t ever like the schoolmaster’s bride.
+
+“The schoolmaster’s name was John Selwyn.  He came out from the Old
+Country to teach school at the Glen when I was a boy of sixteen.  He
+wasn’t much like the usual run of derelicts who used to come out to
+P.E.I. to teach school in them days.  Most of them were clever, drunken
+critters who taught the children the three R’s when they were sober,
+and lambasted them when they wasn’t.  But John Selwyn was a fine,
+handsome young fellow.  He boarded at my father’s, and he and me were
+cronies, though he was ten years older’n me.  We read and walked and
+talked a heap together.  He knew about all the poetry that was ever
+written, I reckon, and he used to quote it to me along shore in the
+evenings.  Dad thought it an awful waste of time, but he sorter endured
+it, hoping it’d put me off the notion of going to sea.  Well, nothing
+could do THAT--mother come of a race of sea-going folk and it was born
+in me.  But I loved to hear John read and recite.  It’s almost sixty
+years ago, but I could repeat yards of poetry I learned from him.
+Nearly sixty years!”
+
+Captain Jim was silent for a space, gazing into the glowing fire in a
+quest of the bygones.  Then, with a sigh, he resumed his story.
+
+“I remember one spring evening I met him on the sand-hills.  He looked
+sorter uplifted--jest like you did, Dr. Blythe, when you brought
+Mistress Blythe in tonight.  I thought of him the minute I seen you.
+And he told me that he had a sweetheart back home and that she was
+coming out to him.  I wasn’t more’n half pleased, ornery young lump of
+selfishness that I was; I thought he wouldn’t be as much my friend
+after she came.  But I’d enough decency not to let him see it.  He told
+me all about her.  Her name was Persis Leigh, and she would have come
+out with him if it hadn’t been for her old uncle.  He was sick, and
+he’d looked after her when her parents died and she wouldn’t leave him.
+And now he was dead and she was coming out to marry John Selwyn.
+’Twasn’t no easy journey for a woman in them days.  There weren’t no
+steamers, you must ricollect.
+
+“‘When do you expect her?’ says I.
+
+“‘She sails on the Royal William, the 20th of June,’ says he, ‘and so
+she should be here by mid-July.  I must set Carpenter Johnson to
+building me a home for her.  Her letter come today.  I know before I
+opened it that it had good news for me.  I saw her a few nights ago.’
+
+“I didn’t understand him, and then he explained--though I didn’t
+understand THAT much better.  He said he had a gift--or a curse.  Them
+was his words, Mistress Blythe--a gift or a curse.  He didn’t know
+which it was.  He said a great-great-grandmother of his had had it, and
+they burned her for a witch on account of it.  He said queer
+spells--trances, I think was the name he give ’em--come over him now
+and again.  Are there such things, Doctor?”
+
+“There are people who are certainly subject to trances,” answered
+Gilbert.  “The matter is more in the line of psychical research than
+medical.  What were the trances of this John Selwyn like?”
+
+“Like dreams,” said the old Doctor skeptically.
+
+“He said he could see things in them,” said Captain Jim slowly.
+
+“Mind you, I’m telling you jest what HE said--things that were
+happening--things that were GOING to happen.  He said they were
+sometimes a comfort to him and sometimes a horror.  Four nights before
+this he’d been in one--went into it while he was sitting looking at the
+fire.  And he saw an old room he knew well in England, and Persis Leigh
+in it, holding out her hands to him and looking glad and happy.  So he
+knew he was going to hear good news of her.”
+
+“A dream--a dream,” scoffed the old Doctor.
+
+“Likely--likely,” conceded Captain Jim.  “That’s what _I_ said to him
+at the time.  It was a vast more comfortable to think so.  I didn’t
+like the idea of him seeing things like that--it was real uncanny.
+
+“‘No,’ says he, ‘I didn’t dream it.  But we won’t talk of this again.
+You won’t be so much my friend if you think much about it.’
+
+“I told him nothing could make me any less his friend.  But he jest
+shook his head and says, says he:
+
+“‘Lad, I know.  I’ve lost friends before because of this.  I don’t
+blame them.  There are times when I feel hardly friendly to myself
+because of it.  Such a power has a bit of divinity in it--whether of a
+good or an evil divinity who shall say?  And we mortals all shrink from
+too close contact with God or devil.’
+
+“Them was his words.  I remember them as if ’twas yesterday, though I
+didn’t know jest what he meant.  What do you s’pose he DID mean,
+doctor?”
+
+“I doubt if he knew what he meant himself,” said Doctor Dave testily.
+
+“I think I understand,” whispered Anne.  She was listening in her old
+attitude of clasped lips and shining eyes.  Captain Jim treated himself
+to an admiring smile before he went on with his story.
+
+“Well, purty soon all the Glen and Four Winds people knew the
+schoolmaster’s bride was coming, and they were all glad because they
+thought so much of him.  And everybody took an interest in his new
+house--THIS house.  He picked this site for it, because you could see
+the harbor and hear the sea from it.  He made the garden out there for
+his bride, but he didn’t plant the Lombardies.  Mrs. Ned Russell
+planted THEM.  But there’s a double row of rose-bushes in the garden
+that the little girls who went to the Glen school set out there for the
+schoolmaster’s bride.  He said they were pink for her cheeks and white
+for her brow and red for her lips.  He’d quoted poetry so much that he
+sorter got into the habit of talking it, too, I reckon.
+
+“Almost everybody sent him some little present to help out the
+furnishing of the house.  When the Russells came into it they were
+well-to-do and furnished it real handsome, as you can see; but the
+first furniture that went into it was plain enough.  This little house
+was rich in love, though.  The women sent in quilts and tablecloths and
+towels, and one man made a chest for her, and another a table and so
+on.  Even blind old Aunt Margaret Boyd wove a little basket for her out
+of the sweet-scented sand-hill grass.  The schoolmaster’s wife used it
+for years to keep her handkerchiefs in.
+
+“Well, at last everything was ready--even to the logs in the big
+fireplace ready for lighting.  ’Twasn’t exactly THIS fireplace, though
+’twas in the same place.  Miss Elizabeth had this put in when she made
+the house over fifteen years ago.  It was a big, old-fashioned
+fireplace where you could have roasted an ox.  Many’s the time I’ve sat
+here and spun yarns, same’s I’m doing tonight.”
+
+Again there was a silence, while Captain Jim kept a passing tryst with
+visitants Anne and Gilbert could not see--the folks who had sat with
+him around that fireplace in the vanished years, with mirth and bridal
+joy shining in eyes long since closed forever under churchyard sod or
+heaving leagues of sea.  Here on olden nights children had tossed
+laughter lightly to and fro.  Here on winter evenings friends had
+gathered.  Dance and music and jest had been here.  Here youths and
+maidens had dreamed.  For Captain Jim the little house was tenanted
+with shapes entreating remembrance.
+
+“It was the first of July when the house was finished.  The
+schoolmaster began to count the days then.  We used to see him walking
+along the shore, and we’d say to each other, ‘She’ll soon be with him
+now.’
+
+“She was expected the middle of July, but she didn’t come then.  Nobody
+felt anxious.  Vessels were often delayed for days and mebbe weeks.
+The Royal William was a week overdue--and then two--and then three.
+And at last we began to be frightened, and it got worse and worse.
+Fin’lly I couldn’t bear to look into John Selwyn’s eyes.  D’ye know,
+Mistress Blythe”--Captain Jim lowered his voice--“I used to think that
+they looked just like what his old great-great-grandmother’s must have
+been when they were burning her to death.  He never said much but he
+taught school like a man in a dream and then hurried to the shore.
+Many a night he walked there from dark to dawn.  People said he was
+losing his mind.  Everybody had given up hope--the Royal William was
+eight weeks overdue.  It was the middle of September and the
+schoolmaster’s bride hadn’t come--never would come, we thought.
+
+“There was a big storm then that lasted three days, and on the evening
+after it died away I went to the shore.  I found the schoolmaster
+there, leaning with his arms folded against a big rock, gazing out to
+sea.
+
+“I spoke to him but he didn’t answer.  His eyes seemed to be looking at
+something I couldn’t see.  His face was set, like a dead man’s.
+
+“‘John--John,’ I called out--jest like that--jest like a frightened
+child, ‘wake up--wake up.’
+
+“That strange, awful look seemed to sorter fade out of his eyes.
+
+“He turned his head and looked at me.  I’ve never forgot his
+face--never will forget it till I ships for my last voyage.
+
+“‘All is well, lad,’ he says.  ‘I’ve seen the Royal William coming
+around East Point.  She will be here by dawn.  Tomorrow night I shall
+sit with my bride by my own hearth-fire.’
+
+“Do you think he did see it?” demanded Captain Jim abruptly.
+
+“God knows,” said Gilbert softly.  “Great love and great pain might
+compass we know not what marvels.”
+
+“I am sure he did see it,” said Anne earnestly.
+
+“Fol-de-rol,” said Doctor Dave, but he spoke with less conviction than
+usual.
+
+“Because, you know,” said Captain Jim solemnly, “the Royal William came
+into Four Winds Harbor at daylight the next morning.
+
+“Every soul in the Glen and along the shore was at the old wharf to
+meet her.  The schoolmaster had been watching there all night.  How we
+cheered as she sailed up the channel.”
+
+Captain Jim’s eyes were shining.  They were looking at the Four Winds
+Harbor of sixty years agone, with a battered old ship sailing through
+the sunrise splendor.
+
+“And Persis Leigh was on board?” asked Anne.
+
+“Yes--her and the captain’s wife.  They’d had an awful passage--storm
+after storm--and their provisions give out, too.  But there they were
+at last.  When Persis Leigh stepped onto the old wharf John Selwyn took
+her in his arms--and folks stopped cheering and begun to cry.  I cried
+myself, though ’twas years, mind you, afore I’d admit it.  Ain’t it
+funny how ashamed boys are of tears?”
+
+“Was Persis Leigh beautiful?” asked Anne.
+
+“Well, I don’t know that you’d call her beautiful
+exactly--I--don’t--know,” said Captain Jim slowly.  “Somehow, you never
+got so far along as to wonder if she was handsome or not.  It jest
+didn’t matter.  There was something so sweet and winsome about her that
+you had to love her, that was all.  But she was pleasant to look
+at--big, clear, hazel eyes and heaps of glossy brown hair, and an
+English skin.  John and her were married at our house that night at
+early candle-lighting; everybody from far and near was there to see it
+and we all brought them down here afterwards.  Mistress Selwyn lighted
+the fire, and we went away and left them sitting here, jest as John had
+seen in that vision of his.  A strange thing--a strange thing!  But
+I’ve seen a turrible lot of strange things in my time.”
+
+Captain Jim shook his head sagely.
+
+“It’s a dear story,” said Anne, feeling that for once she had got
+enough romance to satisfy her.  “How long did they live here?”
+
+“Fifteen years.  I ran off to sea soon after they were married, like
+the young scalawag I was.  But every time I come back from a voyage I’d
+head for here, even before I went home, and tell Mistress Selwyn all
+about it.  Fifteen happy years!  They had a sort of talent for
+happiness, them two.  Some folks are like that, if you’ve noticed.
+They COULDN’T be unhappy for long, no matter what happened.  They
+quarrelled once or twice, for they was both high-sperrited.  But
+Mistress Selwyn says to me once, says she, laughing in that pretty way
+of hers, ‘I felt dreadful when John and I quarrelled, but underneath it
+all I was very happy because I had such a nice husband to quarrel with
+and make it up with.’  Then they moved to Charlottetown, and Ned
+Russell bought this house and brought his bride here.  They were a gay
+young pair, as I remember them.  Miss Elizabeth Russell was Alec’s
+sister.  She came to live with them a year or so later, and she was a
+creature of mirth, too.  The walls of this house must be sorter SOAKED
+with laughing and good times.  You’re the third bride I’ve seen come
+here, Mistress Blythe--and the handsomest.”
+
+Captain Jim contrived to give his sunflower compliment the delicacy of
+a violet, and Anne wore it proudly.  She was looking her best that
+night, with the bridal rose on her cheeks and the love-light in her
+eyes; even gruff old Doctor Dave gave her an approving glance, and told
+his wife, as they drove home together, that that red-headed wife of the
+boy’s was something of a beauty.
+
+“I must be getting back to the light,” announced Captain Jim.  “I’ve
+enj’yed this evening something tremenjus.”
+
+“You must come often to see us,” said Anne.
+
+“I wonder if you’d give that invitation if you knew how likely I’ll be
+to accept it,” Captain Jim remarked whimsically.
+
+“Which is another way of saying you wonder if I mean it,” smiled Anne.
+“I do, ‘cross my heart,’ as we used to say at school.”
+
+“Then I’ll come.  You’re likely to be pestered with me at any hour.
+And I’ll be proud to have you drop down and visit me now and then, too.
+Gin’rally I haven’t anyone to talk to but the First Mate, bless his
+sociable heart.  He’s a mighty good listener, and has forgot more’n any
+MacAllister of them all ever knew, but he isn’t much of a
+conversationalist.  You’re young and I’m old, but our souls are about
+the same age, I reckon.  We both belong to the race that knows Joseph,
+as Cornelia Bryant would say.”
+
+“The race that knows Joseph?” puzzled Anne.
+
+“Yes.  Cornelia divides all the folks in the world into two kinds--the
+race that knows Joseph and the race that don’t.  If a person sorter
+sees eye to eye with you, and has pretty much the same ideas about
+things, and the same taste in jokes--why, then he belongs to the race
+that knows Joseph.”
+
+“Oh, I understand,” exclaimed Anne, light breaking in upon her.
+
+“It’s what I used to call--and still call in quotation marks ‘kindred
+spirits.’”
+
+“Jest so--jest so,” agreed Captain Jim.  “We’re it, whatever IT is.
+When you come in tonight, Mistress Blythe, I says to myself, says I,
+‘Yes, she’s of the race that knows Joseph.’  And mighty glad I was, for
+if it wasn’t so we couldn’t have had any real satisfaction in each
+other’s company.  The race that knows Joseph is the salt of the airth,
+I reckon.”
+
+The moon had just risen when Anne and Gilbert went to the door with
+their guests.  Four Winds Harbor was beginning to be a thing of dream
+and glamour and enchantment--a spellbound haven where no tempest might
+ever ravin.  The Lombardies down the lane, tall and sombre as the
+priestly forms of some mystic band, were tipped with silver.
+
+“Always liked Lombardies,” said Captain Jim, waving a long arm at them.
+“They’re the trees of princesses.  They’re out of fashion now.  Folks
+complain that they die at the top and get ragged-looking.  So they
+do--so they do, if you don’t risk your neck every spring climbing up a
+light ladder to trim them out.  I always did it for Miss Elizabeth, so
+her Lombardies never got out-at-elbows.  She was especially fond of
+them.  She liked their dignity and stand-offishness.  THEY don’t hobnob
+with every Tom, Dick and Harry.  If it’s maples for company, Mistress
+Blythe, it’s Lombardies for society.”
+
+“What a beautiful night,” said Mrs. Doctor Dave, as she climbed into
+the Doctor’s buggy.
+
+“Most nights are beautiful,” said Captain Jim.  “But I ’low that
+moonlight over Four Winds makes me sorter wonder what’s left for
+heaven.  The moon’s a great friend of mine, Mistress Blythe.  I’ve
+loved her ever since I can remember.  When I was a little chap of eight
+I fell asleep in the garden one evening and wasn’t missed.  I woke up
+along in the night and I was most scared to death.  What shadows and
+queer noises there was!  I dursn’t move.  Jest crouched there quaking,
+poor small mite.  Seemed ’s if there weren’t anyone in the world but
+meself and it was mighty big.  Then all at once I saw the moon looking
+down at me through the apple boughs, jest like an old friend.  I was
+comforted right off.  Got up and walked to the house as brave as a
+lion, looking at her.  Many’s the night I’ve watched her from the deck
+of my vessel, on seas far away from here.  Why don’t you folks tell me
+to take in the slack of my jaw and go home?”
+
+The laughter of the goodnights died away.  Anne and Gilbert walked hand
+in hand around their garden.  The brook that ran across the corner
+dimpled pellucidly in the shadows of the birches.  The poppies along
+its banks were like shallow cups of moonlight.  Flowers that had been
+planted by the hands of the schoolmaster’s bride flung their sweetness
+on the shadowy air, like the beauty and blessing of sacred yesterdays.
+Anne paused in the gloom to gather a spray.
+
+“I love to smell flowers in the dark,” she said.  “You get hold of
+their soul then.  Oh, Gilbert, this little house is all I’ve dreamed
+it.  And I’m so glad that we are not the first who have kept bridal
+tryst here!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 8
+
+MISS CORNELIA BRYANT COMES TO CALL
+
+That September was a month of golden mists and purple hazes at Four
+Winds Harbor--a month of sun-steeped days and of nights that were
+swimming in moonlight, or pulsating with stars.  No storm marred it, no
+rough wind blew.  Anne and Gilbert put their nest in order, rambled on
+the shores, sailed on the harbor, drove about Four Winds and the Glen,
+or through the ferny, sequestered roads of the woods around the harbor
+head; in short, had such a honeymoon as any lovers in the world might
+have envied them.
+
+“If life were to stop short just now it would still have been richly
+worth while, just for the sake of these past four weeks, wouldn’t it?”
+said Anne.  “I don’t suppose we will ever have four such perfect weeks
+again--but we’ve HAD them.  Everything--wind, weather, folks, house of
+dreams--has conspired to make our honeymoon delightful.  There hasn’t
+even been a rainy day since we came here.”
+
+“And we haven’t quarrelled once,” teased Gilbert.
+
+“Well, ‘that’s a pleasure all the greater for being deferred,’” quoted
+Anne.  “I’m so glad we decided to spend our honeymoon here.  Our
+memories of it will always belong here, in our house of dreams, instead
+of being scattered about in strange places.”
+
+There was a certain tang of romance and adventure in the atmosphere of
+their new home which Anne had never found in Avonlea.  There, although
+she had lived in sight of the sea, it had not entered intimately into
+her life.  In Four Winds it surrounded her and called to her
+constantly.  From every window of her new home she saw some varying
+aspect of it.  Its haunting murmur was ever in her ears.  Vessels
+sailed up the harbor every day to the wharf at the Glen, or sailed out
+again through the sunset, bound for ports that might be half way round
+the globe.  Fishing boats went white-winged down the channel in the
+mornings, and returned laden in the evenings.  Sailors and fisher-folk
+travelled the red, winding harbor roads, light-hearted and content.
+There was always a certain sense of things going to happen--of
+adventures and farings-forth.  The ways of Four Winds were less staid
+and settled and grooved than those of Avonlea; winds of change blew
+over them; the sea called ever to the dwellers on shore, and even those
+who might not answer its call felt the thrill and unrest and mystery
+and possibilities of it.
+
+“I understand now why some men must go to sea,” said Anne.  “That
+desire which comes to us all at times--‘to sail beyond the bourne of
+sunset’--must be very imperious when it is born in you.  I don’t wonder
+Captain Jim ran away because of it.  I never see a ship sailing out of
+the channel, or a gull soaring over the sand-bar, without wishing I
+were on board the ship or had wings, not like a dove ‘to fly away and
+be at rest,’ but like a gull, to sweep out into the very heart of a
+storm.”
+
+“You’ll stay right here with me, Anne-girl,” said Gilbert lazily.  “I
+won’t have you flying away from me into the hearts of storms.”
+
+They were sitting on their red sand-stone doorstep in the late
+afternoon.  Great tranquillities were all about them in land and sea
+and sky.  Silvery gulls were soaring over them.  The horizons were
+laced with long trails of frail, pinkish clouds.  The hushed air was
+threaded with a murmurous refrain of minstrel winds and waves.  Pale
+asters were blowing in the sere and misty meadows between them and the
+harbor.
+
+“Doctors who have to be up all night waiting on sick folk don’t feel
+very adventurous, I suppose,” Anne said indulgently.  “If you had had a
+good sleep last night, Gilbert, you’d be as ready as I am for a flight
+of imagination.”
+
+“I did good work last night, Anne,” said Gilbert quietly.  “Under God,
+I saved a life.  This is the first time I could ever really claim that.
+In other cases I may have helped; but, Anne, if I had not stayed at
+Allonby’s last night and fought death hand to hand, that woman would
+have died before morning.  I tried an experiment that was certainly
+never tried in Four Winds before.  I doubt if it was ever tried
+anywhere before outside of a hospital.  It was a new thing in Kingsport
+hospital last winter.  I could never have dared try it here if I had
+not been absolutely certain that there was no other chance.  I risked
+it--and it succeeded.  As a result, a good wife and mother is saved for
+long years of happiness and usefulness.  As I drove home this morning,
+while the sun was rising over the harbor, I thanked God that I had
+chosen the profession I did.  I had fought a good fight and won--think
+of it, Anne, WON, against the Great Destroyer.  It’s what I dreamed of
+doing long ago when we talked together of what we wanted to do in life.
+That dream of mine came true this morning.”
+
+“Was that the only one of your dreams that has come true?” asked Anne,
+who knew perfectly well what the substance of his answer would be, but
+wanted to hear it again.
+
+“YOU know, Anne-girl,” said Gilbert, smiling into her eyes.  At that
+moment there were certainly two perfectly happy people sitting on the
+doorstep of a little white house on the Four Winds Harbor shore.
+
+Presently Gilbert said, with a change of tone, “Do I or do I not see a
+full-rigged ship sailing up our lane?”
+
+Anne looked and sprang up.
+
+“That must be either Miss Cornelia Bryant or Mrs. Moore coming to
+call,” she said.
+
+“I’m going into the office, and if it is Miss Cornelia I warn you that
+I’ll eavesdrop,” said Gilbert.  “From all I’ve heard regarding Miss
+Cornelia I conclude that her conversation will not be dull, to say the
+least.”
+
+“It may be Mrs. Moore.”
+
+“I don’t think Mrs. Moore is built on those lines.  I saw her working
+in her garden the other day, and, though I was too far away to see
+clearly, I thought she was rather slender.  She doesn’t seem very
+socially inclined when she has never called on you yet, although she’s
+your nearest neighbor.”
+
+“She can’t be like Mrs. Lynde, after all, or curiosity would have
+brought her,” said Anne.  “This caller is, I think, Miss Cornelia.”
+
+Miss Cornelia it was; moreover, Miss Cornelia had not come to make any
+brief and fashionable wedding call.  She had her work under her arm in
+a substantial parcel, and when Anne asked her to stay she promptly took
+off her capacious sun-hat, which had been held on her head, despite
+irreverent September breezes, by a tight elastic band under her hard
+little knob of fair hair.  No hat pins for Miss Cornelia, an it please
+ye!  Elastic bands had been good enough for her mother and they were
+good enough for HER.  She had a fresh, round, pink-and-white face, and
+jolly brown eyes.  She did not look in the least like the traditional
+old maid, and there was something in her expression which won Anne
+instantly.  With her old instinctive quickness to discern kindred
+spirits she knew she was going to like Miss Cornelia, in spite of
+uncertain oddities of opinion, and certain oddities of attire.
+
+Nobody but Miss Cornelia would have come to make a call arrayed in a
+striped blue-and-white apron and a wrapper of chocolate print, with a
+design of huge, pink roses scattered over it.  And nobody but Miss
+Cornelia could have looked dignified and suitably garbed in it.  Had
+Miss Cornelia been entering a palace to call on a prince’s bride, she
+would have been just as dignified and just as wholly mistress of the
+situation.  She would have trailed her rose-spattered flounce over the
+marble floors just as unconcernedly, and she would have proceeded just
+as calmly to disabuse the mind of the princess of any idea that the
+possession of a mere man, be he prince or peasant, was anything to brag
+of.
+
+“I’ve brought my work, Mrs. Blythe, dearie,” she remarked, unrolling
+some dainty material.  “I’m in a hurry to get this done, and there
+isn’t any time to lose.”
+
+Anne looked in some surprise at the white garment spread over Miss
+Cornelia’s ample lap.  It was certainly a baby’s dress, and it was most
+beautifully made, with tiny frills and tucks.  Miss Cornelia adjusted
+her glasses and fell to embroidering with exquisite stitches.
+
+“This is for Mrs. Fred Proctor up at the Glen,” she announced.  “She’s
+expecting her eighth baby any day now, and not a stitch has she ready
+for it.  The other seven have wore out all she made for the first, and
+she’s never had time or strength or spirit to make any more.  That
+woman is a martyr, Mrs. Blythe, believe ME.  When she married Fred
+Proctor _I_ knew how it would turn out.  He was one of your wicked,
+fascinating men.  After he got married he left off being fascinating
+and just kept on being wicked.  He drinks and he neglects his family.
+Isn’t that like a man?  I don’t know how Mrs. Proctor would ever keep
+her children decently clothed if her neighbors didn’t help her out.”
+
+As Anne was afterwards to learn, Miss Cornelia was the only neighbor
+who troubled herself much about the decency of the young Proctors.
+
+“When I heard this eighth baby was coming I decided to make some things
+for it,” Miss Cornelia went on.  “This is the last and I want to finish
+it today.”
+
+“It’s certainly very pretty,” said Anne.  “I’ll get my sewing and we’ll
+have a little thimble party of two.  You are a beautiful sewer, Miss
+Bryant.”
+
+“Yes, I’m the best sewer in these parts,” said Miss Cornelia in a
+matter-of-fact tone.  “I ought to be!  Lord, I’ve done more of it than
+if I’d had a hundred children of my own, believe ME!  I s’pose I’m a
+fool, to be putting hand embroidery on this dress for an eighth baby.
+But, Lord, Mrs. Blythe, dearie, it isn’t to blame for being the eighth,
+and I kind of wished it to have one real pretty dress, just as if it
+WAS wanted.  Nobody’s wanting the poor mite--so I put some extra fuss
+on its little things just on that account.”
+
+“Any baby might be proud of that dress,” said Anne, feeling still more
+strongly that she was going to like Miss Cornelia.
+
+“I s’pose you’ve been thinking I was never coming to call on you,”
+resumed Miss Cornelia.  “But this is harvest month, you know, and I’ve
+been busy--and a lot of extra hands hanging round, eating more’n they
+work, just like the men.  I’d have come yesterday, but I went to Mrs.
+Roderick MacAllister’s funeral.  At first I thought my head was aching
+so badly I couldn’t enjoy myself if I did go.  But she was a hundred
+years old, and I’d always promised myself that I’d go to her funeral.”
+
+“Was it a successful function?” asked Anne, noticing that the office
+door was ajar.
+
+“What’s that?  Oh, yes, it was a tremendous funeral.  She had a very
+large connection.  There was over one hundred and twenty carriages in
+the procession.  There was one or two funny things happened.  I thought
+that die I would to see old Joe Bradshaw, who is an infidel and never
+darkens the door of a church, singing ‘Safe in the Arms of Jesus’ with
+great gusto and fervor.  He glories in singing--that’s why he never
+misses a funeral.  Poor Mrs. Bradshaw didn’t look much like
+singing--all wore out slaving.  Old Joe starts out once in a while to
+buy her a present and brings home some new kind of farm machinery.
+Isn’t that like a man?  But what else would you expect of a man who
+never goes to church, even a Methodist one?  I was real thankful to see
+you and the young Doctor in the Presbyterian church your first Sunday.
+No doctor for me who isn’t a Presbyterian.”
+
+“We were in the Methodist church last Sunday evening,” said Anne
+wickedly.
+
+“Oh, I s’pose Dr. Blythe has to go to the Methodist church once in a
+while or he wouldn’t get the Methodist practice.”
+
+“We liked the sermon very much,” declared Anne boldly.  “And I thought
+the Methodist minster’s prayer was one of the most beautiful I ever
+heard.”
+
+“Oh, I’ve no doubt he can pray.  I never heard anyone make more
+beautiful prayers than old Simon Bentley, who was always drunk, or
+hoping to be, and the drunker he was the better he prayed.”
+
+“The Methodist minister is very fine looking,” said Anne, for the
+benefit of the office door.
+
+“Yes, he’s quite ornamental,” agreed Miss Cornelia.  “Oh, and VERY
+ladylike.  And he thinks that every girl who looks at him falls in love
+with him--as if a Methodist minister, wandering about like any Jew, was
+such a prize!  If you and the young doctor take MY advice, you won’t
+have much to do with the Methodists.  My motto is--if you ARE a
+Presbyterian, BE a Presbyterian.”
+
+“Don’t you think that Methodists go to heaven as well as
+Presbyterians?” asked Anne smilelessly.
+
+“That isn’t for US to decide.  It’s in higher hands than ours,” said
+Miss Cornelia solemnly.  “But I ain’t going to associate with them on
+earth whatever I may have to do in heaven.  THIS Methodist minister
+isn’t married.  The last one they had was, and his wife was the
+silliest, flightiest little thing I ever saw.  I told her husband once
+that he should have waited till she was grown up before he married her.
+He said he wanted to have the training of her.  Wasn’t that like a man?”
+
+“It’s rather hard to decide just when people ARE grown up,” laughed
+Anne.
+
+“That’s a true word, dearie.  Some are grown up when they’re born, and
+others ain’t grown up when they’re eighty, believe ME. That same Mrs.
+Roderick I was speaking of never grew up.  She was as foolish when she
+was a hundred as when she was ten.”
+
+“Perhaps that was why she lived so long,” suggested Anne.
+
+“Maybe ’twas.  _I_’d rather live fifty sensible years than a hundred
+foolish ones.”
+
+“But just think what a dull world it would be if everyone was
+sensible,” pleaded Anne.
+
+Miss Cornelia disdained any skirmish of flippant epigram.
+
+“Mrs. Roderick was a Milgrave, and the Milgraves never had much sense.
+Her nephew, Ebenezer Milgrave, used to be insane for years.  He
+believed he was dead and used to rage at his wife because she wouldn’t
+bury him.  _I_’d a-done it.”
+
+Miss Cornelia looked so grimly determined that Anne could almost see
+her with a spade in her hand.
+
+“Don’t you know ANY good husbands, Miss Bryant?”
+
+“Oh, yes, lots of them--over yonder,” said Miss Cornelia, waving her
+hand through the open window towards the little graveyard of the church
+across the harbor.
+
+“But living--going about in the flesh?” persisted Anne.
+
+“Oh, there’s a few, just to show that with God all things are
+possible,” acknowledged Miss Cornelia reluctantly.  “I don’t deny that
+an odd man here and there, if he’s caught young and trained up proper,
+and if his mother has spanked him well beforehand, may turn out a
+decent being.  YOUR husband, now, isn’t so bad, as men go, from all I
+hear.  I s’pose”--Miss Cornelia looked sharply at Anne over her
+glasses--“you think there’s nobody like him in the world.”
+
+“There isn’t,” said Anne promptly.
+
+“Ah, well, I heard another bride say that once,” sighed Miss Cornelia.
+“Jennie Dean thought when she married that there wasn’t anybody like
+HER husband in the world.  And she was right--there wasn’t!  And a good
+thing, too, believe ME!  He led her an awful life--and he was courting
+his second wife while Jennie was dying.
+
+“Wasn’t that like a man?  However, I hope YOUR confidence will be
+better justified, dearie.  The young doctor is taking real well.  I was
+afraid at first he mightn’t, for folks hereabouts have always thought
+old Doctor Dave the only doctor in the world.  Doctor Dave hadn’t much
+tact, to be sure--he was always talking of ropes in houses where
+someone had hanged himself.  But folks forgot their hurt feelings when
+they had a pain in their stomachs.  If he’d been a minister instead of
+a doctor they’d never have forgiven him.  Soul-ache doesn’t worry folks
+near as much as stomach-ache.  Seeing as we’re both Presbyterians and
+no Methodists around, will you tell me your candid opinion of OUR
+minister?”
+
+“Why--really--I--well,” hesitated Anne.
+
+Miss Cornelia nodded.
+
+“Exactly.  I agree with you, dearie.  We made a mistake when we called
+HIM.  His face just looks like one of those long, narrow stones in the
+graveyard, doesn’t it?  ‘Sacred to the memory’ ought to be written on
+his forehead.  I shall never forget the first sermon he preached after
+he came.  It was on the subject of everyone doing what they were best
+fitted for--a very good subject, of course; but such illustrations as
+he used!  He said, ‘If you had a cow and an apple tree, and if you tied
+the apple tree in your stable and planted the cow in your orchard, with
+her legs up, how much milk would you get from the apple tree, or how
+many apples from the cow?’  Did you ever hear the like in your born
+days, dearie?  I was so thankful there were no Methodists there that
+day--they’d never have been done hooting over it.  But what I dislike
+most in him is his habit of agreeing with everybody, no matter what is
+said.  If you said to him, ‘You’re a scoundrel,’ he’d say, with that
+smooth smile of his, ‘Yes, that’s so.’  A minister should have more
+backbone.  The long and the short of it is, I consider him a reverend
+jackass.  But, of course, this is just between you and me.  When there
+are Methodists in hearing I praise him to the skies.  Some folks think
+his wife dresses too gay, but _I_ say when she has to live with a face
+like that she needs something to cheer her up.  You’ll never hear ME
+condemning a woman for her dress.  I’m only too thankful when her
+husband isn’t too mean and miserly to allow it.  Not that I bother much
+with dress myself.  Women just dress to please the men, and I’d never
+stoop to THAT.  I have had a real placid, comfortable life, dearie, and
+it’s just because I never cared a cent what the men thought.”
+
+“Why do you hate the men so, Miss Bryant?”
+
+“Lord, dearie, I don’t hate them.  They aren’t worth it.  I just sort
+of despise them.  I think I’ll like YOUR husband if he keeps on as he
+has begun.  But apart from him about the only men in the world I’ve
+much use for are the old doctor and Captain Jim.”
+
+“Captain Jim is certainly splendid,” agreed Anne cordially.
+
+“Captain Jim is a good man, but he’s kind of vexing in one way.  You
+CAN’T make him mad.  I’ve tried for twenty years and he just keeps on
+being placid.  It does sort of rile me.  And I s’pose the woman he
+should have married got a man who went into tantrums twice a day.”
+
+“Who was she?”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know, dearie.  I never remember of Captain Jim making up
+to anybody.  He was edging on old as far as my memory goes.  He’s
+seventy-six, you know.  I never heard any reason for his staying a
+bachelor, but there must be one, believe ME.  He sailed all his life
+till five years ago, and there’s no corner of the earth he hasn’t poked
+his nose into.  He and Elizabeth Russell were great cronies, all their
+lives, but they never had any notion of sweet-hearting.  Elizabeth
+never married, though she had plenty of chances.  She was a great
+beauty when she was young.  The year the Prince of Wales came to the
+Island she was visiting her uncle in Charlottetown and he was a
+Government official, and so she got invited to the great ball.  She was
+the prettiest girl there, and the Prince danced with her, and all the
+other women he didn’t dance with were furious about it, because their
+social standing was higher than hers and they said he shouldn’t have
+passed them over.  Elizabeth was always very proud of that dance.  Mean
+folks said that was why she never married--she couldn’t put up with an
+ordinary man after dancing with a prince.  But that wasn’t so.  She
+told me the reason once--it was because she had such a temper that she
+was afraid she couldn’t live peaceably with any man.  She HAD an awful
+temper--she used to have to go upstairs and bite pieces out of her
+bureau to keep it down by times.  But I told her that wasn’t any reason
+for not marrying if she wanted to.  There’s no reason why we should let
+the men have a monopoly of temper, is there, Mrs. Blythe, dearie?”
+
+“I’ve a bit of temper myself,” sighed Anne.
+
+“It’s well you have, dearie.  You won’t be half so likely to be trodden
+on, believe ME!  My, how that golden glow of yours is blooming!  Your
+garden looks fine.  Poor Elizabeth always took such care of it.”
+
+“I love it,” said Anne.  “I’m glad it’s so full of old-fashioned
+flowers.  Speaking of gardening, we want to get a man to dig up that
+little lot beyond the fir grove and set it out with strawberry plants
+for us.  Gilbert is so busy he will never get time for it this fall.
+Do you know anyone we can get?”
+
+“Well, Henry Hammond up at the Glen goes out doing jobs like that.
+He’ll do, maybe.  He’s always a heap more interested in his wages than
+in his work, just like a man, and he’s so slow in the uptake that he
+stands still for five minutes before it dawns on him that he’s stopped.
+His father threw a stump at him when he was small.
+
+“Nice gentle missile, wasn’t it?  So like a man!  Course, the boy never
+got over it.  But he’s the only one I can recommend at all.  He painted
+my house for me last spring.  It looks real nice now, don’t you think?”
+
+Anne was saved by the clock striking five.
+
+“Lord, is it that late?” exclaimed Miss Cornelia.  “How time does slip
+by when you’re enjoying yourself!  Well, I must betake myself home.”
+
+“No, indeed!  You are going to stay and have tea with us,” said Anne
+eagerly.
+
+“Are you asking me because you think you ought to, or because you
+really want to?” demanded Miss Cornelia.
+
+“Because I really want to.”
+
+“Then I’ll stay.  YOU belong to the race that knows Joseph.”
+
+“I know we are going to be friends,” said Anne, with the smile that
+only they of the household of faith ever saw.
+
+“Yes, we are, dearie.  Thank goodness, we can choose our friends.  We
+have to take our relatives as they are, and be thankful if there are no
+penitentiary birds among them.  Not that I’ve many--none nearer than
+second cousins.  I’m a kind of lonely soul, Mrs. Blythe.”
+
+There was a wistful note in Miss Cornelia’s voice.
+
+“I wish you would call me Anne,” exclaimed Anne impulsively.  “It would
+seem more HOMEY.  Everyone in Four Winds, except my husband, calls me
+Mrs. Blythe, and it makes me feel like a stranger.  Do you know that
+your name is very near being the one I yearned after when I was a
+child.  I hated ‘Anne’ and I called myself ‘Cordelia’ in imagination.”
+
+“I like Anne.  It was my mother’s name.  Old-fashioned names are the
+best and sweetest in my opinion.  If you’re going to get tea you might
+send the young doctor to talk to me.  He’s been lying on the sofa in
+that office ever since I came, laughing fit to kill over what I’ve been
+saying.”
+
+“How did you know?” cried Anne, too aghast at this instance of Miss
+Cornelia’s uncanny prescience to make a polite denial.
+
+“I saw him sitting beside you when I came up the lane, and I know men’s
+tricks,” retorted Miss Cornelia.  “There, I’ve finished my little
+dress, dearie, and the eighth baby can come as soon as it pleases.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 9
+
+AN EVENING AT FOUR WINDS POINT
+
+It was late September when Anne and Gilbert were able to pay Four Winds
+light their promised visit.  They had often planned to go, but
+something always occurred to prevent them.  Captain Jim had “dropped
+in” several times at the little house.
+
+“I don’t stand on ceremony, Mistress Blythe,” he told Anne.  “It’s a
+real pleasure to me to come here, and I’m not going to deny myself jest
+because you haven’t got down to see me.  There oughtn’t to be no
+bargaining like that among the race that knows Joseph.  I’ll come when
+I can, and you come when you can, and so long’s we have our pleasant
+little chat it don’t matter a mite what roof’s over us.”
+
+Captain Jim took a great fancy to Gog and Magog, who were presiding
+over the destinies of the hearth in the little house with as much
+dignity and aplomb as they had done at Patty’s Place.
+
+“Aren’t they the cutest little cusses?” he would say delightedly; and
+he bade them greeting and farewell as gravely and invariably as he did
+his host and hostess.  Captain Jim was not going to offend household
+deities by any lack of reverence and ceremony.
+
+“You’ve made this little house just about perfect,” he told Anne.  “It
+never was so nice before.  Mistress Selwyn had your taste and she did
+wonders; but folks in those days didn’t have the pretty little curtains
+and pictures and nicknacks you have.  As for Elizabeth, she lived in
+the past.  You’ve kinder brought the future into it, so to speak.  I’d
+be real happy even if we couldn’t talk at all, when I come here--jest
+to sit and look at you and your pictures and your flowers would be
+enough of a treat.  It’s beautiful--beautiful.”
+
+Captain Jim was a passionate worshipper of beauty.  Every lovely thing
+heard or seen gave him a deep, subtle, inner joy that irradiated his
+life.  He was quite keenly aware of his own lack of outward comeliness
+and lamented it.
+
+“Folks say I’m good,” he remarked whimsically upon one occasion, “but I
+sometimes wish the Lord had made me only half as good and put the rest
+of it into looks.  But there, I reckon He knew what He was about, as a
+good Captain should.  Some of us have to be homely, or the purty
+ones--like Mistress Blythe here--wouldn’t show up so well.”
+
+One evening Anne and Gilbert finally walked down to the Four Winds
+light.  The day had begun sombrely in gray cloud and mist, but it had
+ended in a pomp of scarlet and gold.  Over the western hills beyond the
+harbor were amber deeps and crystalline shallows, with the fire of
+sunset below.  The north was a mackerel sky of little, fiery golden
+clouds.  The red light flamed on the white sails of a vessel gliding
+down the channel, bound to a southern port in a land of palms.  Beyond
+her, it smote upon and incarnadined the shining, white, grassless faces
+of the sand dunes.  To the right, it fell on the old house among the
+willows up the brook, and gave it for a fleeting space casements more
+splendid than those of an old cathedral.  They glowed out of its quiet
+and grayness like the throbbing, blood-red thoughts of a vivid soul
+imprisoned in a dull husk of environment.
+
+“That old house up the brook always seems so lonely,” said Anne.  “I
+never see visitors there.  Of course, its lane opens on the upper
+road--but I don’t think there’s much coming and going.  It seems odd
+we’ve never met the Moores yet, when they live within fifteen minutes’
+walk of us.  I may have seen them in church, of course, but if so I
+didn’t know them.  I’m sorry they are so unsociable, when they are our
+only near neighbors.”
+
+“Evidently they don’t belong to the race that knows Joseph,” laughed
+Gilbert.  “Have you ever found out who that girl was whom you thought
+so beautiful?”
+
+“No.  Somehow I have never remembered to ask about her.  But I’ve never
+seen her anywhere, so I suppose she must have been a stranger.  Oh, the
+sun has just vanished--and there’s the light.”
+
+As the dusk deepened, the great beacon cut swathes of light through it,
+sweeping in a circle over the fields and the harbor, the sandbar and
+the gulf.
+
+“I feel as if it might catch me and whisk me leagues out to sea,” said
+Anne, as one drenched them with radiance; and she felt rather relieved
+when they got so near the Point that they were inside the range of
+those dazzling, recurrent flashes.
+
+As they turned into the little lane that led across the fields to the
+Point they met a man coming out of it--a man of such extraordinary
+appearance that for a moment they both frankly stared.  He was a
+decidedly fine-looking person-tall, broad-shouldered, well-featured,
+with a Roman nose and frank gray eyes; he was dressed in a prosperous
+farmer’s Sunday best; in so far he might have been any inhabitant of
+Four Winds or the Glen.  But, flowing over his breast nearly to his
+knees, was a river of crinkly brown beard; and adown his back, beneath
+his commonplace felt hat, was a corresponding cascade of thick, wavy,
+brown hair.
+
+“Anne,” murmured Gilbert, when they were out of earshot, “you didn’t
+put what Uncle Dave calls ‘a little of the Scott Act’ in that lemonade
+you gave me just before we left home, did you?”
+
+“No, I didn’t,” said Anne, stifling her laughter, lest the retreating
+enigma should hear here.  “Who in the world can he be?”
+
+“I don’t know; but if Captain Jim keeps apparitions like that down at
+this Point I’m going to carry cold iron in my pocket when I come here.
+He wasn’t a sailor, or one might pardon his eccentricity of appearance;
+he must belong to the over-harbor clans.  Uncle Dave says they have
+several freaks over there.”
+
+“Uncle Dave is a little prejudiced, I think.  You know all the
+over-harbor people who come to the Glen Church seem very nice.  Oh,
+Gilbert, isn’t this beautiful?”
+
+The Four Winds light was built on a spur of red sand-stone cliff
+jutting out into the gulf.  On one side, across the channel, stretched
+the silvery sand shore of the bar; on the other, extended a long,
+curving beach of red cliffs, rising steeply from the pebbled coves.  It
+was a shore that knew the magic and mystery of storm and star.  There
+is a great solitude about such a shore.  The woods are never
+solitary--they are full of whispering, beckoning, friendly life.  But
+the sea is a mighty soul, forever moaning of some great, unshareable
+sorrow, which shuts it up into itself for all eternity.  We can never
+pierce its infinite mystery--we may only wander, awed and spellbound,
+on the outer fringe of it.  The woods call to us with a hundred voices,
+but the sea has one only--a mighty voice that drowns our souls in its
+majestic music.  The woods are human, but the sea is of the company of
+the archangels.
+
+Anne and Gilbert found Uncle Jim sitting on a bench outside the
+lighthouse, putting the finishing touches to a wonderful, full-rigged,
+toy schooner.  He rose and welcomed them to his abode with the gentle,
+unconscious courtesy that became him so well.
+
+“This has been a purty nice day all through, Mistress Blythe, and now,
+right at the last, it’s brought its best.  Would you like to sit down
+here outside a bit, while the light lasts?  I’ve just finished this bit
+of a plaything for my little grand nephew, Joe, up at the Glen.  After
+I promised to make it for him I was kinder sorry, for his mother was
+vexed.  She’s afraid he’ll be wanting to go to sea later on and she
+doesn’t want the notion encouraged in him.  But what could I do,
+Mistress Blythe?  I’d PROMISED him, and I think it’s sorter real
+dastardly to break a promise you make to a child.  Come, sit down.  It
+won’t take long to stay an hour.”
+
+The wind was off shore, and only broke the sea’s surface into long,
+silvery ripples, and sent sheeny shadows flying out across it, from
+every point and headland, like transparent wings.  The dusk was hanging
+a curtain of violet gloom over the sand dunes and the headlands where
+gulls were huddling.  The sky was faintly filmed over with scarfs of
+silken vapor.  Cloud fleets rode at anchor along the horizons.  An
+evening star was watching over the bar.
+
+“Isn’t that a view worth looking at?” said Captain Jim, with a loving,
+proprietary pride.  “Nice and far from the market-place, ain’t it?  No
+buying and selling and getting gain.  You don’t have to pay
+anything--all that sea and sky free--‘without money and without price.’
+There’s going to be a moonrise purty soon, too--I’m never tired of
+finding out what a moonrise can be over them rocks and sea and harbor.
+There’s a surprise in it every time.”
+
+They had their moonrise, and watched its marvel and magic in a silence
+that asked nothing of the world or each other.  Then they went up into
+the tower, and Captain Jim showed and explained the mechanism of the
+great light.  Finally they found themselves in the dining room, where a
+fire of driftwood was weaving flames of wavering, elusive, sea-born
+hues in the open fireplace.
+
+“I put this fireplace in myself,” remarked Captain Jim.  “The
+Government don’t give lighthouse keepers such luxuries.  Look at the
+colors that wood makes.  If you’d like some driftwood for your fire,
+Mistress Blythe, I’ll bring you up a load some day.  Sit down.  I’m
+going to make you a cup of tea.”
+
+Captain Jim placed a chair for Anne, having first removed therefrom a
+huge, orange-colored cat and a newspaper.
+
+“Get down, Matey.  The sofa is your place.  I must put this paper away
+safe till I can find time to finish the story in it.  It’s called A Mad
+Love.  ’Tisn’t my favorite brand of fiction, but I’m reading it jest to
+see how long she can spin it out.  It’s at the sixty-second chapter
+now, and the wedding ain’t any nearer than when it begun, far’s I can
+see.  When little Joe comes I have to read him pirate yarns.  Ain’t it
+strange how innocent little creatures like children like the
+blood-thirstiest stories?”
+
+“Like my lad Davy at home,” said Anne.  “He wants tales that reek with
+gore.”
+
+Captain Jim’s tea proved to be nectar.  He was pleased as a child with
+Anne’s compliments, but he affected a fine indifference.
+
+“The secret is I don’t skimp the cream,” he remarked airily.  Captain
+Jim had never heard of Oliver Wendell Holmes, but he evidently agreed
+with that writer’s dictum that “big heart never liked little cream pot.”
+
+“We met an odd-looking personage coming out of your lane,” said Gilbert
+as they sipped.  “Who was he?”
+
+Captain Jim grinned.
+
+“That’s Marshall Elliott--a mighty fine man with jest one streak of
+foolishness in him.  I s’pose you wondered what his object was in
+turning himself into a sort of dime museum freak.”
+
+“Is he a modern Nazarite or a Hebrew prophet left over from olden
+times?” asked Anne.
+
+“Neither of them.  It’s politics that’s at the bottom of his freak.
+All those Elliotts and Crawfords and MacAllisters are dyed-in-the-wool
+politicians.  They’re born Grit or Tory, as the case may be, and they
+live Grit or Tory, and they die Grit or Tory; and what they’re going to
+do in heaven, where there’s probably no politics, is more than I can
+fathom.  This Marshall Elliott was born a Grit.  I’m a Grit myself in
+moderation, but there’s no moderation about Marshall.  Fifteen years
+ago there was a specially bitter general election.  Marshall fought for
+his party tooth and nail.  He was dead sure the Liberals would win--so
+sure that he got up at a public meeting and vowed that he wouldn’t
+shave his face or cut his hair until the Grits were in power.  Well,
+they didn’t go in--and they’ve never got in yet--and you saw the result
+today for yourselves.  Marshall stuck to his word.”
+
+“What does his wife think of it?” asked Anne.
+
+“He’s a bachelor.  But if he had a wife I reckon she couldn’t make him
+break that vow.  That family of Elliotts has always been more stubborn
+than natteral.  Marshall’s brother Alexander had a dog he set great
+store by, and when it died the man actilly wanted to have it buried in
+the graveyard, ‘along with the other Christians,’ he said.  Course, he
+wasn’t allowed to; so he buried it just outside the graveyard fence,
+and never darkened the church door again.  But Sundays he’d drive his
+family to church and sit by that dog’s grave and read his Bible all the
+time service was going on.  They say when he was dying he asked his
+wife to bury him beside the dog; she was a meek little soul but she
+fired up at THAT.  She said SHE wasn’t going to be buried beside no
+dog, and if he’d rather have his last resting place beside the dog than
+beside her, jest to say so.  Alexander Elliott was a stubborn mule, but
+he was fond of his wife, so he give in and said, ‘Well, durn it, bury
+me where you please.  But when Gabriel’s trump blows I expect my dog to
+rise with the rest of us, for he had as much soul as any durned Elliott
+or Crawford or MacAllister that ever strutted.’  Them was HIS parting
+words.  As for Marshall, we’re all used to him, but he must strike
+strangers as right down peculiar-looking.  I’ve known him ever since he
+was ten--he’s about fifty now--and I like him.  Him and me was out
+cod-fishing today.  That’s about all I’m good for now--catching trout
+and cod occasional.  But ’tweren’t always so--not by no manner of
+means.  I used to do other things, as you’d admit if you saw my
+life-book.”
+
+Anne was just going to ask what his life-book was when the First Mate
+created a diversion by springing upon Captain Jim’s knee.  He was a
+gorgeous beastie, with a face as round as a full moon, vivid green
+eyes, and immense, white, double paws.  Captain Jim stroked his velvet
+back gently.
+
+“I never fancied cats much till I found the First Mate,” he remarked,
+to the accompaniment of the Mate’s tremendous purrs.  “I saved his
+life, and when you’ve saved a creature’s life you’re bound to love it.
+It’s next thing to giving life.  There’s some turrible thoughtless
+people in the world, Mistress Blythe.  Some of them city folks who have
+summer homes over the harbor are so thoughtless that they’re cruel.
+It’s the worst kind of cruelty--the thoughtless kind.  You can’t cope
+with it.  They keep cats there in the summer, and feed and pet ’em, and
+doll ’em up with ribbons and collars.  And then in the fall they go off
+and leave ’em to starve or freeze.  It makes my blood boil, Mistress
+Blythe.  One day last winter I found a poor old mother cat dead on the
+shore, lying against the skin-and-bone bodies of her three little
+kittens.  She’d died trying to shelter ’em.  She had her poor stiff
+paws around ’em.  Master, I cried.  Then I swore.  Then I carried them
+poor little kittens home and fed ’em up and found good homes for ’em.
+I knew the woman who left the cat and when she come back this summer I
+jest went over the harbor and told her my opinion of her.  It was rank
+meddling, but I do love meddling in a good cause.”
+
+“How did she take it?” asked Gilbert.
+
+“Cried and said she ‘didn’t think.’  I says to her, says I, ‘Do you
+s’pose that’ll be held for a good excuse in the day of Jedgment, when
+you’ll have to account for that poor old mother’s life?  The Lord’ll
+ask you what He give you your brains for if it wasn’t to think, I
+reckon.’  I don’t fancy she’ll leave cats to starve another time.”
+
+“Was the First Mate one of the forsaken?” asked Anne, making advances
+to him which were responded to graciously, if condescendingly.
+
+“Yes.  I found HIM one bitter cold day in winter, caught in the
+branches of a tree by his durn-fool ribbon collar.  He was almost
+starving.  If you could have seen his eyes, Mistress Blythe!  He was
+nothing but a kitten, and he’d got his living somehow since he’d been
+left until he got hung up.  When I loosed him he gave my hand a pitiful
+swipe with his little red tongue.  He wasn’t the able seaman you see
+now.  He was meek as Moses.  That was nine years ago.  His life has
+been long in the land for a cat.  He’s a good old pal, the First Mate
+is.”
+
+“I should have expected you to have a dog,” said Gilbert.
+
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+
+“I had a dog once.  I thought so much of him that when he died I
+couldn’t bear the thought of getting another in his place.  He was a
+FRIEND--you understand, Mistress Blythe?  Matey’s only a pal.  I’m fond
+of Matey--all the fonder on account of the spice of devilment that’s in
+him--like there is in all cats.  But I LOVED my dog.  I always had a
+sneaking sympathy for Alexander Elliott about HIS dog.  There isn’t any
+devil in a good dog.  That’s why they’re more lovable than cats, I
+reckon.  But I’m darned if they’re as interesting.  Here I am, talking
+too much.  Why don’t you check me?  When I do get a chance to talk to
+anyone I run on turrible.  If you’ve done your tea I’ve a few little
+things you might like to look at--picked ’em up in the queer corners I
+used to be poking my nose into.”
+
+Captain Jim’s “few little things” turned out to be a most interesting
+collection of curios, hideous, quaint and beautiful.  And almost every
+one had some striking story attached to it.
+
+Anne never forgot the delight with which she listened to those old
+tales that moonlit evening by that enchanted driftwood fire, while the
+silver sea called to them through the open window and sobbed against
+the rocks below them.
+
+Captain Jim never said a boastful word, but it was impossible to help
+seeing what a hero the man had been--brave, true, resourceful,
+unselfish.  He sat there in his little room and made those things live
+again for his hearers.  By a lift of the eyebrow, a twist of the lip, a
+gesture, a word, he painted a whole scene or character so that they saw
+it as it was.
+
+Some of Captain Jim’s adventures had such a marvellous edge that Anne
+and Gilbert secretly wondered if he were not drawing a rather long bow
+at their credulous expense.  But in this, as they found later, they did
+him injustice.  His tales were all literally true.  Captain Jim had the
+gift of the born storyteller, whereby “unhappy, far-off things” can be
+brought vividly before the hearer in all their pristine poignancy.
+
+Anne and Gilbert laughed and shivered over his tales, and once Anne
+found herself crying.  Captain Jim surveyed her tears with pleasure
+shining from his face.
+
+“I like to see folks cry that way,” he remarked.  “It’s a compliment.
+But I can’t do justice to the things I’ve seen or helped to do.  I’ve
+’em all jotted down in my life-book, but I haven’t got the knack of
+writing them out properly.  If I could hit on jest the right words and
+string ’em together proper on paper I could make a great book.  It
+would beat A Mad Love holler, and I believe Joe’d like it as well as
+the pirate yarns.  Yes, I’ve had some adventures in my time; and, do
+you know, Mistress Blythe, I still lust after ’em.  Yes, old and
+useless as I be, there’s an awful longing sweeps over me at times to
+sail out--out--out there--forever and ever.”
+
+“Like Ulysses, you would
+
+    ‘Sail beyond the sunset and the baths
+     Of all the western stars until you die,’”
+
+said Anne dreamily.
+
+“Ulysses?  I’ve read of him.  Yes, that’s just how I feel--jest how all
+us old sailors feel, I reckon.  I’ll die on land after all, I s’pose.
+Well, what is to be will be.  There was old William Ford at the Glen
+who never went on the water in his life, ’cause he was afraid of being
+drowned.  A fortune-teller had predicted he would be.  And one day he
+fainted and fell with his face in the barn trough and was drowned.
+Must you go?  Well, come soon and come often.  The doctor is to do the
+talking next time.  He knows a heap of things I want to find out.  I’m
+sorter lonesome here by times.  It’s been worse since Elizabeth Russell
+died.  Her and me was such cronies.”
+
+Captain Jim spoke with the pathos of the aged, who see their old
+friends slipping from them one by one--friends whose place can never be
+quite filled by those of a younger generation, even of the race that
+knows Joseph.  Anne and Gilbert promised to come soon and often.
+
+“He’s a rare old fellow, isn’t he?” said Gilbert, as they walked home.
+
+“Somehow, I can’t reconcile his simple, kindly personality with the
+wild, adventurous life he has lived,” mused Anne.
+
+“You wouldn’t find it so hard if you had seen him the other day down at
+the fishing village.  One of the men of Peter Gautier’s boat made a
+nasty remark about some girl along the shore.  Captain Jim fairly
+scorched the wretched fellow with the lightning of his eyes.  He seemed
+a man transformed.  He didn’t say much--but the way he said it!  You’d
+have thought it would strip the flesh from the fellow’s bones.  I
+understand that Captain Jim will never allow a word against any woman
+to be said in his presence.”
+
+“I wonder why he never married,” said Anne.  “He should have sons with
+their ships at sea now, and grandchildren climbing over him to hear his
+stories--he’s that kind of a man.  Instead, he has nothing but a
+magnificent cat.”
+
+But Anne was mistaken.  Captain Jim had more than that.  He had a
+memory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 10
+
+LESLIE MOORE
+
+“I’m going for a walk to the outside shore tonight,” Anne told Gog and
+Magog one October evening.  There was no one else to tell, for Gilbert
+had gone over the harbor.  Anne had her little domain in the speckless
+order one would expect of anyone brought up by Marilla Cuthbert, and
+felt that she could gad shoreward with a clear conscience.  Many and
+delightful had been her shore rambles, sometimes with Gilbert,
+sometimes with Captain Jim, sometimes alone with her own thoughts and
+new, poignantly-sweet dreams that were beginning to span life with
+their rainbows.  She loved the gentle, misty harbor shore and the
+silvery, wind-haunted sand shore, but best of all she loved the rock
+shore, with its cliffs and caves and piles of surf-worn boulders, and
+its coves where the pebbles glittered under the pools; and it was to
+this shore she hied herself tonight.
+
+There had been an autumn storm of wind and rain, lasting for three
+days.  Thunderous had been the crash of billows on the rocks, wild the
+white spray and spume that blew over the bar, troubled and misty and
+tempest-torn the erstwhile blue peace of Four Winds Harbor.  Now it was
+over, and the shore lay clean-washed after the storm; not a wind
+stirred, but there was still a fine surf on, dashing on sand and rock
+in a splendid white turmoil--the only restless thing in the great,
+pervading stillness and peace.
+
+“Oh, this is a moment worth living through weeks of storm and stress
+for,” Anne exclaimed, delightedly sending her far gaze across the
+tossing waters from the top of the cliff where she stood.  Presently
+she scrambled down the steep path to the little cove below, where she
+seemed shut in with rocks and sea and sky.
+
+“I’m going to dance and sing,” she said.  “There’s no one here to see
+me--the seagulls won’t carry tales of the matter.  I may be as crazy as
+I like.”
+
+She caught up her skirt and pirouetted along the hard strip of sand
+just out of reach of the waves that almost lapped her feet with their
+spent foam.  Whirling round and round, laughing like a child, she
+reached the little headland that ran out to the east of the cove; then
+she stopped suddenly, blushing crimson; she was not alone; there had
+been a witness to her dance and laughter.
+
+The girl of the golden hair and sea-blue eyes was sitting on a boulder
+of the headland, half-hidden by a jutting rock.  She was looking
+straight at Anne with a strange expression--part wonder, part sympathy,
+part--could it be?--envy.  She was bare-headed, and her splendid hair,
+more than ever like Browning’s “gorgeous snake,” was bound about her
+head with a crimson ribbon.  She wore a dress of some dark material,
+very plainly made; but swathed about her waist, outlining its fine
+curves, was a vivid girdle of red silk.  Her hands, clasped over her
+knee, were brown and somewhat work-hardened; but the skin of her throat
+and cheeks was as white as cream.  A flying gleam of sunset broke
+through a low-lying western cloud and fell across her hair.  For a
+moment she seemed the spirit of the sea personified--all its mystery,
+all its passion, all its elusive charm.
+
+“You--you must think me crazy,” stammered Anne, trying to recover her
+self-possession.  To be seen by this stately girl in such an abandon of
+childishness--she, Mrs. Dr. Blythe, with all the dignity of the matron
+to keep up--it was too bad!
+
+“No,” said the girl, “I don’t.”
+
+She said nothing more; her voice was expressionless; her manner
+slightly repellent; but there was something in her eyes--eager yet shy,
+defiant yet pleading--which turned Anne from her purpose of walking
+away.  Instead, she sat down on the boulder beside the girl.
+
+“Let’s introduce ourselves,” she said, with the smile that had never
+yet failed to win confidence and friendliness.  “I am Mrs. Blythe--and
+I live in that little white house up the harbor shore.”
+
+“Yes, I know,” said the girl.  “I am Leslie Moore--Mrs. Dick Moore,”
+she added stiffly.
+
+Anne was silent for a moment from sheer amazement.  It had not occurred
+to her that this girl was married--there seemed nothing of the wife
+about her.  And that she should be the neighbor whom Anne had pictured
+as a commonplace Four Winds housewife!  Anne could not quickly adjust
+her mental focus to this astonishing change.
+
+“Then--then you live in that gray house up the brook,” she stammered.
+
+“Yes.  I should have gone over to call on you long ago,” said the
+other.  She did not offer any explanation or excuse for not having gone.
+
+“I wish you WOULD come,” said Anne, recovering herself somewhat.
+“We’re such near neighbors we ought to be friends.  That is the sole
+fault of Four Winds--there aren’t quite enough neighbors.  Otherwise it
+is perfection.”
+
+“You like it?”
+
+“LIKE it!  I love it.  It is the most beautiful place I ever saw.”
+
+“I’ve never seen many places,” said Leslie Moore, slowly, “but I’ve
+always thought it was very lovely here.  I--I love it, too.”
+
+She spoke, as she looked, shyly, yet eagerly.  Anne had an odd
+impression that this strange girl--the word “girl” would persist--could
+say a good deal if she chose.
+
+“I often come to the shore,” she added.
+
+“So do I,” said Anne.  “It’s a wonder we haven’t met here before.”
+
+“Probably you come earlier in the evening than I do.  It is generally
+late--almost dark--when I come.  And I love to come just after a
+storm--like this.  I don’t like the sea so well when it’s calm and
+quiet.  I like the struggle--and the crash--and the noise.”
+
+“I love it in all its moods,” declared Anne.  “The sea at Four Winds is
+to me what Lover’s Lane was at home.  Tonight it seemed so free--so
+untamed--something broke loose in me, too, out of sympathy.  That was
+why I danced along the shore in that wild way.  I didn’t suppose
+anybody was looking, of course.  If Miss Cornelia Bryant had seen me
+she would have forboded a gloomy prospect for poor young Dr. Blythe.”
+
+“You know Miss Cornelia?” said Leslie, laughing.  She had an exquisite
+laugh; it bubbled up suddenly and unexpectedly with something of the
+delicious quality of a baby’s.  Anne laughed, too.
+
+“Oh, yes.  She has been down to my house of dreams several times.”
+
+“Your house of dreams?”
+
+“Oh, that’s a dear, foolish little name Gilbert and I have for our
+home.  We just call it that between ourselves.  It slipped out before I
+thought.”
+
+“So Miss Russell’s little white house is YOUR house of dreams,” said
+Leslie wonderingly.  “_I_ had a house of dreams once--but it was a
+palace,” she added, with a laugh, the sweetness of which was marred by
+a little note of derision.
+
+“Oh, I once dreamed of a palace, too,” said Anne.  “I suppose all girls
+do.  And then we settle down contentedly in eight-room houses that seem
+to fulfill all the desires of our hearts--because our prince is there.
+YOU should have had your palace really, though--you are so beautiful.
+You MUST let me say it--it has to be said--I’m nearly bursting with
+admiration.  You are the loveliest thing I ever saw, Mrs. Moore.”
+
+“If we are to be friends you must call me Leslie,” said the other with
+an odd passion.
+
+“Of course I will.  And MY friends call me Anne.”
+
+“I suppose I am beautiful,” Leslie went on, looking stormily out to
+sea.  “I hate my beauty.  I wish I had always been as brown and plain
+as the brownest and plainest girl at the fishing village over there.
+Well, what do you think of Miss Cornelia?”
+
+The abrupt change of subject shut the door on any further confidences.
+
+“Miss Cornelia is a darling, isn’t she?” said Anne.  “Gilbert and I
+were invited to her house to a state tea last week.  You’ve heard of
+groaning tables.”
+
+“I seem to recall seeing the expression in the newspaper reports of
+weddings,” said Leslie, smiling.
+
+“Well, Miss Cornelia’s groaned--at least, it creaked--positively.  You
+couldn’t have believed she would have cooked so much for two ordinary
+people.  She had every kind of pie you could name, I think--except
+lemon pie.  She said she had taken the prize for lemon pies at the
+Charlottetown Exhibition ten years ago and had never made any since for
+fear of losing her reputation for them.”
+
+“Were you able to eat enough pie to please her?”
+
+“_I_ wasn’t.  Gilbert won her heart by eating--I won’t tell you how
+much.  She said she never knew a man who didn’t like pie better than
+his Bible.  Do you know, I love Miss Cornelia.”
+
+“So do I,” said Leslie.  “She is the best friend I have in the world.”
+
+Anne wondered secretly why, if this were so, Miss Cornelia had never
+mentioned Mrs. Dick Moore to her.  Miss Cornelia had certainly talked
+freely about every other individual in or near Four Winds.
+
+“Isn’t that beautiful?” said Leslie, after a brief silence, pointing to
+the exquisite effect of a shaft of light falling through a cleft in the
+rock behind them, across a dark green pool at its base.  “If I had come
+here--and seen nothing but just that--I would go home satisfied.”
+
+“The effects of light and shadow all along these shores are wonderful,”
+agreed Anne.  “My little sewing room looks out on the harbor, and I sit
+at its window and feast my eyes.  The colors and shadows are never the
+same two minutes together.”
+
+“And you are never lonely?” asked Leslie abruptly.  “Never--when you
+are alone?”
+
+“No.  I don’t think I’ve ever been really lonely in my life,” answered
+Anne.  “Even when I’m alone I have real good company--dreams and
+imaginations and pretendings.  I LIKE to be alone now and then, just to
+think over things and TASTE them.  But I love friendship--and nice,
+jolly little times with people.  Oh, WON’T you come to see me--often?
+Please do.  I believe,” Anne added, laughing, “that you’d like me if
+you knew me.”
+
+“I wonder if YOU would like ME,” said Leslie seriously.  She was not
+fishing for a compliment.  She looked out across the waves that were
+beginning to be garlanded with blossoms of moonlit foam, and her eyes
+filled with shadows.
+
+“I’m sure I would,” said Anne.  “And please don’t think I’m utterly
+irresponsible because you saw me dancing on the shore at sunset.  No
+doubt I shall be dignified after a time.  You see, I haven’t been
+married very long.  I feel like a girl, and sometimes like a child,
+yet.”
+
+“I have been married twelve years,” said Leslie.
+
+Here was another unbelievable thing.
+
+“Why, you can’t be as old as I am!” exclaimed Anne.  “You must have
+been a child when you were married.”
+
+“I was sixteen,” said Leslie, rising, and picking up the cap and jacket
+lying beside her.  “I am twenty-eight now.  Well, I must go back.”
+
+“So must I.  Gilbert will probably be home.  But I’m so glad we both
+came to the shore tonight and met each other.”
+
+Leslie said nothing, and Anne was a little chilled.  She had offered
+friendship frankly but it had not been accepted very graciously, if it
+had not been absolutely repelled.  In silence they climbed the cliffs
+and walked across a pasture-field of which the feathery, bleached, wild
+grasses were like a carpet of creamy velvet in the moonlight.  When
+they reached the shore lane Leslie turned.
+
+“I go this way, Mrs. Blythe.  You will come over and see me some time,
+won’t you?”
+
+Anne felt as if the invitation had been thrown at her.  She got the
+impression that Leslie Moore gave it reluctantly.
+
+“I will come if you really want me to,” she said a little coldly.
+
+“Oh, I do--I do,” exclaimed Leslie, with an eagerness which seemed to
+burst forth and beat down some restraint that had been imposed on it.
+
+“Then I’ll come.  Good-night--Leslie.”
+
+“Good-night, Mrs. Blythe.”
+
+Anne walked home in a brown study and poured out her tale to Gilbert.
+
+“So Mrs. Dick Moore isn’t one of the race that knows Joseph?” said
+Gilbert teasingly.
+
+“No--o--o, not exactly.  And yet--I think she WAS one of them once, but
+has gone or got into exile,” said Anne musingly.  “She is certainly
+very different from the other women about here.  You can’t talk about
+eggs and butter to HER.  To think I’ve been imagining her a second Mrs.
+Rachel Lynde!  Have you ever seen Dick Moore, Gilbert?”
+
+“No.  I’ve seen several men working about the fields of the farm, but I
+don’t know which was Moore.”
+
+“She never mentioned him.  I KNOW she isn’t happy.”
+
+“From what you tell me I suppose she was married before she was old
+enough to know her own mind or heart, and found out too late that she
+had made a mistake.  It’s a common tragedy enough, Anne.
+
+“A fine woman would have made the best of it.  Mrs. Moore has evidently
+let it make her bitter and resentful.”
+
+“Don’t let us judge her till we know,” pleaded Anne.  “I don’t believe
+her case is so ordinary.  You will understand her fascination when you
+meet her, Gilbert.  It is a thing quite apart from her beauty.  I feel
+that she possesses a rich nature, into which a friend might enter as
+into a kingdom; but for some reason she bars every one out and shuts
+all her possibilities up in herself, so that they cannot develop and
+blossom.  There, I’ve been struggling to define her to myself ever
+since I left her, and that is the nearest I can get to it.  I’m going
+to ask Miss Cornelia about her.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 11
+
+THE STORY OF LESLIE MOORE
+
+“Yes, the eighth baby arrived a fortnight ago,” said Miss Cornelia,
+from a rocker before the fire of the little house one chilly October
+afternoon.  “It’s a girl.  Fred was ranting mad--said he wanted a
+boy--when the truth is he didn’t want it at all.  If it had been a boy
+he’d have ranted because it wasn’t a girl.  They had four girls and
+three boys before, so I can’t see that it made much difference what
+this one was, but of course he’d have to be cantankerous, just like a
+man.  The baby is real pretty, dressed up in its nice little clothes.
+It has black eyes and the dearest, tiny hands.”
+
+“I must go and see it.  I just love babies,” said Anne, smiling to
+herself over a thought too dear and sacred to be put into words.
+
+“I don’t say but what they’re nice,” admitted Miss Cornelia.  “But some
+folks seem to have more than they really need, believe ME.  My poor
+cousin Flora up at the Glen had eleven, and such a slave as she is!
+Her husband suicided three years ago.  Just like a man!”
+
+“What made him do that?” asked Anne, rather shocked.
+
+“Couldn’t get his way over something, so he jumped into the well.  A
+good riddance!  He was a born tyrant.  But of course it spoiled the
+well.  Flora could never abide the thought of using it again, poor
+thing!  So she had another dug and a frightful expense it was, and the
+water as hard as nails.  If he HAD to drown himself there was plenty of
+water in the harbor, wasn’t there?  I’ve no patience with a man like
+that.  We’ve only had two suicides in Four Winds in my recollection.
+The other was Frank West--Leslie Moore’s father.  By the way, has
+Leslie ever been over to call on you yet?”
+
+“No, but I met her on the shore a few nights ago and we scraped an
+acquaintance,” said Anne, pricking up her ears.
+
+Miss Cornelia nodded.
+
+“I’m glad, dearie.  I was hoping you’d foregather with her.  What do
+you think of her?”
+
+“I thought her very beautiful.”
+
+“Oh, of course.  There was never anybody about Four Winds could touch
+her for looks.  Did you ever see her hair?  It reaches to her feet when
+she lets it down.  But I meant how did you like her?”
+
+“I think I could like her very much if she’d let me,” said Anne slowly.
+
+“But she wouldn’t let you--she pushed you off and kept you at arm’s
+length.  Poor Leslie!  You wouldn’t be much surprised if you knew what
+her life has been.  It’s been a tragedy--a tragedy!” repeated Miss
+Cornelia emphatically.
+
+“I wish you would tell me all about her--that is, if you can do so
+without betraying any confidence.”
+
+“Lord, dearie, everybody in Four Winds knows poor Leslie’s story.  It’s
+no secret--the OUTSIDE, that is.  Nobody knows the INSIDE but Leslie
+herself, and she doesn’t take folks into her confidence.  I’m about the
+best friend she has on earth, I reckon, and she’s never uttered a word
+of complaint to me.  Have you ever seen Dick Moore?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Well, I may as well begin at the beginning and tell you everything
+straight through, so you’ll understand it.  As I said, Leslie’s father
+was Frank West.  He was clever and shiftless--just like a man.  Oh, he
+had heaps of brains--and much good they did him!  He started to go to
+college, and he went for two years, and then his health broke down.
+The Wests were all inclined to be consumptive.  So Frank came home and
+started farming.  He married Rose Elliott from over harbor.  Rose was
+reckoned the beauty of Four Winds--Leslie takes her looks from her
+mother, but she has ten times the spirit and go that Rose had, and a
+far better figure.  Now you know, Anne, I always take the ground that
+us women ought to stand by each other.  We’ve got enough to endure at
+the hands of the men, the Lord knows, so I hold we hadn’t ought to
+clapper-claw one another, and it isn’t often you’ll find me running
+down another woman.  But I never had much use for Rose Elliott.  She
+was spoiled to begin with, believe ME, and she was nothing but a lazy,
+selfish, whining creature.  Frank was no hand to work, so they were
+poor as Job’s turkey.  Poor!  They lived on potatoes and point, believe
+ME.  They had two children--Leslie and Kenneth.  Leslie had her
+mother’s looks and her father’s brains, and something she didn’t get
+from either of them.  She took after her Grandmother West--a splendid
+old lady.  She was the brightest, friendliest, merriest thing when she
+was a child, Anne.  Everybody liked her.  She was her father’s favorite
+and she was awful fond of him.  They were ‘chums,’ as she used to say.
+She couldn’t see any of his faults--and he WAS a taking sort of man in
+some ways.
+
+“Well, when Leslie was twelve years old, the first dreadful thing
+happened.  She worshipped little Kenneth--he was four years younger
+than her, and he WAS a dear little chap.  And he was killed one
+day--fell off a big load of hay just as it was going into the barn, and
+the wheel went right over his little body and crushed the life out of
+it.  And mind you, Anne, Leslie saw it.  She was looking down from the
+loft.  She gave one screech--the hired man said he never heard such a
+sound in all his life--he said it would ring in his ears till Gabriel’s
+trump drove it out.  But she never screeched or cried again about it.
+She jumped from the loft onto the load and from the load to the floor,
+and caught up the little bleeding, warm, dead body, Anne--they had to
+tear it from her before she would let it go.  They sent for me--I can’t
+talk of it.”
+
+Miss Cornelia wiped the tears from her kindly brown eyes and sewed in
+bitter silence for a few minutes.
+
+“Well,” she resumed, “it was all over--they buried little Kenneth in
+that graveyard over the harbor, and after a while Leslie went back to
+her school and her studies.  She never mentioned Kenneth’s name--I’ve
+never heard it cross her lips from that day to this.  I reckon that old
+hurt still aches and burns at times; but she was only a child and time
+is real kind to children, Anne, dearie.  After a while she began to
+laugh again--she had the prettiest laugh.  You don’t often hear it now.”
+
+“I heard it once the other night,” said Anne.  “It IS a beautiful
+laugh.”
+
+“Frank West began to go down after Kenneth’s death.  He wasn’t strong
+and it was a shock to him, because he was real fond of the child,
+though, as I’ve said, Leslie was his favorite.  He got mopy and
+melancholy, and couldn’t or wouldn’t work.  And one day, when Leslie
+was fourteen years of age, he hanged himself--and in the parlor, too,
+mind you, Anne, right in the middle of the parlor from the lamp hook in
+the ceiling.  Wasn’t that like a man?  It was the anniversary of his
+wedding day, too.  Nice, tasty time to pick for it, wasn’t it?  And, of
+course, that poor Leslie had to be the one to find him.  She went into
+the parlor that morning, singing, with some fresh flowers for the
+vases, and there she saw her father hanging from the ceiling, his face
+as black as a coal.  It was something awful, believe ME!”
+
+“Oh, how horrible!” said Anne, shuddering.  “The poor, poor child!”
+
+“Leslie didn’t cry at her father’s funeral any more then she had cried
+at Kenneth’s.  Rose whooped and howled for two, however, and Leslie had
+all she could do trying to calm and comfort her mother.  I was
+disgusted with Rose and so was everyone else, but Leslie never got out
+of patience.  She loved her mother.  Leslie is clannish--her own could
+never do wrong in her eyes.  Well, they buried Frank West beside
+Kenneth, and Rose put up a great big monument to him.  It was bigger
+than his character, believe ME!  Anyhow, it was bigger than Rose could
+afford, for the farm was mortgaged for more than its value.  But not
+long after Leslie’s old grandmother West died and she left Leslie a
+little money--enough to give her a year at Queen’s Academy.  Leslie had
+made up her mind to pass for a teacher if she could, and then earn
+enough to put herself through Redmond College.  That had been her
+father’s pet scheme--he wanted her to have what he had lost.  Leslie
+was full of ambition and her head was chock full of brains.  She went
+to Queen’s, and she took two years’ work in one year and got her First;
+and when she came home she got the Glen school.  She was so happy and
+hopeful and full of life and eagerness.  When I think of what she was
+then and what she is now, I say--drat the men!”
+
+Miss Cornelia snipped her thread off as viciously as if, Nero-like, she
+was severing the neck of mankind by the stroke.
+
+“Dick Moore came into her life that summer.  His father, Abner Moore,
+kept store at the Glen, but Dick had a sea-going streak in him from his
+mother; he used to sail in summer and clerk in his father’s store in
+winter.  He was a big, handsome fellow, with a little ugly soul.  He
+was always wanting something till he got it, and then he stopped
+wanting it--just like a man.  Oh, he didn’t growl at the weather when
+it was fine, and he was mostly real pleasant and agreeable when
+everything went right.  But he drank a good deal, and there were some
+nasty stories told of him and a girl down at the fishing village.  He
+wasn’t fit for Leslie to wipe her feet on, that’s the long and short of
+it.  And he was a Methodist!  But he was clean mad about her--because
+of her good looks in the first place, and because she wouldn’t have
+anything to say to him in the second.  He vowed he’d have her--and he
+got her!”
+
+“How did he bring it about?”
+
+“Oh, it was an iniquitous thing!  I’ll never forgive Rose West.  You
+see, dearie, Abner Moore held the mortgage on the West farm, and the
+interest was overdue some years, and Dick just went and told Mrs. West
+that if Leslie wouldn’t marry him he’d get his father to foreclose the
+mortgage.  Rose carried on terrible--fainted and wept, and pleaded with
+Leslie not to let her be turned out of her home.  She said it would
+break her heart to leave the home she’d come to as a bride.  I wouldn’t
+have blamed her for feeling dreadful bad over it--but you wouldn’t have
+thought she’d be so selfish as to sacrifice her own flesh and blood
+because of it, would you?  Well, she was.
+
+“And Leslie gave in--she loved her mother so much she would have done
+anything to save her pain.  She married Dick Moore.  None of us knew
+why at the time.  It wasn’t till long afterward that I found out how
+her mother had worried her into it.  I was sure there was something
+wrong, though, because I knew how she had snubbed him time and again,
+and it wasn’t like Leslie to turn face--about like that.  Besides, I
+knew that Dick Moore wasn’t the kind of man Leslie could ever fancy, in
+spite of his good looks and dashing ways.  Of course, there was no
+wedding, but Rose asked me to go and see them married.  I went, but I
+was sorry I did.  I’d seen Leslie’s face at her brother’s funeral and
+at her father’s funeral--and now it seemed to me I was seeing it at her
+own funeral.  But Rose was smiling as a basket of chips, believe ME!
+
+“Leslie and Dick settled down on the West place--Rose couldn’t bear to
+part with her dear daughter!--and lived there for the winter.  In the
+spring Rose took pneumonia and died--a year too late!  Leslie was
+heart-broken enough over it.  Isn’t it terrible the way some unworthy
+folks are loved, while others that deserve it far more, you’d think,
+never get much affection?  As for Dick, he’d had enough of quiet
+married life--just like a man.  He was for up and off.  He went over to
+Nova Scotia to visit his relations--his father had come from Nova
+Scotia--and he wrote back to Leslie that his cousin, George Moore, was
+going on a voyage to Havana and he was going too.  The name of the
+vessel was the Four Sisters and they were to be gone about nine weeks.
+
+“It must have been a relief to Leslie.  But she never said anything.
+From the day of her marriage she was just what she is now--cold and
+proud, and keeping everyone but me at a distance.  I won’t BE kept at a
+distance, believe ME!  I’ve just stuck to Leslie as close as I knew how
+in spite of everything.”
+
+“She told me you were the best friend she had,” said Anne.
+
+“Did she?” exclaimed Miss Cornelia delightedly.  “Well, I’m real
+thankful to hear it.  Sometimes I’ve wondered if she really did want me
+around at all--she never let me think so.  You must have thawed her out
+more than you think, or she wouldn’t have said that much itself to you.
+Oh, that poor, heart-broken girl!  I never see Dick Moore but I want to
+run a knife clean through him.”
+
+Miss Cornelia wiped her eyes again and having relieved her feelings by
+her blood-thirsty wish, took up her tale.
+
+“Well, Leslie was left over there alone.  Dick had put in the crop
+before he went, and old Abner looked after it.  The summer went by and
+the Four Sisters didn’t come back.  The Nova Scotia Moores
+investigated, and found she had got to Havana and discharged her cargo
+and took on another and left for home; and that was all they ever found
+out about her.  By degrees people began to talk of Dick Moore as one
+that was dead.  Almost everyone believed that he was, though no one
+felt certain, for men have turned up here at the harbor after they’d
+been gone for years.  Leslie never thought he was dead--and she was
+right.  A thousand pities too!  The next summer Captain Jim was in
+Havana--that was before he gave up the sea, of course.  He thought he’d
+poke round a bit--Captain Jim was always meddlesome, just like a
+man--and he went to inquiring round among the sailors’ boarding houses
+and places like that, to see if he could find out anything about the
+crew of the Four Sisters.  He’d better have let sleeping dogs lie, in
+my opinion!  Well, he went to one out-of-the-way place, and there he
+found a man he knew at first sight it was Dick Moore, though he had a
+big beard.  Captain Jim got it shaved off and then there was no
+doubt--Dick Moore it was--his body at least.  His mind wasn’t there--as
+for his soul, in my opinion he never had one!”
+
+“What had happened to him?”
+
+“Nobody knows the rights of it.  All the folks who kept the boarding
+house could tell was that about a year before they had found him lying
+on their doorstep one morning in an awful condition--his head battered
+to a jelly almost.  They supposed he’d got hurt in some drunken row,
+and likely that’s the truth of it.  They took him in, never thinking he
+could live.  But he did--and he was just like a child when he got well.
+He hadn’t memory or intellect or reason.  They tried to find out who he
+was but they never could.  He couldn’t even tell them his name--he
+could only say a few simple words.  He had a letter on him beginning
+‘Dear Dick’ and signed ‘Leslie,’ but there was no address on it and the
+envelope was gone.  They let him stay on--he learned to do a few odd
+jobs about the place--and there Captain Jim found him.  He brought him
+home--I’ve always said it was a bad day’s work, though I s’pose there
+was nothing else he could do.  He thought maybe when Dick got home and
+saw his old surroundings and familiar faces his memory would wake up.
+But it hadn’t any effect.  There he’s been at the house up the brook
+ever since.  He’s just like a child, no more nor less.  Takes fractious
+spells occasionally, but mostly he’s just vacant and good humored and
+harmless.  He’s apt to run away if he isn’t watched.  That’s the burden
+Leslie has had to carry for eleven years--and all alone.  Old Abner
+Moore died soon after Dick was brought home and it was found he was
+almost bankrupt.  When things were settled up there was nothing for
+Leslie and Dick but the old West farm.  Leslie rented it to John Ward,
+and the rent is all she has to live on.  Sometimes in summer she takes
+a boarder to help out.  But most visitors prefer the other side of the
+harbor where the hotels and summer cottages are.  Leslie’s house is too
+far from the bathing shore.  She’s taken care of Dick and she’s never
+been away from him for eleven years--she’s tied to that imbecile for
+life.  And after all the dreams and hopes she once had!  You can
+imagine what it has been like for her, Anne, dearie--with her beauty
+and spirit and pride and cleverness.  It’s just been a living death.”
+
+“Poor, poor girl!” said Anne again.  Her own happiness seemed to
+reproach her.  What right had she to be so happy when another human
+soul must be so miserable?
+
+“Will you tell me just what Leslie said and how she acted the night you
+met her on the shore?” asked Miss Cornelia.
+
+She listened intently and nodded her satisfaction.
+
+“YOU thought she was stiff and cold, Anne, dearie, but I can tell you
+she thawed out wonderful for her.  She must have taken to you real
+strong.  I’m so glad.  You may be able to help her a good deal.  I was
+thankful when I heard that a young couple was coming to this house, for
+I hoped it would mean some friends for Leslie; especially if you
+belonged to the race that knows Joseph.  You WILL be her friend, won’t
+you, Anne, dearie?”
+
+“Indeed I will, if she’ll let me,” said Anne, with all her own sweet,
+impulsive earnestness.
+
+“No, you must be her friend, whether she’ll let you or not,” said Miss
+Cornelia resolutely.  “Don’t you mind if she’s stiff by times--don’t
+notice it.  Remember what her life has been--and is--and must always
+be, I suppose, for creatures like Dick Moore live forever, I
+understand.  You should see how fat he’s got since he came home.  He
+used to be lean enough.  Just MAKE her be friends--you can do
+it--you’re one of those who have the knack.  Only you mustn’t be
+sensitive.  And don’t mind if she doesn’t seem to want you to go over
+there much.  She knows that some women don’t like to be where Dick
+is--they complain he gives them the creeps.  Just get her to come over
+here as often as she can.  She can’t get away so very much--she can’t
+leave Dick long, for the Lord knows what he’d do--burn the house down
+most likely.  At nights, after he’s in bed and asleep, is about the
+only time she’s free.  He always goes to bed early and sleeps like the
+dead till next morning.  That is how you came to meet her at the shore
+likely.  She wanders there considerable.”
+
+“I will do everything I can for her,” said Anne.  Her interest in
+Leslie Moore, which had been vivid ever since she had seen her driving
+her geese down the hill, was intensified a thousand fold by Miss
+Cornelia’s narration.  The girl’s beauty and sorrow and loneliness drew
+her with an irresistible fascination.  She had never known anyone like
+her; her friends had hitherto been wholesome, normal, merry girls like
+herself, with only the average trials of human care and bereavement to
+shadow their girlish dreams.  Leslie Moore stood apart, a tragic,
+appealing figure of thwarted womanhood.  Anne resolved that she would
+win entrance into the kingdom of that lonely soul and find there the
+comradeship it could so richly give, were it not for the cruel fetters
+that held it in a prison not of its own making.
+
+“And mind you this, Anne, dearie,” said Miss Cornelia, who had not yet
+wholly relieved her mind, “You mustn’t think Leslie is an infidel
+because she hardly ever goes to church--or even that she’s a Methodist.
+She can’t take Dick to church, of course--not that he ever troubled
+church much in his best days.  But you just remember that she’s a real
+strong Presbyterian at heart, Anne, dearie.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 12
+
+LESLIE COMES OVER
+
+Leslie came over to the house of dreams one frosty October night, when
+moonlit mists were hanging over the harbor and curling like silver
+ribbons along the seaward glens.  She looked as if she repented coming
+when Gilbert answered her knock; but Anne flew past him, pounced on
+her, and drew her in.
+
+“I’m so glad you picked tonight for a call,” she said gaily.  “I made
+up a lot of extra good fudge this afternoon and we want someone to help
+us eat it--before the fire--while we tell stories.  Perhaps Captain Jim
+will drop in, too.  This is his night.”
+
+“No.  Captain Jim is over home,” said Leslie.  “He--he made me come
+here,” she added, half defiantly.
+
+“I’ll say a thank-you to him for that when I see him,” said Anne,
+pulling easy chairs before the fire.
+
+“Oh, I don’t mean that I didn’t want to come,” protested Leslie,
+flushing a little.  “I--I’ve been thinking of coming--but it isn’t
+always easy for me to get away.”
+
+“Of course it must be hard for you to leave Mr. Moore,” said Anne, in a
+matter-of-fact tone.  She had decided that it would be best to mention
+Dick Moore occasionally as an accepted fact, and not give undue
+morbidness to the subject by avoiding it.  She was right, for Leslie’s
+air of constraint suddenly vanished.  Evidently she had been wondering
+how much Anne knew of the conditions of her life and was relieved that
+no explanations were needed.  She allowed her cap and jacket to be
+taken, and sat down with a girlish snuggle in the big armchair by
+Magog.  She was dressed prettily and carefully, with the customary
+touch of color in the scarlet geranium at her white throat.  Her
+beautiful hair gleamed like molten gold in the warm firelight.  Her
+sea-blue eyes were full of soft laughter and allurement. For the
+moment, under the influence of the little house of dreams, she was a
+girl again--a girl forgetful of the past and its bitterness.  The
+atmosphere of the many loves that had sanctified the little house was
+all about her; the companionship of two healthy, happy, young folks of
+her own generation encircled her; she felt and yielded to the magic of
+her surroundings--Miss Cornelia and Captain Jim would scarcely have
+recognized her; Anne found it hard to believe that this was the cold,
+unresponsive woman she had met on the shore--this animated girl who
+talked and listened with the eagerness of a starved soul.  And how
+hungrily Leslie’s eyes looked at the bookcases between the windows!
+
+“Our library isn’t very extensive,” said Anne, “but every book in it is
+a FRIEND.  We’ve picked our books up through the years, here and there,
+never buying one until we had first read it and knew that it belonged
+to the race of Joseph.”
+
+Leslie laughed--beautiful laughter that seemed akin to all the mirth
+that had echoed through the little house in the vanished years.
+
+“I have a few books of father’s--not many,” she said.  “I’ve read them
+until I know them almost by heart.  I don’t get many books.  There’s a
+circulating library at the Glen store--but I don’t think the committee
+who pick the books for Mr. Parker know what books are of Joseph’s
+race--or perhaps they don’t care.  It was so seldom I got one I really
+liked that I gave up getting any.”
+
+“I hope you’ll look on our bookshelves as your own,” said Anne.
+
+“You are entirely and wholeheartedly welcome to the loan of any book on
+them.”
+
+“You are setting a feast of fat things before me,” said Leslie,
+joyously.  Then, as the clock struck ten, she rose, half unwillingly.
+
+“I must go.  I didn’t realise it was so late.  Captain Jim is always
+saying it doesn’t take long to stay an hour.  But I’ve stayed two--and
+oh, but I’ve enjoyed them,” she added frankly.
+
+“Come often,” said Anne and Gilbert.  They had risen and stood together
+in the firelight’s glow.  Leslie looked at them--youthful, hopeful,
+happy, typifying all she had missed and must forever miss.  The light
+went out of her face and eyes; the girl vanished; it was the sorrowful,
+cheated woman who answered the invitation almost coldly and got herself
+away with a pitiful haste.
+
+Anne watched her until she was lost in the shadows of the chill and
+misty night.  Then she turned slowly back to the glow of her own
+radiant hearthstone.
+
+“Isn’t she lovely, Gilbert?  Her hair fascinates me.  Miss Cornelia
+says it reaches to her feet.  Ruby Gillis had beautiful hair--but
+Leslie’s is ALIVE--every thread of it is living gold.”
+
+“She is very beautiful,” agreed Gilbert, so heartily that Anne almost
+wished he were a LITTLE less enthusiastic.
+
+“Gilbert, would you like my hair better if it were like Leslie’s?” she
+asked wistfully.
+
+“I wouldn’t have your hair any color but just what it is for the
+world,” said Gilbert, with one or two convincing accompaniments.
+
+You wouldn’t be ANNE if you had golden hair--or hair of any color but”--
+
+“Red,” said Anne, with gloomy satisfaction.
+
+“Yes, red--to give warmth to that milk-white skin and those shining
+gray-green eyes of yours.  Golden hair wouldn’t suit you at all Queen
+Anne--MY Queen Anne--queen of my heart and life and home.”
+
+“Then you may admire Leslie’s all you like,” said Anne magnanimously.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 13
+
+A GHOSTLY EVENING
+
+One evening, a week later, Anne decided to run over the fields to the
+house up the brook for an informal call.  It was an evening of gray fog
+that had crept in from the gulf, swathed the harbor, filled the glens
+and valleys, and clung heavily to the autumnal meadows.  Through it the
+sea sobbed and shuddered.  Anne saw Four Winds in a new aspect, and
+found it weird and mysterious and fascinating; but it also gave her a
+little feeling of loneliness.  Gilbert was away and would be away until
+the morrow, attending a medical pow-wow in Charlottetown.  Anne longed
+for an hour of fellowship with some girl friend.  Captain Jim and Miss
+Cornelia were “good fellows” each, in their own way; but youth yearned
+to youth.
+
+“If only Diana or Phil or Pris or Stella could drop in for a chat,” she
+said to herself, “how delightful it would be!  This is such a GHOSTLY
+night.  I’m sure all the ships that ever sailed out of Four Winds to
+their doom could be seen tonight sailing up the harbor with their
+drowned crews on their decks, if that shrouding fog could suddenly be
+drawn aside.  I feel as if it concealed innumerable mysteries--as if I
+were surrounded by the wraiths of old generations of Four Winds people
+peering at me through that gray veil.  If ever the dear dead ladies of
+this little house came back to revisit it they would come on just such
+a night as this.  If I sit here any longer I’ll see one of them there
+opposite me in Gilbert’s chair.  This place isn’t exactly canny
+tonight.  Even Gog and Magog have an air of pricking up their ears to
+hear the footsteps of unseen guests.  I’ll run over to see Leslie
+before I frighten myself with my own fancies, as I did long ago in the
+matter of the Haunted Wood.  I’ll leave my house of dreams to welcome
+back its old inhabitants.  My fire will give them my good-will and
+greeting--they will be gone before I come back, and my house will be
+mine once more.  Tonight I am sure it is keeping a tryst with the past.”
+
+Laughing a little over her fancy, yet with something of a creepy
+sensation in the region of her spine, Anne kissed her hand to Gog and
+Magog and slipped out into the fog, with some of the new magazines
+under her arm for Leslie.
+
+“Leslie’s wild for books and magazines,” Miss Cornelia had told her,
+“and she hardly ever sees one.  She can’t afford to buy them or
+subscribe for them.  She’s really pitifully poor, Anne.  I don’t see
+how she makes out to live at all on the little rent the farm brings in.
+She never even hints a complaint on the score of poverty, but I know
+what it must be.  She’s been handicapped by it all her life.  She
+didn’t mind it when she was free and ambitious, but it must gall now,
+believe ME.  I’m glad she seemed so bright and merry the evening she
+spent with you.  Captain Jim told me he had fairly to put her cap and
+coat on and push her out of the door.  Don’t be too long going to see
+her either.  If you are she’ll think it’s because you don’t like the
+sight of Dick, and she’ll crawl into her shell again.  Dick’s a great,
+big, harmless baby, but that silly grin and chuckle of his do get on
+some people’s nerves.  Thank goodness, I’ve no nerves myself.  I like
+Dick Moore better now than I ever did when he was in his right
+senses--though the Lord knows that isn’t saying much.  I was down there
+one day in housecleaning time helping Leslie a bit, and I was frying
+doughnuts.  Dick was hanging round to get one, as usual, and all at
+once he picked up a scalding hot one I’d just fished out and dropped it
+on the back of my neck when I was bending over.  Then he laughed and
+laughed.  Believe ME, Anne, it took all the grace of God in my heart to
+keep me from just whisking up that stew-pan of boiling fat and pouring
+it over his head.”
+
+Anne laughed over Miss Cornelia’s wrath as she sped through the
+darkness.  But laughter accorded ill with that night.  She was sober
+enough when she reached the house among the willows.  Everything was
+very silent.  The front part of the house seemed dark and deserted, so
+Anne slipped round to the side door, which opened from the veranda into
+a little sitting room.  There she halted noiselessly.
+
+The door was open.  Beyond, in the dimly lighted room, sat Leslie
+Moore, with her arms flung out on the table and her head bent upon
+them.  She was weeping horribly--with low, fierce, choking sobs, as if
+some agony in her soul were trying to tear itself out.  An old black
+dog was sitting by her, his nose resting on his lap, his big doggish
+eyes full of mute, imploring sympathy and devotion.  Anne drew back in
+dismay.  She felt that she could not intermeddle with this bitterness.
+Her heart ached with a sympathy she might not utter.  To go in now
+would be to shut the door forever on any possible help or friendship.
+Some instinct warned Anne that the proud, bitter girl would never
+forgive the one who thus surprised her in her abandonment of despair.
+
+Anne slipped noiselessly from the veranda and found her way across the
+yard.  Beyond, she heard voices in the gloom and saw the dim glow of a
+light.  At the gate she met two men--Captain Jim with a lantern, and
+another who she knew must be Dick Moore--a big man, badly gone to fat,
+with a broad, round, red face, and vacant eyes.  Even in the dull light
+Anne got the impression that there was something unusual about his eyes.
+
+“Is this you, Mistress Blythe?” said Captain Jim.  “Now, now, you
+hadn’t oughter be roaming about alone on a night like this.  You could
+get lost in this fog easier than not.  Jest you wait till I see Dick
+safe inside the door and I’ll come back and light you over the fields.
+I ain’t going to have Dr. Blythe coming home and finding that you
+walked clean over Cape Leforce in the fog.  A woman did that once,
+forty years ago.
+
+“So you’ve been over to see Leslie,” he said, when he rejoined her.
+
+“I didn’t go in,” said Anne, and told what she had seen.  Captain Jim
+sighed.
+
+“Poor, poor, little girl!  She don’t cry often, Mistress Blythe--she’s
+too brave for that.  She must feel terrible when she does cry.  A night
+like this is hard on poor women who have sorrows.  There’s something
+about it that kinder brings up all we’ve suffered--or feared.”
+
+“It’s full of ghosts,” said Anne, with a shiver.  “That was why I came
+over--I wanted to clasp a human hand and hear a human voice.
+
+“There seem to be so many INHUMAN presences about tonight.  Even my own
+dear house was full of them.  They fairly elbowed me out.  So I fled
+over here for companionship of my kind.”
+
+“You were right not to go in, though, Mistress Blythe.  Leslie wouldn’t
+have liked it.  She wouldn’t have liked me going in with Dick, as I’d
+have done if I hadn’t met you.  I had Dick down with me all day.  I
+keep him with me as much as I can to help Leslie a bit.”
+
+“Isn’t there something odd about his eyes?” asked Anne.
+
+“You noticed that?  Yes, one is blue and t’other is hazel--his father
+had the same.  It’s a Moore peculiarity.  That was what told me he was
+Dick Moore when I saw him first down in Cuby.  If it hadn’t a-bin for
+his eyes I mightn’t a-known him, with his beard and fat.  You know, I
+reckon, that it was me found him and brought him home.  Miss Cornelia
+always says I shouldn’t have done it, but I can’t agree with her.  It
+was the RIGHT thing to do--and so ’twas the only thing.  There ain’t no
+question in my mind about THAT.  But my old heart aches for Leslie.
+She’s only twenty-eight and she’s eaten more bread with sorrow than
+most women do in eighty years.”
+
+They walked on in silence for a little while.  Presently Anne said, “Do
+you know, Captain Jim, I never like walking with a lantern.  I have
+always the strangest feeling that just outside the circle of light,
+just over its edge in the darkness, I am surrounded by a ring of
+furtive, sinister things, watching me from the shadows with hostile
+eyes.  I’ve had that feeling from childhood.  What is the reason?  I
+never feel like that when I’m really in the darkness--when it is close
+all around me--I’m not the least frightened.”
+
+“I’ve something of that feeling myself,” admitted Captain Jim.  “I
+reckon when the darkness is close to us it is a friend.  But when we
+sorter push it away from us--divorce ourselves from it, so to speak,
+with lantern light--it becomes an enemy.  But the fog is lifting.
+
+“There’s a smart west wind rising, if you notice.  The stars will be
+out when you get home.”
+
+They were out; and when Anne re-entered her house of dreams the red
+embers were still glowing on the hearth, and all the haunting presences
+were gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 14
+
+NOVEMBER DAYS
+
+The splendor of color which had glowed for weeks along the shores of
+Four Winds Harbor had faded out into the soft gray-blue of late
+autumnal hills.  There came many days when fields and shores were dim
+with misty rain, or shivering before the breath of a melancholy
+sea-wind--nights, too, of storm and tempest, when Anne sometimes
+wakened to pray that no ship might be beating up the grim north shore,
+for if it were so not even the great, faithful light whirling through
+the darkness unafraid, could avail to guide it into safe haven.
+
+“In November I sometimes feel as if spring could never come again,” she
+sighed, grieving over the hopeless unsightliness of her frosted and
+bedraggled flower-plots.  The gay little garden of the schoolmaster’s
+bride was rather a forlorn place now, and the Lombardies and birches
+were under bare poles, as Captain Jim said.  But the fir-wood behind
+the little house was forever green and staunch; and even in November
+and December there came gracious days of sunshine and purple hazes,
+when the harbor danced and sparkled as blithely as in midsummer, and
+the gulf was so softly blue and tender that the storm and the wild wind
+seemed only things of a long-past dream.
+
+Anne and Gilbert spent many an autumn evening at the lighthouse.  It
+was always a cheery place.  Even when the east wind sang in minor and
+the sea was dead and gray, hints of sunshine seemed to be lurking all
+about it.  Perhaps this was because the First Mate always paraded it in
+panoply of gold.  He was so large and effulgent that one hardly missed
+the sun, and his resounding purrs formed a pleasant accompaniment to
+the laughter and conversation which went on around Captain Jim’s
+fireplace.  Captain Jim and Gilbert had many long discussions and high
+converse on matters beyond the ken of cat or king.
+
+“I like to ponder on all kinds of problems, though I can’t solve ’em,”
+said Captain Jim.  “My father held that we should never talk of things
+we couldn’t understand, but if we didn’t, doctor, the subjects for
+conversation would be mighty few.  I reckon the gods laugh many a time
+to hear us, but what matters so long as we remember that we’re only men
+and don’t take to fancying that we’re gods ourselves, really, knowing
+good and evil.  I reckon our pow-wows won’t do us or anyone much harm,
+so let’s have another whack at the whence, why and whither this
+evening, doctor.”
+
+While they “whacked,” Anne listened or dreamed.  Sometimes Leslie went
+to the lighthouse with them, and she and Anne wandered along the shore
+in the eerie twilight, or sat on the rocks below the lighthouse until
+the darkness drove them back to the cheer of the driftwood fire.  Then
+Captain Jim would brew them tea and tell them
+
+    “tales of land and sea
+    And whatsoever might betide
+    The great forgotten world outside.”
+
+Leslie seemed always to enjoy those lighthouse carousals very much, and
+bloomed out for the time being into ready wit and beautiful laughter,
+or glowing-eyed silence.  There was a certain tang and savor in the
+conversation when Leslie was present which they missed when she was
+absent.  Even when she did not talk she seemed to inspire others to
+brilliancy.  Captain Jim told his stories better, Gilbert was quicker
+in argument and repartee, Anne felt little gushes and trickles of fancy
+and imagination bubbling to her lips under the influence of Leslie’s
+personality.
+
+“That girl was born to be a leader in social and intellectual circles,
+far away from Four Winds,” she said to Gilbert as they walked home one
+night.  “She’s just wasted here--wasted.”
+
+“Weren’t you listening to Captain Jim and yours truly the other night
+when we discussed that subject generally?  We came to the comforting
+conclusion that the Creator probably knew how to run His universe quite
+as well as we do, and that, after all, there are no such things as
+‘wasted’ lives, saving and except when an individual wilfully squanders
+and wastes his own life--which Leslie Moore certainly hasn’t done.  And
+some people might think that a Redmond B.A., whom editors were
+beginning to honor, was ‘wasted’ as the wife of a struggling country
+doctor in the rural community of Four Winds.”
+
+“Gilbert!”
+
+“If you had married Roy Gardner, now,” continued Gilbert mercilessly,
+“YOU could have been ‘a leader in social and intellectual circles far
+away from Four Winds.’”
+
+“Gilbert BLYTHE!”
+
+“You KNOW you were in love with him at one time, Anne.”
+
+“Gilbert, that’s mean--‘pisen mean, just like all the men,’ as Miss
+Cornelia says.  I NEVER was in love with him.  I only imagined I was.
+YOU know that.  You KNOW I’d rather be your wife in our house of dreams
+and fulfillment than a queen in a palace.”
+
+Gilbert’s answer was not in words; but I am afraid that both of them
+forgot poor Leslie speeding her lonely way across the fields to a house
+that was neither a palace nor the fulfillment of a dream.
+
+The moon was rising over the sad, dark sea behind them and
+transfiguring it.  Her light had not yet reached the harbor, the
+further side of which was shadowy and suggestive, with dim coves and
+rich glooms and jewelling lights.
+
+“How the home lights shine out tonight through the dark!” said Anne.
+“That string of them over the harbor looks like a necklace.  And what a
+coruscation there is up at the Glen!  Oh, look, Gilbert; there is ours.
+I’m so glad we left it burning.  I hate to come home to a dark house.
+OUR homelight, Gilbert!  Isn’t it lovely to see?”
+
+“Just one of earth’s many millions of homes, Anne--girl--but
+ours--OURS--our beacon in ‘a naughty world.’  When a fellow has a home
+and a dear, little, red-haired wife in it what more need he ask of
+life?”
+
+“Well, he might ask ONE thing more,” whispered Anne happily.  “Oh,
+Gilbert, it seems as if I just COULDN’T wait for the spring.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 15
+
+CHRISTMAS AT FOUR WINDS
+
+At first Anne and Gilbert talked of going home to Avonlea for
+Christmas; but eventually they decided to stay in Four Winds.  “I want
+to spend the first Christmas of our life together in our own home,”
+decreed Anne.
+
+So it fell out that Marilla and Mrs. Rachel Lynde and the twins came to
+Four Winds for Christmas.  Marilla had the face of a woman who had
+circumnavigated the globe.  She had never been sixty miles away from
+home before; and she had never eaten a Christmas dinner anywhere save
+at Green Gables.
+
+Mrs. Rachel had made and brought with her an enormous plum pudding.
+Nothing could have convinced Mrs. Rachel that a college graduate of the
+younger generation could make a Christmas plum pudding properly; but
+she bestowed approval on Anne’s house.
+
+“Anne’s a good housekeeper,” she said to Marilla in the spare room the
+night of their arrival.  “I’ve looked into her bread box and her scrap
+pail.  I always judge a housekeeper by those, that’s what.  There’s
+nothing in the pail that shouldn’t have been thrown away, and no stale
+pieces in the bread box.  Of course, she was trained up with you--but,
+then, she went to college afterwards.  I notice she’s got my tobacco
+stripe quilt on the bed here, and that big round braided mat of yours
+before her living-room fire.  It makes me feel right at home.”
+
+Anne’s first Christmas in her own house was as delightful as she could
+have wished.  The day was fine and bright; the first skim of snow had
+fallen on Christmas Eve and made the world beautiful; the harbor was
+still open and glittering.
+
+Captain Jim and Miss Cornelia came to dinner.  Leslie and Dick had been
+invited, but Leslie made excuse; they always went to her Uncle Isaac
+West’s for Christmas, she said.
+
+“She’d rather have it so,” Miss Cornelia told Anne.  “She can’t bear
+taking Dick where there are strangers.  Christmas is always a hard time
+for Leslie.  She and her father used to make a lot of it.”
+
+Miss Cornelia and Mrs. Rachel did not take a very violent fancy to each
+other.  “Two suns hold not their courses in one sphere.”  But they did
+not clash at all, for Mrs. Rachel was in the kitchen helping Anne and
+Marilla with the dinner, and it fell to Gilbert to entertain Captain
+Jim and Miss Cornelia,--or rather to be entertained by them, for a
+dialogue between those two old friends and antagonists was assuredly
+never dull.
+
+“It’s many a year since there was a Christmas dinner here, Mistress
+Blythe,” said Captain Jim.  “Miss Russell always went to her friends in
+town for Christmas.  But I was here to the first Christmas dinner that
+was ever eaten in this house--and the schoolmaster’s bride cooked it.
+That was sixty years ago today, Mistress Blythe--and a day very like
+this--just enough snow to make the hills white, and the harbor as blue
+as June.  I was only a lad, and I’d never been invited out to dinner
+before, and I was too shy to eat enough.  I’ve got all over THAT.”
+
+“Most men do,” said Miss Cornelia, sewing furiously.  Miss Cornelia was
+not going to sit with idle hands, even on Christmas.
+
+Babies come without any consideration for holidays, and there was one
+expected in a poverty-stricken household at Glen St. Mary.  Miss
+Cornelia had sent that household a substantial dinner for its little
+swarm, and so meant to eat her own with a comfortable conscience.
+
+“Well, you know, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,
+Cornelia,” explained Captain Jim.
+
+“I believe you--when he HAS a heart,” retorted Miss Cornelia.  “I
+suppose that’s why so many women kill themselves cooking--just as poor
+Amelia Baxter did.  She died last Christmas morning, and she said it
+was the first Christmas since she was married that she didn’t have to
+cook a big, twenty-plate dinner.  It must have been a real pleasant
+change for her.  Well, she’s been dead a year, so you’ll soon hear of
+Horace Baxter taking notice.”
+
+“I heard he was taking notice already,” said Captain Jim, winking at
+Gilbert.  “Wasn’t he up to your place one Sunday lately, with his
+funeral blacks on, and a boiled collar?”
+
+“No, he wasn’t.  And he needn’t come neither.  I could have had him
+long ago when he was fresh.  I don’t want any second-hand goods,
+believe ME.  As for Horace Baxter, he was in financial difficulties a
+year ago last summer, and he prayed to the Lord for help; and when his
+wife died and he got her life insurance he said he believed it was the
+answer to his prayer.  Wasn’t that like a man?”
+
+“Have you really proof that he said that, Cornelia?”
+
+“I have the Methodist minister’s word for it--if you call THAT proof.
+Robert Baxter told me the same thing too, but I admit THAT isn’t
+evidence.  Robert Baxter isn’t often known to tell the truth.”
+
+“Come, come, Cornelia, I think he generally tells the truth, but he
+changes his opinion so often it sometimes sounds as if he didn’t.”
+
+“It sounds like it mighty often, believe ME.  But trust one man to
+excuse another.  I have no use for Robert Baxter.  He turned Methodist
+just because the Presbyterian choir happened to be singing ‘Behold the
+bridegroom cometh’ for a collection piece when him and Margaret walked
+up the aisle the Sunday after they were married.  Served him right for
+being late!  He always insisted the choir did it on purpose to insult
+him, as if he was of that much importance.  But that family always
+thought they were much bigger potatoes than they really were.  His
+brother Eliphalet imagined the devil was always at his elbow--but _I_
+never believed the devil wasted that much time on him.”
+
+“I--don’t--know,” said Captain Jim thoughtfully.  “Eliphalet Baxter
+lived too much alone--hadn’t even a cat or dog to keep him human.  When
+a man is alone he’s mighty apt to be with the devil--if he ain’t with
+God.  He has to choose which company he’ll keep, I reckon.  If the
+devil always was at Life Baxter’s elbow it must have been because Life
+liked to have him there.”
+
+“Man-like,” said Miss Cornelia, and subsided into silence over a
+complicated arrangement of tucks until Captain Jim deliberately stirred
+her up again by remarking in a casual way:
+
+“I was up to the Methodist church last Sunday morning.”
+
+“You’d better have been home reading your Bible,” was Miss Cornelia’s
+retort.
+
+“Come, now, Cornelia, _I_ can’t see any harm in going to the Methodist
+church when there’s no preaching in your own.  I’ve been a Presbyterian
+for seventy-six years, and it isn’t likely my theology will hoist
+anchor at this late day.”
+
+“It’s setting a bad example,” said Miss Cornelia grimly.
+
+“Besides,” continued wicked Captain Jim, “I wanted to hear some good
+singing.  The Methodists have a good choir; and you can’t deny,
+Cornelia, that the singing in our church is awful since the split in
+the choir.”
+
+“What if the singing isn’t good?  They’re doing their best, and God
+sees no difference between the voice of a crow and the voice of a
+nightingale.”
+
+“Come, come, Cornelia,” said Captain Jim mildly, “I’ve a better opinion
+of the Almighty’s ear for music than THAT.”
+
+“What caused the trouble in our choir?” asked Gilbert, who was
+suffering from suppressed laughter.
+
+“It dates back to the new church, three years ago,” answered Captain
+Jim.  “We had a fearful time over the building of that church--fell out
+over the question of a new site.  The two sites wasn’t more’n two
+hundred yards apart, but you’d have thought they was a thousand by the
+bitterness of that fight.  We was split up into three factions--one
+wanted the east site and one the south, and one held to the old.  It
+was fought out in bed and at board, and in church and at market.  All
+the old scandals of three generations were dragged out of their graves
+and aired.  Three matches was broken up by it.  And the meetings we had
+to try to settle the question!  Cornelia, will you ever forget the one
+when old Luther Burns got up and made a speech?  HE stated his opinions
+forcibly.”
+
+“Call a spade a spade, Captain.  You mean he got red-mad and raked them
+all, fore and aft.  They deserved it too--a pack of incapables.  But
+what would you expect of a committee of men?  That building committee
+held twenty-seven meetings, and at the end of the twenty-seventh
+weren’t no nearer having a church than when they begun--not so near,
+for a fact, for in one fit of hurrying things along they’d gone to work
+and tore the old church down, so there we were, without a church, and
+no place but the hall to worship in.”
+
+“The Methodists offered us their church, Cornelia.”
+
+“The Glen St. Mary church wouldn’t have been built to this day,” went
+on Miss Cornelia, ignoring Captain Jim, “if we women hadn’t just
+started in and took charge.  We said WE meant to have a church, if the
+men meant to quarrel till doomsday, and we were tired of being a
+laughing-stock for the Methodists.  We held ONE meeting and elected a
+committee and canvassed for subscriptions.  We got them, too.  When any
+of the men tried to sass us we told them they’d tried for two years to
+build a church and it was our turn now.  We shut them up close, believe
+ME, and in six months we had our church.  Of course, when the men saw
+we were determined they stopped fighting and went to work, man-like, as
+soon as they saw they had to, or quit bossing.  Oh, women can’t preach
+or be elders; but they can build churches and scare up the money for
+them.”
+
+“The Methodists allow women to preach,” said Captain Jim.
+
+Miss Cornelia glared at him.
+
+“I never said the Methodists hadn’t common sense, Captain. What I say
+is, I doubt if they have much religion.”
+
+“I suppose you are in favor of votes for women, Miss Cornelia,” said
+Gilbert.
+
+“I’m not hankering after the vote, believe ME,” said Miss Cornelia
+scornfully.  “_I_ know what it is to clean up after the men.  But some
+of these days, when the men realize they’ve got the world into a mess
+they can’t get it out of, they’ll be glad to give us the vote, and
+shoulder their troubles over on us.  That’s THEIR scheme.  Oh, it’s
+well that women are patient, believe ME!”
+
+“What about Job?” suggested Captain Jim.
+
+“Job!  It was such a rare thing to find a patient man that when one was
+really discovered they were determined he shouldn’t be forgotten,”
+retorted Miss Cornelia triumphantly.  “Anyhow, the virtue doesn’t go
+with the name.  There never was such an impatient man born as old Job
+Taylor over harbor.”
+
+“Well, you know, he had a good deal to try him, Cornelia.  Even you
+can’t defend his wife.  I always remember what old William MacAllister
+said of her at her funeral, ‘There’s nae doot she was a Chreestian
+wumman, but she had the de’il’s own temper.’”
+
+“I suppose she WAS trying,” admitted Miss Cornelia reluctantly, “but
+that didn’t justify what Job said when she died.  He rode home from the
+graveyard the day of the funeral with my father.  He never said a word
+till they got near home.  Then he heaved a big sigh and said, ‘You may
+not believe it, Stephen, but this is the happiest day of my life!’
+Wasn’t that like a man?”
+
+“I s’pose poor old Mrs. Job did make life kinder uneasy for him,”
+reflected Captain Jim.
+
+“Well, there’s such a thing as decency, isn’t there?  Even if a man is
+rejoicing in his heart over his wife being dead, he needn’t proclaim it
+to the four winds of heaven.  And happy day or not, Job Taylor wasn’t
+long in marrying again, you might notice.  His second wife could manage
+him.  She made him walk Spanish, believe me!  The first thing she did
+was to make him hustle round and put up a tombstone to the first Mrs.
+Job--and she had a place left on it for her own name.  She said there’d
+be nobody to make Job put up a monument to HER.”
+
+“Speaking of Taylors, how is Mrs. Lewis Taylor up at the Glen, doctor?”
+asked Captain Jim.
+
+“She’s getting better slowly--but she has to work too hard,” replied
+Gilbert.
+
+“Her husband works hard too--raising prize pigs,” said Miss Cornelia.
+“He’s noted for his beautiful pigs.  He’s a heap prouder of his pigs
+than of his children.  But then, to be sure, his pigs are the best pigs
+possible, while his children don’t amount to much.  He picked a poor
+mother for them, and starved her while she was bearing and rearing
+them.  His pigs got the cream and his children got the skim milk.
+
+“There are times, Cornelia, when I have to agree with you, though it
+hurts me,” said Captain Jim.  “That’s just exactly the truth about
+Lewis Taylor.  When I see those poor, miserable children of his, robbed
+of all children ought to have, it p’isens my own bite and sup for days
+afterwards.”
+
+Gilbert went out to the kitchen in response to Anne’s beckoning.  Anne
+shut the door and gave him a connubial lecture.
+
+“Gilbert, you and Captain Jim must stop baiting Miss Cornelia.  Oh,
+I’ve been listening to you--and I just won’t allow it.”
+
+‘Anne, Miss Cornelia is enjoying herself hugely.  You know she is.’
+
+“Well, never mind.  You two needn’t egg her on like that.  Dinner is
+ready now, and, Gilbert, DON’T let Mrs. Rachel carve the geese.  I know
+she means to offer to do it because she doesn’t think you can do it
+properly.  Show her you can.”
+
+“I ought to be able to.  I’ve been studying A-B-C-D diagrams of carving
+for the past month,” said Gilbert.  “Only don’t talk to me while I’m
+doing it, Anne, for if you drive the letters out of my head I’ll be in
+a worse predicament than you were in old geometry days when the teacher
+changed them.”
+
+Gilbert carved the geese beautifully.  Even Mrs. Rachel had to admit
+that.  And everybody ate of them and enjoyed them.  Anne’s first
+Christmas dinner was a great success and she beamed with housewifely
+pride.  Merry was the feast and long; and when it was over they
+gathered around the cheer of the red hearth flame and Captain Jim told
+them stories until the red sun swung low over Four Winds Harbor, and
+the long blue shadows of the Lombardies fell across the snow in the
+lane.
+
+“I must be getting back to the light,” he said finally.  “I’ll jest
+have time to walk home before sundown.  Thank you for a beautiful
+Christmas, Mistress Blythe.  Bring Master Davy down to the light some
+night before he goes home.
+
+“I want to see those stone gods,” said Davy with a relish.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 16
+
+NEW YEAR’S EVE AT THE LIGHT
+
+The Green Gables folk went home after Christmas, Marilla under solemn
+covenant to return for a month in the spring.  More snow came before
+New Year’s, and the harbor froze over, but the gulf still was free,
+beyond the white, imprisoned fields.  The last day of the old year was
+one of those bright, cold, dazzling winter days, which bombard us with
+their brilliancy, and command our admiration but never our love.  The
+sky was sharp and blue; the snow diamonds sparkled insistently; the
+stark trees were bare and shameless, with a kind of brazen beauty; the
+hills shot assaulting lances of crystal.  Even the shadows were sharp
+and stiff and clear-cut, as no proper shadows should be.  Everything
+that was handsome seemed ten times handsomer and less attractive in the
+glaring splendor; and everything that was ugly seemed ten times uglier,
+and everything was either handsome or ugly.  There was no soft
+blending, or kind obscurity, or elusive mistiness in that searching
+glitter.  The only things that held their own individuality were the
+firs--for the fir is the tree of mystery and shadow, and yields never
+to the encroachments of crude radiance.
+
+But finally the day began to realise that she was growing old.  Then a
+certain pensiveness fell over her beauty which dimmed yet intensified
+it; sharp angles, glittering points, melted away into curves and
+enticing gleams.  The white harbor put on soft grays and pinks; the
+far-away hills turned amethyst.
+
+“The old year is going away beautifully,” said Anne.
+
+She and Leslie and Gilbert were on their way to the Four Winds Point,
+having plotted with Captain Jim to watch the New Year in at the light.
+The sun had set and in the southwestern sky hung Venus, glorious and
+golden, having drawn as near to her earth-sister as is possible for
+her.  For the first time Anne and Gilbert saw the shadow cast by that
+brilliant star of evening, that faint, mysterious shadow, never seen
+save when there is white snow to reveal it, and then only with averted
+vision, vanishing when you gaze at it directly.
+
+“It’s like the spirit of a shadow, isn’t it?” whispered Anne.  “You can
+see it so plainly haunting your side when you look ahead; but when you
+turn and look at it--it’s gone.”
+
+“I have heard that you can see the shadow of Venus only once in a
+lifetime, and that within a year of seeing it your life’s most
+wonderful gift will come to you,” said Leslie.  But she spoke rather
+hardly; perhaps she thought that even the shadow of Venus could bring
+her no gift of life.  Anne smiled in the soft twilight; she felt quite
+sure what the mystic shadow promised her.
+
+They found Marshall Elliott at the lighthouse.  At first Anne felt
+inclined to resent the intrusion of this long-haired, long-bearded
+eccentric into the familiar little circle.  But Marshall Elliott soon
+proved his legitimate claim to membership in the household of Joseph.
+He was a witty, intelligent, well-read man, rivalling Captain Jim
+himself in the knack of telling a good story.  They were all glad when
+he agreed to watch the old year out with them.
+
+Captain Jim’s small nephew Joe had come down to spend New Year’s with
+his great-uncle, and had fallen asleep on the sofa with the First Mate
+curled up in a huge golden ball at his feet.
+
+“Ain’t he a dear little man?” said Captain Jim gloatingly.  “I do love
+to watch a little child asleep, Mistress Blythe.  It’s the most
+beautiful sight in the world, I reckon.  Joe does love to get down here
+for a night, because I have him sleep with me.  At home he has to sleep
+with the other two boys, and he doesn’t like it.  Why can’t I sleep
+with father, Uncle Jim?” says he.  ‘Everybody in the Bible slept with
+their fathers.’  As for the questions he asks, the minister himself
+couldn’t answer them.  They fair swamp me.  ‘Uncle Jim, if I wasn’t ME
+who’d I be?’ and, ‘Uncle Jim, what would happen if God died?’  He fired
+them two off at me tonight, afore he went to sleep.  As for his
+imagination, it sails away from everything.  He makes up the most
+remarkable yarns--and then his mother shuts him up in the closet for
+telling stories.  And he sits down and makes up another one, and has it
+ready to relate to her when she lets him out.  He had one for me when
+he come down tonight.  ‘Uncle Jim,’ says he, solemn as a tombstone, ‘I
+had a ’venture in the Glen today.’  ‘Yes, what was it?’ says I,
+expecting something quite startling, but nowise prepared for what I
+really got.  ‘I met a wolf in the street,’ says he, ‘a ’normous wolf
+with a big, red mouf and AWFUL long teeth, Uncle Jim.’  ‘I didn’t know
+there was any wolves up at the Glen,’ says I.  ‘Oh, he comed there from
+far, far away,’ says Joe, ‘and I fought he was going to eat me up,
+Uncle Jim.’  ‘Were you scared?’ says I.  ‘No, ’cause I had a big gun,’
+says Joe, ‘and I shot the wolf dead, Uncle Jim,--solid dead--and then
+he went up to heaven and bit God,’ says he.  Well, I was fair
+staggered, Mistress Blythe.”
+
+The hours bloomed into mirth around the driftwood fire.  Captain Jim
+told tales, and Marshall Elliott sang old Scotch ballads in a fine
+tenor voice; finally Captain Jim took down his old brown fiddle from
+the wall and began to play.  He had a tolerable knack of fiddling,
+which all appreciated save the First Mate, who sprang from the sofa as
+if he had been shot, emitted a shriek of protest, and fled wildly up
+the stairs.
+
+“Can’t cultivate an ear for music in that cat nohow,” said Captain Jim.
+“He won’t stay long enough to learn to like it.  When we got the organ
+up at the Glen church old Elder Richards bounced up from his seat the
+minute the organist began to play and scuttled down the aisle and out
+of the church at the rate of no-man’s-business.  It reminded me so
+strong of the First Mate tearing loose as soon as I begin to fiddle
+that I come nearer to laughing out loud in church than I ever did
+before or since.”
+
+There was something so infectious in the rollicking tunes which Captain
+Jim played that very soon Marshall Elliott’s feet began to twitch.  He
+had been a noted dancer in his youth.  Presently he started up and held
+out his hands to Leslie.  Instantly she responded.  Round and round the
+firelit room they circled with a rhythmic grace that was wonderful.
+Leslie danced like one inspired; the wild, sweet abandon of the music
+seemed to have entered into and possessed her.  Anne watched her in
+fascinated admiration.  She had never seen her like this.  All the
+innate richness and color and charm of her nature seemed to have broken
+loose and overflowed in crimson cheek and glowing eye and grace of
+motion.  Even the aspect of Marshall Elliott, with his long beard and
+hair, could not spoil the picture.  On the contrary, it seemed to
+enhance it.  Marshall Elliott looked like a Viking of elder days,
+dancing with one of the blue-eyed, golden-haired daughters of the
+Northland.
+
+“The purtiest dancing I ever saw, and I’ve seen some in my time,”
+declared Captain Jim, when at last the bow fell from his tired hand.
+Leslie dropped into her chair, laughing, breathless.
+
+“I love dancing,” she said apart to Anne.  “I haven’t danced since I
+was sixteen--but I love it.  The music seems to run through my veins
+like quicksilver and I forget everything--everything--except the
+delight of keeping time to it.  There isn’t any floor beneath me, or
+walls about me, or roof over me--I’m floating amid the stars.”
+
+Captain Jim hung his fiddle up in its place, beside a large frame
+enclosing several banknotes.
+
+“Is there anybody else of your acquaintance who can afford to hang his
+walls with banknotes for pictures?” he asked.  “There’s twenty
+ten-dollar notes there, not worth the glass over them.  They’re old
+Bank of P. E.  Island notes.  Had them by me when the bank failed, and
+I had ’em framed and hung up, partly as a reminder not to put your
+trust in banks, and partly to give me a real luxurious, millionairy
+feeling.  Hullo, Matey, don’t be scared.  You can come back now.  The
+music and revelry is over for tonight.  The old year has just another
+hour to stay with us.  I’ve seen seventy-six New Years come in over
+that gulf yonder, Mistress Blythe.”
+
+“You’ll see a hundred,” said Marshall Elliott.
+
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+
+“No; and I don’t want to--at least, I think I don’t.  Death grows
+friendlier as we grow older.  Not that one of us really wants to die
+though, Marshall.  Tennyson spoke truth when he said that.  There’s old
+Mrs. Wallace up at the Glen.  She’s had heaps of trouble all her life,
+poor soul, and she’s lost almost everyone she cared about.  She’s
+always saying that she’ll be glad when her time comes, and she doesn’t
+want to sojourn any longer in this vale of tears.  But when she takes a
+sick spell there’s a fuss!  Doctors from town, and a trained nurse, and
+enough medicine to kill a dog.  Life may be a vale of tears, all right,
+but there are some folks who enjoy weeping, I reckon.”
+
+They spent the old year’s last hour quietly around the fire.  A few
+minutes before twelve Captain Jim rose and opened the door.
+
+“We must let the New Year in,” he said.
+
+Outside was a fine blue night.  A sparkling ribbon of moonlight
+garlanded the gulf.  Inside the bar the harbor shone like a pavement of
+pearl.  They stood before the door and waited--Captain Jim with his
+ripe, full experience, Marshall Elliott in his vigorous but empty
+middle life, Gilbert and Anne with their precious memories and
+exquisite hopes, Leslie with her record of starved years and her
+hopeless future.  The clock on the little shelf above the fireplace
+struck twelve.
+
+“Welcome, New Year,” said Captain Jim, bowing low as the last stroke
+died away.  “I wish you all the best year of your lives, mates.  I
+reckon that whatever the New Year brings us will be the best the Great
+Captain has for us--and somehow or other we’ll all make port in a good
+harbor.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 17
+
+A FOUR WINDS WINTER
+
+Winter set in vigorously after New Year’s.  Big, white drifts heaped
+themselves about the little house, and palms of frost covered its
+windows.  The harbor ice grew harder and thicker, until the Four Winds
+people began their usual winter travelling over it.  The safe ways were
+“bushed” by a benevolent Government, and night and day the gay tinkle
+of the sleigh-bells sounded on it.  On moonlit nights Anne heard them
+in her house of dreams like fairy chimes.  The gulf froze over, and the
+Four Winds light flashed no more.  During the months when navigation
+was closed Captain Jim’s office was a sinecure.
+
+“The First Mate and I will have nothing to do till spring except keep
+warm and amuse ourselves.  The last lighthouse keeper used always to
+move up to the Glen in winter; but I’d rather stay at the Point.  The
+First Mate might get poisoned or chewed up by dogs at the Glen.  It’s a
+mite lonely, to be sure, with neither the light nor the water for
+company, but if our friends come to see us often we’ll weather it
+through.”
+
+Captain Jim had an ice boat, and many a wild, glorious spin Gilbert and
+Anne and Leslie had over the glib harbor ice with him.  Anne and Leslie
+took long snowshoe tramps together, too, over the fields, or across the
+harbor after storms, or through the woods beyond the Glen.  They were
+very good comrades in their rambles and their fireside communings.
+Each had something to give the other--each felt life the richer for
+friendly exchange of thought and friendly silence; each looked across
+the white fields between their homes with a pleasant consciousness of a
+friend beyond.  But, in spite of all this, Anne felt that there was
+always a barrier between Leslie and herself--a constraint that never
+wholly vanished.
+
+“I don’t know why I can’t get closer to her,” Anne said one evening to
+Captain Jim.  “I like her so much--I admire her so much--I WANT to take
+her right into my heart and creep right into hers.  But I can never
+cross the barrier.”
+
+“You’ve been too happy all your life, Mistress Blythe,” said Captain
+Jim thoughtfully.  “I reckon that’s why you and Leslie can’t get real
+close together in your souls.  The barrier between you is her
+experience of sorrow and trouble.  She ain’t responsible for it and you
+ain’t; but it’s there and neither of you can cross it.”
+
+“My childhood wasn’t very happy before I came to Green Gables,” said
+Anne, gazing soberly out of the window at the still, sad, dead beauty
+of the leafless tree-shadows on the moonlit snow.
+
+“Mebbe not--but it was just the usual unhappiness of a child who hasn’t
+anyone to look after it properly.  There hasn’t been any TRAGEDY in
+your life, Mistress Blythe.  And poor Leslie’s has been almost ALL
+tragedy.  She feels, I reckon, though mebbe she hardly knows she feels
+it, that there’s a vast deal in her life you can’t enter nor
+understand--and so she has to keep you back from it--hold you off, so
+to speak, from hurting her.  You know if we’ve got anything about us
+that hurts we shrink from anyone’s touch on or near it.  It holds good
+with our souls as well as our bodies, I reckon.  Leslie’s soul must be
+near raw--it’s no wonder she hides it away.”
+
+“If that were really all, I wouldn’t mind, Captain Jim.  I would
+understand.  But there are times--not always, but now and again--when I
+almost have to believe that Leslie doesn’t--doesn’t like me.  Sometimes
+I surprise a look in her eyes that seems to show resentment and
+dislike--it goes so quickly--but I’ve seen it, I’m sure of that.  And
+it hurts me, Captain Jim.  I’m not used to being disliked--and I’ve
+tried so hard to win Leslie’s friendship.”
+
+“You have won it, Mistress Blythe.  Don’t you go cherishing any foolish
+notion that Leslie don’t like you.  If she didn’t she wouldn’t have
+anything to do with you, much less chumming with you as she does.  I
+know Leslie Moore too well not to be sure of that.”
+
+“The first time I ever saw her, driving her geese down the hill on the
+day I came to Four Winds, she looked at me with the same expression,”
+persisted Anne.  “I felt it, even in the midst of my admiration of her
+beauty.  She looked at me resentfully--she did, indeed, Captain Jim.”
+
+“The resentment must have been about something else, Mistress Blythe,
+and you jest come in for a share of it because you happened past.
+Leslie DOES take sullen spells now and again, poor girl.  I can’t blame
+her, when I know what she has to put up with.  I don’t know why it’s
+permitted.  The doctor and I have talked a lot abut the origin of evil,
+but we haven’t quite found out all about it yet.  There’s a vast of
+onunderstandable things in life, ain’t there, Mistress Blythe?
+Sometimes things seem to work out real proper-like, same as with you
+and the doctor.  And then again they all seem to go catawampus.
+There’s Leslie, so clever and beautiful you’d think she was meant for a
+queen, and instead she’s cooped up over there, robbed of almost
+everything a woman’d value, with no prospect except waiting on Dick
+Moore all her life.  Though, mind you, Mistress Blythe, I daresay she’d
+choose her life now, such as it is, rather than the life she lived with
+Dick before he went away.  THAT’S something a clumsy old sailor’s
+tongue mustn’t meddle with.  But you’ve helped Leslie a lot--she’s a
+different creature since you come to Four Winds.  Us old friends see
+the difference in her, as you can’t.  Miss Cornelia and me was talking
+it over the other day, and it’s one of the mighty few p’ints that we
+see eye to eye on.  So jest you throw overboard any idea of her not
+liking you.”
+
+Anne could hardly discard it completely, for there were undoubtedly
+times when she felt, with an instinct that was not to be combated by
+reason, that Leslie harbored a queer, indefinable resentment towards
+her.  At times, this secret consciousness marred the delight of their
+comradeship; at others it was almost forgotten; but Anne always felt
+the hidden thorn was there, and might prick her at any moment.  She
+felt a cruel sting from it on the day when she told Leslie of what she
+hoped the spring would bring to the little house of dreams.  Leslie
+looked at her with hard, bitter, unfriendly eyes.
+
+“So you are to have THAT, too,” she said in a choked voice.  And
+without another word she had turned and gone across the fields
+homeward.  Anne was deeply hurt; for the moment she felt as if she
+could never like Leslie again.  But when Leslie came over a few
+evenings later she was so pleasant, so friendly, so frank, and witty,
+and winsome, that Anne was charmed into forgiveness and forgetfulness.
+Only, she never mentioned her darling hope to Leslie again; nor did
+Leslie ever refer to it.  But one evening, when late winter was
+listening for the word of spring, she came over to the little house for
+a twilight chat; and when she went away she left a small, white box on
+the table.  Anne found it after she was gone and opened it wonderingly.
+In it was a tiny white dress of exquisite workmanship--delicate
+embroidery, wonderful tucking, sheer loveliness.  Every stitch in it
+was handwork; and the little frills of lace at neck and sleeves were of
+real Valenciennes.  Lying on it was a card--“with Leslie’s love.”
+
+“What hours of work she must have put on it,” said Anne.  “And the
+material must have cost more than she could really afford.  It is very
+sweet of her.”
+
+But Leslie was brusque and curt when Anne thanked her, and again the
+latter felt thrown back upon herself.
+
+Leslie’s gift was not alone in the little house.  Miss Cornelia had,
+for the time being, given up sewing for unwanted, unwelcome eighth
+babies, and fallen to sewing for a very much wanted first one, whose
+welcome would leave nothing to be desired.  Philippa Blake and Diana
+Wright each sent a marvellous garment; and Mrs. Rachel Lynde sent
+several, in which good material and honest stitches took the place of
+embroidery and frills.  Anne herself made many, desecrated by no touch
+of machinery, spending over them the happiest hours of the happy winter.
+
+Captain Jim was the most frequent guest of the little house, and none
+was more welcome.  Every day Anne loved the simple-souled, true-hearted
+old sailor more and more.  He was as refreshing as a sea breeze, as
+interesting as some ancient chronicle.  She was never tired of
+listening to his stories, and his quaint remarks and comments were a
+continual delight to her.  Captain Jim was one of those rare and
+interesting people who “never speak but they say something.”  The milk
+of human kindness and the wisdom of the serpent were mingled in his
+composition in delightful proportions.
+
+Nothing ever seemed to put Captain Jim out or depress him in any way.
+
+“I’ve kind of contracted a habit of enj’ying things,” he remarked once,
+when Anne had commented on his invariable cheerfulness.  “It’s got so
+chronic that I believe I even enj’y the disagreeable things.  It’s
+great fun thinking they can’t last.  ‘Old rheumatiz,’ says I, when it
+grips me hard, ‘you’ve GOT to stop aching sometime.  The worse you are
+the sooner you’ll stop, mebbe.  I’m bound to get the better of you in
+the long run, whether in the body or out of the body.’”
+
+One night, by the fireside at the light Anne saw Captain Jim’s
+“life-book.”  He needed no coaxing to show it and proudly gave it to
+her to read.
+
+“I writ it to leave to little Joe,” he said.  “I don’t like the idea of
+everything I’ve done and seen being clean forgot after I’ve shipped for
+my last v’yage.  Joe, he’ll remember it, and tell the yarns to his
+children.”
+
+It was an old leather-bound book filled with the record of his voyages
+and adventures.  Anne thought what a treasure trove it would be to a
+writer.  Every sentence was a nugget.  In itself the book had no
+literary merit; Captain Jim’s charm of storytelling failed him when he
+came to pen and ink; he could only jot roughly down the outline of his
+famous tales, and both spelling and grammar were sadly askew.  But Anne
+felt that if anyone possessed of the gift could take that simple record
+of a brave, adventurous life, reading between the bald lines the tales
+of dangers staunchly faced and duty manfully done, a wonderful story
+might be made from it.  Rich comedy and thrilling tragedy were both
+lying hidden in Captain Jim’s “life-book,” waiting for the touch of the
+master hand to waken the laughter and grief and horror of thousands.
+
+Anne said something of this to Gilbert as they walked home.
+
+“Why don’t you try your hand at it yourself, Anne?”
+
+Anne shook her head.
+
+“No.  I only wish I could.  But it’s not in the power of my gift.  You
+know what my forte is, Gilbert--the fanciful, the fairylike, the
+pretty.  To write Captain Jim’s life-book as it should be written one
+should be a master of vigorous yet subtle style, a keen psychologist, a
+born humorist and a born tragedian.  A rare combination of gifts is
+needed.  Paul might do it if he were older.  Anyhow, I’m going to ask
+him to come down next summer and meet Captain Jim.”
+
+“Come to this shore,” wrote Anne to Paul.  “I am afraid you cannot find
+here Nora or the Golden Lady or the Twin Sailors; but you will find one
+old sailor who can tell you wonderful stories.”
+
+Paul, however wrote back, saying regretfully that he could not come
+that year.  He was going abroad for two year’s study.
+
+“When I return I’ll come to Four Winds, dear Teacher,” he wrote.
+
+“But meanwhile, Captain Jim is growing old,” said Anne, sorrowfully,
+“and there is nobody to write his life-book.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 18
+
+SPRING DAYS
+
+The ice in the harbor grew black and rotten in the March suns; in April
+there were blue waters and a windy, white-capped gulf again; and again
+the Four Winds light begemmed the twilights.
+
+“I’m so glad to see it once more,” said Anne, on the first evening of
+its reappearance.  “I’ve missed it so all winter.  The northwestern sky
+has seemed blank and lonely without it.”
+
+The land was tender with brand-new, golden-green, baby leaves.  There
+was an emerald mist on the woods beyond the Glen.  The seaward valleys
+were full of fairy mists at dawn.
+
+Vibrant winds came and went with salt foam in their breath.  The sea
+laughed and flashed and preened and allured, like a beautiful,
+coquettish woman.  The herring schooled and the fishing village woke to
+life.  The harbor was alive with white sails making for the channel.
+The ships began to sail outward and inward again.
+
+“On a spring day like this,” said Anne, “I know exactly what my soul
+will feel like on the resurrection morning.”
+
+“There are times in spring when I sorter feel that I might have been a
+poet if I’d been caught young,” remarked Captain Jim.  “I catch myself
+conning over old lines and verses I heard the schoolmaster reciting
+sixty years ago.  They don’t trouble me at other times.  Now I feel as
+if I had to get out on the rocks or the fields or the water and spout
+them.”
+
+Captain Jim had come up that afternoon to bring Anne a load of shells
+for her garden, and a little bunch of sweet-grass which he had found in
+a ramble over the sand dunes.
+
+“It’s getting real scarce along this shore now,” he said.  “When I was
+a boy there was a-plenty of it.  But now it’s only once in a while
+you’ll find a plot--and never when you’re looking for it.  You jest
+have to stumble on it--you’re walking along on the sand hills, never
+thinking of sweet-grass--and all at once the air is full of
+sweetness--and there’s the grass under your feet.  I favor the smell of
+sweet-grass.  It always makes me think of my mother.”
+
+“She was fond of it?” asked Anne.
+
+“Not that I knows on.  Dunno’s she ever saw any sweet-grass.  No, it’s
+because it has a kind of motherly perfume--not too young, you
+understand--something kind of seasoned and wholesome and
+dependable--jest like a mother.  The schoolmaster’s bride always kept
+it among her handkerchiefs.  You might put that little bunch among
+yours, Mistress Blythe.  I don’t like these boughten scents--but a
+whiff of sweet-grass belongs anywhere a lady does.”
+
+Anne had not been especially enthusiastic over the idea of surrounding
+her flower beds with quahog shells; as a decoration they did not appeal
+to her on first thought.  But she would not have hurt Captain Jim’s
+feelings for anything; so she assumed a virtue she did not at first
+feel, and thanked him heartily.  And when Captain Jim had proudly
+encircled every bed with a rim of the big, milk-white shells, Anne
+found to her surprise that she liked the effect.  On a town lawn, or
+even up at the Glen, they would not have been in keeping, but here, in
+the old-fashioned, sea-bound garden of the little house of dreams, they
+BELONGED.
+
+“They DO look nice,” she said sincerely.
+
+“The schoolmaster’s bride always had cowhawks round her beds,” said
+Captain Jim.  “She was a master hand with flowers.  She LOOKED at
+’em--and touched ’em--SO--and they grew like mad.  Some folks have that
+knack--I reckon you have it, too, Mistress Blythe.”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know--but I love my garden, and I love working in it.  To
+potter with green, growing things, watching each day to see the dear,
+new sprouts come up, is like taking a hand in creation, I think.  Just
+now my garden is like faith--the substance of things hoped for.  But
+bide a wee.”
+
+“It always amazes me to look at the little, wrinkled brown seeds and
+think of the rainbows in ’em,” said Captain Jim.  “When I ponder on
+them seeds I don’t find it nowise hard to believe that we’ve got souls
+that’ll live in other worlds.  You couldn’t hardly believe there was
+life in them tiny things, some no bigger than grains of dust, let alone
+color and scent, if you hadn’t seen the miracle, could you?”
+
+Anne, who was counting her days like silver beads on a rosary, could
+not now take the long walk to the lighthouse or up the Glen road.  But
+Miss Cornelia and Captain Jim came very often to the little house.
+Miss Cornelia was the joy of Anne’s and Gilbert’s existence.  They
+laughed side-splittingly over her speeches after every visit.  When
+Captain Jim and she happened to visit the little house at the same time
+there was much sport for the listening.  They waged wordy warfare, she
+attacking, he defending.  Anne once reproached the Captain for his
+baiting of Miss Cornelia.
+
+“Oh, I do love to set her going, Mistress Blythe,” chuckled the
+unrepentant sinner.  “It’s the greatest amusement I have in life.  That
+tongue of hers would blister a stone.  And you and that young dog of a
+doctor enj’y listening to her as much as I do.”
+
+Captain Jim came along another evening to bring Anne some mayflowers.
+The garden was full of the moist, scented air of a maritime spring
+evening.  There was a milk-white mist on the edge of the sea, with a
+young moon kissing it, and a silver gladness of stars over the Glen.
+The bell of the church across the harbor was ringing dreamily sweet.
+The mellow chime drifted through the dusk to mingle with the soft
+spring-moan of the sea.  Captain Jim’s mayflowers added the last
+completing touch to the charm of the night.
+
+“I haven’t seen any this spring, and I’ve missed them,” said Anne,
+burying her face in them.
+
+“They ain’t to be found around Four Winds, only in the barrens away
+behind the Glen up yander.  I took a little trip today to the
+Land-of-nothing-to-do, and hunted these up for you.  I reckon they’re
+the last you’ll see this spring, for they’re nearly done.”
+
+“How kind and thoughtful you are, Captain Jim.  Nobody else--not even
+Gilbert”--with a shake of her head at him--“remembered that I always
+long for mayflowers in spring.”
+
+“Well, I had another errand, too--I wanted to take Mr. Howard back
+yander a mess of trout.  He likes one occasional, and it’s all I can do
+for a kindness he did me once.  I stayed all the afternoon and talked
+to him.  He likes to talk to me, though he’s a highly eddicated man and
+I’m only an ignorant old sailor, because he’s one of the folks that’s
+GOT to talk or they’re miserable, and he finds listeners scarce around
+here.  The Glen folks fight shy of him because they think he’s an
+infidel.  He ain’t that far gone exactly--few men is, I reckon--but
+he’s what you might call a heretic.  Heretics are wicked, but they’re
+mighty int’resting.  It’s jest that they’ve got sorter lost looking for
+God, being under the impression that He’s hard to find--which He ain’t
+never.  Most of ’em blunder to Him after awhile, I guess.  I don’t
+think listening to Mr. Howard’s arguments is likely to do me much harm.
+Mind you, I believe what I was brought up to believe.  It saves a vast
+of bother--and back of it all, God is good.  The trouble with Mr.
+Howard is that he’s a leetle TOO clever.  He thinks that he’s bound to
+live up to his cleverness, and that it’s smarter to thrash out some new
+way of getting to heaven than to go by the old track the common,
+ignorant folks is travelling.  But he’ll get there sometime all right,
+and then he’ll laugh at himself.”
+
+“Mr. Howard was a Methodist to begin with,” said Miss Cornelia, as if
+she thought he had not far to go from that to heresy.
+
+“Do you know, Cornelia,” said Captain Jim gravely, “I’ve often thought
+that if I wasn’t a Presbyterian I’d be a Methodist.”
+
+“Oh, well,” conceded Miss Cornelia, “if you weren’t a Presbyterian it
+wouldn’t matter much what you were.  Speaking of heresy, reminds me,
+doctor--I’ve brought back that book you lent me--that Natural Law in
+the Spiritual World--I didn’t read more’n a third of it.  I can read
+sense, and I can read nonsense, but that book is neither the one nor
+the other.”
+
+“It IS considered rather heretical in some quarters,” admitted Gilbert,
+“but I told you that before you took it, Miss Cornelia.”
+
+“Oh, I wouldn’t have minded its being heretical.  I can stand
+wickedness, but I can’t stand foolishness,” said Miss Cornelia calmly,
+and with the air of having said the last thing there was to say about
+Natural Law.
+
+“Speaking of books, A Mad Love come to an end at last two weeks ago,”
+remarked Captain Jim musingly.  “It run to one hundred and three
+chapters.  When they got married the book stopped right off, so I
+reckon their troubles were all over.  It’s real nice that that’s the
+way in books anyhow, isn’t it, even if ’tistn’t so anywhere else?”
+
+“I never read novels,” said Miss Cornelia.  “Did you hear how Geordie
+Russell was today, Captain Jim?”
+
+“Yes, I called in on my way home to see him.  He’s getting round all
+right--but stewing in a broth of trouble, as usual, poor man.
+
+“’Course he brews up most of it for himself, but I reckon that don’t
+make it any easier to bear.”
+
+“He’s an awful pessimist,” said Miss Cornelia.
+
+“Well, no, he ain’t a pessimist exactly, Cornelia.  He only jest never
+finds anything that suits him.”
+
+“And isn’t that a pessimist?”
+
+“No, no.  A pessimist is one who never expects to find anything to suit
+him.  Geordie hain’t got THAT far yet.”
+
+“You’d find something good to say of the devil himself, Jim Boyd.”
+
+“Well, you’ve heard the story of the old lady who said he was
+persevering.  But no, Cornelia, I’ve nothing good to say of the devil.”
+
+“Do you believe in him at all?” asked Miss Cornelia seriously.
+
+“How can you ask that when you know what a good Presbyterian I am,
+Cornelia?  How could a Presbyterian get along without a devil?”
+
+“DO you?” persisted Miss Cornelia.
+
+Captain Jim suddenly became grave.
+
+“I believe in what I heard a minister once call ‘a mighty and malignant
+and INTELLIGENT power of evil working in the universe,’” he said
+solemnly.  “I do THAT, Cornelia.  You can call it the devil, or the
+‘principle of evil,’ or the Old Scratch, or any name you like.  It’s
+THERE, and all the infidels and heretics in the world can’t argue it
+away, any more’n they can argue God away.  It’s there, and it’s
+working.  But, mind you, Cornelia, I believe it’s going to get the
+worst of it in the long run.”
+
+“I am sure I hope so,” said Miss Cornelia, none too hopefully. “But
+speaking of the devil, I am positive that Billy Booth is possessed by
+him now.  Have you heard of Billy’s latest performance?”
+
+“No, what was that?”
+
+“He’s gone and burned up his wife’s new, brown broadcloth suit, that
+she paid twenty-five dollars for in Charlottetown, because he declares
+the men looked too admiring at her when she wore it to church the first
+time.  Wasn’t that like a man?”
+
+“Mistress Booth IS mighty pretty, and brown’s her color,” said Captain
+Jim reflectively.
+
+“Is that any good reason why he should poke her new suit into the
+kitchen stove?  Billy Booth is a jealous fool, and he makes his wife’s
+life miserable.  She’s cried all the week about her suit.  Oh, Anne, I
+wish I could write like you, believe ME.  Wouldn’t I score some of the
+men round here!”
+
+“Those Booths are all a mite queer,” said Captain Jim.  “Billy seemed
+the sanest of the lot till he got married and then this queer jealous
+streak cropped out in him.  His brother Daniel, now, was always odd.”
+
+“Took tantrums every few days or so and wouldn’t get out of bed,” said
+Miss Cornelia with a relish.  “His wife would have to do all the barn
+work till he got over his spell.  When he died people wrote her letters
+of condolence; if I’d written anything it would have been one of
+congratulation.  Their father, old Abram Booth, was a disgusting old
+sot.  He was drunk at his wife’s funeral, and kept reeling round and
+hiccuping ‘I didn’t dri--i--i--nk much but I feel a--a--awfully
+que--e--e--r.’  I gave him a good jab in the back with my umbrella when
+he came near me, and it sobered him up until they got the casket out of
+the house.  Young Johnny Booth was to have been married yesterday, but
+he couldn’t be because he’s gone and got the mumps.  Wasn’t that like a
+man?”
+
+“How could he help getting the mumps, poor fellow?”
+
+“I’d poor fellow him, believe ME, if I was Kate Sterns.  I don’t know
+how he could help getting the mumps, but I DO know the wedding supper
+was all prepared and everything will be spoiled before he’s well again.
+Such a waste!  He should have had the mumps when he was a boy.”
+
+“Come, come, Cornelia, don’t you think you’re a mite unreasonable?”
+
+Miss Cornelia disdained to reply and turned instead to Susan Baker, a
+grim-faced, kind-hearted elderly spinster of the Glen, who had been
+installed as maid-of-all-work at the little house for some weeks.
+Susan had been up to the Glen to make a sick call, and had just
+returned.
+
+“How is poor old Aunt Mandy tonight?” asked Miss Cornelia.
+
+Susan sighed.
+
+“Very poorly--very poorly, Cornelia.  I am afraid she will soon be in
+heaven, poor thing!”
+
+“Oh, surely, it’s not so bad as that!” exclaimed Miss Cornelia,
+sympathetically.
+
+Captain Jim and Gilbert looked at each other.  Then they suddenly rose
+and went out.
+
+“There are times,” said Captain Jim, between spasms, “when it would be
+a sin NOT to laugh.  Them two excellent women!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 19
+
+DAWN AND DUSK
+
+In early June, when the sand hills were a great glory of pink wild
+roses, and the Glen was smothered in apple blossoms, Marilla arrived at
+the little house, accompanied by a black horsehair trunk, patterned
+with brass nails, which had reposed undisturbed in the Green Gables
+garret for half a century.  Susan Baker, who, during her few weeks’
+sojourn in the little house, had come to worship “young Mrs. Doctor,”
+as she called Anne, with blind fervor, looked rather jealously askance
+at Marilla at first.  But as Marilla did not try to interfere in
+kitchen matters, and showed no desire to interrupt Susan’s
+ministrations to young Mrs. Doctor, the good handmaiden became
+reconciled to her presence, and told her cronies at the Glen that Miss
+Cuthbert was a fine old lady and knew her place.
+
+One evening, when the sky’s limpid bowl was filled with a red glory,
+and the robins were thrilling the golden twilight with jubilant hymns
+to the stars of evening, there was a sudden commotion in the little
+house of dreams.  Telephone messages were sent up to the Glen, Doctor
+Dave and a white-capped nurse came hastily down, Marilla paced the
+garden walks between the quahog shells, murmuring prayers between her
+set lips, and Susan sat in the kitchen with cotton wool in her ears and
+her apron over her head.
+
+Leslie, looking out from the house up the brook, saw that every window
+of the little house was alight, and did not sleep that night.
+
+The June night was short; but it seemed an eternity to those who waited
+and watched.
+
+“Oh, will it NEVER end?” said Marilla; then she saw how grave the nurse
+and Doctor Dave looked, and she dared ask no more questions.  Suppose
+Anne--but Marilla could not suppose it.
+
+“Do not tell me,” said Susan fiercely, answering the anguish in
+Marilla’s eyes, “that God could be so cruel as to take that darling
+lamb from us when we all love her so much.”
+
+“He has taken others as well beloved,” said Marilla hoarsely.
+
+But at dawn, when the rising sun rent apart the mists hanging over the
+sandbar, and made rainbows of them, joy came to the little house.  Anne
+was safe, and a wee, white lady, with her mother’s big eyes, was lying
+beside her.  Gilbert, his face gray and haggard from his night’s agony,
+came down to tell Marilla and Susan.
+
+“Thank God,” shuddered Marilla.
+
+Susan got up and took the cotton wool out of her ears.
+
+“Now for breakfast,” she said briskly.  “I am of the opinion that we
+will all be glad of a bite and sup.  You tell young Mrs. Doctor not to
+worry about a single thing--Susan is at the helm.  You tell her just to
+think of her baby.”
+
+Gilbert smiled rather sadly as he went away.  Anne, her pale face
+blanched with its baptism of pain, her eyes aglow with the holy passion
+of motherhood, did not need to be told to think of her baby.  She
+thought of nothing else.  For a few hours she tasted of happiness so
+rare and exquisite that she wondered if the angels in heaven did not
+envy her.
+
+“Little Joyce,” she murmured, when Marilla came in to see the baby.
+“We planned to call her that if she were a girlie.  There were so many
+we would have liked to name her for; we couldn’t choose between them,
+so we decided on Joyce--we can call her Joy for short--Joy--it suits so
+well.  Oh, Marilla, I thought I was happy before.  Now I know that I
+just dreamed a pleasant dream of happiness.  THIS is the reality.”
+
+“You mustn’t talk, Anne--wait till you’re stronger,” said Marilla
+warningly.
+
+“You know how hard it is for me NOT to talk,” smiled Anne.
+
+At first she was too weak and too happy to notice that Gilbert and the
+nurse looked grave and Marilla sorrowful.  Then, as subtly, and coldly,
+and remorselessly as a sea-fog stealing landward, fear crept into her
+heart.  Why was not Gilbert gladder?  Why would he not talk about the
+baby?  Why would they not let her have it with her after that first
+heavenly--happy hour?  Was--was there anything wrong?
+
+“Gilbert,” whispered Anne imploringly, “the baby--is all right--isn’t
+she?  Tell me--tell me.”
+
+Gilbert was a long while in turning round; then he bent over Anne and
+looked in her eyes.  Marilla, listening fearfully outside the door,
+heard a pitiful, heartbroken moan, and fled to the kitchen where Susan
+was weeping.
+
+“Oh, the poor lamb--the poor lamb!  How can she bear it, Miss Cuthbert?
+I am afraid it will kill her.  She has been that built up and happy,
+longing for that baby, and planning for it.  Cannot anything be done
+nohow, Miss Cuthbert?”
+
+“I’m afraid not, Susan.  Gilbert says there is no hope.  He knew from
+the first the little thing couldn’t live.”
+
+“And it is such a sweet baby,” sobbed Susan.  “I never saw one so
+white--they are mostly red or yallow.  And it opened its big eyes as if
+it was months old.  The little, little thing!  Oh, the poor, young Mrs.
+Doctor!”
+
+At sunset the little soul that had come with the dawning went away,
+leaving heartbreak behind it.  Miss Cornelia took the wee, white lady
+from the kindly but stranger hands of the nurse, and dressed the tiny
+waxen form in the beautiful dress Leslie had made for it.  Leslie had
+asked her to do that.  Then she took it back and laid it beside the
+poor, broken, tear-blinded little mother.
+
+“The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away, dearie,” she said
+through her own tears.  “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
+
+Then she went away, leaving Anne and Gilbert alone together with their
+dead.
+
+The next day, the small white Joy was laid in a velvet casket which
+Leslie had lined with apple-blossoms, and taken to the graveyard of the
+church across the harbor.  Miss Cornelia and Marilla put all the little
+love-made garments away, together with the ruffled basket which had
+been befrilled and belaced for dimpled limbs and downy head.  Little
+Joy was never to sleep there; she had found a colder, narrower bed.
+
+“This has been an awful disappointment to me,” sighed Miss Cornelia.
+“I’ve looked forward to this baby--and I did want it to be a girl, too.”
+
+“I can only be thankful that Anne’s life was spared,” said Marilla,
+with a shiver, recalling those hours of darkness when the girl she
+loved was passing through the valley of the shadow.
+
+“Poor, poor lamb!  Her heart is broken,” said Susan.
+
+“I ENVY Anne,” said Leslie suddenly and fiercely, “and I’d envy her
+even if she had died!  She was a mother for one beautiful day.  I’d
+gladly give my life for THAT!”
+
+“I wouldn’t talk like that, Leslie, dearie,” said Miss Cornelia
+deprecatingly.  She was afraid that the dignified Miss Cuthbert would
+think Leslie quite terrible.
+
+Anne’s convalescence was long, and made bitter for her by many things.
+The bloom and sunshine of the Four Winds world grated harshly on her;
+and yet, when the rain fell heavily, she pictured it beating so
+mercilessly down on that little grave across the harbor; and when the
+wind blew around the eaves she heard sad voices in it she had never
+heard before.
+
+Kindly callers hurt her, too, with the well-meant platitudes with which
+they strove to cover the nakedness of bereavement.  A letter from Phil
+Blake was an added sting.  Phil had heard of the baby’s birth, but not
+of its death, and she wrote Anne a congratulatory letter of sweet mirth
+which hurt her horribly.
+
+“I would have laughed over it so happily if I had my baby,” she sobbed
+to Marilla.  “But when I haven’t it just seems like wanton
+cruelty--though I know Phil wouldn’t hurt me for the world.  Oh,
+Marilla, I don’t see how I can EVER be happy again--EVERYTHING will
+hurt me all the rest of my life.”
+
+“Time will help you,” said Marilla, who was racked with sympathy but
+could never learn to express it in other than age-worn formulas.
+
+“It doesn’t seem FAIR,” said Anne rebelliously.  “Babies are born and
+live where they are not wanted--where they will be neglected--where
+they will have no chance.  I would have loved my baby so--and cared for
+it so tenderly--and tried to give her every chance for good.  And yet I
+wasn’t allowed to keep her.”
+
+“It was God’s will, Anne,” said Marilla, helpless before the riddle of
+the universe--the WHY of undeserved pain.  “And little Joy is better
+off.”
+
+“I can’t believe THAT,” cried Anne bitterly.  Then, seeing that Marilla
+looked shocked, she added passionately, “Why should she be born at
+all--why should any one be born at all--if she’s better off dead?  I
+DON’T believe it is better for a child to die at birth than to live its
+life out--and love and be loved--and enjoy and suffer--and do its
+work--and develop a character that would give it a personality in
+eternity.  And how do you know it was God’s will?  Perhaps it was just
+a thwarting of His purpose by the Power of Evil.  We can’t be expected
+to be resigned to THAT.”
+
+“Oh, Anne, don’t talk so,” said Marilla, genuinely alarmed lest Anne
+were drifting into deep and dangerous waters.  “We can’t
+understand--but we must have faith--we MUST believe that all is for the
+best.  I know you find it hard to think so, just now.  But try to be
+brave--for Gilbert’s sake.  He’s so worried about you.  You aren’t
+getting strong as fast as you should.”
+
+“Oh, I know I’ve been very selfish,” sighed Anne.  “I love Gilbert more
+than ever--and I want to live for his sake.  But it seems as if part of
+me was buried over there in that little harbor graveyard--and it hurts
+so much that I’m afraid of life.”
+
+“It won’t hurt so much always, Anne.”
+
+“The thought that it may stop hurting sometimes hurts me worse than all
+else, Marilla.”
+
+“Yes, I know, I’ve felt that too, about other things.  But we all love
+you, Anne.  Captain Jim has been up every day to ask for you--and Mrs.
+Moore haunts the place--and Miss Bryant spends most of her time, I
+think, cooking up nice things for you.  Susan doesn’t like it very
+well.  She thinks she can cook as well as Miss Bryant.”
+
+“Dear Susan!  Oh, everybody has been so dear and good and lovely to me,
+Marilla.  I’m not ungrateful--and perhaps--when this horrible ache
+grows a little less--I’ll find that I can go on living.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 20
+
+LOST MARGARET
+
+Anne found that she could go on living; the day came when she even
+smiled again over one of Miss Cornelia’s speeches.  But there was
+something in the smile that had never been in Anne’s smile before and
+would never be absent from it again.
+
+On the first day she was able to go for a drive Gilbert took her down
+to Four Winds Point, and left her there while he rowed over the channel
+to see a patient at the fishing village.  A rollicking wind was
+scudding across the harbor and the dunes, whipping the water into
+white-caps and washing the sandshore with long lines of silvery
+breakers.
+
+“I’m real proud to see you here again, Mistress Blythe,” said Captain
+Jim.  “Sit down--sit down.  I’m afeared it’s mighty dusty here
+today--but there’s no need of looking at dust when you can look at such
+scenery, is there?”
+
+“I don’t mind the dust,” said Anne, “but Gilbert says I must keep in
+the open air.  I think I’ll go and sit on the rocks down there.”
+
+“Would you like company or would you rather be alone?”
+
+“If by company you mean yours I’d much rather have it than be alone,”
+said Anne, smiling.  Then she sighed.  She had never before minded
+being alone.  Now she dreaded it.  When she was alone now she felt so
+dreadfully alone.
+
+“Here’s a nice little spot where the wind can’t get at you,” said
+Captain Jim, when they reached the rocks.  “I often sit here.  It’s a
+great place jest to sit and dream.”
+
+“Oh--dreams,” sighed Anne.  “I can’t dream now, Captain Jim--I’m done
+with dreams.”
+
+“Oh, no, you’re not, Mistress Blythe--oh, no, you’re not,” said Captain
+Jim meditatively.  “I know how you feel jest now--but if you keep on
+living you’ll get glad again, and the first thing you know you’ll be
+dreaming again--thank the good Lord for it!  If it wasn’t for our
+dreams they might as well bury us.  How’d we stand living if it wasn’t
+for our dream of immortality?  And that’s a dream that’s BOUND to come
+true, Mistress Blythe.  You’ll see your little Joyce again some day.”
+
+“But she won’t be my baby,” said Anne, with trembling lips.  “Oh, she
+may be, as Longfellow says, ‘a fair maiden clothed with celestial
+grace’--but she’ll be a stranger to me.”
+
+“God will manage better’n THAT, I believe,” said Captain Jim.
+
+They were both silent for a little time.  Then Captain Jim said very
+softly:
+
+“Mistress Blythe, may I tell you about lost Margaret?”
+
+“Of course,” said Anne gently.  She did not know who “lost Margaret”
+was, but she felt that she was going to hear the romance of Captain
+Jim’s life.
+
+“I’ve often wanted to tell you about her,” Captain Jim went on.
+
+“Do you know why, Mistress Blythe?  It’s because I want somebody to
+remember and think of her sometime after I’m gone.  I can’t bear that
+her name should be forgotten by all living souls.  And now nobody
+remembers lost Margaret but me.”
+
+Then Captain Jim told the story--an old, old forgotten story, for it
+was over fifty years since Margaret had fallen asleep one day in her
+father’s dory and drifted--or so it was supposed, for nothing was ever
+certainly known as to her fate--out of the channel, beyond the bar, to
+perish in the black thundersquall which had come up so suddenly that
+long-ago summer afternoon.  But to Captain Jim those fifty years were
+but as yesterday when it is past.
+
+“I walked the shore for months after that,” he said sadly, “looking to
+find her dear, sweet little body; but the sea never give her back to
+me.  But I’ll find her sometime, Mistress Blythe--I’ll find her
+sometime.  She’s waiting for me.  I wish I could tell you jest how she
+looked, but I can’t.  I’ve seen a fine, silvery mist hanging over the
+bar at sunrise that seemed like her--and then again I’ve seen a white
+birch in the woods back yander that made me think of her.  She had
+pale, brown hair and a little white, sweet face, and long slender
+fingers like yours, Mistress Blythe, only browner, for she was a shore
+girl.  Sometimes I wake up in the night and hear the sea calling to me
+in the old way, and it seems as if lost Margaret called in it.  And
+when there’s a storm and the waves are sobbing and moaning I hear her
+lamenting among them.  And when they laugh on a gay day it’s HER
+laugh--lost Margaret’s sweet, roguish, little laugh.  The sea took her
+from me, but some day I’ll find her.  Mistress Blythe.  It can’t keep
+us apart forever.”
+
+“I am glad you have told me about her,” said Anne.  “I have often
+wondered why you had lived all your life alone.”
+
+“I couldn’t ever care for anyone else.  Lost Margaret took my heart
+with her--out there,” said the old lover, who had been faithful for
+fifty years to his drowned sweetheart.  “You won’t mind if I talk a
+good deal about her, will you, Mistress Blythe?  It’s a pleasure to
+me--for all the pain went out of her memory years ago and jest left its
+blessing.  I know you’ll never forget her, Mistress Blythe.  And if the
+years, as I hope, bring other little folks to your home, I want you to
+promise me that you’ll tell THEM the story of lost Margaret, so that
+her name won’t be forgotten among humankind.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 21
+
+BARRIERS SWEPT AWAY
+
+ “Anne,” said Leslie, breaking abruptly a short
+silence, “you don’t know how GOOD it is to be sitting here with you
+again--working--and talking--and being silent together.”
+
+They were sitting among the blue-eyed grasses on the bank of the brook
+in Anne’s garden.  The water sparkled and crooned past them; the
+birches threw dappled shadows over them; roses bloomed along the walks.
+The sun was beginning to be low, and the air was full of woven music.
+There was one music of the wind in the firs behind the house, and
+another of the waves on the bar, and still another from the distant
+bell of the church near which the wee, white lady slept.  Anne loved
+that bell, though it brought sorrowful thoughts now.
+
+She looked curiously at Leslie, who had thrown down her sewing and
+spoken with a lack of restraint that was very unusual with her.
+
+“On that horrible night when you were so ill,” Leslie went on, “I kept
+thinking that perhaps we’d have no more talks and walks and WORKS
+together.  And I realised just what your friendship had come to mean to
+me--just what YOU meant--and just what a hateful little beast I had
+been.”
+
+“Leslie!  Leslie!  I never allow anyone to call my friends names.”
+
+“It’s true.  That’s exactly what I am--a hateful little beast. There’s
+something I’ve GOT to tell you, Anne.  I suppose it will make you
+despise me, but I MUST confess it.  Anne, there have been times this
+past winter and spring when I have HATED you.”
+
+“I KNEW it,” said Anne calmly.
+
+“You KNEW it?”
+
+“Yes, I saw it in your eyes.”
+
+“And yet you went on liking me and being my friend.”
+
+“Well, it was only now and then you hated me, Leslie.  Between times
+you loved me, I think.”
+
+“I certainly did.  But that other horrid feeling was always there,
+spoiling it, back in my heart.  I kept it down--sometimes I forgot
+it--but sometimes it would surge up and take possession of me.  I hated
+you because I ENVIED you--oh, I was sick with envy of you at times.
+You had a dear little home--and love--and happiness--and glad
+dreams--everything I wanted--and never had--and never could have.  Oh,
+never could have!  THAT was what stung.  I wouldn’t have envied you, if
+I had had any HOPE that life would ever be different for me.  But I
+hadn’t--I hadn’t--and it didn’t seem FAIR.  It made me rebellious--and
+it hurt me--and so I hated you at times.  Oh, I was so ashamed of
+it--I’m dying of shame now--but I couldn’t conquer it.
+
+“That night, when I was afraid you mightn’t live--I thought I was going
+to be punished for my wickedness--and I loved you so then.  Anne, Anne,
+I never had anything to love since my mother died, except Dick’s old
+dog--and it’s so dreadful to have nothing to love--life is so
+EMPTY--and there’s NOTHING worse than emptiness--and I might have loved
+you so much--and that horrible thing had spoiled it--”
+
+Leslie was trembling and growing almost incoherent with the violence of
+her emotion.
+
+“Don’t, Leslie,” implored Anne, “oh, don’t.  I understand--don’t talk
+of it any more.”
+
+“I must--I must.  When I knew you were going to live I vowed that I
+would tell you as soon as you were well--that I wouldn’t go on
+accepting your friendship and companionship without telling you how
+unworthy I was of it.  And I’ve been so afraid--it would turn you
+against me.”
+
+“You needn’t fear that, Leslie.”
+
+“Oh, I’m so glad--so glad, Anne.”  Leslie clasped her brown,
+work-hardened hands tightly together to still their shaking.  “But I
+want to tell you everything, now I’ve begun.  You don’t remember the
+first time I saw you, I suppose--it wasn’t that night on the shore--”
+
+“No, it was the night Gilbert and I came home.  You were driving your
+geese down the hill.  I should think I DO remember it!  I thought you
+were so beautiful--I longed for weeks after to find out who you were.”
+
+“I knew who YOU were, although I had never seen either of you before.
+I had heard of the new doctor and his bride who were coming to live in
+Miss Russell’s little house.  I--I hated you that very moment, Anne.”
+
+“I felt the resentment in your eyes--then I doubted--I thought I must
+be mistaken--because WHY should it be?”
+
+“It was because you looked so happy.  Oh, you’ll agree with me now that
+I AM a hateful beast--to hate another woman just because she was
+happy,--and when her happiness didn’t take anything from me!  That was
+why I never went to see you.  I knew quite well I ought to go--even our
+simple Four Winds customs demanded that.  But I couldn’t.  I used to
+watch you from my window--I could see you and your husband strolling
+about your garden in the evening--or you running down the poplar lane
+to meet him.  And it hurt me.  And yet in another way I wanted to go
+over.  I felt that, if I were not so miserable, I could have liked you
+and found in you what I’ve never had in my life--an intimate, REAL
+friend of my own age.  And then you remember that night at the shore?
+You were afraid I would think you crazy.  You must have thought _I_
+was.”
+
+“No, but I couldn’t understand you, Leslie.  One moment you drew me to
+you--the next you pushed me back.”
+
+“I was very unhappy that evening.  I had had a hard day.  Dick had been
+very--very hard to manage that day.  Generally he is quite good-natured
+and easily controlled, you know, Anne.  But some days he is very
+different.  I was so heartsick--I ran away to the shore as soon as he
+went to sleep.  It was my only refuge.  I sat there thinking of how my
+poor father had ended his life, and wondering if I wouldn’t be driven
+to it some day.  Oh, my heart was full of black thoughts!  And then you
+came dancing along the cove like a glad, light-hearted child.  I--I
+hated you more then than I’ve ever done since.  And yet I craved your
+friendship.  The one feeling swayed me one moment; the other feeling
+the next.  When I got home that night I cried for shame of what you
+must think of me.  But it’s always been just the same when I came over
+here.  Sometimes I’d be happy and enjoy my visit.  And at other times
+that hideous feeling would mar it all.  There were times when
+everything about you and your house hurt me.  You had so many dear
+little things I couldn’t have.  Do you know--it’s ridiculous--but I had
+an especial spite at those china dogs of yours.  There were times when
+I wanted to catch up Gog and Magog and bang their pert black noses
+together!  Oh, you smile, Anne--but it was never funny to me.  I would
+come here and see you and Gilbert with your books and your flowers, and
+your household gods, and your little family jokes--and your love for
+each other showing in every look and word, even when you didn’t know
+it--and I would go home to--you know what I went home to!  Oh, Anne, I
+don’t believe I’m jealous and envious by nature.  When I was a girl I
+lacked many things my schoolmates had, but I never cared--I never
+disliked them for it.  But I seem to have grown so hateful--”
+
+“Leslie, dearest, stop blaming yourself.  You are NOT hateful or
+jealous or envious.  The life you have to live has warped you a little,
+perhaps-but it would have ruined a nature less fine and noble than
+yours.  I’m letting you tell me all this because I believe it’s better
+for you to talk it out and rid your soul of it.  But don’t blame
+yourself any more.”
+
+“Well, I won’t.  I just wanted you to know me as I am.  That time you
+told me of your darling hope for the spring was the worst of all, Anne.
+I shall never forgive myself for the way I behaved then.  I repented it
+with tears.  And I DID put many a tender and loving thought of you into
+the little dress I made.  But I might have known that anything I made
+could only be a shroud in the end.”
+
+“Now, Leslie, that IS bitter and morbid--put such thoughts away.
+
+“I was so glad when you brought the little dress; and since I had to
+lose little Joyce I like to think that the dress she wore was the one
+you made for her when you let yourself love me.”
+
+“Anne, do you know, I believe I shall always love you after this.  I
+don’t think I’ll ever feel that dreadful way about you again.  Talking
+it all out seems to have done away with it, somehow.  It’s very
+strange--and I thought it so real and bitter.  It’s like opening the
+door of a dark room to show some hideous creature you’ve believed to be
+there--and when the light streams in your monster turns out to have
+been just a shadow, vanishing when the light comes.  It will never come
+between us again.”
+
+“No, we are real friends now, Leslie, and I am very glad.”
+
+“I hope you won’t misunderstand me if I say something else.  Anne, I
+was grieved to the core of my heart when you lost your baby; and if I
+could have saved her for you by cutting off one of my hands I would
+have done it.  But your sorrow has brought us closer together.  Your
+perfect happiness isn’t a barrier any longer.  Oh, don’t misunderstand,
+dearest--I’m NOT glad that your happiness isn’t perfect any longer--I
+can say that sincerely; but since it isn’t, there isn’t such a gulf
+between us.”
+
+“I DO understand that, too, Leslie.  Now, we’ll just shut up the past
+and forget what was unpleasant in it.  It’s all going to be different.
+We’re both of the race of Joseph now.  I think you’ve been
+wonderful--wonderful.  And, Leslie, I can’t help believing that life
+has something good and beautiful for you yet.”
+
+Leslie shook her head.
+
+“No,” she said dully.  “There isn’t any hope.  Dick will never be
+better--and even if his memory were to come back--oh, Anne, it would be
+worse, even worse, than it is now.  This is something you can’t
+understand, you happy bride.  Anne, did Miss Cornelia ever tell you how
+I came to marry Dick?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I’m glad--I wanted you to know--but I couldn’t bring myself to talk of
+it if you hadn’t known.  Anne, it seems to me that ever since I was
+twelve years old life has been bitter.  Before that I had a happy
+childhood.  We were very poor--but we didn’t mind.  Father was so
+splendid--so clever and loving and sympathetic.  We were chums as far
+back as I can remember.  And mother was so sweet.  She was very, very
+beautiful.  I look like her, but I am not so beautiful as she was.”
+
+“Miss Cornelia says you are far more beautiful.”
+
+“She is mistaken--or prejudiced.  I think my figure IS better--mother
+was slight and bent by hard work--but she had the face of an angel.  I
+used just to look up at her in worship.  We all worshipped her,--father
+and Kenneth and I.”
+
+Anne remembered that Miss Cornelia had given her a very different
+impression of Leslie’s mother.  But had not love the truer vision?
+Still, it WAS selfish of Rose West to make her daughter marry Dick
+Moore.
+
+“Kenneth was my brother,” went on Leslie.  “Oh, I can’t tell you how I
+loved him.  And he was cruelly killed.  Do you know how?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Anne, I saw his little face as the wheel went over him.  He fell on
+his back.  Anne--Anne--I can see it now.  I shall always see it.  Anne,
+all I ask of heaven is that that recollection shall be blotted out of
+my memory.  O my God!”
+
+“Leslie, don’t speak of it.  I know the story--don’t go into details
+that only harrow your soul up unavailingly.  It WILL be blotted out.”
+
+After a moment’s struggle, Leslie regained a measure of self-control.
+
+“Then father’s health got worse and he grew despondent--his mind became
+unbalanced--you’ve heard all that, too?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“After that I had just mother to live for.  But I was very ambitious.
+I meant to teach and earn my way through college.  I meant to climb to
+the very top--oh, I won’t talk of that either.  It’s no use.  You know
+what happened.  I couldn’t see my dear little heart-broken mother, who
+had been such a slave all her life, turned out of her home.  Of course,
+I could have earned enough for us to live on.  But mother COULDN’T
+leave her home.  She had come there as a bride--and she had loved
+father so--and all her memories were there.  Even yet, Anne, when I
+think that I made her last year happy I’m not sorry for what I did.  As
+for Dick--I didn’t hate him when I married him--I just felt for him the
+indifferent, friendly feeling I had for most of my schoolmates.  I knew
+he drank some--but I had never heard the story of the girl down at the
+fishing cove.  If I had, I COULDN’T have married him, even for mother’s
+sake.  Afterwards--I DID hate him--but mother never knew.  She
+died--and then I was alone.  I was only seventeen and I was alone.
+Dick had gone off in the Four Sisters.  I hoped he wouldn’t be home
+very much more.  The sea had always been in his blood.  I had no other
+hope.  Well, Captain Jim brought him home, as you know--and that’s all
+there is to say.  You know me now, Anne--the worst of me--the barriers
+are all down.  And you still want to be my friend?”
+
+Anne looked up through the birches, at the white paper-lantern of a
+half moon drifting downwards to the gulf of sunset.  Her face was very
+sweet.
+
+“I am your friend and you are mine, for always,” she said.  “Such a
+friend as I never had before.  I have had many dear and beloved
+friends--but there is a something in you, Leslie, that I never found in
+anyone else.  You have more to offer me in that rich nature of yours,
+and I have more to give you than I had in my careless girlhood.  We are
+both women--and friends forever.”
+
+They clasped hands and smiled at each other through the tears that
+filled the gray eyes and the blue.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 22
+
+MISS CORNELIA ARRANGES MATTERS
+
+Gilbert insisted that Susan should be kept on at the little house for
+the summer.  Anne protested at first.
+
+“Life here with just the two of us is so sweet, Gilbert.  It spoils it
+a little to have anyone else.  Susan is a dear soul, but she is an
+outsider.  It won’t hurt me to do the work here.”
+
+“You must take your doctor’s advice,” said Gilbert.  “There’s an old
+proverb to the effect that shoemakers’ wives go barefoot and doctors’
+wives die young.  I don’t mean that it shall be true in my household.
+You will keep Susan until the old spring comes back into your step, and
+those little hollows on your cheeks fill out.”
+
+“You just take it easy, Mrs. Doctor, dear,” said Susan, coming abruptly
+in.  “Have a good time and do not worry about the pantry.  Susan is at
+the helm.  There is no use in keeping a dog and doing your own barking.
+I am going to take your breakfast up to you every morning.”
+
+“Indeed you are not,” laughed Anne.  “I agree with Miss Cornelia that
+it’s a scandal for a woman who isn’t sick to eat her breakfast in bed,
+and almost justifies the men in any enormities.”
+
+“Oh, Cornelia!” said Susan, with ineffable contempt.  “I think you have
+better sense, Mrs. Doctor, dear, than to heed what Cornelia Bryant
+says.  I cannot see why she must be always running down the men, even
+if she is an old maid.  _I_ am an old maid, but you never hear ME
+abusing the men.  I like ’em.  I would have married one if I could.  Is
+it not funny nobody ever asked me to marry him, Mrs. Doctor, dear?  I
+am no beauty, but I am as good-looking as most of the married women you
+see.  But I never had a beau.  What do you suppose is the reason?”
+
+“It may be predestination,” suggested Anne, with unearthly solemnity.
+
+Susan nodded.
+
+“That is what I have often thought, Mrs. Doctor, dear, and a great
+comfort it is.  I do not mind nobody wanting me if the Almighty decreed
+it so for His own wise purposes.  But sometimes doubt creeps in, Mrs.
+Doctor, dear, and I wonder if maybe the Old Scratch has not more to do
+with it than anyone else.  I cannot feel resigned THEN.  But maybe,”
+added Susan, brightening up, “I will have a chance to get married yet.
+I often and often think of the old verse my aunt used to repeat:
+
+    There never was a goose so gray but sometime soon or late
+    Some honest gander came her way and took her for his mate!
+
+A woman cannot ever be sure of not being married till she is buried,
+Mrs. Doctor, dear, and meanwhile I will make a batch of cherry pies.  I
+notice the doctor favors ’em, and I DO like cooking for a man who
+appreciates his victuals.”
+
+Miss Cornelia dropped in that afternoon, puffing a little.
+
+“I don’t mind the world or the devil much, but the flesh DOES rather
+bother me,” she admitted.  “You always look as cool as a cucumber,
+Anne, dearie.  Do I smell cherry pie?  If I do, ask me to stay to tea.
+Haven’t tasted a cherry pie this summer.  My cherries have all been
+stolen by those scamps of Gilman boys from the Glen.”
+
+“Now, now, Cornelia,” remonstrated Captain Jim, who had been reading a
+sea novel in a corner of the living room, “you shouldn’t say that about
+those two poor, motherless Gilman boys, unless you’ve got certain
+proof.  Jest because their father ain’t none too honest isn’t any
+reason for calling them thieves.  It’s more likely it’s been the robins
+took your cherries.  They’re turrible thick this year.”
+
+“Robins!” said Miss Cornelia disdainfully.  “Humph!  Two-legged robins,
+believe ME!”
+
+“Well, most of the Four Winds robins ARE constructed on that
+principle,” said Captain Jim gravely.
+
+Miss Cornelia stared at him for a moment.  Then she leaned back in her
+rocker and laughed long and ungrudgingly.
+
+“Well, you HAVE got one on me at last, Jim Boyd, I’ll admit.  Just look
+how pleased he is, Anne, dearie, grinning like a Chessy-cat.  As for
+the robins’ legs if robins have great, big, bare, sunburned legs, with
+ragged trousers hanging on ’em, such as I saw up in my cherry tree one
+morning at sunrise last week, I’ll beg the Gilman boys’ pardon.  By the
+time I got down they were gone.  I couldn’t understand how they had
+disappeared so quick, but Captain Jim has enlightened me.  They flew
+away, of course.”
+
+Captain Jim laughed and went away, regretfully declining an invitation
+to stay to supper and partake of cherry pie.
+
+“I’m on my way to see Leslie and ask her if she’ll take a boarder,”
+Miss Cornelia resumed.  “I’d a letter yesterday from a Mrs. Daly in
+Toronto, who boarded a spell with me two years ago.  She wanted me to
+take a friend of hers for the summer.  His name is Owen Ford, and he’s
+a newspaper man, and it seems he’s a grandson of the schoolmaster who
+built this house.  John Selwyn’s oldest daughter married an Ontario man
+named Ford, and this is her son.  He wants to see the old place his
+grandparents lived in.  He had a bad spell of typhoid in the spring and
+hasn’t got rightly over it, so his doctor has ordered him to the sea.
+He doesn’t want to go to the hotel--he just wants a quiet home place.
+I can’t take him, for I have to be away in August.  I’ve been appointed
+a delegate to the W.F.M.S.  convention in Kingsport and I’m going.  I
+don’t know whether Leslie’ll want to be bothered with him, either, but
+there’s no one else.  If she can’t take him he’ll have to go over the
+harbor.”
+
+“When you’ve seen her come back and help us eat our cherry pies,” said
+Anne.  “Bring Leslie and Dick, too, if they can come.  And so you’re
+going to Kingsport?  What a nice time you will have.  I must give you a
+letter to a friend of mine there--Mrs. Jonas Blake.”
+
+“I’ve prevailed on Mrs. Thomas Holt to go with me,” said Miss Cornelia
+complacently.  “It’s time she had a little holiday, believe ME.  She
+has just about worked herself to death.  Tom Holt can crochet
+beautifully, but he can’t make a living for his family.  He never seems
+to be able to get up early enough to do any work, but I notice he can
+always get up early to go fishing.  Isn’t that like a man?”
+
+Anne smiled.  She had learned to discount largely Miss Cornelia’s
+opinions of the Four Winds men.  Otherwise she must have believed them
+the most hopeless assortment of reprobates and ne’er-do-wells in the
+world, with veritable slaves and martyrs for wives.  This particular
+Tom Holt, for example, she knew to be a kind husband, a much loved
+father, and an excellent neighbor.  If he were rather inclined to be
+lazy, liking better the fishing he had been born for than the farming
+he had not, and if he had a harmless eccentricity for doing fancy work,
+nobody save Miss Cornelia seemed to hold it against him.  His wife was
+a “hustler,” who gloried in hustling; his family got a comfortable
+living off the farm; and his strapping sons and daughters, inheriting
+their mother’s energy, were all in a fair way to do well in the world.
+There was not a happier household in Glen St. Mary than the Holts’.
+
+Miss Cornelia returned satisfied from the house up the brook.
+
+“Leslie’s going to take him,” she announced.  “She jumped at the
+chance.  She wants to make a little money to shingle the roof of her
+house this fall, and she didn’t know how she was going to manage it.  I
+expect Captain Jim’ll be more than interested when he hears that a
+grandson of the Selwyns’ is coming here.  Leslie said to tell you she
+hankered after cherry pie, but she couldn’t come to tea because she has
+to go and hunt up her turkeys.  They’ve strayed away.  But she said, if
+there was a piece left, for you to put it in the pantry and she’d run
+over in the cat’s light, when prowling’s in order, to get it.  You
+don’t know, Anne, dearie, what good it did my heart to hear Leslie send
+you a message like that, laughing like she used to long ago.
+
+“There’s a great change come over her lately.  She laughs and jokes
+like a girl, and from her talk I gather she’s here real often.”
+
+“Every day--or else I’m over there,” said Anne.  “I don’t know what I’d
+do without Leslie, especially just now when Gilbert is so busy.  He’s
+hardly ever home except for a few hours in the wee sma’s.  He’s really
+working himself to death.  So many of the over-harbor people send for
+him now.”
+
+“They might better be content with their own doctor,” said Miss
+Cornelia.  “Though to be sure I can’t blame them, for he’s a Methodist.
+Ever since Dr. Blythe brought Mrs. Allonby round folks think he can
+raise the dead.  I believe Dr. Dave is a mite jealous--just like a man.
+He thinks Dr. Blythe has too many new-fangled notions!  ‘Well,’ I says
+to him, ‘it was a new-fangled notion saved Rhoda Allonby.  If YOU’D
+been attending her she’d have died, and had a tombstone saying it had
+pleased God to take her away.’  Oh, I DO like to speak my mind to Dr.
+Dave!  He’s bossed the Glen for years, and he thinks he’s forgotten
+more than other people ever knew.  Speaking of doctors, I wish Dr.
+Blythe’d run over and see to that boil on Dick Moore’s neck.  It’s
+getting past Leslie’s skill.  I’m sure I don’t know what Dick Moore
+wants to start in having boils for--as if he wasn’t enough trouble
+without that!”
+
+“Do you know, Dick has taken quite a fancy to me,” said Anne.  “He
+follows me round like a dog, and smiles like a pleased child when I
+notice him.”
+
+“Does it make you creepy?”
+
+“Not at all.  I rather like poor Dick Moore.  He seems so pitiful and
+appealing, somehow.”
+
+“You wouldn’t think him very appealing if you’d see him on his
+cantankerous days, believe ME.  But I’m glad you don’t mind him--it’s
+all the nicer for Leslie.  She’ll have more to do when her boarder
+comes.  I hope he’ll be a decent creature.  You’ll probably like
+him--he’s a writer.”
+
+“I wonder why people so commonly suppose that if two individuals are
+both writers they must therefore be hugely congenial,” said Anne,
+rather scornfully.  “Nobody would expect two blacksmiths to be
+violently attracted toward each other merely because they were both
+blacksmiths.”
+
+Nevertheless, she looked forward to the advent of Owen Ford with a
+pleasant sense of expectation.  If he were young and likeable he might
+prove a very pleasant addition to society in Four Winds.  The
+latch-string of the little house was always out for the race of Joseph.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 23
+
+OWEN FORD COMES
+
+One evening Miss Cornelia telephoned down to Anne.
+
+“The writer man has just arrived here.  I’m going to drive him down to
+your place, and you can show him the way over to Leslie’s.  It’s
+shorter than driving round by the other road, and I’m in a mortal
+hurry.  The Reese baby has gone and fallen into a pail of hot water at
+the Glen, and got nearly scalded to death and they want me right
+off--to put a new skin on the child, I presume.  Mrs. Reese is always
+so careless, and then expects other people to mend her mistakes.  You
+won’t mind, will you, dearie?  His trunk can go down tomorrow.”
+
+“Very well,” said Anne.  “What is he like, Miss Cornelia?”
+
+“You’ll see what he’s like outside when I take him down.  As for what
+he’s like inside only the Lord who made him knows THAT.  I’m not going
+to say another word, for every receiver in the Glen is down.”
+
+“Miss Cornelia evidently can’t find much fault with Mr. Ford’s looks,
+or she would find it in spite of the receivers,” said Anne.  “I
+conclude therefore, Susan, that Mr. Ford is rather handsome than
+otherwise.”
+
+“Well, Mrs. Doctor, dear, I DO enjoy seeing a well-looking man,” said
+Susan candidly.  “Had I not better get up a snack for him?  There is a
+strawberry pie that would melt in your mouth.”
+
+“No, Leslie is expecting him and has his supper ready.  Besides, I want
+that strawberry pie for my own poor man.  He won’t be home till late,
+so leave the pie and a glass of milk out for him, Susan.”
+
+“That I will, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Susan is at the helm.  After all, it
+is better to give pie to your own men than to strangers, who may be
+only seeking to devour, and the doctor himself is as well-looking a man
+as you often come across.”
+
+When Owen Ford came Anne secretly admitted, as Miss Cornelia towed him
+in, that he was very “well-looking” indeed.  He was tall and
+broad-shouldered, with thick, brown hair, finely-cut nose and chin,
+large and brilliant dark-gray eyes.
+
+“And did you notice his ears and his teeth, Mrs. Doctor, dear?” queried
+Susan later on.  “He has got the nicest-shaped ears I ever saw on a
+man’s head.  I am choice about ears.  When I was young I was scared
+that I might have to marry a man with ears like flaps.  But I need not
+have worried, for never a chance did I have with any kind of ears.”
+
+Anne had not noticed Owen Ford’s ears, but she did see his teeth, as
+his lips parted over them in a frank and friendly smile.  Unsmiling,
+his face was rather sad and absent in expression, not unlike the
+melancholy, inscrutable hero of Anne’s own early dreams; but mirth and
+humor and charm lighted it up when he smiled.  Certainly, on the
+outside, as Miss Cornelia said, Owen Ford was a very presentable fellow.
+
+“You cannot realise how delighted I am to be here, Mrs. Blythe,” he
+said, looking around him with eager, interested eyes.  “I have an odd
+feeling of coming home.  My mother was born and spent her childhood
+here, you know.  She used to talk a great deal to me of her old home.
+I know the geography of it as well as of the one I lived in, and, of
+course, she told me the story of the building of the house, and of my
+grandfather’s agonised watch for the Royal William.  I had thought that
+so old a house must have vanished years ago, or I should have come to
+see it before this.”
+
+“Old houses don’t vanish easily on this enchanted coast,” smiled Anne.
+“This is a ‘land where all things always seem the same’--nearly always,
+at least.  John Selwyn’s house hasn’t even been much changed, and
+outside the rose-bushes your grandfather planted for his bride are
+blooming this very minute.”
+
+“How the thought links me with them!  With your leave I must explore
+the whole place soon.”
+
+“Our latch-string will always be out for you,” promised Anne.  “And do
+you know that the old sea captain who keeps the Four Winds light knew
+John Selwyn and his bride well in his boyhood?  He told me their story
+the night I came here--the third bride of the old house.”
+
+“Can it be possible?  This IS a discovery.  I must hunt him up.”
+
+“It won’t be difficult; we are all cronies of Captain Jim.  He will be
+as eager to see you as you could be to see him.  Your grandmother
+shines like a star in his memory.  But I think Mrs. Moore is expecting
+you.  I’ll show you our ‘cross-lots’ road.”
+
+Anne walked with him to the house up the brook, over a field that was
+as white as snow with daisies.  A boat-load of people were singing far
+across the harbor.  The sound drifted over the water like faint,
+unearthly music wind-blown across a starlit sea.  The big light flashed
+and beaconed.  Owen Ford looked around him with satisfaction.
+
+“And so this is Four Winds,” he said.  “I wasn’t prepared to find it
+quite so beautiful, in spite of all mother’s praises.  What
+colors--what scenery--what charm!  I shall get as strong as a horse in
+no time.  And if inspiration comes from beauty, I should certainly be
+able to begin my great Canadian novel here.”
+
+“You haven’t begun it yet?” asked Anne.
+
+“Alack-a-day, no.  I’ve never been able to get the right central idea
+for it.  It lurks beyond me--it allures--and beckons--and recedes--I
+almost grasp it and it is gone.  Perhaps amid this peace and
+loveliness, I shall be able to capture it.  Miss Bryant tells me that
+you write.”
+
+“Oh, I do little things for children.  I haven’t done much since I was
+married.  And--I have no designs on a great Canadian novel,” laughed
+Anne.  “That is quite beyond me.”
+
+Owen Ford laughed too.
+
+“I dare say it is beyond me as well.  All the same I mean to have a try
+at it some day, if I can ever get time.  A newspaper man doesn’t have
+much chance for that sort of thing.  I’ve done a good deal of short
+story writing for the magazines, but I’ve never had the leisure that
+seems to be necessary for the writing of a book.  With three months of
+liberty I ought to make a start, though--if I could only get the
+necessary motif for it--the SOUL of the book.”
+
+An idea whisked through Anne’s brain with a suddenness that made her
+jump.  But she did not utter it, for they had reached the Moore house.
+As they entered the yard Leslie came out on the veranda from the side
+door, peering through the gloom for some sign of her expected guest.
+She stood just where the warm yellow light flooded her from the open
+door.  She wore a plain dress of cheap, cream-tinted cotton voile, with
+the usual girdle of crimson.  Leslie was never without her touch of
+crimson.  She had told Anne that she never felt satisfied without a
+gleam of red somewhere about her, if it were only a flower.  To Anne,
+it always seemed to symbolise Leslie’s glowing, pent-up personality,
+denied all expression save in that flaming glint.  Leslie’s dress was
+cut a little away at the neck and had short sleeves.  Her arms gleamed
+like ivory-tinted marble.  Every exquisite curve of her form was
+outlined in soft darkness against the light.  Her hair shone in it like
+flame.  Beyond her was a purple sky, flowering with stars over the
+harbor.
+
+Anne heard her companion give a gasp.  Even in the dusk she could see
+the amazement and admiration on his face.
+
+“Who is that beautiful creature?” he asked.
+
+“That is Mrs. Moore,” said Anne.  “She is very lovely, isn’t she?”
+
+“I--I never saw anything like her,” he answered, rather dazedly.  “I
+wasn’t prepared--I didn’t expect--good heavens, one DOESN’T expect a
+goddess for a landlady! Why, if she were clothed in a gown of
+sea-purple, with a rope of amethysts in her hair, she would be a
+veritable sea-queen.  And she takes in boarders!”
+
+“Even goddesses must live,” said Anne.  “And Leslie isn’t a goddess.
+She’s just a very beautiful woman, as human as the rest of us.  Did
+Miss Bryant tell you about Mr. Moore?”
+
+“Yes,--he’s mentally deficient, or something of the sort, isn’t he?
+But she said nothing about Mrs. Moore, and I supposed she’d be the
+usual hustling country housewife who takes in boarders to earn an
+honest penny.”
+
+“Well, that’s just what Leslie is doing,” said Anne crisply.  “And it
+isn’t altogether pleasant for her, either.  I hope you won’t mind Dick.
+If you do, please don’t let Leslie see it.  It would hurt her horribly.
+He’s just a big baby, and sometimes a rather annoying one.”
+
+“Oh, I won’t mind him.  I don’t suppose I’ll be much in the house
+anyhow, except for meals.  But what a shame it all is!  Her life must
+be a hard one.”
+
+“It is.  But she doesn’t like to be pitied.”
+
+Leslie had gone back into the house and now met them at the front door.
+She greeted Owen Ford with cold civility, and told him in a
+business-like tone that his room and his supper were ready for him.
+Dick, with a pleased grin, shambled upstairs with the valise, and Owen
+Ford was installed as an inmate of the old house among the willows.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 24
+
+THE LIFE-BOOK OF CAPTAIN JIM
+
+“I have a little brown cocoon of an idea that may possibly expand into
+a magnificent moth of fulfilment,” Anne told Gilbert when she reached
+home.  He had returned earlier than she had expected, and was enjoying
+Susan’s cherry pie.  Susan herself hovered in the background, like a
+rather grim but beneficent guardian spirit, and found as much pleasure
+in watching Gilbert eat pie as he did in eating it.
+
+ “What is your idea?” he asked.
+
+“I sha’n’t tell you just yet--not till I see if I can bring the thing
+about.”
+
+“What sort of a chap is Ford?”
+
+“Oh, very nice, and quite good-looking.”
+
+“Such beautiful ears, doctor, dear,” interjected Susan with a relish.
+
+“He is about thirty or thirty-five, I think, and he meditates writing a
+novel.  His voice is pleasant and his smile delightful, and he knows
+how to dress.  He looks as if life hadn’t been altogether easy for him,
+somehow.”
+
+Owen Ford came over the next evening with a note to Anne from Leslie;
+they spent the sunset time in the garden and then went for a moonlit
+sail on the harbor, in the little boat Gilbert had set up for summer
+outings.  They liked Owen immensely and had that feeling of having
+known him for many years which distinguishes the freemasonry of the
+house of Joseph.  “He is as nice as his ears, Mrs. Doctor, dear,” said
+Susan, when he had gone.  He had told Susan that he had never tasted
+anything like her strawberry shortcake and Susan’s susceptible heart
+was his forever.
+
+“He has got a way with him,”  she reflected, as she cleared up the
+relics of the supper.  “It is real queer he is not married, for a man
+like that could have anybody for the asking.  Well, maybe he is like
+me, and has not met the right one yet.”
+
+Susan really grew quite romantic in her musings as she washed the
+supper dishes.
+
+Two nights later Anne took Owen Ford down to Four Winds Point to
+introduce him to Captain Jim.  The clover fields along the harbor shore
+were whitening in the western wind, and Captain Jim had one of his
+finest sunsets on exhibition.  He himself had just returned from a trip
+over the harbor.
+
+“I had to go over and tell Henry Pollack he was dying.  Everybody else
+was afraid to tell him.  They expected he’d take on turrible, for he’s
+been dreadful determined to live, and been making no end of plans for
+the fall.  His wife thought he oughter be told and that I’d be the best
+one to break it to him that he couldn’t get better.  Henry and me are
+old cronies--we sailed in the Gray Gull for years together.  Well, I
+went over and sat down by Henry’s bed and I says to him, says I, jest
+right out plain and simple, for if a thing’s got to be told it may as
+well be told first as last, says I, ‘Mate, I reckon you’ve got your
+sailing orders this time,’ I was sorter quaking inside, for it’s an
+awful thing to have to tell a man who hain’t any idea he’s dying that
+he is.  But lo and behold, Mistress Blythe, Henry looks up at me, with
+those bright old black eyes of his in his wizened face and says, says
+he, ‘Tell me something I don’t know, Jim Boyd, if you want to give me
+information.  I’ve known THAT for a week.’  I was too astonished to
+speak, and Henry, he chuckled.  ‘To see you coming in here,’ says he,
+‘with your face as solemn as a tombstone and sitting down there with
+your hands clasped over your stomach, and passing me out a blue-mouldy
+old item of news like that!  It’d make a cat laugh, Jim Boyd,’ says he.
+‘Who told you?’ says I, stupid like.  ‘Nobody,’ says he.  ‘A week ago
+Tuesday night I was lying here awake--and I jest knew.  I’d suspicioned
+it before, but then I KNEW.  I’ve been keeping up for the wife’s sake.
+And I’d LIKE to have got that barn built, for Eben’ll never get it
+right.  But anyhow, now that you’ve eased your mind, Jim, put on a
+smile and tell me something interesting,’ Well, there it was.  They’d
+been so scared to tell him and he knew it all the time.  Strange how
+nature looks out for us, ain’t it, and lets us know what we should know
+when the time comes?  Did I never tell you the yarn about Henry getting
+the fish hook in his nose, Mistress Blythe?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Well, him and me had a laugh over it today.  It happened nigh unto
+thirty years ago.  Him and me and several more was out mackerel fishing
+one day.  It was a great day--never saw such a school of mackerel in
+the gulf--and in the general excitement Henry got quite wild and
+contrived to stick a fish hook clean through one side of his nose.
+Well, there he was; there was barb on one end and a big piece of lead
+on the other, so it couldn’t be pulled out.  We wanted to take him
+ashore at once, but Henry was game; he said he’d be jiggered if he’d
+leave a school like that for anything short of lockjaw; then he kept
+fishing away, hauling in hand over fist and groaning between times.
+Fin’lly the school passed and we come in with a load; I got a file and
+begun to try to file through that hook.  I tried to be as easy as I
+could, but you should have heard Henry--no, you shouldn’t either.  It
+was well no ladies were around.  Henry wasn’t a swearing man, but he’d
+heard some few matters of that sort along shore in his time, and he
+fished ’em all out of his recollection and hurled ’em at me.  Fin’lly
+he declared he couldn’t stand it and I had no bowels of compassion.  So
+we hitched up and I drove him to a doctor in Charlottetown, thirty-five
+miles--there weren’t none nearer in them days--with that blessed hook
+still hanging from his nose.  When we got there old Dr. Crabb jest took
+a file and filed that hook jest the same as I’d tried to do, only he
+weren’t a mite particular about doing it easy!”
+
+Captain Jim’s visit to his old friend had revived many recollections
+and he was now in the full tide of reminiscences.
+
+“Henry was asking me today if I remembered the time old Father Chiniquy
+blessed Alexander MacAllister’s boat.  Another odd yarn--and true as
+gospel.  I was in the boat myself.  We went out, him and me, in
+Alexander MacAllister’s boat one morning at sunrise.  Besides, there
+was a French boy in the boat--Catholic of course.  You know old Father
+Chiniquy had turned Protestant, so the Catholics hadn’t much use for
+him.  Well, we sat out in the gulf in the broiling sun till noon, and
+not a bite did we get.  When we went ashore old Father Chiniquy had to
+go, so he said in that polite way of his, ‘I’m very sorry I cannot go
+out with you dis afternoon, Mr. MacAllister, but I leave you my
+blessing.  You will catch a t’ousand dis afternoon.  ‘Well, we did not
+catch a thousand, but we caught exactly nine hundred and
+ninety-nine--the biggest catch for a small boat on the whole north
+shore that summer.  Curious, wasn’t it?  Alexander MacAllister, he says
+to Andrew Peters, ‘Well, and what do you think of Father Chiniquy now?’
+‘Vell,’ growled Andrew, ‘I t’ink de old devil has got a blessing left
+yet.’  Laws, how Henry did laugh over that today!”
+
+“Do you know who Mr. Ford is, Captain Jim?” asked Anne, seeing that
+Captain Jim’s fountain of reminiscence had run out for the present.  “I
+want you to guess.”
+
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+
+“I never was any hand at guessing, Mistress Blythe, and yet somehow
+when I come in I thought, ‘Where have I seen them eyes before?’--for I
+HAVE seen ’em.”
+
+“Think of a September morning many years ago,” said Anne, softly.
+“Think of a ship sailing up the harbor--a ship long waited for and
+despaired of.  Think of the day the Royal William came in and the first
+look you had at the schoolmaster’s bride.”
+
+Captain Jim sprang up.
+
+“They’re Persis Selwyn’s eyes,” he almost shouted.  “You can’t be her
+son--you must be her--”
+
+“Grandson; yes, I am Alice Selwyn’s son.”
+
+Captain Jim swooped down on Owen Ford and shook his hand over again.
+
+“Alice Selwyn’s son!  Lord, but you’re welcome!  Many’s the time I’ve
+wondered where the descendants of the schoolmaster were living.  I knew
+there was none on the Island.  Alice--Alice--the first baby ever born
+in that little house.  No baby ever brought more joy!  I’ve dandled her
+a hundred times.  It was from my knee she took her first steps alone.
+Can’t I see her mother’s face watching her--and it was near sixty years
+ago.  Is she living yet?”
+
+“No, she died when I was only a boy.”
+
+“Oh, it doesn’t seem right that I should be living to hear that,”
+sighed Captain Jim.  “But I’m heart-glad to see you.  It’s brought back
+my youth for a little while.  You don’t know yet what a boon THAT is.
+Mistress Blythe here has the trick--she does it quite often for me.”
+
+Captain Jim was still more excited when he discovered that Owen Ford
+was what he called a “real writing man.”  He gazed at him as at a
+superior being.  Captain Jim knew that Anne wrote, but he had never
+taken that fact very seriously.  Captain Jim thought women were
+delightful creatures, who ought to have the vote, and everything else
+they wanted, bless their hearts; but he did not believe they could
+write.
+
+“Jest look at A Mad Love,” he would protest.  “A woman wrote that and
+jest look at it--one hundred and three chapters when it could all have
+been told in ten.  A writing woman never knows when to stop; that’s the
+trouble.  The p’int of good writing is to know when to stop.”
+
+“Mr. Ford wants to hear some of your stories, Captain Jim” said Anne.
+“Tell him the one about the captain who went crazy and imagined he was
+the Flying Dutchman.”
+
+This was Captain Jim’s best story.  It was a compound of horror and
+humor, and though Anne had heard it several times she laughed as
+heartily and shivered as fearsomely over it as Mr. Ford did.  Other
+tales followed, for Captain Jim had an audience after his own heart.
+He told how his vessel had been run down by a steamer; how he had been
+boarded by Malay pirates; how his ship had caught fire; how he helped a
+political prisoner escape from a South African republic; how he had
+been wrecked one fall on the Magdalens and stranded there for the
+winter; how a tiger had broken loose on board ship; how his crew had
+mutinied and marooned him on a barren island--these and many other
+tales, tragic or humorous or grotesque, did Captain Jim relate.  The
+mystery of the sea, the fascination of far lands, the lure of
+adventure, the laughter of the world--his hearers felt and realised
+them all.  Owen Ford listened, with his head on his hand, and the First
+Mate purring on his knee, his brilliant eyes fastened on Captain Jim’s
+rugged, eloquent face.
+
+“Won’t you let Mr. Ford see your life-book, Captain Jim?” asked Anne,
+when Captain Jim finally declared that yarn-spinning must end for the
+time.
+
+“Oh, he don’t want to be bothered with THAT,” protested Captain Jim,
+who was secretly dying to show it.
+
+“I should like nothing better than to see it, Captain Boyd,” said Owen.
+“If it is half as wonderful as your tales it will be worth seeing.”
+
+With pretended reluctance Captain Jim dug his life-book out of his old
+chest and handed it to Owen.
+
+“I reckon you won’t care to wrastle long with my old hand o’ write.  I
+never had much schooling,” he observed carelessly.  “Just wrote that
+there to amuse my nephew Joe.  He’s always wanting stories.  Comes here
+yesterday and says to me, reproachful-like, as I was lifting a
+twenty-pound codfish out of my boat, ‘Uncle Jim, ain’t a codfish a dumb
+animal?’  I’d been a-telling him, you see, that he must be real kind to
+dumb animals, and never hurt ’em in any way.  I got out of the scrape
+by saying a codfish was dumb enough but it wasn’t an animal, but Joe
+didn’t look satisfied, and I wasn’t satisfied myself.  You’ve got to be
+mighty careful what you tell them little critters.  THEY can see
+through you.”
+
+While talking, Captain Jim watched Owen Ford from the corner of his eye
+as the latter examined the life-book; and presently observing that his
+guest was lost in its pages, he turned smilingly to his cupboard and
+proceeded to make a pot of tea.  Owen Ford separated himself from the
+life-book, with as much reluctance as a miser wrenches himself from his
+gold, long enough to drink his tea, and then returned to it hungrily.
+
+“Oh, you can take that thing home with you if you want to,” said
+Captain Jim, as if the “thing” were not his most treasured possession.
+“I must go down and pull my boat up a bit on the skids.  There’s a wind
+coming.  Did you notice the sky tonight?
+
+    Mackerel skies and mares’ tails
+    Make tall ships carry short sails.”
+
+Owen Ford accepted the offer of the life-book gladly.  On their way
+home Anne told him the story of lost Margaret.
+
+“That old captain is a wonderful old fellow,” he said.  “What a life he
+has led!  Why, the man had more adventures in one week of his life than
+most of us have in a lifetime.  Do you really think his tales are all
+true?”
+
+“I certainly do.  I am sure Captain Jim could not tell a lie; and
+besides, all the people about here say that everything happened as he
+relates it.  There used to be plenty of his old shipmates alive to
+corroborate him.  He’s one of the last of the old type of P.E. Island
+sea-captains.  They are almost extinct now.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 25
+
+THE WRITING OF THE BOOK
+
+Owen Ford came over to the little house the next morning in a state of
+great excitement.  “Mrs. Blythe, this is a wonderful book--absolutely
+wonderful.  If I could take it and use the material for a book I feel
+certain I could make the novel of the year out of it.  Do you suppose
+Captain Jim would let me do it?”
+
+“Let you!  I’m sure he would be delighted,” cried Anne.  “I admit that
+it was what was in my head when I took you down last night.  Captain
+Jim has always been wishing he could get somebody to write his
+life-book properly for him.”
+
+“Will you go down to the Point with me this evening, Mrs. Blythe?  I’ll
+ask him about that life-book myself, but I want you to tell him that
+you told me the story of lost Margaret and ask him if he will let me
+use it as a thread of romance with which to weave the stories of the
+life-book into a harmonious whole.”
+
+Captain Jim was more excited than ever when Owen Ford told him of his
+plan.  At last his cherished dream was to be realized and his
+“life-book” given to the world.  He was also pleased that the story of
+lost Margaret should be woven into it.
+
+“It will keep her name from being forgotten,” he said wistfully.
+
+“That’s why I want it put in.”
+
+“We’ll collaborate,” cried Owen delightedly.  “You will give the soul
+and I the body.  Oh, we’ll write a famous book between us, Captain Jim.
+And we’ll get right to work.”
+
+“And to think my book is to be writ by the schoolmaster’s grandson!”
+exclaimed Captain Jim.  “Lad, your grandfather was my dearest friend.
+I thought there was nobody like him.  I see now why I had to wait so
+long.  It couldn’t be writ till the right man come.  You BELONG
+here--you’ve got the soul of this old north shore in you--you’re the
+only one who COULD write it.”
+
+It was arranged that the tiny room off the living room at the
+lighthouse should be given over to Owen for a workshop.  It was
+necessary that Captain Jim should be near him as he wrote, for
+consultation upon many matters of sea-faring and gulf lore of which
+Owen was quite ignorant.
+
+He began work on the book the very next morning, and flung himself into
+it heart and soul.  As for Captain Jim, he was a happy man that summer.
+He looked upon the little room where Owen worked as a sacred shrine.
+Owen talked everything over with Captain Jim, but he would not let him
+see the manuscript.
+
+“You must wait until it is published,” he said.  “Then you’ll get it
+all at once in its best shape.”
+
+He delved into the treasures of the life-book and used them freely.  He
+dreamed and brooded over lost Margaret until she became a vivid reality
+to him and lived in his pages.  As the book progressed it took
+possession of him and he worked at it with feverish eagerness.  He let
+Anne and Leslie read the manuscript and criticise it; and the
+concluding chapter of the book, which the critics, later on, were
+pleased to call idyllic, was modelled upon a suggestion of Leslie’s.
+
+Anne fairly hugged herself with delight over the success of her idea.
+
+“I knew when I looked at Owen Ford that he was the very man for it,”
+she told Gilbert.  “Both humor and passion were in his face, and that,
+together with the art of expression, was just what was necessary for
+the writing of such a book.  As Mrs. Rachel would say, he was
+predestined for the part.”
+
+Owen Ford wrote in the mornings.  The afternoons were generally spent
+in some merry outing with the Blythes.  Leslie often went, too, for
+Captain Jim took charge of Dick frequently, in order to set her free.
+They went boating on the harbor and up the three pretty rivers that
+flowed into it; they had clambakes on the bar and mussel-bakes on the
+rocks; they picked strawberries on the sand-dunes; they went out
+cod-fishing with Captain Jim; they shot plover in the shore fields and
+wild ducks in the cove--at least, the men did.  In the evenings they
+rambled in the low-lying, daisied, shore fields under a golden moon, or
+they sat in the living room at the little house where often the
+coolness of the sea breeze justified a driftwood fire, and talked of
+the thousand and one things which happy, eager, clever young people can
+find to talk about.
+
+Ever since the day on which she had made her confession to Anne Leslie
+had been a changed creature.  There was no trace of her old coldness
+and reserve, no shadow of her old bitterness.  The girlhood of which
+she had been cheated seemed to come back to her with the ripeness of
+womanhood; she expanded like a flower of flame and perfume; no laugh
+was readier than hers, no wit quicker, in the twilight circles of that
+enchanted summer.  When she could not be with them all felt that some
+exquisite savor was lacking in their intercourse.  Her beauty was
+illumined by the awakened soul within, as some rosy lamp might shine
+through a flawless vase of alabaster.  There were hours when Anne’s
+eyes seemed to ache with the splendor of her.  As for Owen Ford, the
+“Margaret” of his book, although she had the soft brown hair and elfin
+face of the real girl who had vanished so long ago, “pillowed where
+lost Atlantis sleeps,” had the personality of Leslie Moore, as it was
+revealed to him in those halcyon days at Four Winds Harbor.
+
+All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer--one of those summers
+which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful
+memories in their going--one of those summers which, in a fortunate
+combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful
+doings, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world.
+
+“Too good to last,” Anne told herself with a little sigh, on the
+September day when a certain nip in the wind and a certain shade of
+intense blue on the gulf water said that autumn was hard by.
+
+That evening Owen Ford told them that he had finished his book and that
+his vacation must come to an end.
+
+“I have a good deal to do to it yet--revising and pruning and so
+forth,” he said, “but in the main it’s done.  I wrote the last sentence
+this morning.  If I can find a publisher for it it will probably be out
+next summer or fall.”
+
+Owen had not much doubt that he would find a publisher.  He knew that
+he had written a great book--a book that would score a wonderful
+success--a book that would LIVE.  He knew that it would bring him both
+fame and fortune; but when he had written the last line of it he had
+bowed his head on the manuscript and so sat for a long time.  And his
+thoughts were not of the good work he had done.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 26
+
+OWEN FORD’S CONFESSION
+
+“I’m so sorry Gilbert is away,” said Anne.  “He had to go--Allan Lyons
+at the Glen has met with a serious accident.  He will not likely be
+home till very late.  But he told me to tell you he’d be up and over
+early enough in the morning to see you before you left.  It’s too
+provoking.  Susan and I had planned such a nice little jamboree for
+your last night here.”
+
+She was sitting beside the garden brook on the little rustic seat
+Gilbert had built.  Owen Ford stood before her, leaning against the
+bronze column of a yellow birch.  He was very pale and his face bore
+the marks of the preceding sleepless night.  Anne, glancing up at him,
+wondered if, after all, his summer had brought him the strength it
+should.  Had he worked too hard over his book?  She remembered that for
+a week he had not been looking well.
+
+“I’m rather glad the doctor is away,” said Owen slowly.  “I wanted to
+see you alone, Mrs. Blythe.  There is something I must tell somebody,
+or I think it will drive me mad.  I’ve been trying for a week to look
+it in the face--and I can’t.  I know I can trust you--and, besides, you
+will understand.  A woman with eyes like yours always understands.  You
+are one of the folks people instinctively tell things to.  Mrs. Blythe,
+I love Leslie.  LOVE her!  That seems too weak a word!”
+
+His voice suddenly broke with the suppressed passion of his utterance.
+He turned his head away and hid his face on his arm.  His whole form
+shook.  Anne sat looking at him, pale and aghast.  She had never
+thought of this!  And yet--how was it she had never thought of it?  It
+now seemed a natural and inevitable thing.  She wondered at her own
+blindness.  But--but--things like this did not happen in Four Winds.
+Elsewhere in the world human passions might set at defiance human
+conventions and laws--but not HERE, surely.  Leslie had kept summer
+boarders off and on for ten years, and nothing like this had happened.
+But perhaps they had not been like Owen Ford; and the vivid, LIVING
+Leslie of this summer was not the cold, sullen girl of other years.
+Oh, SOMEBODY should have thought of this!  Why hadn’t Miss Cornelia
+thought of it?  Miss Cornelia was always ready enough to sound the
+alarm where men were concerned. Anne felt an unreasonable resentment
+against Miss Cornelia.  Then she gave a little inward groan.  No matter
+who was to blame the mischief was done.  And Leslie--what of Leslie?
+It was for Leslie Anne felt most concerned.
+
+“Does Leslie know this, Mr. Ford?” she asked quietly.
+
+“No--no,--unless she has guessed it.  You surely don’t think I’d be cad
+and scoundrel enough to tell her, Mrs. Blythe.  I couldn’t help loving
+her--that’s all--and my misery is greater than I can bear.”
+
+“Does SHE care?” asked Anne.  The moment the question crossed her lips
+she felt that she should not have asked it.  Owen Ford answered it with
+overeager protest.
+
+“No--no, of course not.  But I could make her care if she were free--I
+know I could.”
+
+“She does care--and he knows it,” thought Anne.  Aloud she said,
+sympathetically but decidedly:
+
+“But she is not free, Mr. Ford.  And the only thing you can do is to go
+away in silence and leave her to her own life.”
+
+“I know--I know,” groaned Owen.  He sat down on the grassy bank and
+stared moodily into the amber water beneath him.  “I know there’s
+nothing to do--nothing but to say conventionally, ‘Good-bye, Mrs.
+Moore.  Thank you for all your kindness to me this summer,’ just as I
+would have said it to the sonsy, bustling, keen-eyed housewife I
+expected her to be when I came.  Then I’ll pay my board money like any
+honest boarder and go!  Oh, it’s very simple.  No doubt--no
+perplexity--a straight road to the end of the world!
+
+“And I’ll walk it--you needn’t fear that I won’t, Mrs. Blythe.  But it
+would be easier to walk over red-hot ploughshares.”
+
+Anne flinched with the pain of his voice.  And there was so little she
+could say that would be adequate to the situation.  Blame was out of
+the question--advice was not needed--sympathy was mocked by the man’s
+stark agony.  She could only feel with him in a maze of compassion and
+regret.  Her heart ached for Leslie!  Had not that poor girl suffered
+enough without this?
+
+“It wouldn’t be so hard to go and leave her if she were only happy,”
+resumed Owen passionately.  “But to think of her living death--to
+realise what it is to which I do leave her!  THAT is the worst of all.
+I would give my life to make her happy--and I can do nothing even to
+help her--nothing.  She is bound forever to that poor wretch--with
+nothing to look forward to but growing old in a succession of empty,
+meaningless, barren years.  It drives me mad to think of it.  But I
+must go through my life, never seeing her, but always knowing what she
+is enduring.  It’s hideous--hideous!”
+
+“It is very hard,” said Anne sorrowfully.  “We--her friends here--all
+know how hard it is for her.”
+
+“And she is so richly fitted for life,” said Owen rebelliously.
+
+“Her beauty is the least of her dower--and she is the most beautiful
+woman I’ve ever known.  That laugh of hers!  I’ve angled all summer to
+evoke that laugh, just for the delight of hearing it.  And her
+eyes--they are as deep and blue as the gulf out there.  I never saw
+such blueness--and gold!  Did you ever see her hair down, Mrs. Blythe?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“I did--once.  I had gone down to the Point to go fishing with Captain
+Jim but it was too rough to go out, so I came back.  She had taken the
+opportunity of what she expected to be an afternoon alone to wash her
+hair, and she was standing on the veranda in the sunshine to dry it.
+It fell all about her to her feet in a fountain of living gold.  When
+she saw me she hurried in, and the wind caught her hair and swirled it
+all around her--Danae in her cloud.  Somehow, just then the knowledge
+that I loved her came home to me--and realised that I had loved her
+from the moment I first saw her standing against the darkness in that
+glow of light.  And she must live on here--petting and soothing Dick,
+pinching and saving for a mere existence, while I spend my life longing
+vainly for her, and debarred, by that very fact, from even giving her
+the little help a friend might.  I walked the shore last night, almost
+till dawn, and thrashed it all out over and over again.  And yet, in
+spite of everything, I can’t find it in my heart to be sorry that I
+came to Four Winds.  It seems to me that, bad as everything is, it
+would be still worse never to have known Leslie.  It’s burning, searing
+pain to love her and leave her--but not to have loved her is
+unthinkable.  I suppose all this sounds very crazy--all these terrible
+emotions always do sound foolish when we put them into our inadequate
+words.  They are not meant to be spoken--only felt and endured.  I
+shouldn’t have spoken--but it has helped--some.  At least, it has given
+me strength to go away respectably tomorrow morning, without making a
+scene.  You’ll write me now and then, won’t you, Mrs. Blythe, and give
+me what news there is to give of her?”
+
+“Yes,” said Anne.  “Oh, I’m so sorry you are going--we’ll miss you
+so--we’ve all been such friends!  If it were not for this you could
+come back other summers.  Perhaps, even yet--by-and-by--when you’ve
+forgotten, perhaps--”
+
+“I shall never forget--and I shall never come back to Four Winds,” said
+Owen briefly.
+
+Silence and twilight fell over the garden.  Far away the sea was
+lapping gently and monotonously on the bar.  The wind of evening in the
+poplars sounded like some sad, weird, old rune--some broken dream of
+old memories.  A slender shapely young aspen rose up before them
+against the fine maize and emerald and paling rose of the western sky,
+which brought out every leaf and twig in dark, tremulous, elfin
+loveliness.
+
+“Isn’t that beautiful?” said Owen, pointing to it with the air of a man
+who puts a certain conversation behind him.
+
+“It’s so beautiful that it hurts me,” said Anne softly.  “Perfect
+things like that always did hurt me--I remember I called it ‘the queer
+ache’ when I was a child.  What is the reason that pain like this seems
+inseparable from perfection?  Is it the pain of finality--when we
+realise that there can be nothing beyond but retrogression?”
+
+“Perhaps,” said Owen dreamily, “it is the prisoned infinite in us
+calling out to its kindred infinite as expressed in that visible
+perfection.”
+
+“You seem to have a cold in the head.  Better rub some tallow on your
+nose when you go to bed,” said Miss Cornelia, who had come in through
+the little gate between the firs in time to catch Owen’s last remark.
+Miss Cornelia liked Owen; but it was a matter of principle with her to
+visit any “high-falutin” language from a man with a snub.
+
+Miss Cornelia personated the comedy that ever peeps around the corner
+at the tragedy of life.  Anne, whose nerves had been rather strained,
+laughed hysterically, and even Owen smiled.  Certainly, sentiment and
+passion had a way of shrinking out of sight in Miss Cornelia’s
+presence.  And yet to Anne nothing seemed quite as hopeless and dark
+and painful as it had seemed a few moments before.  But sleep was far
+from her eyes that night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 27
+
+ON THE SAND BAR
+
+Owen Ford left Four Winds the next morning.  In the evening Anne went
+over to see Leslie, but found nobody.  The house was locked and there
+was no light in any window.  It looked like a home left soulless.
+Leslie did not run over on the following day--which Anne thought a bad
+sign.
+
+Gilbert having occasion to go in the evening to the fishing cove, Anne
+drove with him to the Point, intending to stay awhile with Captain Jim.
+But the great light, cutting its swathes through the fog of the autumn
+evening, was in care of Alec Boyd and Captain Jim was away.
+
+“What will you do?” asked Gilbert.  “Come with me?”
+
+“I don’t want to go to the cove--but I’ll go over the channel with you,
+and roam about on the sand shore till you come back.  The rock shore is
+too slippery and grim tonight.”
+
+Alone on the sands of the bar Anne gave herself up to the eerie charm
+of the night.  It was warm for September, and the late afternoon had
+been very foggy; but a full moon had in part lessened the fog and
+transformed the harbor and the gulf and the surrounding shores into a
+strange, fantastic, unreal world of pale silver mist, through which
+everything loomed phantom-like.  Captain Josiah Crawford’s black
+schooner sailing down the channel, laden with potatoes for Bluenose
+ports, was a spectral ship bound for a far uncharted land, ever
+receding, never to be reached.  The calls of unseen gulls overhead were
+the cries of the souls of doomed seamen.  The little curls of foam that
+blew across the sand were elfin things stealing up from the sea-caves.
+The big, round-shouldered sand-dunes were the sleeping giants of some
+old northern tale.  The lights that glimmered palely across the harbor
+were the delusive beacons on some coast of fairyland.  Anne pleased
+herself with a hundred fancies as she wandered through the mist.  It
+was delightful--romantic--mysterious to be roaming here alone on this
+enchanted shore.
+
+But was she alone?  Something loomed in the mist before her--took shape
+and form--suddenly moved towards her across the wave-rippled sand.
+
+“Leslie!” exclaimed Anne in amazement.  “Whatever are you
+doing--HERE--tonight?”
+
+“If it comes to that, whatever are YOU doing here?” said Leslie, trying
+to laugh.  The effort was a failure.  She looked very pale and tired;
+but the love locks under her scarlet cap were curling about her face
+and eyes like little sparkling rings of gold.
+
+“I’m waiting for Gilbert--he’s over at the Cove.  I intended to stay at
+the light, but Captain Jim is away.”
+
+“Well, _I_ came here because I wanted to walk--and walk--and WALK,”
+said Leslie restlessly.  “I couldn’t on the rock shore--the tide was
+too high and the rocks prisoned me.  I had to come here--or I should
+have gone mad, I think.  I rowed myself over the channel in Captain
+Jim’s flat.  I’ve been here for an hour.  Come--come--let us walk.  I
+can’t stand still.  Oh, Anne!”
+
+“Leslie, dearest, what is the trouble?” asked Anne, though she knew too
+well already.
+
+“I can’t tell you--don’t ask me.  I wouldn’t mind your knowing--I wish
+you did know--but I can’t tell you--I can’t tell anyone.  I’ve been
+such a fool, Anne--and oh, it hurts so terribly to be a fool.  There’s
+nothing so painful in the world.”
+
+She laughed bitterly.  Anne slipped her arm around her.
+
+“Leslie, is it that you have learned to care for Mr. Ford?”
+
+Leslie turned herself about passionately.
+
+“How did you know?” she cried.  “Anne, how did you know?  Oh, is it
+written in my face for everyone to see?  Is it as plain as that?”
+
+“No, no.  I--I can’t tell you how I knew.  It just came into my mind,
+somehow.  Leslie, don’t look at me like that!”
+
+“Do you despise me?” demanded Leslie in a fierce, low tone.  “Do you
+think I’m wicked--unwomanly?  Or do you think I’m just plain fool?”
+
+“I don’t think you any of those things.  Come, dear, let’s just talk it
+over sensibly, as we might talk over any other of the great crises of
+life.  You’ve been brooding over it and let yourself drift into a
+morbid view of it.  You know you have a little tendency to do that
+about everything that goes wrong, and you promised me that you would
+fight against it.”
+
+“But--oh, it’s so--so shameful,” murmured Leslie.  “To love
+him--unsought--and when I’m not free to love anybody.”
+
+“There’s nothing shameful about it.  But I’m very sorry that you have
+learned to care for Owen, because, as things are, it will only make you
+more unhappy.”
+
+“I didn’t LEARN to care,” said Leslie, walking on and speaking
+passionately.  “If it had been like that I could have prevented it.  I
+never dreamed of such a thing until that day, a week ago, when he told
+me he had finished his book and must soon go away.  Then--then I knew.
+I felt as if someone had struck me a terrible blow.  I didn’t say
+anything--I couldn’t speak--but I don’t know what I looked like.  I’m
+so afraid my face betrayed me.  Oh, I would die of shame if I thought
+he knew--or suspected.”
+
+Anne was miserably silent, hampered by her deductions from her
+conversation with Owen.  Leslie went on feverishly, as if she found
+relief in speech.
+
+“I was so happy all this summer, Anne--happier than I ever was in my
+life.  I thought it was because everything had been made clear between
+you and me, and that it was our friendship which made life seem so
+beautiful and full once more.  And it WAS, in part--but not all--oh,
+not nearly all.  I know now why everything was so different.  And now
+it’s all over--and he has gone.  How can I live, Anne?  When I turned
+back into the house this morning after he had gone the solitude struck
+me like a blow in the face.”
+
+“It won’t seem so hard by and by, dear,” said Anne, who always felt the
+pain of her friends so keenly that she could not speak easy, fluent
+words of comforting.  Besides, she remembered how well-meant speeches
+had hurt her in her own sorrow and was afraid.
+
+“Oh, it seems to me it will grow harder all the time,” said Leslie
+miserably.  “I’ve nothing to look forward to.  Morning will come after
+morning--and he will not come back--he will never come back.  Oh, when
+I think that I will never see him again I feel as if a great brutal
+hand had twisted itself among my heartstrings, and was wrenching them.
+Once, long ago, I dreamed of love--and I thought it must be
+beautiful--and NOW--its like THIS.  When he went away yesterday morning
+he was so cold and indifferent.  He said ‘Good-bye, Mrs. Moore’ in the
+coldest tone in the world--as if we had not even been friends--as if I
+meant absolutely nothing to him.  I know I don’t--I didn’t want him to
+care--but he MIGHT have been a little kinder.”
+
+“Oh, I wish Gilbert would come,” thought Anne.  She was racked between
+her sympathy for Leslie and the necessity of avoiding anything that
+would betray Owen’s confidence.  She knew why his good-bye had been so
+cold--why it could not have the cordiality that their good-comradeship
+demanded--but she could not tell Leslie.
+
+“I couldn’t help it, Anne--I couldn’t help it,” said poor Leslie.
+
+“I know that.”
+
+“Do you blame me so very much?”
+
+“I don’t blame you at all.”
+
+“And you won’t--you won’t tell Gilbert?”
+
+“Leslie!  Do you think I would do such a thing?”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know--you and Gilbert are such CHUMS.  I don’t see how you
+could help telling him everything.”
+
+“Everything about my own concerns--yes.  But not my friends’ secrets.”
+
+“I couldn’t have HIM know.  But I’m glad YOU know.  I would feel guilty
+if there were anything I was ashamed to tell you.  I hope Miss Cornelia
+won’t find out.  Sometimes I feel as if those terrible, kind brown eyes
+of hers read my very soul.  Oh, I wish this mist would never lift--I
+wish I could just stay in it forever, hidden away from every living
+being.  I don’t see how I can go on with life.  This summer has been so
+full.  I never was lonely for a moment.  Before Owen came there used to
+be horrible moments--when I had been with you and Gilbert--and then had
+to leave you.  You two would walk away together and I would walk away
+ALONE.  After Owen came he was always there to walk home with me--we
+would laugh and talk as you and Gilbert were doing--there were no more
+lonely, envious moments for me.  And NOW!  Oh, yes, I’ve been a fool.
+Let’s have done talking about my folly.  I’ll never bore you with it
+again.”
+
+“Here is Gilbert, and you are coming back with us,” said Anne, who had
+no intention of leaving Leslie to wander alone on the sand-bar on such
+a night and in such a mood.  “There’s plenty of room in our boat for
+three, and we’ll tie the flat on behind.”
+
+“Oh, I suppose I must reconcile myself to being the odd one again,”
+said poor Leslie with another bitter laugh.  “Forgive me, Anne--that
+was hateful.  I ought to be thankful--and I AM--that I have two good
+friends who are glad to count me in as a third.  Don’t mind my hateful
+speeches.  I just seem to be one great pain all over and everything
+hurts me.”
+
+“Leslie seemed very quiet tonight, didn’t she?” said Gilbert, when he
+and Anne reached home.  “What in the world was she doing over there on
+the bar alone?”
+
+“Oh, she was tired--and you know she likes to go to the shore after one
+of Dick’s bad days.”
+
+“What a pity she hadn’t met and married a fellow like Ford long ago,”
+ruminated Gilbert.  “They’d have made an ideal couple, wouldn’t they?”
+
+“For pity’s sake, Gilbert, don’t develop into a match-maker.  It’s an
+abominable profession for a man,” cried Anne rather sharply, afraid
+that Gilbert might blunder on the truth if he kept on in this strain.
+
+“Bless us, Anne-girl, I’m not matchmaking,” protested Gilbert, rather
+surprised at her tone.  “I was only thinking of one of the
+might-have-beens.”
+
+“Well, don’t.  It’s a waste of time,” said Anne.  Then she added
+suddenly:
+
+“Oh, Gilbert, I wish everybody could be as happy as we are.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 28
+
+ODDS AND ENDS
+
+“I’ve been reading obituary notices,” said Miss Cornelia, laying down
+the Daily Enterprise and taking up her sewing.
+
+The harbor was lying black and sullen under a dour November sky; the
+wet, dead leaves clung drenched and sodden to the window sills; but the
+little house was gay with firelight and spring-like with Anne’s ferns
+and geraniums.
+
+“It’s always summer here, Anne,” Leslie had said one day; and all who
+were the guests of that house of dreams felt the same.
+
+“The Enterprise seems to run to obituaries these days,” quoth Miss
+Cornelia.  “It always has a couple of columns of them, and I read every
+line.  It’s one of my forms of recreation, especially when there’s some
+original poetry attached to them.  Here’s a choice sample for you:
+
+    She’s gone to be with her Maker,
+    Never more to roam.
+    She used to play and sing with joy
+    The song of Home, Sweet Home.
+
+Who says we haven’t any poetical talent on the Island!  Have you ever
+noticed what heaps of good people die, Anne, dearie?  It’s kind of
+pitiful.  Here’s ten obituaries, and every one of them saints and
+models, even the men.  Here’s old Peter Stimson, who has ‘left a large
+circle of friends to mourn his untimely loss.’ Lord, Anne, dearie, that
+man was eighty, and everybody who knew him had been wishing him dead
+these thirty years.  Read obituaries when you’re blue, Anne,
+dearie--especially the ones of folks you know.  If you’ve any sense of
+humor at all they’ll cheer you up, believe ME.  I just wish _I_ had the
+writing of the obituaries of some people.  Isn’t ‘obituary’ an awful
+ugly word?  This very Peter I’ve been speaking of had a face exactly
+like one.  I never saw it but I thought of the word OBITUARY then and
+there.  There’s only one uglier word that I know of, and that’s RELICT.
+Lord, Anne, dearie, I may be an old maid, but there’s this comfort in
+it--I’ll never be any man’s ‘relict.’”
+
+“It IS an ugly word,” said Anne, laughing.  “Avonlea graveyard was full
+of old tombstones ‘sacred to the memory of So-and-So, RELICT of the
+late So-and-So.’  It always made me think of something worn out and
+moth eaten.  Why is it that so many of the words connected with death
+are so disagreeable?  I do wish that the custom of calling a dead body
+‘the remains’ could be abolished.  I positively shiver when I hear the
+undertaker say at a funeral, ‘All who wish to see the remains please
+step this way.’  It always gives me the horrible impression that I am
+about to view the scene of a cannibal feast.”
+
+“Well, all I hope,” said Miss Cornelia calmly, “is that when I’m dead
+nobody will call me ‘our departed sister.’  I took a scunner at this
+sister-and-brothering business five years ago when there was a
+travelling evangelist holding meetings at the Glen.  I hadn’t any use
+for him from the start.  I felt in my bones that there was something
+wrong with him.  And there was.  Mind you, he was pretending to be a
+Presbyterian--PresbyTARian, HE called it--and all the time he was a
+Methodist.  He brothered and sistered everybody.  He had a large circle
+of relations, that man had.  He clutched my hand fervently one night,
+and said imploringly, ‘My DEAR sister Bryant, are you a Christian?’  I
+just looked him over a bit, and then I said calmly, ‘The only brother I
+ever had, MR. Fiske, was buried fifteen years ago, and I haven’t
+adopted any since.  As for being a Christian, I was that, I hope and
+believe, when you were crawling about the floor in petticoats.’  THAT
+squelched him, believe ME.  Mind you, Anne dearie, I’m not down on all
+evangelists.  We’ve had some real fine, earnest men, who did a lot of
+good and made the old sinners squirm.  But this Fiske-man wasn’t one of
+them.  I had a good laugh all to myself one evening.  Fiske had asked
+all who were Christians to stand up.  _I_ didn’t, believe me!  I never
+had any use for that sort of thing.  But most of them did, and then he
+asked all who wanted to be Christians to stand up.  Nobody stirred for
+a spell, so Fiske started up a hymn at the top of his voice.  Just in
+front of me poor little Ikey Baker was sitting in the Millison pew.  He
+was a home boy, ten years old, and Millison just about worked him to
+death.  The poor little creature was always so tired he fell asleep
+right off whenever he went to church or anywhere he could sit still for
+a few minutes.  He’d been sleeping all through the meeting, and I was
+thankful to see the poor child getting a rest, believe ME.  Well, when
+Fiske’s voice went soaring skyward and the rest joined in, poor Ikey
+wakened with a start.  He thought it was just an ordinary singing and
+that everybody ought to stand up, so he scrambled to his feet mighty
+quick, knowing he’d get a combing down from Maria Millison for sleeping
+in meeting.  Fiske saw him, stopped and shouted, ‘Another soul saved!
+Glory Hallelujah!’  And there was poor, frightened Ikey, only half
+awake and yawning, never thinking about his soul at all.  Poor child,
+he never had time to think of anything but his tired, overworked little
+body.
+
+“Leslie went one night and the Fiske-man got right after her--oh, he
+was especially anxious about the souls of the nice-looking girls,
+believe me!--and he hurt her feelings so she never went again.  And
+then he prayed every night after that, right in public, that the Lord
+would soften her hard heart.  Finally I went to Mr. Leavitt, our
+minister then, and told him if he didn’t make Fiske stop that I’d just
+rise up the next night and throw my hymn book at him when he mentioned
+that ‘beautiful but unrepentant young woman.’  I’d have done it too,
+believe ME.  Mr. Leavitt did put a stop to it, but Fiske kept on with
+his meetings until Charley Douglas put an end to his career in the
+Glen.  Mrs. Charley had been out in California all winter.  She’d been
+real melancholy in the fall--religious melancholy--it ran in her
+family.  Her father worried so much over believing that he had
+committed the unpardonable sin that he died in the asylum.  So when
+Rose Douglas got that way Charley packed her off to visit her sister in
+Los Angeles.  She got perfectly well and came home just when the Fiske
+revival was in full swing.  She stepped off the train at the Glen, real
+smiling and chipper, and the first thing she saw staring her in the
+face on the black, gable-end of the freight shed, was the question, in
+big white letters, two feet high, ‘Whither goest thou--to heaven or
+hell?’ That had been one of Fiske’s ideas, and he had got Henry Hammond
+to paint it.  Rose just gave a shriek and fainted; and when they got
+her home she was worse than ever.  Charley Douglas went to Mr. Leavitt
+and told him that every Douglas would leave the church if Fiske was
+kept there any longer.  Mr. Leavitt had to give in, for the Douglases
+paid half his salary, so Fiske departed, and we had to depend on our
+Bibles once more for instructions on how to get to heaven.  After he
+was gone Mr. Leavitt found out he was just a masquerading Methodist,
+and he felt pretty sick, believe ME.  Mr. Leavitt fell short in some
+ways, but he was a good, sound Presbyterian.”
+
+“By the way, I had a letter from Mr. Ford yesterday,” said Anne.  “He
+asked me to remember him kindly to you.”
+
+“I don’t want his remembrances,” said Miss Cornelia, curtly.
+
+“Why?” said Anne, in astonishment.  “I thought you liked him.”
+
+“Well, so I did, in a kind of way.  But I’ll never forgive him for what
+he done to Leslie.  There’s that poor child eating her heart out about
+him--as if she hadn’t had trouble enough--and him ranting round
+Toronto, I’ve no doubt, enjoying himself same as ever.  Just like a
+man.”
+
+“Oh, Miss Cornelia, how did you find out?”
+
+“Lord, Anne, dearie, I’ve got eyes, haven’t I?  And I’ve known Leslie
+since she was a baby.  There’s been a new kind of heartbreak in her
+eyes all the fall, and I know that writer-man was behind it somehow.
+I’ll never forgive myself for being the means of bringing him here.
+But I never expected he’d be like he was.  I thought he’d just be like
+the other men Leslie had boarded--conceited young asses, every one of
+them, that she never had any use for.  One of them did try to flirt
+with her once and she froze him out--so bad, I feel sure he’s never got
+himself thawed since.  So I never thought of any danger.”
+
+“Don’t let Leslie suspect you know her secret,” said Anne hurriedly.
+“I think it would hurt her.”
+
+“Trust me, Anne, dearie.  _I_ wasn’t born yesterday.  Oh, a plague on
+all the men!  One of them ruined Leslie’s life to begin with, and now
+another of the tribe comes and makes her still more wretched.  Anne,
+this world is an awful place, believe me.”
+
+    “There’s something in the world amiss
+    Will be unriddled by and by,”
+
+quoted Anne dreamily.
+
+“If it is, it’ll be in a world where there aren’t any men,” said Miss
+Cornelia gloomily.
+
+“What have the men been doing now?” asked Gilbert, entering.
+
+“Mischief--mischief!  What else did they ever do?”
+
+“It was Eve ate the apple, Miss Cornelia.”
+
+“’Twas a he-creature tempted her,” retorted Miss Cornelia triumphantly.
+
+Leslie, after her first anguish was over, found it possible to go on
+with life after all, as most of us do, no matter what our particular
+form of torment has been.  It is even possible that she enjoyed moments
+of it, when she was one of the gay circle in the little house of
+dreams.  But if Anne ever hoped that she was forgetting Owen Ford she
+would have been undeceived by the furtive hunger in Leslie’s eyes
+whenever his name was mentioned.  Pitiful to that hunger, Anne always
+contrived to tell Captain Jim or Gilbert bits of news from Owen’s
+letters when Leslie was with them.  The girl’s flush and pallor at such
+moments spoke all too eloquently of the emotion that filled her being.
+But she never spoke of him to Anne, or mentioned that night on the
+sand-bar.
+
+One day her old dog died and she grieved bitterly over him.
+
+“He’s been my friend so long,” she said sorrowfully to Anne.  “He was
+Dick’s old dog, you know--Dick had him for a year or so before we were
+married.  He left him with me when he sailed on the Four Sisters.
+Carlo got very fond of me--and his dog-love helped me through that
+first dreadful year after mother died, when I was alone.  When I heard
+that Dick was coming back I was afraid Carlo wouldn’t be so much mine.
+But he never seemed to care for Dick, though he had been so fond of him
+once.  He would snap and growl at him as if he were a stranger.  I was
+glad.  It was nice to have one thing whose love was all mine.  That old
+dog has been such a comfort to me, Anne.  He got so feeble in the fall
+that I was afraid he couldn’t live long--but I hoped I could nurse him
+through the winter.  He seemed pretty well this morning.  He was lying
+on the rug before the fire; then, all at once, he got up and crept over
+to me; he put his head on my lap and gave me one loving look out of his
+big, soft, dog eyes--and then he just shivered and died.  I shall miss
+him so.”
+
+“Let me give you another dog, Leslie,” said Anne.  “I’m getting a
+lovely Gordon setter for a Christmas present for Gilbert.  Let me give
+you one too.”
+
+Leslie shook her head.
+
+“Not just now, thank you, Anne.  I don’t feel like having another dog
+yet.  I don’t seem to have any affection left for another.  Perhaps--in
+time--I’ll let you give me one.  I really need one as a kind of
+protection.  But there was something almost human about Carlo--it
+wouldn’t be DECENT to fill his place too hurriedly, dear old fellow.”
+
+Anne went to Avonlea a week before Christmas and stayed until after the
+holidays.  Gilbert came up for her, and there was a glad New Year
+celebration at Green Gables, when Barrys and Blythes and Wrights
+assembled to devour a dinner which had cost Mrs. Rachel and Marilla
+much careful thought and preparation.  When they went back to Four
+Winds the little house was almost drifted over, for the third storm of
+a winter that was to prove phenomenally stormy had whirled up the
+harbor and heaped huge snow mountains about everything it encountered.
+But Captain Jim had shovelled out doors and paths, and Miss Cornelia
+had come down and kindled the hearth-fire.
+
+“It’s good to see you back, Anne, dearie!  But did you ever see such
+drifts?  You can’t see the Moore place at all unless you go upstairs.
+Leslie’ll be so glad you’re back.  She’s almost buried alive over
+there.  Fortunately Dick can shovel snow, and thinks it’s great fun.
+Susan sent me word to tell you she would be on hand tomorrow.  Where
+are you off to now, Captain?”
+
+“I reckon I’ll plough up to the Glen and sit a bit with old Martin
+Strong.  He’s not far from his end and he’s lonesome.  He hasn’t many
+friends--been too busy all his life to make any.  He’s made heaps of
+money, though.”
+
+“Well, he thought that since he couldn’t serve God and Mammon he’d
+better stick to Mammon,” said Miss Cornelia crisply.  “So he shouldn’t
+complain if he doesn’t find Mammon very good company now.”
+
+Captain Jim went out, but remembered something in the yard and turned
+back for a moment.
+
+“I’d a letter from Mr. Ford, Mistress Blythe, and he says the life-book
+is accepted and is going to be published next fall.  I felt fair
+uplifted when I got the news.  To think that I’m to see it in print at
+last.”
+
+“That man is clean crazy on the subject of his life-book,” said Miss
+Cornelia compassionately.  “For my part, I think there’s far too many
+books in the world now.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 29
+
+GILBERT AND ANNE DISAGREE
+
+Gilbert laid down the ponderous medical tome over which he had been
+poring until the increasing dusk of the March evening made him desist.
+He leaned back in his chair and gazed meditatively out of the window.
+It was early spring--probably the ugliest time of the year.  Not even
+the sunset could redeem the dead, sodden landscape and rotten black
+harbor ice upon which he looked.  No sign of life was visible, save a
+big black crow winging his solitary way across a leaden field.  Gilbert
+speculated idly concerning that crow.  Was he a family crow, with a
+black but comely crow wife awaiting him in the woods beyond the Glen?
+Or was he a glossy young buck of a crow on courting thoughts intent?
+Or was he a cynical bachelor crow, believing that he travels the
+fastest who travels alone?  Whatever he was, he soon disappeared in
+congenial gloom and Gilbert turned to the cheerier view indoors.
+
+The firelight flickered from point to point, gleaming on the white and
+green coats of Gog and Magog, on the sleek, brown head of the beautiful
+setter basking on the rug, on the picture frames on the walls, on the
+vaseful of daffodils from the window garden, on Anne herself, sitting
+by her little table, with her sewing beside her and her hands clasped
+over her knee while she traced out pictures in the fire--Castles in
+Spain whose airy turrets pierced moonlit cloud and sunset bar-ships
+sailing from the Haven of Good Hopes straight to Four Winds Harbor with
+precious burthen.  For Anne was again a dreamer of dreams, albeit a
+grim shape of fear went with her night and day to shadow and darken her
+visions.
+
+Gilbert was accustomed to refer to himself as “an old married man.”
+But he still looked upon Anne with the incredulous eyes of a lover.  He
+couldn’t wholly believe yet that she was really his.  It MIGHT be only
+a dream after all, part and parcel of this magic house of dreams.  His
+soul still went on tip-toe before her, lest the charm be shattered and
+the dream dispelled.
+
+“Anne,” he said slowly, “lend me your ears.  I want to talk with you
+about something.”
+
+Anne looked across at him through the fire-lit gloom.
+
+“What is it?” she asked gaily.  “You look fearfully solemn, Gilbert.  I
+really haven’t done anything naughty today.  Ask Susan.”
+
+“It’s not of you--or ourselves--I want to talk.  It’s about Dick Moore.”
+
+“Dick Moore?” echoed Anne, sitting up alertly.  “Why, what in the world
+have you to say about Dick Moore?”
+
+“I’ve been thinking a great deal about him lately.  Do you remember
+that time last summer I treated him for those carbuncles on his neck?”
+
+“Yes--yes.”
+
+“I took the opportunity to examine the scars on his head thoroughly.
+I’ve always thought Dick was a very interesting case from a medical
+point of view.  Lately I’ve been studying the history of trephining and
+the cases where it has been employed.  Anne, I have come to the
+conclusion that if Dick Moore were taken to a good hospital and the
+operation of trephining performed on several places in his skull, his
+memory and faculties might be restored.”
+
+“Gilbert!” Anne’s voice was full of protest.  “Surely you don’t mean
+it!”
+
+“I do, indeed.  And I have decided that it is my duty to broach the
+subject to Leslie.”
+
+“Gilbert Blythe, you shall NOT do any such thing,” cried Anne
+vehemently.  “Oh, Gilbert, you won’t--you won’t.  You couldn’t be so
+cruel.  Promise me you won’t.”
+
+“Why, Anne-girl, I didn’t suppose you would take it like this.  Be
+reasonable--”
+
+“I won’t be reasonable--I can’t be reasonable--I AM reasonable.  It is
+you who are unreasonable.  Gilbert, have you ever once thought what it
+would mean for Leslie if Dick Moore were to be restored to his right
+senses?  Just stop and think!  She’s unhappy enough now; but life as
+Dick’s nurse and attendant is a thousand times easier for her than life
+as Dick’s wife.  I know--I KNOW!  It’s unthinkable.  Don’t you meddle
+with the matter.  Leave well enough alone.”
+
+“I HAVE thought over that aspect of the case thoroughly, Anne.  But I
+believe that a doctor is bound to set the sanctity of a patient’s mind
+and body above all other considerations, no matter what the
+consequences may be.  I believe it his duty to endeavor to restore
+health and sanity, if there is any hope whatever of it.”
+
+“But Dick isn’t your patient in that respect,” cried Anne, taking
+another tack.  “If Leslie had asked you if anything could be done for
+him, THEN it might be your duty to tell her what you really thought.
+But you’ve no right to meddle.”
+
+“I don’t call it meddling.  Uncle Dave told Leslie twelve years ago
+that nothing could be done for Dick.  She believes that, of course.”
+
+“And why did Uncle Dave tell her that, if it wasn’t true?” cried Anne,
+triumphantly.  “Doesn’t he know as much about it as you?”
+
+“I think not--though it may sound conceited and presumptuous to say it.
+And you know as well as I that he is rather prejudiced against what he
+calls ‘these new-fangled notions of cutting and carving.’ He’s even
+opposed to operating for appendicitis.”
+
+“He’s right,” exclaimed Anne, with a complete change of front.  “I
+believe myself that you modern doctors are entirely too fond of making
+experiments with human flesh and blood.”
+
+“Rhoda Allonby would not be a living woman today if I had been afraid
+of making a certain experiment,” argued Gilbert.  “I took the risk--and
+saved her life.”
+
+“I’m sick and tired of hearing about Rhoda Allonby,” cried Anne--most
+unjustly, for Gilbert had never mentioned Mrs. Allonby’s name since the
+day he had told Anne of his success in regard to her.  And he could not
+be blamed for other people’s discussion of it.
+
+Gilbert felt rather hurt.
+
+“I had not expected you to look at the matter as you do, Anne,” he said
+a little stiffly, getting up and moving towards the office door.  It
+was their first approach to a quarrel.
+
+But Anne flew after him and dragged him back.
+
+“Now, Gilbert, you are not ‘going off mad.’  Sit down here and I’ll
+apologise bee-YEW-ti-fully, I shouldn’t have said that.  But--oh, if
+you knew--”
+
+Anne checked herself just in time.  She had been on the very verge of
+betraying Leslie’s secret.
+
+“Knew what a woman feels about it,” she concluded lamely.
+
+“I think I do know.  I’ve looked at the matter from every point of
+view--and I’ve been driven to the conclusion that it is my duty to tell
+Leslie that I believe it is possible that Dick can be restored to
+himself; there my responsibility ends.  It will be for her to decide
+what she will do.”
+
+“I don’t think you’ve any right to put such a responsibility on her.
+She has enough to bear.  She is poor--how could she afford such an
+operation?”
+
+“That is for her to decide,” persisted Gilbert stubbornly.
+
+“You say you think that Dick can be cured.  But are you SURE of it?”
+
+“Certainly not.  Nobody could be sure of such a thing.  There may have
+been lesions of the brain itself, the effect of which can never be
+removed.  But if, as I believe, his loss of memory and other faculties
+is due merely to the pressure on the brain centers of certain depressed
+areas of bone, then he can be cured.”
+
+“But it’s only a possibility!” insisted Anne.  “Now, suppose you tell
+Leslie and she decides to have the operation.  It will cost a great
+deal.  She will have to borrow the money, or sell her little property.
+And suppose the operation is a failure and Dick remains the same.
+
+“How will she be able to pay back the money she borrows, or make a
+living for herself and that big helpless creature if she sells the
+farm?”
+
+“Oh, I know--I know.  But it is my duty to tell her.  I can’t get away
+from that conviction.”
+
+“Oh, I know the Blythe stubbornness,” groaned Anne.  “But don’t do this
+solely on your own responsibility.  Consult Doctor Dave.”
+
+“I HAVE done so,” said Gilbert reluctantly.
+
+“And what did he say?”
+
+“In brief--as you say--leave well enough alone.  Apart from his
+prejudice against new-fangled surgery, I’m afraid he looks at the case
+from your point of view--don’t do it, for Leslie’s sake.”
+
+“There now,” cried Anne triumphantly.  “I do think, Gilbert, that you
+ought to abide by the judgment of a man nearly eighty, who has seen a
+great deal and saved scores of lives himself--surely his opinion ought
+to weigh more than a mere boy’s.”
+
+“Thank you.”
+
+“Don’t laugh.  It’s too serious.”
+
+“That’s just my point.  It IS serious.  Here is a man who is a helpless
+burden.  He may be restored to reason and usefulness--”
+
+“He was so very useful before,” interjected Anne witheringly.
+
+“He may be given a chance to make good and redeem the past.  His wife
+doesn’t know this.  I do.  It is therefore my duty to tell her that
+there is such a possibility.  That, boiled down, is my decision.”
+
+“Don’t say ‘decision’ yet, Gilbert.  Consult somebody else.  Ask
+Captain Jim what he thinks about it.”
+
+“Very well.  But I’ll not promise to abide by his opinion, Anne.
+
+“This is something a man must decide for himself.  My conscience would
+never be easy if I kept silent on the subject.”
+
+“Oh, your conscience!” moaned Anne.  “I suppose that Uncle Dave has a
+conscience too, hasn’t he?”
+
+“Yes.  But I am not the keeper of his conscience.  Come, Anne, if this
+affair did not concern Leslie--if it were a purely abstract case, you
+would agree with me,--you know you would.”
+
+“I wouldn’t,” vowed Anne, trying to believe it herself.  “Oh, you can
+argue all night, Gilbert, but you won’t convince me.  Just you ask Miss
+Cornelia what she thinks of it.”
+
+“You’re driven to the last ditch, Anne, when you bring up Miss Cornelia
+as a reinforcement.  She will say, ‘Just like a man,’ and rage
+furiously.  No matter.  This is no affair for Miss Cornelia to settle.
+Leslie alone must decide it.”
+
+“You know very well how she will decide it,” said Anne, almost in
+tears.  “She has ideals of duty, too.  I don’t see how you can take
+such a responsibility on your shoulders.  _I_ couldn’t.”
+
+    “‘Because right is right to follow right
+    Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence,’”
+
+quoted Gilbert.
+
+“Oh, you think a couplet of poetry a convincing argument!” scoffed
+Anne.  “That is so like a man.”
+
+And then she laughed in spite of herself.  It sounded so like an echo
+of Miss Cornelia.
+
+“Well, if you won’t accept Tennyson as an authority, perhaps you will
+believe the words of a Greater than he,” said Gilbert seriously.  “‘Ye
+shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.’  I believe
+that, Anne, with all my heart.  It’s the greatest and grandest verse in
+the Bible--or in any literature--and the TRUEST, if there are
+comparative degrees of trueness.  And it’s the first duty of a man to
+tell the truth, as he sees it and believes it.”
+
+“In this case the truth won’t make poor Leslie free,” sighed Anne.  “It
+will probably end in still more bitter bondage for her.  Oh, Gilbert, I
+CAN’T think you are right.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 30
+
+LESLIE DECIDES
+
+A sudden outbreak of a virulent type of influenza at the Glen and down
+at the fishing village kept Gilbert so busy for the next fortnight that
+he had no time to pay the promised visit to Captain Jim.  Anne hoped
+against hope that he had abandoned the idea about Dick Moore, and,
+resolving to let sleeping dogs lie, she said no more about the subject.
+But she thought of it incessantly.
+
+“I wonder if it would be right for me to tell him that Leslie cares for
+Owen,” she thought.  “He would never let her suspect that he knew, so
+her pride would not suffer, and it MIGHT convince him that he should
+let Dick Moore alone.  Shall I--shall I?  No, after all, I cannot.  A
+promise is sacred, and I’ve no right to betray Leslie’s secret.  But
+oh, I never felt so worried over anything in my life as I do over this.
+It’s spoiling the spring--it’s spoiling everything.”
+
+One evening Gilbert abruptly proposed that they go down and see Captain
+Jim.  With a sinking heart Anne agreed, and they set forth.  Two weeks
+of kind sunshine had wrought a miracle in the bleak landscape over
+which Gilbert’s crow had flown.  The hills and fields were dry and
+brown and warm, ready to break into bud and blossom; the harbor was
+laughter-shaken again; the long harbor road was like a gleaming red
+ribbon; down on the dunes a crowd of boys, who were out smelt fishing,
+were burning the thick, dry sandhill grass of the preceding summer.
+The flames swept over the dunes rosily, flinging their cardinal banners
+against the dark gulf beyond, and illuminating the channel and the
+fishing village.  It was a picturesque scene which would at other times
+have delighted Anne’s eyes; but she was not enjoying this walk.
+Neither was Gilbert.  Their usual good-comradeship and Josephian
+community of taste and viewpoint were sadly lacking.  Anne’s
+disapproval of the whole project showed itself in the haughty uplift of
+her head and the studied politeness of her remarks.  Gilbert’s mouth
+was set in all the Blythe obstinacy, but his eyes were troubled.  He
+meant to do what he believed to be his duty; but to be at outs with
+Anne was a high price to pay.  Altogether, both were glad when they
+reached the light--and remorseful that they should be glad.
+
+Captain Jim put away the fishing net upon which he was working, and
+welcomed them joyfully.  In the searching light of the spring evening
+he looked older than Anne had ever seen him.  His hair had grown much
+grayer, and the strong old hand shook a little.  But his blue eyes were
+clear and steady, and the staunch soul looked out through them gallant
+and unafraid.
+
+Captain Jim listened in amazed silence while Gilbert said what he had
+come to say.  Anne, who knew how the old man worshipped Leslie, felt
+quite sure that he would side with her, although she had not much hope
+that this would influence Gilbert.  She was therefore surprised beyond
+measure when Captain Jim, slowly and sorrowfully, but unhesitatingly,
+gave it as his opinion that Leslie should be told.
+
+“Oh, Captain Jim, I didn’t think you’d say that,” she exclaimed
+reproachfully.  “I thought you wouldn’t want to make more trouble for
+her.”
+
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+
+“I don’t want to.  I know how you feel about it, Mistress Blythe--just
+as I feel meself.  But it ain’t our feelings we have to steer by
+through life--no, no, we’d make shipwreck mighty often if we did that.
+There’s only the one safe compass and we’ve got to set our course by
+that--what it’s right to do.  I agree with the doctor.  If there’s a
+chance for Dick, Leslie should be told of it.  There’s no two sides to
+that, in my opinion.”
+
+“Well,” said Anne, giving up in despair, “wait until Miss Cornelia gets
+after you two men.”
+
+“Cornelia’ll rake us fore and aft, no doubt,” assented Captain Jim.
+“You women are lovely critters, Mistress Blythe, but you’re just a mite
+illogical.  You’re a highly eddicated lady and Cornelia isn’t, but
+you’re like as two peas when it comes to that.  I dunno’s you’re any
+the worse for it.  Logic is a sort of hard, merciless thing, I reckon.
+Now, I’ll brew a cup of tea and we’ll drink it and talk of pleasant
+things, jest to calm our minds a bit.”
+
+At least, Captain Jim’s tea and conversation calmed Anne’s mind to such
+an extent that she did not make Gilbert suffer so acutely on the way
+home as she had deliberately intended to do.  She did not refer to the
+burning question at all, but she chatted amiably of other matters, and
+Gilbert understood that he was forgiven under protest.
+
+“Captain Jim seems very frail and bent this spring.  The winter has
+aged him,” said Anne sadly.  “I am afraid that he will soon be going to
+seek lost Margaret.  I can’t bear to think of it.”
+
+“Four Winds won’t be the same place when Captain Jim ‘sets out to
+sea,’” agreed Gilbert.
+
+The following evening he went to the house up the brook.  Anne wandered
+dismally around until his return.
+
+“Well, what did Leslie say?” she demanded when he came in.
+
+“Very little.  I think she felt rather dazed.”
+
+“And is she going to have the operation?”
+
+“She is going to think it over and decide very soon.”
+
+Gilbert flung himself wearily into the easy chair before the fire.  He
+looked tired.  It had not been an easy thing for him to tell Leslie.
+And the terror that had sprung into her eyes when the meaning of what
+he told her came home to her was not a pleasant thing to remember.
+Now, when the die was cast, he was beset with doubts of his own wisdom.
+
+Anne looked at him remorsefully; then she slipped down on the rug
+beside him and laid her glossy red head on his arm.
+
+“Gilbert, I’ve been rather hateful over this.  I won’t be any more.
+Please just call me red-headed and forgive me.”
+
+By which Gilbert understood that, no matter what came of it, there
+would be no I-told-you-so’s.  But he was not wholly comforted.  Duty in
+the abstract is one thing; duty in the concrete is quite another,
+especially when the doer is confronted by a woman’s stricken eyes.
+
+Some instinct made Anne keep away from Leslie for the next three days.
+On the third evening Leslie came down to the little house and told
+Gilbert that she had made up her mind; she would take Dick to Montreal
+and have the operation.
+
+She was very pale and seemed to have wrapped herself in her old mantle
+of aloofness.  But her eyes had lost the look which had haunted
+Gilbert; they were cold and bright; and she proceeded to discuss
+details with him in a crisp, business-like way.  There were plans to be
+made and many things to be thought over.  When Leslie had got the
+information she wanted she went home.  Anne wanted to walk part of the
+way with her.
+
+“Better not,” said Leslie curtly.  “Today’s rain has made the ground
+damp.  Good-night.”
+
+“Have I lost my friend?” said Anne with a sigh.  “If the operation is
+successful and Dick Moore finds himself again Leslie will retreat into
+some remote fastness of her soul where none of us can ever find her.”
+
+“Perhaps she will leave him,” said Gilbert.
+
+“Leslie would never do that, Gilbert.  Her sense of duty is very
+strong.  She told me once that her Grandmother West always impressed
+upon her the fact that when she assumed any responsibility she must
+never shirk it, no matter what the consequences might be.  That is one
+of her cardinal rules.  I suppose it’s very old-fashioned.”
+
+“Don’t be bitter, Anne-girl.  You know you don’t think it
+old-fashioned--you know you have the very same idea of sacredness of
+assumed responsibilities yourself.  And you are right.  Shirking
+responsibilities is the curse of our modern life--the secret of all the
+unrest and discontent that is seething in the world.”
+
+“Thus saith the preacher,” mocked Anne.  But under the mockery she felt
+that he was right; and she was very sick at heart for Leslie.
+
+A week later Miss Cornelia descended like an avalanche upon the little
+house.  Gilbert was away and Anne was compelled to bear the shock of
+the impact alone.
+
+Miss Cornelia hardly waited to get her hat off before she began.
+
+“Anne, do you mean to tell me it’s true what I’ve heard--that Dr.
+Blythe has told Leslie Dick can be cured, and that she is going to take
+him to Montreal to have him operated on?”
+
+“Yes, it is quite true, Miss Cornelia,” said Anne bravely.
+
+“Well, it’s inhuman cruelty, that’s what it is,” said Miss Cornelia,
+violently agitated.  “I did think Dr. Blythe was a decent man.  I
+didn’t think he could have been guilty of this.”
+
+“Dr. Blythe thought it was his duty to tell Leslie that there was a
+chance for Dick,” said Anne with spirit, “and,” she added, loyalty to
+Gilbert getting the better of her, “I agree with him.”
+
+“Oh, no, you don’t, dearie,” said Miss Cornelia.  “No person with any
+bowels of compassion could.”
+
+“Captain Jim does.”
+
+“Don’t quote that old ninny to me,” cried Miss Cornelia.  “And I don’t
+care who agrees with him.  Think--THINK what it means to that poor
+hunted, harried girl.”
+
+“We DO think of it.  But Gilbert believes that a doctor should put the
+welfare of a patient’s mind and body before all other considerations.”
+
+“That’s just like a man.  But I expected better things of you, Anne,”
+said Miss Cornelia, more in sorrow than in wrath; then she proceeded to
+bombard Anne with precisely the same arguments with which the latter
+had attacked Gilbert; and Anne valiantly defended her husband with the
+weapons he had used for his own protection.  Long was the fray, but
+Miss Cornelia made an end at last.
+
+“It’s an iniquitous shame,” she declared, almost in tears.  “That’s
+just what it is--an iniquitous shame.  Poor, poor Leslie!”
+
+“Don’t you think Dick should be considered a little too?” pleaded Anne.
+
+“Dick!  Dick Moore!  HE’S happy enough.  He’s a better behaved and more
+reputable member of society now than he ever was before.
+
+“Why, he was a drunkard and perhaps worse.  Are you going to set him
+loose again to roar and to devour?”
+
+“He may reform,” said poor Anne, beset by foe without and traitor
+within.
+
+“Reform your grandmother!” retorted Miss Cornelia.  “Dick Moore got the
+injuries that left him as he is in a drunken brawl.  He DESERVES his
+fate.  It was sent on him for a punishment.  I don’t believe the doctor
+has any business to tamper with the visitations of God.”
+
+“Nobody knows how Dick was hurt, Miss Cornelia.  It may not have been
+in a drunken brawl at all.  He may have been waylaid and robbed.”
+
+“Pigs MAY whistle, but they’ve poor mouths for it,” said Miss Cornelia.
+“Well, the gist of what you tell me is that the thing is settled and
+there’s no use in talking.  If that’s so I’ll hold my tongue.  I don’t
+propose to wear MY teeth out gnawing files.  When a thing has to be I
+give in to it.  But I like to make mighty sure first that it HAS to be.
+Now, I’ll devote MY energies to comforting and sustaining Leslie.  And
+after all,” added Miss Cornelia, brightening up hopefully, “perhaps
+nothing can be done for Dick.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 31
+
+THE TRUTH MAKES FREE
+
+Leslie, having once made up her mind what to do, proceeded to do it
+with characteristic resolution and speed.  House-cleaning must be
+finished with first, whatever issues of life and death might await
+beyond.  The gray house up the brook was put into flawless order and
+cleanliness, with Miss Cornelia’s ready assistance.  Miss Cornelia,
+having said her say to Anne, and later on to Gilbert and Captain
+Jim--sparing neither of them, let it be assured--never spoke of the
+matter to Leslie.  She accepted the fact of Dick’s operation, referred
+to it when necessary in a business-like way, and ignored it when it was
+not.  Leslie never attempted to discuss it.  She was very cold and
+quiet during these beautiful spring days.  She seldom visited Anne, and
+though she was invariably courteous and friendly, that very courtesy
+was as an icy barrier between her and the people of the little house.
+The old jokes and laughter and chumminess of common things could not
+reach her over it.  Anne refused to feel hurt.  She knew that Leslie
+was in the grip of a hideous dread--a dread that wrapped her away from
+all little glimpses of happiness and hours of pleasure.  When one great
+passion seizes possession of the soul all other feelings are crowded
+aside.  Never in all her life had Leslie Moore shuddered away from the
+future with more intolerable terror.  But she went forward as
+unswervingly in the path she had elected as the martyrs of old walked
+their chosen way, knowing the end of it to be the fiery agony of the
+stake.
+
+The financial question was settled with greater ease than Anne had
+feared.  Leslie borrowed the necessary money from Captain Jim, and, at
+her insistence, he took a mortgage on the little farm.
+
+“So that is one thing off the poor girl’s mind,” Miss Cornelia told
+Anne, “and off mine too.  Now, if Dick gets well enough to work again
+he’ll be able to earn enough to pay the interest on it; and if he
+doesn’t I know Captain Jim’ll manage someway that Leslie won’t have to.
+He said as much to me.  ‘I’m getting old, Cornelia,’ he said, ‘and I’ve
+no chick or child of my own.  Leslie won’t take a gift from a living
+man, but mebbe she will from a dead one.’  So it will be all right as
+far as THAT goes.  I wish everything else might be settled as
+satisfactorily.  As for that wretch of a Dick, he’s been awful these
+last few days.  The devil was in him, believe ME!  Leslie and I
+couldn’t get on with our work for the tricks he’d play.  He chased all
+her ducks one day around the yard till most of them died.  And not one
+thing would he do for us.  Sometimes, you know, he’ll make himself
+quite handy, bringing in pails of water and wood.  But this week if we
+sent him to the well he’d try to climb down into it.  I thought once,
+‘If you’d only shoot down there head-first everything would be nicely
+settled.’”
+
+“Oh, Miss Cornelia!”
+
+“Now, you needn’t Miss Cornelia me, Anne, dearie.  ANYBODY would have
+thought the same.  If the Montreal doctors can make a rational creature
+out of Dick Moore they’re wonders.”
+
+Leslie took Dick to Montreal early in May.  Gilbert went with her, to
+help her, and make the necessary arrangements for her.  He came home
+with the report that the Montreal surgeon whom they had consulted
+agreed with him that there was a good chance of Dick’s restoration.
+
+“Very comforting,” was Miss Cornelia’s sarcastic comment.
+
+Anne only sighed.  Leslie had been very distant at their parting.
+
+But she had promised to write.  Ten days after Gilbert’s return the
+letter came.  Leslie wrote that the operation had been successfully
+performed and that Dick was making a good recovery.
+
+“What does she mean by ‘successfully?’” asked Anne.  “Does she mean
+that Dick’s memory is really restored?”
+
+“Not likely--since she says nothing of it,” said Gilbert.  “She uses
+the word ‘successfully’ from the surgeon’s point of view.  The
+operation has been performed and followed by normal results.  But it is
+too soon to know whether Dick’s faculties will be eventually restored,
+wholly or in part.  His memory would not be likely to return to him all
+at once.  The process will be gradual, if it occurs at all.  Is that
+all she says?”
+
+“Yes--there’s her letter.  It’s very short.  Poor girl, she must be
+under a terrible strain.  Gilbert Blythe, there are heaps of things I
+long to say to you, only it would be mean.”
+
+“Miss Cornelia says them for you,” said Gilbert with a rueful smile.
+“She combs me down every time I encounter her.  She makes it plain to
+me that she regards me as little better than a murderer, and that she
+thinks it a great pity that Dr. Dave ever let me step into his shoes.
+She even told me that the Methodist doctor over the harbor was to be
+preferred before me.  With Miss Cornelia the force of condemnation can
+no further go.”
+
+“If Cornelia Bryant was sick, it would not be Doctor Dave or the
+Methodist doctor she would send for,” sniffed Susan.  “She would have
+you out of your hard-earned bed in the middle of the night, doctor,
+dear, if she took a spell of misery, that she would.  And then she
+would likely say your bill was past all reason.  But do not mind her,
+doctor, dear.  It takes all kinds of people to make a world.”
+
+No further word came from Leslie for some time.  The May days crept
+away in a sweet succession and the shores of Four Winds Harbor greened
+and bloomed and purpled.  One day in late May Gilbert came home to be
+met by Susan in the stable yard.
+
+“I am afraid something has upset Mrs. Doctor, doctor, dear,” she said
+mysteriously.  “She got a letter this afternoon and since then she has
+just been walking round the garden and talking to herself.  You know it
+is not good for her to be on her feet so much, doctor, dear.  She did
+not see fit to tell me what her news was, and I am no pry, doctor,
+dear, and never was, but it is plain something has upset her.  And it
+is not good for her to be upset.”
+
+Gilbert hurried rather anxiously to the garden.  Had anything happened
+at Green Gables?  But Anne, sitting on the rustic seat by the brook,
+did not look troubled, though she was certainly much excited.  Her eyes
+were their grayest, and scarlet spots burned on her cheeks.
+
+“What has happened, Anne?”
+
+Anne gave a queer little laugh.
+
+“I think you’ll hardly believe it when I tell you, Gilbert.  _I_ can’t
+believe it yet.  As Susan said the other day, ‘I feel like a fly coming
+to live in the sun--dazed-like.’  It’s all so incredible.  I’ve read
+the letter a score of times and every time it’s just the same--I can’t
+believe my own eyes.  Oh, Gilbert, you were right--so right.  I can see
+that clearly enough now--and I’m so ashamed of myself--and will you
+ever really forgive me?”
+
+“Anne, I’ll shake you if you don’t grow coherent.  Redmond would be
+ashamed of you.  WHAT has happened?”
+
+“You won’t believe it--you won’t believe it--”
+
+“I’m going to phone for Uncle Dave,” said Gilbert, pretending to start
+for the house.
+
+“Sit down, Gilbert.  I’ll try to tell you.  I’ve had a letter, and oh,
+Gilbert, it’s all so amazing--so incredibly amazing--we never
+thought--not one of us ever dreamed--”
+
+“I suppose,” said Gilbert, sitting down with a resigned air, “the only
+thing to do in a case of this kind is to have patience and go at the
+matter categorically.  Whom is your letter from?”
+
+“Leslie--and, oh, Gilbert--”
+
+“Leslie!  Whew!  What has she to say?  What’s the news about Dick?”
+
+Anne lifted the letter and held it out, calmly dramatic in a moment.
+
+“There is NO Dick!  The man we have thought Dick Moore--whom everybody
+in Four Winds has believed for twelve years to be Dick Moore--is his
+cousin, George Moore, of Nova Scotia, who, it seems, always resembled
+him very strikingly.  Dick Moore died of yellow fever thirteen years
+ago in Cuba.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 32
+
+MISS CORNELIA DISCUSSES THE AFFAIR
+
+“And do you mean to tell me, Anne, dearie, that Dick Moore has turned
+out not to be Dick Moore at all but somebody else?  Is THAT what you
+phoned up to me today?”
+
+“Yes, Miss Cornelia.  It is very amazing, isn’t it?”
+
+“It’s--it’s--just like a man,” said Miss Cornelia helplessly.  She took
+off her hat with trembling fingers.  For once in her life Miss Cornelia
+was undeniably staggered.
+
+“I can’t seem to sense it, Anne,” she said.  “I’ve heard you say
+it--and I believe you--but I can’t take it in.  Dick Moore is dead--has
+been dead all these years--and Leslie is free?”
+
+“Yes.  The truth has made her free.  Gilbert was right when he said
+that verse was the grandest in the Bible.”
+
+“Tell me everything, Anne, dearie.  Since I got your phone I’ve been in
+a regular muddle, believe ME.  Cornelia Bryant was never so
+kerflummuxed before.”
+
+“There isn’t a very great deal to tell.  Leslie’s letter was short.
+She didn’t go into particulars.  This man--George Moore--has recovered
+his memory and knows who he is.  He says Dick took yellow fever in
+Cuba, and the Four Sisters had to sail without him.  George stayed
+behind to nurse him.  But he died very shortly afterwards.
+
+“George did not write Leslie because he intended to come right home and
+tell her himself.”
+
+“And why didn’t he?”
+
+“I suppose his accident must have intervened.  Gilbert says it is quite
+likely that George Moore remembers nothing of his accident, or what led
+to it, and may never remember it.  It probably happened very soon after
+Dick’s death.  We may find out more particulars when Leslie writes
+again.”
+
+“Does she say what she is going to do?  When is she coming home?”
+
+“She says she will stay with George Moore until he can leave the
+hospital.  She has written to his people in Nova Scotia.  It seems that
+George’s only near relative is a married sister much older than
+himself.  She was living when George sailed on the Four Sisters, but of
+course we do not know what may have happened since.  Did you ever see
+George Moore, Miss Cornelia?”
+
+“I did.  It is all coming back to me.  He was here visiting his Uncle
+Abner eighteen years ago, when he and Dick would be about seventeen.
+They were double cousins, you see.  Their fathers were brothers and
+their mothers were twin sisters, and they did look a terrible lot
+alike.  Of course,” added Miss Cornelia scornfully, “it wasn’t one of
+those freak resemblances you read of in novels where two people are so
+much alike that they can fill each other’s places and their nearest and
+dearest can’t tell between them.  In those days you could tell easy
+enough which was George and which was Dick, if you saw them together
+and near at hand.  Apart, or some distance away, it wasn’t so easy.
+They played lots of tricks on people and thought it great fun, the two
+scamps.  George Moore was a little taller and a good deal fatter than
+Dick--though neither of them was what you would call fat--they were
+both of the lean kind.  Dick had higher color than George, and his hair
+was a shade lighter.  But their features were just alike, and they both
+had that queer freak of eyes--one blue and one hazel.  They weren’t
+much alike in any other way, though.  George was a real nice fellow,
+though he was a scalawag for mischief, and some said he had a liking
+for a glass even then.  But everybody liked him better than Dick.  He
+spent about a month here.  Leslie never saw him; she was only about
+eight or nine then and I remember now that she spent that whole winter
+over harbor with her grandmother West.  Captain Jim was away, too--that
+was the winter he was wrecked on the Magdalens.  I don’t suppose either
+he or Leslie had ever heard about the Nova Scotia cousin looking so
+much like Dick.  Nobody ever thought of him when Captain Jim brought
+Dick--George, I should say--home.  Of course, we all thought Dick had
+changed considerable--he’d got so lumpish and fat.  But we put that
+down to what had happened to him, and no doubt that was the reason,
+for, as I’ve said, George wasn’t fat to begin with either.  And there
+was no other way we could have guessed, for the man’s senses were clean
+gone.  I can’t see that it is any wonder we were all deceived.  But
+it’s a staggering thing.  And Leslie has sacrificed the best years of
+her life to nursing a man who hadn’t any claim on her!  Oh, drat the
+men!  No matter what they do, it’s the wrong thing.  And no matter who
+they are, it’s somebody they shouldn’t be.  They do exasperate me.”
+
+“Gilbert and Captain Jim are men, and it is through them that the truth
+has been discovered at last,” said Anne.
+
+“Well, I admit that,” conceded Miss Cornelia reluctantly.  “I’m sorry I
+raked the doctor off so.  It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever felt
+ashamed of anything I said to a man.  I don’t know as I shall tell him
+so, though.  He’ll just have to take it for granted.  Well, Anne,
+dearie, it’s a mercy the Lord doesn’t answer all our prayers.  I’ve
+been praying hard right along that the operation wouldn’t cure Dick.
+Of course I didn’t put it just quite so plain.  But that was what was
+in the back of my mind, and I have no doubt the Lord knew it.”
+
+“Well, He has answered the spirit of your prayer.  You really wished
+that things shouldn’t be made any harder for Leslie.  I’m afraid that
+in my secret heart I’ve been hoping the operation wouldn’t succeed, and
+I am wholesomely ashamed of it.”
+
+“How does Leslie seem to take it?”
+
+“She writes like one dazed.  I think that, like ourselves, she hardly
+realises it yet.  She says, ‘It all seems like a strange dream to me,
+Anne.’  That is the only reference she makes to herself.”
+
+“Poor child!  I suppose when the chains are struck off a prisoner he’d
+feel queer and lost without them for a while.  Anne, dearie, here’s a
+thought keeps coming into my mind.  What about Owen Ford?  We both know
+Leslie was fond of him.  Did it ever occur to you that he was fond of
+her?”
+
+“It--did--once,” admitted Anne, feeling that she might say so much.
+
+“Well, I hadn’t any reason to think he was, but it just appeared to me
+he MUST be.  Now, Anne, dearie, the Lord knows I’m not a match-maker,
+and I scorn all such doings.  But if I were you and writing to that
+Ford man I’d just mention, casual-like, what has happened.  That is
+what _I_’d do.”
+
+“Of course I will mention it when I write him,” said Anne, a trifle
+distantly.  Somehow, this was a thing she could not discuss with Miss
+Cornelia.  And yet, she had to admit that the same thought had been
+lurking in her mind ever since she had heard of Leslie’s freedom.  But
+she would not desecrate it by free speech.
+
+“Of course there is no great rush, dearie.  But Dick Moore’s been dead
+for thirteen years and Leslie has wasted enough of her life for him.
+We’ll just see what comes of it.  As for this George Moore, who’s gone
+and come back to life when everyone thought he was dead and done for,
+just like a man, I’m real sorry for him.  He won’t seem to fit in
+anywhere.”
+
+“He is still a young man, and if he recovers completely, as seems
+likely, he will be able to make a place for himself again.  It must be
+very strange for him, poor fellow.  I suppose all these years since his
+accident will not exist for him.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 33
+
+LESLIE RETURNS
+
+A fortnight later Leslie Moore came home alone to the old house where
+she had spent so many bitter years.  In the June twilight she went over
+the fields to Anne’s, and appeared with ghost-like suddenness in the
+scented garden.
+
+“Leslie!” cried Anne in amazement.  “Where have you sprung from?  We
+never knew you were coming.  Why didn’t you write?  We would have met
+you.”
+
+“I couldn’t write somehow, Anne.  It seemed so futile to try to say
+anything with pen and ink.  And I wanted to get back quietly and
+unobserved.”
+
+Anne put her arms about Leslie and kissed her.  Leslie returned the
+kiss warmly.  She looked pale and tired, and she gave a little sigh as
+she dropped down on the grasses beside a great bed of daffodils that
+were gleaming through the pale, silvery twilight like golden stars.
+
+“And you have come home alone, Leslie?”
+
+“Yes.  George Moore’s sister came to Montreal and took him home with
+her.  Poor fellow, he was sorry to part with me--though I was a
+stranger to him when his memory first came back.  He clung to me in
+those first hard days when he was trying to realise that Dick’s death
+was not the thing of yesterday that it seemed to him.  It was all very
+hard for him.  I helped him all I could.  When his sister came it was
+easier for him, because it seemed to him only the other day that he had
+seen her last.  Fortunately she had not changed much, and that helped
+him, too.”
+
+“It is all so strange and wonderful, Leslie.  I think we none of us
+realise it yet.”
+
+“I cannot.  When I went into the house over there an hour ago, I felt
+that it MUST be a dream--that Dick must be there, with his childish
+smile, as he had been for so long.  Anne, I seem stunned yet. I’m not
+glad or sorry--or ANYTHING.  I feel as if something had been torn
+suddenly out of my life and left a terrible hole.  I feel as if I
+couldn’t be _I_--as if I must have changed into somebody else and
+couldn’t get used to it.  It gives me a horrible lonely, dazed,
+helpless feeling.  It’s good to see you again--it seems as if you were
+a sort of anchor for my drifting soul.  Oh, Anne, I dread it all--the
+gossip and wonderment and questioning.  When I think of that, I wish
+that I need not have come home at all.  Dr. Dave was at the station
+when I came off the train--he brought me home.  Poor old man, he feels
+very badly because he told me years ago that nothing could be done for
+Dick.  ‘I honestly thought so, Leslie,’ he said to me today.  ‘But I
+should have told you not to depend on my opinion--I should have told
+you to go to a specialist.  If I had, you would have been saved many
+bitter years, and poor George Moore many wasted ones.  I blame myself
+very much, Leslie.’  I told him not to do that--he had done what he
+thought right.  He has always been so kind to me--I couldn’t bear to
+see him worrying over it.”
+
+“And Dick--George, I mean?  Is his memory fully restored?”
+
+“Practically.  Of course, there are a great many details he can’t
+recall yet--but he remembers more and more every day.  He went out for
+a walk on the evening after Dick was buried.  He had Dick’s money and
+watch on him; he meant to bring them home to me, along with my letter.
+He admits he went to a place where the sailors resorted--and he
+remembers drinking--and nothing else.  Anne, I shall never forget the
+moment he remembered his own name.  I saw him looking at me with an
+intelligent but puzzled expression.  I said, ‘Do you know me, Dick?’
+He answered, ‘I never saw you before.  Who are you?  And my name is not
+Dick.  I am George Moore, and Dick died of yellow fever yesterday!
+Where am I?  What has happened to me?’  I--I fainted, Anne.  And ever
+since I have felt as if I were in a dream.”
+
+“You will soon adjust yourself to this new state of things, Leslie.
+And you are young--life is before you--you will have many beautiful
+years yet.”
+
+“Perhaps I shall be able to look at it in that way after a while, Anne.
+Just now I feel too tired and indifferent to think about the future.
+I’m--I’m--Anne, I’m lonely.  I miss Dick.  Isn’t it all very strange?
+Do you know, I was really fond of poor Dick--George, I suppose I should
+say--just as I would have been fond of a helpless child who depended on
+me for everything.  I would never have admitted it--I was really
+ashamed of it--because, you see, I had hated and despised Dick so much
+before he went away.  When I heard that Captain Jim was bringing him
+home I expected I would just feel the same to him.  But I never
+did--although I continued to loathe him as I remembered him before.
+From the time he came home I felt only pity--a pity that hurt and wrung
+me.  I supposed then that it was just because his accident had made him
+so helpless and changed.  But now I believe it was because there was
+really a different personality there.  Carlo knew it, Anne--I know now
+that Carlo knew it.  I always thought it strange that Carlo shouldn’t
+have known Dick.  Dogs are usually so faithful.  But HE knew it was not
+his master who had come back, although none of the rest of us did.  I
+had never seen George Moore, you know.  I remember now that Dick once
+mentioned casually that he had a cousin in Nova Scotia who looked as
+much like him as a twin; but the thing had gone out of my memory, and
+in any case I would never have thought it of any importance.  You see,
+it never occurred to me to question Dick’s identity.  Any change in him
+seemed to me just the result of the accident.
+
+“Oh, Anne, that night in April when Gilbert told me he thought Dick
+might be cured!  I can never forget it.  It seemed to me that I had
+once been a prisoner in a hideous cage of torture, and then the door
+had been opened and I could get out.  I was still chained to the cage
+but I was not in it.  And that night I felt that a merciless hand was
+drawing me back into the cage--back to a torture even more terrible
+than it had once been.  I didn’t blame Gilbert.  I felt he was right.
+And he had been very good--he said that if, in view of the expense and
+uncertainty of the operation, I should decide not to risk it, he would
+not blame me in the least.  But I knew how I ought to decide--and I
+couldn’t face it.  All night I walked the floor like a mad woman,
+trying to compel myself to face it.  I couldn’t, Anne--I thought I
+couldn’t--and when morning broke I set my teeth and resolved that I
+WOULDN’T.  I would let things remain as they were.  It was very wicked,
+I know.  It would have been just punishment for such wickedness if I
+had just been left to abide by that decision.  I kept to it all day.
+That afternoon I had to go up to the Glen to do some shopping.  It was
+one of Dick’s quiet, drowsy days, so I left him alone.  I was gone a
+little longer than I had expected, and he missed me.  He felt lonely.
+And when I got home, he ran to meet me just like a child, with such a
+pleased smile on his face.  Somehow, Anne, I just gave way then.  That
+smile on his poor vacant face was more than I could endure.  I felt as
+if I were denying a child the chance to grow and develop.  I knew that
+I must give him his chance, no matter what the consequences might be.
+So I came over and told Gilbert.  Oh, Anne, you must have thought me
+hateful in those weeks before I went away.  I didn’t mean to be--but I
+couldn’t think of anything except what I had to do, and everything and
+everybody about me were like shadows.”
+
+“I know--I understood, Leslie.  And now it is all over--your chain is
+broken--there is no cage.”
+
+“There is no cage,” repeated Leslie absently, plucking at the fringing
+grasses with her slender, brown hands.  “But--it doesn’t seem as if
+there were anything else, Anne.  You--you remember what I told you of
+my folly that night on the sand-bar?  I find one doesn’t get over being
+a fool very quickly.  Sometimes I think there are people who are fools
+forever.  And to be a fool--of that kind--is almost as bad as being
+a--a dog on a chain.”
+
+“You will feel very differently after you get over being tired and
+bewildered,” said Anne, who, knowing a certain thing that Leslie did
+not know, did not feel herself called upon to waste overmuch sympathy.
+
+Leslie laid her splendid golden head against Anne’s knee.
+
+“Anyhow, I have YOU,” she said.  “Life can’t be altogether empty with
+such a friend.  Anne, pat my head--just as if I were a little
+girl--MOTHER me a bit--and let me tell you while my stubborn tongue is
+loosed a little just what you and your comradeship have meant to me
+since that night I met you on the rock shore.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 34
+
+THE SHIP O’DREAMS COMES TO HARBOR
+
+One morning, when a windy golden sunrise was billowing over the gulf in
+waves of light, a certain weary stork flew over the bar of Four Winds
+Harbor on his way from the Land of Evening Stars.  Under his wing was
+tucked a sleepy, starry-eyed, little creature.  The stork was tired,
+and he looked wistfully about him.  He knew he was somewhere near his
+destination, but he could not yet see it.  The big, white light-house
+on the red sandstone cliff had its good points; but no stork possessed
+of any gumption would leave a new, velvet baby there.  An old gray
+house, surrounded by willows, in a blossomy brook valley, looked more
+promising, but did not seem quite the thing either.  The staring green
+abode further on was manifestly out of the question.  Then the stork
+brightened up.  He had caught sight of the very place--a little white
+house nestled against a big, whispering firwood, with a spiral of blue
+smoke winding up from its kitchen chimney--a house which just looked as
+if it were meant for babies.  The stork gave a sigh of satisfaction,
+and softly alighted on the ridge-pole.
+
+Half an hour later Gilbert ran down the hall and tapped on the
+spare-room door.  A drowsy voice answered him and in a moment Marilla’s
+pale, scared face peeped out from behind the door.
+
+“Marilla, Anne has sent me to tell you that a certain young gentleman
+has arrived here.  He hasn’t brought much luggage with him, but he
+evidently means to stay.”
+
+“For pity’s sake!” said Marilla blankly.  “You don’t mean to tell me,
+Gilbert, that it’s all over.  Why wasn’t I called?”
+
+“Anne wouldn’t let us disturb you when there was no need.  Nobody was
+called until about two hours ago.  There was no ‘passage perilous’ this
+time.”
+
+“And--and--Gilbert--will this baby live?”
+
+“He certainly will.  He weighs ten pounds and--why, listen to him.
+Nothing wrong with his lungs, is there?  The nurse says his hair will
+be red.  Anne is furious with her, and I’m tickled to death.”
+
+That was a wonderful day in the little house of dreams.
+
+“The best dream of all has come true,” said Anne, pale and rapturous.
+“Oh, Marilla, I hardly dare believe it, after that horrible day last
+summer.  I have had a heartache ever since then--but it is gone now.”
+
+“This baby will take Joy’s place,” said Marilla.
+
+“Oh, no, no, NO, Marilla.  He can’t--nothing can ever do that.  He has
+his own place, my dear, wee man-child.  But little Joy has hers, and
+always will have it.  If she had lived she would have been over a year
+old.  She would have been toddling around on her tiny feet and lisping
+a few words.  I can see her so plainly, Marilla.  Oh, I know now that
+Captain Jim was right when he said God would manage better than that my
+baby would seem a stranger to me when I found her Beyond.  I’ve learned
+THAT this past year.  I’ve followed her development day by day and week
+by week--I always shall.  I shall know just how she grows from year to
+year--and when I meet her again I’ll know her--she won’t be a stranger.
+Oh, Marilla, LOOK at his dear, darling toes!  Isn’t it strange they
+should be so perfect?”
+
+“It would be stranger if they weren’t,” said Marilla crisply.  Now that
+all was safely over, Marilla was herself again.
+
+“Oh, I know--but it seems as if they couldn’t be quite FINISHED, you
+know--and they are, even to the tiny nails.  And his hands--JUST look
+at his hands, Marilla.”
+
+“They appear to be a good deal like hands,” Marilla conceded.
+
+“See how he clings to my finger.  I’m sure he knows me already.  He
+cries when the nurse takes him away.  Oh, Marilla, do you think--you
+don’t think, do you--that his hair is going to be red?”
+
+“I don’t see much hair of any color,” said Marilla.  “I wouldn’t worry
+about it, if I were you, until it becomes visible.”
+
+“Marilla, he HAS hair--look at that fine little down all over his head.
+Anyway, nurse says his eyes will be hazel and his forehead is exactly
+like Gilbert’s.”
+
+“And he has the nicest little ears, Mrs. Doctor, dear,” said Susan.
+“The first thing I did was to look at his ears.  Hair is deceitful and
+noses and eyes change, and you cannot tell what is going to come of
+them, but ears is ears from start to finish, and you always know where
+you are with them.  Just look at their shape--and they are set right
+back against his precious head.  You will never need to be ashamed of
+his ears, Mrs. Doctor, dear.”
+
+Anne’s convalescence was rapid and happy.  Folks came and worshipped
+the baby, as people have bowed before the kingship of the new-born
+since long before the Wise Men of the East knelt in homage to the Royal
+Babe of the Bethlehem manger.  Leslie, slowly finding herself amid the
+new conditions of her life, hovered over it, like a beautiful,
+golden-crowned Madonna.  Miss Cornelia nursed it as knackily as could
+any mother in Israel.  Captain Jim held the small creature in his big
+brown hands and gazed tenderly at it, with eyes that saw the children
+who had never been born to him.
+
+“What are you going to call him?” asked Miss Cornelia.
+
+“Anne has settled his name,” answered Gilbert.
+
+“James Matthew--after the two finest gentlemen I’ve ever known--not
+even saving your presence,” said Anne with a saucy glance at Gilbert.
+
+Gilbert smiled.
+
+“I never knew Matthew very well; he was so shy we boys couldn’t get
+acquainted with him--but I quite agree with you that Captain Jim is one
+of the rarest and finest souls God ever clothed in clay.  He is so
+delighted over the fact that we have given his name to our small lad.
+It seems he has no other namesake.”
+
+“Well, James Matthew is a name that will wear well and not fade in the
+washing,” said Miss Cornelia.  “I’m glad you didn’t load him down with
+some highfalutin, romantic name that he’d be ashamed of when he gets to
+be a grandfather.  Mrs. William Drew at the Glen has called her baby
+Bertie Shakespeare.  Quite a combination, isn’t it?  And I’m glad you
+haven’t had much trouble picking on a name.  Some folks have an awful
+time.  When the Stanley Flaggs’ first boy was born there was so much
+rivalry as to who the child should be named for that the poor little
+soul had to go for two years without a name.  Then a brother came along
+and there it was--‘Big Baby’ and ‘Little Baby.’ Finally they called Big
+Baby Peter and Little Baby Isaac, after the two grandfathers, and had
+them both christened together.  And each tried to see if it couldn’t
+howl the other down.  You know that Highland Scotch family of MacNabs
+back of the Glen?  They’ve got twelve boys and the oldest and the
+youngest are both called Neil--Big Neil and Little Neil in the same
+family.  Well, I s’pose they ran out of names.”
+
+“I have read somewhere,” laughed Anne, “that the first child is a poem
+but the tenth is very prosy prose.  Perhaps Mrs. MacNab thought that
+the twelfth was merely an old tale re-told.”
+
+“Well, there’s something to be said for large families,” said Miss
+Cornelia, with a sigh.  “I was an only child for eight years and I did
+long for a brother and sister.  Mother told me to pray for one--and
+pray I did, believe ME.  Well, one day Aunt Nellie came to me and said,
+‘Cornelia, there is a little brother for you upstairs in your ma’s
+room.  You can go up and see him.’  I was so excited and delighted I
+just flew upstairs.  And old Mrs. Flagg lifted up the baby for me to
+see.  Lord, Anne, dearie, I never was so disappointed in my life.  You
+see, I’d been praying for A BROTHER TWO YEARS OLDER THAN MYSELF.”
+
+“How long did it take you to get over your disappointment?” asked Anne,
+amid her laughter.
+
+“Well, I had a spite at Providence for a good spell, and for weeks I
+wouldn’t even look at the baby.  Nobody knew why, for I never told.
+Then he began to get real cute, and held out his wee hands to me and I
+began to get fond of him.  But I didn’t get really reconciled to him
+until one day a school chum came to see him and said she thought he was
+awful small for his age.  I just got boiling mad, and I sailed right
+into her, and told her she didn’t know a nice baby when she saw one,
+and ours was the nicest baby in the world.  And after that I just
+worshipped him.  Mother died before he was three years old and I was
+sister and mother to him both.  Poor little lad, he was never strong,
+and he died when he wasn’t much over twenty.  Seems to me I’d have
+given anything on earth, Anne, dearie, if he’d only lived.”
+
+Miss Cornelia sighed.  Gilbert had gone down and Leslie, who had been
+crooning over the small James Matthew in the dormer window, laid him
+asleep in his basket and went her way.  As soon as she was safely out
+of earshot, Miss Cornelia bent forward and said in a conspirator’s
+whisper:
+
+“Anne, dearie, I’d a letter from Owen Ford yesterday.  He’s in
+Vancouver just now, but he wants to know if I can board him for a month
+later on.  YOU know what that means.  Well, I hope we’re doing right.”
+
+“We’ve nothing to do with it--we couldn’t prevent him from coming to
+Four Winds if he wanted to,” said Anne quickly.  She did not like the
+feeling of match-making Miss Cornelia’s whispers gave her; and then she
+weakly succumbed herself.
+
+“Don’t let Leslie know he is coming until he is here,” she said.  “If
+she found out I feel sure she would go away at once.  She intends to go
+in the fall anyhow--she told me so the other day.  She is going to
+Montreal to take up nursing and make what she can of her life.”
+
+“Oh, well, Anne, dearie,” said Miss Cornelia, nodding sagely “that is
+all as it may be.  You and I have done our part and we must leave the
+rest to Higher Hands.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 35
+
+POLITICS AT FOUR WINDS
+
+When Anne came downstairs again, the Island, as well as all Canada, was
+in the throes of a campaign preceding a general election.  Gilbert, who
+was an ardent Conservative, found himself caught in the vortex, being
+much in demand for speech-making at the various county rallies.  Miss
+Cornelia did not approve of his mixing up in politics and told Anne so.
+
+“Dr. Dave never did it.  Dr. Blythe will find he is making a mistake,
+believe ME.  Politics is something no decent man should meddle with.”
+
+“Is the government of the country to be left solely to the rogues
+then?” asked Anne.
+
+“Yes--so long as it’s Conservative rogues,” said Miss Cornelia,
+marching off with the honors of war.  “Men and politicians are all
+tarred with the same brush.  The Grits have it laid on thicker than the
+Conservatives, that’s all--CONSIDERABLY thicker.  But Grit or Tory, my
+advice to Dr. Blythe is to steer clear of politics.  First thing you
+know, he’ll be running an election himself, and going off to Ottawa for
+half the year and leaving his practice to go to the dogs.”
+
+“Ah, well, let’s not borrow trouble,” said Anne.  “The rate of interest
+is too high.  Instead, let’s look at Little Jem.  It should be spelled
+with a G.  Isn’t he perfectly beautiful?  Just see the dimples in his
+elbows.  We’ll bring him up to be a good Conservative, you and I, Miss
+Cornelia.”
+
+“Bring him up to be a good man,” said Miss Cornelia.  “They’re scarce
+and valuable; though, mind you, I wouldn’t like to see him a Grit.  As
+for the election, you and I may be thankful we don’t live over harbor.
+The air there is blue these days.  Every Elliott and Crawford and
+MacAllister is on the warpath, loaded for bear.  This side is peaceful
+and calm, seeing there’s so few men.  Captain Jim’s a Grit, but it’s my
+opinion he’s ashamed of it, for he never talks politics.  There isn’t
+any earthly doubt that the Conservatives will be returned with a big
+majority again.”
+
+Miss Cornelia was mistaken.  On the morning after the election Captain
+Jim dropped in at the little house to tell the news.  So virulent is
+the microbe of party politics, even in a peaceable old man, that
+Captain Jim’s cheeks were flushed and his eyes were flashing with all
+his old-time fire.
+
+“Mistress Blythe, the Liberals are in with a sweeping majority.  After
+eighteen years of Tory mismanagement this down-trodden country is going
+to have a chance at last.”
+
+“I never heard you make such a bitter partisan speech before, Captain
+Jim.  I didn’t think you had so much political venom in you,” laughed
+Anne, who was not much excited over the tidings.  Little Jem had said
+“Wow-ga” that morning.  What were principalities and powers, the rise
+and fall of dynasties, the overthrow of Grit or Tory, compared with
+that miraculous occurrence?
+
+“It’s been accumulating for a long while,” said Captain Jim, with a
+deprecating smile.  “I thought I was only a moderate Grit, but when the
+news came that we were in I found out how Gritty I really was.”
+
+“You know the doctor and I are Conservatives.”
+
+“Ah, well, it’s the only bad thing I know of either of you, Mistress
+Blythe.  Cornelia is a Tory, too.  I called in on my way from the Glen
+to tell her the news.”
+
+“Didn’t you know you took your life in your hands?”
+
+“Yes, but I couldn’t resist the temptation.”
+
+“How did she take it?”
+
+“Comparatively calm, Mistress Blythe, comparatively calm.  She says,
+says she, ‘Well, Providence sends seasons of humiliation to a country,
+same as to individuals.  You Grits have been cold and hungry for many a
+year.  Make haste to get warmed and fed, for you won’t be in long.’
+‘Well, now Cornelia,’ I says, ‘mebbe Providence thinks Canada needs a
+real long spell of humiliation.’  Ah, Susan, have YOU heard the news?
+The Liberals are in.”
+
+Susan had just come in from the kitchen, attended by the odor of
+delectable dishes which always seemed to hover around her.
+
+“Now, are they?” she said, with beautiful unconcern.  “Well, I never
+could see but that my bread rose just as light when Grits were in as
+when they were not.  And if any party, Mrs. Doctor, dear, will make it
+rain before the week is out, and save our kitchen garden from entire
+ruination, that is the party Susan will vote for.  In the meantime,
+will you just step out and give me your opinion on the meat for dinner?
+I am fearing that it is very tough, and I think that we had better
+change our butcher as well as our government.”
+
+One evening, a week later, Anne walked down to the Point, to see if she
+could get some fresh fish from Captain Jim, leaving Little Jem for the
+first time.  It was quite a tragedy.  Suppose he cried?  Suppose Susan
+did not know just exactly what to do for him?  Susan was calm and
+serene.
+
+“I have had as much experience with him as you, Mrs. Doctor, dear, have
+I not?”
+
+“Yes, with him--but not with other babies.  Why, I looked after three
+pairs of twins, when I was a child, Susan.  When they cried, I gave
+them peppermint or castor oil quite coolly.  It’s quite curious now to
+recall how lightly I took all those babies and their woes.”
+
+“Oh, well, if Little Jem cries, I will just clap a hot water bag on his
+little stomach,” said Susan.
+
+“Not too hot, you know,” said Anne anxiously.  Oh, was it really wise
+to go?
+
+“Do not you fret, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Susan is not the woman to burn a
+wee man.  Bless him, he has no notion of crying.”
+
+Anne tore herself away finally and enjoyed her walk to the Point after
+all, through the long shadows of the sun-setting.  Captain Jim was not
+in the living room of the lighthouse, but another man was--a handsome,
+middle-aged man, with a strong, clean-shaven chin, who was unknown to
+Anne.  Nevertheless, when she sat down, he began to talk to her with
+all the assurance of an old acquaintance.  There was nothing amiss in
+what he said or the way he said it, but Anne rather resented such a
+cool taking-for-granted in a complete stranger.  Her replies were
+frosty, and as few as decency required.  Nothing daunted, her companion
+talked on for several minutes, then excused himself and went away.
+Anne could have sworn there was a twinkle in his eye and it annoyed
+her.  Who was the creature?  There was something vaguely familiar about
+him but she was certain she had never seen him before.
+
+“Captain Jim, who was that who just went out?” she asked, as Captain
+Jim came in.
+
+“Marshall Elliott,” answered the captain.
+
+“Marshall Elliott!” cried Anne.  “Oh, Captain Jim--it wasn’t--yes, it
+WAS his voice--oh, Captain Jim, I didn’t know him--and I was quite
+insulting to him!  WHY didn’t he tell me?  He must have seen I didn’t
+know him.”
+
+“He wouldn’t say a word about it--he’d just enjoy the joke.  Don’t
+worry over snubbing him--he’ll think it fun.  Yes, Marshall’s shaved
+off his beard at last and cut his hair.  His party is in, you know.  I
+didn’t know him myself first time I saw him.  He was up in Carter
+Flagg’s store at the Glen the night after election day, along with a
+crowd of others, waiting for the news.  About twelve the ’phone came
+through--the Liberals were in.  Marshall just got up and walked out--he
+didn’t cheer or shout--he left the others to do that, and they nearly
+lifted the roof off Carter’s store, I reckon.  Of course, all the
+Tories were over in Raymond Russell’s store.  Not much cheering THERE.
+Marshall went straight down the street to the side door of Augustus
+Palmer’s barber shop.  Augustus was in bed asleep, but Marhall hammered
+on the door until he got up and come down, wanting to know what all the
+racket was about.
+
+“Come into your shop and do the best job you ever did in your life,
+Gus,’ said Marshall.  ‘The Liberals are in and you’re going to barber a
+good Grit before the sun rises.’
+
+“Gus was mad as hops--partly because he’d been dragged out of bed, but
+more because he’s a Tory.  He vowed he wouldn’t shave any man after
+twelve at night.
+
+“‘You’ll do what I want you to do, sonny,’ said Marshall, ‘or I’ll jest
+turn you over my knee and give you one of those spankings your mother
+forgot.’
+
+“He’d have done it, too, and Gus knew it, for Marshall is as strong as
+an ox and Gus is only a midget of a man.  So he gave in and towed
+Marshall in to the shop and went to work.  ‘Now,’ says he, ‘I’ll barber
+you up, but if you say one word to me about the Grits getting in while
+I’m doing it I’ll cut your throat with this razor,’ says he.  You
+wouldn’t have thought mild little Gus could be so bloodthirsty, would
+you?  Shows what party politics will do for a man.  Marshall kept quiet
+and got his hair and beard disposed of and went home.  When his old
+housekeeper heard him come upstairs she peeked out of her bedroom door
+to see whether ’twas him or the hired boy.  And when she saw a strange
+man striding down the hall with a candle in his hand she screamed blue
+murder and fainted dead away.  They had to send for the doctor before
+they could bring her to, and it was several days before she could look
+at Marshall without shaking all over.”
+
+Captain Jim had no fish.  He seldom went out in his boat that summer,
+and his long tramping expeditions were over.  He spent a great deal of
+his time sitting by his seaward window, looking out over the gulf, with
+his swiftly-whitening head leaning on his hand.  He sat there tonight
+for many silent minutes, keeping some tryst with the past which Anne
+would not disturb.  Presently he pointed to the iris of the West:
+
+“That’s beautiful, isn’t, it, Mistress Blythe?  But I wish you could
+have seen the sunrise this morning.  It was a wonderful
+thing--wonderful.  I’ve seen all kinds of sunrises come over that gulf.
+I’ve been all over the world, Mistress Blythe, and take it all in all,
+I’ve never seen a finer sight than a summer sunrise over the gulf.  A
+man can’t pick his time for dying, Mistress Blythe--jest got to go when
+the Great Captain gives His sailing orders.  But if I could I’d go out
+when the morning comes across that water.  I’ve watched it many a time
+and thought what a thing it would be to pass out through that great
+white glory to whatever was waiting beyant, on a sea that ain’t mapped
+out on any airthly chart.  I think, Mistress Blythe, that I’d find lost
+Margaret there.”
+
+Captain Jim had often talked to Anne of lost Margaret since he had told
+her the old story.  His love for her trembled in every tone--that love
+that had never grown faint or forgetful.
+
+“Anyway, I hope when my time comes I’ll go quick and easy.  I don’t
+think I’m a coward, Mistress Blythe--I’ve looked an ugly death in the
+face more than once without blenching.  But the thought of a lingering
+death does give me a queer, sick feeling of horror.”
+
+“Don’t talk about leaving us, dear, DEAR Captain, Jim,” pleaded Anne,
+in a choked voice, patting the old brown hand, once so strong, but now
+grown very feeble.  “What would we do without you?”
+
+Captain Jim smiled beautifully.
+
+“Oh, you’d get along nicely--nicely--but you wouldn’t forget the old
+man altogether, Mistress Blythe--no, I don’t think you’ll ever quite
+forget him.  The race of Joseph always remembers one another.  But
+it’ll be a memory that won’t hurt--I like to think that my memory won’t
+hurt my friends--it’ll always be kind of pleasant to them, I hope and
+believe.  It won’t be very long now before lost Margaret calls me, for
+the last time.  I’ll be all ready to answer.  I jest spoke of this
+because there’s a little favor I want to ask you.  Here’s this poor old
+Matey of mine”--Captain Jim reached out a hand and poked the big, warm,
+velvety, golden ball on the sofa.  The First Mate uncoiled himself like
+a spring with a nice, throaty, comfortable sound, half purr, half meow,
+stretched his paws in air, turned over and coiled himself up again.
+“HE’ll miss me when I start on the V’yage.  I can’t bear to think of
+leaving the poor critter to starve, like he was left before.  If
+anything happens to me will you give Matey a bite and a corner,
+Mistress Blythe?”
+
+“Indeed I will.”
+
+“Then that is all I had on my mind.  Your Little Jem is to have the few
+curious things I picked up--I’ve seen to that.  And now I don’t like to
+see tears in those pretty eyes, Mistress Blythe.  I’ll mebbe hang on
+for quite a spell yet.  I heard you reading a piece of poetry one day
+last winter--one of Tennyson’s pieces.  I’d sorter like to hear it
+again, if you could recite it for me.”
+
+Softly and clearly, while the seawind blew in on them, Anne repeated
+the beautiful lines of Tennyson’s wonderful swan song--“Crossing the
+Bar.”  The old captain kept time gently with his sinewy hand.
+
+“Yes, yes, Mistress Blythe,” he said, when she had finished, “that’s
+it, that’s it.  He wasn’t a sailor, you tell me--I dunno how he could
+have put an old sailor’s feelings into words like that, if he wasn’t
+one.  He didn’t want any ‘sadness o’ farewells’ and neither do I,
+Mistress Blythe--for all will be well with me and mine beyant the bar.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 36
+
+BEAUTY FOR ASHES
+
+“Any news from Green Gables, Anne?”
+
+“Nothing very especial,” replied Anne, folding up Marilla’s letter.
+“Jake Donnell has been there shingling the roof.  He is a full-fledged
+carpenter now, so it seems he has had his own way in regard to the
+choice of a life-work.  You remember his mother wanted him to be a
+college professor.  I shall never forget the day she came to the school
+and rated me for failing to call him St. Clair.”
+
+“Does anyone ever call him that now?”
+
+“Evidently not.  It seems that he has completely lived it down.  Even
+his mother has succumbed.  I always thought that a boy with Jake’s chin
+and mouth would get his own way in the end.  Diana writes me that Dora
+has a beau.  Just think of it--that child!”
+
+“Dora is seventeen,” said Gilbert.  “Charlie Sloane and I were both mad
+about you when you were seventeen, Anne.”
+
+“Really, Gilbert, we must be getting on in years,” said Anne, with a
+half-rueful smile, “when children who were six when we thought
+ourselves grown up are old enough now to have beaux.  Dora’s is Ralph
+Andrews--Jane’s brother.  I remember him as a little, round, fat,
+white-headed fellow who was always at the foot of his class.  But I
+understand he is quite a fine-looking young man now.”
+
+“Dora will probably marry young.  She’s of the same type as Charlotta
+the Fourth--she’ll never miss her first chance for fear she might not
+get another.”
+
+“Well; if she marries Ralph I hope he will be a little more
+up-and-coming than his brother Billy,” mused Anne.
+
+“For instance,” said Gilbert, laughing, “let us hope he will be able to
+propose on his own account.  Anne, would you have married Billy if he
+had asked you himself, instead of getting Jane to do it for him?”
+
+“I might have.” Anne went off into a shriek of laughter over the
+recollection of her first proposal.  “The shock of the whole thing
+might have hypnotized me into some such rash and foolish act.  Let us
+be thankful he did it by proxy.”
+
+“I had a letter from George Moore yesterday,” said Leslie, from the
+corner where she was reading.
+
+“Oh, how is he?” asked Anne interestedly, yet with an unreal feeling
+that she was inquiring about some one whom she did not know.
+
+“He is well, but he finds it very hard to adapt himself to all the
+changes in his old home and friends.  He is going to sea again in the
+spring.  It’s in his blood, he says, and he longs for it.  But he told
+me something that made me glad for him, poor fellow.  Before he sailed
+on the Four Sisters he was engaged to a girl at home.  He did not tell
+me anything about her in Montreal, because he said he supposed she
+would have forgotten him and married someone else long ago, and with
+him, you see, his engagement and love was still a thing of the present.
+It was pretty hard on him, but when he got home he found she had never
+married and still cared for him.  They are to be married this fall.
+I’m going to ask him to bring her over here for a little trip; he says
+he wants to come and see the place where he lived so many years without
+knowing it.”
+
+“What a nice little romance,” said Anne, whose love for the romantic
+was immortal.  “And to think,” she added with a sigh of self-reproach,
+“that if I had had my way George Moore would never have come up from
+the grave in which his identity was buried.  How I did fight against
+Gilbert’s suggestion!  Well, I am punished:  I shall never be able to
+have a different opinion from Gilbert’s again!  If I try to have, he
+will squelch me by casting George Moore’s case up to me!”
+
+“As if even that would squelch a woman!” mocked Gilbert.  “At least do
+not become my echo, Anne.  A little opposition gives spice to life.  I
+do not want a wife like John MacAllister’s over the harbor.  No matter
+what he says, she at once remarks in that drab, lifeless little voice
+of hers, ‘That is very true, John, dear me!’”
+
+Anne and Leslie laughed.  Anne’s laughter was silver and Leslie’s
+golden, and the combination of the two was as satisfactory as a perfect
+chord in music.
+
+Susan, coming in on the heels of the laughter, echoed it with a
+resounding sigh.
+
+“Why, Susan, what is the matter?” asked Gilbert.
+
+“There’s nothing wrong with little Jem, is there, Susan?” cried Anne,
+starting up in alarm.
+
+“No, no, calm yourself, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Something has happened,
+though.  Dear me, everything has gone catawampus with me this week.  I
+spoiled the bread, as you know too well--and I scorched the doctor’s
+best shirt bosom--and I broke your big platter.  And now, on the top of
+all this, comes word that my sister Matilda has broken her leg and
+wants me to go and stay with her for a spell.”
+
+“Oh, I’m very sorry--sorry that your sister has met with such an
+accident, I mean,” exclaimed Anne.
+
+“Ah, well, man was made to mourn, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  That sounds as if
+it ought to be in the Bible, but they tell me a person named Burns
+wrote it.  And there is no doubt that we are born to trouble as the
+sparks fly upward.  As for Matilda, I do not know what to think of her.
+None of our family ever broke their legs before.  But whatever she has
+done she is still my sister, and I feel that it is my duty to go and
+wait on her, if you can spare me for a few weeks, Mrs. Doctor, dear.”
+
+“Of course, Susan, of course.  I can get someone to help me while you
+are gone.”
+
+“If you cannot I will not go, Mrs. Doctor, dear, Matilda’s leg to the
+contrary notwithstanding.  I will not have you worried, and that
+blessed child upset in consequence, for any number of legs.”
+
+“Oh, you must go to your sister at once, Susan.  I can get a girl from
+the cove, who will do for a time.”
+
+“Anne, will you let me come and stay with you while Susan is away?”
+exclaimed Leslie.  “Do!  I’d love to--and it would be an act of charity
+on your part.  I’m so horribly lonely over there in that big barn of a
+house.  There’s so little to do--and at night I’m worse than
+lonely--I’m frightened and nervous in spite of locked doors.  There was
+a tramp around two days ago.”
+
+Anne joyfully agreed, and next day Leslie was installed as an inmate of
+the little house of dreams.  Miss Cornelia warmly approved of the
+arrangement.
+
+“It seems Providential,” she told Anne in confidence.  “I’m sorry for
+Matilda Clow, but since she had to break her leg it couldn’t have
+happened at a better time.  Leslie will be here while Owen Ford is in
+Four Winds, and those old cats up at the Glen won’t get the chance to
+meow, as they would if she was living over there alone and Owen going
+to see her.  They are doing enough of it as it is, because she doesn’t
+put on mourning.  I said to one of them, ‘If you mean she should put on
+mourning for George Moore, it seems to me more like his resurrection
+than his funeral; and if it’s Dick you mean, I confess _I_ can’t see
+the propriety of going into weeds for a man who died thirteen years ago
+and good riddance then!’  And when old Louisa Baldwin remarked to me
+that she thought it very strange that Leslie should never have
+suspected it wasn’t her own husband _I_ said, ‘YOU never suspected it
+wasn’t Dick Moore, and you were next-door neighbor to him all his life,
+and by nature you’re ten times as suspicious as Leslie.’  But you can’t
+stop some people’s tongues, Anne, dearie, and I’m real thankful Leslie
+will be under your roof while Owen is courting her.”
+
+Owen Ford came to the little house one August evening when Leslie and
+Anne were absorbed in worshipping the baby.  He paused at the open door
+of the living room, unseen by the two within, gazing with greedy eyes
+at the beautiful picture.  Leslie sat on the floor with the baby in her
+lap, making ecstatic dabs at his fat little hands as he fluttered them
+in the air.
+
+“Oh, you dear, beautiful, beloved baby,” she mumbled, catching one wee
+hand and covering it with kisses.
+
+“Isn’t him ze darlingest itty sing,” crooned Anne, hanging over the arm
+of her chair adoringly.  “Dem itty wee pads are ze very tweetest
+handies in ze whole big world, isn’t dey, you darling itty man.”
+
+Anne, in the months before Little Jem’s coming, had pored diligently
+over several wise volumes, and pinned her faith to one in especial,
+“Sir Oracle on the Care and Training of Children.”  Sir Oracle implored
+parents by all they held sacred never to talk “baby talk” to their
+children.  Infants should invariably be addressed in classical language
+from the moment of their birth.  So should they learn to speak English
+undefiled from their earliest utterance.  “How,” demanded Sir Oracle,
+“can a mother reasonably expect her child to learn correct speech, when
+she continually accustoms its impressionable gray matter to such absurd
+expressions and distortions of our noble tongue as thoughtless mothers
+inflict every day on the helpless creatures committed to their care?
+Can a child who is constantly called ‘tweet itty wee singie’ ever
+attain to any proper conception of his own being and possibilities and
+destiny?”
+
+Anne was vastly impressed with this, and informed Gilbert that she
+meant to make it an inflexible rule never, under any circumstances, to
+talk “baby talk” to her children.  Gilbert agreed with her, and they
+made a solemn compact on the subject--a compact which Anne shamelessly
+violated the very first moment Little Jem was laid in her arms.  “Oh,
+the darling itty wee sing!” she had exclaimed.  And she had continued
+to violate it ever since.  When Gilbert teased her she laughed Sir
+Oracle to scorn.
+
+“He never had any children of his own, Gilbert--I am positive he hadn’t
+or he would never have written such rubbish.  You just can’t help
+talking baby talk to a baby.  It comes natural--and it’s RIGHT.  It
+would be inhuman to talk to those tiny, soft, velvety little creatures
+as we do to great big boys and girls.  Babies want love and cuddling
+and all the sweet baby talk they can get, and Little Jem is going to
+have it, bless his dear itty heartums.”
+
+“But you’re the worst I ever heard, Anne,” protested Gilbert, who, not
+being a mother but only a father, was not wholly convinced yet that Sir
+Oracle was wrong.  “I never heard anything like the way you talk to
+that child.”
+
+“Very likely you never did.  Go away--go away.  Didn’t I bring up three
+pairs of Hammond twins before I was eleven?  You and Sir Oracle are
+nothing but cold-blooded theorists.  Gilbert, JUST look at him!  He’s
+smiling at me--he knows what we’re talking about.  And oo dest agwees
+wif evy word muzzer says, don’t oo, angel-lover?”
+
+Gilbert put his arm about them.  “Oh you mothers!” he said.  “You
+mothers!  God knew what He was about when He made you.”
+
+So Little Jem was talked to and loved and cuddled; and he throve as
+became a child of the house of dreams.  Leslie was quite as foolish
+over him as Anne was.  When their work was done and Gilbert was out of
+the way, they gave themselves over to shameless orgies of love-making
+and ecstasies of adoration, such as that in which Owen Ford had
+surprised them.
+
+Leslie was the first to become aware of him.  Even in the twilight
+Anne could see the sudden whiteness that swept over her beautiful face,
+blotting out the crimson of lip and cheeks.
+
+Owen came forward, eagerly, blind for a moment to Anne.
+
+“Leslie!” he said, holding out his hand.  It was the first time he had
+ever called her by her name; but the hand Leslie gave him was cold; and
+she was very quiet all the evening, while Anne and Gilbert and Owen
+laughed and talked together.  Before his call ended she excused herself
+and went upstairs.  Owen’s gay spirits flagged and he went away soon
+after with a downcast air.
+
+Gilbert looked at Anne.
+
+“Anne, what are you up to?  There’s something going on that I don’t
+understand.  The whole air here tonight has been charged with
+electricity.  Leslie sits like the muse of tragedy; Owen Ford jokes and
+laughs on the surface, and watches Leslie with the eyes of his soul.
+You seem all the time to be bursting with some suppressed excitement.
+Own up.  What secret have you been keeping from your deceived husband?”
+
+“Don’t be a goose, Gilbert,” was Anne’s conjugal reply.  “As for
+Leslie, she is absurd and I’m going up to tell her so.”
+
+Anne found Leslie at the dormer window of her room.  The little place
+was filled with the rhythmic thunder of the sea.  Leslie sat with
+locked hands in the misty moonshine--a beautiful, accusing presence.
+
+“Anne,” she said in a low, reproachful voice, “did you know Owen Ford
+was coming to Four Winds?”
+
+“I did,” said Anne brazenly.
+
+“Oh, you should have told me, Anne,” Leslie cried passionately. “If I
+had known I would have gone away--I wouldn’t have stayed here to meet
+him.  You should have told me.  It wasn’t fair of you, Anne--oh, it
+wasn’t fair!”
+
+Leslie’s lips were trembling and her whole form was tense with emotion.
+But Anne laughed heartlessly.  She bent over and kissed Leslie’s
+upturned reproachful face.
+
+“Leslie, you are an adorable goose.  Owen Ford didn’t rush from the
+Pacific to the Atlantic from a burning desire to see ME.  Neither do I
+believe that he was inspired by any wild and frenzied passion for Miss
+Cornelia.  Take off your tragic airs, my dear friend, and fold them up
+and put them away in lavender.  You’ll never need them again.  There
+are some people who can see through a grindstone when there is a hole
+in it, even if you cannot.  I am not a prophetess, but I shall venture
+on a prediction.  The bitterness of life is over for you.  After this
+you are going to have the joys and hopes--and I daresay the sorrows,
+too--of a happy woman.  The omen of the shadow of Venus did come true
+for you, Leslie.  The year in which you saw it brought your life’s best
+gift for you--your love for Owen Ford.  Now, go right to bed and have a
+good sleep.”
+
+Leslie obeyed orders in so far that she went to bed: but it may be
+questioned if she slept much.  I do not think she dared to dream
+wakingly; life had been so hard for this poor Leslie, the path on which
+she had had to walk had been so strait, that she could not whisper to
+her own heart the hopes that might wait on the future.  But she watched
+the great revolving light bestarring the short hours of the summer
+night, and her eyes grew soft and bright and young once more.  Nor,
+when Owen Ford came next day, to ask her to go with him to the shore,
+did she say him nay.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 37
+
+MISS CORNELIA MAKES A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT
+
+Miss Cornelia sailed down to the little house one drowsy afternoon,
+when the gulf was the faint, bleached blue of the August seas, and the
+orange lilies at the gate of Anne’s garden held up their imperial cups
+to be filled with the molten gold of August sunshine.  Not that Miss
+Cornelia concerned herself with painted oceans or sun-thirsty lilies.
+She sat in her favorite rocker in unusual idleness.  She sewed not,
+neither did she spin.  Nor did she say a single derogatory word
+concerning any portion of mankind.  In short, Miss Cornelia’s
+conversation was singularly devoid of spice that day, and Gilbert, who
+had stayed home to listen to her, instead of going a-fishing, as he had
+intended, felt himself aggrieved.  What had come over Miss Cornelia?
+She did not look cast down or worried.  On the contrary, there was a
+certain air of nervous exultation about her.
+
+“Where is Leslie?” she asked--not as if it mattered much either.
+
+“Owen and she went raspberrying in the woods back of her farm,”
+answered Anne.  “They won’t be back before supper time--if then.”
+
+“They don’t seem to have any idea that there is such a thing as a
+clock,” said Gilbert.  “I can’t get to the bottom of that affair.  I’m
+certain you women pulled strings.  But Anne, undutiful wife, won’t tell
+me.  Will you, Miss Cornelia?”
+
+“No, I shall not.  But,” said Miss Cornelia, with the air of one
+determined to take the plunge and have it over, “I will tell you
+something else.  I came today on purpose to tell it.  I am going to be
+married.”
+
+Anne and Gilbert were silent.  If Miss Cornelia had announced her
+intention of going out to the channel and drowning herself the thing
+might have been believable.  This was not.  So they waited.  Of course
+Miss Cornelia had made a mistake.
+
+“Well, you both look sort of kerflummexed,” said Miss Cornelia, with a
+twinkle in her eyes.  Now that the awkward moment of revelation was
+over, Miss Cornelia was her own woman again.  “Do you think I’m too
+young and inexperienced for matrimony?”
+
+“You know--it IS rather staggering,” said Gilbert, trying to gather his
+wits together.  “I’ve heard you say a score of times that you wouldn’t
+marry the best man in the world.”
+
+“I’m not going to marry the best man in the world,” retorted Miss
+Cornelia.  “Marshall Elliott is a long way from being the best.”
+
+“Are you going to marry Marshall Elliott?” exclaimed Anne, recovering
+her power of speech under this second shock.
+
+“Yes.  I could have had him any time these twenty years if I’d lifted
+my finger.  But do you suppose I was going to walk into church beside a
+perambulating haystack like that?”
+
+“I am sure we are very glad--and we wish you all possible happiness,”
+said Anne, very flatly and inadequately, as she felt.  She was not
+prepared for such an occasion.  She had never imagined herself offering
+betrothal felicitations to Miss Cornelia.
+
+“Thanks, I knew you would,” said Miss Cornelia.  “You are the first of
+my friends to know it.”
+
+“We shall be so sorry to lose you, though, dear Miss Cornelia,” said
+Anne, beginning to be a little sad and sentimental.
+
+“Oh, you won’t lose me,” said Miss Cornelia unsentimentally.  “You
+don’t suppose I would live over harbor with all those MacAllisters and
+Elliotts and Crawfords, do you? ‘From the conceit of the Elliotts, the
+pride of the MacAllisters and the vain-glory of the Crawfords, good
+Lord deliver us.’  Marshall is coming to live at my place.  I’m sick
+and tired of hired men.  That Jim Hastings I’ve got this summer is
+positively the worst of the species.  He would drive anyone to getting
+married.  What do you think?  He upset the churn yesterday and spilled
+a big churning of cream over the yard.  And not one whit concerned
+about it was he!  Just gave a foolish laugh and said cream was good for
+the land.  Wasn’t that like a man?  I told him I wasn’t in the habit of
+fertilising my back yard with cream.”
+
+“Well, I wish you all manner of happiness too, Miss Cornelia,” said
+Gilbert, solemnly; “but,” he added, unable to resist the temptation to
+tease Miss Cornelia, despite Anne’s imploring eyes, “I fear your day of
+independence is done.  As you know, Marshall Elliott is a very
+determined man.”
+
+“I like a man who can stick to a thing,” retorted Miss Cornelia.  “Amos
+Grant, who used to be after me long ago, couldn’t.  You never saw such
+a weather-vane.  He jumped into the pond to drown himself once and then
+changed his mind and swum out again.  Wasn’t that like a man?  Marshall
+would have stuck to it and drowned.”
+
+“And he has a bit of a temper, they tell me,” persisted Gilbert.
+
+“He wouldn’t be an Elliott if he hadn’t.  I’m thankful he has.  It will
+be real fun to make him mad.  And you can generally do something with a
+tempery man when it comes to repenting time.  But you can’t do anything
+with a man who just keeps placid and aggravating.”
+
+“You know he’s a Grit, Miss Cornelia.”
+
+“Yes, he IS,” admitted Miss Cornelia rather sadly.  “And of course
+there is no hope of making a Conservative of him.  But at least he is a
+Presbyterian.  So I suppose I shall have to be satisfied with that.”
+
+“Would you marry him if he were a Methodist, Miss Cornelia?”
+
+“No, I would not.  Politics is for this world, but religion is for
+both.”
+
+“And you may be a ‘relict’ after all, Miss Cornelia.”
+
+“Not I.  Marshall will live me out.  The Elliotts are long-lived, and
+the Bryants are not.”
+
+“When are you to be married?” asked Anne.
+
+“In about a month’s time.  My wedding dress is to be navy blue silk.
+And I want to ask you, Anne, dearie, if you think it would be all right
+to wear a veil with a navy blue dress.  I’ve always thought I’d like to
+wear a veil if I ever got married.  Marshall says to have it if I want
+to.  Isn’t that like a man?”
+
+“Why shouldn’t you wear it if you want to?” asked Anne.
+
+“Well, one doesn’t want to be different from other people,” said Miss
+Cornelia, who was not noticeably like anyone else on the face of the
+earth.  “As I say, I do fancy a veil.  But maybe it shouldn’t be worn
+with any dress but a white one.  Please tell me, Anne, dearie, what you
+really think.  I’ll go by your advice.”
+
+“I don’t think veils are usually worn with any but white dresses,”
+admitted Anne, “but that is merely a convention; and I am like Mr.
+Elliott, Miss Cornelia.  I don’t see any good reason why you shouldn’t
+have a veil if you want one.”
+
+But Miss Cornelia, who made her calls in calico wrappers, shook her
+head.
+
+“If it isn’t the proper thing I won’t wear it,” she said, with a sigh
+of regret for a lost dream.
+
+“Since you are determined to be married, Miss Cornelia,” said Gilbert
+solemnly, “I shall give you the excellent rules for the management of a
+husband which my grandmother gave my mother when she married my father.”
+
+“Well, I reckon I can manage Marshall Elliott,” said Miss Cornelia
+placidly.  “But let us hear your rules.”
+
+“The first one is, catch him.”
+
+“He’s caught.  Go on.”
+
+“The second one is, feed him well.”
+
+“With enough pie.  What next?”
+
+“The third and fourth are--keep your eye on him.”
+
+“I believe you,” said Miss Cornelia emphatically.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 38
+
+RED ROSES
+
+The garden of the little house was a haunt beloved of bees and reddened
+by late roses that August.  The little house folk lived much in it, and
+were given to taking picnic suppers in the grassy corner beyond the
+brook and sitting about in it through the twilights when great night
+moths sailed athwart the velvet gloom.  One evening Owen Ford found
+Leslie alone in it.  Anne and Gilbert were away, and Susan, who was
+expected back that night, had not yet returned.
+
+The northern sky was amber and pale green over the fir tops.  The air
+was cool, for August was nearing September, and Leslie wore a crimson
+scarf over her white dress.  Together they wandered through the little,
+friendly, flower-crowded paths in silence.  Owen must go soon.  His
+holiday was nearly over.  Leslie found her heart beating wildly.  She
+knew that this beloved garden was to be the scene of the binding words
+that must seal their as yet unworded understanding.
+
+“Some evenings a strange odor blows down the air of this garden, like a
+phantom perfume,” said Owen.  “I have never been able to discover from
+just what flower it comes.  It is elusive and haunting and wonderfully
+sweet.  I like to fancy it is the soul of Grandmother Selwyn passing on
+a little visit to the old spot she loved so well.  There should be a
+lot of friendly ghosts about this little old house.”
+
+“I have lived under its roof only a month,” said Leslie, “but I love it
+as I never loved the house over there where I have lived all my life.”
+
+“This house was builded and consecrated by love,” said Owen.  “Such
+houses, MUST exert an influence over those who live in them.  And this
+garden--it is over sixty years old and the history of a thousand hopes
+and joys is written in its blossoms.  Some of those flowers were
+actually set out by the schoolmaster’s bride, and she has been dead for
+thirty years.  Yet they bloom on every summer.  Look at those red
+roses, Leslie--how they queen it over everything else!”
+
+“I love the red roses,” said Leslie.  “Anne likes the pink ones best,
+and Gilbert likes the white.  But I want the crimson ones.  They
+satisfy some craving in me as no other flower does.”
+
+“These roses are very late--they bloom after all the others have
+gone--and they hold all the warmth and soul of the summer come to
+fruition,” said Owen, plucking some of the glowing, half-opened buds.
+
+“The rose is the flower of love--the world has acclaimed it so for
+centuries.  The pink roses are love hopeful and expectant--the white
+roses are love dead or forsaken--but the red roses--ah, Leslie, what
+are the red roses?”
+
+“Love triumphant,” said Leslie in a low voice.
+
+“Yes--love triumphant and perfect.  Leslie, you know--you understand.
+I have loved you from the first.  And I KNOW you love me--I don’t need
+to ask you.  But I want to hear you say it--my darling--my darling!”
+
+Leslie said something in a very low and tremulous voice.  Their hands
+and lips met; it was life’s supreme moment for them and as they stood
+there in the old garden, with its many years of love and delight and
+sorrow and glory, he crowned her shining hair with the red, red rose of
+a love triumphant.
+
+Anne and Gilbert returned presently, accompanied by Captain Jim.  Anne
+lighted a few sticks of driftwood in the fireplace, for love of the
+pixy flames, and they sat around it for an hour of good fellowship.
+
+“When I sit looking at a driftwood fire it’s easy to believe I’m young
+again,” said Captain Jim.
+
+“Can you read futures in the fire, Captain Jim?” asked Owen.
+
+Captain Jim looked at them all affectionately and then back again at
+Leslie’s vivid face and glowing eyes.
+
+“I don’t need the fire to read your futures,” he said.  “I see
+happiness for all of you--all of you--for Leslie and Mr. Ford--and the
+doctor here and Mistress Blythe--and Little Jem--and children that
+ain’t born yet but will be.  Happiness for you all--though, mind you, I
+reckon you’ll have your troubles and worries and sorrows, too.  They’re
+bound to come--and no house, whether it’s a palace or a little house of
+dreams, can bar ’em out.  But they won’t get the better of you if you
+face ’em TOGETHER with love and trust.  You can weather any storm with
+them two for compass and pilot.”
+
+The old man rose suddenly and placed one hand on Leslie’s head and one
+on Anne’s.
+
+“Two good, sweet women,” he said.  “True and faithful and to be
+depended on.  Your husbands will have honor in the gates because of
+you--your children will rise up and call you blessed in the years to
+come.”
+
+There was a strange solemnity about the little scene.  Anne and Leslie
+bowed as those receiving a benediction.  Gilbert suddenly brushed his
+hand over his eyes; Owen Ford was rapt as one who can see visions.  All
+were silent for a space.  The little house of dreams added another
+poignant and unforgettable moment to its store of memories.
+
+“I must be going now,” said Captain Jim slowly at last.  He took up his
+hat and looked lingeringly about the room.
+
+“Good night, all of you,” he said, as he went out.
+
+Anne, pierced by the unusual wistfulness of his farewell, ran to the
+door after him.
+
+“Come back soon, Captain Jim,” she called, as he passed through the
+little gate hung between the firs.
+
+“Ay, ay,” he called cheerily back to her.  But Captain Jim had sat by
+the old fireside of the house of dreams for the last time.
+
+Anne went slowly back to the others.
+
+“It’s so--so pitiful to think of him going all alone down to that
+lonely Point,” she said.  “And there is no one to welcome him there.”
+
+“Captain Jim is such good company for others that one can’t imagine him
+being anything but good company for himself,” said Owen.  “But he must
+often be lonely.  There was a touch of the seer about him tonight--he
+spoke as one to whom it had been given to speak.  Well, I must be
+going, too.”
+
+Anne and Gilbert discreetly melted away; but when Owen had gone Anne
+returned, to find Leslie standing by the hearth.
+
+“Oh, Leslie--I know--and I’m so glad, dear,” she said, putting her arms
+about her.
+
+“Anne, my happiness frightens me,” whispered Leslie.  “It seems too
+great to be real--I’m afraid to speak of it--to think of it.  It seems
+to me that it must just be another dream of this house of dreams and it
+will vanish when I leave here.”
+
+“Well, you are not going to leave here--until Owen takes you.  You are
+going to stay with me until that times comes.  Do you think I’d let you
+go over to that lonely, sad place again?”
+
+“Thank you, dear.  I meant to ask you if I might stay with you.  I
+didn’t want to go back there--it would seem like going back into the
+chill and dreariness of the old life again.  Anne, Anne, what a friend
+you’ve been to me--‘a good, sweet woman--true and faithful and to be
+depended on’--Captain Jim summed you up.”
+
+“He said ‘women,’ not ‘woman,’” smiled Anne.  “Perhaps Captain Jim sees
+us both through the rose-colored spectacles of his love for us.  But we
+can try to live up to his belief in us, at least.”
+
+“Do you remember, Anne,” said Leslie slowly, “that I once said--that
+night we met on the shore--that I hated my good looks?  I did--then.
+It always seemed to me that if I had been homely Dick would never have
+thought of me.  I hated my beauty because it had attracted him, but
+now--oh, I’m glad that I have it.  It’s all I have to offer Owen,--his
+artist soul delights in it.  I feel as if I do not come to him quite
+empty-handed.”
+
+“Owen loves your beauty, Leslie.  Who would not?  But it’s foolish of
+you to say or think that that is all you bring him.  HE will tell you
+that--I needn’t.  And now I must lock up.  I expected Susan back
+tonight, but she has not come.”
+
+“Oh, yes, here I am, Mrs. Doctor, dear,” said Susan, entering
+unexpectedly from the kitchen, “and puffing like a hen drawing rails at
+that!  It’s quite a walk from the Glen down here.”
+
+“I’m glad to see you back, Susan.  How is your sister?”
+
+“She is able to sit up, but of course she cannot walk yet.  However,
+she is very well able to get on without me now, for her daughter has
+come home for her vacation.  And I am thankful to be back, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear.  Matilda’s leg was broken and no mistake, but her tongue was not.
+She would talk the legs off an iron pot, that she would, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear, though I grieve to say it of my own sister.  She was always a
+great talker and yet she was the first of our family to get married.
+She really did not care much about marrying James Clow, but she could
+not bear to disoblige him.  Not but what James is a good man--the only
+fault I have to find with him is that he always starts in to say grace
+with such an unearthly groan, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  It always frightens
+my appetite clear away.  And speaking of getting married, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear, is it true that Cornelia Bryant is going to be married to
+Marshall Elliott?”
+
+“Yes, quite true, Susan.”
+
+“Well, Mrs. Doctor, dear, it does NOT seem to me fair.  Here is me, who
+never said a word against the men, and I cannot get married nohow.  And
+there is Cornelia Bryant, who is never done abusing them, and all she
+has to do is to reach out her hand and pick one up, as it were.  It is
+a very strange world, Mrs. Doctor, dear.”
+
+“There’s another world, you know, Susan.”
+
+“Yes,” said Susan with a heavy sigh, “but, Mrs. Doctor, dear, there is
+neither marrying nor giving in marriage there.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 39
+
+CAPTAIN JIM CROSSES THE BAR
+
+One day in late September Owen Ford’s book came at last.  Captain Jim
+had gone faithfully to the Glen post office every day for a month,
+expecting it.  This day he had not gone, and Leslie brought his copy
+home with hers and Anne’s.
+
+“We’ll take it down to him this evening,” said Anne, excited as a
+schoolgirl.
+
+The long walk to the Point on that clear, beguiling evening along the
+red harbor road was very pleasant.  Then the sun dropped down behind
+the western hills into some valley that must have been full of lost
+sunsets, and at the same instant the big light flashed out on the white
+tower of the point.
+
+“Captain Jim is never late by the fraction of a second,” said Leslie.
+
+Neither Anne nor Leslie ever forgot Captain Jim’s face when they gave
+him the book--HIS book, transfigured and glorified.  The cheeks that
+had been blanched of late suddenly flamed with the color of boyhood;
+his eyes glowed with all the fire of youth; but his hands trembled as
+he opened it.
+
+It was called simply The Life-Book of Captain Jim, and on the title
+page the names of Owen Ford and James Boyd were printed as
+collaborators.  The frontispiece was a photograph of Captain Jim
+himself, standing at the door of the lighthouse, looking across the
+gulf.  Owen Ford had “snapped” him one day while the book was being
+written.  Captain Jim had known this, but he had not known that the
+picture was to be in the book.
+
+“Just think of it,” he said, “the old sailor right there in a real
+printed book.  This is the proudest day of my life.  I’m like to bust,
+girls.  There’ll be no sleep for me tonight.  I’ll read my book clean
+through before sun-up.”
+
+“We’ll go right away and leave you free to begin it,” said Anne.
+
+Captain Jim had been handling the book in a kind of reverent rapture.
+Now he decidedly closed it and laid it aside.
+
+“No, no, you’re not going away before you take a cup of tea with the
+old man,” he protested.  “I couldn’t hear to that--could you, Matey?
+The life-book will keep, I reckon.  I’ve waited for it this many a
+year.  I can wait a little longer while I’m enjoying my friends.”
+
+Captain Jim moved about getting his kettle on to boil, and setting out
+his bread and butter.  Despite his excitement he did not move with his
+old briskness.  His movements were slow and halting.  But the girls did
+not offer to help him.  They knew it would hurt his feelings.
+
+“You just picked the right evening to visit me,” he said, producing a
+cake from his cupboard.  “Leetle Joe’s mother sent me down a big basket
+full of cakes and pies today.  A blessing on all good cooks, says I.
+Look at this purty cake, all frosting and nuts.  ’Tain’t often I can
+entertain in such style.  Set in, girls, set in!  We’ll ‘tak a cup o’
+kindness yet for auld lang syne.’”
+
+The girls “set in” right merrily.  The tea was up to Captain Jim’s best
+brewing.  Little Joe’s mother’s cake was the last word in cakes;
+Captain Jim was the prince of gracious hosts, never even permitting his
+eyes to wander to the corner where the life-book lay, in all its
+bravery of green and gold.  But when his door finally closed behind
+Anne and Leslie they knew that he went straight to it, and as they
+walked home they pictured the delight of the old man poring over the
+printed pages wherein his own life was portrayed with all the charm and
+color of reality itself.
+
+“I wonder how he will like the ending--the ending I suggested,” said
+Leslie.
+
+She was never to know.  Early the next morning Anne awakened to find
+Gilbert bending over her, fully dressed, and with an expression of
+anxiety on his face.
+
+“Are you called out?” she asked drowsily.
+
+“No.  Anne, I’m afraid there’s something wrong at the Point.  It’s an
+hour after sunrise now, and the light is still burning.  You know it
+has always been a matter of pride with Captain Jim to start the light
+the moment the sun sets, and put it out the moment it rises.”
+
+Anne sat up in dismay.  Through her window she saw the light blinking
+palely against the blue skies of dawn.
+
+“Perhaps he has fallen asleep over his life-book,” she said anxiously,
+“or become so absorbed in it that he has forgotten the light.”
+
+Gilbert shook his head.
+
+“That wouldn’t be like Captain Jim.  Anyway, I’m going down to see.”
+
+“Wait a minute and I’ll go with you,” exclaimed Anne.  “Oh, yes, I
+must--Little Jem will sleep for an hour yet, and I’ll call Susan.  You
+may need a woman’s help if Captain Jim is ill.”
+
+It was an exquisite morning, full of tints and sounds at once ripe and
+delicate.  The harbor was sparkling and dimpling like a girl; white
+gulls were soaring over the dunes; beyond the bar was a shining,
+wonderful sea.  The long fields by the shore were dewy and fresh in
+that first fine, purely-tinted light.  The wind came dancing and
+whistling up the channel to replace the beautiful silence with a music
+more beautiful still.  Had it not been for the baleful star on the
+white tower that early walk would have been a delight to Anne and
+Gilbert.  But they went softly with fear.
+
+Their knock was not responded to.  Gilbert opened the door and they
+went in.
+
+The old room was very quiet.  On the table were the remnants of the
+little evening feast.  The lamp still burned on the corner stand.  The
+First Mate was asleep in a square of sunshine by the sofa.
+
+Captain Jim lay on the sofa, with his hands clasped over the life-book,
+open at the last page, lying on his breast.  His eyes were closed and
+on his face was a look of the most perfect peace and happiness--the
+look of one who has long sought and found at last.
+
+“He is asleep?” whispered Anne tremulously.
+
+Gilbert went to the sofa and bent over him for a few moments.  Then he
+straightened up.
+
+“Yes, he sleeps--well,” he added quietly.  “Anne, Captain Jim has
+crossed the bar.”
+
+They could not know precisely at what hour he had died, but Anne always
+believed that he had had his wish, and went out when the morning came
+across the gulf.  Out on that shining tide his spirit drifted, over the
+sunrise sea of pearl and silver, to the haven where lost Margaret
+waited, beyond the storms and calms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 40
+
+FAREWELL TO THE HOUSE OF DREAMS
+
+Captain Jim was buried in the little over-harbor graveyard, very near
+to the spot where the wee white lady slept.  His relatives put up a
+very expensive, very ugly “monument”--a monument at which he would have
+poked sly fun had he seen it in life.  But his real monument was in the
+hearts of those who knew him, and in the book that was to live for
+generations.
+
+Leslie mourned that Captain Jim had not lived to see the amazing
+success of it.
+
+“How he would have delighted in the reviews--they are almost all so
+kindly.  And to have seen his life-book heading the lists of the best
+sellers--oh, if he could just have lived to see it, Anne!”
+
+But Anne, despite her grief, was wiser.
+
+“It was the book itself he cared for, Leslie--not what might be said of
+it--and he had it.  He had read it all through.  That last night must
+have been one of the greatest happiness for him--with the quick,
+painless ending he had hoped for in the morning.  I am glad for Owen’s
+sake and yours that the book is such a success--but Captain Jim was
+satisfied--I KNOW.”
+
+The lighthouse star still kept a nightly vigil; a substitute keeper had
+been sent to the Point, until such time as an all-wise government could
+decide which of many applicants was best fitted for the place--or had
+the strongest pull.  The First Mate was at home in the little house,
+beloved by Anne and Gilbert and Leslie, and tolerated by a Susan who
+had small liking for cats.
+
+“I can put up with him for the sake of Captain Jim, Mrs. Doctor, dear,
+for I liked the old man.  And I will see that he gets bite and sup, and
+every mouse the traps account for.  But do not ask me to do more than
+that, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Cats is cats, and take my word for it, they
+will never be anything else.  And at least, Mrs. Doctor, dear, do keep
+him away from the blessed wee man.  Picture to yourself how awful it
+would be if he was to suck the darling’s breath.”
+
+“That might be fitly called a CAT-astrophe,” said Gilbert.
+
+“Oh, you may laugh, doctor, dear, but it would be no laughing matter.”
+
+“Cats never suck babies’ breaths,” said Gilbert.  “That is only an old
+superstition, Susan.”
+
+“Oh, well, it may be a superstition or it may not, doctor, dear.  All
+that I know is, it has happened.  My sister’s husband’s nephew’s wife’s
+cat sucked their baby’s breath, and the poor innocent was all but gone
+when they found it.  And superstition or not, if I find that yellow
+beast lurking near our baby I will whack him with the poker, Mrs.
+Doctor, dear.”
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Elliott were living comfortably and harmoniously
+in the green house.  Leslie was busy with sewing, for she and Owen were
+to be married at Christmas.  Anne wondered what she would do when
+Leslie was gone.
+
+“Changes come all the time.  Just as soon as things get really nice
+they change,” she said with a sigh.
+
+“The old Morgan place up at the Glen is for sale,” said Gilbert,
+apropos of nothing in especial.
+
+“Is it?” asked Anne indifferently.
+
+“Yes.  Now that Mr. Morgan has gone, Mrs. Morgan wants to go to live
+with her children in Vancouver.  She will sell cheaply, for a big place
+like that in a small village like the Glen will not be very easy to
+dispose of.”
+
+“Well, it’s certainly a beautiful place, so it is likely she will find
+a purchaser,” said Anne, absently, wondering whether she should
+hemstitch or feather-stitch little Jem’s “short” dresses.  He was to be
+shortened the next week, and Anne felt ready to cry at the thought of
+it.
+
+“Suppose we buy it, Anne?” remarked Gilbert quietly.
+
+Anne dropped her sewing and stared at him.
+
+“You’re not in earnest, Gilbert?”
+
+“Indeed I am, dear.”
+
+“And leave this darling spot--our house of dreams?” said Anne
+incredulously.  “Oh, Gilbert, it’s--it’s unthinkable!”
+
+“Listen patiently to me, dear.  I know just how you feel about it.  I
+feel the same.  But we’ve always known we would have to move some day.”
+
+“Oh, but not so soon, Gilbert--not just yet.”
+
+“We may never get such a chance again.  If we don’t buy the Morgan
+place someone else will--and there is no other house in the Glen we
+would care to have, and no other really good site on which to build.
+This little house is--well, it is and has been what no other house can
+ever be to us, I admit, but you know it is out-of-the-way down here for
+a doctor.  We have felt the inconvenience, though we’ve made the best
+of it.  And it’s a tight fit for us now.  Perhaps, in a few years, when
+Jem wants a room of his own, it will be entirely too small.”
+
+“Oh, I know--I know,” said Anne, tears filling her eyes.  “I know all
+that can be said against it, but I love it so--and it’s so beautiful
+here.”
+
+“You would find it very lonely here after Leslie goes--and Captain Jim
+has gone too.  The Morgan place is beautiful, and in time we would love
+it.  You know you have always admired it, Anne.”
+
+“Oh, yes, but--but--this has all seemed to come up so suddenly,
+Gilbert.  I’m dizzy.  Ten minutes ago I had no thought of leaving this
+dear spot.  I was planning what I meant to do for it in the
+spring--what I meant to do in the garden.  And if we leave this place
+who will get it?  It IS out-of-the-way, so it’s likely some poor,
+shiftless, wandering family will rent it--and over-run it--and oh, that
+would be desecration.  It would hurt me horribly.”
+
+“I know.  But we cannot sacrifice our own interests to such
+considerations, Anne-girl.  The Morgan place will suit us in every
+essential particular--we really can’t afford to miss such a chance.
+Think of that big lawn with those magnificent old trees; and of that
+splendid hardwood grove behind it--twelve acres of it.  What a play
+place for our children!  There’s a fine orchard, too, and you’ve always
+admired that high brick wall around the garden with the door in
+it--you’ve thought it was so like a story-book garden.  And there is
+almost as fine a view of the harbor and the dunes from the Morgan place
+as from here.”
+
+“You can’t see the lighthouse star from it.”
+
+“Yes, You can see it from the attic window.  THERE’S another advantage,
+Anne-girl--you love big garrets.”
+
+ “There’s no brook in the garden.”
+
+“Well, no, but there is one running through the maple grove into the
+Glen pond.  And the pond itself isn’t far away.  You’ll be able to
+fancy you have your own Lake of Shining Waters again.”
+
+“Well, don’t say anything more about it just now, Gilbert.  Give me
+time to think--to get used to the idea.”
+
+“All right.  There is no great hurry, of course.  Only--if we decide to
+buy, it would be well to be moved in and settled before winter.”
+
+Gilbert went out, and Anne put away Little Jem’s short dresses with
+trembling hands.  She could not sew any more that day.  With tear-wet
+eyes she wandered over the little domain where she had reigned so happy
+a queen.  The Morgan place was all that Gilbert claimed.  The grounds
+were beautiful, the house old enough to have dignity and repose and
+traditions, and new enough to be comfortable and up-to-date.  Anne had
+always admired it; but admiring is not loving; and she loved this house
+of dreams so much.  She loved EVERYTHING about it--the garden she had
+tended, and which so many women had tended before her--the gleam and
+sparkle of the little brook that crept so roguishly across the
+corner--the gate between the creaking fir trees--the old red sandstone
+step--the stately Lombardies--the two tiny quaint glass cupboards over
+the chimney-piece in the living-room--the crooked pantry door in the
+kitchen--the two funny dormer windows upstairs--the little jog in the
+staircase--why, these things were a part of her!  How could she leave
+them?
+
+And how this little house, consecrated aforetime by love and joy, had
+been re-consecrated for her by her happiness and sorrow!  Here she had
+spent her bridal moon; here wee Joyce had lived her one brief day; here
+the sweetness of motherhood had come again with Little Jem; here she
+had heard the exquisite music of her baby’s cooing laughter; here
+beloved friends had sat by her fireside.  Joy and grief, birth and
+death, had made sacred forever this little house of dreams.
+
+And now she must leave it.  She knew that, even while she had contended
+against the idea to Gilbert.  The little house was outgrown.  Gilbert’s
+interests made the change necessary; his work, successful though it had
+been, was hampered by his location.  Anne realised that the end of
+their life in this dear place drew nigh, and that she must face the
+fact bravely.  But how her heart ached!
+
+“It will be just like tearing something out of my life,” she sobbed.
+“And oh, if I could hope that some nice folk would come here in our
+place--or even that it would be left vacant.  That itself would be
+better than having it overrun with some horde who know nothing of the
+geography of dreamland, and nothing of the history that has given this
+house its soul and its identity.  And if such a tribe come here the
+place will go to rack and ruin in no time--an old place goes down so
+quickly if it is not carefully attended to.  They’ll tear up my
+garden--and let the Lombardies get ragged--and the paling will come to
+look like a mouth with half the teeth missing--and the roof will
+leak--and the plaster fall--and they’ll stuff pillows and rags in
+broken window panes--and everything will be out-at-elbows.”
+
+Anne’s imagination pictured forth so vividly the coming degeneration of
+her dear little house that it hurt her as severely as if it had already
+been an accomplished fact.  She sat down on the stairs and had a long,
+bitter cry.  Susan found her there and enquired with much concern what
+the trouble was.
+
+“You have not quarrelled with the doctor, have you now, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear?  But if you have, do not worry.  It is a thing quite likely to
+happen to married couples, I am told, although I have had no experience
+that way myself.  He will be sorry, and you can soon make it up.”
+
+“No, no, Susan, we haven’t quarrelled.  It’s only--Gilbert is going to
+buy the Morgan place, and we’ll have to go and live at the Glen.  And
+it will break my heart.”
+
+Susan did not enter into Anne’s feelings at all.  She was, indeed,
+quite rejoiced over the prospect of living at the Glen.  Her one
+grievance against her place in the little house was its lonesome
+location.
+
+“Why, Mrs. Doctor, dear, it will be splendid.  The Morgan house is such
+a fine, big one.”
+
+“I hate big houses,” sobbed Anne.
+
+“Oh, well, you will not hate them by the time you have half a dozen
+children,” remarked Susan calmly.  “And this house is too small already
+for us.  We have no spare room, since Mrs. Moore is here, and that
+pantry is the most aggravating place I ever tried to work in.  There is
+a corner every way you turn.  Besides, it is out-of-the-world down
+here.  There is really nothing at all but scenery.”
+
+“Out of your world perhaps, Susan--but not out of mine,” said Anne with
+a faint smile.
+
+“I do not quite understand you, Mrs. Doctor, dear, but of course I am
+not well educated.  But if Dr. Blythe buys the Morgan place he will
+make no mistake, and that you may tie to.  They have water in it, and
+the pantries and closets are beautiful, and there is not another such
+cellar in P. E.  Island, so I have been told.  Why, the cellar here,
+Mrs. Doctor, dear, has been a heart-break to me, as well you know.”
+
+“Oh, go away, Susan, go away,” said Anne forlornly.  “Cellars and
+pantries and closets don’t make a HOME.  Why don’t you weep with those
+who weep?”
+
+“Well, I never was much hand for weeping, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  I would
+rather fall to and cheer people up than weep with them.  Now, do not
+you cry and spoil your pretty eyes.  This house is very well and has
+served your turn, but it is high time you had a better.”
+
+Susan’s point of view seemed to be that of most people.  Leslie was the
+only one who sympathised understandingly with Anne.  She had a good
+cry, too, when she heard the news.  Then they both dried their tears
+and went to work at the preparations for moving.
+
+“Since we must go let us go as soon as we can and have it over,” said
+poor Anne with bitter resignation.
+
+“You know you will like that lovely old place at the Glen after you
+have lived in it long enough to have dear memories woven about it,”
+said Leslie.  “Friends will come there, as they have come
+here--happiness will glorify it for you.  Now, it’s just a house to
+you--but the years will make it a home.”
+
+Anne and Leslie had another cry the next week when they shortened
+Little Jem.  Anne felt the tragedy of it until evening when in his long
+nightie she found her own dear baby again.
+
+“But it will be rompers next--and then trousers--and in no time he will
+be grown-up,” she sighed.
+
+“Well, you would not want him to stay a baby always, Mrs. Doctor, dear,
+would you?” said Susan.  “Bless his innocent heart, he looks too sweet
+for anything in his little short dresses, with his dear feet sticking
+out.  And think of the save in the ironing, Mrs. Doctor, dear.”
+
+“Anne, I have just had a letter from Owen,” said Leslie, entering with
+a bright face.  “And, oh! I have such good news.  He writes me that he
+is going to buy this place from the church trustees and keep it to
+spend our summer vacations in.  Anne, are you not glad?”
+
+“Oh, Leslie, ‘glad’ isn’t the word for it!  It seems almost too good to
+be true.  I sha’n’t feel half so badly now that I know this dear spot
+will never be desecrated by a vandal tribe, or left to tumble down in
+decay.  Why, it’s lovely!  It’s lovely!”
+
+One October morning Anne wakened to the realisation that she had slept
+for the last time under the roof of her little house.  The day was too
+busy to indulge regret and when evening came the house was stripped and
+bare.  Anne and Gilbert were alone in it to say farewell.  Leslie and
+Susan and Little Jem had gone to the Glen with the last load of
+furniture.  The sunset light streamed in through the curtainless
+windows.
+
+“It has all such a heart-broken, reproachful look, hasn’t it?” said
+Anne.  “Oh, I shall be so homesick at the Glen tonight!”
+
+“We have been very happy here, haven’t we, Anne-girl?” said Gilbert,
+his voice full of feeling.
+
+Anne choked, unable to answer.  Gilbert waited for her at the fir-tree
+gate, while she went over the house and said farewell to every room.
+She was going away; but the old house would still be there, looking
+seaward through its quaint windows.  The autumn winds would blow around
+it mournfully, and the gray rain would beat upon it and the white mists
+would come in from the sea to enfold it; and the moonlight would fall
+over it and light up the old paths where the schoolmaster and his bride
+had walked.  There on that old harbor shore the charm of story would
+linger; the wind would still whistle alluringly over the silver
+sand-dunes; the waves would still call from the red rock-coves.
+
+“But we will be gone,” said Anne through her tears.
+
+She went out, closing and locking the door behind her.  Gilbert was
+waiting for her with a smile.  The lighthouse star was gleaming
+northward.  The little garden, where only marigolds still bloomed, was
+already hooding itself in shadows.
+
+Anne knelt down and kissed the worn old step which she had crossed as a
+bride.
+
+“Good-bye, dear little house of dreams,” she said.
+
+
+
+
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+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Anne’s House of Dreams, by Lucy Maud Montgomery</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Anne’s House of Dreams</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: August 3, 2008 [EBook #544]<br>
+[Most recently updated: September 1, 2023]</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Charles Keller.  HTML version by Al Haines.</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANNE’S HOUSE OF DREAMS ***</div>
+
+
+<h1 class="center">
+Anne’s House of Dreams
+</h1>
+
+<p class="center">
+by
+<br><span class="big">
+Lucy Maud Montgomery</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+“To Laura, in memory of the olden time.”
+</p>
+
+
+<H2 class="center">
+CONTENTS
+</H2>
+
+<TABLE class="center w80">
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">Chapter</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">&nbsp;</TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">1&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap01">IN THE GARRET OF GREEN GABLES</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">2&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap02">THE HOUSE OF DREAMS</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">3&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap03">THE LAND OF DREAMS AMONG</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">4&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap04">THE FIRST BRIDE OF GREEN GABLES</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">5&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap05">THE HOME COMING</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">6&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap06">CAPTAIN JIM</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">7&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap07">THE SCHOOLMASTER’S BRIDE</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">8&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap08">MISS CORNELIA BRYANT COMES TO CALL</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">9&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap09">AN EVENING AT FOUR WINDS POINT</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">10&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap10">LESLIE MOORE</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">11&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap11">THE STORY OF LESLIE MOORE</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">12&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap12">LESLIE COMES OVER</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">13&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap13">A GHOSTLY EVENING</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">14&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap14">NOVEMBER DAYS</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">15&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap15">CHRISTMAS AT FOUR WINDS</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">16&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap16">NEW YEAR’S EVE AT THE LIGHT</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">17&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap17">A FOUR WINDS WINTER</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">18&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap18">SPRING DAYS</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">19&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap19">DAWN AND DUSK</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">20&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap20">LOST MARGARET</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">21&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap21">BARRIERS SWEPT AWAY</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">22&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap22">MISS CORNELIA ARRANGES MATTERS</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">23&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap23">OWEN FORD COMES</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">24&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap24">THE LIFE-BOOK OF CAPTAIN JIM</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">25&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap25">THE WRITING OF THE BOOK</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">26&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap26">OWEN FORD’S CONFESSION</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">27&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap27">ON THE SAND BAR</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">28&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap28">ODDS AND ENDS</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">29&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap29">GILBERT AND ANNE DISAGREE</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">30&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap30">LESLIE DECIDES</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">31&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap31">THE TRUTH MAKES FREE</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">32&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap32">MISS CORNELIA DISCUSSES THE AFFAIR</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">33&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap33">LESLIE RETURNS</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">34&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap34">THE SHIP O’DREAMS COMES TO HARBOR</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">35&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap35">POLITICS AT FOUR WINDS</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">36&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap36">BEAUTY FOR ASHES</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">37&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap37">MISS CORNELIA MAKES A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">38&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap38">RED ROSES</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">39&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap39">CAPTAIN JIM CROSSES THE BAR</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">40&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap40">FAREWELL TO THE HOUSE OF DREAMS</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+</TABLE>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap01"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 1
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+IN THE GARRET OF GREEN GABLES
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+“Thanks be, I’m done with geometry, learning or teaching it,” said Anne
+Shirley, a trifle vindictively, as she thumped a somewhat battered
+volume of Euclid into a big chest of books, banged the lid in triumph,
+and sat down upon it, looking at Diana Wright across the Green Gables
+garret, with gray eyes that were like a morning sky.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The garret was a shadowy, suggestive, delightful place, as all garrets
+should be. Through the open window, by which Anne sat, blew the sweet,
+scented, sun-warm air of the August afternoon; outside, poplar boughs
+rustled and tossed in the wind; beyond them were the woods, where
+Lover’s Lane wound its enchanted path, and the old apple orchard which
+still bore its rosy harvests munificently.  And, over all, was a great
+mountain range of snowy clouds in the blue southern sky.  Through the
+other window was glimpsed a distant, white-capped, blue sea&mdash;the
+beautiful St. Lawrence Gulf, on which floats, like a jewel, Abegweit,
+whose softer, sweeter Indian name has long been forsaken for the more
+prosaic one of Prince Edward Island.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Diana Wright, three years older than when we last saw her, had grown
+somewhat matronly in the intervening time.  But her eyes were as black
+and brilliant, her cheeks as rosy, and her dimples as enchanting, as in
+the long-ago days when she and Anne Shirley had vowed eternal
+friendship in the garden at Orchard Slope.  In her arms she held a
+small, sleeping, black-curled creature, who for two happy years had
+been known to the world of Avonlea as “Small Anne Cordelia.”  Avonlea
+folks knew why Diana had called her Anne, of course, but Avonlea folks
+were puzzled by the Cordelia.  There had never been a Cordelia in the
+Wright or Barry connections.  Mrs. Harmon Andrews said she supposed
+Diana had found the name in some trashy novel, and wondered that Fred
+hadn’t more sense than to allow it.  But Diana and Anne smiled at each
+other.  They knew how Small Anne Cordelia had come by her name.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You always hated geometry,” said Diana with a retrospective smile.  “I
+should think you’d be real glad to be through with teaching, anyhow.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I’ve always liked teaching, apart from geometry.  These past three
+years in Summerside have been very pleasant ones. Mrs. Harmon Andrews
+told me when I came home that I wouldn’t likely find married life as
+much better than teaching as I expected.  Evidently Mrs. Harmon is of
+Hamlet’s opinion that it may be better to bear the ills that we have
+than fly to others that we know not of.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne’s laugh, as blithe and irresistible as of yore, with an added note
+of sweetness and maturity, rang through the garret.  Marilla in the
+kitchen below, compounding blue plum preserve, heard it and smiled;
+then sighed to think how seldom that dear laugh would echo through
+Green Gables in the years to come.  Nothing in her life had ever given
+Marilla so much happiness as the knowledge that Anne was going to marry
+Gilbert Blythe; but every joy must bring with it its little shadow of
+sorrow.  During the three Summerside years Anne had been home often for
+vacations and weekends; but, after this, a bi-annual visit would be as
+much as could be hoped for.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You needn’t let what Mrs. Harmon says worry you,” said Diana, with the
+calm assurance of the four-years matron.  “Married life has its ups and
+downs, of course.  You mustn’t expect that everything will always go
+smoothly.  But I can assure you, Anne, that it’s a happy life, when
+you’re married to the right man.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne smothered a smile.  Diana’s airs of vast experience always amused
+her a little.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I daresay I’ll be putting them on too, when I’ve been married four
+years,” she thought.  “Surely my sense of humor will preserve me from
+it, though.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Is it settled yet where you are going to live?” asked Diana, cuddling
+Small Anne Cordelia with the inimitable gesture of motherhood which
+always sent through Anne’s heart, filled with sweet, unuttered dreams
+and hopes, a thrill that was half pure pleasure and half a strange,
+ethereal pain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes. That was what I wanted to tell you when I ’phoned to you to come
+down today.  By the way, I can’t realize that we really have telephones
+in Avonlea now.  It sounds so preposterously up-to-date and modernish
+for this darling, leisurely old place.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We can thank the A. V. I. S. for them,” said Diana.  “We should never
+have got the line if they hadn’t taken the matter up and carried it
+through.  There was enough cold water thrown to discourage any society.
+But they stuck to it, nevertheless.  You did a splendid thing for
+Avonlea when you founded that society, Anne.  What fun we did have at
+our meetings!  Will you ever forget the blue hall and Judson Parker’s
+scheme for painting medicine advertisements on his fence?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t know that I’m wholly grateful to the A. V. I.  S. in the
+matter of the telephone,” said Anne.  “Oh, I know it’s most
+convenient&mdash;even more so than our old device of signalling to each
+other by flashes of candlelight!  And, as Mrs. Rachel says, 'Avonlea
+must keep up with the procession, that’s what.’  But somehow I feel as
+if I didn’t want Avonlea spoiled by what Mr. Harrison, when he wants to
+be witty, calls 'modern inconveniences.’  I should like to have it kept
+always just as it was in the dear old years. That’s foolish&mdash;and
+sentimental&mdash;and impossible.  So I shall immediately become wise and
+practical and possible.  The telephone, as Mr. Harrison concedes, is 'a
+buster of a good thing’&mdash;even if you do know that probably half a dozen
+interested people are listening along the line.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That’s the worst of it,” sighed Diana.  “It’s so annoying to hear the
+receivers going down whenever you ring anyone up.  They say Mrs. Harmon
+Andrews insisted that their ’phone should be put in their kitchen just
+so that she could listen whenever it rang and keep an eye on the dinner
+at the same time.  Today, when you called me, I distinctly heard that
+queer clock of the Pyes’ striking.  So no doubt Josie or Gertie was
+listening.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, so that is why you said, 'You’ve got a new clock at Green Gables,
+haven’t you?’  I couldn’t imagine what you meant.  I heard a vicious
+click as soon as you had spoken.  I suppose it was the Pye receiver
+being hung up with profane energy.  Well, never mind the Pyes.  As Mrs.
+Rachel says, 'Pyes they always were and Pyes they always will be, world
+without end, amen.’  I want to talk of pleasanter things.  It’s all
+settled as to where my new home shall be.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, Anne, where?  I do hope it’s near here.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No-o-o, that’s the drawback. Gilbert is going to settle at Four Winds
+Harbor&mdash;sixty miles from here.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Sixty!  It might as well be six hundred,” sighed Diana.  “I never can
+get further from home now than Charlottetown.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’ll have to come to Four Winds. It’s the most beautiful harbor on
+the Island.  There’s a little village called Glen St. Mary at its head,
+and Dr. David Blythe has been practicing there for fifty years.  He is
+Gilbert’s great-uncle, you know.  He is going to retire, and Gilbert is
+to take over his practice.  Dr. Blythe is going to keep his house,
+though, so we shall have to find a habitation for ourselves.  I don’t
+know yet what it is, or where it will be in reality, but I have a
+little house o’dreams all furnished in my imagination&mdash;a tiny,
+delightful castle in Spain.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Where are you going for your wedding tour?” asked Diana.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Nowhere.  Don’t look horrified, Diana dearest.  You suggest Mrs.
+Harmon Andrews.  She, no doubt, will remark condescendingly that people
+who can’t afford wedding 'towers’ are real sensible not to take them;
+and then she’ll remind me that Jane went to Europe for hers.  I want to
+spend MY honeymoon at Four Winds in my own dear house of dreams.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And you’ve decided not to have any bridesmaid?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There isn’t any one to have.  You and Phil and Priscilla and Jane all
+stole a march on me in the matter of marriage; and Stella is teaching
+in Vancouver.  I have no other 'kindred soul’ and I won’t have a
+bridesmaid who isn’t.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But you are going to wear a veil, aren’t you?” asked Diana, anxiously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, indeedy.  I shouldn’t feel like a bride without one.  I remember
+telling Matthew, that evening when he brought me to Green Gables, that
+I never expected to be a bride because I was so homely no one would
+ever want to marry me&mdash;unless some foreign missionary did.  I had an
+idea then that foreign missionaries couldn’t afford to be finicky in
+the matter of looks if they wanted a girl to risk her life among
+cannibals.  You should have seen the foreign missionary Priscilla
+married.  He was as handsome and inscrutable as those daydreams we once
+planned to marry ourselves, Diana; he was the best dressed man I ever
+met, and he raved over Priscilla’s 'ethereal, golden beauty.’  But of
+course there are no cannibals in Japan.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Your wedding dress is a dream, anyhow,” sighed Diana rapturously.
+“You’ll look like a perfect queen in it&mdash;you’re so tall and slender.
+How DO you keep so slim, Anne?  I’m fatter than ever&mdash;I’ll soon have no
+waist at all.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Stoutness and slimness seem to be matters of predestination,” said
+Anne.  “At all events, Mrs. Harmon Andrews can’t say to you what she
+said to me when I came home from Summerside, 'Well, Anne, you’re just
+about as skinny as ever.’  It sounds quite romantic to be 'slender,’
+but 'skinny’ has a very different tang.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Mrs. Harmon has been talking about your trousseau.  She admits it’s as
+nice as Jane’s, although she says Jane married a millionaire and you
+are only marrying a 'poor young doctor without a cent to his name.’”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“My dresses ARE nice.  I love pretty things.  I remember the first
+pretty dress I ever had&mdash;the brown gloria Matthew gave me for our
+school concert.  Before that everything I had was so ugly.  It seemed
+to me that I stepped into a new world that night.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That was the night Gilbert recited 'Bingen on the Rhine,’ and looked
+at you when he said, 'There’s another, NOT a sister.’  And you were so
+furious because he put your pink tissue rose in his breast pocket!  You
+didn’t much imagine then that you would ever marry him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, well, that’s another instance of predestination,” laughed Anne, as
+they went down the garret stairs.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap02"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 2
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+THE HOUSE OF DREAMS
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+There was more excitement in the air of Green Gables than there had
+ever been before in all its history.  Even Marilla was so excited that
+she couldn’t help showing it&mdash;which was little short of being
+phenomenal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There’s never been a wedding in this house,” she said, half
+apologetically, to Mrs. Rachel Lynde.  “When I was a child I heard an
+old minister say that a house was not a real home until it had been
+consecrated by a birth, a wedding and a death.  We’ve had deaths
+here&mdash;my father and mother died here as well as Matthew; and we’ve even
+had a birth here.  Long ago, just after we moved into this house, we
+had a married hired man for a little while, and his wife had a baby
+here.  But there’s never been a wedding before.  It does seem so
+strange to think of Anne being married.  In a way she just seems to me
+the little girl Matthew brought home here fourteen years ago.  I can’t
+realize that she’s grown up.  I shall never forget what I felt when I
+saw Matthew bringing in a GIRL.  I wonder what became of the boy we
+would have got if there hadn’t been a mistake.  I wonder what HIS fate
+was.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, it was a fortunate mistake,” said Mrs. Rachel Lynde, “though,
+mind you, there was a time I didn’t think so&mdash;that evening I came up to
+see Anne and she treated us to such a scene.  Many things have changed
+since then, that’s what.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Rachel sighed, and then brisked up again.  When weddings were in
+order Mrs. Rachel was ready to let the dead past bury its dead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m going to give Anne two of my cotton warp spreads,” she resumed.
+“A tobacco-stripe one and an apple-leaf one.  She tells me they’re
+getting to be real fashionable again.  Well, fashion or no fashion, I
+don’t believe there’s anything prettier for a spare-room bed than a
+nice apple-leaf spread, that’s what.  I must see about getting them
+bleached.  I’ve had them sewed up in cotton bags ever since Thomas
+died, and no doubt they’re an awful color.  But there’s a month yet,
+and dew-bleaching will work wonders.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Only a month!  Marilla sighed and then said proudly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m giving Anne that half dozen braided rugs I have in the garret. I
+never supposed she’d want them&mdash;they’re so old-fashioned, and nobody
+seems to want anything but hooked mats now.  But she asked me for
+them&mdash;said she’d rather have them than anything else for her floors.
+They ARE pretty.  I made them of the nicest rags, and braided them in
+stripes.  It was such company these last few winters.  And I’ll make
+her enough blue plum preserve to stock her jam closet for a year.  It
+seems real strange.  Those blue plum trees hadn’t even a blossom for
+three years, and I thought they might as well be cut down.  And this
+last spring they were white, and such a crop of plums I never remember
+at Green Gables.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, thank goodness that Anne and Gilbert really are going to be
+married after all.  It’s what I’ve always prayed for,” said Mrs.
+Rachel, in the tone of one who is comfortably sure that her prayers
+have availed much.  “It was a great relief to find out that she really
+didn’t mean to take the Kingsport man.  He was rich, to be sure, and
+Gilbert is poor&mdash;at least, to begin with; but then he’s an Island boy.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He’s Gilbert Blythe,” said Marilla contentedly.  Marilla would have
+died the death before she would have put into words the thought that
+was always in the background of her mind whenever she had looked at
+Gilbert from his childhood up&mdash;the thought that, had it not been for
+her own wilful pride long, long ago, he might have been HER son.
+Marilla felt that, in some strange way, his marriage with Anne would
+put right that old mistake.  Good had come out of the evil of the
+ancient bitterness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As for Anne herself, she was so happy that she almost felt frightened.
+The gods, so says the old superstition, do not like to behold too happy
+mortals.  It is certain, at least, that some human beings do not.  Two
+of that ilk descended upon Anne one violet dusk and proceeded to do
+what in them lay to prick the rainbow bubble of her satisfaction.  If
+she thought she was getting any particular prize in young Dr. Blythe,
+or if she imagined that he was still as infatuated with her as he might
+have been in his salad days, it was surely their duty to put the matter
+before her in another light.  Yet these two worthy ladies were not
+enemies of Anne; on the contrary, they were really quite fond of her,
+and would have defended her as their own young had anyone else attacked
+her.  Human nature is not obliged to be consistent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Inglis&mdash;nee Jane Andrews, to quote from the Daily Enterprise&mdash;came
+with her mother and Mrs. Jasper Bell.  But in Jane the milk of human
+kindness had not been curdled by years of matrimonial bickerings.  Her
+lines had fallen in pleasant places.  In spite of the fact&mdash;as Mrs.
+Rachel Lynde would say&mdash;that she had married a millionaire, her
+marriage had been happy.  Wealth had not spoiled her.  She was still
+the placid, amiable, pink-cheeked Jane of the old quartette,
+sympathising with her old chum’s happiness and as keenly interested in
+all the dainty details of Anne’s trousseau as if it could rival her own
+silken and bejewelled splendors.  Jane was not brilliant, and had
+probably never made a remark worth listening to in her life; but she
+never said anything that would hurt anyone’s feelings&mdash;which may be a
+negative talent but is likewise a rare and enviable one.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“So Gilbert didn’t go back on you after all,” said Mrs. Harmon Andrews,
+contriving to convey an expression of surprise in her tone.  “Well, the
+Blythes generally keep their word when they’ve once passed it, no
+matter what happens.  Let me see&mdash;you’re twenty-five, aren’t you, Anne?
+When I was a girl twenty-five was the first corner.  But you look quite
+young.  Red-headed people always do.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Red hair is very fashionable now,” said Anne, trying to smile, but
+speaking rather coldly.  Life had developed in her a sense of humor
+which helped her over many difficulties; but as yet nothing had availed
+to steel her against a reference to her hair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“So it is&mdash;so it is,” conceded Mrs. Harmon.  “There’s no telling what
+queer freaks fashion will take.  Well, Anne, your things are very
+pretty, and very suitable to your position in life, aren’t they, Jane?
+I hope you’ll be very happy.  You have my best wishes, I’m sure.  A
+long engagement doesn’t often turn out well.  But, of course, in your
+case it couldn’t be helped.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert looks very young for a doctor.  I’m afraid people won’t have
+much confidence in him,” said Mrs. Jasper Bell gloomily.  Then she shut
+her mouth tightly, as if she had said what she considered it her duty
+to say and held her conscience clear.  She belonged to the type which
+always has a stringy black feather in its hat and straggling locks of
+hair on its neck.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne’s surface pleasure in her pretty bridal things was temporarily
+shadowed; but the deeps of happiness below could not thus be disturbed;
+and the little stings of Mesdames Bell and Andrews were forgotten when
+Gilbert came later, and they wandered down to the birches of the brook,
+which had been saplings when Anne had come to Green Gables, but were
+now tall, ivory columns in a fairy palace of twilight and stars.  In
+their shadows Anne and Gilbert talked in lover-fashion of their new
+home and their new life together.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve found a nest for us, Anne.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, where?  Not right in the village, I hope.  I wouldn’t like that
+altogether.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.  There was no house to be had in the village.  This is a little
+white house on the harbor shore, half way between Glen St. Mary and
+Four Winds Point.  It’s a little out of the way, but when we get a
+’phone in that won’t matter so much.  The situation is beautiful.  It
+looks to the sunset and has the great blue harbor before it.  The
+sand-dunes aren’t very far away&mdash;the sea winds blow over them and the
+sea spray drenches them.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But the house itself, Gilbert,&mdash;OUR first home?  What is it like?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Not very large, but large enough for us.  There’s a splendid living
+room with a fireplace in it downstairs, and a dining room that looks
+out on the harbor, and a little room that will do for my office.  It is
+about sixty years old&mdash;the oldest house in Four Winds.  But it has been
+kept in pretty good repair, and was all done over about fifteen years
+ago&mdash;shingled, plastered and re-floored.  It was well built to begin
+with.  I understand that there was some romantic story connected with
+its building, but the man I rented it from didn’t know it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He said Captain Jim was the only one who could spin that old yarn now.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Who is Captain Jim?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The keeper of the lighthouse on Four Winds Point.  You’ll love that
+Four Winds light, Anne.  It’s a revolving one, and it flashes like a
+magnificent star through the twilights.  We can see it from our living
+room windows and our front door.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Who owns the house?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, it’s the property of the Glen St. Mary Presbyterian Church now,
+and I rented it from the trustees.  But it belonged until lately to a
+very old lady, Miss Elizabeth Russell.  She died last spring, and as
+she had no near relatives she left her property to the Glen St. Mary
+Church.  Her furniture is still in the house, and I bought most of
+it&mdash;for a mere song you might say, because it was all so old-fashioned
+that the trustees despaired of selling it.  Glen St. Mary folks prefer
+plush brocade and sideboards with mirrors and ornamentations, I fancy.
+But Miss Russell’s furniture is very good and I feel sure you’ll like
+it, Anne.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“So far, good,” said Anne, nodding cautious approval.  “But, Gilbert,
+people cannot live by furniture alone.  You haven’t yet mentioned one
+very important thing.  Are there TREES about this house?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Heaps of them, oh, dryad!  There is a big grove of fir trees behind
+it, two rows of Lombardy poplars down the lane, and a ring of white
+birches around a very delightful garden.  Our front door opens right
+into the garden, but there is another entrance&mdash;a little gate hung
+between two firs.  The hinges are on one trunk and the catch on the
+other.  Their boughs form an arch overhead.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I’m so glad!  I couldn’t live where there were no trees&mdash;something
+vital in me would starve.  Well, after that, there’s no use asking you
+if there’s a brook anywhere near.  THAT would be expecting too much.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But there IS a brook&mdash;and it actually cuts across one corner of the
+garden.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Then,” said Anne, with a long sigh of supreme satisfaction, “this
+house you have found IS my house of dreams and none other.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap03"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 3
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+THE LAND OF DREAMS AMONG
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+“Have you made up your mind who you’re going to have to the wedding,
+Anne?” asked Mrs. Rachel Lynde, as she hemstitched table napkins
+industriously.  “It’s time your invitations were sent, even if they are
+to be only informal ones.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t mean to have very many,” said Anne.  “We just want those we
+love best to see us married.  Gilbert’s people, and Mr. and Mrs. Allan,
+and Mr. and Mrs. Harrison.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There was a time when you’d hardly have numbered Mr. Harrison among
+your dearest friends,” said Marilla drily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, I wasn’t VERY strongly attracted to him at our first meeting,”
+acknowledged Anne, with a laugh over the recollection.  “But Mr.
+Harrison has improved on acquaintance, and Mrs. Harrison is really a
+dear.  Then, of course, there are Miss Lavendar and Paul.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Have they decided to come to the Island this summer?  I thought they
+were going to Europe.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“They changed their minds when I wrote them I was going to be married.
+I had a letter from Paul today.  He says he MUST come to my wedding, no
+matter what happens to Europe.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That child always idolised you,” remarked Mrs. Rachel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That 'child’ is a young man of nineteen now, Mrs. Lynde.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How time does fly!” was Mrs. Lynde’s brilliant and original response.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Charlotta the Fourth may come with them.  She sent word by Paul that
+she would come if her husband would let her.  I wonder if she still
+wears those enormous blue bows, and whether her husband calls her
+Charlotta or Leonora.  I should love to have Charlotta at my wedding.
+Charlotta and I were at a wedding long syne.  They expect to be at Echo
+Lodge next week.  Then there are Phil and the Reverend Jo&mdash;&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It sounds awful to hear you speaking of a minister like that, Anne,”
+said Mrs. Rachel severely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“His wife calls him that.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She should have more respect for his holy office, then,” retorted Mrs.
+Rachel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve heard you criticise ministers pretty sharply yourself,” teased
+Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, but I do it reverently,” protested Mrs. Lynde.  “You never heard
+me NICKNAME a minister.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne smothered a smile.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, there are Diana and Fred and little Fred and Small Anne
+Cordelia&mdash;and Jane Andrews.  I wish I could have Miss Stacey and Aunt
+Jamesina and Priscilla and Stella.  But Stella is in Vancouver, and
+Pris is in Japan, and Miss Stacey is married in California, and Aunt
+Jamesina has gone to India to explore her daughter’s mission field, in
+spite of her horror of snakes.  It’s really dreadful&mdash;the way people
+get scattered over the globe.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The Lord never intended it, that’s what,” said Mrs. Rachel
+authoritatively.  “In my young days people grew up and married and
+settled down where they were born, or pretty near it.  Thank goodness
+you’ve stuck to the Island, Anne.  I was afraid Gilbert would insist on
+rushing off to the ends of the earth when he got through college, and
+dragging you with him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If everybody stayed where he was born places would soon be filled up,
+Mrs. Lynde.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I’m not going to argue with you, Anne.  <I>I</I> am not a B.A.  What
+time of the day is the ceremony to be?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We have decided on noon&mdash;high noon, as the society reporters say.
+That will give us time to catch the evening train to Glen St. Mary.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And you’ll be married in the parlor?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No&mdash;not unless it rains.  We mean to be married in the orchard&mdash;with
+the blue sky over us and the sunshine around us.  Do you know when and
+where I’d like to be married, if I could?  It would be at dawn&mdash;a June
+dawn, with a glorious sunrise, and roses blooming in the gardens; and I
+would slip down and meet Gilbert and we would go together to the heart
+of the beech woods,&mdash;and there, under the green arches that would be
+like a splendid cathedral, we would be married.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Marilla sniffed scornfully and Mrs. Lynde looked shocked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But that would be terrible queer, Anne.  Why, it wouldn’t really seem
+legal.  And what would Mrs. Harmon Andrews say?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Ah, there’s the rub,” sighed Anne.  “There are so many things in life
+we cannot do because of the fear of what Mrs. Harmon Andrews would say.
+'’Tis true, ’tis pity, and pity ’tis, ’tis true.’  What delightful
+things we might do were it not for Mrs. Harmon Andrews!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“By times, Anne, I don’t feel quite sure that I understand you
+altogether,” complained Mrs. Lynde.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne was always romantic, you know,” said Marilla apologetically.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, married life will most likely cure her of that,” Mrs. Rachel
+responded comfortingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne laughed and slipped away to Lover’s Lane, where Gilbert found her;
+and neither of them seemed to entertain much fear, or hope, that their
+married life would cure them of romance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Echo Lodge people came over the next week, and Green Gables buzzed
+with the delight of them.  Miss Lavendar had changed so little that the
+three years since her last Island visit might have been a watch in the
+night; but Anne gasped with amazement over Paul.  Could this splendid
+six feet of manhood be the little Paul of Avonlea schooldays?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You really make me feel old, Paul,” said Anne.  “Why, I have to look
+up to you!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’ll never grow old, Teacher,” said Paul.  “You are one of the
+fortunate mortals who have found and drunk from the Fountain of
+Youth,&mdash;you and Mother Lavendar.  See here!  When you’re married I
+WON’T call you Mrs. Blythe.  To me you’ll always be 'Teacher’&mdash;the
+teacher of the best lessons I ever learned.  I want to show you
+something.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The “something” was a pocketbook full of poems.  Paul had put some of
+his beautiful fancies into verse, and magazine editors had not been as
+unappreciative as they are sometimes supposed to be.  Anne read Paul’s
+poems with real delight.  They were full of charm and promise.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’ll be famous yet, Paul.  I always dreamed of having one famous
+pupil.  He was to be a college president&mdash;but a great poet would be
+even better.  Some day I’ll be able to boast that I whipped the
+distinguished Paul Irving.  But then I never did whip you, did I, Paul?
+What an opportunity lost!  I think I kept you in at recess, however.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You may be famous yourself, Teacher.  I’ve seen a good deal of your
+work these last three years.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.  I know what I can do.  I can write pretty, fanciful little
+sketches that children love and editors send welcome cheques for.  But
+I can do nothing big.  My only chance for earthly immortality is a
+corner in your Memoirs.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Charlotta the Fourth had discarded the blue bows but her freckles were
+not noticeably less.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I never did think I’d come down to marrying a Yankee, Miss Shirley,
+ma’am,” she said.  “But you never know what’s before you, and it isn’t
+his fault.  He was born that way.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’re a Yankee yourself, Charlotta, since you’ve married one.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Miss Shirley, ma’am, I’m NOT!  And I wouldn’t be if I was to marry a
+dozen Yankees!  Tom’s kind of nice.  And besides, I thought I’d better
+not be too hard to please, for I mightn’t get another chance.  Tom
+don’t drink and he don’t growl because he has to work between meals,
+and when all’s said and done I’m satisfied, Miss Shirley, ma’am.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Does he call you Leonora?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Goodness, no, Miss Shirley, ma’am.  I wouldn’t know who he meant if he
+did.  Of course, when we got married he had to say, 'I take thee,
+Leonora,’ and I declare to you, Miss Shirley, ma’am, I’ve had the most
+dreadful feeling ever since that it wasn’t me he was talking to and I
+haven’t been rightly married at all.  And so you’re going to be married
+yourself, Miss Shirley, ma’am?  I always thought I’d like to marry a
+doctor.  It would be so handy when the children had measles and croup.
+Tom is only a bricklayer, but he’s real good-tempered.  When I said to
+him, says I, 'Tom, can I go to Miss Shirley’s wedding?  I mean to go
+anyhow, but I’d like to have your consent,’ he just says, 'Suit
+yourself, Charlotta, and you’ll suit me.’  That’s a real pleasant kind
+of husband to have, Miss Shirley, ma’am.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Philippa and her Reverend Jo arrived at Green Gables the day before the
+wedding.  Anne and Phil had a rapturous meeting which presently
+simmered down to a cosy, confidential chat over all that had been and
+was about to be.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Queen Anne, you’re as queenly as ever.  I’ve got fearfully thin since
+the babies came.  I’m not half so good-looking; but I think Jo likes
+it.  There’s not such a contrast between us, you see.  And oh, it’s
+perfectly magnificent that you’re going to marry Gilbert.  Roy Gardner
+wouldn’t have done at all, at all.  I can see that now, though I was
+horribly disappointed at the time.  You know, Anne, you did treat Roy
+very badly.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He has recovered, I understand,” smiled Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, yes.  He is married and his wife is a sweet little thing and
+they’re perfectly happy.  Everything works together for good.  Jo and
+the Bible say that, and they are pretty good authorities.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Are Alec and Alonzo married yet?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Alec is, but Alonzo isn’t.  How those dear old days at Patty’s Place
+come back when I’m talking to you, Anne!  What fun we had!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Have you been to Patty’s Place lately?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, yes, I go often.  Miss Patty and Miss Maria still sit by the
+fireplace and knit.  And that reminds me&mdash;we’ve brought you a wedding
+gift from them, Anne.  Guess what it is.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I never could.  How did they know I was going to be married?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I told them.  I was there last week.  And they were so interested.
+Two days ago Miss Patty wrote me a note asking me to call; and then she
+asked if I would take her gift to you.  What would you wish most from
+Patty’s Place, Anne?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You can’t mean that Miss Patty has sent me her china dogs?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Go up head.  They’re in my trunk this very moment.  And I’ve a letter
+for you.  Wait a moment and I’ll get it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Dear Miss Shirley,” Miss Patty had written, “Maria and I were very
+much interested in hearing of your approaching nuptials.  We send you
+our best wishes.  Maria and I have never married, but we have no
+objection to other people doing so.  We are sending you the china dogs.
+I intended to leave them to you in my will, because you seemed to have
+sincere affection for them.  But Maria and I expect to live a good
+while yet (D.V.), so I have decided to give you the dogs while you are
+young.  You will not have forgotten that Gog looks to the right and
+Magog to the left.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Just fancy those lovely old dogs sitting by the fireplace in my house
+of dreams,” said Anne rapturously.  “I never expected anything so
+delightful.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That evening Green Gables hummed with preparations for the following
+day; but in the twilight Anne slipped away.  She had a little
+pilgrimage to make on this last day of her girlhood and she must make
+it alone.  She went to Matthew’s grave, in the little poplar-shaded
+Avonlea graveyard, and there kept a silent tryst with old memories and
+immortal loves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How glad Matthew would be tomorrow if he were here,” she whispered.
+“But I believe he does know and is glad of it&mdash;somewhere else.  I’ve
+read somewhere that 'our dead are never dead until we have forgotten
+them.’ Matthew will never be dead to me, for I can never forget him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She left on his grave the flowers she had brought and walked slowly
+down the long hill.  It was a gracious evening, full of delectable
+lights and shadows.  In the west was a sky of mackerel clouds&mdash;crimson
+and amber-tinted, with long strips of apple-green sky between.  Beyond
+was the glimmering radiance of a sunset sea, and the ceaseless voice of
+many waters came up from the tawny shore.  All around her, lying in the
+fine, beautiful country silence, were the hills and fields and woods
+she had known and loved so long.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“History repeats itself,” said Gilbert, joining her as she passed the
+Blythe gate.  “Do you remember our first walk down this hill, Anne&mdash;our
+first walk together anywhere, for that matter?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I was coming home in the twilight from Matthew’s grave&mdash;and you came
+out of the gate; and I swallowed the pride of years and spoke to you.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And all heaven opened before me,” supplemented Gilbert.  “From that
+moment I looked forward to tomorrow.  When I left you at your gate that
+night and walked home I was the happiest boy in the world.  Anne had
+forgiven me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I think you had the most to forgive.  I was an ungrateful little
+wretch&mdash;and after you had really saved my life that day on the pond,
+too.  How I loathed that load of obligation at first!  I don’t deserve
+the happiness that has come to me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert laughed and clasped tighter the girlish hand that wore his
+ring.  Anne’s engagement ring was a circlet of pearls.  She had refused
+to wear a diamond.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve never really liked diamonds since I found out they weren’t the
+lovely purple I had dreamed.  They will always suggest my old
+disappointment.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But pearls are for tears, the old legend says,” Gilbert had objected.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m not afraid of that.  And tears can be happy as well as sad.  My
+very happiest moments have been when I had tears in my eyes&mdash;when
+Marilla told me I might stay at Green Gables&mdash;when Matthew gave me the
+first pretty dress I ever had&mdash;when I heard that you were going to
+recover from the fever.  So give me pearls for our troth ring, Gilbert,
+and I’ll willingly accept the sorrow of life with its joy.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But tonight our lovers thought only of joy and never of sorrow.  For
+the morrow was their wedding day, and their house of dreams awaited
+them on the misty, purple shore of Four Winds Harbor.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap04"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 4
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+THE FIRST BRIDE OF GREEN GABLES
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Anne wakened on the morning of her wedding day to find the sunshine
+winking in at the window of the little porch gable and a September
+breeze frolicking with her curtains.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m so glad the sun will shine on me,” she thought happily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She recalled the first morning she had wakened in that little porch
+room, when the sunshine had crept in on her through the blossom-drift
+of the old Snow Queen.  That had not been a happy wakening, for it
+brought with it the bitter disappointment of the preceding night.  But
+since then the little room had been endeared and consecrated by years
+of happy childhood dreams and maiden visions.  To it she had come back
+joyfully after all her absences; at its window she had knelt through
+that night of bitter agony when she believed Gilbert dying, and by it
+she had sat in speechless happiness the night of her betrothal.  Many
+vigils of joy and some of sorrow had been kept there; and today she
+must leave it forever.  Henceforth it would be hers no more;
+fifteen-year-old Dora was to inherit it when she had gone.  Nor did
+Anne wish it otherwise; the little room was sacred to youth and
+girlhood&mdash;to the past that was to close today before the chapter of
+wifehood opened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Green Gables was a busy and joyous house that forenoon.  Diana arrived
+early, with little Fred and Small Anne Cordelia, to lend a hand.  Davy
+and Dora, the Green Gables twins, whisked the babies off to the garden.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t let Small Anne Cordelia spoil her clothes,” warned Diana
+anxiously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You needn’t be afraid to trust her with Dora,” said Marilla.  “That
+child is more sensible and careful than most of the mothers I’ve known.
+She’s really a wonder in some ways.  Not much like that other
+harum-scarum I brought up.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Marilla smiled across her chicken salad at Anne.  It might even be
+suspected that she liked the harum-scarum best after all.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Those twins are real nice children,” said Mrs. Rachel, when she was
+sure they were out of earshot.  “Dora is so womanly and helpful, and
+Davy is developing into a very smart boy.  He isn’t the holy terror for
+mischief he used to be.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I never was so distracted in my life as I was the first six months he
+was here,” acknowledged Marilla.  “After that I suppose I got used to
+him.  He’s taken a great notion to farming lately, and wants me to let
+him try running the farm next year.  I may, for Mr. Barry doesn’t think
+he’ll want to rent it much longer, and some new arrangement will have
+to be made.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, you certainly have a lovely day for your wedding, Anne,” said
+Diana, as she slipped a voluminous apron over her silken array.  “You
+couldn’t have had a finer one if you’d ordered it from Eaton’s.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Indeed, there’s too much money going out of this Island to that same
+Eaton’s,” said Mrs. Lynde indignantly.  She had strong views on the
+subject of octopus-like department stores, and never lost an
+opportunity of airing them.  “And as for those catalogues of theirs,
+they’re the Avonlea girls’ Bible now, that’s what.  They pore over them
+on Sundays instead of studying the Holy Scriptures.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, they’re splendid to amuse children with,” said Diana.  “Fred and
+Small Anne look at the pictures by the hour.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“<I>I</I> amused ten children without the aid of Eaton’s catalogue,” said
+Mrs. Rachel severely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Come, you two, don’t quarrel over Eaton’s catalogue,” said Anne gaily.
+“This is my day of days, you know.  I’m so happy I want every one else
+to be happy, too.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m sure I hope your happiness will last, child,” sighed Mrs. Rachel.
+She did hope it truly, and believed it, but she was afraid it was in
+the nature of a challenge to Providence to flaunt your happiness too
+openly.  Anne, for her own good, must be toned down a trifle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But it was a happy and beautiful bride who came down the old,
+homespun-carpeted stairs that September noon&mdash;the first bride of Green
+Gables, slender and shining-eyed, in the mist of her maiden veil, with
+her arms full of roses.  Gilbert, waiting for her in the hall below,
+looked up at her with adoring eyes.  She was his at last, this evasive,
+long-sought Anne, won after years of patient waiting.  It was to him
+she was coming in the sweet surrender of the bride.  Was he worthy of
+her?  Could he make her as happy as he hoped?  If he failed her&mdash;if he
+could not measure up to her standard of manhood&mdash;then, as she held out
+her hand, their eyes met and all doubt was swept away in a glad
+certainty.  They belonged to each other; and, no matter what life might
+hold for them, it could never alter that.  Their happiness was in each
+other’s keeping and both were unafraid.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were married in the sunshine of the old orchard, circled by the
+loving and kindly faces of long-familiar friends.  Mr. Allan married
+them, and the Reverend Jo made what Mrs. Rachel Lynde afterwards
+pronounced to be the “most beautiful wedding prayer” she had ever
+heard.  Birds do not often sing in September, but one sang sweetly from
+some hidden bough while Gilbert and Anne repeated their deathless vows.
+Anne heard it and thrilled to it; Gilbert heard it, and wondered only
+that all the birds in the world had not burst into jubilant song; Paul
+heard it and later wrote a lyric about it which was one of the most
+admired in his first volume of verse; Charlotta the Fourth heard it and
+was blissfully sure it meant good luck for her adored Miss Shirley.
+The bird sang until the ceremony was ended and then it wound up with
+one mad little, glad little trill.  Never had the old gray-green house
+among its enfolding orchards known a blither, merrier afternoon.  All
+the old jests and quips that must have done duty at weddings since Eden
+were served up, and seemed as new and brilliant and mirth-provoking as
+if they had never been uttered before.  Laughter and joy had their way;
+and when Anne and Gilbert left to catch the Carmody train, with Paul as
+driver, the twins were ready with rice and old shoes, in the throwing
+of which Charlotta the Fourth and Mr. Harrison bore a valiant part.
+Marilla stood at the gate and watched the carriage out of sight down
+the long lane with its banks of goldenrod.  Anne turned at its end to
+wave her last good-bye.  She was gone&mdash;Green Gables was her home no
+more; Marilla’s face looked very gray and old as she turned to the
+house which Anne had filled for fourteen years, and even in her
+absence, with light and life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Diana and her small fry, the Echo Lodge people and the Allans, had
+stayed to help the two old ladies over the loneliness of the first
+evening; and they contrived to have a quietly pleasant little supper
+time, sitting long around the table and chatting over all the details
+of the day.  While they were sitting there Anne and Gilbert were
+alighting from the train at Glen St. Mary.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap05"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 5
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+THE HOME COMING
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Dr. David Blythe had sent his horse and buggy to meet them, and the
+urchin who had brought it slipped away with a sympathetic grin, leaving
+them to the delight of driving alone to their new home through the
+radiant evening.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne never forgot the loveliness of the view that broke upon them when
+they had driven over the hill behind the village.  Her new home could
+not yet be seen; but before her lay Four Winds Harbor like a great,
+shining mirror of rose and silver.  Far down, she saw its entrance
+between the bar of sand dunes on one side and a steep, high, grim, red
+sandstone cliff on the other.  Beyond the bar the sea, calm and
+austere, dreamed in the afterlight.  The little fishing village,
+nestled in the cove where the sand-dunes met the harbor shore, looked
+like a great opal in the haze.  The sky over them was like a jewelled
+cup from which the dusk was pouring; the air was crisp with the
+compelling tang of the sea, and the whole landscape was infused with
+the subtleties of a sea evening.  A few dim sails drifted along the
+darkening, fir-clad harbor shores.  A bell was ringing from the tower
+of a little white church on the far side; mellowly and dreamily sweet,
+the chime floated across the water blent with the moan of the sea.  The
+great revolving light on the cliff at the channel flashed warm and
+golden against the clear northern sky, a trembling, quivering star of
+good hope.  Far out along the horizon was the crinkled gray ribbon of a
+passing steamer’s smoke.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, beautiful, beautiful,” murmured Anne.  “I shall love Four Winds,
+Gilbert.  Where is our house?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We can’t see it yet&mdash;the belt of birch running up from that little
+cove hides it.  It’s about two miles from Glen St. Mary, and there’s
+another mile between it and the light-house.  We won’t have many
+neighbors, Anne.  There’s only one house near us and I don’t know who
+lives in it.  Shall you be lonely when I’m away?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Not with that light and that loveliness for company.  Who lives in
+that house, Gilbert?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t know.  It doesn’t look&mdash;exactly&mdash;as if the occupants would be
+kindred spirits, Anne, does it?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The house was a large, substantial affair, painted such a vivid green
+that the landscape seemed quite faded by contrast.  There was an
+orchard behind it, and a nicely kept lawn before it, but, somehow,
+there was a certain bareness about it.  Perhaps its neatness was
+responsible for this; the whole establishment, house, barns, orchard,
+garden, lawn and lane, was so starkly neat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It doesn’t seem probable that anyone with that taste in paint could be
+VERY kindred,” acknowledged Anne, “unless it were an accident&mdash;like our
+blue hall.  I feel certain there are no children there, at least.  It’s
+even neater than the old Copp place on the Tory road, and I never
+expected to see anything neater than that.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They had not met anybody on the moist, red road that wound along the
+harbor shore.  But just before they came to the belt of birch which hid
+their home, Anne saw a girl who was driving a flock of snow-white geese
+along the crest of a velvety green hill on the right.  Great, scattered
+firs grew along it.  Between their trunks one saw glimpses of yellow
+harvest fields, gleams of golden sand-hills, and bits of blue sea.  The
+girl was tall and wore a dress of pale blue print.  She walked with a
+certain springiness of step and erectness of bearing.  She and her
+geese came out of the gate at the foot of the hill as Anne and Gilbert
+passed.  She stood with her hand on the fastening of the gate, and
+looked steadily at them, with an expression that hardly attained to
+interest, but did not descend to curiosity.  It seemed to Anne, for a
+fleeting moment, that there was even a veiled hint of hostility in it.
+But it was the girl’s beauty which made Anne give a little gasp&mdash;a
+beauty so marked that it must have attracted attention anywhere.  She
+was hatless, but heavy braids of burnished hair, the hue of ripe wheat,
+were twisted about her head like a coronet; her eyes were blue and
+star-like; her figure, in its plain print gown, was magnificent; and
+her lips were as crimson as the bunch of blood-red poppies she wore at
+her belt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert, who is the girl we have just passed?” asked Anne, in a low
+voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I didn’t notice any girl,” said Gilbert, who had eyes only for his
+bride.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She was standing by that gate&mdash;no, don’t look back.  She is still
+watching us.  I never saw such a beautiful face.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t remember seeing any very handsome girls while I was here.
+There are some pretty girls up at the Glen, but I hardly think they
+could be called beautiful.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“This girl is.  You can’t have seen her, or you would remember her.
+Nobody could forget her.  I never saw such a face except in pictures.
+And her hair!  It made me think of Browning’s 'cord of gold’ and
+'gorgeous snake’!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Probably she’s some visitor in Four Winds&mdash;likely some one from that
+big summer hotel over the harbor.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She wore a white apron and she was driving geese.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She might do that for amusement.  Look, Anne&mdash;there’s our house.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne looked and forgot for a time the girl with the splendid, resentful
+eyes.  The first glimpse of her new home was a delight to eye and
+spirit&mdash;it looked so like a big, creamy seashell stranded on the harbor
+shore.  The rows of tall Lombardy poplars down its lane stood out in
+stately, purple silhouette against the sky.  Behind it, sheltering its
+garden from the too keen breath of sea winds, was a cloudy fir wood, in
+which the winds might make all kinds of weird and haunting music.  Like
+all woods, it seemed to be holding and enfolding secrets in its
+recesses,&mdash;secrets whose charm is only to be won by entering in and
+patiently seeking.  Outwardly, dark green arms keep them inviolate from
+curious or indifferent eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The night winds were beginning their wild dances beyond the bar and the
+fishing hamlet across the harbor was gemmed with lights as Anne and
+Gilbert drove up the poplar lane.  The door of the little house opened,
+and a warm glow of firelight flickered out into the dusk.  Gilbert
+lifted Anne from the buggy and led her into the garden, through the
+little gate between the ruddy-tipped firs, up the trim, red path to the
+sandstone step.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Welcome home,” he whispered, and hand in hand they stepped over the
+threshold of their house of dreams.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap06"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 6
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+CAPTAIN JIM
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+“Old Doctor Dave” and “Mrs. Doctor Dave” had come down to the little
+house to greet the bride and groom.  Doctor Dave was a big, jolly,
+white-whiskered old fellow, and Mrs. Doctor was a trim rosy-cheeked,
+silver-haired little lady who took Anne at once to her heart, literally
+and figuratively.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m so glad to see you, dear.  You must be real tired.  We’ve got a
+bite of supper ready, and Captain Jim brought up some trout for you.
+Captain Jim&mdash;where are you?  Oh, he’s slipped out to see to the horse,
+I suppose.  Come upstairs and take your things off.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne looked about her with bright, appreciative eyes as she followed
+Mrs. Doctor Dave upstairs.  She liked the appearance of her new home
+very much.  It seemed to have the atmosphere of Green Gables and the
+flavor of her old traditions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I think I would have found Miss Elizabeth Russell a 'kindred spirit,’”
+she murmured when she was alone in her room.  There were two windows in
+it; the dormer one looked out on the lower harbor and the sand-bar and
+the Four Winds light.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+    “A magic casement opening on the foam<BR>
+    Of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn,”<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+quoted Anne softly.  The gable window gave a view of a little
+harvest-hued valley through which a brook ran.  Half a mile up the
+brook was the only house in sight&mdash;an old, rambling, gray one
+surrounded by huge willows through which its windows peered, like shy,
+seeking eyes, into the dusk.  Anne wondered who lived there; they would
+be her nearest neighbors and she hoped they would be nice.  She
+suddenly found herself thinking of the beautiful girl with the white
+geese.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert thought she didn’t belong here,” mused Anne, “but I feel sure
+she does.  There was something about her that made her part of the sea
+and the sky and the harbor.  Four Winds is in her blood.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Anne went downstairs Gilbert was standing before the fireplace
+talking to a stranger.  Both turned as Anne entered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne, this is Captain Boyd.  Captain Boyd, my wife.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was the first time Gilbert had said “my wife” to anybody but Anne,
+and he narrowly escaped bursting with the pride of it.  The old captain
+held out a sinewy hand to Anne; they smiled at each other and were
+friends from that moment.  Kindred spirit flashed recognition to
+kindred spirit.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m right down pleased to meet you, Mistress Blythe; and I hope you’ll
+be as happy as the first bride was who came here.  I can’t wish you no
+better than THAT.  But your husband doesn’t introduce me jest exactly
+right.  'Captain Jim’ is my week-a-day name and you might as well begin
+as you’re sartain to end up&mdash;calling me that.  You sartainly are a nice
+little bride, Mistress Blythe.  Looking at you sorter makes me feel
+that I’ve jest been married myself.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Amid the laughter that followed Mrs. Doctor Dave urged Captain Jim to
+stay and have supper with them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Thank you kindly.  ’Twill be a real treat, Mistress Doctor.  I mostly
+has to eat my meals alone, with the reflection of my ugly old phiz in a
+looking-glass opposite for company.  ’Tisn’t often I have a chance to
+sit down with two such sweet, purty ladies.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim’s compliments may look very bald on paper, but he paid them
+with such a gracious, gentle deference of tone and look that the woman
+upon whom they were bestowed felt that she was being offered a queen’s
+tribute in a kingly fashion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim was a high-souled, simple-minded old man, with eternal
+youth in his eyes and heart.  He had a tall, rather ungainly figure,
+somewhat stooped, yet suggestive of great strength and endurance; a
+clean-shaven face deeply lined and bronzed; a thick mane of iron-gray
+hair falling quite to his shoulders, and a pair of remarkably blue,
+deep-set eyes, which sometimes twinkled and sometimes dreamed, and
+sometimes looked out seaward with a wistful quest in them, as of one
+seeking something precious and lost.  Anne was to learn one day what it
+was for which Captain Jim looked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It could not be denied that Captain Jim was a homely man.  His spare
+jaws, rugged mouth, and square brow were not fashioned on the lines of
+beauty; and he had passed through many hardships and sorrows which had
+marked his body as well as his soul; but though at first sight Anne
+thought him plain she never thought anything more about it&mdash;the spirit
+shining through that rugged tenement beautified it so wholly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They gathered gaily around the supper table.  The hearth fire banished
+the chill of the September evening, but the window of the dining room
+was open and sea breezes entered at their own sweet will.  The view was
+magnificent, taking in the harbor and the sweep of low, purple hills
+beyond.  The table was heaped with Mrs. Doctor’s delicacies but the
+piece de resistance was undoubtedly the big platter of sea trout.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Thought they’d be sorter tasty after travelling,” said Captain Jim.
+“They’re fresh as trout can be, Mistress Blythe.  Two hours ago they
+were swimming in the Glen Pond.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Who is attending to the light tonight, Captain Jim?” asked Doctor Dave.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Nephew Alec.  He understands it as well as I do.  Well, now, I’m real
+glad you asked me to stay to supper.  I’m proper hungry&mdash;didn’t have
+much of a dinner today.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I believe you half starve yourself most of the time down at that
+light,” said Mrs. Doctor Dave severely.  “You won’t take the trouble to
+get up a decent meal.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I do, Mistress Doctor, I do,” protested Captain Jim.  “Why, I live
+like a king gen’rally.  Last night I was up to the Glen and took home
+two pounds of steak.  I meant to have a spanking good dinner today.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And what happened to the steak?” asked Mrs. Doctor Dave.  “Did you
+lose it on the way home?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.”  Captain Jim looked sheepish.  “Just at bedtime a poor, ornery
+sort of dog came along and asked for a night’s lodging.  Guess he
+belonged to some of the fishermen ’long shore.  I couldn’t turn the
+poor cur out&mdash;he had a sore foot.  So I shut him in the porch, with an
+old bag to lie on, and went to bed.  But somehow I couldn’t sleep.
+Come to think it over, I sorter remembered that the dog looked hungry.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And you got up and gave him that steak&mdash;ALL that steak,” said Mrs.
+Doctor Dave, with a kind of triumphant reproof.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, there wasn’t anything else TO give him,” said Captain Jim
+deprecatingly.  “Nothing a dog’d care for, that is.  I reckon he WAS
+hungry, for he made about two bites of it.  I had a fine sleep the rest
+of the night but my dinner had to be sorter scanty&mdash;potatoes and point,
+as you might say.  The dog, he lit out for home this morning.  I reckon
+HE weren’t a vegetarian.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The idea of starving yourself for a worthless dog!” sniffed Mrs.
+Doctor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You don’t know but he may be worth a lot to somebody,” protested
+Captain Jim.  “He didn’t LOOK of much account, but you can’t go by
+looks in jedging a dog.  Like meself, he might be a real beauty inside.
+The First Mate didn’t approve of him, I’ll allow.  His language was
+right down forcible. But the First Mate is prejudiced.  No use in
+taking a cat’s opinion of a dog.  'Tennyrate, I lost my dinner, so this
+nice spread in this dee-lightful company is real pleasant. It’s a great
+thing to have good neighbors.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Who lives in the house among the willows up the brook?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Mrs. Dick Moore,” said Captain Jim&mdash;“and her husband,” he added, as if
+by way of an afterthought.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne smiled, and deduced a mental picture of Mrs. Dick Moore from
+Captain Jim’s way of putting it; evidently a second Mrs. Rachel Lynde.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You haven’t many neighbors, Mistress Blythe,” Captain Jim went on.
+“This side of the harbor is mighty thinly settled.  Most of the land
+belongs to Mr. Howard up yander past the Glen, and he rents it out for
+pasture.  The other side of the harbor, now, is thick with
+folks&mdash;’specially MacAllisters.  There’s a whole colony of MacAllisters
+you can’t throw a stone but you hit one.  I was talking to old Leon
+Blacquiere the other day.  He’s been working on the harbor all summer.
+'Dey’re nearly all MacAllisters over thar,’ he told me.  'Dare’s Neil
+MacAllister and Sandy MacAllister and William MacAllister and Alec
+MacAllister and Angus MacAllister&mdash;and I believe dare’s de Devil
+MacAllister.’”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There are nearly as many Elliotts and Crawfords,” said Doctor Dave,
+after the laughter had subsided.  “You know, Gilbert, we folk on this
+side of Four Winds have an old saying&mdash;'From the conceit of the
+Elliotts, the pride of the MacAllisters, and the vainglory of the
+Crawfords, good Lord deliver us.’”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There’s a plenty of fine people among them, though,” said Captain Jim.
+“I sailed with William Crawford for many a year, and for courage and
+endurance and truth that man hadn’t an equal.  They’ve got brains over
+on that side of Four Winds.  Mebbe that’s why this side is sorter
+inclined to pick on ’em.  Strange, ain’t it, how folks seem to resent
+anyone being born a mite cleverer than they be.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doctor Dave, who had a forty years’ feud with the over-harbor people,
+laughed and subsided.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Who lives in that brilliant emerald house about half a mile up the
+road?” asked Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim smiled delightedly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Miss Cornelia Bryant.  She’ll likely be over to see you soon, seeing
+you’re Presbyterians.  If you were Methodists she wouldn’t come at all.
+Cornelia has a holy horror of Methodists.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She’s quite a character,” chuckled Doctor Dave.  “A most inveterate
+man-hater!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Sour grapes?” queried Gilbert, laughing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, ’tisn’t sour grapes,” answered Captain Jim seriously.  “Cornelia
+could have had her pick when she was young.  Even yet she’s only to say
+the word to see the old widowers jump.  She jest seems to have been
+born with a sort of chronic spite agin men and Methodists.  She’s got
+the bitterest tongue and the kindest heart in Four Winds.  Wherever
+there’s any trouble, that woman is there, doing everything to help in
+the tenderest way.  She never says a harsh word about another woman,
+and if she likes to card us poor scalawags of men down I reckon our
+tough old hides can stand it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She always speaks well of you, Captain Jim,” said Mrs. Doctor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, I’m afraid so.  I don’t half like it.  It makes me feel as if
+there must be something sorter unnateral about me.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap07"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 7
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+THE SCHOOLMASTER’S BRIDE
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+“Who was the first bride who came to this house, Captain Jim?” Anne
+asked, as they sat around the fireplace after supper.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Was she a part of the story I’ve heard was connected with this house?”
+asked Gilbert.  “Somebody told me you could tell it, Captain Jim.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, yes, I know it.  I reckon I’m the only person living in Four
+Winds now that can remember the schoolmaster’s bride as she was when
+she come to the Island.  She’s been dead this thirty year, but she was
+one of them women you never forget.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Tell us the story,” pleaded Anne.  “I want to find out all about the
+women who have lived in this house before me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, there’s jest been three&mdash;Elizabeth Russell, and Mrs. Ned
+Russell, and the schoolmaster’s bride.  Elizabeth Russell was a nice,
+clever little critter, and Mrs. Ned was a nice woman, too.  But they
+weren’t ever like the schoolmaster’s bride.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The schoolmaster’s name was John Selwyn.  He came out from the Old
+Country to teach school at the Glen when I was a boy of sixteen.  He
+wasn’t much like the usual run of derelicts who used to come out to
+P.E.I. to teach school in them days.  Most of them were clever, drunken
+critters who taught the children the three R’s when they were sober,
+and lambasted them when they wasn’t.  But John Selwyn was a fine,
+handsome young fellow.  He boarded at my father’s, and he and me were
+cronies, though he was ten years older’n me.  We read and walked and
+talked a heap together.  He knew about all the poetry that was ever
+written, I reckon, and he used to quote it to me along shore in the
+evenings.  Dad thought it an awful waste of time, but he sorter endured
+it, hoping it’d put me off the notion of going to sea.  Well, nothing
+could do THAT&mdash;mother come of a race of sea-going folk and it was born
+in me.  But I loved to hear John read and recite.  It’s almost sixty
+years ago, but I could repeat yards of poetry I learned from him.
+Nearly sixty years!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim was silent for a space, gazing into the glowing fire in a
+quest of the bygones.  Then, with a sigh, he resumed his story.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I remember one spring evening I met him on the sand-hills.  He looked
+sorter uplifted&mdash;jest like you did, Dr. Blythe, when you brought
+Mistress Blythe in tonight.  I thought of him the minute I seen you.
+And he told me that he had a sweetheart back home and that she was
+coming out to him.  I wasn’t more’n half pleased, ornery young lump of
+selfishness that I was; I thought he wouldn’t be as much my friend
+after she came.  But I’d enough decency not to let him see it.  He told
+me all about her.  Her name was Persis Leigh, and she would have come
+out with him if it hadn’t been for her old uncle.  He was sick, and
+he’d looked after her when her parents died and she wouldn’t leave him.
+And now he was dead and she was coming out to marry John Selwyn.
+’Twasn’t no easy journey for a woman in them days.  There weren’t no
+steamers, you must ricollect.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“'When do you expect her?’ says I.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“'She sails on the Royal William, the 20th of June,’ says he, 'and so
+she should be here by mid-July.  I must set Carpenter Johnson to
+building me a home for her.  Her letter come today.  I know before I
+opened it that it had good news for me.  I saw her a few nights ago.’
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I didn’t understand him, and then he explained&mdash;though I didn’t
+understand THAT much better.  He said he had a gift&mdash;or a curse.  Them
+was his words, Mistress Blythe&mdash;a gift or a curse.  He didn’t know
+which it was.  He said a great-great-grandmother of his had had it, and
+they burned her for a witch on account of it.  He said queer
+spells&mdash;trances, I think was the name he give ’em&mdash;come over him now
+and again.  Are there such things, Doctor?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There are people who are certainly subject to trances,” answered
+Gilbert.  “The matter is more in the line of psychical research than
+medical.  What were the trances of this John Selwyn like?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Like dreams,” said the old Doctor skeptically.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He said he could see things in them,” said Captain Jim slowly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Mind you, I’m telling you jest what HE said&mdash;things that were
+happening&mdash;things that were GOING to happen.  He said they were
+sometimes a comfort to him and sometimes a horror.  Four nights before
+this he’d been in one&mdash;went into it while he was sitting looking at the
+fire.  And he saw an old room he knew well in England, and Persis Leigh
+in it, holding out her hands to him and looking glad and happy.  So he
+knew he was going to hear good news of her.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“A dream&mdash;a dream,” scoffed the old Doctor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Likely&mdash;likely,” conceded Captain Jim.  “That’s what <I>I</I> said to him
+at the time.  It was a vast more comfortable to think so.  I didn’t
+like the idea of him seeing things like that&mdash;it was real uncanny.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“'No,’ says he, 'I didn’t dream it.  But we won’t talk of this again.
+You won’t be so much my friend if you think much about it.’
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I told him nothing could make me any less his friend.  But he jest
+shook his head and says, says he:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“'Lad, I know.  I’ve lost friends before because of this.  I don’t
+blame them.  There are times when I feel hardly friendly to myself
+because of it.  Such a power has a bit of divinity in it&mdash;whether of a
+good or an evil divinity who shall say?  And we mortals all shrink from
+too close contact with God or devil.’
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Them was his words.  I remember them as if ’twas yesterday, though I
+didn’t know jest what he meant.  What do you s’pose he DID mean,
+doctor?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I doubt if he knew what he meant himself,” said Doctor Dave testily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I think I understand,” whispered Anne.  She was listening in her old
+attitude of clasped lips and shining eyes.  Captain Jim treated himself
+to an admiring smile before he went on with his story.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, purty soon all the Glen and Four Winds people knew the
+schoolmaster’s bride was coming, and they were all glad because they
+thought so much of him.  And everybody took an interest in his new
+house&mdash;THIS house.  He picked this site for it, because you could see
+the harbor and hear the sea from it.  He made the garden out there for
+his bride, but he didn’t plant the Lombardies.  Mrs. Ned Russell
+planted THEM.  But there’s a double row of rose-bushes in the garden
+that the little girls who went to the Glen school set out there for the
+schoolmaster’s bride.  He said they were pink for her cheeks and white
+for her brow and red for her lips.  He’d quoted poetry so much that he
+sorter got into the habit of talking it, too, I reckon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Almost everybody sent him some little present to help out the
+furnishing of the house.  When the Russells came into it they were
+well-to-do and furnished it real handsome, as you can see; but the
+first furniture that went into it was plain enough.  This little house
+was rich in love, though.  The women sent in quilts and tablecloths and
+towels, and one man made a chest for her, and another a table and so
+on.  Even blind old Aunt Margaret Boyd wove a little basket for her out
+of the sweet-scented sand-hill grass.  The schoolmaster’s wife used it
+for years to keep her handkerchiefs in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, at last everything was ready&mdash;even to the logs in the big
+fireplace ready for lighting.  ’Twasn’t exactly THIS fireplace, though
+’twas in the same place.  Miss Elizabeth had this put in when she made
+the house over fifteen years ago.  It was a big, old-fashioned
+fireplace where you could have roasted an ox.  Many’s the time I’ve sat
+here and spun yarns, same’s I’m doing tonight.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again there was a silence, while Captain Jim kept a passing tryst with
+visitants Anne and Gilbert could not see&mdash;the folks who had sat with
+him around that fireplace in the vanished years, with mirth and bridal
+joy shining in eyes long since closed forever under churchyard sod or
+heaving leagues of sea.  Here on olden nights children had tossed
+laughter lightly to and fro.  Here on winter evenings friends had
+gathered.  Dance and music and jest had been here.  Here youths and
+maidens had dreamed.  For Captain Jim the little house was tenanted
+with shapes entreating remembrance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It was the first of July when the house was finished.  The
+schoolmaster began to count the days then.  We used to see him walking
+along the shore, and we’d say to each other, 'She’ll soon be with him
+now.’
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She was expected the middle of July, but she didn’t come then.  Nobody
+felt anxious.  Vessels were often delayed for days and mebbe weeks.
+The Royal William was a week overdue&mdash;and then two&mdash;and then three.
+And at last we began to be frightened, and it got worse and worse.
+Fin’lly I couldn’t bear to look into John Selwyn’s eyes.  D’ye know,
+Mistress Blythe”&mdash;Captain Jim lowered his voice&mdash;“I used to think that
+they looked just like what his old great-great-grandmother’s must have
+been when they were burning her to death.  He never said much but he
+taught school like a man in a dream and then hurried to the shore.
+Many a night he walked there from dark to dawn.  People said he was
+losing his mind.  Everybody had given up hope&mdash;the Royal William was
+eight weeks overdue.  It was the middle of September and the
+schoolmaster’s bride hadn’t come&mdash;never would come, we thought.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There was a big storm then that lasted three days, and on the evening
+after it died away I went to the shore.  I found the schoolmaster
+there, leaning with his arms folded against a big rock, gazing out to
+sea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I spoke to him but he didn’t answer.  His eyes seemed to be looking at
+something I couldn’t see.  His face was set, like a dead man’s.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“'John&mdash;John,’ I called out&mdash;jest like that&mdash;jest like a frightened
+child, 'wake up&mdash;wake up.’
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That strange, awful look seemed to sorter fade out of his eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He turned his head and looked at me.  I’ve never forgot his
+face&mdash;never will forget it till I ships for my last voyage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“'All is well, lad,’ he says.  'I’ve seen the Royal William coming
+around East Point.  She will be here by dawn.  Tomorrow night I shall
+sit with my bride by my own hearth-fire.’
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Do you think he did see it?” demanded Captain Jim abruptly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“God knows,” said Gilbert softly.  “Great love and great pain might
+compass we know not what marvels.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I am sure he did see it,” said Anne earnestly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Fol-de-rol,” said Doctor Dave, but he spoke with less conviction than
+usual.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Because, you know,” said Captain Jim solemnly, “the Royal William came
+into Four Winds Harbor at daylight the next morning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Every soul in the Glen and along the shore was at the old wharf to
+meet her.  The schoolmaster had been watching there all night.  How we
+cheered as she sailed up the channel.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim’s eyes were shining.  They were looking at the Four Winds
+Harbor of sixty years agone, with a battered old ship sailing through
+the sunrise splendor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And Persis Leigh was on board?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes&mdash;her and the captain’s wife.  They’d had an awful passage&mdash;storm
+after storm&mdash;and their provisions give out, too.  But there they were
+at last.  When Persis Leigh stepped onto the old wharf John Selwyn took
+her in his arms&mdash;and folks stopped cheering and begun to cry.  I cried
+myself, though ’twas years, mind you, afore I’d admit it.  Ain’t it
+funny how ashamed boys are of tears?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Was Persis Leigh beautiful?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, I don’t know that you’d call her beautiful
+exactly&mdash;I&mdash;don’t&mdash;know,” said Captain Jim slowly.  “Somehow, you never
+got so far along as to wonder if she was handsome or not.  It jest
+didn’t matter.  There was something so sweet and winsome about her that
+you had to love her, that was all.  But she was pleasant to look
+at&mdash;big, clear, hazel eyes and heaps of glossy brown hair, and an
+English skin.  John and her were married at our house that night at
+early candle-lighting; everybody from far and near was there to see it
+and we all brought them down here afterwards.  Mistress Selwyn lighted
+the fire, and we went away and left them sitting here, jest as John had
+seen in that vision of his.  A strange thing&mdash;a strange thing!  But
+I’ve seen a turrible lot of strange things in my time.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim shook his head sagely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s a dear story,” said Anne, feeling that for once she had got
+enough romance to satisfy her.  “How long did they live here?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Fifteen years.  I ran off to sea soon after they were married, like
+the young scalawag I was.  But every time I come back from a voyage I’d
+head for here, even before I went home, and tell Mistress Selwyn all
+about it.  Fifteen happy years!  They had a sort of talent for
+happiness, them two.  Some folks are like that, if you’ve noticed.
+They COULDN’T be unhappy for long, no matter what happened.  They
+quarrelled once or twice, for they was both high-sperrited.  But
+Mistress Selwyn says to me once, says she, laughing in that pretty way
+of hers, 'I felt dreadful when John and I quarrelled, but underneath it
+all I was very happy because I had such a nice husband to quarrel with
+and make it up with.’  Then they moved to Charlottetown, and Ned
+Russell bought this house and brought his bride here.  They were a gay
+young pair, as I remember them.  Miss Elizabeth Russell was Alec’s
+sister.  She came to live with them a year or so later, and she was a
+creature of mirth, too.  The walls of this house must be sorter SOAKED
+with laughing and good times.  You’re the third bride I’ve seen come
+here, Mistress Blythe&mdash;and the handsomest.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim contrived to give his sunflower compliment the delicacy of
+a violet, and Anne wore it proudly.  She was looking her best that
+night, with the bridal rose on her cheeks and the love-light in her
+eyes; even gruff old Doctor Dave gave her an approving glance, and told
+his wife, as they drove home together, that that red-headed wife of the
+boy’s was something of a beauty.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I must be getting back to the light,” announced Captain Jim.  “I’ve
+enj’yed this evening something tremenjus.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You must come often to see us,” said Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wonder if you’d give that invitation if you knew how likely I’ll be
+to accept it,” Captain Jim remarked whimsically.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Which is another way of saying you wonder if I mean it,” smiled Anne.
+“I do, 'cross my heart,’ as we used to say at school.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Then I’ll come.  You’re likely to be pestered with me at any hour.
+And I’ll be proud to have you drop down and visit me now and then, too.
+Gin’rally I haven’t anyone to talk to but the First Mate, bless his
+sociable heart.  He’s a mighty good listener, and has forgot more’n any
+MacAllister of them all ever knew, but he isn’t much of a
+conversationalist.  You’re young and I’m old, but our souls are about
+the same age, I reckon.  We both belong to the race that knows Joseph,
+as Cornelia Bryant would say.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The race that knows Joseph?” puzzled Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes.  Cornelia divides all the folks in the world into two kinds&mdash;the
+race that knows Joseph and the race that don’t.  If a person sorter
+sees eye to eye with you, and has pretty much the same ideas about
+things, and the same taste in jokes&mdash;why, then he belongs to the race
+that knows Joseph.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I understand,” exclaimed Anne, light breaking in upon her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s what I used to call&mdash;and still call in quotation marks 'kindred
+spirits.’”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Jest so&mdash;jest so,” agreed Captain Jim.  “We’re it, whatever IT is.
+When you come in tonight, Mistress Blythe, I says to myself, says I,
+'Yes, she’s of the race that knows Joseph.’  And mighty glad I was, for
+if it wasn’t so we couldn’t have had any real satisfaction in each
+other’s company.  The race that knows Joseph is the salt of the airth,
+I reckon.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The moon had just risen when Anne and Gilbert went to the door with
+their guests.  Four Winds Harbor was beginning to be a thing of dream
+and glamour and enchantment&mdash;a spellbound haven where no tempest might
+ever ravin.  The Lombardies down the lane, tall and sombre as the
+priestly forms of some mystic band, were tipped with silver.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Always liked Lombardies,” said Captain Jim, waving a long arm at them.
+“They’re the trees of princesses.  They’re out of fashion now.  Folks
+complain that they die at the top and get ragged-looking.  So they
+do&mdash;so they do, if you don’t risk your neck every spring climbing up a
+light ladder to trim them out.  I always did it for Miss Elizabeth, so
+her Lombardies never got out-at-elbows.  She was especially fond of
+them.  She liked their dignity and stand-offishness.  THEY don’t hobnob
+with every Tom, Dick and Harry.  If it’s maples for company, Mistress
+Blythe, it’s Lombardies for society.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What a beautiful night,” said Mrs. Doctor Dave, as she climbed into
+the Doctor’s buggy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Most nights are beautiful,” said Captain Jim.  “But I ’low that
+moonlight over Four Winds makes me sorter wonder what’s left for
+heaven.  The moon’s a great friend of mine, Mistress Blythe.  I’ve
+loved her ever since I can remember.  When I was a little chap of eight
+I fell asleep in the garden one evening and wasn’t missed.  I woke up
+along in the night and I was most scared to death.  What shadows and
+queer noises there was!  I dursn’t move.  Jest crouched there quaking,
+poor small mite.  Seemed ’s if there weren’t anyone in the world but
+meself and it was mighty big.  Then all at once I saw the moon looking
+down at me through the apple boughs, jest like an old friend.  I was
+comforted right off.  Got up and walked to the house as brave as a
+lion, looking at her.  Many’s the night I’ve watched her from the deck
+of my vessel, on seas far away from here.  Why don’t you folks tell me
+to take in the slack of my jaw and go home?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The laughter of the goodnights died away.  Anne and Gilbert walked hand
+in hand around their garden.  The brook that ran across the corner
+dimpled pellucidly in the shadows of the birches.  The poppies along
+its banks were like shallow cups of moonlight.  Flowers that had been
+planted by the hands of the schoolmaster’s bride flung their sweetness
+on the shadowy air, like the beauty and blessing of sacred yesterdays.
+Anne paused in the gloom to gather a spray.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I love to smell flowers in the dark,” she said.  “You get hold of
+their soul then.  Oh, Gilbert, this little house is all I’ve dreamed
+it.  And I’m so glad that we are not the first who have kept bridal
+tryst here!”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap08"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 8
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+MISS CORNELIA BRYANT COMES TO CALL
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+That September was a month of golden mists and purple hazes at Four
+Winds Harbor&mdash;a month of sun-steeped days and of nights that were
+swimming in moonlight, or pulsating with stars.  No storm marred it, no
+rough wind blew.  Anne and Gilbert put their nest in order, rambled on
+the shores, sailed on the harbor, drove about Four Winds and the Glen,
+or through the ferny, sequestered roads of the woods around the harbor
+head; in short, had such a honeymoon as any lovers in the world might
+have envied them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If life were to stop short just now it would still have been richly
+worth while, just for the sake of these past four weeks, wouldn’t it?”
+said Anne.  “I don’t suppose we will ever have four such perfect weeks
+again&mdash;but we’ve HAD them.  Everything&mdash;wind, weather, folks, house of
+dreams&mdash;has conspired to make our honeymoon delightful.  There hasn’t
+even been a rainy day since we came here.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And we haven’t quarrelled once,” teased Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, 'that’s a pleasure all the greater for being deferred,’” quoted
+Anne.  “I’m so glad we decided to spend our honeymoon here.  Our
+memories of it will always belong here, in our house of dreams, instead
+of being scattered about in strange places.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a certain tang of romance and adventure in the atmosphere of
+their new home which Anne had never found in Avonlea.  There, although
+she had lived in sight of the sea, it had not entered intimately into
+her life.  In Four Winds it surrounded her and called to her
+constantly.  From every window of her new home she saw some varying
+aspect of it.  Its haunting murmur was ever in her ears.  Vessels
+sailed up the harbor every day to the wharf at the Glen, or sailed out
+again through the sunset, bound for ports that might be half way round
+the globe.  Fishing boats went white-winged down the channel in the
+mornings, and returned laden in the evenings.  Sailors and fisher-folk
+travelled the red, winding harbor roads, light-hearted and content.
+There was always a certain sense of things going to happen&mdash;of
+adventures and farings-forth.  The ways of Four Winds were less staid
+and settled and grooved than those of Avonlea; winds of change blew
+over them; the sea called ever to the dwellers on shore, and even those
+who might not answer its call felt the thrill and unrest and mystery
+and possibilities of it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I understand now why some men must go to sea,” said Anne.  “That
+desire which comes to us all at times&mdash;'to sail beyond the bourne of
+sunset’&mdash;must be very imperious when it is born in you.  I don’t wonder
+Captain Jim ran away because of it.  I never see a ship sailing out of
+the channel, or a gull soaring over the sand-bar, without wishing I
+were on board the ship or had wings, not like a dove 'to fly away and
+be at rest,’ but like a gull, to sweep out into the very heart of a
+storm.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’ll stay right here with me, Anne-girl,” said Gilbert lazily.  “I
+won’t have you flying away from me into the hearts of storms.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were sitting on their red sand-stone doorstep in the late
+afternoon.  Great tranquillities were all about them in land and sea
+and sky.  Silvery gulls were soaring over them.  The horizons were
+laced with long trails of frail, pinkish clouds.  The hushed air was
+threaded with a murmurous refrain of minstrel winds and waves.  Pale
+asters were blowing in the sere and misty meadows between them and the
+harbor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Doctors who have to be up all night waiting on sick folk don’t feel
+very adventurous, I suppose,” Anne said indulgently.  “If you had had a
+good sleep last night, Gilbert, you’d be as ready as I am for a flight
+of imagination.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I did good work last night, Anne,” said Gilbert quietly.  “Under God,
+I saved a life.  This is the first time I could ever really claim that.
+In other cases I may have helped; but, Anne, if I had not stayed at
+Allonby’s last night and fought death hand to hand, that woman would
+have died before morning.  I tried an experiment that was certainly
+never tried in Four Winds before.  I doubt if it was ever tried
+anywhere before outside of a hospital.  It was a new thing in Kingsport
+hospital last winter.  I could never have dared try it here if I had
+not been absolutely certain that there was no other chance.  I risked
+it&mdash;and it succeeded.  As a result, a good wife and mother is saved for
+long years of happiness and usefulness.  As I drove home this morning,
+while the sun was rising over the harbor, I thanked God that I had
+chosen the profession I did.  I had fought a good fight and won&mdash;think
+of it, Anne, WON, against the Great Destroyer.  It’s what I dreamed of
+doing long ago when we talked together of what we wanted to do in life.
+That dream of mine came true this morning.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Was that the only one of your dreams that has come true?” asked Anne,
+who knew perfectly well what the substance of his answer would be, but
+wanted to hear it again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“YOU know, Anne-girl,” said Gilbert, smiling into her eyes.  At that
+moment there were certainly two perfectly happy people sitting on the
+doorstep of a little white house on the Four Winds Harbor shore.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently Gilbert said, with a change of tone, “Do I or do I not see a
+full-rigged ship sailing up our lane?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne looked and sprang up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That must be either Miss Cornelia Bryant or Mrs. Moore coming to
+call,” she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m going into the office, and if it is Miss Cornelia I warn you that
+I’ll eavesdrop,” said Gilbert.  “From all I’ve heard regarding Miss
+Cornelia I conclude that her conversation will not be dull, to say the
+least.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It may be Mrs. Moore.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t think Mrs. Moore is built on those lines.  I saw her working
+in her garden the other day, and, though I was too far away to see
+clearly, I thought she was rather slender.  She doesn’t seem very
+socially inclined when she has never called on you yet, although she’s
+your nearest neighbor.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She can’t be like Mrs. Lynde, after all, or curiosity would have
+brought her,” said Anne.  “This caller is, I think, Miss Cornelia.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia it was; moreover, Miss Cornelia had not come to make any
+brief and fashionable wedding call.  She had her work under her arm in
+a substantial parcel, and when Anne asked her to stay she promptly took
+off her capacious sun-hat, which had been held on her head, despite
+irreverent September breezes, by a tight elastic band under her hard
+little knob of fair hair.  No hat pins for Miss Cornelia, an it please
+ye!  Elastic bands had been good enough for her mother and they were
+good enough for HER.  She had a fresh, round, pink-and-white face, and
+jolly brown eyes.  She did not look in the least like the traditional
+old maid, and there was something in her expression which won Anne
+instantly.  With her old instinctive quickness to discern kindred
+spirits she knew she was going to like Miss Cornelia, in spite of
+uncertain oddities of opinion, and certain oddities of attire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nobody but Miss Cornelia would have come to make a call arrayed in a
+striped blue-and-white apron and a wrapper of chocolate print, with a
+design of huge, pink roses scattered over it.  And nobody but Miss
+Cornelia could have looked dignified and suitably garbed in it.  Had
+Miss Cornelia been entering a palace to call on a prince’s bride, she
+would have been just as dignified and just as wholly mistress of the
+situation.  She would have trailed her rose-spattered flounce over the
+marble floors just as unconcernedly, and she would have proceeded just
+as calmly to disabuse the mind of the princess of any idea that the
+possession of a mere man, be he prince or peasant, was anything to brag
+of.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve brought my work, Mrs. Blythe, dearie,” she remarked, unrolling
+some dainty material.  “I’m in a hurry to get this done, and there
+isn’t any time to lose.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne looked in some surprise at the white garment spread over Miss
+Cornelia’s ample lap.  It was certainly a baby’s dress, and it was most
+beautifully made, with tiny frills and tucks.  Miss Cornelia adjusted
+her glasses and fell to embroidering with exquisite stitches.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“This is for Mrs. Fred Proctor up at the Glen,” she announced.  “She’s
+expecting her eighth baby any day now, and not a stitch has she ready
+for it.  The other seven have wore out all she made for the first, and
+she’s never had time or strength or spirit to make any more.  That
+woman is a martyr, Mrs. Blythe, believe ME.  When she married Fred
+Proctor <I>I</I> knew how it would turn out.  He was one of your wicked,
+fascinating men.  After he got married he left off being fascinating
+and just kept on being wicked.  He drinks and he neglects his family.
+Isn’t that like a man?  I don’t know how Mrs. Proctor would ever keep
+her children decently clothed if her neighbors didn’t help her out.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As Anne was afterwards to learn, Miss Cornelia was the only neighbor
+who troubled herself much about the decency of the young Proctors.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“When I heard this eighth baby was coming I decided to make some things
+for it,” Miss Cornelia went on.  “This is the last and I want to finish
+it today.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s certainly very pretty,” said Anne.  “I’ll get my sewing and we’ll
+have a little thimble party of two.  You are a beautiful sewer, Miss
+Bryant.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, I’m the best sewer in these parts,” said Miss Cornelia in a
+matter-of-fact tone.  “I ought to be!  Lord, I’ve done more of it than
+if I’d had a hundred children of my own, believe ME!  I s’pose I’m a
+fool, to be putting hand embroidery on this dress for an eighth baby.
+But, Lord, Mrs. Blythe, dearie, it isn’t to blame for being the eighth,
+and I kind of wished it to have one real pretty dress, just as if it
+WAS wanted.  Nobody’s wanting the poor mite&mdash;so I put some extra fuss
+on its little things just on that account.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Any baby might be proud of that dress,” said Anne, feeling still more
+strongly that she was going to like Miss Cornelia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I s’pose you’ve been thinking I was never coming to call on you,”
+resumed Miss Cornelia.  “But this is harvest month, you know, and I’ve
+been busy&mdash;and a lot of extra hands hanging round, eating more’n they
+work, just like the men.  I’d have come yesterday, but I went to Mrs.
+Roderick MacAllister’s funeral.  At first I thought my head was aching
+so badly I couldn’t enjoy myself if I did go.  But she was a hundred
+years old, and I’d always promised myself that I’d go to her funeral.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Was it a successful function?” asked Anne, noticing that the office
+door was ajar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What’s that?  Oh, yes, it was a tremendous funeral.  She had a very
+large connection.  There was over one hundred and twenty carriages in
+the procession.  There was one or two funny things happened.  I thought
+that die I would to see old Joe Bradshaw, who is an infidel and never
+darkens the door of a church, singing 'Safe in the Arms of Jesus’ with
+great gusto and fervor.  He glories in singing&mdash;that’s why he never
+misses a funeral.  Poor Mrs. Bradshaw didn’t look much like
+singing&mdash;all wore out slaving.  Old Joe starts out once in a while to
+buy her a present and brings home some new kind of farm machinery.
+Isn’t that like a man?  But what else would you expect of a man who
+never goes to church, even a Methodist one?  I was real thankful to see
+you and the young Doctor in the Presbyterian church your first Sunday.
+No doctor for me who isn’t a Presbyterian.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We were in the Methodist church last Sunday evening,” said Anne
+wickedly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I s’pose Dr. Blythe has to go to the Methodist church once in a
+while or he wouldn’t get the Methodist practice.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We liked the sermon very much,” declared Anne boldly.  “And I thought
+the Methodist minster’s prayer was one of the most beautiful I ever
+heard.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I’ve no doubt he can pray.  I never heard anyone make more
+beautiful prayers than old Simon Bentley, who was always drunk, or
+hoping to be, and the drunker he was the better he prayed.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The Methodist minister is very fine looking,” said Anne, for the
+benefit of the office door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, he’s quite ornamental,” agreed Miss Cornelia.  “Oh, and VERY
+ladylike.  And he thinks that every girl who looks at him falls in love
+with him&mdash;as if a Methodist minister, wandering about like any Jew, was
+such a prize!  If you and the young doctor take MY advice, you won’t
+have much to do with the Methodists.  My motto is&mdash;if you ARE a
+Presbyterian, BE a Presbyterian.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t you think that Methodists go to heaven as well as
+Presbyterians?” asked Anne smilelessly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That isn’t for US to decide.  It’s in higher hands than ours,” said
+Miss Cornelia solemnly.  “But I ain’t going to associate with them on
+earth whatever I may have to do in heaven.  THIS Methodist minister
+isn’t married.  The last one they had was, and his wife was the
+silliest, flightiest little thing I ever saw.  I told her husband once
+that he should have waited till she was grown up before he married her.
+He said he wanted to have the training of her.  Wasn’t that like a man?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s rather hard to decide just when people ARE grown up,” laughed
+Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That’s a true word, dearie.  Some are grown up when they’re born, and
+others ain’t grown up when they’re eighty, believe ME. That same Mrs.
+Roderick I was speaking of never grew up.  She was as foolish when she
+was a hundred as when she was ten.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Perhaps that was why she lived so long,” suggested Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Maybe ’twas.  <I>I</I>’d rather live fifty sensible years than a hundred
+foolish ones.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But just think what a dull world it would be if everyone was
+sensible,” pleaded Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia disdained any skirmish of flippant epigram.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Mrs. Roderick was a Milgrave, and the Milgraves never had much sense.
+Her nephew, Ebenezer Milgrave, used to be insane for years.  He
+believed he was dead and used to rage at his wife because she wouldn’t
+bury him.  <I>I</I>’d a-done it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia looked so grimly determined that Anne could almost see
+her with a spade in her hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t you know ANY good husbands, Miss Bryant?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, yes, lots of them&mdash;over yonder,” said Miss Cornelia, waving her
+hand through the open window towards the little graveyard of the church
+across the harbor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But living&mdash;going about in the flesh?” persisted Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, there’s a few, just to show that with God all things are
+possible,” acknowledged Miss Cornelia reluctantly.  “I don’t deny that
+an odd man here and there, if he’s caught young and trained up proper,
+and if his mother has spanked him well beforehand, may turn out a
+decent being.  YOUR husband, now, isn’t so bad, as men go, from all I
+hear.  I s’pose”&mdash;Miss Cornelia looked sharply at Anne over her
+glasses&mdash;“you think there’s nobody like him in the world.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There isn’t,” said Anne promptly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Ah, well, I heard another bride say that once,” sighed Miss Cornelia.
+“Jennie Dean thought when she married that there wasn’t anybody like
+HER husband in the world.  And she was right&mdash;there wasn’t!  And a good
+thing, too, believe ME!  He led her an awful life&mdash;and he was courting
+his second wife while Jennie was dying.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Wasn’t that like a man?  However, I hope YOUR confidence will be
+better justified, dearie.  The young doctor is taking real well.  I was
+afraid at first he mightn’t, for folks hereabouts have always thought
+old Doctor Dave the only doctor in the world.  Doctor Dave hadn’t much
+tact, to be sure&mdash;he was always talking of ropes in houses where
+someone had hanged himself.  But folks forgot their hurt feelings when
+they had a pain in their stomachs.  If he’d been a minister instead of
+a doctor they’d never have forgiven him.  Soul-ache doesn’t worry folks
+near as much as stomach-ache.  Seeing as we’re both Presbyterians and
+no Methodists around, will you tell me your candid opinion of OUR
+minister?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Why&mdash;really&mdash;I&mdash;well,” hesitated Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia nodded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Exactly.  I agree with you, dearie.  We made a mistake when we called
+HIM.  His face just looks like one of those long, narrow stones in the
+graveyard, doesn’t it?  'Sacred to the memory’ ought to be written on
+his forehead.  I shall never forget the first sermon he preached after
+he came.  It was on the subject of everyone doing what they were best
+fitted for&mdash;a very good subject, of course; but such illustrations as
+he used!  He said, 'If you had a cow and an apple tree, and if you tied
+the apple tree in your stable and planted the cow in your orchard, with
+her legs up, how much milk would you get from the apple tree, or how
+many apples from the cow?’  Did you ever hear the like in your born
+days, dearie?  I was so thankful there were no Methodists there that
+day&mdash;they’d never have been done hooting over it.  But what I dislike
+most in him is his habit of agreeing with everybody, no matter what is
+said.  If you said to him, 'You’re a scoundrel,’ he’d say, with that
+smooth smile of his, 'Yes, that’s so.’  A minister should have more
+backbone.  The long and the short of it is, I consider him a reverend
+jackass.  But, of course, this is just between you and me.  When there
+are Methodists in hearing I praise him to the skies.  Some folks think
+his wife dresses too gay, but <I>I</I> say when she has to live with a face
+like that she needs something to cheer her up.  You’ll never hear ME
+condemning a woman for her dress.  I’m only too thankful when her
+husband isn’t too mean and miserly to allow it.  Not that I bother much
+with dress myself.  Women just dress to please the men, and I’d never
+stoop to THAT.  I have had a real placid, comfortable life, dearie, and
+it’s just because I never cared a cent what the men thought.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Why do you hate the men so, Miss Bryant?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Lord, dearie, I don’t hate them.  They aren’t worth it.  I just sort
+of despise them.  I think I’ll like YOUR husband if he keeps on as he
+has begun.  But apart from him about the only men in the world I’ve
+much use for are the old doctor and Captain Jim.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Captain Jim is certainly splendid,” agreed Anne cordially.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Captain Jim is a good man, but he’s kind of vexing in one way.  You
+CAN’T make him mad.  I’ve tried for twenty years and he just keeps on
+being placid.  It does sort of rile me.  And I s’pose the woman he
+should have married got a man who went into tantrums twice a day.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Who was she?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I don’t know, dearie.  I never remember of Captain Jim making up
+to anybody.  He was edging on old as far as my memory goes.  He’s
+seventy-six, you know.  I never heard any reason for his staying a
+bachelor, but there must be one, believe ME.  He sailed all his life
+till five years ago, and there’s no corner of the earth he hasn’t poked
+his nose into.  He and Elizabeth Russell were great cronies, all their
+lives, but they never had any notion of sweet-hearting.  Elizabeth
+never married, though she had plenty of chances.  She was a great
+beauty when she was young.  The year the Prince of Wales came to the
+Island she was visiting her uncle in Charlottetown and he was a
+Government official, and so she got invited to the great ball.  She was
+the prettiest girl there, and the Prince danced with her, and all the
+other women he didn’t dance with were furious about it, because their
+social standing was higher than hers and they said he shouldn’t have
+passed them over.  Elizabeth was always very proud of that dance.  Mean
+folks said that was why she never married&mdash;she couldn’t put up with an
+ordinary man after dancing with a prince.  But that wasn’t so.  She
+told me the reason once&mdash;it was because she had such a temper that she
+was afraid she couldn’t live peaceably with any man.  She HAD an awful
+temper&mdash;she used to have to go upstairs and bite pieces out of her
+bureau to keep it down by times.  But I told her that wasn’t any reason
+for not marrying if she wanted to.  There’s no reason why we should let
+the men have a monopoly of temper, is there, Mrs. Blythe, dearie?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve a bit of temper myself,” sighed Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s well you have, dearie.  You won’t be half so likely to be trodden
+on, believe ME!  My, how that golden glow of yours is blooming!  Your
+garden looks fine.  Poor Elizabeth always took such care of it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I love it,” said Anne.  “I’m glad it’s so full of old-fashioned
+flowers.  Speaking of gardening, we want to get a man to dig up that
+little lot beyond the fir grove and set it out with strawberry plants
+for us.  Gilbert is so busy he will never get time for it this fall.
+Do you know anyone we can get?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, Henry Hammond up at the Glen goes out doing jobs like that.
+He’ll do, maybe.  He’s always a heap more interested in his wages than
+in his work, just like a man, and he’s so slow in the uptake that he
+stands still for five minutes before it dawns on him that he’s stopped.
+His father threw a stump at him when he was small.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Nice gentle missile, wasn’t it?  So like a man!  Course, the boy never
+got over it.  But he’s the only one I can recommend at all.  He painted
+my house for me last spring.  It looks real nice now, don’t you think?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne was saved by the clock striking five.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Lord, is it that late?” exclaimed Miss Cornelia.  “How time does slip
+by when you’re enjoying yourself!  Well, I must betake myself home.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, indeed!  You are going to stay and have tea with us,” said Anne
+eagerly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Are you asking me because you think you ought to, or because you
+really want to?” demanded Miss Cornelia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Because I really want to.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Then I’ll stay.  YOU belong to the race that knows Joseph.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I know we are going to be friends,” said Anne, with the smile that
+only they of the household of faith ever saw.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, we are, dearie.  Thank goodness, we can choose our friends.  We
+have to take our relatives as they are, and be thankful if there are no
+penitentiary birds among them.  Not that I’ve many&mdash;none nearer than
+second cousins.  I’m a kind of lonely soul, Mrs. Blythe.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a wistful note in Miss Cornelia’s voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wish you would call me Anne,” exclaimed Anne impulsively.  “It would
+seem more HOMEY.  Everyone in Four Winds, except my husband, calls me
+Mrs. Blythe, and it makes me feel like a stranger.  Do you know that
+your name is very near being the one I yearned after when I was a
+child.  I hated 'Anne’ and I called myself 'Cordelia’ in imagination.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I like Anne.  It was my mother’s name.  Old-fashioned names are the
+best and sweetest in my opinion.  If you’re going to get tea you might
+send the young doctor to talk to me.  He’s been lying on the sofa in
+that office ever since I came, laughing fit to kill over what I’ve been
+saying.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How did you know?” cried Anne, too aghast at this instance of Miss
+Cornelia’s uncanny prescience to make a polite denial.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I saw him sitting beside you when I came up the lane, and I know men’s
+tricks,” retorted Miss Cornelia.  “There, I’ve finished my little
+dress, dearie, and the eighth baby can come as soon as it pleases.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap09"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 9
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+AN EVENING AT FOUR WINDS POINT
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+It was late September when Anne and Gilbert were able to pay Four Winds
+light their promised visit.  They had often planned to go, but
+something always occurred to prevent them.  Captain Jim had “dropped
+in” several times at the little house.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t stand on ceremony, Mistress Blythe,” he told Anne.  “It’s a
+real pleasure to me to come here, and I’m not going to deny myself jest
+because you haven’t got down to see me.  There oughtn’t to be no
+bargaining like that among the race that knows Joseph.  I’ll come when
+I can, and you come when you can, and so long’s we have our pleasant
+little chat it don’t matter a mite what roof’s over us.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim took a great fancy to Gog and Magog, who were presiding
+over the destinies of the hearth in the little house with as much
+dignity and aplomb as they had done at Patty’s Place.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Aren’t they the cutest little cusses?” he would say delightedly; and
+he bade them greeting and farewell as gravely and invariably as he did
+his host and hostess.  Captain Jim was not going to offend household
+deities by any lack of reverence and ceremony.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’ve made this little house just about perfect,” he told Anne.  “It
+never was so nice before.  Mistress Selwyn had your taste and she did
+wonders; but folks in those days didn’t have the pretty little curtains
+and pictures and nicknacks you have.  As for Elizabeth, she lived in
+the past.  You’ve kinder brought the future into it, so to speak.  I’d
+be real happy even if we couldn’t talk at all, when I come here&mdash;jest
+to sit and look at you and your pictures and your flowers would be
+enough of a treat.  It’s beautiful&mdash;beautiful.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim was a passionate worshipper of beauty.  Every lovely thing
+heard or seen gave him a deep, subtle, inner joy that irradiated his
+life.  He was quite keenly aware of his own lack of outward comeliness
+and lamented it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Folks say I’m good,” he remarked whimsically upon one occasion, “but I
+sometimes wish the Lord had made me only half as good and put the rest
+of it into looks.  But there, I reckon He knew what He was about, as a
+good Captain should.  Some of us have to be homely, or the purty
+ones&mdash;like Mistress Blythe here&mdash;wouldn’t show up so well.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One evening Anne and Gilbert finally walked down to the Four Winds
+light.  The day had begun sombrely in gray cloud and mist, but it had
+ended in a pomp of scarlet and gold.  Over the western hills beyond the
+harbor were amber deeps and crystalline shallows, with the fire of
+sunset below.  The north was a mackerel sky of little, fiery golden
+clouds.  The red light flamed on the white sails of a vessel gliding
+down the channel, bound to a southern port in a land of palms.  Beyond
+her, it smote upon and incarnadined the shining, white, grassless faces
+of the sand dunes.  To the right, it fell on the old house among the
+willows up the brook, and gave it for a fleeting space casements more
+splendid than those of an old cathedral.  They glowed out of its quiet
+and grayness like the throbbing, blood-red thoughts of a vivid soul
+imprisoned in a dull husk of environment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That old house up the brook always seems so lonely,” said Anne.  “I
+never see visitors there.  Of course, its lane opens on the upper
+road&mdash;but I don’t think there’s much coming and going.  It seems odd
+we’ve never met the Moores yet, when they live within fifteen minutes’
+walk of us.  I may have seen them in church, of course, but if so I
+didn’t know them.  I’m sorry they are so unsociable, when they are our
+only near neighbors.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Evidently they don’t belong to the race that knows Joseph,” laughed
+Gilbert.  “Have you ever found out who that girl was whom you thought
+so beautiful?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.  Somehow I have never remembered to ask about her.  But I’ve never
+seen her anywhere, so I suppose she must have been a stranger.  Oh, the
+sun has just vanished&mdash;and there’s the light.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As the dusk deepened, the great beacon cut swathes of light through it,
+sweeping in a circle over the fields and the harbor, the sandbar and
+the gulf.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I feel as if it might catch me and whisk me leagues out to sea,” said
+Anne, as one drenched them with radiance; and she felt rather relieved
+when they got so near the Point that they were inside the range of
+those dazzling, recurrent flashes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As they turned into the little lane that led across the fields to the
+Point they met a man coming out of it&mdash;a man of such extraordinary
+appearance that for a moment they both frankly stared.  He was a
+decidedly fine-looking person-tall, broad-shouldered, well-featured,
+with a Roman nose and frank gray eyes; he was dressed in a prosperous
+farmer’s Sunday best; in so far he might have been any inhabitant of
+Four Winds or the Glen.  But, flowing over his breast nearly to his
+knees, was a river of crinkly brown beard; and adown his back, beneath
+his commonplace felt hat, was a corresponding cascade of thick, wavy,
+brown hair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne,” murmured Gilbert, when they were out of earshot, “you didn’t
+put what Uncle Dave calls 'a little of the Scott Act’ in that lemonade
+you gave me just before we left home, did you?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, I didn’t,” said Anne, stifling her laughter, lest the retreating
+enigma should hear here.  “Who in the world can he be?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t know; but if Captain Jim keeps apparitions like that down at
+this Point I’m going to carry cold iron in my pocket when I come here.
+He wasn’t a sailor, or one might pardon his eccentricity of appearance;
+he must belong to the over-harbor clans.  Uncle Dave says they have
+several freaks over there.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Uncle Dave is a little prejudiced, I think.  You know all the
+over-harbor people who come to the Glen Church seem very nice.  Oh,
+Gilbert, isn’t this beautiful?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Four Winds light was built on a spur of red sand-stone cliff
+jutting out into the gulf.  On one side, across the channel, stretched
+the silvery sand shore of the bar; on the other, extended a long,
+curving beach of red cliffs, rising steeply from the pebbled coves.  It
+was a shore that knew the magic and mystery of storm and star.  There
+is a great solitude about such a shore.  The woods are never
+solitary&mdash;they are full of whispering, beckoning, friendly life.  But
+the sea is a mighty soul, forever moaning of some great, unshareable
+sorrow, which shuts it up into itself for all eternity.  We can never
+pierce its infinite mystery&mdash;we may only wander, awed and spellbound,
+on the outer fringe of it.  The woods call to us with a hundred voices,
+but the sea has one only&mdash;a mighty voice that drowns our souls in its
+majestic music.  The woods are human, but the sea is of the company of
+the archangels.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne and Gilbert found Uncle Jim sitting on a bench outside the
+lighthouse, putting the finishing touches to a wonderful, full-rigged,
+toy schooner.  He rose and welcomed them to his abode with the gentle,
+unconscious courtesy that became him so well.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“This has been a purty nice day all through, Mistress Blythe, and now,
+right at the last, it’s brought its best.  Would you like to sit down
+here outside a bit, while the light lasts?  I’ve just finished this bit
+of a plaything for my little grand nephew, Joe, up at the Glen.  After
+I promised to make it for him I was kinder sorry, for his mother was
+vexed.  She’s afraid he’ll be wanting to go to sea later on and she
+doesn’t want the notion encouraged in him.  But what could I do,
+Mistress Blythe?  I’d PROMISED him, and I think it’s sorter real
+dastardly to break a promise you make to a child.  Come, sit down.  It
+won’t take long to stay an hour.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The wind was off shore, and only broke the sea’s surface into long,
+silvery ripples, and sent sheeny shadows flying out across it, from
+every point and headland, like transparent wings.  The dusk was hanging
+a curtain of violet gloom over the sand dunes and the headlands where
+gulls were huddling.  The sky was faintly filmed over with scarfs of
+silken vapor.  Cloud fleets rode at anchor along the horizons.  An
+evening star was watching over the bar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Isn’t that a view worth looking at?” said Captain Jim, with a loving,
+proprietary pride.  “Nice and far from the market-place, ain’t it?  No
+buying and selling and getting gain.  You don’t have to pay
+anything&mdash;all that sea and sky free&mdash;'without money and without price.’
+There’s going to be a moonrise purty soon, too&mdash;I’m never tired of
+finding out what a moonrise can be over them rocks and sea and harbor.
+There’s a surprise in it every time.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They had their moonrise, and watched its marvel and magic in a silence
+that asked nothing of the world or each other.  Then they went up into
+the tower, and Captain Jim showed and explained the mechanism of the
+great light.  Finally they found themselves in the dining room, where a
+fire of driftwood was weaving flames of wavering, elusive, sea-born
+hues in the open fireplace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I put this fireplace in myself,” remarked Captain Jim.  “The
+Government don’t give lighthouse keepers such luxuries.  Look at the
+colors that wood makes.  If you’d like some driftwood for your fire,
+Mistress Blythe, I’ll bring you up a load some day.  Sit down.  I’m
+going to make you a cup of tea.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim placed a chair for Anne, having first removed therefrom a
+huge, orange-colored cat and a newspaper.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Get down, Matey.  The sofa is your place.  I must put this paper away
+safe till I can find time to finish the story in it.  It’s called A Mad
+Love.  ’Tisn’t my favorite brand of fiction, but I’m reading it jest to
+see how long she can spin it out.  It’s at the sixty-second chapter
+now, and the wedding ain’t any nearer than when it begun, far’s I can
+see.  When little Joe comes I have to read him pirate yarns.  Ain’t it
+strange how innocent little creatures like children like the
+blood-thirstiest stories?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Like my lad Davy at home,” said Anne.  “He wants tales that reek with
+gore.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim’s tea proved to be nectar.  He was pleased as a child with
+Anne’s compliments, but he affected a fine indifference.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The secret is I don’t skimp the cream,” he remarked airily.  Captain
+Jim had never heard of Oliver Wendell Holmes, but he evidently agreed
+with that writer’s dictum that “big heart never liked little cream pot.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We met an odd-looking personage coming out of your lane,” said Gilbert
+as they sipped.  “Who was he?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim grinned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That’s Marshall Elliott&mdash;a mighty fine man with jest one streak of
+foolishness in him.  I s’pose you wondered what his object was in
+turning himself into a sort of dime museum freak.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Is he a modern Nazarite or a Hebrew prophet left over from olden
+times?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Neither of them.  It’s politics that’s at the bottom of his freak.
+All those Elliotts and Crawfords and MacAllisters are dyed-in-the-wool
+politicians.  They’re born Grit or Tory, as the case may be, and they
+live Grit or Tory, and they die Grit or Tory; and what they’re going to
+do in heaven, where there’s probably no politics, is more than I can
+fathom.  This Marshall Elliott was born a Grit.  I’m a Grit myself in
+moderation, but there’s no moderation about Marshall.  Fifteen years
+ago there was a specially bitter general election.  Marshall fought for
+his party tooth and nail.  He was dead sure the Liberals would win&mdash;so
+sure that he got up at a public meeting and vowed that he wouldn’t
+shave his face or cut his hair until the Grits were in power.  Well,
+they didn’t go in&mdash;and they’ve never got in yet&mdash;and you saw the result
+today for yourselves.  Marshall stuck to his word.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What does his wife think of it?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He’s a bachelor.  But if he had a wife I reckon she couldn’t make him
+break that vow.  That family of Elliotts has always been more stubborn
+than natteral.  Marshall’s brother Alexander had a dog he set great
+store by, and when it died the man actilly wanted to have it buried in
+the graveyard, 'along with the other Christians,’ he said.  Course, he
+wasn’t allowed to; so he buried it just outside the graveyard fence,
+and never darkened the church door again.  But Sundays he’d drive his
+family to church and sit by that dog’s grave and read his Bible all the
+time service was going on.  They say when he was dying he asked his
+wife to bury him beside the dog; she was a meek little soul but she
+fired up at THAT.  She said SHE wasn’t going to be buried beside no
+dog, and if he’d rather have his last resting place beside the dog than
+beside her, jest to say so.  Alexander Elliott was a stubborn mule, but
+he was fond of his wife, so he give in and said, 'Well, durn it, bury
+me where you please.  But when Gabriel’s trump blows I expect my dog to
+rise with the rest of us, for he had as much soul as any durned Elliott
+or Crawford or MacAllister that ever strutted.’  Them was HIS parting
+words.  As for Marshall, we’re all used to him, but he must strike
+strangers as right down peculiar-looking.  I’ve known him ever since he
+was ten&mdash;he’s about fifty now&mdash;and I like him.  Him and me was out
+cod-fishing today.  That’s about all I’m good for now&mdash;catching trout
+and cod occasional.  But ’tweren’t always so&mdash;not by no manner of
+means.  I used to do other things, as you’d admit if you saw my
+life-book.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne was just going to ask what his life-book was when the First Mate
+created a diversion by springing upon Captain Jim’s knee.  He was a
+gorgeous beastie, with a face as round as a full moon, vivid green
+eyes, and immense, white, double paws.  Captain Jim stroked his velvet
+back gently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I never fancied cats much till I found the First Mate,” he remarked,
+to the accompaniment of the Mate’s tremendous purrs.  “I saved his
+life, and when you’ve saved a creature’s life you’re bound to love it.
+It’s next thing to giving life.  There’s some turrible thoughtless
+people in the world, Mistress Blythe.  Some of them city folks who have
+summer homes over the harbor are so thoughtless that they’re cruel.
+It’s the worst kind of cruelty&mdash;the thoughtless kind.  You can’t cope
+with it.  They keep cats there in the summer, and feed and pet ’em, and
+doll ’em up with ribbons and collars.  And then in the fall they go off
+and leave ’em to starve or freeze.  It makes my blood boil, Mistress
+Blythe.  One day last winter I found a poor old mother cat dead on the
+shore, lying against the skin-and-bone bodies of her three little
+kittens.  She’d died trying to shelter ’em.  She had her poor stiff
+paws around ’em.  Master, I cried.  Then I swore.  Then I carried them
+poor little kittens home and fed ’em up and found good homes for ’em.
+I knew the woman who left the cat and when she come back this summer I
+jest went over the harbor and told her my opinion of her.  It was rank
+meddling, but I do love meddling in a good cause.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How did she take it?” asked Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Cried and said she 'didn’t think.’  I says to her, says I, 'Do you
+s’pose that’ll be held for a good excuse in the day of Jedgment, when
+you’ll have to account for that poor old mother’s life?  The Lord’ll
+ask you what He give you your brains for if it wasn’t to think, I
+reckon.’  I don’t fancy she’ll leave cats to starve another time.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Was the First Mate one of the forsaken?” asked Anne, making advances
+to him which were responded to graciously, if condescendingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes.  I found HIM one bitter cold day in winter, caught in the
+branches of a tree by his durn-fool ribbon collar.  He was almost
+starving.  If you could have seen his eyes, Mistress Blythe!  He was
+nothing but a kitten, and he’d got his living somehow since he’d been
+left until he got hung up.  When I loosed him he gave my hand a pitiful
+swipe with his little red tongue.  He wasn’t the able seaman you see
+now.  He was meek as Moses.  That was nine years ago.  His life has
+been long in the land for a cat.  He’s a good old pal, the First Mate
+is.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I should have expected you to have a dog,” said Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I had a dog once.  I thought so much of him that when he died I
+couldn’t bear the thought of getting another in his place.  He was a
+FRIEND&mdash;you understand, Mistress Blythe?  Matey’s only a pal.  I’m fond
+of Matey&mdash;all the fonder on account of the spice of devilment that’s in
+him&mdash;like there is in all cats.  But I LOVED my dog.  I always had a
+sneaking sympathy for Alexander Elliott about HIS dog.  There isn’t any
+devil in a good dog.  That’s why they’re more lovable than cats, I
+reckon.  But I’m darned if they’re as interesting.  Here I am, talking
+too much.  Why don’t you check me?  When I do get a chance to talk to
+anyone I run on turrible.  If you’ve done your tea I’ve a few little
+things you might like to look at&mdash;picked ’em up in the queer corners I
+used to be poking my nose into.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim’s “few little things” turned out to be a most interesting
+collection of curios, hideous, quaint and beautiful.  And almost every
+one had some striking story attached to it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne never forgot the delight with which she listened to those old
+tales that moonlit evening by that enchanted driftwood fire, while the
+silver sea called to them through the open window and sobbed against
+the rocks below them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim never said a boastful word, but it was impossible to help
+seeing what a hero the man had been&mdash;brave, true, resourceful,
+unselfish.  He sat there in his little room and made those things live
+again for his hearers.  By a lift of the eyebrow, a twist of the lip, a
+gesture, a word, he painted a whole scene or character so that they saw
+it as it was.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Some of Captain Jim’s adventures had such a marvellous edge that Anne
+and Gilbert secretly wondered if he were not drawing a rather long bow
+at their credulous expense.  But in this, as they found later, they did
+him injustice.  His tales were all literally true.  Captain Jim had the
+gift of the born storyteller, whereby “unhappy, far-off things” can be
+brought vividly before the hearer in all their pristine poignancy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne and Gilbert laughed and shivered over his tales, and once Anne
+found herself crying.  Captain Jim surveyed her tears with pleasure
+shining from his face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I like to see folks cry that way,” he remarked.  “It’s a compliment.
+But I can’t do justice to the things I’ve seen or helped to do.  I’ve
+’em all jotted down in my life-book, but I haven’t got the knack of
+writing them out properly.  If I could hit on jest the right words and
+string ’em together proper on paper I could make a great book.  It
+would beat A Mad Love holler, and I believe Joe’d like it as well as
+the pirate yarns.  Yes, I’ve had some adventures in my time; and, do
+you know, Mistress Blythe, I still lust after ’em.  Yes, old and
+useless as I be, there’s an awful longing sweeps over me at times to
+sail out&mdash;out&mdash;out there&mdash;forever and ever.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Like Ulysses, you would
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+    'Sail beyond the sunset and the baths<BR>
+     Of all the western stars until you die,’”<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+said Anne dreamily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Ulysses?  I’ve read of him.  Yes, that’s just how I feel&mdash;jest how all
+us old sailors feel, I reckon.  I’ll die on land after all, I s’pose.
+Well, what is to be will be.  There was old William Ford at the Glen
+who never went on the water in his life, ’cause he was afraid of being
+drowned.  A fortune-teller had predicted he would be.  And one day he
+fainted and fell with his face in the barn trough and was drowned.
+Must you go?  Well, come soon and come often.  The doctor is to do the
+talking next time.  He knows a heap of things I want to find out.  I’m
+sorter lonesome here by times.  It’s been worse since Elizabeth Russell
+died.  Her and me was such cronies.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim spoke with the pathos of the aged, who see their old
+friends slipping from them one by one&mdash;friends whose place can never be
+quite filled by those of a younger generation, even of the race that
+knows Joseph.  Anne and Gilbert promised to come soon and often.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He’s a rare old fellow, isn’t he?” said Gilbert, as they walked home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Somehow, I can’t reconcile his simple, kindly personality with the
+wild, adventurous life he has lived,” mused Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You wouldn’t find it so hard if you had seen him the other day down at
+the fishing village.  One of the men of Peter Gautier’s boat made a
+nasty remark about some girl along the shore.  Captain Jim fairly
+scorched the wretched fellow with the lightning of his eyes.  He seemed
+a man transformed.  He didn’t say much&mdash;but the way he said it!  You’d
+have thought it would strip the flesh from the fellow’s bones.  I
+understand that Captain Jim will never allow a word against any woman
+to be said in his presence.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wonder why he never married,” said Anne.  “He should have sons with
+their ships at sea now, and grandchildren climbing over him to hear his
+stories&mdash;he’s that kind of a man.  Instead, he has nothing but a
+magnificent cat.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Anne was mistaken.  Captain Jim had more than that.  He had a
+memory.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap10"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 10
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+LESLIE MOORE
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+“I’m going for a walk to the outside shore tonight,” Anne told Gog and
+Magog one October evening.  There was no one else to tell, for Gilbert
+had gone over the harbor.  Anne had her little domain in the speckless
+order one would expect of anyone brought up by Marilla Cuthbert, and
+felt that she could gad shoreward with a clear conscience.  Many and
+delightful had been her shore rambles, sometimes with Gilbert,
+sometimes with Captain Jim, sometimes alone with her own thoughts and
+new, poignantly-sweet dreams that were beginning to span life with
+their rainbows.  She loved the gentle, misty harbor shore and the
+silvery, wind-haunted sand shore, but best of all she loved the rock
+shore, with its cliffs and caves and piles of surf-worn boulders, and
+its coves where the pebbles glittered under the pools; and it was to
+this shore she hied herself tonight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There had been an autumn storm of wind and rain, lasting for three
+days.  Thunderous had been the crash of billows on the rocks, wild the
+white spray and spume that blew over the bar, troubled and misty and
+tempest-torn the erstwhile blue peace of Four Winds Harbor.  Now it was
+over, and the shore lay clean-washed after the storm; not a wind
+stirred, but there was still a fine surf on, dashing on sand and rock
+in a splendid white turmoil&mdash;the only restless thing in the great,
+pervading stillness and peace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, this is a moment worth living through weeks of storm and stress
+for,” Anne exclaimed, delightedly sending her far gaze across the
+tossing waters from the top of the cliff where she stood.  Presently
+she scrambled down the steep path to the little cove below, where she
+seemed shut in with rocks and sea and sky.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m going to dance and sing,” she said.  “There’s no one here to see
+me&mdash;the seagulls won’t carry tales of the matter.  I may be as crazy as
+I like.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She caught up her skirt and pirouetted along the hard strip of sand
+just out of reach of the waves that almost lapped her feet with their
+spent foam.  Whirling round and round, laughing like a child, she
+reached the little headland that ran out to the east of the cove; then
+she stopped suddenly, blushing crimson; she was not alone; there had
+been a witness to her dance and laughter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girl of the golden hair and sea-blue eyes was sitting on a boulder
+of the headland, half-hidden by a jutting rock.  She was looking
+straight at Anne with a strange expression&mdash;part wonder, part sympathy,
+part&mdash;could it be?&mdash;envy.  She was bare-headed, and her splendid hair,
+more than ever like Browning’s “gorgeous snake,” was bound about her
+head with a crimson ribbon.  She wore a dress of some dark material,
+very plainly made; but swathed about her waist, outlining its fine
+curves, was a vivid girdle of red silk.  Her hands, clasped over her
+knee, were brown and somewhat work-hardened; but the skin of her throat
+and cheeks was as white as cream.  A flying gleam of sunset broke
+through a low-lying western cloud and fell across her hair.  For a
+moment she seemed the spirit of the sea personified&mdash;all its mystery,
+all its passion, all its elusive charm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You&mdash;you must think me crazy,” stammered Anne, trying to recover her
+self-possession.  To be seen by this stately girl in such an abandon of
+childishness&mdash;she, Mrs. Dr. Blythe, with all the dignity of the matron
+to keep up&mdash;it was too bad!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No,” said the girl, “I don’t.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She said nothing more; her voice was expressionless; her manner
+slightly repellent; but there was something in her eyes&mdash;eager yet shy,
+defiant yet pleading&mdash;which turned Anne from her purpose of walking
+away.  Instead, she sat down on the boulder beside the girl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Let’s introduce ourselves,” she said, with the smile that had never
+yet failed to win confidence and friendliness.  “I am Mrs. Blythe&mdash;and
+I live in that little white house up the harbor shore.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, I know,” said the girl.  “I am Leslie Moore&mdash;Mrs. Dick Moore,”
+she added stiffly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne was silent for a moment from sheer amazement.  It had not occurred
+to her that this girl was married&mdash;there seemed nothing of the wife
+about her.  And that she should be the neighbor whom Anne had pictured
+as a commonplace Four Winds housewife!  Anne could not quickly adjust
+her mental focus to this astonishing change.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Then&mdash;then you live in that gray house up the brook,” she stammered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes.  I should have gone over to call on you long ago,” said the
+other.  She did not offer any explanation or excuse for not having gone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wish you WOULD come,” said Anne, recovering herself somewhat.
+“We’re such near neighbors we ought to be friends.  That is the sole
+fault of Four Winds&mdash;there aren’t quite enough neighbors.  Otherwise it
+is perfection.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You like it?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“LIKE it!  I love it.  It is the most beautiful place I ever saw.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve never seen many places,” said Leslie Moore, slowly, “but I’ve
+always thought it was very lovely here.  I&mdash;I love it, too.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She spoke, as she looked, shyly, yet eagerly.  Anne had an odd
+impression that this strange girl&mdash;the word “girl” would persist&mdash;could
+say a good deal if she chose.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I often come to the shore,” she added.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“So do I,” said Anne.  “It’s a wonder we haven’t met here before.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Probably you come earlier in the evening than I do.  It is generally
+late&mdash;almost dark&mdash;when I come.  And I love to come just after a
+storm&mdash;like this.  I don’t like the sea so well when it’s calm and
+quiet.  I like the struggle&mdash;and the crash&mdash;and the noise.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I love it in all its moods,” declared Anne.  “The sea at Four Winds is
+to me what Lover’s Lane was at home.  Tonight it seemed so free&mdash;so
+untamed&mdash;something broke loose in me, too, out of sympathy.  That was
+why I danced along the shore in that wild way.  I didn’t suppose
+anybody was looking, of course.  If Miss Cornelia Bryant had seen me
+she would have forboded a gloomy prospect for poor young Dr. Blythe.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You know Miss Cornelia?” said Leslie, laughing.  She had an exquisite
+laugh; it bubbled up suddenly and unexpectedly with something of the
+delicious quality of a baby’s.  Anne laughed, too.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, yes.  She has been down to my house of dreams several times.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Your house of dreams?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, that’s a dear, foolish little name Gilbert and I have for our
+home.  We just call it that between ourselves.  It slipped out before I
+thought.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“So Miss Russell’s little white house is YOUR house of dreams,” said
+Leslie wonderingly.  “<I>I</I> had a house of dreams once&mdash;but it was a
+palace,” she added, with a laugh, the sweetness of which was marred by
+a little note of derision.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I once dreamed of a palace, too,” said Anne.  “I suppose all girls
+do.  And then we settle down contentedly in eight-room houses that seem
+to fulfill all the desires of our hearts&mdash;because our prince is there.
+YOU should have had your palace really, though&mdash;you are so beautiful.
+You MUST let me say it&mdash;it has to be said&mdash;I’m nearly bursting with
+admiration.  You are the loveliest thing I ever saw, Mrs. Moore.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If we are to be friends you must call me Leslie,” said the other with
+an odd passion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Of course I will.  And MY friends call me Anne.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I suppose I am beautiful,” Leslie went on, looking stormily out to
+sea.  “I hate my beauty.  I wish I had always been as brown and plain
+as the brownest and plainest girl at the fishing village over there.
+Well, what do you think of Miss Cornelia?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The abrupt change of subject shut the door on any further confidences.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Miss Cornelia is a darling, isn’t she?” said Anne.  “Gilbert and I
+were invited to her house to a state tea last week.  You’ve heard of
+groaning tables.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I seem to recall seeing the expression in the newspaper reports of
+weddings,” said Leslie, smiling.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, Miss Cornelia’s groaned&mdash;at least, it creaked&mdash;positively.  You
+couldn’t have believed she would have cooked so much for two ordinary
+people.  She had every kind of pie you could name, I think&mdash;except
+lemon pie.  She said she had taken the prize for lemon pies at the
+Charlottetown Exhibition ten years ago and had never made any since for
+fear of losing her reputation for them.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Were you able to eat enough pie to please her?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“<I>I</I> wasn’t.  Gilbert won her heart by eating&mdash;I won’t tell you how
+much.  She said she never knew a man who didn’t like pie better than
+his Bible.  Do you know, I love Miss Cornelia.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“So do I,” said Leslie.  “She is the best friend I have in the world.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne wondered secretly why, if this were so, Miss Cornelia had never
+mentioned Mrs. Dick Moore to her.  Miss Cornelia had certainly talked
+freely about every other individual in or near Four Winds.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Isn’t that beautiful?” said Leslie, after a brief silence, pointing to
+the exquisite effect of a shaft of light falling through a cleft in the
+rock behind them, across a dark green pool at its base.  “If I had come
+here&mdash;and seen nothing but just that&mdash;I would go home satisfied.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The effects of light and shadow all along these shores are wonderful,”
+agreed Anne.  “My little sewing room looks out on the harbor, and I sit
+at its window and feast my eyes.  The colors and shadows are never the
+same two minutes together.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And you are never lonely?” asked Leslie abruptly.  “Never&mdash;when you
+are alone?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.  I don’t think I’ve ever been really lonely in my life,” answered
+Anne.  “Even when I’m alone I have real good company&mdash;dreams and
+imaginations and pretendings.  I LIKE to be alone now and then, just to
+think over things and TASTE them.  But I love friendship&mdash;and nice,
+jolly little times with people.  Oh, WON’T you come to see me&mdash;often?
+Please do.  I believe,” Anne added, laughing, “that you’d like me if
+you knew me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wonder if YOU would like ME,” said Leslie seriously.  She was not
+fishing for a compliment.  She looked out across the waves that were
+beginning to be garlanded with blossoms of moonlit foam, and her eyes
+filled with shadows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m sure I would,” said Anne.  “And please don’t think I’m utterly
+irresponsible because you saw me dancing on the shore at sunset.  No
+doubt I shall be dignified after a time.  You see, I haven’t been
+married very long.  I feel like a girl, and sometimes like a child,
+yet.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I have been married twelve years,” said Leslie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Here was another unbelievable thing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Why, you can’t be as old as I am!” exclaimed Anne.  “You must have
+been a child when you were married.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I was sixteen,” said Leslie, rising, and picking up the cap and jacket
+lying beside her.  “I am twenty-eight now.  Well, I must go back.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“So must I.  Gilbert will probably be home.  But I’m so glad we both
+came to the shore tonight and met each other.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie said nothing, and Anne was a little chilled.  She had offered
+friendship frankly but it had not been accepted very graciously, if it
+had not been absolutely repelled.  In silence they climbed the cliffs
+and walked across a pasture-field of which the feathery, bleached, wild
+grasses were like a carpet of creamy velvet in the moonlight.  When
+they reached the shore lane Leslie turned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I go this way, Mrs. Blythe.  You will come over and see me some time,
+won’t you?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne felt as if the invitation had been thrown at her.  She got the
+impression that Leslie Moore gave it reluctantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I will come if you really want me to,” she said a little coldly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I do&mdash;I do,” exclaimed Leslie, with an eagerness which seemed to
+burst forth and beat down some restraint that had been imposed on it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Then I’ll come.  Good-night&mdash;Leslie.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Good-night, Mrs. Blythe.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne walked home in a brown study and poured out her tale to Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“So Mrs. Dick Moore isn’t one of the race that knows Joseph?” said
+Gilbert teasingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No&mdash;o&mdash;o, not exactly.  And yet&mdash;I think she WAS one of them once, but
+has gone or got into exile,” said Anne musingly.  “She is certainly
+very different from the other women about here.  You can’t talk about
+eggs and butter to HER.  To think I’ve been imagining her a second Mrs.
+Rachel Lynde!  Have you ever seen Dick Moore, Gilbert?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.  I’ve seen several men working about the fields of the farm, but I
+don’t know which was Moore.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She never mentioned him.  I KNOW she isn’t happy.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“From what you tell me I suppose she was married before she was old
+enough to know her own mind or heart, and found out too late that she
+had made a mistake.  It’s a common tragedy enough, Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“A fine woman would have made the best of it.  Mrs. Moore has evidently
+let it make her bitter and resentful.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t let us judge her till we know,” pleaded Anne.  “I don’t believe
+her case is so ordinary.  You will understand her fascination when you
+meet her, Gilbert.  It is a thing quite apart from her beauty.  I feel
+that she possesses a rich nature, into which a friend might enter as
+into a kingdom; but for some reason she bars every one out and shuts
+all her possibilities up in herself, so that they cannot develop and
+blossom.  There, I’ve been struggling to define her to myself ever
+since I left her, and that is the nearest I can get to it.  I’m going
+to ask Miss Cornelia about her.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap11"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 11
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+THE STORY OF LESLIE MOORE
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, the eighth baby arrived a fortnight ago,” said Miss Cornelia,
+from a rocker before the fire of the little house one chilly October
+afternoon.  “It’s a girl.  Fred was ranting mad&mdash;said he wanted a
+boy&mdash;when the truth is he didn’t want it at all.  If it had been a boy
+he’d have ranted because it wasn’t a girl.  They had four girls and
+three boys before, so I can’t see that it made much difference what
+this one was, but of course he’d have to be cantankerous, just like a
+man.  The baby is real pretty, dressed up in its nice little clothes.
+It has black eyes and the dearest, tiny hands.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I must go and see it.  I just love babies,” said Anne, smiling to
+herself over a thought too dear and sacred to be put into words.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t say but what they’re nice,” admitted Miss Cornelia.  “But some
+folks seem to have more than they really need, believe ME.  My poor
+cousin Flora up at the Glen had eleven, and such a slave as she is!
+Her husband suicided three years ago.  Just like a man!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What made him do that?” asked Anne, rather shocked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Couldn’t get his way over something, so he jumped into the well.  A
+good riddance!  He was a born tyrant.  But of course it spoiled the
+well.  Flora could never abide the thought of using it again, poor
+thing!  So she had another dug and a frightful expense it was, and the
+water as hard as nails.  If he HAD to drown himself there was plenty of
+water in the harbor, wasn’t there?  I’ve no patience with a man like
+that.  We’ve only had two suicides in Four Winds in my recollection.
+The other was Frank West&mdash;Leslie Moore’s father.  By the way, has
+Leslie ever been over to call on you yet?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, but I met her on the shore a few nights ago and we scraped an
+acquaintance,” said Anne, pricking up her ears.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia nodded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m glad, dearie.  I was hoping you’d foregather with her.  What do
+you think of her?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I thought her very beautiful.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, of course.  There was never anybody about Four Winds could touch
+her for looks.  Did you ever see her hair?  It reaches to her feet when
+she lets it down.  But I meant how did you like her?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I think I could like her very much if she’d let me,” said Anne slowly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But she wouldn’t let you&mdash;she pushed you off and kept you at arm’s
+length.  Poor Leslie!  You wouldn’t be much surprised if you knew what
+her life has been.  It’s been a tragedy&mdash;a tragedy!” repeated Miss
+Cornelia emphatically.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wish you would tell me all about her&mdash;that is, if you can do so
+without betraying any confidence.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Lord, dearie, everybody in Four Winds knows poor Leslie’s story.  It’s
+no secret&mdash;the OUTSIDE, that is.  Nobody knows the INSIDE but Leslie
+herself, and she doesn’t take folks into her confidence.  I’m about the
+best friend she has on earth, I reckon, and she’s never uttered a word
+of complaint to me.  Have you ever seen Dick Moore?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, I may as well begin at the beginning and tell you everything
+straight through, so you’ll understand it.  As I said, Leslie’s father
+was Frank West.  He was clever and shiftless&mdash;just like a man.  Oh, he
+had heaps of brains&mdash;and much good they did him!  He started to go to
+college, and he went for two years, and then his health broke down.
+The Wests were all inclined to be consumptive.  So Frank came home and
+started farming.  He married Rose Elliott from over harbor.  Rose was
+reckoned the beauty of Four Winds&mdash;Leslie takes her looks from her
+mother, but she has ten times the spirit and go that Rose had, and a
+far better figure.  Now you know, Anne, I always take the ground that
+us women ought to stand by each other.  We’ve got enough to endure at
+the hands of the men, the Lord knows, so I hold we hadn’t ought to
+clapper-claw one another, and it isn’t often you’ll find me running
+down another woman.  But I never had much use for Rose Elliott.  She
+was spoiled to begin with, believe ME, and she was nothing but a lazy,
+selfish, whining creature.  Frank was no hand to work, so they were
+poor as Job’s turkey.  Poor!  They lived on potatoes and point, believe
+ME.  They had two children&mdash;Leslie and Kenneth.  Leslie had her
+mother’s looks and her father’s brains, and something she didn’t get
+from either of them.  She took after her Grandmother West&mdash;a splendid
+old lady.  She was the brightest, friendliest, merriest thing when she
+was a child, Anne.  Everybody liked her.  She was her father’s favorite
+and she was awful fond of him.  They were 'chums,’ as she used to say.
+She couldn’t see any of his faults&mdash;and he WAS a taking sort of man in
+some ways.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, when Leslie was twelve years old, the first dreadful thing
+happened.  She worshipped little Kenneth&mdash;he was four years younger
+than her, and he WAS a dear little chap.  And he was killed one
+day&mdash;fell off a big load of hay just as it was going into the barn, and
+the wheel went right over his little body and crushed the life out of
+it.  And mind you, Anne, Leslie saw it.  She was looking down from the
+loft.  She gave one screech&mdash;the hired man said he never heard such a
+sound in all his life&mdash;he said it would ring in his ears till Gabriel’s
+trump drove it out.  But she never screeched or cried again about it.
+She jumped from the loft onto the load and from the load to the floor,
+and caught up the little bleeding, warm, dead body, Anne&mdash;they had to
+tear it from her before she would let it go.  They sent for me&mdash;I can’t
+talk of it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia wiped the tears from her kindly brown eyes and sewed in
+bitter silence for a few minutes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well,” she resumed, “it was all over&mdash;they buried little Kenneth in
+that graveyard over the harbor, and after a while Leslie went back to
+her school and her studies.  She never mentioned Kenneth’s name&mdash;I’ve
+never heard it cross her lips from that day to this.  I reckon that old
+hurt still aches and burns at times; but she was only a child and time
+is real kind to children, Anne, dearie.  After a while she began to
+laugh again&mdash;she had the prettiest laugh.  You don’t often hear it now.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I heard it once the other night,” said Anne.  “It IS a beautiful
+laugh.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Frank West began to go down after Kenneth’s death.  He wasn’t strong
+and it was a shock to him, because he was real fond of the child,
+though, as I’ve said, Leslie was his favorite.  He got mopy and
+melancholy, and couldn’t or wouldn’t work.  And one day, when Leslie
+was fourteen years of age, he hanged himself&mdash;and in the parlor, too,
+mind you, Anne, right in the middle of the parlor from the lamp hook in
+the ceiling.  Wasn’t that like a man?  It was the anniversary of his
+wedding day, too.  Nice, tasty time to pick for it, wasn’t it?  And, of
+course, that poor Leslie had to be the one to find him.  She went into
+the parlor that morning, singing, with some fresh flowers for the
+vases, and there she saw her father hanging from the ceiling, his face
+as black as a coal.  It was something awful, believe ME!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, how horrible!” said Anne, shuddering.  “The poor, poor child!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie didn’t cry at her father’s funeral any more then she had cried
+at Kenneth’s.  Rose whooped and howled for two, however, and Leslie had
+all she could do trying to calm and comfort her mother.  I was
+disgusted with Rose and so was everyone else, but Leslie never got out
+of patience.  She loved her mother.  Leslie is clannish&mdash;her own could
+never do wrong in her eyes.  Well, they buried Frank West beside
+Kenneth, and Rose put up a great big monument to him.  It was bigger
+than his character, believe ME!  Anyhow, it was bigger than Rose could
+afford, for the farm was mortgaged for more than its value.  But not
+long after Leslie’s old grandmother West died and she left Leslie a
+little money&mdash;enough to give her a year at Queen’s Academy.  Leslie had
+made up her mind to pass for a teacher if she could, and then earn
+enough to put herself through Redmond College.  That had been her
+father’s pet scheme&mdash;he wanted her to have what he had lost.  Leslie
+was full of ambition and her head was chock full of brains.  She went
+to Queen’s, and she took two years’ work in one year and got her First;
+and when she came home she got the Glen school.  She was so happy and
+hopeful and full of life and eagerness.  When I think of what she was
+then and what she is now, I say&mdash;drat the men!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia snipped her thread off as viciously as if, Nero-like, she
+was severing the neck of mankind by the stroke.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Dick Moore came into her life that summer.  His father, Abner Moore,
+kept store at the Glen, but Dick had a sea-going streak in him from his
+mother; he used to sail in summer and clerk in his father’s store in
+winter.  He was a big, handsome fellow, with a little ugly soul.  He
+was always wanting something till he got it, and then he stopped
+wanting it&mdash;just like a man.  Oh, he didn’t growl at the weather when
+it was fine, and he was mostly real pleasant and agreeable when
+everything went right.  But he drank a good deal, and there were some
+nasty stories told of him and a girl down at the fishing village.  He
+wasn’t fit for Leslie to wipe her feet on, that’s the long and short of
+it.  And he was a Methodist!  But he was clean mad about her&mdash;because
+of her good looks in the first place, and because she wouldn’t have
+anything to say to him in the second.  He vowed he’d have her&mdash;and he
+got her!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How did he bring it about?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, it was an iniquitous thing!  I’ll never forgive Rose West.  You
+see, dearie, Abner Moore held the mortgage on the West farm, and the
+interest was overdue some years, and Dick just went and told Mrs. West
+that if Leslie wouldn’t marry him he’d get his father to foreclose the
+mortgage.  Rose carried on terrible&mdash;fainted and wept, and pleaded with
+Leslie not to let her be turned out of her home.  She said it would
+break her heart to leave the home she’d come to as a bride.  I wouldn’t
+have blamed her for feeling dreadful bad over it&mdash;but you wouldn’t have
+thought she’d be so selfish as to sacrifice her own flesh and blood
+because of it, would you?  Well, she was.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And Leslie gave in&mdash;she loved her mother so much she would have done
+anything to save her pain.  She married Dick Moore.  None of us knew
+why at the time.  It wasn’t till long afterward that I found out how
+her mother had worried her into it.  I was sure there was something
+wrong, though, because I knew how she had snubbed him time and again,
+and it wasn’t like Leslie to turn face&mdash;about like that.  Besides, I
+knew that Dick Moore wasn’t the kind of man Leslie could ever fancy, in
+spite of his good looks and dashing ways.  Of course, there was no
+wedding, but Rose asked me to go and see them married.  I went, but I
+was sorry I did.  I’d seen Leslie’s face at her brother’s funeral and
+at her father’s funeral&mdash;and now it seemed to me I was seeing it at her
+own funeral.  But Rose was smiling as a basket of chips, believe ME!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie and Dick settled down on the West place&mdash;Rose couldn’t bear to
+part with her dear daughter!&mdash;and lived there for the winter.  In the
+spring Rose took pneumonia and died&mdash;a year too late!  Leslie was
+heart-broken enough over it.  Isn’t it terrible the way some unworthy
+folks are loved, while others that deserve it far more, you’d think,
+never get much affection?  As for Dick, he’d had enough of quiet
+married life&mdash;just like a man.  He was for up and off.  He went over to
+Nova Scotia to visit his relations&mdash;his father had come from Nova
+Scotia&mdash;and he wrote back to Leslie that his cousin, George Moore, was
+going on a voyage to Havana and he was going too.  The name of the
+vessel was the Four Sisters and they were to be gone about nine weeks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It must have been a relief to Leslie.  But she never said anything.
+From the day of her marriage she was just what she is now&mdash;cold and
+proud, and keeping everyone but me at a distance.  I won’t BE kept at a
+distance, believe ME!  I’ve just stuck to Leslie as close as I knew how
+in spite of everything.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She told me you were the best friend she had,” said Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Did she?” exclaimed Miss Cornelia delightedly.  “Well, I’m real
+thankful to hear it.  Sometimes I’ve wondered if she really did want me
+around at all&mdash;she never let me think so.  You must have thawed her out
+more than you think, or she wouldn’t have said that much itself to you.
+Oh, that poor, heart-broken girl!  I never see Dick Moore but I want to
+run a knife clean through him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia wiped her eyes again and having relieved her feelings by
+her blood-thirsty wish, took up her tale.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, Leslie was left over there alone.  Dick had put in the crop
+before he went, and old Abner looked after it.  The summer went by and
+the Four Sisters didn’t come back.  The Nova Scotia Moores
+investigated, and found she had got to Havana and discharged her cargo
+and took on another and left for home; and that was all they ever found
+out about her.  By degrees people began to talk of Dick Moore as one
+that was dead.  Almost everyone believed that he was, though no one
+felt certain, for men have turned up here at the harbor after they’d
+been gone for years.  Leslie never thought he was dead&mdash;and she was
+right.  A thousand pities too!  The next summer Captain Jim was in
+Havana&mdash;that was before he gave up the sea, of course.  He thought he’d
+poke round a bit&mdash;Captain Jim was always meddlesome, just like a
+man&mdash;and he went to inquiring round among the sailors’ boarding houses
+and places like that, to see if he could find out anything about the
+crew of the Four Sisters.  He’d better have let sleeping dogs lie, in
+my opinion!  Well, he went to one out-of-the-way place, and there he
+found a man he knew at first sight it was Dick Moore, though he had a
+big beard.  Captain Jim got it shaved off and then there was no
+doubt&mdash;Dick Moore it was&mdash;his body at least.  His mind wasn’t there&mdash;as
+for his soul, in my opinion he never had one!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What had happened to him?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Nobody knows the rights of it.  All the folks who kept the boarding
+house could tell was that about a year before they had found him lying
+on their doorstep one morning in an awful condition&mdash;his head battered
+to a jelly almost.  They supposed he’d got hurt in some drunken row,
+and likely that’s the truth of it.  They took him in, never thinking he
+could live.  But he did&mdash;and he was just like a child when he got well.
+He hadn’t memory or intellect or reason.  They tried to find out who he
+was but they never could.  He couldn’t even tell them his name&mdash;he
+could only say a few simple words.  He had a letter on him beginning
+'Dear Dick’ and signed 'Leslie,’ but there was no address on it and the
+envelope was gone.  They let him stay on&mdash;he learned to do a few odd
+jobs about the place&mdash;and there Captain Jim found him.  He brought him
+home&mdash;I’ve always said it was a bad day’s work, though I s’pose there
+was nothing else he could do.  He thought maybe when Dick got home and
+saw his old surroundings and familiar faces his memory would wake up.
+But it hadn’t any effect.  There he’s been at the house up the brook
+ever since.  He’s just like a child, no more nor less.  Takes fractious
+spells occasionally, but mostly he’s just vacant and good humored and
+harmless.  He’s apt to run away if he isn’t watched.  That’s the burden
+Leslie has had to carry for eleven years&mdash;and all alone.  Old Abner
+Moore died soon after Dick was brought home and it was found he was
+almost bankrupt.  When things were settled up there was nothing for
+Leslie and Dick but the old West farm.  Leslie rented it to John Ward,
+and the rent is all she has to live on.  Sometimes in summer she takes
+a boarder to help out.  But most visitors prefer the other side of the
+harbor where the hotels and summer cottages are.  Leslie’s house is too
+far from the bathing shore.  She’s taken care of Dick and she’s never
+been away from him for eleven years&mdash;she’s tied to that imbecile for
+life.  And after all the dreams and hopes she once had!  You can
+imagine what it has been like for her, Anne, dearie&mdash;with her beauty
+and spirit and pride and cleverness.  It’s just been a living death.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Poor, poor girl!” said Anne again.  Her own happiness seemed to
+reproach her.  What right had she to be so happy when another human
+soul must be so miserable?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Will you tell me just what Leslie said and how she acted the night you
+met her on the shore?” asked Miss Cornelia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She listened intently and nodded her satisfaction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“YOU thought she was stiff and cold, Anne, dearie, but I can tell you
+she thawed out wonderful for her.  She must have taken to you real
+strong.  I’m so glad.  You may be able to help her a good deal.  I was
+thankful when I heard that a young couple was coming to this house, for
+I hoped it would mean some friends for Leslie; especially if you
+belonged to the race that knows Joseph.  You WILL be her friend, won’t
+you, Anne, dearie?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Indeed I will, if she’ll let me,” said Anne, with all her own sweet,
+impulsive earnestness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, you must be her friend, whether she’ll let you or not,” said Miss
+Cornelia resolutely.  “Don’t you mind if she’s stiff by times&mdash;don’t
+notice it.  Remember what her life has been&mdash;and is&mdash;and must always
+be, I suppose, for creatures like Dick Moore live forever, I
+understand.  You should see how fat he’s got since he came home.  He
+used to be lean enough.  Just MAKE her be friends&mdash;you can do
+it&mdash;you’re one of those who have the knack.  Only you mustn’t be
+sensitive.  And don’t mind if she doesn’t seem to want you to go over
+there much.  She knows that some women don’t like to be where Dick
+is&mdash;they complain he gives them the creeps.  Just get her to come over
+here as often as she can.  She can’t get away so very much&mdash;she can’t
+leave Dick long, for the Lord knows what he’d do&mdash;burn the house down
+most likely.  At nights, after he’s in bed and asleep, is about the
+only time she’s free.  He always goes to bed early and sleeps like the
+dead till next morning.  That is how you came to meet her at the shore
+likely.  She wanders there considerable.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I will do everything I can for her,” said Anne.  Her interest in
+Leslie Moore, which had been vivid ever since she had seen her driving
+her geese down the hill, was intensified a thousand fold by Miss
+Cornelia’s narration.  The girl’s beauty and sorrow and loneliness drew
+her with an irresistible fascination.  She had never known anyone like
+her; her friends had hitherto been wholesome, normal, merry girls like
+herself, with only the average trials of human care and bereavement to
+shadow their girlish dreams.  Leslie Moore stood apart, a tragic,
+appealing figure of thwarted womanhood.  Anne resolved that she would
+win entrance into the kingdom of that lonely soul and find there the
+comradeship it could so richly give, were it not for the cruel fetters
+that held it in a prison not of its own making.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And mind you this, Anne, dearie,” said Miss Cornelia, who had not yet
+wholly relieved her mind, “You mustn’t think Leslie is an infidel
+because she hardly ever goes to church&mdash;or even that she’s a Methodist.
+She can’t take Dick to church, of course&mdash;not that he ever troubled
+church much in his best days.  But you just remember that she’s a real
+strong Presbyterian at heart, Anne, dearie.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap12"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 12
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+LESLIE COMES OVER
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Leslie came over to the house of dreams one frosty October night, when
+moonlit mists were hanging over the harbor and curling like silver
+ribbons along the seaward glens.  She looked as if she repented coming
+when Gilbert answered her knock; but Anne flew past him, pounced on
+her, and drew her in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m so glad you picked tonight for a call,” she said gaily.  “I made
+up a lot of extra good fudge this afternoon and we want someone to help
+us eat it&mdash;before the fire&mdash;while we tell stories.  Perhaps Captain Jim
+will drop in, too.  This is his night.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.  Captain Jim is over home,” said Leslie.  “He&mdash;he made me come
+here,” she added, half defiantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ll say a thank-you to him for that when I see him,” said Anne,
+pulling easy chairs before the fire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I don’t mean that I didn’t want to come,” protested Leslie,
+flushing a little.  “I&mdash;I’ve been thinking of coming&mdash;but it isn’t
+always easy for me to get away.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Of course it must be hard for you to leave Mr. Moore,” said Anne, in a
+matter-of-fact tone.  She had decided that it would be best to mention
+Dick Moore occasionally as an accepted fact, and not give undue
+morbidness to the subject by avoiding it.  She was right, for Leslie’s
+air of constraint suddenly vanished.  Evidently she had been wondering
+how much Anne knew of the conditions of her life and was relieved that
+no explanations were needed.  She allowed her cap and jacket to be
+taken, and sat down with a girlish snuggle in the big armchair by
+Magog.  She was dressed prettily and carefully, with the customary
+touch of color in the scarlet geranium at her white throat.  Her
+beautiful hair gleamed like molten gold in the warm firelight.  Her
+sea-blue eyes were full of soft laughter and allurement. For the
+moment, under the influence of the little house of dreams, she was a
+girl again&mdash;a girl forgetful of the past and its bitterness.  The
+atmosphere of the many loves that had sanctified the little house was
+all about her; the companionship of two healthy, happy, young folks of
+her own generation encircled her; she felt and yielded to the magic of
+her surroundings&mdash;Miss Cornelia and Captain Jim would scarcely have
+recognized her; Anne found it hard to believe that this was the cold,
+unresponsive woman she had met on the shore&mdash;this animated girl who
+talked and listened with the eagerness of a starved soul.  And how
+hungrily Leslie’s eyes looked at the bookcases between the windows!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Our library isn’t very extensive,” said Anne, “but every book in it is
+a FRIEND.  We’ve picked our books up through the years, here and there,
+never buying one until we had first read it and knew that it belonged
+to the race of Joseph.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie laughed&mdash;beautiful laughter that seemed akin to all the mirth
+that had echoed through the little house in the vanished years.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I have a few books of father’s&mdash;not many,” she said.  “I’ve read them
+until I know them almost by heart.  I don’t get many books.  There’s a
+circulating library at the Glen store&mdash;but I don’t think the committee
+who pick the books for Mr. Parker know what books are of Joseph’s
+race&mdash;or perhaps they don’t care.  It was so seldom I got one I really
+liked that I gave up getting any.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I hope you’ll look on our bookshelves as your own,” said Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You are entirely and wholeheartedly welcome to the loan of any book on
+them.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You are setting a feast of fat things before me,” said Leslie,
+joyously.  Then, as the clock struck ten, she rose, half unwillingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I must go.  I didn’t realise it was so late.  Captain Jim is always
+saying it doesn’t take long to stay an hour.  But I’ve stayed two&mdash;and
+oh, but I’ve enjoyed them,” she added frankly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Come often,” said Anne and Gilbert.  They had risen and stood together
+in the firelight’s glow.  Leslie looked at them&mdash;youthful, hopeful,
+happy, typifying all she had missed and must forever miss.  The light
+went out of her face and eyes; the girl vanished; it was the sorrowful,
+cheated woman who answered the invitation almost coldly and got herself
+away with a pitiful haste.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne watched her until she was lost in the shadows of the chill and
+misty night.  Then she turned slowly back to the glow of her own
+radiant hearthstone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Isn’t she lovely, Gilbert?  Her hair fascinates me.  Miss Cornelia
+says it reaches to her feet.  Ruby Gillis had beautiful hair&mdash;but
+Leslie’s is ALIVE&mdash;every thread of it is living gold.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She is very beautiful,” agreed Gilbert, so heartily that Anne almost
+wished he were a LITTLE less enthusiastic.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert, would you like my hair better if it were like Leslie’s?” she
+asked wistfully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wouldn’t have your hair any color but just what it is for the
+world,” said Gilbert, with one or two convincing accompaniments.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+You wouldn’t be ANNE if you had golden hair&mdash;or hair of any color but”&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Red,” said Anne, with gloomy satisfaction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, red&mdash;to give warmth to that milk-white skin and those shining
+gray-green eyes of yours.  Golden hair wouldn’t suit you at all Queen
+Anne&mdash;MY Queen Anne&mdash;queen of my heart and life and home.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Then you may admire Leslie’s all you like,” said Anne magnanimously.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap13"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 13
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+A GHOSTLY EVENING
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+One evening, a week later, Anne decided to run over the fields to the
+house up the brook for an informal call.  It was an evening of gray fog
+that had crept in from the gulf, swathed the harbor, filled the glens
+and valleys, and clung heavily to the autumnal meadows.  Through it the
+sea sobbed and shuddered.  Anne saw Four Winds in a new aspect, and
+found it weird and mysterious and fascinating; but it also gave her a
+little feeling of loneliness.  Gilbert was away and would be away until
+the morrow, attending a medical pow-wow in Charlottetown.  Anne longed
+for an hour of fellowship with some girl friend.  Captain Jim and Miss
+Cornelia were “good fellows” each, in their own way; but youth yearned
+to youth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If only Diana or Phil or Pris or Stella could drop in for a chat,” she
+said to herself, “how delightful it would be!  This is such a GHOSTLY
+night.  I’m sure all the ships that ever sailed out of Four Winds to
+their doom could be seen tonight sailing up the harbor with their
+drowned crews on their decks, if that shrouding fog could suddenly be
+drawn aside.  I feel as if it concealed innumerable mysteries&mdash;as if I
+were surrounded by the wraiths of old generations of Four Winds people
+peering at me through that gray veil.  If ever the dear dead ladies of
+this little house came back to revisit it they would come on just such
+a night as this.  If I sit here any longer I’ll see one of them there
+opposite me in Gilbert’s chair.  This place isn’t exactly canny
+tonight.  Even Gog and Magog have an air of pricking up their ears to
+hear the footsteps of unseen guests.  I’ll run over to see Leslie
+before I frighten myself with my own fancies, as I did long ago in the
+matter of the Haunted Wood.  I’ll leave my house of dreams to welcome
+back its old inhabitants.  My fire will give them my good-will and
+greeting&mdash;they will be gone before I come back, and my house will be
+mine once more.  Tonight I am sure it is keeping a tryst with the past.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Laughing a little over her fancy, yet with something of a creepy
+sensation in the region of her spine, Anne kissed her hand to Gog and
+Magog and slipped out into the fog, with some of the new magazines
+under her arm for Leslie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie’s wild for books and magazines,” Miss Cornelia had told her,
+“and she hardly ever sees one.  She can’t afford to buy them or
+subscribe for them.  She’s really pitifully poor, Anne.  I don’t see
+how she makes out to live at all on the little rent the farm brings in.
+She never even hints a complaint on the score of poverty, but I know
+what it must be.  She’s been handicapped by it all her life.  She
+didn’t mind it when she was free and ambitious, but it must gall now,
+believe ME.  I’m glad she seemed so bright and merry the evening she
+spent with you.  Captain Jim told me he had fairly to put her cap and
+coat on and push her out of the door.  Don’t be too long going to see
+her either.  If you are she’ll think it’s because you don’t like the
+sight of Dick, and she’ll crawl into her shell again.  Dick’s a great,
+big, harmless baby, but that silly grin and chuckle of his do get on
+some people’s nerves.  Thank goodness, I’ve no nerves myself.  I like
+Dick Moore better now than I ever did when he was in his right
+senses&mdash;though the Lord knows that isn’t saying much.  I was down there
+one day in housecleaning time helping Leslie a bit, and I was frying
+doughnuts.  Dick was hanging round to get one, as usual, and all at
+once he picked up a scalding hot one I’d just fished out and dropped it
+on the back of my neck when I was bending over.  Then he laughed and
+laughed.  Believe ME, Anne, it took all the grace of God in my heart to
+keep me from just whisking up that stew-pan of boiling fat and pouring
+it over his head.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne laughed over Miss Cornelia’s wrath as she sped through the
+darkness.  But laughter accorded ill with that night.  She was sober
+enough when she reached the house among the willows.  Everything was
+very silent.  The front part of the house seemed dark and deserted, so
+Anne slipped round to the side door, which opened from the veranda into
+a little sitting room.  There she halted noiselessly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The door was open.  Beyond, in the dimly lighted room, sat Leslie
+Moore, with her arms flung out on the table and her head bent upon
+them.  She was weeping horribly&mdash;with low, fierce, choking sobs, as if
+some agony in her soul were trying to tear itself out.  An old black
+dog was sitting by her, his nose resting on his lap, his big doggish
+eyes full of mute, imploring sympathy and devotion.  Anne drew back in
+dismay.  She felt that she could not intermeddle with this bitterness.
+Her heart ached with a sympathy she might not utter.  To go in now
+would be to shut the door forever on any possible help or friendship.
+Some instinct warned Anne that the proud, bitter girl would never
+forgive the one who thus surprised her in her abandonment of despair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne slipped noiselessly from the veranda and found her way across the
+yard.  Beyond, she heard voices in the gloom and saw the dim glow of a
+light.  At the gate she met two men&mdash;Captain Jim with a lantern, and
+another who she knew must be Dick Moore&mdash;a big man, badly gone to fat,
+with a broad, round, red face, and vacant eyes.  Even in the dull light
+Anne got the impression that there was something unusual about his eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Is this you, Mistress Blythe?” said Captain Jim.  “Now, now, you
+hadn’t oughter be roaming about alone on a night like this.  You could
+get lost in this fog easier than not.  Jest you wait till I see Dick
+safe inside the door and I’ll come back and light you over the fields.
+I ain’t going to have Dr. Blythe coming home and finding that you
+walked clean over Cape Leforce in the fog.  A woman did that once,
+forty years ago.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“So you’ve been over to see Leslie,” he said, when he rejoined her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I didn’t go in,” said Anne, and told what she had seen.  Captain Jim
+sighed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Poor, poor, little girl!  She don’t cry often, Mistress Blythe&mdash;she’s
+too brave for that.  She must feel terrible when she does cry.  A night
+like this is hard on poor women who have sorrows.  There’s something
+about it that kinder brings up all we’ve suffered&mdash;or feared.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s full of ghosts,” said Anne, with a shiver.  “That was why I came
+over&mdash;I wanted to clasp a human hand and hear a human voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There seem to be so many INHUMAN presences about tonight.  Even my own
+dear house was full of them.  They fairly elbowed me out.  So I fled
+over here for companionship of my kind.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You were right not to go in, though, Mistress Blythe.  Leslie wouldn’t
+have liked it.  She wouldn’t have liked me going in with Dick, as I’d
+have done if I hadn’t met you.  I had Dick down with me all day.  I
+keep him with me as much as I can to help Leslie a bit.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Isn’t there something odd about his eyes?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You noticed that?  Yes, one is blue and t’other is hazel&mdash;his father
+had the same.  It’s a Moore peculiarity.  That was what told me he was
+Dick Moore when I saw him first down in Cuby.  If it hadn’t a-bin for
+his eyes I mightn’t a-known him, with his beard and fat.  You know, I
+reckon, that it was me found him and brought him home.  Miss Cornelia
+always says I shouldn’t have done it, but I can’t agree with her.  It
+was the RIGHT thing to do&mdash;and so ’twas the only thing.  There ain’t no
+question in my mind about THAT.  But my old heart aches for Leslie.
+She’s only twenty-eight and she’s eaten more bread with sorrow than
+most women do in eighty years.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They walked on in silence for a little while.  Presently Anne said, “Do
+you know, Captain Jim, I never like walking with a lantern.  I have
+always the strangest feeling that just outside the circle of light,
+just over its edge in the darkness, I am surrounded by a ring of
+furtive, sinister things, watching me from the shadows with hostile
+eyes.  I’ve had that feeling from childhood.  What is the reason?  I
+never feel like that when I’m really in the darkness&mdash;when it is close
+all around me&mdash;I’m not the least frightened.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve something of that feeling myself,” admitted Captain Jim.  “I
+reckon when the darkness is close to us it is a friend.  But when we
+sorter push it away from us&mdash;divorce ourselves from it, so to speak,
+with lantern light&mdash;it becomes an enemy.  But the fog is lifting.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There’s a smart west wind rising, if you notice.  The stars will be
+out when you get home.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were out; and when Anne re-entered her house of dreams the red
+embers were still glowing on the hearth, and all the haunting presences
+were gone.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap14"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 14
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+NOVEMBER DAYS
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The splendor of color which had glowed for weeks along the shores of
+Four Winds Harbor had faded out into the soft gray-blue of late
+autumnal hills.  There came many days when fields and shores were dim
+with misty rain, or shivering before the breath of a melancholy
+sea-wind&mdash;nights, too, of storm and tempest, when Anne sometimes
+wakened to pray that no ship might be beating up the grim north shore,
+for if it were so not even the great, faithful light whirling through
+the darkness unafraid, could avail to guide it into safe haven.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“In November I sometimes feel as if spring could never come again,” she
+sighed, grieving over the hopeless unsightliness of her frosted and
+bedraggled flower-plots.  The gay little garden of the schoolmaster’s
+bride was rather a forlorn place now, and the Lombardies and birches
+were under bare poles, as Captain Jim said.  But the fir-wood behind
+the little house was forever green and staunch; and even in November
+and December there came gracious days of sunshine and purple hazes,
+when the harbor danced and sparkled as blithely as in midsummer, and
+the gulf was so softly blue and tender that the storm and the wild wind
+seemed only things of a long-past dream.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne and Gilbert spent many an autumn evening at the lighthouse.  It
+was always a cheery place.  Even when the east wind sang in minor and
+the sea was dead and gray, hints of sunshine seemed to be lurking all
+about it.  Perhaps this was because the First Mate always paraded it in
+panoply of gold.  He was so large and effulgent that one hardly missed
+the sun, and his resounding purrs formed a pleasant accompaniment to
+the laughter and conversation which went on around Captain Jim’s
+fireplace.  Captain Jim and Gilbert had many long discussions and high
+converse on matters beyond the ken of cat or king.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I like to ponder on all kinds of problems, though I can’t solve ’em,”
+said Captain Jim.  “My father held that we should never talk of things
+we couldn’t understand, but if we didn’t, doctor, the subjects for
+conversation would be mighty few.  I reckon the gods laugh many a time
+to hear us, but what matters so long as we remember that we’re only men
+and don’t take to fancying that we’re gods ourselves, really, knowing
+good and evil.  I reckon our pow-wows won’t do us or anyone much harm,
+so let’s have another whack at the whence, why and whither this
+evening, doctor.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While they “whacked,” Anne listened or dreamed.  Sometimes Leslie went
+to the lighthouse with them, and she and Anne wandered along the shore
+in the eerie twilight, or sat on the rocks below the lighthouse until
+the darkness drove them back to the cheer of the driftwood fire.  Then
+Captain Jim would brew them tea and tell them
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+    “tales of land and sea<BR>
+    And whatsoever might betide<BR>
+    The great forgotten world outside.”<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie seemed always to enjoy those lighthouse carousals very much, and
+bloomed out for the time being into ready wit and beautiful laughter,
+or glowing-eyed silence.  There was a certain tang and savor in the
+conversation when Leslie was present which they missed when she was
+absent.  Even when she did not talk she seemed to inspire others to
+brilliancy.  Captain Jim told his stories better, Gilbert was quicker
+in argument and repartee, Anne felt little gushes and trickles of fancy
+and imagination bubbling to her lips under the influence of Leslie’s
+personality.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That girl was born to be a leader in social and intellectual circles,
+far away from Four Winds,” she said to Gilbert as they walked home one
+night.  “She’s just wasted here&mdash;wasted.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Weren’t you listening to Captain Jim and yours truly the other night
+when we discussed that subject generally?  We came to the comforting
+conclusion that the Creator probably knew how to run His universe quite
+as well as we do, and that, after all, there are no such things as
+'wasted’ lives, saving and except when an individual wilfully squanders
+and wastes his own life&mdash;which Leslie Moore certainly hasn’t done.  And
+some people might think that a Redmond B.A., whom editors were
+beginning to honor, was 'wasted’ as the wife of a struggling country
+doctor in the rural community of Four Winds.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If you had married Roy Gardner, now,” continued Gilbert mercilessly,
+“YOU could have been 'a leader in social and intellectual circles far
+away from Four Winds.’”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert BLYTHE!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You KNOW you were in love with him at one time, Anne.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert, that’s mean&mdash;'pisen mean, just like all the men,’ as Miss
+Cornelia says.  I NEVER was in love with him.  I only imagined I was.
+YOU know that.  You KNOW I’d rather be your wife in our house of dreams
+and fulfillment than a queen in a palace.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert’s answer was not in words; but I am afraid that both of them
+forgot poor Leslie speeding her lonely way across the fields to a house
+that was neither a palace nor the fulfillment of a dream.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The moon was rising over the sad, dark sea behind them and
+transfiguring it.  Her light had not yet reached the harbor, the
+further side of which was shadowy and suggestive, with dim coves and
+rich glooms and jewelling lights.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How the home lights shine out tonight through the dark!” said Anne.
+“That string of them over the harbor looks like a necklace.  And what a
+coruscation there is up at the Glen!  Oh, look, Gilbert; there is ours.
+I’m so glad we left it burning.  I hate to come home to a dark house.
+OUR homelight, Gilbert!  Isn’t it lovely to see?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Just one of earth’s many millions of homes, Anne&mdash;girl&mdash;but
+ours&mdash;OURS&mdash;our beacon in 'a naughty world.’  When a fellow has a home
+and a dear, little, red-haired wife in it what more need he ask of
+life?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, he might ask ONE thing more,” whispered Anne happily.  “Oh,
+Gilbert, it seems as if I just COULDN’T wait for the spring.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap15"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 15
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+CHRISTMAS AT FOUR WINDS
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+At first Anne and Gilbert talked of going home to Avonlea for
+Christmas; but eventually they decided to stay in Four Winds.  “I want
+to spend the first Christmas of our life together in our own home,”
+decreed Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So it fell out that Marilla and Mrs. Rachel Lynde and the twins came to
+Four Winds for Christmas.  Marilla had the face of a woman who had
+circumnavigated the globe.  She had never been sixty miles away from
+home before; and she had never eaten a Christmas dinner anywhere save
+at Green Gables.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Rachel had made and brought with her an enormous plum pudding.
+Nothing could have convinced Mrs. Rachel that a college graduate of the
+younger generation could make a Christmas plum pudding properly; but
+she bestowed approval on Anne’s house.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne’s a good housekeeper,” she said to Marilla in the spare room the
+night of their arrival.  “I’ve looked into her bread box and her scrap
+pail.  I always judge a housekeeper by those, that’s what.  There’s
+nothing in the pail that shouldn’t have been thrown away, and no stale
+pieces in the bread box.  Of course, she was trained up with you&mdash;but,
+then, she went to college afterwards.  I notice she’s got my tobacco
+stripe quilt on the bed here, and that big round braided mat of yours
+before her living-room fire.  It makes me feel right at home.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne’s first Christmas in her own house was as delightful as she could
+have wished.  The day was fine and bright; the first skim of snow had
+fallen on Christmas Eve and made the world beautiful; the harbor was
+still open and glittering.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim and Miss Cornelia came to dinner.  Leslie and Dick had been
+invited, but Leslie made excuse; they always went to her Uncle Isaac
+West’s for Christmas, she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She’d rather have it so,” Miss Cornelia told Anne.  “She can’t bear
+taking Dick where there are strangers.  Christmas is always a hard time
+for Leslie.  She and her father used to make a lot of it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia and Mrs. Rachel did not take a very violent fancy to each
+other.  “Two suns hold not their courses in one sphere.”  But they did
+not clash at all, for Mrs. Rachel was in the kitchen helping Anne and
+Marilla with the dinner, and it fell to Gilbert to entertain Captain
+Jim and Miss Cornelia,&mdash;or rather to be entertained by them, for a
+dialogue between those two old friends and antagonists was assuredly
+never dull.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s many a year since there was a Christmas dinner here, Mistress
+Blythe,” said Captain Jim.  “Miss Russell always went to her friends in
+town for Christmas.  But I was here to the first Christmas dinner that
+was ever eaten in this house&mdash;and the schoolmaster’s bride cooked it.
+That was sixty years ago today, Mistress Blythe&mdash;and a day very like
+this&mdash;just enough snow to make the hills white, and the harbor as blue
+as June.  I was only a lad, and I’d never been invited out to dinner
+before, and I was too shy to eat enough.  I’ve got all over THAT.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Most men do,” said Miss Cornelia, sewing furiously.  Miss Cornelia was
+not going to sit with idle hands, even on Christmas.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Babies come without any consideration for holidays, and there was one
+expected in a poverty-stricken household at Glen St. Mary.  Miss
+Cornelia had sent that household a substantial dinner for its little
+swarm, and so meant to eat her own with a comfortable conscience.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, you know, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,
+Cornelia,” explained Captain Jim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I believe you&mdash;when he HAS a heart,” retorted Miss Cornelia.  “I
+suppose that’s why so many women kill themselves cooking&mdash;just as poor
+Amelia Baxter did.  She died last Christmas morning, and she said it
+was the first Christmas since she was married that she didn’t have to
+cook a big, twenty-plate dinner.  It must have been a real pleasant
+change for her.  Well, she’s been dead a year, so you’ll soon hear of
+Horace Baxter taking notice.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I heard he was taking notice already,” said Captain Jim, winking at
+Gilbert.  “Wasn’t he up to your place one Sunday lately, with his
+funeral blacks on, and a boiled collar?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, he wasn’t.  And he needn’t come neither.  I could have had him
+long ago when he was fresh.  I don’t want any second-hand goods,
+believe ME.  As for Horace Baxter, he was in financial difficulties a
+year ago last summer, and he prayed to the Lord for help; and when his
+wife died and he got her life insurance he said he believed it was the
+answer to his prayer.  Wasn’t that like a man?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Have you really proof that he said that, Cornelia?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I have the Methodist minister’s word for it&mdash;if you call THAT proof.
+Robert Baxter told me the same thing too, but I admit THAT isn’t
+evidence.  Robert Baxter isn’t often known to tell the truth.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Come, come, Cornelia, I think he generally tells the truth, but he
+changes his opinion so often it sometimes sounds as if he didn’t.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It sounds like it mighty often, believe ME.  But trust one man to
+excuse another.  I have no use for Robert Baxter.  He turned Methodist
+just because the Presbyterian choir happened to be singing 'Behold the
+bridegroom cometh’ for a collection piece when him and Margaret walked
+up the aisle the Sunday after they were married.  Served him right for
+being late!  He always insisted the choir did it on purpose to insult
+him, as if he was of that much importance.  But that family always
+thought they were much bigger potatoes than they really were.  His
+brother Eliphalet imagined the devil was always at his elbow&mdash;but <I>I</I>
+never believed the devil wasted that much time on him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I&mdash;don’t&mdash;know,” said Captain Jim thoughtfully.  “Eliphalet Baxter
+lived too much alone&mdash;hadn’t even a cat or dog to keep him human.  When
+a man is alone he’s mighty apt to be with the devil&mdash;if he ain’t with
+God.  He has to choose which company he’ll keep, I reckon.  If the
+devil always was at Life Baxter’s elbow it must have been because Life
+liked to have him there.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Man-like,” said Miss Cornelia, and subsided into silence over a
+complicated arrangement of tucks until Captain Jim deliberately stirred
+her up again by remarking in a casual way:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I was up to the Methodist church last Sunday morning.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’d better have been home reading your Bible,” was Miss Cornelia’s
+retort.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Come, now, Cornelia, <I>I</I> can’t see any harm in going to the Methodist
+church when there’s no preaching in your own.  I’ve been a Presbyterian
+for seventy-six years, and it isn’t likely my theology will hoist
+anchor at this late day.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s setting a bad example,” said Miss Cornelia grimly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Besides,” continued wicked Captain Jim, “I wanted to hear some good
+singing.  The Methodists have a good choir; and you can’t deny,
+Cornelia, that the singing in our church is awful since the split in
+the choir.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What if the singing isn’t good?  They’re doing their best, and God
+sees no difference between the voice of a crow and the voice of a
+nightingale.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Come, come, Cornelia,” said Captain Jim mildly, “I’ve a better opinion
+of the Almighty’s ear for music than THAT.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What caused the trouble in our choir?” asked Gilbert, who was
+suffering from suppressed laughter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It dates back to the new church, three years ago,” answered Captain
+Jim.  “We had a fearful time over the building of that church&mdash;fell out
+over the question of a new site.  The two sites wasn’t more’n two
+hundred yards apart, but you’d have thought they was a thousand by the
+bitterness of that fight.  We was split up into three factions&mdash;one
+wanted the east site and one the south, and one held to the old.  It
+was fought out in bed and at board, and in church and at market.  All
+the old scandals of three generations were dragged out of their graves
+and aired.  Three matches was broken up by it.  And the meetings we had
+to try to settle the question!  Cornelia, will you ever forget the one
+when old Luther Burns got up and made a speech?  HE stated his opinions
+forcibly.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Call a spade a spade, Captain.  You mean he got red-mad and raked them
+all, fore and aft.  They deserved it too&mdash;a pack of incapables.  But
+what would you expect of a committee of men?  That building committee
+held twenty-seven meetings, and at the end of the twenty-seventh
+weren’t no nearer having a church than when they begun&mdash;not so near,
+for a fact, for in one fit of hurrying things along they’d gone to work
+and tore the old church down, so there we were, without a church, and
+no place but the hall to worship in.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The Methodists offered us their church, Cornelia.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The Glen St. Mary church wouldn’t have been built to this day,” went
+on Miss Cornelia, ignoring Captain Jim, “if we women hadn’t just
+started in and took charge.  We said WE meant to have a church, if the
+men meant to quarrel till doomsday, and we were tired of being a
+laughing-stock for the Methodists.  We held ONE meeting and elected a
+committee and canvassed for subscriptions.  We got them, too.  When any
+of the men tried to sass us we told them they’d tried for two years to
+build a church and it was our turn now.  We shut them up close, believe
+ME, and in six months we had our church.  Of course, when the men saw
+we were determined they stopped fighting and went to work, man-like, as
+soon as they saw they had to, or quit bossing.  Oh, women can’t preach
+or be elders; but they can build churches and scare up the money for
+them.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The Methodists allow women to preach,” said Captain Jim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia glared at him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I never said the Methodists hadn’t common sense, Captain. What I say
+is, I doubt if they have much religion.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I suppose you are in favor of votes for women, Miss Cornelia,” said
+Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m not hankering after the vote, believe ME,” said Miss Cornelia
+scornfully.  “<I>I</I> know what it is to clean up after the men.  But some
+of these days, when the men realize they’ve got the world into a mess
+they can’t get it out of, they’ll be glad to give us the vote, and
+shoulder their troubles over on us.  That’s THEIR scheme.  Oh, it’s
+well that women are patient, believe ME!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What about Job?” suggested Captain Jim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Job!  It was such a rare thing to find a patient man that when one was
+really discovered they were determined he shouldn’t be forgotten,”
+retorted Miss Cornelia triumphantly.  “Anyhow, the virtue doesn’t go
+with the name.  There never was such an impatient man born as old Job
+Taylor over harbor.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, you know, he had a good deal to try him, Cornelia.  Even you
+can’t defend his wife.  I always remember what old William MacAllister
+said of her at her funeral, 'There’s nae doot she was a Chreestian
+wumman, but she had the de’il’s own temper.’”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I suppose she WAS trying,” admitted Miss Cornelia reluctantly, “but
+that didn’t justify what Job said when she died.  He rode home from the
+graveyard the day of the funeral with my father.  He never said a word
+till they got near home.  Then he heaved a big sigh and said, 'You may
+not believe it, Stephen, but this is the happiest day of my life!’
+Wasn’t that like a man?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I s’pose poor old Mrs. Job did make life kinder uneasy for him,”
+reflected Captain Jim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, there’s such a thing as decency, isn’t there?  Even if a man is
+rejoicing in his heart over his wife being dead, he needn’t proclaim it
+to the four winds of heaven.  And happy day or not, Job Taylor wasn’t
+long in marrying again, you might notice.  His second wife could manage
+him.  She made him walk Spanish, believe me!  The first thing she did
+was to make him hustle round and put up a tombstone to the first Mrs.
+Job&mdash;and she had a place left on it for her own name.  She said there’d
+be nobody to make Job put up a monument to HER.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Speaking of Taylors, how is Mrs. Lewis Taylor up at the Glen, doctor?”
+asked Captain Jim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She’s getting better slowly&mdash;but she has to work too hard,” replied
+Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Her husband works hard too&mdash;raising prize pigs,” said Miss Cornelia.
+“He’s noted for his beautiful pigs.  He’s a heap prouder of his pigs
+than of his children.  But then, to be sure, his pigs are the best pigs
+possible, while his children don’t amount to much.  He picked a poor
+mother for them, and starved her while she was bearing and rearing
+them.  His pigs got the cream and his children got the skim milk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There are times, Cornelia, when I have to agree with you, though it
+hurts me,” said Captain Jim.  “That’s just exactly the truth about
+Lewis Taylor.  When I see those poor, miserable children of his, robbed
+of all children ought to have, it p’isens my own bite and sup for days
+afterwards.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert went out to the kitchen in response to Anne’s beckoning.  Anne
+shut the door and gave him a connubial lecture.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert, you and Captain Jim must stop baiting Miss Cornelia.  Oh,
+I’ve been listening to you&mdash;and I just won’t allow it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+'Anne, Miss Cornelia is enjoying herself hugely.  You know she is.’
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, never mind.  You two needn’t egg her on like that.  Dinner is
+ready now, and, Gilbert, DON’T let Mrs. Rachel carve the geese.  I know
+she means to offer to do it because she doesn’t think you can do it
+properly.  Show her you can.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I ought to be able to.  I’ve been studying A-B-C-D diagrams of carving
+for the past month,” said Gilbert.  “Only don’t talk to me while I’m
+doing it, Anne, for if you drive the letters out of my head I’ll be in
+a worse predicament than you were in old geometry days when the teacher
+changed them.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert carved the geese beautifully.  Even Mrs. Rachel had to admit
+that.  And everybody ate of them and enjoyed them.  Anne’s first
+Christmas dinner was a great success and she beamed with housewifely
+pride.  Merry was the feast and long; and when it was over they
+gathered around the cheer of the red hearth flame and Captain Jim told
+them stories until the red sun swung low over Four Winds Harbor, and
+the long blue shadows of the Lombardies fell across the snow in the
+lane.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I must be getting back to the light,” he said finally.  “I’ll jest
+have time to walk home before sundown.  Thank you for a beautiful
+Christmas, Mistress Blythe.  Bring Master Davy down to the light some
+night before he goes home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I want to see those stone gods,” said Davy with a relish.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap16"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 16
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+NEW YEAR’S EVE AT THE LIGHT
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The Green Gables folk went home after Christmas, Marilla under solemn
+covenant to return for a month in the spring.  More snow came before
+New Year’s, and the harbor froze over, but the gulf still was free,
+beyond the white, imprisoned fields.  The last day of the old year was
+one of those bright, cold, dazzling winter days, which bombard us with
+their brilliancy, and command our admiration but never our love.  The
+sky was sharp and blue; the snow diamonds sparkled insistently; the
+stark trees were bare and shameless, with a kind of brazen beauty; the
+hills shot assaulting lances of crystal.  Even the shadows were sharp
+and stiff and clear-cut, as no proper shadows should be.  Everything
+that was handsome seemed ten times handsomer and less attractive in the
+glaring splendor; and everything that was ugly seemed ten times uglier,
+and everything was either handsome or ugly.  There was no soft
+blending, or kind obscurity, or elusive mistiness in that searching
+glitter.  The only things that held their own individuality were the
+firs&mdash;for the fir is the tree of mystery and shadow, and yields never
+to the encroachments of crude radiance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But finally the day began to realise that she was growing old.  Then a
+certain pensiveness fell over her beauty which dimmed yet intensified
+it; sharp angles, glittering points, melted away into curves and
+enticing gleams.  The white harbor put on soft grays and pinks; the
+far-away hills turned amethyst.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The old year is going away beautifully,” said Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She and Leslie and Gilbert were on their way to the Four Winds Point,
+having plotted with Captain Jim to watch the New Year in at the light.
+The sun had set and in the southwestern sky hung Venus, glorious and
+golden, having drawn as near to her earth-sister as is possible for
+her.  For the first time Anne and Gilbert saw the shadow cast by that
+brilliant star of evening, that faint, mysterious shadow, never seen
+save when there is white snow to reveal it, and then only with averted
+vision, vanishing when you gaze at it directly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s like the spirit of a shadow, isn’t it?” whispered Anne.  “You can
+see it so plainly haunting your side when you look ahead; but when you
+turn and look at it&mdash;it’s gone.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I have heard that you can see the shadow of Venus only once in a
+lifetime, and that within a year of seeing it your life’s most
+wonderful gift will come to you,” said Leslie.  But she spoke rather
+hardly; perhaps she thought that even the shadow of Venus could bring
+her no gift of life.  Anne smiled in the soft twilight; she felt quite
+sure what the mystic shadow promised her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They found Marshall Elliott at the lighthouse.  At first Anne felt
+inclined to resent the intrusion of this long-haired, long-bearded
+eccentric into the familiar little circle.  But Marshall Elliott soon
+proved his legitimate claim to membership in the household of Joseph.
+He was a witty, intelligent, well-read man, rivalling Captain Jim
+himself in the knack of telling a good story.  They were all glad when
+he agreed to watch the old year out with them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim’s small nephew Joe had come down to spend New Year’s with
+his great-uncle, and had fallen asleep on the sofa with the First Mate
+curled up in a huge golden ball at his feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Ain’t he a dear little man?” said Captain Jim gloatingly.  “I do love
+to watch a little child asleep, Mistress Blythe.  It’s the most
+beautiful sight in the world, I reckon.  Joe does love to get down here
+for a night, because I have him sleep with me.  At home he has to sleep
+with the other two boys, and he doesn’t like it.  Why can’t I sleep
+with father, Uncle Jim?” says he.  'Everybody in the Bible slept with
+their fathers.’  As for the questions he asks, the minister himself
+couldn’t answer them.  They fair swamp me.  'Uncle Jim, if I wasn’t ME
+who’d I be?’ and, 'Uncle Jim, what would happen if God died?’  He fired
+them two off at me tonight, afore he went to sleep.  As for his
+imagination, it sails away from everything.  He makes up the most
+remarkable yarns&mdash;and then his mother shuts him up in the closet for
+telling stories.  And he sits down and makes up another one, and has it
+ready to relate to her when she lets him out.  He had one for me when
+he come down tonight.  'Uncle Jim,’ says he, solemn as a tombstone, 'I
+had a ’venture in the Glen today.’  'Yes, what was it?’ says I,
+expecting something quite startling, but nowise prepared for what I
+really got.  'I met a wolf in the street,’ says he, 'a ’normous wolf
+with a big, red mouf and AWFUL long teeth, Uncle Jim.’  'I didn’t know
+there was any wolves up at the Glen,’ says I.  'Oh, he comed there from
+far, far away,’ says Joe, 'and I fought he was going to eat me up,
+Uncle Jim.’  'Were you scared?’ says I.  'No, ’cause I had a big gun,’
+says Joe, 'and I shot the wolf dead, Uncle Jim,&mdash;solid dead&mdash;and then
+he went up to heaven and bit God,’ says he.  Well, I was fair
+staggered, Mistress Blythe.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The hours bloomed into mirth around the driftwood fire.  Captain Jim
+told tales, and Marshall Elliott sang old Scotch ballads in a fine
+tenor voice; finally Captain Jim took down his old brown fiddle from
+the wall and began to play.  He had a tolerable knack of fiddling,
+which all appreciated save the First Mate, who sprang from the sofa as
+if he had been shot, emitted a shriek of protest, and fled wildly up
+the stairs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Can’t cultivate an ear for music in that cat nohow,” said Captain Jim.
+“He won’t stay long enough to learn to like it.  When we got the organ
+up at the Glen church old Elder Richards bounced up from his seat the
+minute the organist began to play and scuttled down the aisle and out
+of the church at the rate of no-man’s-business.  It reminded me so
+strong of the First Mate tearing loose as soon as I begin to fiddle
+that I come nearer to laughing out loud in church than I ever did
+before or since.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was something so infectious in the rollicking tunes which Captain
+Jim played that very soon Marshall Elliott’s feet began to twitch.  He
+had been a noted dancer in his youth.  Presently he started up and held
+out his hands to Leslie.  Instantly she responded.  Round and round the
+firelit room they circled with a rhythmic grace that was wonderful.
+Leslie danced like one inspired; the wild, sweet abandon of the music
+seemed to have entered into and possessed her.  Anne watched her in
+fascinated admiration.  She had never seen her like this.  All the
+innate richness and color and charm of her nature seemed to have broken
+loose and overflowed in crimson cheek and glowing eye and grace of
+motion.  Even the aspect of Marshall Elliott, with his long beard and
+hair, could not spoil the picture.  On the contrary, it seemed to
+enhance it.  Marshall Elliott looked like a Viking of elder days,
+dancing with one of the blue-eyed, golden-haired daughters of the
+Northland.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The purtiest dancing I ever saw, and I’ve seen some in my time,”
+declared Captain Jim, when at last the bow fell from his tired hand.
+Leslie dropped into her chair, laughing, breathless.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I love dancing,” she said apart to Anne.  “I haven’t danced since I
+was sixteen&mdash;but I love it.  The music seems to run through my veins
+like quicksilver and I forget everything&mdash;everything&mdash;except the
+delight of keeping time to it.  There isn’t any floor beneath me, or
+walls about me, or roof over me&mdash;I’m floating amid the stars.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim hung his fiddle up in its place, beside a large frame
+enclosing several banknotes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Is there anybody else of your acquaintance who can afford to hang his
+walls with banknotes for pictures?” he asked.  “There’s twenty
+ten-dollar notes there, not worth the glass over them.  They’re old
+Bank of P. E.  Island notes.  Had them by me when the bank failed, and
+I had ’em framed and hung up, partly as a reminder not to put your
+trust in banks, and partly to give me a real luxurious, millionairy
+feeling.  Hullo, Matey, don’t be scared.  You can come back now.  The
+music and revelry is over for tonight.  The old year has just another
+hour to stay with us.  I’ve seen seventy-six New Years come in over
+that gulf yonder, Mistress Blythe.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’ll see a hundred,” said Marshall Elliott.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No; and I don’t want to&mdash;at least, I think I don’t.  Death grows
+friendlier as we grow older.  Not that one of us really wants to die
+though, Marshall.  Tennyson spoke truth when he said that.  There’s old
+Mrs. Wallace up at the Glen.  She’s had heaps of trouble all her life,
+poor soul, and she’s lost almost everyone she cared about.  She’s
+always saying that she’ll be glad when her time comes, and she doesn’t
+want to sojourn any longer in this vale of tears.  But when she takes a
+sick spell there’s a fuss!  Doctors from town, and a trained nurse, and
+enough medicine to kill a dog.  Life may be a vale of tears, all right,
+but there are some folks who enjoy weeping, I reckon.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They spent the old year’s last hour quietly around the fire.  A few
+minutes before twelve Captain Jim rose and opened the door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We must let the New Year in,” he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Outside was a fine blue night.  A sparkling ribbon of moonlight
+garlanded the gulf.  Inside the bar the harbor shone like a pavement of
+pearl.  They stood before the door and waited&mdash;Captain Jim with his
+ripe, full experience, Marshall Elliott in his vigorous but empty
+middle life, Gilbert and Anne with their precious memories and
+exquisite hopes, Leslie with her record of starved years and her
+hopeless future.  The clock on the little shelf above the fireplace
+struck twelve.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Welcome, New Year,” said Captain Jim, bowing low as the last stroke
+died away.  “I wish you all the best year of your lives, mates.  I
+reckon that whatever the New Year brings us will be the best the Great
+Captain has for us&mdash;and somehow or other we’ll all make port in a good
+harbor.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap17"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 17
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+A FOUR WINDS WINTER
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Winter set in vigorously after New Year’s.  Big, white drifts heaped
+themselves about the little house, and palms of frost covered its
+windows.  The harbor ice grew harder and thicker, until the Four Winds
+people began their usual winter travelling over it.  The safe ways were
+“bushed” by a benevolent Government, and night and day the gay tinkle
+of the sleigh-bells sounded on it.  On moonlit nights Anne heard them
+in her house of dreams like fairy chimes.  The gulf froze over, and the
+Four Winds light flashed no more.  During the months when navigation
+was closed Captain Jim’s office was a sinecure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The First Mate and I will have nothing to do till spring except keep
+warm and amuse ourselves.  The last lighthouse keeper used always to
+move up to the Glen in winter; but I’d rather stay at the Point.  The
+First Mate might get poisoned or chewed up by dogs at the Glen.  It’s a
+mite lonely, to be sure, with neither the light nor the water for
+company, but if our friends come to see us often we’ll weather it
+through.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim had an ice boat, and many a wild, glorious spin Gilbert and
+Anne and Leslie had over the glib harbor ice with him.  Anne and Leslie
+took long snowshoe tramps together, too, over the fields, or across the
+harbor after storms, or through the woods beyond the Glen.  They were
+very good comrades in their rambles and their fireside communings.
+Each had something to give the other&mdash;each felt life the richer for
+friendly exchange of thought and friendly silence; each looked across
+the white fields between their homes with a pleasant consciousness of a
+friend beyond.  But, in spite of all this, Anne felt that there was
+always a barrier between Leslie and herself&mdash;a constraint that never
+wholly vanished.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t know why I can’t get closer to her,” Anne said one evening to
+Captain Jim.  “I like her so much&mdash;I admire her so much&mdash;I WANT to take
+her right into my heart and creep right into hers.  But I can never
+cross the barrier.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’ve been too happy all your life, Mistress Blythe,” said Captain
+Jim thoughtfully.  “I reckon that’s why you and Leslie can’t get real
+close together in your souls.  The barrier between you is her
+experience of sorrow and trouble.  She ain’t responsible for it and you
+ain’t; but it’s there and neither of you can cross it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“My childhood wasn’t very happy before I came to Green Gables,” said
+Anne, gazing soberly out of the window at the still, sad, dead beauty
+of the leafless tree-shadows on the moonlit snow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Mebbe not&mdash;but it was just the usual unhappiness of a child who hasn’t
+anyone to look after it properly.  There hasn’t been any TRAGEDY in
+your life, Mistress Blythe.  And poor Leslie’s has been almost ALL
+tragedy.  She feels, I reckon, though mebbe she hardly knows she feels
+it, that there’s a vast deal in her life you can’t enter nor
+understand&mdash;and so she has to keep you back from it&mdash;hold you off, so
+to speak, from hurting her.  You know if we’ve got anything about us
+that hurts we shrink from anyone’s touch on or near it.  It holds good
+with our souls as well as our bodies, I reckon.  Leslie’s soul must be
+near raw&mdash;it’s no wonder she hides it away.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If that were really all, I wouldn’t mind, Captain Jim.  I would
+understand.  But there are times&mdash;not always, but now and again&mdash;when I
+almost have to believe that Leslie doesn’t&mdash;doesn’t like me.  Sometimes
+I surprise a look in her eyes that seems to show resentment and
+dislike&mdash;it goes so quickly&mdash;but I’ve seen it, I’m sure of that.  And
+it hurts me, Captain Jim.  I’m not used to being disliked&mdash;and I’ve
+tried so hard to win Leslie’s friendship.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You have won it, Mistress Blythe.  Don’t you go cherishing any foolish
+notion that Leslie don’t like you.  If she didn’t she wouldn’t have
+anything to do with you, much less chumming with you as she does.  I
+know Leslie Moore too well not to be sure of that.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The first time I ever saw her, driving her geese down the hill on the
+day I came to Four Winds, she looked at me with the same expression,”
+persisted Anne.  “I felt it, even in the midst of my admiration of her
+beauty.  She looked at me resentfully&mdash;she did, indeed, Captain Jim.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The resentment must have been about something else, Mistress Blythe,
+and you jest come in for a share of it because you happened past.
+Leslie DOES take sullen spells now and again, poor girl.  I can’t blame
+her, when I know what she has to put up with.  I don’t know why it’s
+permitted.  The doctor and I have talked a lot abut the origin of evil,
+but we haven’t quite found out all about it yet.  There’s a vast of
+onunderstandable things in life, ain’t there, Mistress Blythe?
+Sometimes things seem to work out real proper-like, same as with you
+and the doctor.  And then again they all seem to go catawampus.
+There’s Leslie, so clever and beautiful you’d think she was meant for a
+queen, and instead she’s cooped up over there, robbed of almost
+everything a woman’d value, with no prospect except waiting on Dick
+Moore all her life.  Though, mind you, Mistress Blythe, I daresay she’d
+choose her life now, such as it is, rather than the life she lived with
+Dick before he went away.  THAT’S something a clumsy old sailor’s
+tongue mustn’t meddle with.  But you’ve helped Leslie a lot&mdash;she’s a
+different creature since you come to Four Winds.  Us old friends see
+the difference in her, as you can’t.  Miss Cornelia and me was talking
+it over the other day, and it’s one of the mighty few p’ints that we
+see eye to eye on.  So jest you throw overboard any idea of her not
+liking you.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne could hardly discard it completely, for there were undoubtedly
+times when she felt, with an instinct that was not to be combated by
+reason, that Leslie harbored a queer, indefinable resentment towards
+her.  At times, this secret consciousness marred the delight of their
+comradeship; at others it was almost forgotten; but Anne always felt
+the hidden thorn was there, and might prick her at any moment.  She
+felt a cruel sting from it on the day when she told Leslie of what she
+hoped the spring would bring to the little house of dreams.  Leslie
+looked at her with hard, bitter, unfriendly eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“So you are to have THAT, too,” she said in a choked voice.  And
+without another word she had turned and gone across the fields
+homeward.  Anne was deeply hurt; for the moment she felt as if she
+could never like Leslie again.  But when Leslie came over a few
+evenings later she was so pleasant, so friendly, so frank, and witty,
+and winsome, that Anne was charmed into forgiveness and forgetfulness.
+Only, she never mentioned her darling hope to Leslie again; nor did
+Leslie ever refer to it.  But one evening, when late winter was
+listening for the word of spring, she came over to the little house for
+a twilight chat; and when she went away she left a small, white box on
+the table.  Anne found it after she was gone and opened it wonderingly.
+In it was a tiny white dress of exquisite workmanship&mdash;delicate
+embroidery, wonderful tucking, sheer loveliness.  Every stitch in it
+was handwork; and the little frills of lace at neck and sleeves were of
+real Valenciennes.  Lying on it was a card&mdash;“with Leslie’s love.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What hours of work she must have put on it,” said Anne.  “And the
+material must have cost more than she could really afford.  It is very
+sweet of her.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Leslie was brusque and curt when Anne thanked her, and again the
+latter felt thrown back upon herself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie’s gift was not alone in the little house.  Miss Cornelia had,
+for the time being, given up sewing for unwanted, unwelcome eighth
+babies, and fallen to sewing for a very much wanted first one, whose
+welcome would leave nothing to be desired.  Philippa Blake and Diana
+Wright each sent a marvellous garment; and Mrs. Rachel Lynde sent
+several, in which good material and honest stitches took the place of
+embroidery and frills.  Anne herself made many, desecrated by no touch
+of machinery, spending over them the happiest hours of the happy winter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim was the most frequent guest of the little house, and none
+was more welcome.  Every day Anne loved the simple-souled, true-hearted
+old sailor more and more.  He was as refreshing as a sea breeze, as
+interesting as some ancient chronicle.  She was never tired of
+listening to his stories, and his quaint remarks and comments were a
+continual delight to her.  Captain Jim was one of those rare and
+interesting people who “never speak but they say something.”  The milk
+of human kindness and the wisdom of the serpent were mingled in his
+composition in delightful proportions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nothing ever seemed to put Captain Jim out or depress him in any way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve kind of contracted a habit of enj’ying things,” he remarked once,
+when Anne had commented on his invariable cheerfulness.  “It’s got so
+chronic that I believe I even enj’y the disagreeable things.  It’s
+great fun thinking they can’t last.  'Old rheumatiz,’ says I, when it
+grips me hard, 'you’ve GOT to stop aching sometime.  The worse you are
+the sooner you’ll stop, mebbe.  I’m bound to get the better of you in
+the long run, whether in the body or out of the body.’”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One night, by the fireside at the light Anne saw Captain Jim’s
+“life-book.”  He needed no coaxing to show it and proudly gave it to
+her to read.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I writ it to leave to little Joe,” he said.  “I don’t like the idea of
+everything I’ve done and seen being clean forgot after I’ve shipped for
+my last v’yage.  Joe, he’ll remember it, and tell the yarns to his
+children.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was an old leather-bound book filled with the record of his voyages
+and adventures.  Anne thought what a treasure trove it would be to a
+writer.  Every sentence was a nugget.  In itself the book had no
+literary merit; Captain Jim’s charm of storytelling failed him when he
+came to pen and ink; he could only jot roughly down the outline of his
+famous tales, and both spelling and grammar were sadly askew.  But Anne
+felt that if anyone possessed of the gift could take that simple record
+of a brave, adventurous life, reading between the bald lines the tales
+of dangers staunchly faced and duty manfully done, a wonderful story
+might be made from it.  Rich comedy and thrilling tragedy were both
+lying hidden in Captain Jim’s “life-book,” waiting for the touch of the
+master hand to waken the laughter and grief and horror of thousands.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne said something of this to Gilbert as they walked home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Why don’t you try your hand at it yourself, Anne?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne shook her head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.  I only wish I could.  But it’s not in the power of my gift.  You
+know what my forte is, Gilbert&mdash;the fanciful, the fairylike, the
+pretty.  To write Captain Jim’s life-book as it should be written one
+should be a master of vigorous yet subtle style, a keen psychologist, a
+born humorist and a born tragedian.  A rare combination of gifts is
+needed.  Paul might do it if he were older.  Anyhow, I’m going to ask
+him to come down next summer and meet Captain Jim.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Come to this shore,” wrote Anne to Paul.  “I am afraid you cannot find
+here Nora or the Golden Lady or the Twin Sailors; but you will find one
+old sailor who can tell you wonderful stories.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Paul, however wrote back, saying regretfully that he could not come
+that year.  He was going abroad for two year’s study.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“When I return I’ll come to Four Winds, dear Teacher,” he wrote.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But meanwhile, Captain Jim is growing old,” said Anne, sorrowfully,
+“and there is nobody to write his life-book.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap18"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 18
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+SPRING DAYS
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The ice in the harbor grew black and rotten in the March suns; in April
+there were blue waters and a windy, white-capped gulf again; and again
+the Four Winds light begemmed the twilights.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m so glad to see it once more,” said Anne, on the first evening of
+its reappearance.  “I’ve missed it so all winter.  The northwestern sky
+has seemed blank and lonely without it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The land was tender with brand-new, golden-green, baby leaves.  There
+was an emerald mist on the woods beyond the Glen.  The seaward valleys
+were full of fairy mists at dawn.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Vibrant winds came and went with salt foam in their breath.  The sea
+laughed and flashed and preened and allured, like a beautiful,
+coquettish woman.  The herring schooled and the fishing village woke to
+life.  The harbor was alive with white sails making for the channel.
+The ships began to sail outward and inward again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“On a spring day like this,” said Anne, “I know exactly what my soul
+will feel like on the resurrection morning.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There are times in spring when I sorter feel that I might have been a
+poet if I’d been caught young,” remarked Captain Jim.  “I catch myself
+conning over old lines and verses I heard the schoolmaster reciting
+sixty years ago.  They don’t trouble me at other times.  Now I feel as
+if I had to get out on the rocks or the fields or the water and spout
+them.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim had come up that afternoon to bring Anne a load of shells
+for her garden, and a little bunch of sweet-grass which he had found in
+a ramble over the sand dunes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s getting real scarce along this shore now,” he said.  “When I was
+a boy there was a-plenty of it.  But now it’s only once in a while
+you’ll find a plot&mdash;and never when you’re looking for it.  You jest
+have to stumble on it&mdash;you’re walking along on the sand hills, never
+thinking of sweet-grass&mdash;and all at once the air is full of
+sweetness&mdash;and there’s the grass under your feet.  I favor the smell of
+sweet-grass.  It always makes me think of my mother.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She was fond of it?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Not that I knows on.  Dunno’s she ever saw any sweet-grass.  No, it’s
+because it has a kind of motherly perfume&mdash;not too young, you
+understand&mdash;something kind of seasoned and wholesome and
+dependable&mdash;jest like a mother.  The schoolmaster’s bride always kept
+it among her handkerchiefs.  You might put that little bunch among
+yours, Mistress Blythe.  I don’t like these boughten scents&mdash;but a
+whiff of sweet-grass belongs anywhere a lady does.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne had not been especially enthusiastic over the idea of surrounding
+her flower beds with quahog shells; as a decoration they did not appeal
+to her on first thought.  But she would not have hurt Captain Jim’s
+feelings for anything; so she assumed a virtue she did not at first
+feel, and thanked him heartily.  And when Captain Jim had proudly
+encircled every bed with a rim of the big, milk-white shells, Anne
+found to her surprise that she liked the effect.  On a town lawn, or
+even up at the Glen, they would not have been in keeping, but here, in
+the old-fashioned, sea-bound garden of the little house of dreams, they
+BELONGED.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“They DO look nice,” she said sincerely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The schoolmaster’s bride always had cowhawks round her beds,” said
+Captain Jim.  “She was a master hand with flowers.  She LOOKED at
+’em&mdash;and touched ’em&mdash;SO&mdash;and they grew like mad.  Some folks have that
+knack&mdash;I reckon you have it, too, Mistress Blythe.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I don’t know&mdash;but I love my garden, and I love working in it.  To
+potter with green, growing things, watching each day to see the dear,
+new sprouts come up, is like taking a hand in creation, I think.  Just
+now my garden is like faith&mdash;the substance of things hoped for.  But
+bide a wee.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It always amazes me to look at the little, wrinkled brown seeds and
+think of the rainbows in ’em,” said Captain Jim.  “When I ponder on
+them seeds I don’t find it nowise hard to believe that we’ve got souls
+that’ll live in other worlds.  You couldn’t hardly believe there was
+life in them tiny things, some no bigger than grains of dust, let alone
+color and scent, if you hadn’t seen the miracle, could you?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne, who was counting her days like silver beads on a rosary, could
+not now take the long walk to the lighthouse or up the Glen road.  But
+Miss Cornelia and Captain Jim came very often to the little house.
+Miss Cornelia was the joy of Anne’s and Gilbert’s existence.  They
+laughed side-splittingly over her speeches after every visit.  When
+Captain Jim and she happened to visit the little house at the same time
+there was much sport for the listening.  They waged wordy warfare, she
+attacking, he defending.  Anne once reproached the Captain for his
+baiting of Miss Cornelia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I do love to set her going, Mistress Blythe,” chuckled the
+unrepentant sinner.  “It’s the greatest amusement I have in life.  That
+tongue of hers would blister a stone.  And you and that young dog of a
+doctor enj’y listening to her as much as I do.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim came along another evening to bring Anne some mayflowers.
+The garden was full of the moist, scented air of a maritime spring
+evening.  There was a milk-white mist on the edge of the sea, with a
+young moon kissing it, and a silver gladness of stars over the Glen.
+The bell of the church across the harbor was ringing dreamily sweet.
+The mellow chime drifted through the dusk to mingle with the soft
+spring-moan of the sea.  Captain Jim’s mayflowers added the last
+completing touch to the charm of the night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I haven’t seen any this spring, and I’ve missed them,” said Anne,
+burying her face in them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“They ain’t to be found around Four Winds, only in the barrens away
+behind the Glen up yander.  I took a little trip today to the
+Land-of-nothing-to-do, and hunted these up for you.  I reckon they’re
+the last you’ll see this spring, for they’re nearly done.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How kind and thoughtful you are, Captain Jim.  Nobody else&mdash;not even
+Gilbert”&mdash;with a shake of her head at him&mdash;“remembered that I always
+long for mayflowers in spring.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, I had another errand, too&mdash;I wanted to take Mr. Howard back
+yander a mess of trout.  He likes one occasional, and it’s all I can do
+for a kindness he did me once.  I stayed all the afternoon and talked
+to him.  He likes to talk to me, though he’s a highly eddicated man and
+I’m only an ignorant old sailor, because he’s one of the folks that’s
+GOT to talk or they’re miserable, and he finds listeners scarce around
+here.  The Glen folks fight shy of him because they think he’s an
+infidel.  He ain’t that far gone exactly&mdash;few men is, I reckon&mdash;but
+he’s what you might call a heretic.  Heretics are wicked, but they’re
+mighty int’resting.  It’s jest that they’ve got sorter lost looking for
+God, being under the impression that He’s hard to find&mdash;which He ain’t
+never.  Most of ’em blunder to Him after awhile, I guess.  I don’t
+think listening to Mr. Howard’s arguments is likely to do me much harm.
+Mind you, I believe what I was brought up to believe.  It saves a vast
+of bother&mdash;and back of it all, God is good.  The trouble with Mr.
+Howard is that he’s a leetle TOO clever.  He thinks that he’s bound to
+live up to his cleverness, and that it’s smarter to thrash out some new
+way of getting to heaven than to go by the old track the common,
+ignorant folks is travelling.  But he’ll get there sometime all right,
+and then he’ll laugh at himself.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Mr. Howard was a Methodist to begin with,” said Miss Cornelia, as if
+she thought he had not far to go from that to heresy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Do you know, Cornelia,” said Captain Jim gravely, “I’ve often thought
+that if I wasn’t a Presbyterian I’d be a Methodist.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, well,” conceded Miss Cornelia, “if you weren’t a Presbyterian it
+wouldn’t matter much what you were.  Speaking of heresy, reminds me,
+doctor&mdash;I’ve brought back that book you lent me&mdash;that Natural Law in
+the Spiritual World&mdash;I didn’t read more’n a third of it.  I can read
+sense, and I can read nonsense, but that book is neither the one nor
+the other.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It IS considered rather heretical in some quarters,” admitted Gilbert,
+“but I told you that before you took it, Miss Cornelia.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I wouldn’t have minded its being heretical.  I can stand
+wickedness, but I can’t stand foolishness,” said Miss Cornelia calmly,
+and with the air of having said the last thing there was to say about
+Natural Law.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Speaking of books, A Mad Love come to an end at last two weeks ago,”
+remarked Captain Jim musingly.  “It run to one hundred and three
+chapters.  When they got married the book stopped right off, so I
+reckon their troubles were all over.  It’s real nice that that’s the
+way in books anyhow, isn’t it, even if ’tistn’t so anywhere else?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I never read novels,” said Miss Cornelia.  “Did you hear how Geordie
+Russell was today, Captain Jim?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, I called in on my way home to see him.  He’s getting round all
+right&mdash;but stewing in a broth of trouble, as usual, poor man.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“’Course he brews up most of it for himself, but I reckon that don’t
+make it any easier to bear.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He’s an awful pessimist,” said Miss Cornelia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, no, he ain’t a pessimist exactly, Cornelia.  He only jest never
+finds anything that suits him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And isn’t that a pessimist?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, no.  A pessimist is one who never expects to find anything to suit
+him.  Geordie hain’t got THAT far yet.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’d find something good to say of the devil himself, Jim Boyd.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, you’ve heard the story of the old lady who said he was
+persevering.  But no, Cornelia, I’ve nothing good to say of the devil.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Do you believe in him at all?” asked Miss Cornelia seriously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How can you ask that when you know what a good Presbyterian I am,
+Cornelia?  How could a Presbyterian get along without a devil?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“DO you?” persisted Miss Cornelia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim suddenly became grave.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I believe in what I heard a minister once call 'a mighty and malignant
+and INTELLIGENT power of evil working in the universe,’” he said
+solemnly.  “I do THAT, Cornelia.  You can call it the devil, or the
+'principle of evil,’ or the Old Scratch, or any name you like.  It’s
+THERE, and all the infidels and heretics in the world can’t argue it
+away, any more’n they can argue God away.  It’s there, and it’s
+working.  But, mind you, Cornelia, I believe it’s going to get the
+worst of it in the long run.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I am sure I hope so,” said Miss Cornelia, none too hopefully. “But
+speaking of the devil, I am positive that Billy Booth is possessed by
+him now.  Have you heard of Billy’s latest performance?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, what was that?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He’s gone and burned up his wife’s new, brown broadcloth suit, that
+she paid twenty-five dollars for in Charlottetown, because he declares
+the men looked too admiring at her when she wore it to church the first
+time.  Wasn’t that like a man?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Mistress Booth IS mighty pretty, and brown’s her color,” said Captain
+Jim reflectively.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Is that any good reason why he should poke her new suit into the
+kitchen stove?  Billy Booth is a jealous fool, and he makes his wife’s
+life miserable.  She’s cried all the week about her suit.  Oh, Anne, I
+wish I could write like you, believe ME.  Wouldn’t I score some of the
+men round here!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Those Booths are all a mite queer,” said Captain Jim.  “Billy seemed
+the sanest of the lot till he got married and then this queer jealous
+streak cropped out in him.  His brother Daniel, now, was always odd.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Took tantrums every few days or so and wouldn’t get out of bed,” said
+Miss Cornelia with a relish.  “His wife would have to do all the barn
+work till he got over his spell.  When he died people wrote her letters
+of condolence; if I’d written anything it would have been one of
+congratulation.  Their father, old Abram Booth, was a disgusting old
+sot.  He was drunk at his wife’s funeral, and kept reeling round and
+hiccuping 'I didn’t dri&mdash;i&mdash;i&mdash;nk much but I feel a&mdash;a&mdash;awfully
+que&mdash;e&mdash;e&mdash;r.’  I gave him a good jab in the back with my umbrella when
+he came near me, and it sobered him up until they got the casket out of
+the house.  Young Johnny Booth was to have been married yesterday, but
+he couldn’t be because he’s gone and got the mumps.  Wasn’t that like a
+man?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How could he help getting the mumps, poor fellow?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’d poor fellow him, believe ME, if I was Kate Sterns.  I don’t know
+how he could help getting the mumps, but I DO know the wedding supper
+was all prepared and everything will be spoiled before he’s well again.
+Such a waste!  He should have had the mumps when he was a boy.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Come, come, Cornelia, don’t you think you’re a mite unreasonable?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia disdained to reply and turned instead to Susan Baker, a
+grim-faced, kind-hearted elderly spinster of the Glen, who had been
+installed as maid-of-all-work at the little house for some weeks.
+Susan had been up to the Glen to make a sick call, and had just
+returned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How is poor old Aunt Mandy tonight?” asked Miss Cornelia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Susan sighed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Very poorly&mdash;very poorly, Cornelia.  I am afraid she will soon be in
+heaven, poor thing!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, surely, it’s not so bad as that!” exclaimed Miss Cornelia,
+sympathetically.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim and Gilbert looked at each other.  Then they suddenly rose
+and went out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There are times,” said Captain Jim, between spasms, “when it would be
+a sin NOT to laugh.  Them two excellent women!”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap19"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 19
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+DAWN AND DUSK
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+In early June, when the sand hills were a great glory of pink wild
+roses, and the Glen was smothered in apple blossoms, Marilla arrived at
+the little house, accompanied by a black horsehair trunk, patterned
+with brass nails, which had reposed undisturbed in the Green Gables
+garret for half a century.  Susan Baker, who, during her few weeks’
+sojourn in the little house, had come to worship “young Mrs. Doctor,”
+as she called Anne, with blind fervor, looked rather jealously askance
+at Marilla at first.  But as Marilla did not try to interfere in
+kitchen matters, and showed no desire to interrupt Susan’s
+ministrations to young Mrs. Doctor, the good handmaiden became
+reconciled to her presence, and told her cronies at the Glen that Miss
+Cuthbert was a fine old lady and knew her place.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One evening, when the sky’s limpid bowl was filled with a red glory,
+and the robins were thrilling the golden twilight with jubilant hymns
+to the stars of evening, there was a sudden commotion in the little
+house of dreams.  Telephone messages were sent up to the Glen, Doctor
+Dave and a white-capped nurse came hastily down, Marilla paced the
+garden walks between the quahog shells, murmuring prayers between her
+set lips, and Susan sat in the kitchen with cotton wool in her ears and
+her apron over her head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie, looking out from the house up the brook, saw that every window
+of the little house was alight, and did not sleep that night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The June night was short; but it seemed an eternity to those who waited
+and watched.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, will it NEVER end?” said Marilla; then she saw how grave the nurse
+and Doctor Dave looked, and she dared ask no more questions.  Suppose
+Anne&mdash;but Marilla could not suppose it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Do not tell me,” said Susan fiercely, answering the anguish in
+Marilla’s eyes, “that God could be so cruel as to take that darling
+lamb from us when we all love her so much.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He has taken others as well beloved,” said Marilla hoarsely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But at dawn, when the rising sun rent apart the mists hanging over the
+sandbar, and made rainbows of them, joy came to the little house.  Anne
+was safe, and a wee, white lady, with her mother’s big eyes, was lying
+beside her.  Gilbert, his face gray and haggard from his night’s agony,
+came down to tell Marilla and Susan.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Thank God,” shuddered Marilla.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Susan got up and took the cotton wool out of her ears.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Now for breakfast,” she said briskly.  “I am of the opinion that we
+will all be glad of a bite and sup.  You tell young Mrs. Doctor not to
+worry about a single thing&mdash;Susan is at the helm.  You tell her just to
+think of her baby.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert smiled rather sadly as he went away.  Anne, her pale face
+blanched with its baptism of pain, her eyes aglow with the holy passion
+of motherhood, did not need to be told to think of her baby.  She
+thought of nothing else.  For a few hours she tasted of happiness so
+rare and exquisite that she wondered if the angels in heaven did not
+envy her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Little Joyce,” she murmured, when Marilla came in to see the baby.
+“We planned to call her that if she were a girlie.  There were so many
+we would have liked to name her for; we couldn’t choose between them,
+so we decided on Joyce&mdash;we can call her Joy for short&mdash;Joy&mdash;it suits so
+well.  Oh, Marilla, I thought I was happy before.  Now I know that I
+just dreamed a pleasant dream of happiness.  THIS is the reality.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You mustn’t talk, Anne&mdash;wait till you’re stronger,” said Marilla
+warningly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You know how hard it is for me NOT to talk,” smiled Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At first she was too weak and too happy to notice that Gilbert and the
+nurse looked grave and Marilla sorrowful.  Then, as subtly, and coldly,
+and remorselessly as a sea-fog stealing landward, fear crept into her
+heart.  Why was not Gilbert gladder?  Why would he not talk about the
+baby?  Why would they not let her have it with her after that first
+heavenly&mdash;happy hour?  Was&mdash;was there anything wrong?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert,” whispered Anne imploringly, “the baby&mdash;is all right&mdash;isn’t
+she?  Tell me&mdash;tell me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert was a long while in turning round; then he bent over Anne and
+looked in her eyes.  Marilla, listening fearfully outside the door,
+heard a pitiful, heartbroken moan, and fled to the kitchen where Susan
+was weeping.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, the poor lamb&mdash;the poor lamb!  How can she bear it, Miss Cuthbert?
+I am afraid it will kill her.  She has been that built up and happy,
+longing for that baby, and planning for it.  Cannot anything be done
+nohow, Miss Cuthbert?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m afraid not, Susan.  Gilbert says there is no hope.  He knew from
+the first the little thing couldn’t live.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And it is such a sweet baby,” sobbed Susan.  “I never saw one so
+white&mdash;they are mostly red or yallow.  And it opened its big eyes as if
+it was months old.  The little, little thing!  Oh, the poor, young Mrs.
+Doctor!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At sunset the little soul that had come with the dawning went away,
+leaving heartbreak behind it.  Miss Cornelia took the wee, white lady
+from the kindly but stranger hands of the nurse, and dressed the tiny
+waxen form in the beautiful dress Leslie had made for it.  Leslie had
+asked her to do that.  Then she took it back and laid it beside the
+poor, broken, tear-blinded little mother.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away, dearie,” she said
+through her own tears.  “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she went away, leaving Anne and Gilbert alone together with their
+dead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next day, the small white Joy was laid in a velvet casket which
+Leslie had lined with apple-blossoms, and taken to the graveyard of the
+church across the harbor.  Miss Cornelia and Marilla put all the little
+love-made garments away, together with the ruffled basket which had
+been befrilled and belaced for dimpled limbs and downy head.  Little
+Joy was never to sleep there; she had found a colder, narrower bed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“This has been an awful disappointment to me,” sighed Miss Cornelia.
+“I’ve looked forward to this baby&mdash;and I did want it to be a girl, too.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I can only be thankful that Anne’s life was spared,” said Marilla,
+with a shiver, recalling those hours of darkness when the girl she
+loved was passing through the valley of the shadow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Poor, poor lamb!  Her heart is broken,” said Susan.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I ENVY Anne,” said Leslie suddenly and fiercely, “and I’d envy her
+even if she had died!  She was a mother for one beautiful day.  I’d
+gladly give my life for THAT!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wouldn’t talk like that, Leslie, dearie,” said Miss Cornelia
+deprecatingly.  She was afraid that the dignified Miss Cuthbert would
+think Leslie quite terrible.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne’s convalescence was long, and made bitter for her by many things.
+The bloom and sunshine of the Four Winds world grated harshly on her;
+and yet, when the rain fell heavily, she pictured it beating so
+mercilessly down on that little grave across the harbor; and when the
+wind blew around the eaves she heard sad voices in it she had never
+heard before.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Kindly callers hurt her, too, with the well-meant platitudes with which
+they strove to cover the nakedness of bereavement.  A letter from Phil
+Blake was an added sting.  Phil had heard of the baby’s birth, but not
+of its death, and she wrote Anne a congratulatory letter of sweet mirth
+which hurt her horribly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I would have laughed over it so happily if I had my baby,” she sobbed
+to Marilla.  “But when I haven’t it just seems like wanton
+cruelty&mdash;though I know Phil wouldn’t hurt me for the world.  Oh,
+Marilla, I don’t see how I can EVER be happy again&mdash;EVERYTHING will
+hurt me all the rest of my life.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Time will help you,” said Marilla, who was racked with sympathy but
+could never learn to express it in other than age-worn formulas.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It doesn’t seem FAIR,” said Anne rebelliously.  “Babies are born and
+live where they are not wanted&mdash;where they will be neglected&mdash;where
+they will have no chance.  I would have loved my baby so&mdash;and cared for
+it so tenderly&mdash;and tried to give her every chance for good.  And yet I
+wasn’t allowed to keep her.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It was God’s will, Anne,” said Marilla, helpless before the riddle of
+the universe&mdash;the WHY of undeserved pain.  “And little Joy is better
+off.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I can’t believe THAT,” cried Anne bitterly.  Then, seeing that Marilla
+looked shocked, she added passionately, “Why should she be born at
+all&mdash;why should any one be born at all&mdash;if she’s better off dead?  I
+DON’T believe it is better for a child to die at birth than to live its
+life out&mdash;and love and be loved&mdash;and enjoy and suffer&mdash;and do its
+work&mdash;and develop a character that would give it a personality in
+eternity.  And how do you know it was God’s will?  Perhaps it was just
+a thwarting of His purpose by the Power of Evil.  We can’t be expected
+to be resigned to THAT.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, Anne, don’t talk so,” said Marilla, genuinely alarmed lest Anne
+were drifting into deep and dangerous waters.  “We can’t
+understand&mdash;but we must have faith&mdash;we MUST believe that all is for the
+best.  I know you find it hard to think so, just now.  But try to be
+brave&mdash;for Gilbert’s sake.  He’s so worried about you.  You aren’t
+getting strong as fast as you should.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I know I’ve been very selfish,” sighed Anne.  “I love Gilbert more
+than ever&mdash;and I want to live for his sake.  But it seems as if part of
+me was buried over there in that little harbor graveyard&mdash;and it hurts
+so much that I’m afraid of life.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It won’t hurt so much always, Anne.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The thought that it may stop hurting sometimes hurts me worse than all
+else, Marilla.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, I know, I’ve felt that too, about other things.  But we all love
+you, Anne.  Captain Jim has been up every day to ask for you&mdash;and Mrs.
+Moore haunts the place&mdash;and Miss Bryant spends most of her time, I
+think, cooking up nice things for you.  Susan doesn’t like it very
+well.  She thinks she can cook as well as Miss Bryant.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Dear Susan!  Oh, everybody has been so dear and good and lovely to me,
+Marilla.  I’m not ungrateful&mdash;and perhaps&mdash;when this horrible ache
+grows a little less&mdash;I’ll find that I can go on living.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap20"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 20
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+LOST MARGARET
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Anne found that she could go on living; the day came when she even
+smiled again over one of Miss Cornelia’s speeches.  But there was
+something in the smile that had never been in Anne’s smile before and
+would never be absent from it again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the first day she was able to go for a drive Gilbert took her down
+to Four Winds Point, and left her there while he rowed over the channel
+to see a patient at the fishing village.  A rollicking wind was
+scudding across the harbor and the dunes, whipping the water into
+white-caps and washing the sandshore with long lines of silvery
+breakers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m real proud to see you here again, Mistress Blythe,” said Captain
+Jim.  “Sit down&mdash;sit down.  I’m afeared it’s mighty dusty here
+today&mdash;but there’s no need of looking at dust when you can look at such
+scenery, is there?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t mind the dust,” said Anne, “but Gilbert says I must keep in
+the open air.  I think I’ll go and sit on the rocks down there.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Would you like company or would you rather be alone?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If by company you mean yours I’d much rather have it than be alone,”
+said Anne, smiling.  Then she sighed.  She had never before minded
+being alone.  Now she dreaded it.  When she was alone now she felt so
+dreadfully alone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Here’s a nice little spot where the wind can’t get at you,” said
+Captain Jim, when they reached the rocks.  “I often sit here.  It’s a
+great place jest to sit and dream.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh&mdash;dreams,” sighed Anne.  “I can’t dream now, Captain Jim&mdash;I’m done
+with dreams.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, no, you’re not, Mistress Blythe&mdash;oh, no, you’re not,” said Captain
+Jim meditatively.  “I know how you feel jest now&mdash;but if you keep on
+living you’ll get glad again, and the first thing you know you’ll be
+dreaming again&mdash;thank the good Lord for it!  If it wasn’t for our
+dreams they might as well bury us.  How’d we stand living if it wasn’t
+for our dream of immortality?  And that’s a dream that’s BOUND to come
+true, Mistress Blythe.  You’ll see your little Joyce again some day.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But she won’t be my baby,” said Anne, with trembling lips.  “Oh, she
+may be, as Longfellow says, 'a fair maiden clothed with celestial
+grace’&mdash;but she’ll be a stranger to me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“God will manage better’n THAT, I believe,” said Captain Jim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were both silent for a little time.  Then Captain Jim said very
+softly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Mistress Blythe, may I tell you about lost Margaret?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Of course,” said Anne gently.  She did not know who “lost Margaret”
+was, but she felt that she was going to hear the romance of Captain
+Jim’s life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve often wanted to tell you about her,” Captain Jim went on.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Do you know why, Mistress Blythe?  It’s because I want somebody to
+remember and think of her sometime after I’m gone.  I can’t bear that
+her name should be forgotten by all living souls.  And now nobody
+remembers lost Margaret but me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Captain Jim told the story&mdash;an old, old forgotten story, for it
+was over fifty years since Margaret had fallen asleep one day in her
+father’s dory and drifted&mdash;or so it was supposed, for nothing was ever
+certainly known as to her fate&mdash;out of the channel, beyond the bar, to
+perish in the black thundersquall which had come up so suddenly that
+long-ago summer afternoon.  But to Captain Jim those fifty years were
+but as yesterday when it is past.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I walked the shore for months after that,” he said sadly, “looking to
+find her dear, sweet little body; but the sea never give her back to
+me.  But I’ll find her sometime, Mistress Blythe&mdash;I’ll find her
+sometime.  She’s waiting for me.  I wish I could tell you jest how she
+looked, but I can’t.  I’ve seen a fine, silvery mist hanging over the
+bar at sunrise that seemed like her&mdash;and then again I’ve seen a white
+birch in the woods back yander that made me think of her.  She had
+pale, brown hair and a little white, sweet face, and long slender
+fingers like yours, Mistress Blythe, only browner, for she was a shore
+girl.  Sometimes I wake up in the night and hear the sea calling to me
+in the old way, and it seems as if lost Margaret called in it.  And
+when there’s a storm and the waves are sobbing and moaning I hear her
+lamenting among them.  And when they laugh on a gay day it’s HER
+laugh&mdash;lost Margaret’s sweet, roguish, little laugh.  The sea took her
+from me, but some day I’ll find her.  Mistress Blythe.  It can’t keep
+us apart forever.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I am glad you have told me about her,” said Anne.  “I have often
+wondered why you had lived all your life alone.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I couldn’t ever care for anyone else.  Lost Margaret took my heart
+with her&mdash;out there,” said the old lover, who had been faithful for
+fifty years to his drowned sweetheart.  “You won’t mind if I talk a
+good deal about her, will you, Mistress Blythe?  It’s a pleasure to
+me&mdash;for all the pain went out of her memory years ago and jest left its
+blessing.  I know you’ll never forget her, Mistress Blythe.  And if the
+years, as I hope, bring other little folks to your home, I want you to
+promise me that you’ll tell THEM the story of lost Margaret, so that
+her name won’t be forgotten among humankind.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap21"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 21
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+BARRIERS SWEPT AWAY
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+ “Anne,” said Leslie, breaking abruptly a short<BR>
+silence, “you don’t know how GOOD it is to be sitting here with you
+again&mdash;working&mdash;and talking&mdash;and being silent together.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were sitting among the blue-eyed grasses on the bank of the brook
+in Anne’s garden.  The water sparkled and crooned past them; the
+birches threw dappled shadows over them; roses bloomed along the walks.
+The sun was beginning to be low, and the air was full of woven music.
+There was one music of the wind in the firs behind the house, and
+another of the waves on the bar, and still another from the distant
+bell of the church near which the wee, white lady slept.  Anne loved
+that bell, though it brought sorrowful thoughts now.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She looked curiously at Leslie, who had thrown down her sewing and
+spoken with a lack of restraint that was very unusual with her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“On that horrible night when you were so ill,” Leslie went on, “I kept
+thinking that perhaps we’d have no more talks and walks and WORKS
+together.  And I realised just what your friendship had come to mean to
+me&mdash;just what YOU meant&mdash;and just what a hateful little beast I had
+been.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie!  Leslie!  I never allow anyone to call my friends names.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s true.  That’s exactly what I am&mdash;a hateful little beast. There’s
+something I’ve GOT to tell you, Anne.  I suppose it will make you
+despise me, but I MUST confess it.  Anne, there have been times this
+past winter and spring when I have HATED you.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I KNEW it,” said Anne calmly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You KNEW it?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, I saw it in your eyes.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And yet you went on liking me and being my friend.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, it was only now and then you hated me, Leslie.  Between times
+you loved me, I think.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I certainly did.  But that other horrid feeling was always there,
+spoiling it, back in my heart.  I kept it down&mdash;sometimes I forgot
+it&mdash;but sometimes it would surge up and take possession of me.  I hated
+you because I ENVIED you&mdash;oh, I was sick with envy of you at times.
+You had a dear little home&mdash;and love&mdash;and happiness&mdash;and glad
+dreams&mdash;everything I wanted&mdash;and never had&mdash;and never could have.  Oh,
+never could have!  THAT was what stung.  I wouldn’t have envied you, if
+I had had any HOPE that life would ever be different for me.  But I
+hadn’t&mdash;I hadn’t&mdash;and it didn’t seem FAIR.  It made me rebellious&mdash;and
+it hurt me&mdash;and so I hated you at times.  Oh, I was so ashamed of
+it&mdash;I’m dying of shame now&mdash;but I couldn’t conquer it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That night, when I was afraid you mightn’t live&mdash;I thought I was going
+to be punished for my wickedness&mdash;and I loved you so then.  Anne, Anne,
+I never had anything to love since my mother died, except Dick’s old
+dog&mdash;and it’s so dreadful to have nothing to love&mdash;life is so
+EMPTY&mdash;and there’s NOTHING worse than emptiness&mdash;and I might have loved
+you so much&mdash;and that horrible thing had spoiled it&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie was trembling and growing almost incoherent with the violence of
+her emotion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t, Leslie,” implored Anne, “oh, don’t.  I understand&mdash;don’t talk
+of it any more.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I must&mdash;I must.  When I knew you were going to live I vowed that I
+would tell you as soon as you were well&mdash;that I wouldn’t go on
+accepting your friendship and companionship without telling you how
+unworthy I was of it.  And I’ve been so afraid&mdash;it would turn you
+against me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You needn’t fear that, Leslie.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I’m so glad&mdash;so glad, Anne.”  Leslie clasped her brown,
+work-hardened hands tightly together to still their shaking.  “But I
+want to tell you everything, now I’ve begun.  You don’t remember the
+first time I saw you, I suppose&mdash;it wasn’t that night on the shore&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, it was the night Gilbert and I came home.  You were driving your
+geese down the hill.  I should think I DO remember it!  I thought you
+were so beautiful&mdash;I longed for weeks after to find out who you were.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I knew who YOU were, although I had never seen either of you before.
+I had heard of the new doctor and his bride who were coming to live in
+Miss Russell’s little house.  I&mdash;I hated you that very moment, Anne.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I felt the resentment in your eyes&mdash;then I doubted&mdash;I thought I must
+be mistaken&mdash;because WHY should it be?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It was because you looked so happy.  Oh, you’ll agree with me now that
+I AM a hateful beast&mdash;to hate another woman just because she was
+happy,&mdash;and when her happiness didn’t take anything from me!  That was
+why I never went to see you.  I knew quite well I ought to go&mdash;even our
+simple Four Winds customs demanded that.  But I couldn’t.  I used to
+watch you from my window&mdash;I could see you and your husband strolling
+about your garden in the evening&mdash;or you running down the poplar lane
+to meet him.  And it hurt me.  And yet in another way I wanted to go
+over.  I felt that, if I were not so miserable, I could have liked you
+and found in you what I’ve never had in my life&mdash;an intimate, REAL
+friend of my own age.  And then you remember that night at the shore?
+You were afraid I would think you crazy.  You must have thought <I>I</I>
+was.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, but I couldn’t understand you, Leslie.  One moment you drew me to
+you&mdash;the next you pushed me back.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I was very unhappy that evening.  I had had a hard day.  Dick had been
+very&mdash;very hard to manage that day.  Generally he is quite good-natured
+and easily controlled, you know, Anne.  But some days he is very
+different.  I was so heartsick&mdash;I ran away to the shore as soon as he
+went to sleep.  It was my only refuge.  I sat there thinking of how my
+poor father had ended his life, and wondering if I wouldn’t be driven
+to it some day.  Oh, my heart was full of black thoughts!  And then you
+came dancing along the cove like a glad, light-hearted child.  I&mdash;I
+hated you more then than I’ve ever done since.  And yet I craved your
+friendship.  The one feeling swayed me one moment; the other feeling
+the next.  When I got home that night I cried for shame of what you
+must think of me.  But it’s always been just the same when I came over
+here.  Sometimes I’d be happy and enjoy my visit.  And at other times
+that hideous feeling would mar it all.  There were times when
+everything about you and your house hurt me.  You had so many dear
+little things I couldn’t have.  Do you know&mdash;it’s ridiculous&mdash;but I had
+an especial spite at those china dogs of yours.  There were times when
+I wanted to catch up Gog and Magog and bang their pert black noses
+together!  Oh, you smile, Anne&mdash;but it was never funny to me.  I would
+come here and see you and Gilbert with your books and your flowers, and
+your household gods, and your little family jokes&mdash;and your love for
+each other showing in every look and word, even when you didn’t know
+it&mdash;and I would go home to&mdash;you know what I went home to!  Oh, Anne, I
+don’t believe I’m jealous and envious by nature.  When I was a girl I
+lacked many things my schoolmates had, but I never cared&mdash;I never
+disliked them for it.  But I seem to have grown so hateful&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie, dearest, stop blaming yourself.  You are NOT hateful or
+jealous or envious.  The life you have to live has warped you a little,
+perhaps-but it would have ruined a nature less fine and noble than
+yours.  I’m letting you tell me all this because I believe it’s better
+for you to talk it out and rid your soul of it.  But don’t blame
+yourself any more.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, I won’t.  I just wanted you to know me as I am.  That time you
+told me of your darling hope for the spring was the worst of all, Anne.
+I shall never forgive myself for the way I behaved then.  I repented it
+with tears.  And I DID put many a tender and loving thought of you into
+the little dress I made.  But I might have known that anything I made
+could only be a shroud in the end.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Now, Leslie, that IS bitter and morbid&mdash;put such thoughts away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I was so glad when you brought the little dress; and since I had to
+lose little Joyce I like to think that the dress she wore was the one
+you made for her when you let yourself love me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne, do you know, I believe I shall always love you after this.  I
+don’t think I’ll ever feel that dreadful way about you again.  Talking
+it all out seems to have done away with it, somehow.  It’s very
+strange&mdash;and I thought it so real and bitter.  It’s like opening the
+door of a dark room to show some hideous creature you’ve believed to be
+there&mdash;and when the light streams in your monster turns out to have
+been just a shadow, vanishing when the light comes.  It will never come
+between us again.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, we are real friends now, Leslie, and I am very glad.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I hope you won’t misunderstand me if I say something else.  Anne, I
+was grieved to the core of my heart when you lost your baby; and if I
+could have saved her for you by cutting off one of my hands I would
+have done it.  But your sorrow has brought us closer together.  Your
+perfect happiness isn’t a barrier any longer.  Oh, don’t misunderstand,
+dearest&mdash;I’m NOT glad that your happiness isn’t perfect any longer&mdash;I
+can say that sincerely; but since it isn’t, there isn’t such a gulf
+between us.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I DO understand that, too, Leslie.  Now, we’ll just shut up the past
+and forget what was unpleasant in it.  It’s all going to be different.
+We’re both of the race of Joseph now.  I think you’ve been
+wonderful&mdash;wonderful.  And, Leslie, I can’t help believing that life
+has something good and beautiful for you yet.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie shook her head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No,” she said dully.  “There isn’t any hope.  Dick will never be
+better&mdash;and even if his memory were to come back&mdash;oh, Anne, it would be
+worse, even worse, than it is now.  This is something you can’t
+understand, you happy bride.  Anne, did Miss Cornelia ever tell you how
+I came to marry Dick?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m glad&mdash;I wanted you to know&mdash;but I couldn’t bring myself to talk of
+it if you hadn’t known.  Anne, it seems to me that ever since I was
+twelve years old life has been bitter.  Before that I had a happy
+childhood.  We were very poor&mdash;but we didn’t mind.  Father was so
+splendid&mdash;so clever and loving and sympathetic.  We were chums as far
+back as I can remember.  And mother was so sweet.  She was very, very
+beautiful.  I look like her, but I am not so beautiful as she was.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Miss Cornelia says you are far more beautiful.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She is mistaken&mdash;or prejudiced.  I think my figure IS better&mdash;mother
+was slight and bent by hard work&mdash;but she had the face of an angel.  I
+used just to look up at her in worship.  We all worshipped her,&mdash;father
+and Kenneth and I.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne remembered that Miss Cornelia had given her a very different
+impression of Leslie’s mother.  But had not love the truer vision?
+Still, it WAS selfish of Rose West to make her daughter marry Dick
+Moore.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Kenneth was my brother,” went on Leslie.  “Oh, I can’t tell you how I
+loved him.  And he was cruelly killed.  Do you know how?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne, I saw his little face as the wheel went over him.  He fell on
+his back.  Anne&mdash;Anne&mdash;I can see it now.  I shall always see it.  Anne,
+all I ask of heaven is that that recollection shall be blotted out of
+my memory.  O my God!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie, don’t speak of it.  I know the story&mdash;don’t go into details
+that only harrow your soul up unavailingly.  It WILL be blotted out.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After a moment’s struggle, Leslie regained a measure of self-control.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Then father’s health got worse and he grew despondent&mdash;his mind became
+unbalanced&mdash;you’ve heard all that, too?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“After that I had just mother to live for.  But I was very ambitious.
+I meant to teach and earn my way through college.  I meant to climb to
+the very top&mdash;oh, I won’t talk of that either.  It’s no use.  You know
+what happened.  I couldn’t see my dear little heart-broken mother, who
+had been such a slave all her life, turned out of her home.  Of course,
+I could have earned enough for us to live on.  But mother COULDN’T
+leave her home.  She had come there as a bride&mdash;and she had loved
+father so&mdash;and all her memories were there.  Even yet, Anne, when I
+think that I made her last year happy I’m not sorry for what I did.  As
+for Dick&mdash;I didn’t hate him when I married him&mdash;I just felt for him the
+indifferent, friendly feeling I had for most of my schoolmates.  I knew
+he drank some&mdash;but I had never heard the story of the girl down at the
+fishing cove.  If I had, I COULDN’T have married him, even for mother’s
+sake.  Afterwards&mdash;I DID hate him&mdash;but mother never knew.  She
+died&mdash;and then I was alone.  I was only seventeen and I was alone.
+Dick had gone off in the Four Sisters.  I hoped he wouldn’t be home
+very much more.  The sea had always been in his blood.  I had no other
+hope.  Well, Captain Jim brought him home, as you know&mdash;and that’s all
+there is to say.  You know me now, Anne&mdash;the worst of me&mdash;the barriers
+are all down.  And you still want to be my friend?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne looked up through the birches, at the white paper-lantern of a
+half moon drifting downwards to the gulf of sunset.  Her face was very
+sweet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I am your friend and you are mine, for always,” she said.  “Such a
+friend as I never had before.  I have had many dear and beloved
+friends&mdash;but there is a something in you, Leslie, that I never found in
+anyone else.  You have more to offer me in that rich nature of yours,
+and I have more to give you than I had in my careless girlhood.  We are
+both women&mdash;and friends forever.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They clasped hands and smiled at each other through the tears that
+filled the gray eyes and the blue.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap22"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 22
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+MISS CORNELIA ARRANGES MATTERS
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert insisted that Susan should be kept on at the little house for
+the summer.  Anne protested at first.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Life here with just the two of us is so sweet, Gilbert.  It spoils it
+a little to have anyone else.  Susan is a dear soul, but she is an
+outsider.  It won’t hurt me to do the work here.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You must take your doctor’s advice,” said Gilbert.  “There’s an old
+proverb to the effect that shoemakers’ wives go barefoot and doctors’
+wives die young.  I don’t mean that it shall be true in my household.
+You will keep Susan until the old spring comes back into your step, and
+those little hollows on your cheeks fill out.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You just take it easy, Mrs. Doctor, dear,” said Susan, coming abruptly
+in.  “Have a good time and do not worry about the pantry.  Susan is at
+the helm.  There is no use in keeping a dog and doing your own barking.
+I am going to take your breakfast up to you every morning.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Indeed you are not,” laughed Anne.  “I agree with Miss Cornelia that
+it’s a scandal for a woman who isn’t sick to eat her breakfast in bed,
+and almost justifies the men in any enormities.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, Cornelia!” said Susan, with ineffable contempt.  “I think you have
+better sense, Mrs. Doctor, dear, than to heed what Cornelia Bryant
+says.  I cannot see why she must be always running down the men, even
+if she is an old maid.  <I>I</I> am an old maid, but you never hear ME
+abusing the men.  I like ’em.  I would have married one if I could.  Is
+it not funny nobody ever asked me to marry him, Mrs. Doctor, dear?  I
+am no beauty, but I am as good-looking as most of the married women you
+see.  But I never had a beau.  What do you suppose is the reason?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It may be predestination,” suggested Anne, with unearthly solemnity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Susan nodded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That is what I have often thought, Mrs. Doctor, dear, and a great
+comfort it is.  I do not mind nobody wanting me if the Almighty decreed
+it so for His own wise purposes.  But sometimes doubt creeps in, Mrs.
+Doctor, dear, and I wonder if maybe the Old Scratch has not more to do
+with it than anyone else.  I cannot feel resigned THEN.  But maybe,”
+added Susan, brightening up, “I will have a chance to get married yet.
+I often and often think of the old verse my aunt used to repeat:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+    There never was a goose so gray but sometime soon or late<BR>
+    Some honest gander came her way and took her for his mate!<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A woman cannot ever be sure of not being married till she is buried,
+Mrs. Doctor, dear, and meanwhile I will make a batch of cherry pies.  I
+notice the doctor favors ’em, and I DO like cooking for a man who
+appreciates his victuals.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia dropped in that afternoon, puffing a little.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t mind the world or the devil much, but the flesh DOES rather
+bother me,” she admitted.  “You always look as cool as a cucumber,
+Anne, dearie.  Do I smell cherry pie?  If I do, ask me to stay to tea.
+Haven’t tasted a cherry pie this summer.  My cherries have all been
+stolen by those scamps of Gilman boys from the Glen.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Now, now, Cornelia,” remonstrated Captain Jim, who had been reading a
+sea novel in a corner of the living room, “you shouldn’t say that about
+those two poor, motherless Gilman boys, unless you’ve got certain
+proof.  Jest because their father ain’t none too honest isn’t any
+reason for calling them thieves.  It’s more likely it’s been the robins
+took your cherries.  They’re turrible thick this year.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Robins!” said Miss Cornelia disdainfully.  “Humph!  Two-legged robins,
+believe ME!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, most of the Four Winds robins ARE constructed on that
+principle,” said Captain Jim gravely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia stared at him for a moment.  Then she leaned back in her
+rocker and laughed long and ungrudgingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, you HAVE got one on me at last, Jim Boyd, I’ll admit.  Just look
+how pleased he is, Anne, dearie, grinning like a Chessy-cat.  As for
+the robins’ legs if robins have great, big, bare, sunburned legs, with
+ragged trousers hanging on ’em, such as I saw up in my cherry tree one
+morning at sunrise last week, I’ll beg the Gilman boys’ pardon.  By the
+time I got down they were gone.  I couldn’t understand how they had
+disappeared so quick, but Captain Jim has enlightened me.  They flew
+away, of course.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim laughed and went away, regretfully declining an invitation
+to stay to supper and partake of cherry pie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m on my way to see Leslie and ask her if she’ll take a boarder,”
+Miss Cornelia resumed.  “I’d a letter yesterday from a Mrs. Daly in
+Toronto, who boarded a spell with me two years ago.  She wanted me to
+take a friend of hers for the summer.  His name is Owen Ford, and he’s
+a newspaper man, and it seems he’s a grandson of the schoolmaster who
+built this house.  John Selwyn’s oldest daughter married an Ontario man
+named Ford, and this is her son.  He wants to see the old place his
+grandparents lived in.  He had a bad spell of typhoid in the spring and
+hasn’t got rightly over it, so his doctor has ordered him to the sea.
+He doesn’t want to go to the hotel&mdash;he just wants a quiet home place.
+I can’t take him, for I have to be away in August.  I’ve been appointed
+a delegate to the W.F.M.S.  convention in Kingsport and I’m going.  I
+don’t know whether Leslie’ll want to be bothered with him, either, but
+there’s no one else.  If she can’t take him he’ll have to go over the
+harbor.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“When you’ve seen her come back and help us eat our cherry pies,” said
+Anne.  “Bring Leslie and Dick, too, if they can come.  And so you’re
+going to Kingsport?  What a nice time you will have.  I must give you a
+letter to a friend of mine there&mdash;Mrs. Jonas Blake.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve prevailed on Mrs. Thomas Holt to go with me,” said Miss Cornelia
+complacently.  “It’s time she had a little holiday, believe ME.  She
+has just about worked herself to death.  Tom Holt can crochet
+beautifully, but he can’t make a living for his family.  He never seems
+to be able to get up early enough to do any work, but I notice he can
+always get up early to go fishing.  Isn’t that like a man?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne smiled.  She had learned to discount largely Miss Cornelia’s
+opinions of the Four Winds men.  Otherwise she must have believed them
+the most hopeless assortment of reprobates and ne’er-do-wells in the
+world, with veritable slaves and martyrs for wives.  This particular
+Tom Holt, for example, she knew to be a kind husband, a much loved
+father, and an excellent neighbor.  If he were rather inclined to be
+lazy, liking better the fishing he had been born for than the farming
+he had not, and if he had a harmless eccentricity for doing fancy work,
+nobody save Miss Cornelia seemed to hold it against him.  His wife was
+a “hustler,” who gloried in hustling; his family got a comfortable
+living off the farm; and his strapping sons and daughters, inheriting
+their mother’s energy, were all in a fair way to do well in the world.
+There was not a happier household in Glen St. Mary than the Holts’.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia returned satisfied from the house up the brook.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie’s going to take him,” she announced.  “She jumped at the
+chance.  She wants to make a little money to shingle the roof of her
+house this fall, and she didn’t know how she was going to manage it.  I
+expect Captain Jim’ll be more than interested when he hears that a
+grandson of the Selwyns’ is coming here.  Leslie said to tell you she
+hankered after cherry pie, but she couldn’t come to tea because she has
+to go and hunt up her turkeys.  They’ve strayed away.  But she said, if
+there was a piece left, for you to put it in the pantry and she’d run
+over in the cat’s light, when prowling’s in order, to get it.  You
+don’t know, Anne, dearie, what good it did my heart to hear Leslie send
+you a message like that, laughing like she used to long ago.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There’s a great change come over her lately.  She laughs and jokes
+like a girl, and from her talk I gather she’s here real often.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Every day&mdash;or else I’m over there,” said Anne.  “I don’t know what I’d
+do without Leslie, especially just now when Gilbert is so busy.  He’s
+hardly ever home except for a few hours in the wee sma’s.  He’s really
+working himself to death.  So many of the over-harbor people send for
+him now.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“They might better be content with their own doctor,” said Miss
+Cornelia.  “Though to be sure I can’t blame them, for he’s a Methodist.
+Ever since Dr. Blythe brought Mrs. Allonby round folks think he can
+raise the dead.  I believe Dr. Dave is a mite jealous&mdash;just like a man.
+He thinks Dr. Blythe has too many new-fangled notions!  'Well,’ I says
+to him, 'it was a new-fangled notion saved Rhoda Allonby.  If YOU’D
+been attending her she’d have died, and had a tombstone saying it had
+pleased God to take her away.’  Oh, I DO like to speak my mind to Dr.
+Dave!  He’s bossed the Glen for years, and he thinks he’s forgotten
+more than other people ever knew.  Speaking of doctors, I wish Dr.
+Blythe’d run over and see to that boil on Dick Moore’s neck.  It’s
+getting past Leslie’s skill.  I’m sure I don’t know what Dick Moore
+wants to start in having boils for&mdash;as if he wasn’t enough trouble
+without that!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Do you know, Dick has taken quite a fancy to me,” said Anne.  “He
+follows me round like a dog, and smiles like a pleased child when I
+notice him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Does it make you creepy?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Not at all.  I rather like poor Dick Moore.  He seems so pitiful and
+appealing, somehow.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You wouldn’t think him very appealing if you’d see him on his
+cantankerous days, believe ME.  But I’m glad you don’t mind him&mdash;it’s
+all the nicer for Leslie.  She’ll have more to do when her boarder
+comes.  I hope he’ll be a decent creature.  You’ll probably like
+him&mdash;he’s a writer.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wonder why people so commonly suppose that if two individuals are
+both writers they must therefore be hugely congenial,” said Anne,
+rather scornfully.  “Nobody would expect two blacksmiths to be
+violently attracted toward each other merely because they were both
+blacksmiths.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nevertheless, she looked forward to the advent of Owen Ford with a
+pleasant sense of expectation.  If he were young and likeable he might
+prove a very pleasant addition to society in Four Winds.  The
+latch-string of the little house was always out for the race of Joseph.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap23"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 23
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+OWEN FORD COMES
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+One evening Miss Cornelia telephoned down to Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The writer man has just arrived here.  I’m going to drive him down to
+your place, and you can show him the way over to Leslie’s.  It’s
+shorter than driving round by the other road, and I’m in a mortal
+hurry.  The Reese baby has gone and fallen into a pail of hot water at
+the Glen, and got nearly scalded to death and they want me right
+off&mdash;to put a new skin on the child, I presume.  Mrs. Reese is always
+so careless, and then expects other people to mend her mistakes.  You
+won’t mind, will you, dearie?  His trunk can go down tomorrow.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Very well,” said Anne.  “What is he like, Miss Cornelia?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’ll see what he’s like outside when I take him down.  As for what
+he’s like inside only the Lord who made him knows THAT.  I’m not going
+to say another word, for every receiver in the Glen is down.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Miss Cornelia evidently can’t find much fault with Mr. Ford’s looks,
+or she would find it in spite of the receivers,” said Anne.  “I
+conclude therefore, Susan, that Mr. Ford is rather handsome than
+otherwise.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, Mrs. Doctor, dear, I DO enjoy seeing a well-looking man,” said
+Susan candidly.  “Had I not better get up a snack for him?  There is a
+strawberry pie that would melt in your mouth.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, Leslie is expecting him and has his supper ready.  Besides, I want
+that strawberry pie for my own poor man.  He won’t be home till late,
+so leave the pie and a glass of milk out for him, Susan.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That I will, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Susan is at the helm.  After all, it
+is better to give pie to your own men than to strangers, who may be
+only seeking to devour, and the doctor himself is as well-looking a man
+as you often come across.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Owen Ford came Anne secretly admitted, as Miss Cornelia towed him
+in, that he was very “well-looking” indeed.  He was tall and
+broad-shouldered, with thick, brown hair, finely-cut nose and chin,
+large and brilliant dark-gray eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And did you notice his ears and his teeth, Mrs. Doctor, dear?” queried
+Susan later on.  “He has got the nicest-shaped ears I ever saw on a
+man’s head.  I am choice about ears.  When I was young I was scared
+that I might have to marry a man with ears like flaps.  But I need not
+have worried, for never a chance did I have with any kind of ears.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne had not noticed Owen Ford’s ears, but she did see his teeth, as
+his lips parted over them in a frank and friendly smile.  Unsmiling,
+his face was rather sad and absent in expression, not unlike the
+melancholy, inscrutable hero of Anne’s own early dreams; but mirth and
+humor and charm lighted it up when he smiled.  Certainly, on the
+outside, as Miss Cornelia said, Owen Ford was a very presentable fellow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You cannot realise how delighted I am to be here, Mrs. Blythe,” he
+said, looking around him with eager, interested eyes.  “I have an odd
+feeling of coming home.  My mother was born and spent her childhood
+here, you know.  She used to talk a great deal to me of her old home.
+I know the geography of it as well as of the one I lived in, and, of
+course, she told me the story of the building of the house, and of my
+grandfather’s agonised watch for the Royal William.  I had thought that
+so old a house must have vanished years ago, or I should have come to
+see it before this.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Old houses don’t vanish easily on this enchanted coast,” smiled Anne.
+“This is a 'land where all things always seem the same’&mdash;nearly always,
+at least.  John Selwyn’s house hasn’t even been much changed, and
+outside the rose-bushes your grandfather planted for his bride are
+blooming this very minute.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How the thought links me with them!  With your leave I must explore
+the whole place soon.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Our latch-string will always be out for you,” promised Anne.  “And do
+you know that the old sea captain who keeps the Four Winds light knew
+John Selwyn and his bride well in his boyhood?  He told me their story
+the night I came here&mdash;the third bride of the old house.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Can it be possible?  This IS a discovery.  I must hunt him up.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It won’t be difficult; we are all cronies of Captain Jim.  He will be
+as eager to see you as you could be to see him.  Your grandmother
+shines like a star in his memory.  But I think Mrs. Moore is expecting
+you.  I’ll show you our 'cross-lots’ road.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne walked with him to the house up the brook, over a field that was
+as white as snow with daisies.  A boat-load of people were singing far
+across the harbor.  The sound drifted over the water like faint,
+unearthly music wind-blown across a starlit sea.  The big light flashed
+and beaconed.  Owen Ford looked around him with satisfaction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And so this is Four Winds,” he said.  “I wasn’t prepared to find it
+quite so beautiful, in spite of all mother’s praises.  What
+colors&mdash;what scenery&mdash;what charm!  I shall get as strong as a horse in
+no time.  And if inspiration comes from beauty, I should certainly be
+able to begin my great Canadian novel here.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You haven’t begun it yet?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Alack-a-day, no.  I’ve never been able to get the right central idea
+for it.  It lurks beyond me&mdash;it allures&mdash;and beckons&mdash;and recedes&mdash;I
+almost grasp it and it is gone.  Perhaps amid this peace and
+loveliness, I shall be able to capture it.  Miss Bryant tells me that
+you write.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I do little things for children.  I haven’t done much since I was
+married.  And&mdash;I have no designs on a great Canadian novel,” laughed
+Anne.  “That is quite beyond me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Owen Ford laughed too.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I dare say it is beyond me as well.  All the same I mean to have a try
+at it some day, if I can ever get time.  A newspaper man doesn’t have
+much chance for that sort of thing.  I’ve done a good deal of short
+story writing for the magazines, but I’ve never had the leisure that
+seems to be necessary for the writing of a book.  With three months of
+liberty I ought to make a start, though&mdash;if I could only get the
+necessary motif for it&mdash;the SOUL of the book.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An idea whisked through Anne’s brain with a suddenness that made her
+jump.  But she did not utter it, for they had reached the Moore house.
+As they entered the yard Leslie came out on the veranda from the side
+door, peering through the gloom for some sign of her expected guest.
+She stood just where the warm yellow light flooded her from the open
+door.  She wore a plain dress of cheap, cream-tinted cotton voile, with
+the usual girdle of crimson.  Leslie was never without her touch of
+crimson.  She had told Anne that she never felt satisfied without a
+gleam of red somewhere about her, if it were only a flower.  To Anne,
+it always seemed to symbolise Leslie’s glowing, pent-up personality,
+denied all expression save in that flaming glint.  Leslie’s dress was
+cut a little away at the neck and had short sleeves.  Her arms gleamed
+like ivory-tinted marble.  Every exquisite curve of her form was
+outlined in soft darkness against the light.  Her hair shone in it like
+flame.  Beyond her was a purple sky, flowering with stars over the
+harbor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne heard her companion give a gasp.  Even in the dusk she could see
+the amazement and admiration on his face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Who is that beautiful creature?” he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That is Mrs. Moore,” said Anne.  “She is very lovely, isn’t she?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I&mdash;I never saw anything like her,” he answered, rather dazedly.  “I
+wasn’t prepared&mdash;I didn’t expect&mdash;good heavens, one DOESN’T expect a
+goddess for a landlady! Why, if she were clothed in a gown of
+sea-purple, with a rope of amethysts in her hair, she would be a
+veritable sea-queen.  And she takes in boarders!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Even goddesses must live,” said Anne.  “And Leslie isn’t a goddess.
+She’s just a very beautiful woman, as human as the rest of us.  Did
+Miss Bryant tell you about Mr. Moore?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes,&mdash;he’s mentally deficient, or something of the sort, isn’t he?
+But she said nothing about Mrs. Moore, and I supposed she’d be the
+usual hustling country housewife who takes in boarders to earn an
+honest penny.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, that’s just what Leslie is doing,” said Anne crisply.  “And it
+isn’t altogether pleasant for her, either.  I hope you won’t mind Dick.
+If you do, please don’t let Leslie see it.  It would hurt her horribly.
+He’s just a big baby, and sometimes a rather annoying one.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I won’t mind him.  I don’t suppose I’ll be much in the house
+anyhow, except for meals.  But what a shame it all is!  Her life must
+be a hard one.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It is.  But she doesn’t like to be pitied.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie had gone back into the house and now met them at the front door.
+She greeted Owen Ford with cold civility, and told him in a
+business-like tone that his room and his supper were ready for him.
+Dick, with a pleased grin, shambled upstairs with the valise, and Owen
+Ford was installed as an inmate of the old house among the willows.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap24"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 24
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+THE LIFE-BOOK OF CAPTAIN JIM
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+“I have a little brown cocoon of an idea that may possibly expand into
+a magnificent moth of fulfilment,” Anne told Gilbert when she reached
+home.  He had returned earlier than she had expected, and was enjoying
+Susan’s cherry pie.  Susan herself hovered in the background, like a
+rather grim but beneficent guardian spirit, and found as much pleasure
+in watching Gilbert eat pie as he did in eating it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+ “What is your idea?” he asked.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I sha’n’t tell you just yet&mdash;not till I see if I can bring the thing
+about.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What sort of a chap is Ford?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, very nice, and quite good-looking.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Such beautiful ears, doctor, dear,” interjected Susan with a relish.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He is about thirty or thirty-five, I think, and he meditates writing a
+novel.  His voice is pleasant and his smile delightful, and he knows
+how to dress.  He looks as if life hadn’t been altogether easy for him,
+somehow.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Owen Ford came over the next evening with a note to Anne from Leslie;
+they spent the sunset time in the garden and then went for a moonlit
+sail on the harbor, in the little boat Gilbert had set up for summer
+outings.  They liked Owen immensely and had that feeling of having
+known him for many years which distinguishes the freemasonry of the
+house of Joseph.  “He is as nice as his ears, Mrs. Doctor, dear,” said
+Susan, when he had gone.  He had told Susan that he had never tasted
+anything like her strawberry shortcake and Susan’s susceptible heart
+was his forever.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He has got a way with him,”  she reflected, as she cleared up the
+relics of the supper.  “It is real queer he is not married, for a man
+like that could have anybody for the asking.  Well, maybe he is like
+me, and has not met the right one yet.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Susan really grew quite romantic in her musings as she washed the
+supper dishes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Two nights later Anne took Owen Ford down to Four Winds Point to
+introduce him to Captain Jim.  The clover fields along the harbor shore
+were whitening in the western wind, and Captain Jim had one of his
+finest sunsets on exhibition.  He himself had just returned from a trip
+over the harbor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I had to go over and tell Henry Pollack he was dying.  Everybody else
+was afraid to tell him.  They expected he’d take on turrible, for he’s
+been dreadful determined to live, and been making no end of plans for
+the fall.  His wife thought he oughter be told and that I’d be the best
+one to break it to him that he couldn’t get better.  Henry and me are
+old cronies&mdash;we sailed in the Gray Gull for years together.  Well, I
+went over and sat down by Henry’s bed and I says to him, says I, jest
+right out plain and simple, for if a thing’s got to be told it may as
+well be told first as last, says I, 'Mate, I reckon you’ve got your
+sailing orders this time,’ I was sorter quaking inside, for it’s an
+awful thing to have to tell a man who hain’t any idea he’s dying that
+he is.  But lo and behold, Mistress Blythe, Henry looks up at me, with
+those bright old black eyes of his in his wizened face and says, says
+he, 'Tell me something I don’t know, Jim Boyd, if you want to give me
+information.  I’ve known THAT for a week.’  I was too astonished to
+speak, and Henry, he chuckled.  'To see you coming in here,’ says he,
+'with your face as solemn as a tombstone and sitting down there with
+your hands clasped over your stomach, and passing me out a blue-mouldy
+old item of news like that!  It’d make a cat laugh, Jim Boyd,’ says he.
+'Who told you?’ says I, stupid like.  'Nobody,’ says he.  'A week ago
+Tuesday night I was lying here awake&mdash;and I jest knew.  I’d suspicioned
+it before, but then I KNEW.  I’ve been keeping up for the wife’s sake.
+And I’d LIKE to have got that barn built, for Eben’ll never get it
+right.  But anyhow, now that you’ve eased your mind, Jim, put on a
+smile and tell me something interesting,’ Well, there it was.  They’d
+been so scared to tell him and he knew it all the time.  Strange how
+nature looks out for us, ain’t it, and lets us know what we should know
+when the time comes?  Did I never tell you the yarn about Henry getting
+the fish hook in his nose, Mistress Blythe?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, him and me had a laugh over it today.  It happened nigh unto
+thirty years ago.  Him and me and several more was out mackerel fishing
+one day.  It was a great day&mdash;never saw such a school of mackerel in
+the gulf&mdash;and in the general excitement Henry got quite wild and
+contrived to stick a fish hook clean through one side of his nose.
+Well, there he was; there was barb on one end and a big piece of lead
+on the other, so it couldn’t be pulled out.  We wanted to take him
+ashore at once, but Henry was game; he said he’d be jiggered if he’d
+leave a school like that for anything short of lockjaw; then he kept
+fishing away, hauling in hand over fist and groaning between times.
+Fin’lly the school passed and we come in with a load; I got a file and
+begun to try to file through that hook.  I tried to be as easy as I
+could, but you should have heard Henry&mdash;no, you shouldn’t either.  It
+was well no ladies were around.  Henry wasn’t a swearing man, but he’d
+heard some few matters of that sort along shore in his time, and he
+fished ’em all out of his recollection and hurled ’em at me.  Fin’lly
+he declared he couldn’t stand it and I had no bowels of compassion.  So
+we hitched up and I drove him to a doctor in Charlottetown, thirty-five
+miles&mdash;there weren’t none nearer in them days&mdash;with that blessed hook
+still hanging from his nose.  When we got there old Dr. Crabb jest took
+a file and filed that hook jest the same as I’d tried to do, only he
+weren’t a mite particular about doing it easy!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim’s visit to his old friend had revived many recollections
+and he was now in the full tide of reminiscences.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Henry was asking me today if I remembered the time old Father Chiniquy
+blessed Alexander MacAllister’s boat.  Another odd yarn&mdash;and true as
+gospel.  I was in the boat myself.  We went out, him and me, in
+Alexander MacAllister’s boat one morning at sunrise.  Besides, there
+was a French boy in the boat&mdash;Catholic of course.  You know old Father
+Chiniquy had turned Protestant, so the Catholics hadn’t much use for
+him.  Well, we sat out in the gulf in the broiling sun till noon, and
+not a bite did we get.  When we went ashore old Father Chiniquy had to
+go, so he said in that polite way of his, 'I’m very sorry I cannot go
+out with you dis afternoon, Mr. MacAllister, but I leave you my
+blessing.  You will catch a t’ousand dis afternoon.  'Well, we did not
+catch a thousand, but we caught exactly nine hundred and
+ninety-nine&mdash;the biggest catch for a small boat on the whole north
+shore that summer.  Curious, wasn’t it?  Alexander MacAllister, he says
+to Andrew Peters, 'Well, and what do you think of Father Chiniquy now?’
+'Vell,’ growled Andrew, 'I t’ink de old devil has got a blessing left
+yet.’  Laws, how Henry did laugh over that today!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Do you know who Mr. Ford is, Captain Jim?” asked Anne, seeing that
+Captain Jim’s fountain of reminiscence had run out for the present.  “I
+want you to guess.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I never was any hand at guessing, Mistress Blythe, and yet somehow
+when I come in I thought, 'Where have I seen them eyes before?’&mdash;for I
+HAVE seen ’em.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Think of a September morning many years ago,” said Anne, softly.
+“Think of a ship sailing up the harbor&mdash;a ship long waited for and
+despaired of.  Think of the day the Royal William came in and the first
+look you had at the schoolmaster’s bride.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim sprang up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“They’re Persis Selwyn’s eyes,” he almost shouted.  “You can’t be her
+son&mdash;you must be her&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Grandson; yes, I am Alice Selwyn’s son.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim swooped down on Owen Ford and shook his hand over again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Alice Selwyn’s son!  Lord, but you’re welcome!  Many’s the time I’ve
+wondered where the descendants of the schoolmaster were living.  I knew
+there was none on the Island.  Alice&mdash;Alice&mdash;the first baby ever born
+in that little house.  No baby ever brought more joy!  I’ve dandled her
+a hundred times.  It was from my knee she took her first steps alone.
+Can’t I see her mother’s face watching her&mdash;and it was near sixty years
+ago.  Is she living yet?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, she died when I was only a boy.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, it doesn’t seem right that I should be living to hear that,”
+sighed Captain Jim.  “But I’m heart-glad to see you.  It’s brought back
+my youth for a little while.  You don’t know yet what a boon THAT is.
+Mistress Blythe here has the trick&mdash;she does it quite often for me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim was still more excited when he discovered that Owen Ford
+was what he called a “real writing man.”  He gazed at him as at a
+superior being.  Captain Jim knew that Anne wrote, but he had never
+taken that fact very seriously.  Captain Jim thought women were
+delightful creatures, who ought to have the vote, and everything else
+they wanted, bless their hearts; but he did not believe they could
+write.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Jest look at A Mad Love,” he would protest.  “A woman wrote that and
+jest look at it&mdash;one hundred and three chapters when it could all have
+been told in ten.  A writing woman never knows when to stop; that’s the
+trouble.  The p’int of good writing is to know when to stop.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Mr. Ford wants to hear some of your stories, Captain Jim” said Anne.
+“Tell him the one about the captain who went crazy and imagined he was
+the Flying Dutchman.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This was Captain Jim’s best story.  It was a compound of horror and
+humor, and though Anne had heard it several times she laughed as
+heartily and shivered as fearsomely over it as Mr. Ford did.  Other
+tales followed, for Captain Jim had an audience after his own heart.
+He told how his vessel had been run down by a steamer; how he had been
+boarded by Malay pirates; how his ship had caught fire; how he helped a
+political prisoner escape from a South African republic; how he had
+been wrecked one fall on the Magdalens and stranded there for the
+winter; how a tiger had broken loose on board ship; how his crew had
+mutinied and marooned him on a barren island&mdash;these and many other
+tales, tragic or humorous or grotesque, did Captain Jim relate.  The
+mystery of the sea, the fascination of far lands, the lure of
+adventure, the laughter of the world&mdash;his hearers felt and realised
+them all.  Owen Ford listened, with his head on his hand, and the First
+Mate purring on his knee, his brilliant eyes fastened on Captain Jim’s
+rugged, eloquent face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Won’t you let Mr. Ford see your life-book, Captain Jim?” asked Anne,
+when Captain Jim finally declared that yarn-spinning must end for the
+time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, he don’t want to be bothered with THAT,” protested Captain Jim,
+who was secretly dying to show it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I should like nothing better than to see it, Captain Boyd,” said Owen.
+“If it is half as wonderful as your tales it will be worth seeing.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With pretended reluctance Captain Jim dug his life-book out of his old
+chest and handed it to Owen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I reckon you won’t care to wrastle long with my old hand o’ write.  I
+never had much schooling,” he observed carelessly.  “Just wrote that
+there to amuse my nephew Joe.  He’s always wanting stories.  Comes here
+yesterday and says to me, reproachful-like, as I was lifting a
+twenty-pound codfish out of my boat, 'Uncle Jim, ain’t a codfish a dumb
+animal?’  I’d been a-telling him, you see, that he must be real kind to
+dumb animals, and never hurt ’em in any way.  I got out of the scrape
+by saying a codfish was dumb enough but it wasn’t an animal, but Joe
+didn’t look satisfied, and I wasn’t satisfied myself.  You’ve got to be
+mighty careful what you tell them little critters.  THEY can see
+through you.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While talking, Captain Jim watched Owen Ford from the corner of his eye
+as the latter examined the life-book; and presently observing that his
+guest was lost in its pages, he turned smilingly to his cupboard and
+proceeded to make a pot of tea.  Owen Ford separated himself from the
+life-book, with as much reluctance as a miser wrenches himself from his
+gold, long enough to drink his tea, and then returned to it hungrily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, you can take that thing home with you if you want to,” said
+Captain Jim, as if the “thing” were not his most treasured possession.
+“I must go down and pull my boat up a bit on the skids.  There’s a wind
+coming.  Did you notice the sky tonight?
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+    Mackerel skies and mares’ tails<BR>
+    Make tall ships carry short sails.”<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Owen Ford accepted the offer of the life-book gladly.  On their way
+home Anne told him the story of lost Margaret.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That old captain is a wonderful old fellow,” he said.  “What a life he
+has led!  Why, the man had more adventures in one week of his life than
+most of us have in a lifetime.  Do you really think his tales are all
+true?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I certainly do.  I am sure Captain Jim could not tell a lie; and
+besides, all the people about here say that everything happened as he
+relates it.  There used to be plenty of his old shipmates alive to
+corroborate him.  He’s one of the last of the old type of P.E. Island
+sea-captains.  They are almost extinct now.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap25"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 25
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+THE WRITING OF THE BOOK
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Owen Ford came over to the little house the next morning in a state of
+great excitement.  “Mrs. Blythe, this is a wonderful book&mdash;absolutely
+wonderful.  If I could take it and use the material for a book I feel
+certain I could make the novel of the year out of it.  Do you suppose
+Captain Jim would let me do it?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Let you!  I’m sure he would be delighted,” cried Anne.  “I admit that
+it was what was in my head when I took you down last night.  Captain
+Jim has always been wishing he could get somebody to write his
+life-book properly for him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Will you go down to the Point with me this evening, Mrs. Blythe?  I’ll
+ask him about that life-book myself, but I want you to tell him that
+you told me the story of lost Margaret and ask him if he will let me
+use it as a thread of romance with which to weave the stories of the
+life-book into a harmonious whole.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim was more excited than ever when Owen Ford told him of his
+plan.  At last his cherished dream was to be realized and his
+“life-book” given to the world.  He was also pleased that the story of
+lost Margaret should be woven into it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It will keep her name from being forgotten,” he said wistfully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That’s why I want it put in.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We’ll collaborate,” cried Owen delightedly.  “You will give the soul
+and I the body.  Oh, we’ll write a famous book between us, Captain Jim.
+And we’ll get right to work.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And to think my book is to be writ by the schoolmaster’s grandson!”
+exclaimed Captain Jim.  “Lad, your grandfather was my dearest friend.
+I thought there was nobody like him.  I see now why I had to wait so
+long.  It couldn’t be writ till the right man come.  You BELONG
+here&mdash;you’ve got the soul of this old north shore in you&mdash;you’re the
+only one who COULD write it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was arranged that the tiny room off the living room at the
+lighthouse should be given over to Owen for a workshop.  It was
+necessary that Captain Jim should be near him as he wrote, for
+consultation upon many matters of sea-faring and gulf lore of which
+Owen was quite ignorant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He began work on the book the very next morning, and flung himself into
+it heart and soul.  As for Captain Jim, he was a happy man that summer.
+He looked upon the little room where Owen worked as a sacred shrine.
+Owen talked everything over with Captain Jim, but he would not let him
+see the manuscript.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You must wait until it is published,” he said.  “Then you’ll get it
+all at once in its best shape.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He delved into the treasures of the life-book and used them freely.  He
+dreamed and brooded over lost Margaret until she became a vivid reality
+to him and lived in his pages.  As the book progressed it took
+possession of him and he worked at it with feverish eagerness.  He let
+Anne and Leslie read the manuscript and criticise it; and the
+concluding chapter of the book, which the critics, later on, were
+pleased to call idyllic, was modelled upon a suggestion of Leslie’s.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne fairly hugged herself with delight over the success of her idea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I knew when I looked at Owen Ford that he was the very man for it,”
+she told Gilbert.  “Both humor and passion were in his face, and that,
+together with the art of expression, was just what was necessary for
+the writing of such a book.  As Mrs. Rachel would say, he was
+predestined for the part.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Owen Ford wrote in the mornings.  The afternoons were generally spent
+in some merry outing with the Blythes.  Leslie often went, too, for
+Captain Jim took charge of Dick frequently, in order to set her free.
+They went boating on the harbor and up the three pretty rivers that
+flowed into it; they had clambakes on the bar and mussel-bakes on the
+rocks; they picked strawberries on the sand-dunes; they went out
+cod-fishing with Captain Jim; they shot plover in the shore fields and
+wild ducks in the cove&mdash;at least, the men did.  In the evenings they
+rambled in the low-lying, daisied, shore fields under a golden moon, or
+they sat in the living room at the little house where often the
+coolness of the sea breeze justified a driftwood fire, and talked of
+the thousand and one things which happy, eager, clever young people can
+find to talk about.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Ever since the day on which she had made her confession to Anne Leslie
+had been a changed creature.  There was no trace of her old coldness
+and reserve, no shadow of her old bitterness.  The girlhood of which
+she had been cheated seemed to come back to her with the ripeness of
+womanhood; she expanded like a flower of flame and perfume; no laugh
+was readier than hers, no wit quicker, in the twilight circles of that
+enchanted summer.  When she could not be with them all felt that some
+exquisite savor was lacking in their intercourse.  Her beauty was
+illumined by the awakened soul within, as some rosy lamp might shine
+through a flawless vase of alabaster.  There were hours when Anne’s
+eyes seemed to ache with the splendor of her.  As for Owen Ford, the
+“Margaret” of his book, although she had the soft brown hair and elfin
+face of the real girl who had vanished so long ago, “pillowed where
+lost Atlantis sleeps,” had the personality of Leslie Moore, as it was
+revealed to him in those halcyon days at Four Winds Harbor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer&mdash;one of those summers
+which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful
+memories in their going&mdash;one of those summers which, in a fortunate
+combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful
+doings, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Too good to last,” Anne told herself with a little sigh, on the
+September day when a certain nip in the wind and a certain shade of
+intense blue on the gulf water said that autumn was hard by.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That evening Owen Ford told them that he had finished his book and that
+his vacation must come to an end.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I have a good deal to do to it yet&mdash;revising and pruning and so
+forth,” he said, “but in the main it’s done.  I wrote the last sentence
+this morning.  If I can find a publisher for it it will probably be out
+next summer or fall.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Owen had not much doubt that he would find a publisher.  He knew that
+he had written a great book&mdash;a book that would score a wonderful
+success&mdash;a book that would LIVE.  He knew that it would bring him both
+fame and fortune; but when he had written the last line of it he had
+bowed his head on the manuscript and so sat for a long time.  And his
+thoughts were not of the good work he had done.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap26"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 26
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+OWEN FORD’S CONFESSION
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+“I’m so sorry Gilbert is away,” said Anne.  “He had to go&mdash;Allan Lyons
+at the Glen has met with a serious accident.  He will not likely be
+home till very late.  But he told me to tell you he’d be up and over
+early enough in the morning to see you before you left.  It’s too
+provoking.  Susan and I had planned such a nice little jamboree for
+your last night here.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was sitting beside the garden brook on the little rustic seat
+Gilbert had built.  Owen Ford stood before her, leaning against the
+bronze column of a yellow birch.  He was very pale and his face bore
+the marks of the preceding sleepless night.  Anne, glancing up at him,
+wondered if, after all, his summer had brought him the strength it
+should.  Had he worked too hard over his book?  She remembered that for
+a week he had not been looking well.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m rather glad the doctor is away,” said Owen slowly.  “I wanted to
+see you alone, Mrs. Blythe.  There is something I must tell somebody,
+or I think it will drive me mad.  I’ve been trying for a week to look
+it in the face&mdash;and I can’t.  I know I can trust you&mdash;and, besides, you
+will understand.  A woman with eyes like yours always understands.  You
+are one of the folks people instinctively tell things to.  Mrs. Blythe,
+I love Leslie.  LOVE her!  That seems too weak a word!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His voice suddenly broke with the suppressed passion of his utterance.
+He turned his head away and hid his face on his arm.  His whole form
+shook.  Anne sat looking at him, pale and aghast.  She had never
+thought of this!  And yet&mdash;how was it she had never thought of it?  It
+now seemed a natural and inevitable thing.  She wondered at her own
+blindness.  But&mdash;but&mdash;things like this did not happen in Four Winds.
+Elsewhere in the world human passions might set at defiance human
+conventions and laws&mdash;but not HERE, surely.  Leslie had kept summer
+boarders off and on for ten years, and nothing like this had happened.
+But perhaps they had not been like Owen Ford; and the vivid, LIVING
+Leslie of this summer was not the cold, sullen girl of other years.
+Oh, SOMEBODY should have thought of this!  Why hadn’t Miss Cornelia
+thought of it?  Miss Cornelia was always ready enough to sound the
+alarm where men were concerned. Anne felt an unreasonable resentment
+against Miss Cornelia.  Then she gave a little inward groan.  No matter
+who was to blame the mischief was done.  And Leslie&mdash;what of Leslie?
+It was for Leslie Anne felt most concerned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Does Leslie know this, Mr. Ford?” she asked quietly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No&mdash;no,&mdash;unless she has guessed it.  You surely don’t think I’d be cad
+and scoundrel enough to tell her, Mrs. Blythe.  I couldn’t help loving
+her&mdash;that’s all&mdash;and my misery is greater than I can bear.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Does SHE care?” asked Anne.  The moment the question crossed her lips
+she felt that she should not have asked it.  Owen Ford answered it with
+overeager protest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No&mdash;no, of course not.  But I could make her care if she were free&mdash;I
+know I could.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She does care&mdash;and he knows it,” thought Anne.  Aloud she said,
+sympathetically but decidedly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But she is not free, Mr. Ford.  And the only thing you can do is to go
+away in silence and leave her to her own life.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I know&mdash;I know,” groaned Owen.  He sat down on the grassy bank and
+stared moodily into the amber water beneath him.  “I know there’s
+nothing to do&mdash;nothing but to say conventionally, 'Good-bye, Mrs.
+Moore.  Thank you for all your kindness to me this summer,’ just as I
+would have said it to the sonsy, bustling, keen-eyed housewife I
+expected her to be when I came.  Then I’ll pay my board money like any
+honest boarder and go!  Oh, it’s very simple.  No doubt&mdash;no
+perplexity&mdash;a straight road to the end of the world!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And I’ll walk it&mdash;you needn’t fear that I won’t, Mrs. Blythe.  But it
+would be easier to walk over red-hot ploughshares.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne flinched with the pain of his voice.  And there was so little she
+could say that would be adequate to the situation.  Blame was out of
+the question&mdash;advice was not needed&mdash;sympathy was mocked by the man’s
+stark agony.  She could only feel with him in a maze of compassion and
+regret.  Her heart ached for Leslie!  Had not that poor girl suffered
+enough without this?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It wouldn’t be so hard to go and leave her if she were only happy,”
+resumed Owen passionately.  “But to think of her living death&mdash;to
+realise what it is to which I do leave her!  THAT is the worst of all.
+I would give my life to make her happy&mdash;and I can do nothing even to
+help her&mdash;nothing.  She is bound forever to that poor wretch&mdash;with
+nothing to look forward to but growing old in a succession of empty,
+meaningless, barren years.  It drives me mad to think of it.  But I
+must go through my life, never seeing her, but always knowing what she
+is enduring.  It’s hideous&mdash;hideous!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It is very hard,” said Anne sorrowfully.  “We&mdash;her friends here&mdash;all
+know how hard it is for her.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And she is so richly fitted for life,” said Owen rebelliously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Her beauty is the least of her dower&mdash;and she is the most beautiful
+woman I’ve ever known.  That laugh of hers!  I’ve angled all summer to
+evoke that laugh, just for the delight of hearing it.  And her
+eyes&mdash;they are as deep and blue as the gulf out there.  I never saw
+such blueness&mdash;and gold!  Did you ever see her hair down, Mrs. Blythe?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I did&mdash;once.  I had gone down to the Point to go fishing with Captain
+Jim but it was too rough to go out, so I came back.  She had taken the
+opportunity of what she expected to be an afternoon alone to wash her
+hair, and she was standing on the veranda in the sunshine to dry it.
+It fell all about her to her feet in a fountain of living gold.  When
+she saw me she hurried in, and the wind caught her hair and swirled it
+all around her&mdash;Danae in her cloud.  Somehow, just then the knowledge
+that I loved her came home to me&mdash;and realised that I had loved her
+from the moment I first saw her standing against the darkness in that
+glow of light.  And she must live on here&mdash;petting and soothing Dick,
+pinching and saving for a mere existence, while I spend my life longing
+vainly for her, and debarred, by that very fact, from even giving her
+the little help a friend might.  I walked the shore last night, almost
+till dawn, and thrashed it all out over and over again.  And yet, in
+spite of everything, I can’t find it in my heart to be sorry that I
+came to Four Winds.  It seems to me that, bad as everything is, it
+would be still worse never to have known Leslie.  It’s burning, searing
+pain to love her and leave her&mdash;but not to have loved her is
+unthinkable.  I suppose all this sounds very crazy&mdash;all these terrible
+emotions always do sound foolish when we put them into our inadequate
+words.  They are not meant to be spoken&mdash;only felt and endured.  I
+shouldn’t have spoken&mdash;but it has helped&mdash;some.  At least, it has given
+me strength to go away respectably tomorrow morning, without making a
+scene.  You’ll write me now and then, won’t you, Mrs. Blythe, and give
+me what news there is to give of her?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes,” said Anne.  “Oh, I’m so sorry you are going&mdash;we’ll miss you
+so&mdash;we’ve all been such friends!  If it were not for this you could
+come back other summers.  Perhaps, even yet&mdash;by-and-by&mdash;when you’ve
+forgotten, perhaps&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I shall never forget&mdash;and I shall never come back to Four Winds,” said
+Owen briefly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Silence and twilight fell over the garden.  Far away the sea was
+lapping gently and monotonously on the bar.  The wind of evening in the
+poplars sounded like some sad, weird, old rune&mdash;some broken dream of
+old memories.  A slender shapely young aspen rose up before them
+against the fine maize and emerald and paling rose of the western sky,
+which brought out every leaf and twig in dark, tremulous, elfin
+loveliness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Isn’t that beautiful?” said Owen, pointing to it with the air of a man
+who puts a certain conversation behind him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s so beautiful that it hurts me,” said Anne softly.  “Perfect
+things like that always did hurt me&mdash;I remember I called it 'the queer
+ache’ when I was a child.  What is the reason that pain like this seems
+inseparable from perfection?  Is it the pain of finality&mdash;when we
+realise that there can be nothing beyond but retrogression?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Perhaps,” said Owen dreamily, “it is the prisoned infinite in us
+calling out to its kindred infinite as expressed in that visible
+perfection.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You seem to have a cold in the head.  Better rub some tallow on your
+nose when you go to bed,” said Miss Cornelia, who had come in through
+the little gate between the firs in time to catch Owen’s last remark.
+Miss Cornelia liked Owen; but it was a matter of principle with her to
+visit any “high-falutin” language from a man with a snub.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia personated the comedy that ever peeps around the corner
+at the tragedy of life.  Anne, whose nerves had been rather strained,
+laughed hysterically, and even Owen smiled.  Certainly, sentiment and
+passion had a way of shrinking out of sight in Miss Cornelia’s
+presence.  And yet to Anne nothing seemed quite as hopeless and dark
+and painful as it had seemed a few moments before.  But sleep was far
+from her eyes that night.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap27"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 27
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+ON THE SAND BAR
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Owen Ford left Four Winds the next morning.  In the evening Anne went
+over to see Leslie, but found nobody.  The house was locked and there
+was no light in any window.  It looked like a home left soulless.
+Leslie did not run over on the following day&mdash;which Anne thought a bad
+sign.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert having occasion to go in the evening to the fishing cove, Anne
+drove with him to the Point, intending to stay awhile with Captain Jim.
+But the great light, cutting its swathes through the fog of the autumn
+evening, was in care of Alec Boyd and Captain Jim was away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What will you do?” asked Gilbert.  “Come with me?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t want to go to the cove&mdash;but I’ll go over the channel with you,
+and roam about on the sand shore till you come back.  The rock shore is
+too slippery and grim tonight.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Alone on the sands of the bar Anne gave herself up to the eerie charm
+of the night.  It was warm for September, and the late afternoon had
+been very foggy; but a full moon had in part lessened the fog and
+transformed the harbor and the gulf and the surrounding shores into a
+strange, fantastic, unreal world of pale silver mist, through which
+everything loomed phantom-like.  Captain Josiah Crawford’s black
+schooner sailing down the channel, laden with potatoes for Bluenose
+ports, was a spectral ship bound for a far uncharted land, ever
+receding, never to be reached.  The calls of unseen gulls overhead were
+the cries of the souls of doomed seamen.  The little curls of foam that
+blew across the sand were elfin things stealing up from the sea-caves.
+The big, round-shouldered sand-dunes were the sleeping giants of some
+old northern tale.  The lights that glimmered palely across the harbor
+were the delusive beacons on some coast of fairyland.  Anne pleased
+herself with a hundred fancies as she wandered through the mist.  It
+was delightful&mdash;romantic&mdash;mysterious to be roaming here alone on this
+enchanted shore.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But was she alone?  Something loomed in the mist before her&mdash;took shape
+and form&mdash;suddenly moved towards her across the wave-rippled sand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie!” exclaimed Anne in amazement.  “Whatever are you
+doing&mdash;HERE&mdash;tonight?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If it comes to that, whatever are YOU doing here?” said Leslie, trying
+to laugh.  The effort was a failure.  She looked very pale and tired;
+but the love locks under her scarlet cap were curling about her face
+and eyes like little sparkling rings of gold.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m waiting for Gilbert&mdash;he’s over at the Cove.  I intended to stay at
+the light, but Captain Jim is away.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, <I>I</I> came here because I wanted to walk&mdash;and walk&mdash;and WALK,”
+said Leslie restlessly.  “I couldn’t on the rock shore&mdash;the tide was
+too high and the rocks prisoned me.  I had to come here&mdash;or I should
+have gone mad, I think.  I rowed myself over the channel in Captain
+Jim’s flat.  I’ve been here for an hour.  Come&mdash;come&mdash;let us walk.  I
+can’t stand still.  Oh, Anne!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie, dearest, what is the trouble?” asked Anne, though she knew too
+well already.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I can’t tell you&mdash;don’t ask me.  I wouldn’t mind your knowing&mdash;I wish
+you did know&mdash;but I can’t tell you&mdash;I can’t tell anyone.  I’ve been
+such a fool, Anne&mdash;and oh, it hurts so terribly to be a fool.  There’s
+nothing so painful in the world.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She laughed bitterly.  Anne slipped her arm around her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie, is it that you have learned to care for Mr. Ford?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie turned herself about passionately.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How did you know?” she cried.  “Anne, how did you know?  Oh, is it
+written in my face for everyone to see?  Is it as plain as that?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, no.  I&mdash;I can’t tell you how I knew.  It just came into my mind,
+somehow.  Leslie, don’t look at me like that!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Do you despise me?” demanded Leslie in a fierce, low tone.  “Do you
+think I’m wicked&mdash;unwomanly?  Or do you think I’m just plain fool?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t think you any of those things.  Come, dear, let’s just talk it
+over sensibly, as we might talk over any other of the great crises of
+life.  You’ve been brooding over it and let yourself drift into a
+morbid view of it.  You know you have a little tendency to do that
+about everything that goes wrong, and you promised me that you would
+fight against it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But&mdash;oh, it’s so&mdash;so shameful,” murmured Leslie.  “To love
+him&mdash;unsought&mdash;and when I’m not free to love anybody.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There’s nothing shameful about it.  But I’m very sorry that you have
+learned to care for Owen, because, as things are, it will only make you
+more unhappy.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I didn’t LEARN to care,” said Leslie, walking on and speaking
+passionately.  “If it had been like that I could have prevented it.  I
+never dreamed of such a thing until that day, a week ago, when he told
+me he had finished his book and must soon go away.  Then&mdash;then I knew.
+I felt as if someone had struck me a terrible blow.  I didn’t say
+anything&mdash;I couldn’t speak&mdash;but I don’t know what I looked like.  I’m
+so afraid my face betrayed me.  Oh, I would die of shame if I thought
+he knew&mdash;or suspected.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne was miserably silent, hampered by her deductions from her
+conversation with Owen.  Leslie went on feverishly, as if she found
+relief in speech.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I was so happy all this summer, Anne&mdash;happier than I ever was in my
+life.  I thought it was because everything had been made clear between
+you and me, and that it was our friendship which made life seem so
+beautiful and full once more.  And it WAS, in part&mdash;but not all&mdash;oh,
+not nearly all.  I know now why everything was so different.  And now
+it’s all over&mdash;and he has gone.  How can I live, Anne?  When I turned
+back into the house this morning after he had gone the solitude struck
+me like a blow in the face.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It won’t seem so hard by and by, dear,” said Anne, who always felt the
+pain of her friends so keenly that she could not speak easy, fluent
+words of comforting.  Besides, she remembered how well-meant speeches
+had hurt her in her own sorrow and was afraid.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, it seems to me it will grow harder all the time,” said Leslie
+miserably.  “I’ve nothing to look forward to.  Morning will come after
+morning&mdash;and he will not come back&mdash;he will never come back.  Oh, when
+I think that I will never see him again I feel as if a great brutal
+hand had twisted itself among my heartstrings, and was wrenching them.
+Once, long ago, I dreamed of love&mdash;and I thought it must be
+beautiful&mdash;and NOW&mdash;its like THIS.  When he went away yesterday morning
+he was so cold and indifferent.  He said 'Good-bye, Mrs. Moore’ in the
+coldest tone in the world&mdash;as if we had not even been friends&mdash;as if I
+meant absolutely nothing to him.  I know I don’t&mdash;I didn’t want him to
+care&mdash;but he MIGHT have been a little kinder.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I wish Gilbert would come,” thought Anne.  She was racked between
+her sympathy for Leslie and the necessity of avoiding anything that
+would betray Owen’s confidence.  She knew why his good-bye had been so
+cold&mdash;why it could not have the cordiality that their good-comradeship
+demanded&mdash;but she could not tell Leslie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I couldn’t help it, Anne&mdash;I couldn’t help it,” said poor Leslie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I know that.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Do you blame me so very much?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t blame you at all.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And you won’t&mdash;you won’t tell Gilbert?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie!  Do you think I would do such a thing?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I don’t know&mdash;you and Gilbert are such CHUMS.  I don’t see how you
+could help telling him everything.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Everything about my own concerns&mdash;yes.  But not my friends’ secrets.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I couldn’t have HIM know.  But I’m glad YOU know.  I would feel guilty
+if there were anything I was ashamed to tell you.  I hope Miss Cornelia
+won’t find out.  Sometimes I feel as if those terrible, kind brown eyes
+of hers read my very soul.  Oh, I wish this mist would never lift&mdash;I
+wish I could just stay in it forever, hidden away from every living
+being.  I don’t see how I can go on with life.  This summer has been so
+full.  I never was lonely for a moment.  Before Owen came there used to
+be horrible moments&mdash;when I had been with you and Gilbert&mdash;and then had
+to leave you.  You two would walk away together and I would walk away
+ALONE.  After Owen came he was always there to walk home with me&mdash;we
+would laugh and talk as you and Gilbert were doing&mdash;there were no more
+lonely, envious moments for me.  And NOW!  Oh, yes, I’ve been a fool.
+Let’s have done talking about my folly.  I’ll never bore you with it
+again.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Here is Gilbert, and you are coming back with us,” said Anne, who had
+no intention of leaving Leslie to wander alone on the sand-bar on such
+a night and in such a mood.  “There’s plenty of room in our boat for
+three, and we’ll tie the flat on behind.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I suppose I must reconcile myself to being the odd one again,”
+said poor Leslie with another bitter laugh.  “Forgive me, Anne&mdash;that
+was hateful.  I ought to be thankful&mdash;and I AM&mdash;that I have two good
+friends who are glad to count me in as a third.  Don’t mind my hateful
+speeches.  I just seem to be one great pain all over and everything
+hurts me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie seemed very quiet tonight, didn’t she?” said Gilbert, when he
+and Anne reached home.  “What in the world was she doing over there on
+the bar alone?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, she was tired&mdash;and you know she likes to go to the shore after one
+of Dick’s bad days.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What a pity she hadn’t met and married a fellow like Ford long ago,”
+ruminated Gilbert.  “They’d have made an ideal couple, wouldn’t they?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“For pity’s sake, Gilbert, don’t develop into a match-maker.  It’s an
+abominable profession for a man,” cried Anne rather sharply, afraid
+that Gilbert might blunder on the truth if he kept on in this strain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Bless us, Anne-girl, I’m not matchmaking,” protested Gilbert, rather
+surprised at her tone.  “I was only thinking of one of the
+might-have-beens.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, don’t.  It’s a waste of time,” said Anne.  Then she added
+suddenly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, Gilbert, I wish everybody could be as happy as we are.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap28"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 28
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+ODDS AND ENDS
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve been reading obituary notices,” said Miss Cornelia, laying down
+the Daily Enterprise and taking up her sewing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The harbor was lying black and sullen under a dour November sky; the
+wet, dead leaves clung drenched and sodden to the window sills; but the
+little house was gay with firelight and spring-like with Anne’s ferns
+and geraniums.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s always summer here, Anne,” Leslie had said one day; and all who
+were the guests of that house of dreams felt the same.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The Enterprise seems to run to obituaries these days,” quoth Miss
+Cornelia.  “It always has a couple of columns of them, and I read every
+line.  It’s one of my forms of recreation, especially when there’s some
+original poetry attached to them.  Here’s a choice sample for you:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+    She’s gone to be with her Maker,<BR>
+    Never more to roam.<BR>
+    She used to play and sing with joy<BR>
+    The song of Home, Sweet Home.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Who says we haven’t any poetical talent on the Island!  Have you ever
+noticed what heaps of good people die, Anne, dearie?  It’s kind of
+pitiful.  Here’s ten obituaries, and every one of them saints and
+models, even the men.  Here’s old Peter Stimson, who has 'left a large
+circle of friends to mourn his untimely loss.’ Lord, Anne, dearie, that
+man was eighty, and everybody who knew him had been wishing him dead
+these thirty years.  Read obituaries when you’re blue, Anne,
+dearie&mdash;especially the ones of folks you know.  If you’ve any sense of
+humor at all they’ll cheer you up, believe ME.  I just wish <I>I</I> had the
+writing of the obituaries of some people.  Isn’t 'obituary’ an awful
+ugly word?  This very Peter I’ve been speaking of had a face exactly
+like one.  I never saw it but I thought of the word OBITUARY then and
+there.  There’s only one uglier word that I know of, and that’s RELICT.
+Lord, Anne, dearie, I may be an old maid, but there’s this comfort in
+it&mdash;I’ll never be any man’s 'relict.’”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It IS an ugly word,” said Anne, laughing.  “Avonlea graveyard was full
+of old tombstones 'sacred to the memory of So-and-So, RELICT of the
+late So-and-So.’  It always made me think of something worn out and
+moth eaten.  Why is it that so many of the words connected with death
+are so disagreeable?  I do wish that the custom of calling a dead body
+'the remains’ could be abolished.  I positively shiver when I hear the
+undertaker say at a funeral, 'All who wish to see the remains please
+step this way.’  It always gives me the horrible impression that I am
+about to view the scene of a cannibal feast.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, all I hope,” said Miss Cornelia calmly, “is that when I’m dead
+nobody will call me 'our departed sister.’  I took a scunner at this
+sister-and-brothering business five years ago when there was a
+travelling evangelist holding meetings at the Glen.  I hadn’t any use
+for him from the start.  I felt in my bones that there was something
+wrong with him.  And there was.  Mind you, he was pretending to be a
+Presbyterian&mdash;PresbyTARian, HE called it&mdash;and all the time he was a
+Methodist.  He brothered and sistered everybody.  He had a large circle
+of relations, that man had.  He clutched my hand fervently one night,
+and said imploringly, 'My DEAR sister Bryant, are you a Christian?’  I
+just looked him over a bit, and then I said calmly, 'The only brother I
+ever had, MR. Fiske, was buried fifteen years ago, and I haven’t
+adopted any since.  As for being a Christian, I was that, I hope and
+believe, when you were crawling about the floor in petticoats.’  THAT
+squelched him, believe ME.  Mind you, Anne dearie, I’m not down on all
+evangelists.  We’ve had some real fine, earnest men, who did a lot of
+good and made the old sinners squirm.  But this Fiske-man wasn’t one of
+them.  I had a good laugh all to myself one evening.  Fiske had asked
+all who were Christians to stand up.  <I>I</I> didn’t, believe me!  I never
+had any use for that sort of thing.  But most of them did, and then he
+asked all who wanted to be Christians to stand up.  Nobody stirred for
+a spell, so Fiske started up a hymn at the top of his voice.  Just in
+front of me poor little Ikey Baker was sitting in the Millison pew.  He
+was a home boy, ten years old, and Millison just about worked him to
+death.  The poor little creature was always so tired he fell asleep
+right off whenever he went to church or anywhere he could sit still for
+a few minutes.  He’d been sleeping all through the meeting, and I was
+thankful to see the poor child getting a rest, believe ME.  Well, when
+Fiske’s voice went soaring skyward and the rest joined in, poor Ikey
+wakened with a start.  He thought it was just an ordinary singing and
+that everybody ought to stand up, so he scrambled to his feet mighty
+quick, knowing he’d get a combing down from Maria Millison for sleeping
+in meeting.  Fiske saw him, stopped and shouted, 'Another soul saved!
+Glory Hallelujah!’  And there was poor, frightened Ikey, only half
+awake and yawning, never thinking about his soul at all.  Poor child,
+he never had time to think of anything but his tired, overworked little
+body.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie went one night and the Fiske-man got right after her&mdash;oh, he
+was especially anxious about the souls of the nice-looking girls,
+believe me!&mdash;and he hurt her feelings so she never went again.  And
+then he prayed every night after that, right in public, that the Lord
+would soften her hard heart.  Finally I went to Mr. Leavitt, our
+minister then, and told him if he didn’t make Fiske stop that I’d just
+rise up the next night and throw my hymn book at him when he mentioned
+that 'beautiful but unrepentant young woman.’  I’d have done it too,
+believe ME.  Mr. Leavitt did put a stop to it, but Fiske kept on with
+his meetings until Charley Douglas put an end to his career in the
+Glen.  Mrs. Charley had been out in California all winter.  She’d been
+real melancholy in the fall&mdash;religious melancholy&mdash;it ran in her
+family.  Her father worried so much over believing that he had
+committed the unpardonable sin that he died in the asylum.  So when
+Rose Douglas got that way Charley packed her off to visit her sister in
+Los Angeles.  She got perfectly well and came home just when the Fiske
+revival was in full swing.  She stepped off the train at the Glen, real
+smiling and chipper, and the first thing she saw staring her in the
+face on the black, gable-end of the freight shed, was the question, in
+big white letters, two feet high, 'Whither goest thou&mdash;to heaven or
+hell?’ That had been one of Fiske’s ideas, and he had got Henry Hammond
+to paint it.  Rose just gave a shriek and fainted; and when they got
+her home she was worse than ever.  Charley Douglas went to Mr. Leavitt
+and told him that every Douglas would leave the church if Fiske was
+kept there any longer.  Mr. Leavitt had to give in, for the Douglases
+paid half his salary, so Fiske departed, and we had to depend on our
+Bibles once more for instructions on how to get to heaven.  After he
+was gone Mr. Leavitt found out he was just a masquerading Methodist,
+and he felt pretty sick, believe ME.  Mr. Leavitt fell short in some
+ways, but he was a good, sound Presbyterian.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“By the way, I had a letter from Mr. Ford yesterday,” said Anne.  “He
+asked me to remember him kindly to you.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t want his remembrances,” said Miss Cornelia, curtly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Why?” said Anne, in astonishment.  “I thought you liked him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, so I did, in a kind of way.  But I’ll never forgive him for what
+he done to Leslie.  There’s that poor child eating her heart out about
+him&mdash;as if she hadn’t had trouble enough&mdash;and him ranting round
+Toronto, I’ve no doubt, enjoying himself same as ever.  Just like a
+man.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, Miss Cornelia, how did you find out?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Lord, Anne, dearie, I’ve got eyes, haven’t I?  And I’ve known Leslie
+since she was a baby.  There’s been a new kind of heartbreak in her
+eyes all the fall, and I know that writer-man was behind it somehow.
+I’ll never forgive myself for being the means of bringing him here.
+But I never expected he’d be like he was.  I thought he’d just be like
+the other men Leslie had boarded&mdash;conceited young asses, every one of
+them, that she never had any use for.  One of them did try to flirt
+with her once and she froze him out&mdash;so bad, I feel sure he’s never got
+himself thawed since.  So I never thought of any danger.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t let Leslie suspect you know her secret,” said Anne hurriedly.
+“I think it would hurt her.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Trust me, Anne, dearie.  <I>I</I> wasn’t born yesterday.  Oh, a plague on
+all the men!  One of them ruined Leslie’s life to begin with, and now
+another of the tribe comes and makes her still more wretched.  Anne,
+this world is an awful place, believe me.”
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+    “There’s something in the world amiss<BR>
+    Will be unriddled by and by,”<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+quoted Anne dreamily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If it is, it’ll be in a world where there aren’t any men,” said Miss
+Cornelia gloomily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What have the men been doing now?” asked Gilbert, entering.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Mischief&mdash;mischief!  What else did they ever do?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It was Eve ate the apple, Miss Cornelia.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“’Twas a he-creature tempted her,” retorted Miss Cornelia triumphantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie, after her first anguish was over, found it possible to go on
+with life after all, as most of us do, no matter what our particular
+form of torment has been.  It is even possible that she enjoyed moments
+of it, when she was one of the gay circle in the little house of
+dreams.  But if Anne ever hoped that she was forgetting Owen Ford she
+would have been undeceived by the furtive hunger in Leslie’s eyes
+whenever his name was mentioned.  Pitiful to that hunger, Anne always
+contrived to tell Captain Jim or Gilbert bits of news from Owen’s
+letters when Leslie was with them.  The girl’s flush and pallor at such
+moments spoke all too eloquently of the emotion that filled her being.
+But she never spoke of him to Anne, or mentioned that night on the
+sand-bar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One day her old dog died and she grieved bitterly over him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He’s been my friend so long,” she said sorrowfully to Anne.  “He was
+Dick’s old dog, you know&mdash;Dick had him for a year or so before we were
+married.  He left him with me when he sailed on the Four Sisters.
+Carlo got very fond of me&mdash;and his dog-love helped me through that
+first dreadful year after mother died, when I was alone.  When I heard
+that Dick was coming back I was afraid Carlo wouldn’t be so much mine.
+But he never seemed to care for Dick, though he had been so fond of him
+once.  He would snap and growl at him as if he were a stranger.  I was
+glad.  It was nice to have one thing whose love was all mine.  That old
+dog has been such a comfort to me, Anne.  He got so feeble in the fall
+that I was afraid he couldn’t live long&mdash;but I hoped I could nurse him
+through the winter.  He seemed pretty well this morning.  He was lying
+on the rug before the fire; then, all at once, he got up and crept over
+to me; he put his head on my lap and gave me one loving look out of his
+big, soft, dog eyes&mdash;and then he just shivered and died.  I shall miss
+him so.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Let me give you another dog, Leslie,” said Anne.  “I’m getting a
+lovely Gordon setter for a Christmas present for Gilbert.  Let me give
+you one too.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie shook her head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Not just now, thank you, Anne.  I don’t feel like having another dog
+yet.  I don’t seem to have any affection left for another.  Perhaps&mdash;in
+time&mdash;I’ll let you give me one.  I really need one as a kind of
+protection.  But there was something almost human about Carlo&mdash;it
+wouldn’t be DECENT to fill his place too hurriedly, dear old fellow.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne went to Avonlea a week before Christmas and stayed until after the
+holidays.  Gilbert came up for her, and there was a glad New Year
+celebration at Green Gables, when Barrys and Blythes and Wrights
+assembled to devour a dinner which had cost Mrs. Rachel and Marilla
+much careful thought and preparation.  When they went back to Four
+Winds the little house was almost drifted over, for the third storm of
+a winter that was to prove phenomenally stormy had whirled up the
+harbor and heaped huge snow mountains about everything it encountered.
+But Captain Jim had shovelled out doors and paths, and Miss Cornelia
+had come down and kindled the hearth-fire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s good to see you back, Anne, dearie!  But did you ever see such
+drifts?  You can’t see the Moore place at all unless you go upstairs.
+Leslie’ll be so glad you’re back.  She’s almost buried alive over
+there.  Fortunately Dick can shovel snow, and thinks it’s great fun.
+Susan sent me word to tell you she would be on hand tomorrow.  Where
+are you off to now, Captain?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I reckon I’ll plough up to the Glen and sit a bit with old Martin
+Strong.  He’s not far from his end and he’s lonesome.  He hasn’t many
+friends&mdash;been too busy all his life to make any.  He’s made heaps of
+money, though.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, he thought that since he couldn’t serve God and Mammon he’d
+better stick to Mammon,” said Miss Cornelia crisply.  “So he shouldn’t
+complain if he doesn’t find Mammon very good company now.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim went out, but remembered something in the yard and turned
+back for a moment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’d a letter from Mr. Ford, Mistress Blythe, and he says the life-book
+is accepted and is going to be published next fall.  I felt fair
+uplifted when I got the news.  To think that I’m to see it in print at
+last.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That man is clean crazy on the subject of his life-book,” said Miss
+Cornelia compassionately.  “For my part, I think there’s far too many
+books in the world now.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap29"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 29
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+GILBERT AND ANNE DISAGREE
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert laid down the ponderous medical tome over which he had been
+poring until the increasing dusk of the March evening made him desist.
+He leaned back in his chair and gazed meditatively out of the window.
+It was early spring&mdash;probably the ugliest time of the year.  Not even
+the sunset could redeem the dead, sodden landscape and rotten black
+harbor ice upon which he looked.  No sign of life was visible, save a
+big black crow winging his solitary way across a leaden field.  Gilbert
+speculated idly concerning that crow.  Was he a family crow, with a
+black but comely crow wife awaiting him in the woods beyond the Glen?
+Or was he a glossy young buck of a crow on courting thoughts intent?
+Or was he a cynical bachelor crow, believing that he travels the
+fastest who travels alone?  Whatever he was, he soon disappeared in
+congenial gloom and Gilbert turned to the cheerier view indoors.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The firelight flickered from point to point, gleaming on the white and
+green coats of Gog and Magog, on the sleek, brown head of the beautiful
+setter basking on the rug, on the picture frames on the walls, on the
+vaseful of daffodils from the window garden, on Anne herself, sitting
+by her little table, with her sewing beside her and her hands clasped
+over her knee while she traced out pictures in the fire&mdash;Castles in
+Spain whose airy turrets pierced moonlit cloud and sunset bar-ships
+sailing from the Haven of Good Hopes straight to Four Winds Harbor with
+precious burthen.  For Anne was again a dreamer of dreams, albeit a
+grim shape of fear went with her night and day to shadow and darken her
+visions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert was accustomed to refer to himself as “an old married man.”
+But he still looked upon Anne with the incredulous eyes of a lover.  He
+couldn’t wholly believe yet that she was really his.  It MIGHT be only
+a dream after all, part and parcel of this magic house of dreams.  His
+soul still went on tip-toe before her, lest the charm be shattered and
+the dream dispelled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne,” he said slowly, “lend me your ears.  I want to talk with you
+about something.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne looked across at him through the fire-lit gloom.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What is it?” she asked gaily.  “You look fearfully solemn, Gilbert.  I
+really haven’t done anything naughty today.  Ask Susan.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s not of you&mdash;or ourselves&mdash;I want to talk.  It’s about Dick Moore.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Dick Moore?” echoed Anne, sitting up alertly.  “Why, what in the world
+have you to say about Dick Moore?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve been thinking a great deal about him lately.  Do you remember
+that time last summer I treated him for those carbuncles on his neck?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes&mdash;yes.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I took the opportunity to examine the scars on his head thoroughly.
+I’ve always thought Dick was a very interesting case from a medical
+point of view.  Lately I’ve been studying the history of trephining and
+the cases where it has been employed.  Anne, I have come to the
+conclusion that if Dick Moore were taken to a good hospital and the
+operation of trephining performed on several places in his skull, his
+memory and faculties might be restored.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert!” Anne’s voice was full of protest.  “Surely you don’t mean
+it!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I do, indeed.  And I have decided that it is my duty to broach the
+subject to Leslie.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert Blythe, you shall NOT do any such thing,” cried Anne
+vehemently.  “Oh, Gilbert, you won’t&mdash;you won’t.  You couldn’t be so
+cruel.  Promise me you won’t.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Why, Anne-girl, I didn’t suppose you would take it like this.  Be
+reasonable&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I won’t be reasonable&mdash;I can’t be reasonable&mdash;I AM reasonable.  It is
+you who are unreasonable.  Gilbert, have you ever once thought what it
+would mean for Leslie if Dick Moore were to be restored to his right
+senses?  Just stop and think!  She’s unhappy enough now; but life as
+Dick’s nurse and attendant is a thousand times easier for her than life
+as Dick’s wife.  I know&mdash;I KNOW!  It’s unthinkable.  Don’t you meddle
+with the matter.  Leave well enough alone.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I HAVE thought over that aspect of the case thoroughly, Anne.  But I
+believe that a doctor is bound to set the sanctity of a patient’s mind
+and body above all other considerations, no matter what the
+consequences may be.  I believe it his duty to endeavor to restore
+health and sanity, if there is any hope whatever of it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But Dick isn’t your patient in that respect,” cried Anne, taking
+another tack.  “If Leslie had asked you if anything could be done for
+him, THEN it might be your duty to tell her what you really thought.
+But you’ve no right to meddle.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t call it meddling.  Uncle Dave told Leslie twelve years ago
+that nothing could be done for Dick.  She believes that, of course.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And why did Uncle Dave tell her that, if it wasn’t true?” cried Anne,
+triumphantly.  “Doesn’t he know as much about it as you?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I think not&mdash;though it may sound conceited and presumptuous to say it.
+And you know as well as I that he is rather prejudiced against what he
+calls 'these new-fangled notions of cutting and carving.’ He’s even
+opposed to operating for appendicitis.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He’s right,” exclaimed Anne, with a complete change of front.  “I
+believe myself that you modern doctors are entirely too fond of making
+experiments with human flesh and blood.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Rhoda Allonby would not be a living woman today if I had been afraid
+of making a certain experiment,” argued Gilbert.  “I took the risk&mdash;and
+saved her life.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m sick and tired of hearing about Rhoda Allonby,” cried Anne&mdash;most
+unjustly, for Gilbert had never mentioned Mrs. Allonby’s name since the
+day he had told Anne of his success in regard to her.  And he could not
+be blamed for other people’s discussion of it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert felt rather hurt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I had not expected you to look at the matter as you do, Anne,” he said
+a little stiffly, getting up and moving towards the office door.  It
+was their first approach to a quarrel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Anne flew after him and dragged him back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Now, Gilbert, you are not 'going off mad.’  Sit down here and I’ll
+apologise bee-YEW-ti-fully, I shouldn’t have said that.  But&mdash;oh, if
+you knew&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne checked herself just in time.  She had been on the very verge of
+betraying Leslie’s secret.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Knew what a woman feels about it,” she concluded lamely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I think I do know.  I’ve looked at the matter from every point of
+view&mdash;and I’ve been driven to the conclusion that it is my duty to tell
+Leslie that I believe it is possible that Dick can be restored to
+himself; there my responsibility ends.  It will be for her to decide
+what she will do.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t think you’ve any right to put such a responsibility on her.
+She has enough to bear.  She is poor&mdash;how could she afford such an
+operation?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That is for her to decide,” persisted Gilbert stubbornly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You say you think that Dick can be cured.  But are you SURE of it?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Certainly not.  Nobody could be sure of such a thing.  There may have
+been lesions of the brain itself, the effect of which can never be
+removed.  But if, as I believe, his loss of memory and other faculties
+is due merely to the pressure on the brain centers of certain depressed
+areas of bone, then he can be cured.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But it’s only a possibility!” insisted Anne.  “Now, suppose you tell
+Leslie and she decides to have the operation.  It will cost a great
+deal.  She will have to borrow the money, or sell her little property.
+And suppose the operation is a failure and Dick remains the same.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How will she be able to pay back the money she borrows, or make a
+living for herself and that big helpless creature if she sells the
+farm?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I know&mdash;I know.  But it is my duty to tell her.  I can’t get away
+from that conviction.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I know the Blythe stubbornness,” groaned Anne.  “But don’t do this
+solely on your own responsibility.  Consult Doctor Dave.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I HAVE done so,” said Gilbert reluctantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And what did he say?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“In brief&mdash;as you say&mdash;leave well enough alone.  Apart from his
+prejudice against new-fangled surgery, I’m afraid he looks at the case
+from your point of view&mdash;don’t do it, for Leslie’s sake.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There now,” cried Anne triumphantly.  “I do think, Gilbert, that you
+ought to abide by the judgment of a man nearly eighty, who has seen a
+great deal and saved scores of lives himself&mdash;surely his opinion ought
+to weigh more than a mere boy’s.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Thank you.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t laugh.  It’s too serious.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That’s just my point.  It IS serious.  Here is a man who is a helpless
+burden.  He may be restored to reason and usefulness&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He was so very useful before,” interjected Anne witheringly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He may be given a chance to make good and redeem the past.  His wife
+doesn’t know this.  I do.  It is therefore my duty to tell her that
+there is such a possibility.  That, boiled down, is my decision.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t say 'decision’ yet, Gilbert.  Consult somebody else.  Ask
+Captain Jim what he thinks about it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Very well.  But I’ll not promise to abide by his opinion, Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“This is something a man must decide for himself.  My conscience would
+never be easy if I kept silent on the subject.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, your conscience!” moaned Anne.  “I suppose that Uncle Dave has a
+conscience too, hasn’t he?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes.  But I am not the keeper of his conscience.  Come, Anne, if this
+affair did not concern Leslie&mdash;if it were a purely abstract case, you
+would agree with me,&mdash;you know you would.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wouldn’t,” vowed Anne, trying to believe it herself.  “Oh, you can
+argue all night, Gilbert, but you won’t convince me.  Just you ask Miss
+Cornelia what she thinks of it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’re driven to the last ditch, Anne, when you bring up Miss Cornelia
+as a reinforcement.  She will say, 'Just like a man,’ and rage
+furiously.  No matter.  This is no affair for Miss Cornelia to settle.
+Leslie alone must decide it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You know very well how she will decide it,” said Anne, almost in
+tears.  “She has ideals of duty, too.  I don’t see how you can take
+such a responsibility on your shoulders.  <I>I</I> couldn’t.”
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+    “'Because right is right to follow right<BR>
+    Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence,’”<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+quoted Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, you think a couplet of poetry a convincing argument!” scoffed
+Anne.  “That is so like a man.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then she laughed in spite of herself.  It sounded so like an echo
+of Miss Cornelia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, if you won’t accept Tennyson as an authority, perhaps you will
+believe the words of a Greater than he,” said Gilbert seriously.  “'Ye
+shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.’  I believe
+that, Anne, with all my heart.  It’s the greatest and grandest verse in
+the Bible&mdash;or in any literature&mdash;and the TRUEST, if there are
+comparative degrees of trueness.  And it’s the first duty of a man to
+tell the truth, as he sees it and believes it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“In this case the truth won’t make poor Leslie free,” sighed Anne.  “It
+will probably end in still more bitter bondage for her.  Oh, Gilbert, I
+CAN’T think you are right.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap30"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 30
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+LESLIE DECIDES
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+A sudden outbreak of a virulent type of influenza at the Glen and down
+at the fishing village kept Gilbert so busy for the next fortnight that
+he had no time to pay the promised visit to Captain Jim.  Anne hoped
+against hope that he had abandoned the idea about Dick Moore, and,
+resolving to let sleeping dogs lie, she said no more about the subject.
+But she thought of it incessantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wonder if it would be right for me to tell him that Leslie cares for
+Owen,” she thought.  “He would never let her suspect that he knew, so
+her pride would not suffer, and it MIGHT convince him that he should
+let Dick Moore alone.  Shall I&mdash;shall I?  No, after all, I cannot.  A
+promise is sacred, and I’ve no right to betray Leslie’s secret.  But
+oh, I never felt so worried over anything in my life as I do over this.
+It’s spoiling the spring&mdash;it’s spoiling everything.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One evening Gilbert abruptly proposed that they go down and see Captain
+Jim.  With a sinking heart Anne agreed, and they set forth.  Two weeks
+of kind sunshine had wrought a miracle in the bleak landscape over
+which Gilbert’s crow had flown.  The hills and fields were dry and
+brown and warm, ready to break into bud and blossom; the harbor was
+laughter-shaken again; the long harbor road was like a gleaming red
+ribbon; down on the dunes a crowd of boys, who were out smelt fishing,
+were burning the thick, dry sandhill grass of the preceding summer.
+The flames swept over the dunes rosily, flinging their cardinal banners
+against the dark gulf beyond, and illuminating the channel and the
+fishing village.  It was a picturesque scene which would at other times
+have delighted Anne’s eyes; but she was not enjoying this walk.
+Neither was Gilbert.  Their usual good-comradeship and Josephian
+community of taste and viewpoint were sadly lacking.  Anne’s
+disapproval of the whole project showed itself in the haughty uplift of
+her head and the studied politeness of her remarks.  Gilbert’s mouth
+was set in all the Blythe obstinacy, but his eyes were troubled.  He
+meant to do what he believed to be his duty; but to be at outs with
+Anne was a high price to pay.  Altogether, both were glad when they
+reached the light&mdash;and remorseful that they should be glad.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim put away the fishing net upon which he was working, and
+welcomed them joyfully.  In the searching light of the spring evening
+he looked older than Anne had ever seen him.  His hair had grown much
+grayer, and the strong old hand shook a little.  But his blue eyes were
+clear and steady, and the staunch soul looked out through them gallant
+and unafraid.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim listened in amazed silence while Gilbert said what he had
+come to say.  Anne, who knew how the old man worshipped Leslie, felt
+quite sure that he would side with her, although she had not much hope
+that this would influence Gilbert.  She was therefore surprised beyond
+measure when Captain Jim, slowly and sorrowfully, but unhesitatingly,
+gave it as his opinion that Leslie should be told.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, Captain Jim, I didn’t think you’d say that,” she exclaimed
+reproachfully.  “I thought you wouldn’t want to make more trouble for
+her.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t want to.  I know how you feel about it, Mistress Blythe&mdash;just
+as I feel meself.  But it ain’t our feelings we have to steer by
+through life&mdash;no, no, we’d make shipwreck mighty often if we did that.
+There’s only the one safe compass and we’ve got to set our course by
+that&mdash;what it’s right to do.  I agree with the doctor.  If there’s a
+chance for Dick, Leslie should be told of it.  There’s no two sides to
+that, in my opinion.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well,” said Anne, giving up in despair, “wait until Miss Cornelia gets
+after you two men.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Cornelia’ll rake us fore and aft, no doubt,” assented Captain Jim.
+“You women are lovely critters, Mistress Blythe, but you’re just a mite
+illogical.  You’re a highly eddicated lady and Cornelia isn’t, but
+you’re like as two peas when it comes to that.  I dunno’s you’re any
+the worse for it.  Logic is a sort of hard, merciless thing, I reckon.
+Now, I’ll brew a cup of tea and we’ll drink it and talk of pleasant
+things, jest to calm our minds a bit.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At least, Captain Jim’s tea and conversation calmed Anne’s mind to such
+an extent that she did not make Gilbert suffer so acutely on the way
+home as she had deliberately intended to do.  She did not refer to the
+burning question at all, but she chatted amiably of other matters, and
+Gilbert understood that he was forgiven under protest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Captain Jim seems very frail and bent this spring.  The winter has
+aged him,” said Anne sadly.  “I am afraid that he will soon be going to
+seek lost Margaret.  I can’t bear to think of it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Four Winds won’t be the same place when Captain Jim 'sets out to
+sea,’” agreed Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The following evening he went to the house up the brook.  Anne wandered
+dismally around until his return.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, what did Leslie say?” she demanded when he came in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Very little.  I think she felt rather dazed.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And is she going to have the operation?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She is going to think it over and decide very soon.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert flung himself wearily into the easy chair before the fire.  He
+looked tired.  It had not been an easy thing for him to tell Leslie.
+And the terror that had sprung into her eyes when the meaning of what
+he told her came home to her was not a pleasant thing to remember.
+Now, when the die was cast, he was beset with doubts of his own wisdom.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne looked at him remorsefully; then she slipped down on the rug
+beside him and laid her glossy red head on his arm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert, I’ve been rather hateful over this.  I won’t be any more.
+Please just call me red-headed and forgive me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By which Gilbert understood that, no matter what came of it, there
+would be no I-told-you-so’s.  But he was not wholly comforted.  Duty in
+the abstract is one thing; duty in the concrete is quite another,
+especially when the doer is confronted by a woman’s stricken eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Some instinct made Anne keep away from Leslie for the next three days.
+On the third evening Leslie came down to the little house and told
+Gilbert that she had made up her mind; she would take Dick to Montreal
+and have the operation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was very pale and seemed to have wrapped herself in her old mantle
+of aloofness.  But her eyes had lost the look which had haunted
+Gilbert; they were cold and bright; and she proceeded to discuss
+details with him in a crisp, business-like way.  There were plans to be
+made and many things to be thought over.  When Leslie had got the
+information she wanted she went home.  Anne wanted to walk part of the
+way with her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Better not,” said Leslie curtly.  “Today’s rain has made the ground
+damp.  Good-night.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Have I lost my friend?” said Anne with a sigh.  “If the operation is
+successful and Dick Moore finds himself again Leslie will retreat into
+some remote fastness of her soul where none of us can ever find her.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Perhaps she will leave him,” said Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie would never do that, Gilbert.  Her sense of duty is very
+strong.  She told me once that her Grandmother West always impressed
+upon her the fact that when she assumed any responsibility she must
+never shirk it, no matter what the consequences might be.  That is one
+of her cardinal rules.  I suppose it’s very old-fashioned.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t be bitter, Anne-girl.  You know you don’t think it
+old-fashioned&mdash;you know you have the very same idea of sacredness of
+assumed responsibilities yourself.  And you are right.  Shirking
+responsibilities is the curse of our modern life&mdash;the secret of all the
+unrest and discontent that is seething in the world.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Thus saith the preacher,” mocked Anne.  But under the mockery she felt
+that he was right; and she was very sick at heart for Leslie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A week later Miss Cornelia descended like an avalanche upon the little
+house.  Gilbert was away and Anne was compelled to bear the shock of
+the impact alone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia hardly waited to get her hat off before she began.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne, do you mean to tell me it’s true what I’ve heard&mdash;that Dr.
+Blythe has told Leslie Dick can be cured, and that she is going to take
+him to Montreal to have him operated on?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, it is quite true, Miss Cornelia,” said Anne bravely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, it’s inhuman cruelty, that’s what it is,” said Miss Cornelia,
+violently agitated.  “I did think Dr. Blythe was a decent man.  I
+didn’t think he could have been guilty of this.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Dr. Blythe thought it was his duty to tell Leslie that there was a
+chance for Dick,” said Anne with spirit, “and,” she added, loyalty to
+Gilbert getting the better of her, “I agree with him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, no, you don’t, dearie,” said Miss Cornelia.  “No person with any
+bowels of compassion could.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Captain Jim does.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t quote that old ninny to me,” cried Miss Cornelia.  “And I don’t
+care who agrees with him.  Think&mdash;THINK what it means to that poor
+hunted, harried girl.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We DO think of it.  But Gilbert believes that a doctor should put the
+welfare of a patient’s mind and body before all other considerations.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That’s just like a man.  But I expected better things of you, Anne,”
+said Miss Cornelia, more in sorrow than in wrath; then she proceeded to
+bombard Anne with precisely the same arguments with which the latter
+had attacked Gilbert; and Anne valiantly defended her husband with the
+weapons he had used for his own protection.  Long was the fray, but
+Miss Cornelia made an end at last.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s an iniquitous shame,” she declared, almost in tears.  “That’s
+just what it is&mdash;an iniquitous shame.  Poor, poor Leslie!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t you think Dick should be considered a little too?” pleaded Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Dick!  Dick Moore!  HE’S happy enough.  He’s a better behaved and more
+reputable member of society now than he ever was before.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Why, he was a drunkard and perhaps worse.  Are you going to set him
+loose again to roar and to devour?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He may reform,” said poor Anne, beset by foe without and traitor
+within.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Reform your grandmother!” retorted Miss Cornelia.  “Dick Moore got the
+injuries that left him as he is in a drunken brawl.  He DESERVES his
+fate.  It was sent on him for a punishment.  I don’t believe the doctor
+has any business to tamper with the visitations of God.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Nobody knows how Dick was hurt, Miss Cornelia.  It may not have been
+in a drunken brawl at all.  He may have been waylaid and robbed.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Pigs MAY whistle, but they’ve poor mouths for it,” said Miss Cornelia.
+“Well, the gist of what you tell me is that the thing is settled and
+there’s no use in talking.  If that’s so I’ll hold my tongue.  I don’t
+propose to wear MY teeth out gnawing files.  When a thing has to be I
+give in to it.  But I like to make mighty sure first that it HAS to be.
+Now, I’ll devote MY energies to comforting and sustaining Leslie.  And
+after all,” added Miss Cornelia, brightening up hopefully, “perhaps
+nothing can be done for Dick.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap31"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 31
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+THE TRUTH MAKES FREE
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Leslie, having once made up her mind what to do, proceeded to do it
+with characteristic resolution and speed.  House-cleaning must be
+finished with first, whatever issues of life and death might await
+beyond.  The gray house up the brook was put into flawless order and
+cleanliness, with Miss Cornelia’s ready assistance.  Miss Cornelia,
+having said her say to Anne, and later on to Gilbert and Captain
+Jim&mdash;sparing neither of them, let it be assured&mdash;never spoke of the
+matter to Leslie.  She accepted the fact of Dick’s operation, referred
+to it when necessary in a business-like way, and ignored it when it was
+not.  Leslie never attempted to discuss it.  She was very cold and
+quiet during these beautiful spring days.  She seldom visited Anne, and
+though she was invariably courteous and friendly, that very courtesy
+was as an icy barrier between her and the people of the little house.
+The old jokes and laughter and chumminess of common things could not
+reach her over it.  Anne refused to feel hurt.  She knew that Leslie
+was in the grip of a hideous dread&mdash;a dread that wrapped her away from
+all little glimpses of happiness and hours of pleasure.  When one great
+passion seizes possession of the soul all other feelings are crowded
+aside.  Never in all her life had Leslie Moore shuddered away from the
+future with more intolerable terror.  But she went forward as
+unswervingly in the path she had elected as the martyrs of old walked
+their chosen way, knowing the end of it to be the fiery agony of the
+stake.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The financial question was settled with greater ease than Anne had
+feared.  Leslie borrowed the necessary money from Captain Jim, and, at
+her insistence, he took a mortgage on the little farm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“So that is one thing off the poor girl’s mind,” Miss Cornelia told
+Anne, “and off mine too.  Now, if Dick gets well enough to work again
+he’ll be able to earn enough to pay the interest on it; and if he
+doesn’t I know Captain Jim’ll manage someway that Leslie won’t have to.
+He said as much to me.  'I’m getting old, Cornelia,’ he said, 'and I’ve
+no chick or child of my own.  Leslie won’t take a gift from a living
+man, but mebbe she will from a dead one.’  So it will be all right as
+far as THAT goes.  I wish everything else might be settled as
+satisfactorily.  As for that wretch of a Dick, he’s been awful these
+last few days.  The devil was in him, believe ME!  Leslie and I
+couldn’t get on with our work for the tricks he’d play.  He chased all
+her ducks one day around the yard till most of them died.  And not one
+thing would he do for us.  Sometimes, you know, he’ll make himself
+quite handy, bringing in pails of water and wood.  But this week if we
+sent him to the well he’d try to climb down into it.  I thought once,
+'If you’d only shoot down there head-first everything would be nicely
+settled.’”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, Miss Cornelia!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Now, you needn’t Miss Cornelia me, Anne, dearie.  ANYBODY would have
+thought the same.  If the Montreal doctors can make a rational creature
+out of Dick Moore they’re wonders.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie took Dick to Montreal early in May.  Gilbert went with her, to
+help her, and make the necessary arrangements for her.  He came home
+with the report that the Montreal surgeon whom they had consulted
+agreed with him that there was a good chance of Dick’s restoration.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Very comforting,” was Miss Cornelia’s sarcastic comment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne only sighed.  Leslie had been very distant at their parting.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But she had promised to write.  Ten days after Gilbert’s return the
+letter came.  Leslie wrote that the operation had been successfully
+performed and that Dick was making a good recovery.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What does she mean by 'successfully?’” asked Anne.  “Does she mean
+that Dick’s memory is really restored?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Not likely&mdash;since she says nothing of it,” said Gilbert.  “She uses
+the word 'successfully’ from the surgeon’s point of view.  The
+operation has been performed and followed by normal results.  But it is
+too soon to know whether Dick’s faculties will be eventually restored,
+wholly or in part.  His memory would not be likely to return to him all
+at once.  The process will be gradual, if it occurs at all.  Is that
+all she says?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes&mdash;there’s her letter.  It’s very short.  Poor girl, she must be
+under a terrible strain.  Gilbert Blythe, there are heaps of things I
+long to say to you, only it would be mean.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Miss Cornelia says them for you,” said Gilbert with a rueful smile.
+“She combs me down every time I encounter her.  She makes it plain to
+me that she regards me as little better than a murderer, and that she
+thinks it a great pity that Dr. Dave ever let me step into his shoes.
+She even told me that the Methodist doctor over the harbor was to be
+preferred before me.  With Miss Cornelia the force of condemnation can
+no further go.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If Cornelia Bryant was sick, it would not be Doctor Dave or the
+Methodist doctor she would send for,” sniffed Susan.  “She would have
+you out of your hard-earned bed in the middle of the night, doctor,
+dear, if she took a spell of misery, that she would.  And then she
+would likely say your bill was past all reason.  But do not mind her,
+doctor, dear.  It takes all kinds of people to make a world.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No further word came from Leslie for some time.  The May days crept
+away in a sweet succession and the shores of Four Winds Harbor greened
+and bloomed and purpled.  One day in late May Gilbert came home to be
+met by Susan in the stable yard.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I am afraid something has upset Mrs. Doctor, doctor, dear,” she said
+mysteriously.  “She got a letter this afternoon and since then she has
+just been walking round the garden and talking to herself.  You know it
+is not good for her to be on her feet so much, doctor, dear.  She did
+not see fit to tell me what her news was, and I am no pry, doctor,
+dear, and never was, but it is plain something has upset her.  And it
+is not good for her to be upset.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert hurried rather anxiously to the garden.  Had anything happened
+at Green Gables?  But Anne, sitting on the rustic seat by the brook,
+did not look troubled, though she was certainly much excited.  Her eyes
+were their grayest, and scarlet spots burned on her cheeks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What has happened, Anne?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne gave a queer little laugh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I think you’ll hardly believe it when I tell you, Gilbert.  <I>I</I> can’t
+believe it yet.  As Susan said the other day, 'I feel like a fly coming
+to live in the sun&mdash;dazed-like.’  It’s all so incredible.  I’ve read
+the letter a score of times and every time it’s just the same&mdash;I can’t
+believe my own eyes.  Oh, Gilbert, you were right&mdash;so right.  I can see
+that clearly enough now&mdash;and I’m so ashamed of myself&mdash;and will you
+ever really forgive me?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne, I’ll shake you if you don’t grow coherent.  Redmond would be
+ashamed of you.  WHAT has happened?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You won’t believe it&mdash;you won’t believe it&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m going to phone for Uncle Dave,” said Gilbert, pretending to start
+for the house.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Sit down, Gilbert.  I’ll try to tell you.  I’ve had a letter, and oh,
+Gilbert, it’s all so amazing&mdash;so incredibly amazing&mdash;we never
+thought&mdash;not one of us ever dreamed&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I suppose,” said Gilbert, sitting down with a resigned air, “the only
+thing to do in a case of this kind is to have patience and go at the
+matter categorically.  Whom is your letter from?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie&mdash;and, oh, Gilbert&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie!  Whew!  What has she to say?  What’s the news about Dick?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne lifted the letter and held it out, calmly dramatic in a moment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There is NO Dick!  The man we have thought Dick Moore&mdash;whom everybody
+in Four Winds has believed for twelve years to be Dick Moore&mdash;is his
+cousin, George Moore, of Nova Scotia, who, it seems, always resembled
+him very strikingly.  Dick Moore died of yellow fever thirteen years
+ago in Cuba.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap32"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 32
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+MISS CORNELIA DISCUSSES THE AFFAIR
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+“And do you mean to tell me, Anne, dearie, that Dick Moore has turned
+out not to be Dick Moore at all but somebody else?  Is THAT what you
+phoned up to me today?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, Miss Cornelia.  It is very amazing, isn’t it?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s&mdash;it’s&mdash;just like a man,” said Miss Cornelia helplessly.  She took
+off her hat with trembling fingers.  For once in her life Miss Cornelia
+was undeniably staggered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I can’t seem to sense it, Anne,” she said.  “I’ve heard you say
+it&mdash;and I believe you&mdash;but I can’t take it in.  Dick Moore is dead&mdash;has
+been dead all these years&mdash;and Leslie is free?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes.  The truth has made her free.  Gilbert was right when he said
+that verse was the grandest in the Bible.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Tell me everything, Anne, dearie.  Since I got your phone I’ve been in
+a regular muddle, believe ME.  Cornelia Bryant was never so
+kerflummuxed before.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There isn’t a very great deal to tell.  Leslie’s letter was short.
+She didn’t go into particulars.  This man&mdash;George Moore&mdash;has recovered
+his memory and knows who he is.  He says Dick took yellow fever in
+Cuba, and the Four Sisters had to sail without him.  George stayed
+behind to nurse him.  But he died very shortly afterwards.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“George did not write Leslie because he intended to come right home and
+tell her himself.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And why didn’t he?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I suppose his accident must have intervened.  Gilbert says it is quite
+likely that George Moore remembers nothing of his accident, or what led
+to it, and may never remember it.  It probably happened very soon after
+Dick’s death.  We may find out more particulars when Leslie writes
+again.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Does she say what she is going to do?  When is she coming home?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She says she will stay with George Moore until he can leave the
+hospital.  She has written to his people in Nova Scotia.  It seems that
+George’s only near relative is a married sister much older than
+himself.  She was living when George sailed on the Four Sisters, but of
+course we do not know what may have happened since.  Did you ever see
+George Moore, Miss Cornelia?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I did.  It is all coming back to me.  He was here visiting his Uncle
+Abner eighteen years ago, when he and Dick would be about seventeen.
+They were double cousins, you see.  Their fathers were brothers and
+their mothers were twin sisters, and they did look a terrible lot
+alike.  Of course,” added Miss Cornelia scornfully, “it wasn’t one of
+those freak resemblances you read of in novels where two people are so
+much alike that they can fill each other’s places and their nearest and
+dearest can’t tell between them.  In those days you could tell easy
+enough which was George and which was Dick, if you saw them together
+and near at hand.  Apart, or some distance away, it wasn’t so easy.
+They played lots of tricks on people and thought it great fun, the two
+scamps.  George Moore was a little taller and a good deal fatter than
+Dick&mdash;though neither of them was what you would call fat&mdash;they were
+both of the lean kind.  Dick had higher color than George, and his hair
+was a shade lighter.  But their features were just alike, and they both
+had that queer freak of eyes&mdash;one blue and one hazel.  They weren’t
+much alike in any other way, though.  George was a real nice fellow,
+though he was a scalawag for mischief, and some said he had a liking
+for a glass even then.  But everybody liked him better than Dick.  He
+spent about a month here.  Leslie never saw him; she was only about
+eight or nine then and I remember now that she spent that whole winter
+over harbor with her grandmother West.  Captain Jim was away, too&mdash;that
+was the winter he was wrecked on the Magdalens.  I don’t suppose either
+he or Leslie had ever heard about the Nova Scotia cousin looking so
+much like Dick.  Nobody ever thought of him when Captain Jim brought
+Dick&mdash;George, I should say&mdash;home.  Of course, we all thought Dick had
+changed considerable&mdash;he’d got so lumpish and fat.  But we put that
+down to what had happened to him, and no doubt that was the reason,
+for, as I’ve said, George wasn’t fat to begin with either.  And there
+was no other way we could have guessed, for the man’s senses were clean
+gone.  I can’t see that it is any wonder we were all deceived.  But
+it’s a staggering thing.  And Leslie has sacrificed the best years of
+her life to nursing a man who hadn’t any claim on her!  Oh, drat the
+men!  No matter what they do, it’s the wrong thing.  And no matter who
+they are, it’s somebody they shouldn’t be.  They do exasperate me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert and Captain Jim are men, and it is through them that the truth
+has been discovered at last,” said Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, I admit that,” conceded Miss Cornelia reluctantly.  “I’m sorry I
+raked the doctor off so.  It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever felt
+ashamed of anything I said to a man.  I don’t know as I shall tell him
+so, though.  He’ll just have to take it for granted.  Well, Anne,
+dearie, it’s a mercy the Lord doesn’t answer all our prayers.  I’ve
+been praying hard right along that the operation wouldn’t cure Dick.
+Of course I didn’t put it just quite so plain.  But that was what was
+in the back of my mind, and I have no doubt the Lord knew it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, He has answered the spirit of your prayer.  You really wished
+that things shouldn’t be made any harder for Leslie.  I’m afraid that
+in my secret heart I’ve been hoping the operation wouldn’t succeed, and
+I am wholesomely ashamed of it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How does Leslie seem to take it?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She writes like one dazed.  I think that, like ourselves, she hardly
+realises it yet.  She says, 'It all seems like a strange dream to me,
+Anne.’  That is the only reference she makes to herself.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Poor child!  I suppose when the chains are struck off a prisoner he’d
+feel queer and lost without them for a while.  Anne, dearie, here’s a
+thought keeps coming into my mind.  What about Owen Ford?  We both know
+Leslie was fond of him.  Did it ever occur to you that he was fond of
+her?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It&mdash;did&mdash;once,” admitted Anne, feeling that she might say so much.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, I hadn’t any reason to think he was, but it just appeared to me
+he MUST be.  Now, Anne, dearie, the Lord knows I’m not a match-maker,
+and I scorn all such doings.  But if I were you and writing to that
+Ford man I’d just mention, casual-like, what has happened.  That is
+what <I>I</I>’d do.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Of course I will mention it when I write him,” said Anne, a trifle
+distantly.  Somehow, this was a thing she could not discuss with Miss
+Cornelia.  And yet, she had to admit that the same thought had been
+lurking in her mind ever since she had heard of Leslie’s freedom.  But
+she would not desecrate it by free speech.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Of course there is no great rush, dearie.  But Dick Moore’s been dead
+for thirteen years and Leslie has wasted enough of her life for him.
+We’ll just see what comes of it.  As for this George Moore, who’s gone
+and come back to life when everyone thought he was dead and done for,
+just like a man, I’m real sorry for him.  He won’t seem to fit in
+anywhere.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He is still a young man, and if he recovers completely, as seems
+likely, he will be able to make a place for himself again.  It must be
+very strange for him, poor fellow.  I suppose all these years since his
+accident will not exist for him.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap33"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 33
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+LESLIE RETURNS
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+A fortnight later Leslie Moore came home alone to the old house where
+she had spent so many bitter years.  In the June twilight she went over
+the fields to Anne’s, and appeared with ghost-like suddenness in the
+scented garden.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie!” cried Anne in amazement.  “Where have you sprung from?  We
+never knew you were coming.  Why didn’t you write?  We would have met
+you.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I couldn’t write somehow, Anne.  It seemed so futile to try to say
+anything with pen and ink.  And I wanted to get back quietly and
+unobserved.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne put her arms about Leslie and kissed her.  Leslie returned the
+kiss warmly.  She looked pale and tired, and she gave a little sigh as
+she dropped down on the grasses beside a great bed of daffodils that
+were gleaming through the pale, silvery twilight like golden stars.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And you have come home alone, Leslie?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes.  George Moore’s sister came to Montreal and took him home with
+her.  Poor fellow, he was sorry to part with me&mdash;though I was a
+stranger to him when his memory first came back.  He clung to me in
+those first hard days when he was trying to realise that Dick’s death
+was not the thing of yesterday that it seemed to him.  It was all very
+hard for him.  I helped him all I could.  When his sister came it was
+easier for him, because it seemed to him only the other day that he had
+seen her last.  Fortunately she had not changed much, and that helped
+him, too.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It is all so strange and wonderful, Leslie.  I think we none of us
+realise it yet.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I cannot.  When I went into the house over there an hour ago, I felt
+that it MUST be a dream&mdash;that Dick must be there, with his childish
+smile, as he had been for so long.  Anne, I seem stunned yet. I’m not
+glad or sorry&mdash;or ANYTHING.  I feel as if something had been torn
+suddenly out of my life and left a terrible hole.  I feel as if I
+couldn’t be <I>I</I>&mdash;as if I must have changed into somebody else and
+couldn’t get used to it.  It gives me a horrible lonely, dazed,
+helpless feeling.  It’s good to see you again&mdash;it seems as if you were
+a sort of anchor for my drifting soul.  Oh, Anne, I dread it all&mdash;the
+gossip and wonderment and questioning.  When I think of that, I wish
+that I need not have come home at all.  Dr. Dave was at the station
+when I came off the train&mdash;he brought me home.  Poor old man, he feels
+very badly because he told me years ago that nothing could be done for
+Dick.  'I honestly thought so, Leslie,’ he said to me today.  'But I
+should have told you not to depend on my opinion&mdash;I should have told
+you to go to a specialist.  If I had, you would have been saved many
+bitter years, and poor George Moore many wasted ones.  I blame myself
+very much, Leslie.’  I told him not to do that&mdash;he had done what he
+thought right.  He has always been so kind to me&mdash;I couldn’t bear to
+see him worrying over it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And Dick&mdash;George, I mean?  Is his memory fully restored?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Practically.  Of course, there are a great many details he can’t
+recall yet&mdash;but he remembers more and more every day.  He went out for
+a walk on the evening after Dick was buried.  He had Dick’s money and
+watch on him; he meant to bring them home to me, along with my letter.
+He admits he went to a place where the sailors resorted&mdash;and he
+remembers drinking&mdash;and nothing else.  Anne, I shall never forget the
+moment he remembered his own name.  I saw him looking at me with an
+intelligent but puzzled expression.  I said, 'Do you know me, Dick?’
+He answered, 'I never saw you before.  Who are you?  And my name is not
+Dick.  I am George Moore, and Dick died of yellow fever yesterday!
+Where am I?  What has happened to me?’  I&mdash;I fainted, Anne.  And ever
+since I have felt as if I were in a dream.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You will soon adjust yourself to this new state of things, Leslie.
+And you are young&mdash;life is before you&mdash;you will have many beautiful
+years yet.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Perhaps I shall be able to look at it in that way after a while, Anne.
+Just now I feel too tired and indifferent to think about the future.
+I’m&mdash;I’m&mdash;Anne, I’m lonely.  I miss Dick.  Isn’t it all very strange?
+Do you know, I was really fond of poor Dick&mdash;George, I suppose I should
+say&mdash;just as I would have been fond of a helpless child who depended on
+me for everything.  I would never have admitted it&mdash;I was really
+ashamed of it&mdash;because, you see, I had hated and despised Dick so much
+before he went away.  When I heard that Captain Jim was bringing him
+home I expected I would just feel the same to him.  But I never
+did&mdash;although I continued to loathe him as I remembered him before.
+From the time he came home I felt only pity&mdash;a pity that hurt and wrung
+me.  I supposed then that it was just because his accident had made him
+so helpless and changed.  But now I believe it was because there was
+really a different personality there.  Carlo knew it, Anne&mdash;I know now
+that Carlo knew it.  I always thought it strange that Carlo shouldn’t
+have known Dick.  Dogs are usually so faithful.  But HE knew it was not
+his master who had come back, although none of the rest of us did.  I
+had never seen George Moore, you know.  I remember now that Dick once
+mentioned casually that he had a cousin in Nova Scotia who looked as
+much like him as a twin; but the thing had gone out of my memory, and
+in any case I would never have thought it of any importance.  You see,
+it never occurred to me to question Dick’s identity.  Any change in him
+seemed to me just the result of the accident.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, Anne, that night in April when Gilbert told me he thought Dick
+might be cured!  I can never forget it.  It seemed to me that I had
+once been a prisoner in a hideous cage of torture, and then the door
+had been opened and I could get out.  I was still chained to the cage
+but I was not in it.  And that night I felt that a merciless hand was
+drawing me back into the cage&mdash;back to a torture even more terrible
+than it had once been.  I didn’t blame Gilbert.  I felt he was right.
+And he had been very good&mdash;he said that if, in view of the expense and
+uncertainty of the operation, I should decide not to risk it, he would
+not blame me in the least.  But I knew how I ought to decide&mdash;and I
+couldn’t face it.  All night I walked the floor like a mad woman,
+trying to compel myself to face it.  I couldn’t, Anne&mdash;I thought I
+couldn’t&mdash;and when morning broke I set my teeth and resolved that I
+WOULDN’T.  I would let things remain as they were.  It was very wicked,
+I know.  It would have been just punishment for such wickedness if I
+had just been left to abide by that decision.  I kept to it all day.
+That afternoon I had to go up to the Glen to do some shopping.  It was
+one of Dick’s quiet, drowsy days, so I left him alone.  I was gone a
+little longer than I had expected, and he missed me.  He felt lonely.
+And when I got home, he ran to meet me just like a child, with such a
+pleased smile on his face.  Somehow, Anne, I just gave way then.  That
+smile on his poor vacant face was more than I could endure.  I felt as
+if I were denying a child the chance to grow and develop.  I knew that
+I must give him his chance, no matter what the consequences might be.
+So I came over and told Gilbert.  Oh, Anne, you must have thought me
+hateful in those weeks before I went away.  I didn’t mean to be&mdash;but I
+couldn’t think of anything except what I had to do, and everything and
+everybody about me were like shadows.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I know&mdash;I understood, Leslie.  And now it is all over&mdash;your chain is
+broken&mdash;there is no cage.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There is no cage,” repeated Leslie absently, plucking at the fringing
+grasses with her slender, brown hands.  “But&mdash;it doesn’t seem as if
+there were anything else, Anne.  You&mdash;you remember what I told you of
+my folly that night on the sand-bar?  I find one doesn’t get over being
+a fool very quickly.  Sometimes I think there are people who are fools
+forever.  And to be a fool&mdash;of that kind&mdash;is almost as bad as being
+a&mdash;a dog on a chain.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You will feel very differently after you get over being tired and
+bewildered,” said Anne, who, knowing a certain thing that Leslie did
+not know, did not feel herself called upon to waste overmuch sympathy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie laid her splendid golden head against Anne’s knee.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anyhow, I have YOU,” she said.  “Life can’t be altogether empty with
+such a friend.  Anne, pat my head&mdash;just as if I were a little
+girl&mdash;MOTHER me a bit&mdash;and let me tell you while my stubborn tongue is
+loosed a little just what you and your comradeship have meant to me
+since that night I met you on the rock shore.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap34"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 34
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+THE SHIP O’DREAMS COMES TO HARBOR
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+One morning, when a windy golden sunrise was billowing over the gulf in
+waves of light, a certain weary stork flew over the bar of Four Winds
+Harbor on his way from the Land of Evening Stars.  Under his wing was
+tucked a sleepy, starry-eyed, little creature.  The stork was tired,
+and he looked wistfully about him.  He knew he was somewhere near his
+destination, but he could not yet see it.  The big, white light-house
+on the red sandstone cliff had its good points; but no stork possessed
+of any gumption would leave a new, velvet baby there.  An old gray
+house, surrounded by willows, in a blossomy brook valley, looked more
+promising, but did not seem quite the thing either.  The staring green
+abode further on was manifestly out of the question.  Then the stork
+brightened up.  He had caught sight of the very place&mdash;a little white
+house nestled against a big, whispering firwood, with a spiral of blue
+smoke winding up from its kitchen chimney&mdash;a house which just looked as
+if it were meant for babies.  The stork gave a sigh of satisfaction,
+and softly alighted on the ridge-pole.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Half an hour later Gilbert ran down the hall and tapped on the
+spare-room door.  A drowsy voice answered him and in a moment Marilla’s
+pale, scared face peeped out from behind the door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Marilla, Anne has sent me to tell you that a certain young gentleman
+has arrived here.  He hasn’t brought much luggage with him, but he
+evidently means to stay.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“For pity’s sake!” said Marilla blankly.  “You don’t mean to tell me,
+Gilbert, that it’s all over.  Why wasn’t I called?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne wouldn’t let us disturb you when there was no need.  Nobody was
+called until about two hours ago.  There was no 'passage perilous’ this
+time.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And&mdash;and&mdash;Gilbert&mdash;will this baby live?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He certainly will.  He weighs ten pounds and&mdash;why, listen to him.
+Nothing wrong with his lungs, is there?  The nurse says his hair will
+be red.  Anne is furious with her, and I’m tickled to death.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That was a wonderful day in the little house of dreams.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The best dream of all has come true,” said Anne, pale and rapturous.
+“Oh, Marilla, I hardly dare believe it, after that horrible day last
+summer.  I have had a heartache ever since then&mdash;but it is gone now.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“This baby will take Joy’s place,” said Marilla.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, no, no, NO, Marilla.  He can’t&mdash;nothing can ever do that.  He has
+his own place, my dear, wee man-child.  But little Joy has hers, and
+always will have it.  If she had lived she would have been over a year
+old.  She would have been toddling around on her tiny feet and lisping
+a few words.  I can see her so plainly, Marilla.  Oh, I know now that
+Captain Jim was right when he said God would manage better than that my
+baby would seem a stranger to me when I found her Beyond.  I’ve learned
+THAT this past year.  I’ve followed her development day by day and week
+by week&mdash;I always shall.  I shall know just how she grows from year to
+year&mdash;and when I meet her again I’ll know her&mdash;she won’t be a stranger.
+Oh, Marilla, LOOK at his dear, darling toes!  Isn’t it strange they
+should be so perfect?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It would be stranger if they weren’t,” said Marilla crisply.  Now that
+all was safely over, Marilla was herself again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I know&mdash;but it seems as if they couldn’t be quite FINISHED, you
+know&mdash;and they are, even to the tiny nails.  And his hands&mdash;JUST look
+at his hands, Marilla.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“They appear to be a good deal like hands,” Marilla conceded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“See how he clings to my finger.  I’m sure he knows me already.  He
+cries when the nurse takes him away.  Oh, Marilla, do you think&mdash;you
+don’t think, do you&mdash;that his hair is going to be red?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t see much hair of any color,” said Marilla.  “I wouldn’t worry
+about it, if I were you, until it becomes visible.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Marilla, he HAS hair&mdash;look at that fine little down all over his head.
+Anyway, nurse says his eyes will be hazel and his forehead is exactly
+like Gilbert’s.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And he has the nicest little ears, Mrs. Doctor, dear,” said Susan.
+“The first thing I did was to look at his ears.  Hair is deceitful and
+noses and eyes change, and you cannot tell what is going to come of
+them, but ears is ears from start to finish, and you always know where
+you are with them.  Just look at their shape&mdash;and they are set right
+back against his precious head.  You will never need to be ashamed of
+his ears, Mrs. Doctor, dear.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne’s convalescence was rapid and happy.  Folks came and worshipped
+the baby, as people have bowed before the kingship of the new-born
+since long before the Wise Men of the East knelt in homage to the Royal
+Babe of the Bethlehem manger.  Leslie, slowly finding herself amid the
+new conditions of her life, hovered over it, like a beautiful,
+golden-crowned Madonna.  Miss Cornelia nursed it as knackily as could
+any mother in Israel.  Captain Jim held the small creature in his big
+brown hands and gazed tenderly at it, with eyes that saw the children
+who had never been born to him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What are you going to call him?” asked Miss Cornelia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne has settled his name,” answered Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“James Matthew&mdash;after the two finest gentlemen I’ve ever known&mdash;not
+even saving your presence,” said Anne with a saucy glance at Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert smiled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I never knew Matthew very well; he was so shy we boys couldn’t get
+acquainted with him&mdash;but I quite agree with you that Captain Jim is one
+of the rarest and finest souls God ever clothed in clay.  He is so
+delighted over the fact that we have given his name to our small lad.
+It seems he has no other namesake.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, James Matthew is a name that will wear well and not fade in the
+washing,” said Miss Cornelia.  “I’m glad you didn’t load him down with
+some highfalutin, romantic name that he’d be ashamed of when he gets to
+be a grandfather.  Mrs. William Drew at the Glen has called her baby
+Bertie Shakespeare.  Quite a combination, isn’t it?  And I’m glad you
+haven’t had much trouble picking on a name.  Some folks have an awful
+time.  When the Stanley Flaggs’ first boy was born there was so much
+rivalry as to who the child should be named for that the poor little
+soul had to go for two years without a name.  Then a brother came along
+and there it was&mdash;'Big Baby’ and 'Little Baby.’ Finally they called Big
+Baby Peter and Little Baby Isaac, after the two grandfathers, and had
+them both christened together.  And each tried to see if it couldn’t
+howl the other down.  You know that Highland Scotch family of MacNabs
+back of the Glen?  They’ve got twelve boys and the oldest and the
+youngest are both called Neil&mdash;Big Neil and Little Neil in the same
+family.  Well, I s’pose they ran out of names.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I have read somewhere,” laughed Anne, “that the first child is a poem
+but the tenth is very prosy prose.  Perhaps Mrs. MacNab thought that
+the twelfth was merely an old tale re-told.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, there’s something to be said for large families,” said Miss
+Cornelia, with a sigh.  “I was an only child for eight years and I did
+long for a brother and sister.  Mother told me to pray for one&mdash;and
+pray I did, believe ME.  Well, one day Aunt Nellie came to me and said,
+'Cornelia, there is a little brother for you upstairs in your ma’s
+room.  You can go up and see him.’  I was so excited and delighted I
+just flew upstairs.  And old Mrs. Flagg lifted up the baby for me to
+see.  Lord, Anne, dearie, I never was so disappointed in my life.  You
+see, I’d been praying for A BROTHER TWO YEARS OLDER THAN MYSELF.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How long did it take you to get over your disappointment?” asked Anne,
+amid her laughter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, I had a spite at Providence for a good spell, and for weeks I
+wouldn’t even look at the baby.  Nobody knew why, for I never told.
+Then he began to get real cute, and held out his wee hands to me and I
+began to get fond of him.  But I didn’t get really reconciled to him
+until one day a school chum came to see him and said she thought he was
+awful small for his age.  I just got boiling mad, and I sailed right
+into her, and told her she didn’t know a nice baby when she saw one,
+and ours was the nicest baby in the world.  And after that I just
+worshipped him.  Mother died before he was three years old and I was
+sister and mother to him both.  Poor little lad, he was never strong,
+and he died when he wasn’t much over twenty.  Seems to me I’d have
+given anything on earth, Anne, dearie, if he’d only lived.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia sighed.  Gilbert had gone down and Leslie, who had been
+crooning over the small James Matthew in the dormer window, laid him
+asleep in his basket and went her way.  As soon as she was safely out
+of earshot, Miss Cornelia bent forward and said in a conspirator’s
+whisper:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne, dearie, I’d a letter from Owen Ford yesterday.  He’s in
+Vancouver just now, but he wants to know if I can board him for a month
+later on.  YOU know what that means.  Well, I hope we’re doing right.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We’ve nothing to do with it&mdash;we couldn’t prevent him from coming to
+Four Winds if he wanted to,” said Anne quickly.  She did not like the
+feeling of match-making Miss Cornelia’s whispers gave her; and then she
+weakly succumbed herself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t let Leslie know he is coming until he is here,” she said.  “If
+she found out I feel sure she would go away at once.  She intends to go
+in the fall anyhow&mdash;she told me so the other day.  She is going to
+Montreal to take up nursing and make what she can of her life.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, well, Anne, dearie,” said Miss Cornelia, nodding sagely “that is
+all as it may be.  You and I have done our part and we must leave the
+rest to Higher Hands.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap35"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 35
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+POLITICS AT FOUR WINDS
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+When Anne came downstairs again, the Island, as well as all Canada, was
+in the throes of a campaign preceding a general election.  Gilbert, who
+was an ardent Conservative, found himself caught in the vortex, being
+much in demand for speech-making at the various county rallies.  Miss
+Cornelia did not approve of his mixing up in politics and told Anne so.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Dr. Dave never did it.  Dr. Blythe will find he is making a mistake,
+believe ME.  Politics is something no decent man should meddle with.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Is the government of the country to be left solely to the rogues
+then?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes&mdash;so long as it’s Conservative rogues,” said Miss Cornelia,
+marching off with the honors of war.  “Men and politicians are all
+tarred with the same brush.  The Grits have it laid on thicker than the
+Conservatives, that’s all&mdash;CONSIDERABLY thicker.  But Grit or Tory, my
+advice to Dr. Blythe is to steer clear of politics.  First thing you
+know, he’ll be running an election himself, and going off to Ottawa for
+half the year and leaving his practice to go to the dogs.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Ah, well, let’s not borrow trouble,” said Anne.  “The rate of interest
+is too high.  Instead, let’s look at Little Jem.  It should be spelled
+with a G.  Isn’t he perfectly beautiful?  Just see the dimples in his
+elbows.  We’ll bring him up to be a good Conservative, you and I, Miss
+Cornelia.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Bring him up to be a good man,” said Miss Cornelia.  “They’re scarce
+and valuable; though, mind you, I wouldn’t like to see him a Grit.  As
+for the election, you and I may be thankful we don’t live over harbor.
+The air there is blue these days.  Every Elliott and Crawford and
+MacAllister is on the warpath, loaded for bear.  This side is peaceful
+and calm, seeing there’s so few men.  Captain Jim’s a Grit, but it’s my
+opinion he’s ashamed of it, for he never talks politics.  There isn’t
+any earthly doubt that the Conservatives will be returned with a big
+majority again.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia was mistaken.  On the morning after the election Captain
+Jim dropped in at the little house to tell the news.  So virulent is
+the microbe of party politics, even in a peaceable old man, that
+Captain Jim’s cheeks were flushed and his eyes were flashing with all
+his old-time fire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Mistress Blythe, the Liberals are in with a sweeping majority.  After
+eighteen years of Tory mismanagement this down-trodden country is going
+to have a chance at last.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I never heard you make such a bitter partisan speech before, Captain
+Jim.  I didn’t think you had so much political venom in you,” laughed
+Anne, who was not much excited over the tidings.  Little Jem had said
+“Wow-ga” that morning.  What were principalities and powers, the rise
+and fall of dynasties, the overthrow of Grit or Tory, compared with
+that miraculous occurrence?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s been accumulating for a long while,” said Captain Jim, with a
+deprecating smile.  “I thought I was only a moderate Grit, but when the
+news came that we were in I found out how Gritty I really was.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You know the doctor and I are Conservatives.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Ah, well, it’s the only bad thing I know of either of you, Mistress
+Blythe.  Cornelia is a Tory, too.  I called in on my way from the Glen
+to tell her the news.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Didn’t you know you took your life in your hands?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, but I couldn’t resist the temptation.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How did she take it?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Comparatively calm, Mistress Blythe, comparatively calm.  She says,
+says she, 'Well, Providence sends seasons of humiliation to a country,
+same as to individuals.  You Grits have been cold and hungry for many a
+year.  Make haste to get warmed and fed, for you won’t be in long.’
+'Well, now Cornelia,’ I says, 'mebbe Providence thinks Canada needs a
+real long spell of humiliation.’  Ah, Susan, have YOU heard the news?
+The Liberals are in.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Susan had just come in from the kitchen, attended by the odor of
+delectable dishes which always seemed to hover around her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Now, are they?” she said, with beautiful unconcern.  “Well, I never
+could see but that my bread rose just as light when Grits were in as
+when they were not.  And if any party, Mrs. Doctor, dear, will make it
+rain before the week is out, and save our kitchen garden from entire
+ruination, that is the party Susan will vote for.  In the meantime,
+will you just step out and give me your opinion on the meat for dinner?
+I am fearing that it is very tough, and I think that we had better
+change our butcher as well as our government.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One evening, a week later, Anne walked down to the Point, to see if she
+could get some fresh fish from Captain Jim, leaving Little Jem for the
+first time.  It was quite a tragedy.  Suppose he cried?  Suppose Susan
+did not know just exactly what to do for him?  Susan was calm and
+serene.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I have had as much experience with him as you, Mrs. Doctor, dear, have
+I not?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, with him&mdash;but not with other babies.  Why, I looked after three
+pairs of twins, when I was a child, Susan.  When they cried, I gave
+them peppermint or castor oil quite coolly.  It’s quite curious now to
+recall how lightly I took all those babies and their woes.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, well, if Little Jem cries, I will just clap a hot water bag on his
+little stomach,” said Susan.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Not too hot, you know,” said Anne anxiously.  Oh, was it really wise
+to go?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Do not you fret, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Susan is not the woman to burn a
+wee man.  Bless him, he has no notion of crying.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne tore herself away finally and enjoyed her walk to the Point after
+all, through the long shadows of the sun-setting.  Captain Jim was not
+in the living room of the lighthouse, but another man was&mdash;a handsome,
+middle-aged man, with a strong, clean-shaven chin, who was unknown to
+Anne.  Nevertheless, when she sat down, he began to talk to her with
+all the assurance of an old acquaintance.  There was nothing amiss in
+what he said or the way he said it, but Anne rather resented such a
+cool taking-for-granted in a complete stranger.  Her replies were
+frosty, and as few as decency required.  Nothing daunted, her companion
+talked on for several minutes, then excused himself and went away.
+Anne could have sworn there was a twinkle in his eye and it annoyed
+her.  Who was the creature?  There was something vaguely familiar about
+him but she was certain she had never seen him before.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Captain Jim, who was that who just went out?” she asked, as Captain
+Jim came in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Marshall Elliott,” answered the captain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Marshall Elliott!” cried Anne.  “Oh, Captain Jim&mdash;it wasn’t&mdash;yes, it
+WAS his voice&mdash;oh, Captain Jim, I didn’t know him&mdash;and I was quite
+insulting to him!  WHY didn’t he tell me?  He must have seen I didn’t
+know him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He wouldn’t say a word about it&mdash;he’d just enjoy the joke.  Don’t
+worry over snubbing him&mdash;he’ll think it fun.  Yes, Marshall’s shaved
+off his beard at last and cut his hair.  His party is in, you know.  I
+didn’t know him myself first time I saw him.  He was up in Carter
+Flagg’s store at the Glen the night after election day, along with a
+crowd of others, waiting for the news.  About twelve the ’phone came
+through&mdash;the Liberals were in.  Marshall just got up and walked out&mdash;he
+didn’t cheer or shout&mdash;he left the others to do that, and they nearly
+lifted the roof off Carter’s store, I reckon.  Of course, all the
+Tories were over in Raymond Russell’s store.  Not much cheering THERE.
+Marshall went straight down the street to the side door of Augustus
+Palmer’s barber shop.  Augustus was in bed asleep, but Marhall hammered
+on the door until he got up and come down, wanting to know what all the
+racket was about.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Come into your shop and do the best job you ever did in your life,
+Gus,’ said Marshall.  'The Liberals are in and you’re going to barber a
+good Grit before the sun rises.’
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gus was mad as hops&mdash;partly because he’d been dragged out of bed, but
+more because he’s a Tory.  He vowed he wouldn’t shave any man after
+twelve at night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“'You’ll do what I want you to do, sonny,’ said Marshall, 'or I’ll jest
+turn you over my knee and give you one of those spankings your mother
+forgot.’
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He’d have done it, too, and Gus knew it, for Marshall is as strong as
+an ox and Gus is only a midget of a man.  So he gave in and towed
+Marshall in to the shop and went to work.  'Now,’ says he, 'I’ll barber
+you up, but if you say one word to me about the Grits getting in while
+I’m doing it I’ll cut your throat with this razor,’ says he.  You
+wouldn’t have thought mild little Gus could be so bloodthirsty, would
+you?  Shows what party politics will do for a man.  Marshall kept quiet
+and got his hair and beard disposed of and went home.  When his old
+housekeeper heard him come upstairs she peeked out of her bedroom door
+to see whether ’twas him or the hired boy.  And when she saw a strange
+man striding down the hall with a candle in his hand she screamed blue
+murder and fainted dead away.  They had to send for the doctor before
+they could bring her to, and it was several days before she could look
+at Marshall without shaking all over.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim had no fish.  He seldom went out in his boat that summer,
+and his long tramping expeditions were over.  He spent a great deal of
+his time sitting by his seaward window, looking out over the gulf, with
+his swiftly-whitening head leaning on his hand.  He sat there tonight
+for many silent minutes, keeping some tryst with the past which Anne
+would not disturb.  Presently he pointed to the iris of the West:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That’s beautiful, isn’t, it, Mistress Blythe?  But I wish you could
+have seen the sunrise this morning.  It was a wonderful
+thing&mdash;wonderful.  I’ve seen all kinds of sunrises come over that gulf.
+I’ve been all over the world, Mistress Blythe, and take it all in all,
+I’ve never seen a finer sight than a summer sunrise over the gulf.  A
+man can’t pick his time for dying, Mistress Blythe&mdash;jest got to go when
+the Great Captain gives His sailing orders.  But if I could I’d go out
+when the morning comes across that water.  I’ve watched it many a time
+and thought what a thing it would be to pass out through that great
+white glory to whatever was waiting beyant, on a sea that ain’t mapped
+out on any airthly chart.  I think, Mistress Blythe, that I’d find lost
+Margaret there.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim had often talked to Anne of lost Margaret since he had told
+her the old story.  His love for her trembled in every tone&mdash;that love
+that had never grown faint or forgetful.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anyway, I hope when my time comes I’ll go quick and easy.  I don’t
+think I’m a coward, Mistress Blythe&mdash;I’ve looked an ugly death in the
+face more than once without blenching.  But the thought of a lingering
+death does give me a queer, sick feeling of horror.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t talk about leaving us, dear, DEAR Captain, Jim,” pleaded Anne,
+in a choked voice, patting the old brown hand, once so strong, but now
+grown very feeble.  “What would we do without you?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim smiled beautifully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, you’d get along nicely&mdash;nicely&mdash;but you wouldn’t forget the old
+man altogether, Mistress Blythe&mdash;no, I don’t think you’ll ever quite
+forget him.  The race of Joseph always remembers one another.  But
+it’ll be a memory that won’t hurt&mdash;I like to think that my memory won’t
+hurt my friends&mdash;it’ll always be kind of pleasant to them, I hope and
+believe.  It won’t be very long now before lost Margaret calls me, for
+the last time.  I’ll be all ready to answer.  I jest spoke of this
+because there’s a little favor I want to ask you.  Here’s this poor old
+Matey of mine”&mdash;Captain Jim reached out a hand and poked the big, warm,
+velvety, golden ball on the sofa.  The First Mate uncoiled himself like
+a spring with a nice, throaty, comfortable sound, half purr, half meow,
+stretched his paws in air, turned over and coiled himself up again.
+“HE’ll miss me when I start on the V’yage.  I can’t bear to think of
+leaving the poor critter to starve, like he was left before.  If
+anything happens to me will you give Matey a bite and a corner,
+Mistress Blythe?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Indeed I will.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Then that is all I had on my mind.  Your Little Jem is to have the few
+curious things I picked up&mdash;I’ve seen to that.  And now I don’t like to
+see tears in those pretty eyes, Mistress Blythe.  I’ll mebbe hang on
+for quite a spell yet.  I heard you reading a piece of poetry one day
+last winter&mdash;one of Tennyson’s pieces.  I’d sorter like to hear it
+again, if you could recite it for me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Softly and clearly, while the seawind blew in on them, Anne repeated
+the beautiful lines of Tennyson’s wonderful swan song&mdash;“Crossing the
+Bar.”  The old captain kept time gently with his sinewy hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, yes, Mistress Blythe,” he said, when she had finished, “that’s
+it, that’s it.  He wasn’t a sailor, you tell me&mdash;I dunno how he could
+have put an old sailor’s feelings into words like that, if he wasn’t
+one.  He didn’t want any 'sadness o’ farewells’ and neither do I,
+Mistress Blythe&mdash;for all will be well with me and mine beyant the bar.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap36"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 36
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+BEAUTY FOR ASHES
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+“Any news from Green Gables, Anne?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Nothing very especial,” replied Anne, folding up Marilla’s letter.
+“Jake Donnell has been there shingling the roof.  He is a full-fledged
+carpenter now, so it seems he has had his own way in regard to the
+choice of a life-work.  You remember his mother wanted him to be a
+college professor.  I shall never forget the day she came to the school
+and rated me for failing to call him St. Clair.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Does anyone ever call him that now?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Evidently not.  It seems that he has completely lived it down.  Even
+his mother has succumbed.  I always thought that a boy with Jake’s chin
+and mouth would get his own way in the end.  Diana writes me that Dora
+has a beau.  Just think of it&mdash;that child!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Dora is seventeen,” said Gilbert.  “Charlie Sloane and I were both mad
+about you when you were seventeen, Anne.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Really, Gilbert, we must be getting on in years,” said Anne, with a
+half-rueful smile, “when children who were six when we thought
+ourselves grown up are old enough now to have beaux.  Dora’s is Ralph
+Andrews&mdash;Jane’s brother.  I remember him as a little, round, fat,
+white-headed fellow who was always at the foot of his class.  But I
+understand he is quite a fine-looking young man now.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Dora will probably marry young.  She’s of the same type as Charlotta
+the Fourth&mdash;she’ll never miss her first chance for fear she might not
+get another.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well; if she marries Ralph I hope he will be a little more
+up-and-coming than his brother Billy,” mused Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“For instance,” said Gilbert, laughing, “let us hope he will be able to
+propose on his own account.  Anne, would you have married Billy if he
+had asked you himself, instead of getting Jane to do it for him?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I might have.” Anne went off into a shriek of laughter over the
+recollection of her first proposal.  “The shock of the whole thing
+might have hypnotized me into some such rash and foolish act.  Let us
+be thankful he did it by proxy.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I had a letter from George Moore yesterday,” said Leslie, from the
+corner where she was reading.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, how is he?” asked Anne interestedly, yet with an unreal feeling
+that she was inquiring about some one whom she did not know.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He is well, but he finds it very hard to adapt himself to all the
+changes in his old home and friends.  He is going to sea again in the
+spring.  It’s in his blood, he says, and he longs for it.  But he told
+me something that made me glad for him, poor fellow.  Before he sailed
+on the Four Sisters he was engaged to a girl at home.  He did not tell
+me anything about her in Montreal, because he said he supposed she
+would have forgotten him and married someone else long ago, and with
+him, you see, his engagement and love was still a thing of the present.
+It was pretty hard on him, but when he got home he found she had never
+married and still cared for him.  They are to be married this fall.
+I’m going to ask him to bring her over here for a little trip; he says
+he wants to come and see the place where he lived so many years without
+knowing it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What a nice little romance,” said Anne, whose love for the romantic
+was immortal.  “And to think,” she added with a sigh of self-reproach,
+“that if I had had my way George Moore would never have come up from
+the grave in which his identity was buried.  How I did fight against
+Gilbert’s suggestion!  Well, I am punished:  I shall never be able to
+have a different opinion from Gilbert’s again!  If I try to have, he
+will squelch me by casting George Moore’s case up to me!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“As if even that would squelch a woman!” mocked Gilbert.  “At least do
+not become my echo, Anne.  A little opposition gives spice to life.  I
+do not want a wife like John MacAllister’s over the harbor.  No matter
+what he says, she at once remarks in that drab, lifeless little voice
+of hers, 'That is very true, John, dear me!’”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne and Leslie laughed.  Anne’s laughter was silver and Leslie’s
+golden, and the combination of the two was as satisfactory as a perfect
+chord in music.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Susan, coming in on the heels of the laughter, echoed it with a
+resounding sigh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Why, Susan, what is the matter?” asked Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There’s nothing wrong with little Jem, is there, Susan?” cried Anne,
+starting up in alarm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, no, calm yourself, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Something has happened,
+though.  Dear me, everything has gone catawampus with me this week.  I
+spoiled the bread, as you know too well&mdash;and I scorched the doctor’s
+best shirt bosom&mdash;and I broke your big platter.  And now, on the top of
+all this, comes word that my sister Matilda has broken her leg and
+wants me to go and stay with her for a spell.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I’m very sorry&mdash;sorry that your sister has met with such an
+accident, I mean,” exclaimed Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Ah, well, man was made to mourn, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  That sounds as if
+it ought to be in the Bible, but they tell me a person named Burns
+wrote it.  And there is no doubt that we are born to trouble as the
+sparks fly upward.  As for Matilda, I do not know what to think of her.
+None of our family ever broke their legs before.  But whatever she has
+done she is still my sister, and I feel that it is my duty to go and
+wait on her, if you can spare me for a few weeks, Mrs. Doctor, dear.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Of course, Susan, of course.  I can get someone to help me while you
+are gone.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If you cannot I will not go, Mrs. Doctor, dear, Matilda’s leg to the
+contrary notwithstanding.  I will not have you worried, and that
+blessed child upset in consequence, for any number of legs.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, you must go to your sister at once, Susan.  I can get a girl from
+the cove, who will do for a time.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne, will you let me come and stay with you while Susan is away?”
+exclaimed Leslie.  “Do!  I’d love to&mdash;and it would be an act of charity
+on your part.  I’m so horribly lonely over there in that big barn of a
+house.  There’s so little to do&mdash;and at night I’m worse than
+lonely&mdash;I’m frightened and nervous in spite of locked doors.  There was
+a tramp around two days ago.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne joyfully agreed, and next day Leslie was installed as an inmate of
+the little house of dreams.  Miss Cornelia warmly approved of the
+arrangement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It seems Providential,” she told Anne in confidence.  “I’m sorry for
+Matilda Clow, but since she had to break her leg it couldn’t have
+happened at a better time.  Leslie will be here while Owen Ford is in
+Four Winds, and those old cats up at the Glen won’t get the chance to
+meow, as they would if she was living over there alone and Owen going
+to see her.  They are doing enough of it as it is, because she doesn’t
+put on mourning.  I said to one of them, 'If you mean she should put on
+mourning for George Moore, it seems to me more like his resurrection
+than his funeral; and if it’s Dick you mean, I confess <I>I</I> can’t see
+the propriety of going into weeds for a man who died thirteen years ago
+and good riddance then!’  And when old Louisa Baldwin remarked to me
+that she thought it very strange that Leslie should never have
+suspected it wasn’t her own husband <I>I</I> said, 'YOU never suspected it
+wasn’t Dick Moore, and you were next-door neighbor to him all his life,
+and by nature you’re ten times as suspicious as Leslie.’  But you can’t
+stop some people’s tongues, Anne, dearie, and I’m real thankful Leslie
+will be under your roof while Owen is courting her.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Owen Ford came to the little house one August evening when Leslie and
+Anne were absorbed in worshipping the baby.  He paused at the open door
+of the living room, unseen by the two within, gazing with greedy eyes
+at the beautiful picture.  Leslie sat on the floor with the baby in her
+lap, making ecstatic dabs at his fat little hands as he fluttered them
+in the air.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, you dear, beautiful, beloved baby,” she mumbled, catching one wee
+hand and covering it with kisses.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Isn’t him ze darlingest itty sing,” crooned Anne, hanging over the arm
+of her chair adoringly.  “Dem itty wee pads are ze very tweetest
+handies in ze whole big world, isn’t dey, you darling itty man.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne, in the months before Little Jem’s coming, had pored diligently
+over several wise volumes, and pinned her faith to one in especial,
+“Sir Oracle on the Care and Training of Children.”  Sir Oracle implored
+parents by all they held sacred never to talk “baby talk” to their
+children.  Infants should invariably be addressed in classical language
+from the moment of their birth.  So should they learn to speak English
+undefiled from their earliest utterance.  “How,” demanded Sir Oracle,
+“can a mother reasonably expect her child to learn correct speech, when
+she continually accustoms its impressionable gray matter to such absurd
+expressions and distortions of our noble tongue as thoughtless mothers
+inflict every day on the helpless creatures committed to their care?
+Can a child who is constantly called 'tweet itty wee singie’ ever
+attain to any proper conception of his own being and possibilities and
+destiny?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne was vastly impressed with this, and informed Gilbert that she
+meant to make it an inflexible rule never, under any circumstances, to
+talk “baby talk” to her children.  Gilbert agreed with her, and they
+made a solemn compact on the subject&mdash;a compact which Anne shamelessly
+violated the very first moment Little Jem was laid in her arms.  “Oh,
+the darling itty wee sing!” she had exclaimed.  And she had continued
+to violate it ever since.  When Gilbert teased her she laughed Sir
+Oracle to scorn.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He never had any children of his own, Gilbert&mdash;I am positive he hadn’t
+or he would never have written such rubbish.  You just can’t help
+talking baby talk to a baby.  It comes natural&mdash;and it’s RIGHT.  It
+would be inhuman to talk to those tiny, soft, velvety little creatures
+as we do to great big boys and girls.  Babies want love and cuddling
+and all the sweet baby talk they can get, and Little Jem is going to
+have it, bless his dear itty heartums.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But you’re the worst I ever heard, Anne,” protested Gilbert, who, not
+being a mother but only a father, was not wholly convinced yet that Sir
+Oracle was wrong.  “I never heard anything like the way you talk to
+that child.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Very likely you never did.  Go away&mdash;go away.  Didn’t I bring up three
+pairs of Hammond twins before I was eleven?  You and Sir Oracle are
+nothing but cold-blooded theorists.  Gilbert, JUST look at him!  He’s
+smiling at me&mdash;he knows what we’re talking about.  And oo dest agwees
+wif evy word muzzer says, don’t oo, angel-lover?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert put his arm about them.  “Oh you mothers!” he said.  “You
+mothers!  God knew what He was about when He made you.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So Little Jem was talked to and loved and cuddled; and he throve as
+became a child of the house of dreams.  Leslie was quite as foolish
+over him as Anne was.  When their work was done and Gilbert was out of
+the way, they gave themselves over to shameless orgies of love-making
+and ecstasies of adoration, such as that in which Owen Ford had
+surprised them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie was the first to become aware of him.  Even in the twilight
+Anne could see the sudden whiteness that swept over her beautiful face,
+blotting out the crimson of lip and cheeks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Owen came forward, eagerly, blind for a moment to Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie!” he said, holding out his hand.  It was the first time he had
+ever called her by her name; but the hand Leslie gave him was cold; and
+she was very quiet all the evening, while Anne and Gilbert and Owen
+laughed and talked together.  Before his call ended she excused herself
+and went upstairs.  Owen’s gay spirits flagged and he went away soon
+after with a downcast air.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert looked at Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne, what are you up to?  There’s something going on that I don’t
+understand.  The whole air here tonight has been charged with
+electricity.  Leslie sits like the muse of tragedy; Owen Ford jokes and
+laughs on the surface, and watches Leslie with the eyes of his soul.
+You seem all the time to be bursting with some suppressed excitement.
+Own up.  What secret have you been keeping from your deceived husband?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t be a goose, Gilbert,” was Anne’s conjugal reply.  “As for
+Leslie, she is absurd and I’m going up to tell her so.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne found Leslie at the dormer window of her room.  The little place
+was filled with the rhythmic thunder of the sea.  Leslie sat with
+locked hands in the misty moonshine&mdash;a beautiful, accusing presence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne,” she said in a low, reproachful voice, “did you know Owen Ford
+was coming to Four Winds?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I did,” said Anne brazenly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, you should have told me, Anne,” Leslie cried passionately. “If I
+had known I would have gone away&mdash;I wouldn’t have stayed here to meet
+him.  You should have told me.  It wasn’t fair of you, Anne&mdash;oh, it
+wasn’t fair!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie’s lips were trembling and her whole form was tense with emotion.
+But Anne laughed heartlessly.  She bent over and kissed Leslie’s
+upturned reproachful face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie, you are an adorable goose.  Owen Ford didn’t rush from the
+Pacific to the Atlantic from a burning desire to see ME.  Neither do I
+believe that he was inspired by any wild and frenzied passion for Miss
+Cornelia.  Take off your tragic airs, my dear friend, and fold them up
+and put them away in lavender.  You’ll never need them again.  There
+are some people who can see through a grindstone when there is a hole
+in it, even if you cannot.  I am not a prophetess, but I shall venture
+on a prediction.  The bitterness of life is over for you.  After this
+you are going to have the joys and hopes&mdash;and I daresay the sorrows,
+too&mdash;of a happy woman.  The omen of the shadow of Venus did come true
+for you, Leslie.  The year in which you saw it brought your life’s best
+gift for you&mdash;your love for Owen Ford.  Now, go right to bed and have a
+good sleep.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie obeyed orders in so far that she went to bed: but it may be
+questioned if she slept much.  I do not think she dared to dream
+wakingly; life had been so hard for this poor Leslie, the path on which
+she had had to walk had been so strait, that she could not whisper to
+her own heart the hopes that might wait on the future.  But she watched
+the great revolving light bestarring the short hours of the summer
+night, and her eyes grew soft and bright and young once more.  Nor,
+when Owen Ford came next day, to ask her to go with him to the shore,
+did she say him nay.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap37"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 37
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+MISS CORNELIA MAKES A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia sailed down to the little house one drowsy afternoon,
+when the gulf was the faint, bleached blue of the August seas, and the
+orange lilies at the gate of Anne’s garden held up their imperial cups
+to be filled with the molten gold of August sunshine.  Not that Miss
+Cornelia concerned herself with painted oceans or sun-thirsty lilies.
+She sat in her favorite rocker in unusual idleness.  She sewed not,
+neither did she spin.  Nor did she say a single derogatory word
+concerning any portion of mankind.  In short, Miss Cornelia’s
+conversation was singularly devoid of spice that day, and Gilbert, who
+had stayed home to listen to her, instead of going a-fishing, as he had
+intended, felt himself aggrieved.  What had come over Miss Cornelia?
+She did not look cast down or worried.  On the contrary, there was a
+certain air of nervous exultation about her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Where is Leslie?” she asked&mdash;not as if it mattered much either.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Owen and she went raspberrying in the woods back of her farm,”
+answered Anne.  “They won’t be back before supper time&mdash;if then.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“They don’t seem to have any idea that there is such a thing as a
+clock,” said Gilbert.  “I can’t get to the bottom of that affair.  I’m
+certain you women pulled strings.  But Anne, undutiful wife, won’t tell
+me.  Will you, Miss Cornelia?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, I shall not.  But,” said Miss Cornelia, with the air of one
+determined to take the plunge and have it over, “I will tell you
+something else.  I came today on purpose to tell it.  I am going to be
+married.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne and Gilbert were silent.  If Miss Cornelia had announced her
+intention of going out to the channel and drowning herself the thing
+might have been believable.  This was not.  So they waited.  Of course
+Miss Cornelia had made a mistake.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, you both look sort of kerflummexed,” said Miss Cornelia, with a
+twinkle in her eyes.  Now that the awkward moment of revelation was
+over, Miss Cornelia was her own woman again.  “Do you think I’m too
+young and inexperienced for matrimony?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You know&mdash;it IS rather staggering,” said Gilbert, trying to gather his
+wits together.  “I’ve heard you say a score of times that you wouldn’t
+marry the best man in the world.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m not going to marry the best man in the world,” retorted Miss
+Cornelia.  “Marshall Elliott is a long way from being the best.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Are you going to marry Marshall Elliott?” exclaimed Anne, recovering
+her power of speech under this second shock.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes.  I could have had him any time these twenty years if I’d lifted
+my finger.  But do you suppose I was going to walk into church beside a
+perambulating haystack like that?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I am sure we are very glad&mdash;and we wish you all possible happiness,”
+said Anne, very flatly and inadequately, as she felt.  She was not
+prepared for such an occasion.  She had never imagined herself offering
+betrothal felicitations to Miss Cornelia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Thanks, I knew you would,” said Miss Cornelia.  “You are the first of
+my friends to know it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We shall be so sorry to lose you, though, dear Miss Cornelia,” said
+Anne, beginning to be a little sad and sentimental.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, you won’t lose me,” said Miss Cornelia unsentimentally.  “You
+don’t suppose I would live over harbor with all those MacAllisters and
+Elliotts and Crawfords, do you? 'From the conceit of the Elliotts, the
+pride of the MacAllisters and the vain-glory of the Crawfords, good
+Lord deliver us.’  Marshall is coming to live at my place.  I’m sick
+and tired of hired men.  That Jim Hastings I’ve got this summer is
+positively the worst of the species.  He would drive anyone to getting
+married.  What do you think?  He upset the churn yesterday and spilled
+a big churning of cream over the yard.  And not one whit concerned
+about it was he!  Just gave a foolish laugh and said cream was good for
+the land.  Wasn’t that like a man?  I told him I wasn’t in the habit of
+fertilising my back yard with cream.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, I wish you all manner of happiness too, Miss Cornelia,” said
+Gilbert, solemnly; “but,” he added, unable to resist the temptation to
+tease Miss Cornelia, despite Anne’s imploring eyes, “I fear your day of
+independence is done.  As you know, Marshall Elliott is a very
+determined man.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I like a man who can stick to a thing,” retorted Miss Cornelia.  “Amos
+Grant, who used to be after me long ago, couldn’t.  You never saw such
+a weather-vane.  He jumped into the pond to drown himself once and then
+changed his mind and swum out again.  Wasn’t that like a man?  Marshall
+would have stuck to it and drowned.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And he has a bit of a temper, they tell me,” persisted Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He wouldn’t be an Elliott if he hadn’t.  I’m thankful he has.  It will
+be real fun to make him mad.  And you can generally do something with a
+tempery man when it comes to repenting time.  But you can’t do anything
+with a man who just keeps placid and aggravating.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You know he’s a Grit, Miss Cornelia.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, he IS,” admitted Miss Cornelia rather sadly.  “And of course
+there is no hope of making a Conservative of him.  But at least he is a
+Presbyterian.  So I suppose I shall have to be satisfied with that.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Would you marry him if he were a Methodist, Miss Cornelia?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, I would not.  Politics is for this world, but religion is for
+both.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And you may be a 'relict’ after all, Miss Cornelia.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Not I.  Marshall will live me out.  The Elliotts are long-lived, and
+the Bryants are not.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“When are you to be married?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“In about a month’s time.  My wedding dress is to be navy blue silk.
+And I want to ask you, Anne, dearie, if you think it would be all right
+to wear a veil with a navy blue dress.  I’ve always thought I’d like to
+wear a veil if I ever got married.  Marshall says to have it if I want
+to.  Isn’t that like a man?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Why shouldn’t you wear it if you want to?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, one doesn’t want to be different from other people,” said Miss
+Cornelia, who was not noticeably like anyone else on the face of the
+earth.  “As I say, I do fancy a veil.  But maybe it shouldn’t be worn
+with any dress but a white one.  Please tell me, Anne, dearie, what you
+really think.  I’ll go by your advice.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t think veils are usually worn with any but white dresses,”
+admitted Anne, “but that is merely a convention; and I am like Mr.
+Elliott, Miss Cornelia.  I don’t see any good reason why you shouldn’t
+have a veil if you want one.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Miss Cornelia, who made her calls in calico wrappers, shook her
+head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If it isn’t the proper thing I won’t wear it,” she said, with a sigh
+of regret for a lost dream.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Since you are determined to be married, Miss Cornelia,” said Gilbert
+solemnly, “I shall give you the excellent rules for the management of a
+husband which my grandmother gave my mother when she married my father.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, I reckon I can manage Marshall Elliott,” said Miss Cornelia
+placidly.  “But let us hear your rules.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The first one is, catch him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He’s caught.  Go on.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The second one is, feed him well.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“With enough pie.  What next?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The third and fourth are&mdash;keep your eye on him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I believe you,” said Miss Cornelia emphatically.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap38"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 38
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+RED ROSES
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The garden of the little house was a haunt beloved of bees and reddened
+by late roses that August.  The little house folk lived much in it, and
+were given to taking picnic suppers in the grassy corner beyond the
+brook and sitting about in it through the twilights when great night
+moths sailed athwart the velvet gloom.  One evening Owen Ford found
+Leslie alone in it.  Anne and Gilbert were away, and Susan, who was
+expected back that night, had not yet returned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The northern sky was amber and pale green over the fir tops.  The air
+was cool, for August was nearing September, and Leslie wore a crimson
+scarf over her white dress.  Together they wandered through the little,
+friendly, flower-crowded paths in silence.  Owen must go soon.  His
+holiday was nearly over.  Leslie found her heart beating wildly.  She
+knew that this beloved garden was to be the scene of the binding words
+that must seal their as yet unworded understanding.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Some evenings a strange odor blows down the air of this garden, like a
+phantom perfume,” said Owen.  “I have never been able to discover from
+just what flower it comes.  It is elusive and haunting and wonderfully
+sweet.  I like to fancy it is the soul of Grandmother Selwyn passing on
+a little visit to the old spot she loved so well.  There should be a
+lot of friendly ghosts about this little old house.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I have lived under its roof only a month,” said Leslie, “but I love it
+as I never loved the house over there where I have lived all my life.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“This house was builded and consecrated by love,” said Owen.  “Such
+houses, MUST exert an influence over those who live in them.  And this
+garden&mdash;it is over sixty years old and the history of a thousand hopes
+and joys is written in its blossoms.  Some of those flowers were
+actually set out by the schoolmaster’s bride, and she has been dead for
+thirty years.  Yet they bloom on every summer.  Look at those red
+roses, Leslie&mdash;how they queen it over everything else!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I love the red roses,” said Leslie.  “Anne likes the pink ones best,
+and Gilbert likes the white.  But I want the crimson ones.  They
+satisfy some craving in me as no other flower does.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“These roses are very late&mdash;they bloom after all the others have
+gone&mdash;and they hold all the warmth and soul of the summer come to
+fruition,” said Owen, plucking some of the glowing, half-opened buds.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The rose is the flower of love&mdash;the world has acclaimed it so for
+centuries.  The pink roses are love hopeful and expectant&mdash;the white
+roses are love dead or forsaken&mdash;but the red roses&mdash;ah, Leslie, what
+are the red roses?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Love triumphant,” said Leslie in a low voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes&mdash;love triumphant and perfect.  Leslie, you know&mdash;you understand.
+I have loved you from the first.  And I KNOW you love me&mdash;I don’t need
+to ask you.  But I want to hear you say it&mdash;my darling&mdash;my darling!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie said something in a very low and tremulous voice.  Their hands
+and lips met; it was life’s supreme moment for them and as they stood
+there in the old garden, with its many years of love and delight and
+sorrow and glory, he crowned her shining hair with the red, red rose of
+a love triumphant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne and Gilbert returned presently, accompanied by Captain Jim.  Anne
+lighted a few sticks of driftwood in the fireplace, for love of the
+pixy flames, and they sat around it for an hour of good fellowship.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“When I sit looking at a driftwood fire it’s easy to believe I’m young
+again,” said Captain Jim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Can you read futures in the fire, Captain Jim?” asked Owen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim looked at them all affectionately and then back again at
+Leslie’s vivid face and glowing eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t need the fire to read your futures,” he said.  “I see
+happiness for all of you&mdash;all of you&mdash;for Leslie and Mr. Ford&mdash;and the
+doctor here and Mistress Blythe&mdash;and Little Jem&mdash;and children that
+ain’t born yet but will be.  Happiness for you all&mdash;though, mind you, I
+reckon you’ll have your troubles and worries and sorrows, too.  They’re
+bound to come&mdash;and no house, whether it’s a palace or a little house of
+dreams, can bar ’em out.  But they won’t get the better of you if you
+face ’em TOGETHER with love and trust.  You can weather any storm with
+them two for compass and pilot.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The old man rose suddenly and placed one hand on Leslie’s head and one
+on Anne’s.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Two good, sweet women,” he said.  “True and faithful and to be
+depended on.  Your husbands will have honor in the gates because of
+you&mdash;your children will rise up and call you blessed in the years to
+come.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a strange solemnity about the little scene.  Anne and Leslie
+bowed as those receiving a benediction.  Gilbert suddenly brushed his
+hand over his eyes; Owen Ford was rapt as one who can see visions.  All
+were silent for a space.  The little house of dreams added another
+poignant and unforgettable moment to its store of memories.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I must be going now,” said Captain Jim slowly at last.  He took up his
+hat and looked lingeringly about the room.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Good night, all of you,” he said, as he went out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne, pierced by the unusual wistfulness of his farewell, ran to the
+door after him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Come back soon, Captain Jim,” she called, as he passed through the
+little gate hung between the firs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Ay, ay,” he called cheerily back to her.  But Captain Jim had sat by
+the old fireside of the house of dreams for the last time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne went slowly back to the others.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s so&mdash;so pitiful to think of him going all alone down to that
+lonely Point,” she said.  “And there is no one to welcome him there.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Captain Jim is such good company for others that one can’t imagine him
+being anything but good company for himself,” said Owen.  “But he must
+often be lonely.  There was a touch of the seer about him tonight&mdash;he
+spoke as one to whom it had been given to speak.  Well, I must be
+going, too.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne and Gilbert discreetly melted away; but when Owen had gone Anne
+returned, to find Leslie standing by the hearth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, Leslie&mdash;I know&mdash;and I’m so glad, dear,” she said, putting her arms
+about her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne, my happiness frightens me,” whispered Leslie.  “It seems too
+great to be real&mdash;I’m afraid to speak of it&mdash;to think of it.  It seems
+to me that it must just be another dream of this house of dreams and it
+will vanish when I leave here.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, you are not going to leave here&mdash;until Owen takes you.  You are
+going to stay with me until that times comes.  Do you think I’d let you
+go over to that lonely, sad place again?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Thank you, dear.  I meant to ask you if I might stay with you.  I
+didn’t want to go back there&mdash;it would seem like going back into the
+chill and dreariness of the old life again.  Anne, Anne, what a friend
+you’ve been to me&mdash;'a good, sweet woman&mdash;true and faithful and to be
+depended on’&mdash;Captain Jim summed you up.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He said 'women,’ not 'woman,’” smiled Anne.  “Perhaps Captain Jim sees
+us both through the rose-colored spectacles of his love for us.  But we
+can try to live up to his belief in us, at least.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Do you remember, Anne,” said Leslie slowly, “that I once said&mdash;that
+night we met on the shore&mdash;that I hated my good looks?  I did&mdash;then.
+It always seemed to me that if I had been homely Dick would never have
+thought of me.  I hated my beauty because it had attracted him, but
+now&mdash;oh, I’m glad that I have it.  It’s all I have to offer Owen,&mdash;his
+artist soul delights in it.  I feel as if I do not come to him quite
+empty-handed.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Owen loves your beauty, Leslie.  Who would not?  But it’s foolish of
+you to say or think that that is all you bring him.  HE will tell you
+that&mdash;I needn’t.  And now I must lock up.  I expected Susan back
+tonight, but she has not come.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, yes, here I am, Mrs. Doctor, dear,” said Susan, entering
+unexpectedly from the kitchen, “and puffing like a hen drawing rails at
+that!  It’s quite a walk from the Glen down here.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m glad to see you back, Susan.  How is your sister?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She is able to sit up, but of course she cannot walk yet.  However,
+she is very well able to get on without me now, for her daughter has
+come home for her vacation.  And I am thankful to be back, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear.  Matilda’s leg was broken and no mistake, but her tongue was not.
+She would talk the legs off an iron pot, that she would, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear, though I grieve to say it of my own sister.  She was always a
+great talker and yet she was the first of our family to get married.
+She really did not care much about marrying James Clow, but she could
+not bear to disoblige him.  Not but what James is a good man&mdash;the only
+fault I have to find with him is that he always starts in to say grace
+with such an unearthly groan, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  It always frightens
+my appetite clear away.  And speaking of getting married, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear, is it true that Cornelia Bryant is going to be married to
+Marshall Elliott?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, quite true, Susan.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, Mrs. Doctor, dear, it does NOT seem to me fair.  Here is me, who
+never said a word against the men, and I cannot get married nohow.  And
+there is Cornelia Bryant, who is never done abusing them, and all she
+has to do is to reach out her hand and pick one up, as it were.  It is
+a very strange world, Mrs. Doctor, dear.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There’s another world, you know, Susan.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes,” said Susan with a heavy sigh, “but, Mrs. Doctor, dear, there is
+neither marrying nor giving in marriage there.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap39"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 39
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+CAPTAIN JIM CROSSES THE BAR
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+One day in late September Owen Ford’s book came at last.  Captain Jim
+had gone faithfully to the Glen post office every day for a month,
+expecting it.  This day he had not gone, and Leslie brought his copy
+home with hers and Anne’s.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We’ll take it down to him this evening,” said Anne, excited as a
+schoolgirl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The long walk to the Point on that clear, beguiling evening along the
+red harbor road was very pleasant.  Then the sun dropped down behind
+the western hills into some valley that must have been full of lost
+sunsets, and at the same instant the big light flashed out on the white
+tower of the point.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Captain Jim is never late by the fraction of a second,” said Leslie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Neither Anne nor Leslie ever forgot Captain Jim’s face when they gave
+him the book&mdash;HIS book, transfigured and glorified.  The cheeks that
+had been blanched of late suddenly flamed with the color of boyhood;
+his eyes glowed with all the fire of youth; but his hands trembled as
+he opened it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was called simply The Life-Book of Captain Jim, and on the title
+page the names of Owen Ford and James Boyd were printed as
+collaborators.  The frontispiece was a photograph of Captain Jim
+himself, standing at the door of the lighthouse, looking across the
+gulf.  Owen Ford had “snapped” him one day while the book was being
+written.  Captain Jim had known this, but he had not known that the
+picture was to be in the book.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Just think of it,” he said, “the old sailor right there in a real
+printed book.  This is the proudest day of my life.  I’m like to bust,
+girls.  There’ll be no sleep for me tonight.  I’ll read my book clean
+through before sun-up.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We’ll go right away and leave you free to begin it,” said Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim had been handling the book in a kind of reverent rapture.
+Now he decidedly closed it and laid it aside.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, no, you’re not going away before you take a cup of tea with the
+old man,” he protested.  “I couldn’t hear to that&mdash;could you, Matey?
+The life-book will keep, I reckon.  I’ve waited for it this many a
+year.  I can wait a little longer while I’m enjoying my friends.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim moved about getting his kettle on to boil, and setting out
+his bread and butter.  Despite his excitement he did not move with his
+old briskness.  His movements were slow and halting.  But the girls did
+not offer to help him.  They knew it would hurt his feelings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You just picked the right evening to visit me,” he said, producing a
+cake from his cupboard.  “Leetle Joe’s mother sent me down a big basket
+full of cakes and pies today.  A blessing on all good cooks, says I.
+Look at this purty cake, all frosting and nuts.  ’Tain’t often I can
+entertain in such style.  Set in, girls, set in!  We’ll 'tak a cup o’
+kindness yet for auld lang syne.’”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girls “set in” right merrily.  The tea was up to Captain Jim’s best
+brewing.  Little Joe’s mother’s cake was the last word in cakes;
+Captain Jim was the prince of gracious hosts, never even permitting his
+eyes to wander to the corner where the life-book lay, in all its
+bravery of green and gold.  But when his door finally closed behind
+Anne and Leslie they knew that he went straight to it, and as they
+walked home they pictured the delight of the old man poring over the
+printed pages wherein his own life was portrayed with all the charm and
+color of reality itself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wonder how he will like the ending&mdash;the ending I suggested,” said
+Leslie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was never to know.  Early the next morning Anne awakened to find
+Gilbert bending over her, fully dressed, and with an expression of
+anxiety on his face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Are you called out?” she asked drowsily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.  Anne, I’m afraid there’s something wrong at the Point.  It’s an
+hour after sunrise now, and the light is still burning.  You know it
+has always been a matter of pride with Captain Jim to start the light
+the moment the sun sets, and put it out the moment it rises.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne sat up in dismay.  Through her window she saw the light blinking
+palely against the blue skies of dawn.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Perhaps he has fallen asleep over his life-book,” she said anxiously,
+“or become so absorbed in it that he has forgotten the light.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert shook his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That wouldn’t be like Captain Jim.  Anyway, I’m going down to see.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Wait a minute and I’ll go with you,” exclaimed Anne.  “Oh, yes, I
+must&mdash;Little Jem will sleep for an hour yet, and I’ll call Susan.  You
+may need a woman’s help if Captain Jim is ill.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was an exquisite morning, full of tints and sounds at once ripe and
+delicate.  The harbor was sparkling and dimpling like a girl; white
+gulls were soaring over the dunes; beyond the bar was a shining,
+wonderful sea.  The long fields by the shore were dewy and fresh in
+that first fine, purely-tinted light.  The wind came dancing and
+whistling up the channel to replace the beautiful silence with a music
+more beautiful still.  Had it not been for the baleful star on the
+white tower that early walk would have been a delight to Anne and
+Gilbert.  But they went softly with fear.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Their knock was not responded to.  Gilbert opened the door and they
+went in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The old room was very quiet.  On the table were the remnants of the
+little evening feast.  The lamp still burned on the corner stand.  The
+First Mate was asleep in a square of sunshine by the sofa.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim lay on the sofa, with his hands clasped over the life-book,
+open at the last page, lying on his breast.  His eyes were closed and
+on his face was a look of the most perfect peace and happiness&mdash;the
+look of one who has long sought and found at last.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He is asleep?” whispered Anne tremulously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert went to the sofa and bent over him for a few moments.  Then he
+straightened up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, he sleeps&mdash;well,” he added quietly.  “Anne, Captain Jim has
+crossed the bar.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They could not know precisely at what hour he had died, but Anne always
+believed that he had had his wish, and went out when the morning came
+across the gulf.  Out on that shining tide his spirit drifted, over the
+sunrise sea of pearl and silver, to the haven where lost Margaret
+waited, beyond the storms and calms.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap40"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 40
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+FAREWELL TO THE HOUSE OF DREAMS
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim was buried in the little over-harbor graveyard, very near
+to the spot where the wee white lady slept.  His relatives put up a
+very expensive, very ugly “monument”&mdash;a monument at which he would have
+poked sly fun had he seen it in life.  But his real monument was in the
+hearts of those who knew him, and in the book that was to live for
+generations.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie mourned that Captain Jim had not lived to see the amazing
+success of it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How he would have delighted in the reviews&mdash;they are almost all so
+kindly.  And to have seen his life-book heading the lists of the best
+sellers&mdash;oh, if he could just have lived to see it, Anne!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Anne, despite her grief, was wiser.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It was the book itself he cared for, Leslie&mdash;not what might be said of
+it&mdash;and he had it.  He had read it all through.  That last night must
+have been one of the greatest happiness for him&mdash;with the quick,
+painless ending he had hoped for in the morning.  I am glad for Owen’s
+sake and yours that the book is such a success&mdash;but Captain Jim was
+satisfied&mdash;I KNOW.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The lighthouse star still kept a nightly vigil; a substitute keeper had
+been sent to the Point, until such time as an all-wise government could
+decide which of many applicants was best fitted for the place&mdash;or had
+the strongest pull.  The First Mate was at home in the little house,
+beloved by Anne and Gilbert and Leslie, and tolerated by a Susan who
+had small liking for cats.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I can put up with him for the sake of Captain Jim, Mrs. Doctor, dear,
+for I liked the old man.  And I will see that he gets bite and sup, and
+every mouse the traps account for.  But do not ask me to do more than
+that, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Cats is cats, and take my word for it, they
+will never be anything else.  And at least, Mrs. Doctor, dear, do keep
+him away from the blessed wee man.  Picture to yourself how awful it
+would be if he was to suck the darling’s breath.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That might be fitly called a CAT-astrophe,” said Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, you may laugh, doctor, dear, but it would be no laughing matter.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Cats never suck babies’ breaths,” said Gilbert.  “That is only an old
+superstition, Susan.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, well, it may be a superstition or it may not, doctor, dear.  All
+that I know is, it has happened.  My sister’s husband’s nephew’s wife’s
+cat sucked their baby’s breath, and the poor innocent was all but gone
+when they found it.  And superstition or not, if I find that yellow
+beast lurking near our baby I will whack him with the poker, Mrs.
+Doctor, dear.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Elliott were living comfortably and harmoniously
+in the green house.  Leslie was busy with sewing, for she and Owen were
+to be married at Christmas.  Anne wondered what she would do when
+Leslie was gone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Changes come all the time.  Just as soon as things get really nice
+they change,” she said with a sigh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The old Morgan place up at the Glen is for sale,” said Gilbert,
+apropos of nothing in especial.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Is it?” asked Anne indifferently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes.  Now that Mr. Morgan has gone, Mrs. Morgan wants to go to live
+with her children in Vancouver.  She will sell cheaply, for a big place
+like that in a small village like the Glen will not be very easy to
+dispose of.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, it’s certainly a beautiful place, so it is likely she will find
+a purchaser,” said Anne, absently, wondering whether she should
+hemstitch or feather-stitch little Jem’s “short” dresses.  He was to be
+shortened the next week, and Anne felt ready to cry at the thought of
+it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Suppose we buy it, Anne?” remarked Gilbert quietly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne dropped her sewing and stared at him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’re not in earnest, Gilbert?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Indeed I am, dear.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And leave this darling spot&mdash;our house of dreams?” said Anne
+incredulously.  “Oh, Gilbert, it’s&mdash;it’s unthinkable!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Listen patiently to me, dear.  I know just how you feel about it.  I
+feel the same.  But we’ve always known we would have to move some day.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, but not so soon, Gilbert&mdash;not just yet.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We may never get such a chance again.  If we don’t buy the Morgan
+place someone else will&mdash;and there is no other house in the Glen we
+would care to have, and no other really good site on which to build.
+This little house is&mdash;well, it is and has been what no other house can
+ever be to us, I admit, but you know it is out-of-the-way down here for
+a doctor.  We have felt the inconvenience, though we’ve made the best
+of it.  And it’s a tight fit for us now.  Perhaps, in a few years, when
+Jem wants a room of his own, it will be entirely too small.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I know&mdash;I know,” said Anne, tears filling her eyes.  “I know all
+that can be said against it, but I love it so&mdash;and it’s so beautiful
+here.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You would find it very lonely here after Leslie goes&mdash;and Captain Jim
+has gone too.  The Morgan place is beautiful, and in time we would love
+it.  You know you have always admired it, Anne.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, yes, but&mdash;but&mdash;this has all seemed to come up so suddenly,
+Gilbert.  I’m dizzy.  Ten minutes ago I had no thought of leaving this
+dear spot.  I was planning what I meant to do for it in the
+spring&mdash;what I meant to do in the garden.  And if we leave this place
+who will get it?  It IS out-of-the-way, so it’s likely some poor,
+shiftless, wandering family will rent it&mdash;and over-run it&mdash;and oh, that
+would be desecration.  It would hurt me horribly.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I know.  But we cannot sacrifice our own interests to such
+considerations, Anne-girl.  The Morgan place will suit us in every
+essential particular&mdash;we really can’t afford to miss such a chance.
+Think of that big lawn with those magnificent old trees; and of that
+splendid hardwood grove behind it&mdash;twelve acres of it.  What a play
+place for our children!  There’s a fine orchard, too, and you’ve always
+admired that high brick wall around the garden with the door in
+it&mdash;you’ve thought it was so like a story-book garden.  And there is
+almost as fine a view of the harbor and the dunes from the Morgan place
+as from here.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You can’t see the lighthouse star from it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, You can see it from the attic window.  THERE’S another advantage,
+Anne-girl&mdash;you love big garrets.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+ “There’s no brook in the garden.”<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, no, but there is one running through the maple grove into the
+Glen pond.  And the pond itself isn’t far away.  You’ll be able to
+fancy you have your own Lake of Shining Waters again.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, don’t say anything more about it just now, Gilbert.  Give me
+time to think&mdash;to get used to the idea.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“All right.  There is no great hurry, of course.  Only&mdash;if we decide to
+buy, it would be well to be moved in and settled before winter.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert went out, and Anne put away Little Jem’s short dresses with
+trembling hands.  She could not sew any more that day.  With tear-wet
+eyes she wandered over the little domain where she had reigned so happy
+a queen.  The Morgan place was all that Gilbert claimed.  The grounds
+were beautiful, the house old enough to have dignity and repose and
+traditions, and new enough to be comfortable and up-to-date.  Anne had
+always admired it; but admiring is not loving; and she loved this house
+of dreams so much.  She loved EVERYTHING about it&mdash;the garden she had
+tended, and which so many women had tended before her&mdash;the gleam and
+sparkle of the little brook that crept so roguishly across the
+corner&mdash;the gate between the creaking fir trees&mdash;the old red sandstone
+step&mdash;the stately Lombardies&mdash;the two tiny quaint glass cupboards over
+the chimney-piece in the living-room&mdash;the crooked pantry door in the
+kitchen&mdash;the two funny dormer windows upstairs&mdash;the little jog in the
+staircase&mdash;why, these things were a part of her!  How could she leave
+them?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And how this little house, consecrated aforetime by love and joy, had
+been re-consecrated for her by her happiness and sorrow!  Here she had
+spent her bridal moon; here wee Joyce had lived her one brief day; here
+the sweetness of motherhood had come again with Little Jem; here she
+had heard the exquisite music of her baby’s cooing laughter; here
+beloved friends had sat by her fireside.  Joy and grief, birth and
+death, had made sacred forever this little house of dreams.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now she must leave it.  She knew that, even while she had contended
+against the idea to Gilbert.  The little house was outgrown.  Gilbert’s
+interests made the change necessary; his work, successful though it had
+been, was hampered by his location.  Anne realised that the end of
+their life in this dear place drew nigh, and that she must face the
+fact bravely.  But how her heart ached!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It will be just like tearing something out of my life,” she sobbed.
+“And oh, if I could hope that some nice folk would come here in our
+place&mdash;or even that it would be left vacant.  That itself would be
+better than having it overrun with some horde who know nothing of the
+geography of dreamland, and nothing of the history that has given this
+house its soul and its identity.  And if such a tribe come here the
+place will go to rack and ruin in no time&mdash;an old place goes down so
+quickly if it is not carefully attended to.  They’ll tear up my
+garden&mdash;and let the Lombardies get ragged&mdash;and the paling will come to
+look like a mouth with half the teeth missing&mdash;and the roof will
+leak&mdash;and the plaster fall&mdash;and they’ll stuff pillows and rags in
+broken window panes&mdash;and everything will be out-at-elbows.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne’s imagination pictured forth so vividly the coming degeneration of
+her dear little house that it hurt her as severely as if it had already
+been an accomplished fact.  She sat down on the stairs and had a long,
+bitter cry.  Susan found her there and enquired with much concern what
+the trouble was.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You have not quarrelled with the doctor, have you now, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear?  But if you have, do not worry.  It is a thing quite likely to
+happen to married couples, I am told, although I have had no experience
+that way myself.  He will be sorry, and you can soon make it up.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, no, Susan, we haven’t quarrelled.  It’s only&mdash;Gilbert is going to
+buy the Morgan place, and we’ll have to go and live at the Glen.  And
+it will break my heart.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Susan did not enter into Anne’s feelings at all.  She was, indeed,
+quite rejoiced over the prospect of living at the Glen.  Her one
+grievance against her place in the little house was its lonesome
+location.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Why, Mrs. Doctor, dear, it will be splendid.  The Morgan house is such
+a fine, big one.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I hate big houses,” sobbed Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, well, you will not hate them by the time you have half a dozen
+children,” remarked Susan calmly.  “And this house is too small already
+for us.  We have no spare room, since Mrs. Moore is here, and that
+pantry is the most aggravating place I ever tried to work in.  There is
+a corner every way you turn.  Besides, it is out-of-the-world down
+here.  There is really nothing at all but scenery.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Out of your world perhaps, Susan&mdash;but not out of mine,” said Anne with
+a faint smile.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I do not quite understand you, Mrs. Doctor, dear, but of course I am
+not well educated.  But if Dr. Blythe buys the Morgan place he will
+make no mistake, and that you may tie to.  They have water in it, and
+the pantries and closets are beautiful, and there is not another such
+cellar in P. E.  Island, so I have been told.  Why, the cellar here,
+Mrs. Doctor, dear, has been a heart-break to me, as well you know.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, go away, Susan, go away,” said Anne forlornly.  “Cellars and
+pantries and closets don’t make a HOME.  Why don’t you weep with those
+who weep?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, I never was much hand for weeping, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  I would
+rather fall to and cheer people up than weep with them.  Now, do not
+you cry and spoil your pretty eyes.  This house is very well and has
+served your turn, but it is high time you had a better.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Susan’s point of view seemed to be that of most people.  Leslie was the
+only one who sympathised understandingly with Anne.  She had a good
+cry, too, when she heard the news.  Then they both dried their tears
+and went to work at the preparations for moving.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Since we must go let us go as soon as we can and have it over,” said
+poor Anne with bitter resignation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You know you will like that lovely old place at the Glen after you
+have lived in it long enough to have dear memories woven about it,”
+said Leslie.  “Friends will come there, as they have come
+here&mdash;happiness will glorify it for you.  Now, it’s just a house to
+you&mdash;but the years will make it a home.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne and Leslie had another cry the next week when they shortened
+Little Jem.  Anne felt the tragedy of it until evening when in his long
+nightie she found her own dear baby again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But it will be rompers next&mdash;and then trousers&mdash;and in no time he will
+be grown-up,” she sighed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, you would not want him to stay a baby always, Mrs. Doctor, dear,
+would you?” said Susan.  “Bless his innocent heart, he looks too sweet
+for anything in his little short dresses, with his dear feet sticking
+out.  And think of the save in the ironing, Mrs. Doctor, dear.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne, I have just had a letter from Owen,” said Leslie, entering with
+a bright face.  “And, oh! I have such good news.  He writes me that he
+is going to buy this place from the church trustees and keep it to
+spend our summer vacations in.  Anne, are you not glad?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, Leslie, 'glad’ isn’t the word for it!  It seems almost too good to
+be true.  I sha’n’t feel half so badly now that I know this dear spot
+will never be desecrated by a vandal tribe, or left to tumble down in
+decay.  Why, it’s lovely!  It’s lovely!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One October morning Anne wakened to the realisation that she had slept
+for the last time under the roof of her little house.  The day was too
+busy to indulge regret and when evening came the house was stripped and
+bare.  Anne and Gilbert were alone in it to say farewell.  Leslie and
+Susan and Little Jem had gone to the Glen with the last load of
+furniture.  The sunset light streamed in through the curtainless
+windows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It has all such a heart-broken, reproachful look, hasn’t it?” said
+Anne.  “Oh, I shall be so homesick at the Glen tonight!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We have been very happy here, haven’t we, Anne-girl?” said Gilbert,
+his voice full of feeling.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne choked, unable to answer.  Gilbert waited for her at the fir-tree
+gate, while she went over the house and said farewell to every room.
+She was going away; but the old house would still be there, looking
+seaward through its quaint windows.  The autumn winds would blow around
+it mournfully, and the gray rain would beat upon it and the white mists
+would come in from the sea to enfold it; and the moonlight would fall
+over it and light up the old paths where the schoolmaster and his bride
+had walked.  There on that old harbor shore the charm of story would
+linger; the wind would still whistle alluringly over the silver
+sand-dunes; the waves would still call from the red rock-coves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But we will be gone,” said Anne through her tears.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She went out, closing and locking the door behind her.  Gilbert was
+waiting for her with a smile.  The lighthouse star was gleaming
+northward.  The little garden, where only marigolds still bloomed, was
+already hooding itself in shadows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne knelt down and kissed the worn old step which she had crossed as a
+bride.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Good-bye, dear little house of dreams,” she said.
+</P>
+
+
+
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANNE’S HOUSE OF DREAMS ***</div>
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 544 ***
+
+
+
+
+Anne’s House of Dreams
+
+
+by
+
+Lucy Maud Montgomery
+
+
+“To Laura, in memory of the olden time.”
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+Chapter
+
+   1  IN THE GARRET OF GREEN GABLES
+   2  THE HOUSE OF DREAMS
+   3  THE LAND OF DREAMS AMONG
+   4  THE FIRST BRIDE OF GREEN GABLES
+   5  THE HOME COMING
+   6  CAPTAIN JIM
+   7  THE SCHOOLMASTER’S BRIDE
+   8  MISS CORNELIA BRYANT COMES TO CALL
+   9  AN EVENING AT FOUR WINDS POINT
+  10  LESLIE MOORE
+  11  THE STORY OF LESLIE MOORE
+  12  LESLIE COMES OVER
+  13  A GHOSTLY EVENING
+  14  NOVEMBER DAYS
+  15  CHRISTMAS AT FOUR WINDS
+  16  NEW YEAR’S EVE AT THE LIGHT
+  17  A FOUR WINDS WINTER
+  18  SPRING DAYS
+  19  DAWN AND DUSK
+  20  LOST MARGARET
+  21  BARRIERS SWEPT AWAY
+  22  MISS CORNELIA ARRANGES MATTERS
+  23  OWEN FORD COMES
+  24  THE LIFE-BOOK OF CAPTAIN JIM
+  25  THE WRITING OF THE BOOK
+  26  OWEN FORD’S CONFESSION
+  27  ON THE SAND BAR
+  28  ODDS AND ENDS
+  29  GILBERT AND ANNE DISAGREE
+  30  LESLIE DECIDES
+  31  THE TRUTH MAKES FREE
+  32  MISS CORNELIA DISCUSSES THE AFFAIR
+  33  LESLIE RETURNS
+  34  THE SHIP O’DREAMS COMES TO HARBOR
+  35  POLITICS AT FOUR WINDS
+  36  BEAUTY FOR ASHES
+  37  MISS CORNELIA MAKES A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT
+  38  RED ROSES
+  39  CAPTAIN JIM CROSSES THE BAR
+  40  FAREWELL TO THE HOUSE OF DREAMS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1
+
+IN THE GARRET OF GREEN GABLES
+
+“Thanks be, I’m done with geometry, learning or teaching it,” said Anne
+Shirley, a trifle vindictively, as she thumped a somewhat battered
+volume of Euclid into a big chest of books, banged the lid in triumph,
+and sat down upon it, looking at Diana Wright across the Green Gables
+garret, with gray eyes that were like a morning sky.
+
+The garret was a shadowy, suggestive, delightful place, as all garrets
+should be. Through the open window, by which Anne sat, blew the sweet,
+scented, sun-warm air of the August afternoon; outside, poplar boughs
+rustled and tossed in the wind; beyond them were the woods, where
+Lover’s Lane wound its enchanted path, and the old apple orchard which
+still bore its rosy harvests munificently.  And, over all, was a great
+mountain range of snowy clouds in the blue southern sky.  Through the
+other window was glimpsed a distant, white-capped, blue sea--the
+beautiful St. Lawrence Gulf, on which floats, like a jewel, Abegweit,
+whose softer, sweeter Indian name has long been forsaken for the more
+prosaic one of Prince Edward Island.
+
+Diana Wright, three years older than when we last saw her, had grown
+somewhat matronly in the intervening time.  But her eyes were as black
+and brilliant, her cheeks as rosy, and her dimples as enchanting, as in
+the long-ago days when she and Anne Shirley had vowed eternal
+friendship in the garden at Orchard Slope.  In her arms she held a
+small, sleeping, black-curled creature, who for two happy years had
+been known to the world of Avonlea as “Small Anne Cordelia.”  Avonlea
+folks knew why Diana had called her Anne, of course, but Avonlea folks
+were puzzled by the Cordelia.  There had never been a Cordelia in the
+Wright or Barry connections.  Mrs. Harmon Andrews said she supposed
+Diana had found the name in some trashy novel, and wondered that Fred
+hadn’t more sense than to allow it.  But Diana and Anne smiled at each
+other.  They knew how Small Anne Cordelia had come by her name.
+
+“You always hated geometry,” said Diana with a retrospective smile.  “I
+should think you’d be real glad to be through with teaching, anyhow.”
+
+“Oh, I’ve always liked teaching, apart from geometry.  These past three
+years in Summerside have been very pleasant ones. Mrs. Harmon Andrews
+told me when I came home that I wouldn’t likely find married life as
+much better than teaching as I expected.  Evidently Mrs. Harmon is of
+Hamlet’s opinion that it may be better to bear the ills that we have
+than fly to others that we know not of.”
+
+Anne’s laugh, as blithe and irresistible as of yore, with an added note
+of sweetness and maturity, rang through the garret.  Marilla in the
+kitchen below, compounding blue plum preserve, heard it and smiled;
+then sighed to think how seldom that dear laugh would echo through
+Green Gables in the years to come.  Nothing in her life had ever given
+Marilla so much happiness as the knowledge that Anne was going to marry
+Gilbert Blythe; but every joy must bring with it its little shadow of
+sorrow.  During the three Summerside years Anne had been home often for
+vacations and weekends; but, after this, a bi-annual visit would be as
+much as could be hoped for.
+
+“You needn’t let what Mrs. Harmon says worry you,” said Diana, with the
+calm assurance of the four-years matron.  “Married life has its ups and
+downs, of course.  You mustn’t expect that everything will always go
+smoothly.  But I can assure you, Anne, that it’s a happy life, when
+you’re married to the right man.”
+
+Anne smothered a smile.  Diana’s airs of vast experience always amused
+her a little.
+
+“I daresay I’ll be putting them on too, when I’ve been married four
+years,” she thought.  “Surely my sense of humor will preserve me from
+it, though.”
+
+“Is it settled yet where you are going to live?” asked Diana, cuddling
+Small Anne Cordelia with the inimitable gesture of motherhood which
+always sent through Anne’s heart, filled with sweet, unuttered dreams
+and hopes, a thrill that was half pure pleasure and half a strange,
+ethereal pain.
+
+“Yes. That was what I wanted to tell you when I ’phoned to you to come
+down today.  By the way, I can’t realize that we really have telephones
+in Avonlea now.  It sounds so preposterously up-to-date and modernish
+for this darling, leisurely old place.”
+
+“We can thank the A. V. I. S. for them,” said Diana.  “We should never
+have got the line if they hadn’t taken the matter up and carried it
+through.  There was enough cold water thrown to discourage any society.
+But they stuck to it, nevertheless.  You did a splendid thing for
+Avonlea when you founded that society, Anne.  What fun we did have at
+our meetings!  Will you ever forget the blue hall and Judson Parker’s
+scheme for painting medicine advertisements on his fence?”
+
+“I don’t know that I’m wholly grateful to the A. V. I.  S. in the
+matter of the telephone,” said Anne.  “Oh, I know it’s most
+convenient--even more so than our old device of signalling to each
+other by flashes of candlelight!  And, as Mrs. Rachel says, ‘Avonlea
+must keep up with the procession, that’s what.’  But somehow I feel as
+if I didn’t want Avonlea spoiled by what Mr. Harrison, when he wants to
+be witty, calls ‘modern inconveniences.’  I should like to have it kept
+always just as it was in the dear old years. That’s foolish--and
+sentimental--and impossible.  So I shall immediately become wise and
+practical and possible.  The telephone, as Mr. Harrison concedes, is ‘a
+buster of a good thing’--even if you do know that probably half a dozen
+interested people are listening along the line.”
+
+“That’s the worst of it,” sighed Diana.  “It’s so annoying to hear the
+receivers going down whenever you ring anyone up.  They say Mrs. Harmon
+Andrews insisted that their ’phone should be put in their kitchen just
+so that she could listen whenever it rang and keep an eye on the dinner
+at the same time.  Today, when you called me, I distinctly heard that
+queer clock of the Pyes’ striking.  So no doubt Josie or Gertie was
+listening.”
+
+“Oh, so that is why you said, ‘You’ve got a new clock at Green Gables,
+haven’t you?’  I couldn’t imagine what you meant.  I heard a vicious
+click as soon as you had spoken.  I suppose it was the Pye receiver
+being hung up with profane energy.  Well, never mind the Pyes.  As Mrs.
+Rachel says, ‘Pyes they always were and Pyes they always will be, world
+without end, amen.’  I want to talk of pleasanter things.  It’s all
+settled as to where my new home shall be.”
+
+“Oh, Anne, where?  I do hope it’s near here.”
+
+“No-o-o, that’s the drawback. Gilbert is going to settle at Four Winds
+Harbor--sixty miles from here.”
+
+“Sixty!  It might as well be six hundred,” sighed Diana.  “I never can
+get further from home now than Charlottetown.”
+
+“You’ll have to come to Four Winds. It’s the most beautiful harbor on
+the Island.  There’s a little village called Glen St. Mary at its head,
+and Dr. David Blythe has been practicing there for fifty years.  He is
+Gilbert’s great-uncle, you know.  He is going to retire, and Gilbert is
+to take over his practice.  Dr. Blythe is going to keep his house,
+though, so we shall have to find a habitation for ourselves.  I don’t
+know yet what it is, or where it will be in reality, but I have a
+little house o’dreams all furnished in my imagination--a tiny,
+delightful castle in Spain.”
+
+“Where are you going for your wedding tour?” asked Diana.
+
+“Nowhere.  Don’t look horrified, Diana dearest.  You suggest Mrs.
+Harmon Andrews.  She, no doubt, will remark condescendingly that people
+who can’t afford wedding ‘towers’ are real sensible not to take them;
+and then she’ll remind me that Jane went to Europe for hers.  I want to
+spend MY honeymoon at Four Winds in my own dear house of dreams.”
+
+“And you’ve decided not to have any bridesmaid?”
+
+“There isn’t any one to have.  You and Phil and Priscilla and Jane all
+stole a march on me in the matter of marriage; and Stella is teaching
+in Vancouver.  I have no other ‘kindred soul’ and I won’t have a
+bridesmaid who isn’t.”
+
+“But you are going to wear a veil, aren’t you?” asked Diana, anxiously.
+
+“Yes, indeedy.  I shouldn’t feel like a bride without one.  I remember
+telling Matthew, that evening when he brought me to Green Gables, that
+I never expected to be a bride because I was so homely no one would
+ever want to marry me--unless some foreign missionary did.  I had an
+idea then that foreign missionaries couldn’t afford to be finicky in
+the matter of looks if they wanted a girl to risk her life among
+cannibals.  You should have seen the foreign missionary Priscilla
+married.  He was as handsome and inscrutable as those daydreams we once
+planned to marry ourselves, Diana; he was the best dressed man I ever
+met, and he raved over Priscilla’s ‘ethereal, golden beauty.’  But of
+course there are no cannibals in Japan.”
+
+“Your wedding dress is a dream, anyhow,” sighed Diana rapturously.
+“You’ll look like a perfect queen in it--you’re so tall and slender.
+How DO you keep so slim, Anne?  I’m fatter than ever--I’ll soon have no
+waist at all.”
+
+“Stoutness and slimness seem to be matters of predestination,” said
+Anne.  “At all events, Mrs. Harmon Andrews can’t say to you what she
+said to me when I came home from Summerside, ‘Well, Anne, you’re just
+about as skinny as ever.’  It sounds quite romantic to be ‘slender,’
+but ‘skinny’ has a very different tang.”
+
+“Mrs. Harmon has been talking about your trousseau.  She admits it’s as
+nice as Jane’s, although she says Jane married a millionaire and you
+are only marrying a ‘poor young doctor without a cent to his name.’”
+
+Anne laughed.
+
+“My dresses ARE nice.  I love pretty things.  I remember the first
+pretty dress I ever had--the brown gloria Matthew gave me for our
+school concert.  Before that everything I had was so ugly.  It seemed
+to me that I stepped into a new world that night.”
+
+“That was the night Gilbert recited ‘Bingen on the Rhine,’ and looked
+at you when he said, ‘There’s another, NOT a sister.’  And you were so
+furious because he put your pink tissue rose in his breast pocket!  You
+didn’t much imagine then that you would ever marry him.”
+
+“Oh, well, that’s another instance of predestination,” laughed Anne, as
+they went down the garret stairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2
+
+THE HOUSE OF DREAMS
+
+There was more excitement in the air of Green Gables than there had
+ever been before in all its history.  Even Marilla was so excited that
+she couldn’t help showing it--which was little short of being
+phenomenal.
+
+“There’s never been a wedding in this house,” she said, half
+apologetically, to Mrs. Rachel Lynde.  “When I was a child I heard an
+old minister say that a house was not a real home until it had been
+consecrated by a birth, a wedding and a death.  We’ve had deaths
+here--my father and mother died here as well as Matthew; and we’ve even
+had a birth here.  Long ago, just after we moved into this house, we
+had a married hired man for a little while, and his wife had a baby
+here.  But there’s never been a wedding before.  It does seem so
+strange to think of Anne being married.  In a way she just seems to me
+the little girl Matthew brought home here fourteen years ago.  I can’t
+realize that she’s grown up.  I shall never forget what I felt when I
+saw Matthew bringing in a GIRL.  I wonder what became of the boy we
+would have got if there hadn’t been a mistake.  I wonder what HIS fate
+was.”
+
+“Well, it was a fortunate mistake,” said Mrs. Rachel Lynde, “though,
+mind you, there was a time I didn’t think so--that evening I came up to
+see Anne and she treated us to such a scene.  Many things have changed
+since then, that’s what.”
+
+Mrs. Rachel sighed, and then brisked up again.  When weddings were in
+order Mrs. Rachel was ready to let the dead past bury its dead.
+
+“I’m going to give Anne two of my cotton warp spreads,” she resumed.
+“A tobacco-stripe one and an apple-leaf one.  She tells me they’re
+getting to be real fashionable again.  Well, fashion or no fashion, I
+don’t believe there’s anything prettier for a spare-room bed than a
+nice apple-leaf spread, that’s what.  I must see about getting them
+bleached.  I’ve had them sewed up in cotton bags ever since Thomas
+died, and no doubt they’re an awful color.  But there’s a month yet,
+and dew-bleaching will work wonders.”
+
+Only a month!  Marilla sighed and then said proudly:
+
+“I’m giving Anne that half dozen braided rugs I have in the garret. I
+never supposed she’d want them--they’re so old-fashioned, and nobody
+seems to want anything but hooked mats now.  But she asked me for
+them--said she’d rather have them than anything else for her floors.
+They ARE pretty.  I made them of the nicest rags, and braided them in
+stripes.  It was such company these last few winters.  And I’ll make
+her enough blue plum preserve to stock her jam closet for a year.  It
+seems real strange.  Those blue plum trees hadn’t even a blossom for
+three years, and I thought they might as well be cut down.  And this
+last spring they were white, and such a crop of plums I never remember
+at Green Gables.”
+
+“Well, thank goodness that Anne and Gilbert really are going to be
+married after all.  It’s what I’ve always prayed for,” said Mrs.
+Rachel, in the tone of one who is comfortably sure that her prayers
+have availed much.  “It was a great relief to find out that she really
+didn’t mean to take the Kingsport man.  He was rich, to be sure, and
+Gilbert is poor--at least, to begin with; but then he’s an Island boy.”
+
+“He’s Gilbert Blythe,” said Marilla contentedly.  Marilla would have
+died the death before she would have put into words the thought that
+was always in the background of her mind whenever she had looked at
+Gilbert from his childhood up--the thought that, had it not been for
+her own wilful pride long, long ago, he might have been HER son.
+Marilla felt that, in some strange way, his marriage with Anne would
+put right that old mistake.  Good had come out of the evil of the
+ancient bitterness.
+
+As for Anne herself, she was so happy that she almost felt frightened.
+The gods, so says the old superstition, do not like to behold too happy
+mortals.  It is certain, at least, that some human beings do not.  Two
+of that ilk descended upon Anne one violet dusk and proceeded to do
+what in them lay to prick the rainbow bubble of her satisfaction.  If
+she thought she was getting any particular prize in young Dr. Blythe,
+or if she imagined that he was still as infatuated with her as he might
+have been in his salad days, it was surely their duty to put the matter
+before her in another light.  Yet these two worthy ladies were not
+enemies of Anne; on the contrary, they were really quite fond of her,
+and would have defended her as their own young had anyone else attacked
+her.  Human nature is not obliged to be consistent.
+
+Mrs. Inglis--nee Jane Andrews, to quote from the Daily Enterprise--came
+with her mother and Mrs. Jasper Bell.  But in Jane the milk of human
+kindness had not been curdled by years of matrimonial bickerings.  Her
+lines had fallen in pleasant places.  In spite of the fact--as Mrs.
+Rachel Lynde would say--that she had married a millionaire, her
+marriage had been happy.  Wealth had not spoiled her.  She was still
+the placid, amiable, pink-cheeked Jane of the old quartette,
+sympathising with her old chum’s happiness and as keenly interested in
+all the dainty details of Anne’s trousseau as if it could rival her own
+silken and bejewelled splendors.  Jane was not brilliant, and had
+probably never made a remark worth listening to in her life; but she
+never said anything that would hurt anyone’s feelings--which may be a
+negative talent but is likewise a rare and enviable one.
+
+“So Gilbert didn’t go back on you after all,” said Mrs. Harmon Andrews,
+contriving to convey an expression of surprise in her tone.  “Well, the
+Blythes generally keep their word when they’ve once passed it, no
+matter what happens.  Let me see--you’re twenty-five, aren’t you, Anne?
+When I was a girl twenty-five was the first corner.  But you look quite
+young.  Red-headed people always do.”
+
+“Red hair is very fashionable now,” said Anne, trying to smile, but
+speaking rather coldly.  Life had developed in her a sense of humor
+which helped her over many difficulties; but as yet nothing had availed
+to steel her against a reference to her hair.
+
+“So it is--so it is,” conceded Mrs. Harmon.  “There’s no telling what
+queer freaks fashion will take.  Well, Anne, your things are very
+pretty, and very suitable to your position in life, aren’t they, Jane?
+I hope you’ll be very happy.  You have my best wishes, I’m sure.  A
+long engagement doesn’t often turn out well.  But, of course, in your
+case it couldn’t be helped.”
+
+“Gilbert looks very young for a doctor.  I’m afraid people won’t have
+much confidence in him,” said Mrs. Jasper Bell gloomily.  Then she shut
+her mouth tightly, as if she had said what she considered it her duty
+to say and held her conscience clear.  She belonged to the type which
+always has a stringy black feather in its hat and straggling locks of
+hair on its neck.
+
+Anne’s surface pleasure in her pretty bridal things was temporarily
+shadowed; but the deeps of happiness below could not thus be disturbed;
+and the little stings of Mesdames Bell and Andrews were forgotten when
+Gilbert came later, and they wandered down to the birches of the brook,
+which had been saplings when Anne had come to Green Gables, but were
+now tall, ivory columns in a fairy palace of twilight and stars.  In
+their shadows Anne and Gilbert talked in lover-fashion of their new
+home and their new life together.
+
+“I’ve found a nest for us, Anne.”
+
+“Oh, where?  Not right in the village, I hope.  I wouldn’t like that
+altogether.”
+
+“No.  There was no house to be had in the village.  This is a little
+white house on the harbor shore, half way between Glen St. Mary and
+Four Winds Point.  It’s a little out of the way, but when we get a
+’phone in that won’t matter so much.  The situation is beautiful.  It
+looks to the sunset and has the great blue harbor before it.  The
+sand-dunes aren’t very far away--the sea winds blow over them and the
+sea spray drenches them.”
+
+“But the house itself, Gilbert,--OUR first home?  What is it like?”
+
+“Not very large, but large enough for us.  There’s a splendid living
+room with a fireplace in it downstairs, and a dining room that looks
+out on the harbor, and a little room that will do for my office.  It is
+about sixty years old--the oldest house in Four Winds.  But it has been
+kept in pretty good repair, and was all done over about fifteen years
+ago--shingled, plastered and re-floored.  It was well built to begin
+with.  I understand that there was some romantic story connected with
+its building, but the man I rented it from didn’t know it.”
+
+“He said Captain Jim was the only one who could spin that old yarn now.”
+
+“Who is Captain Jim?”
+
+“The keeper of the lighthouse on Four Winds Point.  You’ll love that
+Four Winds light, Anne.  It’s a revolving one, and it flashes like a
+magnificent star through the twilights.  We can see it from our living
+room windows and our front door.”
+
+“Who owns the house?”
+
+“Well, it’s the property of the Glen St. Mary Presbyterian Church now,
+and I rented it from the trustees.  But it belonged until lately to a
+very old lady, Miss Elizabeth Russell.  She died last spring, and as
+she had no near relatives she left her property to the Glen St. Mary
+Church.  Her furniture is still in the house, and I bought most of
+it--for a mere song you might say, because it was all so old-fashioned
+that the trustees despaired of selling it.  Glen St. Mary folks prefer
+plush brocade and sideboards with mirrors and ornamentations, I fancy.
+But Miss Russell’s furniture is very good and I feel sure you’ll like
+it, Anne.”
+
+“So far, good,” said Anne, nodding cautious approval.  “But, Gilbert,
+people cannot live by furniture alone.  You haven’t yet mentioned one
+very important thing.  Are there TREES about this house?”
+
+“Heaps of them, oh, dryad!  There is a big grove of fir trees behind
+it, two rows of Lombardy poplars down the lane, and a ring of white
+birches around a very delightful garden.  Our front door opens right
+into the garden, but there is another entrance--a little gate hung
+between two firs.  The hinges are on one trunk and the catch on the
+other.  Their boughs form an arch overhead.”
+
+“Oh, I’m so glad!  I couldn’t live where there were no trees--something
+vital in me would starve.  Well, after that, there’s no use asking you
+if there’s a brook anywhere near.  THAT would be expecting too much.”
+
+“But there IS a brook--and it actually cuts across one corner of the
+garden.”
+
+“Then,” said Anne, with a long sigh of supreme satisfaction, “this
+house you have found IS my house of dreams and none other.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3
+
+THE LAND OF DREAMS AMONG
+
+“Have you made up your mind who you’re going to have to the wedding,
+Anne?” asked Mrs. Rachel Lynde, as she hemstitched table napkins
+industriously.  “It’s time your invitations were sent, even if they are
+to be only informal ones.”
+
+“I don’t mean to have very many,” said Anne.  “We just want those we
+love best to see us married.  Gilbert’s people, and Mr. and Mrs. Allan,
+and Mr. and Mrs. Harrison.”
+
+“There was a time when you’d hardly have numbered Mr. Harrison among
+your dearest friends,” said Marilla drily.
+
+“Well, I wasn’t VERY strongly attracted to him at our first meeting,”
+acknowledged Anne, with a laugh over the recollection.  “But Mr.
+Harrison has improved on acquaintance, and Mrs. Harrison is really a
+dear.  Then, of course, there are Miss Lavendar and Paul.”
+
+“Have they decided to come to the Island this summer?  I thought they
+were going to Europe.”
+
+“They changed their minds when I wrote them I was going to be married.
+I had a letter from Paul today.  He says he MUST come to my wedding, no
+matter what happens to Europe.”
+
+“That child always idolised you,” remarked Mrs. Rachel.
+
+“That ‘child’ is a young man of nineteen now, Mrs. Lynde.”
+
+“How time does fly!” was Mrs. Lynde’s brilliant and original response.
+
+“Charlotta the Fourth may come with them.  She sent word by Paul that
+she would come if her husband would let her.  I wonder if she still
+wears those enormous blue bows, and whether her husband calls her
+Charlotta or Leonora.  I should love to have Charlotta at my wedding.
+Charlotta and I were at a wedding long syne.  They expect to be at Echo
+Lodge next week.  Then there are Phil and the Reverend Jo----”
+
+“It sounds awful to hear you speaking of a minister like that, Anne,”
+said Mrs. Rachel severely.
+
+“His wife calls him that.”
+
+“She should have more respect for his holy office, then,” retorted Mrs.
+Rachel.
+
+“I’ve heard you criticise ministers pretty sharply yourself,” teased
+Anne.
+
+“Yes, but I do it reverently,” protested Mrs. Lynde.  “You never heard
+me NICKNAME a minister.”
+
+Anne smothered a smile.
+
+“Well, there are Diana and Fred and little Fred and Small Anne
+Cordelia--and Jane Andrews.  I wish I could have Miss Stacey and Aunt
+Jamesina and Priscilla and Stella.  But Stella is in Vancouver, and
+Pris is in Japan, and Miss Stacey is married in California, and Aunt
+Jamesina has gone to India to explore her daughter’s mission field, in
+spite of her horror of snakes.  It’s really dreadful--the way people
+get scattered over the globe.”
+
+“The Lord never intended it, that’s what,” said Mrs. Rachel
+authoritatively.  “In my young days people grew up and married and
+settled down where they were born, or pretty near it.  Thank goodness
+you’ve stuck to the Island, Anne.  I was afraid Gilbert would insist on
+rushing off to the ends of the earth when he got through college, and
+dragging you with him.”
+
+“If everybody stayed where he was born places would soon be filled up,
+Mrs. Lynde.”
+
+“Oh, I’m not going to argue with you, Anne.  _I_ am not a B.A.  What
+time of the day is the ceremony to be?”
+
+“We have decided on noon--high noon, as the society reporters say.
+That will give us time to catch the evening train to Glen St. Mary.”
+
+“And you’ll be married in the parlor?”
+
+“No--not unless it rains.  We mean to be married in the orchard--with
+the blue sky over us and the sunshine around us.  Do you know when and
+where I’d like to be married, if I could?  It would be at dawn--a June
+dawn, with a glorious sunrise, and roses blooming in the gardens; and I
+would slip down and meet Gilbert and we would go together to the heart
+of the beech woods,--and there, under the green arches that would be
+like a splendid cathedral, we would be married.”
+
+Marilla sniffed scornfully and Mrs. Lynde looked shocked.
+
+“But that would be terrible queer, Anne.  Why, it wouldn’t really seem
+legal.  And what would Mrs. Harmon Andrews say?”
+
+“Ah, there’s the rub,” sighed Anne.  “There are so many things in life
+we cannot do because of the fear of what Mrs. Harmon Andrews would say.
+‘’Tis true, ’tis pity, and pity ’tis, ’tis true.’  What delightful
+things we might do were it not for Mrs. Harmon Andrews!”
+
+“By times, Anne, I don’t feel quite sure that I understand you
+altogether,” complained Mrs. Lynde.
+
+“Anne was always romantic, you know,” said Marilla apologetically.
+
+“Well, married life will most likely cure her of that,” Mrs. Rachel
+responded comfortingly.
+
+Anne laughed and slipped away to Lover’s Lane, where Gilbert found her;
+and neither of them seemed to entertain much fear, or hope, that their
+married life would cure them of romance.
+
+The Echo Lodge people came over the next week, and Green Gables buzzed
+with the delight of them.  Miss Lavendar had changed so little that the
+three years since her last Island visit might have been a watch in the
+night; but Anne gasped with amazement over Paul.  Could this splendid
+six feet of manhood be the little Paul of Avonlea schooldays?
+
+“You really make me feel old, Paul,” said Anne.  “Why, I have to look
+up to you!”
+
+“You’ll never grow old, Teacher,” said Paul.  “You are one of the
+fortunate mortals who have found and drunk from the Fountain of
+Youth,--you and Mother Lavendar.  See here!  When you’re married I
+WON’T call you Mrs. Blythe.  To me you’ll always be ‘Teacher’--the
+teacher of the best lessons I ever learned.  I want to show you
+something.”
+
+The “something” was a pocketbook full of poems.  Paul had put some of
+his beautiful fancies into verse, and magazine editors had not been as
+unappreciative as they are sometimes supposed to be.  Anne read Paul’s
+poems with real delight.  They were full of charm and promise.
+
+“You’ll be famous yet, Paul.  I always dreamed of having one famous
+pupil.  He was to be a college president--but a great poet would be
+even better.  Some day I’ll be able to boast that I whipped the
+distinguished Paul Irving.  But then I never did whip you, did I, Paul?
+What an opportunity lost!  I think I kept you in at recess, however.”
+
+“You may be famous yourself, Teacher.  I’ve seen a good deal of your
+work these last three years.”
+
+“No.  I know what I can do.  I can write pretty, fanciful little
+sketches that children love and editors send welcome cheques for.  But
+I can do nothing big.  My only chance for earthly immortality is a
+corner in your Memoirs.”
+
+Charlotta the Fourth had discarded the blue bows but her freckles were
+not noticeably less.
+
+“I never did think I’d come down to marrying a Yankee, Miss Shirley,
+ma’am,” she said.  “But you never know what’s before you, and it isn’t
+his fault.  He was born that way.”
+
+“You’re a Yankee yourself, Charlotta, since you’ve married one.”
+
+“Miss Shirley, ma’am, I’m NOT!  And I wouldn’t be if I was to marry a
+dozen Yankees!  Tom’s kind of nice.  And besides, I thought I’d better
+not be too hard to please, for I mightn’t get another chance.  Tom
+don’t drink and he don’t growl because he has to work between meals,
+and when all’s said and done I’m satisfied, Miss Shirley, ma’am.”
+
+“Does he call you Leonora?” asked Anne.
+
+“Goodness, no, Miss Shirley, ma’am.  I wouldn’t know who he meant if he
+did.  Of course, when we got married he had to say, ‘I take thee,
+Leonora,’ and I declare to you, Miss Shirley, ma’am, I’ve had the most
+dreadful feeling ever since that it wasn’t me he was talking to and I
+haven’t been rightly married at all.  And so you’re going to be married
+yourself, Miss Shirley, ma’am?  I always thought I’d like to marry a
+doctor.  It would be so handy when the children had measles and croup.
+Tom is only a bricklayer, but he’s real good-tempered.  When I said to
+him, says I, ‘Tom, can I go to Miss Shirley’s wedding?  I mean to go
+anyhow, but I’d like to have your consent,’ he just says, ‘Suit
+yourself, Charlotta, and you’ll suit me.’  That’s a real pleasant kind
+of husband to have, Miss Shirley, ma’am.”
+
+Philippa and her Reverend Jo arrived at Green Gables the day before the
+wedding.  Anne and Phil had a rapturous meeting which presently
+simmered down to a cosy, confidential chat over all that had been and
+was about to be.
+
+“Queen Anne, you’re as queenly as ever.  I’ve got fearfully thin since
+the babies came.  I’m not half so good-looking; but I think Jo likes
+it.  There’s not such a contrast between us, you see.  And oh, it’s
+perfectly magnificent that you’re going to marry Gilbert.  Roy Gardner
+wouldn’t have done at all, at all.  I can see that now, though I was
+horribly disappointed at the time.  You know, Anne, you did treat Roy
+very badly.”
+
+“He has recovered, I understand,” smiled Anne.
+
+“Oh, yes.  He is married and his wife is a sweet little thing and
+they’re perfectly happy.  Everything works together for good.  Jo and
+the Bible say that, and they are pretty good authorities.”
+
+“Are Alec and Alonzo married yet?”
+
+“Alec is, but Alonzo isn’t.  How those dear old days at Patty’s Place
+come back when I’m talking to you, Anne!  What fun we had!”
+
+“Have you been to Patty’s Place lately?”
+
+“Oh, yes, I go often.  Miss Patty and Miss Maria still sit by the
+fireplace and knit.  And that reminds me--we’ve brought you a wedding
+gift from them, Anne.  Guess what it is.”
+
+“I never could.  How did they know I was going to be married?”
+
+“Oh, I told them.  I was there last week.  And they were so interested.
+Two days ago Miss Patty wrote me a note asking me to call; and then she
+asked if I would take her gift to you.  What would you wish most from
+Patty’s Place, Anne?”
+
+“You can’t mean that Miss Patty has sent me her china dogs?”
+
+“Go up head.  They’re in my trunk this very moment.  And I’ve a letter
+for you.  Wait a moment and I’ll get it.”
+
+“Dear Miss Shirley,” Miss Patty had written, “Maria and I were very
+much interested in hearing of your approaching nuptials.  We send you
+our best wishes.  Maria and I have never married, but we have no
+objection to other people doing so.  We are sending you the china dogs.
+I intended to leave them to you in my will, because you seemed to have
+sincere affection for them.  But Maria and I expect to live a good
+while yet (D.V.), so I have decided to give you the dogs while you are
+young.  You will not have forgotten that Gog looks to the right and
+Magog to the left.”
+
+“Just fancy those lovely old dogs sitting by the fireplace in my house
+of dreams,” said Anne rapturously.  “I never expected anything so
+delightful.”
+
+That evening Green Gables hummed with preparations for the following
+day; but in the twilight Anne slipped away.  She had a little
+pilgrimage to make on this last day of her girlhood and she must make
+it alone.  She went to Matthew’s grave, in the little poplar-shaded
+Avonlea graveyard, and there kept a silent tryst with old memories and
+immortal loves.
+
+“How glad Matthew would be tomorrow if he were here,” she whispered.
+“But I believe he does know and is glad of it--somewhere else.  I’ve
+read somewhere that ‘our dead are never dead until we have forgotten
+them.’ Matthew will never be dead to me, for I can never forget him.”
+
+She left on his grave the flowers she had brought and walked slowly
+down the long hill.  It was a gracious evening, full of delectable
+lights and shadows.  In the west was a sky of mackerel clouds--crimson
+and amber-tinted, with long strips of apple-green sky between.  Beyond
+was the glimmering radiance of a sunset sea, and the ceaseless voice of
+many waters came up from the tawny shore.  All around her, lying in the
+fine, beautiful country silence, were the hills and fields and woods
+she had known and loved so long.
+
+“History repeats itself,” said Gilbert, joining her as she passed the
+Blythe gate.  “Do you remember our first walk down this hill, Anne--our
+first walk together anywhere, for that matter?”
+
+“I was coming home in the twilight from Matthew’s grave--and you came
+out of the gate; and I swallowed the pride of years and spoke to you.”
+
+“And all heaven opened before me,” supplemented Gilbert.  “From that
+moment I looked forward to tomorrow.  When I left you at your gate that
+night and walked home I was the happiest boy in the world.  Anne had
+forgiven me.”
+
+“I think you had the most to forgive.  I was an ungrateful little
+wretch--and after you had really saved my life that day on the pond,
+too.  How I loathed that load of obligation at first!  I don’t deserve
+the happiness that has come to me.”
+
+Gilbert laughed and clasped tighter the girlish hand that wore his
+ring.  Anne’s engagement ring was a circlet of pearls.  She had refused
+to wear a diamond.
+
+“I’ve never really liked diamonds since I found out they weren’t the
+lovely purple I had dreamed.  They will always suggest my old
+disappointment.”
+
+“But pearls are for tears, the old legend says,” Gilbert had objected.
+
+“I’m not afraid of that.  And tears can be happy as well as sad.  My
+very happiest moments have been when I had tears in my eyes--when
+Marilla told me I might stay at Green Gables--when Matthew gave me the
+first pretty dress I ever had--when I heard that you were going to
+recover from the fever.  So give me pearls for our troth ring, Gilbert,
+and I’ll willingly accept the sorrow of life with its joy.”
+
+But tonight our lovers thought only of joy and never of sorrow.  For
+the morrow was their wedding day, and their house of dreams awaited
+them on the misty, purple shore of Four Winds Harbor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4
+
+THE FIRST BRIDE OF GREEN GABLES
+
+Anne wakened on the morning of her wedding day to find the sunshine
+winking in at the window of the little porch gable and a September
+breeze frolicking with her curtains.
+
+“I’m so glad the sun will shine on me,” she thought happily.
+
+She recalled the first morning she had wakened in that little porch
+room, when the sunshine had crept in on her through the blossom-drift
+of the old Snow Queen.  That had not been a happy wakening, for it
+brought with it the bitter disappointment of the preceding night.  But
+since then the little room had been endeared and consecrated by years
+of happy childhood dreams and maiden visions.  To it she had come back
+joyfully after all her absences; at its window she had knelt through
+that night of bitter agony when she believed Gilbert dying, and by it
+she had sat in speechless happiness the night of her betrothal.  Many
+vigils of joy and some of sorrow had been kept there; and today she
+must leave it forever.  Henceforth it would be hers no more;
+fifteen-year-old Dora was to inherit it when she had gone.  Nor did
+Anne wish it otherwise; the little room was sacred to youth and
+girlhood--to the past that was to close today before the chapter of
+wifehood opened.
+
+Green Gables was a busy and joyous house that forenoon.  Diana arrived
+early, with little Fred and Small Anne Cordelia, to lend a hand.  Davy
+and Dora, the Green Gables twins, whisked the babies off to the garden.
+
+“Don’t let Small Anne Cordelia spoil her clothes,” warned Diana
+anxiously.
+
+“You needn’t be afraid to trust her with Dora,” said Marilla.  “That
+child is more sensible and careful than most of the mothers I’ve known.
+She’s really a wonder in some ways.  Not much like that other
+harum-scarum I brought up.”
+
+Marilla smiled across her chicken salad at Anne.  It might even be
+suspected that she liked the harum-scarum best after all.
+
+“Those twins are real nice children,” said Mrs. Rachel, when she was
+sure they were out of earshot.  “Dora is so womanly and helpful, and
+Davy is developing into a very smart boy.  He isn’t the holy terror for
+mischief he used to be.”
+
+“I never was so distracted in my life as I was the first six months he
+was here,” acknowledged Marilla.  “After that I suppose I got used to
+him.  He’s taken a great notion to farming lately, and wants me to let
+him try running the farm next year.  I may, for Mr. Barry doesn’t think
+he’ll want to rent it much longer, and some new arrangement will have
+to be made.”
+
+“Well, you certainly have a lovely day for your wedding, Anne,” said
+Diana, as she slipped a voluminous apron over her silken array.  “You
+couldn’t have had a finer one if you’d ordered it from Eaton’s.”
+
+“Indeed, there’s too much money going out of this Island to that same
+Eaton’s,” said Mrs. Lynde indignantly.  She had strong views on the
+subject of octopus-like department stores, and never lost an
+opportunity of airing them.  “And as for those catalogues of theirs,
+they’re the Avonlea girls’ Bible now, that’s what.  They pore over them
+on Sundays instead of studying the Holy Scriptures.”
+
+“Well, they’re splendid to amuse children with,” said Diana.  “Fred and
+Small Anne look at the pictures by the hour.”
+
+“_I_ amused ten children without the aid of Eaton’s catalogue,” said
+Mrs. Rachel severely.
+
+“Come, you two, don’t quarrel over Eaton’s catalogue,” said Anne gaily.
+“This is my day of days, you know.  I’m so happy I want every one else
+to be happy, too.”
+
+“I’m sure I hope your happiness will last, child,” sighed Mrs. Rachel.
+She did hope it truly, and believed it, but she was afraid it was in
+the nature of a challenge to Providence to flaunt your happiness too
+openly.  Anne, for her own good, must be toned down a trifle.
+
+But it was a happy and beautiful bride who came down the old,
+homespun-carpeted stairs that September noon--the first bride of Green
+Gables, slender and shining-eyed, in the mist of her maiden veil, with
+her arms full of roses.  Gilbert, waiting for her in the hall below,
+looked up at her with adoring eyes.  She was his at last, this evasive,
+long-sought Anne, won after years of patient waiting.  It was to him
+she was coming in the sweet surrender of the bride.  Was he worthy of
+her?  Could he make her as happy as he hoped?  If he failed her--if he
+could not measure up to her standard of manhood--then, as she held out
+her hand, their eyes met and all doubt was swept away in a glad
+certainty.  They belonged to each other; and, no matter what life might
+hold for them, it could never alter that.  Their happiness was in each
+other’s keeping and both were unafraid.
+
+They were married in the sunshine of the old orchard, circled by the
+loving and kindly faces of long-familiar friends.  Mr. Allan married
+them, and the Reverend Jo made what Mrs. Rachel Lynde afterwards
+pronounced to be the “most beautiful wedding prayer” she had ever
+heard.  Birds do not often sing in September, but one sang sweetly from
+some hidden bough while Gilbert and Anne repeated their deathless vows.
+Anne heard it and thrilled to it; Gilbert heard it, and wondered only
+that all the birds in the world had not burst into jubilant song; Paul
+heard it and later wrote a lyric about it which was one of the most
+admired in his first volume of verse; Charlotta the Fourth heard it and
+was blissfully sure it meant good luck for her adored Miss Shirley.
+The bird sang until the ceremony was ended and then it wound up with
+one mad little, glad little trill.  Never had the old gray-green house
+among its enfolding orchards known a blither, merrier afternoon.  All
+the old jests and quips that must have done duty at weddings since Eden
+were served up, and seemed as new and brilliant and mirth-provoking as
+if they had never been uttered before.  Laughter and joy had their way;
+and when Anne and Gilbert left to catch the Carmody train, with Paul as
+driver, the twins were ready with rice and old shoes, in the throwing
+of which Charlotta the Fourth and Mr. Harrison bore a valiant part.
+Marilla stood at the gate and watched the carriage out of sight down
+the long lane with its banks of goldenrod.  Anne turned at its end to
+wave her last good-bye.  She was gone--Green Gables was her home no
+more; Marilla’s face looked very gray and old as she turned to the
+house which Anne had filled for fourteen years, and even in her
+absence, with light and life.
+
+But Diana and her small fry, the Echo Lodge people and the Allans, had
+stayed to help the two old ladies over the loneliness of the first
+evening; and they contrived to have a quietly pleasant little supper
+time, sitting long around the table and chatting over all the details
+of the day.  While they were sitting there Anne and Gilbert were
+alighting from the train at Glen St. Mary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 5
+
+THE HOME COMING
+
+Dr. David Blythe had sent his horse and buggy to meet them, and the
+urchin who had brought it slipped away with a sympathetic grin, leaving
+them to the delight of driving alone to their new home through the
+radiant evening.
+
+Anne never forgot the loveliness of the view that broke upon them when
+they had driven over the hill behind the village.  Her new home could
+not yet be seen; but before her lay Four Winds Harbor like a great,
+shining mirror of rose and silver.  Far down, she saw its entrance
+between the bar of sand dunes on one side and a steep, high, grim, red
+sandstone cliff on the other.  Beyond the bar the sea, calm and
+austere, dreamed in the afterlight.  The little fishing village,
+nestled in the cove where the sand-dunes met the harbor shore, looked
+like a great opal in the haze.  The sky over them was like a jewelled
+cup from which the dusk was pouring; the air was crisp with the
+compelling tang of the sea, and the whole landscape was infused with
+the subtleties of a sea evening.  A few dim sails drifted along the
+darkening, fir-clad harbor shores.  A bell was ringing from the tower
+of a little white church on the far side; mellowly and dreamily sweet,
+the chime floated across the water blent with the moan of the sea.  The
+great revolving light on the cliff at the channel flashed warm and
+golden against the clear northern sky, a trembling, quivering star of
+good hope.  Far out along the horizon was the crinkled gray ribbon of a
+passing steamer’s smoke.
+
+“Oh, beautiful, beautiful,” murmured Anne.  “I shall love Four Winds,
+Gilbert.  Where is our house?”
+
+“We can’t see it yet--the belt of birch running up from that little
+cove hides it.  It’s about two miles from Glen St. Mary, and there’s
+another mile between it and the light-house.  We won’t have many
+neighbors, Anne.  There’s only one house near us and I don’t know who
+lives in it.  Shall you be lonely when I’m away?”
+
+“Not with that light and that loveliness for company.  Who lives in
+that house, Gilbert?”
+
+“I don’t know.  It doesn’t look--exactly--as if the occupants would be
+kindred spirits, Anne, does it?”
+
+The house was a large, substantial affair, painted such a vivid green
+that the landscape seemed quite faded by contrast.  There was an
+orchard behind it, and a nicely kept lawn before it, but, somehow,
+there was a certain bareness about it.  Perhaps its neatness was
+responsible for this; the whole establishment, house, barns, orchard,
+garden, lawn and lane, was so starkly neat.
+
+“It doesn’t seem probable that anyone with that taste in paint could be
+VERY kindred,” acknowledged Anne, “unless it were an accident--like our
+blue hall.  I feel certain there are no children there, at least.  It’s
+even neater than the old Copp place on the Tory road, and I never
+expected to see anything neater than that.”
+
+They had not met anybody on the moist, red road that wound along the
+harbor shore.  But just before they came to the belt of birch which hid
+their home, Anne saw a girl who was driving a flock of snow-white geese
+along the crest of a velvety green hill on the right.  Great, scattered
+firs grew along it.  Between their trunks one saw glimpses of yellow
+harvest fields, gleams of golden sand-hills, and bits of blue sea.  The
+girl was tall and wore a dress of pale blue print.  She walked with a
+certain springiness of step and erectness of bearing.  She and her
+geese came out of the gate at the foot of the hill as Anne and Gilbert
+passed.  She stood with her hand on the fastening of the gate, and
+looked steadily at them, with an expression that hardly attained to
+interest, but did not descend to curiosity.  It seemed to Anne, for a
+fleeting moment, that there was even a veiled hint of hostility in it.
+But it was the girl’s beauty which made Anne give a little gasp--a
+beauty so marked that it must have attracted attention anywhere.  She
+was hatless, but heavy braids of burnished hair, the hue of ripe wheat,
+were twisted about her head like a coronet; her eyes were blue and
+star-like; her figure, in its plain print gown, was magnificent; and
+her lips were as crimson as the bunch of blood-red poppies she wore at
+her belt.
+
+“Gilbert, who is the girl we have just passed?” asked Anne, in a low
+voice.
+
+“I didn’t notice any girl,” said Gilbert, who had eyes only for his
+bride.
+
+“She was standing by that gate--no, don’t look back.  She is still
+watching us.  I never saw such a beautiful face.”
+
+“I don’t remember seeing any very handsome girls while I was here.
+There are some pretty girls up at the Glen, but I hardly think they
+could be called beautiful.”
+
+“This girl is.  You can’t have seen her, or you would remember her.
+Nobody could forget her.  I never saw such a face except in pictures.
+And her hair!  It made me think of Browning’s ‘cord of gold’ and
+‘gorgeous snake’!”
+
+“Probably she’s some visitor in Four Winds--likely some one from that
+big summer hotel over the harbor.”
+
+“She wore a white apron and she was driving geese.”
+
+“She might do that for amusement.  Look, Anne--there’s our house.”
+
+Anne looked and forgot for a time the girl with the splendid, resentful
+eyes.  The first glimpse of her new home was a delight to eye and
+spirit--it looked so like a big, creamy seashell stranded on the harbor
+shore.  The rows of tall Lombardy poplars down its lane stood out in
+stately, purple silhouette against the sky.  Behind it, sheltering its
+garden from the too keen breath of sea winds, was a cloudy fir wood, in
+which the winds might make all kinds of weird and haunting music.  Like
+all woods, it seemed to be holding and enfolding secrets in its
+recesses,--secrets whose charm is only to be won by entering in and
+patiently seeking.  Outwardly, dark green arms keep them inviolate from
+curious or indifferent eyes.
+
+The night winds were beginning their wild dances beyond the bar and the
+fishing hamlet across the harbor was gemmed with lights as Anne and
+Gilbert drove up the poplar lane.  The door of the little house opened,
+and a warm glow of firelight flickered out into the dusk.  Gilbert
+lifted Anne from the buggy and led her into the garden, through the
+little gate between the ruddy-tipped firs, up the trim, red path to the
+sandstone step.
+
+“Welcome home,” he whispered, and hand in hand they stepped over the
+threshold of their house of dreams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 6
+
+CAPTAIN JIM
+
+“Old Doctor Dave” and “Mrs. Doctor Dave” had come down to the little
+house to greet the bride and groom.  Doctor Dave was a big, jolly,
+white-whiskered old fellow, and Mrs. Doctor was a trim rosy-cheeked,
+silver-haired little lady who took Anne at once to her heart, literally
+and figuratively.
+
+“I’m so glad to see you, dear.  You must be real tired.  We’ve got a
+bite of supper ready, and Captain Jim brought up some trout for you.
+Captain Jim--where are you?  Oh, he’s slipped out to see to the horse,
+I suppose.  Come upstairs and take your things off.”
+
+Anne looked about her with bright, appreciative eyes as she followed
+Mrs. Doctor Dave upstairs.  She liked the appearance of her new home
+very much.  It seemed to have the atmosphere of Green Gables and the
+flavor of her old traditions.
+
+“I think I would have found Miss Elizabeth Russell a ‘kindred spirit,’”
+she murmured when she was alone in her room.  There were two windows in
+it; the dormer one looked out on the lower harbor and the sand-bar and
+the Four Winds light.
+
+    “A magic casement opening on the foam
+    Of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn,”
+
+quoted Anne softly.  The gable window gave a view of a little
+harvest-hued valley through which a brook ran.  Half a mile up the
+brook was the only house in sight--an old, rambling, gray one
+surrounded by huge willows through which its windows peered, like shy,
+seeking eyes, into the dusk.  Anne wondered who lived there; they would
+be her nearest neighbors and she hoped they would be nice.  She
+suddenly found herself thinking of the beautiful girl with the white
+geese.
+
+“Gilbert thought she didn’t belong here,” mused Anne, “but I feel sure
+she does.  There was something about her that made her part of the sea
+and the sky and the harbor.  Four Winds is in her blood.”
+
+When Anne went downstairs Gilbert was standing before the fireplace
+talking to a stranger.  Both turned as Anne entered.
+
+“Anne, this is Captain Boyd.  Captain Boyd, my wife.”
+
+It was the first time Gilbert had said “my wife” to anybody but Anne,
+and he narrowly escaped bursting with the pride of it.  The old captain
+held out a sinewy hand to Anne; they smiled at each other and were
+friends from that moment.  Kindred spirit flashed recognition to
+kindred spirit.
+
+“I’m right down pleased to meet you, Mistress Blythe; and I hope you’ll
+be as happy as the first bride was who came here.  I can’t wish you no
+better than THAT.  But your husband doesn’t introduce me jest exactly
+right.  ‘Captain Jim’ is my week-a-day name and you might as well begin
+as you’re sartain to end up--calling me that.  You sartainly are a nice
+little bride, Mistress Blythe.  Looking at you sorter makes me feel
+that I’ve jest been married myself.”
+
+Amid the laughter that followed Mrs. Doctor Dave urged Captain Jim to
+stay and have supper with them.
+
+“Thank you kindly.  ’Twill be a real treat, Mistress Doctor.  I mostly
+has to eat my meals alone, with the reflection of my ugly old phiz in a
+looking-glass opposite for company.  ’Tisn’t often I have a chance to
+sit down with two such sweet, purty ladies.”
+
+Captain Jim’s compliments may look very bald on paper, but he paid them
+with such a gracious, gentle deference of tone and look that the woman
+upon whom they were bestowed felt that she was being offered a queen’s
+tribute in a kingly fashion.
+
+Captain Jim was a high-souled, simple-minded old man, with eternal
+youth in his eyes and heart.  He had a tall, rather ungainly figure,
+somewhat stooped, yet suggestive of great strength and endurance; a
+clean-shaven face deeply lined and bronzed; a thick mane of iron-gray
+hair falling quite to his shoulders, and a pair of remarkably blue,
+deep-set eyes, which sometimes twinkled and sometimes dreamed, and
+sometimes looked out seaward with a wistful quest in them, as of one
+seeking something precious and lost.  Anne was to learn one day what it
+was for which Captain Jim looked.
+
+It could not be denied that Captain Jim was a homely man.  His spare
+jaws, rugged mouth, and square brow were not fashioned on the lines of
+beauty; and he had passed through many hardships and sorrows which had
+marked his body as well as his soul; but though at first sight Anne
+thought him plain she never thought anything more about it--the spirit
+shining through that rugged tenement beautified it so wholly.
+
+They gathered gaily around the supper table.  The hearth fire banished
+the chill of the September evening, but the window of the dining room
+was open and sea breezes entered at their own sweet will.  The view was
+magnificent, taking in the harbor and the sweep of low, purple hills
+beyond.  The table was heaped with Mrs. Doctor’s delicacies but the
+piece de resistance was undoubtedly the big platter of sea trout.
+
+“Thought they’d be sorter tasty after travelling,” said Captain Jim.
+“They’re fresh as trout can be, Mistress Blythe.  Two hours ago they
+were swimming in the Glen Pond.”
+
+“Who is attending to the light tonight, Captain Jim?” asked Doctor Dave.
+
+“Nephew Alec.  He understands it as well as I do.  Well, now, I’m real
+glad you asked me to stay to supper.  I’m proper hungry--didn’t have
+much of a dinner today.”
+
+“I believe you half starve yourself most of the time down at that
+light,” said Mrs. Doctor Dave severely.  “You won’t take the trouble to
+get up a decent meal.”
+
+“Oh, I do, Mistress Doctor, I do,” protested Captain Jim.  “Why, I live
+like a king gen’rally.  Last night I was up to the Glen and took home
+two pounds of steak.  I meant to have a spanking good dinner today.”
+
+“And what happened to the steak?” asked Mrs. Doctor Dave.  “Did you
+lose it on the way home?”
+
+“No.”  Captain Jim looked sheepish.  “Just at bedtime a poor, ornery
+sort of dog came along and asked for a night’s lodging.  Guess he
+belonged to some of the fishermen ’long shore.  I couldn’t turn the
+poor cur out--he had a sore foot.  So I shut him in the porch, with an
+old bag to lie on, and went to bed.  But somehow I couldn’t sleep.
+Come to think it over, I sorter remembered that the dog looked hungry.”
+
+“And you got up and gave him that steak--ALL that steak,” said Mrs.
+Doctor Dave, with a kind of triumphant reproof.
+
+“Well, there wasn’t anything else TO give him,” said Captain Jim
+deprecatingly.  “Nothing a dog’d care for, that is.  I reckon he WAS
+hungry, for he made about two bites of it.  I had a fine sleep the rest
+of the night but my dinner had to be sorter scanty--potatoes and point,
+as you might say.  The dog, he lit out for home this morning.  I reckon
+HE weren’t a vegetarian.”
+
+“The idea of starving yourself for a worthless dog!” sniffed Mrs.
+Doctor.
+
+“You don’t know but he may be worth a lot to somebody,” protested
+Captain Jim.  “He didn’t LOOK of much account, but you can’t go by
+looks in jedging a dog.  Like meself, he might be a real beauty inside.
+The First Mate didn’t approve of him, I’ll allow.  His language was
+right down forcible. But the First Mate is prejudiced.  No use in
+taking a cat’s opinion of a dog.  ‘Tennyrate, I lost my dinner, so this
+nice spread in this dee-lightful company is real pleasant. It’s a great
+thing to have good neighbors.”
+
+“Who lives in the house among the willows up the brook?” asked Anne.
+
+“Mrs. Dick Moore,” said Captain Jim--“and her husband,” he added, as if
+by way of an afterthought.
+
+Anne smiled, and deduced a mental picture of Mrs. Dick Moore from
+Captain Jim’s way of putting it; evidently a second Mrs. Rachel Lynde.
+
+“You haven’t many neighbors, Mistress Blythe,” Captain Jim went on.
+“This side of the harbor is mighty thinly settled.  Most of the land
+belongs to Mr. Howard up yander past the Glen, and he rents it out for
+pasture.  The other side of the harbor, now, is thick with
+folks--’specially MacAllisters.  There’s a whole colony of MacAllisters
+you can’t throw a stone but you hit one.  I was talking to old Leon
+Blacquiere the other day.  He’s been working on the harbor all summer.
+‘Dey’re nearly all MacAllisters over thar,’ he told me.  ‘Dare’s Neil
+MacAllister and Sandy MacAllister and William MacAllister and Alec
+MacAllister and Angus MacAllister--and I believe dare’s de Devil
+MacAllister.’”
+
+“There are nearly as many Elliotts and Crawfords,” said Doctor Dave,
+after the laughter had subsided.  “You know, Gilbert, we folk on this
+side of Four Winds have an old saying--‘From the conceit of the
+Elliotts, the pride of the MacAllisters, and the vainglory of the
+Crawfords, good Lord deliver us.’”
+
+“There’s a plenty of fine people among them, though,” said Captain Jim.
+“I sailed with William Crawford for many a year, and for courage and
+endurance and truth that man hadn’t an equal.  They’ve got brains over
+on that side of Four Winds.  Mebbe that’s why this side is sorter
+inclined to pick on ’em.  Strange, ain’t it, how folks seem to resent
+anyone being born a mite cleverer than they be.”
+
+Doctor Dave, who had a forty years’ feud with the over-harbor people,
+laughed and subsided.
+
+“Who lives in that brilliant emerald house about half a mile up the
+road?” asked Gilbert.
+
+Captain Jim smiled delightedly.
+
+“Miss Cornelia Bryant.  She’ll likely be over to see you soon, seeing
+you’re Presbyterians.  If you were Methodists she wouldn’t come at all.
+Cornelia has a holy horror of Methodists.”
+
+“She’s quite a character,” chuckled Doctor Dave.  “A most inveterate
+man-hater!”
+
+“Sour grapes?” queried Gilbert, laughing.
+
+“No, ’tisn’t sour grapes,” answered Captain Jim seriously.  “Cornelia
+could have had her pick when she was young.  Even yet she’s only to say
+the word to see the old widowers jump.  She jest seems to have been
+born with a sort of chronic spite agin men and Methodists.  She’s got
+the bitterest tongue and the kindest heart in Four Winds.  Wherever
+there’s any trouble, that woman is there, doing everything to help in
+the tenderest way.  She never says a harsh word about another woman,
+and if she likes to card us poor scalawags of men down I reckon our
+tough old hides can stand it.”
+
+“She always speaks well of you, Captain Jim,” said Mrs. Doctor.
+
+“Yes, I’m afraid so.  I don’t half like it.  It makes me feel as if
+there must be something sorter unnateral about me.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 7
+
+THE SCHOOLMASTER’S BRIDE
+
+“Who was the first bride who came to this house, Captain Jim?” Anne
+asked, as they sat around the fireplace after supper.
+
+“Was she a part of the story I’ve heard was connected with this house?”
+asked Gilbert.  “Somebody told me you could tell it, Captain Jim.”
+
+“Well, yes, I know it.  I reckon I’m the only person living in Four
+Winds now that can remember the schoolmaster’s bride as she was when
+she come to the Island.  She’s been dead this thirty year, but she was
+one of them women you never forget.”
+
+“Tell us the story,” pleaded Anne.  “I want to find out all about the
+women who have lived in this house before me.”
+
+“Well, there’s jest been three--Elizabeth Russell, and Mrs. Ned
+Russell, and the schoolmaster’s bride.  Elizabeth Russell was a nice,
+clever little critter, and Mrs. Ned was a nice woman, too.  But they
+weren’t ever like the schoolmaster’s bride.
+
+“The schoolmaster’s name was John Selwyn.  He came out from the Old
+Country to teach school at the Glen when I was a boy of sixteen.  He
+wasn’t much like the usual run of derelicts who used to come out to
+P.E.I. to teach school in them days.  Most of them were clever, drunken
+critters who taught the children the three R’s when they were sober,
+and lambasted them when they wasn’t.  But John Selwyn was a fine,
+handsome young fellow.  He boarded at my father’s, and he and me were
+cronies, though he was ten years older’n me.  We read and walked and
+talked a heap together.  He knew about all the poetry that was ever
+written, I reckon, and he used to quote it to me along shore in the
+evenings.  Dad thought it an awful waste of time, but he sorter endured
+it, hoping it’d put me off the notion of going to sea.  Well, nothing
+could do THAT--mother come of a race of sea-going folk and it was born
+in me.  But I loved to hear John read and recite.  It’s almost sixty
+years ago, but I could repeat yards of poetry I learned from him.
+Nearly sixty years!”
+
+Captain Jim was silent for a space, gazing into the glowing fire in a
+quest of the bygones.  Then, with a sigh, he resumed his story.
+
+“I remember one spring evening I met him on the sand-hills.  He looked
+sorter uplifted--jest like you did, Dr. Blythe, when you brought
+Mistress Blythe in tonight.  I thought of him the minute I seen you.
+And he told me that he had a sweetheart back home and that she was
+coming out to him.  I wasn’t more’n half pleased, ornery young lump of
+selfishness that I was; I thought he wouldn’t be as much my friend
+after she came.  But I’d enough decency not to let him see it.  He told
+me all about her.  Her name was Persis Leigh, and she would have come
+out with him if it hadn’t been for her old uncle.  He was sick, and
+he’d looked after her when her parents died and she wouldn’t leave him.
+And now he was dead and she was coming out to marry John Selwyn.
+’Twasn’t no easy journey for a woman in them days.  There weren’t no
+steamers, you must ricollect.
+
+“‘When do you expect her?’ says I.
+
+“‘She sails on the Royal William, the 20th of June,’ says he, ‘and so
+she should be here by mid-July.  I must set Carpenter Johnson to
+building me a home for her.  Her letter come today.  I know before I
+opened it that it had good news for me.  I saw her a few nights ago.’
+
+“I didn’t understand him, and then he explained--though I didn’t
+understand THAT much better.  He said he had a gift--or a curse.  Them
+was his words, Mistress Blythe--a gift or a curse.  He didn’t know
+which it was.  He said a great-great-grandmother of his had had it, and
+they burned her for a witch on account of it.  He said queer
+spells--trances, I think was the name he give ’em--come over him now
+and again.  Are there such things, Doctor?”
+
+“There are people who are certainly subject to trances,” answered
+Gilbert.  “The matter is more in the line of psychical research than
+medical.  What were the trances of this John Selwyn like?”
+
+“Like dreams,” said the old Doctor skeptically.
+
+“He said he could see things in them,” said Captain Jim slowly.
+
+“Mind you, I’m telling you jest what HE said--things that were
+happening--things that were GOING to happen.  He said they were
+sometimes a comfort to him and sometimes a horror.  Four nights before
+this he’d been in one--went into it while he was sitting looking at the
+fire.  And he saw an old room he knew well in England, and Persis Leigh
+in it, holding out her hands to him and looking glad and happy.  So he
+knew he was going to hear good news of her.”
+
+“A dream--a dream,” scoffed the old Doctor.
+
+“Likely--likely,” conceded Captain Jim.  “That’s what _I_ said to him
+at the time.  It was a vast more comfortable to think so.  I didn’t
+like the idea of him seeing things like that--it was real uncanny.
+
+“‘No,’ says he, ‘I didn’t dream it.  But we won’t talk of this again.
+You won’t be so much my friend if you think much about it.’
+
+“I told him nothing could make me any less his friend.  But he jest
+shook his head and says, says he:
+
+“‘Lad, I know.  I’ve lost friends before because of this.  I don’t
+blame them.  There are times when I feel hardly friendly to myself
+because of it.  Such a power has a bit of divinity in it--whether of a
+good or an evil divinity who shall say?  And we mortals all shrink from
+too close contact with God or devil.’
+
+“Them was his words.  I remember them as if ’twas yesterday, though I
+didn’t know jest what he meant.  What do you s’pose he DID mean,
+doctor?”
+
+“I doubt if he knew what he meant himself,” said Doctor Dave testily.
+
+“I think I understand,” whispered Anne.  She was listening in her old
+attitude of clasped lips and shining eyes.  Captain Jim treated himself
+to an admiring smile before he went on with his story.
+
+“Well, purty soon all the Glen and Four Winds people knew the
+schoolmaster’s bride was coming, and they were all glad because they
+thought so much of him.  And everybody took an interest in his new
+house--THIS house.  He picked this site for it, because you could see
+the harbor and hear the sea from it.  He made the garden out there for
+his bride, but he didn’t plant the Lombardies.  Mrs. Ned Russell
+planted THEM.  But there’s a double row of rose-bushes in the garden
+that the little girls who went to the Glen school set out there for the
+schoolmaster’s bride.  He said they were pink for her cheeks and white
+for her brow and red for her lips.  He’d quoted poetry so much that he
+sorter got into the habit of talking it, too, I reckon.
+
+“Almost everybody sent him some little present to help out the
+furnishing of the house.  When the Russells came into it they were
+well-to-do and furnished it real handsome, as you can see; but the
+first furniture that went into it was plain enough.  This little house
+was rich in love, though.  The women sent in quilts and tablecloths and
+towels, and one man made a chest for her, and another a table and so
+on.  Even blind old Aunt Margaret Boyd wove a little basket for her out
+of the sweet-scented sand-hill grass.  The schoolmaster’s wife used it
+for years to keep her handkerchiefs in.
+
+“Well, at last everything was ready--even to the logs in the big
+fireplace ready for lighting.  ’Twasn’t exactly THIS fireplace, though
+’twas in the same place.  Miss Elizabeth had this put in when she made
+the house over fifteen years ago.  It was a big, old-fashioned
+fireplace where you could have roasted an ox.  Many’s the time I’ve sat
+here and spun yarns, same’s I’m doing tonight.”
+
+Again there was a silence, while Captain Jim kept a passing tryst with
+visitants Anne and Gilbert could not see--the folks who had sat with
+him around that fireplace in the vanished years, with mirth and bridal
+joy shining in eyes long since closed forever under churchyard sod or
+heaving leagues of sea.  Here on olden nights children had tossed
+laughter lightly to and fro.  Here on winter evenings friends had
+gathered.  Dance and music and jest had been here.  Here youths and
+maidens had dreamed.  For Captain Jim the little house was tenanted
+with shapes entreating remembrance.
+
+“It was the first of July when the house was finished.  The
+schoolmaster began to count the days then.  We used to see him walking
+along the shore, and we’d say to each other, ‘She’ll soon be with him
+now.’
+
+“She was expected the middle of July, but she didn’t come then.  Nobody
+felt anxious.  Vessels were often delayed for days and mebbe weeks.
+The Royal William was a week overdue--and then two--and then three.
+And at last we began to be frightened, and it got worse and worse.
+Fin’lly I couldn’t bear to look into John Selwyn’s eyes.  D’ye know,
+Mistress Blythe”--Captain Jim lowered his voice--“I used to think that
+they looked just like what his old great-great-grandmother’s must have
+been when they were burning her to death.  He never said much but he
+taught school like a man in a dream and then hurried to the shore.
+Many a night he walked there from dark to dawn.  People said he was
+losing his mind.  Everybody had given up hope--the Royal William was
+eight weeks overdue.  It was the middle of September and the
+schoolmaster’s bride hadn’t come--never would come, we thought.
+
+“There was a big storm then that lasted three days, and on the evening
+after it died away I went to the shore.  I found the schoolmaster
+there, leaning with his arms folded against a big rock, gazing out to
+sea.
+
+“I spoke to him but he didn’t answer.  His eyes seemed to be looking at
+something I couldn’t see.  His face was set, like a dead man’s.
+
+“‘John--John,’ I called out--jest like that--jest like a frightened
+child, ‘wake up--wake up.’
+
+“That strange, awful look seemed to sorter fade out of his eyes.
+
+“He turned his head and looked at me.  I’ve never forgot his
+face--never will forget it till I ships for my last voyage.
+
+“‘All is well, lad,’ he says.  ‘I’ve seen the Royal William coming
+around East Point.  She will be here by dawn.  Tomorrow night I shall
+sit with my bride by my own hearth-fire.’
+
+“Do you think he did see it?” demanded Captain Jim abruptly.
+
+“God knows,” said Gilbert softly.  “Great love and great pain might
+compass we know not what marvels.”
+
+“I am sure he did see it,” said Anne earnestly.
+
+“Fol-de-rol,” said Doctor Dave, but he spoke with less conviction than
+usual.
+
+“Because, you know,” said Captain Jim solemnly, “the Royal William came
+into Four Winds Harbor at daylight the next morning.
+
+“Every soul in the Glen and along the shore was at the old wharf to
+meet her.  The schoolmaster had been watching there all night.  How we
+cheered as she sailed up the channel.”
+
+Captain Jim’s eyes were shining.  They were looking at the Four Winds
+Harbor of sixty years agone, with a battered old ship sailing through
+the sunrise splendor.
+
+“And Persis Leigh was on board?” asked Anne.
+
+“Yes--her and the captain’s wife.  They’d had an awful passage--storm
+after storm--and their provisions give out, too.  But there they were
+at last.  When Persis Leigh stepped onto the old wharf John Selwyn took
+her in his arms--and folks stopped cheering and begun to cry.  I cried
+myself, though ’twas years, mind you, afore I’d admit it.  Ain’t it
+funny how ashamed boys are of tears?”
+
+“Was Persis Leigh beautiful?” asked Anne.
+
+“Well, I don’t know that you’d call her beautiful
+exactly--I--don’t--know,” said Captain Jim slowly.  “Somehow, you never
+got so far along as to wonder if she was handsome or not.  It jest
+didn’t matter.  There was something so sweet and winsome about her that
+you had to love her, that was all.  But she was pleasant to look
+at--big, clear, hazel eyes and heaps of glossy brown hair, and an
+English skin.  John and her were married at our house that night at
+early candle-lighting; everybody from far and near was there to see it
+and we all brought them down here afterwards.  Mistress Selwyn lighted
+the fire, and we went away and left them sitting here, jest as John had
+seen in that vision of his.  A strange thing--a strange thing!  But
+I’ve seen a turrible lot of strange things in my time.”
+
+Captain Jim shook his head sagely.
+
+“It’s a dear story,” said Anne, feeling that for once she had got
+enough romance to satisfy her.  “How long did they live here?”
+
+“Fifteen years.  I ran off to sea soon after they were married, like
+the young scalawag I was.  But every time I come back from a voyage I’d
+head for here, even before I went home, and tell Mistress Selwyn all
+about it.  Fifteen happy years!  They had a sort of talent for
+happiness, them two.  Some folks are like that, if you’ve noticed.
+They COULDN’T be unhappy for long, no matter what happened.  They
+quarrelled once or twice, for they was both high-sperrited.  But
+Mistress Selwyn says to me once, says she, laughing in that pretty way
+of hers, ‘I felt dreadful when John and I quarrelled, but underneath it
+all I was very happy because I had such a nice husband to quarrel with
+and make it up with.’  Then they moved to Charlottetown, and Ned
+Russell bought this house and brought his bride here.  They were a gay
+young pair, as I remember them.  Miss Elizabeth Russell was Alec’s
+sister.  She came to live with them a year or so later, and she was a
+creature of mirth, too.  The walls of this house must be sorter SOAKED
+with laughing and good times.  You’re the third bride I’ve seen come
+here, Mistress Blythe--and the handsomest.”
+
+Captain Jim contrived to give his sunflower compliment the delicacy of
+a violet, and Anne wore it proudly.  She was looking her best that
+night, with the bridal rose on her cheeks and the love-light in her
+eyes; even gruff old Doctor Dave gave her an approving glance, and told
+his wife, as they drove home together, that that red-headed wife of the
+boy’s was something of a beauty.
+
+“I must be getting back to the light,” announced Captain Jim.  “I’ve
+enj’yed this evening something tremenjus.”
+
+“You must come often to see us,” said Anne.
+
+“I wonder if you’d give that invitation if you knew how likely I’ll be
+to accept it,” Captain Jim remarked whimsically.
+
+“Which is another way of saying you wonder if I mean it,” smiled Anne.
+“I do, ‘cross my heart,’ as we used to say at school.”
+
+“Then I’ll come.  You’re likely to be pestered with me at any hour.
+And I’ll be proud to have you drop down and visit me now and then, too.
+Gin’rally I haven’t anyone to talk to but the First Mate, bless his
+sociable heart.  He’s a mighty good listener, and has forgot more’n any
+MacAllister of them all ever knew, but he isn’t much of a
+conversationalist.  You’re young and I’m old, but our souls are about
+the same age, I reckon.  We both belong to the race that knows Joseph,
+as Cornelia Bryant would say.”
+
+“The race that knows Joseph?” puzzled Anne.
+
+“Yes.  Cornelia divides all the folks in the world into two kinds--the
+race that knows Joseph and the race that don’t.  If a person sorter
+sees eye to eye with you, and has pretty much the same ideas about
+things, and the same taste in jokes--why, then he belongs to the race
+that knows Joseph.”
+
+“Oh, I understand,” exclaimed Anne, light breaking in upon her.
+
+“It’s what I used to call--and still call in quotation marks ‘kindred
+spirits.’”
+
+“Jest so--jest so,” agreed Captain Jim.  “We’re it, whatever IT is.
+When you come in tonight, Mistress Blythe, I says to myself, says I,
+‘Yes, she’s of the race that knows Joseph.’  And mighty glad I was, for
+if it wasn’t so we couldn’t have had any real satisfaction in each
+other’s company.  The race that knows Joseph is the salt of the airth,
+I reckon.”
+
+The moon had just risen when Anne and Gilbert went to the door with
+their guests.  Four Winds Harbor was beginning to be a thing of dream
+and glamour and enchantment--a spellbound haven where no tempest might
+ever ravin.  The Lombardies down the lane, tall and sombre as the
+priestly forms of some mystic band, were tipped with silver.
+
+“Always liked Lombardies,” said Captain Jim, waving a long arm at them.
+“They’re the trees of princesses.  They’re out of fashion now.  Folks
+complain that they die at the top and get ragged-looking.  So they
+do--so they do, if you don’t risk your neck every spring climbing up a
+light ladder to trim them out.  I always did it for Miss Elizabeth, so
+her Lombardies never got out-at-elbows.  She was especially fond of
+them.  She liked their dignity and stand-offishness.  THEY don’t hobnob
+with every Tom, Dick and Harry.  If it’s maples for company, Mistress
+Blythe, it’s Lombardies for society.”
+
+“What a beautiful night,” said Mrs. Doctor Dave, as she climbed into
+the Doctor’s buggy.
+
+“Most nights are beautiful,” said Captain Jim.  “But I ’low that
+moonlight over Four Winds makes me sorter wonder what’s left for
+heaven.  The moon’s a great friend of mine, Mistress Blythe.  I’ve
+loved her ever since I can remember.  When I was a little chap of eight
+I fell asleep in the garden one evening and wasn’t missed.  I woke up
+along in the night and I was most scared to death.  What shadows and
+queer noises there was!  I dursn’t move.  Jest crouched there quaking,
+poor small mite.  Seemed ’s if there weren’t anyone in the world but
+meself and it was mighty big.  Then all at once I saw the moon looking
+down at me through the apple boughs, jest like an old friend.  I was
+comforted right off.  Got up and walked to the house as brave as a
+lion, looking at her.  Many’s the night I’ve watched her from the deck
+of my vessel, on seas far away from here.  Why don’t you folks tell me
+to take in the slack of my jaw and go home?”
+
+The laughter of the goodnights died away.  Anne and Gilbert walked hand
+in hand around their garden.  The brook that ran across the corner
+dimpled pellucidly in the shadows of the birches.  The poppies along
+its banks were like shallow cups of moonlight.  Flowers that had been
+planted by the hands of the schoolmaster’s bride flung their sweetness
+on the shadowy air, like the beauty and blessing of sacred yesterdays.
+Anne paused in the gloom to gather a spray.
+
+“I love to smell flowers in the dark,” she said.  “You get hold of
+their soul then.  Oh, Gilbert, this little house is all I’ve dreamed
+it.  And I’m so glad that we are not the first who have kept bridal
+tryst here!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 8
+
+MISS CORNELIA BRYANT COMES TO CALL
+
+That September was a month of golden mists and purple hazes at Four
+Winds Harbor--a month of sun-steeped days and of nights that were
+swimming in moonlight, or pulsating with stars.  No storm marred it, no
+rough wind blew.  Anne and Gilbert put their nest in order, rambled on
+the shores, sailed on the harbor, drove about Four Winds and the Glen,
+or through the ferny, sequestered roads of the woods around the harbor
+head; in short, had such a honeymoon as any lovers in the world might
+have envied them.
+
+“If life were to stop short just now it would still have been richly
+worth while, just for the sake of these past four weeks, wouldn’t it?”
+said Anne.  “I don’t suppose we will ever have four such perfect weeks
+again--but we’ve HAD them.  Everything--wind, weather, folks, house of
+dreams--has conspired to make our honeymoon delightful.  There hasn’t
+even been a rainy day since we came here.”
+
+“And we haven’t quarrelled once,” teased Gilbert.
+
+“Well, ‘that’s a pleasure all the greater for being deferred,’” quoted
+Anne.  “I’m so glad we decided to spend our honeymoon here.  Our
+memories of it will always belong here, in our house of dreams, instead
+of being scattered about in strange places.”
+
+There was a certain tang of romance and adventure in the atmosphere of
+their new home which Anne had never found in Avonlea.  There, although
+she had lived in sight of the sea, it had not entered intimately into
+her life.  In Four Winds it surrounded her and called to her
+constantly.  From every window of her new home she saw some varying
+aspect of it.  Its haunting murmur was ever in her ears.  Vessels
+sailed up the harbor every day to the wharf at the Glen, or sailed out
+again through the sunset, bound for ports that might be half way round
+the globe.  Fishing boats went white-winged down the channel in the
+mornings, and returned laden in the evenings.  Sailors and fisher-folk
+travelled the red, winding harbor roads, light-hearted and content.
+There was always a certain sense of things going to happen--of
+adventures and farings-forth.  The ways of Four Winds were less staid
+and settled and grooved than those of Avonlea; winds of change blew
+over them; the sea called ever to the dwellers on shore, and even those
+who might not answer its call felt the thrill and unrest and mystery
+and possibilities of it.
+
+“I understand now why some men must go to sea,” said Anne.  “That
+desire which comes to us all at times--‘to sail beyond the bourne of
+sunset’--must be very imperious when it is born in you.  I don’t wonder
+Captain Jim ran away because of it.  I never see a ship sailing out of
+the channel, or a gull soaring over the sand-bar, without wishing I
+were on board the ship or had wings, not like a dove ‘to fly away and
+be at rest,’ but like a gull, to sweep out into the very heart of a
+storm.”
+
+“You’ll stay right here with me, Anne-girl,” said Gilbert lazily.  “I
+won’t have you flying away from me into the hearts of storms.”
+
+They were sitting on their red sand-stone doorstep in the late
+afternoon.  Great tranquillities were all about them in land and sea
+and sky.  Silvery gulls were soaring over them.  The horizons were
+laced with long trails of frail, pinkish clouds.  The hushed air was
+threaded with a murmurous refrain of minstrel winds and waves.  Pale
+asters were blowing in the sere and misty meadows between them and the
+harbor.
+
+“Doctors who have to be up all night waiting on sick folk don’t feel
+very adventurous, I suppose,” Anne said indulgently.  “If you had had a
+good sleep last night, Gilbert, you’d be as ready as I am for a flight
+of imagination.”
+
+“I did good work last night, Anne,” said Gilbert quietly.  “Under God,
+I saved a life.  This is the first time I could ever really claim that.
+In other cases I may have helped; but, Anne, if I had not stayed at
+Allonby’s last night and fought death hand to hand, that woman would
+have died before morning.  I tried an experiment that was certainly
+never tried in Four Winds before.  I doubt if it was ever tried
+anywhere before outside of a hospital.  It was a new thing in Kingsport
+hospital last winter.  I could never have dared try it here if I had
+not been absolutely certain that there was no other chance.  I risked
+it--and it succeeded.  As a result, a good wife and mother is saved for
+long years of happiness and usefulness.  As I drove home this morning,
+while the sun was rising over the harbor, I thanked God that I had
+chosen the profession I did.  I had fought a good fight and won--think
+of it, Anne, WON, against the Great Destroyer.  It’s what I dreamed of
+doing long ago when we talked together of what we wanted to do in life.
+That dream of mine came true this morning.”
+
+“Was that the only one of your dreams that has come true?” asked Anne,
+who knew perfectly well what the substance of his answer would be, but
+wanted to hear it again.
+
+“YOU know, Anne-girl,” said Gilbert, smiling into her eyes.  At that
+moment there were certainly two perfectly happy people sitting on the
+doorstep of a little white house on the Four Winds Harbor shore.
+
+Presently Gilbert said, with a change of tone, “Do I or do I not see a
+full-rigged ship sailing up our lane?”
+
+Anne looked and sprang up.
+
+“That must be either Miss Cornelia Bryant or Mrs. Moore coming to
+call,” she said.
+
+“I’m going into the office, and if it is Miss Cornelia I warn you that
+I’ll eavesdrop,” said Gilbert.  “From all I’ve heard regarding Miss
+Cornelia I conclude that her conversation will not be dull, to say the
+least.”
+
+“It may be Mrs. Moore.”
+
+“I don’t think Mrs. Moore is built on those lines.  I saw her working
+in her garden the other day, and, though I was too far away to see
+clearly, I thought she was rather slender.  She doesn’t seem very
+socially inclined when she has never called on you yet, although she’s
+your nearest neighbor.”
+
+“She can’t be like Mrs. Lynde, after all, or curiosity would have
+brought her,” said Anne.  “This caller is, I think, Miss Cornelia.”
+
+Miss Cornelia it was; moreover, Miss Cornelia had not come to make any
+brief and fashionable wedding call.  She had her work under her arm in
+a substantial parcel, and when Anne asked her to stay she promptly took
+off her capacious sun-hat, which had been held on her head, despite
+irreverent September breezes, by a tight elastic band under her hard
+little knob of fair hair.  No hat pins for Miss Cornelia, an it please
+ye!  Elastic bands had been good enough for her mother and they were
+good enough for HER.  She had a fresh, round, pink-and-white face, and
+jolly brown eyes.  She did not look in the least like the traditional
+old maid, and there was something in her expression which won Anne
+instantly.  With her old instinctive quickness to discern kindred
+spirits she knew she was going to like Miss Cornelia, in spite of
+uncertain oddities of opinion, and certain oddities of attire.
+
+Nobody but Miss Cornelia would have come to make a call arrayed in a
+striped blue-and-white apron and a wrapper of chocolate print, with a
+design of huge, pink roses scattered over it.  And nobody but Miss
+Cornelia could have looked dignified and suitably garbed in it.  Had
+Miss Cornelia been entering a palace to call on a prince’s bride, she
+would have been just as dignified and just as wholly mistress of the
+situation.  She would have trailed her rose-spattered flounce over the
+marble floors just as unconcernedly, and she would have proceeded just
+as calmly to disabuse the mind of the princess of any idea that the
+possession of a mere man, be he prince or peasant, was anything to brag
+of.
+
+“I’ve brought my work, Mrs. Blythe, dearie,” she remarked, unrolling
+some dainty material.  “I’m in a hurry to get this done, and there
+isn’t any time to lose.”
+
+Anne looked in some surprise at the white garment spread over Miss
+Cornelia’s ample lap.  It was certainly a baby’s dress, and it was most
+beautifully made, with tiny frills and tucks.  Miss Cornelia adjusted
+her glasses and fell to embroidering with exquisite stitches.
+
+“This is for Mrs. Fred Proctor up at the Glen,” she announced.  “She’s
+expecting her eighth baby any day now, and not a stitch has she ready
+for it.  The other seven have wore out all she made for the first, and
+she’s never had time or strength or spirit to make any more.  That
+woman is a martyr, Mrs. Blythe, believe ME.  When she married Fred
+Proctor _I_ knew how it would turn out.  He was one of your wicked,
+fascinating men.  After he got married he left off being fascinating
+and just kept on being wicked.  He drinks and he neglects his family.
+Isn’t that like a man?  I don’t know how Mrs. Proctor would ever keep
+her children decently clothed if her neighbors didn’t help her out.”
+
+As Anne was afterwards to learn, Miss Cornelia was the only neighbor
+who troubled herself much about the decency of the young Proctors.
+
+“When I heard this eighth baby was coming I decided to make some things
+for it,” Miss Cornelia went on.  “This is the last and I want to finish
+it today.”
+
+“It’s certainly very pretty,” said Anne.  “I’ll get my sewing and we’ll
+have a little thimble party of two.  You are a beautiful sewer, Miss
+Bryant.”
+
+“Yes, I’m the best sewer in these parts,” said Miss Cornelia in a
+matter-of-fact tone.  “I ought to be!  Lord, I’ve done more of it than
+if I’d had a hundred children of my own, believe ME!  I s’pose I’m a
+fool, to be putting hand embroidery on this dress for an eighth baby.
+But, Lord, Mrs. Blythe, dearie, it isn’t to blame for being the eighth,
+and I kind of wished it to have one real pretty dress, just as if it
+WAS wanted.  Nobody’s wanting the poor mite--so I put some extra fuss
+on its little things just on that account.”
+
+“Any baby might be proud of that dress,” said Anne, feeling still more
+strongly that she was going to like Miss Cornelia.
+
+“I s’pose you’ve been thinking I was never coming to call on you,”
+resumed Miss Cornelia.  “But this is harvest month, you know, and I’ve
+been busy--and a lot of extra hands hanging round, eating more’n they
+work, just like the men.  I’d have come yesterday, but I went to Mrs.
+Roderick MacAllister’s funeral.  At first I thought my head was aching
+so badly I couldn’t enjoy myself if I did go.  But she was a hundred
+years old, and I’d always promised myself that I’d go to her funeral.”
+
+“Was it a successful function?” asked Anne, noticing that the office
+door was ajar.
+
+“What’s that?  Oh, yes, it was a tremendous funeral.  She had a very
+large connection.  There was over one hundred and twenty carriages in
+the procession.  There was one or two funny things happened.  I thought
+that die I would to see old Joe Bradshaw, who is an infidel and never
+darkens the door of a church, singing ‘Safe in the Arms of Jesus’ with
+great gusto and fervor.  He glories in singing--that’s why he never
+misses a funeral.  Poor Mrs. Bradshaw didn’t look much like
+singing--all wore out slaving.  Old Joe starts out once in a while to
+buy her a present and brings home some new kind of farm machinery.
+Isn’t that like a man?  But what else would you expect of a man who
+never goes to church, even a Methodist one?  I was real thankful to see
+you and the young Doctor in the Presbyterian church your first Sunday.
+No doctor for me who isn’t a Presbyterian.”
+
+“We were in the Methodist church last Sunday evening,” said Anne
+wickedly.
+
+“Oh, I s’pose Dr. Blythe has to go to the Methodist church once in a
+while or he wouldn’t get the Methodist practice.”
+
+“We liked the sermon very much,” declared Anne boldly.  “And I thought
+the Methodist minster’s prayer was one of the most beautiful I ever
+heard.”
+
+“Oh, I’ve no doubt he can pray.  I never heard anyone make more
+beautiful prayers than old Simon Bentley, who was always drunk, or
+hoping to be, and the drunker he was the better he prayed.”
+
+“The Methodist minister is very fine looking,” said Anne, for the
+benefit of the office door.
+
+“Yes, he’s quite ornamental,” agreed Miss Cornelia.  “Oh, and VERY
+ladylike.  And he thinks that every girl who looks at him falls in love
+with him--as if a Methodist minister, wandering about like any Jew, was
+such a prize!  If you and the young doctor take MY advice, you won’t
+have much to do with the Methodists.  My motto is--if you ARE a
+Presbyterian, BE a Presbyterian.”
+
+“Don’t you think that Methodists go to heaven as well as
+Presbyterians?” asked Anne smilelessly.
+
+“That isn’t for US to decide.  It’s in higher hands than ours,” said
+Miss Cornelia solemnly.  “But I ain’t going to associate with them on
+earth whatever I may have to do in heaven.  THIS Methodist minister
+isn’t married.  The last one they had was, and his wife was the
+silliest, flightiest little thing I ever saw.  I told her husband once
+that he should have waited till she was grown up before he married her.
+He said he wanted to have the training of her.  Wasn’t that like a man?”
+
+“It’s rather hard to decide just when people ARE grown up,” laughed
+Anne.
+
+“That’s a true word, dearie.  Some are grown up when they’re born, and
+others ain’t grown up when they’re eighty, believe ME. That same Mrs.
+Roderick I was speaking of never grew up.  She was as foolish when she
+was a hundred as when she was ten.”
+
+“Perhaps that was why she lived so long,” suggested Anne.
+
+“Maybe ’twas.  _I_’d rather live fifty sensible years than a hundred
+foolish ones.”
+
+“But just think what a dull world it would be if everyone was
+sensible,” pleaded Anne.
+
+Miss Cornelia disdained any skirmish of flippant epigram.
+
+“Mrs. Roderick was a Milgrave, and the Milgraves never had much sense.
+Her nephew, Ebenezer Milgrave, used to be insane for years.  He
+believed he was dead and used to rage at his wife because she wouldn’t
+bury him.  _I_’d a-done it.”
+
+Miss Cornelia looked so grimly determined that Anne could almost see
+her with a spade in her hand.
+
+“Don’t you know ANY good husbands, Miss Bryant?”
+
+“Oh, yes, lots of them--over yonder,” said Miss Cornelia, waving her
+hand through the open window towards the little graveyard of the church
+across the harbor.
+
+“But living--going about in the flesh?” persisted Anne.
+
+“Oh, there’s a few, just to show that with God all things are
+possible,” acknowledged Miss Cornelia reluctantly.  “I don’t deny that
+an odd man here and there, if he’s caught young and trained up proper,
+and if his mother has spanked him well beforehand, may turn out a
+decent being.  YOUR husband, now, isn’t so bad, as men go, from all I
+hear.  I s’pose”--Miss Cornelia looked sharply at Anne over her
+glasses--“you think there’s nobody like him in the world.”
+
+“There isn’t,” said Anne promptly.
+
+“Ah, well, I heard another bride say that once,” sighed Miss Cornelia.
+“Jennie Dean thought when she married that there wasn’t anybody like
+HER husband in the world.  And she was right--there wasn’t!  And a good
+thing, too, believe ME!  He led her an awful life--and he was courting
+his second wife while Jennie was dying.
+
+“Wasn’t that like a man?  However, I hope YOUR confidence will be
+better justified, dearie.  The young doctor is taking real well.  I was
+afraid at first he mightn’t, for folks hereabouts have always thought
+old Doctor Dave the only doctor in the world.  Doctor Dave hadn’t much
+tact, to be sure--he was always talking of ropes in houses where
+someone had hanged himself.  But folks forgot their hurt feelings when
+they had a pain in their stomachs.  If he’d been a minister instead of
+a doctor they’d never have forgiven him.  Soul-ache doesn’t worry folks
+near as much as stomach-ache.  Seeing as we’re both Presbyterians and
+no Methodists around, will you tell me your candid opinion of OUR
+minister?”
+
+“Why--really--I--well,” hesitated Anne.
+
+Miss Cornelia nodded.
+
+“Exactly.  I agree with you, dearie.  We made a mistake when we called
+HIM.  His face just looks like one of those long, narrow stones in the
+graveyard, doesn’t it?  ‘Sacred to the memory’ ought to be written on
+his forehead.  I shall never forget the first sermon he preached after
+he came.  It was on the subject of everyone doing what they were best
+fitted for--a very good subject, of course; but such illustrations as
+he used!  He said, ‘If you had a cow and an apple tree, and if you tied
+the apple tree in your stable and planted the cow in your orchard, with
+her legs up, how much milk would you get from the apple tree, or how
+many apples from the cow?’  Did you ever hear the like in your born
+days, dearie?  I was so thankful there were no Methodists there that
+day--they’d never have been done hooting over it.  But what I dislike
+most in him is his habit of agreeing with everybody, no matter what is
+said.  If you said to him, ‘You’re a scoundrel,’ he’d say, with that
+smooth smile of his, ‘Yes, that’s so.’  A minister should have more
+backbone.  The long and the short of it is, I consider him a reverend
+jackass.  But, of course, this is just between you and me.  When there
+are Methodists in hearing I praise him to the skies.  Some folks think
+his wife dresses too gay, but _I_ say when she has to live with a face
+like that she needs something to cheer her up.  You’ll never hear ME
+condemning a woman for her dress.  I’m only too thankful when her
+husband isn’t too mean and miserly to allow it.  Not that I bother much
+with dress myself.  Women just dress to please the men, and I’d never
+stoop to THAT.  I have had a real placid, comfortable life, dearie, and
+it’s just because I never cared a cent what the men thought.”
+
+“Why do you hate the men so, Miss Bryant?”
+
+“Lord, dearie, I don’t hate them.  They aren’t worth it.  I just sort
+of despise them.  I think I’ll like YOUR husband if he keeps on as he
+has begun.  But apart from him about the only men in the world I’ve
+much use for are the old doctor and Captain Jim.”
+
+“Captain Jim is certainly splendid,” agreed Anne cordially.
+
+“Captain Jim is a good man, but he’s kind of vexing in one way.  You
+CAN’T make him mad.  I’ve tried for twenty years and he just keeps on
+being placid.  It does sort of rile me.  And I s’pose the woman he
+should have married got a man who went into tantrums twice a day.”
+
+“Who was she?”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know, dearie.  I never remember of Captain Jim making up
+to anybody.  He was edging on old as far as my memory goes.  He’s
+seventy-six, you know.  I never heard any reason for his staying a
+bachelor, but there must be one, believe ME.  He sailed all his life
+till five years ago, and there’s no corner of the earth he hasn’t poked
+his nose into.  He and Elizabeth Russell were great cronies, all their
+lives, but they never had any notion of sweet-hearting.  Elizabeth
+never married, though she had plenty of chances.  She was a great
+beauty when she was young.  The year the Prince of Wales came to the
+Island she was visiting her uncle in Charlottetown and he was a
+Government official, and so she got invited to the great ball.  She was
+the prettiest girl there, and the Prince danced with her, and all the
+other women he didn’t dance with were furious about it, because their
+social standing was higher than hers and they said he shouldn’t have
+passed them over.  Elizabeth was always very proud of that dance.  Mean
+folks said that was why she never married--she couldn’t put up with an
+ordinary man after dancing with a prince.  But that wasn’t so.  She
+told me the reason once--it was because she had such a temper that she
+was afraid she couldn’t live peaceably with any man.  She HAD an awful
+temper--she used to have to go upstairs and bite pieces out of her
+bureau to keep it down by times.  But I told her that wasn’t any reason
+for not marrying if she wanted to.  There’s no reason why we should let
+the men have a monopoly of temper, is there, Mrs. Blythe, dearie?”
+
+“I’ve a bit of temper myself,” sighed Anne.
+
+“It’s well you have, dearie.  You won’t be half so likely to be trodden
+on, believe ME!  My, how that golden glow of yours is blooming!  Your
+garden looks fine.  Poor Elizabeth always took such care of it.”
+
+“I love it,” said Anne.  “I’m glad it’s so full of old-fashioned
+flowers.  Speaking of gardening, we want to get a man to dig up that
+little lot beyond the fir grove and set it out with strawberry plants
+for us.  Gilbert is so busy he will never get time for it this fall.
+Do you know anyone we can get?”
+
+“Well, Henry Hammond up at the Glen goes out doing jobs like that.
+He’ll do, maybe.  He’s always a heap more interested in his wages than
+in his work, just like a man, and he’s so slow in the uptake that he
+stands still for five minutes before it dawns on him that he’s stopped.
+His father threw a stump at him when he was small.
+
+“Nice gentle missile, wasn’t it?  So like a man!  Course, the boy never
+got over it.  But he’s the only one I can recommend at all.  He painted
+my house for me last spring.  It looks real nice now, don’t you think?”
+
+Anne was saved by the clock striking five.
+
+“Lord, is it that late?” exclaimed Miss Cornelia.  “How time does slip
+by when you’re enjoying yourself!  Well, I must betake myself home.”
+
+“No, indeed!  You are going to stay and have tea with us,” said Anne
+eagerly.
+
+“Are you asking me because you think you ought to, or because you
+really want to?” demanded Miss Cornelia.
+
+“Because I really want to.”
+
+“Then I’ll stay.  YOU belong to the race that knows Joseph.”
+
+“I know we are going to be friends,” said Anne, with the smile that
+only they of the household of faith ever saw.
+
+“Yes, we are, dearie.  Thank goodness, we can choose our friends.  We
+have to take our relatives as they are, and be thankful if there are no
+penitentiary birds among them.  Not that I’ve many--none nearer than
+second cousins.  I’m a kind of lonely soul, Mrs. Blythe.”
+
+There was a wistful note in Miss Cornelia’s voice.
+
+“I wish you would call me Anne,” exclaimed Anne impulsively.  “It would
+seem more HOMEY.  Everyone in Four Winds, except my husband, calls me
+Mrs. Blythe, and it makes me feel like a stranger.  Do you know that
+your name is very near being the one I yearned after when I was a
+child.  I hated ‘Anne’ and I called myself ‘Cordelia’ in imagination.”
+
+“I like Anne.  It was my mother’s name.  Old-fashioned names are the
+best and sweetest in my opinion.  If you’re going to get tea you might
+send the young doctor to talk to me.  He’s been lying on the sofa in
+that office ever since I came, laughing fit to kill over what I’ve been
+saying.”
+
+“How did you know?” cried Anne, too aghast at this instance of Miss
+Cornelia’s uncanny prescience to make a polite denial.
+
+“I saw him sitting beside you when I came up the lane, and I know men’s
+tricks,” retorted Miss Cornelia.  “There, I’ve finished my little
+dress, dearie, and the eighth baby can come as soon as it pleases.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 9
+
+AN EVENING AT FOUR WINDS POINT
+
+It was late September when Anne and Gilbert were able to pay Four Winds
+light their promised visit.  They had often planned to go, but
+something always occurred to prevent them.  Captain Jim had “dropped
+in” several times at the little house.
+
+“I don’t stand on ceremony, Mistress Blythe,” he told Anne.  “It’s a
+real pleasure to me to come here, and I’m not going to deny myself jest
+because you haven’t got down to see me.  There oughtn’t to be no
+bargaining like that among the race that knows Joseph.  I’ll come when
+I can, and you come when you can, and so long’s we have our pleasant
+little chat it don’t matter a mite what roof’s over us.”
+
+Captain Jim took a great fancy to Gog and Magog, who were presiding
+over the destinies of the hearth in the little house with as much
+dignity and aplomb as they had done at Patty’s Place.
+
+“Aren’t they the cutest little cusses?” he would say delightedly; and
+he bade them greeting and farewell as gravely and invariably as he did
+his host and hostess.  Captain Jim was not going to offend household
+deities by any lack of reverence and ceremony.
+
+“You’ve made this little house just about perfect,” he told Anne.  “It
+never was so nice before.  Mistress Selwyn had your taste and she did
+wonders; but folks in those days didn’t have the pretty little curtains
+and pictures and nicknacks you have.  As for Elizabeth, she lived in
+the past.  You’ve kinder brought the future into it, so to speak.  I’d
+be real happy even if we couldn’t talk at all, when I come here--jest
+to sit and look at you and your pictures and your flowers would be
+enough of a treat.  It’s beautiful--beautiful.”
+
+Captain Jim was a passionate worshipper of beauty.  Every lovely thing
+heard or seen gave him a deep, subtle, inner joy that irradiated his
+life.  He was quite keenly aware of his own lack of outward comeliness
+and lamented it.
+
+“Folks say I’m good,” he remarked whimsically upon one occasion, “but I
+sometimes wish the Lord had made me only half as good and put the rest
+of it into looks.  But there, I reckon He knew what He was about, as a
+good Captain should.  Some of us have to be homely, or the purty
+ones--like Mistress Blythe here--wouldn’t show up so well.”
+
+One evening Anne and Gilbert finally walked down to the Four Winds
+light.  The day had begun sombrely in gray cloud and mist, but it had
+ended in a pomp of scarlet and gold.  Over the western hills beyond the
+harbor were amber deeps and crystalline shallows, with the fire of
+sunset below.  The north was a mackerel sky of little, fiery golden
+clouds.  The red light flamed on the white sails of a vessel gliding
+down the channel, bound to a southern port in a land of palms.  Beyond
+her, it smote upon and incarnadined the shining, white, grassless faces
+of the sand dunes.  To the right, it fell on the old house among the
+willows up the brook, and gave it for a fleeting space casements more
+splendid than those of an old cathedral.  They glowed out of its quiet
+and grayness like the throbbing, blood-red thoughts of a vivid soul
+imprisoned in a dull husk of environment.
+
+“That old house up the brook always seems so lonely,” said Anne.  “I
+never see visitors there.  Of course, its lane opens on the upper
+road--but I don’t think there’s much coming and going.  It seems odd
+we’ve never met the Moores yet, when they live within fifteen minutes’
+walk of us.  I may have seen them in church, of course, but if so I
+didn’t know them.  I’m sorry they are so unsociable, when they are our
+only near neighbors.”
+
+“Evidently they don’t belong to the race that knows Joseph,” laughed
+Gilbert.  “Have you ever found out who that girl was whom you thought
+so beautiful?”
+
+“No.  Somehow I have never remembered to ask about her.  But I’ve never
+seen her anywhere, so I suppose she must have been a stranger.  Oh, the
+sun has just vanished--and there’s the light.”
+
+As the dusk deepened, the great beacon cut swathes of light through it,
+sweeping in a circle over the fields and the harbor, the sandbar and
+the gulf.
+
+“I feel as if it might catch me and whisk me leagues out to sea,” said
+Anne, as one drenched them with radiance; and she felt rather relieved
+when they got so near the Point that they were inside the range of
+those dazzling, recurrent flashes.
+
+As they turned into the little lane that led across the fields to the
+Point they met a man coming out of it--a man of such extraordinary
+appearance that for a moment they both frankly stared.  He was a
+decidedly fine-looking person-tall, broad-shouldered, well-featured,
+with a Roman nose and frank gray eyes; he was dressed in a prosperous
+farmer’s Sunday best; in so far he might have been any inhabitant of
+Four Winds or the Glen.  But, flowing over his breast nearly to his
+knees, was a river of crinkly brown beard; and adown his back, beneath
+his commonplace felt hat, was a corresponding cascade of thick, wavy,
+brown hair.
+
+“Anne,” murmured Gilbert, when they were out of earshot, “you didn’t
+put what Uncle Dave calls ‘a little of the Scott Act’ in that lemonade
+you gave me just before we left home, did you?”
+
+“No, I didn’t,” said Anne, stifling her laughter, lest the retreating
+enigma should hear here.  “Who in the world can he be?”
+
+“I don’t know; but if Captain Jim keeps apparitions like that down at
+this Point I’m going to carry cold iron in my pocket when I come here.
+He wasn’t a sailor, or one might pardon his eccentricity of appearance;
+he must belong to the over-harbor clans.  Uncle Dave says they have
+several freaks over there.”
+
+“Uncle Dave is a little prejudiced, I think.  You know all the
+over-harbor people who come to the Glen Church seem very nice.  Oh,
+Gilbert, isn’t this beautiful?”
+
+The Four Winds light was built on a spur of red sand-stone cliff
+jutting out into the gulf.  On one side, across the channel, stretched
+the silvery sand shore of the bar; on the other, extended a long,
+curving beach of red cliffs, rising steeply from the pebbled coves.  It
+was a shore that knew the magic and mystery of storm and star.  There
+is a great solitude about such a shore.  The woods are never
+solitary--they are full of whispering, beckoning, friendly life.  But
+the sea is a mighty soul, forever moaning of some great, unshareable
+sorrow, which shuts it up into itself for all eternity.  We can never
+pierce its infinite mystery--we may only wander, awed and spellbound,
+on the outer fringe of it.  The woods call to us with a hundred voices,
+but the sea has one only--a mighty voice that drowns our souls in its
+majestic music.  The woods are human, but the sea is of the company of
+the archangels.
+
+Anne and Gilbert found Uncle Jim sitting on a bench outside the
+lighthouse, putting the finishing touches to a wonderful, full-rigged,
+toy schooner.  He rose and welcomed them to his abode with the gentle,
+unconscious courtesy that became him so well.
+
+“This has been a purty nice day all through, Mistress Blythe, and now,
+right at the last, it’s brought its best.  Would you like to sit down
+here outside a bit, while the light lasts?  I’ve just finished this bit
+of a plaything for my little grand nephew, Joe, up at the Glen.  After
+I promised to make it for him I was kinder sorry, for his mother was
+vexed.  She’s afraid he’ll be wanting to go to sea later on and she
+doesn’t want the notion encouraged in him.  But what could I do,
+Mistress Blythe?  I’d PROMISED him, and I think it’s sorter real
+dastardly to break a promise you make to a child.  Come, sit down.  It
+won’t take long to stay an hour.”
+
+The wind was off shore, and only broke the sea’s surface into long,
+silvery ripples, and sent sheeny shadows flying out across it, from
+every point and headland, like transparent wings.  The dusk was hanging
+a curtain of violet gloom over the sand dunes and the headlands where
+gulls were huddling.  The sky was faintly filmed over with scarfs of
+silken vapor.  Cloud fleets rode at anchor along the horizons.  An
+evening star was watching over the bar.
+
+“Isn’t that a view worth looking at?” said Captain Jim, with a loving,
+proprietary pride.  “Nice and far from the market-place, ain’t it?  No
+buying and selling and getting gain.  You don’t have to pay
+anything--all that sea and sky free--‘without money and without price.’
+There’s going to be a moonrise purty soon, too--I’m never tired of
+finding out what a moonrise can be over them rocks and sea and harbor.
+There’s a surprise in it every time.”
+
+They had their moonrise, and watched its marvel and magic in a silence
+that asked nothing of the world or each other.  Then they went up into
+the tower, and Captain Jim showed and explained the mechanism of the
+great light.  Finally they found themselves in the dining room, where a
+fire of driftwood was weaving flames of wavering, elusive, sea-born
+hues in the open fireplace.
+
+“I put this fireplace in myself,” remarked Captain Jim.  “The
+Government don’t give lighthouse keepers such luxuries.  Look at the
+colors that wood makes.  If you’d like some driftwood for your fire,
+Mistress Blythe, I’ll bring you up a load some day.  Sit down.  I’m
+going to make you a cup of tea.”
+
+Captain Jim placed a chair for Anne, having first removed therefrom a
+huge, orange-colored cat and a newspaper.
+
+“Get down, Matey.  The sofa is your place.  I must put this paper away
+safe till I can find time to finish the story in it.  It’s called A Mad
+Love.  ’Tisn’t my favorite brand of fiction, but I’m reading it jest to
+see how long she can spin it out.  It’s at the sixty-second chapter
+now, and the wedding ain’t any nearer than when it begun, far’s I can
+see.  When little Joe comes I have to read him pirate yarns.  Ain’t it
+strange how innocent little creatures like children like the
+blood-thirstiest stories?”
+
+“Like my lad Davy at home,” said Anne.  “He wants tales that reek with
+gore.”
+
+Captain Jim’s tea proved to be nectar.  He was pleased as a child with
+Anne’s compliments, but he affected a fine indifference.
+
+“The secret is I don’t skimp the cream,” he remarked airily.  Captain
+Jim had never heard of Oliver Wendell Holmes, but he evidently agreed
+with that writer’s dictum that “big heart never liked little cream pot.”
+
+“We met an odd-looking personage coming out of your lane,” said Gilbert
+as they sipped.  “Who was he?”
+
+Captain Jim grinned.
+
+“That’s Marshall Elliott--a mighty fine man with jest one streak of
+foolishness in him.  I s’pose you wondered what his object was in
+turning himself into a sort of dime museum freak.”
+
+“Is he a modern Nazarite or a Hebrew prophet left over from olden
+times?” asked Anne.
+
+“Neither of them.  It’s politics that’s at the bottom of his freak.
+All those Elliotts and Crawfords and MacAllisters are dyed-in-the-wool
+politicians.  They’re born Grit or Tory, as the case may be, and they
+live Grit or Tory, and they die Grit or Tory; and what they’re going to
+do in heaven, where there’s probably no politics, is more than I can
+fathom.  This Marshall Elliott was born a Grit.  I’m a Grit myself in
+moderation, but there’s no moderation about Marshall.  Fifteen years
+ago there was a specially bitter general election.  Marshall fought for
+his party tooth and nail.  He was dead sure the Liberals would win--so
+sure that he got up at a public meeting and vowed that he wouldn’t
+shave his face or cut his hair until the Grits were in power.  Well,
+they didn’t go in--and they’ve never got in yet--and you saw the result
+today for yourselves.  Marshall stuck to his word.”
+
+“What does his wife think of it?” asked Anne.
+
+“He’s a bachelor.  But if he had a wife I reckon she couldn’t make him
+break that vow.  That family of Elliotts has always been more stubborn
+than natteral.  Marshall’s brother Alexander had a dog he set great
+store by, and when it died the man actilly wanted to have it buried in
+the graveyard, ‘along with the other Christians,’ he said.  Course, he
+wasn’t allowed to; so he buried it just outside the graveyard fence,
+and never darkened the church door again.  But Sundays he’d drive his
+family to church and sit by that dog’s grave and read his Bible all the
+time service was going on.  They say when he was dying he asked his
+wife to bury him beside the dog; she was a meek little soul but she
+fired up at THAT.  She said SHE wasn’t going to be buried beside no
+dog, and if he’d rather have his last resting place beside the dog than
+beside her, jest to say so.  Alexander Elliott was a stubborn mule, but
+he was fond of his wife, so he give in and said, ‘Well, durn it, bury
+me where you please.  But when Gabriel’s trump blows I expect my dog to
+rise with the rest of us, for he had as much soul as any durned Elliott
+or Crawford or MacAllister that ever strutted.’  Them was HIS parting
+words.  As for Marshall, we’re all used to him, but he must strike
+strangers as right down peculiar-looking.  I’ve known him ever since he
+was ten--he’s about fifty now--and I like him.  Him and me was out
+cod-fishing today.  That’s about all I’m good for now--catching trout
+and cod occasional.  But ’tweren’t always so--not by no manner of
+means.  I used to do other things, as you’d admit if you saw my
+life-book.”
+
+Anne was just going to ask what his life-book was when the First Mate
+created a diversion by springing upon Captain Jim’s knee.  He was a
+gorgeous beastie, with a face as round as a full moon, vivid green
+eyes, and immense, white, double paws.  Captain Jim stroked his velvet
+back gently.
+
+“I never fancied cats much till I found the First Mate,” he remarked,
+to the accompaniment of the Mate’s tremendous purrs.  “I saved his
+life, and when you’ve saved a creature’s life you’re bound to love it.
+It’s next thing to giving life.  There’s some turrible thoughtless
+people in the world, Mistress Blythe.  Some of them city folks who have
+summer homes over the harbor are so thoughtless that they’re cruel.
+It’s the worst kind of cruelty--the thoughtless kind.  You can’t cope
+with it.  They keep cats there in the summer, and feed and pet ’em, and
+doll ’em up with ribbons and collars.  And then in the fall they go off
+and leave ’em to starve or freeze.  It makes my blood boil, Mistress
+Blythe.  One day last winter I found a poor old mother cat dead on the
+shore, lying against the skin-and-bone bodies of her three little
+kittens.  She’d died trying to shelter ’em.  She had her poor stiff
+paws around ’em.  Master, I cried.  Then I swore.  Then I carried them
+poor little kittens home and fed ’em up and found good homes for ’em.
+I knew the woman who left the cat and when she come back this summer I
+jest went over the harbor and told her my opinion of her.  It was rank
+meddling, but I do love meddling in a good cause.”
+
+“How did she take it?” asked Gilbert.
+
+“Cried and said she ‘didn’t think.’  I says to her, says I, ‘Do you
+s’pose that’ll be held for a good excuse in the day of Jedgment, when
+you’ll have to account for that poor old mother’s life?  The Lord’ll
+ask you what He give you your brains for if it wasn’t to think, I
+reckon.’  I don’t fancy she’ll leave cats to starve another time.”
+
+“Was the First Mate one of the forsaken?” asked Anne, making advances
+to him which were responded to graciously, if condescendingly.
+
+“Yes.  I found HIM one bitter cold day in winter, caught in the
+branches of a tree by his durn-fool ribbon collar.  He was almost
+starving.  If you could have seen his eyes, Mistress Blythe!  He was
+nothing but a kitten, and he’d got his living somehow since he’d been
+left until he got hung up.  When I loosed him he gave my hand a pitiful
+swipe with his little red tongue.  He wasn’t the able seaman you see
+now.  He was meek as Moses.  That was nine years ago.  His life has
+been long in the land for a cat.  He’s a good old pal, the First Mate
+is.”
+
+“I should have expected you to have a dog,” said Gilbert.
+
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+
+“I had a dog once.  I thought so much of him that when he died I
+couldn’t bear the thought of getting another in his place.  He was a
+FRIEND--you understand, Mistress Blythe?  Matey’s only a pal.  I’m fond
+of Matey--all the fonder on account of the spice of devilment that’s in
+him--like there is in all cats.  But I LOVED my dog.  I always had a
+sneaking sympathy for Alexander Elliott about HIS dog.  There isn’t any
+devil in a good dog.  That’s why they’re more lovable than cats, I
+reckon.  But I’m darned if they’re as interesting.  Here I am, talking
+too much.  Why don’t you check me?  When I do get a chance to talk to
+anyone I run on turrible.  If you’ve done your tea I’ve a few little
+things you might like to look at--picked ’em up in the queer corners I
+used to be poking my nose into.”
+
+Captain Jim’s “few little things” turned out to be a most interesting
+collection of curios, hideous, quaint and beautiful.  And almost every
+one had some striking story attached to it.
+
+Anne never forgot the delight with which she listened to those old
+tales that moonlit evening by that enchanted driftwood fire, while the
+silver sea called to them through the open window and sobbed against
+the rocks below them.
+
+Captain Jim never said a boastful word, but it was impossible to help
+seeing what a hero the man had been--brave, true, resourceful,
+unselfish.  He sat there in his little room and made those things live
+again for his hearers.  By a lift of the eyebrow, a twist of the lip, a
+gesture, a word, he painted a whole scene or character so that they saw
+it as it was.
+
+Some of Captain Jim’s adventures had such a marvellous edge that Anne
+and Gilbert secretly wondered if he were not drawing a rather long bow
+at their credulous expense.  But in this, as they found later, they did
+him injustice.  His tales were all literally true.  Captain Jim had the
+gift of the born storyteller, whereby “unhappy, far-off things” can be
+brought vividly before the hearer in all their pristine poignancy.
+
+Anne and Gilbert laughed and shivered over his tales, and once Anne
+found herself crying.  Captain Jim surveyed her tears with pleasure
+shining from his face.
+
+“I like to see folks cry that way,” he remarked.  “It’s a compliment.
+But I can’t do justice to the things I’ve seen or helped to do.  I’ve
+’em all jotted down in my life-book, but I haven’t got the knack of
+writing them out properly.  If I could hit on jest the right words and
+string ’em together proper on paper I could make a great book.  It
+would beat A Mad Love holler, and I believe Joe’d like it as well as
+the pirate yarns.  Yes, I’ve had some adventures in my time; and, do
+you know, Mistress Blythe, I still lust after ’em.  Yes, old and
+useless as I be, there’s an awful longing sweeps over me at times to
+sail out--out--out there--forever and ever.”
+
+“Like Ulysses, you would
+
+    ‘Sail beyond the sunset and the baths
+     Of all the western stars until you die,’”
+
+said Anne dreamily.
+
+“Ulysses?  I’ve read of him.  Yes, that’s just how I feel--jest how all
+us old sailors feel, I reckon.  I’ll die on land after all, I s’pose.
+Well, what is to be will be.  There was old William Ford at the Glen
+who never went on the water in his life, ’cause he was afraid of being
+drowned.  A fortune-teller had predicted he would be.  And one day he
+fainted and fell with his face in the barn trough and was drowned.
+Must you go?  Well, come soon and come often.  The doctor is to do the
+talking next time.  He knows a heap of things I want to find out.  I’m
+sorter lonesome here by times.  It’s been worse since Elizabeth Russell
+died.  Her and me was such cronies.”
+
+Captain Jim spoke with the pathos of the aged, who see their old
+friends slipping from them one by one--friends whose place can never be
+quite filled by those of a younger generation, even of the race that
+knows Joseph.  Anne and Gilbert promised to come soon and often.
+
+“He’s a rare old fellow, isn’t he?” said Gilbert, as they walked home.
+
+“Somehow, I can’t reconcile his simple, kindly personality with the
+wild, adventurous life he has lived,” mused Anne.
+
+“You wouldn’t find it so hard if you had seen him the other day down at
+the fishing village.  One of the men of Peter Gautier’s boat made a
+nasty remark about some girl along the shore.  Captain Jim fairly
+scorched the wretched fellow with the lightning of his eyes.  He seemed
+a man transformed.  He didn’t say much--but the way he said it!  You’d
+have thought it would strip the flesh from the fellow’s bones.  I
+understand that Captain Jim will never allow a word against any woman
+to be said in his presence.”
+
+“I wonder why he never married,” said Anne.  “He should have sons with
+their ships at sea now, and grandchildren climbing over him to hear his
+stories--he’s that kind of a man.  Instead, he has nothing but a
+magnificent cat.”
+
+But Anne was mistaken.  Captain Jim had more than that.  He had a
+memory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 10
+
+LESLIE MOORE
+
+“I’m going for a walk to the outside shore tonight,” Anne told Gog and
+Magog one October evening.  There was no one else to tell, for Gilbert
+had gone over the harbor.  Anne had her little domain in the speckless
+order one would expect of anyone brought up by Marilla Cuthbert, and
+felt that she could gad shoreward with a clear conscience.  Many and
+delightful had been her shore rambles, sometimes with Gilbert,
+sometimes with Captain Jim, sometimes alone with her own thoughts and
+new, poignantly-sweet dreams that were beginning to span life with
+their rainbows.  She loved the gentle, misty harbor shore and the
+silvery, wind-haunted sand shore, but best of all she loved the rock
+shore, with its cliffs and caves and piles of surf-worn boulders, and
+its coves where the pebbles glittered under the pools; and it was to
+this shore she hied herself tonight.
+
+There had been an autumn storm of wind and rain, lasting for three
+days.  Thunderous had been the crash of billows on the rocks, wild the
+white spray and spume that blew over the bar, troubled and misty and
+tempest-torn the erstwhile blue peace of Four Winds Harbor.  Now it was
+over, and the shore lay clean-washed after the storm; not a wind
+stirred, but there was still a fine surf on, dashing on sand and rock
+in a splendid white turmoil--the only restless thing in the great,
+pervading stillness and peace.
+
+“Oh, this is a moment worth living through weeks of storm and stress
+for,” Anne exclaimed, delightedly sending her far gaze across the
+tossing waters from the top of the cliff where she stood.  Presently
+she scrambled down the steep path to the little cove below, where she
+seemed shut in with rocks and sea and sky.
+
+“I’m going to dance and sing,” she said.  “There’s no one here to see
+me--the seagulls won’t carry tales of the matter.  I may be as crazy as
+I like.”
+
+She caught up her skirt and pirouetted along the hard strip of sand
+just out of reach of the waves that almost lapped her feet with their
+spent foam.  Whirling round and round, laughing like a child, she
+reached the little headland that ran out to the east of the cove; then
+she stopped suddenly, blushing crimson; she was not alone; there had
+been a witness to her dance and laughter.
+
+The girl of the golden hair and sea-blue eyes was sitting on a boulder
+of the headland, half-hidden by a jutting rock.  She was looking
+straight at Anne with a strange expression--part wonder, part sympathy,
+part--could it be?--envy.  She was bare-headed, and her splendid hair,
+more than ever like Browning’s “gorgeous snake,” was bound about her
+head with a crimson ribbon.  She wore a dress of some dark material,
+very plainly made; but swathed about her waist, outlining its fine
+curves, was a vivid girdle of red silk.  Her hands, clasped over her
+knee, were brown and somewhat work-hardened; but the skin of her throat
+and cheeks was as white as cream.  A flying gleam of sunset broke
+through a low-lying western cloud and fell across her hair.  For a
+moment she seemed the spirit of the sea personified--all its mystery,
+all its passion, all its elusive charm.
+
+“You--you must think me crazy,” stammered Anne, trying to recover her
+self-possession.  To be seen by this stately girl in such an abandon of
+childishness--she, Mrs. Dr. Blythe, with all the dignity of the matron
+to keep up--it was too bad!
+
+“No,” said the girl, “I don’t.”
+
+She said nothing more; her voice was expressionless; her manner
+slightly repellent; but there was something in her eyes--eager yet shy,
+defiant yet pleading--which turned Anne from her purpose of walking
+away.  Instead, she sat down on the boulder beside the girl.
+
+“Let’s introduce ourselves,” she said, with the smile that had never
+yet failed to win confidence and friendliness.  “I am Mrs. Blythe--and
+I live in that little white house up the harbor shore.”
+
+“Yes, I know,” said the girl.  “I am Leslie Moore--Mrs. Dick Moore,”
+she added stiffly.
+
+Anne was silent for a moment from sheer amazement.  It had not occurred
+to her that this girl was married--there seemed nothing of the wife
+about her.  And that she should be the neighbor whom Anne had pictured
+as a commonplace Four Winds housewife!  Anne could not quickly adjust
+her mental focus to this astonishing change.
+
+“Then--then you live in that gray house up the brook,” she stammered.
+
+“Yes.  I should have gone over to call on you long ago,” said the
+other.  She did not offer any explanation or excuse for not having gone.
+
+“I wish you WOULD come,” said Anne, recovering herself somewhat.
+“We’re such near neighbors we ought to be friends.  That is the sole
+fault of Four Winds--there aren’t quite enough neighbors.  Otherwise it
+is perfection.”
+
+“You like it?”
+
+“LIKE it!  I love it.  It is the most beautiful place I ever saw.”
+
+“I’ve never seen many places,” said Leslie Moore, slowly, “but I’ve
+always thought it was very lovely here.  I--I love it, too.”
+
+She spoke, as she looked, shyly, yet eagerly.  Anne had an odd
+impression that this strange girl--the word “girl” would persist--could
+say a good deal if she chose.
+
+“I often come to the shore,” she added.
+
+“So do I,” said Anne.  “It’s a wonder we haven’t met here before.”
+
+“Probably you come earlier in the evening than I do.  It is generally
+late--almost dark--when I come.  And I love to come just after a
+storm--like this.  I don’t like the sea so well when it’s calm and
+quiet.  I like the struggle--and the crash--and the noise.”
+
+“I love it in all its moods,” declared Anne.  “The sea at Four Winds is
+to me what Lover’s Lane was at home.  Tonight it seemed so free--so
+untamed--something broke loose in me, too, out of sympathy.  That was
+why I danced along the shore in that wild way.  I didn’t suppose
+anybody was looking, of course.  If Miss Cornelia Bryant had seen me
+she would have forboded a gloomy prospect for poor young Dr. Blythe.”
+
+“You know Miss Cornelia?” said Leslie, laughing.  She had an exquisite
+laugh; it bubbled up suddenly and unexpectedly with something of the
+delicious quality of a baby’s.  Anne laughed, too.
+
+“Oh, yes.  She has been down to my house of dreams several times.”
+
+“Your house of dreams?”
+
+“Oh, that’s a dear, foolish little name Gilbert and I have for our
+home.  We just call it that between ourselves.  It slipped out before I
+thought.”
+
+“So Miss Russell’s little white house is YOUR house of dreams,” said
+Leslie wonderingly.  “_I_ had a house of dreams once--but it was a
+palace,” she added, with a laugh, the sweetness of which was marred by
+a little note of derision.
+
+“Oh, I once dreamed of a palace, too,” said Anne.  “I suppose all girls
+do.  And then we settle down contentedly in eight-room houses that seem
+to fulfill all the desires of our hearts--because our prince is there.
+YOU should have had your palace really, though--you are so beautiful.
+You MUST let me say it--it has to be said--I’m nearly bursting with
+admiration.  You are the loveliest thing I ever saw, Mrs. Moore.”
+
+“If we are to be friends you must call me Leslie,” said the other with
+an odd passion.
+
+“Of course I will.  And MY friends call me Anne.”
+
+“I suppose I am beautiful,” Leslie went on, looking stormily out to
+sea.  “I hate my beauty.  I wish I had always been as brown and plain
+as the brownest and plainest girl at the fishing village over there.
+Well, what do you think of Miss Cornelia?”
+
+The abrupt change of subject shut the door on any further confidences.
+
+“Miss Cornelia is a darling, isn’t she?” said Anne.  “Gilbert and I
+were invited to her house to a state tea last week.  You’ve heard of
+groaning tables.”
+
+“I seem to recall seeing the expression in the newspaper reports of
+weddings,” said Leslie, smiling.
+
+“Well, Miss Cornelia’s groaned--at least, it creaked--positively.  You
+couldn’t have believed she would have cooked so much for two ordinary
+people.  She had every kind of pie you could name, I think--except
+lemon pie.  She said she had taken the prize for lemon pies at the
+Charlottetown Exhibition ten years ago and had never made any since for
+fear of losing her reputation for them.”
+
+“Were you able to eat enough pie to please her?”
+
+“_I_ wasn’t.  Gilbert won her heart by eating--I won’t tell you how
+much.  She said she never knew a man who didn’t like pie better than
+his Bible.  Do you know, I love Miss Cornelia.”
+
+“So do I,” said Leslie.  “She is the best friend I have in the world.”
+
+Anne wondered secretly why, if this were so, Miss Cornelia had never
+mentioned Mrs. Dick Moore to her.  Miss Cornelia had certainly talked
+freely about every other individual in or near Four Winds.
+
+“Isn’t that beautiful?” said Leslie, after a brief silence, pointing to
+the exquisite effect of a shaft of light falling through a cleft in the
+rock behind them, across a dark green pool at its base.  “If I had come
+here--and seen nothing but just that--I would go home satisfied.”
+
+“The effects of light and shadow all along these shores are wonderful,”
+agreed Anne.  “My little sewing room looks out on the harbor, and I sit
+at its window and feast my eyes.  The colors and shadows are never the
+same two minutes together.”
+
+“And you are never lonely?” asked Leslie abruptly.  “Never--when you
+are alone?”
+
+“No.  I don’t think I’ve ever been really lonely in my life,” answered
+Anne.  “Even when I’m alone I have real good company--dreams and
+imaginations and pretendings.  I LIKE to be alone now and then, just to
+think over things and TASTE them.  But I love friendship--and nice,
+jolly little times with people.  Oh, WON’T you come to see me--often?
+Please do.  I believe,” Anne added, laughing, “that you’d like me if
+you knew me.”
+
+“I wonder if YOU would like ME,” said Leslie seriously.  She was not
+fishing for a compliment.  She looked out across the waves that were
+beginning to be garlanded with blossoms of moonlit foam, and her eyes
+filled with shadows.
+
+“I’m sure I would,” said Anne.  “And please don’t think I’m utterly
+irresponsible because you saw me dancing on the shore at sunset.  No
+doubt I shall be dignified after a time.  You see, I haven’t been
+married very long.  I feel like a girl, and sometimes like a child,
+yet.”
+
+“I have been married twelve years,” said Leslie.
+
+Here was another unbelievable thing.
+
+“Why, you can’t be as old as I am!” exclaimed Anne.  “You must have
+been a child when you were married.”
+
+“I was sixteen,” said Leslie, rising, and picking up the cap and jacket
+lying beside her.  “I am twenty-eight now.  Well, I must go back.”
+
+“So must I.  Gilbert will probably be home.  But I’m so glad we both
+came to the shore tonight and met each other.”
+
+Leslie said nothing, and Anne was a little chilled.  She had offered
+friendship frankly but it had not been accepted very graciously, if it
+had not been absolutely repelled.  In silence they climbed the cliffs
+and walked across a pasture-field of which the feathery, bleached, wild
+grasses were like a carpet of creamy velvet in the moonlight.  When
+they reached the shore lane Leslie turned.
+
+“I go this way, Mrs. Blythe.  You will come over and see me some time,
+won’t you?”
+
+Anne felt as if the invitation had been thrown at her.  She got the
+impression that Leslie Moore gave it reluctantly.
+
+“I will come if you really want me to,” she said a little coldly.
+
+“Oh, I do--I do,” exclaimed Leslie, with an eagerness which seemed to
+burst forth and beat down some restraint that had been imposed on it.
+
+“Then I’ll come.  Good-night--Leslie.”
+
+“Good-night, Mrs. Blythe.”
+
+Anne walked home in a brown study and poured out her tale to Gilbert.
+
+“So Mrs. Dick Moore isn’t one of the race that knows Joseph?” said
+Gilbert teasingly.
+
+“No--o--o, not exactly.  And yet--I think she WAS one of them once, but
+has gone or got into exile,” said Anne musingly.  “She is certainly
+very different from the other women about here.  You can’t talk about
+eggs and butter to HER.  To think I’ve been imagining her a second Mrs.
+Rachel Lynde!  Have you ever seen Dick Moore, Gilbert?”
+
+“No.  I’ve seen several men working about the fields of the farm, but I
+don’t know which was Moore.”
+
+“She never mentioned him.  I KNOW she isn’t happy.”
+
+“From what you tell me I suppose she was married before she was old
+enough to know her own mind or heart, and found out too late that she
+had made a mistake.  It’s a common tragedy enough, Anne.
+
+“A fine woman would have made the best of it.  Mrs. Moore has evidently
+let it make her bitter and resentful.”
+
+“Don’t let us judge her till we know,” pleaded Anne.  “I don’t believe
+her case is so ordinary.  You will understand her fascination when you
+meet her, Gilbert.  It is a thing quite apart from her beauty.  I feel
+that she possesses a rich nature, into which a friend might enter as
+into a kingdom; but for some reason she bars every one out and shuts
+all her possibilities up in herself, so that they cannot develop and
+blossom.  There, I’ve been struggling to define her to myself ever
+since I left her, and that is the nearest I can get to it.  I’m going
+to ask Miss Cornelia about her.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 11
+
+THE STORY OF LESLIE MOORE
+
+“Yes, the eighth baby arrived a fortnight ago,” said Miss Cornelia,
+from a rocker before the fire of the little house one chilly October
+afternoon.  “It’s a girl.  Fred was ranting mad--said he wanted a
+boy--when the truth is he didn’t want it at all.  If it had been a boy
+he’d have ranted because it wasn’t a girl.  They had four girls and
+three boys before, so I can’t see that it made much difference what
+this one was, but of course he’d have to be cantankerous, just like a
+man.  The baby is real pretty, dressed up in its nice little clothes.
+It has black eyes and the dearest, tiny hands.”
+
+“I must go and see it.  I just love babies,” said Anne, smiling to
+herself over a thought too dear and sacred to be put into words.
+
+“I don’t say but what they’re nice,” admitted Miss Cornelia.  “But some
+folks seem to have more than they really need, believe ME.  My poor
+cousin Flora up at the Glen had eleven, and such a slave as she is!
+Her husband suicided three years ago.  Just like a man!”
+
+“What made him do that?” asked Anne, rather shocked.
+
+“Couldn’t get his way over something, so he jumped into the well.  A
+good riddance!  He was a born tyrant.  But of course it spoiled the
+well.  Flora could never abide the thought of using it again, poor
+thing!  So she had another dug and a frightful expense it was, and the
+water as hard as nails.  If he HAD to drown himself there was plenty of
+water in the harbor, wasn’t there?  I’ve no patience with a man like
+that.  We’ve only had two suicides in Four Winds in my recollection.
+The other was Frank West--Leslie Moore’s father.  By the way, has
+Leslie ever been over to call on you yet?”
+
+“No, but I met her on the shore a few nights ago and we scraped an
+acquaintance,” said Anne, pricking up her ears.
+
+Miss Cornelia nodded.
+
+“I’m glad, dearie.  I was hoping you’d foregather with her.  What do
+you think of her?”
+
+“I thought her very beautiful.”
+
+“Oh, of course.  There was never anybody about Four Winds could touch
+her for looks.  Did you ever see her hair?  It reaches to her feet when
+she lets it down.  But I meant how did you like her?”
+
+“I think I could like her very much if she’d let me,” said Anne slowly.
+
+“But she wouldn’t let you--she pushed you off and kept you at arm’s
+length.  Poor Leslie!  You wouldn’t be much surprised if you knew what
+her life has been.  It’s been a tragedy--a tragedy!” repeated Miss
+Cornelia emphatically.
+
+“I wish you would tell me all about her--that is, if you can do so
+without betraying any confidence.”
+
+“Lord, dearie, everybody in Four Winds knows poor Leslie’s story.  It’s
+no secret--the OUTSIDE, that is.  Nobody knows the INSIDE but Leslie
+herself, and she doesn’t take folks into her confidence.  I’m about the
+best friend she has on earth, I reckon, and she’s never uttered a word
+of complaint to me.  Have you ever seen Dick Moore?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Well, I may as well begin at the beginning and tell you everything
+straight through, so you’ll understand it.  As I said, Leslie’s father
+was Frank West.  He was clever and shiftless--just like a man.  Oh, he
+had heaps of brains--and much good they did him!  He started to go to
+college, and he went for two years, and then his health broke down.
+The Wests were all inclined to be consumptive.  So Frank came home and
+started farming.  He married Rose Elliott from over harbor.  Rose was
+reckoned the beauty of Four Winds--Leslie takes her looks from her
+mother, but she has ten times the spirit and go that Rose had, and a
+far better figure.  Now you know, Anne, I always take the ground that
+us women ought to stand by each other.  We’ve got enough to endure at
+the hands of the men, the Lord knows, so I hold we hadn’t ought to
+clapper-claw one another, and it isn’t often you’ll find me running
+down another woman.  But I never had much use for Rose Elliott.  She
+was spoiled to begin with, believe ME, and she was nothing but a lazy,
+selfish, whining creature.  Frank was no hand to work, so they were
+poor as Job’s turkey.  Poor!  They lived on potatoes and point, believe
+ME.  They had two children--Leslie and Kenneth.  Leslie had her
+mother’s looks and her father’s brains, and something she didn’t get
+from either of them.  She took after her Grandmother West--a splendid
+old lady.  She was the brightest, friendliest, merriest thing when she
+was a child, Anne.  Everybody liked her.  She was her father’s favorite
+and she was awful fond of him.  They were ‘chums,’ as she used to say.
+She couldn’t see any of his faults--and he WAS a taking sort of man in
+some ways.
+
+“Well, when Leslie was twelve years old, the first dreadful thing
+happened.  She worshipped little Kenneth--he was four years younger
+than her, and he WAS a dear little chap.  And he was killed one
+day--fell off a big load of hay just as it was going into the barn, and
+the wheel went right over his little body and crushed the life out of
+it.  And mind you, Anne, Leslie saw it.  She was looking down from the
+loft.  She gave one screech--the hired man said he never heard such a
+sound in all his life--he said it would ring in his ears till Gabriel’s
+trump drove it out.  But she never screeched or cried again about it.
+She jumped from the loft onto the load and from the load to the floor,
+and caught up the little bleeding, warm, dead body, Anne--they had to
+tear it from her before she would let it go.  They sent for me--I can’t
+talk of it.”
+
+Miss Cornelia wiped the tears from her kindly brown eyes and sewed in
+bitter silence for a few minutes.
+
+“Well,” she resumed, “it was all over--they buried little Kenneth in
+that graveyard over the harbor, and after a while Leslie went back to
+her school and her studies.  She never mentioned Kenneth’s name--I’ve
+never heard it cross her lips from that day to this.  I reckon that old
+hurt still aches and burns at times; but she was only a child and time
+is real kind to children, Anne, dearie.  After a while she began to
+laugh again--she had the prettiest laugh.  You don’t often hear it now.”
+
+“I heard it once the other night,” said Anne.  “It IS a beautiful
+laugh.”
+
+“Frank West began to go down after Kenneth’s death.  He wasn’t strong
+and it was a shock to him, because he was real fond of the child,
+though, as I’ve said, Leslie was his favorite.  He got mopy and
+melancholy, and couldn’t or wouldn’t work.  And one day, when Leslie
+was fourteen years of age, he hanged himself--and in the parlor, too,
+mind you, Anne, right in the middle of the parlor from the lamp hook in
+the ceiling.  Wasn’t that like a man?  It was the anniversary of his
+wedding day, too.  Nice, tasty time to pick for it, wasn’t it?  And, of
+course, that poor Leslie had to be the one to find him.  She went into
+the parlor that morning, singing, with some fresh flowers for the
+vases, and there she saw her father hanging from the ceiling, his face
+as black as a coal.  It was something awful, believe ME!”
+
+“Oh, how horrible!” said Anne, shuddering.  “The poor, poor child!”
+
+“Leslie didn’t cry at her father’s funeral any more then she had cried
+at Kenneth’s.  Rose whooped and howled for two, however, and Leslie had
+all she could do trying to calm and comfort her mother.  I was
+disgusted with Rose and so was everyone else, but Leslie never got out
+of patience.  She loved her mother.  Leslie is clannish--her own could
+never do wrong in her eyes.  Well, they buried Frank West beside
+Kenneth, and Rose put up a great big monument to him.  It was bigger
+than his character, believe ME!  Anyhow, it was bigger than Rose could
+afford, for the farm was mortgaged for more than its value.  But not
+long after Leslie’s old grandmother West died and she left Leslie a
+little money--enough to give her a year at Queen’s Academy.  Leslie had
+made up her mind to pass for a teacher if she could, and then earn
+enough to put herself through Redmond College.  That had been her
+father’s pet scheme--he wanted her to have what he had lost.  Leslie
+was full of ambition and her head was chock full of brains.  She went
+to Queen’s, and she took two years’ work in one year and got her First;
+and when she came home she got the Glen school.  She was so happy and
+hopeful and full of life and eagerness.  When I think of what she was
+then and what she is now, I say--drat the men!”
+
+Miss Cornelia snipped her thread off as viciously as if, Nero-like, she
+was severing the neck of mankind by the stroke.
+
+“Dick Moore came into her life that summer.  His father, Abner Moore,
+kept store at the Glen, but Dick had a sea-going streak in him from his
+mother; he used to sail in summer and clerk in his father’s store in
+winter.  He was a big, handsome fellow, with a little ugly soul.  He
+was always wanting something till he got it, and then he stopped
+wanting it--just like a man.  Oh, he didn’t growl at the weather when
+it was fine, and he was mostly real pleasant and agreeable when
+everything went right.  But he drank a good deal, and there were some
+nasty stories told of him and a girl down at the fishing village.  He
+wasn’t fit for Leslie to wipe her feet on, that’s the long and short of
+it.  And he was a Methodist!  But he was clean mad about her--because
+of her good looks in the first place, and because she wouldn’t have
+anything to say to him in the second.  He vowed he’d have her--and he
+got her!”
+
+“How did he bring it about?”
+
+“Oh, it was an iniquitous thing!  I’ll never forgive Rose West.  You
+see, dearie, Abner Moore held the mortgage on the West farm, and the
+interest was overdue some years, and Dick just went and told Mrs. West
+that if Leslie wouldn’t marry him he’d get his father to foreclose the
+mortgage.  Rose carried on terrible--fainted and wept, and pleaded with
+Leslie not to let her be turned out of her home.  She said it would
+break her heart to leave the home she’d come to as a bride.  I wouldn’t
+have blamed her for feeling dreadful bad over it--but you wouldn’t have
+thought she’d be so selfish as to sacrifice her own flesh and blood
+because of it, would you?  Well, she was.
+
+“And Leslie gave in--she loved her mother so much she would have done
+anything to save her pain.  She married Dick Moore.  None of us knew
+why at the time.  It wasn’t till long afterward that I found out how
+her mother had worried her into it.  I was sure there was something
+wrong, though, because I knew how she had snubbed him time and again,
+and it wasn’t like Leslie to turn face--about like that.  Besides, I
+knew that Dick Moore wasn’t the kind of man Leslie could ever fancy, in
+spite of his good looks and dashing ways.  Of course, there was no
+wedding, but Rose asked me to go and see them married.  I went, but I
+was sorry I did.  I’d seen Leslie’s face at her brother’s funeral and
+at her father’s funeral--and now it seemed to me I was seeing it at her
+own funeral.  But Rose was smiling as a basket of chips, believe ME!
+
+“Leslie and Dick settled down on the West place--Rose couldn’t bear to
+part with her dear daughter!--and lived there for the winter.  In the
+spring Rose took pneumonia and died--a year too late!  Leslie was
+heart-broken enough over it.  Isn’t it terrible the way some unworthy
+folks are loved, while others that deserve it far more, you’d think,
+never get much affection?  As for Dick, he’d had enough of quiet
+married life--just like a man.  He was for up and off.  He went over to
+Nova Scotia to visit his relations--his father had come from Nova
+Scotia--and he wrote back to Leslie that his cousin, George Moore, was
+going on a voyage to Havana and he was going too.  The name of the
+vessel was the Four Sisters and they were to be gone about nine weeks.
+
+“It must have been a relief to Leslie.  But she never said anything.
+From the day of her marriage she was just what she is now--cold and
+proud, and keeping everyone but me at a distance.  I won’t BE kept at a
+distance, believe ME!  I’ve just stuck to Leslie as close as I knew how
+in spite of everything.”
+
+“She told me you were the best friend she had,” said Anne.
+
+“Did she?” exclaimed Miss Cornelia delightedly.  “Well, I’m real
+thankful to hear it.  Sometimes I’ve wondered if she really did want me
+around at all--she never let me think so.  You must have thawed her out
+more than you think, or she wouldn’t have said that much itself to you.
+Oh, that poor, heart-broken girl!  I never see Dick Moore but I want to
+run a knife clean through him.”
+
+Miss Cornelia wiped her eyes again and having relieved her feelings by
+her blood-thirsty wish, took up her tale.
+
+“Well, Leslie was left over there alone.  Dick had put in the crop
+before he went, and old Abner looked after it.  The summer went by and
+the Four Sisters didn’t come back.  The Nova Scotia Moores
+investigated, and found she had got to Havana and discharged her cargo
+and took on another and left for home; and that was all they ever found
+out about her.  By degrees people began to talk of Dick Moore as one
+that was dead.  Almost everyone believed that he was, though no one
+felt certain, for men have turned up here at the harbor after they’d
+been gone for years.  Leslie never thought he was dead--and she was
+right.  A thousand pities too!  The next summer Captain Jim was in
+Havana--that was before he gave up the sea, of course.  He thought he’d
+poke round a bit--Captain Jim was always meddlesome, just like a
+man--and he went to inquiring round among the sailors’ boarding houses
+and places like that, to see if he could find out anything about the
+crew of the Four Sisters.  He’d better have let sleeping dogs lie, in
+my opinion!  Well, he went to one out-of-the-way place, and there he
+found a man he knew at first sight it was Dick Moore, though he had a
+big beard.  Captain Jim got it shaved off and then there was no
+doubt--Dick Moore it was--his body at least.  His mind wasn’t there--as
+for his soul, in my opinion he never had one!”
+
+“What had happened to him?”
+
+“Nobody knows the rights of it.  All the folks who kept the boarding
+house could tell was that about a year before they had found him lying
+on their doorstep one morning in an awful condition--his head battered
+to a jelly almost.  They supposed he’d got hurt in some drunken row,
+and likely that’s the truth of it.  They took him in, never thinking he
+could live.  But he did--and he was just like a child when he got well.
+He hadn’t memory or intellect or reason.  They tried to find out who he
+was but they never could.  He couldn’t even tell them his name--he
+could only say a few simple words.  He had a letter on him beginning
+‘Dear Dick’ and signed ‘Leslie,’ but there was no address on it and the
+envelope was gone.  They let him stay on--he learned to do a few odd
+jobs about the place--and there Captain Jim found him.  He brought him
+home--I’ve always said it was a bad day’s work, though I s’pose there
+was nothing else he could do.  He thought maybe when Dick got home and
+saw his old surroundings and familiar faces his memory would wake up.
+But it hadn’t any effect.  There he’s been at the house up the brook
+ever since.  He’s just like a child, no more nor less.  Takes fractious
+spells occasionally, but mostly he’s just vacant and good humored and
+harmless.  He’s apt to run away if he isn’t watched.  That’s the burden
+Leslie has had to carry for eleven years--and all alone.  Old Abner
+Moore died soon after Dick was brought home and it was found he was
+almost bankrupt.  When things were settled up there was nothing for
+Leslie and Dick but the old West farm.  Leslie rented it to John Ward,
+and the rent is all she has to live on.  Sometimes in summer she takes
+a boarder to help out.  But most visitors prefer the other side of the
+harbor where the hotels and summer cottages are.  Leslie’s house is too
+far from the bathing shore.  She’s taken care of Dick and she’s never
+been away from him for eleven years--she’s tied to that imbecile for
+life.  And after all the dreams and hopes she once had!  You can
+imagine what it has been like for her, Anne, dearie--with her beauty
+and spirit and pride and cleverness.  It’s just been a living death.”
+
+“Poor, poor girl!” said Anne again.  Her own happiness seemed to
+reproach her.  What right had she to be so happy when another human
+soul must be so miserable?
+
+“Will you tell me just what Leslie said and how she acted the night you
+met her on the shore?” asked Miss Cornelia.
+
+She listened intently and nodded her satisfaction.
+
+“YOU thought she was stiff and cold, Anne, dearie, but I can tell you
+she thawed out wonderful for her.  She must have taken to you real
+strong.  I’m so glad.  You may be able to help her a good deal.  I was
+thankful when I heard that a young couple was coming to this house, for
+I hoped it would mean some friends for Leslie; especially if you
+belonged to the race that knows Joseph.  You WILL be her friend, won’t
+you, Anne, dearie?”
+
+“Indeed I will, if she’ll let me,” said Anne, with all her own sweet,
+impulsive earnestness.
+
+“No, you must be her friend, whether she’ll let you or not,” said Miss
+Cornelia resolutely.  “Don’t you mind if she’s stiff by times--don’t
+notice it.  Remember what her life has been--and is--and must always
+be, I suppose, for creatures like Dick Moore live forever, I
+understand.  You should see how fat he’s got since he came home.  He
+used to be lean enough.  Just MAKE her be friends--you can do
+it--you’re one of those who have the knack.  Only you mustn’t be
+sensitive.  And don’t mind if she doesn’t seem to want you to go over
+there much.  She knows that some women don’t like to be where Dick
+is--they complain he gives them the creeps.  Just get her to come over
+here as often as she can.  She can’t get away so very much--she can’t
+leave Dick long, for the Lord knows what he’d do--burn the house down
+most likely.  At nights, after he’s in bed and asleep, is about the
+only time she’s free.  He always goes to bed early and sleeps like the
+dead till next morning.  That is how you came to meet her at the shore
+likely.  She wanders there considerable.”
+
+“I will do everything I can for her,” said Anne.  Her interest in
+Leslie Moore, which had been vivid ever since she had seen her driving
+her geese down the hill, was intensified a thousand fold by Miss
+Cornelia’s narration.  The girl’s beauty and sorrow and loneliness drew
+her with an irresistible fascination.  She had never known anyone like
+her; her friends had hitherto been wholesome, normal, merry girls like
+herself, with only the average trials of human care and bereavement to
+shadow their girlish dreams.  Leslie Moore stood apart, a tragic,
+appealing figure of thwarted womanhood.  Anne resolved that she would
+win entrance into the kingdom of that lonely soul and find there the
+comradeship it could so richly give, were it not for the cruel fetters
+that held it in a prison not of its own making.
+
+“And mind you this, Anne, dearie,” said Miss Cornelia, who had not yet
+wholly relieved her mind, “You mustn’t think Leslie is an infidel
+because she hardly ever goes to church--or even that she’s a Methodist.
+She can’t take Dick to church, of course--not that he ever troubled
+church much in his best days.  But you just remember that she’s a real
+strong Presbyterian at heart, Anne, dearie.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 12
+
+LESLIE COMES OVER
+
+Leslie came over to the house of dreams one frosty October night, when
+moonlit mists were hanging over the harbor and curling like silver
+ribbons along the seaward glens.  She looked as if she repented coming
+when Gilbert answered her knock; but Anne flew past him, pounced on
+her, and drew her in.
+
+“I’m so glad you picked tonight for a call,” she said gaily.  “I made
+up a lot of extra good fudge this afternoon and we want someone to help
+us eat it--before the fire--while we tell stories.  Perhaps Captain Jim
+will drop in, too.  This is his night.”
+
+“No.  Captain Jim is over home,” said Leslie.  “He--he made me come
+here,” she added, half defiantly.
+
+“I’ll say a thank-you to him for that when I see him,” said Anne,
+pulling easy chairs before the fire.
+
+“Oh, I don’t mean that I didn’t want to come,” protested Leslie,
+flushing a little.  “I--I’ve been thinking of coming--but it isn’t
+always easy for me to get away.”
+
+“Of course it must be hard for you to leave Mr. Moore,” said Anne, in a
+matter-of-fact tone.  She had decided that it would be best to mention
+Dick Moore occasionally as an accepted fact, and not give undue
+morbidness to the subject by avoiding it.  She was right, for Leslie’s
+air of constraint suddenly vanished.  Evidently she had been wondering
+how much Anne knew of the conditions of her life and was relieved that
+no explanations were needed.  She allowed her cap and jacket to be
+taken, and sat down with a girlish snuggle in the big armchair by
+Magog.  She was dressed prettily and carefully, with the customary
+touch of color in the scarlet geranium at her white throat.  Her
+beautiful hair gleamed like molten gold in the warm firelight.  Her
+sea-blue eyes were full of soft laughter and allurement. For the
+moment, under the influence of the little house of dreams, she was a
+girl again--a girl forgetful of the past and its bitterness.  The
+atmosphere of the many loves that had sanctified the little house was
+all about her; the companionship of two healthy, happy, young folks of
+her own generation encircled her; she felt and yielded to the magic of
+her surroundings--Miss Cornelia and Captain Jim would scarcely have
+recognized her; Anne found it hard to believe that this was the cold,
+unresponsive woman she had met on the shore--this animated girl who
+talked and listened with the eagerness of a starved soul.  And how
+hungrily Leslie’s eyes looked at the bookcases between the windows!
+
+“Our library isn’t very extensive,” said Anne, “but every book in it is
+a FRIEND.  We’ve picked our books up through the years, here and there,
+never buying one until we had first read it and knew that it belonged
+to the race of Joseph.”
+
+Leslie laughed--beautiful laughter that seemed akin to all the mirth
+that had echoed through the little house in the vanished years.
+
+“I have a few books of father’s--not many,” she said.  “I’ve read them
+until I know them almost by heart.  I don’t get many books.  There’s a
+circulating library at the Glen store--but I don’t think the committee
+who pick the books for Mr. Parker know what books are of Joseph’s
+race--or perhaps they don’t care.  It was so seldom I got one I really
+liked that I gave up getting any.”
+
+“I hope you’ll look on our bookshelves as your own,” said Anne.
+
+“You are entirely and wholeheartedly welcome to the loan of any book on
+them.”
+
+“You are setting a feast of fat things before me,” said Leslie,
+joyously.  Then, as the clock struck ten, she rose, half unwillingly.
+
+“I must go.  I didn’t realise it was so late.  Captain Jim is always
+saying it doesn’t take long to stay an hour.  But I’ve stayed two--and
+oh, but I’ve enjoyed them,” she added frankly.
+
+“Come often,” said Anne and Gilbert.  They had risen and stood together
+in the firelight’s glow.  Leslie looked at them--youthful, hopeful,
+happy, typifying all she had missed and must forever miss.  The light
+went out of her face and eyes; the girl vanished; it was the sorrowful,
+cheated woman who answered the invitation almost coldly and got herself
+away with a pitiful haste.
+
+Anne watched her until she was lost in the shadows of the chill and
+misty night.  Then she turned slowly back to the glow of her own
+radiant hearthstone.
+
+“Isn’t she lovely, Gilbert?  Her hair fascinates me.  Miss Cornelia
+says it reaches to her feet.  Ruby Gillis had beautiful hair--but
+Leslie’s is ALIVE--every thread of it is living gold.”
+
+“She is very beautiful,” agreed Gilbert, so heartily that Anne almost
+wished he were a LITTLE less enthusiastic.
+
+“Gilbert, would you like my hair better if it were like Leslie’s?” she
+asked wistfully.
+
+“I wouldn’t have your hair any color but just what it is for the
+world,” said Gilbert, with one or two convincing accompaniments.
+
+You wouldn’t be ANNE if you had golden hair--or hair of any color but”--
+
+“Red,” said Anne, with gloomy satisfaction.
+
+“Yes, red--to give warmth to that milk-white skin and those shining
+gray-green eyes of yours.  Golden hair wouldn’t suit you at all Queen
+Anne--MY Queen Anne--queen of my heart and life and home.”
+
+“Then you may admire Leslie’s all you like,” said Anne magnanimously.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 13
+
+A GHOSTLY EVENING
+
+One evening, a week later, Anne decided to run over the fields to the
+house up the brook for an informal call.  It was an evening of gray fog
+that had crept in from the gulf, swathed the harbor, filled the glens
+and valleys, and clung heavily to the autumnal meadows.  Through it the
+sea sobbed and shuddered.  Anne saw Four Winds in a new aspect, and
+found it weird and mysterious and fascinating; but it also gave her a
+little feeling of loneliness.  Gilbert was away and would be away until
+the morrow, attending a medical pow-wow in Charlottetown.  Anne longed
+for an hour of fellowship with some girl friend.  Captain Jim and Miss
+Cornelia were “good fellows” each, in their own way; but youth yearned
+to youth.
+
+“If only Diana or Phil or Pris or Stella could drop in for a chat,” she
+said to herself, “how delightful it would be!  This is such a GHOSTLY
+night.  I’m sure all the ships that ever sailed out of Four Winds to
+their doom could be seen tonight sailing up the harbor with their
+drowned crews on their decks, if that shrouding fog could suddenly be
+drawn aside.  I feel as if it concealed innumerable mysteries--as if I
+were surrounded by the wraiths of old generations of Four Winds people
+peering at me through that gray veil.  If ever the dear dead ladies of
+this little house came back to revisit it they would come on just such
+a night as this.  If I sit here any longer I’ll see one of them there
+opposite me in Gilbert’s chair.  This place isn’t exactly canny
+tonight.  Even Gog and Magog have an air of pricking up their ears to
+hear the footsteps of unseen guests.  I’ll run over to see Leslie
+before I frighten myself with my own fancies, as I did long ago in the
+matter of the Haunted Wood.  I’ll leave my house of dreams to welcome
+back its old inhabitants.  My fire will give them my good-will and
+greeting--they will be gone before I come back, and my house will be
+mine once more.  Tonight I am sure it is keeping a tryst with the past.”
+
+Laughing a little over her fancy, yet with something of a creepy
+sensation in the region of her spine, Anne kissed her hand to Gog and
+Magog and slipped out into the fog, with some of the new magazines
+under her arm for Leslie.
+
+“Leslie’s wild for books and magazines,” Miss Cornelia had told her,
+“and she hardly ever sees one.  She can’t afford to buy them or
+subscribe for them.  She’s really pitifully poor, Anne.  I don’t see
+how she makes out to live at all on the little rent the farm brings in.
+She never even hints a complaint on the score of poverty, but I know
+what it must be.  She’s been handicapped by it all her life.  She
+didn’t mind it when she was free and ambitious, but it must gall now,
+believe ME.  I’m glad she seemed so bright and merry the evening she
+spent with you.  Captain Jim told me he had fairly to put her cap and
+coat on and push her out of the door.  Don’t be too long going to see
+her either.  If you are she’ll think it’s because you don’t like the
+sight of Dick, and she’ll crawl into her shell again.  Dick’s a great,
+big, harmless baby, but that silly grin and chuckle of his do get on
+some people’s nerves.  Thank goodness, I’ve no nerves myself.  I like
+Dick Moore better now than I ever did when he was in his right
+senses--though the Lord knows that isn’t saying much.  I was down there
+one day in housecleaning time helping Leslie a bit, and I was frying
+doughnuts.  Dick was hanging round to get one, as usual, and all at
+once he picked up a scalding hot one I’d just fished out and dropped it
+on the back of my neck when I was bending over.  Then he laughed and
+laughed.  Believe ME, Anne, it took all the grace of God in my heart to
+keep me from just whisking up that stew-pan of boiling fat and pouring
+it over his head.”
+
+Anne laughed over Miss Cornelia’s wrath as she sped through the
+darkness.  But laughter accorded ill with that night.  She was sober
+enough when she reached the house among the willows.  Everything was
+very silent.  The front part of the house seemed dark and deserted, so
+Anne slipped round to the side door, which opened from the veranda into
+a little sitting room.  There she halted noiselessly.
+
+The door was open.  Beyond, in the dimly lighted room, sat Leslie
+Moore, with her arms flung out on the table and her head bent upon
+them.  She was weeping horribly--with low, fierce, choking sobs, as if
+some agony in her soul were trying to tear itself out.  An old black
+dog was sitting by her, his nose resting on his lap, his big doggish
+eyes full of mute, imploring sympathy and devotion.  Anne drew back in
+dismay.  She felt that she could not intermeddle with this bitterness.
+Her heart ached with a sympathy she might not utter.  To go in now
+would be to shut the door forever on any possible help or friendship.
+Some instinct warned Anne that the proud, bitter girl would never
+forgive the one who thus surprised her in her abandonment of despair.
+
+Anne slipped noiselessly from the veranda and found her way across the
+yard.  Beyond, she heard voices in the gloom and saw the dim glow of a
+light.  At the gate she met two men--Captain Jim with a lantern, and
+another who she knew must be Dick Moore--a big man, badly gone to fat,
+with a broad, round, red face, and vacant eyes.  Even in the dull light
+Anne got the impression that there was something unusual about his eyes.
+
+“Is this you, Mistress Blythe?” said Captain Jim.  “Now, now, you
+hadn’t oughter be roaming about alone on a night like this.  You could
+get lost in this fog easier than not.  Jest you wait till I see Dick
+safe inside the door and I’ll come back and light you over the fields.
+I ain’t going to have Dr. Blythe coming home and finding that you
+walked clean over Cape Leforce in the fog.  A woman did that once,
+forty years ago.
+
+“So you’ve been over to see Leslie,” he said, when he rejoined her.
+
+“I didn’t go in,” said Anne, and told what she had seen.  Captain Jim
+sighed.
+
+“Poor, poor, little girl!  She don’t cry often, Mistress Blythe--she’s
+too brave for that.  She must feel terrible when she does cry.  A night
+like this is hard on poor women who have sorrows.  There’s something
+about it that kinder brings up all we’ve suffered--or feared.”
+
+“It’s full of ghosts,” said Anne, with a shiver.  “That was why I came
+over--I wanted to clasp a human hand and hear a human voice.
+
+“There seem to be so many INHUMAN presences about tonight.  Even my own
+dear house was full of them.  They fairly elbowed me out.  So I fled
+over here for companionship of my kind.”
+
+“You were right not to go in, though, Mistress Blythe.  Leslie wouldn’t
+have liked it.  She wouldn’t have liked me going in with Dick, as I’d
+have done if I hadn’t met you.  I had Dick down with me all day.  I
+keep him with me as much as I can to help Leslie a bit.”
+
+“Isn’t there something odd about his eyes?” asked Anne.
+
+“You noticed that?  Yes, one is blue and t’other is hazel--his father
+had the same.  It’s a Moore peculiarity.  That was what told me he was
+Dick Moore when I saw him first down in Cuby.  If it hadn’t a-bin for
+his eyes I mightn’t a-known him, with his beard and fat.  You know, I
+reckon, that it was me found him and brought him home.  Miss Cornelia
+always says I shouldn’t have done it, but I can’t agree with her.  It
+was the RIGHT thing to do--and so ’twas the only thing.  There ain’t no
+question in my mind about THAT.  But my old heart aches for Leslie.
+She’s only twenty-eight and she’s eaten more bread with sorrow than
+most women do in eighty years.”
+
+They walked on in silence for a little while.  Presently Anne said, “Do
+you know, Captain Jim, I never like walking with a lantern.  I have
+always the strangest feeling that just outside the circle of light,
+just over its edge in the darkness, I am surrounded by a ring of
+furtive, sinister things, watching me from the shadows with hostile
+eyes.  I’ve had that feeling from childhood.  What is the reason?  I
+never feel like that when I’m really in the darkness--when it is close
+all around me--I’m not the least frightened.”
+
+“I’ve something of that feeling myself,” admitted Captain Jim.  “I
+reckon when the darkness is close to us it is a friend.  But when we
+sorter push it away from us--divorce ourselves from it, so to speak,
+with lantern light--it becomes an enemy.  But the fog is lifting.
+
+“There’s a smart west wind rising, if you notice.  The stars will be
+out when you get home.”
+
+They were out; and when Anne re-entered her house of dreams the red
+embers were still glowing on the hearth, and all the haunting presences
+were gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 14
+
+NOVEMBER DAYS
+
+The splendor of color which had glowed for weeks along the shores of
+Four Winds Harbor had faded out into the soft gray-blue of late
+autumnal hills.  There came many days when fields and shores were dim
+with misty rain, or shivering before the breath of a melancholy
+sea-wind--nights, too, of storm and tempest, when Anne sometimes
+wakened to pray that no ship might be beating up the grim north shore,
+for if it were so not even the great, faithful light whirling through
+the darkness unafraid, could avail to guide it into safe haven.
+
+“In November I sometimes feel as if spring could never come again,” she
+sighed, grieving over the hopeless unsightliness of her frosted and
+bedraggled flower-plots.  The gay little garden of the schoolmaster’s
+bride was rather a forlorn place now, and the Lombardies and birches
+were under bare poles, as Captain Jim said.  But the fir-wood behind
+the little house was forever green and staunch; and even in November
+and December there came gracious days of sunshine and purple hazes,
+when the harbor danced and sparkled as blithely as in midsummer, and
+the gulf was so softly blue and tender that the storm and the wild wind
+seemed only things of a long-past dream.
+
+Anne and Gilbert spent many an autumn evening at the lighthouse.  It
+was always a cheery place.  Even when the east wind sang in minor and
+the sea was dead and gray, hints of sunshine seemed to be lurking all
+about it.  Perhaps this was because the First Mate always paraded it in
+panoply of gold.  He was so large and effulgent that one hardly missed
+the sun, and his resounding purrs formed a pleasant accompaniment to
+the laughter and conversation which went on around Captain Jim’s
+fireplace.  Captain Jim and Gilbert had many long discussions and high
+converse on matters beyond the ken of cat or king.
+
+“I like to ponder on all kinds of problems, though I can’t solve ’em,”
+said Captain Jim.  “My father held that we should never talk of things
+we couldn’t understand, but if we didn’t, doctor, the subjects for
+conversation would be mighty few.  I reckon the gods laugh many a time
+to hear us, but what matters so long as we remember that we’re only men
+and don’t take to fancying that we’re gods ourselves, really, knowing
+good and evil.  I reckon our pow-wows won’t do us or anyone much harm,
+so let’s have another whack at the whence, why and whither this
+evening, doctor.”
+
+While they “whacked,” Anne listened or dreamed.  Sometimes Leslie went
+to the lighthouse with them, and she and Anne wandered along the shore
+in the eerie twilight, or sat on the rocks below the lighthouse until
+the darkness drove them back to the cheer of the driftwood fire.  Then
+Captain Jim would brew them tea and tell them
+
+    “tales of land and sea
+    And whatsoever might betide
+    The great forgotten world outside.”
+
+Leslie seemed always to enjoy those lighthouse carousals very much, and
+bloomed out for the time being into ready wit and beautiful laughter,
+or glowing-eyed silence.  There was a certain tang and savor in the
+conversation when Leslie was present which they missed when she was
+absent.  Even when she did not talk she seemed to inspire others to
+brilliancy.  Captain Jim told his stories better, Gilbert was quicker
+in argument and repartee, Anne felt little gushes and trickles of fancy
+and imagination bubbling to her lips under the influence of Leslie’s
+personality.
+
+“That girl was born to be a leader in social and intellectual circles,
+far away from Four Winds,” she said to Gilbert as they walked home one
+night.  “She’s just wasted here--wasted.”
+
+“Weren’t you listening to Captain Jim and yours truly the other night
+when we discussed that subject generally?  We came to the comforting
+conclusion that the Creator probably knew how to run His universe quite
+as well as we do, and that, after all, there are no such things as
+‘wasted’ lives, saving and except when an individual wilfully squanders
+and wastes his own life--which Leslie Moore certainly hasn’t done.  And
+some people might think that a Redmond B.A., whom editors were
+beginning to honor, was ‘wasted’ as the wife of a struggling country
+doctor in the rural community of Four Winds.”
+
+“Gilbert!”
+
+“If you had married Roy Gardner, now,” continued Gilbert mercilessly,
+“YOU could have been ‘a leader in social and intellectual circles far
+away from Four Winds.’”
+
+“Gilbert BLYTHE!”
+
+“You KNOW you were in love with him at one time, Anne.”
+
+“Gilbert, that’s mean--‘pisen mean, just like all the men,’ as Miss
+Cornelia says.  I NEVER was in love with him.  I only imagined I was.
+YOU know that.  You KNOW I’d rather be your wife in our house of dreams
+and fulfillment than a queen in a palace.”
+
+Gilbert’s answer was not in words; but I am afraid that both of them
+forgot poor Leslie speeding her lonely way across the fields to a house
+that was neither a palace nor the fulfillment of a dream.
+
+The moon was rising over the sad, dark sea behind them and
+transfiguring it.  Her light had not yet reached the harbor, the
+further side of which was shadowy and suggestive, with dim coves and
+rich glooms and jewelling lights.
+
+“How the home lights shine out tonight through the dark!” said Anne.
+“That string of them over the harbor looks like a necklace.  And what a
+coruscation there is up at the Glen!  Oh, look, Gilbert; there is ours.
+I’m so glad we left it burning.  I hate to come home to a dark house.
+OUR homelight, Gilbert!  Isn’t it lovely to see?”
+
+“Just one of earth’s many millions of homes, Anne--girl--but
+ours--OURS--our beacon in ‘a naughty world.’  When a fellow has a home
+and a dear, little, red-haired wife in it what more need he ask of
+life?”
+
+“Well, he might ask ONE thing more,” whispered Anne happily.  “Oh,
+Gilbert, it seems as if I just COULDN’T wait for the spring.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 15
+
+CHRISTMAS AT FOUR WINDS
+
+At first Anne and Gilbert talked of going home to Avonlea for
+Christmas; but eventually they decided to stay in Four Winds.  “I want
+to spend the first Christmas of our life together in our own home,”
+decreed Anne.
+
+So it fell out that Marilla and Mrs. Rachel Lynde and the twins came to
+Four Winds for Christmas.  Marilla had the face of a woman who had
+circumnavigated the globe.  She had never been sixty miles away from
+home before; and she had never eaten a Christmas dinner anywhere save
+at Green Gables.
+
+Mrs. Rachel had made and brought with her an enormous plum pudding.
+Nothing could have convinced Mrs. Rachel that a college graduate of the
+younger generation could make a Christmas plum pudding properly; but
+she bestowed approval on Anne’s house.
+
+“Anne’s a good housekeeper,” she said to Marilla in the spare room the
+night of their arrival.  “I’ve looked into her bread box and her scrap
+pail.  I always judge a housekeeper by those, that’s what.  There’s
+nothing in the pail that shouldn’t have been thrown away, and no stale
+pieces in the bread box.  Of course, she was trained up with you--but,
+then, she went to college afterwards.  I notice she’s got my tobacco
+stripe quilt on the bed here, and that big round braided mat of yours
+before her living-room fire.  It makes me feel right at home.”
+
+Anne’s first Christmas in her own house was as delightful as she could
+have wished.  The day was fine and bright; the first skim of snow had
+fallen on Christmas Eve and made the world beautiful; the harbor was
+still open and glittering.
+
+Captain Jim and Miss Cornelia came to dinner.  Leslie and Dick had been
+invited, but Leslie made excuse; they always went to her Uncle Isaac
+West’s for Christmas, she said.
+
+“She’d rather have it so,” Miss Cornelia told Anne.  “She can’t bear
+taking Dick where there are strangers.  Christmas is always a hard time
+for Leslie.  She and her father used to make a lot of it.”
+
+Miss Cornelia and Mrs. Rachel did not take a very violent fancy to each
+other.  “Two suns hold not their courses in one sphere.”  But they did
+not clash at all, for Mrs. Rachel was in the kitchen helping Anne and
+Marilla with the dinner, and it fell to Gilbert to entertain Captain
+Jim and Miss Cornelia,--or rather to be entertained by them, for a
+dialogue between those two old friends and antagonists was assuredly
+never dull.
+
+“It’s many a year since there was a Christmas dinner here, Mistress
+Blythe,” said Captain Jim.  “Miss Russell always went to her friends in
+town for Christmas.  But I was here to the first Christmas dinner that
+was ever eaten in this house--and the schoolmaster’s bride cooked it.
+That was sixty years ago today, Mistress Blythe--and a day very like
+this--just enough snow to make the hills white, and the harbor as blue
+as June.  I was only a lad, and I’d never been invited out to dinner
+before, and I was too shy to eat enough.  I’ve got all over THAT.”
+
+“Most men do,” said Miss Cornelia, sewing furiously.  Miss Cornelia was
+not going to sit with idle hands, even on Christmas.
+
+Babies come without any consideration for holidays, and there was one
+expected in a poverty-stricken household at Glen St. Mary.  Miss
+Cornelia had sent that household a substantial dinner for its little
+swarm, and so meant to eat her own with a comfortable conscience.
+
+“Well, you know, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,
+Cornelia,” explained Captain Jim.
+
+“I believe you--when he HAS a heart,” retorted Miss Cornelia.  “I
+suppose that’s why so many women kill themselves cooking--just as poor
+Amelia Baxter did.  She died last Christmas morning, and she said it
+was the first Christmas since she was married that she didn’t have to
+cook a big, twenty-plate dinner.  It must have been a real pleasant
+change for her.  Well, she’s been dead a year, so you’ll soon hear of
+Horace Baxter taking notice.”
+
+“I heard he was taking notice already,” said Captain Jim, winking at
+Gilbert.  “Wasn’t he up to your place one Sunday lately, with his
+funeral blacks on, and a boiled collar?”
+
+“No, he wasn’t.  And he needn’t come neither.  I could have had him
+long ago when he was fresh.  I don’t want any second-hand goods,
+believe ME.  As for Horace Baxter, he was in financial difficulties a
+year ago last summer, and he prayed to the Lord for help; and when his
+wife died and he got her life insurance he said he believed it was the
+answer to his prayer.  Wasn’t that like a man?”
+
+“Have you really proof that he said that, Cornelia?”
+
+“I have the Methodist minister’s word for it--if you call THAT proof.
+Robert Baxter told me the same thing too, but I admit THAT isn’t
+evidence.  Robert Baxter isn’t often known to tell the truth.”
+
+“Come, come, Cornelia, I think he generally tells the truth, but he
+changes his opinion so often it sometimes sounds as if he didn’t.”
+
+“It sounds like it mighty often, believe ME.  But trust one man to
+excuse another.  I have no use for Robert Baxter.  He turned Methodist
+just because the Presbyterian choir happened to be singing ‘Behold the
+bridegroom cometh’ for a collection piece when him and Margaret walked
+up the aisle the Sunday after they were married.  Served him right for
+being late!  He always insisted the choir did it on purpose to insult
+him, as if he was of that much importance.  But that family always
+thought they were much bigger potatoes than they really were.  His
+brother Eliphalet imagined the devil was always at his elbow--but _I_
+never believed the devil wasted that much time on him.”
+
+“I--don’t--know,” said Captain Jim thoughtfully.  “Eliphalet Baxter
+lived too much alone--hadn’t even a cat or dog to keep him human.  When
+a man is alone he’s mighty apt to be with the devil--if he ain’t with
+God.  He has to choose which company he’ll keep, I reckon.  If the
+devil always was at Life Baxter’s elbow it must have been because Life
+liked to have him there.”
+
+“Man-like,” said Miss Cornelia, and subsided into silence over a
+complicated arrangement of tucks until Captain Jim deliberately stirred
+her up again by remarking in a casual way:
+
+“I was up to the Methodist church last Sunday morning.”
+
+“You’d better have been home reading your Bible,” was Miss Cornelia’s
+retort.
+
+“Come, now, Cornelia, _I_ can’t see any harm in going to the Methodist
+church when there’s no preaching in your own.  I’ve been a Presbyterian
+for seventy-six years, and it isn’t likely my theology will hoist
+anchor at this late day.”
+
+“It’s setting a bad example,” said Miss Cornelia grimly.
+
+“Besides,” continued wicked Captain Jim, “I wanted to hear some good
+singing.  The Methodists have a good choir; and you can’t deny,
+Cornelia, that the singing in our church is awful since the split in
+the choir.”
+
+“What if the singing isn’t good?  They’re doing their best, and God
+sees no difference between the voice of a crow and the voice of a
+nightingale.”
+
+“Come, come, Cornelia,” said Captain Jim mildly, “I’ve a better opinion
+of the Almighty’s ear for music than THAT.”
+
+“What caused the trouble in our choir?” asked Gilbert, who was
+suffering from suppressed laughter.
+
+“It dates back to the new church, three years ago,” answered Captain
+Jim.  “We had a fearful time over the building of that church--fell out
+over the question of a new site.  The two sites wasn’t more’n two
+hundred yards apart, but you’d have thought they was a thousand by the
+bitterness of that fight.  We was split up into three factions--one
+wanted the east site and one the south, and one held to the old.  It
+was fought out in bed and at board, and in church and at market.  All
+the old scandals of three generations were dragged out of their graves
+and aired.  Three matches was broken up by it.  And the meetings we had
+to try to settle the question!  Cornelia, will you ever forget the one
+when old Luther Burns got up and made a speech?  HE stated his opinions
+forcibly.”
+
+“Call a spade a spade, Captain.  You mean he got red-mad and raked them
+all, fore and aft.  They deserved it too--a pack of incapables.  But
+what would you expect of a committee of men?  That building committee
+held twenty-seven meetings, and at the end of the twenty-seventh
+weren’t no nearer having a church than when they begun--not so near,
+for a fact, for in one fit of hurrying things along they’d gone to work
+and tore the old church down, so there we were, without a church, and
+no place but the hall to worship in.”
+
+“The Methodists offered us their church, Cornelia.”
+
+“The Glen St. Mary church wouldn’t have been built to this day,” went
+on Miss Cornelia, ignoring Captain Jim, “if we women hadn’t just
+started in and took charge.  We said WE meant to have a church, if the
+men meant to quarrel till doomsday, and we were tired of being a
+laughing-stock for the Methodists.  We held ONE meeting and elected a
+committee and canvassed for subscriptions.  We got them, too.  When any
+of the men tried to sass us we told them they’d tried for two years to
+build a church and it was our turn now.  We shut them up close, believe
+ME, and in six months we had our church.  Of course, when the men saw
+we were determined they stopped fighting and went to work, man-like, as
+soon as they saw they had to, or quit bossing.  Oh, women can’t preach
+or be elders; but they can build churches and scare up the money for
+them.”
+
+“The Methodists allow women to preach,” said Captain Jim.
+
+Miss Cornelia glared at him.
+
+“I never said the Methodists hadn’t common sense, Captain. What I say
+is, I doubt if they have much religion.”
+
+“I suppose you are in favor of votes for women, Miss Cornelia,” said
+Gilbert.
+
+“I’m not hankering after the vote, believe ME,” said Miss Cornelia
+scornfully.  “_I_ know what it is to clean up after the men.  But some
+of these days, when the men realize they’ve got the world into a mess
+they can’t get it out of, they’ll be glad to give us the vote, and
+shoulder their troubles over on us.  That’s THEIR scheme.  Oh, it’s
+well that women are patient, believe ME!”
+
+“What about Job?” suggested Captain Jim.
+
+“Job!  It was such a rare thing to find a patient man that when one was
+really discovered they were determined he shouldn’t be forgotten,”
+retorted Miss Cornelia triumphantly.  “Anyhow, the virtue doesn’t go
+with the name.  There never was such an impatient man born as old Job
+Taylor over harbor.”
+
+“Well, you know, he had a good deal to try him, Cornelia.  Even you
+can’t defend his wife.  I always remember what old William MacAllister
+said of her at her funeral, ‘There’s nae doot she was a Chreestian
+wumman, but she had the de’il’s own temper.’”
+
+“I suppose she WAS trying,” admitted Miss Cornelia reluctantly, “but
+that didn’t justify what Job said when she died.  He rode home from the
+graveyard the day of the funeral with my father.  He never said a word
+till they got near home.  Then he heaved a big sigh and said, ‘You may
+not believe it, Stephen, but this is the happiest day of my life!’
+Wasn’t that like a man?”
+
+“I s’pose poor old Mrs. Job did make life kinder uneasy for him,”
+reflected Captain Jim.
+
+“Well, there’s such a thing as decency, isn’t there?  Even if a man is
+rejoicing in his heart over his wife being dead, he needn’t proclaim it
+to the four winds of heaven.  And happy day or not, Job Taylor wasn’t
+long in marrying again, you might notice.  His second wife could manage
+him.  She made him walk Spanish, believe me!  The first thing she did
+was to make him hustle round and put up a tombstone to the first Mrs.
+Job--and she had a place left on it for her own name.  She said there’d
+be nobody to make Job put up a monument to HER.”
+
+“Speaking of Taylors, how is Mrs. Lewis Taylor up at the Glen, doctor?”
+asked Captain Jim.
+
+“She’s getting better slowly--but she has to work too hard,” replied
+Gilbert.
+
+“Her husband works hard too--raising prize pigs,” said Miss Cornelia.
+“He’s noted for his beautiful pigs.  He’s a heap prouder of his pigs
+than of his children.  But then, to be sure, his pigs are the best pigs
+possible, while his children don’t amount to much.  He picked a poor
+mother for them, and starved her while she was bearing and rearing
+them.  His pigs got the cream and his children got the skim milk.
+
+“There are times, Cornelia, when I have to agree with you, though it
+hurts me,” said Captain Jim.  “That’s just exactly the truth about
+Lewis Taylor.  When I see those poor, miserable children of his, robbed
+of all children ought to have, it p’isens my own bite and sup for days
+afterwards.”
+
+Gilbert went out to the kitchen in response to Anne’s beckoning.  Anne
+shut the door and gave him a connubial lecture.
+
+“Gilbert, you and Captain Jim must stop baiting Miss Cornelia.  Oh,
+I’ve been listening to you--and I just won’t allow it.”
+
+‘Anne, Miss Cornelia is enjoying herself hugely.  You know she is.’
+
+“Well, never mind.  You two needn’t egg her on like that.  Dinner is
+ready now, and, Gilbert, DON’T let Mrs. Rachel carve the geese.  I know
+she means to offer to do it because she doesn’t think you can do it
+properly.  Show her you can.”
+
+“I ought to be able to.  I’ve been studying A-B-C-D diagrams of carving
+for the past month,” said Gilbert.  “Only don’t talk to me while I’m
+doing it, Anne, for if you drive the letters out of my head I’ll be in
+a worse predicament than you were in old geometry days when the teacher
+changed them.”
+
+Gilbert carved the geese beautifully.  Even Mrs. Rachel had to admit
+that.  And everybody ate of them and enjoyed them.  Anne’s first
+Christmas dinner was a great success and she beamed with housewifely
+pride.  Merry was the feast and long; and when it was over they
+gathered around the cheer of the red hearth flame and Captain Jim told
+them stories until the red sun swung low over Four Winds Harbor, and
+the long blue shadows of the Lombardies fell across the snow in the
+lane.
+
+“I must be getting back to the light,” he said finally.  “I’ll jest
+have time to walk home before sundown.  Thank you for a beautiful
+Christmas, Mistress Blythe.  Bring Master Davy down to the light some
+night before he goes home.
+
+“I want to see those stone gods,” said Davy with a relish.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 16
+
+NEW YEAR’S EVE AT THE LIGHT
+
+The Green Gables folk went home after Christmas, Marilla under solemn
+covenant to return for a month in the spring.  More snow came before
+New Year’s, and the harbor froze over, but the gulf still was free,
+beyond the white, imprisoned fields.  The last day of the old year was
+one of those bright, cold, dazzling winter days, which bombard us with
+their brilliancy, and command our admiration but never our love.  The
+sky was sharp and blue; the snow diamonds sparkled insistently; the
+stark trees were bare and shameless, with a kind of brazen beauty; the
+hills shot assaulting lances of crystal.  Even the shadows were sharp
+and stiff and clear-cut, as no proper shadows should be.  Everything
+that was handsome seemed ten times handsomer and less attractive in the
+glaring splendor; and everything that was ugly seemed ten times uglier,
+and everything was either handsome or ugly.  There was no soft
+blending, or kind obscurity, or elusive mistiness in that searching
+glitter.  The only things that held their own individuality were the
+firs--for the fir is the tree of mystery and shadow, and yields never
+to the encroachments of crude radiance.
+
+But finally the day began to realise that she was growing old.  Then a
+certain pensiveness fell over her beauty which dimmed yet intensified
+it; sharp angles, glittering points, melted away into curves and
+enticing gleams.  The white harbor put on soft grays and pinks; the
+far-away hills turned amethyst.
+
+“The old year is going away beautifully,” said Anne.
+
+She and Leslie and Gilbert were on their way to the Four Winds Point,
+having plotted with Captain Jim to watch the New Year in at the light.
+The sun had set and in the southwestern sky hung Venus, glorious and
+golden, having drawn as near to her earth-sister as is possible for
+her.  For the first time Anne and Gilbert saw the shadow cast by that
+brilliant star of evening, that faint, mysterious shadow, never seen
+save when there is white snow to reveal it, and then only with averted
+vision, vanishing when you gaze at it directly.
+
+“It’s like the spirit of a shadow, isn’t it?” whispered Anne.  “You can
+see it so plainly haunting your side when you look ahead; but when you
+turn and look at it--it’s gone.”
+
+“I have heard that you can see the shadow of Venus only once in a
+lifetime, and that within a year of seeing it your life’s most
+wonderful gift will come to you,” said Leslie.  But she spoke rather
+hardly; perhaps she thought that even the shadow of Venus could bring
+her no gift of life.  Anne smiled in the soft twilight; she felt quite
+sure what the mystic shadow promised her.
+
+They found Marshall Elliott at the lighthouse.  At first Anne felt
+inclined to resent the intrusion of this long-haired, long-bearded
+eccentric into the familiar little circle.  But Marshall Elliott soon
+proved his legitimate claim to membership in the household of Joseph.
+He was a witty, intelligent, well-read man, rivalling Captain Jim
+himself in the knack of telling a good story.  They were all glad when
+he agreed to watch the old year out with them.
+
+Captain Jim’s small nephew Joe had come down to spend New Year’s with
+his great-uncle, and had fallen asleep on the sofa with the First Mate
+curled up in a huge golden ball at his feet.
+
+“Ain’t he a dear little man?” said Captain Jim gloatingly.  “I do love
+to watch a little child asleep, Mistress Blythe.  It’s the most
+beautiful sight in the world, I reckon.  Joe does love to get down here
+for a night, because I have him sleep with me.  At home he has to sleep
+with the other two boys, and he doesn’t like it.  Why can’t I sleep
+with father, Uncle Jim?” says he.  ‘Everybody in the Bible slept with
+their fathers.’  As for the questions he asks, the minister himself
+couldn’t answer them.  They fair swamp me.  ‘Uncle Jim, if I wasn’t ME
+who’d I be?’ and, ‘Uncle Jim, what would happen if God died?’  He fired
+them two off at me tonight, afore he went to sleep.  As for his
+imagination, it sails away from everything.  He makes up the most
+remarkable yarns--and then his mother shuts him up in the closet for
+telling stories.  And he sits down and makes up another one, and has it
+ready to relate to her when she lets him out.  He had one for me when
+he come down tonight.  ‘Uncle Jim,’ says he, solemn as a tombstone, ‘I
+had a ’venture in the Glen today.’  ‘Yes, what was it?’ says I,
+expecting something quite startling, but nowise prepared for what I
+really got.  ‘I met a wolf in the street,’ says he, ‘a ’normous wolf
+with a big, red mouf and AWFUL long teeth, Uncle Jim.’  ‘I didn’t know
+there was any wolves up at the Glen,’ says I.  ‘Oh, he comed there from
+far, far away,’ says Joe, ‘and I fought he was going to eat me up,
+Uncle Jim.’  ‘Were you scared?’ says I.  ‘No, ’cause I had a big gun,’
+says Joe, ‘and I shot the wolf dead, Uncle Jim,--solid dead--and then
+he went up to heaven and bit God,’ says he.  Well, I was fair
+staggered, Mistress Blythe.”
+
+The hours bloomed into mirth around the driftwood fire.  Captain Jim
+told tales, and Marshall Elliott sang old Scotch ballads in a fine
+tenor voice; finally Captain Jim took down his old brown fiddle from
+the wall and began to play.  He had a tolerable knack of fiddling,
+which all appreciated save the First Mate, who sprang from the sofa as
+if he had been shot, emitted a shriek of protest, and fled wildly up
+the stairs.
+
+“Can’t cultivate an ear for music in that cat nohow,” said Captain Jim.
+“He won’t stay long enough to learn to like it.  When we got the organ
+up at the Glen church old Elder Richards bounced up from his seat the
+minute the organist began to play and scuttled down the aisle and out
+of the church at the rate of no-man’s-business.  It reminded me so
+strong of the First Mate tearing loose as soon as I begin to fiddle
+that I come nearer to laughing out loud in church than I ever did
+before or since.”
+
+There was something so infectious in the rollicking tunes which Captain
+Jim played that very soon Marshall Elliott’s feet began to twitch.  He
+had been a noted dancer in his youth.  Presently he started up and held
+out his hands to Leslie.  Instantly she responded.  Round and round the
+firelit room they circled with a rhythmic grace that was wonderful.
+Leslie danced like one inspired; the wild, sweet abandon of the music
+seemed to have entered into and possessed her.  Anne watched her in
+fascinated admiration.  She had never seen her like this.  All the
+innate richness and color and charm of her nature seemed to have broken
+loose and overflowed in crimson cheek and glowing eye and grace of
+motion.  Even the aspect of Marshall Elliott, with his long beard and
+hair, could not spoil the picture.  On the contrary, it seemed to
+enhance it.  Marshall Elliott looked like a Viking of elder days,
+dancing with one of the blue-eyed, golden-haired daughters of the
+Northland.
+
+“The purtiest dancing I ever saw, and I’ve seen some in my time,”
+declared Captain Jim, when at last the bow fell from his tired hand.
+Leslie dropped into her chair, laughing, breathless.
+
+“I love dancing,” she said apart to Anne.  “I haven’t danced since I
+was sixteen--but I love it.  The music seems to run through my veins
+like quicksilver and I forget everything--everything--except the
+delight of keeping time to it.  There isn’t any floor beneath me, or
+walls about me, or roof over me--I’m floating amid the stars.”
+
+Captain Jim hung his fiddle up in its place, beside a large frame
+enclosing several banknotes.
+
+“Is there anybody else of your acquaintance who can afford to hang his
+walls with banknotes for pictures?” he asked.  “There’s twenty
+ten-dollar notes there, not worth the glass over them.  They’re old
+Bank of P. E.  Island notes.  Had them by me when the bank failed, and
+I had ’em framed and hung up, partly as a reminder not to put your
+trust in banks, and partly to give me a real luxurious, millionairy
+feeling.  Hullo, Matey, don’t be scared.  You can come back now.  The
+music and revelry is over for tonight.  The old year has just another
+hour to stay with us.  I’ve seen seventy-six New Years come in over
+that gulf yonder, Mistress Blythe.”
+
+“You’ll see a hundred,” said Marshall Elliott.
+
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+
+“No; and I don’t want to--at least, I think I don’t.  Death grows
+friendlier as we grow older.  Not that one of us really wants to die
+though, Marshall.  Tennyson spoke truth when he said that.  There’s old
+Mrs. Wallace up at the Glen.  She’s had heaps of trouble all her life,
+poor soul, and she’s lost almost everyone she cared about.  She’s
+always saying that she’ll be glad when her time comes, and she doesn’t
+want to sojourn any longer in this vale of tears.  But when she takes a
+sick spell there’s a fuss!  Doctors from town, and a trained nurse, and
+enough medicine to kill a dog.  Life may be a vale of tears, all right,
+but there are some folks who enjoy weeping, I reckon.”
+
+They spent the old year’s last hour quietly around the fire.  A few
+minutes before twelve Captain Jim rose and opened the door.
+
+“We must let the New Year in,” he said.
+
+Outside was a fine blue night.  A sparkling ribbon of moonlight
+garlanded the gulf.  Inside the bar the harbor shone like a pavement of
+pearl.  They stood before the door and waited--Captain Jim with his
+ripe, full experience, Marshall Elliott in his vigorous but empty
+middle life, Gilbert and Anne with their precious memories and
+exquisite hopes, Leslie with her record of starved years and her
+hopeless future.  The clock on the little shelf above the fireplace
+struck twelve.
+
+“Welcome, New Year,” said Captain Jim, bowing low as the last stroke
+died away.  “I wish you all the best year of your lives, mates.  I
+reckon that whatever the New Year brings us will be the best the Great
+Captain has for us--and somehow or other we’ll all make port in a good
+harbor.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 17
+
+A FOUR WINDS WINTER
+
+Winter set in vigorously after New Year’s.  Big, white drifts heaped
+themselves about the little house, and palms of frost covered its
+windows.  The harbor ice grew harder and thicker, until the Four Winds
+people began their usual winter travelling over it.  The safe ways were
+“bushed” by a benevolent Government, and night and day the gay tinkle
+of the sleigh-bells sounded on it.  On moonlit nights Anne heard them
+in her house of dreams like fairy chimes.  The gulf froze over, and the
+Four Winds light flashed no more.  During the months when navigation
+was closed Captain Jim’s office was a sinecure.
+
+“The First Mate and I will have nothing to do till spring except keep
+warm and amuse ourselves.  The last lighthouse keeper used always to
+move up to the Glen in winter; but I’d rather stay at the Point.  The
+First Mate might get poisoned or chewed up by dogs at the Glen.  It’s a
+mite lonely, to be sure, with neither the light nor the water for
+company, but if our friends come to see us often we’ll weather it
+through.”
+
+Captain Jim had an ice boat, and many a wild, glorious spin Gilbert and
+Anne and Leslie had over the glib harbor ice with him.  Anne and Leslie
+took long snowshoe tramps together, too, over the fields, or across the
+harbor after storms, or through the woods beyond the Glen.  They were
+very good comrades in their rambles and their fireside communings.
+Each had something to give the other--each felt life the richer for
+friendly exchange of thought and friendly silence; each looked across
+the white fields between their homes with a pleasant consciousness of a
+friend beyond.  But, in spite of all this, Anne felt that there was
+always a barrier between Leslie and herself--a constraint that never
+wholly vanished.
+
+“I don’t know why I can’t get closer to her,” Anne said one evening to
+Captain Jim.  “I like her so much--I admire her so much--I WANT to take
+her right into my heart and creep right into hers.  But I can never
+cross the barrier.”
+
+“You’ve been too happy all your life, Mistress Blythe,” said Captain
+Jim thoughtfully.  “I reckon that’s why you and Leslie can’t get real
+close together in your souls.  The barrier between you is her
+experience of sorrow and trouble.  She ain’t responsible for it and you
+ain’t; but it’s there and neither of you can cross it.”
+
+“My childhood wasn’t very happy before I came to Green Gables,” said
+Anne, gazing soberly out of the window at the still, sad, dead beauty
+of the leafless tree-shadows on the moonlit snow.
+
+“Mebbe not--but it was just the usual unhappiness of a child who hasn’t
+anyone to look after it properly.  There hasn’t been any TRAGEDY in
+your life, Mistress Blythe.  And poor Leslie’s has been almost ALL
+tragedy.  She feels, I reckon, though mebbe she hardly knows she feels
+it, that there’s a vast deal in her life you can’t enter nor
+understand--and so she has to keep you back from it--hold you off, so
+to speak, from hurting her.  You know if we’ve got anything about us
+that hurts we shrink from anyone’s touch on or near it.  It holds good
+with our souls as well as our bodies, I reckon.  Leslie’s soul must be
+near raw--it’s no wonder she hides it away.”
+
+“If that were really all, I wouldn’t mind, Captain Jim.  I would
+understand.  But there are times--not always, but now and again--when I
+almost have to believe that Leslie doesn’t--doesn’t like me.  Sometimes
+I surprise a look in her eyes that seems to show resentment and
+dislike--it goes so quickly--but I’ve seen it, I’m sure of that.  And
+it hurts me, Captain Jim.  I’m not used to being disliked--and I’ve
+tried so hard to win Leslie’s friendship.”
+
+“You have won it, Mistress Blythe.  Don’t you go cherishing any foolish
+notion that Leslie don’t like you.  If she didn’t she wouldn’t have
+anything to do with you, much less chumming with you as she does.  I
+know Leslie Moore too well not to be sure of that.”
+
+“The first time I ever saw her, driving her geese down the hill on the
+day I came to Four Winds, she looked at me with the same expression,”
+persisted Anne.  “I felt it, even in the midst of my admiration of her
+beauty.  She looked at me resentfully--she did, indeed, Captain Jim.”
+
+“The resentment must have been about something else, Mistress Blythe,
+and you jest come in for a share of it because you happened past.
+Leslie DOES take sullen spells now and again, poor girl.  I can’t blame
+her, when I know what she has to put up with.  I don’t know why it’s
+permitted.  The doctor and I have talked a lot abut the origin of evil,
+but we haven’t quite found out all about it yet.  There’s a vast of
+onunderstandable things in life, ain’t there, Mistress Blythe?
+Sometimes things seem to work out real proper-like, same as with you
+and the doctor.  And then again they all seem to go catawampus.
+There’s Leslie, so clever and beautiful you’d think she was meant for a
+queen, and instead she’s cooped up over there, robbed of almost
+everything a woman’d value, with no prospect except waiting on Dick
+Moore all her life.  Though, mind you, Mistress Blythe, I daresay she’d
+choose her life now, such as it is, rather than the life she lived with
+Dick before he went away.  THAT’S something a clumsy old sailor’s
+tongue mustn’t meddle with.  But you’ve helped Leslie a lot--she’s a
+different creature since you come to Four Winds.  Us old friends see
+the difference in her, as you can’t.  Miss Cornelia and me was talking
+it over the other day, and it’s one of the mighty few p’ints that we
+see eye to eye on.  So jest you throw overboard any idea of her not
+liking you.”
+
+Anne could hardly discard it completely, for there were undoubtedly
+times when she felt, with an instinct that was not to be combated by
+reason, that Leslie harbored a queer, indefinable resentment towards
+her.  At times, this secret consciousness marred the delight of their
+comradeship; at others it was almost forgotten; but Anne always felt
+the hidden thorn was there, and might prick her at any moment.  She
+felt a cruel sting from it on the day when she told Leslie of what she
+hoped the spring would bring to the little house of dreams.  Leslie
+looked at her with hard, bitter, unfriendly eyes.
+
+“So you are to have THAT, too,” she said in a choked voice.  And
+without another word she had turned and gone across the fields
+homeward.  Anne was deeply hurt; for the moment she felt as if she
+could never like Leslie again.  But when Leslie came over a few
+evenings later she was so pleasant, so friendly, so frank, and witty,
+and winsome, that Anne was charmed into forgiveness and forgetfulness.
+Only, she never mentioned her darling hope to Leslie again; nor did
+Leslie ever refer to it.  But one evening, when late winter was
+listening for the word of spring, she came over to the little house for
+a twilight chat; and when she went away she left a small, white box on
+the table.  Anne found it after she was gone and opened it wonderingly.
+In it was a tiny white dress of exquisite workmanship--delicate
+embroidery, wonderful tucking, sheer loveliness.  Every stitch in it
+was handwork; and the little frills of lace at neck and sleeves were of
+real Valenciennes.  Lying on it was a card--“with Leslie’s love.”
+
+“What hours of work she must have put on it,” said Anne.  “And the
+material must have cost more than she could really afford.  It is very
+sweet of her.”
+
+But Leslie was brusque and curt when Anne thanked her, and again the
+latter felt thrown back upon herself.
+
+Leslie’s gift was not alone in the little house.  Miss Cornelia had,
+for the time being, given up sewing for unwanted, unwelcome eighth
+babies, and fallen to sewing for a very much wanted first one, whose
+welcome would leave nothing to be desired.  Philippa Blake and Diana
+Wright each sent a marvellous garment; and Mrs. Rachel Lynde sent
+several, in which good material and honest stitches took the place of
+embroidery and frills.  Anne herself made many, desecrated by no touch
+of machinery, spending over them the happiest hours of the happy winter.
+
+Captain Jim was the most frequent guest of the little house, and none
+was more welcome.  Every day Anne loved the simple-souled, true-hearted
+old sailor more and more.  He was as refreshing as a sea breeze, as
+interesting as some ancient chronicle.  She was never tired of
+listening to his stories, and his quaint remarks and comments were a
+continual delight to her.  Captain Jim was one of those rare and
+interesting people who “never speak but they say something.”  The milk
+of human kindness and the wisdom of the serpent were mingled in his
+composition in delightful proportions.
+
+Nothing ever seemed to put Captain Jim out or depress him in any way.
+
+“I’ve kind of contracted a habit of enj’ying things,” he remarked once,
+when Anne had commented on his invariable cheerfulness.  “It’s got so
+chronic that I believe I even enj’y the disagreeable things.  It’s
+great fun thinking they can’t last.  ‘Old rheumatiz,’ says I, when it
+grips me hard, ‘you’ve GOT to stop aching sometime.  The worse you are
+the sooner you’ll stop, mebbe.  I’m bound to get the better of you in
+the long run, whether in the body or out of the body.’”
+
+One night, by the fireside at the light Anne saw Captain Jim’s
+“life-book.”  He needed no coaxing to show it and proudly gave it to
+her to read.
+
+“I writ it to leave to little Joe,” he said.  “I don’t like the idea of
+everything I’ve done and seen being clean forgot after I’ve shipped for
+my last v’yage.  Joe, he’ll remember it, and tell the yarns to his
+children.”
+
+It was an old leather-bound book filled with the record of his voyages
+and adventures.  Anne thought what a treasure trove it would be to a
+writer.  Every sentence was a nugget.  In itself the book had no
+literary merit; Captain Jim’s charm of storytelling failed him when he
+came to pen and ink; he could only jot roughly down the outline of his
+famous tales, and both spelling and grammar were sadly askew.  But Anne
+felt that if anyone possessed of the gift could take that simple record
+of a brave, adventurous life, reading between the bald lines the tales
+of dangers staunchly faced and duty manfully done, a wonderful story
+might be made from it.  Rich comedy and thrilling tragedy were both
+lying hidden in Captain Jim’s “life-book,” waiting for the touch of the
+master hand to waken the laughter and grief and horror of thousands.
+
+Anne said something of this to Gilbert as they walked home.
+
+“Why don’t you try your hand at it yourself, Anne?”
+
+Anne shook her head.
+
+“No.  I only wish I could.  But it’s not in the power of my gift.  You
+know what my forte is, Gilbert--the fanciful, the fairylike, the
+pretty.  To write Captain Jim’s life-book as it should be written one
+should be a master of vigorous yet subtle style, a keen psychologist, a
+born humorist and a born tragedian.  A rare combination of gifts is
+needed.  Paul might do it if he were older.  Anyhow, I’m going to ask
+him to come down next summer and meet Captain Jim.”
+
+“Come to this shore,” wrote Anne to Paul.  “I am afraid you cannot find
+here Nora or the Golden Lady or the Twin Sailors; but you will find one
+old sailor who can tell you wonderful stories.”
+
+Paul, however wrote back, saying regretfully that he could not come
+that year.  He was going abroad for two years’ study.
+
+“When I return I’ll come to Four Winds, dear Teacher,” he wrote.
+
+“But meanwhile, Captain Jim is growing old,” said Anne, sorrowfully,
+“and there is nobody to write his life-book.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 18
+
+SPRING DAYS
+
+The ice in the harbor grew black and rotten in the March suns; in April
+there were blue waters and a windy, white-capped gulf again; and again
+the Four Winds light begemmed the twilights.
+
+“I’m so glad to see it once more,” said Anne, on the first evening of
+its reappearance.  “I’ve missed it so all winter.  The northwestern sky
+has seemed blank and lonely without it.”
+
+The land was tender with brand-new, golden-green, baby leaves.  There
+was an emerald mist on the woods beyond the Glen.  The seaward valleys
+were full of fairy mists at dawn.
+
+Vibrant winds came and went with salt foam in their breath.  The sea
+laughed and flashed and preened and allured, like a beautiful,
+coquettish woman.  The herring schooled and the fishing village woke to
+life.  The harbor was alive with white sails making for the channel.
+The ships began to sail outward and inward again.
+
+“On a spring day like this,” said Anne, “I know exactly what my soul
+will feel like on the resurrection morning.”
+
+“There are times in spring when I sorter feel that I might have been a
+poet if I’d been caught young,” remarked Captain Jim.  “I catch myself
+conning over old lines and verses I heard the schoolmaster reciting
+sixty years ago.  They don’t trouble me at other times.  Now I feel as
+if I had to get out on the rocks or the fields or the water and spout
+them.”
+
+Captain Jim had come up that afternoon to bring Anne a load of shells
+for her garden, and a little bunch of sweet-grass which he had found in
+a ramble over the sand dunes.
+
+“It’s getting real scarce along this shore now,” he said.  “When I was
+a boy there was a-plenty of it.  But now it’s only once in a while
+you’ll find a plot--and never when you’re looking for it.  You jest
+have to stumble on it--you’re walking along on the sand hills, never
+thinking of sweet-grass--and all at once the air is full of
+sweetness--and there’s the grass under your feet.  I favor the smell of
+sweet-grass.  It always makes me think of my mother.”
+
+“She was fond of it?” asked Anne.
+
+“Not that I knows on.  Dunno’s she ever saw any sweet-grass.  No, it’s
+because it has a kind of motherly perfume--not too young, you
+understand--something kind of seasoned and wholesome and
+dependable--jest like a mother.  The schoolmaster’s bride always kept
+it among her handkerchiefs.  You might put that little bunch among
+yours, Mistress Blythe.  I don’t like these boughten scents--but a
+whiff of sweet-grass belongs anywhere a lady does.”
+
+Anne had not been especially enthusiastic over the idea of surrounding
+her flower beds with quahog shells; as a decoration they did not appeal
+to her on first thought.  But she would not have hurt Captain Jim’s
+feelings for anything; so she assumed a virtue she did not at first
+feel, and thanked him heartily.  And when Captain Jim had proudly
+encircled every bed with a rim of the big, milk-white shells, Anne
+found to her surprise that she liked the effect.  On a town lawn, or
+even up at the Glen, they would not have been in keeping, but here, in
+the old-fashioned, sea-bound garden of the little house of dreams, they
+BELONGED.
+
+“They DO look nice,” she said sincerely.
+
+“The schoolmaster’s bride always had cowhawks round her beds,” said
+Captain Jim.  “She was a master hand with flowers.  She LOOKED at
+’em--and touched ’em--SO--and they grew like mad.  Some folks have that
+knack--I reckon you have it, too, Mistress Blythe.”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know--but I love my garden, and I love working in it.  To
+potter with green, growing things, watching each day to see the dear,
+new sprouts come up, is like taking a hand in creation, I think.  Just
+now my garden is like faith--the substance of things hoped for.  But
+bide a wee.”
+
+“It always amazes me to look at the little, wrinkled brown seeds and
+think of the rainbows in ’em,” said Captain Jim.  “When I ponder on
+them seeds I don’t find it nowise hard to believe that we’ve got souls
+that’ll live in other worlds.  You couldn’t hardly believe there was
+life in them tiny things, some no bigger than grains of dust, let alone
+color and scent, if you hadn’t seen the miracle, could you?”
+
+Anne, who was counting her days like silver beads on a rosary, could
+not now take the long walk to the lighthouse or up the Glen road.  But
+Miss Cornelia and Captain Jim came very often to the little house.
+Miss Cornelia was the joy of Anne’s and Gilbert’s existence.  They
+laughed side-splittingly over her speeches after every visit.  When
+Captain Jim and she happened to visit the little house at the same time
+there was much sport for the listening.  They waged wordy warfare, she
+attacking, he defending.  Anne once reproached the Captain for his
+baiting of Miss Cornelia.
+
+“Oh, I do love to set her going, Mistress Blythe,” chuckled the
+unrepentant sinner.  “It’s the greatest amusement I have in life.  That
+tongue of hers would blister a stone.  And you and that young dog of a
+doctor enj’y listening to her as much as I do.”
+
+Captain Jim came along another evening to bring Anne some mayflowers.
+The garden was full of the moist, scented air of a maritime spring
+evening.  There was a milk-white mist on the edge of the sea, with a
+young moon kissing it, and a silver gladness of stars over the Glen.
+The bell of the church across the harbor was ringing dreamily sweet.
+The mellow chime drifted through the dusk to mingle with the soft
+spring-moan of the sea.  Captain Jim’s mayflowers added the last
+completing touch to the charm of the night.
+
+“I haven’t seen any this spring, and I’ve missed them,” said Anne,
+burying her face in them.
+
+“They ain’t to be found around Four Winds, only in the barrens away
+behind the Glen up yander.  I took a little trip today to the
+Land-of-nothing-to-do, and hunted these up for you.  I reckon they’re
+the last you’ll see this spring, for they’re nearly done.”
+
+“How kind and thoughtful you are, Captain Jim.  Nobody else--not even
+Gilbert”--with a shake of her head at him--“remembered that I always
+long for mayflowers in spring.”
+
+“Well, I had another errand, too--I wanted to take Mr. Howard back
+yander a mess of trout.  He likes one occasional, and it’s all I can do
+for a kindness he did me once.  I stayed all the afternoon and talked
+to him.  He likes to talk to me, though he’s a highly eddicated man and
+I’m only an ignorant old sailor, because he’s one of the folks that’s
+GOT to talk or they’re miserable, and he finds listeners scarce around
+here.  The Glen folks fight shy of him because they think he’s an
+infidel.  He ain’t that far gone exactly--few men is, I reckon--but
+he’s what you might call a heretic.  Heretics are wicked, but they’re
+mighty int’resting.  It’s jest that they’ve got sorter lost looking for
+God, being under the impression that He’s hard to find--which He ain’t
+never.  Most of ’em blunder to Him after awhile, I guess.  I don’t
+think listening to Mr. Howard’s arguments is likely to do me much harm.
+Mind you, I believe what I was brought up to believe.  It saves a vast
+of bother--and back of it all, God is good.  The trouble with Mr.
+Howard is that he’s a leetle TOO clever.  He thinks that he’s bound to
+live up to his cleverness, and that it’s smarter to thrash out some new
+way of getting to heaven than to go by the old track the common,
+ignorant folks is travelling.  But he’ll get there sometime all right,
+and then he’ll laugh at himself.”
+
+“Mr. Howard was a Methodist to begin with,” said Miss Cornelia, as if
+she thought he had not far to go from that to heresy.
+
+“Do you know, Cornelia,” said Captain Jim gravely, “I’ve often thought
+that if I wasn’t a Presbyterian I’d be a Methodist.”
+
+“Oh, well,” conceded Miss Cornelia, “if you weren’t a Presbyterian it
+wouldn’t matter much what you were.  Speaking of heresy, reminds me,
+doctor--I’ve brought back that book you lent me--that Natural Law in
+the Spiritual World--I didn’t read more’n a third of it.  I can read
+sense, and I can read nonsense, but that book is neither the one nor
+the other.”
+
+“It IS considered rather heretical in some quarters,” admitted Gilbert,
+“but I told you that before you took it, Miss Cornelia.”
+
+“Oh, I wouldn’t have minded its being heretical.  I can stand
+wickedness, but I can’t stand foolishness,” said Miss Cornelia calmly,
+and with the air of having said the last thing there was to say about
+Natural Law.
+
+“Speaking of books, A Mad Love come to an end at last two weeks ago,”
+remarked Captain Jim musingly.  “It run to one hundred and three
+chapters.  When they got married the book stopped right off, so I
+reckon their troubles were all over.  It’s real nice that that’s the
+way in books anyhow, isn’t it, even if ’tistn’t so anywhere else?”
+
+“I never read novels,” said Miss Cornelia.  “Did you hear how Geordie
+Russell was today, Captain Jim?”
+
+“Yes, I called in on my way home to see him.  He’s getting round all
+right--but stewing in a broth of trouble, as usual, poor man.
+
+“’Course he brews up most of it for himself, but I reckon that don’t
+make it any easier to bear.”
+
+“He’s an awful pessimist,” said Miss Cornelia.
+
+“Well, no, he ain’t a pessimist exactly, Cornelia.  He only jest never
+finds anything that suits him.”
+
+“And isn’t that a pessimist?”
+
+“No, no.  A pessimist is one who never expects to find anything to suit
+him.  Geordie hain’t got THAT far yet.”
+
+“You’d find something good to say of the devil himself, Jim Boyd.”
+
+“Well, you’ve heard the story of the old lady who said he was
+persevering.  But no, Cornelia, I’ve nothing good to say of the devil.”
+
+“Do you believe in him at all?” asked Miss Cornelia seriously.
+
+“How can you ask that when you know what a good Presbyterian I am,
+Cornelia?  How could a Presbyterian get along without a devil?”
+
+“DO you?” persisted Miss Cornelia.
+
+Captain Jim suddenly became grave.
+
+“I believe in what I heard a minister once call ‘a mighty and malignant
+and INTELLIGENT power of evil working in the universe,’” he said
+solemnly.  “I do THAT, Cornelia.  You can call it the devil, or the
+‘principle of evil,’ or the Old Scratch, or any name you like.  It’s
+THERE, and all the infidels and heretics in the world can’t argue it
+away, any more’n they can argue God away.  It’s there, and it’s
+working.  But, mind you, Cornelia, I believe it’s going to get the
+worst of it in the long run.”
+
+“I am sure I hope so,” said Miss Cornelia, none too hopefully. “But
+speaking of the devil, I am positive that Billy Booth is possessed by
+him now.  Have you heard of Billy’s latest performance?”
+
+“No, what was that?”
+
+“He’s gone and burned up his wife’s new, brown broadcloth suit, that
+she paid twenty-five dollars for in Charlottetown, because he declares
+the men looked too admiring at her when she wore it to church the first
+time.  Wasn’t that like a man?”
+
+“Mistress Booth IS mighty pretty, and brown’s her color,” said Captain
+Jim reflectively.
+
+“Is that any good reason why he should poke her new suit into the
+kitchen stove?  Billy Booth is a jealous fool, and he makes his wife’s
+life miserable.  She’s cried all the week about her suit.  Oh, Anne, I
+wish I could write like you, believe ME.  Wouldn’t I score some of the
+men round here!”
+
+“Those Booths are all a mite queer,” said Captain Jim.  “Billy seemed
+the sanest of the lot till he got married and then this queer jealous
+streak cropped out in him.  His brother Daniel, now, was always odd.”
+
+“Took tantrums every few days or so and wouldn’t get out of bed,” said
+Miss Cornelia with a relish.  “His wife would have to do all the barn
+work till he got over his spell.  When he died people wrote her letters
+of condolence; if I’d written anything it would have been one of
+congratulation.  Their father, old Abram Booth, was a disgusting old
+sot.  He was drunk at his wife’s funeral, and kept reeling round and
+hiccuping ‘I didn’t dri--i--i--nk much but I feel a--a--awfully
+que--e--e--r.’  I gave him a good jab in the back with my umbrella when
+he came near me, and it sobered him up until they got the casket out of
+the house.  Young Johnny Booth was to have been married yesterday, but
+he couldn’t be because he’s gone and got the mumps.  Wasn’t that like a
+man?”
+
+“How could he help getting the mumps, poor fellow?”
+
+“I’d poor fellow him, believe ME, if I was Kate Sterns.  I don’t know
+how he could help getting the mumps, but I DO know the wedding supper
+was all prepared and everything will be spoiled before he’s well again.
+Such a waste!  He should have had the mumps when he was a boy.”
+
+“Come, come, Cornelia, don’t you think you’re a mite unreasonable?”
+
+Miss Cornelia disdained to reply and turned instead to Susan Baker, a
+grim-faced, kind-hearted elderly spinster of the Glen, who had been
+installed as maid-of-all-work at the little house for some weeks.
+Susan had been up to the Glen to make a sick call, and had just
+returned.
+
+“How is poor old Aunt Mandy tonight?” asked Miss Cornelia.
+
+Susan sighed.
+
+“Very poorly--very poorly, Cornelia.  I am afraid she will soon be in
+heaven, poor thing!”
+
+“Oh, surely, it’s not so bad as that!” exclaimed Miss Cornelia,
+sympathetically.
+
+Captain Jim and Gilbert looked at each other.  Then they suddenly rose
+and went out.
+
+“There are times,” said Captain Jim, between spasms, “when it would be
+a sin NOT to laugh.  Them two excellent women!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 19
+
+DAWN AND DUSK
+
+In early June, when the sand hills were a great glory of pink wild
+roses, and the Glen was smothered in apple blossoms, Marilla arrived at
+the little house, accompanied by a black horsehair trunk, patterned
+with brass nails, which had reposed undisturbed in the Green Gables
+garret for half a century.  Susan Baker, who, during her few weeks’
+sojourn in the little house, had come to worship “young Mrs. Doctor,”
+as she called Anne, with blind fervor, looked rather jealously askance
+at Marilla at first.  But as Marilla did not try to interfere in
+kitchen matters, and showed no desire to interrupt Susan’s
+ministrations to young Mrs. Doctor, the good handmaiden became
+reconciled to her presence, and told her cronies at the Glen that Miss
+Cuthbert was a fine old lady and knew her place.
+
+One evening, when the sky’s limpid bowl was filled with a red glory,
+and the robins were thrilling the golden twilight with jubilant hymns
+to the stars of evening, there was a sudden commotion in the little
+house of dreams.  Telephone messages were sent up to the Glen, Doctor
+Dave and a white-capped nurse came hastily down, Marilla paced the
+garden walks between the quahog shells, murmuring prayers between her
+set lips, and Susan sat in the kitchen with cotton wool in her ears and
+her apron over her head.
+
+Leslie, looking out from the house up the brook, saw that every window
+of the little house was alight, and did not sleep that night.
+
+The June night was short; but it seemed an eternity to those who waited
+and watched.
+
+“Oh, will it NEVER end?” said Marilla; then she saw how grave the nurse
+and Doctor Dave looked, and she dared ask no more questions.  Suppose
+Anne--but Marilla could not suppose it.
+
+“Do not tell me,” said Susan fiercely, answering the anguish in
+Marilla’s eyes, “that God could be so cruel as to take that darling
+lamb from us when we all love her so much.”
+
+“He has taken others as well beloved,” said Marilla hoarsely.
+
+But at dawn, when the rising sun rent apart the mists hanging over the
+sandbar, and made rainbows of them, joy came to the little house.  Anne
+was safe, and a wee, white lady, with her mother’s big eyes, was lying
+beside her.  Gilbert, his face gray and haggard from his night’s agony,
+came down to tell Marilla and Susan.
+
+“Thank God,” shuddered Marilla.
+
+Susan got up and took the cotton wool out of her ears.
+
+“Now for breakfast,” she said briskly.  “I am of the opinion that we
+will all be glad of a bite and sup.  You tell young Mrs. Doctor not to
+worry about a single thing--Susan is at the helm.  You tell her just to
+think of her baby.”
+
+Gilbert smiled rather sadly as he went away.  Anne, her pale face
+blanched with its baptism of pain, her eyes aglow with the holy passion
+of motherhood, did not need to be told to think of her baby.  She
+thought of nothing else.  For a few hours she tasted of happiness so
+rare and exquisite that she wondered if the angels in heaven did not
+envy her.
+
+“Little Joyce,” she murmured, when Marilla came in to see the baby.
+“We planned to call her that if she were a girlie.  There were so many
+we would have liked to name her for; we couldn’t choose between them,
+so we decided on Joyce--we can call her Joy for short--Joy--it suits so
+well.  Oh, Marilla, I thought I was happy before.  Now I know that I
+just dreamed a pleasant dream of happiness.  THIS is the reality.”
+
+“You mustn’t talk, Anne--wait till you’re stronger,” said Marilla
+warningly.
+
+“You know how hard it is for me NOT to talk,” smiled Anne.
+
+At first she was too weak and too happy to notice that Gilbert and the
+nurse looked grave and Marilla sorrowful.  Then, as subtly, and coldly,
+and remorselessly as a sea-fog stealing landward, fear crept into her
+heart.  Why was not Gilbert gladder?  Why would he not talk about the
+baby?  Why would they not let her have it with her after that first
+heavenly--happy hour?  Was--was there anything wrong?
+
+“Gilbert,” whispered Anne imploringly, “the baby--is all right--isn’t
+she?  Tell me--tell me.”
+
+Gilbert was a long while in turning round; then he bent over Anne and
+looked in her eyes.  Marilla, listening fearfully outside the door,
+heard a pitiful, heartbroken moan, and fled to the kitchen where Susan
+was weeping.
+
+“Oh, the poor lamb--the poor lamb!  How can she bear it, Miss Cuthbert?
+I am afraid it will kill her.  She has been that built up and happy,
+longing for that baby, and planning for it.  Cannot anything be done
+nohow, Miss Cuthbert?”
+
+“I’m afraid not, Susan.  Gilbert says there is no hope.  He knew from
+the first the little thing couldn’t live.”
+
+“And it is such a sweet baby,” sobbed Susan.  “I never saw one so
+white--they are mostly red or yallow.  And it opened its big eyes as if
+it was months old.  The little, little thing!  Oh, the poor, young Mrs.
+Doctor!”
+
+At sunset the little soul that had come with the dawning went away,
+leaving heartbreak behind it.  Miss Cornelia took the wee, white lady
+from the kindly but stranger hands of the nurse, and dressed the tiny
+waxen form in the beautiful dress Leslie had made for it.  Leslie had
+asked her to do that.  Then she took it back and laid it beside the
+poor, broken, tear-blinded little mother.
+
+“The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away, dearie,” she said
+through her own tears.  “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
+
+Then she went away, leaving Anne and Gilbert alone together with their
+dead.
+
+The next day, the small white Joy was laid in a velvet casket which
+Leslie had lined with apple-blossoms, and taken to the graveyard of the
+church across the harbor.  Miss Cornelia and Marilla put all the little
+love-made garments away, together with the ruffled basket which had
+been befrilled and belaced for dimpled limbs and downy head.  Little
+Joy was never to sleep there; she had found a colder, narrower bed.
+
+“This has been an awful disappointment to me,” sighed Miss Cornelia.
+“I’ve looked forward to this baby--and I did want it to be a girl, too.”
+
+“I can only be thankful that Anne’s life was spared,” said Marilla,
+with a shiver, recalling those hours of darkness when the girl she
+loved was passing through the valley of the shadow.
+
+“Poor, poor lamb!  Her heart is broken,” said Susan.
+
+“I ENVY Anne,” said Leslie suddenly and fiercely, “and I’d envy her
+even if she had died!  She was a mother for one beautiful day.  I’d
+gladly give my life for THAT!”
+
+“I wouldn’t talk like that, Leslie, dearie,” said Miss Cornelia
+deprecatingly.  She was afraid that the dignified Miss Cuthbert would
+think Leslie quite terrible.
+
+Anne’s convalescence was long, and made bitter for her by many things.
+The bloom and sunshine of the Four Winds world grated harshly on her;
+and yet, when the rain fell heavily, she pictured it beating so
+mercilessly down on that little grave across the harbor; and when the
+wind blew around the eaves she heard sad voices in it she had never
+heard before.
+
+Kindly callers hurt her, too, with the well-meant platitudes with which
+they strove to cover the nakedness of bereavement.  A letter from Phil
+Blake was an added sting.  Phil had heard of the baby’s birth, but not
+of its death, and she wrote Anne a congratulatory letter of sweet mirth
+which hurt her horribly.
+
+“I would have laughed over it so happily if I had my baby,” she sobbed
+to Marilla.  “But when I haven’t it just seems like wanton
+cruelty--though I know Phil wouldn’t hurt me for the world.  Oh,
+Marilla, I don’t see how I can EVER be happy again--EVERYTHING will
+hurt me all the rest of my life.”
+
+“Time will help you,” said Marilla, who was racked with sympathy but
+could never learn to express it in other than age-worn formulas.
+
+“It doesn’t seem FAIR,” said Anne rebelliously.  “Babies are born and
+live where they are not wanted--where they will be neglected--where
+they will have no chance.  I would have loved my baby so--and cared for
+it so tenderly--and tried to give her every chance for good.  And yet I
+wasn’t allowed to keep her.”
+
+“It was God’s will, Anne,” said Marilla, helpless before the riddle of
+the universe--the WHY of undeserved pain.  “And little Joy is better
+off.”
+
+“I can’t believe THAT,” cried Anne bitterly.  Then, seeing that Marilla
+looked shocked, she added passionately, “Why should she be born at
+all--why should any one be born at all--if she’s better off dead?  I
+DON’T believe it is better for a child to die at birth than to live its
+life out--and love and be loved--and enjoy and suffer--and do its
+work--and develop a character that would give it a personality in
+eternity.  And how do you know it was God’s will?  Perhaps it was just
+a thwarting of His purpose by the Power of Evil.  We can’t be expected
+to be resigned to THAT.”
+
+“Oh, Anne, don’t talk so,” said Marilla, genuinely alarmed lest Anne
+were drifting into deep and dangerous waters.  “We can’t
+understand--but we must have faith--we MUST believe that all is for the
+best.  I know you find it hard to think so, just now.  But try to be
+brave--for Gilbert’s sake.  He’s so worried about you.  You aren’t
+getting strong as fast as you should.”
+
+“Oh, I know I’ve been very selfish,” sighed Anne.  “I love Gilbert more
+than ever--and I want to live for his sake.  But it seems as if part of
+me was buried over there in that little harbor graveyard--and it hurts
+so much that I’m afraid of life.”
+
+“It won’t hurt so much always, Anne.”
+
+“The thought that it may stop hurting sometimes hurts me worse than all
+else, Marilla.”
+
+“Yes, I know, I’ve felt that too, about other things.  But we all love
+you, Anne.  Captain Jim has been up every day to ask for you--and Mrs.
+Moore haunts the place--and Miss Bryant spends most of her time, I
+think, cooking up nice things for you.  Susan doesn’t like it very
+well.  She thinks she can cook as well as Miss Bryant.”
+
+“Dear Susan!  Oh, everybody has been so dear and good and lovely to me,
+Marilla.  I’m not ungrateful--and perhaps--when this horrible ache
+grows a little less--I’ll find that I can go on living.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 20
+
+LOST MARGARET
+
+Anne found that she could go on living; the day came when she even
+smiled again over one of Miss Cornelia’s speeches.  But there was
+something in the smile that had never been in Anne’s smile before and
+would never be absent from it again.
+
+On the first day she was able to go for a drive Gilbert took her down
+to Four Winds Point, and left her there while he rowed over the channel
+to see a patient at the fishing village.  A rollicking wind was
+scudding across the harbor and the dunes, whipping the water into
+white-caps and washing the sandshore with long lines of silvery
+breakers.
+
+“I’m real proud to see you here again, Mistress Blythe,” said Captain
+Jim.  “Sit down--sit down.  I’m afeared it’s mighty dusty here
+today--but there’s no need of looking at dust when you can look at such
+scenery, is there?”
+
+“I don’t mind the dust,” said Anne, “but Gilbert says I must keep in
+the open air.  I think I’ll go and sit on the rocks down there.”
+
+“Would you like company or would you rather be alone?”
+
+“If by company you mean yours I’d much rather have it than be alone,”
+said Anne, smiling.  Then she sighed.  She had never before minded
+being alone.  Now she dreaded it.  When she was alone now she felt so
+dreadfully alone.
+
+“Here’s a nice little spot where the wind can’t get at you,” said
+Captain Jim, when they reached the rocks.  “I often sit here.  It’s a
+great place jest to sit and dream.”
+
+“Oh--dreams,” sighed Anne.  “I can’t dream now, Captain Jim--I’m done
+with dreams.”
+
+“Oh, no, you’re not, Mistress Blythe--oh, no, you’re not,” said Captain
+Jim meditatively.  “I know how you feel jest now--but if you keep on
+living you’ll get glad again, and the first thing you know you’ll be
+dreaming again--thank the good Lord for it!  If it wasn’t for our
+dreams they might as well bury us.  How’d we stand living if it wasn’t
+for our dream of immortality?  And that’s a dream that’s BOUND to come
+true, Mistress Blythe.  You’ll see your little Joyce again some day.”
+
+“But she won’t be my baby,” said Anne, with trembling lips.  “Oh, she
+may be, as Longfellow says, ‘a fair maiden clothed with celestial
+grace’--but she’ll be a stranger to me.”
+
+“God will manage better’n THAT, I believe,” said Captain Jim.
+
+They were both silent for a little time.  Then Captain Jim said very
+softly:
+
+“Mistress Blythe, may I tell you about lost Margaret?”
+
+“Of course,” said Anne gently.  She did not know who “lost Margaret”
+was, but she felt that she was going to hear the romance of Captain
+Jim’s life.
+
+“I’ve often wanted to tell you about her,” Captain Jim went on.
+
+“Do you know why, Mistress Blythe?  It’s because I want somebody to
+remember and think of her sometime after I’m gone.  I can’t bear that
+her name should be forgotten by all living souls.  And now nobody
+remembers lost Margaret but me.”
+
+Then Captain Jim told the story--an old, old forgotten story, for it
+was over fifty years since Margaret had fallen asleep one day in her
+father’s dory and drifted--or so it was supposed, for nothing was ever
+certainly known as to her fate--out of the channel, beyond the bar, to
+perish in the black thundersquall which had come up so suddenly that
+long-ago summer afternoon.  But to Captain Jim those fifty years were
+but as yesterday when it is past.
+
+“I walked the shore for months after that,” he said sadly, “looking to
+find her dear, sweet little body; but the sea never give her back to
+me.  But I’ll find her sometime, Mistress Blythe--I’ll find her
+sometime.  She’s waiting for me.  I wish I could tell you jest how she
+looked, but I can’t.  I’ve seen a fine, silvery mist hanging over the
+bar at sunrise that seemed like her--and then again I’ve seen a white
+birch in the woods back yander that made me think of her.  She had
+pale, brown hair and a little white, sweet face, and long slender
+fingers like yours, Mistress Blythe, only browner, for she was a shore
+girl.  Sometimes I wake up in the night and hear the sea calling to me
+in the old way, and it seems as if lost Margaret called in it.  And
+when there’s a storm and the waves are sobbing and moaning I hear her
+lamenting among them.  And when they laugh on a gay day it’s HER
+laugh--lost Margaret’s sweet, roguish, little laugh.  The sea took her
+from me, but some day I’ll find her.  Mistress Blythe.  It can’t keep
+us apart forever.”
+
+“I am glad you have told me about her,” said Anne.  “I have often
+wondered why you had lived all your life alone.”
+
+“I couldn’t ever care for anyone else.  Lost Margaret took my heart
+with her--out there,” said the old lover, who had been faithful for
+fifty years to his drowned sweetheart.  “You won’t mind if I talk a
+good deal about her, will you, Mistress Blythe?  It’s a pleasure to
+me--for all the pain went out of her memory years ago and jest left its
+blessing.  I know you’ll never forget her, Mistress Blythe.  And if the
+years, as I hope, bring other little folks to your home, I want you to
+promise me that you’ll tell THEM the story of lost Margaret, so that
+her name won’t be forgotten among humankind.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 21
+
+BARRIERS SWEPT AWAY
+
+ “Anne,” said Leslie, breaking abruptly a short
+silence, “you don’t know how GOOD it is to be sitting here with you
+again--working--and talking--and being silent together.”
+
+They were sitting among the blue-eyed grasses on the bank of the brook
+in Anne’s garden.  The water sparkled and crooned past them; the
+birches threw dappled shadows over them; roses bloomed along the walks.
+The sun was beginning to be low, and the air was full of woven music.
+There was one music of the wind in the firs behind the house, and
+another of the waves on the bar, and still another from the distant
+bell of the church near which the wee, white lady slept.  Anne loved
+that bell, though it brought sorrowful thoughts now.
+
+She looked curiously at Leslie, who had thrown down her sewing and
+spoken with a lack of restraint that was very unusual with her.
+
+“On that horrible night when you were so ill,” Leslie went on, “I kept
+thinking that perhaps we’d have no more talks and walks and WORKS
+together.  And I realised just what your friendship had come to mean to
+me--just what YOU meant--and just what a hateful little beast I had
+been.”
+
+“Leslie!  Leslie!  I never allow anyone to call my friends names.”
+
+“It’s true.  That’s exactly what I am--a hateful little beast. There’s
+something I’ve GOT to tell you, Anne.  I suppose it will make you
+despise me, but I MUST confess it.  Anne, there have been times this
+past winter and spring when I have HATED you.”
+
+“I KNEW it,” said Anne calmly.
+
+“You KNEW it?”
+
+“Yes, I saw it in your eyes.”
+
+“And yet you went on liking me and being my friend.”
+
+“Well, it was only now and then you hated me, Leslie.  Between times
+you loved me, I think.”
+
+“I certainly did.  But that other horrid feeling was always there,
+spoiling it, back in my heart.  I kept it down--sometimes I forgot
+it--but sometimes it would surge up and take possession of me.  I hated
+you because I ENVIED you--oh, I was sick with envy of you at times.
+You had a dear little home--and love--and happiness--and glad
+dreams--everything I wanted--and never had--and never could have.  Oh,
+never could have!  THAT was what stung.  I wouldn’t have envied you, if
+I had had any HOPE that life would ever be different for me.  But I
+hadn’t--I hadn’t--and it didn’t seem FAIR.  It made me rebellious--and
+it hurt me--and so I hated you at times.  Oh, I was so ashamed of
+it--I’m dying of shame now--but I couldn’t conquer it.
+
+“That night, when I was afraid you mightn’t live--I thought I was going
+to be punished for my wickedness--and I loved you so then.  Anne, Anne,
+I never had anything to love since my mother died, except Dick’s old
+dog--and it’s so dreadful to have nothing to love--life is so
+EMPTY--and there’s NOTHING worse than emptiness--and I might have loved
+you so much--and that horrible thing had spoiled it--”
+
+Leslie was trembling and growing almost incoherent with the violence of
+her emotion.
+
+“Don’t, Leslie,” implored Anne, “oh, don’t.  I understand--don’t talk
+of it any more.”
+
+“I must--I must.  When I knew you were going to live I vowed that I
+would tell you as soon as you were well--that I wouldn’t go on
+accepting your friendship and companionship without telling you how
+unworthy I was of it.  And I’ve been so afraid--it would turn you
+against me.”
+
+“You needn’t fear that, Leslie.”
+
+“Oh, I’m so glad--so glad, Anne.”  Leslie clasped her brown,
+work-hardened hands tightly together to still their shaking.  “But I
+want to tell you everything, now I’ve begun.  You don’t remember the
+first time I saw you, I suppose--it wasn’t that night on the shore--”
+
+“No, it was the night Gilbert and I came home.  You were driving your
+geese down the hill.  I should think I DO remember it!  I thought you
+were so beautiful--I longed for weeks after to find out who you were.”
+
+“I knew who YOU were, although I had never seen either of you before.
+I had heard of the new doctor and his bride who were coming to live in
+Miss Russell’s little house.  I--I hated you that very moment, Anne.”
+
+“I felt the resentment in your eyes--then I doubted--I thought I must
+be mistaken--because WHY should it be?”
+
+“It was because you looked so happy.  Oh, you’ll agree with me now that
+I AM a hateful beast--to hate another woman just because she was
+happy,--and when her happiness didn’t take anything from me!  That was
+why I never went to see you.  I knew quite well I ought to go--even our
+simple Four Winds customs demanded that.  But I couldn’t.  I used to
+watch you from my window--I could see you and your husband strolling
+about your garden in the evening--or you running down the poplar lane
+to meet him.  And it hurt me.  And yet in another way I wanted to go
+over.  I felt that, if I were not so miserable, I could have liked you
+and found in you what I’ve never had in my life--an intimate, REAL
+friend of my own age.  And then you remember that night at the shore?
+You were afraid I would think you crazy.  You must have thought _I_
+was.”
+
+“No, but I couldn’t understand you, Leslie.  One moment you drew me to
+you--the next you pushed me back.”
+
+“I was very unhappy that evening.  I had had a hard day.  Dick had been
+very--very hard to manage that day.  Generally he is quite good-natured
+and easily controlled, you know, Anne.  But some days he is very
+different.  I was so heartsick--I ran away to the shore as soon as he
+went to sleep.  It was my only refuge.  I sat there thinking of how my
+poor father had ended his life, and wondering if I wouldn’t be driven
+to it some day.  Oh, my heart was full of black thoughts!  And then you
+came dancing along the cove like a glad, light-hearted child.  I--I
+hated you more then than I’ve ever done since.  And yet I craved your
+friendship.  The one feeling swayed me one moment; the other feeling
+the next.  When I got home that night I cried for shame of what you
+must think of me.  But it’s always been just the same when I came over
+here.  Sometimes I’d be happy and enjoy my visit.  And at other times
+that hideous feeling would mar it all.  There were times when
+everything about you and your house hurt me.  You had so many dear
+little things I couldn’t have.  Do you know--it’s ridiculous--but I had
+an especial spite at those china dogs of yours.  There were times when
+I wanted to catch up Gog and Magog and bang their pert black noses
+together!  Oh, you smile, Anne--but it was never funny to me.  I would
+come here and see you and Gilbert with your books and your flowers, and
+your household gods, and your little family jokes--and your love for
+each other showing in every look and word, even when you didn’t know
+it--and I would go home to--you know what I went home to!  Oh, Anne, I
+don’t believe I’m jealous and envious by nature.  When I was a girl I
+lacked many things my schoolmates had, but I never cared--I never
+disliked them for it.  But I seem to have grown so hateful--”
+
+“Leslie, dearest, stop blaming yourself.  You are NOT hateful or
+jealous or envious.  The life you have to live has warped you a little,
+perhaps-but it would have ruined a nature less fine and noble than
+yours.  I’m letting you tell me all this because I believe it’s better
+for you to talk it out and rid your soul of it.  But don’t blame
+yourself any more.”
+
+“Well, I won’t.  I just wanted you to know me as I am.  That time you
+told me of your darling hope for the spring was the worst of all, Anne.
+I shall never forgive myself for the way I behaved then.  I repented it
+with tears.  And I DID put many a tender and loving thought of you into
+the little dress I made.  But I might have known that anything I made
+could only be a shroud in the end.”
+
+“Now, Leslie, that IS bitter and morbid--put such thoughts away.
+
+“I was so glad when you brought the little dress; and since I had to
+lose little Joyce I like to think that the dress she wore was the one
+you made for her when you let yourself love me.”
+
+“Anne, do you know, I believe I shall always love you after this.  I
+don’t think I’ll ever feel that dreadful way about you again.  Talking
+it all out seems to have done away with it, somehow.  It’s very
+strange--and I thought it so real and bitter.  It’s like opening the
+door of a dark room to show some hideous creature you’ve believed to be
+there--and when the light streams in your monster turns out to have
+been just a shadow, vanishing when the light comes.  It will never come
+between us again.”
+
+“No, we are real friends now, Leslie, and I am very glad.”
+
+“I hope you won’t misunderstand me if I say something else.  Anne, I
+was grieved to the core of my heart when you lost your baby; and if I
+could have saved her for you by cutting off one of my hands I would
+have done it.  But your sorrow has brought us closer together.  Your
+perfect happiness isn’t a barrier any longer.  Oh, don’t misunderstand,
+dearest--I’m NOT glad that your happiness isn’t perfect any longer--I
+can say that sincerely; but since it isn’t, there isn’t such a gulf
+between us.”
+
+“I DO understand that, too, Leslie.  Now, we’ll just shut up the past
+and forget what was unpleasant in it.  It’s all going to be different.
+We’re both of the race of Joseph now.  I think you’ve been
+wonderful--wonderful.  And, Leslie, I can’t help believing that life
+has something good and beautiful for you yet.”
+
+Leslie shook her head.
+
+“No,” she said dully.  “There isn’t any hope.  Dick will never be
+better--and even if his memory were to come back--oh, Anne, it would be
+worse, even worse, than it is now.  This is something you can’t
+understand, you happy bride.  Anne, did Miss Cornelia ever tell you how
+I came to marry Dick?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I’m glad--I wanted you to know--but I couldn’t bring myself to talk of
+it if you hadn’t known.  Anne, it seems to me that ever since I was
+twelve years old life has been bitter.  Before that I had a happy
+childhood.  We were very poor--but we didn’t mind.  Father was so
+splendid--so clever and loving and sympathetic.  We were chums as far
+back as I can remember.  And mother was so sweet.  She was very, very
+beautiful.  I look like her, but I am not so beautiful as she was.”
+
+“Miss Cornelia says you are far more beautiful.”
+
+“She is mistaken--or prejudiced.  I think my figure IS better--mother
+was slight and bent by hard work--but she had the face of an angel.  I
+used just to look up at her in worship.  We all worshipped her,--father
+and Kenneth and I.”
+
+Anne remembered that Miss Cornelia had given her a very different
+impression of Leslie’s mother.  But had not love the truer vision?
+Still, it WAS selfish of Rose West to make her daughter marry Dick
+Moore.
+
+“Kenneth was my brother,” went on Leslie.  “Oh, I can’t tell you how I
+loved him.  And he was cruelly killed.  Do you know how?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Anne, I saw his little face as the wheel went over him.  He fell on
+his back.  Anne--Anne--I can see it now.  I shall always see it.  Anne,
+all I ask of heaven is that that recollection shall be blotted out of
+my memory.  O my God!”
+
+“Leslie, don’t speak of it.  I know the story--don’t go into details
+that only harrow your soul up unavailingly.  It WILL be blotted out.”
+
+After a moment’s struggle, Leslie regained a measure of self-control.
+
+“Then father’s health got worse and he grew despondent--his mind became
+unbalanced--you’ve heard all that, too?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“After that I had just mother to live for.  But I was very ambitious.
+I meant to teach and earn my way through college.  I meant to climb to
+the very top--oh, I won’t talk of that either.  It’s no use.  You know
+what happened.  I couldn’t see my dear little heart-broken mother, who
+had been such a slave all her life, turned out of her home.  Of course,
+I could have earned enough for us to live on.  But mother COULDN’T
+leave her home.  She had come there as a bride--and she had loved
+father so--and all her memories were there.  Even yet, Anne, when I
+think that I made her last year happy I’m not sorry for what I did.  As
+for Dick--I didn’t hate him when I married him--I just felt for him the
+indifferent, friendly feeling I had for most of my schoolmates.  I knew
+he drank some--but I had never heard the story of the girl down at the
+fishing cove.  If I had, I COULDN’T have married him, even for mother’s
+sake.  Afterwards--I DID hate him--but mother never knew.  She
+died--and then I was alone.  I was only seventeen and I was alone.
+Dick had gone off in the Four Sisters.  I hoped he wouldn’t be home
+very much more.  The sea had always been in his blood.  I had no other
+hope.  Well, Captain Jim brought him home, as you know--and that’s all
+there is to say.  You know me now, Anne--the worst of me--the barriers
+are all down.  And you still want to be my friend?”
+
+Anne looked up through the birches, at the white paper-lantern of a
+half moon drifting downwards to the gulf of sunset.  Her face was very
+sweet.
+
+“I am your friend and you are mine, for always,” she said.  “Such a
+friend as I never had before.  I have had many dear and beloved
+friends--but there is a something in you, Leslie, that I never found in
+anyone else.  You have more to offer me in that rich nature of yours,
+and I have more to give you than I had in my careless girlhood.  We are
+both women--and friends forever.”
+
+They clasped hands and smiled at each other through the tears that
+filled the gray eyes and the blue.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 22
+
+MISS CORNELIA ARRANGES MATTERS
+
+Gilbert insisted that Susan should be kept on at the little house for
+the summer.  Anne protested at first.
+
+“Life here with just the two of us is so sweet, Gilbert.  It spoils it
+a little to have anyone else.  Susan is a dear soul, but she is an
+outsider.  It won’t hurt me to do the work here.”
+
+“You must take your doctor’s advice,” said Gilbert.  “There’s an old
+proverb to the effect that shoemakers’ wives go barefoot and doctors’
+wives die young.  I don’t mean that it shall be true in my household.
+You will keep Susan until the old spring comes back into your step, and
+those little hollows on your cheeks fill out.”
+
+“You just take it easy, Mrs. Doctor, dear,” said Susan, coming abruptly
+in.  “Have a good time and do not worry about the pantry.  Susan is at
+the helm.  There is no use in keeping a dog and doing your own barking.
+I am going to take your breakfast up to you every morning.”
+
+“Indeed you are not,” laughed Anne.  “I agree with Miss Cornelia that
+it’s a scandal for a woman who isn’t sick to eat her breakfast in bed,
+and almost justifies the men in any enormities.”
+
+“Oh, Cornelia!” said Susan, with ineffable contempt.  “I think you have
+better sense, Mrs. Doctor, dear, than to heed what Cornelia Bryant
+says.  I cannot see why she must be always running down the men, even
+if she is an old maid.  _I_ am an old maid, but you never hear ME
+abusing the men.  I like ’em.  I would have married one if I could.  Is
+it not funny nobody ever asked me to marry him, Mrs. Doctor, dear?  I
+am no beauty, but I am as good-looking as most of the married women you
+see.  But I never had a beau.  What do you suppose is the reason?”
+
+“It may be predestination,” suggested Anne, with unearthly solemnity.
+
+Susan nodded.
+
+“That is what I have often thought, Mrs. Doctor, dear, and a great
+comfort it is.  I do not mind nobody wanting me if the Almighty decreed
+it so for His own wise purposes.  But sometimes doubt creeps in, Mrs.
+Doctor, dear, and I wonder if maybe the Old Scratch has not more to do
+with it than anyone else.  I cannot feel resigned THEN.  But maybe,”
+added Susan, brightening up, “I will have a chance to get married yet.
+I often and often think of the old verse my aunt used to repeat:
+
+    There never was a goose so gray but sometime soon or late
+    Some honest gander came her way and took her for his mate!
+
+A woman cannot ever be sure of not being married till she is buried,
+Mrs. Doctor, dear, and meanwhile I will make a batch of cherry pies.  I
+notice the doctor favors ’em, and I DO like cooking for a man who
+appreciates his victuals.”
+
+Miss Cornelia dropped in that afternoon, puffing a little.
+
+“I don’t mind the world or the devil much, but the flesh DOES rather
+bother me,” she admitted.  “You always look as cool as a cucumber,
+Anne, dearie.  Do I smell cherry pie?  If I do, ask me to stay to tea.
+Haven’t tasted a cherry pie this summer.  My cherries have all been
+stolen by those scamps of Gilman boys from the Glen.”
+
+“Now, now, Cornelia,” remonstrated Captain Jim, who had been reading a
+sea novel in a corner of the living room, “you shouldn’t say that about
+those two poor, motherless Gilman boys, unless you’ve got certain
+proof.  Jest because their father ain’t none too honest isn’t any
+reason for calling them thieves.  It’s more likely it’s been the robins
+took your cherries.  They’re turrible thick this year.”
+
+“Robins!” said Miss Cornelia disdainfully.  “Humph!  Two-legged robins,
+believe ME!”
+
+“Well, most of the Four Winds robins ARE constructed on that
+principle,” said Captain Jim gravely.
+
+Miss Cornelia stared at him for a moment.  Then she leaned back in her
+rocker and laughed long and ungrudgingly.
+
+“Well, you HAVE got one on me at last, Jim Boyd, I’ll admit.  Just look
+how pleased he is, Anne, dearie, grinning like a Chessy-cat.  As for
+the robins’ legs if robins have great, big, bare, sunburned legs, with
+ragged trousers hanging on ’em, such as I saw up in my cherry tree one
+morning at sunrise last week, I’ll beg the Gilman boys’ pardon.  By the
+time I got down they were gone.  I couldn’t understand how they had
+disappeared so quick, but Captain Jim has enlightened me.  They flew
+away, of course.”
+
+Captain Jim laughed and went away, regretfully declining an invitation
+to stay to supper and partake of cherry pie.
+
+“I’m on my way to see Leslie and ask her if she’ll take a boarder,”
+Miss Cornelia resumed.  “I’d a letter yesterday from a Mrs. Daly in
+Toronto, who boarded a spell with me two years ago.  She wanted me to
+take a friend of hers for the summer.  His name is Owen Ford, and he’s
+a newspaper man, and it seems he’s a grandson of the schoolmaster who
+built this house.  John Selwyn’s oldest daughter married an Ontario man
+named Ford, and this is her son.  He wants to see the old place his
+grandparents lived in.  He had a bad spell of typhoid in the spring and
+hasn’t got rightly over it, so his doctor has ordered him to the sea.
+He doesn’t want to go to the hotel--he just wants a quiet home place.
+I can’t take him, for I have to be away in August.  I’ve been appointed
+a delegate to the W.F.M.S.  convention in Kingsport and I’m going.  I
+don’t know whether Leslie’ll want to be bothered with him, either, but
+there’s no one else.  If she can’t take him he’ll have to go over the
+harbor.”
+
+“When you’ve seen her come back and help us eat our cherry pies,” said
+Anne.  “Bring Leslie and Dick, too, if they can come.  And so you’re
+going to Kingsport?  What a nice time you will have.  I must give you a
+letter to a friend of mine there--Mrs. Jonas Blake.”
+
+“I’ve prevailed on Mrs. Thomas Holt to go with me,” said Miss Cornelia
+complacently.  “It’s time she had a little holiday, believe ME.  She
+has just about worked herself to death.  Tom Holt can crochet
+beautifully, but he can’t make a living for his family.  He never seems
+to be able to get up early enough to do any work, but I notice he can
+always get up early to go fishing.  Isn’t that like a man?”
+
+Anne smiled.  She had learned to discount largely Miss Cornelia’s
+opinions of the Four Winds men.  Otherwise she must have believed them
+the most hopeless assortment of reprobates and ne’er-do-wells in the
+world, with veritable slaves and martyrs for wives.  This particular
+Tom Holt, for example, she knew to be a kind husband, a much loved
+father, and an excellent neighbor.  If he were rather inclined to be
+lazy, liking better the fishing he had been born for than the farming
+he had not, and if he had a harmless eccentricity for doing fancy work,
+nobody save Miss Cornelia seemed to hold it against him.  His wife was
+a “hustler,” who gloried in hustling; his family got a comfortable
+living off the farm; and his strapping sons and daughters, inheriting
+their mother’s energy, were all in a fair way to do well in the world.
+There was not a happier household in Glen St. Mary than the Holts’.
+
+Miss Cornelia returned satisfied from the house up the brook.
+
+“Leslie’s going to take him,” she announced.  “She jumped at the
+chance.  She wants to make a little money to shingle the roof of her
+house this fall, and she didn’t know how she was going to manage it.  I
+expect Captain Jim’ll be more than interested when he hears that a
+grandson of the Selwyns’ is coming here.  Leslie said to tell you she
+hankered after cherry pie, but she couldn’t come to tea because she has
+to go and hunt up her turkeys.  They’ve strayed away.  But she said, if
+there was a piece left, for you to put it in the pantry and she’d run
+over in the cat’s light, when prowling’s in order, to get it.  You
+don’t know, Anne, dearie, what good it did my heart to hear Leslie send
+you a message like that, laughing like she used to long ago.
+
+“There’s a great change come over her lately.  She laughs and jokes
+like a girl, and from her talk I gather she’s here real often.”
+
+“Every day--or else I’m over there,” said Anne.  “I don’t know what I’d
+do without Leslie, especially just now when Gilbert is so busy.  He’s
+hardly ever home except for a few hours in the wee sma’s.  He’s really
+working himself to death.  So many of the over-harbor people send for
+him now.”
+
+“They might better be content with their own doctor,” said Miss
+Cornelia.  “Though to be sure I can’t blame them, for he’s a Methodist.
+Ever since Dr. Blythe brought Mrs. Allonby round folks think he can
+raise the dead.  I believe Dr. Dave is a mite jealous--just like a man.
+He thinks Dr. Blythe has too many new-fangled notions!  ‘Well,’ I says
+to him, ‘it was a new-fangled notion saved Rhoda Allonby.  If YOU’D
+been attending her she’d have died, and had a tombstone saying it had
+pleased God to take her away.’  Oh, I DO like to speak my mind to Dr.
+Dave!  He’s bossed the Glen for years, and he thinks he’s forgotten
+more than other people ever knew.  Speaking of doctors, I wish Dr.
+Blythe’d run over and see to that boil on Dick Moore’s neck.  It’s
+getting past Leslie’s skill.  I’m sure I don’t know what Dick Moore
+wants to start in having boils for--as if he wasn’t enough trouble
+without that!”
+
+“Do you know, Dick has taken quite a fancy to me,” said Anne.  “He
+follows me round like a dog, and smiles like a pleased child when I
+notice him.”
+
+“Does it make you creepy?”
+
+“Not at all.  I rather like poor Dick Moore.  He seems so pitiful and
+appealing, somehow.”
+
+“You wouldn’t think him very appealing if you’d see him on his
+cantankerous days, believe ME.  But I’m glad you don’t mind him--it’s
+all the nicer for Leslie.  She’ll have more to do when her boarder
+comes.  I hope he’ll be a decent creature.  You’ll probably like
+him--he’s a writer.”
+
+“I wonder why people so commonly suppose that if two individuals are
+both writers they must therefore be hugely congenial,” said Anne,
+rather scornfully.  “Nobody would expect two blacksmiths to be
+violently attracted toward each other merely because they were both
+blacksmiths.”
+
+Nevertheless, she looked forward to the advent of Owen Ford with a
+pleasant sense of expectation.  If he were young and likeable he might
+prove a very pleasant addition to society in Four Winds.  The
+latch-string of the little house was always out for the race of Joseph.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 23
+
+OWEN FORD COMES
+
+One evening Miss Cornelia telephoned down to Anne.
+
+“The writer man has just arrived here.  I’m going to drive him down to
+your place, and you can show him the way over to Leslie’s.  It’s
+shorter than driving round by the other road, and I’m in a mortal
+hurry.  The Reese baby has gone and fallen into a pail of hot water at
+the Glen, and got nearly scalded to death and they want me right
+off--to put a new skin on the child, I presume.  Mrs. Reese is always
+so careless, and then expects other people to mend her mistakes.  You
+won’t mind, will you, dearie?  His trunk can go down tomorrow.”
+
+“Very well,” said Anne.  “What is he like, Miss Cornelia?”
+
+“You’ll see what he’s like outside when I take him down.  As for what
+he’s like inside only the Lord who made him knows THAT.  I’m not going
+to say another word, for every receiver in the Glen is down.”
+
+“Miss Cornelia evidently can’t find much fault with Mr. Ford’s looks,
+or she would find it in spite of the receivers,” said Anne.  “I
+conclude therefore, Susan, that Mr. Ford is rather handsome than
+otherwise.”
+
+“Well, Mrs. Doctor, dear, I DO enjoy seeing a well-looking man,” said
+Susan candidly.  “Had I not better get up a snack for him?  There is a
+strawberry pie that would melt in your mouth.”
+
+“No, Leslie is expecting him and has his supper ready.  Besides, I want
+that strawberry pie for my own poor man.  He won’t be home till late,
+so leave the pie and a glass of milk out for him, Susan.”
+
+“That I will, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Susan is at the helm.  After all, it
+is better to give pie to your own men than to strangers, who may be
+only seeking to devour, and the doctor himself is as well-looking a man
+as you often come across.”
+
+When Owen Ford came Anne secretly admitted, as Miss Cornelia towed him
+in, that he was very “well-looking” indeed.  He was tall and
+broad-shouldered, with thick, brown hair, finely-cut nose and chin,
+large and brilliant dark-gray eyes.
+
+“And did you notice his ears and his teeth, Mrs. Doctor, dear?” queried
+Susan later on.  “He has got the nicest-shaped ears I ever saw on a
+man’s head.  I am choice about ears.  When I was young I was scared
+that I might have to marry a man with ears like flaps.  But I need not
+have worried, for never a chance did I have with any kind of ears.”
+
+Anne had not noticed Owen Ford’s ears, but she did see his teeth, as
+his lips parted over them in a frank and friendly smile.  Unsmiling,
+his face was rather sad and absent in expression, not unlike the
+melancholy, inscrutable hero of Anne’s own early dreams; but mirth and
+humor and charm lighted it up when he smiled.  Certainly, on the
+outside, as Miss Cornelia said, Owen Ford was a very presentable fellow.
+
+“You cannot realise how delighted I am to be here, Mrs. Blythe,” he
+said, looking around him with eager, interested eyes.  “I have an odd
+feeling of coming home.  My mother was born and spent her childhood
+here, you know.  She used to talk a great deal to me of her old home.
+I know the geography of it as well as of the one I lived in, and, of
+course, she told me the story of the building of the house, and of my
+grandfather’s agonised watch for the Royal William.  I had thought that
+so old a house must have vanished years ago, or I should have come to
+see it before this.”
+
+“Old houses don’t vanish easily on this enchanted coast,” smiled Anne.
+“This is a ‘land where all things always seem the same’--nearly always,
+at least.  John Selwyn’s house hasn’t even been much changed, and
+outside the rose-bushes your grandfather planted for his bride are
+blooming this very minute.”
+
+“How the thought links me with them!  With your leave I must explore
+the whole place soon.”
+
+“Our latch-string will always be out for you,” promised Anne.  “And do
+you know that the old sea captain who keeps the Four Winds light knew
+John Selwyn and his bride well in his boyhood?  He told me their story
+the night I came here--the third bride of the old house.”
+
+“Can it be possible?  This IS a discovery.  I must hunt him up.”
+
+“It won’t be difficult; we are all cronies of Captain Jim.  He will be
+as eager to see you as you could be to see him.  Your grandmother
+shines like a star in his memory.  But I think Mrs. Moore is expecting
+you.  I’ll show you our ‘cross-lots’ road.”
+
+Anne walked with him to the house up the brook, over a field that was
+as white as snow with daisies.  A boat-load of people were singing far
+across the harbor.  The sound drifted over the water like faint,
+unearthly music wind-blown across a starlit sea.  The big light flashed
+and beaconed.  Owen Ford looked around him with satisfaction.
+
+“And so this is Four Winds,” he said.  “I wasn’t prepared to find it
+quite so beautiful, in spite of all mother’s praises.  What
+colors--what scenery--what charm!  I shall get as strong as a horse in
+no time.  And if inspiration comes from beauty, I should certainly be
+able to begin my great Canadian novel here.”
+
+“You haven’t begun it yet?” asked Anne.
+
+“Alack-a-day, no.  I’ve never been able to get the right central idea
+for it.  It lurks beyond me--it allures--and beckons--and recedes--I
+almost grasp it and it is gone.  Perhaps amid this peace and
+loveliness, I shall be able to capture it.  Miss Bryant tells me that
+you write.”
+
+“Oh, I do little things for children.  I haven’t done much since I was
+married.  And--I have no designs on a great Canadian novel,” laughed
+Anne.  “That is quite beyond me.”
+
+Owen Ford laughed too.
+
+“I dare say it is beyond me as well.  All the same I mean to have a try
+at it some day, if I can ever get time.  A newspaper man doesn’t have
+much chance for that sort of thing.  I’ve done a good deal of short
+story writing for the magazines, but I’ve never had the leisure that
+seems to be necessary for the writing of a book.  With three months of
+liberty I ought to make a start, though--if I could only get the
+necessary motif for it--the SOUL of the book.”
+
+An idea whisked through Anne’s brain with a suddenness that made her
+jump.  But she did not utter it, for they had reached the Moore house.
+As they entered the yard Leslie came out on the veranda from the side
+door, peering through the gloom for some sign of her expected guest.
+She stood just where the warm yellow light flooded her from the open
+door.  She wore a plain dress of cheap, cream-tinted cotton voile, with
+the usual girdle of crimson.  Leslie was never without her touch of
+crimson.  She had told Anne that she never felt satisfied without a
+gleam of red somewhere about her, if it were only a flower.  To Anne,
+it always seemed to symbolise Leslie’s glowing, pent-up personality,
+denied all expression save in that flaming glint.  Leslie’s dress was
+cut a little away at the neck and had short sleeves.  Her arms gleamed
+like ivory-tinted marble.  Every exquisite curve of her form was
+outlined in soft darkness against the light.  Her hair shone in it like
+flame.  Beyond her was a purple sky, flowering with stars over the
+harbor.
+
+Anne heard her companion give a gasp.  Even in the dusk she could see
+the amazement and admiration on his face.
+
+“Who is that beautiful creature?” he asked.
+
+“That is Mrs. Moore,” said Anne.  “She is very lovely, isn’t she?”
+
+“I--I never saw anything like her,” he answered, rather dazedly.  “I
+wasn’t prepared--I didn’t expect--good heavens, one DOESN’T expect a
+goddess for a landlady! Why, if she were clothed in a gown of
+sea-purple, with a rope of amethysts in her hair, she would be a
+veritable sea-queen.  And she takes in boarders!”
+
+“Even goddesses must live,” said Anne.  “And Leslie isn’t a goddess.
+She’s just a very beautiful woman, as human as the rest of us.  Did
+Miss Bryant tell you about Mr. Moore?”
+
+“Yes,--he’s mentally deficient, or something of the sort, isn’t he?
+But she said nothing about Mrs. Moore, and I supposed she’d be the
+usual hustling country housewife who takes in boarders to earn an
+honest penny.”
+
+“Well, that’s just what Leslie is doing,” said Anne crisply.  “And it
+isn’t altogether pleasant for her, either.  I hope you won’t mind Dick.
+If you do, please don’t let Leslie see it.  It would hurt her horribly.
+He’s just a big baby, and sometimes a rather annoying one.”
+
+“Oh, I won’t mind him.  I don’t suppose I’ll be much in the house
+anyhow, except for meals.  But what a shame it all is!  Her life must
+be a hard one.”
+
+“It is.  But she doesn’t like to be pitied.”
+
+Leslie had gone back into the house and now met them at the front door.
+She greeted Owen Ford with cold civility, and told him in a
+business-like tone that his room and his supper were ready for him.
+Dick, with a pleased grin, shambled upstairs with the valise, and Owen
+Ford was installed as an inmate of the old house among the willows.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 24
+
+THE LIFE-BOOK OF CAPTAIN JIM
+
+“I have a little brown cocoon of an idea that may possibly expand into
+a magnificent moth of fulfilment,” Anne told Gilbert when she reached
+home.  He had returned earlier than she had expected, and was enjoying
+Susan’s cherry pie.  Susan herself hovered in the background, like a
+rather grim but beneficent guardian spirit, and found as much pleasure
+in watching Gilbert eat pie as he did in eating it.
+
+ “What is your idea?” he asked.
+
+“I sha’n’t tell you just yet--not till I see if I can bring the thing
+about.”
+
+“What sort of a chap is Ford?”
+
+“Oh, very nice, and quite good-looking.”
+
+“Such beautiful ears, doctor, dear,” interjected Susan with a relish.
+
+“He is about thirty or thirty-five, I think, and he meditates writing a
+novel.  His voice is pleasant and his smile delightful, and he knows
+how to dress.  He looks as if life hadn’t been altogether easy for him,
+somehow.”
+
+Owen Ford came over the next evening with a note to Anne from Leslie;
+they spent the sunset time in the garden and then went for a moonlit
+sail on the harbor, in the little boat Gilbert had set up for summer
+outings.  They liked Owen immensely and had that feeling of having
+known him for many years which distinguishes the freemasonry of the
+house of Joseph.  “He is as nice as his ears, Mrs. Doctor, dear,” said
+Susan, when he had gone.  He had told Susan that he had never tasted
+anything like her strawberry shortcake and Susan’s susceptible heart
+was his forever.
+
+“He has got a way with him,”  she reflected, as she cleared up the
+relics of the supper.  “It is real queer he is not married, for a man
+like that could have anybody for the asking.  Well, maybe he is like
+me, and has not met the right one yet.”
+
+Susan really grew quite romantic in her musings as she washed the
+supper dishes.
+
+Two nights later Anne took Owen Ford down to Four Winds Point to
+introduce him to Captain Jim.  The clover fields along the harbor shore
+were whitening in the western wind, and Captain Jim had one of his
+finest sunsets on exhibition.  He himself had just returned from a trip
+over the harbor.
+
+“I had to go over and tell Henry Pollack he was dying.  Everybody else
+was afraid to tell him.  They expected he’d take on turrible, for he’s
+been dreadful determined to live, and been making no end of plans for
+the fall.  His wife thought he oughter be told and that I’d be the best
+one to break it to him that he couldn’t get better.  Henry and me are
+old cronies--we sailed in the Gray Gull for years together.  Well, I
+went over and sat down by Henry’s bed and I says to him, says I, jest
+right out plain and simple, for if a thing’s got to be told it may as
+well be told first as last, says I, ‘Mate, I reckon you’ve got your
+sailing orders this time,’ I was sorter quaking inside, for it’s an
+awful thing to have to tell a man who hain’t any idea he’s dying that
+he is.  But lo and behold, Mistress Blythe, Henry looks up at me, with
+those bright old black eyes of his in his wizened face and says, says
+he, ‘Tell me something I don’t know, Jim Boyd, if you want to give me
+information.  I’ve known THAT for a week.’  I was too astonished to
+speak, and Henry, he chuckled.  ‘To see you coming in here,’ says he,
+‘with your face as solemn as a tombstone and sitting down there with
+your hands clasped over your stomach, and passing me out a blue-mouldy
+old item of news like that!  It’d make a cat laugh, Jim Boyd,’ says he.
+‘Who told you?’ says I, stupid like.  ‘Nobody,’ says he.  ‘A week ago
+Tuesday night I was lying here awake--and I jest knew.  I’d suspicioned
+it before, but then I KNEW.  I’ve been keeping up for the wife’s sake.
+And I’d LIKE to have got that barn built, for Eben’ll never get it
+right.  But anyhow, now that you’ve eased your mind, Jim, put on a
+smile and tell me something interesting,’ Well, there it was.  They’d
+been so scared to tell him and he knew it all the time.  Strange how
+nature looks out for us, ain’t it, and lets us know what we should know
+when the time comes?  Did I never tell you the yarn about Henry getting
+the fish hook in his nose, Mistress Blythe?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Well, him and me had a laugh over it today.  It happened nigh unto
+thirty years ago.  Him and me and several more was out mackerel fishing
+one day.  It was a great day--never saw such a school of mackerel in
+the gulf--and in the general excitement Henry got quite wild and
+contrived to stick a fish hook clean through one side of his nose.
+Well, there he was; there was barb on one end and a big piece of lead
+on the other, so it couldn’t be pulled out.  We wanted to take him
+ashore at once, but Henry was game; he said he’d be jiggered if he’d
+leave a school like that for anything short of lockjaw; then he kept
+fishing away, hauling in hand over fist and groaning between times.
+Fin’lly the school passed and we come in with a load; I got a file and
+begun to try to file through that hook.  I tried to be as easy as I
+could, but you should have heard Henry--no, you shouldn’t either.  It
+was well no ladies were around.  Henry wasn’t a swearing man, but he’d
+heard some few matters of that sort along shore in his time, and he
+fished ’em all out of his recollection and hurled ’em at me.  Fin’lly
+he declared he couldn’t stand it and I had no bowels of compassion.  So
+we hitched up and I drove him to a doctor in Charlottetown, thirty-five
+miles--there weren’t none nearer in them days--with that blessed hook
+still hanging from his nose.  When we got there old Dr. Crabb jest took
+a file and filed that hook jest the same as I’d tried to do, only he
+weren’t a mite particular about doing it easy!”
+
+Captain Jim’s visit to his old friend had revived many recollections
+and he was now in the full tide of reminiscences.
+
+“Henry was asking me today if I remembered the time old Father Chiniquy
+blessed Alexander MacAllister’s boat.  Another odd yarn--and true as
+gospel.  I was in the boat myself.  We went out, him and me, in
+Alexander MacAllister’s boat one morning at sunrise.  Besides, there
+was a French boy in the boat--Catholic of course.  You know old Father
+Chiniquy had turned Protestant, so the Catholics hadn’t much use for
+him.  Well, we sat out in the gulf in the broiling sun till noon, and
+not a bite did we get.  When we went ashore old Father Chiniquy had to
+go, so he said in that polite way of his, ‘I’m very sorry I cannot go
+out with you dis afternoon, Mr. MacAllister, but I leave you my
+blessing.  You will catch a t’ousand dis afternoon.  ‘Well, we did not
+catch a thousand, but we caught exactly nine hundred and
+ninety-nine--the biggest catch for a small boat on the whole north
+shore that summer.  Curious, wasn’t it?  Alexander MacAllister, he says
+to Andrew Peters, ‘Well, and what do you think of Father Chiniquy now?’
+‘Vell,’ growled Andrew, ‘I t’ink de old devil has got a blessing left
+yet.’  Laws, how Henry did laugh over that today!”
+
+“Do you know who Mr. Ford is, Captain Jim?” asked Anne, seeing that
+Captain Jim’s fountain of reminiscence had run out for the present.  “I
+want you to guess.”
+
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+
+“I never was any hand at guessing, Mistress Blythe, and yet somehow
+when I come in I thought, ‘Where have I seen them eyes before?’--for I
+HAVE seen ’em.”
+
+“Think of a September morning many years ago,” said Anne, softly.
+“Think of a ship sailing up the harbor--a ship long waited for and
+despaired of.  Think of the day the Royal William came in and the first
+look you had at the schoolmaster’s bride.”
+
+Captain Jim sprang up.
+
+“They’re Persis Selwyn’s eyes,” he almost shouted.  “You can’t be her
+son--you must be her--”
+
+“Grandson; yes, I am Alice Selwyn’s son.”
+
+Captain Jim swooped down on Owen Ford and shook his hand over again.
+
+“Alice Selwyn’s son!  Lord, but you’re welcome!  Many’s the time I’ve
+wondered where the descendants of the schoolmaster were living.  I knew
+there was none on the Island.  Alice--Alice--the first baby ever born
+in that little house.  No baby ever brought more joy!  I’ve dandled her
+a hundred times.  It was from my knee she took her first steps alone.
+Can’t I see her mother’s face watching her--and it was near sixty years
+ago.  Is she living yet?”
+
+“No, she died when I was only a boy.”
+
+“Oh, it doesn’t seem right that I should be living to hear that,”
+sighed Captain Jim.  “But I’m heart-glad to see you.  It’s brought back
+my youth for a little while.  You don’t know yet what a boon THAT is.
+Mistress Blythe here has the trick--she does it quite often for me.”
+
+Captain Jim was still more excited when he discovered that Owen Ford
+was what he called a “real writing man.”  He gazed at him as at a
+superior being.  Captain Jim knew that Anne wrote, but he had never
+taken that fact very seriously.  Captain Jim thought women were
+delightful creatures, who ought to have the vote, and everything else
+they wanted, bless their hearts; but he did not believe they could
+write.
+
+“Jest look at A Mad Love,” he would protest.  “A woman wrote that and
+jest look at it--one hundred and three chapters when it could all have
+been told in ten.  A writing woman never knows when to stop; that’s the
+trouble.  The p’int of good writing is to know when to stop.”
+
+“Mr. Ford wants to hear some of your stories, Captain Jim” said Anne.
+“Tell him the one about the captain who went crazy and imagined he was
+the Flying Dutchman.”
+
+This was Captain Jim’s best story.  It was a compound of horror and
+humor, and though Anne had heard it several times she laughed as
+heartily and shivered as fearsomely over it as Mr. Ford did.  Other
+tales followed, for Captain Jim had an audience after his own heart.
+He told how his vessel had been run down by a steamer; how he had been
+boarded by Malay pirates; how his ship had caught fire; how he helped a
+political prisoner escape from a South African republic; how he had
+been wrecked one fall on the Magdalens and stranded there for the
+winter; how a tiger had broken loose on board ship; how his crew had
+mutinied and marooned him on a barren island--these and many other
+tales, tragic or humorous or grotesque, did Captain Jim relate.  The
+mystery of the sea, the fascination of far lands, the lure of
+adventure, the laughter of the world--his hearers felt and realised
+them all.  Owen Ford listened, with his head on his hand, and the First
+Mate purring on his knee, his brilliant eyes fastened on Captain Jim’s
+rugged, eloquent face.
+
+“Won’t you let Mr. Ford see your life-book, Captain Jim?” asked Anne,
+when Captain Jim finally declared that yarn-spinning must end for the
+time.
+
+“Oh, he don’t want to be bothered with THAT,” protested Captain Jim,
+who was secretly dying to show it.
+
+“I should like nothing better than to see it, Captain Boyd,” said Owen.
+“If it is half as wonderful as your tales it will be worth seeing.”
+
+With pretended reluctance Captain Jim dug his life-book out of his old
+chest and handed it to Owen.
+
+“I reckon you won’t care to wrastle long with my old hand o’ write.  I
+never had much schooling,” he observed carelessly.  “Just wrote that
+there to amuse my nephew Joe.  He’s always wanting stories.  Comes here
+yesterday and says to me, reproachful-like, as I was lifting a
+twenty-pound codfish out of my boat, ‘Uncle Jim, ain’t a codfish a dumb
+animal?’  I’d been a-telling him, you see, that he must be real kind to
+dumb animals, and never hurt ’em in any way.  I got out of the scrape
+by saying a codfish was dumb enough but it wasn’t an animal, but Joe
+didn’t look satisfied, and I wasn’t satisfied myself.  You’ve got to be
+mighty careful what you tell them little critters.  THEY can see
+through you.”
+
+While talking, Captain Jim watched Owen Ford from the corner of his eye
+as the latter examined the life-book; and presently observing that his
+guest was lost in its pages, he turned smilingly to his cupboard and
+proceeded to make a pot of tea.  Owen Ford separated himself from the
+life-book, with as much reluctance as a miser wrenches himself from his
+gold, long enough to drink his tea, and then returned to it hungrily.
+
+“Oh, you can take that thing home with you if you want to,” said
+Captain Jim, as if the “thing” were not his most treasured possession.
+“I must go down and pull my boat up a bit on the skids.  There’s a wind
+coming.  Did you notice the sky tonight?
+
+    Mackerel skies and mares’ tails
+    Make tall ships carry short sails.”
+
+Owen Ford accepted the offer of the life-book gladly.  On their way
+home Anne told him the story of lost Margaret.
+
+“That old captain is a wonderful old fellow,” he said.  “What a life he
+has led!  Why, the man had more adventures in one week of his life than
+most of us have in a lifetime.  Do you really think his tales are all
+true?”
+
+“I certainly do.  I am sure Captain Jim could not tell a lie; and
+besides, all the people about here say that everything happened as he
+relates it.  There used to be plenty of his old shipmates alive to
+corroborate him.  He’s one of the last of the old type of P.E. Island
+sea-captains.  They are almost extinct now.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 25
+
+THE WRITING OF THE BOOK
+
+Owen Ford came over to the little house the next morning in a state of
+great excitement.  “Mrs. Blythe, this is a wonderful book--absolutely
+wonderful.  If I could take it and use the material for a book I feel
+certain I could make the novel of the year out of it.  Do you suppose
+Captain Jim would let me do it?”
+
+“Let you!  I’m sure he would be delighted,” cried Anne.  “I admit that
+it was what was in my head when I took you down last night.  Captain
+Jim has always been wishing he could get somebody to write his
+life-book properly for him.”
+
+“Will you go down to the Point with me this evening, Mrs. Blythe?  I’ll
+ask him about that life-book myself, but I want you to tell him that
+you told me the story of lost Margaret and ask him if he will let me
+use it as a thread of romance with which to weave the stories of the
+life-book into a harmonious whole.”
+
+Captain Jim was more excited than ever when Owen Ford told him of his
+plan.  At last his cherished dream was to be realized and his
+“life-book” given to the world.  He was also pleased that the story of
+lost Margaret should be woven into it.
+
+“It will keep her name from being forgotten,” he said wistfully.
+
+“That’s why I want it put in.”
+
+“We’ll collaborate,” cried Owen delightedly.  “You will give the soul
+and I the body.  Oh, we’ll write a famous book between us, Captain Jim.
+And we’ll get right to work.”
+
+“And to think my book is to be writ by the schoolmaster’s grandson!”
+exclaimed Captain Jim.  “Lad, your grandfather was my dearest friend.
+I thought there was nobody like him.  I see now why I had to wait so
+long.  It couldn’t be writ till the right man come.  You BELONG
+here--you’ve got the soul of this old north shore in you--you’re the
+only one who COULD write it.”
+
+It was arranged that the tiny room off the living room at the
+lighthouse should be given over to Owen for a workshop.  It was
+necessary that Captain Jim should be near him as he wrote, for
+consultation upon many matters of sea-faring and gulf lore of which
+Owen was quite ignorant.
+
+He began work on the book the very next morning, and flung himself into
+it heart and soul.  As for Captain Jim, he was a happy man that summer.
+He looked upon the little room where Owen worked as a sacred shrine.
+Owen talked everything over with Captain Jim, but he would not let him
+see the manuscript.
+
+“You must wait until it is published,” he said.  “Then you’ll get it
+all at once in its best shape.”
+
+He delved into the treasures of the life-book and used them freely.  He
+dreamed and brooded over lost Margaret until she became a vivid reality
+to him and lived in his pages.  As the book progressed it took
+possession of him and he worked at it with feverish eagerness.  He let
+Anne and Leslie read the manuscript and criticise it; and the
+concluding chapter of the book, which the critics, later on, were
+pleased to call idyllic, was modelled upon a suggestion of Leslie’s.
+
+Anne fairly hugged herself with delight over the success of her idea.
+
+“I knew when I looked at Owen Ford that he was the very man for it,”
+she told Gilbert.  “Both humor and passion were in his face, and that,
+together with the art of expression, was just what was necessary for
+the writing of such a book.  As Mrs. Rachel would say, he was
+predestined for the part.”
+
+Owen Ford wrote in the mornings.  The afternoons were generally spent
+in some merry outing with the Blythes.  Leslie often went, too, for
+Captain Jim took charge of Dick frequently, in order to set her free.
+They went boating on the harbor and up the three pretty rivers that
+flowed into it; they had clambakes on the bar and mussel-bakes on the
+rocks; they picked strawberries on the sand-dunes; they went out
+cod-fishing with Captain Jim; they shot plover in the shore fields and
+wild ducks in the cove--at least, the men did.  In the evenings they
+rambled in the low-lying, daisied, shore fields under a golden moon, or
+they sat in the living room at the little house where often the
+coolness of the sea breeze justified a driftwood fire, and talked of
+the thousand and one things which happy, eager, clever young people can
+find to talk about.
+
+Ever since the day on which she had made her confession to Anne Leslie
+had been a changed creature.  There was no trace of her old coldness
+and reserve, no shadow of her old bitterness.  The girlhood of which
+she had been cheated seemed to come back to her with the ripeness of
+womanhood; she expanded like a flower of flame and perfume; no laugh
+was readier than hers, no wit quicker, in the twilight circles of that
+enchanted summer.  When she could not be with them all felt that some
+exquisite savor was lacking in their intercourse.  Her beauty was
+illumined by the awakened soul within, as some rosy lamp might shine
+through a flawless vase of alabaster.  There were hours when Anne’s
+eyes seemed to ache with the splendor of her.  As for Owen Ford, the
+“Margaret” of his book, although she had the soft brown hair and elfin
+face of the real girl who had vanished so long ago, “pillowed where
+lost Atlantis sleeps,” had the personality of Leslie Moore, as it was
+revealed to him in those halcyon days at Four Winds Harbor.
+
+All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer--one of those summers
+which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful
+memories in their going--one of those summers which, in a fortunate
+combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful
+doings, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world.
+
+“Too good to last,” Anne told herself with a little sigh, on the
+September day when a certain nip in the wind and a certain shade of
+intense blue on the gulf water said that autumn was hard by.
+
+That evening Owen Ford told them that he had finished his book and that
+his vacation must come to an end.
+
+“I have a good deal to do to it yet--revising and pruning and so
+forth,” he said, “but in the main it’s done.  I wrote the last sentence
+this morning.  If I can find a publisher for it it will probably be out
+next summer or fall.”
+
+Owen had not much doubt that he would find a publisher.  He knew that
+he had written a great book--a book that would score a wonderful
+success--a book that would LIVE.  He knew that it would bring him both
+fame and fortune; but when he had written the last line of it he had
+bowed his head on the manuscript and so sat for a long time.  And his
+thoughts were not of the good work he had done.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 26
+
+OWEN FORD’S CONFESSION
+
+“I’m so sorry Gilbert is away,” said Anne.  “He had to go--Allan Lyons
+at the Glen has met with a serious accident.  He will not likely be
+home till very late.  But he told me to tell you he’d be up and over
+early enough in the morning to see you before you left.  It’s too
+provoking.  Susan and I had planned such a nice little jamboree for
+your last night here.”
+
+She was sitting beside the garden brook on the little rustic seat
+Gilbert had built.  Owen Ford stood before her, leaning against the
+bronze column of a yellow birch.  He was very pale and his face bore
+the marks of the preceding sleepless night.  Anne, glancing up at him,
+wondered if, after all, his summer had brought him the strength it
+should.  Had he worked too hard over his book?  She remembered that for
+a week he had not been looking well.
+
+“I’m rather glad the doctor is away,” said Owen slowly.  “I wanted to
+see you alone, Mrs. Blythe.  There is something I must tell somebody,
+or I think it will drive me mad.  I’ve been trying for a week to look
+it in the face--and I can’t.  I know I can trust you--and, besides, you
+will understand.  A woman with eyes like yours always understands.  You
+are one of the folks people instinctively tell things to.  Mrs. Blythe,
+I love Leslie.  LOVE her!  That seems too weak a word!”
+
+His voice suddenly broke with the suppressed passion of his utterance.
+He turned his head away and hid his face on his arm.  His whole form
+shook.  Anne sat looking at him, pale and aghast.  She had never
+thought of this!  And yet--how was it she had never thought of it?  It
+now seemed a natural and inevitable thing.  She wondered at her own
+blindness.  But--but--things like this did not happen in Four Winds.
+Elsewhere in the world human passions might set at defiance human
+conventions and laws--but not HERE, surely.  Leslie had kept summer
+boarders off and on for ten years, and nothing like this had happened.
+But perhaps they had not been like Owen Ford; and the vivid, LIVING
+Leslie of this summer was not the cold, sullen girl of other years.
+Oh, SOMEBODY should have thought of this!  Why hadn’t Miss Cornelia
+thought of it?  Miss Cornelia was always ready enough to sound the
+alarm where men were concerned. Anne felt an unreasonable resentment
+against Miss Cornelia.  Then she gave a little inward groan.  No matter
+who was to blame the mischief was done.  And Leslie--what of Leslie?
+It was for Leslie Anne felt most concerned.
+
+“Does Leslie know this, Mr. Ford?” she asked quietly.
+
+“No--no,--unless she has guessed it.  You surely don’t think I’d be cad
+and scoundrel enough to tell her, Mrs. Blythe.  I couldn’t help loving
+her--that’s all--and my misery is greater than I can bear.”
+
+“Does SHE care?” asked Anne.  The moment the question crossed her lips
+she felt that she should not have asked it.  Owen Ford answered it with
+overeager protest.
+
+“No--no, of course not.  But I could make her care if she were free--I
+know I could.”
+
+“She does care--and he knows it,” thought Anne.  Aloud she said,
+sympathetically but decidedly:
+
+“But she is not free, Mr. Ford.  And the only thing you can do is to go
+away in silence and leave her to her own life.”
+
+“I know--I know,” groaned Owen.  He sat down on the grassy bank and
+stared moodily into the amber water beneath him.  “I know there’s
+nothing to do--nothing but to say conventionally, ‘Good-bye, Mrs.
+Moore.  Thank you for all your kindness to me this summer,’ just as I
+would have said it to the sonsy, bustling, keen-eyed housewife I
+expected her to be when I came.  Then I’ll pay my board money like any
+honest boarder and go!  Oh, it’s very simple.  No doubt--no
+perplexity--a straight road to the end of the world!
+
+“And I’ll walk it--you needn’t fear that I won’t, Mrs. Blythe.  But it
+would be easier to walk over red-hot ploughshares.”
+
+Anne flinched with the pain of his voice.  And there was so little she
+could say that would be adequate to the situation.  Blame was out of
+the question--advice was not needed--sympathy was mocked by the man’s
+stark agony.  She could only feel with him in a maze of compassion and
+regret.  Her heart ached for Leslie!  Had not that poor girl suffered
+enough without this?
+
+“It wouldn’t be so hard to go and leave her if she were only happy,”
+resumed Owen passionately.  “But to think of her living death--to
+realise what it is to which I do leave her!  THAT is the worst of all.
+I would give my life to make her happy--and I can do nothing even to
+help her--nothing.  She is bound forever to that poor wretch--with
+nothing to look forward to but growing old in a succession of empty,
+meaningless, barren years.  It drives me mad to think of it.  But I
+must go through my life, never seeing her, but always knowing what she
+is enduring.  It’s hideous--hideous!”
+
+“It is very hard,” said Anne sorrowfully.  “We--her friends here--all
+know how hard it is for her.”
+
+“And she is so richly fitted for life,” said Owen rebelliously.
+
+“Her beauty is the least of her dower--and she is the most beautiful
+woman I’ve ever known.  That laugh of hers!  I’ve angled all summer to
+evoke that laugh, just for the delight of hearing it.  And her
+eyes--they are as deep and blue as the gulf out there.  I never saw
+such blueness--and gold!  Did you ever see her hair down, Mrs. Blythe?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“I did--once.  I had gone down to the Point to go fishing with Captain
+Jim but it was too rough to go out, so I came back.  She had taken the
+opportunity of what she expected to be an afternoon alone to wash her
+hair, and she was standing on the veranda in the sunshine to dry it.
+It fell all about her to her feet in a fountain of living gold.  When
+she saw me she hurried in, and the wind caught her hair and swirled it
+all around her--Danae in her cloud.  Somehow, just then the knowledge
+that I loved her came home to me--and realised that I had loved her
+from the moment I first saw her standing against the darkness in that
+glow of light.  And she must live on here--petting and soothing Dick,
+pinching and saving for a mere existence, while I spend my life longing
+vainly for her, and debarred, by that very fact, from even giving her
+the little help a friend might.  I walked the shore last night, almost
+till dawn, and thrashed it all out over and over again.  And yet, in
+spite of everything, I can’t find it in my heart to be sorry that I
+came to Four Winds.  It seems to me that, bad as everything is, it
+would be still worse never to have known Leslie.  It’s burning, searing
+pain to love her and leave her--but not to have loved her is
+unthinkable.  I suppose all this sounds very crazy--all these terrible
+emotions always do sound foolish when we put them into our inadequate
+words.  They are not meant to be spoken--only felt and endured.  I
+shouldn’t have spoken--but it has helped--some.  At least, it has given
+me strength to go away respectably tomorrow morning, without making a
+scene.  You’ll write me now and then, won’t you, Mrs. Blythe, and give
+me what news there is to give of her?”
+
+“Yes,” said Anne.  “Oh, I’m so sorry you are going--we’ll miss you
+so--we’ve all been such friends!  If it were not for this you could
+come back other summers.  Perhaps, even yet--by-and-by--when you’ve
+forgotten, perhaps--”
+
+“I shall never forget--and I shall never come back to Four Winds,” said
+Owen briefly.
+
+Silence and twilight fell over the garden.  Far away the sea was
+lapping gently and monotonously on the bar.  The wind of evening in the
+poplars sounded like some sad, weird, old rune--some broken dream of
+old memories.  A slender shapely young aspen rose up before them
+against the fine maize and emerald and paling rose of the western sky,
+which brought out every leaf and twig in dark, tremulous, elfin
+loveliness.
+
+“Isn’t that beautiful?” said Owen, pointing to it with the air of a man
+who puts a certain conversation behind him.
+
+“It’s so beautiful that it hurts me,” said Anne softly.  “Perfect
+things like that always did hurt me--I remember I called it ‘the queer
+ache’ when I was a child.  What is the reason that pain like this seems
+inseparable from perfection?  Is it the pain of finality--when we
+realise that there can be nothing beyond but retrogression?”
+
+“Perhaps,” said Owen dreamily, “it is the prisoned infinite in us
+calling out to its kindred infinite as expressed in that visible
+perfection.”
+
+“You seem to have a cold in the head.  Better rub some tallow on your
+nose when you go to bed,” said Miss Cornelia, who had come in through
+the little gate between the firs in time to catch Owen’s last remark.
+Miss Cornelia liked Owen; but it was a matter of principle with her to
+visit any “high-falutin” language from a man with a snub.
+
+Miss Cornelia personated the comedy that ever peeps around the corner
+at the tragedy of life.  Anne, whose nerves had been rather strained,
+laughed hysterically, and even Owen smiled.  Certainly, sentiment and
+passion had a way of shrinking out of sight in Miss Cornelia’s
+presence.  And yet to Anne nothing seemed quite as hopeless and dark
+and painful as it had seemed a few moments before.  But sleep was far
+from her eyes that night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 27
+
+ON THE SAND BAR
+
+Owen Ford left Four Winds the next morning.  In the evening Anne went
+over to see Leslie, but found nobody.  The house was locked and there
+was no light in any window.  It looked like a home left soulless.
+Leslie did not run over on the following day--which Anne thought a bad
+sign.
+
+Gilbert having occasion to go in the evening to the fishing cove, Anne
+drove with him to the Point, intending to stay awhile with Captain Jim.
+But the great light, cutting its swathes through the fog of the autumn
+evening, was in care of Alec Boyd and Captain Jim was away.
+
+“What will you do?” asked Gilbert.  “Come with me?”
+
+“I don’t want to go to the cove--but I’ll go over the channel with you,
+and roam about on the sand shore till you come back.  The rock shore is
+too slippery and grim tonight.”
+
+Alone on the sands of the bar Anne gave herself up to the eerie charm
+of the night.  It was warm for September, and the late afternoon had
+been very foggy; but a full moon had in part lessened the fog and
+transformed the harbor and the gulf and the surrounding shores into a
+strange, fantastic, unreal world of pale silver mist, through which
+everything loomed phantom-like.  Captain Josiah Crawford’s black
+schooner sailing down the channel, laden with potatoes for Bluenose
+ports, was a spectral ship bound for a far uncharted land, ever
+receding, never to be reached.  The calls of unseen gulls overhead were
+the cries of the souls of doomed seamen.  The little curls of foam that
+blew across the sand were elfin things stealing up from the sea-caves.
+The big, round-shouldered sand-dunes were the sleeping giants of some
+old northern tale.  The lights that glimmered palely across the harbor
+were the delusive beacons on some coast of fairyland.  Anne pleased
+herself with a hundred fancies as she wandered through the mist.  It
+was delightful--romantic--mysterious to be roaming here alone on this
+enchanted shore.
+
+But was she alone?  Something loomed in the mist before her--took shape
+and form--suddenly moved towards her across the wave-rippled sand.
+
+“Leslie!” exclaimed Anne in amazement.  “Whatever are you
+doing--HERE--tonight?”
+
+“If it comes to that, whatever are YOU doing here?” said Leslie, trying
+to laugh.  The effort was a failure.  She looked very pale and tired;
+but the love locks under her scarlet cap were curling about her face
+and eyes like little sparkling rings of gold.
+
+“I’m waiting for Gilbert--he’s over at the Cove.  I intended to stay at
+the light, but Captain Jim is away.”
+
+“Well, _I_ came here because I wanted to walk--and walk--and WALK,”
+said Leslie restlessly.  “I couldn’t on the rock shore--the tide was
+too high and the rocks prisoned me.  I had to come here--or I should
+have gone mad, I think.  I rowed myself over the channel in Captain
+Jim’s flat.  I’ve been here for an hour.  Come--come--let us walk.  I
+can’t stand still.  Oh, Anne!”
+
+“Leslie, dearest, what is the trouble?” asked Anne, though she knew too
+well already.
+
+“I can’t tell you--don’t ask me.  I wouldn’t mind your knowing--I wish
+you did know--but I can’t tell you--I can’t tell anyone.  I’ve been
+such a fool, Anne--and oh, it hurts so terribly to be a fool.  There’s
+nothing so painful in the world.”
+
+She laughed bitterly.  Anne slipped her arm around her.
+
+“Leslie, is it that you have learned to care for Mr. Ford?”
+
+Leslie turned herself about passionately.
+
+“How did you know?” she cried.  “Anne, how did you know?  Oh, is it
+written in my face for everyone to see?  Is it as plain as that?”
+
+“No, no.  I--I can’t tell you how I knew.  It just came into my mind,
+somehow.  Leslie, don’t look at me like that!”
+
+“Do you despise me?” demanded Leslie in a fierce, low tone.  “Do you
+think I’m wicked--unwomanly?  Or do you think I’m just plain fool?”
+
+“I don’t think you any of those things.  Come, dear, let’s just talk it
+over sensibly, as we might talk over any other of the great crises of
+life.  You’ve been brooding over it and let yourself drift into a
+morbid view of it.  You know you have a little tendency to do that
+about everything that goes wrong, and you promised me that you would
+fight against it.”
+
+“But--oh, it’s so--so shameful,” murmured Leslie.  “To love
+him--unsought--and when I’m not free to love anybody.”
+
+“There’s nothing shameful about it.  But I’m very sorry that you have
+learned to care for Owen, because, as things are, it will only make you
+more unhappy.”
+
+“I didn’t LEARN to care,” said Leslie, walking on and speaking
+passionately.  “If it had been like that I could have prevented it.  I
+never dreamed of such a thing until that day, a week ago, when he told
+me he had finished his book and must soon go away.  Then--then I knew.
+I felt as if someone had struck me a terrible blow.  I didn’t say
+anything--I couldn’t speak--but I don’t know what I looked like.  I’m
+so afraid my face betrayed me.  Oh, I would die of shame if I thought
+he knew--or suspected.”
+
+Anne was miserably silent, hampered by her deductions from her
+conversation with Owen.  Leslie went on feverishly, as if she found
+relief in speech.
+
+“I was so happy all this summer, Anne--happier than I ever was in my
+life.  I thought it was because everything had been made clear between
+you and me, and that it was our friendship which made life seem so
+beautiful and full once more.  And it WAS, in part--but not all--oh,
+not nearly all.  I know now why everything was so different.  And now
+it’s all over--and he has gone.  How can I live, Anne?  When I turned
+back into the house this morning after he had gone the solitude struck
+me like a blow in the face.”
+
+“It won’t seem so hard by and by, dear,” said Anne, who always felt the
+pain of her friends so keenly that she could not speak easy, fluent
+words of comforting.  Besides, she remembered how well-meant speeches
+had hurt her in her own sorrow and was afraid.
+
+“Oh, it seems to me it will grow harder all the time,” said Leslie
+miserably.  “I’ve nothing to look forward to.  Morning will come after
+morning--and he will not come back--he will never come back.  Oh, when
+I think that I will never see him again I feel as if a great brutal
+hand had twisted itself among my heartstrings, and was wrenching them.
+Once, long ago, I dreamed of love--and I thought it must be
+beautiful--and NOW--its like THIS.  When he went away yesterday morning
+he was so cold and indifferent.  He said ‘Good-bye, Mrs. Moore’ in the
+coldest tone in the world--as if we had not even been friends--as if I
+meant absolutely nothing to him.  I know I don’t--I didn’t want him to
+care--but he MIGHT have been a little kinder.”
+
+“Oh, I wish Gilbert would come,” thought Anne.  She was racked between
+her sympathy for Leslie and the necessity of avoiding anything that
+would betray Owen’s confidence.  She knew why his good-bye had been so
+cold--why it could not have the cordiality that their good-comradeship
+demanded--but she could not tell Leslie.
+
+“I couldn’t help it, Anne--I couldn’t help it,” said poor Leslie.
+
+“I know that.”
+
+“Do you blame me so very much?”
+
+“I don’t blame you at all.”
+
+“And you won’t--you won’t tell Gilbert?”
+
+“Leslie!  Do you think I would do such a thing?”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know--you and Gilbert are such CHUMS.  I don’t see how you
+could help telling him everything.”
+
+“Everything about my own concerns--yes.  But not my friends’ secrets.”
+
+“I couldn’t have HIM know.  But I’m glad YOU know.  I would feel guilty
+if there were anything I was ashamed to tell you.  I hope Miss Cornelia
+won’t find out.  Sometimes I feel as if those terrible, kind brown eyes
+of hers read my very soul.  Oh, I wish this mist would never lift--I
+wish I could just stay in it forever, hidden away from every living
+being.  I don’t see how I can go on with life.  This summer has been so
+full.  I never was lonely for a moment.  Before Owen came there used to
+be horrible moments--when I had been with you and Gilbert--and then had
+to leave you.  You two would walk away together and I would walk away
+ALONE.  After Owen came he was always there to walk home with me--we
+would laugh and talk as you and Gilbert were doing--there were no more
+lonely, envious moments for me.  And NOW!  Oh, yes, I’ve been a fool.
+Let’s have done talking about my folly.  I’ll never bore you with it
+again.”
+
+“Here is Gilbert, and you are coming back with us,” said Anne, who had
+no intention of leaving Leslie to wander alone on the sand-bar on such
+a night and in such a mood.  “There’s plenty of room in our boat for
+three, and we’ll tie the flat on behind.”
+
+“Oh, I suppose I must reconcile myself to being the odd one again,”
+said poor Leslie with another bitter laugh.  “Forgive me, Anne--that
+was hateful.  I ought to be thankful--and I AM--that I have two good
+friends who are glad to count me in as a third.  Don’t mind my hateful
+speeches.  I just seem to be one great pain all over and everything
+hurts me.”
+
+“Leslie seemed very quiet tonight, didn’t she?” said Gilbert, when he
+and Anne reached home.  “What in the world was she doing over there on
+the bar alone?”
+
+“Oh, she was tired--and you know she likes to go to the shore after one
+of Dick’s bad days.”
+
+“What a pity she hadn’t met and married a fellow like Ford long ago,”
+ruminated Gilbert.  “They’d have made an ideal couple, wouldn’t they?”
+
+“For pity’s sake, Gilbert, don’t develop into a match-maker.  It’s an
+abominable profession for a man,” cried Anne rather sharply, afraid
+that Gilbert might blunder on the truth if he kept on in this strain.
+
+“Bless us, Anne-girl, I’m not matchmaking,” protested Gilbert, rather
+surprised at her tone.  “I was only thinking of one of the
+might-have-beens.”
+
+“Well, don’t.  It’s a waste of time,” said Anne.  Then she added
+suddenly:
+
+“Oh, Gilbert, I wish everybody could be as happy as we are.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 28
+
+ODDS AND ENDS
+
+“I’ve been reading obituary notices,” said Miss Cornelia, laying down
+the Daily Enterprise and taking up her sewing.
+
+The harbor was lying black and sullen under a dour November sky; the
+wet, dead leaves clung drenched and sodden to the window sills; but the
+little house was gay with firelight and spring-like with Anne’s ferns
+and geraniums.
+
+“It’s always summer here, Anne,” Leslie had said one day; and all who
+were the guests of that house of dreams felt the same.
+
+“The Enterprise seems to run to obituaries these days,” quoth Miss
+Cornelia.  “It always has a couple of columns of them, and I read every
+line.  It’s one of my forms of recreation, especially when there’s some
+original poetry attached to them.  Here’s a choice sample for you:
+
+    She’s gone to be with her Maker,
+    Never more to roam.
+    She used to play and sing with joy
+    The song of Home, Sweet Home.
+
+Who says we haven’t any poetical talent on the Island!  Have you ever
+noticed what heaps of good people die, Anne, dearie?  It’s kind of
+pitiful.  Here’s ten obituaries, and every one of them saints and
+models, even the men.  Here’s old Peter Stimson, who has ‘left a large
+circle of friends to mourn his untimely loss.’ Lord, Anne, dearie, that
+man was eighty, and everybody who knew him had been wishing him dead
+these thirty years.  Read obituaries when you’re blue, Anne,
+dearie--especially the ones of folks you know.  If you’ve any sense of
+humor at all they’ll cheer you up, believe ME.  I just wish _I_ had the
+writing of the obituaries of some people.  Isn’t ‘obituary’ an awful
+ugly word?  This very Peter I’ve been speaking of had a face exactly
+like one.  I never saw it but I thought of the word OBITUARY then and
+there.  There’s only one uglier word that I know of, and that’s RELICT.
+Lord, Anne, dearie, I may be an old maid, but there’s this comfort in
+it--I’ll never be any man’s ‘relict.’”
+
+“It IS an ugly word,” said Anne, laughing.  “Avonlea graveyard was full
+of old tombstones ‘sacred to the memory of So-and-So, RELICT of the
+late So-and-So.’  It always made me think of something worn out and
+moth eaten.  Why is it that so many of the words connected with death
+are so disagreeable?  I do wish that the custom of calling a dead body
+‘the remains’ could be abolished.  I positively shiver when I hear the
+undertaker say at a funeral, ‘All who wish to see the remains please
+step this way.’  It always gives me the horrible impression that I am
+about to view the scene of a cannibal feast.”
+
+“Well, all I hope,” said Miss Cornelia calmly, “is that when I’m dead
+nobody will call me ‘our departed sister.’  I took a scunner at this
+sister-and-brothering business five years ago when there was a
+travelling evangelist holding meetings at the Glen.  I hadn’t any use
+for him from the start.  I felt in my bones that there was something
+wrong with him.  And there was.  Mind you, he was pretending to be a
+Presbyterian--PresbyTARian, HE called it--and all the time he was a
+Methodist.  He brothered and sistered everybody.  He had a large circle
+of relations, that man had.  He clutched my hand fervently one night,
+and said imploringly, ‘My DEAR sister Bryant, are you a Christian?’  I
+just looked him over a bit, and then I said calmly, ‘The only brother I
+ever had, MR. Fiske, was buried fifteen years ago, and I haven’t
+adopted any since.  As for being a Christian, I was that, I hope and
+believe, when you were crawling about the floor in petticoats.’  THAT
+squelched him, believe ME.  Mind you, Anne dearie, I’m not down on all
+evangelists.  We’ve had some real fine, earnest men, who did a lot of
+good and made the old sinners squirm.  But this Fiske-man wasn’t one of
+them.  I had a good laugh all to myself one evening.  Fiske had asked
+all who were Christians to stand up.  _I_ didn’t, believe me!  I never
+had any use for that sort of thing.  But most of them did, and then he
+asked all who wanted to be Christians to stand up.  Nobody stirred for
+a spell, so Fiske started up a hymn at the top of his voice.  Just in
+front of me poor little Ikey Baker was sitting in the Millison pew.  He
+was a home boy, ten years old, and Millison just about worked him to
+death.  The poor little creature was always so tired he fell asleep
+right off whenever he went to church or anywhere he could sit still for
+a few minutes.  He’d been sleeping all through the meeting, and I was
+thankful to see the poor child getting a rest, believe ME.  Well, when
+Fiske’s voice went soaring skyward and the rest joined in, poor Ikey
+wakened with a start.  He thought it was just an ordinary singing and
+that everybody ought to stand up, so he scrambled to his feet mighty
+quick, knowing he’d get a combing down from Maria Millison for sleeping
+in meeting.  Fiske saw him, stopped and shouted, ‘Another soul saved!
+Glory Hallelujah!’  And there was poor, frightened Ikey, only half
+awake and yawning, never thinking about his soul at all.  Poor child,
+he never had time to think of anything but his tired, overworked little
+body.
+
+“Leslie went one night and the Fiske-man got right after her--oh, he
+was especially anxious about the souls of the nice-looking girls,
+believe me!--and he hurt her feelings so she never went again.  And
+then he prayed every night after that, right in public, that the Lord
+would soften her hard heart.  Finally I went to Mr. Leavitt, our
+minister then, and told him if he didn’t make Fiske stop that I’d just
+rise up the next night and throw my hymn book at him when he mentioned
+that ‘beautiful but unrepentant young woman.’  I’d have done it too,
+believe ME.  Mr. Leavitt did put a stop to it, but Fiske kept on with
+his meetings until Charley Douglas put an end to his career in the
+Glen.  Mrs. Charley had been out in California all winter.  She’d been
+real melancholy in the fall--religious melancholy--it ran in her
+family.  Her father worried so much over believing that he had
+committed the unpardonable sin that he died in the asylum.  So when
+Rose Douglas got that way Charley packed her off to visit her sister in
+Los Angeles.  She got perfectly well and came home just when the Fiske
+revival was in full swing.  She stepped off the train at the Glen, real
+smiling and chipper, and the first thing she saw staring her in the
+face on the black, gable-end of the freight shed, was the question, in
+big white letters, two feet high, ‘Whither goest thou--to heaven or
+hell?’ That had been one of Fiske’s ideas, and he had got Henry Hammond
+to paint it.  Rose just gave a shriek and fainted; and when they got
+her home she was worse than ever.  Charley Douglas went to Mr. Leavitt
+and told him that every Douglas would leave the church if Fiske was
+kept there any longer.  Mr. Leavitt had to give in, for the Douglases
+paid half his salary, so Fiske departed, and we had to depend on our
+Bibles once more for instructions on how to get to heaven.  After he
+was gone Mr. Leavitt found out he was just a masquerading Methodist,
+and he felt pretty sick, believe ME.  Mr. Leavitt fell short in some
+ways, but he was a good, sound Presbyterian.”
+
+“By the way, I had a letter from Mr. Ford yesterday,” said Anne.  “He
+asked me to remember him kindly to you.”
+
+“I don’t want his remembrances,” said Miss Cornelia, curtly.
+
+“Why?” said Anne, in astonishment.  “I thought you liked him.”
+
+“Well, so I did, in a kind of way.  But I’ll never forgive him for what
+he done to Leslie.  There’s that poor child eating her heart out about
+him--as if she hadn’t had trouble enough--and him ranting round
+Toronto, I’ve no doubt, enjoying himself same as ever.  Just like a
+man.”
+
+“Oh, Miss Cornelia, how did you find out?”
+
+“Lord, Anne, dearie, I’ve got eyes, haven’t I?  And I’ve known Leslie
+since she was a baby.  There’s been a new kind of heartbreak in her
+eyes all the fall, and I know that writer-man was behind it somehow.
+I’ll never forgive myself for being the means of bringing him here.
+But I never expected he’d be like he was.  I thought he’d just be like
+the other men Leslie had boarded--conceited young asses, every one of
+them, that she never had any use for.  One of them did try to flirt
+with her once and she froze him out--so bad, I feel sure he’s never got
+himself thawed since.  So I never thought of any danger.”
+
+“Don’t let Leslie suspect you know her secret,” said Anne hurriedly.
+“I think it would hurt her.”
+
+“Trust me, Anne, dearie.  _I_ wasn’t born yesterday.  Oh, a plague on
+all the men!  One of them ruined Leslie’s life to begin with, and now
+another of the tribe comes and makes her still more wretched.  Anne,
+this world is an awful place, believe me.”
+
+    “There’s something in the world amiss
+    Will be unriddled by and by,”
+
+quoted Anne dreamily.
+
+“If it is, it’ll be in a world where there aren’t any men,” said Miss
+Cornelia gloomily.
+
+“What have the men been doing now?” asked Gilbert, entering.
+
+“Mischief--mischief!  What else did they ever do?”
+
+“It was Eve ate the apple, Miss Cornelia.”
+
+“’Twas a he-creature tempted her,” retorted Miss Cornelia triumphantly.
+
+Leslie, after her first anguish was over, found it possible to go on
+with life after all, as most of us do, no matter what our particular
+form of torment has been.  It is even possible that she enjoyed moments
+of it, when she was one of the gay circle in the little house of
+dreams.  But if Anne ever hoped that she was forgetting Owen Ford she
+would have been undeceived by the furtive hunger in Leslie’s eyes
+whenever his name was mentioned.  Pitiful to that hunger, Anne always
+contrived to tell Captain Jim or Gilbert bits of news from Owen’s
+letters when Leslie was with them.  The girl’s flush and pallor at such
+moments spoke all too eloquently of the emotion that filled her being.
+But she never spoke of him to Anne, or mentioned that night on the
+sand-bar.
+
+One day her old dog died and she grieved bitterly over him.
+
+“He’s been my friend so long,” she said sorrowfully to Anne.  “He was
+Dick’s old dog, you know--Dick had him for a year or so before we were
+married.  He left him with me when he sailed on the Four Sisters.
+Carlo got very fond of me--and his dog-love helped me through that
+first dreadful year after mother died, when I was alone.  When I heard
+that Dick was coming back I was afraid Carlo wouldn’t be so much mine.
+But he never seemed to care for Dick, though he had been so fond of him
+once.  He would snap and growl at him as if he were a stranger.  I was
+glad.  It was nice to have one thing whose love was all mine.  That old
+dog has been such a comfort to me, Anne.  He got so feeble in the fall
+that I was afraid he couldn’t live long--but I hoped I could nurse him
+through the winter.  He seemed pretty well this morning.  He was lying
+on the rug before the fire; then, all at once, he got up and crept over
+to me; he put his head on my lap and gave me one loving look out of his
+big, soft, dog eyes--and then he just shivered and died.  I shall miss
+him so.”
+
+“Let me give you another dog, Leslie,” said Anne.  “I’m getting a
+lovely Gordon setter for a Christmas present for Gilbert.  Let me give
+you one too.”
+
+Leslie shook her head.
+
+“Not just now, thank you, Anne.  I don’t feel like having another dog
+yet.  I don’t seem to have any affection left for another.  Perhaps--in
+time--I’ll let you give me one.  I really need one as a kind of
+protection.  But there was something almost human about Carlo--it
+wouldn’t be DECENT to fill his place too hurriedly, dear old fellow.”
+
+Anne went to Avonlea a week before Christmas and stayed until after the
+holidays.  Gilbert came up for her, and there was a glad New Year
+celebration at Green Gables, when Barrys and Blythes and Wrights
+assembled to devour a dinner which had cost Mrs. Rachel and Marilla
+much careful thought and preparation.  When they went back to Four
+Winds the little house was almost drifted over, for the third storm of
+a winter that was to prove phenomenally stormy had whirled up the
+harbor and heaped huge snow mountains about everything it encountered.
+But Captain Jim had shovelled out doors and paths, and Miss Cornelia
+had come down and kindled the hearth-fire.
+
+“It’s good to see you back, Anne, dearie!  But did you ever see such
+drifts?  You can’t see the Moore place at all unless you go upstairs.
+Leslie’ll be so glad you’re back.  She’s almost buried alive over
+there.  Fortunately Dick can shovel snow, and thinks it’s great fun.
+Susan sent me word to tell you she would be on hand tomorrow.  Where
+are you off to now, Captain?”
+
+“I reckon I’ll plough up to the Glen and sit a bit with old Martin
+Strong.  He’s not far from his end and he’s lonesome.  He hasn’t many
+friends--been too busy all his life to make any.  He’s made heaps of
+money, though.”
+
+“Well, he thought that since he couldn’t serve God and Mammon he’d
+better stick to Mammon,” said Miss Cornelia crisply.  “So he shouldn’t
+complain if he doesn’t find Mammon very good company now.”
+
+Captain Jim went out, but remembered something in the yard and turned
+back for a moment.
+
+“I’d a letter from Mr. Ford, Mistress Blythe, and he says the life-book
+is accepted and is going to be published next fall.  I felt fair
+uplifted when I got the news.  To think that I’m to see it in print at
+last.”
+
+“That man is clean crazy on the subject of his life-book,” said Miss
+Cornelia compassionately.  “For my part, I think there’s far too many
+books in the world now.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 29
+
+GILBERT AND ANNE DISAGREE
+
+Gilbert laid down the ponderous medical tome over which he had been
+poring until the increasing dusk of the March evening made him desist.
+He leaned back in his chair and gazed meditatively out of the window.
+It was early spring--probably the ugliest time of the year.  Not even
+the sunset could redeem the dead, sodden landscape and rotten black
+harbor ice upon which he looked.  No sign of life was visible, save a
+big black crow winging his solitary way across a leaden field.  Gilbert
+speculated idly concerning that crow.  Was he a family crow, with a
+black but comely crow wife awaiting him in the woods beyond the Glen?
+Or was he a glossy young buck of a crow on courting thoughts intent?
+Or was he a cynical bachelor crow, believing that he travels the
+fastest who travels alone?  Whatever he was, he soon disappeared in
+congenial gloom and Gilbert turned to the cheerier view indoors.
+
+The firelight flickered from point to point, gleaming on the white and
+green coats of Gog and Magog, on the sleek, brown head of the beautiful
+setter basking on the rug, on the picture frames on the walls, on the
+vaseful of daffodils from the window garden, on Anne herself, sitting
+by her little table, with her sewing beside her and her hands clasped
+over her knee while she traced out pictures in the fire--Castles in
+Spain whose airy turrets pierced moonlit cloud and sunset bar-ships
+sailing from the Haven of Good Hopes straight to Four Winds Harbor with
+precious burthen.  For Anne was again a dreamer of dreams, albeit a
+grim shape of fear went with her night and day to shadow and darken her
+visions.
+
+Gilbert was accustomed to refer to himself as “an old married man.”
+But he still looked upon Anne with the incredulous eyes of a lover.  He
+couldn’t wholly believe yet that she was really his.  It MIGHT be only
+a dream after all, part and parcel of this magic house of dreams.  His
+soul still went on tip-toe before her, lest the charm be shattered and
+the dream dispelled.
+
+“Anne,” he said slowly, “lend me your ears.  I want to talk with you
+about something.”
+
+Anne looked across at him through the fire-lit gloom.
+
+“What is it?” she asked gaily.  “You look fearfully solemn, Gilbert.  I
+really haven’t done anything naughty today.  Ask Susan.”
+
+“It’s not of you--or ourselves--I want to talk.  It’s about Dick Moore.”
+
+“Dick Moore?” echoed Anne, sitting up alertly.  “Why, what in the world
+have you to say about Dick Moore?”
+
+“I’ve been thinking a great deal about him lately.  Do you remember
+that time last summer I treated him for those carbuncles on his neck?”
+
+“Yes--yes.”
+
+“I took the opportunity to examine the scars on his head thoroughly.
+I’ve always thought Dick was a very interesting case from a medical
+point of view.  Lately I’ve been studying the history of trephining and
+the cases where it has been employed.  Anne, I have come to the
+conclusion that if Dick Moore were taken to a good hospital and the
+operation of trephining performed on several places in his skull, his
+memory and faculties might be restored.”
+
+“Gilbert!” Anne’s voice was full of protest.  “Surely you don’t mean
+it!”
+
+“I do, indeed.  And I have decided that it is my duty to broach the
+subject to Leslie.”
+
+“Gilbert Blythe, you shall NOT do any such thing,” cried Anne
+vehemently.  “Oh, Gilbert, you won’t--you won’t.  You couldn’t be so
+cruel.  Promise me you won’t.”
+
+“Why, Anne-girl, I didn’t suppose you would take it like this.  Be
+reasonable--”
+
+“I won’t be reasonable--I can’t be reasonable--I AM reasonable.  It is
+you who are unreasonable.  Gilbert, have you ever once thought what it
+would mean for Leslie if Dick Moore were to be restored to his right
+senses?  Just stop and think!  She’s unhappy enough now; but life as
+Dick’s nurse and attendant is a thousand times easier for her than life
+as Dick’s wife.  I know--I KNOW!  It’s unthinkable.  Don’t you meddle
+with the matter.  Leave well enough alone.”
+
+“I HAVE thought over that aspect of the case thoroughly, Anne.  But I
+believe that a doctor is bound to set the sanctity of a patient’s mind
+and body above all other considerations, no matter what the
+consequences may be.  I believe it his duty to endeavor to restore
+health and sanity, if there is any hope whatever of it.”
+
+“But Dick isn’t your patient in that respect,” cried Anne, taking
+another tack.  “If Leslie had asked you if anything could be done for
+him, THEN it might be your duty to tell her what you really thought.
+But you’ve no right to meddle.”
+
+“I don’t call it meddling.  Uncle Dave told Leslie twelve years ago
+that nothing could be done for Dick.  She believes that, of course.”
+
+“And why did Uncle Dave tell her that, if it wasn’t true?” cried Anne,
+triumphantly.  “Doesn’t he know as much about it as you?”
+
+“I think not--though it may sound conceited and presumptuous to say it.
+And you know as well as I that he is rather prejudiced against what he
+calls ‘these new-fangled notions of cutting and carving.’ He’s even
+opposed to operating for appendicitis.”
+
+“He’s right,” exclaimed Anne, with a complete change of front.  “I
+believe myself that you modern doctors are entirely too fond of making
+experiments with human flesh and blood.”
+
+“Rhoda Allonby would not be a living woman today if I had been afraid
+of making a certain experiment,” argued Gilbert.  “I took the risk--and
+saved her life.”
+
+“I’m sick and tired of hearing about Rhoda Allonby,” cried Anne--most
+unjustly, for Gilbert had never mentioned Mrs. Allonby’s name since the
+day he had told Anne of his success in regard to her.  And he could not
+be blamed for other people’s discussion of it.
+
+Gilbert felt rather hurt.
+
+“I had not expected you to look at the matter as you do, Anne,” he said
+a little stiffly, getting up and moving towards the office door.  It
+was their first approach to a quarrel.
+
+But Anne flew after him and dragged him back.
+
+“Now, Gilbert, you are not ‘going off mad.’  Sit down here and I’ll
+apologise bee-YEW-ti-fully, I shouldn’t have said that.  But--oh, if
+you knew--”
+
+Anne checked herself just in time.  She had been on the very verge of
+betraying Leslie’s secret.
+
+“Knew what a woman feels about it,” she concluded lamely.
+
+“I think I do know.  I’ve looked at the matter from every point of
+view--and I’ve been driven to the conclusion that it is my duty to tell
+Leslie that I believe it is possible that Dick can be restored to
+himself; there my responsibility ends.  It will be for her to decide
+what she will do.”
+
+“I don’t think you’ve any right to put such a responsibility on her.
+She has enough to bear.  She is poor--how could she afford such an
+operation?”
+
+“That is for her to decide,” persisted Gilbert stubbornly.
+
+“You say you think that Dick can be cured.  But are you SURE of it?”
+
+“Certainly not.  Nobody could be sure of such a thing.  There may have
+been lesions of the brain itself, the effect of which can never be
+removed.  But if, as I believe, his loss of memory and other faculties
+is due merely to the pressure on the brain centers of certain depressed
+areas of bone, then he can be cured.”
+
+“But it’s only a possibility!” insisted Anne.  “Now, suppose you tell
+Leslie and she decides to have the operation.  It will cost a great
+deal.  She will have to borrow the money, or sell her little property.
+And suppose the operation is a failure and Dick remains the same.
+
+“How will she be able to pay back the money she borrows, or make a
+living for herself and that big helpless creature if she sells the
+farm?”
+
+“Oh, I know--I know.  But it is my duty to tell her.  I can’t get away
+from that conviction.”
+
+“Oh, I know the Blythe stubbornness,” groaned Anne.  “But don’t do this
+solely on your own responsibility.  Consult Doctor Dave.”
+
+“I HAVE done so,” said Gilbert reluctantly.
+
+“And what did he say?”
+
+“In brief--as you say--leave well enough alone.  Apart from his
+prejudice against new-fangled surgery, I’m afraid he looks at the case
+from your point of view--don’t do it, for Leslie’s sake.”
+
+“There now,” cried Anne triumphantly.  “I do think, Gilbert, that you
+ought to abide by the judgment of a man nearly eighty, who has seen a
+great deal and saved scores of lives himself--surely his opinion ought
+to weigh more than a mere boy’s.”
+
+“Thank you.”
+
+“Don’t laugh.  It’s too serious.”
+
+“That’s just my point.  It IS serious.  Here is a man who is a helpless
+burden.  He may be restored to reason and usefulness--”
+
+“He was so very useful before,” interjected Anne witheringly.
+
+“He may be given a chance to make good and redeem the past.  His wife
+doesn’t know this.  I do.  It is therefore my duty to tell her that
+there is such a possibility.  That, boiled down, is my decision.”
+
+“Don’t say ‘decision’ yet, Gilbert.  Consult somebody else.  Ask
+Captain Jim what he thinks about it.”
+
+“Very well.  But I’ll not promise to abide by his opinion, Anne.
+
+“This is something a man must decide for himself.  My conscience would
+never be easy if I kept silent on the subject.”
+
+“Oh, your conscience!” moaned Anne.  “I suppose that Uncle Dave has a
+conscience too, hasn’t he?”
+
+“Yes.  But I am not the keeper of his conscience.  Come, Anne, if this
+affair did not concern Leslie--if it were a purely abstract case, you
+would agree with me,--you know you would.”
+
+“I wouldn’t,” vowed Anne, trying to believe it herself.  “Oh, you can
+argue all night, Gilbert, but you won’t convince me.  Just you ask Miss
+Cornelia what she thinks of it.”
+
+“You’re driven to the last ditch, Anne, when you bring up Miss Cornelia
+as a reinforcement.  She will say, ‘Just like a man,’ and rage
+furiously.  No matter.  This is no affair for Miss Cornelia to settle.
+Leslie alone must decide it.”
+
+“You know very well how she will decide it,” said Anne, almost in
+tears.  “She has ideals of duty, too.  I don’t see how you can take
+such a responsibility on your shoulders.  _I_ couldn’t.”
+
+    “‘Because right is right to follow right
+    Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence,’”
+
+quoted Gilbert.
+
+“Oh, you think a couplet of poetry a convincing argument!” scoffed
+Anne.  “That is so like a man.”
+
+And then she laughed in spite of herself.  It sounded so like an echo
+of Miss Cornelia.
+
+“Well, if you won’t accept Tennyson as an authority, perhaps you will
+believe the words of a Greater than he,” said Gilbert seriously.  “‘Ye
+shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.’  I believe
+that, Anne, with all my heart.  It’s the greatest and grandest verse in
+the Bible--or in any literature--and the TRUEST, if there are
+comparative degrees of trueness.  And it’s the first duty of a man to
+tell the truth, as he sees it and believes it.”
+
+“In this case the truth won’t make poor Leslie free,” sighed Anne.  “It
+will probably end in still more bitter bondage for her.  Oh, Gilbert, I
+CAN’T think you are right.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 30
+
+LESLIE DECIDES
+
+A sudden outbreak of a virulent type of influenza at the Glen and down
+at the fishing village kept Gilbert so busy for the next fortnight that
+he had no time to pay the promised visit to Captain Jim.  Anne hoped
+against hope that he had abandoned the idea about Dick Moore, and,
+resolving to let sleeping dogs lie, she said no more about the subject.
+But she thought of it incessantly.
+
+“I wonder if it would be right for me to tell him that Leslie cares for
+Owen,” she thought.  “He would never let her suspect that he knew, so
+her pride would not suffer, and it MIGHT convince him that he should
+let Dick Moore alone.  Shall I--shall I?  No, after all, I cannot.  A
+promise is sacred, and I’ve no right to betray Leslie’s secret.  But
+oh, I never felt so worried over anything in my life as I do over this.
+It’s spoiling the spring--it’s spoiling everything.”
+
+One evening Gilbert abruptly proposed that they go down and see Captain
+Jim.  With a sinking heart Anne agreed, and they set forth.  Two weeks
+of kind sunshine had wrought a miracle in the bleak landscape over
+which Gilbert’s crow had flown.  The hills and fields were dry and
+brown and warm, ready to break into bud and blossom; the harbor was
+laughter-shaken again; the long harbor road was like a gleaming red
+ribbon; down on the dunes a crowd of boys, who were out smelt fishing,
+were burning the thick, dry sandhill grass of the preceding summer.
+The flames swept over the dunes rosily, flinging their cardinal banners
+against the dark gulf beyond, and illuminating the channel and the
+fishing village.  It was a picturesque scene which would at other times
+have delighted Anne’s eyes; but she was not enjoying this walk.
+Neither was Gilbert.  Their usual good-comradeship and Josephian
+community of taste and viewpoint were sadly lacking.  Anne’s
+disapproval of the whole project showed itself in the haughty uplift of
+her head and the studied politeness of her remarks.  Gilbert’s mouth
+was set in all the Blythe obstinacy, but his eyes were troubled.  He
+meant to do what he believed to be his duty; but to be at outs with
+Anne was a high price to pay.  Altogether, both were glad when they
+reached the light--and remorseful that they should be glad.
+
+Captain Jim put away the fishing net upon which he was working, and
+welcomed them joyfully.  In the searching light of the spring evening
+he looked older than Anne had ever seen him.  His hair had grown much
+grayer, and the strong old hand shook a little.  But his blue eyes were
+clear and steady, and the staunch soul looked out through them gallant
+and unafraid.
+
+Captain Jim listened in amazed silence while Gilbert said what he had
+come to say.  Anne, who knew how the old man worshipped Leslie, felt
+quite sure that he would side with her, although she had not much hope
+that this would influence Gilbert.  She was therefore surprised beyond
+measure when Captain Jim, slowly and sorrowfully, but unhesitatingly,
+gave it as his opinion that Leslie should be told.
+
+“Oh, Captain Jim, I didn’t think you’d say that,” she exclaimed
+reproachfully.  “I thought you wouldn’t want to make more trouble for
+her.”
+
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+
+“I don’t want to.  I know how you feel about it, Mistress Blythe--just
+as I feel meself.  But it ain’t our feelings we have to steer by
+through life--no, no, we’d make shipwreck mighty often if we did that.
+There’s only the one safe compass and we’ve got to set our course by
+that--what it’s right to do.  I agree with the doctor.  If there’s a
+chance for Dick, Leslie should be told of it.  There’s no two sides to
+that, in my opinion.”
+
+“Well,” said Anne, giving up in despair, “wait until Miss Cornelia gets
+after you two men.”
+
+“Cornelia’ll rake us fore and aft, no doubt,” assented Captain Jim.
+“You women are lovely critters, Mistress Blythe, but you’re just a mite
+illogical.  You’re a highly eddicated lady and Cornelia isn’t, but
+you’re like as two peas when it comes to that.  I dunno’s you’re any
+the worse for it.  Logic is a sort of hard, merciless thing, I reckon.
+Now, I’ll brew a cup of tea and we’ll drink it and talk of pleasant
+things, jest to calm our minds a bit.”
+
+At least, Captain Jim’s tea and conversation calmed Anne’s mind to such
+an extent that she did not make Gilbert suffer so acutely on the way
+home as she had deliberately intended to do.  She did not refer to the
+burning question at all, but she chatted amiably of other matters, and
+Gilbert understood that he was forgiven under protest.
+
+“Captain Jim seems very frail and bent this spring.  The winter has
+aged him,” said Anne sadly.  “I am afraid that he will soon be going to
+seek lost Margaret.  I can’t bear to think of it.”
+
+“Four Winds won’t be the same place when Captain Jim ‘sets out to
+sea,’” agreed Gilbert.
+
+The following evening he went to the house up the brook.  Anne wandered
+dismally around until his return.
+
+“Well, what did Leslie say?” she demanded when he came in.
+
+“Very little.  I think she felt rather dazed.”
+
+“And is she going to have the operation?”
+
+“She is going to think it over and decide very soon.”
+
+Gilbert flung himself wearily into the easy chair before the fire.  He
+looked tired.  It had not been an easy thing for him to tell Leslie.
+And the terror that had sprung into her eyes when the meaning of what
+he told her came home to her was not a pleasant thing to remember.
+Now, when the die was cast, he was beset with doubts of his own wisdom.
+
+Anne looked at him remorsefully; then she slipped down on the rug
+beside him and laid her glossy red head on his arm.
+
+“Gilbert, I’ve been rather hateful over this.  I won’t be any more.
+Please just call me red-headed and forgive me.”
+
+By which Gilbert understood that, no matter what came of it, there
+would be no I-told-you-so’s.  But he was not wholly comforted.  Duty in
+the abstract is one thing; duty in the concrete is quite another,
+especially when the doer is confronted by a woman’s stricken eyes.
+
+Some instinct made Anne keep away from Leslie for the next three days.
+On the third evening Leslie came down to the little house and told
+Gilbert that she had made up her mind; she would take Dick to Montreal
+and have the operation.
+
+She was very pale and seemed to have wrapped herself in her old mantle
+of aloofness.  But her eyes had lost the look which had haunted
+Gilbert; they were cold and bright; and she proceeded to discuss
+details with him in a crisp, business-like way.  There were plans to be
+made and many things to be thought over.  When Leslie had got the
+information she wanted she went home.  Anne wanted to walk part of the
+way with her.
+
+“Better not,” said Leslie curtly.  “Today’s rain has made the ground
+damp.  Good-night.”
+
+“Have I lost my friend?” said Anne with a sigh.  “If the operation is
+successful and Dick Moore finds himself again Leslie will retreat into
+some remote fastness of her soul where none of us can ever find her.”
+
+“Perhaps she will leave him,” said Gilbert.
+
+“Leslie would never do that, Gilbert.  Her sense of duty is very
+strong.  She told me once that her Grandmother West always impressed
+upon her the fact that when she assumed any responsibility she must
+never shirk it, no matter what the consequences might be.  That is one
+of her cardinal rules.  I suppose it’s very old-fashioned.”
+
+“Don’t be bitter, Anne-girl.  You know you don’t think it
+old-fashioned--you know you have the very same idea of sacredness of
+assumed responsibilities yourself.  And you are right.  Shirking
+responsibilities is the curse of our modern life--the secret of all the
+unrest and discontent that is seething in the world.”
+
+“Thus saith the preacher,” mocked Anne.  But under the mockery she felt
+that he was right; and she was very sick at heart for Leslie.
+
+A week later Miss Cornelia descended like an avalanche upon the little
+house.  Gilbert was away and Anne was compelled to bear the shock of
+the impact alone.
+
+Miss Cornelia hardly waited to get her hat off before she began.
+
+“Anne, do you mean to tell me it’s true what I’ve heard--that Dr.
+Blythe has told Leslie Dick can be cured, and that she is going to take
+him to Montreal to have him operated on?”
+
+“Yes, it is quite true, Miss Cornelia,” said Anne bravely.
+
+“Well, it’s inhuman cruelty, that’s what it is,” said Miss Cornelia,
+violently agitated.  “I did think Dr. Blythe was a decent man.  I
+didn’t think he could have been guilty of this.”
+
+“Dr. Blythe thought it was his duty to tell Leslie that there was a
+chance for Dick,” said Anne with spirit, “and,” she added, loyalty to
+Gilbert getting the better of her, “I agree with him.”
+
+“Oh, no, you don’t, dearie,” said Miss Cornelia.  “No person with any
+bowels of compassion could.”
+
+“Captain Jim does.”
+
+“Don’t quote that old ninny to me,” cried Miss Cornelia.  “And I don’t
+care who agrees with him.  Think--THINK what it means to that poor
+hunted, harried girl.”
+
+“We DO think of it.  But Gilbert believes that a doctor should put the
+welfare of a patient’s mind and body before all other considerations.”
+
+“That’s just like a man.  But I expected better things of you, Anne,”
+said Miss Cornelia, more in sorrow than in wrath; then she proceeded to
+bombard Anne with precisely the same arguments with which the latter
+had attacked Gilbert; and Anne valiantly defended her husband with the
+weapons he had used for his own protection.  Long was the fray, but
+Miss Cornelia made an end at last.
+
+“It’s an iniquitous shame,” she declared, almost in tears.  “That’s
+just what it is--an iniquitous shame.  Poor, poor Leslie!”
+
+“Don’t you think Dick should be considered a little too?” pleaded Anne.
+
+“Dick!  Dick Moore!  HE’S happy enough.  He’s a better behaved and more
+reputable member of society now than he ever was before.
+
+“Why, he was a drunkard and perhaps worse.  Are you going to set him
+loose again to roar and to devour?”
+
+“He may reform,” said poor Anne, beset by foe without and traitor
+within.
+
+“Reform your grandmother!” retorted Miss Cornelia.  “Dick Moore got the
+injuries that left him as he is in a drunken brawl.  He DESERVES his
+fate.  It was sent on him for a punishment.  I don’t believe the doctor
+has any business to tamper with the visitations of God.”
+
+“Nobody knows how Dick was hurt, Miss Cornelia.  It may not have been
+in a drunken brawl at all.  He may have been waylaid and robbed.”
+
+“Pigs MAY whistle, but they’ve poor mouths for it,” said Miss Cornelia.
+“Well, the gist of what you tell me is that the thing is settled and
+there’s no use in talking.  If that’s so I’ll hold my tongue.  I don’t
+propose to wear MY teeth out gnawing files.  When a thing has to be I
+give in to it.  But I like to make mighty sure first that it HAS to be.
+Now, I’ll devote MY energies to comforting and sustaining Leslie.  And
+after all,” added Miss Cornelia, brightening up hopefully, “perhaps
+nothing can be done for Dick.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 31
+
+THE TRUTH MAKES FREE
+
+Leslie, having once made up her mind what to do, proceeded to do it
+with characteristic resolution and speed.  House-cleaning must be
+finished with first, whatever issues of life and death might await
+beyond.  The gray house up the brook was put into flawless order and
+cleanliness, with Miss Cornelia’s ready assistance.  Miss Cornelia,
+having said her say to Anne, and later on to Gilbert and Captain
+Jim--sparing neither of them, let it be assured--never spoke of the
+matter to Leslie.  She accepted the fact of Dick’s operation, referred
+to it when necessary in a business-like way, and ignored it when it was
+not.  Leslie never attempted to discuss it.  She was very cold and
+quiet during these beautiful spring days.  She seldom visited Anne, and
+though she was invariably courteous and friendly, that very courtesy
+was as an icy barrier between her and the people of the little house.
+The old jokes and laughter and chumminess of common things could not
+reach her over it.  Anne refused to feel hurt.  She knew that Leslie
+was in the grip of a hideous dread--a dread that wrapped her away from
+all little glimpses of happiness and hours of pleasure.  When one great
+passion seizes possession of the soul all other feelings are crowded
+aside.  Never in all her life had Leslie Moore shuddered away from the
+future with more intolerable terror.  But she went forward as
+unswervingly in the path she had elected as the martyrs of old walked
+their chosen way, knowing the end of it to be the fiery agony of the
+stake.
+
+The financial question was settled with greater ease than Anne had
+feared.  Leslie borrowed the necessary money from Captain Jim, and, at
+her insistence, he took a mortgage on the little farm.
+
+“So that is one thing off the poor girl’s mind,” Miss Cornelia told
+Anne, “and off mine too.  Now, if Dick gets well enough to work again
+he’ll be able to earn enough to pay the interest on it; and if he
+doesn’t I know Captain Jim’ll manage someway that Leslie won’t have to.
+He said as much to me.  ‘I’m getting old, Cornelia,’ he said, ‘and I’ve
+no chick or child of my own.  Leslie won’t take a gift from a living
+man, but mebbe she will from a dead one.’  So it will be all right as
+far as THAT goes.  I wish everything else might be settled as
+satisfactorily.  As for that wretch of a Dick, he’s been awful these
+last few days.  The devil was in him, believe ME!  Leslie and I
+couldn’t get on with our work for the tricks he’d play.  He chased all
+her ducks one day around the yard till most of them died.  And not one
+thing would he do for us.  Sometimes, you know, he’ll make himself
+quite handy, bringing in pails of water and wood.  But this week if we
+sent him to the well he’d try to climb down into it.  I thought once,
+‘If you’d only shoot down there head-first everything would be nicely
+settled.’”
+
+“Oh, Miss Cornelia!”
+
+“Now, you needn’t Miss Cornelia me, Anne, dearie.  ANYBODY would have
+thought the same.  If the Montreal doctors can make a rational creature
+out of Dick Moore they’re wonders.”
+
+Leslie took Dick to Montreal early in May.  Gilbert went with her, to
+help her, and make the necessary arrangements for her.  He came home
+with the report that the Montreal surgeon whom they had consulted
+agreed with him that there was a good chance of Dick’s restoration.
+
+“Very comforting,” was Miss Cornelia’s sarcastic comment.
+
+Anne only sighed.  Leslie had been very distant at their parting.
+
+But she had promised to write.  Ten days after Gilbert’s return the
+letter came.  Leslie wrote that the operation had been successfully
+performed and that Dick was making a good recovery.
+
+“What does she mean by ‘successfully?’” asked Anne.  “Does she mean
+that Dick’s memory is really restored?”
+
+“Not likely--since she says nothing of it,” said Gilbert.  “She uses
+the word ‘successfully’ from the surgeon’s point of view.  The
+operation has been performed and followed by normal results.  But it is
+too soon to know whether Dick’s faculties will be eventually restored,
+wholly or in part.  His memory would not be likely to return to him all
+at once.  The process will be gradual, if it occurs at all.  Is that
+all she says?”
+
+“Yes--there’s her letter.  It’s very short.  Poor girl, she must be
+under a terrible strain.  Gilbert Blythe, there are heaps of things I
+long to say to you, only it would be mean.”
+
+“Miss Cornelia says them for you,” said Gilbert with a rueful smile.
+“She combs me down every time I encounter her.  She makes it plain to
+me that she regards me as little better than a murderer, and that she
+thinks it a great pity that Dr. Dave ever let me step into his shoes.
+She even told me that the Methodist doctor over the harbor was to be
+preferred before me.  With Miss Cornelia the force of condemnation can
+no further go.”
+
+“If Cornelia Bryant was sick, it would not be Doctor Dave or the
+Methodist doctor she would send for,” sniffed Susan.  “She would have
+you out of your hard-earned bed in the middle of the night, doctor,
+dear, if she took a spell of misery, that she would.  And then she
+would likely say your bill was past all reason.  But do not mind her,
+doctor, dear.  It takes all kinds of people to make a world.”
+
+No further word came from Leslie for some time.  The May days crept
+away in a sweet succession and the shores of Four Winds Harbor greened
+and bloomed and purpled.  One day in late May Gilbert came home to be
+met by Susan in the stable yard.
+
+“I am afraid something has upset Mrs. Doctor, doctor, dear,” she said
+mysteriously.  “She got a letter this afternoon and since then she has
+just been walking round the garden and talking to herself.  You know it
+is not good for her to be on her feet so much, doctor, dear.  She did
+not see fit to tell me what her news was, and I am no pry, doctor,
+dear, and never was, but it is plain something has upset her.  And it
+is not good for her to be upset.”
+
+Gilbert hurried rather anxiously to the garden.  Had anything happened
+at Green Gables?  But Anne, sitting on the rustic seat by the brook,
+did not look troubled, though she was certainly much excited.  Her eyes
+were their grayest, and scarlet spots burned on her cheeks.
+
+“What has happened, Anne?”
+
+Anne gave a queer little laugh.
+
+“I think you’ll hardly believe it when I tell you, Gilbert.  _I_ can’t
+believe it yet.  As Susan said the other day, ‘I feel like a fly coming
+to live in the sun--dazed-like.’  It’s all so incredible.  I’ve read
+the letter a score of times and every time it’s just the same--I can’t
+believe my own eyes.  Oh, Gilbert, you were right--so right.  I can see
+that clearly enough now--and I’m so ashamed of myself--and will you
+ever really forgive me?”
+
+“Anne, I’ll shake you if you don’t grow coherent.  Redmond would be
+ashamed of you.  WHAT has happened?”
+
+“You won’t believe it--you won’t believe it--”
+
+“I’m going to phone for Uncle Dave,” said Gilbert, pretending to start
+for the house.
+
+“Sit down, Gilbert.  I’ll try to tell you.  I’ve had a letter, and oh,
+Gilbert, it’s all so amazing--so incredibly amazing--we never
+thought--not one of us ever dreamed--”
+
+“I suppose,” said Gilbert, sitting down with a resigned air, “the only
+thing to do in a case of this kind is to have patience and go at the
+matter categorically.  Whom is your letter from?”
+
+“Leslie--and, oh, Gilbert--”
+
+“Leslie!  Whew!  What has she to say?  What’s the news about Dick?”
+
+Anne lifted the letter and held it out, calmly dramatic in a moment.
+
+“There is NO Dick!  The man we have thought Dick Moore--whom everybody
+in Four Winds has believed for twelve years to be Dick Moore--is his
+cousin, George Moore, of Nova Scotia, who, it seems, always resembled
+him very strikingly.  Dick Moore died of yellow fever thirteen years
+ago in Cuba.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 32
+
+MISS CORNELIA DISCUSSES THE AFFAIR
+
+“And do you mean to tell me, Anne, dearie, that Dick Moore has turned
+out not to be Dick Moore at all but somebody else?  Is THAT what you
+phoned up to me today?”
+
+“Yes, Miss Cornelia.  It is very amazing, isn’t it?”
+
+“It’s--it’s--just like a man,” said Miss Cornelia helplessly.  She took
+off her hat with trembling fingers.  For once in her life Miss Cornelia
+was undeniably staggered.
+
+“I can’t seem to sense it, Anne,” she said.  “I’ve heard you say
+it--and I believe you--but I can’t take it in.  Dick Moore is dead--has
+been dead all these years--and Leslie is free?”
+
+“Yes.  The truth has made her free.  Gilbert was right when he said
+that verse was the grandest in the Bible.”
+
+“Tell me everything, Anne, dearie.  Since I got your phone I’ve been in
+a regular muddle, believe ME.  Cornelia Bryant was never so
+kerflummuxed before.”
+
+“There isn’t a very great deal to tell.  Leslie’s letter was short.
+She didn’t go into particulars.  This man--George Moore--has recovered
+his memory and knows who he is.  He says Dick took yellow fever in
+Cuba, and the Four Sisters had to sail without him.  George stayed
+behind to nurse him.  But he died very shortly afterwards.
+
+“George did not write Leslie because he intended to come right home and
+tell her himself.”
+
+“And why didn’t he?”
+
+“I suppose his accident must have intervened.  Gilbert says it is quite
+likely that George Moore remembers nothing of his accident, or what led
+to it, and may never remember it.  It probably happened very soon after
+Dick’s death.  We may find out more particulars when Leslie writes
+again.”
+
+“Does she say what she is going to do?  When is she coming home?”
+
+“She says she will stay with George Moore until he can leave the
+hospital.  She has written to his people in Nova Scotia.  It seems that
+George’s only near relative is a married sister much older than
+himself.  She was living when George sailed on the Four Sisters, but of
+course we do not know what may have happened since.  Did you ever see
+George Moore, Miss Cornelia?”
+
+“I did.  It is all coming back to me.  He was here visiting his Uncle
+Abner eighteen years ago, when he and Dick would be about seventeen.
+They were double cousins, you see.  Their fathers were brothers and
+their mothers were twin sisters, and they did look a terrible lot
+alike.  Of course,” added Miss Cornelia scornfully, “it wasn’t one of
+those freak resemblances you read of in novels where two people are so
+much alike that they can fill each other’s places and their nearest and
+dearest can’t tell between them.  In those days you could tell easy
+enough which was George and which was Dick, if you saw them together
+and near at hand.  Apart, or some distance away, it wasn’t so easy.
+They played lots of tricks on people and thought it great fun, the two
+scamps.  George Moore was a little taller and a good deal fatter than
+Dick--though neither of them was what you would call fat--they were
+both of the lean kind.  Dick had higher color than George, and his hair
+was a shade lighter.  But their features were just alike, and they both
+had that queer freak of eyes--one blue and one hazel.  They weren’t
+much alike in any other way, though.  George was a real nice fellow,
+though he was a scalawag for mischief, and some said he had a liking
+for a glass even then.  But everybody liked him better than Dick.  He
+spent about a month here.  Leslie never saw him; she was only about
+eight or nine then and I remember now that she spent that whole winter
+over harbor with her grandmother West.  Captain Jim was away, too--that
+was the winter he was wrecked on the Magdalens.  I don’t suppose either
+he or Leslie had ever heard about the Nova Scotia cousin looking so
+much like Dick.  Nobody ever thought of him when Captain Jim brought
+Dick--George, I should say--home.  Of course, we all thought Dick had
+changed considerable--he’d got so lumpish and fat.  But we put that
+down to what had happened to him, and no doubt that was the reason,
+for, as I’ve said, George wasn’t fat to begin with either.  And there
+was no other way we could have guessed, for the man’s senses were clean
+gone.  I can’t see that it is any wonder we were all deceived.  But
+it’s a staggering thing.  And Leslie has sacrificed the best years of
+her life to nursing a man who hadn’t any claim on her!  Oh, drat the
+men!  No matter what they do, it’s the wrong thing.  And no matter who
+they are, it’s somebody they shouldn’t be.  They do exasperate me.”
+
+“Gilbert and Captain Jim are men, and it is through them that the truth
+has been discovered at last,” said Anne.
+
+“Well, I admit that,” conceded Miss Cornelia reluctantly.  “I’m sorry I
+raked the doctor off so.  It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever felt
+ashamed of anything I said to a man.  I don’t know as I shall tell him
+so, though.  He’ll just have to take it for granted.  Well, Anne,
+dearie, it’s a mercy the Lord doesn’t answer all our prayers.  I’ve
+been praying hard right along that the operation wouldn’t cure Dick.
+Of course I didn’t put it just quite so plain.  But that was what was
+in the back of my mind, and I have no doubt the Lord knew it.”
+
+“Well, He has answered the spirit of your prayer.  You really wished
+that things shouldn’t be made any harder for Leslie.  I’m afraid that
+in my secret heart I’ve been hoping the operation wouldn’t succeed, and
+I am wholesomely ashamed of it.”
+
+“How does Leslie seem to take it?”
+
+“She writes like one dazed.  I think that, like ourselves, she hardly
+realises it yet.  She says, ‘It all seems like a strange dream to me,
+Anne.’  That is the only reference she makes to herself.”
+
+“Poor child!  I suppose when the chains are struck off a prisoner he’d
+feel queer and lost without them for a while.  Anne, dearie, here’s a
+thought keeps coming into my mind.  What about Owen Ford?  We both know
+Leslie was fond of him.  Did it ever occur to you that he was fond of
+her?”
+
+“It--did--once,” admitted Anne, feeling that she might say so much.
+
+“Well, I hadn’t any reason to think he was, but it just appeared to me
+he MUST be.  Now, Anne, dearie, the Lord knows I’m not a match-maker,
+and I scorn all such doings.  But if I were you and writing to that
+Ford man I’d just mention, casual-like, what has happened.  That is
+what _I_’d do.”
+
+“Of course I will mention it when I write him,” said Anne, a trifle
+distantly.  Somehow, this was a thing she could not discuss with Miss
+Cornelia.  And yet, she had to admit that the same thought had been
+lurking in her mind ever since she had heard of Leslie’s freedom.  But
+she would not desecrate it by free speech.
+
+“Of course there is no great rush, dearie.  But Dick Moore’s been dead
+for thirteen years and Leslie has wasted enough of her life for him.
+We’ll just see what comes of it.  As for this George Moore, who’s gone
+and come back to life when everyone thought he was dead and done for,
+just like a man, I’m real sorry for him.  He won’t seem to fit in
+anywhere.”
+
+“He is still a young man, and if he recovers completely, as seems
+likely, he will be able to make a place for himself again.  It must be
+very strange for him, poor fellow.  I suppose all these years since his
+accident will not exist for him.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 33
+
+LESLIE RETURNS
+
+A fortnight later Leslie Moore came home alone to the old house where
+she had spent so many bitter years.  In the June twilight she went over
+the fields to Anne’s, and appeared with ghost-like suddenness in the
+scented garden.
+
+“Leslie!” cried Anne in amazement.  “Where have you sprung from?  We
+never knew you were coming.  Why didn’t you write?  We would have met
+you.”
+
+“I couldn’t write somehow, Anne.  It seemed so futile to try to say
+anything with pen and ink.  And I wanted to get back quietly and
+unobserved.”
+
+Anne put her arms about Leslie and kissed her.  Leslie returned the
+kiss warmly.  She looked pale and tired, and she gave a little sigh as
+she dropped down on the grasses beside a great bed of daffodils that
+were gleaming through the pale, silvery twilight like golden stars.
+
+“And you have come home alone, Leslie?”
+
+“Yes.  George Moore’s sister came to Montreal and took him home with
+her.  Poor fellow, he was sorry to part with me--though I was a
+stranger to him when his memory first came back.  He clung to me in
+those first hard days when he was trying to realise that Dick’s death
+was not the thing of yesterday that it seemed to him.  It was all very
+hard for him.  I helped him all I could.  When his sister came it was
+easier for him, because it seemed to him only the other day that he had
+seen her last.  Fortunately she had not changed much, and that helped
+him, too.”
+
+“It is all so strange and wonderful, Leslie.  I think we none of us
+realise it yet.”
+
+“I cannot.  When I went into the house over there an hour ago, I felt
+that it MUST be a dream--that Dick must be there, with his childish
+smile, as he had been for so long.  Anne, I seem stunned yet. I’m not
+glad or sorry--or ANYTHING.  I feel as if something had been torn
+suddenly out of my life and left a terrible hole.  I feel as if I
+couldn’t be _I_--as if I must have changed into somebody else and
+couldn’t get used to it.  It gives me a horrible lonely, dazed,
+helpless feeling.  It’s good to see you again--it seems as if you were
+a sort of anchor for my drifting soul.  Oh, Anne, I dread it all--the
+gossip and wonderment and questioning.  When I think of that, I wish
+that I need not have come home at all.  Dr. Dave was at the station
+when I came off the train--he brought me home.  Poor old man, he feels
+very badly because he told me years ago that nothing could be done for
+Dick.  ‘I honestly thought so, Leslie,’ he said to me today.  ‘But I
+should have told you not to depend on my opinion--I should have told
+you to go to a specialist.  If I had, you would have been saved many
+bitter years, and poor George Moore many wasted ones.  I blame myself
+very much, Leslie.’  I told him not to do that--he had done what he
+thought right.  He has always been so kind to me--I couldn’t bear to
+see him worrying over it.”
+
+“And Dick--George, I mean?  Is his memory fully restored?”
+
+“Practically.  Of course, there are a great many details he can’t
+recall yet--but he remembers more and more every day.  He went out for
+a walk on the evening after Dick was buried.  He had Dick’s money and
+watch on him; he meant to bring them home to me, along with my letter.
+He admits he went to a place where the sailors resorted--and he
+remembers drinking--and nothing else.  Anne, I shall never forget the
+moment he remembered his own name.  I saw him looking at me with an
+intelligent but puzzled expression.  I said, ‘Do you know me, Dick?’
+He answered, ‘I never saw you before.  Who are you?  And my name is not
+Dick.  I am George Moore, and Dick died of yellow fever yesterday!
+Where am I?  What has happened to me?’  I--I fainted, Anne.  And ever
+since I have felt as if I were in a dream.”
+
+“You will soon adjust yourself to this new state of things, Leslie.
+And you are young--life is before you--you will have many beautiful
+years yet.”
+
+“Perhaps I shall be able to look at it in that way after a while, Anne.
+Just now I feel too tired and indifferent to think about the future.
+I’m--I’m--Anne, I’m lonely.  I miss Dick.  Isn’t it all very strange?
+Do you know, I was really fond of poor Dick--George, I suppose I should
+say--just as I would have been fond of a helpless child who depended on
+me for everything.  I would never have admitted it--I was really
+ashamed of it--because, you see, I had hated and despised Dick so much
+before he went away.  When I heard that Captain Jim was bringing him
+home I expected I would just feel the same to him.  But I never
+did--although I continued to loathe him as I remembered him before.
+From the time he came home I felt only pity--a pity that hurt and wrung
+me.  I supposed then that it was just because his accident had made him
+so helpless and changed.  But now I believe it was because there was
+really a different personality there.  Carlo knew it, Anne--I know now
+that Carlo knew it.  I always thought it strange that Carlo shouldn’t
+have known Dick.  Dogs are usually so faithful.  But HE knew it was not
+his master who had come back, although none of the rest of us did.  I
+had never seen George Moore, you know.  I remember now that Dick once
+mentioned casually that he had a cousin in Nova Scotia who looked as
+much like him as a twin; but the thing had gone out of my memory, and
+in any case I would never have thought it of any importance.  You see,
+it never occurred to me to question Dick’s identity.  Any change in him
+seemed to me just the result of the accident.
+
+“Oh, Anne, that night in April when Gilbert told me he thought Dick
+might be cured!  I can never forget it.  It seemed to me that I had
+once been a prisoner in a hideous cage of torture, and then the door
+had been opened and I could get out.  I was still chained to the cage
+but I was not in it.  And that night I felt that a merciless hand was
+drawing me back into the cage--back to a torture even more terrible
+than it had once been.  I didn’t blame Gilbert.  I felt he was right.
+And he had been very good--he said that if, in view of the expense and
+uncertainty of the operation, I should decide not to risk it, he would
+not blame me in the least.  But I knew how I ought to decide--and I
+couldn’t face it.  All night I walked the floor like a mad woman,
+trying to compel myself to face it.  I couldn’t, Anne--I thought I
+couldn’t--and when morning broke I set my teeth and resolved that I
+WOULDN’T.  I would let things remain as they were.  It was very wicked,
+I know.  It would have been just punishment for such wickedness if I
+had just been left to abide by that decision.  I kept to it all day.
+That afternoon I had to go up to the Glen to do some shopping.  It was
+one of Dick’s quiet, drowsy days, so I left him alone.  I was gone a
+little longer than I had expected, and he missed me.  He felt lonely.
+And when I got home, he ran to meet me just like a child, with such a
+pleased smile on his face.  Somehow, Anne, I just gave way then.  That
+smile on his poor vacant face was more than I could endure.  I felt as
+if I were denying a child the chance to grow and develop.  I knew that
+I must give him his chance, no matter what the consequences might be.
+So I came over and told Gilbert.  Oh, Anne, you must have thought me
+hateful in those weeks before I went away.  I didn’t mean to be--but I
+couldn’t think of anything except what I had to do, and everything and
+everybody about me were like shadows.”
+
+“I know--I understood, Leslie.  And now it is all over--your chain is
+broken--there is no cage.”
+
+“There is no cage,” repeated Leslie absently, plucking at the fringing
+grasses with her slender, brown hands.  “But--it doesn’t seem as if
+there were anything else, Anne.  You--you remember what I told you of
+my folly that night on the sand-bar?  I find one doesn’t get over being
+a fool very quickly.  Sometimes I think there are people who are fools
+forever.  And to be a fool--of that kind--is almost as bad as being
+a--a dog on a chain.”
+
+“You will feel very differently after you get over being tired and
+bewildered,” said Anne, who, knowing a certain thing that Leslie did
+not know, did not feel herself called upon to waste overmuch sympathy.
+
+Leslie laid her splendid golden head against Anne’s knee.
+
+“Anyhow, I have YOU,” she said.  “Life can’t be altogether empty with
+such a friend.  Anne, pat my head--just as if I were a little
+girl--MOTHER me a bit--and let me tell you while my stubborn tongue is
+loosed a little just what you and your comradeship have meant to me
+since that night I met you on the rock shore.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 34
+
+THE SHIP O’DREAMS COMES TO HARBOR
+
+One morning, when a windy golden sunrise was billowing over the gulf in
+waves of light, a certain weary stork flew over the bar of Four Winds
+Harbor on his way from the Land of Evening Stars.  Under his wing was
+tucked a sleepy, starry-eyed, little creature.  The stork was tired,
+and he looked wistfully about him.  He knew he was somewhere near his
+destination, but he could not yet see it.  The big, white light-house
+on the red sandstone cliff had its good points; but no stork possessed
+of any gumption would leave a new, velvet baby there.  An old gray
+house, surrounded by willows, in a blossomy brook valley, looked more
+promising, but did not seem quite the thing either.  The staring green
+abode further on was manifestly out of the question.  Then the stork
+brightened up.  He had caught sight of the very place--a little white
+house nestled against a big, whispering firwood, with a spiral of blue
+smoke winding up from its kitchen chimney--a house which just looked as
+if it were meant for babies.  The stork gave a sigh of satisfaction,
+and softly alighted on the ridge-pole.
+
+Half an hour later Gilbert ran down the hall and tapped on the
+spare-room door.  A drowsy voice answered him and in a moment Marilla’s
+pale, scared face peeped out from behind the door.
+
+“Marilla, Anne has sent me to tell you that a certain young gentleman
+has arrived here.  He hasn’t brought much luggage with him, but he
+evidently means to stay.”
+
+“For pity’s sake!” said Marilla blankly.  “You don’t mean to tell me,
+Gilbert, that it’s all over.  Why wasn’t I called?”
+
+“Anne wouldn’t let us disturb you when there was no need.  Nobody was
+called until about two hours ago.  There was no ‘passage perilous’ this
+time.”
+
+“And--and--Gilbert--will this baby live?”
+
+“He certainly will.  He weighs ten pounds and--why, listen to him.
+Nothing wrong with his lungs, is there?  The nurse says his hair will
+be red.  Anne is furious with her, and I’m tickled to death.”
+
+That was a wonderful day in the little house of dreams.
+
+“The best dream of all has come true,” said Anne, pale and rapturous.
+“Oh, Marilla, I hardly dare believe it, after that horrible day last
+summer.  I have had a heartache ever since then--but it is gone now.”
+
+“This baby will take Joy’s place,” said Marilla.
+
+“Oh, no, no, NO, Marilla.  He can’t--nothing can ever do that.  He has
+his own place, my dear, wee man-child.  But little Joy has hers, and
+always will have it.  If she had lived she would have been over a year
+old.  She would have been toddling around on her tiny feet and lisping
+a few words.  I can see her so plainly, Marilla.  Oh, I know now that
+Captain Jim was right when he said God would manage better than that my
+baby would seem a stranger to me when I found her Beyond.  I’ve learned
+THAT this past year.  I’ve followed her development day by day and week
+by week--I always shall.  I shall know just how she grows from year to
+year--and when I meet her again I’ll know her--she won’t be a stranger.
+Oh, Marilla, LOOK at his dear, darling toes!  Isn’t it strange they
+should be so perfect?”
+
+“It would be stranger if they weren’t,” said Marilla crisply.  Now that
+all was safely over, Marilla was herself again.
+
+“Oh, I know--but it seems as if they couldn’t be quite FINISHED, you
+know--and they are, even to the tiny nails.  And his hands--JUST look
+at his hands, Marilla.”
+
+“They appear to be a good deal like hands,” Marilla conceded.
+
+“See how he clings to my finger.  I’m sure he knows me already.  He
+cries when the nurse takes him away.  Oh, Marilla, do you think--you
+don’t think, do you--that his hair is going to be red?”
+
+“I don’t see much hair of any color,” said Marilla.  “I wouldn’t worry
+about it, if I were you, until it becomes visible.”
+
+“Marilla, he HAS hair--look at that fine little down all over his head.
+Anyway, nurse says his eyes will be hazel and his forehead is exactly
+like Gilbert’s.”
+
+“And he has the nicest little ears, Mrs. Doctor, dear,” said Susan.
+“The first thing I did was to look at his ears.  Hair is deceitful and
+noses and eyes change, and you cannot tell what is going to come of
+them, but ears is ears from start to finish, and you always know where
+you are with them.  Just look at their shape--and they are set right
+back against his precious head.  You will never need to be ashamed of
+his ears, Mrs. Doctor, dear.”
+
+Anne’s convalescence was rapid and happy.  Folks came and worshipped
+the baby, as people have bowed before the kingship of the new-born
+since long before the Wise Men of the East knelt in homage to the Royal
+Babe of the Bethlehem manger.  Leslie, slowly finding herself amid the
+new conditions of her life, hovered over it, like a beautiful,
+golden-crowned Madonna.  Miss Cornelia nursed it as knackily as could
+any mother in Israel.  Captain Jim held the small creature in his big
+brown hands and gazed tenderly at it, with eyes that saw the children
+who had never been born to him.
+
+“What are you going to call him?” asked Miss Cornelia.
+
+“Anne has settled his name,” answered Gilbert.
+
+“James Matthew--after the two finest gentlemen I’ve ever known--not
+even saving your presence,” said Anne with a saucy glance at Gilbert.
+
+Gilbert smiled.
+
+“I never knew Matthew very well; he was so shy we boys couldn’t get
+acquainted with him--but I quite agree with you that Captain Jim is one
+of the rarest and finest souls God ever clothed in clay.  He is so
+delighted over the fact that we have given his name to our small lad.
+It seems he has no other namesake.”
+
+“Well, James Matthew is a name that will wear well and not fade in the
+washing,” said Miss Cornelia.  “I’m glad you didn’t load him down with
+some highfalutin, romantic name that he’d be ashamed of when he gets to
+be a grandfather.  Mrs. William Drew at the Glen has called her baby
+Bertie Shakespeare.  Quite a combination, isn’t it?  And I’m glad you
+haven’t had much trouble picking on a name.  Some folks have an awful
+time.  When the Stanley Flaggs’ first boy was born there was so much
+rivalry as to who the child should be named for that the poor little
+soul had to go for two years without a name.  Then a brother came along
+and there it was--‘Big Baby’ and ‘Little Baby.’ Finally they called Big
+Baby Peter and Little Baby Isaac, after the two grandfathers, and had
+them both christened together.  And each tried to see if it couldn’t
+howl the other down.  You know that Highland Scotch family of MacNabs
+back of the Glen?  They’ve got twelve boys and the oldest and the
+youngest are both called Neil--Big Neil and Little Neil in the same
+family.  Well, I s’pose they ran out of names.”
+
+“I have read somewhere,” laughed Anne, “that the first child is a poem
+but the tenth is very prosy prose.  Perhaps Mrs. MacNab thought that
+the twelfth was merely an old tale re-told.”
+
+“Well, there’s something to be said for large families,” said Miss
+Cornelia, with a sigh.  “I was an only child for eight years and I did
+long for a brother and sister.  Mother told me to pray for one--and
+pray I did, believe ME.  Well, one day Aunt Nellie came to me and said,
+‘Cornelia, there is a little brother for you upstairs in your ma’s
+room.  You can go up and see him.’  I was so excited and delighted I
+just flew upstairs.  And old Mrs. Flagg lifted up the baby for me to
+see.  Lord, Anne, dearie, I never was so disappointed in my life.  You
+see, I’d been praying for A BROTHER TWO YEARS OLDER THAN MYSELF.”
+
+“How long did it take you to get over your disappointment?” asked Anne,
+amid her laughter.
+
+“Well, I had a spite at Providence for a good spell, and for weeks I
+wouldn’t even look at the baby.  Nobody knew why, for I never told.
+Then he began to get real cute, and held out his wee hands to me and I
+began to get fond of him.  But I didn’t get really reconciled to him
+until one day a school chum came to see him and said she thought he was
+awful small for his age.  I just got boiling mad, and I sailed right
+into her, and told her she didn’t know a nice baby when she saw one,
+and ours was the nicest baby in the world.  And after that I just
+worshipped him.  Mother died before he was three years old and I was
+sister and mother to him both.  Poor little lad, he was never strong,
+and he died when he wasn’t much over twenty.  Seems to me I’d have
+given anything on earth, Anne, dearie, if he’d only lived.”
+
+Miss Cornelia sighed.  Gilbert had gone down and Leslie, who had been
+crooning over the small James Matthew in the dormer window, laid him
+asleep in his basket and went her way.  As soon as she was safely out
+of earshot, Miss Cornelia bent forward and said in a conspirator’s
+whisper:
+
+“Anne, dearie, I’d a letter from Owen Ford yesterday.  He’s in
+Vancouver just now, but he wants to know if I can board him for a month
+later on.  YOU know what that means.  Well, I hope we’re doing right.”
+
+“We’ve nothing to do with it--we couldn’t prevent him from coming to
+Four Winds if he wanted to,” said Anne quickly.  She did not like the
+feeling of match-making Miss Cornelia’s whispers gave her; and then she
+weakly succumbed herself.
+
+“Don’t let Leslie know he is coming until he is here,” she said.  “If
+she found out I feel sure she would go away at once.  She intends to go
+in the fall anyhow--she told me so the other day.  She is going to
+Montreal to take up nursing and make what she can of her life.”
+
+“Oh, well, Anne, dearie,” said Miss Cornelia, nodding sagely “that is
+all as it may be.  You and I have done our part and we must leave the
+rest to Higher Hands.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 35
+
+POLITICS AT FOUR WINDS
+
+When Anne came downstairs again, the Island, as well as all Canada, was
+in the throes of a campaign preceding a general election.  Gilbert, who
+was an ardent Conservative, found himself caught in the vortex, being
+much in demand for speech-making at the various county rallies.  Miss
+Cornelia did not approve of his mixing up in politics and told Anne so.
+
+“Dr. Dave never did it.  Dr. Blythe will find he is making a mistake,
+believe ME.  Politics is something no decent man should meddle with.”
+
+“Is the government of the country to be left solely to the rogues
+then?” asked Anne.
+
+“Yes--so long as it’s Conservative rogues,” said Miss Cornelia,
+marching off with the honors of war.  “Men and politicians are all
+tarred with the same brush.  The Grits have it laid on thicker than the
+Conservatives, that’s all--CONSIDERABLY thicker.  But Grit or Tory, my
+advice to Dr. Blythe is to steer clear of politics.  First thing you
+know, he’ll be running an election himself, and going off to Ottawa for
+half the year and leaving his practice to go to the dogs.”
+
+“Ah, well, let’s not borrow trouble,” said Anne.  “The rate of interest
+is too high.  Instead, let’s look at Little Jem.  It should be spelled
+with a G.  Isn’t he perfectly beautiful?  Just see the dimples in his
+elbows.  We’ll bring him up to be a good Conservative, you and I, Miss
+Cornelia.”
+
+“Bring him up to be a good man,” said Miss Cornelia.  “They’re scarce
+and valuable; though, mind you, I wouldn’t like to see him a Grit.  As
+for the election, you and I may be thankful we don’t live over harbor.
+The air there is blue these days.  Every Elliott and Crawford and
+MacAllister is on the warpath, loaded for bear.  This side is peaceful
+and calm, seeing there’s so few men.  Captain Jim’s a Grit, but it’s my
+opinion he’s ashamed of it, for he never talks politics.  There isn’t
+any earthly doubt that the Conservatives will be returned with a big
+majority again.”
+
+Miss Cornelia was mistaken.  On the morning after the election Captain
+Jim dropped in at the little house to tell the news.  So virulent is
+the microbe of party politics, even in a peaceable old man, that
+Captain Jim’s cheeks were flushed and his eyes were flashing with all
+his old-time fire.
+
+“Mistress Blythe, the Liberals are in with a sweeping majority.  After
+eighteen years of Tory mismanagement this down-trodden country is going
+to have a chance at last.”
+
+“I never heard you make such a bitter partisan speech before, Captain
+Jim.  I didn’t think you had so much political venom in you,” laughed
+Anne, who was not much excited over the tidings.  Little Jem had said
+“Wow-ga” that morning.  What were principalities and powers, the rise
+and fall of dynasties, the overthrow of Grit or Tory, compared with
+that miraculous occurrence?
+
+“It’s been accumulating for a long while,” said Captain Jim, with a
+deprecating smile.  “I thought I was only a moderate Grit, but when the
+news came that we were in I found out how Gritty I really was.”
+
+“You know the doctor and I are Conservatives.”
+
+“Ah, well, it’s the only bad thing I know of either of you, Mistress
+Blythe.  Cornelia is a Tory, too.  I called in on my way from the Glen
+to tell her the news.”
+
+“Didn’t you know you took your life in your hands?”
+
+“Yes, but I couldn’t resist the temptation.”
+
+“How did she take it?”
+
+“Comparatively calm, Mistress Blythe, comparatively calm.  She says,
+says she, ‘Well, Providence sends seasons of humiliation to a country,
+same as to individuals.  You Grits have been cold and hungry for many a
+year.  Make haste to get warmed and fed, for you won’t be in long.’
+‘Well, now Cornelia,’ I says, ‘mebbe Providence thinks Canada needs a
+real long spell of humiliation.’  Ah, Susan, have YOU heard the news?
+The Liberals are in.”
+
+Susan had just come in from the kitchen, attended by the odor of
+delectable dishes which always seemed to hover around her.
+
+“Now, are they?” she said, with beautiful unconcern.  “Well, I never
+could see but that my bread rose just as light when Grits were in as
+when they were not.  And if any party, Mrs. Doctor, dear, will make it
+rain before the week is out, and save our kitchen garden from entire
+ruination, that is the party Susan will vote for.  In the meantime,
+will you just step out and give me your opinion on the meat for dinner?
+I am fearing that it is very tough, and I think that we had better
+change our butcher as well as our government.”
+
+One evening, a week later, Anne walked down to the Point, to see if she
+could get some fresh fish from Captain Jim, leaving Little Jem for the
+first time.  It was quite a tragedy.  Suppose he cried?  Suppose Susan
+did not know just exactly what to do for him?  Susan was calm and
+serene.
+
+“I have had as much experience with him as you, Mrs. Doctor, dear, have
+I not?”
+
+“Yes, with him--but not with other babies.  Why, I looked after three
+pairs of twins, when I was a child, Susan.  When they cried, I gave
+them peppermint or castor oil quite coolly.  It’s quite curious now to
+recall how lightly I took all those babies and their woes.”
+
+“Oh, well, if Little Jem cries, I will just clap a hot water bag on his
+little stomach,” said Susan.
+
+“Not too hot, you know,” said Anne anxiously.  Oh, was it really wise
+to go?
+
+“Do not you fret, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Susan is not the woman to burn a
+wee man.  Bless him, he has no notion of crying.”
+
+Anne tore herself away finally and enjoyed her walk to the Point after
+all, through the long shadows of the sun-setting.  Captain Jim was not
+in the living room of the lighthouse, but another man was--a handsome,
+middle-aged man, with a strong, clean-shaven chin, who was unknown to
+Anne.  Nevertheless, when she sat down, he began to talk to her with
+all the assurance of an old acquaintance.  There was nothing amiss in
+what he said or the way he said it, but Anne rather resented such a
+cool taking-for-granted in a complete stranger.  Her replies were
+frosty, and as few as decency required.  Nothing daunted, her companion
+talked on for several minutes, then excused himself and went away.
+Anne could have sworn there was a twinkle in his eye and it annoyed
+her.  Who was the creature?  There was something vaguely familiar about
+him but she was certain she had never seen him before.
+
+“Captain Jim, who was that who just went out?” she asked, as Captain
+Jim came in.
+
+“Marshall Elliott,” answered the captain.
+
+“Marshall Elliott!” cried Anne.  “Oh, Captain Jim--it wasn’t--yes, it
+WAS his voice--oh, Captain Jim, I didn’t know him--and I was quite
+insulting to him!  WHY didn’t he tell me?  He must have seen I didn’t
+know him.”
+
+“He wouldn’t say a word about it--he’d just enjoy the joke.  Don’t
+worry over snubbing him--he’ll think it fun.  Yes, Marshall’s shaved
+off his beard at last and cut his hair.  His party is in, you know.  I
+didn’t know him myself first time I saw him.  He was up in Carter
+Flagg’s store at the Glen the night after election day, along with a
+crowd of others, waiting for the news.  About twelve the ’phone came
+through--the Liberals were in.  Marshall just got up and walked out--he
+didn’t cheer or shout--he left the others to do that, and they nearly
+lifted the roof off Carter’s store, I reckon.  Of course, all the
+Tories were over in Raymond Russell’s store.  Not much cheering THERE.
+Marshall went straight down the street to the side door of Augustus
+Palmer’s barber shop.  Augustus was in bed asleep, but Marhall hammered
+on the door until he got up and come down, wanting to know what all the
+racket was about.
+
+“Come into your shop and do the best job you ever did in your life,
+Gus,’ said Marshall.  ‘The Liberals are in and you’re going to barber a
+good Grit before the sun rises.’
+
+“Gus was mad as hops--partly because he’d been dragged out of bed, but
+more because he’s a Tory.  He vowed he wouldn’t shave any man after
+twelve at night.
+
+“‘You’ll do what I want you to do, sonny,’ said Marshall, ‘or I’ll jest
+turn you over my knee and give you one of those spankings your mother
+forgot.’
+
+“He’d have done it, too, and Gus knew it, for Marshall is as strong as
+an ox and Gus is only a midget of a man.  So he gave in and towed
+Marshall in to the shop and went to work.  ‘Now,’ says he, ‘I’ll barber
+you up, but if you say one word to me about the Grits getting in while
+I’m doing it I’ll cut your throat with this razor,’ says he.  You
+wouldn’t have thought mild little Gus could be so bloodthirsty, would
+you?  Shows what party politics will do for a man.  Marshall kept quiet
+and got his hair and beard disposed of and went home.  When his old
+housekeeper heard him come upstairs she peeked out of her bedroom door
+to see whether ’twas him or the hired boy.  And when she saw a strange
+man striding down the hall with a candle in his hand she screamed blue
+murder and fainted dead away.  They had to send for the doctor before
+they could bring her to, and it was several days before she could look
+at Marshall without shaking all over.”
+
+Captain Jim had no fish.  He seldom went out in his boat that summer,
+and his long tramping expeditions were over.  He spent a great deal of
+his time sitting by his seaward window, looking out over the gulf, with
+his swiftly-whitening head leaning on his hand.  He sat there tonight
+for many silent minutes, keeping some tryst with the past which Anne
+would not disturb.  Presently he pointed to the iris of the West:
+
+“That’s beautiful, isn’t, it, Mistress Blythe?  But I wish you could
+have seen the sunrise this morning.  It was a wonderful
+thing--wonderful.  I’ve seen all kinds of sunrises come over that gulf.
+I’ve been all over the world, Mistress Blythe, and take it all in all,
+I’ve never seen a finer sight than a summer sunrise over the gulf.  A
+man can’t pick his time for dying, Mistress Blythe--jest got to go when
+the Great Captain gives His sailing orders.  But if I could I’d go out
+when the morning comes across that water.  I’ve watched it many a time
+and thought what a thing it would be to pass out through that great
+white glory to whatever was waiting beyant, on a sea that ain’t mapped
+out on any airthly chart.  I think, Mistress Blythe, that I’d find lost
+Margaret there.”
+
+Captain Jim had often talked to Anne of lost Margaret since he had told
+her the old story.  His love for her trembled in every tone--that love
+that had never grown faint or forgetful.
+
+“Anyway, I hope when my time comes I’ll go quick and easy.  I don’t
+think I’m a coward, Mistress Blythe--I’ve looked an ugly death in the
+face more than once without blenching.  But the thought of a lingering
+death does give me a queer, sick feeling of horror.”
+
+“Don’t talk about leaving us, dear, DEAR Captain, Jim,” pleaded Anne,
+in a choked voice, patting the old brown hand, once so strong, but now
+grown very feeble.  “What would we do without you?”
+
+Captain Jim smiled beautifully.
+
+“Oh, you’d get along nicely--nicely--but you wouldn’t forget the old
+man altogether, Mistress Blythe--no, I don’t think you’ll ever quite
+forget him.  The race of Joseph always remembers one another.  But
+it’ll be a memory that won’t hurt--I like to think that my memory won’t
+hurt my friends--it’ll always be kind of pleasant to them, I hope and
+believe.  It won’t be very long now before lost Margaret calls me, for
+the last time.  I’ll be all ready to answer.  I jest spoke of this
+because there’s a little favor I want to ask you.  Here’s this poor old
+Matey of mine”--Captain Jim reached out a hand and poked the big, warm,
+velvety, golden ball on the sofa.  The First Mate uncoiled himself like
+a spring with a nice, throaty, comfortable sound, half purr, half meow,
+stretched his paws in air, turned over and coiled himself up again.
+“HE’ll miss me when I start on the V’yage.  I can’t bear to think of
+leaving the poor critter to starve, like he was left before.  If
+anything happens to me will you give Matey a bite and a corner,
+Mistress Blythe?”
+
+“Indeed I will.”
+
+“Then that is all I had on my mind.  Your Little Jem is to have the few
+curious things I picked up--I’ve seen to that.  And now I don’t like to
+see tears in those pretty eyes, Mistress Blythe.  I’ll mebbe hang on
+for quite a spell yet.  I heard you reading a piece of poetry one day
+last winter--one of Tennyson’s pieces.  I’d sorter like to hear it
+again, if you could recite it for me.”
+
+Softly and clearly, while the seawind blew in on them, Anne repeated
+the beautiful lines of Tennyson’s wonderful swan song--“Crossing the
+Bar.”  The old captain kept time gently with his sinewy hand.
+
+“Yes, yes, Mistress Blythe,” he said, when she had finished, “that’s
+it, that’s it.  He wasn’t a sailor, you tell me--I dunno how he could
+have put an old sailor’s feelings into words like that, if he wasn’t
+one.  He didn’t want any ‘sadness o’ farewells’ and neither do I,
+Mistress Blythe--for all will be well with me and mine beyant the bar.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 36
+
+BEAUTY FOR ASHES
+
+“Any news from Green Gables, Anne?”
+
+“Nothing very especial,” replied Anne, folding up Marilla’s letter.
+“Jake Donnell has been there shingling the roof.  He is a full-fledged
+carpenter now, so it seems he has had his own way in regard to the
+choice of a life-work.  You remember his mother wanted him to be a
+college professor.  I shall never forget the day she came to the school
+and rated me for failing to call him St. Clair.”
+
+“Does anyone ever call him that now?”
+
+“Evidently not.  It seems that he has completely lived it down.  Even
+his mother has succumbed.  I always thought that a boy with Jake’s chin
+and mouth would get his own way in the end.  Diana writes me that Dora
+has a beau.  Just think of it--that child!”
+
+“Dora is seventeen,” said Gilbert.  “Charlie Sloane and I were both mad
+about you when you were seventeen, Anne.”
+
+“Really, Gilbert, we must be getting on in years,” said Anne, with a
+half-rueful smile, “when children who were six when we thought
+ourselves grown up are old enough now to have beaux.  Dora’s is Ralph
+Andrews--Jane’s brother.  I remember him as a little, round, fat,
+white-headed fellow who was always at the foot of his class.  But I
+understand he is quite a fine-looking young man now.”
+
+“Dora will probably marry young.  She’s of the same type as Charlotta
+the Fourth--she’ll never miss her first chance for fear she might not
+get another.”
+
+“Well; if she marries Ralph I hope he will be a little more
+up-and-coming than his brother Billy,” mused Anne.
+
+“For instance,” said Gilbert, laughing, “let us hope he will be able to
+propose on his own account.  Anne, would you have married Billy if he
+had asked you himself, instead of getting Jane to do it for him?”
+
+“I might have.” Anne went off into a shriek of laughter over the
+recollection of her first proposal.  “The shock of the whole thing
+might have hypnotized me into some such rash and foolish act.  Let us
+be thankful he did it by proxy.”
+
+“I had a letter from George Moore yesterday,” said Leslie, from the
+corner where she was reading.
+
+“Oh, how is he?” asked Anne interestedly, yet with an unreal feeling
+that she was inquiring about some one whom she did not know.
+
+“He is well, but he finds it very hard to adapt himself to all the
+changes in his old home and friends.  He is going to sea again in the
+spring.  It’s in his blood, he says, and he longs for it.  But he told
+me something that made me glad for him, poor fellow.  Before he sailed
+on the Four Sisters he was engaged to a girl at home.  He did not tell
+me anything about her in Montreal, because he said he supposed she
+would have forgotten him and married someone else long ago, and with
+him, you see, his engagement and love was still a thing of the present.
+It was pretty hard on him, but when he got home he found she had never
+married and still cared for him.  They are to be married this fall.
+I’m going to ask him to bring her over here for a little trip; he says
+he wants to come and see the place where he lived so many years without
+knowing it.”
+
+“What a nice little romance,” said Anne, whose love for the romantic
+was immortal.  “And to think,” she added with a sigh of self-reproach,
+“that if I had had my way George Moore would never have come up from
+the grave in which his identity was buried.  How I did fight against
+Gilbert’s suggestion!  Well, I am punished:  I shall never be able to
+have a different opinion from Gilbert’s again!  If I try to have, he
+will squelch me by casting George Moore’s case up to me!”
+
+“As if even that would squelch a woman!” mocked Gilbert.  “At least do
+not become my echo, Anne.  A little opposition gives spice to life.  I
+do not want a wife like John MacAllister’s over the harbor.  No matter
+what he says, she at once remarks in that drab, lifeless little voice
+of hers, ‘That is very true, John, dear me!’”
+
+Anne and Leslie laughed.  Anne’s laughter was silver and Leslie’s
+golden, and the combination of the two was as satisfactory as a perfect
+chord in music.
+
+Susan, coming in on the heels of the laughter, echoed it with a
+resounding sigh.
+
+“Why, Susan, what is the matter?” asked Gilbert.
+
+“There’s nothing wrong with little Jem, is there, Susan?” cried Anne,
+starting up in alarm.
+
+“No, no, calm yourself, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Something has happened,
+though.  Dear me, everything has gone catawampus with me this week.  I
+spoiled the bread, as you know too well--and I scorched the doctor’s
+best shirt bosom--and I broke your big platter.  And now, on the top of
+all this, comes word that my sister Matilda has broken her leg and
+wants me to go and stay with her for a spell.”
+
+“Oh, I’m very sorry--sorry that your sister has met with such an
+accident, I mean,” exclaimed Anne.
+
+“Ah, well, man was made to mourn, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  That sounds as if
+it ought to be in the Bible, but they tell me a person named Burns
+wrote it.  And there is no doubt that we are born to trouble as the
+sparks fly upward.  As for Matilda, I do not know what to think of her.
+None of our family ever broke their legs before.  But whatever she has
+done she is still my sister, and I feel that it is my duty to go and
+wait on her, if you can spare me for a few weeks, Mrs. Doctor, dear.”
+
+“Of course, Susan, of course.  I can get someone to help me while you
+are gone.”
+
+“If you cannot I will not go, Mrs. Doctor, dear, Matilda’s leg to the
+contrary notwithstanding.  I will not have you worried, and that
+blessed child upset in consequence, for any number of legs.”
+
+“Oh, you must go to your sister at once, Susan.  I can get a girl from
+the cove, who will do for a time.”
+
+“Anne, will you let me come and stay with you while Susan is away?”
+exclaimed Leslie.  “Do!  I’d love to--and it would be an act of charity
+on your part.  I’m so horribly lonely over there in that big barn of a
+house.  There’s so little to do--and at night I’m worse than
+lonely--I’m frightened and nervous in spite of locked doors.  There was
+a tramp around two days ago.”
+
+Anne joyfully agreed, and next day Leslie was installed as an inmate of
+the little house of dreams.  Miss Cornelia warmly approved of the
+arrangement.
+
+“It seems Providential,” she told Anne in confidence.  “I’m sorry for
+Matilda Clow, but since she had to break her leg it couldn’t have
+happened at a better time.  Leslie will be here while Owen Ford is in
+Four Winds, and those old cats up at the Glen won’t get the chance to
+meow, as they would if she was living over there alone and Owen going
+to see her.  They are doing enough of it as it is, because she doesn’t
+put on mourning.  I said to one of them, ‘If you mean she should put on
+mourning for George Moore, it seems to me more like his resurrection
+than his funeral; and if it’s Dick you mean, I confess _I_ can’t see
+the propriety of going into weeds for a man who died thirteen years ago
+and good riddance then!’  And when old Louisa Baldwin remarked to me
+that she thought it very strange that Leslie should never have
+suspected it wasn’t her own husband _I_ said, ‘YOU never suspected it
+wasn’t Dick Moore, and you were next-door neighbor to him all his life,
+and by nature you’re ten times as suspicious as Leslie.’  But you can’t
+stop some people’s tongues, Anne, dearie, and I’m real thankful Leslie
+will be under your roof while Owen is courting her.”
+
+Owen Ford came to the little house one August evening when Leslie and
+Anne were absorbed in worshipping the baby.  He paused at the open door
+of the living room, unseen by the two within, gazing with greedy eyes
+at the beautiful picture.  Leslie sat on the floor with the baby in her
+lap, making ecstatic dabs at his fat little hands as he fluttered them
+in the air.
+
+“Oh, you dear, beautiful, beloved baby,” she mumbled, catching one wee
+hand and covering it with kisses.
+
+“Isn’t him ze darlingest itty sing,” crooned Anne, hanging over the arm
+of her chair adoringly.  “Dem itty wee pads are ze very tweetest
+handies in ze whole big world, isn’t dey, you darling itty man.”
+
+Anne, in the months before Little Jem’s coming, had pored diligently
+over several wise volumes, and pinned her faith to one in especial,
+“Sir Oracle on the Care and Training of Children.”  Sir Oracle implored
+parents by all they held sacred never to talk “baby talk” to their
+children.  Infants should invariably be addressed in classical language
+from the moment of their birth.  So should they learn to speak English
+undefiled from their earliest utterance.  “How,” demanded Sir Oracle,
+“can a mother reasonably expect her child to learn correct speech, when
+she continually accustoms its impressionable gray matter to such absurd
+expressions and distortions of our noble tongue as thoughtless mothers
+inflict every day on the helpless creatures committed to their care?
+Can a child who is constantly called ‘tweet itty wee singie’ ever
+attain to any proper conception of his own being and possibilities and
+destiny?”
+
+Anne was vastly impressed with this, and informed Gilbert that she
+meant to make it an inflexible rule never, under any circumstances, to
+talk “baby talk” to her children.  Gilbert agreed with her, and they
+made a solemn compact on the subject--a compact which Anne shamelessly
+violated the very first moment Little Jem was laid in her arms.  “Oh,
+the darling itty wee sing!” she had exclaimed.  And she had continued
+to violate it ever since.  When Gilbert teased her she laughed Sir
+Oracle to scorn.
+
+“He never had any children of his own, Gilbert--I am positive he hadn’t
+or he would never have written such rubbish.  You just can’t help
+talking baby talk to a baby.  It comes natural--and it’s RIGHT.  It
+would be inhuman to talk to those tiny, soft, velvety little creatures
+as we do to great big boys and girls.  Babies want love and cuddling
+and all the sweet baby talk they can get, and Little Jem is going to
+have it, bless his dear itty heartums.”
+
+“But you’re the worst I ever heard, Anne,” protested Gilbert, who, not
+being a mother but only a father, was not wholly convinced yet that Sir
+Oracle was wrong.  “I never heard anything like the way you talk to
+that child.”
+
+“Very likely you never did.  Go away--go away.  Didn’t I bring up three
+pairs of Hammond twins before I was eleven?  You and Sir Oracle are
+nothing but cold-blooded theorists.  Gilbert, JUST look at him!  He’s
+smiling at me--he knows what we’re talking about.  And oo dest agwees
+wif evy word muzzer says, don’t oo, angel-lover?”
+
+Gilbert put his arm about them.  “Oh you mothers!” he said.  “You
+mothers!  God knew what He was about when He made you.”
+
+So Little Jem was talked to and loved and cuddled; and he throve as
+became a child of the house of dreams.  Leslie was quite as foolish
+over him as Anne was.  When their work was done and Gilbert was out of
+the way, they gave themselves over to shameless orgies of love-making
+and ecstasies of adoration, such as that in which Owen Ford had
+surprised them.
+
+Leslie was the first to become aware of him.  Even in the twilight
+Anne could see the sudden whiteness that swept over her beautiful face,
+blotting out the crimson of lip and cheeks.
+
+Owen came forward, eagerly, blind for a moment to Anne.
+
+“Leslie!” he said, holding out his hand.  It was the first time he had
+ever called her by her name; but the hand Leslie gave him was cold; and
+she was very quiet all the evening, while Anne and Gilbert and Owen
+laughed and talked together.  Before his call ended she excused herself
+and went upstairs.  Owen’s gay spirits flagged and he went away soon
+after with a downcast air.
+
+Gilbert looked at Anne.
+
+“Anne, what are you up to?  There’s something going on that I don’t
+understand.  The whole air here tonight has been charged with
+electricity.  Leslie sits like the muse of tragedy; Owen Ford jokes and
+laughs on the surface, and watches Leslie with the eyes of his soul.
+You seem all the time to be bursting with some suppressed excitement.
+Own up.  What secret have you been keeping from your deceived husband?”
+
+“Don’t be a goose, Gilbert,” was Anne’s conjugal reply.  “As for
+Leslie, she is absurd and I’m going up to tell her so.”
+
+Anne found Leslie at the dormer window of her room.  The little place
+was filled with the rhythmic thunder of the sea.  Leslie sat with
+locked hands in the misty moonshine--a beautiful, accusing presence.
+
+“Anne,” she said in a low, reproachful voice, “did you know Owen Ford
+was coming to Four Winds?”
+
+“I did,” said Anne brazenly.
+
+“Oh, you should have told me, Anne,” Leslie cried passionately. “If I
+had known I would have gone away--I wouldn’t have stayed here to meet
+him.  You should have told me.  It wasn’t fair of you, Anne--oh, it
+wasn’t fair!”
+
+Leslie’s lips were trembling and her whole form was tense with emotion.
+But Anne laughed heartlessly.  She bent over and kissed Leslie’s
+upturned reproachful face.
+
+“Leslie, you are an adorable goose.  Owen Ford didn’t rush from the
+Pacific to the Atlantic from a burning desire to see ME.  Neither do I
+believe that he was inspired by any wild and frenzied passion for Miss
+Cornelia.  Take off your tragic airs, my dear friend, and fold them up
+and put them away in lavender.  You’ll never need them again.  There
+are some people who can see through a grindstone when there is a hole
+in it, even if you cannot.  I am not a prophetess, but I shall venture
+on a prediction.  The bitterness of life is over for you.  After this
+you are going to have the joys and hopes--and I daresay the sorrows,
+too--of a happy woman.  The omen of the shadow of Venus did come true
+for you, Leslie.  The year in which you saw it brought your life’s best
+gift for you--your love for Owen Ford.  Now, go right to bed and have a
+good sleep.”
+
+Leslie obeyed orders in so far that she went to bed: but it may be
+questioned if she slept much.  I do not think she dared to dream
+wakingly; life had been so hard for this poor Leslie, the path on which
+she had had to walk had been so strait, that she could not whisper to
+her own heart the hopes that might wait on the future.  But she watched
+the great revolving light bestarring the short hours of the summer
+night, and her eyes grew soft and bright and young once more.  Nor,
+when Owen Ford came next day, to ask her to go with him to the shore,
+did she say him nay.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 37
+
+MISS CORNELIA MAKES A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT
+
+Miss Cornelia sailed down to the little house one drowsy afternoon,
+when the gulf was the faint, bleached blue of the August seas, and the
+orange lilies at the gate of Anne’s garden held up their imperial cups
+to be filled with the molten gold of August sunshine.  Not that Miss
+Cornelia concerned herself with painted oceans or sun-thirsty lilies.
+She sat in her favorite rocker in unusual idleness.  She sewed not,
+neither did she spin.  Nor did she say a single derogatory word
+concerning any portion of mankind.  In short, Miss Cornelia’s
+conversation was singularly devoid of spice that day, and Gilbert, who
+had stayed home to listen to her, instead of going a-fishing, as he had
+intended, felt himself aggrieved.  What had come over Miss Cornelia?
+She did not look cast down or worried.  On the contrary, there was a
+certain air of nervous exultation about her.
+
+“Where is Leslie?” she asked--not as if it mattered much either.
+
+“Owen and she went raspberrying in the woods back of her farm,”
+answered Anne.  “They won’t be back before supper time--if then.”
+
+“They don’t seem to have any idea that there is such a thing as a
+clock,” said Gilbert.  “I can’t get to the bottom of that affair.  I’m
+certain you women pulled strings.  But Anne, undutiful wife, won’t tell
+me.  Will you, Miss Cornelia?”
+
+“No, I shall not.  But,” said Miss Cornelia, with the air of one
+determined to take the plunge and have it over, “I will tell you
+something else.  I came today on purpose to tell it.  I am going to be
+married.”
+
+Anne and Gilbert were silent.  If Miss Cornelia had announced her
+intention of going out to the channel and drowning herself the thing
+might have been believable.  This was not.  So they waited.  Of course
+Miss Cornelia had made a mistake.
+
+“Well, you both look sort of kerflummexed,” said Miss Cornelia, with a
+twinkle in her eyes.  Now that the awkward moment of revelation was
+over, Miss Cornelia was her own woman again.  “Do you think I’m too
+young and inexperienced for matrimony?”
+
+“You know--it IS rather staggering,” said Gilbert, trying to gather his
+wits together.  “I’ve heard you say a score of times that you wouldn’t
+marry the best man in the world.”
+
+“I’m not going to marry the best man in the world,” retorted Miss
+Cornelia.  “Marshall Elliott is a long way from being the best.”
+
+“Are you going to marry Marshall Elliott?” exclaimed Anne, recovering
+her power of speech under this second shock.
+
+“Yes.  I could have had him any time these twenty years if I’d lifted
+my finger.  But do you suppose I was going to walk into church beside a
+perambulating haystack like that?”
+
+“I am sure we are very glad--and we wish you all possible happiness,”
+said Anne, very flatly and inadequately, as she felt.  She was not
+prepared for such an occasion.  She had never imagined herself offering
+betrothal felicitations to Miss Cornelia.
+
+“Thanks, I knew you would,” said Miss Cornelia.  “You are the first of
+my friends to know it.”
+
+“We shall be so sorry to lose you, though, dear Miss Cornelia,” said
+Anne, beginning to be a little sad and sentimental.
+
+“Oh, you won’t lose me,” said Miss Cornelia unsentimentally.  “You
+don’t suppose I would live over harbor with all those MacAllisters and
+Elliotts and Crawfords, do you? ‘From the conceit of the Elliotts, the
+pride of the MacAllisters and the vain-glory of the Crawfords, good
+Lord deliver us.’  Marshall is coming to live at my place.  I’m sick
+and tired of hired men.  That Jim Hastings I’ve got this summer is
+positively the worst of the species.  He would drive anyone to getting
+married.  What do you think?  He upset the churn yesterday and spilled
+a big churning of cream over the yard.  And not one whit concerned
+about it was he!  Just gave a foolish laugh and said cream was good for
+the land.  Wasn’t that like a man?  I told him I wasn’t in the habit of
+fertilising my back yard with cream.”
+
+“Well, I wish you all manner of happiness too, Miss Cornelia,” said
+Gilbert, solemnly; “but,” he added, unable to resist the temptation to
+tease Miss Cornelia, despite Anne’s imploring eyes, “I fear your day of
+independence is done.  As you know, Marshall Elliott is a very
+determined man.”
+
+“I like a man who can stick to a thing,” retorted Miss Cornelia.  “Amos
+Grant, who used to be after me long ago, couldn’t.  You never saw such
+a weather-vane.  He jumped into the pond to drown himself once and then
+changed his mind and swum out again.  Wasn’t that like a man?  Marshall
+would have stuck to it and drowned.”
+
+“And he has a bit of a temper, they tell me,” persisted Gilbert.
+
+“He wouldn’t be an Elliott if he hadn’t.  I’m thankful he has.  It will
+be real fun to make him mad.  And you can generally do something with a
+tempery man when it comes to repenting time.  But you can’t do anything
+with a man who just keeps placid and aggravating.”
+
+“You know he’s a Grit, Miss Cornelia.”
+
+“Yes, he IS,” admitted Miss Cornelia rather sadly.  “And of course
+there is no hope of making a Conservative of him.  But at least he is a
+Presbyterian.  So I suppose I shall have to be satisfied with that.”
+
+“Would you marry him if he were a Methodist, Miss Cornelia?”
+
+“No, I would not.  Politics is for this world, but religion is for
+both.”
+
+“And you may be a ‘relict’ after all, Miss Cornelia.”
+
+“Not I.  Marshall will live me out.  The Elliotts are long-lived, and
+the Bryants are not.”
+
+“When are you to be married?” asked Anne.
+
+“In about a month’s time.  My wedding dress is to be navy blue silk.
+And I want to ask you, Anne, dearie, if you think it would be all right
+to wear a veil with a navy blue dress.  I’ve always thought I’d like to
+wear a veil if I ever got married.  Marshall says to have it if I want
+to.  Isn’t that like a man?”
+
+“Why shouldn’t you wear it if you want to?” asked Anne.
+
+“Well, one doesn’t want to be different from other people,” said Miss
+Cornelia, who was not noticeably like anyone else on the face of the
+earth.  “As I say, I do fancy a veil.  But maybe it shouldn’t be worn
+with any dress but a white one.  Please tell me, Anne, dearie, what you
+really think.  I’ll go by your advice.”
+
+“I don’t think veils are usually worn with any but white dresses,”
+admitted Anne, “but that is merely a convention; and I am like Mr.
+Elliott, Miss Cornelia.  I don’t see any good reason why you shouldn’t
+have a veil if you want one.”
+
+But Miss Cornelia, who made her calls in calico wrappers, shook her
+head.
+
+“If it isn’t the proper thing I won’t wear it,” she said, with a sigh
+of regret for a lost dream.
+
+“Since you are determined to be married, Miss Cornelia,” said Gilbert
+solemnly, “I shall give you the excellent rules for the management of a
+husband which my grandmother gave my mother when she married my father.”
+
+“Well, I reckon I can manage Marshall Elliott,” said Miss Cornelia
+placidly.  “But let us hear your rules.”
+
+“The first one is, catch him.”
+
+“He’s caught.  Go on.”
+
+“The second one is, feed him well.”
+
+“With enough pie.  What next?”
+
+“The third and fourth are--keep your eye on him.”
+
+“I believe you,” said Miss Cornelia emphatically.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 38
+
+RED ROSES
+
+The garden of the little house was a haunt beloved of bees and reddened
+by late roses that August.  The little house folk lived much in it, and
+were given to taking picnic suppers in the grassy corner beyond the
+brook and sitting about in it through the twilights when great night
+moths sailed athwart the velvet gloom.  One evening Owen Ford found
+Leslie alone in it.  Anne and Gilbert were away, and Susan, who was
+expected back that night, had not yet returned.
+
+The northern sky was amber and pale green over the fir tops.  The air
+was cool, for August was nearing September, and Leslie wore a crimson
+scarf over her white dress.  Together they wandered through the little,
+friendly, flower-crowded paths in silence.  Owen must go soon.  His
+holiday was nearly over.  Leslie found her heart beating wildly.  She
+knew that this beloved garden was to be the scene of the binding words
+that must seal their as yet unworded understanding.
+
+“Some evenings a strange odor blows down the air of this garden, like a
+phantom perfume,” said Owen.  “I have never been able to discover from
+just what flower it comes.  It is elusive and haunting and wonderfully
+sweet.  I like to fancy it is the soul of Grandmother Selwyn passing on
+a little visit to the old spot she loved so well.  There should be a
+lot of friendly ghosts about this little old house.”
+
+“I have lived under its roof only a month,” said Leslie, “but I love it
+as I never loved the house over there where I have lived all my life.”
+
+“This house was builded and consecrated by love,” said Owen.  “Such
+houses, MUST exert an influence over those who live in them.  And this
+garden--it is over sixty years old and the history of a thousand hopes
+and joys is written in its blossoms.  Some of those flowers were
+actually set out by the schoolmaster’s bride, and she has been dead for
+thirty years.  Yet they bloom on every summer.  Look at those red
+roses, Leslie--how they queen it over everything else!”
+
+“I love the red roses,” said Leslie.  “Anne likes the pink ones best,
+and Gilbert likes the white.  But I want the crimson ones.  They
+satisfy some craving in me as no other flower does.”
+
+“These roses are very late--they bloom after all the others have
+gone--and they hold all the warmth and soul of the summer come to
+fruition,” said Owen, plucking some of the glowing, half-opened buds.
+
+“The rose is the flower of love--the world has acclaimed it so for
+centuries.  The pink roses are love hopeful and expectant--the white
+roses are love dead or forsaken--but the red roses--ah, Leslie, what
+are the red roses?”
+
+“Love triumphant,” said Leslie in a low voice.
+
+“Yes--love triumphant and perfect.  Leslie, you know--you understand.
+I have loved you from the first.  And I KNOW you love me--I don’t need
+to ask you.  But I want to hear you say it--my darling--my darling!”
+
+Leslie said something in a very low and tremulous voice.  Their hands
+and lips met; it was life’s supreme moment for them and as they stood
+there in the old garden, with its many years of love and delight and
+sorrow and glory, he crowned her shining hair with the red, red rose of
+a love triumphant.
+
+Anne and Gilbert returned presently, accompanied by Captain Jim.  Anne
+lighted a few sticks of driftwood in the fireplace, for love of the
+pixy flames, and they sat around it for an hour of good fellowship.
+
+“When I sit looking at a driftwood fire it’s easy to believe I’m young
+again,” said Captain Jim.
+
+“Can you read futures in the fire, Captain Jim?” asked Owen.
+
+Captain Jim looked at them all affectionately and then back again at
+Leslie’s vivid face and glowing eyes.
+
+“I don’t need the fire to read your futures,” he said.  “I see
+happiness for all of you--all of you--for Leslie and Mr. Ford--and the
+doctor here and Mistress Blythe--and Little Jem--and children that
+ain’t born yet but will be.  Happiness for you all--though, mind you, I
+reckon you’ll have your troubles and worries and sorrows, too.  They’re
+bound to come--and no house, whether it’s a palace or a little house of
+dreams, can bar ’em out.  But they won’t get the better of you if you
+face ’em TOGETHER with love and trust.  You can weather any storm with
+them two for compass and pilot.”
+
+The old man rose suddenly and placed one hand on Leslie’s head and one
+on Anne’s.
+
+“Two good, sweet women,” he said.  “True and faithful and to be
+depended on.  Your husbands will have honor in the gates because of
+you--your children will rise up and call you blessed in the years to
+come.”
+
+There was a strange solemnity about the little scene.  Anne and Leslie
+bowed as those receiving a benediction.  Gilbert suddenly brushed his
+hand over his eyes; Owen Ford was rapt as one who can see visions.  All
+were silent for a space.  The little house of dreams added another
+poignant and unforgettable moment to its store of memories.
+
+“I must be going now,” said Captain Jim slowly at last.  He took up his
+hat and looked lingeringly about the room.
+
+“Good night, all of you,” he said, as he went out.
+
+Anne, pierced by the unusual wistfulness of his farewell, ran to the
+door after him.
+
+“Come back soon, Captain Jim,” she called, as he passed through the
+little gate hung between the firs.
+
+“Ay, ay,” he called cheerily back to her.  But Captain Jim had sat by
+the old fireside of the house of dreams for the last time.
+
+Anne went slowly back to the others.
+
+“It’s so--so pitiful to think of him going all alone down to that
+lonely Point,” she said.  “And there is no one to welcome him there.”
+
+“Captain Jim is such good company for others that one can’t imagine him
+being anything but good company for himself,” said Owen.  “But he must
+often be lonely.  There was a touch of the seer about him tonight--he
+spoke as one to whom it had been given to speak.  Well, I must be
+going, too.”
+
+Anne and Gilbert discreetly melted away; but when Owen had gone Anne
+returned, to find Leslie standing by the hearth.
+
+“Oh, Leslie--I know--and I’m so glad, dear,” she said, putting her arms
+about her.
+
+“Anne, my happiness frightens me,” whispered Leslie.  “It seems too
+great to be real--I’m afraid to speak of it--to think of it.  It seems
+to me that it must just be another dream of this house of dreams and it
+will vanish when I leave here.”
+
+“Well, you are not going to leave here--until Owen takes you.  You are
+going to stay with me until that times comes.  Do you think I’d let you
+go over to that lonely, sad place again?”
+
+“Thank you, dear.  I meant to ask you if I might stay with you.  I
+didn’t want to go back there--it would seem like going back into the
+chill and dreariness of the old life again.  Anne, Anne, what a friend
+you’ve been to me--‘a good, sweet woman--true and faithful and to be
+depended on’--Captain Jim summed you up.”
+
+“He said ‘women,’ not ‘woman,’” smiled Anne.  “Perhaps Captain Jim sees
+us both through the rose-colored spectacles of his love for us.  But we
+can try to live up to his belief in us, at least.”
+
+“Do you remember, Anne,” said Leslie slowly, “that I once said--that
+night we met on the shore--that I hated my good looks?  I did--then.
+It always seemed to me that if I had been homely Dick would never have
+thought of me.  I hated my beauty because it had attracted him, but
+now--oh, I’m glad that I have it.  It’s all I have to offer Owen,--his
+artist soul delights in it.  I feel as if I do not come to him quite
+empty-handed.”
+
+“Owen loves your beauty, Leslie.  Who would not?  But it’s foolish of
+you to say or think that that is all you bring him.  HE will tell you
+that--I needn’t.  And now I must lock up.  I expected Susan back
+tonight, but she has not come.”
+
+“Oh, yes, here I am, Mrs. Doctor, dear,” said Susan, entering
+unexpectedly from the kitchen, “and puffing like a hen drawing rails at
+that!  It’s quite a walk from the Glen down here.”
+
+“I’m glad to see you back, Susan.  How is your sister?”
+
+“She is able to sit up, but of course she cannot walk yet.  However,
+she is very well able to get on without me now, for her daughter has
+come home for her vacation.  And I am thankful to be back, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear.  Matilda’s leg was broken and no mistake, but her tongue was not.
+She would talk the legs off an iron pot, that she would, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear, though I grieve to say it of my own sister.  She was always a
+great talker and yet she was the first of our family to get married.
+She really did not care much about marrying James Clow, but she could
+not bear to disoblige him.  Not but what James is a good man--the only
+fault I have to find with him is that he always starts in to say grace
+with such an unearthly groan, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  It always frightens
+my appetite clear away.  And speaking of getting married, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear, is it true that Cornelia Bryant is going to be married to
+Marshall Elliott?”
+
+“Yes, quite true, Susan.”
+
+“Well, Mrs. Doctor, dear, it does NOT seem to me fair.  Here is me, who
+never said a word against the men, and I cannot get married nohow.  And
+there is Cornelia Bryant, who is never done abusing them, and all she
+has to do is to reach out her hand and pick one up, as it were.  It is
+a very strange world, Mrs. Doctor, dear.”
+
+“There’s another world, you know, Susan.”
+
+“Yes,” said Susan with a heavy sigh, “but, Mrs. Doctor, dear, there is
+neither marrying nor giving in marriage there.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 39
+
+CAPTAIN JIM CROSSES THE BAR
+
+One day in late September Owen Ford’s book came at last.  Captain Jim
+had gone faithfully to the Glen post office every day for a month,
+expecting it.  This day he had not gone, and Leslie brought his copy
+home with hers and Anne’s.
+
+“We’ll take it down to him this evening,” said Anne, excited as a
+schoolgirl.
+
+The long walk to the Point on that clear, beguiling evening along the
+red harbor road was very pleasant.  Then the sun dropped down behind
+the western hills into some valley that must have been full of lost
+sunsets, and at the same instant the big light flashed out on the white
+tower of the point.
+
+“Captain Jim is never late by the fraction of a second,” said Leslie.
+
+Neither Anne nor Leslie ever forgot Captain Jim’s face when they gave
+him the book--HIS book, transfigured and glorified.  The cheeks that
+had been blanched of late suddenly flamed with the color of boyhood;
+his eyes glowed with all the fire of youth; but his hands trembled as
+he opened it.
+
+It was called simply The Life-Book of Captain Jim, and on the title
+page the names of Owen Ford and James Boyd were printed as
+collaborators.  The frontispiece was a photograph of Captain Jim
+himself, standing at the door of the lighthouse, looking across the
+gulf.  Owen Ford had “snapped” him one day while the book was being
+written.  Captain Jim had known this, but he had not known that the
+picture was to be in the book.
+
+“Just think of it,” he said, “the old sailor right there in a real
+printed book.  This is the proudest day of my life.  I’m like to bust,
+girls.  There’ll be no sleep for me tonight.  I’ll read my book clean
+through before sun-up.”
+
+“We’ll go right away and leave you free to begin it,” said Anne.
+
+Captain Jim had been handling the book in a kind of reverent rapture.
+Now he decidedly closed it and laid it aside.
+
+“No, no, you’re not going away before you take a cup of tea with the
+old man,” he protested.  “I couldn’t hear to that--could you, Matey?
+The life-book will keep, I reckon.  I’ve waited for it this many a
+year.  I can wait a little longer while I’m enjoying my friends.”
+
+Captain Jim moved about getting his kettle on to boil, and setting out
+his bread and butter.  Despite his excitement he did not move with his
+old briskness.  His movements were slow and halting.  But the girls did
+not offer to help him.  They knew it would hurt his feelings.
+
+“You just picked the right evening to visit me,” he said, producing a
+cake from his cupboard.  “Leetle Joe’s mother sent me down a big basket
+full of cakes and pies today.  A blessing on all good cooks, says I.
+Look at this purty cake, all frosting and nuts.  ’Tain’t often I can
+entertain in such style.  Set in, girls, set in!  We’ll ‘tak a cup o’
+kindness yet for auld lang syne.’”
+
+The girls “set in” right merrily.  The tea was up to Captain Jim’s best
+brewing.  Little Joe’s mother’s cake was the last word in cakes;
+Captain Jim was the prince of gracious hosts, never even permitting his
+eyes to wander to the corner where the life-book lay, in all its
+bravery of green and gold.  But when his door finally closed behind
+Anne and Leslie they knew that he went straight to it, and as they
+walked home they pictured the delight of the old man poring over the
+printed pages wherein his own life was portrayed with all the charm and
+color of reality itself.
+
+“I wonder how he will like the ending--the ending I suggested,” said
+Leslie.
+
+She was never to know.  Early the next morning Anne awakened to find
+Gilbert bending over her, fully dressed, and with an expression of
+anxiety on his face.
+
+“Are you called out?” she asked drowsily.
+
+“No.  Anne, I’m afraid there’s something wrong at the Point.  It’s an
+hour after sunrise now, and the light is still burning.  You know it
+has always been a matter of pride with Captain Jim to start the light
+the moment the sun sets, and put it out the moment it rises.”
+
+Anne sat up in dismay.  Through her window she saw the light blinking
+palely against the blue skies of dawn.
+
+“Perhaps he has fallen asleep over his life-book,” she said anxiously,
+“or become so absorbed in it that he has forgotten the light.”
+
+Gilbert shook his head.
+
+“That wouldn’t be like Captain Jim.  Anyway, I’m going down to see.”
+
+“Wait a minute and I’ll go with you,” exclaimed Anne.  “Oh, yes, I
+must--Little Jem will sleep for an hour yet, and I’ll call Susan.  You
+may need a woman’s help if Captain Jim is ill.”
+
+It was an exquisite morning, full of tints and sounds at once ripe and
+delicate.  The harbor was sparkling and dimpling like a girl; white
+gulls were soaring over the dunes; beyond the bar was a shining,
+wonderful sea.  The long fields by the shore were dewy and fresh in
+that first fine, purely-tinted light.  The wind came dancing and
+whistling up the channel to replace the beautiful silence with a music
+more beautiful still.  Had it not been for the baleful star on the
+white tower that early walk would have been a delight to Anne and
+Gilbert.  But they went softly with fear.
+
+Their knock was not responded to.  Gilbert opened the door and they
+went in.
+
+The old room was very quiet.  On the table were the remnants of the
+little evening feast.  The lamp still burned on the corner stand.  The
+First Mate was asleep in a square of sunshine by the sofa.
+
+Captain Jim lay on the sofa, with his hands clasped over the life-book,
+open at the last page, lying on his breast.  His eyes were closed and
+on his face was a look of the most perfect peace and happiness--the
+look of one who has long sought and found at last.
+
+“He is asleep?” whispered Anne tremulously.
+
+Gilbert went to the sofa and bent over him for a few moments.  Then he
+straightened up.
+
+“Yes, he sleeps--well,” he added quietly.  “Anne, Captain Jim has
+crossed the bar.”
+
+They could not know precisely at what hour he had died, but Anne always
+believed that he had had his wish, and went out when the morning came
+across the gulf.  Out on that shining tide his spirit drifted, over the
+sunrise sea of pearl and silver, to the haven where lost Margaret
+waited, beyond the storms and calms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 40
+
+FAREWELL TO THE HOUSE OF DREAMS
+
+Captain Jim was buried in the little over-harbor graveyard, very near
+to the spot where the wee white lady slept.  His relatives put up a
+very expensive, very ugly “monument”--a monument at which he would have
+poked sly fun had he seen it in life.  But his real monument was in the
+hearts of those who knew him, and in the book that was to live for
+generations.
+
+Leslie mourned that Captain Jim had not lived to see the amazing
+success of it.
+
+“How he would have delighted in the reviews--they are almost all so
+kindly.  And to have seen his life-book heading the lists of the best
+sellers--oh, if he could just have lived to see it, Anne!”
+
+But Anne, despite her grief, was wiser.
+
+“It was the book itself he cared for, Leslie--not what might be said of
+it--and he had it.  He had read it all through.  That last night must
+have been one of the greatest happiness for him--with the quick,
+painless ending he had hoped for in the morning.  I am glad for Owen’s
+sake and yours that the book is such a success--but Captain Jim was
+satisfied--I KNOW.”
+
+The lighthouse star still kept a nightly vigil; a substitute keeper had
+been sent to the Point, until such time as an all-wise government could
+decide which of many applicants was best fitted for the place--or had
+the strongest pull.  The First Mate was at home in the little house,
+beloved by Anne and Gilbert and Leslie, and tolerated by a Susan who
+had small liking for cats.
+
+“I can put up with him for the sake of Captain Jim, Mrs. Doctor, dear,
+for I liked the old man.  And I will see that he gets bite and sup, and
+every mouse the traps account for.  But do not ask me to do more than
+that, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Cats is cats, and take my word for it, they
+will never be anything else.  And at least, Mrs. Doctor, dear, do keep
+him away from the blessed wee man.  Picture to yourself how awful it
+would be if he was to suck the darling’s breath.”
+
+“That might be fitly called a CAT-astrophe,” said Gilbert.
+
+“Oh, you may laugh, doctor, dear, but it would be no laughing matter.”
+
+“Cats never suck babies’ breaths,” said Gilbert.  “That is only an old
+superstition, Susan.”
+
+“Oh, well, it may be a superstition or it may not, doctor, dear.  All
+that I know is, it has happened.  My sister’s husband’s nephew’s wife’s
+cat sucked their baby’s breath, and the poor innocent was all but gone
+when they found it.  And superstition or not, if I find that yellow
+beast lurking near our baby I will whack him with the poker, Mrs.
+Doctor, dear.”
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Elliott were living comfortably and harmoniously
+in the green house.  Leslie was busy with sewing, for she and Owen were
+to be married at Christmas.  Anne wondered what she would do when
+Leslie was gone.
+
+“Changes come all the time.  Just as soon as things get really nice
+they change,” she said with a sigh.
+
+“The old Morgan place up at the Glen is for sale,” said Gilbert,
+apropos of nothing in especial.
+
+“Is it?” asked Anne indifferently.
+
+“Yes.  Now that Mr. Morgan has gone, Mrs. Morgan wants to go to live
+with her children in Vancouver.  She will sell cheaply, for a big place
+like that in a small village like the Glen will not be very easy to
+dispose of.”
+
+“Well, it’s certainly a beautiful place, so it is likely she will find
+a purchaser,” said Anne, absently, wondering whether she should
+hemstitch or feather-stitch little Jem’s “short” dresses.  He was to be
+shortened the next week, and Anne felt ready to cry at the thought of
+it.
+
+“Suppose we buy it, Anne?” remarked Gilbert quietly.
+
+Anne dropped her sewing and stared at him.
+
+“You’re not in earnest, Gilbert?”
+
+“Indeed I am, dear.”
+
+“And leave this darling spot--our house of dreams?” said Anne
+incredulously.  “Oh, Gilbert, it’s--it’s unthinkable!”
+
+“Listen patiently to me, dear.  I know just how you feel about it.  I
+feel the same.  But we’ve always known we would have to move some day.”
+
+“Oh, but not so soon, Gilbert--not just yet.”
+
+“We may never get such a chance again.  If we don’t buy the Morgan
+place someone else will--and there is no other house in the Glen we
+would care to have, and no other really good site on which to build.
+This little house is--well, it is and has been what no other house can
+ever be to us, I admit, but you know it is out-of-the-way down here for
+a doctor.  We have felt the inconvenience, though we’ve made the best
+of it.  And it’s a tight fit for us now.  Perhaps, in a few years, when
+Jem wants a room of his own, it will be entirely too small.”
+
+“Oh, I know--I know,” said Anne, tears filling her eyes.  “I know all
+that can be said against it, but I love it so--and it’s so beautiful
+here.”
+
+“You would find it very lonely here after Leslie goes--and Captain Jim
+has gone too.  The Morgan place is beautiful, and in time we would love
+it.  You know you have always admired it, Anne.”
+
+“Oh, yes, but--but--this has all seemed to come up so suddenly,
+Gilbert.  I’m dizzy.  Ten minutes ago I had no thought of leaving this
+dear spot.  I was planning what I meant to do for it in the
+spring--what I meant to do in the garden.  And if we leave this place
+who will get it?  It IS out-of-the-way, so it’s likely some poor,
+shiftless, wandering family will rent it--and over-run it--and oh, that
+would be desecration.  It would hurt me horribly.”
+
+“I know.  But we cannot sacrifice our own interests to such
+considerations, Anne-girl.  The Morgan place will suit us in every
+essential particular--we really can’t afford to miss such a chance.
+Think of that big lawn with those magnificent old trees; and of that
+splendid hardwood grove behind it--twelve acres of it.  What a play
+place for our children!  There’s a fine orchard, too, and you’ve always
+admired that high brick wall around the garden with the door in
+it--you’ve thought it was so like a story-book garden.  And there is
+almost as fine a view of the harbor and the dunes from the Morgan place
+as from here.”
+
+“You can’t see the lighthouse star from it.”
+
+“Yes, You can see it from the attic window.  THERE’S another advantage,
+Anne-girl--you love big garrets.”
+
+ “There’s no brook in the garden.”
+
+“Well, no, but there is one running through the maple grove into the
+Glen pond.  And the pond itself isn’t far away.  You’ll be able to
+fancy you have your own Lake of Shining Waters again.”
+
+“Well, don’t say anything more about it just now, Gilbert.  Give me
+time to think--to get used to the idea.”
+
+“All right.  There is no great hurry, of course.  Only--if we decide to
+buy, it would be well to be moved in and settled before winter.”
+
+Gilbert went out, and Anne put away Little Jem’s short dresses with
+trembling hands.  She could not sew any more that day.  With tear-wet
+eyes she wandered over the little domain where she had reigned so happy
+a queen.  The Morgan place was all that Gilbert claimed.  The grounds
+were beautiful, the house old enough to have dignity and repose and
+traditions, and new enough to be comfortable and up-to-date.  Anne had
+always admired it; but admiring is not loving; and she loved this house
+of dreams so much.  She loved EVERYTHING about it--the garden she had
+tended, and which so many women had tended before her--the gleam and
+sparkle of the little brook that crept so roguishly across the
+corner--the gate between the creaking fir trees--the old red sandstone
+step--the stately Lombardies--the two tiny quaint glass cupboards over
+the chimney-piece in the living-room--the crooked pantry door in the
+kitchen--the two funny dormer windows upstairs--the little jog in the
+staircase--why, these things were a part of her!  How could she leave
+them?
+
+And how this little house, consecrated aforetime by love and joy, had
+been re-consecrated for her by her happiness and sorrow!  Here she had
+spent her bridal moon; here wee Joyce had lived her one brief day; here
+the sweetness of motherhood had come again with Little Jem; here she
+had heard the exquisite music of her baby’s cooing laughter; here
+beloved friends had sat by her fireside.  Joy and grief, birth and
+death, had made sacred forever this little house of dreams.
+
+And now she must leave it.  She knew that, even while she had contended
+against the idea to Gilbert.  The little house was outgrown.  Gilbert’s
+interests made the change necessary; his work, successful though it had
+been, was hampered by his location.  Anne realised that the end of
+their life in this dear place drew nigh, and that she must face the
+fact bravely.  But how her heart ached!
+
+“It will be just like tearing something out of my life,” she sobbed.
+“And oh, if I could hope that some nice folk would come here in our
+place--or even that it would be left vacant.  That itself would be
+better than having it overrun with some horde who know nothing of the
+geography of dreamland, and nothing of the history that has given this
+house its soul and its identity.  And if such a tribe come here the
+place will go to rack and ruin in no time--an old place goes down so
+quickly if it is not carefully attended to.  They’ll tear up my
+garden--and let the Lombardies get ragged--and the paling will come to
+look like a mouth with half the teeth missing--and the roof will
+leak--and the plaster fall--and they’ll stuff pillows and rags in
+broken window panes--and everything will be out-at-elbows.”
+
+Anne’s imagination pictured forth so vividly the coming degeneration of
+her dear little house that it hurt her as severely as if it had already
+been an accomplished fact.  She sat down on the stairs and had a long,
+bitter cry.  Susan found her there and enquired with much concern what
+the trouble was.
+
+“You have not quarrelled with the doctor, have you now, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear?  But if you have, do not worry.  It is a thing quite likely to
+happen to married couples, I am told, although I have had no experience
+that way myself.  He will be sorry, and you can soon make it up.”
+
+“No, no, Susan, we haven’t quarrelled.  It’s only--Gilbert is going to
+buy the Morgan place, and we’ll have to go and live at the Glen.  And
+it will break my heart.”
+
+Susan did not enter into Anne’s feelings at all.  She was, indeed,
+quite rejoiced over the prospect of living at the Glen.  Her one
+grievance against her place in the little house was its lonesome
+location.
+
+“Why, Mrs. Doctor, dear, it will be splendid.  The Morgan house is such
+a fine, big one.”
+
+“I hate big houses,” sobbed Anne.
+
+“Oh, well, you will not hate them by the time you have half a dozen
+children,” remarked Susan calmly.  “And this house is too small already
+for us.  We have no spare room, since Mrs. Moore is here, and that
+pantry is the most aggravating place I ever tried to work in.  There is
+a corner every way you turn.  Besides, it is out-of-the-world down
+here.  There is really nothing at all but scenery.”
+
+“Out of your world perhaps, Susan--but not out of mine,” said Anne with
+a faint smile.
+
+“I do not quite understand you, Mrs. Doctor, dear, but of course I am
+not well educated.  But if Dr. Blythe buys the Morgan place he will
+make no mistake, and that you may tie to.  They have water in it, and
+the pantries and closets are beautiful, and there is not another such
+cellar in P. E.  Island, so I have been told.  Why, the cellar here,
+Mrs. Doctor, dear, has been a heart-break to me, as well you know.”
+
+“Oh, go away, Susan, go away,” said Anne forlornly.  “Cellars and
+pantries and closets don’t make a HOME.  Why don’t you weep with those
+who weep?”
+
+“Well, I never was much hand for weeping, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  I would
+rather fall to and cheer people up than weep with them.  Now, do not
+you cry and spoil your pretty eyes.  This house is very well and has
+served your turn, but it is high time you had a better.”
+
+Susan’s point of view seemed to be that of most people.  Leslie was the
+only one who sympathised understandingly with Anne.  She had a good
+cry, too, when she heard the news.  Then they both dried their tears
+and went to work at the preparations for moving.
+
+“Since we must go let us go as soon as we can and have it over,” said
+poor Anne with bitter resignation.
+
+“You know you will like that lovely old place at the Glen after you
+have lived in it long enough to have dear memories woven about it,”
+said Leslie.  “Friends will come there, as they have come
+here--happiness will glorify it for you.  Now, it’s just a house to
+you--but the years will make it a home.”
+
+Anne and Leslie had another cry the next week when they shortened
+Little Jem.  Anne felt the tragedy of it until evening when in his long
+nightie she found her own dear baby again.
+
+“But it will be rompers next--and then trousers--and in no time he will
+be grown-up,” she sighed.
+
+“Well, you would not want him to stay a baby always, Mrs. Doctor, dear,
+would you?” said Susan.  “Bless his innocent heart, he looks too sweet
+for anything in his little short dresses, with his dear feet sticking
+out.  And think of the save in the ironing, Mrs. Doctor, dear.”
+
+“Anne, I have just had a letter from Owen,” said Leslie, entering with
+a bright face.  “And, oh! I have such good news.  He writes me that he
+is going to buy this place from the church trustees and keep it to
+spend our summer vacations in.  Anne, are you not glad?”
+
+“Oh, Leslie, ‘glad’ isn’t the word for it!  It seems almost too good to
+be true.  I sha’n’t feel half so badly now that I know this dear spot
+will never be desecrated by a vandal tribe, or left to tumble down in
+decay.  Why, it’s lovely!  It’s lovely!”
+
+One October morning Anne wakened to the realisation that she had slept
+for the last time under the roof of her little house.  The day was too
+busy to indulge regret and when evening came the house was stripped and
+bare.  Anne and Gilbert were alone in it to say farewell.  Leslie and
+Susan and Little Jem had gone to the Glen with the last load of
+furniture.  The sunset light streamed in through the curtainless
+windows.
+
+“It has all such a heart-broken, reproachful look, hasn’t it?” said
+Anne.  “Oh, I shall be so homesick at the Glen tonight!”
+
+“We have been very happy here, haven’t we, Anne-girl?” said Gilbert,
+his voice full of feeling.
+
+Anne choked, unable to answer.  Gilbert waited for her at the fir-tree
+gate, while she went over the house and said farewell to every room.
+She was going away; but the old house would still be there, looking
+seaward through its quaint windows.  The autumn winds would blow around
+it mournfully, and the gray rain would beat upon it and the white mists
+would come in from the sea to enfold it; and the moonlight would fall
+over it and light up the old paths where the schoolmaster and his bride
+had walked.  There on that old harbor shore the charm of story would
+linger; the wind would still whistle alluringly over the silver
+sand-dunes; the waves would still call from the red rock-coves.
+
+“But we will be gone,” said Anne through her tears.
+
+She went out, closing and locking the door behind her.  Gilbert was
+waiting for her with a smile.  The lighthouse star was gleaming
+northward.  The little garden, where only marigolds still bloomed, was
+already hooding itself in shadows.
+
+Anne knelt down and kissed the worn old step which she had crossed as a
+bride.
+
+“Good-bye, dear little house of dreams,” she said.
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 544 ***
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+<!DOCTYPE html>
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+      Anne’s House of Dreams | Project Gutenberg
+    </title>
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+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 544 ***</div>
+
+<h1 class="center">
+Anne’s House of Dreams
+</h1>
+
+<p class="center">
+by
+<br><span class="big">
+Lucy Maud Montgomery</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+“To Laura, in memory of the olden time.”
+</p>
+
+
+<H2 class="center">
+CONTENTS
+</H2>
+
+<TABLE class="center w80">
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">Chapter</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">&nbsp;</TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">1&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap01">IN THE GARRET OF GREEN GABLES</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">2&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap02">THE HOUSE OF DREAMS</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">3&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap03">THE LAND OF DREAMS AMONG</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">4&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap04">THE FIRST BRIDE OF GREEN GABLES</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">5&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap05">THE HOME COMING</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">6&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap06">CAPTAIN JIM</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">7&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap07">THE SCHOOLMASTER’S BRIDE</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">8&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap08">MISS CORNELIA BRYANT COMES TO CALL</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">9&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap09">AN EVENING AT FOUR WINDS POINT</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">10&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap10">LESLIE MOORE</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">11&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap11">THE STORY OF LESLIE MOORE</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">12&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap12">LESLIE COMES OVER</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">13&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap13">A GHOSTLY EVENING</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">14&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap14">NOVEMBER DAYS</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">15&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap15">CHRISTMAS AT FOUR WINDS</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">16&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap16">NEW YEAR’S EVE AT THE LIGHT</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">17&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap17">A FOUR WINDS WINTER</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">18&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap18">SPRING DAYS</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">19&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap19">DAWN AND DUSK</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">20&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap20">LOST MARGARET</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">21&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap21">BARRIERS SWEPT AWAY</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">22&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap22">MISS CORNELIA ARRANGES MATTERS</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">23&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap23">OWEN FORD COMES</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">24&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap24">THE LIFE-BOOK OF CAPTAIN JIM</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">25&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap25">THE WRITING OF THE BOOK</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">26&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap26">OWEN FORD’S CONFESSION</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">27&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap27">ON THE SAND BAR</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">28&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap28">ODDS AND ENDS</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">29&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap29">GILBERT AND ANNE DISAGREE</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">30&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap30">LESLIE DECIDES</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">31&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap31">THE TRUTH MAKES FREE</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">32&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap32">MISS CORNELIA DISCUSSES THE AFFAIR</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">33&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap33">LESLIE RETURNS</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">34&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap34">THE SHIP O’DREAMS COMES TO HARBOR</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">35&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap35">POLITICS AT FOUR WINDS</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">36&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap36">BEAUTY FOR ASHES</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">37&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap37">MISS CORNELIA MAKES A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">38&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap38">RED ROSES</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">39&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap39">CAPTAIN JIM CROSSES THE BAR</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD class="right vt">40&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD class="left vt">
+<A HREF="#chap40">FAREWELL TO THE HOUSE OF DREAMS</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+</TABLE>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap01"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 1
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+IN THE GARRET OF GREEN GABLES
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+“Thanks be, I’m done with geometry, learning or teaching it,” said Anne
+Shirley, a trifle vindictively, as she thumped a somewhat battered
+volume of Euclid into a big chest of books, banged the lid in triumph,
+and sat down upon it, looking at Diana Wright across the Green Gables
+garret, with gray eyes that were like a morning sky.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The garret was a shadowy, suggestive, delightful place, as all garrets
+should be. Through the open window, by which Anne sat, blew the sweet,
+scented, sun-warm air of the August afternoon; outside, poplar boughs
+rustled and tossed in the wind; beyond them were the woods, where
+Lover’s Lane wound its enchanted path, and the old apple orchard which
+still bore its rosy harvests munificently.  And, over all, was a great
+mountain range of snowy clouds in the blue southern sky.  Through the
+other window was glimpsed a distant, white-capped, blue sea&mdash;the
+beautiful St. Lawrence Gulf, on which floats, like a jewel, Abegweit,
+whose softer, sweeter Indian name has long been forsaken for the more
+prosaic one of Prince Edward Island.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Diana Wright, three years older than when we last saw her, had grown
+somewhat matronly in the intervening time.  But her eyes were as black
+and brilliant, her cheeks as rosy, and her dimples as enchanting, as in
+the long-ago days when she and Anne Shirley had vowed eternal
+friendship in the garden at Orchard Slope.  In her arms she held a
+small, sleeping, black-curled creature, who for two happy years had
+been known to the world of Avonlea as “Small Anne Cordelia.”  Avonlea
+folks knew why Diana had called her Anne, of course, but Avonlea folks
+were puzzled by the Cordelia.  There had never been a Cordelia in the
+Wright or Barry connections.  Mrs. Harmon Andrews said she supposed
+Diana had found the name in some trashy novel, and wondered that Fred
+hadn’t more sense than to allow it.  But Diana and Anne smiled at each
+other.  They knew how Small Anne Cordelia had come by her name.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You always hated geometry,” said Diana with a retrospective smile.  “I
+should think you’d be real glad to be through with teaching, anyhow.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I’ve always liked teaching, apart from geometry.  These past three
+years in Summerside have been very pleasant ones. Mrs. Harmon Andrews
+told me when I came home that I wouldn’t likely find married life as
+much better than teaching as I expected.  Evidently Mrs. Harmon is of
+Hamlet’s opinion that it may be better to bear the ills that we have
+than fly to others that we know not of.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne’s laugh, as blithe and irresistible as of yore, with an added note
+of sweetness and maturity, rang through the garret.  Marilla in the
+kitchen below, compounding blue plum preserve, heard it and smiled;
+then sighed to think how seldom that dear laugh would echo through
+Green Gables in the years to come.  Nothing in her life had ever given
+Marilla so much happiness as the knowledge that Anne was going to marry
+Gilbert Blythe; but every joy must bring with it its little shadow of
+sorrow.  During the three Summerside years Anne had been home often for
+vacations and weekends; but, after this, a bi-annual visit would be as
+much as could be hoped for.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You needn’t let what Mrs. Harmon says worry you,” said Diana, with the
+calm assurance of the four-years matron.  “Married life has its ups and
+downs, of course.  You mustn’t expect that everything will always go
+smoothly.  But I can assure you, Anne, that it’s a happy life, when
+you’re married to the right man.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne smothered a smile.  Diana’s airs of vast experience always amused
+her a little.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I daresay I’ll be putting them on too, when I’ve been married four
+years,” she thought.  “Surely my sense of humor will preserve me from
+it, though.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Is it settled yet where you are going to live?” asked Diana, cuddling
+Small Anne Cordelia with the inimitable gesture of motherhood which
+always sent through Anne’s heart, filled with sweet, unuttered dreams
+and hopes, a thrill that was half pure pleasure and half a strange,
+ethereal pain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes. That was what I wanted to tell you when I ’phoned to you to come
+down today.  By the way, I can’t realize that we really have telephones
+in Avonlea now.  It sounds so preposterously up-to-date and modernish
+for this darling, leisurely old place.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We can thank the A. V. I. S. for them,” said Diana.  “We should never
+have got the line if they hadn’t taken the matter up and carried it
+through.  There was enough cold water thrown to discourage any society.
+But they stuck to it, nevertheless.  You did a splendid thing for
+Avonlea when you founded that society, Anne.  What fun we did have at
+our meetings!  Will you ever forget the blue hall and Judson Parker’s
+scheme for painting medicine advertisements on his fence?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t know that I’m wholly grateful to the A. V. I.  S. in the
+matter of the telephone,” said Anne.  “Oh, I know it’s most
+convenient&mdash;even more so than our old device of signalling to each
+other by flashes of candlelight!  And, as Mrs. Rachel says, 'Avonlea
+must keep up with the procession, that’s what.’  But somehow I feel as
+if I didn’t want Avonlea spoiled by what Mr. Harrison, when he wants to
+be witty, calls 'modern inconveniences.’  I should like to have it kept
+always just as it was in the dear old years. That’s foolish&mdash;and
+sentimental&mdash;and impossible.  So I shall immediately become wise and
+practical and possible.  The telephone, as Mr. Harrison concedes, is 'a
+buster of a good thing’&mdash;even if you do know that probably half a dozen
+interested people are listening along the line.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That’s the worst of it,” sighed Diana.  “It’s so annoying to hear the
+receivers going down whenever you ring anyone up.  They say Mrs. Harmon
+Andrews insisted that their ’phone should be put in their kitchen just
+so that she could listen whenever it rang and keep an eye on the dinner
+at the same time.  Today, when you called me, I distinctly heard that
+queer clock of the Pyes’ striking.  So no doubt Josie or Gertie was
+listening.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, so that is why you said, 'You’ve got a new clock at Green Gables,
+haven’t you?’  I couldn’t imagine what you meant.  I heard a vicious
+click as soon as you had spoken.  I suppose it was the Pye receiver
+being hung up with profane energy.  Well, never mind the Pyes.  As Mrs.
+Rachel says, 'Pyes they always were and Pyes they always will be, world
+without end, amen.’  I want to talk of pleasanter things.  It’s all
+settled as to where my new home shall be.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, Anne, where?  I do hope it’s near here.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No-o-o, that’s the drawback. Gilbert is going to settle at Four Winds
+Harbor&mdash;sixty miles from here.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Sixty!  It might as well be six hundred,” sighed Diana.  “I never can
+get further from home now than Charlottetown.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’ll have to come to Four Winds. It’s the most beautiful harbor on
+the Island.  There’s a little village called Glen St. Mary at its head,
+and Dr. David Blythe has been practicing there for fifty years.  He is
+Gilbert’s great-uncle, you know.  He is going to retire, and Gilbert is
+to take over his practice.  Dr. Blythe is going to keep his house,
+though, so we shall have to find a habitation for ourselves.  I don’t
+know yet what it is, or where it will be in reality, but I have a
+little house o’dreams all furnished in my imagination&mdash;a tiny,
+delightful castle in Spain.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Where are you going for your wedding tour?” asked Diana.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Nowhere.  Don’t look horrified, Diana dearest.  You suggest Mrs.
+Harmon Andrews.  She, no doubt, will remark condescendingly that people
+who can’t afford wedding 'towers’ are real sensible not to take them;
+and then she’ll remind me that Jane went to Europe for hers.  I want to
+spend MY honeymoon at Four Winds in my own dear house of dreams.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And you’ve decided not to have any bridesmaid?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There isn’t any one to have.  You and Phil and Priscilla and Jane all
+stole a march on me in the matter of marriage; and Stella is teaching
+in Vancouver.  I have no other 'kindred soul’ and I won’t have a
+bridesmaid who isn’t.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But you are going to wear a veil, aren’t you?” asked Diana, anxiously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, indeedy.  I shouldn’t feel like a bride without one.  I remember
+telling Matthew, that evening when he brought me to Green Gables, that
+I never expected to be a bride because I was so homely no one would
+ever want to marry me&mdash;unless some foreign missionary did.  I had an
+idea then that foreign missionaries couldn’t afford to be finicky in
+the matter of looks if they wanted a girl to risk her life among
+cannibals.  You should have seen the foreign missionary Priscilla
+married.  He was as handsome and inscrutable as those daydreams we once
+planned to marry ourselves, Diana; he was the best dressed man I ever
+met, and he raved over Priscilla’s 'ethereal, golden beauty.’  But of
+course there are no cannibals in Japan.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Your wedding dress is a dream, anyhow,” sighed Diana rapturously.
+“You’ll look like a perfect queen in it&mdash;you’re so tall and slender.
+How DO you keep so slim, Anne?  I’m fatter than ever&mdash;I’ll soon have no
+waist at all.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Stoutness and slimness seem to be matters of predestination,” said
+Anne.  “At all events, Mrs. Harmon Andrews can’t say to you what she
+said to me when I came home from Summerside, 'Well, Anne, you’re just
+about as skinny as ever.’  It sounds quite romantic to be 'slender,’
+but 'skinny’ has a very different tang.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Mrs. Harmon has been talking about your trousseau.  She admits it’s as
+nice as Jane’s, although she says Jane married a millionaire and you
+are only marrying a 'poor young doctor without a cent to his name.’”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“My dresses ARE nice.  I love pretty things.  I remember the first
+pretty dress I ever had&mdash;the brown gloria Matthew gave me for our
+school concert.  Before that everything I had was so ugly.  It seemed
+to me that I stepped into a new world that night.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That was the night Gilbert recited 'Bingen on the Rhine,’ and looked
+at you when he said, 'There’s another, NOT a sister.’  And you were so
+furious because he put your pink tissue rose in his breast pocket!  You
+didn’t much imagine then that you would ever marry him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, well, that’s another instance of predestination,” laughed Anne, as
+they went down the garret stairs.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap02"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 2
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+THE HOUSE OF DREAMS
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+There was more excitement in the air of Green Gables than there had
+ever been before in all its history.  Even Marilla was so excited that
+she couldn’t help showing it&mdash;which was little short of being
+phenomenal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There’s never been a wedding in this house,” she said, half
+apologetically, to Mrs. Rachel Lynde.  “When I was a child I heard an
+old minister say that a house was not a real home until it had been
+consecrated by a birth, a wedding and a death.  We’ve had deaths
+here&mdash;my father and mother died here as well as Matthew; and we’ve even
+had a birth here.  Long ago, just after we moved into this house, we
+had a married hired man for a little while, and his wife had a baby
+here.  But there’s never been a wedding before.  It does seem so
+strange to think of Anne being married.  In a way she just seems to me
+the little girl Matthew brought home here fourteen years ago.  I can’t
+realize that she’s grown up.  I shall never forget what I felt when I
+saw Matthew bringing in a GIRL.  I wonder what became of the boy we
+would have got if there hadn’t been a mistake.  I wonder what HIS fate
+was.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, it was a fortunate mistake,” said Mrs. Rachel Lynde, “though,
+mind you, there was a time I didn’t think so&mdash;that evening I came up to
+see Anne and she treated us to such a scene.  Many things have changed
+since then, that’s what.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Rachel sighed, and then brisked up again.  When weddings were in
+order Mrs. Rachel was ready to let the dead past bury its dead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m going to give Anne two of my cotton warp spreads,” she resumed.
+“A tobacco-stripe one and an apple-leaf one.  She tells me they’re
+getting to be real fashionable again.  Well, fashion or no fashion, I
+don’t believe there’s anything prettier for a spare-room bed than a
+nice apple-leaf spread, that’s what.  I must see about getting them
+bleached.  I’ve had them sewed up in cotton bags ever since Thomas
+died, and no doubt they’re an awful color.  But there’s a month yet,
+and dew-bleaching will work wonders.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Only a month!  Marilla sighed and then said proudly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m giving Anne that half dozen braided rugs I have in the garret. I
+never supposed she’d want them&mdash;they’re so old-fashioned, and nobody
+seems to want anything but hooked mats now.  But she asked me for
+them&mdash;said she’d rather have them than anything else for her floors.
+They ARE pretty.  I made them of the nicest rags, and braided them in
+stripes.  It was such company these last few winters.  And I’ll make
+her enough blue plum preserve to stock her jam closet for a year.  It
+seems real strange.  Those blue plum trees hadn’t even a blossom for
+three years, and I thought they might as well be cut down.  And this
+last spring they were white, and such a crop of plums I never remember
+at Green Gables.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, thank goodness that Anne and Gilbert really are going to be
+married after all.  It’s what I’ve always prayed for,” said Mrs.
+Rachel, in the tone of one who is comfortably sure that her prayers
+have availed much.  “It was a great relief to find out that she really
+didn’t mean to take the Kingsport man.  He was rich, to be sure, and
+Gilbert is poor&mdash;at least, to begin with; but then he’s an Island boy.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He’s Gilbert Blythe,” said Marilla contentedly.  Marilla would have
+died the death before she would have put into words the thought that
+was always in the background of her mind whenever she had looked at
+Gilbert from his childhood up&mdash;the thought that, had it not been for
+her own wilful pride long, long ago, he might have been HER son.
+Marilla felt that, in some strange way, his marriage with Anne would
+put right that old mistake.  Good had come out of the evil of the
+ancient bitterness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As for Anne herself, she was so happy that she almost felt frightened.
+The gods, so says the old superstition, do not like to behold too happy
+mortals.  It is certain, at least, that some human beings do not.  Two
+of that ilk descended upon Anne one violet dusk and proceeded to do
+what in them lay to prick the rainbow bubble of her satisfaction.  If
+she thought she was getting any particular prize in young Dr. Blythe,
+or if she imagined that he was still as infatuated with her as he might
+have been in his salad days, it was surely their duty to put the matter
+before her in another light.  Yet these two worthy ladies were not
+enemies of Anne; on the contrary, they were really quite fond of her,
+and would have defended her as their own young had anyone else attacked
+her.  Human nature is not obliged to be consistent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Inglis&mdash;nee Jane Andrews, to quote from the Daily Enterprise&mdash;came
+with her mother and Mrs. Jasper Bell.  But in Jane the milk of human
+kindness had not been curdled by years of matrimonial bickerings.  Her
+lines had fallen in pleasant places.  In spite of the fact&mdash;as Mrs.
+Rachel Lynde would say&mdash;that she had married a millionaire, her
+marriage had been happy.  Wealth had not spoiled her.  She was still
+the placid, amiable, pink-cheeked Jane of the old quartette,
+sympathising with her old chum’s happiness and as keenly interested in
+all the dainty details of Anne’s trousseau as if it could rival her own
+silken and bejewelled splendors.  Jane was not brilliant, and had
+probably never made a remark worth listening to in her life; but she
+never said anything that would hurt anyone’s feelings&mdash;which may be a
+negative talent but is likewise a rare and enviable one.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“So Gilbert didn’t go back on you after all,” said Mrs. Harmon Andrews,
+contriving to convey an expression of surprise in her tone.  “Well, the
+Blythes generally keep their word when they’ve once passed it, no
+matter what happens.  Let me see&mdash;you’re twenty-five, aren’t you, Anne?
+When I was a girl twenty-five was the first corner.  But you look quite
+young.  Red-headed people always do.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Red hair is very fashionable now,” said Anne, trying to smile, but
+speaking rather coldly.  Life had developed in her a sense of humor
+which helped her over many difficulties; but as yet nothing had availed
+to steel her against a reference to her hair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“So it is&mdash;so it is,” conceded Mrs. Harmon.  “There’s no telling what
+queer freaks fashion will take.  Well, Anne, your things are very
+pretty, and very suitable to your position in life, aren’t they, Jane?
+I hope you’ll be very happy.  You have my best wishes, I’m sure.  A
+long engagement doesn’t often turn out well.  But, of course, in your
+case it couldn’t be helped.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert looks very young for a doctor.  I’m afraid people won’t have
+much confidence in him,” said Mrs. Jasper Bell gloomily.  Then she shut
+her mouth tightly, as if she had said what she considered it her duty
+to say and held her conscience clear.  She belonged to the type which
+always has a stringy black feather in its hat and straggling locks of
+hair on its neck.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne’s surface pleasure in her pretty bridal things was temporarily
+shadowed; but the deeps of happiness below could not thus be disturbed;
+and the little stings of Mesdames Bell and Andrews were forgotten when
+Gilbert came later, and they wandered down to the birches of the brook,
+which had been saplings when Anne had come to Green Gables, but were
+now tall, ivory columns in a fairy palace of twilight and stars.  In
+their shadows Anne and Gilbert talked in lover-fashion of their new
+home and their new life together.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve found a nest for us, Anne.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, where?  Not right in the village, I hope.  I wouldn’t like that
+altogether.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.  There was no house to be had in the village.  This is a little
+white house on the harbor shore, half way between Glen St. Mary and
+Four Winds Point.  It’s a little out of the way, but when we get a
+’phone in that won’t matter so much.  The situation is beautiful.  It
+looks to the sunset and has the great blue harbor before it.  The
+sand-dunes aren’t very far away&mdash;the sea winds blow over them and the
+sea spray drenches them.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But the house itself, Gilbert,&mdash;OUR first home?  What is it like?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Not very large, but large enough for us.  There’s a splendid living
+room with a fireplace in it downstairs, and a dining room that looks
+out on the harbor, and a little room that will do for my office.  It is
+about sixty years old&mdash;the oldest house in Four Winds.  But it has been
+kept in pretty good repair, and was all done over about fifteen years
+ago&mdash;shingled, plastered and re-floored.  It was well built to begin
+with.  I understand that there was some romantic story connected with
+its building, but the man I rented it from didn’t know it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He said Captain Jim was the only one who could spin that old yarn now.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Who is Captain Jim?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The keeper of the lighthouse on Four Winds Point.  You’ll love that
+Four Winds light, Anne.  It’s a revolving one, and it flashes like a
+magnificent star through the twilights.  We can see it from our living
+room windows and our front door.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Who owns the house?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, it’s the property of the Glen St. Mary Presbyterian Church now,
+and I rented it from the trustees.  But it belonged until lately to a
+very old lady, Miss Elizabeth Russell.  She died last spring, and as
+she had no near relatives she left her property to the Glen St. Mary
+Church.  Her furniture is still in the house, and I bought most of
+it&mdash;for a mere song you might say, because it was all so old-fashioned
+that the trustees despaired of selling it.  Glen St. Mary folks prefer
+plush brocade and sideboards with mirrors and ornamentations, I fancy.
+But Miss Russell’s furniture is very good and I feel sure you’ll like
+it, Anne.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“So far, good,” said Anne, nodding cautious approval.  “But, Gilbert,
+people cannot live by furniture alone.  You haven’t yet mentioned one
+very important thing.  Are there TREES about this house?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Heaps of them, oh, dryad!  There is a big grove of fir trees behind
+it, two rows of Lombardy poplars down the lane, and a ring of white
+birches around a very delightful garden.  Our front door opens right
+into the garden, but there is another entrance&mdash;a little gate hung
+between two firs.  The hinges are on one trunk and the catch on the
+other.  Their boughs form an arch overhead.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I’m so glad!  I couldn’t live where there were no trees&mdash;something
+vital in me would starve.  Well, after that, there’s no use asking you
+if there’s a brook anywhere near.  THAT would be expecting too much.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But there IS a brook&mdash;and it actually cuts across one corner of the
+garden.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Then,” said Anne, with a long sigh of supreme satisfaction, “this
+house you have found IS my house of dreams and none other.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap03"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 3
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+THE LAND OF DREAMS AMONG
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+“Have you made up your mind who you’re going to have to the wedding,
+Anne?” asked Mrs. Rachel Lynde, as she hemstitched table napkins
+industriously.  “It’s time your invitations were sent, even if they are
+to be only informal ones.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t mean to have very many,” said Anne.  “We just want those we
+love best to see us married.  Gilbert’s people, and Mr. and Mrs. Allan,
+and Mr. and Mrs. Harrison.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There was a time when you’d hardly have numbered Mr. Harrison among
+your dearest friends,” said Marilla drily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, I wasn’t VERY strongly attracted to him at our first meeting,”
+acknowledged Anne, with a laugh over the recollection.  “But Mr.
+Harrison has improved on acquaintance, and Mrs. Harrison is really a
+dear.  Then, of course, there are Miss Lavendar and Paul.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Have they decided to come to the Island this summer?  I thought they
+were going to Europe.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“They changed their minds when I wrote them I was going to be married.
+I had a letter from Paul today.  He says he MUST come to my wedding, no
+matter what happens to Europe.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That child always idolised you,” remarked Mrs. Rachel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That 'child’ is a young man of nineteen now, Mrs. Lynde.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How time does fly!” was Mrs. Lynde’s brilliant and original response.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Charlotta the Fourth may come with them.  She sent word by Paul that
+she would come if her husband would let her.  I wonder if she still
+wears those enormous blue bows, and whether her husband calls her
+Charlotta or Leonora.  I should love to have Charlotta at my wedding.
+Charlotta and I were at a wedding long syne.  They expect to be at Echo
+Lodge next week.  Then there are Phil and the Reverend Jo&mdash;&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It sounds awful to hear you speaking of a minister like that, Anne,”
+said Mrs. Rachel severely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“His wife calls him that.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She should have more respect for his holy office, then,” retorted Mrs.
+Rachel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve heard you criticise ministers pretty sharply yourself,” teased
+Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, but I do it reverently,” protested Mrs. Lynde.  “You never heard
+me NICKNAME a minister.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne smothered a smile.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, there are Diana and Fred and little Fred and Small Anne
+Cordelia&mdash;and Jane Andrews.  I wish I could have Miss Stacey and Aunt
+Jamesina and Priscilla and Stella.  But Stella is in Vancouver, and
+Pris is in Japan, and Miss Stacey is married in California, and Aunt
+Jamesina has gone to India to explore her daughter’s mission field, in
+spite of her horror of snakes.  It’s really dreadful&mdash;the way people
+get scattered over the globe.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The Lord never intended it, that’s what,” said Mrs. Rachel
+authoritatively.  “In my young days people grew up and married and
+settled down where they were born, or pretty near it.  Thank goodness
+you’ve stuck to the Island, Anne.  I was afraid Gilbert would insist on
+rushing off to the ends of the earth when he got through college, and
+dragging you with him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If everybody stayed where he was born places would soon be filled up,
+Mrs. Lynde.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I’m not going to argue with you, Anne.  <I>I</I> am not a B.A.  What
+time of the day is the ceremony to be?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We have decided on noon&mdash;high noon, as the society reporters say.
+That will give us time to catch the evening train to Glen St. Mary.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And you’ll be married in the parlor?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No&mdash;not unless it rains.  We mean to be married in the orchard&mdash;with
+the blue sky over us and the sunshine around us.  Do you know when and
+where I’d like to be married, if I could?  It would be at dawn&mdash;a June
+dawn, with a glorious sunrise, and roses blooming in the gardens; and I
+would slip down and meet Gilbert and we would go together to the heart
+of the beech woods,&mdash;and there, under the green arches that would be
+like a splendid cathedral, we would be married.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Marilla sniffed scornfully and Mrs. Lynde looked shocked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But that would be terrible queer, Anne.  Why, it wouldn’t really seem
+legal.  And what would Mrs. Harmon Andrews say?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Ah, there’s the rub,” sighed Anne.  “There are so many things in life
+we cannot do because of the fear of what Mrs. Harmon Andrews would say.
+'’Tis true, ’tis pity, and pity ’tis, ’tis true.’  What delightful
+things we might do were it not for Mrs. Harmon Andrews!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“By times, Anne, I don’t feel quite sure that I understand you
+altogether,” complained Mrs. Lynde.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne was always romantic, you know,” said Marilla apologetically.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, married life will most likely cure her of that,” Mrs. Rachel
+responded comfortingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne laughed and slipped away to Lover’s Lane, where Gilbert found her;
+and neither of them seemed to entertain much fear, or hope, that their
+married life would cure them of romance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Echo Lodge people came over the next week, and Green Gables buzzed
+with the delight of them.  Miss Lavendar had changed so little that the
+three years since her last Island visit might have been a watch in the
+night; but Anne gasped with amazement over Paul.  Could this splendid
+six feet of manhood be the little Paul of Avonlea schooldays?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You really make me feel old, Paul,” said Anne.  “Why, I have to look
+up to you!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’ll never grow old, Teacher,” said Paul.  “You are one of the
+fortunate mortals who have found and drunk from the Fountain of
+Youth,&mdash;you and Mother Lavendar.  See here!  When you’re married I
+WON’T call you Mrs. Blythe.  To me you’ll always be 'Teacher’&mdash;the
+teacher of the best lessons I ever learned.  I want to show you
+something.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The “something” was a pocketbook full of poems.  Paul had put some of
+his beautiful fancies into verse, and magazine editors had not been as
+unappreciative as they are sometimes supposed to be.  Anne read Paul’s
+poems with real delight.  They were full of charm and promise.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’ll be famous yet, Paul.  I always dreamed of having one famous
+pupil.  He was to be a college president&mdash;but a great poet would be
+even better.  Some day I’ll be able to boast that I whipped the
+distinguished Paul Irving.  But then I never did whip you, did I, Paul?
+What an opportunity lost!  I think I kept you in at recess, however.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You may be famous yourself, Teacher.  I’ve seen a good deal of your
+work these last three years.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.  I know what I can do.  I can write pretty, fanciful little
+sketches that children love and editors send welcome cheques for.  But
+I can do nothing big.  My only chance for earthly immortality is a
+corner in your Memoirs.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Charlotta the Fourth had discarded the blue bows but her freckles were
+not noticeably less.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I never did think I’d come down to marrying a Yankee, Miss Shirley,
+ma’am,” she said.  “But you never know what’s before you, and it isn’t
+his fault.  He was born that way.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’re a Yankee yourself, Charlotta, since you’ve married one.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Miss Shirley, ma’am, I’m NOT!  And I wouldn’t be if I was to marry a
+dozen Yankees!  Tom’s kind of nice.  And besides, I thought I’d better
+not be too hard to please, for I mightn’t get another chance.  Tom
+don’t drink and he don’t growl because he has to work between meals,
+and when all’s said and done I’m satisfied, Miss Shirley, ma’am.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Does he call you Leonora?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Goodness, no, Miss Shirley, ma’am.  I wouldn’t know who he meant if he
+did.  Of course, when we got married he had to say, 'I take thee,
+Leonora,’ and I declare to you, Miss Shirley, ma’am, I’ve had the most
+dreadful feeling ever since that it wasn’t me he was talking to and I
+haven’t been rightly married at all.  And so you’re going to be married
+yourself, Miss Shirley, ma’am?  I always thought I’d like to marry a
+doctor.  It would be so handy when the children had measles and croup.
+Tom is only a bricklayer, but he’s real good-tempered.  When I said to
+him, says I, 'Tom, can I go to Miss Shirley’s wedding?  I mean to go
+anyhow, but I’d like to have your consent,’ he just says, 'Suit
+yourself, Charlotta, and you’ll suit me.’  That’s a real pleasant kind
+of husband to have, Miss Shirley, ma’am.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Philippa and her Reverend Jo arrived at Green Gables the day before the
+wedding.  Anne and Phil had a rapturous meeting which presently
+simmered down to a cosy, confidential chat over all that had been and
+was about to be.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Queen Anne, you’re as queenly as ever.  I’ve got fearfully thin since
+the babies came.  I’m not half so good-looking; but I think Jo likes
+it.  There’s not such a contrast between us, you see.  And oh, it’s
+perfectly magnificent that you’re going to marry Gilbert.  Roy Gardner
+wouldn’t have done at all, at all.  I can see that now, though I was
+horribly disappointed at the time.  You know, Anne, you did treat Roy
+very badly.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He has recovered, I understand,” smiled Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, yes.  He is married and his wife is a sweet little thing and
+they’re perfectly happy.  Everything works together for good.  Jo and
+the Bible say that, and they are pretty good authorities.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Are Alec and Alonzo married yet?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Alec is, but Alonzo isn’t.  How those dear old days at Patty’s Place
+come back when I’m talking to you, Anne!  What fun we had!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Have you been to Patty’s Place lately?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, yes, I go often.  Miss Patty and Miss Maria still sit by the
+fireplace and knit.  And that reminds me&mdash;we’ve brought you a wedding
+gift from them, Anne.  Guess what it is.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I never could.  How did they know I was going to be married?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I told them.  I was there last week.  And they were so interested.
+Two days ago Miss Patty wrote me a note asking me to call; and then she
+asked if I would take her gift to you.  What would you wish most from
+Patty’s Place, Anne?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You can’t mean that Miss Patty has sent me her china dogs?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Go up head.  They’re in my trunk this very moment.  And I’ve a letter
+for you.  Wait a moment and I’ll get it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Dear Miss Shirley,” Miss Patty had written, “Maria and I were very
+much interested in hearing of your approaching nuptials.  We send you
+our best wishes.  Maria and I have never married, but we have no
+objection to other people doing so.  We are sending you the china dogs.
+I intended to leave them to you in my will, because you seemed to have
+sincere affection for them.  But Maria and I expect to live a good
+while yet (D.V.), so I have decided to give you the dogs while you are
+young.  You will not have forgotten that Gog looks to the right and
+Magog to the left.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Just fancy those lovely old dogs sitting by the fireplace in my house
+of dreams,” said Anne rapturously.  “I never expected anything so
+delightful.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That evening Green Gables hummed with preparations for the following
+day; but in the twilight Anne slipped away.  She had a little
+pilgrimage to make on this last day of her girlhood and she must make
+it alone.  She went to Matthew’s grave, in the little poplar-shaded
+Avonlea graveyard, and there kept a silent tryst with old memories and
+immortal loves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How glad Matthew would be tomorrow if he were here,” she whispered.
+“But I believe he does know and is glad of it&mdash;somewhere else.  I’ve
+read somewhere that 'our dead are never dead until we have forgotten
+them.’ Matthew will never be dead to me, for I can never forget him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She left on his grave the flowers she had brought and walked slowly
+down the long hill.  It was a gracious evening, full of delectable
+lights and shadows.  In the west was a sky of mackerel clouds&mdash;crimson
+and amber-tinted, with long strips of apple-green sky between.  Beyond
+was the glimmering radiance of a sunset sea, and the ceaseless voice of
+many waters came up from the tawny shore.  All around her, lying in the
+fine, beautiful country silence, were the hills and fields and woods
+she had known and loved so long.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“History repeats itself,” said Gilbert, joining her as she passed the
+Blythe gate.  “Do you remember our first walk down this hill, Anne&mdash;our
+first walk together anywhere, for that matter?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I was coming home in the twilight from Matthew’s grave&mdash;and you came
+out of the gate; and I swallowed the pride of years and spoke to you.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And all heaven opened before me,” supplemented Gilbert.  “From that
+moment I looked forward to tomorrow.  When I left you at your gate that
+night and walked home I was the happiest boy in the world.  Anne had
+forgiven me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I think you had the most to forgive.  I was an ungrateful little
+wretch&mdash;and after you had really saved my life that day on the pond,
+too.  How I loathed that load of obligation at first!  I don’t deserve
+the happiness that has come to me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert laughed and clasped tighter the girlish hand that wore his
+ring.  Anne’s engagement ring was a circlet of pearls.  She had refused
+to wear a diamond.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve never really liked diamonds since I found out they weren’t the
+lovely purple I had dreamed.  They will always suggest my old
+disappointment.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But pearls are for tears, the old legend says,” Gilbert had objected.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m not afraid of that.  And tears can be happy as well as sad.  My
+very happiest moments have been when I had tears in my eyes&mdash;when
+Marilla told me I might stay at Green Gables&mdash;when Matthew gave me the
+first pretty dress I ever had&mdash;when I heard that you were going to
+recover from the fever.  So give me pearls for our troth ring, Gilbert,
+and I’ll willingly accept the sorrow of life with its joy.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But tonight our lovers thought only of joy and never of sorrow.  For
+the morrow was their wedding day, and their house of dreams awaited
+them on the misty, purple shore of Four Winds Harbor.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap04"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 4
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+THE FIRST BRIDE OF GREEN GABLES
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Anne wakened on the morning of her wedding day to find the sunshine
+winking in at the window of the little porch gable and a September
+breeze frolicking with her curtains.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m so glad the sun will shine on me,” she thought happily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She recalled the first morning she had wakened in that little porch
+room, when the sunshine had crept in on her through the blossom-drift
+of the old Snow Queen.  That had not been a happy wakening, for it
+brought with it the bitter disappointment of the preceding night.  But
+since then the little room had been endeared and consecrated by years
+of happy childhood dreams and maiden visions.  To it she had come back
+joyfully after all her absences; at its window she had knelt through
+that night of bitter agony when she believed Gilbert dying, and by it
+she had sat in speechless happiness the night of her betrothal.  Many
+vigils of joy and some of sorrow had been kept there; and today she
+must leave it forever.  Henceforth it would be hers no more;
+fifteen-year-old Dora was to inherit it when she had gone.  Nor did
+Anne wish it otherwise; the little room was sacred to youth and
+girlhood&mdash;to the past that was to close today before the chapter of
+wifehood opened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Green Gables was a busy and joyous house that forenoon.  Diana arrived
+early, with little Fred and Small Anne Cordelia, to lend a hand.  Davy
+and Dora, the Green Gables twins, whisked the babies off to the garden.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t let Small Anne Cordelia spoil her clothes,” warned Diana
+anxiously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You needn’t be afraid to trust her with Dora,” said Marilla.  “That
+child is more sensible and careful than most of the mothers I’ve known.
+She’s really a wonder in some ways.  Not much like that other
+harum-scarum I brought up.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Marilla smiled across her chicken salad at Anne.  It might even be
+suspected that she liked the harum-scarum best after all.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Those twins are real nice children,” said Mrs. Rachel, when she was
+sure they were out of earshot.  “Dora is so womanly and helpful, and
+Davy is developing into a very smart boy.  He isn’t the holy terror for
+mischief he used to be.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I never was so distracted in my life as I was the first six months he
+was here,” acknowledged Marilla.  “After that I suppose I got used to
+him.  He’s taken a great notion to farming lately, and wants me to let
+him try running the farm next year.  I may, for Mr. Barry doesn’t think
+he’ll want to rent it much longer, and some new arrangement will have
+to be made.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, you certainly have a lovely day for your wedding, Anne,” said
+Diana, as she slipped a voluminous apron over her silken array.  “You
+couldn’t have had a finer one if you’d ordered it from Eaton’s.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Indeed, there’s too much money going out of this Island to that same
+Eaton’s,” said Mrs. Lynde indignantly.  She had strong views on the
+subject of octopus-like department stores, and never lost an
+opportunity of airing them.  “And as for those catalogues of theirs,
+they’re the Avonlea girls’ Bible now, that’s what.  They pore over them
+on Sundays instead of studying the Holy Scriptures.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, they’re splendid to amuse children with,” said Diana.  “Fred and
+Small Anne look at the pictures by the hour.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“<I>I</I> amused ten children without the aid of Eaton’s catalogue,” said
+Mrs. Rachel severely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Come, you two, don’t quarrel over Eaton’s catalogue,” said Anne gaily.
+“This is my day of days, you know.  I’m so happy I want every one else
+to be happy, too.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m sure I hope your happiness will last, child,” sighed Mrs. Rachel.
+She did hope it truly, and believed it, but she was afraid it was in
+the nature of a challenge to Providence to flaunt your happiness too
+openly.  Anne, for her own good, must be toned down a trifle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But it was a happy and beautiful bride who came down the old,
+homespun-carpeted stairs that September noon&mdash;the first bride of Green
+Gables, slender and shining-eyed, in the mist of her maiden veil, with
+her arms full of roses.  Gilbert, waiting for her in the hall below,
+looked up at her with adoring eyes.  She was his at last, this evasive,
+long-sought Anne, won after years of patient waiting.  It was to him
+she was coming in the sweet surrender of the bride.  Was he worthy of
+her?  Could he make her as happy as he hoped?  If he failed her&mdash;if he
+could not measure up to her standard of manhood&mdash;then, as she held out
+her hand, their eyes met and all doubt was swept away in a glad
+certainty.  They belonged to each other; and, no matter what life might
+hold for them, it could never alter that.  Their happiness was in each
+other’s keeping and both were unafraid.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were married in the sunshine of the old orchard, circled by the
+loving and kindly faces of long-familiar friends.  Mr. Allan married
+them, and the Reverend Jo made what Mrs. Rachel Lynde afterwards
+pronounced to be the “most beautiful wedding prayer” she had ever
+heard.  Birds do not often sing in September, but one sang sweetly from
+some hidden bough while Gilbert and Anne repeated their deathless vows.
+Anne heard it and thrilled to it; Gilbert heard it, and wondered only
+that all the birds in the world had not burst into jubilant song; Paul
+heard it and later wrote a lyric about it which was one of the most
+admired in his first volume of verse; Charlotta the Fourth heard it and
+was blissfully sure it meant good luck for her adored Miss Shirley.
+The bird sang until the ceremony was ended and then it wound up with
+one mad little, glad little trill.  Never had the old gray-green house
+among its enfolding orchards known a blither, merrier afternoon.  All
+the old jests and quips that must have done duty at weddings since Eden
+were served up, and seemed as new and brilliant and mirth-provoking as
+if they had never been uttered before.  Laughter and joy had their way;
+and when Anne and Gilbert left to catch the Carmody train, with Paul as
+driver, the twins were ready with rice and old shoes, in the throwing
+of which Charlotta the Fourth and Mr. Harrison bore a valiant part.
+Marilla stood at the gate and watched the carriage out of sight down
+the long lane with its banks of goldenrod.  Anne turned at its end to
+wave her last good-bye.  She was gone&mdash;Green Gables was her home no
+more; Marilla’s face looked very gray and old as she turned to the
+house which Anne had filled for fourteen years, and even in her
+absence, with light and life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Diana and her small fry, the Echo Lodge people and the Allans, had
+stayed to help the two old ladies over the loneliness of the first
+evening; and they contrived to have a quietly pleasant little supper
+time, sitting long around the table and chatting over all the details
+of the day.  While they were sitting there Anne and Gilbert were
+alighting from the train at Glen St. Mary.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap05"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 5
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+THE HOME COMING
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Dr. David Blythe had sent his horse and buggy to meet them, and the
+urchin who had brought it slipped away with a sympathetic grin, leaving
+them to the delight of driving alone to their new home through the
+radiant evening.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne never forgot the loveliness of the view that broke upon them when
+they had driven over the hill behind the village.  Her new home could
+not yet be seen; but before her lay Four Winds Harbor like a great,
+shining mirror of rose and silver.  Far down, she saw its entrance
+between the bar of sand dunes on one side and a steep, high, grim, red
+sandstone cliff on the other.  Beyond the bar the sea, calm and
+austere, dreamed in the afterlight.  The little fishing village,
+nestled in the cove where the sand-dunes met the harbor shore, looked
+like a great opal in the haze.  The sky over them was like a jewelled
+cup from which the dusk was pouring; the air was crisp with the
+compelling tang of the sea, and the whole landscape was infused with
+the subtleties of a sea evening.  A few dim sails drifted along the
+darkening, fir-clad harbor shores.  A bell was ringing from the tower
+of a little white church on the far side; mellowly and dreamily sweet,
+the chime floated across the water blent with the moan of the sea.  The
+great revolving light on the cliff at the channel flashed warm and
+golden against the clear northern sky, a trembling, quivering star of
+good hope.  Far out along the horizon was the crinkled gray ribbon of a
+passing steamer’s smoke.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, beautiful, beautiful,” murmured Anne.  “I shall love Four Winds,
+Gilbert.  Where is our house?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We can’t see it yet&mdash;the belt of birch running up from that little
+cove hides it.  It’s about two miles from Glen St. Mary, and there’s
+another mile between it and the light-house.  We won’t have many
+neighbors, Anne.  There’s only one house near us and I don’t know who
+lives in it.  Shall you be lonely when I’m away?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Not with that light and that loveliness for company.  Who lives in
+that house, Gilbert?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t know.  It doesn’t look&mdash;exactly&mdash;as if the occupants would be
+kindred spirits, Anne, does it?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The house was a large, substantial affair, painted such a vivid green
+that the landscape seemed quite faded by contrast.  There was an
+orchard behind it, and a nicely kept lawn before it, but, somehow,
+there was a certain bareness about it.  Perhaps its neatness was
+responsible for this; the whole establishment, house, barns, orchard,
+garden, lawn and lane, was so starkly neat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It doesn’t seem probable that anyone with that taste in paint could be
+VERY kindred,” acknowledged Anne, “unless it were an accident&mdash;like our
+blue hall.  I feel certain there are no children there, at least.  It’s
+even neater than the old Copp place on the Tory road, and I never
+expected to see anything neater than that.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They had not met anybody on the moist, red road that wound along the
+harbor shore.  But just before they came to the belt of birch which hid
+their home, Anne saw a girl who was driving a flock of snow-white geese
+along the crest of a velvety green hill on the right.  Great, scattered
+firs grew along it.  Between their trunks one saw glimpses of yellow
+harvest fields, gleams of golden sand-hills, and bits of blue sea.  The
+girl was tall and wore a dress of pale blue print.  She walked with a
+certain springiness of step and erectness of bearing.  She and her
+geese came out of the gate at the foot of the hill as Anne and Gilbert
+passed.  She stood with her hand on the fastening of the gate, and
+looked steadily at them, with an expression that hardly attained to
+interest, but did not descend to curiosity.  It seemed to Anne, for a
+fleeting moment, that there was even a veiled hint of hostility in it.
+But it was the girl’s beauty which made Anne give a little gasp&mdash;a
+beauty so marked that it must have attracted attention anywhere.  She
+was hatless, but heavy braids of burnished hair, the hue of ripe wheat,
+were twisted about her head like a coronet; her eyes were blue and
+star-like; her figure, in its plain print gown, was magnificent; and
+her lips were as crimson as the bunch of blood-red poppies she wore at
+her belt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert, who is the girl we have just passed?” asked Anne, in a low
+voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I didn’t notice any girl,” said Gilbert, who had eyes only for his
+bride.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She was standing by that gate&mdash;no, don’t look back.  She is still
+watching us.  I never saw such a beautiful face.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t remember seeing any very handsome girls while I was here.
+There are some pretty girls up at the Glen, but I hardly think they
+could be called beautiful.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“This girl is.  You can’t have seen her, or you would remember her.
+Nobody could forget her.  I never saw such a face except in pictures.
+And her hair!  It made me think of Browning’s 'cord of gold’ and
+'gorgeous snake’!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Probably she’s some visitor in Four Winds&mdash;likely some one from that
+big summer hotel over the harbor.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She wore a white apron and she was driving geese.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She might do that for amusement.  Look, Anne&mdash;there’s our house.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne looked and forgot for a time the girl with the splendid, resentful
+eyes.  The first glimpse of her new home was a delight to eye and
+spirit&mdash;it looked so like a big, creamy seashell stranded on the harbor
+shore.  The rows of tall Lombardy poplars down its lane stood out in
+stately, purple silhouette against the sky.  Behind it, sheltering its
+garden from the too keen breath of sea winds, was a cloudy fir wood, in
+which the winds might make all kinds of weird and haunting music.  Like
+all woods, it seemed to be holding and enfolding secrets in its
+recesses,&mdash;secrets whose charm is only to be won by entering in and
+patiently seeking.  Outwardly, dark green arms keep them inviolate from
+curious or indifferent eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The night winds were beginning their wild dances beyond the bar and the
+fishing hamlet across the harbor was gemmed with lights as Anne and
+Gilbert drove up the poplar lane.  The door of the little house opened,
+and a warm glow of firelight flickered out into the dusk.  Gilbert
+lifted Anne from the buggy and led her into the garden, through the
+little gate between the ruddy-tipped firs, up the trim, red path to the
+sandstone step.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Welcome home,” he whispered, and hand in hand they stepped over the
+threshold of their house of dreams.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap06"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 6
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+CAPTAIN JIM
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+“Old Doctor Dave” and “Mrs. Doctor Dave” had come down to the little
+house to greet the bride and groom.  Doctor Dave was a big, jolly,
+white-whiskered old fellow, and Mrs. Doctor was a trim rosy-cheeked,
+silver-haired little lady who took Anne at once to her heart, literally
+and figuratively.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m so glad to see you, dear.  You must be real tired.  We’ve got a
+bite of supper ready, and Captain Jim brought up some trout for you.
+Captain Jim&mdash;where are you?  Oh, he’s slipped out to see to the horse,
+I suppose.  Come upstairs and take your things off.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne looked about her with bright, appreciative eyes as she followed
+Mrs. Doctor Dave upstairs.  She liked the appearance of her new home
+very much.  It seemed to have the atmosphere of Green Gables and the
+flavor of her old traditions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I think I would have found Miss Elizabeth Russell a 'kindred spirit,’”
+she murmured when she was alone in her room.  There were two windows in
+it; the dormer one looked out on the lower harbor and the sand-bar and
+the Four Winds light.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+    “A magic casement opening on the foam<BR>
+    Of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn,”<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+quoted Anne softly.  The gable window gave a view of a little
+harvest-hued valley through which a brook ran.  Half a mile up the
+brook was the only house in sight&mdash;an old, rambling, gray one
+surrounded by huge willows through which its windows peered, like shy,
+seeking eyes, into the dusk.  Anne wondered who lived there; they would
+be her nearest neighbors and she hoped they would be nice.  She
+suddenly found herself thinking of the beautiful girl with the white
+geese.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert thought she didn’t belong here,” mused Anne, “but I feel sure
+she does.  There was something about her that made her part of the sea
+and the sky and the harbor.  Four Winds is in her blood.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Anne went downstairs Gilbert was standing before the fireplace
+talking to a stranger.  Both turned as Anne entered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne, this is Captain Boyd.  Captain Boyd, my wife.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was the first time Gilbert had said “my wife” to anybody but Anne,
+and he narrowly escaped bursting with the pride of it.  The old captain
+held out a sinewy hand to Anne; they smiled at each other and were
+friends from that moment.  Kindred spirit flashed recognition to
+kindred spirit.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m right down pleased to meet you, Mistress Blythe; and I hope you’ll
+be as happy as the first bride was who came here.  I can’t wish you no
+better than THAT.  But your husband doesn’t introduce me jest exactly
+right.  'Captain Jim’ is my week-a-day name and you might as well begin
+as you’re sartain to end up&mdash;calling me that.  You sartainly are a nice
+little bride, Mistress Blythe.  Looking at you sorter makes me feel
+that I’ve jest been married myself.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Amid the laughter that followed Mrs. Doctor Dave urged Captain Jim to
+stay and have supper with them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Thank you kindly.  ’Twill be a real treat, Mistress Doctor.  I mostly
+has to eat my meals alone, with the reflection of my ugly old phiz in a
+looking-glass opposite for company.  ’Tisn’t often I have a chance to
+sit down with two such sweet, purty ladies.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim’s compliments may look very bald on paper, but he paid them
+with such a gracious, gentle deference of tone and look that the woman
+upon whom they were bestowed felt that she was being offered a queen’s
+tribute in a kingly fashion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim was a high-souled, simple-minded old man, with eternal
+youth in his eyes and heart.  He had a tall, rather ungainly figure,
+somewhat stooped, yet suggestive of great strength and endurance; a
+clean-shaven face deeply lined and bronzed; a thick mane of iron-gray
+hair falling quite to his shoulders, and a pair of remarkably blue,
+deep-set eyes, which sometimes twinkled and sometimes dreamed, and
+sometimes looked out seaward with a wistful quest in them, as of one
+seeking something precious and lost.  Anne was to learn one day what it
+was for which Captain Jim looked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It could not be denied that Captain Jim was a homely man.  His spare
+jaws, rugged mouth, and square brow were not fashioned on the lines of
+beauty; and he had passed through many hardships and sorrows which had
+marked his body as well as his soul; but though at first sight Anne
+thought him plain she never thought anything more about it&mdash;the spirit
+shining through that rugged tenement beautified it so wholly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They gathered gaily around the supper table.  The hearth fire banished
+the chill of the September evening, but the window of the dining room
+was open and sea breezes entered at their own sweet will.  The view was
+magnificent, taking in the harbor and the sweep of low, purple hills
+beyond.  The table was heaped with Mrs. Doctor’s delicacies but the
+piece de resistance was undoubtedly the big platter of sea trout.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Thought they’d be sorter tasty after travelling,” said Captain Jim.
+“They’re fresh as trout can be, Mistress Blythe.  Two hours ago they
+were swimming in the Glen Pond.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Who is attending to the light tonight, Captain Jim?” asked Doctor Dave.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Nephew Alec.  He understands it as well as I do.  Well, now, I’m real
+glad you asked me to stay to supper.  I’m proper hungry&mdash;didn’t have
+much of a dinner today.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I believe you half starve yourself most of the time down at that
+light,” said Mrs. Doctor Dave severely.  “You won’t take the trouble to
+get up a decent meal.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I do, Mistress Doctor, I do,” protested Captain Jim.  “Why, I live
+like a king gen’rally.  Last night I was up to the Glen and took home
+two pounds of steak.  I meant to have a spanking good dinner today.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And what happened to the steak?” asked Mrs. Doctor Dave.  “Did you
+lose it on the way home?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.”  Captain Jim looked sheepish.  “Just at bedtime a poor, ornery
+sort of dog came along and asked for a night’s lodging.  Guess he
+belonged to some of the fishermen ’long shore.  I couldn’t turn the
+poor cur out&mdash;he had a sore foot.  So I shut him in the porch, with an
+old bag to lie on, and went to bed.  But somehow I couldn’t sleep.
+Come to think it over, I sorter remembered that the dog looked hungry.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And you got up and gave him that steak&mdash;ALL that steak,” said Mrs.
+Doctor Dave, with a kind of triumphant reproof.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, there wasn’t anything else TO give him,” said Captain Jim
+deprecatingly.  “Nothing a dog’d care for, that is.  I reckon he WAS
+hungry, for he made about two bites of it.  I had a fine sleep the rest
+of the night but my dinner had to be sorter scanty&mdash;potatoes and point,
+as you might say.  The dog, he lit out for home this morning.  I reckon
+HE weren’t a vegetarian.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The idea of starving yourself for a worthless dog!” sniffed Mrs.
+Doctor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You don’t know but he may be worth a lot to somebody,” protested
+Captain Jim.  “He didn’t LOOK of much account, but you can’t go by
+looks in jedging a dog.  Like meself, he might be a real beauty inside.
+The First Mate didn’t approve of him, I’ll allow.  His language was
+right down forcible. But the First Mate is prejudiced.  No use in
+taking a cat’s opinion of a dog.  'Tennyrate, I lost my dinner, so this
+nice spread in this dee-lightful company is real pleasant. It’s a great
+thing to have good neighbors.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Who lives in the house among the willows up the brook?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Mrs. Dick Moore,” said Captain Jim&mdash;“and her husband,” he added, as if
+by way of an afterthought.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne smiled, and deduced a mental picture of Mrs. Dick Moore from
+Captain Jim’s way of putting it; evidently a second Mrs. Rachel Lynde.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You haven’t many neighbors, Mistress Blythe,” Captain Jim went on.
+“This side of the harbor is mighty thinly settled.  Most of the land
+belongs to Mr. Howard up yander past the Glen, and he rents it out for
+pasture.  The other side of the harbor, now, is thick with
+folks&mdash;’specially MacAllisters.  There’s a whole colony of MacAllisters
+you can’t throw a stone but you hit one.  I was talking to old Leon
+Blacquiere the other day.  He’s been working on the harbor all summer.
+'Dey’re nearly all MacAllisters over thar,’ he told me.  'Dare’s Neil
+MacAllister and Sandy MacAllister and William MacAllister and Alec
+MacAllister and Angus MacAllister&mdash;and I believe dare’s de Devil
+MacAllister.’”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There are nearly as many Elliotts and Crawfords,” said Doctor Dave,
+after the laughter had subsided.  “You know, Gilbert, we folk on this
+side of Four Winds have an old saying&mdash;'From the conceit of the
+Elliotts, the pride of the MacAllisters, and the vainglory of the
+Crawfords, good Lord deliver us.’”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There’s a plenty of fine people among them, though,” said Captain Jim.
+“I sailed with William Crawford for many a year, and for courage and
+endurance and truth that man hadn’t an equal.  They’ve got brains over
+on that side of Four Winds.  Mebbe that’s why this side is sorter
+inclined to pick on ’em.  Strange, ain’t it, how folks seem to resent
+anyone being born a mite cleverer than they be.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doctor Dave, who had a forty years’ feud with the over-harbor people,
+laughed and subsided.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Who lives in that brilliant emerald house about half a mile up the
+road?” asked Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim smiled delightedly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Miss Cornelia Bryant.  She’ll likely be over to see you soon, seeing
+you’re Presbyterians.  If you were Methodists she wouldn’t come at all.
+Cornelia has a holy horror of Methodists.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She’s quite a character,” chuckled Doctor Dave.  “A most inveterate
+man-hater!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Sour grapes?” queried Gilbert, laughing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, ’tisn’t sour grapes,” answered Captain Jim seriously.  “Cornelia
+could have had her pick when she was young.  Even yet she’s only to say
+the word to see the old widowers jump.  She jest seems to have been
+born with a sort of chronic spite agin men and Methodists.  She’s got
+the bitterest tongue and the kindest heart in Four Winds.  Wherever
+there’s any trouble, that woman is there, doing everything to help in
+the tenderest way.  She never says a harsh word about another woman,
+and if she likes to card us poor scalawags of men down I reckon our
+tough old hides can stand it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She always speaks well of you, Captain Jim,” said Mrs. Doctor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, I’m afraid so.  I don’t half like it.  It makes me feel as if
+there must be something sorter unnateral about me.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap07"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 7
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+THE SCHOOLMASTER’S BRIDE
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+“Who was the first bride who came to this house, Captain Jim?” Anne
+asked, as they sat around the fireplace after supper.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Was she a part of the story I’ve heard was connected with this house?”
+asked Gilbert.  “Somebody told me you could tell it, Captain Jim.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, yes, I know it.  I reckon I’m the only person living in Four
+Winds now that can remember the schoolmaster’s bride as she was when
+she come to the Island.  She’s been dead this thirty year, but she was
+one of them women you never forget.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Tell us the story,” pleaded Anne.  “I want to find out all about the
+women who have lived in this house before me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, there’s jest been three&mdash;Elizabeth Russell, and Mrs. Ned
+Russell, and the schoolmaster’s bride.  Elizabeth Russell was a nice,
+clever little critter, and Mrs. Ned was a nice woman, too.  But they
+weren’t ever like the schoolmaster’s bride.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The schoolmaster’s name was John Selwyn.  He came out from the Old
+Country to teach school at the Glen when I was a boy of sixteen.  He
+wasn’t much like the usual run of derelicts who used to come out to
+P.E.I. to teach school in them days.  Most of them were clever, drunken
+critters who taught the children the three R’s when they were sober,
+and lambasted them when they wasn’t.  But John Selwyn was a fine,
+handsome young fellow.  He boarded at my father’s, and he and me were
+cronies, though he was ten years older’n me.  We read and walked and
+talked a heap together.  He knew about all the poetry that was ever
+written, I reckon, and he used to quote it to me along shore in the
+evenings.  Dad thought it an awful waste of time, but he sorter endured
+it, hoping it’d put me off the notion of going to sea.  Well, nothing
+could do THAT&mdash;mother come of a race of sea-going folk and it was born
+in me.  But I loved to hear John read and recite.  It’s almost sixty
+years ago, but I could repeat yards of poetry I learned from him.
+Nearly sixty years!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim was silent for a space, gazing into the glowing fire in a
+quest of the bygones.  Then, with a sigh, he resumed his story.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I remember one spring evening I met him on the sand-hills.  He looked
+sorter uplifted&mdash;jest like you did, Dr. Blythe, when you brought
+Mistress Blythe in tonight.  I thought of him the minute I seen you.
+And he told me that he had a sweetheart back home and that she was
+coming out to him.  I wasn’t more’n half pleased, ornery young lump of
+selfishness that I was; I thought he wouldn’t be as much my friend
+after she came.  But I’d enough decency not to let him see it.  He told
+me all about her.  Her name was Persis Leigh, and she would have come
+out with him if it hadn’t been for her old uncle.  He was sick, and
+he’d looked after her when her parents died and she wouldn’t leave him.
+And now he was dead and she was coming out to marry John Selwyn.
+’Twasn’t no easy journey for a woman in them days.  There weren’t no
+steamers, you must ricollect.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“'When do you expect her?’ says I.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“'She sails on the Royal William, the 20th of June,’ says he, 'and so
+she should be here by mid-July.  I must set Carpenter Johnson to
+building me a home for her.  Her letter come today.  I know before I
+opened it that it had good news for me.  I saw her a few nights ago.’
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I didn’t understand him, and then he explained&mdash;though I didn’t
+understand THAT much better.  He said he had a gift&mdash;or a curse.  Them
+was his words, Mistress Blythe&mdash;a gift or a curse.  He didn’t know
+which it was.  He said a great-great-grandmother of his had had it, and
+they burned her for a witch on account of it.  He said queer
+spells&mdash;trances, I think was the name he give ’em&mdash;come over him now
+and again.  Are there such things, Doctor?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There are people who are certainly subject to trances,” answered
+Gilbert.  “The matter is more in the line of psychical research than
+medical.  What were the trances of this John Selwyn like?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Like dreams,” said the old Doctor skeptically.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He said he could see things in them,” said Captain Jim slowly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Mind you, I’m telling you jest what HE said&mdash;things that were
+happening&mdash;things that were GOING to happen.  He said they were
+sometimes a comfort to him and sometimes a horror.  Four nights before
+this he’d been in one&mdash;went into it while he was sitting looking at the
+fire.  And he saw an old room he knew well in England, and Persis Leigh
+in it, holding out her hands to him and looking glad and happy.  So he
+knew he was going to hear good news of her.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“A dream&mdash;a dream,” scoffed the old Doctor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Likely&mdash;likely,” conceded Captain Jim.  “That’s what <I>I</I> said to him
+at the time.  It was a vast more comfortable to think so.  I didn’t
+like the idea of him seeing things like that&mdash;it was real uncanny.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“'No,’ says he, 'I didn’t dream it.  But we won’t talk of this again.
+You won’t be so much my friend if you think much about it.’
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I told him nothing could make me any less his friend.  But he jest
+shook his head and says, says he:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“'Lad, I know.  I’ve lost friends before because of this.  I don’t
+blame them.  There are times when I feel hardly friendly to myself
+because of it.  Such a power has a bit of divinity in it&mdash;whether of a
+good or an evil divinity who shall say?  And we mortals all shrink from
+too close contact with God or devil.’
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Them was his words.  I remember them as if ’twas yesterday, though I
+didn’t know jest what he meant.  What do you s’pose he DID mean,
+doctor?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I doubt if he knew what he meant himself,” said Doctor Dave testily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I think I understand,” whispered Anne.  She was listening in her old
+attitude of clasped lips and shining eyes.  Captain Jim treated himself
+to an admiring smile before he went on with his story.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, purty soon all the Glen and Four Winds people knew the
+schoolmaster’s bride was coming, and they were all glad because they
+thought so much of him.  And everybody took an interest in his new
+house&mdash;THIS house.  He picked this site for it, because you could see
+the harbor and hear the sea from it.  He made the garden out there for
+his bride, but he didn’t plant the Lombardies.  Mrs. Ned Russell
+planted THEM.  But there’s a double row of rose-bushes in the garden
+that the little girls who went to the Glen school set out there for the
+schoolmaster’s bride.  He said they were pink for her cheeks and white
+for her brow and red for her lips.  He’d quoted poetry so much that he
+sorter got into the habit of talking it, too, I reckon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Almost everybody sent him some little present to help out the
+furnishing of the house.  When the Russells came into it they were
+well-to-do and furnished it real handsome, as you can see; but the
+first furniture that went into it was plain enough.  This little house
+was rich in love, though.  The women sent in quilts and tablecloths and
+towels, and one man made a chest for her, and another a table and so
+on.  Even blind old Aunt Margaret Boyd wove a little basket for her out
+of the sweet-scented sand-hill grass.  The schoolmaster’s wife used it
+for years to keep her handkerchiefs in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, at last everything was ready&mdash;even to the logs in the big
+fireplace ready for lighting.  ’Twasn’t exactly THIS fireplace, though
+’twas in the same place.  Miss Elizabeth had this put in when she made
+the house over fifteen years ago.  It was a big, old-fashioned
+fireplace where you could have roasted an ox.  Many’s the time I’ve sat
+here and spun yarns, same’s I’m doing tonight.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again there was a silence, while Captain Jim kept a passing tryst with
+visitants Anne and Gilbert could not see&mdash;the folks who had sat with
+him around that fireplace in the vanished years, with mirth and bridal
+joy shining in eyes long since closed forever under churchyard sod or
+heaving leagues of sea.  Here on olden nights children had tossed
+laughter lightly to and fro.  Here on winter evenings friends had
+gathered.  Dance and music and jest had been here.  Here youths and
+maidens had dreamed.  For Captain Jim the little house was tenanted
+with shapes entreating remembrance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It was the first of July when the house was finished.  The
+schoolmaster began to count the days then.  We used to see him walking
+along the shore, and we’d say to each other, 'She’ll soon be with him
+now.’
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She was expected the middle of July, but she didn’t come then.  Nobody
+felt anxious.  Vessels were often delayed for days and mebbe weeks.
+The Royal William was a week overdue&mdash;and then two&mdash;and then three.
+And at last we began to be frightened, and it got worse and worse.
+Fin’lly I couldn’t bear to look into John Selwyn’s eyes.  D’ye know,
+Mistress Blythe”&mdash;Captain Jim lowered his voice&mdash;“I used to think that
+they looked just like what his old great-great-grandmother’s must have
+been when they were burning her to death.  He never said much but he
+taught school like a man in a dream and then hurried to the shore.
+Many a night he walked there from dark to dawn.  People said he was
+losing his mind.  Everybody had given up hope&mdash;the Royal William was
+eight weeks overdue.  It was the middle of September and the
+schoolmaster’s bride hadn’t come&mdash;never would come, we thought.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There was a big storm then that lasted three days, and on the evening
+after it died away I went to the shore.  I found the schoolmaster
+there, leaning with his arms folded against a big rock, gazing out to
+sea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I spoke to him but he didn’t answer.  His eyes seemed to be looking at
+something I couldn’t see.  His face was set, like a dead man’s.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“'John&mdash;John,’ I called out&mdash;jest like that&mdash;jest like a frightened
+child, 'wake up&mdash;wake up.’
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That strange, awful look seemed to sorter fade out of his eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He turned his head and looked at me.  I’ve never forgot his
+face&mdash;never will forget it till I ships for my last voyage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“'All is well, lad,’ he says.  'I’ve seen the Royal William coming
+around East Point.  She will be here by dawn.  Tomorrow night I shall
+sit with my bride by my own hearth-fire.’
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Do you think he did see it?” demanded Captain Jim abruptly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“God knows,” said Gilbert softly.  “Great love and great pain might
+compass we know not what marvels.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I am sure he did see it,” said Anne earnestly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Fol-de-rol,” said Doctor Dave, but he spoke with less conviction than
+usual.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Because, you know,” said Captain Jim solemnly, “the Royal William came
+into Four Winds Harbor at daylight the next morning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Every soul in the Glen and along the shore was at the old wharf to
+meet her.  The schoolmaster had been watching there all night.  How we
+cheered as she sailed up the channel.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim’s eyes were shining.  They were looking at the Four Winds
+Harbor of sixty years agone, with a battered old ship sailing through
+the sunrise splendor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And Persis Leigh was on board?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes&mdash;her and the captain’s wife.  They’d had an awful passage&mdash;storm
+after storm&mdash;and their provisions give out, too.  But there they were
+at last.  When Persis Leigh stepped onto the old wharf John Selwyn took
+her in his arms&mdash;and folks stopped cheering and begun to cry.  I cried
+myself, though ’twas years, mind you, afore I’d admit it.  Ain’t it
+funny how ashamed boys are of tears?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Was Persis Leigh beautiful?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, I don’t know that you’d call her beautiful
+exactly&mdash;I&mdash;don’t&mdash;know,” said Captain Jim slowly.  “Somehow, you never
+got so far along as to wonder if she was handsome or not.  It jest
+didn’t matter.  There was something so sweet and winsome about her that
+you had to love her, that was all.  But she was pleasant to look
+at&mdash;big, clear, hazel eyes and heaps of glossy brown hair, and an
+English skin.  John and her were married at our house that night at
+early candle-lighting; everybody from far and near was there to see it
+and we all brought them down here afterwards.  Mistress Selwyn lighted
+the fire, and we went away and left them sitting here, jest as John had
+seen in that vision of his.  A strange thing&mdash;a strange thing!  But
+I’ve seen a turrible lot of strange things in my time.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim shook his head sagely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s a dear story,” said Anne, feeling that for once she had got
+enough romance to satisfy her.  “How long did they live here?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Fifteen years.  I ran off to sea soon after they were married, like
+the young scalawag I was.  But every time I come back from a voyage I’d
+head for here, even before I went home, and tell Mistress Selwyn all
+about it.  Fifteen happy years!  They had a sort of talent for
+happiness, them two.  Some folks are like that, if you’ve noticed.
+They COULDN’T be unhappy for long, no matter what happened.  They
+quarrelled once or twice, for they was both high-sperrited.  But
+Mistress Selwyn says to me once, says she, laughing in that pretty way
+of hers, 'I felt dreadful when John and I quarrelled, but underneath it
+all I was very happy because I had such a nice husband to quarrel with
+and make it up with.’  Then they moved to Charlottetown, and Ned
+Russell bought this house and brought his bride here.  They were a gay
+young pair, as I remember them.  Miss Elizabeth Russell was Alec’s
+sister.  She came to live with them a year or so later, and she was a
+creature of mirth, too.  The walls of this house must be sorter SOAKED
+with laughing and good times.  You’re the third bride I’ve seen come
+here, Mistress Blythe&mdash;and the handsomest.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim contrived to give his sunflower compliment the delicacy of
+a violet, and Anne wore it proudly.  She was looking her best that
+night, with the bridal rose on her cheeks and the love-light in her
+eyes; even gruff old Doctor Dave gave her an approving glance, and told
+his wife, as they drove home together, that that red-headed wife of the
+boy’s was something of a beauty.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I must be getting back to the light,” announced Captain Jim.  “I’ve
+enj’yed this evening something tremenjus.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You must come often to see us,” said Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wonder if you’d give that invitation if you knew how likely I’ll be
+to accept it,” Captain Jim remarked whimsically.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Which is another way of saying you wonder if I mean it,” smiled Anne.
+“I do, 'cross my heart,’ as we used to say at school.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Then I’ll come.  You’re likely to be pestered with me at any hour.
+And I’ll be proud to have you drop down and visit me now and then, too.
+Gin’rally I haven’t anyone to talk to but the First Mate, bless his
+sociable heart.  He’s a mighty good listener, and has forgot more’n any
+MacAllister of them all ever knew, but he isn’t much of a
+conversationalist.  You’re young and I’m old, but our souls are about
+the same age, I reckon.  We both belong to the race that knows Joseph,
+as Cornelia Bryant would say.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The race that knows Joseph?” puzzled Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes.  Cornelia divides all the folks in the world into two kinds&mdash;the
+race that knows Joseph and the race that don’t.  If a person sorter
+sees eye to eye with you, and has pretty much the same ideas about
+things, and the same taste in jokes&mdash;why, then he belongs to the race
+that knows Joseph.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I understand,” exclaimed Anne, light breaking in upon her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s what I used to call&mdash;and still call in quotation marks 'kindred
+spirits.’”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Jest so&mdash;jest so,” agreed Captain Jim.  “We’re it, whatever IT is.
+When you come in tonight, Mistress Blythe, I says to myself, says I,
+'Yes, she’s of the race that knows Joseph.’  And mighty glad I was, for
+if it wasn’t so we couldn’t have had any real satisfaction in each
+other’s company.  The race that knows Joseph is the salt of the airth,
+I reckon.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The moon had just risen when Anne and Gilbert went to the door with
+their guests.  Four Winds Harbor was beginning to be a thing of dream
+and glamour and enchantment&mdash;a spellbound haven where no tempest might
+ever ravin.  The Lombardies down the lane, tall and sombre as the
+priestly forms of some mystic band, were tipped with silver.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Always liked Lombardies,” said Captain Jim, waving a long arm at them.
+“They’re the trees of princesses.  They’re out of fashion now.  Folks
+complain that they die at the top and get ragged-looking.  So they
+do&mdash;so they do, if you don’t risk your neck every spring climbing up a
+light ladder to trim them out.  I always did it for Miss Elizabeth, so
+her Lombardies never got out-at-elbows.  She was especially fond of
+them.  She liked their dignity and stand-offishness.  THEY don’t hobnob
+with every Tom, Dick and Harry.  If it’s maples for company, Mistress
+Blythe, it’s Lombardies for society.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What a beautiful night,” said Mrs. Doctor Dave, as she climbed into
+the Doctor’s buggy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Most nights are beautiful,” said Captain Jim.  “But I ’low that
+moonlight over Four Winds makes me sorter wonder what’s left for
+heaven.  The moon’s a great friend of mine, Mistress Blythe.  I’ve
+loved her ever since I can remember.  When I was a little chap of eight
+I fell asleep in the garden one evening and wasn’t missed.  I woke up
+along in the night and I was most scared to death.  What shadows and
+queer noises there was!  I dursn’t move.  Jest crouched there quaking,
+poor small mite.  Seemed ’s if there weren’t anyone in the world but
+meself and it was mighty big.  Then all at once I saw the moon looking
+down at me through the apple boughs, jest like an old friend.  I was
+comforted right off.  Got up and walked to the house as brave as a
+lion, looking at her.  Many’s the night I’ve watched her from the deck
+of my vessel, on seas far away from here.  Why don’t you folks tell me
+to take in the slack of my jaw and go home?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The laughter of the goodnights died away.  Anne and Gilbert walked hand
+in hand around their garden.  The brook that ran across the corner
+dimpled pellucidly in the shadows of the birches.  The poppies along
+its banks were like shallow cups of moonlight.  Flowers that had been
+planted by the hands of the schoolmaster’s bride flung their sweetness
+on the shadowy air, like the beauty and blessing of sacred yesterdays.
+Anne paused in the gloom to gather a spray.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I love to smell flowers in the dark,” she said.  “You get hold of
+their soul then.  Oh, Gilbert, this little house is all I’ve dreamed
+it.  And I’m so glad that we are not the first who have kept bridal
+tryst here!”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap08"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 8
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+MISS CORNELIA BRYANT COMES TO CALL
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+That September was a month of golden mists and purple hazes at Four
+Winds Harbor&mdash;a month of sun-steeped days and of nights that were
+swimming in moonlight, or pulsating with stars.  No storm marred it, no
+rough wind blew.  Anne and Gilbert put their nest in order, rambled on
+the shores, sailed on the harbor, drove about Four Winds and the Glen,
+or through the ferny, sequestered roads of the woods around the harbor
+head; in short, had such a honeymoon as any lovers in the world might
+have envied them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If life were to stop short just now it would still have been richly
+worth while, just for the sake of these past four weeks, wouldn’t it?”
+said Anne.  “I don’t suppose we will ever have four such perfect weeks
+again&mdash;but we’ve HAD them.  Everything&mdash;wind, weather, folks, house of
+dreams&mdash;has conspired to make our honeymoon delightful.  There hasn’t
+even been a rainy day since we came here.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And we haven’t quarrelled once,” teased Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, 'that’s a pleasure all the greater for being deferred,’” quoted
+Anne.  “I’m so glad we decided to spend our honeymoon here.  Our
+memories of it will always belong here, in our house of dreams, instead
+of being scattered about in strange places.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a certain tang of romance and adventure in the atmosphere of
+their new home which Anne had never found in Avonlea.  There, although
+she had lived in sight of the sea, it had not entered intimately into
+her life.  In Four Winds it surrounded her and called to her
+constantly.  From every window of her new home she saw some varying
+aspect of it.  Its haunting murmur was ever in her ears.  Vessels
+sailed up the harbor every day to the wharf at the Glen, or sailed out
+again through the sunset, bound for ports that might be half way round
+the globe.  Fishing boats went white-winged down the channel in the
+mornings, and returned laden in the evenings.  Sailors and fisher-folk
+travelled the red, winding harbor roads, light-hearted and content.
+There was always a certain sense of things going to happen&mdash;of
+adventures and farings-forth.  The ways of Four Winds were less staid
+and settled and grooved than those of Avonlea; winds of change blew
+over them; the sea called ever to the dwellers on shore, and even those
+who might not answer its call felt the thrill and unrest and mystery
+and possibilities of it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I understand now why some men must go to sea,” said Anne.  “That
+desire which comes to us all at times&mdash;'to sail beyond the bourne of
+sunset’&mdash;must be very imperious when it is born in you.  I don’t wonder
+Captain Jim ran away because of it.  I never see a ship sailing out of
+the channel, or a gull soaring over the sand-bar, without wishing I
+were on board the ship or had wings, not like a dove 'to fly away and
+be at rest,’ but like a gull, to sweep out into the very heart of a
+storm.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’ll stay right here with me, Anne-girl,” said Gilbert lazily.  “I
+won’t have you flying away from me into the hearts of storms.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were sitting on their red sand-stone doorstep in the late
+afternoon.  Great tranquillities were all about them in land and sea
+and sky.  Silvery gulls were soaring over them.  The horizons were
+laced with long trails of frail, pinkish clouds.  The hushed air was
+threaded with a murmurous refrain of minstrel winds and waves.  Pale
+asters were blowing in the sere and misty meadows between them and the
+harbor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Doctors who have to be up all night waiting on sick folk don’t feel
+very adventurous, I suppose,” Anne said indulgently.  “If you had had a
+good sleep last night, Gilbert, you’d be as ready as I am for a flight
+of imagination.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I did good work last night, Anne,” said Gilbert quietly.  “Under God,
+I saved a life.  This is the first time I could ever really claim that.
+In other cases I may have helped; but, Anne, if I had not stayed at
+Allonby’s last night and fought death hand to hand, that woman would
+have died before morning.  I tried an experiment that was certainly
+never tried in Four Winds before.  I doubt if it was ever tried
+anywhere before outside of a hospital.  It was a new thing in Kingsport
+hospital last winter.  I could never have dared try it here if I had
+not been absolutely certain that there was no other chance.  I risked
+it&mdash;and it succeeded.  As a result, a good wife and mother is saved for
+long years of happiness and usefulness.  As I drove home this morning,
+while the sun was rising over the harbor, I thanked God that I had
+chosen the profession I did.  I had fought a good fight and won&mdash;think
+of it, Anne, WON, against the Great Destroyer.  It’s what I dreamed of
+doing long ago when we talked together of what we wanted to do in life.
+That dream of mine came true this morning.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Was that the only one of your dreams that has come true?” asked Anne,
+who knew perfectly well what the substance of his answer would be, but
+wanted to hear it again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“YOU know, Anne-girl,” said Gilbert, smiling into her eyes.  At that
+moment there were certainly two perfectly happy people sitting on the
+doorstep of a little white house on the Four Winds Harbor shore.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently Gilbert said, with a change of tone, “Do I or do I not see a
+full-rigged ship sailing up our lane?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne looked and sprang up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That must be either Miss Cornelia Bryant or Mrs. Moore coming to
+call,” she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m going into the office, and if it is Miss Cornelia I warn you that
+I’ll eavesdrop,” said Gilbert.  “From all I’ve heard regarding Miss
+Cornelia I conclude that her conversation will not be dull, to say the
+least.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It may be Mrs. Moore.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t think Mrs. Moore is built on those lines.  I saw her working
+in her garden the other day, and, though I was too far away to see
+clearly, I thought she was rather slender.  She doesn’t seem very
+socially inclined when she has never called on you yet, although she’s
+your nearest neighbor.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She can’t be like Mrs. Lynde, after all, or curiosity would have
+brought her,” said Anne.  “This caller is, I think, Miss Cornelia.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia it was; moreover, Miss Cornelia had not come to make any
+brief and fashionable wedding call.  She had her work under her arm in
+a substantial parcel, and when Anne asked her to stay she promptly took
+off her capacious sun-hat, which had been held on her head, despite
+irreverent September breezes, by a tight elastic band under her hard
+little knob of fair hair.  No hat pins for Miss Cornelia, an it please
+ye!  Elastic bands had been good enough for her mother and they were
+good enough for HER.  She had a fresh, round, pink-and-white face, and
+jolly brown eyes.  She did not look in the least like the traditional
+old maid, and there was something in her expression which won Anne
+instantly.  With her old instinctive quickness to discern kindred
+spirits she knew she was going to like Miss Cornelia, in spite of
+uncertain oddities of opinion, and certain oddities of attire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nobody but Miss Cornelia would have come to make a call arrayed in a
+striped blue-and-white apron and a wrapper of chocolate print, with a
+design of huge, pink roses scattered over it.  And nobody but Miss
+Cornelia could have looked dignified and suitably garbed in it.  Had
+Miss Cornelia been entering a palace to call on a prince’s bride, she
+would have been just as dignified and just as wholly mistress of the
+situation.  She would have trailed her rose-spattered flounce over the
+marble floors just as unconcernedly, and she would have proceeded just
+as calmly to disabuse the mind of the princess of any idea that the
+possession of a mere man, be he prince or peasant, was anything to brag
+of.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve brought my work, Mrs. Blythe, dearie,” she remarked, unrolling
+some dainty material.  “I’m in a hurry to get this done, and there
+isn’t any time to lose.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne looked in some surprise at the white garment spread over Miss
+Cornelia’s ample lap.  It was certainly a baby’s dress, and it was most
+beautifully made, with tiny frills and tucks.  Miss Cornelia adjusted
+her glasses and fell to embroidering with exquisite stitches.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“This is for Mrs. Fred Proctor up at the Glen,” she announced.  “She’s
+expecting her eighth baby any day now, and not a stitch has she ready
+for it.  The other seven have wore out all she made for the first, and
+she’s never had time or strength or spirit to make any more.  That
+woman is a martyr, Mrs. Blythe, believe ME.  When she married Fred
+Proctor <I>I</I> knew how it would turn out.  He was one of your wicked,
+fascinating men.  After he got married he left off being fascinating
+and just kept on being wicked.  He drinks and he neglects his family.
+Isn’t that like a man?  I don’t know how Mrs. Proctor would ever keep
+her children decently clothed if her neighbors didn’t help her out.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As Anne was afterwards to learn, Miss Cornelia was the only neighbor
+who troubled herself much about the decency of the young Proctors.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“When I heard this eighth baby was coming I decided to make some things
+for it,” Miss Cornelia went on.  “This is the last and I want to finish
+it today.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s certainly very pretty,” said Anne.  “I’ll get my sewing and we’ll
+have a little thimble party of two.  You are a beautiful sewer, Miss
+Bryant.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, I’m the best sewer in these parts,” said Miss Cornelia in a
+matter-of-fact tone.  “I ought to be!  Lord, I’ve done more of it than
+if I’d had a hundred children of my own, believe ME!  I s’pose I’m a
+fool, to be putting hand embroidery on this dress for an eighth baby.
+But, Lord, Mrs. Blythe, dearie, it isn’t to blame for being the eighth,
+and I kind of wished it to have one real pretty dress, just as if it
+WAS wanted.  Nobody’s wanting the poor mite&mdash;so I put some extra fuss
+on its little things just on that account.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Any baby might be proud of that dress,” said Anne, feeling still more
+strongly that she was going to like Miss Cornelia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I s’pose you’ve been thinking I was never coming to call on you,”
+resumed Miss Cornelia.  “But this is harvest month, you know, and I’ve
+been busy&mdash;and a lot of extra hands hanging round, eating more’n they
+work, just like the men.  I’d have come yesterday, but I went to Mrs.
+Roderick MacAllister’s funeral.  At first I thought my head was aching
+so badly I couldn’t enjoy myself if I did go.  But she was a hundred
+years old, and I’d always promised myself that I’d go to her funeral.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Was it a successful function?” asked Anne, noticing that the office
+door was ajar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What’s that?  Oh, yes, it was a tremendous funeral.  She had a very
+large connection.  There was over one hundred and twenty carriages in
+the procession.  There was one or two funny things happened.  I thought
+that die I would to see old Joe Bradshaw, who is an infidel and never
+darkens the door of a church, singing 'Safe in the Arms of Jesus’ with
+great gusto and fervor.  He glories in singing&mdash;that’s why he never
+misses a funeral.  Poor Mrs. Bradshaw didn’t look much like
+singing&mdash;all wore out slaving.  Old Joe starts out once in a while to
+buy her a present and brings home some new kind of farm machinery.
+Isn’t that like a man?  But what else would you expect of a man who
+never goes to church, even a Methodist one?  I was real thankful to see
+you and the young Doctor in the Presbyterian church your first Sunday.
+No doctor for me who isn’t a Presbyterian.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We were in the Methodist church last Sunday evening,” said Anne
+wickedly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I s’pose Dr. Blythe has to go to the Methodist church once in a
+while or he wouldn’t get the Methodist practice.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We liked the sermon very much,” declared Anne boldly.  “And I thought
+the Methodist minster’s prayer was one of the most beautiful I ever
+heard.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I’ve no doubt he can pray.  I never heard anyone make more
+beautiful prayers than old Simon Bentley, who was always drunk, or
+hoping to be, and the drunker he was the better he prayed.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The Methodist minister is very fine looking,” said Anne, for the
+benefit of the office door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, he’s quite ornamental,” agreed Miss Cornelia.  “Oh, and VERY
+ladylike.  And he thinks that every girl who looks at him falls in love
+with him&mdash;as if a Methodist minister, wandering about like any Jew, was
+such a prize!  If you and the young doctor take MY advice, you won’t
+have much to do with the Methodists.  My motto is&mdash;if you ARE a
+Presbyterian, BE a Presbyterian.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t you think that Methodists go to heaven as well as
+Presbyterians?” asked Anne smilelessly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That isn’t for US to decide.  It’s in higher hands than ours,” said
+Miss Cornelia solemnly.  “But I ain’t going to associate with them on
+earth whatever I may have to do in heaven.  THIS Methodist minister
+isn’t married.  The last one they had was, and his wife was the
+silliest, flightiest little thing I ever saw.  I told her husband once
+that he should have waited till she was grown up before he married her.
+He said he wanted to have the training of her.  Wasn’t that like a man?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s rather hard to decide just when people ARE grown up,” laughed
+Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That’s a true word, dearie.  Some are grown up when they’re born, and
+others ain’t grown up when they’re eighty, believe ME. That same Mrs.
+Roderick I was speaking of never grew up.  She was as foolish when she
+was a hundred as when she was ten.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Perhaps that was why she lived so long,” suggested Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Maybe ’twas.  <I>I</I>’d rather live fifty sensible years than a hundred
+foolish ones.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But just think what a dull world it would be if everyone was
+sensible,” pleaded Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia disdained any skirmish of flippant epigram.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Mrs. Roderick was a Milgrave, and the Milgraves never had much sense.
+Her nephew, Ebenezer Milgrave, used to be insane for years.  He
+believed he was dead and used to rage at his wife because she wouldn’t
+bury him.  <I>I</I>’d a-done it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia looked so grimly determined that Anne could almost see
+her with a spade in her hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t you know ANY good husbands, Miss Bryant?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, yes, lots of them&mdash;over yonder,” said Miss Cornelia, waving her
+hand through the open window towards the little graveyard of the church
+across the harbor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But living&mdash;going about in the flesh?” persisted Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, there’s a few, just to show that with God all things are
+possible,” acknowledged Miss Cornelia reluctantly.  “I don’t deny that
+an odd man here and there, if he’s caught young and trained up proper,
+and if his mother has spanked him well beforehand, may turn out a
+decent being.  YOUR husband, now, isn’t so bad, as men go, from all I
+hear.  I s’pose”&mdash;Miss Cornelia looked sharply at Anne over her
+glasses&mdash;“you think there’s nobody like him in the world.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There isn’t,” said Anne promptly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Ah, well, I heard another bride say that once,” sighed Miss Cornelia.
+“Jennie Dean thought when she married that there wasn’t anybody like
+HER husband in the world.  And she was right&mdash;there wasn’t!  And a good
+thing, too, believe ME!  He led her an awful life&mdash;and he was courting
+his second wife while Jennie was dying.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Wasn’t that like a man?  However, I hope YOUR confidence will be
+better justified, dearie.  The young doctor is taking real well.  I was
+afraid at first he mightn’t, for folks hereabouts have always thought
+old Doctor Dave the only doctor in the world.  Doctor Dave hadn’t much
+tact, to be sure&mdash;he was always talking of ropes in houses where
+someone had hanged himself.  But folks forgot their hurt feelings when
+they had a pain in their stomachs.  If he’d been a minister instead of
+a doctor they’d never have forgiven him.  Soul-ache doesn’t worry folks
+near as much as stomach-ache.  Seeing as we’re both Presbyterians and
+no Methodists around, will you tell me your candid opinion of OUR
+minister?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Why&mdash;really&mdash;I&mdash;well,” hesitated Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia nodded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Exactly.  I agree with you, dearie.  We made a mistake when we called
+HIM.  His face just looks like one of those long, narrow stones in the
+graveyard, doesn’t it?  'Sacred to the memory’ ought to be written on
+his forehead.  I shall never forget the first sermon he preached after
+he came.  It was on the subject of everyone doing what they were best
+fitted for&mdash;a very good subject, of course; but such illustrations as
+he used!  He said, 'If you had a cow and an apple tree, and if you tied
+the apple tree in your stable and planted the cow in your orchard, with
+her legs up, how much milk would you get from the apple tree, or how
+many apples from the cow?’  Did you ever hear the like in your born
+days, dearie?  I was so thankful there were no Methodists there that
+day&mdash;they’d never have been done hooting over it.  But what I dislike
+most in him is his habit of agreeing with everybody, no matter what is
+said.  If you said to him, 'You’re a scoundrel,’ he’d say, with that
+smooth smile of his, 'Yes, that’s so.’  A minister should have more
+backbone.  The long and the short of it is, I consider him a reverend
+jackass.  But, of course, this is just between you and me.  When there
+are Methodists in hearing I praise him to the skies.  Some folks think
+his wife dresses too gay, but <I>I</I> say when she has to live with a face
+like that she needs something to cheer her up.  You’ll never hear ME
+condemning a woman for her dress.  I’m only too thankful when her
+husband isn’t too mean and miserly to allow it.  Not that I bother much
+with dress myself.  Women just dress to please the men, and I’d never
+stoop to THAT.  I have had a real placid, comfortable life, dearie, and
+it’s just because I never cared a cent what the men thought.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Why do you hate the men so, Miss Bryant?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Lord, dearie, I don’t hate them.  They aren’t worth it.  I just sort
+of despise them.  I think I’ll like YOUR husband if he keeps on as he
+has begun.  But apart from him about the only men in the world I’ve
+much use for are the old doctor and Captain Jim.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Captain Jim is certainly splendid,” agreed Anne cordially.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Captain Jim is a good man, but he’s kind of vexing in one way.  You
+CAN’T make him mad.  I’ve tried for twenty years and he just keeps on
+being placid.  It does sort of rile me.  And I s’pose the woman he
+should have married got a man who went into tantrums twice a day.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Who was she?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I don’t know, dearie.  I never remember of Captain Jim making up
+to anybody.  He was edging on old as far as my memory goes.  He’s
+seventy-six, you know.  I never heard any reason for his staying a
+bachelor, but there must be one, believe ME.  He sailed all his life
+till five years ago, and there’s no corner of the earth he hasn’t poked
+his nose into.  He and Elizabeth Russell were great cronies, all their
+lives, but they never had any notion of sweet-hearting.  Elizabeth
+never married, though she had plenty of chances.  She was a great
+beauty when she was young.  The year the Prince of Wales came to the
+Island she was visiting her uncle in Charlottetown and he was a
+Government official, and so she got invited to the great ball.  She was
+the prettiest girl there, and the Prince danced with her, and all the
+other women he didn’t dance with were furious about it, because their
+social standing was higher than hers and they said he shouldn’t have
+passed them over.  Elizabeth was always very proud of that dance.  Mean
+folks said that was why she never married&mdash;she couldn’t put up with an
+ordinary man after dancing with a prince.  But that wasn’t so.  She
+told me the reason once&mdash;it was because she had such a temper that she
+was afraid she couldn’t live peaceably with any man.  She HAD an awful
+temper&mdash;she used to have to go upstairs and bite pieces out of her
+bureau to keep it down by times.  But I told her that wasn’t any reason
+for not marrying if she wanted to.  There’s no reason why we should let
+the men have a monopoly of temper, is there, Mrs. Blythe, dearie?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve a bit of temper myself,” sighed Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s well you have, dearie.  You won’t be half so likely to be trodden
+on, believe ME!  My, how that golden glow of yours is blooming!  Your
+garden looks fine.  Poor Elizabeth always took such care of it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I love it,” said Anne.  “I’m glad it’s so full of old-fashioned
+flowers.  Speaking of gardening, we want to get a man to dig up that
+little lot beyond the fir grove and set it out with strawberry plants
+for us.  Gilbert is so busy he will never get time for it this fall.
+Do you know anyone we can get?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, Henry Hammond up at the Glen goes out doing jobs like that.
+He’ll do, maybe.  He’s always a heap more interested in his wages than
+in his work, just like a man, and he’s so slow in the uptake that he
+stands still for five minutes before it dawns on him that he’s stopped.
+His father threw a stump at him when he was small.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Nice gentle missile, wasn’t it?  So like a man!  Course, the boy never
+got over it.  But he’s the only one I can recommend at all.  He painted
+my house for me last spring.  It looks real nice now, don’t you think?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne was saved by the clock striking five.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Lord, is it that late?” exclaimed Miss Cornelia.  “How time does slip
+by when you’re enjoying yourself!  Well, I must betake myself home.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, indeed!  You are going to stay and have tea with us,” said Anne
+eagerly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Are you asking me because you think you ought to, or because you
+really want to?” demanded Miss Cornelia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Because I really want to.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Then I’ll stay.  YOU belong to the race that knows Joseph.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I know we are going to be friends,” said Anne, with the smile that
+only they of the household of faith ever saw.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, we are, dearie.  Thank goodness, we can choose our friends.  We
+have to take our relatives as they are, and be thankful if there are no
+penitentiary birds among them.  Not that I’ve many&mdash;none nearer than
+second cousins.  I’m a kind of lonely soul, Mrs. Blythe.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a wistful note in Miss Cornelia’s voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wish you would call me Anne,” exclaimed Anne impulsively.  “It would
+seem more HOMEY.  Everyone in Four Winds, except my husband, calls me
+Mrs. Blythe, and it makes me feel like a stranger.  Do you know that
+your name is very near being the one I yearned after when I was a
+child.  I hated 'Anne’ and I called myself 'Cordelia’ in imagination.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I like Anne.  It was my mother’s name.  Old-fashioned names are the
+best and sweetest in my opinion.  If you’re going to get tea you might
+send the young doctor to talk to me.  He’s been lying on the sofa in
+that office ever since I came, laughing fit to kill over what I’ve been
+saying.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How did you know?” cried Anne, too aghast at this instance of Miss
+Cornelia’s uncanny prescience to make a polite denial.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I saw him sitting beside you when I came up the lane, and I know men’s
+tricks,” retorted Miss Cornelia.  “There, I’ve finished my little
+dress, dearie, and the eighth baby can come as soon as it pleases.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap09"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 9
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+AN EVENING AT FOUR WINDS POINT
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+It was late September when Anne and Gilbert were able to pay Four Winds
+light their promised visit.  They had often planned to go, but
+something always occurred to prevent them.  Captain Jim had “dropped
+in” several times at the little house.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t stand on ceremony, Mistress Blythe,” he told Anne.  “It’s a
+real pleasure to me to come here, and I’m not going to deny myself jest
+because you haven’t got down to see me.  There oughtn’t to be no
+bargaining like that among the race that knows Joseph.  I’ll come when
+I can, and you come when you can, and so long’s we have our pleasant
+little chat it don’t matter a mite what roof’s over us.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim took a great fancy to Gog and Magog, who were presiding
+over the destinies of the hearth in the little house with as much
+dignity and aplomb as they had done at Patty’s Place.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Aren’t they the cutest little cusses?” he would say delightedly; and
+he bade them greeting and farewell as gravely and invariably as he did
+his host and hostess.  Captain Jim was not going to offend household
+deities by any lack of reverence and ceremony.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’ve made this little house just about perfect,” he told Anne.  “It
+never was so nice before.  Mistress Selwyn had your taste and she did
+wonders; but folks in those days didn’t have the pretty little curtains
+and pictures and nicknacks you have.  As for Elizabeth, she lived in
+the past.  You’ve kinder brought the future into it, so to speak.  I’d
+be real happy even if we couldn’t talk at all, when I come here&mdash;jest
+to sit and look at you and your pictures and your flowers would be
+enough of a treat.  It’s beautiful&mdash;beautiful.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim was a passionate worshipper of beauty.  Every lovely thing
+heard or seen gave him a deep, subtle, inner joy that irradiated his
+life.  He was quite keenly aware of his own lack of outward comeliness
+and lamented it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Folks say I’m good,” he remarked whimsically upon one occasion, “but I
+sometimes wish the Lord had made me only half as good and put the rest
+of it into looks.  But there, I reckon He knew what He was about, as a
+good Captain should.  Some of us have to be homely, or the purty
+ones&mdash;like Mistress Blythe here&mdash;wouldn’t show up so well.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One evening Anne and Gilbert finally walked down to the Four Winds
+light.  The day had begun sombrely in gray cloud and mist, but it had
+ended in a pomp of scarlet and gold.  Over the western hills beyond the
+harbor were amber deeps and crystalline shallows, with the fire of
+sunset below.  The north was a mackerel sky of little, fiery golden
+clouds.  The red light flamed on the white sails of a vessel gliding
+down the channel, bound to a southern port in a land of palms.  Beyond
+her, it smote upon and incarnadined the shining, white, grassless faces
+of the sand dunes.  To the right, it fell on the old house among the
+willows up the brook, and gave it for a fleeting space casements more
+splendid than those of an old cathedral.  They glowed out of its quiet
+and grayness like the throbbing, blood-red thoughts of a vivid soul
+imprisoned in a dull husk of environment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That old house up the brook always seems so lonely,” said Anne.  “I
+never see visitors there.  Of course, its lane opens on the upper
+road&mdash;but I don’t think there’s much coming and going.  It seems odd
+we’ve never met the Moores yet, when they live within fifteen minutes’
+walk of us.  I may have seen them in church, of course, but if so I
+didn’t know them.  I’m sorry they are so unsociable, when they are our
+only near neighbors.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Evidently they don’t belong to the race that knows Joseph,” laughed
+Gilbert.  “Have you ever found out who that girl was whom you thought
+so beautiful?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.  Somehow I have never remembered to ask about her.  But I’ve never
+seen her anywhere, so I suppose she must have been a stranger.  Oh, the
+sun has just vanished&mdash;and there’s the light.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As the dusk deepened, the great beacon cut swathes of light through it,
+sweeping in a circle over the fields and the harbor, the sandbar and
+the gulf.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I feel as if it might catch me and whisk me leagues out to sea,” said
+Anne, as one drenched them with radiance; and she felt rather relieved
+when they got so near the Point that they were inside the range of
+those dazzling, recurrent flashes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As they turned into the little lane that led across the fields to the
+Point they met a man coming out of it&mdash;a man of such extraordinary
+appearance that for a moment they both frankly stared.  He was a
+decidedly fine-looking person-tall, broad-shouldered, well-featured,
+with a Roman nose and frank gray eyes; he was dressed in a prosperous
+farmer’s Sunday best; in so far he might have been any inhabitant of
+Four Winds or the Glen.  But, flowing over his breast nearly to his
+knees, was a river of crinkly brown beard; and adown his back, beneath
+his commonplace felt hat, was a corresponding cascade of thick, wavy,
+brown hair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne,” murmured Gilbert, when they were out of earshot, “you didn’t
+put what Uncle Dave calls 'a little of the Scott Act’ in that lemonade
+you gave me just before we left home, did you?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, I didn’t,” said Anne, stifling her laughter, lest the retreating
+enigma should hear here.  “Who in the world can he be?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t know; but if Captain Jim keeps apparitions like that down at
+this Point I’m going to carry cold iron in my pocket when I come here.
+He wasn’t a sailor, or one might pardon his eccentricity of appearance;
+he must belong to the over-harbor clans.  Uncle Dave says they have
+several freaks over there.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Uncle Dave is a little prejudiced, I think.  You know all the
+over-harbor people who come to the Glen Church seem very nice.  Oh,
+Gilbert, isn’t this beautiful?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Four Winds light was built on a spur of red sand-stone cliff
+jutting out into the gulf.  On one side, across the channel, stretched
+the silvery sand shore of the bar; on the other, extended a long,
+curving beach of red cliffs, rising steeply from the pebbled coves.  It
+was a shore that knew the magic and mystery of storm and star.  There
+is a great solitude about such a shore.  The woods are never
+solitary&mdash;they are full of whispering, beckoning, friendly life.  But
+the sea is a mighty soul, forever moaning of some great, unshareable
+sorrow, which shuts it up into itself for all eternity.  We can never
+pierce its infinite mystery&mdash;we may only wander, awed and spellbound,
+on the outer fringe of it.  The woods call to us with a hundred voices,
+but the sea has one only&mdash;a mighty voice that drowns our souls in its
+majestic music.  The woods are human, but the sea is of the company of
+the archangels.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne and Gilbert found Uncle Jim sitting on a bench outside the
+lighthouse, putting the finishing touches to a wonderful, full-rigged,
+toy schooner.  He rose and welcomed them to his abode with the gentle,
+unconscious courtesy that became him so well.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“This has been a purty nice day all through, Mistress Blythe, and now,
+right at the last, it’s brought its best.  Would you like to sit down
+here outside a bit, while the light lasts?  I’ve just finished this bit
+of a plaything for my little grand nephew, Joe, up at the Glen.  After
+I promised to make it for him I was kinder sorry, for his mother was
+vexed.  She’s afraid he’ll be wanting to go to sea later on and she
+doesn’t want the notion encouraged in him.  But what could I do,
+Mistress Blythe?  I’d PROMISED him, and I think it’s sorter real
+dastardly to break a promise you make to a child.  Come, sit down.  It
+won’t take long to stay an hour.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The wind was off shore, and only broke the sea’s surface into long,
+silvery ripples, and sent sheeny shadows flying out across it, from
+every point and headland, like transparent wings.  The dusk was hanging
+a curtain of violet gloom over the sand dunes and the headlands where
+gulls were huddling.  The sky was faintly filmed over with scarfs of
+silken vapor.  Cloud fleets rode at anchor along the horizons.  An
+evening star was watching over the bar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Isn’t that a view worth looking at?” said Captain Jim, with a loving,
+proprietary pride.  “Nice and far from the market-place, ain’t it?  No
+buying and selling and getting gain.  You don’t have to pay
+anything&mdash;all that sea and sky free&mdash;'without money and without price.’
+There’s going to be a moonrise purty soon, too&mdash;I’m never tired of
+finding out what a moonrise can be over them rocks and sea and harbor.
+There’s a surprise in it every time.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They had their moonrise, and watched its marvel and magic in a silence
+that asked nothing of the world or each other.  Then they went up into
+the tower, and Captain Jim showed and explained the mechanism of the
+great light.  Finally they found themselves in the dining room, where a
+fire of driftwood was weaving flames of wavering, elusive, sea-born
+hues in the open fireplace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I put this fireplace in myself,” remarked Captain Jim.  “The
+Government don’t give lighthouse keepers such luxuries.  Look at the
+colors that wood makes.  If you’d like some driftwood for your fire,
+Mistress Blythe, I’ll bring you up a load some day.  Sit down.  I’m
+going to make you a cup of tea.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim placed a chair for Anne, having first removed therefrom a
+huge, orange-colored cat and a newspaper.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Get down, Matey.  The sofa is your place.  I must put this paper away
+safe till I can find time to finish the story in it.  It’s called A Mad
+Love.  ’Tisn’t my favorite brand of fiction, but I’m reading it jest to
+see how long she can spin it out.  It’s at the sixty-second chapter
+now, and the wedding ain’t any nearer than when it begun, far’s I can
+see.  When little Joe comes I have to read him pirate yarns.  Ain’t it
+strange how innocent little creatures like children like the
+blood-thirstiest stories?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Like my lad Davy at home,” said Anne.  “He wants tales that reek with
+gore.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim’s tea proved to be nectar.  He was pleased as a child with
+Anne’s compliments, but he affected a fine indifference.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The secret is I don’t skimp the cream,” he remarked airily.  Captain
+Jim had never heard of Oliver Wendell Holmes, but he evidently agreed
+with that writer’s dictum that “big heart never liked little cream pot.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We met an odd-looking personage coming out of your lane,” said Gilbert
+as they sipped.  “Who was he?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim grinned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That’s Marshall Elliott&mdash;a mighty fine man with jest one streak of
+foolishness in him.  I s’pose you wondered what his object was in
+turning himself into a sort of dime museum freak.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Is he a modern Nazarite or a Hebrew prophet left over from olden
+times?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Neither of them.  It’s politics that’s at the bottom of his freak.
+All those Elliotts and Crawfords and MacAllisters are dyed-in-the-wool
+politicians.  They’re born Grit or Tory, as the case may be, and they
+live Grit or Tory, and they die Grit or Tory; and what they’re going to
+do in heaven, where there’s probably no politics, is more than I can
+fathom.  This Marshall Elliott was born a Grit.  I’m a Grit myself in
+moderation, but there’s no moderation about Marshall.  Fifteen years
+ago there was a specially bitter general election.  Marshall fought for
+his party tooth and nail.  He was dead sure the Liberals would win&mdash;so
+sure that he got up at a public meeting and vowed that he wouldn’t
+shave his face or cut his hair until the Grits were in power.  Well,
+they didn’t go in&mdash;and they’ve never got in yet&mdash;and you saw the result
+today for yourselves.  Marshall stuck to his word.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What does his wife think of it?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He’s a bachelor.  But if he had a wife I reckon she couldn’t make him
+break that vow.  That family of Elliotts has always been more stubborn
+than natteral.  Marshall’s brother Alexander had a dog he set great
+store by, and when it died the man actilly wanted to have it buried in
+the graveyard, 'along with the other Christians,’ he said.  Course, he
+wasn’t allowed to; so he buried it just outside the graveyard fence,
+and never darkened the church door again.  But Sundays he’d drive his
+family to church and sit by that dog’s grave and read his Bible all the
+time service was going on.  They say when he was dying he asked his
+wife to bury him beside the dog; she was a meek little soul but she
+fired up at THAT.  She said SHE wasn’t going to be buried beside no
+dog, and if he’d rather have his last resting place beside the dog than
+beside her, jest to say so.  Alexander Elliott was a stubborn mule, but
+he was fond of his wife, so he give in and said, 'Well, durn it, bury
+me where you please.  But when Gabriel’s trump blows I expect my dog to
+rise with the rest of us, for he had as much soul as any durned Elliott
+or Crawford or MacAllister that ever strutted.’  Them was HIS parting
+words.  As for Marshall, we’re all used to him, but he must strike
+strangers as right down peculiar-looking.  I’ve known him ever since he
+was ten&mdash;he’s about fifty now&mdash;and I like him.  Him and me was out
+cod-fishing today.  That’s about all I’m good for now&mdash;catching trout
+and cod occasional.  But ’tweren’t always so&mdash;not by no manner of
+means.  I used to do other things, as you’d admit if you saw my
+life-book.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne was just going to ask what his life-book was when the First Mate
+created a diversion by springing upon Captain Jim’s knee.  He was a
+gorgeous beastie, with a face as round as a full moon, vivid green
+eyes, and immense, white, double paws.  Captain Jim stroked his velvet
+back gently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I never fancied cats much till I found the First Mate,” he remarked,
+to the accompaniment of the Mate’s tremendous purrs.  “I saved his
+life, and when you’ve saved a creature’s life you’re bound to love it.
+It’s next thing to giving life.  There’s some turrible thoughtless
+people in the world, Mistress Blythe.  Some of them city folks who have
+summer homes over the harbor are so thoughtless that they’re cruel.
+It’s the worst kind of cruelty&mdash;the thoughtless kind.  You can’t cope
+with it.  They keep cats there in the summer, and feed and pet ’em, and
+doll ’em up with ribbons and collars.  And then in the fall they go off
+and leave ’em to starve or freeze.  It makes my blood boil, Mistress
+Blythe.  One day last winter I found a poor old mother cat dead on the
+shore, lying against the skin-and-bone bodies of her three little
+kittens.  She’d died trying to shelter ’em.  She had her poor stiff
+paws around ’em.  Master, I cried.  Then I swore.  Then I carried them
+poor little kittens home and fed ’em up and found good homes for ’em.
+I knew the woman who left the cat and when she come back this summer I
+jest went over the harbor and told her my opinion of her.  It was rank
+meddling, but I do love meddling in a good cause.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How did she take it?” asked Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Cried and said she 'didn’t think.’  I says to her, says I, 'Do you
+s’pose that’ll be held for a good excuse in the day of Jedgment, when
+you’ll have to account for that poor old mother’s life?  The Lord’ll
+ask you what He give you your brains for if it wasn’t to think, I
+reckon.’  I don’t fancy she’ll leave cats to starve another time.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Was the First Mate one of the forsaken?” asked Anne, making advances
+to him which were responded to graciously, if condescendingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes.  I found HIM one bitter cold day in winter, caught in the
+branches of a tree by his durn-fool ribbon collar.  He was almost
+starving.  If you could have seen his eyes, Mistress Blythe!  He was
+nothing but a kitten, and he’d got his living somehow since he’d been
+left until he got hung up.  When I loosed him he gave my hand a pitiful
+swipe with his little red tongue.  He wasn’t the able seaman you see
+now.  He was meek as Moses.  That was nine years ago.  His life has
+been long in the land for a cat.  He’s a good old pal, the First Mate
+is.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I should have expected you to have a dog,” said Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I had a dog once.  I thought so much of him that when he died I
+couldn’t bear the thought of getting another in his place.  He was a
+FRIEND&mdash;you understand, Mistress Blythe?  Matey’s only a pal.  I’m fond
+of Matey&mdash;all the fonder on account of the spice of devilment that’s in
+him&mdash;like there is in all cats.  But I LOVED my dog.  I always had a
+sneaking sympathy for Alexander Elliott about HIS dog.  There isn’t any
+devil in a good dog.  That’s why they’re more lovable than cats, I
+reckon.  But I’m darned if they’re as interesting.  Here I am, talking
+too much.  Why don’t you check me?  When I do get a chance to talk to
+anyone I run on turrible.  If you’ve done your tea I’ve a few little
+things you might like to look at&mdash;picked ’em up in the queer corners I
+used to be poking my nose into.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim’s “few little things” turned out to be a most interesting
+collection of curios, hideous, quaint and beautiful.  And almost every
+one had some striking story attached to it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne never forgot the delight with which she listened to those old
+tales that moonlit evening by that enchanted driftwood fire, while the
+silver sea called to them through the open window and sobbed against
+the rocks below them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim never said a boastful word, but it was impossible to help
+seeing what a hero the man had been&mdash;brave, true, resourceful,
+unselfish.  He sat there in his little room and made those things live
+again for his hearers.  By a lift of the eyebrow, a twist of the lip, a
+gesture, a word, he painted a whole scene or character so that they saw
+it as it was.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Some of Captain Jim’s adventures had such a marvellous edge that Anne
+and Gilbert secretly wondered if he were not drawing a rather long bow
+at their credulous expense.  But in this, as they found later, they did
+him injustice.  His tales were all literally true.  Captain Jim had the
+gift of the born storyteller, whereby “unhappy, far-off things” can be
+brought vividly before the hearer in all their pristine poignancy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne and Gilbert laughed and shivered over his tales, and once Anne
+found herself crying.  Captain Jim surveyed her tears with pleasure
+shining from his face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I like to see folks cry that way,” he remarked.  “It’s a compliment.
+But I can’t do justice to the things I’ve seen or helped to do.  I’ve
+’em all jotted down in my life-book, but I haven’t got the knack of
+writing them out properly.  If I could hit on jest the right words and
+string ’em together proper on paper I could make a great book.  It
+would beat A Mad Love holler, and I believe Joe’d like it as well as
+the pirate yarns.  Yes, I’ve had some adventures in my time; and, do
+you know, Mistress Blythe, I still lust after ’em.  Yes, old and
+useless as I be, there’s an awful longing sweeps over me at times to
+sail out&mdash;out&mdash;out there&mdash;forever and ever.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Like Ulysses, you would
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+    'Sail beyond the sunset and the baths<BR>
+     Of all the western stars until you die,’”<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+said Anne dreamily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Ulysses?  I’ve read of him.  Yes, that’s just how I feel&mdash;jest how all
+us old sailors feel, I reckon.  I’ll die on land after all, I s’pose.
+Well, what is to be will be.  There was old William Ford at the Glen
+who never went on the water in his life, ’cause he was afraid of being
+drowned.  A fortune-teller had predicted he would be.  And one day he
+fainted and fell with his face in the barn trough and was drowned.
+Must you go?  Well, come soon and come often.  The doctor is to do the
+talking next time.  He knows a heap of things I want to find out.  I’m
+sorter lonesome here by times.  It’s been worse since Elizabeth Russell
+died.  Her and me was such cronies.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim spoke with the pathos of the aged, who see their old
+friends slipping from them one by one&mdash;friends whose place can never be
+quite filled by those of a younger generation, even of the race that
+knows Joseph.  Anne and Gilbert promised to come soon and often.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He’s a rare old fellow, isn’t he?” said Gilbert, as they walked home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Somehow, I can’t reconcile his simple, kindly personality with the
+wild, adventurous life he has lived,” mused Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You wouldn’t find it so hard if you had seen him the other day down at
+the fishing village.  One of the men of Peter Gautier’s boat made a
+nasty remark about some girl along the shore.  Captain Jim fairly
+scorched the wretched fellow with the lightning of his eyes.  He seemed
+a man transformed.  He didn’t say much&mdash;but the way he said it!  You’d
+have thought it would strip the flesh from the fellow’s bones.  I
+understand that Captain Jim will never allow a word against any woman
+to be said in his presence.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wonder why he never married,” said Anne.  “He should have sons with
+their ships at sea now, and grandchildren climbing over him to hear his
+stories&mdash;he’s that kind of a man.  Instead, he has nothing but a
+magnificent cat.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Anne was mistaken.  Captain Jim had more than that.  He had a
+memory.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap10"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 10
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+LESLIE MOORE
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+“I’m going for a walk to the outside shore tonight,” Anne told Gog and
+Magog one October evening.  There was no one else to tell, for Gilbert
+had gone over the harbor.  Anne had her little domain in the speckless
+order one would expect of anyone brought up by Marilla Cuthbert, and
+felt that she could gad shoreward with a clear conscience.  Many and
+delightful had been her shore rambles, sometimes with Gilbert,
+sometimes with Captain Jim, sometimes alone with her own thoughts and
+new, poignantly-sweet dreams that were beginning to span life with
+their rainbows.  She loved the gentle, misty harbor shore and the
+silvery, wind-haunted sand shore, but best of all she loved the rock
+shore, with its cliffs and caves and piles of surf-worn boulders, and
+its coves where the pebbles glittered under the pools; and it was to
+this shore she hied herself tonight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There had been an autumn storm of wind and rain, lasting for three
+days.  Thunderous had been the crash of billows on the rocks, wild the
+white spray and spume that blew over the bar, troubled and misty and
+tempest-torn the erstwhile blue peace of Four Winds Harbor.  Now it was
+over, and the shore lay clean-washed after the storm; not a wind
+stirred, but there was still a fine surf on, dashing on sand and rock
+in a splendid white turmoil&mdash;the only restless thing in the great,
+pervading stillness and peace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, this is a moment worth living through weeks of storm and stress
+for,” Anne exclaimed, delightedly sending her far gaze across the
+tossing waters from the top of the cliff where she stood.  Presently
+she scrambled down the steep path to the little cove below, where she
+seemed shut in with rocks and sea and sky.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m going to dance and sing,” she said.  “There’s no one here to see
+me&mdash;the seagulls won’t carry tales of the matter.  I may be as crazy as
+I like.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She caught up her skirt and pirouetted along the hard strip of sand
+just out of reach of the waves that almost lapped her feet with their
+spent foam.  Whirling round and round, laughing like a child, she
+reached the little headland that ran out to the east of the cove; then
+she stopped suddenly, blushing crimson; she was not alone; there had
+been a witness to her dance and laughter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girl of the golden hair and sea-blue eyes was sitting on a boulder
+of the headland, half-hidden by a jutting rock.  She was looking
+straight at Anne with a strange expression&mdash;part wonder, part sympathy,
+part&mdash;could it be?&mdash;envy.  She was bare-headed, and her splendid hair,
+more than ever like Browning’s “gorgeous snake,” was bound about her
+head with a crimson ribbon.  She wore a dress of some dark material,
+very plainly made; but swathed about her waist, outlining its fine
+curves, was a vivid girdle of red silk.  Her hands, clasped over her
+knee, were brown and somewhat work-hardened; but the skin of her throat
+and cheeks was as white as cream.  A flying gleam of sunset broke
+through a low-lying western cloud and fell across her hair.  For a
+moment she seemed the spirit of the sea personified&mdash;all its mystery,
+all its passion, all its elusive charm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You&mdash;you must think me crazy,” stammered Anne, trying to recover her
+self-possession.  To be seen by this stately girl in such an abandon of
+childishness&mdash;she, Mrs. Dr. Blythe, with all the dignity of the matron
+to keep up&mdash;it was too bad!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No,” said the girl, “I don’t.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She said nothing more; her voice was expressionless; her manner
+slightly repellent; but there was something in her eyes&mdash;eager yet shy,
+defiant yet pleading&mdash;which turned Anne from her purpose of walking
+away.  Instead, she sat down on the boulder beside the girl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Let’s introduce ourselves,” she said, with the smile that had never
+yet failed to win confidence and friendliness.  “I am Mrs. Blythe&mdash;and
+I live in that little white house up the harbor shore.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, I know,” said the girl.  “I am Leslie Moore&mdash;Mrs. Dick Moore,”
+she added stiffly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne was silent for a moment from sheer amazement.  It had not occurred
+to her that this girl was married&mdash;there seemed nothing of the wife
+about her.  And that she should be the neighbor whom Anne had pictured
+as a commonplace Four Winds housewife!  Anne could not quickly adjust
+her mental focus to this astonishing change.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Then&mdash;then you live in that gray house up the brook,” she stammered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes.  I should have gone over to call on you long ago,” said the
+other.  She did not offer any explanation or excuse for not having gone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wish you WOULD come,” said Anne, recovering herself somewhat.
+“We’re such near neighbors we ought to be friends.  That is the sole
+fault of Four Winds&mdash;there aren’t quite enough neighbors.  Otherwise it
+is perfection.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You like it?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“LIKE it!  I love it.  It is the most beautiful place I ever saw.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve never seen many places,” said Leslie Moore, slowly, “but I’ve
+always thought it was very lovely here.  I&mdash;I love it, too.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She spoke, as she looked, shyly, yet eagerly.  Anne had an odd
+impression that this strange girl&mdash;the word “girl” would persist&mdash;could
+say a good deal if she chose.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I often come to the shore,” she added.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“So do I,” said Anne.  “It’s a wonder we haven’t met here before.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Probably you come earlier in the evening than I do.  It is generally
+late&mdash;almost dark&mdash;when I come.  And I love to come just after a
+storm&mdash;like this.  I don’t like the sea so well when it’s calm and
+quiet.  I like the struggle&mdash;and the crash&mdash;and the noise.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I love it in all its moods,” declared Anne.  “The sea at Four Winds is
+to me what Lover’s Lane was at home.  Tonight it seemed so free&mdash;so
+untamed&mdash;something broke loose in me, too, out of sympathy.  That was
+why I danced along the shore in that wild way.  I didn’t suppose
+anybody was looking, of course.  If Miss Cornelia Bryant had seen me
+she would have forboded a gloomy prospect for poor young Dr. Blythe.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You know Miss Cornelia?” said Leslie, laughing.  She had an exquisite
+laugh; it bubbled up suddenly and unexpectedly with something of the
+delicious quality of a baby’s.  Anne laughed, too.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, yes.  She has been down to my house of dreams several times.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Your house of dreams?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, that’s a dear, foolish little name Gilbert and I have for our
+home.  We just call it that between ourselves.  It slipped out before I
+thought.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“So Miss Russell’s little white house is YOUR house of dreams,” said
+Leslie wonderingly.  “<I>I</I> had a house of dreams once&mdash;but it was a
+palace,” she added, with a laugh, the sweetness of which was marred by
+a little note of derision.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I once dreamed of a palace, too,” said Anne.  “I suppose all girls
+do.  And then we settle down contentedly in eight-room houses that seem
+to fulfill all the desires of our hearts&mdash;because our prince is there.
+YOU should have had your palace really, though&mdash;you are so beautiful.
+You MUST let me say it&mdash;it has to be said&mdash;I’m nearly bursting with
+admiration.  You are the loveliest thing I ever saw, Mrs. Moore.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If we are to be friends you must call me Leslie,” said the other with
+an odd passion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Of course I will.  And MY friends call me Anne.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I suppose I am beautiful,” Leslie went on, looking stormily out to
+sea.  “I hate my beauty.  I wish I had always been as brown and plain
+as the brownest and plainest girl at the fishing village over there.
+Well, what do you think of Miss Cornelia?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The abrupt change of subject shut the door on any further confidences.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Miss Cornelia is a darling, isn’t she?” said Anne.  “Gilbert and I
+were invited to her house to a state tea last week.  You’ve heard of
+groaning tables.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I seem to recall seeing the expression in the newspaper reports of
+weddings,” said Leslie, smiling.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, Miss Cornelia’s groaned&mdash;at least, it creaked&mdash;positively.  You
+couldn’t have believed she would have cooked so much for two ordinary
+people.  She had every kind of pie you could name, I think&mdash;except
+lemon pie.  She said she had taken the prize for lemon pies at the
+Charlottetown Exhibition ten years ago and had never made any since for
+fear of losing her reputation for them.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Were you able to eat enough pie to please her?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“<I>I</I> wasn’t.  Gilbert won her heart by eating&mdash;I won’t tell you how
+much.  She said she never knew a man who didn’t like pie better than
+his Bible.  Do you know, I love Miss Cornelia.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“So do I,” said Leslie.  “She is the best friend I have in the world.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne wondered secretly why, if this were so, Miss Cornelia had never
+mentioned Mrs. Dick Moore to her.  Miss Cornelia had certainly talked
+freely about every other individual in or near Four Winds.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Isn’t that beautiful?” said Leslie, after a brief silence, pointing to
+the exquisite effect of a shaft of light falling through a cleft in the
+rock behind them, across a dark green pool at its base.  “If I had come
+here&mdash;and seen nothing but just that&mdash;I would go home satisfied.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The effects of light and shadow all along these shores are wonderful,”
+agreed Anne.  “My little sewing room looks out on the harbor, and I sit
+at its window and feast my eyes.  The colors and shadows are never the
+same two minutes together.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And you are never lonely?” asked Leslie abruptly.  “Never&mdash;when you
+are alone?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.  I don’t think I’ve ever been really lonely in my life,” answered
+Anne.  “Even when I’m alone I have real good company&mdash;dreams and
+imaginations and pretendings.  I LIKE to be alone now and then, just to
+think over things and TASTE them.  But I love friendship&mdash;and nice,
+jolly little times with people.  Oh, WON’T you come to see me&mdash;often?
+Please do.  I believe,” Anne added, laughing, “that you’d like me if
+you knew me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wonder if YOU would like ME,” said Leslie seriously.  She was not
+fishing for a compliment.  She looked out across the waves that were
+beginning to be garlanded with blossoms of moonlit foam, and her eyes
+filled with shadows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m sure I would,” said Anne.  “And please don’t think I’m utterly
+irresponsible because you saw me dancing on the shore at sunset.  No
+doubt I shall be dignified after a time.  You see, I haven’t been
+married very long.  I feel like a girl, and sometimes like a child,
+yet.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I have been married twelve years,” said Leslie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Here was another unbelievable thing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Why, you can’t be as old as I am!” exclaimed Anne.  “You must have
+been a child when you were married.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I was sixteen,” said Leslie, rising, and picking up the cap and jacket
+lying beside her.  “I am twenty-eight now.  Well, I must go back.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“So must I.  Gilbert will probably be home.  But I’m so glad we both
+came to the shore tonight and met each other.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie said nothing, and Anne was a little chilled.  She had offered
+friendship frankly but it had not been accepted very graciously, if it
+had not been absolutely repelled.  In silence they climbed the cliffs
+and walked across a pasture-field of which the feathery, bleached, wild
+grasses were like a carpet of creamy velvet in the moonlight.  When
+they reached the shore lane Leslie turned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I go this way, Mrs. Blythe.  You will come over and see me some time,
+won’t you?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne felt as if the invitation had been thrown at her.  She got the
+impression that Leslie Moore gave it reluctantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I will come if you really want me to,” she said a little coldly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I do&mdash;I do,” exclaimed Leslie, with an eagerness which seemed to
+burst forth and beat down some restraint that had been imposed on it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Then I’ll come.  Good-night&mdash;Leslie.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Good-night, Mrs. Blythe.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne walked home in a brown study and poured out her tale to Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“So Mrs. Dick Moore isn’t one of the race that knows Joseph?” said
+Gilbert teasingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No&mdash;o&mdash;o, not exactly.  And yet&mdash;I think she WAS one of them once, but
+has gone or got into exile,” said Anne musingly.  “She is certainly
+very different from the other women about here.  You can’t talk about
+eggs and butter to HER.  To think I’ve been imagining her a second Mrs.
+Rachel Lynde!  Have you ever seen Dick Moore, Gilbert?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.  I’ve seen several men working about the fields of the farm, but I
+don’t know which was Moore.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She never mentioned him.  I KNOW she isn’t happy.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“From what you tell me I suppose she was married before she was old
+enough to know her own mind or heart, and found out too late that she
+had made a mistake.  It’s a common tragedy enough, Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“A fine woman would have made the best of it.  Mrs. Moore has evidently
+let it make her bitter and resentful.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t let us judge her till we know,” pleaded Anne.  “I don’t believe
+her case is so ordinary.  You will understand her fascination when you
+meet her, Gilbert.  It is a thing quite apart from her beauty.  I feel
+that she possesses a rich nature, into which a friend might enter as
+into a kingdom; but for some reason she bars every one out and shuts
+all her possibilities up in herself, so that they cannot develop and
+blossom.  There, I’ve been struggling to define her to myself ever
+since I left her, and that is the nearest I can get to it.  I’m going
+to ask Miss Cornelia about her.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap11"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 11
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+THE STORY OF LESLIE MOORE
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, the eighth baby arrived a fortnight ago,” said Miss Cornelia,
+from a rocker before the fire of the little house one chilly October
+afternoon.  “It’s a girl.  Fred was ranting mad&mdash;said he wanted a
+boy&mdash;when the truth is he didn’t want it at all.  If it had been a boy
+he’d have ranted because it wasn’t a girl.  They had four girls and
+three boys before, so I can’t see that it made much difference what
+this one was, but of course he’d have to be cantankerous, just like a
+man.  The baby is real pretty, dressed up in its nice little clothes.
+It has black eyes and the dearest, tiny hands.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I must go and see it.  I just love babies,” said Anne, smiling to
+herself over a thought too dear and sacred to be put into words.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t say but what they’re nice,” admitted Miss Cornelia.  “But some
+folks seem to have more than they really need, believe ME.  My poor
+cousin Flora up at the Glen had eleven, and such a slave as she is!
+Her husband suicided three years ago.  Just like a man!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What made him do that?” asked Anne, rather shocked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Couldn’t get his way over something, so he jumped into the well.  A
+good riddance!  He was a born tyrant.  But of course it spoiled the
+well.  Flora could never abide the thought of using it again, poor
+thing!  So she had another dug and a frightful expense it was, and the
+water as hard as nails.  If he HAD to drown himself there was plenty of
+water in the harbor, wasn’t there?  I’ve no patience with a man like
+that.  We’ve only had two suicides in Four Winds in my recollection.
+The other was Frank West&mdash;Leslie Moore’s father.  By the way, has
+Leslie ever been over to call on you yet?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, but I met her on the shore a few nights ago and we scraped an
+acquaintance,” said Anne, pricking up her ears.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia nodded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m glad, dearie.  I was hoping you’d foregather with her.  What do
+you think of her?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I thought her very beautiful.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, of course.  There was never anybody about Four Winds could touch
+her for looks.  Did you ever see her hair?  It reaches to her feet when
+she lets it down.  But I meant how did you like her?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I think I could like her very much if she’d let me,” said Anne slowly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But she wouldn’t let you&mdash;she pushed you off and kept you at arm’s
+length.  Poor Leslie!  You wouldn’t be much surprised if you knew what
+her life has been.  It’s been a tragedy&mdash;a tragedy!” repeated Miss
+Cornelia emphatically.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wish you would tell me all about her&mdash;that is, if you can do so
+without betraying any confidence.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Lord, dearie, everybody in Four Winds knows poor Leslie’s story.  It’s
+no secret&mdash;the OUTSIDE, that is.  Nobody knows the INSIDE but Leslie
+herself, and she doesn’t take folks into her confidence.  I’m about the
+best friend she has on earth, I reckon, and she’s never uttered a word
+of complaint to me.  Have you ever seen Dick Moore?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, I may as well begin at the beginning and tell you everything
+straight through, so you’ll understand it.  As I said, Leslie’s father
+was Frank West.  He was clever and shiftless&mdash;just like a man.  Oh, he
+had heaps of brains&mdash;and much good they did him!  He started to go to
+college, and he went for two years, and then his health broke down.
+The Wests were all inclined to be consumptive.  So Frank came home and
+started farming.  He married Rose Elliott from over harbor.  Rose was
+reckoned the beauty of Four Winds&mdash;Leslie takes her looks from her
+mother, but she has ten times the spirit and go that Rose had, and a
+far better figure.  Now you know, Anne, I always take the ground that
+us women ought to stand by each other.  We’ve got enough to endure at
+the hands of the men, the Lord knows, so I hold we hadn’t ought to
+clapper-claw one another, and it isn’t often you’ll find me running
+down another woman.  But I never had much use for Rose Elliott.  She
+was spoiled to begin with, believe ME, and she was nothing but a lazy,
+selfish, whining creature.  Frank was no hand to work, so they were
+poor as Job’s turkey.  Poor!  They lived on potatoes and point, believe
+ME.  They had two children&mdash;Leslie and Kenneth.  Leslie had her
+mother’s looks and her father’s brains, and something she didn’t get
+from either of them.  She took after her Grandmother West&mdash;a splendid
+old lady.  She was the brightest, friendliest, merriest thing when she
+was a child, Anne.  Everybody liked her.  She was her father’s favorite
+and she was awful fond of him.  They were 'chums,’ as she used to say.
+She couldn’t see any of his faults&mdash;and he WAS a taking sort of man in
+some ways.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, when Leslie was twelve years old, the first dreadful thing
+happened.  She worshipped little Kenneth&mdash;he was four years younger
+than her, and he WAS a dear little chap.  And he was killed one
+day&mdash;fell off a big load of hay just as it was going into the barn, and
+the wheel went right over his little body and crushed the life out of
+it.  And mind you, Anne, Leslie saw it.  She was looking down from the
+loft.  She gave one screech&mdash;the hired man said he never heard such a
+sound in all his life&mdash;he said it would ring in his ears till Gabriel’s
+trump drove it out.  But she never screeched or cried again about it.
+She jumped from the loft onto the load and from the load to the floor,
+and caught up the little bleeding, warm, dead body, Anne&mdash;they had to
+tear it from her before she would let it go.  They sent for me&mdash;I can’t
+talk of it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia wiped the tears from her kindly brown eyes and sewed in
+bitter silence for a few minutes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well,” she resumed, “it was all over&mdash;they buried little Kenneth in
+that graveyard over the harbor, and after a while Leslie went back to
+her school and her studies.  She never mentioned Kenneth’s name&mdash;I’ve
+never heard it cross her lips from that day to this.  I reckon that old
+hurt still aches and burns at times; but she was only a child and time
+is real kind to children, Anne, dearie.  After a while she began to
+laugh again&mdash;she had the prettiest laugh.  You don’t often hear it now.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I heard it once the other night,” said Anne.  “It IS a beautiful
+laugh.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Frank West began to go down after Kenneth’s death.  He wasn’t strong
+and it was a shock to him, because he was real fond of the child,
+though, as I’ve said, Leslie was his favorite.  He got mopy and
+melancholy, and couldn’t or wouldn’t work.  And one day, when Leslie
+was fourteen years of age, he hanged himself&mdash;and in the parlor, too,
+mind you, Anne, right in the middle of the parlor from the lamp hook in
+the ceiling.  Wasn’t that like a man?  It was the anniversary of his
+wedding day, too.  Nice, tasty time to pick for it, wasn’t it?  And, of
+course, that poor Leslie had to be the one to find him.  She went into
+the parlor that morning, singing, with some fresh flowers for the
+vases, and there she saw her father hanging from the ceiling, his face
+as black as a coal.  It was something awful, believe ME!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, how horrible!” said Anne, shuddering.  “The poor, poor child!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie didn’t cry at her father’s funeral any more then she had cried
+at Kenneth’s.  Rose whooped and howled for two, however, and Leslie had
+all she could do trying to calm and comfort her mother.  I was
+disgusted with Rose and so was everyone else, but Leslie never got out
+of patience.  She loved her mother.  Leslie is clannish&mdash;her own could
+never do wrong in her eyes.  Well, they buried Frank West beside
+Kenneth, and Rose put up a great big monument to him.  It was bigger
+than his character, believe ME!  Anyhow, it was bigger than Rose could
+afford, for the farm was mortgaged for more than its value.  But not
+long after Leslie’s old grandmother West died and she left Leslie a
+little money&mdash;enough to give her a year at Queen’s Academy.  Leslie had
+made up her mind to pass for a teacher if she could, and then earn
+enough to put herself through Redmond College.  That had been her
+father’s pet scheme&mdash;he wanted her to have what he had lost.  Leslie
+was full of ambition and her head was chock full of brains.  She went
+to Queen’s, and she took two years’ work in one year and got her First;
+and when she came home she got the Glen school.  She was so happy and
+hopeful and full of life and eagerness.  When I think of what she was
+then and what she is now, I say&mdash;drat the men!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia snipped her thread off as viciously as if, Nero-like, she
+was severing the neck of mankind by the stroke.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Dick Moore came into her life that summer.  His father, Abner Moore,
+kept store at the Glen, but Dick had a sea-going streak in him from his
+mother; he used to sail in summer and clerk in his father’s store in
+winter.  He was a big, handsome fellow, with a little ugly soul.  He
+was always wanting something till he got it, and then he stopped
+wanting it&mdash;just like a man.  Oh, he didn’t growl at the weather when
+it was fine, and he was mostly real pleasant and agreeable when
+everything went right.  But he drank a good deal, and there were some
+nasty stories told of him and a girl down at the fishing village.  He
+wasn’t fit for Leslie to wipe her feet on, that’s the long and short of
+it.  And he was a Methodist!  But he was clean mad about her&mdash;because
+of her good looks in the first place, and because she wouldn’t have
+anything to say to him in the second.  He vowed he’d have her&mdash;and he
+got her!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How did he bring it about?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, it was an iniquitous thing!  I’ll never forgive Rose West.  You
+see, dearie, Abner Moore held the mortgage on the West farm, and the
+interest was overdue some years, and Dick just went and told Mrs. West
+that if Leslie wouldn’t marry him he’d get his father to foreclose the
+mortgage.  Rose carried on terrible&mdash;fainted and wept, and pleaded with
+Leslie not to let her be turned out of her home.  She said it would
+break her heart to leave the home she’d come to as a bride.  I wouldn’t
+have blamed her for feeling dreadful bad over it&mdash;but you wouldn’t have
+thought she’d be so selfish as to sacrifice her own flesh and blood
+because of it, would you?  Well, she was.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And Leslie gave in&mdash;she loved her mother so much she would have done
+anything to save her pain.  She married Dick Moore.  None of us knew
+why at the time.  It wasn’t till long afterward that I found out how
+her mother had worried her into it.  I was sure there was something
+wrong, though, because I knew how she had snubbed him time and again,
+and it wasn’t like Leslie to turn face&mdash;about like that.  Besides, I
+knew that Dick Moore wasn’t the kind of man Leslie could ever fancy, in
+spite of his good looks and dashing ways.  Of course, there was no
+wedding, but Rose asked me to go and see them married.  I went, but I
+was sorry I did.  I’d seen Leslie’s face at her brother’s funeral and
+at her father’s funeral&mdash;and now it seemed to me I was seeing it at her
+own funeral.  But Rose was smiling as a basket of chips, believe ME!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie and Dick settled down on the West place&mdash;Rose couldn’t bear to
+part with her dear daughter!&mdash;and lived there for the winter.  In the
+spring Rose took pneumonia and died&mdash;a year too late!  Leslie was
+heart-broken enough over it.  Isn’t it terrible the way some unworthy
+folks are loved, while others that deserve it far more, you’d think,
+never get much affection?  As for Dick, he’d had enough of quiet
+married life&mdash;just like a man.  He was for up and off.  He went over to
+Nova Scotia to visit his relations&mdash;his father had come from Nova
+Scotia&mdash;and he wrote back to Leslie that his cousin, George Moore, was
+going on a voyage to Havana and he was going too.  The name of the
+vessel was the Four Sisters and they were to be gone about nine weeks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It must have been a relief to Leslie.  But she never said anything.
+From the day of her marriage she was just what she is now&mdash;cold and
+proud, and keeping everyone but me at a distance.  I won’t BE kept at a
+distance, believe ME!  I’ve just stuck to Leslie as close as I knew how
+in spite of everything.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She told me you were the best friend she had,” said Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Did she?” exclaimed Miss Cornelia delightedly.  “Well, I’m real
+thankful to hear it.  Sometimes I’ve wondered if she really did want me
+around at all&mdash;she never let me think so.  You must have thawed her out
+more than you think, or she wouldn’t have said that much itself to you.
+Oh, that poor, heart-broken girl!  I never see Dick Moore but I want to
+run a knife clean through him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia wiped her eyes again and having relieved her feelings by
+her blood-thirsty wish, took up her tale.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, Leslie was left over there alone.  Dick had put in the crop
+before he went, and old Abner looked after it.  The summer went by and
+the Four Sisters didn’t come back.  The Nova Scotia Moores
+investigated, and found she had got to Havana and discharged her cargo
+and took on another and left for home; and that was all they ever found
+out about her.  By degrees people began to talk of Dick Moore as one
+that was dead.  Almost everyone believed that he was, though no one
+felt certain, for men have turned up here at the harbor after they’d
+been gone for years.  Leslie never thought he was dead&mdash;and she was
+right.  A thousand pities too!  The next summer Captain Jim was in
+Havana&mdash;that was before he gave up the sea, of course.  He thought he’d
+poke round a bit&mdash;Captain Jim was always meddlesome, just like a
+man&mdash;and he went to inquiring round among the sailors’ boarding houses
+and places like that, to see if he could find out anything about the
+crew of the Four Sisters.  He’d better have let sleeping dogs lie, in
+my opinion!  Well, he went to one out-of-the-way place, and there he
+found a man he knew at first sight it was Dick Moore, though he had a
+big beard.  Captain Jim got it shaved off and then there was no
+doubt&mdash;Dick Moore it was&mdash;his body at least.  His mind wasn’t there&mdash;as
+for his soul, in my opinion he never had one!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What had happened to him?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Nobody knows the rights of it.  All the folks who kept the boarding
+house could tell was that about a year before they had found him lying
+on their doorstep one morning in an awful condition&mdash;his head battered
+to a jelly almost.  They supposed he’d got hurt in some drunken row,
+and likely that’s the truth of it.  They took him in, never thinking he
+could live.  But he did&mdash;and he was just like a child when he got well.
+He hadn’t memory or intellect or reason.  They tried to find out who he
+was but they never could.  He couldn’t even tell them his name&mdash;he
+could only say a few simple words.  He had a letter on him beginning
+'Dear Dick’ and signed 'Leslie,’ but there was no address on it and the
+envelope was gone.  They let him stay on&mdash;he learned to do a few odd
+jobs about the place&mdash;and there Captain Jim found him.  He brought him
+home&mdash;I’ve always said it was a bad day’s work, though I s’pose there
+was nothing else he could do.  He thought maybe when Dick got home and
+saw his old surroundings and familiar faces his memory would wake up.
+But it hadn’t any effect.  There he’s been at the house up the brook
+ever since.  He’s just like a child, no more nor less.  Takes fractious
+spells occasionally, but mostly he’s just vacant and good humored and
+harmless.  He’s apt to run away if he isn’t watched.  That’s the burden
+Leslie has had to carry for eleven years&mdash;and all alone.  Old Abner
+Moore died soon after Dick was brought home and it was found he was
+almost bankrupt.  When things were settled up there was nothing for
+Leslie and Dick but the old West farm.  Leslie rented it to John Ward,
+and the rent is all she has to live on.  Sometimes in summer she takes
+a boarder to help out.  But most visitors prefer the other side of the
+harbor where the hotels and summer cottages are.  Leslie’s house is too
+far from the bathing shore.  She’s taken care of Dick and she’s never
+been away from him for eleven years&mdash;she’s tied to that imbecile for
+life.  And after all the dreams and hopes she once had!  You can
+imagine what it has been like for her, Anne, dearie&mdash;with her beauty
+and spirit and pride and cleverness.  It’s just been a living death.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Poor, poor girl!” said Anne again.  Her own happiness seemed to
+reproach her.  What right had she to be so happy when another human
+soul must be so miserable?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Will you tell me just what Leslie said and how she acted the night you
+met her on the shore?” asked Miss Cornelia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She listened intently and nodded her satisfaction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“YOU thought she was stiff and cold, Anne, dearie, but I can tell you
+she thawed out wonderful for her.  She must have taken to you real
+strong.  I’m so glad.  You may be able to help her a good deal.  I was
+thankful when I heard that a young couple was coming to this house, for
+I hoped it would mean some friends for Leslie; especially if you
+belonged to the race that knows Joseph.  You WILL be her friend, won’t
+you, Anne, dearie?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Indeed I will, if she’ll let me,” said Anne, with all her own sweet,
+impulsive earnestness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, you must be her friend, whether she’ll let you or not,” said Miss
+Cornelia resolutely.  “Don’t you mind if she’s stiff by times&mdash;don’t
+notice it.  Remember what her life has been&mdash;and is&mdash;and must always
+be, I suppose, for creatures like Dick Moore live forever, I
+understand.  You should see how fat he’s got since he came home.  He
+used to be lean enough.  Just MAKE her be friends&mdash;you can do
+it&mdash;you’re one of those who have the knack.  Only you mustn’t be
+sensitive.  And don’t mind if she doesn’t seem to want you to go over
+there much.  She knows that some women don’t like to be where Dick
+is&mdash;they complain he gives them the creeps.  Just get her to come over
+here as often as she can.  She can’t get away so very much&mdash;she can’t
+leave Dick long, for the Lord knows what he’d do&mdash;burn the house down
+most likely.  At nights, after he’s in bed and asleep, is about the
+only time she’s free.  He always goes to bed early and sleeps like the
+dead till next morning.  That is how you came to meet her at the shore
+likely.  She wanders there considerable.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I will do everything I can for her,” said Anne.  Her interest in
+Leslie Moore, which had been vivid ever since she had seen her driving
+her geese down the hill, was intensified a thousand fold by Miss
+Cornelia’s narration.  The girl’s beauty and sorrow and loneliness drew
+her with an irresistible fascination.  She had never known anyone like
+her; her friends had hitherto been wholesome, normal, merry girls like
+herself, with only the average trials of human care and bereavement to
+shadow their girlish dreams.  Leslie Moore stood apart, a tragic,
+appealing figure of thwarted womanhood.  Anne resolved that she would
+win entrance into the kingdom of that lonely soul and find there the
+comradeship it could so richly give, were it not for the cruel fetters
+that held it in a prison not of its own making.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And mind you this, Anne, dearie,” said Miss Cornelia, who had not yet
+wholly relieved her mind, “You mustn’t think Leslie is an infidel
+because she hardly ever goes to church&mdash;or even that she’s a Methodist.
+She can’t take Dick to church, of course&mdash;not that he ever troubled
+church much in his best days.  But you just remember that she’s a real
+strong Presbyterian at heart, Anne, dearie.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap12"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 12
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+LESLIE COMES OVER
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Leslie came over to the house of dreams one frosty October night, when
+moonlit mists were hanging over the harbor and curling like silver
+ribbons along the seaward glens.  She looked as if she repented coming
+when Gilbert answered her knock; but Anne flew past him, pounced on
+her, and drew her in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m so glad you picked tonight for a call,” she said gaily.  “I made
+up a lot of extra good fudge this afternoon and we want someone to help
+us eat it&mdash;before the fire&mdash;while we tell stories.  Perhaps Captain Jim
+will drop in, too.  This is his night.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.  Captain Jim is over home,” said Leslie.  “He&mdash;he made me come
+here,” she added, half defiantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ll say a thank-you to him for that when I see him,” said Anne,
+pulling easy chairs before the fire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I don’t mean that I didn’t want to come,” protested Leslie,
+flushing a little.  “I&mdash;I’ve been thinking of coming&mdash;but it isn’t
+always easy for me to get away.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Of course it must be hard for you to leave Mr. Moore,” said Anne, in a
+matter-of-fact tone.  She had decided that it would be best to mention
+Dick Moore occasionally as an accepted fact, and not give undue
+morbidness to the subject by avoiding it.  She was right, for Leslie’s
+air of constraint suddenly vanished.  Evidently she had been wondering
+how much Anne knew of the conditions of her life and was relieved that
+no explanations were needed.  She allowed her cap and jacket to be
+taken, and sat down with a girlish snuggle in the big armchair by
+Magog.  She was dressed prettily and carefully, with the customary
+touch of color in the scarlet geranium at her white throat.  Her
+beautiful hair gleamed like molten gold in the warm firelight.  Her
+sea-blue eyes were full of soft laughter and allurement. For the
+moment, under the influence of the little house of dreams, she was a
+girl again&mdash;a girl forgetful of the past and its bitterness.  The
+atmosphere of the many loves that had sanctified the little house was
+all about her; the companionship of two healthy, happy, young folks of
+her own generation encircled her; she felt and yielded to the magic of
+her surroundings&mdash;Miss Cornelia and Captain Jim would scarcely have
+recognized her; Anne found it hard to believe that this was the cold,
+unresponsive woman she had met on the shore&mdash;this animated girl who
+talked and listened with the eagerness of a starved soul.  And how
+hungrily Leslie’s eyes looked at the bookcases between the windows!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Our library isn’t very extensive,” said Anne, “but every book in it is
+a FRIEND.  We’ve picked our books up through the years, here and there,
+never buying one until we had first read it and knew that it belonged
+to the race of Joseph.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie laughed&mdash;beautiful laughter that seemed akin to all the mirth
+that had echoed through the little house in the vanished years.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I have a few books of father’s&mdash;not many,” she said.  “I’ve read them
+until I know them almost by heart.  I don’t get many books.  There’s a
+circulating library at the Glen store&mdash;but I don’t think the committee
+who pick the books for Mr. Parker know what books are of Joseph’s
+race&mdash;or perhaps they don’t care.  It was so seldom I got one I really
+liked that I gave up getting any.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I hope you’ll look on our bookshelves as your own,” said Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You are entirely and wholeheartedly welcome to the loan of any book on
+them.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You are setting a feast of fat things before me,” said Leslie,
+joyously.  Then, as the clock struck ten, she rose, half unwillingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I must go.  I didn’t realise it was so late.  Captain Jim is always
+saying it doesn’t take long to stay an hour.  But I’ve stayed two&mdash;and
+oh, but I’ve enjoyed them,” she added frankly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Come often,” said Anne and Gilbert.  They had risen and stood together
+in the firelight’s glow.  Leslie looked at them&mdash;youthful, hopeful,
+happy, typifying all she had missed and must forever miss.  The light
+went out of her face and eyes; the girl vanished; it was the sorrowful,
+cheated woman who answered the invitation almost coldly and got herself
+away with a pitiful haste.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne watched her until she was lost in the shadows of the chill and
+misty night.  Then she turned slowly back to the glow of her own
+radiant hearthstone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Isn’t she lovely, Gilbert?  Her hair fascinates me.  Miss Cornelia
+says it reaches to her feet.  Ruby Gillis had beautiful hair&mdash;but
+Leslie’s is ALIVE&mdash;every thread of it is living gold.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She is very beautiful,” agreed Gilbert, so heartily that Anne almost
+wished he were a LITTLE less enthusiastic.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert, would you like my hair better if it were like Leslie’s?” she
+asked wistfully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wouldn’t have your hair any color but just what it is for the
+world,” said Gilbert, with one or two convincing accompaniments.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+You wouldn’t be ANNE if you had golden hair&mdash;or hair of any color but”&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Red,” said Anne, with gloomy satisfaction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, red&mdash;to give warmth to that milk-white skin and those shining
+gray-green eyes of yours.  Golden hair wouldn’t suit you at all Queen
+Anne&mdash;MY Queen Anne&mdash;queen of my heart and life and home.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Then you may admire Leslie’s all you like,” said Anne magnanimously.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap13"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 13
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+A GHOSTLY EVENING
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+One evening, a week later, Anne decided to run over the fields to the
+house up the brook for an informal call.  It was an evening of gray fog
+that had crept in from the gulf, swathed the harbor, filled the glens
+and valleys, and clung heavily to the autumnal meadows.  Through it the
+sea sobbed and shuddered.  Anne saw Four Winds in a new aspect, and
+found it weird and mysterious and fascinating; but it also gave her a
+little feeling of loneliness.  Gilbert was away and would be away until
+the morrow, attending a medical pow-wow in Charlottetown.  Anne longed
+for an hour of fellowship with some girl friend.  Captain Jim and Miss
+Cornelia were “good fellows” each, in their own way; but youth yearned
+to youth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If only Diana or Phil or Pris or Stella could drop in for a chat,” she
+said to herself, “how delightful it would be!  This is such a GHOSTLY
+night.  I’m sure all the ships that ever sailed out of Four Winds to
+their doom could be seen tonight sailing up the harbor with their
+drowned crews on their decks, if that shrouding fog could suddenly be
+drawn aside.  I feel as if it concealed innumerable mysteries&mdash;as if I
+were surrounded by the wraiths of old generations of Four Winds people
+peering at me through that gray veil.  If ever the dear dead ladies of
+this little house came back to revisit it they would come on just such
+a night as this.  If I sit here any longer I’ll see one of them there
+opposite me in Gilbert’s chair.  This place isn’t exactly canny
+tonight.  Even Gog and Magog have an air of pricking up their ears to
+hear the footsteps of unseen guests.  I’ll run over to see Leslie
+before I frighten myself with my own fancies, as I did long ago in the
+matter of the Haunted Wood.  I’ll leave my house of dreams to welcome
+back its old inhabitants.  My fire will give them my good-will and
+greeting&mdash;they will be gone before I come back, and my house will be
+mine once more.  Tonight I am sure it is keeping a tryst with the past.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Laughing a little over her fancy, yet with something of a creepy
+sensation in the region of her spine, Anne kissed her hand to Gog and
+Magog and slipped out into the fog, with some of the new magazines
+under her arm for Leslie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie’s wild for books and magazines,” Miss Cornelia had told her,
+“and she hardly ever sees one.  She can’t afford to buy them or
+subscribe for them.  She’s really pitifully poor, Anne.  I don’t see
+how she makes out to live at all on the little rent the farm brings in.
+She never even hints a complaint on the score of poverty, but I know
+what it must be.  She’s been handicapped by it all her life.  She
+didn’t mind it when she was free and ambitious, but it must gall now,
+believe ME.  I’m glad she seemed so bright and merry the evening she
+spent with you.  Captain Jim told me he had fairly to put her cap and
+coat on and push her out of the door.  Don’t be too long going to see
+her either.  If you are she’ll think it’s because you don’t like the
+sight of Dick, and she’ll crawl into her shell again.  Dick’s a great,
+big, harmless baby, but that silly grin and chuckle of his do get on
+some people’s nerves.  Thank goodness, I’ve no nerves myself.  I like
+Dick Moore better now than I ever did when he was in his right
+senses&mdash;though the Lord knows that isn’t saying much.  I was down there
+one day in housecleaning time helping Leslie a bit, and I was frying
+doughnuts.  Dick was hanging round to get one, as usual, and all at
+once he picked up a scalding hot one I’d just fished out and dropped it
+on the back of my neck when I was bending over.  Then he laughed and
+laughed.  Believe ME, Anne, it took all the grace of God in my heart to
+keep me from just whisking up that stew-pan of boiling fat and pouring
+it over his head.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne laughed over Miss Cornelia’s wrath as she sped through the
+darkness.  But laughter accorded ill with that night.  She was sober
+enough when she reached the house among the willows.  Everything was
+very silent.  The front part of the house seemed dark and deserted, so
+Anne slipped round to the side door, which opened from the veranda into
+a little sitting room.  There she halted noiselessly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The door was open.  Beyond, in the dimly lighted room, sat Leslie
+Moore, with her arms flung out on the table and her head bent upon
+them.  She was weeping horribly&mdash;with low, fierce, choking sobs, as if
+some agony in her soul were trying to tear itself out.  An old black
+dog was sitting by her, his nose resting on his lap, his big doggish
+eyes full of mute, imploring sympathy and devotion.  Anne drew back in
+dismay.  She felt that she could not intermeddle with this bitterness.
+Her heart ached with a sympathy she might not utter.  To go in now
+would be to shut the door forever on any possible help or friendship.
+Some instinct warned Anne that the proud, bitter girl would never
+forgive the one who thus surprised her in her abandonment of despair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne slipped noiselessly from the veranda and found her way across the
+yard.  Beyond, she heard voices in the gloom and saw the dim glow of a
+light.  At the gate she met two men&mdash;Captain Jim with a lantern, and
+another who she knew must be Dick Moore&mdash;a big man, badly gone to fat,
+with a broad, round, red face, and vacant eyes.  Even in the dull light
+Anne got the impression that there was something unusual about his eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Is this you, Mistress Blythe?” said Captain Jim.  “Now, now, you
+hadn’t oughter be roaming about alone on a night like this.  You could
+get lost in this fog easier than not.  Jest you wait till I see Dick
+safe inside the door and I’ll come back and light you over the fields.
+I ain’t going to have Dr. Blythe coming home and finding that you
+walked clean over Cape Leforce in the fog.  A woman did that once,
+forty years ago.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“So you’ve been over to see Leslie,” he said, when he rejoined her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I didn’t go in,” said Anne, and told what she had seen.  Captain Jim
+sighed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Poor, poor, little girl!  She don’t cry often, Mistress Blythe&mdash;she’s
+too brave for that.  She must feel terrible when she does cry.  A night
+like this is hard on poor women who have sorrows.  There’s something
+about it that kinder brings up all we’ve suffered&mdash;or feared.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s full of ghosts,” said Anne, with a shiver.  “That was why I came
+over&mdash;I wanted to clasp a human hand and hear a human voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There seem to be so many INHUMAN presences about tonight.  Even my own
+dear house was full of them.  They fairly elbowed me out.  So I fled
+over here for companionship of my kind.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You were right not to go in, though, Mistress Blythe.  Leslie wouldn’t
+have liked it.  She wouldn’t have liked me going in with Dick, as I’d
+have done if I hadn’t met you.  I had Dick down with me all day.  I
+keep him with me as much as I can to help Leslie a bit.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Isn’t there something odd about his eyes?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You noticed that?  Yes, one is blue and t’other is hazel&mdash;his father
+had the same.  It’s a Moore peculiarity.  That was what told me he was
+Dick Moore when I saw him first down in Cuby.  If it hadn’t a-bin for
+his eyes I mightn’t a-known him, with his beard and fat.  You know, I
+reckon, that it was me found him and brought him home.  Miss Cornelia
+always says I shouldn’t have done it, but I can’t agree with her.  It
+was the RIGHT thing to do&mdash;and so ’twas the only thing.  There ain’t no
+question in my mind about THAT.  But my old heart aches for Leslie.
+She’s only twenty-eight and she’s eaten more bread with sorrow than
+most women do in eighty years.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They walked on in silence for a little while.  Presently Anne said, “Do
+you know, Captain Jim, I never like walking with a lantern.  I have
+always the strangest feeling that just outside the circle of light,
+just over its edge in the darkness, I am surrounded by a ring of
+furtive, sinister things, watching me from the shadows with hostile
+eyes.  I’ve had that feeling from childhood.  What is the reason?  I
+never feel like that when I’m really in the darkness&mdash;when it is close
+all around me&mdash;I’m not the least frightened.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve something of that feeling myself,” admitted Captain Jim.  “I
+reckon when the darkness is close to us it is a friend.  But when we
+sorter push it away from us&mdash;divorce ourselves from it, so to speak,
+with lantern light&mdash;it becomes an enemy.  But the fog is lifting.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There’s a smart west wind rising, if you notice.  The stars will be
+out when you get home.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were out; and when Anne re-entered her house of dreams the red
+embers were still glowing on the hearth, and all the haunting presences
+were gone.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap14"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 14
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+NOVEMBER DAYS
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The splendor of color which had glowed for weeks along the shores of
+Four Winds Harbor had faded out into the soft gray-blue of late
+autumnal hills.  There came many days when fields and shores were dim
+with misty rain, or shivering before the breath of a melancholy
+sea-wind&mdash;nights, too, of storm and tempest, when Anne sometimes
+wakened to pray that no ship might be beating up the grim north shore,
+for if it were so not even the great, faithful light whirling through
+the darkness unafraid, could avail to guide it into safe haven.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“In November I sometimes feel as if spring could never come again,” she
+sighed, grieving over the hopeless unsightliness of her frosted and
+bedraggled flower-plots.  The gay little garden of the schoolmaster’s
+bride was rather a forlorn place now, and the Lombardies and birches
+were under bare poles, as Captain Jim said.  But the fir-wood behind
+the little house was forever green and staunch; and even in November
+and December there came gracious days of sunshine and purple hazes,
+when the harbor danced and sparkled as blithely as in midsummer, and
+the gulf was so softly blue and tender that the storm and the wild wind
+seemed only things of a long-past dream.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne and Gilbert spent many an autumn evening at the lighthouse.  It
+was always a cheery place.  Even when the east wind sang in minor and
+the sea was dead and gray, hints of sunshine seemed to be lurking all
+about it.  Perhaps this was because the First Mate always paraded it in
+panoply of gold.  He was so large and effulgent that one hardly missed
+the sun, and his resounding purrs formed a pleasant accompaniment to
+the laughter and conversation which went on around Captain Jim’s
+fireplace.  Captain Jim and Gilbert had many long discussions and high
+converse on matters beyond the ken of cat or king.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I like to ponder on all kinds of problems, though I can’t solve ’em,”
+said Captain Jim.  “My father held that we should never talk of things
+we couldn’t understand, but if we didn’t, doctor, the subjects for
+conversation would be mighty few.  I reckon the gods laugh many a time
+to hear us, but what matters so long as we remember that we’re only men
+and don’t take to fancying that we’re gods ourselves, really, knowing
+good and evil.  I reckon our pow-wows won’t do us or anyone much harm,
+so let’s have another whack at the whence, why and whither this
+evening, doctor.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While they “whacked,” Anne listened or dreamed.  Sometimes Leslie went
+to the lighthouse with them, and she and Anne wandered along the shore
+in the eerie twilight, or sat on the rocks below the lighthouse until
+the darkness drove them back to the cheer of the driftwood fire.  Then
+Captain Jim would brew them tea and tell them
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+    “tales of land and sea<BR>
+    And whatsoever might betide<BR>
+    The great forgotten world outside.”<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie seemed always to enjoy those lighthouse carousals very much, and
+bloomed out for the time being into ready wit and beautiful laughter,
+or glowing-eyed silence.  There was a certain tang and savor in the
+conversation when Leslie was present which they missed when she was
+absent.  Even when she did not talk she seemed to inspire others to
+brilliancy.  Captain Jim told his stories better, Gilbert was quicker
+in argument and repartee, Anne felt little gushes and trickles of fancy
+and imagination bubbling to her lips under the influence of Leslie’s
+personality.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That girl was born to be a leader in social and intellectual circles,
+far away from Four Winds,” she said to Gilbert as they walked home one
+night.  “She’s just wasted here&mdash;wasted.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Weren’t you listening to Captain Jim and yours truly the other night
+when we discussed that subject generally?  We came to the comforting
+conclusion that the Creator probably knew how to run His universe quite
+as well as we do, and that, after all, there are no such things as
+'wasted’ lives, saving and except when an individual wilfully squanders
+and wastes his own life&mdash;which Leslie Moore certainly hasn’t done.  And
+some people might think that a Redmond B.A., whom editors were
+beginning to honor, was 'wasted’ as the wife of a struggling country
+doctor in the rural community of Four Winds.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If you had married Roy Gardner, now,” continued Gilbert mercilessly,
+“YOU could have been 'a leader in social and intellectual circles far
+away from Four Winds.’”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert BLYTHE!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You KNOW you were in love with him at one time, Anne.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert, that’s mean&mdash;'pisen mean, just like all the men,’ as Miss
+Cornelia says.  I NEVER was in love with him.  I only imagined I was.
+YOU know that.  You KNOW I’d rather be your wife in our house of dreams
+and fulfillment than a queen in a palace.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert’s answer was not in words; but I am afraid that both of them
+forgot poor Leslie speeding her lonely way across the fields to a house
+that was neither a palace nor the fulfillment of a dream.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The moon was rising over the sad, dark sea behind them and
+transfiguring it.  Her light had not yet reached the harbor, the
+further side of which was shadowy and suggestive, with dim coves and
+rich glooms and jewelling lights.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How the home lights shine out tonight through the dark!” said Anne.
+“That string of them over the harbor looks like a necklace.  And what a
+coruscation there is up at the Glen!  Oh, look, Gilbert; there is ours.
+I’m so glad we left it burning.  I hate to come home to a dark house.
+OUR homelight, Gilbert!  Isn’t it lovely to see?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Just one of earth’s many millions of homes, Anne&mdash;girl&mdash;but
+ours&mdash;OURS&mdash;our beacon in 'a naughty world.’  When a fellow has a home
+and a dear, little, red-haired wife in it what more need he ask of
+life?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, he might ask ONE thing more,” whispered Anne happily.  “Oh,
+Gilbert, it seems as if I just COULDN’T wait for the spring.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap15"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 15
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+CHRISTMAS AT FOUR WINDS
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+At first Anne and Gilbert talked of going home to Avonlea for
+Christmas; but eventually they decided to stay in Four Winds.  “I want
+to spend the first Christmas of our life together in our own home,”
+decreed Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So it fell out that Marilla and Mrs. Rachel Lynde and the twins came to
+Four Winds for Christmas.  Marilla had the face of a woman who had
+circumnavigated the globe.  She had never been sixty miles away from
+home before; and she had never eaten a Christmas dinner anywhere save
+at Green Gables.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Rachel had made and brought with her an enormous plum pudding.
+Nothing could have convinced Mrs. Rachel that a college graduate of the
+younger generation could make a Christmas plum pudding properly; but
+she bestowed approval on Anne’s house.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne’s a good housekeeper,” she said to Marilla in the spare room the
+night of their arrival.  “I’ve looked into her bread box and her scrap
+pail.  I always judge a housekeeper by those, that’s what.  There’s
+nothing in the pail that shouldn’t have been thrown away, and no stale
+pieces in the bread box.  Of course, she was trained up with you&mdash;but,
+then, she went to college afterwards.  I notice she’s got my tobacco
+stripe quilt on the bed here, and that big round braided mat of yours
+before her living-room fire.  It makes me feel right at home.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne’s first Christmas in her own house was as delightful as she could
+have wished.  The day was fine and bright; the first skim of snow had
+fallen on Christmas Eve and made the world beautiful; the harbor was
+still open and glittering.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim and Miss Cornelia came to dinner.  Leslie and Dick had been
+invited, but Leslie made excuse; they always went to her Uncle Isaac
+West’s for Christmas, she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She’d rather have it so,” Miss Cornelia told Anne.  “She can’t bear
+taking Dick where there are strangers.  Christmas is always a hard time
+for Leslie.  She and her father used to make a lot of it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia and Mrs. Rachel did not take a very violent fancy to each
+other.  “Two suns hold not their courses in one sphere.”  But they did
+not clash at all, for Mrs. Rachel was in the kitchen helping Anne and
+Marilla with the dinner, and it fell to Gilbert to entertain Captain
+Jim and Miss Cornelia,&mdash;or rather to be entertained by them, for a
+dialogue between those two old friends and antagonists was assuredly
+never dull.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s many a year since there was a Christmas dinner here, Mistress
+Blythe,” said Captain Jim.  “Miss Russell always went to her friends in
+town for Christmas.  But I was here to the first Christmas dinner that
+was ever eaten in this house&mdash;and the schoolmaster’s bride cooked it.
+That was sixty years ago today, Mistress Blythe&mdash;and a day very like
+this&mdash;just enough snow to make the hills white, and the harbor as blue
+as June.  I was only a lad, and I’d never been invited out to dinner
+before, and I was too shy to eat enough.  I’ve got all over THAT.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Most men do,” said Miss Cornelia, sewing furiously.  Miss Cornelia was
+not going to sit with idle hands, even on Christmas.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Babies come without any consideration for holidays, and there was one
+expected in a poverty-stricken household at Glen St. Mary.  Miss
+Cornelia had sent that household a substantial dinner for its little
+swarm, and so meant to eat her own with a comfortable conscience.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, you know, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,
+Cornelia,” explained Captain Jim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I believe you&mdash;when he HAS a heart,” retorted Miss Cornelia.  “I
+suppose that’s why so many women kill themselves cooking&mdash;just as poor
+Amelia Baxter did.  She died last Christmas morning, and she said it
+was the first Christmas since she was married that she didn’t have to
+cook a big, twenty-plate dinner.  It must have been a real pleasant
+change for her.  Well, she’s been dead a year, so you’ll soon hear of
+Horace Baxter taking notice.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I heard he was taking notice already,” said Captain Jim, winking at
+Gilbert.  “Wasn’t he up to your place one Sunday lately, with his
+funeral blacks on, and a boiled collar?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, he wasn’t.  And he needn’t come neither.  I could have had him
+long ago when he was fresh.  I don’t want any second-hand goods,
+believe ME.  As for Horace Baxter, he was in financial difficulties a
+year ago last summer, and he prayed to the Lord for help; and when his
+wife died and he got her life insurance he said he believed it was the
+answer to his prayer.  Wasn’t that like a man?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Have you really proof that he said that, Cornelia?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I have the Methodist minister’s word for it&mdash;if you call THAT proof.
+Robert Baxter told me the same thing too, but I admit THAT isn’t
+evidence.  Robert Baxter isn’t often known to tell the truth.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Come, come, Cornelia, I think he generally tells the truth, but he
+changes his opinion so often it sometimes sounds as if he didn’t.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It sounds like it mighty often, believe ME.  But trust one man to
+excuse another.  I have no use for Robert Baxter.  He turned Methodist
+just because the Presbyterian choir happened to be singing 'Behold the
+bridegroom cometh’ for a collection piece when him and Margaret walked
+up the aisle the Sunday after they were married.  Served him right for
+being late!  He always insisted the choir did it on purpose to insult
+him, as if he was of that much importance.  But that family always
+thought they were much bigger potatoes than they really were.  His
+brother Eliphalet imagined the devil was always at his elbow&mdash;but <I>I</I>
+never believed the devil wasted that much time on him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I&mdash;don’t&mdash;know,” said Captain Jim thoughtfully.  “Eliphalet Baxter
+lived too much alone&mdash;hadn’t even a cat or dog to keep him human.  When
+a man is alone he’s mighty apt to be with the devil&mdash;if he ain’t with
+God.  He has to choose which company he’ll keep, I reckon.  If the
+devil always was at Life Baxter’s elbow it must have been because Life
+liked to have him there.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Man-like,” said Miss Cornelia, and subsided into silence over a
+complicated arrangement of tucks until Captain Jim deliberately stirred
+her up again by remarking in a casual way:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I was up to the Methodist church last Sunday morning.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’d better have been home reading your Bible,” was Miss Cornelia’s
+retort.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Come, now, Cornelia, <I>I</I> can’t see any harm in going to the Methodist
+church when there’s no preaching in your own.  I’ve been a Presbyterian
+for seventy-six years, and it isn’t likely my theology will hoist
+anchor at this late day.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s setting a bad example,” said Miss Cornelia grimly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Besides,” continued wicked Captain Jim, “I wanted to hear some good
+singing.  The Methodists have a good choir; and you can’t deny,
+Cornelia, that the singing in our church is awful since the split in
+the choir.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What if the singing isn’t good?  They’re doing their best, and God
+sees no difference between the voice of a crow and the voice of a
+nightingale.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Come, come, Cornelia,” said Captain Jim mildly, “I’ve a better opinion
+of the Almighty’s ear for music than THAT.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What caused the trouble in our choir?” asked Gilbert, who was
+suffering from suppressed laughter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It dates back to the new church, three years ago,” answered Captain
+Jim.  “We had a fearful time over the building of that church&mdash;fell out
+over the question of a new site.  The two sites wasn’t more’n two
+hundred yards apart, but you’d have thought they was a thousand by the
+bitterness of that fight.  We was split up into three factions&mdash;one
+wanted the east site and one the south, and one held to the old.  It
+was fought out in bed and at board, and in church and at market.  All
+the old scandals of three generations were dragged out of their graves
+and aired.  Three matches was broken up by it.  And the meetings we had
+to try to settle the question!  Cornelia, will you ever forget the one
+when old Luther Burns got up and made a speech?  HE stated his opinions
+forcibly.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Call a spade a spade, Captain.  You mean he got red-mad and raked them
+all, fore and aft.  They deserved it too&mdash;a pack of incapables.  But
+what would you expect of a committee of men?  That building committee
+held twenty-seven meetings, and at the end of the twenty-seventh
+weren’t no nearer having a church than when they begun&mdash;not so near,
+for a fact, for in one fit of hurrying things along they’d gone to work
+and tore the old church down, so there we were, without a church, and
+no place but the hall to worship in.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The Methodists offered us their church, Cornelia.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The Glen St. Mary church wouldn’t have been built to this day,” went
+on Miss Cornelia, ignoring Captain Jim, “if we women hadn’t just
+started in and took charge.  We said WE meant to have a church, if the
+men meant to quarrel till doomsday, and we were tired of being a
+laughing-stock for the Methodists.  We held ONE meeting and elected a
+committee and canvassed for subscriptions.  We got them, too.  When any
+of the men tried to sass us we told them they’d tried for two years to
+build a church and it was our turn now.  We shut them up close, believe
+ME, and in six months we had our church.  Of course, when the men saw
+we were determined they stopped fighting and went to work, man-like, as
+soon as they saw they had to, or quit bossing.  Oh, women can’t preach
+or be elders; but they can build churches and scare up the money for
+them.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The Methodists allow women to preach,” said Captain Jim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia glared at him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I never said the Methodists hadn’t common sense, Captain. What I say
+is, I doubt if they have much religion.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I suppose you are in favor of votes for women, Miss Cornelia,” said
+Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m not hankering after the vote, believe ME,” said Miss Cornelia
+scornfully.  “<I>I</I> know what it is to clean up after the men.  But some
+of these days, when the men realize they’ve got the world into a mess
+they can’t get it out of, they’ll be glad to give us the vote, and
+shoulder their troubles over on us.  That’s THEIR scheme.  Oh, it’s
+well that women are patient, believe ME!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What about Job?” suggested Captain Jim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Job!  It was such a rare thing to find a patient man that when one was
+really discovered they were determined he shouldn’t be forgotten,”
+retorted Miss Cornelia triumphantly.  “Anyhow, the virtue doesn’t go
+with the name.  There never was such an impatient man born as old Job
+Taylor over harbor.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, you know, he had a good deal to try him, Cornelia.  Even you
+can’t defend his wife.  I always remember what old William MacAllister
+said of her at her funeral, 'There’s nae doot she was a Chreestian
+wumman, but she had the de’il’s own temper.’”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I suppose she WAS trying,” admitted Miss Cornelia reluctantly, “but
+that didn’t justify what Job said when she died.  He rode home from the
+graveyard the day of the funeral with my father.  He never said a word
+till they got near home.  Then he heaved a big sigh and said, 'You may
+not believe it, Stephen, but this is the happiest day of my life!’
+Wasn’t that like a man?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I s’pose poor old Mrs. Job did make life kinder uneasy for him,”
+reflected Captain Jim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, there’s such a thing as decency, isn’t there?  Even if a man is
+rejoicing in his heart over his wife being dead, he needn’t proclaim it
+to the four winds of heaven.  And happy day or not, Job Taylor wasn’t
+long in marrying again, you might notice.  His second wife could manage
+him.  She made him walk Spanish, believe me!  The first thing she did
+was to make him hustle round and put up a tombstone to the first Mrs.
+Job&mdash;and she had a place left on it for her own name.  She said there’d
+be nobody to make Job put up a monument to HER.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Speaking of Taylors, how is Mrs. Lewis Taylor up at the Glen, doctor?”
+asked Captain Jim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She’s getting better slowly&mdash;but she has to work too hard,” replied
+Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Her husband works hard too&mdash;raising prize pigs,” said Miss Cornelia.
+“He’s noted for his beautiful pigs.  He’s a heap prouder of his pigs
+than of his children.  But then, to be sure, his pigs are the best pigs
+possible, while his children don’t amount to much.  He picked a poor
+mother for them, and starved her while she was bearing and rearing
+them.  His pigs got the cream and his children got the skim milk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There are times, Cornelia, when I have to agree with you, though it
+hurts me,” said Captain Jim.  “That’s just exactly the truth about
+Lewis Taylor.  When I see those poor, miserable children of his, robbed
+of all children ought to have, it p’isens my own bite and sup for days
+afterwards.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert went out to the kitchen in response to Anne’s beckoning.  Anne
+shut the door and gave him a connubial lecture.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert, you and Captain Jim must stop baiting Miss Cornelia.  Oh,
+I’ve been listening to you&mdash;and I just won’t allow it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+'Anne, Miss Cornelia is enjoying herself hugely.  You know she is.’
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, never mind.  You two needn’t egg her on like that.  Dinner is
+ready now, and, Gilbert, DON’T let Mrs. Rachel carve the geese.  I know
+she means to offer to do it because she doesn’t think you can do it
+properly.  Show her you can.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I ought to be able to.  I’ve been studying A-B-C-D diagrams of carving
+for the past month,” said Gilbert.  “Only don’t talk to me while I’m
+doing it, Anne, for if you drive the letters out of my head I’ll be in
+a worse predicament than you were in old geometry days when the teacher
+changed them.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert carved the geese beautifully.  Even Mrs. Rachel had to admit
+that.  And everybody ate of them and enjoyed them.  Anne’s first
+Christmas dinner was a great success and she beamed with housewifely
+pride.  Merry was the feast and long; and when it was over they
+gathered around the cheer of the red hearth flame and Captain Jim told
+them stories until the red sun swung low over Four Winds Harbor, and
+the long blue shadows of the Lombardies fell across the snow in the
+lane.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I must be getting back to the light,” he said finally.  “I’ll jest
+have time to walk home before sundown.  Thank you for a beautiful
+Christmas, Mistress Blythe.  Bring Master Davy down to the light some
+night before he goes home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I want to see those stone gods,” said Davy with a relish.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap16"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 16
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+NEW YEAR’S EVE AT THE LIGHT
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The Green Gables folk went home after Christmas, Marilla under solemn
+covenant to return for a month in the spring.  More snow came before
+New Year’s, and the harbor froze over, but the gulf still was free,
+beyond the white, imprisoned fields.  The last day of the old year was
+one of those bright, cold, dazzling winter days, which bombard us with
+their brilliancy, and command our admiration but never our love.  The
+sky was sharp and blue; the snow diamonds sparkled insistently; the
+stark trees were bare and shameless, with a kind of brazen beauty; the
+hills shot assaulting lances of crystal.  Even the shadows were sharp
+and stiff and clear-cut, as no proper shadows should be.  Everything
+that was handsome seemed ten times handsomer and less attractive in the
+glaring splendor; and everything that was ugly seemed ten times uglier,
+and everything was either handsome or ugly.  There was no soft
+blending, or kind obscurity, or elusive mistiness in that searching
+glitter.  The only things that held their own individuality were the
+firs&mdash;for the fir is the tree of mystery and shadow, and yields never
+to the encroachments of crude radiance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But finally the day began to realise that she was growing old.  Then a
+certain pensiveness fell over her beauty which dimmed yet intensified
+it; sharp angles, glittering points, melted away into curves and
+enticing gleams.  The white harbor put on soft grays and pinks; the
+far-away hills turned amethyst.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The old year is going away beautifully,” said Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She and Leslie and Gilbert were on their way to the Four Winds Point,
+having plotted with Captain Jim to watch the New Year in at the light.
+The sun had set and in the southwestern sky hung Venus, glorious and
+golden, having drawn as near to her earth-sister as is possible for
+her.  For the first time Anne and Gilbert saw the shadow cast by that
+brilliant star of evening, that faint, mysterious shadow, never seen
+save when there is white snow to reveal it, and then only with averted
+vision, vanishing when you gaze at it directly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s like the spirit of a shadow, isn’t it?” whispered Anne.  “You can
+see it so plainly haunting your side when you look ahead; but when you
+turn and look at it&mdash;it’s gone.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I have heard that you can see the shadow of Venus only once in a
+lifetime, and that within a year of seeing it your life’s most
+wonderful gift will come to you,” said Leslie.  But she spoke rather
+hardly; perhaps she thought that even the shadow of Venus could bring
+her no gift of life.  Anne smiled in the soft twilight; she felt quite
+sure what the mystic shadow promised her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They found Marshall Elliott at the lighthouse.  At first Anne felt
+inclined to resent the intrusion of this long-haired, long-bearded
+eccentric into the familiar little circle.  But Marshall Elliott soon
+proved his legitimate claim to membership in the household of Joseph.
+He was a witty, intelligent, well-read man, rivalling Captain Jim
+himself in the knack of telling a good story.  They were all glad when
+he agreed to watch the old year out with them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim’s small nephew Joe had come down to spend New Year’s with
+his great-uncle, and had fallen asleep on the sofa with the First Mate
+curled up in a huge golden ball at his feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Ain’t he a dear little man?” said Captain Jim gloatingly.  “I do love
+to watch a little child asleep, Mistress Blythe.  It’s the most
+beautiful sight in the world, I reckon.  Joe does love to get down here
+for a night, because I have him sleep with me.  At home he has to sleep
+with the other two boys, and he doesn’t like it.  Why can’t I sleep
+with father, Uncle Jim?” says he.  'Everybody in the Bible slept with
+their fathers.’  As for the questions he asks, the minister himself
+couldn’t answer them.  They fair swamp me.  'Uncle Jim, if I wasn’t ME
+who’d I be?’ and, 'Uncle Jim, what would happen if God died?’  He fired
+them two off at me tonight, afore he went to sleep.  As for his
+imagination, it sails away from everything.  He makes up the most
+remarkable yarns&mdash;and then his mother shuts him up in the closet for
+telling stories.  And he sits down and makes up another one, and has it
+ready to relate to her when she lets him out.  He had one for me when
+he come down tonight.  'Uncle Jim,’ says he, solemn as a tombstone, 'I
+had a ’venture in the Glen today.’  'Yes, what was it?’ says I,
+expecting something quite startling, but nowise prepared for what I
+really got.  'I met a wolf in the street,’ says he, 'a ’normous wolf
+with a big, red mouf and AWFUL long teeth, Uncle Jim.’  'I didn’t know
+there was any wolves up at the Glen,’ says I.  'Oh, he comed there from
+far, far away,’ says Joe, 'and I fought he was going to eat me up,
+Uncle Jim.’  'Were you scared?’ says I.  'No, ’cause I had a big gun,’
+says Joe, 'and I shot the wolf dead, Uncle Jim,&mdash;solid dead&mdash;and then
+he went up to heaven and bit God,’ says he.  Well, I was fair
+staggered, Mistress Blythe.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The hours bloomed into mirth around the driftwood fire.  Captain Jim
+told tales, and Marshall Elliott sang old Scotch ballads in a fine
+tenor voice; finally Captain Jim took down his old brown fiddle from
+the wall and began to play.  He had a tolerable knack of fiddling,
+which all appreciated save the First Mate, who sprang from the sofa as
+if he had been shot, emitted a shriek of protest, and fled wildly up
+the stairs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Can’t cultivate an ear for music in that cat nohow,” said Captain Jim.
+“He won’t stay long enough to learn to like it.  When we got the organ
+up at the Glen church old Elder Richards bounced up from his seat the
+minute the organist began to play and scuttled down the aisle and out
+of the church at the rate of no-man’s-business.  It reminded me so
+strong of the First Mate tearing loose as soon as I begin to fiddle
+that I come nearer to laughing out loud in church than I ever did
+before or since.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was something so infectious in the rollicking tunes which Captain
+Jim played that very soon Marshall Elliott’s feet began to twitch.  He
+had been a noted dancer in his youth.  Presently he started up and held
+out his hands to Leslie.  Instantly she responded.  Round and round the
+firelit room they circled with a rhythmic grace that was wonderful.
+Leslie danced like one inspired; the wild, sweet abandon of the music
+seemed to have entered into and possessed her.  Anne watched her in
+fascinated admiration.  She had never seen her like this.  All the
+innate richness and color and charm of her nature seemed to have broken
+loose and overflowed in crimson cheek and glowing eye and grace of
+motion.  Even the aspect of Marshall Elliott, with his long beard and
+hair, could not spoil the picture.  On the contrary, it seemed to
+enhance it.  Marshall Elliott looked like a Viking of elder days,
+dancing with one of the blue-eyed, golden-haired daughters of the
+Northland.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The purtiest dancing I ever saw, and I’ve seen some in my time,”
+declared Captain Jim, when at last the bow fell from his tired hand.
+Leslie dropped into her chair, laughing, breathless.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I love dancing,” she said apart to Anne.  “I haven’t danced since I
+was sixteen&mdash;but I love it.  The music seems to run through my veins
+like quicksilver and I forget everything&mdash;everything&mdash;except the
+delight of keeping time to it.  There isn’t any floor beneath me, or
+walls about me, or roof over me&mdash;I’m floating amid the stars.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim hung his fiddle up in its place, beside a large frame
+enclosing several banknotes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Is there anybody else of your acquaintance who can afford to hang his
+walls with banknotes for pictures?” he asked.  “There’s twenty
+ten-dollar notes there, not worth the glass over them.  They’re old
+Bank of P. E.  Island notes.  Had them by me when the bank failed, and
+I had ’em framed and hung up, partly as a reminder not to put your
+trust in banks, and partly to give me a real luxurious, millionairy
+feeling.  Hullo, Matey, don’t be scared.  You can come back now.  The
+music and revelry is over for tonight.  The old year has just another
+hour to stay with us.  I’ve seen seventy-six New Years come in over
+that gulf yonder, Mistress Blythe.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’ll see a hundred,” said Marshall Elliott.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No; and I don’t want to&mdash;at least, I think I don’t.  Death grows
+friendlier as we grow older.  Not that one of us really wants to die
+though, Marshall.  Tennyson spoke truth when he said that.  There’s old
+Mrs. Wallace up at the Glen.  She’s had heaps of trouble all her life,
+poor soul, and she’s lost almost everyone she cared about.  She’s
+always saying that she’ll be glad when her time comes, and she doesn’t
+want to sojourn any longer in this vale of tears.  But when she takes a
+sick spell there’s a fuss!  Doctors from town, and a trained nurse, and
+enough medicine to kill a dog.  Life may be a vale of tears, all right,
+but there are some folks who enjoy weeping, I reckon.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They spent the old year’s last hour quietly around the fire.  A few
+minutes before twelve Captain Jim rose and opened the door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We must let the New Year in,” he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Outside was a fine blue night.  A sparkling ribbon of moonlight
+garlanded the gulf.  Inside the bar the harbor shone like a pavement of
+pearl.  They stood before the door and waited&mdash;Captain Jim with his
+ripe, full experience, Marshall Elliott in his vigorous but empty
+middle life, Gilbert and Anne with their precious memories and
+exquisite hopes, Leslie with her record of starved years and her
+hopeless future.  The clock on the little shelf above the fireplace
+struck twelve.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Welcome, New Year,” said Captain Jim, bowing low as the last stroke
+died away.  “I wish you all the best year of your lives, mates.  I
+reckon that whatever the New Year brings us will be the best the Great
+Captain has for us&mdash;and somehow or other we’ll all make port in a good
+harbor.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap17"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 17
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+A FOUR WINDS WINTER
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Winter set in vigorously after New Year’s.  Big, white drifts heaped
+themselves about the little house, and palms of frost covered its
+windows.  The harbor ice grew harder and thicker, until the Four Winds
+people began their usual winter travelling over it.  The safe ways were
+“bushed” by a benevolent Government, and night and day the gay tinkle
+of the sleigh-bells sounded on it.  On moonlit nights Anne heard them
+in her house of dreams like fairy chimes.  The gulf froze over, and the
+Four Winds light flashed no more.  During the months when navigation
+was closed Captain Jim’s office was a sinecure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The First Mate and I will have nothing to do till spring except keep
+warm and amuse ourselves.  The last lighthouse keeper used always to
+move up to the Glen in winter; but I’d rather stay at the Point.  The
+First Mate might get poisoned or chewed up by dogs at the Glen.  It’s a
+mite lonely, to be sure, with neither the light nor the water for
+company, but if our friends come to see us often we’ll weather it
+through.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim had an ice boat, and many a wild, glorious spin Gilbert and
+Anne and Leslie had over the glib harbor ice with him.  Anne and Leslie
+took long snowshoe tramps together, too, over the fields, or across the
+harbor after storms, or through the woods beyond the Glen.  They were
+very good comrades in their rambles and their fireside communings.
+Each had something to give the other&mdash;each felt life the richer for
+friendly exchange of thought and friendly silence; each looked across
+the white fields between their homes with a pleasant consciousness of a
+friend beyond.  But, in spite of all this, Anne felt that there was
+always a barrier between Leslie and herself&mdash;a constraint that never
+wholly vanished.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t know why I can’t get closer to her,” Anne said one evening to
+Captain Jim.  “I like her so much&mdash;I admire her so much&mdash;I WANT to take
+her right into my heart and creep right into hers.  But I can never
+cross the barrier.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’ve been too happy all your life, Mistress Blythe,” said Captain
+Jim thoughtfully.  “I reckon that’s why you and Leslie can’t get real
+close together in your souls.  The barrier between you is her
+experience of sorrow and trouble.  She ain’t responsible for it and you
+ain’t; but it’s there and neither of you can cross it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“My childhood wasn’t very happy before I came to Green Gables,” said
+Anne, gazing soberly out of the window at the still, sad, dead beauty
+of the leafless tree-shadows on the moonlit snow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Mebbe not&mdash;but it was just the usual unhappiness of a child who hasn’t
+anyone to look after it properly.  There hasn’t been any TRAGEDY in
+your life, Mistress Blythe.  And poor Leslie’s has been almost ALL
+tragedy.  She feels, I reckon, though mebbe she hardly knows she feels
+it, that there’s a vast deal in her life you can’t enter nor
+understand&mdash;and so she has to keep you back from it&mdash;hold you off, so
+to speak, from hurting her.  You know if we’ve got anything about us
+that hurts we shrink from anyone’s touch on or near it.  It holds good
+with our souls as well as our bodies, I reckon.  Leslie’s soul must be
+near raw&mdash;it’s no wonder she hides it away.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If that were really all, I wouldn’t mind, Captain Jim.  I would
+understand.  But there are times&mdash;not always, but now and again&mdash;when I
+almost have to believe that Leslie doesn’t&mdash;doesn’t like me.  Sometimes
+I surprise a look in her eyes that seems to show resentment and
+dislike&mdash;it goes so quickly&mdash;but I’ve seen it, I’m sure of that.  And
+it hurts me, Captain Jim.  I’m not used to being disliked&mdash;and I’ve
+tried so hard to win Leslie’s friendship.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You have won it, Mistress Blythe.  Don’t you go cherishing any foolish
+notion that Leslie don’t like you.  If she didn’t she wouldn’t have
+anything to do with you, much less chumming with you as she does.  I
+know Leslie Moore too well not to be sure of that.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The first time I ever saw her, driving her geese down the hill on the
+day I came to Four Winds, she looked at me with the same expression,”
+persisted Anne.  “I felt it, even in the midst of my admiration of her
+beauty.  She looked at me resentfully&mdash;she did, indeed, Captain Jim.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The resentment must have been about something else, Mistress Blythe,
+and you jest come in for a share of it because you happened past.
+Leslie DOES take sullen spells now and again, poor girl.  I can’t blame
+her, when I know what she has to put up with.  I don’t know why it’s
+permitted.  The doctor and I have talked a lot abut the origin of evil,
+but we haven’t quite found out all about it yet.  There’s a vast of
+onunderstandable things in life, ain’t there, Mistress Blythe?
+Sometimes things seem to work out real proper-like, same as with you
+and the doctor.  And then again they all seem to go catawampus.
+There’s Leslie, so clever and beautiful you’d think she was meant for a
+queen, and instead she’s cooped up over there, robbed of almost
+everything a woman’d value, with no prospect except waiting on Dick
+Moore all her life.  Though, mind you, Mistress Blythe, I daresay she’d
+choose her life now, such as it is, rather than the life she lived with
+Dick before he went away.  THAT’S something a clumsy old sailor’s
+tongue mustn’t meddle with.  But you’ve helped Leslie a lot&mdash;she’s a
+different creature since you come to Four Winds.  Us old friends see
+the difference in her, as you can’t.  Miss Cornelia and me was talking
+it over the other day, and it’s one of the mighty few p’ints that we
+see eye to eye on.  So jest you throw overboard any idea of her not
+liking you.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne could hardly discard it completely, for there were undoubtedly
+times when she felt, with an instinct that was not to be combated by
+reason, that Leslie harbored a queer, indefinable resentment towards
+her.  At times, this secret consciousness marred the delight of their
+comradeship; at others it was almost forgotten; but Anne always felt
+the hidden thorn was there, and might prick her at any moment.  She
+felt a cruel sting from it on the day when she told Leslie of what she
+hoped the spring would bring to the little house of dreams.  Leslie
+looked at her with hard, bitter, unfriendly eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“So you are to have THAT, too,” she said in a choked voice.  And
+without another word she had turned and gone across the fields
+homeward.  Anne was deeply hurt; for the moment she felt as if she
+could never like Leslie again.  But when Leslie came over a few
+evenings later she was so pleasant, so friendly, so frank, and witty,
+and winsome, that Anne was charmed into forgiveness and forgetfulness.
+Only, she never mentioned her darling hope to Leslie again; nor did
+Leslie ever refer to it.  But one evening, when late winter was
+listening for the word of spring, she came over to the little house for
+a twilight chat; and when she went away she left a small, white box on
+the table.  Anne found it after she was gone and opened it wonderingly.
+In it was a tiny white dress of exquisite workmanship&mdash;delicate
+embroidery, wonderful tucking, sheer loveliness.  Every stitch in it
+was handwork; and the little frills of lace at neck and sleeves were of
+real Valenciennes.  Lying on it was a card&mdash;“with Leslie’s love.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What hours of work she must have put on it,” said Anne.  “And the
+material must have cost more than she could really afford.  It is very
+sweet of her.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Leslie was brusque and curt when Anne thanked her, and again the
+latter felt thrown back upon herself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie’s gift was not alone in the little house.  Miss Cornelia had,
+for the time being, given up sewing for unwanted, unwelcome eighth
+babies, and fallen to sewing for a very much wanted first one, whose
+welcome would leave nothing to be desired.  Philippa Blake and Diana
+Wright each sent a marvellous garment; and Mrs. Rachel Lynde sent
+several, in which good material and honest stitches took the place of
+embroidery and frills.  Anne herself made many, desecrated by no touch
+of machinery, spending over them the happiest hours of the happy winter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim was the most frequent guest of the little house, and none
+was more welcome.  Every day Anne loved the simple-souled, true-hearted
+old sailor more and more.  He was as refreshing as a sea breeze, as
+interesting as some ancient chronicle.  She was never tired of
+listening to his stories, and his quaint remarks and comments were a
+continual delight to her.  Captain Jim was one of those rare and
+interesting people who “never speak but they say something.”  The milk
+of human kindness and the wisdom of the serpent were mingled in his
+composition in delightful proportions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nothing ever seemed to put Captain Jim out or depress him in any way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve kind of contracted a habit of enj’ying things,” he remarked once,
+when Anne had commented on his invariable cheerfulness.  “It’s got so
+chronic that I believe I even enj’y the disagreeable things.  It’s
+great fun thinking they can’t last.  'Old rheumatiz,’ says I, when it
+grips me hard, 'you’ve GOT to stop aching sometime.  The worse you are
+the sooner you’ll stop, mebbe.  I’m bound to get the better of you in
+the long run, whether in the body or out of the body.’”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One night, by the fireside at the light Anne saw Captain Jim’s
+“life-book.”  He needed no coaxing to show it and proudly gave it to
+her to read.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I writ it to leave to little Joe,” he said.  “I don’t like the idea of
+everything I’ve done and seen being clean forgot after I’ve shipped for
+my last v’yage.  Joe, he’ll remember it, and tell the yarns to his
+children.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was an old leather-bound book filled with the record of his voyages
+and adventures.  Anne thought what a treasure trove it would be to a
+writer.  Every sentence was a nugget.  In itself the book had no
+literary merit; Captain Jim’s charm of storytelling failed him when he
+came to pen and ink; he could only jot roughly down the outline of his
+famous tales, and both spelling and grammar were sadly askew.  But Anne
+felt that if anyone possessed of the gift could take that simple record
+of a brave, adventurous life, reading between the bald lines the tales
+of dangers staunchly faced and duty manfully done, a wonderful story
+might be made from it.  Rich comedy and thrilling tragedy were both
+lying hidden in Captain Jim’s “life-book,” waiting for the touch of the
+master hand to waken the laughter and grief and horror of thousands.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne said something of this to Gilbert as they walked home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Why don’t you try your hand at it yourself, Anne?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne shook her head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.  I only wish I could.  But it’s not in the power of my gift.  You
+know what my forte is, Gilbert&mdash;the fanciful, the fairylike, the
+pretty.  To write Captain Jim’s life-book as it should be written one
+should be a master of vigorous yet subtle style, a keen psychologist, a
+born humorist and a born tragedian.  A rare combination of gifts is
+needed.  Paul might do it if he were older.  Anyhow, I’m going to ask
+him to come down next summer and meet Captain Jim.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Come to this shore,” wrote Anne to Paul.  “I am afraid you cannot find
+here Nora or the Golden Lady or the Twin Sailors; but you will find one
+old sailor who can tell you wonderful stories.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Paul, however wrote back, saying regretfully that he could not come
+that year.  He was going abroad for two years’ study.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“When I return I’ll come to Four Winds, dear Teacher,” he wrote.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But meanwhile, Captain Jim is growing old,” said Anne, sorrowfully,
+“and there is nobody to write his life-book.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap18"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 18
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+SPRING DAYS
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The ice in the harbor grew black and rotten in the March suns; in April
+there were blue waters and a windy, white-capped gulf again; and again
+the Four Winds light begemmed the twilights.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m so glad to see it once more,” said Anne, on the first evening of
+its reappearance.  “I’ve missed it so all winter.  The northwestern sky
+has seemed blank and lonely without it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The land was tender with brand-new, golden-green, baby leaves.  There
+was an emerald mist on the woods beyond the Glen.  The seaward valleys
+were full of fairy mists at dawn.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Vibrant winds came and went with salt foam in their breath.  The sea
+laughed and flashed and preened and allured, like a beautiful,
+coquettish woman.  The herring schooled and the fishing village woke to
+life.  The harbor was alive with white sails making for the channel.
+The ships began to sail outward and inward again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“On a spring day like this,” said Anne, “I know exactly what my soul
+will feel like on the resurrection morning.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There are times in spring when I sorter feel that I might have been a
+poet if I’d been caught young,” remarked Captain Jim.  “I catch myself
+conning over old lines and verses I heard the schoolmaster reciting
+sixty years ago.  They don’t trouble me at other times.  Now I feel as
+if I had to get out on the rocks or the fields or the water and spout
+them.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim had come up that afternoon to bring Anne a load of shells
+for her garden, and a little bunch of sweet-grass which he had found in
+a ramble over the sand dunes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s getting real scarce along this shore now,” he said.  “When I was
+a boy there was a-plenty of it.  But now it’s only once in a while
+you’ll find a plot&mdash;and never when you’re looking for it.  You jest
+have to stumble on it&mdash;you’re walking along on the sand hills, never
+thinking of sweet-grass&mdash;and all at once the air is full of
+sweetness&mdash;and there’s the grass under your feet.  I favor the smell of
+sweet-grass.  It always makes me think of my mother.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She was fond of it?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Not that I knows on.  Dunno’s she ever saw any sweet-grass.  No, it’s
+because it has a kind of motherly perfume&mdash;not too young, you
+understand&mdash;something kind of seasoned and wholesome and
+dependable&mdash;jest like a mother.  The schoolmaster’s bride always kept
+it among her handkerchiefs.  You might put that little bunch among
+yours, Mistress Blythe.  I don’t like these boughten scents&mdash;but a
+whiff of sweet-grass belongs anywhere a lady does.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne had not been especially enthusiastic over the idea of surrounding
+her flower beds with quahog shells; as a decoration they did not appeal
+to her on first thought.  But she would not have hurt Captain Jim’s
+feelings for anything; so she assumed a virtue she did not at first
+feel, and thanked him heartily.  And when Captain Jim had proudly
+encircled every bed with a rim of the big, milk-white shells, Anne
+found to her surprise that she liked the effect.  On a town lawn, or
+even up at the Glen, they would not have been in keeping, but here, in
+the old-fashioned, sea-bound garden of the little house of dreams, they
+BELONGED.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“They DO look nice,” she said sincerely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The schoolmaster’s bride always had cowhawks round her beds,” said
+Captain Jim.  “She was a master hand with flowers.  She LOOKED at
+’em&mdash;and touched ’em&mdash;SO&mdash;and they grew like mad.  Some folks have that
+knack&mdash;I reckon you have it, too, Mistress Blythe.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I don’t know&mdash;but I love my garden, and I love working in it.  To
+potter with green, growing things, watching each day to see the dear,
+new sprouts come up, is like taking a hand in creation, I think.  Just
+now my garden is like faith&mdash;the substance of things hoped for.  But
+bide a wee.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It always amazes me to look at the little, wrinkled brown seeds and
+think of the rainbows in ’em,” said Captain Jim.  “When I ponder on
+them seeds I don’t find it nowise hard to believe that we’ve got souls
+that’ll live in other worlds.  You couldn’t hardly believe there was
+life in them tiny things, some no bigger than grains of dust, let alone
+color and scent, if you hadn’t seen the miracle, could you?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne, who was counting her days like silver beads on a rosary, could
+not now take the long walk to the lighthouse or up the Glen road.  But
+Miss Cornelia and Captain Jim came very often to the little house.
+Miss Cornelia was the joy of Anne’s and Gilbert’s existence.  They
+laughed side-splittingly over her speeches after every visit.  When
+Captain Jim and she happened to visit the little house at the same time
+there was much sport for the listening.  They waged wordy warfare, she
+attacking, he defending.  Anne once reproached the Captain for his
+baiting of Miss Cornelia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I do love to set her going, Mistress Blythe,” chuckled the
+unrepentant sinner.  “It’s the greatest amusement I have in life.  That
+tongue of hers would blister a stone.  And you and that young dog of a
+doctor enj’y listening to her as much as I do.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim came along another evening to bring Anne some mayflowers.
+The garden was full of the moist, scented air of a maritime spring
+evening.  There was a milk-white mist on the edge of the sea, with a
+young moon kissing it, and a silver gladness of stars over the Glen.
+The bell of the church across the harbor was ringing dreamily sweet.
+The mellow chime drifted through the dusk to mingle with the soft
+spring-moan of the sea.  Captain Jim’s mayflowers added the last
+completing touch to the charm of the night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I haven’t seen any this spring, and I’ve missed them,” said Anne,
+burying her face in them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“They ain’t to be found around Four Winds, only in the barrens away
+behind the Glen up yander.  I took a little trip today to the
+Land-of-nothing-to-do, and hunted these up for you.  I reckon they’re
+the last you’ll see this spring, for they’re nearly done.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How kind and thoughtful you are, Captain Jim.  Nobody else&mdash;not even
+Gilbert”&mdash;with a shake of her head at him&mdash;“remembered that I always
+long for mayflowers in spring.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, I had another errand, too&mdash;I wanted to take Mr. Howard back
+yander a mess of trout.  He likes one occasional, and it’s all I can do
+for a kindness he did me once.  I stayed all the afternoon and talked
+to him.  He likes to talk to me, though he’s a highly eddicated man and
+I’m only an ignorant old sailor, because he’s one of the folks that’s
+GOT to talk or they’re miserable, and he finds listeners scarce around
+here.  The Glen folks fight shy of him because they think he’s an
+infidel.  He ain’t that far gone exactly&mdash;few men is, I reckon&mdash;but
+he’s what you might call a heretic.  Heretics are wicked, but they’re
+mighty int’resting.  It’s jest that they’ve got sorter lost looking for
+God, being under the impression that He’s hard to find&mdash;which He ain’t
+never.  Most of ’em blunder to Him after awhile, I guess.  I don’t
+think listening to Mr. Howard’s arguments is likely to do me much harm.
+Mind you, I believe what I was brought up to believe.  It saves a vast
+of bother&mdash;and back of it all, God is good.  The trouble with Mr.
+Howard is that he’s a leetle TOO clever.  He thinks that he’s bound to
+live up to his cleverness, and that it’s smarter to thrash out some new
+way of getting to heaven than to go by the old track the common,
+ignorant folks is travelling.  But he’ll get there sometime all right,
+and then he’ll laugh at himself.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Mr. Howard was a Methodist to begin with,” said Miss Cornelia, as if
+she thought he had not far to go from that to heresy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Do you know, Cornelia,” said Captain Jim gravely, “I’ve often thought
+that if I wasn’t a Presbyterian I’d be a Methodist.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, well,” conceded Miss Cornelia, “if you weren’t a Presbyterian it
+wouldn’t matter much what you were.  Speaking of heresy, reminds me,
+doctor&mdash;I’ve brought back that book you lent me&mdash;that Natural Law in
+the Spiritual World&mdash;I didn’t read more’n a third of it.  I can read
+sense, and I can read nonsense, but that book is neither the one nor
+the other.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It IS considered rather heretical in some quarters,” admitted Gilbert,
+“but I told you that before you took it, Miss Cornelia.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I wouldn’t have minded its being heretical.  I can stand
+wickedness, but I can’t stand foolishness,” said Miss Cornelia calmly,
+and with the air of having said the last thing there was to say about
+Natural Law.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Speaking of books, A Mad Love come to an end at last two weeks ago,”
+remarked Captain Jim musingly.  “It run to one hundred and three
+chapters.  When they got married the book stopped right off, so I
+reckon their troubles were all over.  It’s real nice that that’s the
+way in books anyhow, isn’t it, even if ’tistn’t so anywhere else?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I never read novels,” said Miss Cornelia.  “Did you hear how Geordie
+Russell was today, Captain Jim?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, I called in on my way home to see him.  He’s getting round all
+right&mdash;but stewing in a broth of trouble, as usual, poor man.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“’Course he brews up most of it for himself, but I reckon that don’t
+make it any easier to bear.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He’s an awful pessimist,” said Miss Cornelia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, no, he ain’t a pessimist exactly, Cornelia.  He only jest never
+finds anything that suits him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And isn’t that a pessimist?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, no.  A pessimist is one who never expects to find anything to suit
+him.  Geordie hain’t got THAT far yet.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’d find something good to say of the devil himself, Jim Boyd.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, you’ve heard the story of the old lady who said he was
+persevering.  But no, Cornelia, I’ve nothing good to say of the devil.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Do you believe in him at all?” asked Miss Cornelia seriously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How can you ask that when you know what a good Presbyterian I am,
+Cornelia?  How could a Presbyterian get along without a devil?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“DO you?” persisted Miss Cornelia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim suddenly became grave.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I believe in what I heard a minister once call 'a mighty and malignant
+and INTELLIGENT power of evil working in the universe,’” he said
+solemnly.  “I do THAT, Cornelia.  You can call it the devil, or the
+'principle of evil,’ or the Old Scratch, or any name you like.  It’s
+THERE, and all the infidels and heretics in the world can’t argue it
+away, any more’n they can argue God away.  It’s there, and it’s
+working.  But, mind you, Cornelia, I believe it’s going to get the
+worst of it in the long run.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I am sure I hope so,” said Miss Cornelia, none too hopefully. “But
+speaking of the devil, I am positive that Billy Booth is possessed by
+him now.  Have you heard of Billy’s latest performance?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, what was that?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He’s gone and burned up his wife’s new, brown broadcloth suit, that
+she paid twenty-five dollars for in Charlottetown, because he declares
+the men looked too admiring at her when she wore it to church the first
+time.  Wasn’t that like a man?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Mistress Booth IS mighty pretty, and brown’s her color,” said Captain
+Jim reflectively.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Is that any good reason why he should poke her new suit into the
+kitchen stove?  Billy Booth is a jealous fool, and he makes his wife’s
+life miserable.  She’s cried all the week about her suit.  Oh, Anne, I
+wish I could write like you, believe ME.  Wouldn’t I score some of the
+men round here!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Those Booths are all a mite queer,” said Captain Jim.  “Billy seemed
+the sanest of the lot till he got married and then this queer jealous
+streak cropped out in him.  His brother Daniel, now, was always odd.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Took tantrums every few days or so and wouldn’t get out of bed,” said
+Miss Cornelia with a relish.  “His wife would have to do all the barn
+work till he got over his spell.  When he died people wrote her letters
+of condolence; if I’d written anything it would have been one of
+congratulation.  Their father, old Abram Booth, was a disgusting old
+sot.  He was drunk at his wife’s funeral, and kept reeling round and
+hiccuping 'I didn’t dri&mdash;i&mdash;i&mdash;nk much but I feel a&mdash;a&mdash;awfully
+que&mdash;e&mdash;e&mdash;r.’  I gave him a good jab in the back with my umbrella when
+he came near me, and it sobered him up until they got the casket out of
+the house.  Young Johnny Booth was to have been married yesterday, but
+he couldn’t be because he’s gone and got the mumps.  Wasn’t that like a
+man?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How could he help getting the mumps, poor fellow?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’d poor fellow him, believe ME, if I was Kate Sterns.  I don’t know
+how he could help getting the mumps, but I DO know the wedding supper
+was all prepared and everything will be spoiled before he’s well again.
+Such a waste!  He should have had the mumps when he was a boy.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Come, come, Cornelia, don’t you think you’re a mite unreasonable?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia disdained to reply and turned instead to Susan Baker, a
+grim-faced, kind-hearted elderly spinster of the Glen, who had been
+installed as maid-of-all-work at the little house for some weeks.
+Susan had been up to the Glen to make a sick call, and had just
+returned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How is poor old Aunt Mandy tonight?” asked Miss Cornelia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Susan sighed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Very poorly&mdash;very poorly, Cornelia.  I am afraid she will soon be in
+heaven, poor thing!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, surely, it’s not so bad as that!” exclaimed Miss Cornelia,
+sympathetically.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim and Gilbert looked at each other.  Then they suddenly rose
+and went out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There are times,” said Captain Jim, between spasms, “when it would be
+a sin NOT to laugh.  Them two excellent women!”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap19"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 19
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+DAWN AND DUSK
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+In early June, when the sand hills were a great glory of pink wild
+roses, and the Glen was smothered in apple blossoms, Marilla arrived at
+the little house, accompanied by a black horsehair trunk, patterned
+with brass nails, which had reposed undisturbed in the Green Gables
+garret for half a century.  Susan Baker, who, during her few weeks’
+sojourn in the little house, had come to worship “young Mrs. Doctor,”
+as she called Anne, with blind fervor, looked rather jealously askance
+at Marilla at first.  But as Marilla did not try to interfere in
+kitchen matters, and showed no desire to interrupt Susan’s
+ministrations to young Mrs. Doctor, the good handmaiden became
+reconciled to her presence, and told her cronies at the Glen that Miss
+Cuthbert was a fine old lady and knew her place.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One evening, when the sky’s limpid bowl was filled with a red glory,
+and the robins were thrilling the golden twilight with jubilant hymns
+to the stars of evening, there was a sudden commotion in the little
+house of dreams.  Telephone messages were sent up to the Glen, Doctor
+Dave and a white-capped nurse came hastily down, Marilla paced the
+garden walks between the quahog shells, murmuring prayers between her
+set lips, and Susan sat in the kitchen with cotton wool in her ears and
+her apron over her head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie, looking out from the house up the brook, saw that every window
+of the little house was alight, and did not sleep that night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The June night was short; but it seemed an eternity to those who waited
+and watched.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, will it NEVER end?” said Marilla; then she saw how grave the nurse
+and Doctor Dave looked, and she dared ask no more questions.  Suppose
+Anne&mdash;but Marilla could not suppose it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Do not tell me,” said Susan fiercely, answering the anguish in
+Marilla’s eyes, “that God could be so cruel as to take that darling
+lamb from us when we all love her so much.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He has taken others as well beloved,” said Marilla hoarsely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But at dawn, when the rising sun rent apart the mists hanging over the
+sandbar, and made rainbows of them, joy came to the little house.  Anne
+was safe, and a wee, white lady, with her mother’s big eyes, was lying
+beside her.  Gilbert, his face gray and haggard from his night’s agony,
+came down to tell Marilla and Susan.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Thank God,” shuddered Marilla.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Susan got up and took the cotton wool out of her ears.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Now for breakfast,” she said briskly.  “I am of the opinion that we
+will all be glad of a bite and sup.  You tell young Mrs. Doctor not to
+worry about a single thing&mdash;Susan is at the helm.  You tell her just to
+think of her baby.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert smiled rather sadly as he went away.  Anne, her pale face
+blanched with its baptism of pain, her eyes aglow with the holy passion
+of motherhood, did not need to be told to think of her baby.  She
+thought of nothing else.  For a few hours she tasted of happiness so
+rare and exquisite that she wondered if the angels in heaven did not
+envy her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Little Joyce,” she murmured, when Marilla came in to see the baby.
+“We planned to call her that if she were a girlie.  There were so many
+we would have liked to name her for; we couldn’t choose between them,
+so we decided on Joyce&mdash;we can call her Joy for short&mdash;Joy&mdash;it suits so
+well.  Oh, Marilla, I thought I was happy before.  Now I know that I
+just dreamed a pleasant dream of happiness.  THIS is the reality.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You mustn’t talk, Anne&mdash;wait till you’re stronger,” said Marilla
+warningly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You know how hard it is for me NOT to talk,” smiled Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At first she was too weak and too happy to notice that Gilbert and the
+nurse looked grave and Marilla sorrowful.  Then, as subtly, and coldly,
+and remorselessly as a sea-fog stealing landward, fear crept into her
+heart.  Why was not Gilbert gladder?  Why would he not talk about the
+baby?  Why would they not let her have it with her after that first
+heavenly&mdash;happy hour?  Was&mdash;was there anything wrong?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert,” whispered Anne imploringly, “the baby&mdash;is all right&mdash;isn’t
+she?  Tell me&mdash;tell me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert was a long while in turning round; then he bent over Anne and
+looked in her eyes.  Marilla, listening fearfully outside the door,
+heard a pitiful, heartbroken moan, and fled to the kitchen where Susan
+was weeping.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, the poor lamb&mdash;the poor lamb!  How can she bear it, Miss Cuthbert?
+I am afraid it will kill her.  She has been that built up and happy,
+longing for that baby, and planning for it.  Cannot anything be done
+nohow, Miss Cuthbert?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m afraid not, Susan.  Gilbert says there is no hope.  He knew from
+the first the little thing couldn’t live.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And it is such a sweet baby,” sobbed Susan.  “I never saw one so
+white&mdash;they are mostly red or yallow.  And it opened its big eyes as if
+it was months old.  The little, little thing!  Oh, the poor, young Mrs.
+Doctor!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At sunset the little soul that had come with the dawning went away,
+leaving heartbreak behind it.  Miss Cornelia took the wee, white lady
+from the kindly but stranger hands of the nurse, and dressed the tiny
+waxen form in the beautiful dress Leslie had made for it.  Leslie had
+asked her to do that.  Then she took it back and laid it beside the
+poor, broken, tear-blinded little mother.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away, dearie,” she said
+through her own tears.  “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she went away, leaving Anne and Gilbert alone together with their
+dead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next day, the small white Joy was laid in a velvet casket which
+Leslie had lined with apple-blossoms, and taken to the graveyard of the
+church across the harbor.  Miss Cornelia and Marilla put all the little
+love-made garments away, together with the ruffled basket which had
+been befrilled and belaced for dimpled limbs and downy head.  Little
+Joy was never to sleep there; she had found a colder, narrower bed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“This has been an awful disappointment to me,” sighed Miss Cornelia.
+“I’ve looked forward to this baby&mdash;and I did want it to be a girl, too.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I can only be thankful that Anne’s life was spared,” said Marilla,
+with a shiver, recalling those hours of darkness when the girl she
+loved was passing through the valley of the shadow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Poor, poor lamb!  Her heart is broken,” said Susan.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I ENVY Anne,” said Leslie suddenly and fiercely, “and I’d envy her
+even if she had died!  She was a mother for one beautiful day.  I’d
+gladly give my life for THAT!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wouldn’t talk like that, Leslie, dearie,” said Miss Cornelia
+deprecatingly.  She was afraid that the dignified Miss Cuthbert would
+think Leslie quite terrible.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne’s convalescence was long, and made bitter for her by many things.
+The bloom and sunshine of the Four Winds world grated harshly on her;
+and yet, when the rain fell heavily, she pictured it beating so
+mercilessly down on that little grave across the harbor; and when the
+wind blew around the eaves she heard sad voices in it she had never
+heard before.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Kindly callers hurt her, too, with the well-meant platitudes with which
+they strove to cover the nakedness of bereavement.  A letter from Phil
+Blake was an added sting.  Phil had heard of the baby’s birth, but not
+of its death, and she wrote Anne a congratulatory letter of sweet mirth
+which hurt her horribly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I would have laughed over it so happily if I had my baby,” she sobbed
+to Marilla.  “But when I haven’t it just seems like wanton
+cruelty&mdash;though I know Phil wouldn’t hurt me for the world.  Oh,
+Marilla, I don’t see how I can EVER be happy again&mdash;EVERYTHING will
+hurt me all the rest of my life.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Time will help you,” said Marilla, who was racked with sympathy but
+could never learn to express it in other than age-worn formulas.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It doesn’t seem FAIR,” said Anne rebelliously.  “Babies are born and
+live where they are not wanted&mdash;where they will be neglected&mdash;where
+they will have no chance.  I would have loved my baby so&mdash;and cared for
+it so tenderly&mdash;and tried to give her every chance for good.  And yet I
+wasn’t allowed to keep her.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It was God’s will, Anne,” said Marilla, helpless before the riddle of
+the universe&mdash;the WHY of undeserved pain.  “And little Joy is better
+off.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I can’t believe THAT,” cried Anne bitterly.  Then, seeing that Marilla
+looked shocked, she added passionately, “Why should she be born at
+all&mdash;why should any one be born at all&mdash;if she’s better off dead?  I
+DON’T believe it is better for a child to die at birth than to live its
+life out&mdash;and love and be loved&mdash;and enjoy and suffer&mdash;and do its
+work&mdash;and develop a character that would give it a personality in
+eternity.  And how do you know it was God’s will?  Perhaps it was just
+a thwarting of His purpose by the Power of Evil.  We can’t be expected
+to be resigned to THAT.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, Anne, don’t talk so,” said Marilla, genuinely alarmed lest Anne
+were drifting into deep and dangerous waters.  “We can’t
+understand&mdash;but we must have faith&mdash;we MUST believe that all is for the
+best.  I know you find it hard to think so, just now.  But try to be
+brave&mdash;for Gilbert’s sake.  He’s so worried about you.  You aren’t
+getting strong as fast as you should.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I know I’ve been very selfish,” sighed Anne.  “I love Gilbert more
+than ever&mdash;and I want to live for his sake.  But it seems as if part of
+me was buried over there in that little harbor graveyard&mdash;and it hurts
+so much that I’m afraid of life.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It won’t hurt so much always, Anne.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The thought that it may stop hurting sometimes hurts me worse than all
+else, Marilla.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, I know, I’ve felt that too, about other things.  But we all love
+you, Anne.  Captain Jim has been up every day to ask for you&mdash;and Mrs.
+Moore haunts the place&mdash;and Miss Bryant spends most of her time, I
+think, cooking up nice things for you.  Susan doesn’t like it very
+well.  She thinks she can cook as well as Miss Bryant.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Dear Susan!  Oh, everybody has been so dear and good and lovely to me,
+Marilla.  I’m not ungrateful&mdash;and perhaps&mdash;when this horrible ache
+grows a little less&mdash;I’ll find that I can go on living.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap20"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 20
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+LOST MARGARET
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Anne found that she could go on living; the day came when she even
+smiled again over one of Miss Cornelia’s speeches.  But there was
+something in the smile that had never been in Anne’s smile before and
+would never be absent from it again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the first day she was able to go for a drive Gilbert took her down
+to Four Winds Point, and left her there while he rowed over the channel
+to see a patient at the fishing village.  A rollicking wind was
+scudding across the harbor and the dunes, whipping the water into
+white-caps and washing the sandshore with long lines of silvery
+breakers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m real proud to see you here again, Mistress Blythe,” said Captain
+Jim.  “Sit down&mdash;sit down.  I’m afeared it’s mighty dusty here
+today&mdash;but there’s no need of looking at dust when you can look at such
+scenery, is there?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t mind the dust,” said Anne, “but Gilbert says I must keep in
+the open air.  I think I’ll go and sit on the rocks down there.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Would you like company or would you rather be alone?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If by company you mean yours I’d much rather have it than be alone,”
+said Anne, smiling.  Then she sighed.  She had never before minded
+being alone.  Now she dreaded it.  When she was alone now she felt so
+dreadfully alone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Here’s a nice little spot where the wind can’t get at you,” said
+Captain Jim, when they reached the rocks.  “I often sit here.  It’s a
+great place jest to sit and dream.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh&mdash;dreams,” sighed Anne.  “I can’t dream now, Captain Jim&mdash;I’m done
+with dreams.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, no, you’re not, Mistress Blythe&mdash;oh, no, you’re not,” said Captain
+Jim meditatively.  “I know how you feel jest now&mdash;but if you keep on
+living you’ll get glad again, and the first thing you know you’ll be
+dreaming again&mdash;thank the good Lord for it!  If it wasn’t for our
+dreams they might as well bury us.  How’d we stand living if it wasn’t
+for our dream of immortality?  And that’s a dream that’s BOUND to come
+true, Mistress Blythe.  You’ll see your little Joyce again some day.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But she won’t be my baby,” said Anne, with trembling lips.  “Oh, she
+may be, as Longfellow says, 'a fair maiden clothed with celestial
+grace’&mdash;but she’ll be a stranger to me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“God will manage better’n THAT, I believe,” said Captain Jim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were both silent for a little time.  Then Captain Jim said very
+softly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Mistress Blythe, may I tell you about lost Margaret?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Of course,” said Anne gently.  She did not know who “lost Margaret”
+was, but she felt that she was going to hear the romance of Captain
+Jim’s life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve often wanted to tell you about her,” Captain Jim went on.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Do you know why, Mistress Blythe?  It’s because I want somebody to
+remember and think of her sometime after I’m gone.  I can’t bear that
+her name should be forgotten by all living souls.  And now nobody
+remembers lost Margaret but me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Captain Jim told the story&mdash;an old, old forgotten story, for it
+was over fifty years since Margaret had fallen asleep one day in her
+father’s dory and drifted&mdash;or so it was supposed, for nothing was ever
+certainly known as to her fate&mdash;out of the channel, beyond the bar, to
+perish in the black thundersquall which had come up so suddenly that
+long-ago summer afternoon.  But to Captain Jim those fifty years were
+but as yesterday when it is past.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I walked the shore for months after that,” he said sadly, “looking to
+find her dear, sweet little body; but the sea never give her back to
+me.  But I’ll find her sometime, Mistress Blythe&mdash;I’ll find her
+sometime.  She’s waiting for me.  I wish I could tell you jest how she
+looked, but I can’t.  I’ve seen a fine, silvery mist hanging over the
+bar at sunrise that seemed like her&mdash;and then again I’ve seen a white
+birch in the woods back yander that made me think of her.  She had
+pale, brown hair and a little white, sweet face, and long slender
+fingers like yours, Mistress Blythe, only browner, for she was a shore
+girl.  Sometimes I wake up in the night and hear the sea calling to me
+in the old way, and it seems as if lost Margaret called in it.  And
+when there’s a storm and the waves are sobbing and moaning I hear her
+lamenting among them.  And when they laugh on a gay day it’s HER
+laugh&mdash;lost Margaret’s sweet, roguish, little laugh.  The sea took her
+from me, but some day I’ll find her.  Mistress Blythe.  It can’t keep
+us apart forever.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I am glad you have told me about her,” said Anne.  “I have often
+wondered why you had lived all your life alone.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I couldn’t ever care for anyone else.  Lost Margaret took my heart
+with her&mdash;out there,” said the old lover, who had been faithful for
+fifty years to his drowned sweetheart.  “You won’t mind if I talk a
+good deal about her, will you, Mistress Blythe?  It’s a pleasure to
+me&mdash;for all the pain went out of her memory years ago and jest left its
+blessing.  I know you’ll never forget her, Mistress Blythe.  And if the
+years, as I hope, bring other little folks to your home, I want you to
+promise me that you’ll tell THEM the story of lost Margaret, so that
+her name won’t be forgotten among humankind.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap21"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 21
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+BARRIERS SWEPT AWAY
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+ “Anne,” said Leslie, breaking abruptly a short<BR>
+silence, “you don’t know how GOOD it is to be sitting here with you
+again&mdash;working&mdash;and talking&mdash;and being silent together.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were sitting among the blue-eyed grasses on the bank of the brook
+in Anne’s garden.  The water sparkled and crooned past them; the
+birches threw dappled shadows over them; roses bloomed along the walks.
+The sun was beginning to be low, and the air was full of woven music.
+There was one music of the wind in the firs behind the house, and
+another of the waves on the bar, and still another from the distant
+bell of the church near which the wee, white lady slept.  Anne loved
+that bell, though it brought sorrowful thoughts now.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She looked curiously at Leslie, who had thrown down her sewing and
+spoken with a lack of restraint that was very unusual with her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“On that horrible night when you were so ill,” Leslie went on, “I kept
+thinking that perhaps we’d have no more talks and walks and WORKS
+together.  And I realised just what your friendship had come to mean to
+me&mdash;just what YOU meant&mdash;and just what a hateful little beast I had
+been.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie!  Leslie!  I never allow anyone to call my friends names.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s true.  That’s exactly what I am&mdash;a hateful little beast. There’s
+something I’ve GOT to tell you, Anne.  I suppose it will make you
+despise me, but I MUST confess it.  Anne, there have been times this
+past winter and spring when I have HATED you.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I KNEW it,” said Anne calmly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You KNEW it?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, I saw it in your eyes.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And yet you went on liking me and being my friend.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, it was only now and then you hated me, Leslie.  Between times
+you loved me, I think.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I certainly did.  But that other horrid feeling was always there,
+spoiling it, back in my heart.  I kept it down&mdash;sometimes I forgot
+it&mdash;but sometimes it would surge up and take possession of me.  I hated
+you because I ENVIED you&mdash;oh, I was sick with envy of you at times.
+You had a dear little home&mdash;and love&mdash;and happiness&mdash;and glad
+dreams&mdash;everything I wanted&mdash;and never had&mdash;and never could have.  Oh,
+never could have!  THAT was what stung.  I wouldn’t have envied you, if
+I had had any HOPE that life would ever be different for me.  But I
+hadn’t&mdash;I hadn’t&mdash;and it didn’t seem FAIR.  It made me rebellious&mdash;and
+it hurt me&mdash;and so I hated you at times.  Oh, I was so ashamed of
+it&mdash;I’m dying of shame now&mdash;but I couldn’t conquer it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That night, when I was afraid you mightn’t live&mdash;I thought I was going
+to be punished for my wickedness&mdash;and I loved you so then.  Anne, Anne,
+I never had anything to love since my mother died, except Dick’s old
+dog&mdash;and it’s so dreadful to have nothing to love&mdash;life is so
+EMPTY&mdash;and there’s NOTHING worse than emptiness&mdash;and I might have loved
+you so much&mdash;and that horrible thing had spoiled it&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie was trembling and growing almost incoherent with the violence of
+her emotion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t, Leslie,” implored Anne, “oh, don’t.  I understand&mdash;don’t talk
+of it any more.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I must&mdash;I must.  When I knew you were going to live I vowed that I
+would tell you as soon as you were well&mdash;that I wouldn’t go on
+accepting your friendship and companionship without telling you how
+unworthy I was of it.  And I’ve been so afraid&mdash;it would turn you
+against me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You needn’t fear that, Leslie.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I’m so glad&mdash;so glad, Anne.”  Leslie clasped her brown,
+work-hardened hands tightly together to still their shaking.  “But I
+want to tell you everything, now I’ve begun.  You don’t remember the
+first time I saw you, I suppose&mdash;it wasn’t that night on the shore&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, it was the night Gilbert and I came home.  You were driving your
+geese down the hill.  I should think I DO remember it!  I thought you
+were so beautiful&mdash;I longed for weeks after to find out who you were.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I knew who YOU were, although I had never seen either of you before.
+I had heard of the new doctor and his bride who were coming to live in
+Miss Russell’s little house.  I&mdash;I hated you that very moment, Anne.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I felt the resentment in your eyes&mdash;then I doubted&mdash;I thought I must
+be mistaken&mdash;because WHY should it be?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It was because you looked so happy.  Oh, you’ll agree with me now that
+I AM a hateful beast&mdash;to hate another woman just because she was
+happy,&mdash;and when her happiness didn’t take anything from me!  That was
+why I never went to see you.  I knew quite well I ought to go&mdash;even our
+simple Four Winds customs demanded that.  But I couldn’t.  I used to
+watch you from my window&mdash;I could see you and your husband strolling
+about your garden in the evening&mdash;or you running down the poplar lane
+to meet him.  And it hurt me.  And yet in another way I wanted to go
+over.  I felt that, if I were not so miserable, I could have liked you
+and found in you what I’ve never had in my life&mdash;an intimate, REAL
+friend of my own age.  And then you remember that night at the shore?
+You were afraid I would think you crazy.  You must have thought <I>I</I>
+was.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, but I couldn’t understand you, Leslie.  One moment you drew me to
+you&mdash;the next you pushed me back.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I was very unhappy that evening.  I had had a hard day.  Dick had been
+very&mdash;very hard to manage that day.  Generally he is quite good-natured
+and easily controlled, you know, Anne.  But some days he is very
+different.  I was so heartsick&mdash;I ran away to the shore as soon as he
+went to sleep.  It was my only refuge.  I sat there thinking of how my
+poor father had ended his life, and wondering if I wouldn’t be driven
+to it some day.  Oh, my heart was full of black thoughts!  And then you
+came dancing along the cove like a glad, light-hearted child.  I&mdash;I
+hated you more then than I’ve ever done since.  And yet I craved your
+friendship.  The one feeling swayed me one moment; the other feeling
+the next.  When I got home that night I cried for shame of what you
+must think of me.  But it’s always been just the same when I came over
+here.  Sometimes I’d be happy and enjoy my visit.  And at other times
+that hideous feeling would mar it all.  There were times when
+everything about you and your house hurt me.  You had so many dear
+little things I couldn’t have.  Do you know&mdash;it’s ridiculous&mdash;but I had
+an especial spite at those china dogs of yours.  There were times when
+I wanted to catch up Gog and Magog and bang their pert black noses
+together!  Oh, you smile, Anne&mdash;but it was never funny to me.  I would
+come here and see you and Gilbert with your books and your flowers, and
+your household gods, and your little family jokes&mdash;and your love for
+each other showing in every look and word, even when you didn’t know
+it&mdash;and I would go home to&mdash;you know what I went home to!  Oh, Anne, I
+don’t believe I’m jealous and envious by nature.  When I was a girl I
+lacked many things my schoolmates had, but I never cared&mdash;I never
+disliked them for it.  But I seem to have grown so hateful&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie, dearest, stop blaming yourself.  You are NOT hateful or
+jealous or envious.  The life you have to live has warped you a little,
+perhaps-but it would have ruined a nature less fine and noble than
+yours.  I’m letting you tell me all this because I believe it’s better
+for you to talk it out and rid your soul of it.  But don’t blame
+yourself any more.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, I won’t.  I just wanted you to know me as I am.  That time you
+told me of your darling hope for the spring was the worst of all, Anne.
+I shall never forgive myself for the way I behaved then.  I repented it
+with tears.  And I DID put many a tender and loving thought of you into
+the little dress I made.  But I might have known that anything I made
+could only be a shroud in the end.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Now, Leslie, that IS bitter and morbid&mdash;put such thoughts away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I was so glad when you brought the little dress; and since I had to
+lose little Joyce I like to think that the dress she wore was the one
+you made for her when you let yourself love me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne, do you know, I believe I shall always love you after this.  I
+don’t think I’ll ever feel that dreadful way about you again.  Talking
+it all out seems to have done away with it, somehow.  It’s very
+strange&mdash;and I thought it so real and bitter.  It’s like opening the
+door of a dark room to show some hideous creature you’ve believed to be
+there&mdash;and when the light streams in your monster turns out to have
+been just a shadow, vanishing when the light comes.  It will never come
+between us again.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, we are real friends now, Leslie, and I am very glad.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I hope you won’t misunderstand me if I say something else.  Anne, I
+was grieved to the core of my heart when you lost your baby; and if I
+could have saved her for you by cutting off one of my hands I would
+have done it.  But your sorrow has brought us closer together.  Your
+perfect happiness isn’t a barrier any longer.  Oh, don’t misunderstand,
+dearest&mdash;I’m NOT glad that your happiness isn’t perfect any longer&mdash;I
+can say that sincerely; but since it isn’t, there isn’t such a gulf
+between us.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I DO understand that, too, Leslie.  Now, we’ll just shut up the past
+and forget what was unpleasant in it.  It’s all going to be different.
+We’re both of the race of Joseph now.  I think you’ve been
+wonderful&mdash;wonderful.  And, Leslie, I can’t help believing that life
+has something good and beautiful for you yet.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie shook her head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No,” she said dully.  “There isn’t any hope.  Dick will never be
+better&mdash;and even if his memory were to come back&mdash;oh, Anne, it would be
+worse, even worse, than it is now.  This is something you can’t
+understand, you happy bride.  Anne, did Miss Cornelia ever tell you how
+I came to marry Dick?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m glad&mdash;I wanted you to know&mdash;but I couldn’t bring myself to talk of
+it if you hadn’t known.  Anne, it seems to me that ever since I was
+twelve years old life has been bitter.  Before that I had a happy
+childhood.  We were very poor&mdash;but we didn’t mind.  Father was so
+splendid&mdash;so clever and loving and sympathetic.  We were chums as far
+back as I can remember.  And mother was so sweet.  She was very, very
+beautiful.  I look like her, but I am not so beautiful as she was.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Miss Cornelia says you are far more beautiful.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She is mistaken&mdash;or prejudiced.  I think my figure IS better&mdash;mother
+was slight and bent by hard work&mdash;but she had the face of an angel.  I
+used just to look up at her in worship.  We all worshipped her,&mdash;father
+and Kenneth and I.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne remembered that Miss Cornelia had given her a very different
+impression of Leslie’s mother.  But had not love the truer vision?
+Still, it WAS selfish of Rose West to make her daughter marry Dick
+Moore.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Kenneth was my brother,” went on Leslie.  “Oh, I can’t tell you how I
+loved him.  And he was cruelly killed.  Do you know how?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne, I saw his little face as the wheel went over him.  He fell on
+his back.  Anne&mdash;Anne&mdash;I can see it now.  I shall always see it.  Anne,
+all I ask of heaven is that that recollection shall be blotted out of
+my memory.  O my God!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie, don’t speak of it.  I know the story&mdash;don’t go into details
+that only harrow your soul up unavailingly.  It WILL be blotted out.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After a moment’s struggle, Leslie regained a measure of self-control.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Then father’s health got worse and he grew despondent&mdash;his mind became
+unbalanced&mdash;you’ve heard all that, too?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“After that I had just mother to live for.  But I was very ambitious.
+I meant to teach and earn my way through college.  I meant to climb to
+the very top&mdash;oh, I won’t talk of that either.  It’s no use.  You know
+what happened.  I couldn’t see my dear little heart-broken mother, who
+had been such a slave all her life, turned out of her home.  Of course,
+I could have earned enough for us to live on.  But mother COULDN’T
+leave her home.  She had come there as a bride&mdash;and she had loved
+father so&mdash;and all her memories were there.  Even yet, Anne, when I
+think that I made her last year happy I’m not sorry for what I did.  As
+for Dick&mdash;I didn’t hate him when I married him&mdash;I just felt for him the
+indifferent, friendly feeling I had for most of my schoolmates.  I knew
+he drank some&mdash;but I had never heard the story of the girl down at the
+fishing cove.  If I had, I COULDN’T have married him, even for mother’s
+sake.  Afterwards&mdash;I DID hate him&mdash;but mother never knew.  She
+died&mdash;and then I was alone.  I was only seventeen and I was alone.
+Dick had gone off in the Four Sisters.  I hoped he wouldn’t be home
+very much more.  The sea had always been in his blood.  I had no other
+hope.  Well, Captain Jim brought him home, as you know&mdash;and that’s all
+there is to say.  You know me now, Anne&mdash;the worst of me&mdash;the barriers
+are all down.  And you still want to be my friend?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne looked up through the birches, at the white paper-lantern of a
+half moon drifting downwards to the gulf of sunset.  Her face was very
+sweet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I am your friend and you are mine, for always,” she said.  “Such a
+friend as I never had before.  I have had many dear and beloved
+friends&mdash;but there is a something in you, Leslie, that I never found in
+anyone else.  You have more to offer me in that rich nature of yours,
+and I have more to give you than I had in my careless girlhood.  We are
+both women&mdash;and friends forever.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They clasped hands and smiled at each other through the tears that
+filled the gray eyes and the blue.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap22"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 22
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+MISS CORNELIA ARRANGES MATTERS
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert insisted that Susan should be kept on at the little house for
+the summer.  Anne protested at first.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Life here with just the two of us is so sweet, Gilbert.  It spoils it
+a little to have anyone else.  Susan is a dear soul, but she is an
+outsider.  It won’t hurt me to do the work here.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You must take your doctor’s advice,” said Gilbert.  “There’s an old
+proverb to the effect that shoemakers’ wives go barefoot and doctors’
+wives die young.  I don’t mean that it shall be true in my household.
+You will keep Susan until the old spring comes back into your step, and
+those little hollows on your cheeks fill out.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You just take it easy, Mrs. Doctor, dear,” said Susan, coming abruptly
+in.  “Have a good time and do not worry about the pantry.  Susan is at
+the helm.  There is no use in keeping a dog and doing your own barking.
+I am going to take your breakfast up to you every morning.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Indeed you are not,” laughed Anne.  “I agree with Miss Cornelia that
+it’s a scandal for a woman who isn’t sick to eat her breakfast in bed,
+and almost justifies the men in any enormities.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, Cornelia!” said Susan, with ineffable contempt.  “I think you have
+better sense, Mrs. Doctor, dear, than to heed what Cornelia Bryant
+says.  I cannot see why she must be always running down the men, even
+if she is an old maid.  <I>I</I> am an old maid, but you never hear ME
+abusing the men.  I like ’em.  I would have married one if I could.  Is
+it not funny nobody ever asked me to marry him, Mrs. Doctor, dear?  I
+am no beauty, but I am as good-looking as most of the married women you
+see.  But I never had a beau.  What do you suppose is the reason?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It may be predestination,” suggested Anne, with unearthly solemnity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Susan nodded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That is what I have often thought, Mrs. Doctor, dear, and a great
+comfort it is.  I do not mind nobody wanting me if the Almighty decreed
+it so for His own wise purposes.  But sometimes doubt creeps in, Mrs.
+Doctor, dear, and I wonder if maybe the Old Scratch has not more to do
+with it than anyone else.  I cannot feel resigned THEN.  But maybe,”
+added Susan, brightening up, “I will have a chance to get married yet.
+I often and often think of the old verse my aunt used to repeat:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+    There never was a goose so gray but sometime soon or late<BR>
+    Some honest gander came her way and took her for his mate!<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A woman cannot ever be sure of not being married till she is buried,
+Mrs. Doctor, dear, and meanwhile I will make a batch of cherry pies.  I
+notice the doctor favors ’em, and I DO like cooking for a man who
+appreciates his victuals.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia dropped in that afternoon, puffing a little.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t mind the world or the devil much, but the flesh DOES rather
+bother me,” she admitted.  “You always look as cool as a cucumber,
+Anne, dearie.  Do I smell cherry pie?  If I do, ask me to stay to tea.
+Haven’t tasted a cherry pie this summer.  My cherries have all been
+stolen by those scamps of Gilman boys from the Glen.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Now, now, Cornelia,” remonstrated Captain Jim, who had been reading a
+sea novel in a corner of the living room, “you shouldn’t say that about
+those two poor, motherless Gilman boys, unless you’ve got certain
+proof.  Jest because their father ain’t none too honest isn’t any
+reason for calling them thieves.  It’s more likely it’s been the robins
+took your cherries.  They’re turrible thick this year.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Robins!” said Miss Cornelia disdainfully.  “Humph!  Two-legged robins,
+believe ME!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, most of the Four Winds robins ARE constructed on that
+principle,” said Captain Jim gravely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia stared at him for a moment.  Then she leaned back in her
+rocker and laughed long and ungrudgingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, you HAVE got one on me at last, Jim Boyd, I’ll admit.  Just look
+how pleased he is, Anne, dearie, grinning like a Chessy-cat.  As for
+the robins’ legs if robins have great, big, bare, sunburned legs, with
+ragged trousers hanging on ’em, such as I saw up in my cherry tree one
+morning at sunrise last week, I’ll beg the Gilman boys’ pardon.  By the
+time I got down they were gone.  I couldn’t understand how they had
+disappeared so quick, but Captain Jim has enlightened me.  They flew
+away, of course.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim laughed and went away, regretfully declining an invitation
+to stay to supper and partake of cherry pie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m on my way to see Leslie and ask her if she’ll take a boarder,”
+Miss Cornelia resumed.  “I’d a letter yesterday from a Mrs. Daly in
+Toronto, who boarded a spell with me two years ago.  She wanted me to
+take a friend of hers for the summer.  His name is Owen Ford, and he’s
+a newspaper man, and it seems he’s a grandson of the schoolmaster who
+built this house.  John Selwyn’s oldest daughter married an Ontario man
+named Ford, and this is her son.  He wants to see the old place his
+grandparents lived in.  He had a bad spell of typhoid in the spring and
+hasn’t got rightly over it, so his doctor has ordered him to the sea.
+He doesn’t want to go to the hotel&mdash;he just wants a quiet home place.
+I can’t take him, for I have to be away in August.  I’ve been appointed
+a delegate to the W.F.M.S.  convention in Kingsport and I’m going.  I
+don’t know whether Leslie’ll want to be bothered with him, either, but
+there’s no one else.  If she can’t take him he’ll have to go over the
+harbor.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“When you’ve seen her come back and help us eat our cherry pies,” said
+Anne.  “Bring Leslie and Dick, too, if they can come.  And so you’re
+going to Kingsport?  What a nice time you will have.  I must give you a
+letter to a friend of mine there&mdash;Mrs. Jonas Blake.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve prevailed on Mrs. Thomas Holt to go with me,” said Miss Cornelia
+complacently.  “It’s time she had a little holiday, believe ME.  She
+has just about worked herself to death.  Tom Holt can crochet
+beautifully, but he can’t make a living for his family.  He never seems
+to be able to get up early enough to do any work, but I notice he can
+always get up early to go fishing.  Isn’t that like a man?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne smiled.  She had learned to discount largely Miss Cornelia’s
+opinions of the Four Winds men.  Otherwise she must have believed them
+the most hopeless assortment of reprobates and ne’er-do-wells in the
+world, with veritable slaves and martyrs for wives.  This particular
+Tom Holt, for example, she knew to be a kind husband, a much loved
+father, and an excellent neighbor.  If he were rather inclined to be
+lazy, liking better the fishing he had been born for than the farming
+he had not, and if he had a harmless eccentricity for doing fancy work,
+nobody save Miss Cornelia seemed to hold it against him.  His wife was
+a “hustler,” who gloried in hustling; his family got a comfortable
+living off the farm; and his strapping sons and daughters, inheriting
+their mother’s energy, were all in a fair way to do well in the world.
+There was not a happier household in Glen St. Mary than the Holts’.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia returned satisfied from the house up the brook.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie’s going to take him,” she announced.  “She jumped at the
+chance.  She wants to make a little money to shingle the roof of her
+house this fall, and she didn’t know how she was going to manage it.  I
+expect Captain Jim’ll be more than interested when he hears that a
+grandson of the Selwyns’ is coming here.  Leslie said to tell you she
+hankered after cherry pie, but she couldn’t come to tea because she has
+to go and hunt up her turkeys.  They’ve strayed away.  But she said, if
+there was a piece left, for you to put it in the pantry and she’d run
+over in the cat’s light, when prowling’s in order, to get it.  You
+don’t know, Anne, dearie, what good it did my heart to hear Leslie send
+you a message like that, laughing like she used to long ago.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There’s a great change come over her lately.  She laughs and jokes
+like a girl, and from her talk I gather she’s here real often.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Every day&mdash;or else I’m over there,” said Anne.  “I don’t know what I’d
+do without Leslie, especially just now when Gilbert is so busy.  He’s
+hardly ever home except for a few hours in the wee sma’s.  He’s really
+working himself to death.  So many of the over-harbor people send for
+him now.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“They might better be content with their own doctor,” said Miss
+Cornelia.  “Though to be sure I can’t blame them, for he’s a Methodist.
+Ever since Dr. Blythe brought Mrs. Allonby round folks think he can
+raise the dead.  I believe Dr. Dave is a mite jealous&mdash;just like a man.
+He thinks Dr. Blythe has too many new-fangled notions!  'Well,’ I says
+to him, 'it was a new-fangled notion saved Rhoda Allonby.  If YOU’D
+been attending her she’d have died, and had a tombstone saying it had
+pleased God to take her away.’  Oh, I DO like to speak my mind to Dr.
+Dave!  He’s bossed the Glen for years, and he thinks he’s forgotten
+more than other people ever knew.  Speaking of doctors, I wish Dr.
+Blythe’d run over and see to that boil on Dick Moore’s neck.  It’s
+getting past Leslie’s skill.  I’m sure I don’t know what Dick Moore
+wants to start in having boils for&mdash;as if he wasn’t enough trouble
+without that!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Do you know, Dick has taken quite a fancy to me,” said Anne.  “He
+follows me round like a dog, and smiles like a pleased child when I
+notice him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Does it make you creepy?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Not at all.  I rather like poor Dick Moore.  He seems so pitiful and
+appealing, somehow.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You wouldn’t think him very appealing if you’d see him on his
+cantankerous days, believe ME.  But I’m glad you don’t mind him&mdash;it’s
+all the nicer for Leslie.  She’ll have more to do when her boarder
+comes.  I hope he’ll be a decent creature.  You’ll probably like
+him&mdash;he’s a writer.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wonder why people so commonly suppose that if two individuals are
+both writers they must therefore be hugely congenial,” said Anne,
+rather scornfully.  “Nobody would expect two blacksmiths to be
+violently attracted toward each other merely because they were both
+blacksmiths.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nevertheless, she looked forward to the advent of Owen Ford with a
+pleasant sense of expectation.  If he were young and likeable he might
+prove a very pleasant addition to society in Four Winds.  The
+latch-string of the little house was always out for the race of Joseph.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap23"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 23
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+OWEN FORD COMES
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+One evening Miss Cornelia telephoned down to Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The writer man has just arrived here.  I’m going to drive him down to
+your place, and you can show him the way over to Leslie’s.  It’s
+shorter than driving round by the other road, and I’m in a mortal
+hurry.  The Reese baby has gone and fallen into a pail of hot water at
+the Glen, and got nearly scalded to death and they want me right
+off&mdash;to put a new skin on the child, I presume.  Mrs. Reese is always
+so careless, and then expects other people to mend her mistakes.  You
+won’t mind, will you, dearie?  His trunk can go down tomorrow.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Very well,” said Anne.  “What is he like, Miss Cornelia?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’ll see what he’s like outside when I take him down.  As for what
+he’s like inside only the Lord who made him knows THAT.  I’m not going
+to say another word, for every receiver in the Glen is down.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Miss Cornelia evidently can’t find much fault with Mr. Ford’s looks,
+or she would find it in spite of the receivers,” said Anne.  “I
+conclude therefore, Susan, that Mr. Ford is rather handsome than
+otherwise.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, Mrs. Doctor, dear, I DO enjoy seeing a well-looking man,” said
+Susan candidly.  “Had I not better get up a snack for him?  There is a
+strawberry pie that would melt in your mouth.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, Leslie is expecting him and has his supper ready.  Besides, I want
+that strawberry pie for my own poor man.  He won’t be home till late,
+so leave the pie and a glass of milk out for him, Susan.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That I will, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Susan is at the helm.  After all, it
+is better to give pie to your own men than to strangers, who may be
+only seeking to devour, and the doctor himself is as well-looking a man
+as you often come across.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Owen Ford came Anne secretly admitted, as Miss Cornelia towed him
+in, that he was very “well-looking” indeed.  He was tall and
+broad-shouldered, with thick, brown hair, finely-cut nose and chin,
+large and brilliant dark-gray eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And did you notice his ears and his teeth, Mrs. Doctor, dear?” queried
+Susan later on.  “He has got the nicest-shaped ears I ever saw on a
+man’s head.  I am choice about ears.  When I was young I was scared
+that I might have to marry a man with ears like flaps.  But I need not
+have worried, for never a chance did I have with any kind of ears.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne had not noticed Owen Ford’s ears, but she did see his teeth, as
+his lips parted over them in a frank and friendly smile.  Unsmiling,
+his face was rather sad and absent in expression, not unlike the
+melancholy, inscrutable hero of Anne’s own early dreams; but mirth and
+humor and charm lighted it up when he smiled.  Certainly, on the
+outside, as Miss Cornelia said, Owen Ford was a very presentable fellow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You cannot realise how delighted I am to be here, Mrs. Blythe,” he
+said, looking around him with eager, interested eyes.  “I have an odd
+feeling of coming home.  My mother was born and spent her childhood
+here, you know.  She used to talk a great deal to me of her old home.
+I know the geography of it as well as of the one I lived in, and, of
+course, she told me the story of the building of the house, and of my
+grandfather’s agonised watch for the Royal William.  I had thought that
+so old a house must have vanished years ago, or I should have come to
+see it before this.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Old houses don’t vanish easily on this enchanted coast,” smiled Anne.
+“This is a 'land where all things always seem the same’&mdash;nearly always,
+at least.  John Selwyn’s house hasn’t even been much changed, and
+outside the rose-bushes your grandfather planted for his bride are
+blooming this very minute.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How the thought links me with them!  With your leave I must explore
+the whole place soon.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Our latch-string will always be out for you,” promised Anne.  “And do
+you know that the old sea captain who keeps the Four Winds light knew
+John Selwyn and his bride well in his boyhood?  He told me their story
+the night I came here&mdash;the third bride of the old house.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Can it be possible?  This IS a discovery.  I must hunt him up.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It won’t be difficult; we are all cronies of Captain Jim.  He will be
+as eager to see you as you could be to see him.  Your grandmother
+shines like a star in his memory.  But I think Mrs. Moore is expecting
+you.  I’ll show you our 'cross-lots’ road.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne walked with him to the house up the brook, over a field that was
+as white as snow with daisies.  A boat-load of people were singing far
+across the harbor.  The sound drifted over the water like faint,
+unearthly music wind-blown across a starlit sea.  The big light flashed
+and beaconed.  Owen Ford looked around him with satisfaction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And so this is Four Winds,” he said.  “I wasn’t prepared to find it
+quite so beautiful, in spite of all mother’s praises.  What
+colors&mdash;what scenery&mdash;what charm!  I shall get as strong as a horse in
+no time.  And if inspiration comes from beauty, I should certainly be
+able to begin my great Canadian novel here.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You haven’t begun it yet?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Alack-a-day, no.  I’ve never been able to get the right central idea
+for it.  It lurks beyond me&mdash;it allures&mdash;and beckons&mdash;and recedes&mdash;I
+almost grasp it and it is gone.  Perhaps amid this peace and
+loveliness, I shall be able to capture it.  Miss Bryant tells me that
+you write.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I do little things for children.  I haven’t done much since I was
+married.  And&mdash;I have no designs on a great Canadian novel,” laughed
+Anne.  “That is quite beyond me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Owen Ford laughed too.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I dare say it is beyond me as well.  All the same I mean to have a try
+at it some day, if I can ever get time.  A newspaper man doesn’t have
+much chance for that sort of thing.  I’ve done a good deal of short
+story writing for the magazines, but I’ve never had the leisure that
+seems to be necessary for the writing of a book.  With three months of
+liberty I ought to make a start, though&mdash;if I could only get the
+necessary motif for it&mdash;the SOUL of the book.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An idea whisked through Anne’s brain with a suddenness that made her
+jump.  But she did not utter it, for they had reached the Moore house.
+As they entered the yard Leslie came out on the veranda from the side
+door, peering through the gloom for some sign of her expected guest.
+She stood just where the warm yellow light flooded her from the open
+door.  She wore a plain dress of cheap, cream-tinted cotton voile, with
+the usual girdle of crimson.  Leslie was never without her touch of
+crimson.  She had told Anne that she never felt satisfied without a
+gleam of red somewhere about her, if it were only a flower.  To Anne,
+it always seemed to symbolise Leslie’s glowing, pent-up personality,
+denied all expression save in that flaming glint.  Leslie’s dress was
+cut a little away at the neck and had short sleeves.  Her arms gleamed
+like ivory-tinted marble.  Every exquisite curve of her form was
+outlined in soft darkness against the light.  Her hair shone in it like
+flame.  Beyond her was a purple sky, flowering with stars over the
+harbor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne heard her companion give a gasp.  Even in the dusk she could see
+the amazement and admiration on his face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Who is that beautiful creature?” he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That is Mrs. Moore,” said Anne.  “She is very lovely, isn’t she?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I&mdash;I never saw anything like her,” he answered, rather dazedly.  “I
+wasn’t prepared&mdash;I didn’t expect&mdash;good heavens, one DOESN’T expect a
+goddess for a landlady! Why, if she were clothed in a gown of
+sea-purple, with a rope of amethysts in her hair, she would be a
+veritable sea-queen.  And she takes in boarders!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Even goddesses must live,” said Anne.  “And Leslie isn’t a goddess.
+She’s just a very beautiful woman, as human as the rest of us.  Did
+Miss Bryant tell you about Mr. Moore?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes,&mdash;he’s mentally deficient, or something of the sort, isn’t he?
+But she said nothing about Mrs. Moore, and I supposed she’d be the
+usual hustling country housewife who takes in boarders to earn an
+honest penny.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, that’s just what Leslie is doing,” said Anne crisply.  “And it
+isn’t altogether pleasant for her, either.  I hope you won’t mind Dick.
+If you do, please don’t let Leslie see it.  It would hurt her horribly.
+He’s just a big baby, and sometimes a rather annoying one.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I won’t mind him.  I don’t suppose I’ll be much in the house
+anyhow, except for meals.  But what a shame it all is!  Her life must
+be a hard one.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It is.  But she doesn’t like to be pitied.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie had gone back into the house and now met them at the front door.
+She greeted Owen Ford with cold civility, and told him in a
+business-like tone that his room and his supper were ready for him.
+Dick, with a pleased grin, shambled upstairs with the valise, and Owen
+Ford was installed as an inmate of the old house among the willows.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap24"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 24
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+THE LIFE-BOOK OF CAPTAIN JIM
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+“I have a little brown cocoon of an idea that may possibly expand into
+a magnificent moth of fulfilment,” Anne told Gilbert when she reached
+home.  He had returned earlier than she had expected, and was enjoying
+Susan’s cherry pie.  Susan herself hovered in the background, like a
+rather grim but beneficent guardian spirit, and found as much pleasure
+in watching Gilbert eat pie as he did in eating it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+ “What is your idea?” he asked.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I sha’n’t tell you just yet&mdash;not till I see if I can bring the thing
+about.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What sort of a chap is Ford?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, very nice, and quite good-looking.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Such beautiful ears, doctor, dear,” interjected Susan with a relish.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He is about thirty or thirty-five, I think, and he meditates writing a
+novel.  His voice is pleasant and his smile delightful, and he knows
+how to dress.  He looks as if life hadn’t been altogether easy for him,
+somehow.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Owen Ford came over the next evening with a note to Anne from Leslie;
+they spent the sunset time in the garden and then went for a moonlit
+sail on the harbor, in the little boat Gilbert had set up for summer
+outings.  They liked Owen immensely and had that feeling of having
+known him for many years which distinguishes the freemasonry of the
+house of Joseph.  “He is as nice as his ears, Mrs. Doctor, dear,” said
+Susan, when he had gone.  He had told Susan that he had never tasted
+anything like her strawberry shortcake and Susan’s susceptible heart
+was his forever.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He has got a way with him,”  she reflected, as she cleared up the
+relics of the supper.  “It is real queer he is not married, for a man
+like that could have anybody for the asking.  Well, maybe he is like
+me, and has not met the right one yet.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Susan really grew quite romantic in her musings as she washed the
+supper dishes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Two nights later Anne took Owen Ford down to Four Winds Point to
+introduce him to Captain Jim.  The clover fields along the harbor shore
+were whitening in the western wind, and Captain Jim had one of his
+finest sunsets on exhibition.  He himself had just returned from a trip
+over the harbor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I had to go over and tell Henry Pollack he was dying.  Everybody else
+was afraid to tell him.  They expected he’d take on turrible, for he’s
+been dreadful determined to live, and been making no end of plans for
+the fall.  His wife thought he oughter be told and that I’d be the best
+one to break it to him that he couldn’t get better.  Henry and me are
+old cronies&mdash;we sailed in the Gray Gull for years together.  Well, I
+went over and sat down by Henry’s bed and I says to him, says I, jest
+right out plain and simple, for if a thing’s got to be told it may as
+well be told first as last, says I, 'Mate, I reckon you’ve got your
+sailing orders this time,’ I was sorter quaking inside, for it’s an
+awful thing to have to tell a man who hain’t any idea he’s dying that
+he is.  But lo and behold, Mistress Blythe, Henry looks up at me, with
+those bright old black eyes of his in his wizened face and says, says
+he, 'Tell me something I don’t know, Jim Boyd, if you want to give me
+information.  I’ve known THAT for a week.’  I was too astonished to
+speak, and Henry, he chuckled.  'To see you coming in here,’ says he,
+'with your face as solemn as a tombstone and sitting down there with
+your hands clasped over your stomach, and passing me out a blue-mouldy
+old item of news like that!  It’d make a cat laugh, Jim Boyd,’ says he.
+'Who told you?’ says I, stupid like.  'Nobody,’ says he.  'A week ago
+Tuesday night I was lying here awake&mdash;and I jest knew.  I’d suspicioned
+it before, but then I KNEW.  I’ve been keeping up for the wife’s sake.
+And I’d LIKE to have got that barn built, for Eben’ll never get it
+right.  But anyhow, now that you’ve eased your mind, Jim, put on a
+smile and tell me something interesting,’ Well, there it was.  They’d
+been so scared to tell him and he knew it all the time.  Strange how
+nature looks out for us, ain’t it, and lets us know what we should know
+when the time comes?  Did I never tell you the yarn about Henry getting
+the fish hook in his nose, Mistress Blythe?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, him and me had a laugh over it today.  It happened nigh unto
+thirty years ago.  Him and me and several more was out mackerel fishing
+one day.  It was a great day&mdash;never saw such a school of mackerel in
+the gulf&mdash;and in the general excitement Henry got quite wild and
+contrived to stick a fish hook clean through one side of his nose.
+Well, there he was; there was barb on one end and a big piece of lead
+on the other, so it couldn’t be pulled out.  We wanted to take him
+ashore at once, but Henry was game; he said he’d be jiggered if he’d
+leave a school like that for anything short of lockjaw; then he kept
+fishing away, hauling in hand over fist and groaning between times.
+Fin’lly the school passed and we come in with a load; I got a file and
+begun to try to file through that hook.  I tried to be as easy as I
+could, but you should have heard Henry&mdash;no, you shouldn’t either.  It
+was well no ladies were around.  Henry wasn’t a swearing man, but he’d
+heard some few matters of that sort along shore in his time, and he
+fished ’em all out of his recollection and hurled ’em at me.  Fin’lly
+he declared he couldn’t stand it and I had no bowels of compassion.  So
+we hitched up and I drove him to a doctor in Charlottetown, thirty-five
+miles&mdash;there weren’t none nearer in them days&mdash;with that blessed hook
+still hanging from his nose.  When we got there old Dr. Crabb jest took
+a file and filed that hook jest the same as I’d tried to do, only he
+weren’t a mite particular about doing it easy!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim’s visit to his old friend had revived many recollections
+and he was now in the full tide of reminiscences.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Henry was asking me today if I remembered the time old Father Chiniquy
+blessed Alexander MacAllister’s boat.  Another odd yarn&mdash;and true as
+gospel.  I was in the boat myself.  We went out, him and me, in
+Alexander MacAllister’s boat one morning at sunrise.  Besides, there
+was a French boy in the boat&mdash;Catholic of course.  You know old Father
+Chiniquy had turned Protestant, so the Catholics hadn’t much use for
+him.  Well, we sat out in the gulf in the broiling sun till noon, and
+not a bite did we get.  When we went ashore old Father Chiniquy had to
+go, so he said in that polite way of his, 'I’m very sorry I cannot go
+out with you dis afternoon, Mr. MacAllister, but I leave you my
+blessing.  You will catch a t’ousand dis afternoon.  'Well, we did not
+catch a thousand, but we caught exactly nine hundred and
+ninety-nine&mdash;the biggest catch for a small boat on the whole north
+shore that summer.  Curious, wasn’t it?  Alexander MacAllister, he says
+to Andrew Peters, 'Well, and what do you think of Father Chiniquy now?’
+'Vell,’ growled Andrew, 'I t’ink de old devil has got a blessing left
+yet.’  Laws, how Henry did laugh over that today!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Do you know who Mr. Ford is, Captain Jim?” asked Anne, seeing that
+Captain Jim’s fountain of reminiscence had run out for the present.  “I
+want you to guess.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I never was any hand at guessing, Mistress Blythe, and yet somehow
+when I come in I thought, 'Where have I seen them eyes before?’&mdash;for I
+HAVE seen ’em.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Think of a September morning many years ago,” said Anne, softly.
+“Think of a ship sailing up the harbor&mdash;a ship long waited for and
+despaired of.  Think of the day the Royal William came in and the first
+look you had at the schoolmaster’s bride.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim sprang up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“They’re Persis Selwyn’s eyes,” he almost shouted.  “You can’t be her
+son&mdash;you must be her&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Grandson; yes, I am Alice Selwyn’s son.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim swooped down on Owen Ford and shook his hand over again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Alice Selwyn’s son!  Lord, but you’re welcome!  Many’s the time I’ve
+wondered where the descendants of the schoolmaster were living.  I knew
+there was none on the Island.  Alice&mdash;Alice&mdash;the first baby ever born
+in that little house.  No baby ever brought more joy!  I’ve dandled her
+a hundred times.  It was from my knee she took her first steps alone.
+Can’t I see her mother’s face watching her&mdash;and it was near sixty years
+ago.  Is she living yet?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, she died when I was only a boy.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, it doesn’t seem right that I should be living to hear that,”
+sighed Captain Jim.  “But I’m heart-glad to see you.  It’s brought back
+my youth for a little while.  You don’t know yet what a boon THAT is.
+Mistress Blythe here has the trick&mdash;she does it quite often for me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim was still more excited when he discovered that Owen Ford
+was what he called a “real writing man.”  He gazed at him as at a
+superior being.  Captain Jim knew that Anne wrote, but he had never
+taken that fact very seriously.  Captain Jim thought women were
+delightful creatures, who ought to have the vote, and everything else
+they wanted, bless their hearts; but he did not believe they could
+write.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Jest look at A Mad Love,” he would protest.  “A woman wrote that and
+jest look at it&mdash;one hundred and three chapters when it could all have
+been told in ten.  A writing woman never knows when to stop; that’s the
+trouble.  The p’int of good writing is to know when to stop.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Mr. Ford wants to hear some of your stories, Captain Jim” said Anne.
+“Tell him the one about the captain who went crazy and imagined he was
+the Flying Dutchman.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This was Captain Jim’s best story.  It was a compound of horror and
+humor, and though Anne had heard it several times she laughed as
+heartily and shivered as fearsomely over it as Mr. Ford did.  Other
+tales followed, for Captain Jim had an audience after his own heart.
+He told how his vessel had been run down by a steamer; how he had been
+boarded by Malay pirates; how his ship had caught fire; how he helped a
+political prisoner escape from a South African republic; how he had
+been wrecked one fall on the Magdalens and stranded there for the
+winter; how a tiger had broken loose on board ship; how his crew had
+mutinied and marooned him on a barren island&mdash;these and many other
+tales, tragic or humorous or grotesque, did Captain Jim relate.  The
+mystery of the sea, the fascination of far lands, the lure of
+adventure, the laughter of the world&mdash;his hearers felt and realised
+them all.  Owen Ford listened, with his head on his hand, and the First
+Mate purring on his knee, his brilliant eyes fastened on Captain Jim’s
+rugged, eloquent face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Won’t you let Mr. Ford see your life-book, Captain Jim?” asked Anne,
+when Captain Jim finally declared that yarn-spinning must end for the
+time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, he don’t want to be bothered with THAT,” protested Captain Jim,
+who was secretly dying to show it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I should like nothing better than to see it, Captain Boyd,” said Owen.
+“If it is half as wonderful as your tales it will be worth seeing.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With pretended reluctance Captain Jim dug his life-book out of his old
+chest and handed it to Owen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I reckon you won’t care to wrastle long with my old hand o’ write.  I
+never had much schooling,” he observed carelessly.  “Just wrote that
+there to amuse my nephew Joe.  He’s always wanting stories.  Comes here
+yesterday and says to me, reproachful-like, as I was lifting a
+twenty-pound codfish out of my boat, 'Uncle Jim, ain’t a codfish a dumb
+animal?’  I’d been a-telling him, you see, that he must be real kind to
+dumb animals, and never hurt ’em in any way.  I got out of the scrape
+by saying a codfish was dumb enough but it wasn’t an animal, but Joe
+didn’t look satisfied, and I wasn’t satisfied myself.  You’ve got to be
+mighty careful what you tell them little critters.  THEY can see
+through you.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While talking, Captain Jim watched Owen Ford from the corner of his eye
+as the latter examined the life-book; and presently observing that his
+guest was lost in its pages, he turned smilingly to his cupboard and
+proceeded to make a pot of tea.  Owen Ford separated himself from the
+life-book, with as much reluctance as a miser wrenches himself from his
+gold, long enough to drink his tea, and then returned to it hungrily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, you can take that thing home with you if you want to,” said
+Captain Jim, as if the “thing” were not his most treasured possession.
+“I must go down and pull my boat up a bit on the skids.  There’s a wind
+coming.  Did you notice the sky tonight?
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+    Mackerel skies and mares’ tails<BR>
+    Make tall ships carry short sails.”<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Owen Ford accepted the offer of the life-book gladly.  On their way
+home Anne told him the story of lost Margaret.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That old captain is a wonderful old fellow,” he said.  “What a life he
+has led!  Why, the man had more adventures in one week of his life than
+most of us have in a lifetime.  Do you really think his tales are all
+true?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I certainly do.  I am sure Captain Jim could not tell a lie; and
+besides, all the people about here say that everything happened as he
+relates it.  There used to be plenty of his old shipmates alive to
+corroborate him.  He’s one of the last of the old type of P.E. Island
+sea-captains.  They are almost extinct now.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap25"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 25
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+THE WRITING OF THE BOOK
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Owen Ford came over to the little house the next morning in a state of
+great excitement.  “Mrs. Blythe, this is a wonderful book&mdash;absolutely
+wonderful.  If I could take it and use the material for a book I feel
+certain I could make the novel of the year out of it.  Do you suppose
+Captain Jim would let me do it?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Let you!  I’m sure he would be delighted,” cried Anne.  “I admit that
+it was what was in my head when I took you down last night.  Captain
+Jim has always been wishing he could get somebody to write his
+life-book properly for him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Will you go down to the Point with me this evening, Mrs. Blythe?  I’ll
+ask him about that life-book myself, but I want you to tell him that
+you told me the story of lost Margaret and ask him if he will let me
+use it as a thread of romance with which to weave the stories of the
+life-book into a harmonious whole.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim was more excited than ever when Owen Ford told him of his
+plan.  At last his cherished dream was to be realized and his
+“life-book” given to the world.  He was also pleased that the story of
+lost Margaret should be woven into it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It will keep her name from being forgotten,” he said wistfully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That’s why I want it put in.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We’ll collaborate,” cried Owen delightedly.  “You will give the soul
+and I the body.  Oh, we’ll write a famous book between us, Captain Jim.
+And we’ll get right to work.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And to think my book is to be writ by the schoolmaster’s grandson!”
+exclaimed Captain Jim.  “Lad, your grandfather was my dearest friend.
+I thought there was nobody like him.  I see now why I had to wait so
+long.  It couldn’t be writ till the right man come.  You BELONG
+here&mdash;you’ve got the soul of this old north shore in you&mdash;you’re the
+only one who COULD write it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was arranged that the tiny room off the living room at the
+lighthouse should be given over to Owen for a workshop.  It was
+necessary that Captain Jim should be near him as he wrote, for
+consultation upon many matters of sea-faring and gulf lore of which
+Owen was quite ignorant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He began work on the book the very next morning, and flung himself into
+it heart and soul.  As for Captain Jim, he was a happy man that summer.
+He looked upon the little room where Owen worked as a sacred shrine.
+Owen talked everything over with Captain Jim, but he would not let him
+see the manuscript.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You must wait until it is published,” he said.  “Then you’ll get it
+all at once in its best shape.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He delved into the treasures of the life-book and used them freely.  He
+dreamed and brooded over lost Margaret until she became a vivid reality
+to him and lived in his pages.  As the book progressed it took
+possession of him and he worked at it with feverish eagerness.  He let
+Anne and Leslie read the manuscript and criticise it; and the
+concluding chapter of the book, which the critics, later on, were
+pleased to call idyllic, was modelled upon a suggestion of Leslie’s.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne fairly hugged herself with delight over the success of her idea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I knew when I looked at Owen Ford that he was the very man for it,”
+she told Gilbert.  “Both humor and passion were in his face, and that,
+together with the art of expression, was just what was necessary for
+the writing of such a book.  As Mrs. Rachel would say, he was
+predestined for the part.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Owen Ford wrote in the mornings.  The afternoons were generally spent
+in some merry outing with the Blythes.  Leslie often went, too, for
+Captain Jim took charge of Dick frequently, in order to set her free.
+They went boating on the harbor and up the three pretty rivers that
+flowed into it; they had clambakes on the bar and mussel-bakes on the
+rocks; they picked strawberries on the sand-dunes; they went out
+cod-fishing with Captain Jim; they shot plover in the shore fields and
+wild ducks in the cove&mdash;at least, the men did.  In the evenings they
+rambled in the low-lying, daisied, shore fields under a golden moon, or
+they sat in the living room at the little house where often the
+coolness of the sea breeze justified a driftwood fire, and talked of
+the thousand and one things which happy, eager, clever young people can
+find to talk about.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Ever since the day on which she had made her confession to Anne Leslie
+had been a changed creature.  There was no trace of her old coldness
+and reserve, no shadow of her old bitterness.  The girlhood of which
+she had been cheated seemed to come back to her with the ripeness of
+womanhood; she expanded like a flower of flame and perfume; no laugh
+was readier than hers, no wit quicker, in the twilight circles of that
+enchanted summer.  When she could not be with them all felt that some
+exquisite savor was lacking in their intercourse.  Her beauty was
+illumined by the awakened soul within, as some rosy lamp might shine
+through a flawless vase of alabaster.  There were hours when Anne’s
+eyes seemed to ache with the splendor of her.  As for Owen Ford, the
+“Margaret” of his book, although she had the soft brown hair and elfin
+face of the real girl who had vanished so long ago, “pillowed where
+lost Atlantis sleeps,” had the personality of Leslie Moore, as it was
+revealed to him in those halcyon days at Four Winds Harbor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer&mdash;one of those summers
+which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful
+memories in their going&mdash;one of those summers which, in a fortunate
+combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful
+doings, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Too good to last,” Anne told herself with a little sigh, on the
+September day when a certain nip in the wind and a certain shade of
+intense blue on the gulf water said that autumn was hard by.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That evening Owen Ford told them that he had finished his book and that
+his vacation must come to an end.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I have a good deal to do to it yet&mdash;revising and pruning and so
+forth,” he said, “but in the main it’s done.  I wrote the last sentence
+this morning.  If I can find a publisher for it it will probably be out
+next summer or fall.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Owen had not much doubt that he would find a publisher.  He knew that
+he had written a great book&mdash;a book that would score a wonderful
+success&mdash;a book that would LIVE.  He knew that it would bring him both
+fame and fortune; but when he had written the last line of it he had
+bowed his head on the manuscript and so sat for a long time.  And his
+thoughts were not of the good work he had done.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap26"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 26
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+OWEN FORD’S CONFESSION
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+“I’m so sorry Gilbert is away,” said Anne.  “He had to go&mdash;Allan Lyons
+at the Glen has met with a serious accident.  He will not likely be
+home till very late.  But he told me to tell you he’d be up and over
+early enough in the morning to see you before you left.  It’s too
+provoking.  Susan and I had planned such a nice little jamboree for
+your last night here.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was sitting beside the garden brook on the little rustic seat
+Gilbert had built.  Owen Ford stood before her, leaning against the
+bronze column of a yellow birch.  He was very pale and his face bore
+the marks of the preceding sleepless night.  Anne, glancing up at him,
+wondered if, after all, his summer had brought him the strength it
+should.  Had he worked too hard over his book?  She remembered that for
+a week he had not been looking well.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m rather glad the doctor is away,” said Owen slowly.  “I wanted to
+see you alone, Mrs. Blythe.  There is something I must tell somebody,
+or I think it will drive me mad.  I’ve been trying for a week to look
+it in the face&mdash;and I can’t.  I know I can trust you&mdash;and, besides, you
+will understand.  A woman with eyes like yours always understands.  You
+are one of the folks people instinctively tell things to.  Mrs. Blythe,
+I love Leslie.  LOVE her!  That seems too weak a word!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His voice suddenly broke with the suppressed passion of his utterance.
+He turned his head away and hid his face on his arm.  His whole form
+shook.  Anne sat looking at him, pale and aghast.  She had never
+thought of this!  And yet&mdash;how was it she had never thought of it?  It
+now seemed a natural and inevitable thing.  She wondered at her own
+blindness.  But&mdash;but&mdash;things like this did not happen in Four Winds.
+Elsewhere in the world human passions might set at defiance human
+conventions and laws&mdash;but not HERE, surely.  Leslie had kept summer
+boarders off and on for ten years, and nothing like this had happened.
+But perhaps they had not been like Owen Ford; and the vivid, LIVING
+Leslie of this summer was not the cold, sullen girl of other years.
+Oh, SOMEBODY should have thought of this!  Why hadn’t Miss Cornelia
+thought of it?  Miss Cornelia was always ready enough to sound the
+alarm where men were concerned. Anne felt an unreasonable resentment
+against Miss Cornelia.  Then she gave a little inward groan.  No matter
+who was to blame the mischief was done.  And Leslie&mdash;what of Leslie?
+It was for Leslie Anne felt most concerned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Does Leslie know this, Mr. Ford?” she asked quietly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No&mdash;no,&mdash;unless she has guessed it.  You surely don’t think I’d be cad
+and scoundrel enough to tell her, Mrs. Blythe.  I couldn’t help loving
+her&mdash;that’s all&mdash;and my misery is greater than I can bear.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Does SHE care?” asked Anne.  The moment the question crossed her lips
+she felt that she should not have asked it.  Owen Ford answered it with
+overeager protest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No&mdash;no, of course not.  But I could make her care if she were free&mdash;I
+know I could.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She does care&mdash;and he knows it,” thought Anne.  Aloud she said,
+sympathetically but decidedly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But she is not free, Mr. Ford.  And the only thing you can do is to go
+away in silence and leave her to her own life.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I know&mdash;I know,” groaned Owen.  He sat down on the grassy bank and
+stared moodily into the amber water beneath him.  “I know there’s
+nothing to do&mdash;nothing but to say conventionally, 'Good-bye, Mrs.
+Moore.  Thank you for all your kindness to me this summer,’ just as I
+would have said it to the sonsy, bustling, keen-eyed housewife I
+expected her to be when I came.  Then I’ll pay my board money like any
+honest boarder and go!  Oh, it’s very simple.  No doubt&mdash;no
+perplexity&mdash;a straight road to the end of the world!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And I’ll walk it&mdash;you needn’t fear that I won’t, Mrs. Blythe.  But it
+would be easier to walk over red-hot ploughshares.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne flinched with the pain of his voice.  And there was so little she
+could say that would be adequate to the situation.  Blame was out of
+the question&mdash;advice was not needed&mdash;sympathy was mocked by the man’s
+stark agony.  She could only feel with him in a maze of compassion and
+regret.  Her heart ached for Leslie!  Had not that poor girl suffered
+enough without this?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It wouldn’t be so hard to go and leave her if she were only happy,”
+resumed Owen passionately.  “But to think of her living death&mdash;to
+realise what it is to which I do leave her!  THAT is the worst of all.
+I would give my life to make her happy&mdash;and I can do nothing even to
+help her&mdash;nothing.  She is bound forever to that poor wretch&mdash;with
+nothing to look forward to but growing old in a succession of empty,
+meaningless, barren years.  It drives me mad to think of it.  But I
+must go through my life, never seeing her, but always knowing what she
+is enduring.  It’s hideous&mdash;hideous!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It is very hard,” said Anne sorrowfully.  “We&mdash;her friends here&mdash;all
+know how hard it is for her.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And she is so richly fitted for life,” said Owen rebelliously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Her beauty is the least of her dower&mdash;and she is the most beautiful
+woman I’ve ever known.  That laugh of hers!  I’ve angled all summer to
+evoke that laugh, just for the delight of hearing it.  And her
+eyes&mdash;they are as deep and blue as the gulf out there.  I never saw
+such blueness&mdash;and gold!  Did you ever see her hair down, Mrs. Blythe?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I did&mdash;once.  I had gone down to the Point to go fishing with Captain
+Jim but it was too rough to go out, so I came back.  She had taken the
+opportunity of what she expected to be an afternoon alone to wash her
+hair, and she was standing on the veranda in the sunshine to dry it.
+It fell all about her to her feet in a fountain of living gold.  When
+she saw me she hurried in, and the wind caught her hair and swirled it
+all around her&mdash;Danae in her cloud.  Somehow, just then the knowledge
+that I loved her came home to me&mdash;and realised that I had loved her
+from the moment I first saw her standing against the darkness in that
+glow of light.  And she must live on here&mdash;petting and soothing Dick,
+pinching and saving for a mere existence, while I spend my life longing
+vainly for her, and debarred, by that very fact, from even giving her
+the little help a friend might.  I walked the shore last night, almost
+till dawn, and thrashed it all out over and over again.  And yet, in
+spite of everything, I can’t find it in my heart to be sorry that I
+came to Four Winds.  It seems to me that, bad as everything is, it
+would be still worse never to have known Leslie.  It’s burning, searing
+pain to love her and leave her&mdash;but not to have loved her is
+unthinkable.  I suppose all this sounds very crazy&mdash;all these terrible
+emotions always do sound foolish when we put them into our inadequate
+words.  They are not meant to be spoken&mdash;only felt and endured.  I
+shouldn’t have spoken&mdash;but it has helped&mdash;some.  At least, it has given
+me strength to go away respectably tomorrow morning, without making a
+scene.  You’ll write me now and then, won’t you, Mrs. Blythe, and give
+me what news there is to give of her?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes,” said Anne.  “Oh, I’m so sorry you are going&mdash;we’ll miss you
+so&mdash;we’ve all been such friends!  If it were not for this you could
+come back other summers.  Perhaps, even yet&mdash;by-and-by&mdash;when you’ve
+forgotten, perhaps&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I shall never forget&mdash;and I shall never come back to Four Winds,” said
+Owen briefly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Silence and twilight fell over the garden.  Far away the sea was
+lapping gently and monotonously on the bar.  The wind of evening in the
+poplars sounded like some sad, weird, old rune&mdash;some broken dream of
+old memories.  A slender shapely young aspen rose up before them
+against the fine maize and emerald and paling rose of the western sky,
+which brought out every leaf and twig in dark, tremulous, elfin
+loveliness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Isn’t that beautiful?” said Owen, pointing to it with the air of a man
+who puts a certain conversation behind him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s so beautiful that it hurts me,” said Anne softly.  “Perfect
+things like that always did hurt me&mdash;I remember I called it 'the queer
+ache’ when I was a child.  What is the reason that pain like this seems
+inseparable from perfection?  Is it the pain of finality&mdash;when we
+realise that there can be nothing beyond but retrogression?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Perhaps,” said Owen dreamily, “it is the prisoned infinite in us
+calling out to its kindred infinite as expressed in that visible
+perfection.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You seem to have a cold in the head.  Better rub some tallow on your
+nose when you go to bed,” said Miss Cornelia, who had come in through
+the little gate between the firs in time to catch Owen’s last remark.
+Miss Cornelia liked Owen; but it was a matter of principle with her to
+visit any “high-falutin” language from a man with a snub.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia personated the comedy that ever peeps around the corner
+at the tragedy of life.  Anne, whose nerves had been rather strained,
+laughed hysterically, and even Owen smiled.  Certainly, sentiment and
+passion had a way of shrinking out of sight in Miss Cornelia’s
+presence.  And yet to Anne nothing seemed quite as hopeless and dark
+and painful as it had seemed a few moments before.  But sleep was far
+from her eyes that night.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap27"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 27
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+ON THE SAND BAR
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Owen Ford left Four Winds the next morning.  In the evening Anne went
+over to see Leslie, but found nobody.  The house was locked and there
+was no light in any window.  It looked like a home left soulless.
+Leslie did not run over on the following day&mdash;which Anne thought a bad
+sign.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert having occasion to go in the evening to the fishing cove, Anne
+drove with him to the Point, intending to stay awhile with Captain Jim.
+But the great light, cutting its swathes through the fog of the autumn
+evening, was in care of Alec Boyd and Captain Jim was away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What will you do?” asked Gilbert.  “Come with me?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t want to go to the cove&mdash;but I’ll go over the channel with you,
+and roam about on the sand shore till you come back.  The rock shore is
+too slippery and grim tonight.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Alone on the sands of the bar Anne gave herself up to the eerie charm
+of the night.  It was warm for September, and the late afternoon had
+been very foggy; but a full moon had in part lessened the fog and
+transformed the harbor and the gulf and the surrounding shores into a
+strange, fantastic, unreal world of pale silver mist, through which
+everything loomed phantom-like.  Captain Josiah Crawford’s black
+schooner sailing down the channel, laden with potatoes for Bluenose
+ports, was a spectral ship bound for a far uncharted land, ever
+receding, never to be reached.  The calls of unseen gulls overhead were
+the cries of the souls of doomed seamen.  The little curls of foam that
+blew across the sand were elfin things stealing up from the sea-caves.
+The big, round-shouldered sand-dunes were the sleeping giants of some
+old northern tale.  The lights that glimmered palely across the harbor
+were the delusive beacons on some coast of fairyland.  Anne pleased
+herself with a hundred fancies as she wandered through the mist.  It
+was delightful&mdash;romantic&mdash;mysterious to be roaming here alone on this
+enchanted shore.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But was she alone?  Something loomed in the mist before her&mdash;took shape
+and form&mdash;suddenly moved towards her across the wave-rippled sand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie!” exclaimed Anne in amazement.  “Whatever are you
+doing&mdash;HERE&mdash;tonight?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If it comes to that, whatever are YOU doing here?” said Leslie, trying
+to laugh.  The effort was a failure.  She looked very pale and tired;
+but the love locks under her scarlet cap were curling about her face
+and eyes like little sparkling rings of gold.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m waiting for Gilbert&mdash;he’s over at the Cove.  I intended to stay at
+the light, but Captain Jim is away.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, <I>I</I> came here because I wanted to walk&mdash;and walk&mdash;and WALK,”
+said Leslie restlessly.  “I couldn’t on the rock shore&mdash;the tide was
+too high and the rocks prisoned me.  I had to come here&mdash;or I should
+have gone mad, I think.  I rowed myself over the channel in Captain
+Jim’s flat.  I’ve been here for an hour.  Come&mdash;come&mdash;let us walk.  I
+can’t stand still.  Oh, Anne!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie, dearest, what is the trouble?” asked Anne, though she knew too
+well already.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I can’t tell you&mdash;don’t ask me.  I wouldn’t mind your knowing&mdash;I wish
+you did know&mdash;but I can’t tell you&mdash;I can’t tell anyone.  I’ve been
+such a fool, Anne&mdash;and oh, it hurts so terribly to be a fool.  There’s
+nothing so painful in the world.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She laughed bitterly.  Anne slipped her arm around her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie, is it that you have learned to care for Mr. Ford?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie turned herself about passionately.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How did you know?” she cried.  “Anne, how did you know?  Oh, is it
+written in my face for everyone to see?  Is it as plain as that?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, no.  I&mdash;I can’t tell you how I knew.  It just came into my mind,
+somehow.  Leslie, don’t look at me like that!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Do you despise me?” demanded Leslie in a fierce, low tone.  “Do you
+think I’m wicked&mdash;unwomanly?  Or do you think I’m just plain fool?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t think you any of those things.  Come, dear, let’s just talk it
+over sensibly, as we might talk over any other of the great crises of
+life.  You’ve been brooding over it and let yourself drift into a
+morbid view of it.  You know you have a little tendency to do that
+about everything that goes wrong, and you promised me that you would
+fight against it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But&mdash;oh, it’s so&mdash;so shameful,” murmured Leslie.  “To love
+him&mdash;unsought&mdash;and when I’m not free to love anybody.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There’s nothing shameful about it.  But I’m very sorry that you have
+learned to care for Owen, because, as things are, it will only make you
+more unhappy.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I didn’t LEARN to care,” said Leslie, walking on and speaking
+passionately.  “If it had been like that I could have prevented it.  I
+never dreamed of such a thing until that day, a week ago, when he told
+me he had finished his book and must soon go away.  Then&mdash;then I knew.
+I felt as if someone had struck me a terrible blow.  I didn’t say
+anything&mdash;I couldn’t speak&mdash;but I don’t know what I looked like.  I’m
+so afraid my face betrayed me.  Oh, I would die of shame if I thought
+he knew&mdash;or suspected.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne was miserably silent, hampered by her deductions from her
+conversation with Owen.  Leslie went on feverishly, as if she found
+relief in speech.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I was so happy all this summer, Anne&mdash;happier than I ever was in my
+life.  I thought it was because everything had been made clear between
+you and me, and that it was our friendship which made life seem so
+beautiful and full once more.  And it WAS, in part&mdash;but not all&mdash;oh,
+not nearly all.  I know now why everything was so different.  And now
+it’s all over&mdash;and he has gone.  How can I live, Anne?  When I turned
+back into the house this morning after he had gone the solitude struck
+me like a blow in the face.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It won’t seem so hard by and by, dear,” said Anne, who always felt the
+pain of her friends so keenly that she could not speak easy, fluent
+words of comforting.  Besides, she remembered how well-meant speeches
+had hurt her in her own sorrow and was afraid.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, it seems to me it will grow harder all the time,” said Leslie
+miserably.  “I’ve nothing to look forward to.  Morning will come after
+morning&mdash;and he will not come back&mdash;he will never come back.  Oh, when
+I think that I will never see him again I feel as if a great brutal
+hand had twisted itself among my heartstrings, and was wrenching them.
+Once, long ago, I dreamed of love&mdash;and I thought it must be
+beautiful&mdash;and NOW&mdash;its like THIS.  When he went away yesterday morning
+he was so cold and indifferent.  He said 'Good-bye, Mrs. Moore’ in the
+coldest tone in the world&mdash;as if we had not even been friends&mdash;as if I
+meant absolutely nothing to him.  I know I don’t&mdash;I didn’t want him to
+care&mdash;but he MIGHT have been a little kinder.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I wish Gilbert would come,” thought Anne.  She was racked between
+her sympathy for Leslie and the necessity of avoiding anything that
+would betray Owen’s confidence.  She knew why his good-bye had been so
+cold&mdash;why it could not have the cordiality that their good-comradeship
+demanded&mdash;but she could not tell Leslie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I couldn’t help it, Anne&mdash;I couldn’t help it,” said poor Leslie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I know that.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Do you blame me so very much?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t blame you at all.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And you won’t&mdash;you won’t tell Gilbert?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie!  Do you think I would do such a thing?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I don’t know&mdash;you and Gilbert are such CHUMS.  I don’t see how you
+could help telling him everything.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Everything about my own concerns&mdash;yes.  But not my friends’ secrets.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I couldn’t have HIM know.  But I’m glad YOU know.  I would feel guilty
+if there were anything I was ashamed to tell you.  I hope Miss Cornelia
+won’t find out.  Sometimes I feel as if those terrible, kind brown eyes
+of hers read my very soul.  Oh, I wish this mist would never lift&mdash;I
+wish I could just stay in it forever, hidden away from every living
+being.  I don’t see how I can go on with life.  This summer has been so
+full.  I never was lonely for a moment.  Before Owen came there used to
+be horrible moments&mdash;when I had been with you and Gilbert&mdash;and then had
+to leave you.  You two would walk away together and I would walk away
+ALONE.  After Owen came he was always there to walk home with me&mdash;we
+would laugh and talk as you and Gilbert were doing&mdash;there were no more
+lonely, envious moments for me.  And NOW!  Oh, yes, I’ve been a fool.
+Let’s have done talking about my folly.  I’ll never bore you with it
+again.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Here is Gilbert, and you are coming back with us,” said Anne, who had
+no intention of leaving Leslie to wander alone on the sand-bar on such
+a night and in such a mood.  “There’s plenty of room in our boat for
+three, and we’ll tie the flat on behind.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I suppose I must reconcile myself to being the odd one again,”
+said poor Leslie with another bitter laugh.  “Forgive me, Anne&mdash;that
+was hateful.  I ought to be thankful&mdash;and I AM&mdash;that I have two good
+friends who are glad to count me in as a third.  Don’t mind my hateful
+speeches.  I just seem to be one great pain all over and everything
+hurts me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie seemed very quiet tonight, didn’t she?” said Gilbert, when he
+and Anne reached home.  “What in the world was she doing over there on
+the bar alone?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, she was tired&mdash;and you know she likes to go to the shore after one
+of Dick’s bad days.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What a pity she hadn’t met and married a fellow like Ford long ago,”
+ruminated Gilbert.  “They’d have made an ideal couple, wouldn’t they?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“For pity’s sake, Gilbert, don’t develop into a match-maker.  It’s an
+abominable profession for a man,” cried Anne rather sharply, afraid
+that Gilbert might blunder on the truth if he kept on in this strain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Bless us, Anne-girl, I’m not matchmaking,” protested Gilbert, rather
+surprised at her tone.  “I was only thinking of one of the
+might-have-beens.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, don’t.  It’s a waste of time,” said Anne.  Then she added
+suddenly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, Gilbert, I wish everybody could be as happy as we are.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap28"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 28
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+ODDS AND ENDS
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve been reading obituary notices,” said Miss Cornelia, laying down
+the Daily Enterprise and taking up her sewing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The harbor was lying black and sullen under a dour November sky; the
+wet, dead leaves clung drenched and sodden to the window sills; but the
+little house was gay with firelight and spring-like with Anne’s ferns
+and geraniums.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s always summer here, Anne,” Leslie had said one day; and all who
+were the guests of that house of dreams felt the same.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The Enterprise seems to run to obituaries these days,” quoth Miss
+Cornelia.  “It always has a couple of columns of them, and I read every
+line.  It’s one of my forms of recreation, especially when there’s some
+original poetry attached to them.  Here’s a choice sample for you:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+    She’s gone to be with her Maker,<BR>
+    Never more to roam.<BR>
+    She used to play and sing with joy<BR>
+    The song of Home, Sweet Home.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Who says we haven’t any poetical talent on the Island!  Have you ever
+noticed what heaps of good people die, Anne, dearie?  It’s kind of
+pitiful.  Here’s ten obituaries, and every one of them saints and
+models, even the men.  Here’s old Peter Stimson, who has 'left a large
+circle of friends to mourn his untimely loss.’ Lord, Anne, dearie, that
+man was eighty, and everybody who knew him had been wishing him dead
+these thirty years.  Read obituaries when you’re blue, Anne,
+dearie&mdash;especially the ones of folks you know.  If you’ve any sense of
+humor at all they’ll cheer you up, believe ME.  I just wish <I>I</I> had the
+writing of the obituaries of some people.  Isn’t 'obituary’ an awful
+ugly word?  This very Peter I’ve been speaking of had a face exactly
+like one.  I never saw it but I thought of the word OBITUARY then and
+there.  There’s only one uglier word that I know of, and that’s RELICT.
+Lord, Anne, dearie, I may be an old maid, but there’s this comfort in
+it&mdash;I’ll never be any man’s 'relict.’”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It IS an ugly word,” said Anne, laughing.  “Avonlea graveyard was full
+of old tombstones 'sacred to the memory of So-and-So, RELICT of the
+late So-and-So.’  It always made me think of something worn out and
+moth eaten.  Why is it that so many of the words connected with death
+are so disagreeable?  I do wish that the custom of calling a dead body
+'the remains’ could be abolished.  I positively shiver when I hear the
+undertaker say at a funeral, 'All who wish to see the remains please
+step this way.’  It always gives me the horrible impression that I am
+about to view the scene of a cannibal feast.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, all I hope,” said Miss Cornelia calmly, “is that when I’m dead
+nobody will call me 'our departed sister.’  I took a scunner at this
+sister-and-brothering business five years ago when there was a
+travelling evangelist holding meetings at the Glen.  I hadn’t any use
+for him from the start.  I felt in my bones that there was something
+wrong with him.  And there was.  Mind you, he was pretending to be a
+Presbyterian&mdash;PresbyTARian, HE called it&mdash;and all the time he was a
+Methodist.  He brothered and sistered everybody.  He had a large circle
+of relations, that man had.  He clutched my hand fervently one night,
+and said imploringly, 'My DEAR sister Bryant, are you a Christian?’  I
+just looked him over a bit, and then I said calmly, 'The only brother I
+ever had, MR. Fiske, was buried fifteen years ago, and I haven’t
+adopted any since.  As for being a Christian, I was that, I hope and
+believe, when you were crawling about the floor in petticoats.’  THAT
+squelched him, believe ME.  Mind you, Anne dearie, I’m not down on all
+evangelists.  We’ve had some real fine, earnest men, who did a lot of
+good and made the old sinners squirm.  But this Fiske-man wasn’t one of
+them.  I had a good laugh all to myself one evening.  Fiske had asked
+all who were Christians to stand up.  <I>I</I> didn’t, believe me!  I never
+had any use for that sort of thing.  But most of them did, and then he
+asked all who wanted to be Christians to stand up.  Nobody stirred for
+a spell, so Fiske started up a hymn at the top of his voice.  Just in
+front of me poor little Ikey Baker was sitting in the Millison pew.  He
+was a home boy, ten years old, and Millison just about worked him to
+death.  The poor little creature was always so tired he fell asleep
+right off whenever he went to church or anywhere he could sit still for
+a few minutes.  He’d been sleeping all through the meeting, and I was
+thankful to see the poor child getting a rest, believe ME.  Well, when
+Fiske’s voice went soaring skyward and the rest joined in, poor Ikey
+wakened with a start.  He thought it was just an ordinary singing and
+that everybody ought to stand up, so he scrambled to his feet mighty
+quick, knowing he’d get a combing down from Maria Millison for sleeping
+in meeting.  Fiske saw him, stopped and shouted, 'Another soul saved!
+Glory Hallelujah!’  And there was poor, frightened Ikey, only half
+awake and yawning, never thinking about his soul at all.  Poor child,
+he never had time to think of anything but his tired, overworked little
+body.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie went one night and the Fiske-man got right after her&mdash;oh, he
+was especially anxious about the souls of the nice-looking girls,
+believe me!&mdash;and he hurt her feelings so she never went again.  And
+then he prayed every night after that, right in public, that the Lord
+would soften her hard heart.  Finally I went to Mr. Leavitt, our
+minister then, and told him if he didn’t make Fiske stop that I’d just
+rise up the next night and throw my hymn book at him when he mentioned
+that 'beautiful but unrepentant young woman.’  I’d have done it too,
+believe ME.  Mr. Leavitt did put a stop to it, but Fiske kept on with
+his meetings until Charley Douglas put an end to his career in the
+Glen.  Mrs. Charley had been out in California all winter.  She’d been
+real melancholy in the fall&mdash;religious melancholy&mdash;it ran in her
+family.  Her father worried so much over believing that he had
+committed the unpardonable sin that he died in the asylum.  So when
+Rose Douglas got that way Charley packed her off to visit her sister in
+Los Angeles.  She got perfectly well and came home just when the Fiske
+revival was in full swing.  She stepped off the train at the Glen, real
+smiling and chipper, and the first thing she saw staring her in the
+face on the black, gable-end of the freight shed, was the question, in
+big white letters, two feet high, 'Whither goest thou&mdash;to heaven or
+hell?’ That had been one of Fiske’s ideas, and he had got Henry Hammond
+to paint it.  Rose just gave a shriek and fainted; and when they got
+her home she was worse than ever.  Charley Douglas went to Mr. Leavitt
+and told him that every Douglas would leave the church if Fiske was
+kept there any longer.  Mr. Leavitt had to give in, for the Douglases
+paid half his salary, so Fiske departed, and we had to depend on our
+Bibles once more for instructions on how to get to heaven.  After he
+was gone Mr. Leavitt found out he was just a masquerading Methodist,
+and he felt pretty sick, believe ME.  Mr. Leavitt fell short in some
+ways, but he was a good, sound Presbyterian.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“By the way, I had a letter from Mr. Ford yesterday,” said Anne.  “He
+asked me to remember him kindly to you.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t want his remembrances,” said Miss Cornelia, curtly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Why?” said Anne, in astonishment.  “I thought you liked him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, so I did, in a kind of way.  But I’ll never forgive him for what
+he done to Leslie.  There’s that poor child eating her heart out about
+him&mdash;as if she hadn’t had trouble enough&mdash;and him ranting round
+Toronto, I’ve no doubt, enjoying himself same as ever.  Just like a
+man.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, Miss Cornelia, how did you find out?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Lord, Anne, dearie, I’ve got eyes, haven’t I?  And I’ve known Leslie
+since she was a baby.  There’s been a new kind of heartbreak in her
+eyes all the fall, and I know that writer-man was behind it somehow.
+I’ll never forgive myself for being the means of bringing him here.
+But I never expected he’d be like he was.  I thought he’d just be like
+the other men Leslie had boarded&mdash;conceited young asses, every one of
+them, that she never had any use for.  One of them did try to flirt
+with her once and she froze him out&mdash;so bad, I feel sure he’s never got
+himself thawed since.  So I never thought of any danger.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t let Leslie suspect you know her secret,” said Anne hurriedly.
+“I think it would hurt her.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Trust me, Anne, dearie.  <I>I</I> wasn’t born yesterday.  Oh, a plague on
+all the men!  One of them ruined Leslie’s life to begin with, and now
+another of the tribe comes and makes her still more wretched.  Anne,
+this world is an awful place, believe me.”
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+    “There’s something in the world amiss<BR>
+    Will be unriddled by and by,”<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+quoted Anne dreamily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If it is, it’ll be in a world where there aren’t any men,” said Miss
+Cornelia gloomily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What have the men been doing now?” asked Gilbert, entering.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Mischief&mdash;mischief!  What else did they ever do?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It was Eve ate the apple, Miss Cornelia.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“’Twas a he-creature tempted her,” retorted Miss Cornelia triumphantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie, after her first anguish was over, found it possible to go on
+with life after all, as most of us do, no matter what our particular
+form of torment has been.  It is even possible that she enjoyed moments
+of it, when she was one of the gay circle in the little house of
+dreams.  But if Anne ever hoped that she was forgetting Owen Ford she
+would have been undeceived by the furtive hunger in Leslie’s eyes
+whenever his name was mentioned.  Pitiful to that hunger, Anne always
+contrived to tell Captain Jim or Gilbert bits of news from Owen’s
+letters when Leslie was with them.  The girl’s flush and pallor at such
+moments spoke all too eloquently of the emotion that filled her being.
+But she never spoke of him to Anne, or mentioned that night on the
+sand-bar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One day her old dog died and she grieved bitterly over him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He’s been my friend so long,” she said sorrowfully to Anne.  “He was
+Dick’s old dog, you know&mdash;Dick had him for a year or so before we were
+married.  He left him with me when he sailed on the Four Sisters.
+Carlo got very fond of me&mdash;and his dog-love helped me through that
+first dreadful year after mother died, when I was alone.  When I heard
+that Dick was coming back I was afraid Carlo wouldn’t be so much mine.
+But he never seemed to care for Dick, though he had been so fond of him
+once.  He would snap and growl at him as if he were a stranger.  I was
+glad.  It was nice to have one thing whose love was all mine.  That old
+dog has been such a comfort to me, Anne.  He got so feeble in the fall
+that I was afraid he couldn’t live long&mdash;but I hoped I could nurse him
+through the winter.  He seemed pretty well this morning.  He was lying
+on the rug before the fire; then, all at once, he got up and crept over
+to me; he put his head on my lap and gave me one loving look out of his
+big, soft, dog eyes&mdash;and then he just shivered and died.  I shall miss
+him so.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Let me give you another dog, Leslie,” said Anne.  “I’m getting a
+lovely Gordon setter for a Christmas present for Gilbert.  Let me give
+you one too.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie shook her head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Not just now, thank you, Anne.  I don’t feel like having another dog
+yet.  I don’t seem to have any affection left for another.  Perhaps&mdash;in
+time&mdash;I’ll let you give me one.  I really need one as a kind of
+protection.  But there was something almost human about Carlo&mdash;it
+wouldn’t be DECENT to fill his place too hurriedly, dear old fellow.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne went to Avonlea a week before Christmas and stayed until after the
+holidays.  Gilbert came up for her, and there was a glad New Year
+celebration at Green Gables, when Barrys and Blythes and Wrights
+assembled to devour a dinner which had cost Mrs. Rachel and Marilla
+much careful thought and preparation.  When they went back to Four
+Winds the little house was almost drifted over, for the third storm of
+a winter that was to prove phenomenally stormy had whirled up the
+harbor and heaped huge snow mountains about everything it encountered.
+But Captain Jim had shovelled out doors and paths, and Miss Cornelia
+had come down and kindled the hearth-fire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s good to see you back, Anne, dearie!  But did you ever see such
+drifts?  You can’t see the Moore place at all unless you go upstairs.
+Leslie’ll be so glad you’re back.  She’s almost buried alive over
+there.  Fortunately Dick can shovel snow, and thinks it’s great fun.
+Susan sent me word to tell you she would be on hand tomorrow.  Where
+are you off to now, Captain?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I reckon I’ll plough up to the Glen and sit a bit with old Martin
+Strong.  He’s not far from his end and he’s lonesome.  He hasn’t many
+friends&mdash;been too busy all his life to make any.  He’s made heaps of
+money, though.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, he thought that since he couldn’t serve God and Mammon he’d
+better stick to Mammon,” said Miss Cornelia crisply.  “So he shouldn’t
+complain if he doesn’t find Mammon very good company now.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim went out, but remembered something in the yard and turned
+back for a moment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’d a letter from Mr. Ford, Mistress Blythe, and he says the life-book
+is accepted and is going to be published next fall.  I felt fair
+uplifted when I got the news.  To think that I’m to see it in print at
+last.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That man is clean crazy on the subject of his life-book,” said Miss
+Cornelia compassionately.  “For my part, I think there’s far too many
+books in the world now.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap29"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 29
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+GILBERT AND ANNE DISAGREE
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert laid down the ponderous medical tome over which he had been
+poring until the increasing dusk of the March evening made him desist.
+He leaned back in his chair and gazed meditatively out of the window.
+It was early spring&mdash;probably the ugliest time of the year.  Not even
+the sunset could redeem the dead, sodden landscape and rotten black
+harbor ice upon which he looked.  No sign of life was visible, save a
+big black crow winging his solitary way across a leaden field.  Gilbert
+speculated idly concerning that crow.  Was he a family crow, with a
+black but comely crow wife awaiting him in the woods beyond the Glen?
+Or was he a glossy young buck of a crow on courting thoughts intent?
+Or was he a cynical bachelor crow, believing that he travels the
+fastest who travels alone?  Whatever he was, he soon disappeared in
+congenial gloom and Gilbert turned to the cheerier view indoors.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The firelight flickered from point to point, gleaming on the white and
+green coats of Gog and Magog, on the sleek, brown head of the beautiful
+setter basking on the rug, on the picture frames on the walls, on the
+vaseful of daffodils from the window garden, on Anne herself, sitting
+by her little table, with her sewing beside her and her hands clasped
+over her knee while she traced out pictures in the fire&mdash;Castles in
+Spain whose airy turrets pierced moonlit cloud and sunset bar-ships
+sailing from the Haven of Good Hopes straight to Four Winds Harbor with
+precious burthen.  For Anne was again a dreamer of dreams, albeit a
+grim shape of fear went with her night and day to shadow and darken her
+visions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert was accustomed to refer to himself as “an old married man.”
+But he still looked upon Anne with the incredulous eyes of a lover.  He
+couldn’t wholly believe yet that she was really his.  It MIGHT be only
+a dream after all, part and parcel of this magic house of dreams.  His
+soul still went on tip-toe before her, lest the charm be shattered and
+the dream dispelled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne,” he said slowly, “lend me your ears.  I want to talk with you
+about something.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne looked across at him through the fire-lit gloom.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What is it?” she asked gaily.  “You look fearfully solemn, Gilbert.  I
+really haven’t done anything naughty today.  Ask Susan.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s not of you&mdash;or ourselves&mdash;I want to talk.  It’s about Dick Moore.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Dick Moore?” echoed Anne, sitting up alertly.  “Why, what in the world
+have you to say about Dick Moore?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’ve been thinking a great deal about him lately.  Do you remember
+that time last summer I treated him for those carbuncles on his neck?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes&mdash;yes.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I took the opportunity to examine the scars on his head thoroughly.
+I’ve always thought Dick was a very interesting case from a medical
+point of view.  Lately I’ve been studying the history of trephining and
+the cases where it has been employed.  Anne, I have come to the
+conclusion that if Dick Moore were taken to a good hospital and the
+operation of trephining performed on several places in his skull, his
+memory and faculties might be restored.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert!” Anne’s voice was full of protest.  “Surely you don’t mean
+it!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I do, indeed.  And I have decided that it is my duty to broach the
+subject to Leslie.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert Blythe, you shall NOT do any such thing,” cried Anne
+vehemently.  “Oh, Gilbert, you won’t&mdash;you won’t.  You couldn’t be so
+cruel.  Promise me you won’t.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Why, Anne-girl, I didn’t suppose you would take it like this.  Be
+reasonable&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I won’t be reasonable&mdash;I can’t be reasonable&mdash;I AM reasonable.  It is
+you who are unreasonable.  Gilbert, have you ever once thought what it
+would mean for Leslie if Dick Moore were to be restored to his right
+senses?  Just stop and think!  She’s unhappy enough now; but life as
+Dick’s nurse and attendant is a thousand times easier for her than life
+as Dick’s wife.  I know&mdash;I KNOW!  It’s unthinkable.  Don’t you meddle
+with the matter.  Leave well enough alone.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I HAVE thought over that aspect of the case thoroughly, Anne.  But I
+believe that a doctor is bound to set the sanctity of a patient’s mind
+and body above all other considerations, no matter what the
+consequences may be.  I believe it his duty to endeavor to restore
+health and sanity, if there is any hope whatever of it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But Dick isn’t your patient in that respect,” cried Anne, taking
+another tack.  “If Leslie had asked you if anything could be done for
+him, THEN it might be your duty to tell her what you really thought.
+But you’ve no right to meddle.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t call it meddling.  Uncle Dave told Leslie twelve years ago
+that nothing could be done for Dick.  She believes that, of course.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And why did Uncle Dave tell her that, if it wasn’t true?” cried Anne,
+triumphantly.  “Doesn’t he know as much about it as you?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I think not&mdash;though it may sound conceited and presumptuous to say it.
+And you know as well as I that he is rather prejudiced against what he
+calls 'these new-fangled notions of cutting and carving.’ He’s even
+opposed to operating for appendicitis.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He’s right,” exclaimed Anne, with a complete change of front.  “I
+believe myself that you modern doctors are entirely too fond of making
+experiments with human flesh and blood.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Rhoda Allonby would not be a living woman today if I had been afraid
+of making a certain experiment,” argued Gilbert.  “I took the risk&mdash;and
+saved her life.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m sick and tired of hearing about Rhoda Allonby,” cried Anne&mdash;most
+unjustly, for Gilbert had never mentioned Mrs. Allonby’s name since the
+day he had told Anne of his success in regard to her.  And he could not
+be blamed for other people’s discussion of it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert felt rather hurt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I had not expected you to look at the matter as you do, Anne,” he said
+a little stiffly, getting up and moving towards the office door.  It
+was their first approach to a quarrel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Anne flew after him and dragged him back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Now, Gilbert, you are not 'going off mad.’  Sit down here and I’ll
+apologise bee-YEW-ti-fully, I shouldn’t have said that.  But&mdash;oh, if
+you knew&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne checked herself just in time.  She had been on the very verge of
+betraying Leslie’s secret.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Knew what a woman feels about it,” she concluded lamely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I think I do know.  I’ve looked at the matter from every point of
+view&mdash;and I’ve been driven to the conclusion that it is my duty to tell
+Leslie that I believe it is possible that Dick can be restored to
+himself; there my responsibility ends.  It will be for her to decide
+what she will do.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t think you’ve any right to put such a responsibility on her.
+She has enough to bear.  She is poor&mdash;how could she afford such an
+operation?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That is for her to decide,” persisted Gilbert stubbornly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You say you think that Dick can be cured.  But are you SURE of it?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Certainly not.  Nobody could be sure of such a thing.  There may have
+been lesions of the brain itself, the effect of which can never be
+removed.  But if, as I believe, his loss of memory and other faculties
+is due merely to the pressure on the brain centers of certain depressed
+areas of bone, then he can be cured.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But it’s only a possibility!” insisted Anne.  “Now, suppose you tell
+Leslie and she decides to have the operation.  It will cost a great
+deal.  She will have to borrow the money, or sell her little property.
+And suppose the operation is a failure and Dick remains the same.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How will she be able to pay back the money she borrows, or make a
+living for herself and that big helpless creature if she sells the
+farm?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I know&mdash;I know.  But it is my duty to tell her.  I can’t get away
+from that conviction.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I know the Blythe stubbornness,” groaned Anne.  “But don’t do this
+solely on your own responsibility.  Consult Doctor Dave.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I HAVE done so,” said Gilbert reluctantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And what did he say?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“In brief&mdash;as you say&mdash;leave well enough alone.  Apart from his
+prejudice against new-fangled surgery, I’m afraid he looks at the case
+from your point of view&mdash;don’t do it, for Leslie’s sake.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There now,” cried Anne triumphantly.  “I do think, Gilbert, that you
+ought to abide by the judgment of a man nearly eighty, who has seen a
+great deal and saved scores of lives himself&mdash;surely his opinion ought
+to weigh more than a mere boy’s.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Thank you.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t laugh.  It’s too serious.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That’s just my point.  It IS serious.  Here is a man who is a helpless
+burden.  He may be restored to reason and usefulness&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He was so very useful before,” interjected Anne witheringly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He may be given a chance to make good and redeem the past.  His wife
+doesn’t know this.  I do.  It is therefore my duty to tell her that
+there is such a possibility.  That, boiled down, is my decision.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t say 'decision’ yet, Gilbert.  Consult somebody else.  Ask
+Captain Jim what he thinks about it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Very well.  But I’ll not promise to abide by his opinion, Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“This is something a man must decide for himself.  My conscience would
+never be easy if I kept silent on the subject.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, your conscience!” moaned Anne.  “I suppose that Uncle Dave has a
+conscience too, hasn’t he?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes.  But I am not the keeper of his conscience.  Come, Anne, if this
+affair did not concern Leslie&mdash;if it were a purely abstract case, you
+would agree with me,&mdash;you know you would.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wouldn’t,” vowed Anne, trying to believe it herself.  “Oh, you can
+argue all night, Gilbert, but you won’t convince me.  Just you ask Miss
+Cornelia what she thinks of it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’re driven to the last ditch, Anne, when you bring up Miss Cornelia
+as a reinforcement.  She will say, 'Just like a man,’ and rage
+furiously.  No matter.  This is no affair for Miss Cornelia to settle.
+Leslie alone must decide it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You know very well how she will decide it,” said Anne, almost in
+tears.  “She has ideals of duty, too.  I don’t see how you can take
+such a responsibility on your shoulders.  <I>I</I> couldn’t.”
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+    “'Because right is right to follow right<BR>
+    Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence,’”<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+quoted Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, you think a couplet of poetry a convincing argument!” scoffed
+Anne.  “That is so like a man.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then she laughed in spite of herself.  It sounded so like an echo
+of Miss Cornelia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, if you won’t accept Tennyson as an authority, perhaps you will
+believe the words of a Greater than he,” said Gilbert seriously.  “'Ye
+shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.’  I believe
+that, Anne, with all my heart.  It’s the greatest and grandest verse in
+the Bible&mdash;or in any literature&mdash;and the TRUEST, if there are
+comparative degrees of trueness.  And it’s the first duty of a man to
+tell the truth, as he sees it and believes it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“In this case the truth won’t make poor Leslie free,” sighed Anne.  “It
+will probably end in still more bitter bondage for her.  Oh, Gilbert, I
+CAN’T think you are right.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap30"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 30
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+LESLIE DECIDES
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+A sudden outbreak of a virulent type of influenza at the Glen and down
+at the fishing village kept Gilbert so busy for the next fortnight that
+he had no time to pay the promised visit to Captain Jim.  Anne hoped
+against hope that he had abandoned the idea about Dick Moore, and,
+resolving to let sleeping dogs lie, she said no more about the subject.
+But she thought of it incessantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wonder if it would be right for me to tell him that Leslie cares for
+Owen,” she thought.  “He would never let her suspect that he knew, so
+her pride would not suffer, and it MIGHT convince him that he should
+let Dick Moore alone.  Shall I&mdash;shall I?  No, after all, I cannot.  A
+promise is sacred, and I’ve no right to betray Leslie’s secret.  But
+oh, I never felt so worried over anything in my life as I do over this.
+It’s spoiling the spring&mdash;it’s spoiling everything.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One evening Gilbert abruptly proposed that they go down and see Captain
+Jim.  With a sinking heart Anne agreed, and they set forth.  Two weeks
+of kind sunshine had wrought a miracle in the bleak landscape over
+which Gilbert’s crow had flown.  The hills and fields were dry and
+brown and warm, ready to break into bud and blossom; the harbor was
+laughter-shaken again; the long harbor road was like a gleaming red
+ribbon; down on the dunes a crowd of boys, who were out smelt fishing,
+were burning the thick, dry sandhill grass of the preceding summer.
+The flames swept over the dunes rosily, flinging their cardinal banners
+against the dark gulf beyond, and illuminating the channel and the
+fishing village.  It was a picturesque scene which would at other times
+have delighted Anne’s eyes; but she was not enjoying this walk.
+Neither was Gilbert.  Their usual good-comradeship and Josephian
+community of taste and viewpoint were sadly lacking.  Anne’s
+disapproval of the whole project showed itself in the haughty uplift of
+her head and the studied politeness of her remarks.  Gilbert’s mouth
+was set in all the Blythe obstinacy, but his eyes were troubled.  He
+meant to do what he believed to be his duty; but to be at outs with
+Anne was a high price to pay.  Altogether, both were glad when they
+reached the light&mdash;and remorseful that they should be glad.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim put away the fishing net upon which he was working, and
+welcomed them joyfully.  In the searching light of the spring evening
+he looked older than Anne had ever seen him.  His hair had grown much
+grayer, and the strong old hand shook a little.  But his blue eyes were
+clear and steady, and the staunch soul looked out through them gallant
+and unafraid.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim listened in amazed silence while Gilbert said what he had
+come to say.  Anne, who knew how the old man worshipped Leslie, felt
+quite sure that he would side with her, although she had not much hope
+that this would influence Gilbert.  She was therefore surprised beyond
+measure when Captain Jim, slowly and sorrowfully, but unhesitatingly,
+gave it as his opinion that Leslie should be told.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, Captain Jim, I didn’t think you’d say that,” she exclaimed
+reproachfully.  “I thought you wouldn’t want to make more trouble for
+her.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim shook his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t want to.  I know how you feel about it, Mistress Blythe&mdash;just
+as I feel meself.  But it ain’t our feelings we have to steer by
+through life&mdash;no, no, we’d make shipwreck mighty often if we did that.
+There’s only the one safe compass and we’ve got to set our course by
+that&mdash;what it’s right to do.  I agree with the doctor.  If there’s a
+chance for Dick, Leslie should be told of it.  There’s no two sides to
+that, in my opinion.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well,” said Anne, giving up in despair, “wait until Miss Cornelia gets
+after you two men.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Cornelia’ll rake us fore and aft, no doubt,” assented Captain Jim.
+“You women are lovely critters, Mistress Blythe, but you’re just a mite
+illogical.  You’re a highly eddicated lady and Cornelia isn’t, but
+you’re like as two peas when it comes to that.  I dunno’s you’re any
+the worse for it.  Logic is a sort of hard, merciless thing, I reckon.
+Now, I’ll brew a cup of tea and we’ll drink it and talk of pleasant
+things, jest to calm our minds a bit.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At least, Captain Jim’s tea and conversation calmed Anne’s mind to such
+an extent that she did not make Gilbert suffer so acutely on the way
+home as she had deliberately intended to do.  She did not refer to the
+burning question at all, but she chatted amiably of other matters, and
+Gilbert understood that he was forgiven under protest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Captain Jim seems very frail and bent this spring.  The winter has
+aged him,” said Anne sadly.  “I am afraid that he will soon be going to
+seek lost Margaret.  I can’t bear to think of it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Four Winds won’t be the same place when Captain Jim 'sets out to
+sea,’” agreed Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The following evening he went to the house up the brook.  Anne wandered
+dismally around until his return.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, what did Leslie say?” she demanded when he came in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Very little.  I think she felt rather dazed.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And is she going to have the operation?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She is going to think it over and decide very soon.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert flung himself wearily into the easy chair before the fire.  He
+looked tired.  It had not been an easy thing for him to tell Leslie.
+And the terror that had sprung into her eyes when the meaning of what
+he told her came home to her was not a pleasant thing to remember.
+Now, when the die was cast, he was beset with doubts of his own wisdom.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne looked at him remorsefully; then she slipped down on the rug
+beside him and laid her glossy red head on his arm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert, I’ve been rather hateful over this.  I won’t be any more.
+Please just call me red-headed and forgive me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By which Gilbert understood that, no matter what came of it, there
+would be no I-told-you-so’s.  But he was not wholly comforted.  Duty in
+the abstract is one thing; duty in the concrete is quite another,
+especially when the doer is confronted by a woman’s stricken eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Some instinct made Anne keep away from Leslie for the next three days.
+On the third evening Leslie came down to the little house and told
+Gilbert that she had made up her mind; she would take Dick to Montreal
+and have the operation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was very pale and seemed to have wrapped herself in her old mantle
+of aloofness.  But her eyes had lost the look which had haunted
+Gilbert; they were cold and bright; and she proceeded to discuss
+details with him in a crisp, business-like way.  There were plans to be
+made and many things to be thought over.  When Leslie had got the
+information she wanted she went home.  Anne wanted to walk part of the
+way with her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Better not,” said Leslie curtly.  “Today’s rain has made the ground
+damp.  Good-night.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Have I lost my friend?” said Anne with a sigh.  “If the operation is
+successful and Dick Moore finds himself again Leslie will retreat into
+some remote fastness of her soul where none of us can ever find her.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Perhaps she will leave him,” said Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie would never do that, Gilbert.  Her sense of duty is very
+strong.  She told me once that her Grandmother West always impressed
+upon her the fact that when she assumed any responsibility she must
+never shirk it, no matter what the consequences might be.  That is one
+of her cardinal rules.  I suppose it’s very old-fashioned.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t be bitter, Anne-girl.  You know you don’t think it
+old-fashioned&mdash;you know you have the very same idea of sacredness of
+assumed responsibilities yourself.  And you are right.  Shirking
+responsibilities is the curse of our modern life&mdash;the secret of all the
+unrest and discontent that is seething in the world.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Thus saith the preacher,” mocked Anne.  But under the mockery she felt
+that he was right; and she was very sick at heart for Leslie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A week later Miss Cornelia descended like an avalanche upon the little
+house.  Gilbert was away and Anne was compelled to bear the shock of
+the impact alone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia hardly waited to get her hat off before she began.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne, do you mean to tell me it’s true what I’ve heard&mdash;that Dr.
+Blythe has told Leslie Dick can be cured, and that she is going to take
+him to Montreal to have him operated on?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, it is quite true, Miss Cornelia,” said Anne bravely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, it’s inhuman cruelty, that’s what it is,” said Miss Cornelia,
+violently agitated.  “I did think Dr. Blythe was a decent man.  I
+didn’t think he could have been guilty of this.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Dr. Blythe thought it was his duty to tell Leslie that there was a
+chance for Dick,” said Anne with spirit, “and,” she added, loyalty to
+Gilbert getting the better of her, “I agree with him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, no, you don’t, dearie,” said Miss Cornelia.  “No person with any
+bowels of compassion could.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Captain Jim does.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t quote that old ninny to me,” cried Miss Cornelia.  “And I don’t
+care who agrees with him.  Think&mdash;THINK what it means to that poor
+hunted, harried girl.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We DO think of it.  But Gilbert believes that a doctor should put the
+welfare of a patient’s mind and body before all other considerations.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That’s just like a man.  But I expected better things of you, Anne,”
+said Miss Cornelia, more in sorrow than in wrath; then she proceeded to
+bombard Anne with precisely the same arguments with which the latter
+had attacked Gilbert; and Anne valiantly defended her husband with the
+weapons he had used for his own protection.  Long was the fray, but
+Miss Cornelia made an end at last.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s an iniquitous shame,” she declared, almost in tears.  “That’s
+just what it is&mdash;an iniquitous shame.  Poor, poor Leslie!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t you think Dick should be considered a little too?” pleaded Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Dick!  Dick Moore!  HE’S happy enough.  He’s a better behaved and more
+reputable member of society now than he ever was before.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Why, he was a drunkard and perhaps worse.  Are you going to set him
+loose again to roar and to devour?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He may reform,” said poor Anne, beset by foe without and traitor
+within.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Reform your grandmother!” retorted Miss Cornelia.  “Dick Moore got the
+injuries that left him as he is in a drunken brawl.  He DESERVES his
+fate.  It was sent on him for a punishment.  I don’t believe the doctor
+has any business to tamper with the visitations of God.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Nobody knows how Dick was hurt, Miss Cornelia.  It may not have been
+in a drunken brawl at all.  He may have been waylaid and robbed.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Pigs MAY whistle, but they’ve poor mouths for it,” said Miss Cornelia.
+“Well, the gist of what you tell me is that the thing is settled and
+there’s no use in talking.  If that’s so I’ll hold my tongue.  I don’t
+propose to wear MY teeth out gnawing files.  When a thing has to be I
+give in to it.  But I like to make mighty sure first that it HAS to be.
+Now, I’ll devote MY energies to comforting and sustaining Leslie.  And
+after all,” added Miss Cornelia, brightening up hopefully, “perhaps
+nothing can be done for Dick.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap31"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 31
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+THE TRUTH MAKES FREE
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Leslie, having once made up her mind what to do, proceeded to do it
+with characteristic resolution and speed.  House-cleaning must be
+finished with first, whatever issues of life and death might await
+beyond.  The gray house up the brook was put into flawless order and
+cleanliness, with Miss Cornelia’s ready assistance.  Miss Cornelia,
+having said her say to Anne, and later on to Gilbert and Captain
+Jim&mdash;sparing neither of them, let it be assured&mdash;never spoke of the
+matter to Leslie.  She accepted the fact of Dick’s operation, referred
+to it when necessary in a business-like way, and ignored it when it was
+not.  Leslie never attempted to discuss it.  She was very cold and
+quiet during these beautiful spring days.  She seldom visited Anne, and
+though she was invariably courteous and friendly, that very courtesy
+was as an icy barrier between her and the people of the little house.
+The old jokes and laughter and chumminess of common things could not
+reach her over it.  Anne refused to feel hurt.  She knew that Leslie
+was in the grip of a hideous dread&mdash;a dread that wrapped her away from
+all little glimpses of happiness and hours of pleasure.  When one great
+passion seizes possession of the soul all other feelings are crowded
+aside.  Never in all her life had Leslie Moore shuddered away from the
+future with more intolerable terror.  But she went forward as
+unswervingly in the path she had elected as the martyrs of old walked
+their chosen way, knowing the end of it to be the fiery agony of the
+stake.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The financial question was settled with greater ease than Anne had
+feared.  Leslie borrowed the necessary money from Captain Jim, and, at
+her insistence, he took a mortgage on the little farm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“So that is one thing off the poor girl’s mind,” Miss Cornelia told
+Anne, “and off mine too.  Now, if Dick gets well enough to work again
+he’ll be able to earn enough to pay the interest on it; and if he
+doesn’t I know Captain Jim’ll manage someway that Leslie won’t have to.
+He said as much to me.  'I’m getting old, Cornelia,’ he said, 'and I’ve
+no chick or child of my own.  Leslie won’t take a gift from a living
+man, but mebbe she will from a dead one.’  So it will be all right as
+far as THAT goes.  I wish everything else might be settled as
+satisfactorily.  As for that wretch of a Dick, he’s been awful these
+last few days.  The devil was in him, believe ME!  Leslie and I
+couldn’t get on with our work for the tricks he’d play.  He chased all
+her ducks one day around the yard till most of them died.  And not one
+thing would he do for us.  Sometimes, you know, he’ll make himself
+quite handy, bringing in pails of water and wood.  But this week if we
+sent him to the well he’d try to climb down into it.  I thought once,
+'If you’d only shoot down there head-first everything would be nicely
+settled.’”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, Miss Cornelia!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Now, you needn’t Miss Cornelia me, Anne, dearie.  ANYBODY would have
+thought the same.  If the Montreal doctors can make a rational creature
+out of Dick Moore they’re wonders.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie took Dick to Montreal early in May.  Gilbert went with her, to
+help her, and make the necessary arrangements for her.  He came home
+with the report that the Montreal surgeon whom they had consulted
+agreed with him that there was a good chance of Dick’s restoration.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Very comforting,” was Miss Cornelia’s sarcastic comment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne only sighed.  Leslie had been very distant at their parting.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But she had promised to write.  Ten days after Gilbert’s return the
+letter came.  Leslie wrote that the operation had been successfully
+performed and that Dick was making a good recovery.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What does she mean by 'successfully?’” asked Anne.  “Does she mean
+that Dick’s memory is really restored?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Not likely&mdash;since she says nothing of it,” said Gilbert.  “She uses
+the word 'successfully’ from the surgeon’s point of view.  The
+operation has been performed and followed by normal results.  But it is
+too soon to know whether Dick’s faculties will be eventually restored,
+wholly or in part.  His memory would not be likely to return to him all
+at once.  The process will be gradual, if it occurs at all.  Is that
+all she says?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes&mdash;there’s her letter.  It’s very short.  Poor girl, she must be
+under a terrible strain.  Gilbert Blythe, there are heaps of things I
+long to say to you, only it would be mean.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Miss Cornelia says them for you,” said Gilbert with a rueful smile.
+“She combs me down every time I encounter her.  She makes it plain to
+me that she regards me as little better than a murderer, and that she
+thinks it a great pity that Dr. Dave ever let me step into his shoes.
+She even told me that the Methodist doctor over the harbor was to be
+preferred before me.  With Miss Cornelia the force of condemnation can
+no further go.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If Cornelia Bryant was sick, it would not be Doctor Dave or the
+Methodist doctor she would send for,” sniffed Susan.  “She would have
+you out of your hard-earned bed in the middle of the night, doctor,
+dear, if she took a spell of misery, that she would.  And then she
+would likely say your bill was past all reason.  But do not mind her,
+doctor, dear.  It takes all kinds of people to make a world.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No further word came from Leslie for some time.  The May days crept
+away in a sweet succession and the shores of Four Winds Harbor greened
+and bloomed and purpled.  One day in late May Gilbert came home to be
+met by Susan in the stable yard.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I am afraid something has upset Mrs. Doctor, doctor, dear,” she said
+mysteriously.  “She got a letter this afternoon and since then she has
+just been walking round the garden and talking to herself.  You know it
+is not good for her to be on her feet so much, doctor, dear.  She did
+not see fit to tell me what her news was, and I am no pry, doctor,
+dear, and never was, but it is plain something has upset her.  And it
+is not good for her to be upset.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert hurried rather anxiously to the garden.  Had anything happened
+at Green Gables?  But Anne, sitting on the rustic seat by the brook,
+did not look troubled, though she was certainly much excited.  Her eyes
+were their grayest, and scarlet spots burned on her cheeks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What has happened, Anne?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne gave a queer little laugh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I think you’ll hardly believe it when I tell you, Gilbert.  <I>I</I> can’t
+believe it yet.  As Susan said the other day, 'I feel like a fly coming
+to live in the sun&mdash;dazed-like.’  It’s all so incredible.  I’ve read
+the letter a score of times and every time it’s just the same&mdash;I can’t
+believe my own eyes.  Oh, Gilbert, you were right&mdash;so right.  I can see
+that clearly enough now&mdash;and I’m so ashamed of myself&mdash;and will you
+ever really forgive me?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne, I’ll shake you if you don’t grow coherent.  Redmond would be
+ashamed of you.  WHAT has happened?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You won’t believe it&mdash;you won’t believe it&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m going to phone for Uncle Dave,” said Gilbert, pretending to start
+for the house.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Sit down, Gilbert.  I’ll try to tell you.  I’ve had a letter, and oh,
+Gilbert, it’s all so amazing&mdash;so incredibly amazing&mdash;we never
+thought&mdash;not one of us ever dreamed&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I suppose,” said Gilbert, sitting down with a resigned air, “the only
+thing to do in a case of this kind is to have patience and go at the
+matter categorically.  Whom is your letter from?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie&mdash;and, oh, Gilbert&mdash;”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie!  Whew!  What has she to say?  What’s the news about Dick?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne lifted the letter and held it out, calmly dramatic in a moment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There is NO Dick!  The man we have thought Dick Moore&mdash;whom everybody
+in Four Winds has believed for twelve years to be Dick Moore&mdash;is his
+cousin, George Moore, of Nova Scotia, who, it seems, always resembled
+him very strikingly.  Dick Moore died of yellow fever thirteen years
+ago in Cuba.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap32"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 32
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+MISS CORNELIA DISCUSSES THE AFFAIR
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+“And do you mean to tell me, Anne, dearie, that Dick Moore has turned
+out not to be Dick Moore at all but somebody else?  Is THAT what you
+phoned up to me today?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, Miss Cornelia.  It is very amazing, isn’t it?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s&mdash;it’s&mdash;just like a man,” said Miss Cornelia helplessly.  She took
+off her hat with trembling fingers.  For once in her life Miss Cornelia
+was undeniably staggered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I can’t seem to sense it, Anne,” she said.  “I’ve heard you say
+it&mdash;and I believe you&mdash;but I can’t take it in.  Dick Moore is dead&mdash;has
+been dead all these years&mdash;and Leslie is free?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes.  The truth has made her free.  Gilbert was right when he said
+that verse was the grandest in the Bible.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Tell me everything, Anne, dearie.  Since I got your phone I’ve been in
+a regular muddle, believe ME.  Cornelia Bryant was never so
+kerflummuxed before.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There isn’t a very great deal to tell.  Leslie’s letter was short.
+She didn’t go into particulars.  This man&mdash;George Moore&mdash;has recovered
+his memory and knows who he is.  He says Dick took yellow fever in
+Cuba, and the Four Sisters had to sail without him.  George stayed
+behind to nurse him.  But he died very shortly afterwards.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“George did not write Leslie because he intended to come right home and
+tell her himself.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And why didn’t he?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I suppose his accident must have intervened.  Gilbert says it is quite
+likely that George Moore remembers nothing of his accident, or what led
+to it, and may never remember it.  It probably happened very soon after
+Dick’s death.  We may find out more particulars when Leslie writes
+again.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Does she say what she is going to do?  When is she coming home?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She says she will stay with George Moore until he can leave the
+hospital.  She has written to his people in Nova Scotia.  It seems that
+George’s only near relative is a married sister much older than
+himself.  She was living when George sailed on the Four Sisters, but of
+course we do not know what may have happened since.  Did you ever see
+George Moore, Miss Cornelia?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I did.  It is all coming back to me.  He was here visiting his Uncle
+Abner eighteen years ago, when he and Dick would be about seventeen.
+They were double cousins, you see.  Their fathers were brothers and
+their mothers were twin sisters, and they did look a terrible lot
+alike.  Of course,” added Miss Cornelia scornfully, “it wasn’t one of
+those freak resemblances you read of in novels where two people are so
+much alike that they can fill each other’s places and their nearest and
+dearest can’t tell between them.  In those days you could tell easy
+enough which was George and which was Dick, if you saw them together
+and near at hand.  Apart, or some distance away, it wasn’t so easy.
+They played lots of tricks on people and thought it great fun, the two
+scamps.  George Moore was a little taller and a good deal fatter than
+Dick&mdash;though neither of them was what you would call fat&mdash;they were
+both of the lean kind.  Dick had higher color than George, and his hair
+was a shade lighter.  But their features were just alike, and they both
+had that queer freak of eyes&mdash;one blue and one hazel.  They weren’t
+much alike in any other way, though.  George was a real nice fellow,
+though he was a scalawag for mischief, and some said he had a liking
+for a glass even then.  But everybody liked him better than Dick.  He
+spent about a month here.  Leslie never saw him; she was only about
+eight or nine then and I remember now that she spent that whole winter
+over harbor with her grandmother West.  Captain Jim was away, too&mdash;that
+was the winter he was wrecked on the Magdalens.  I don’t suppose either
+he or Leslie had ever heard about the Nova Scotia cousin looking so
+much like Dick.  Nobody ever thought of him when Captain Jim brought
+Dick&mdash;George, I should say&mdash;home.  Of course, we all thought Dick had
+changed considerable&mdash;he’d got so lumpish and fat.  But we put that
+down to what had happened to him, and no doubt that was the reason,
+for, as I’ve said, George wasn’t fat to begin with either.  And there
+was no other way we could have guessed, for the man’s senses were clean
+gone.  I can’t see that it is any wonder we were all deceived.  But
+it’s a staggering thing.  And Leslie has sacrificed the best years of
+her life to nursing a man who hadn’t any claim on her!  Oh, drat the
+men!  No matter what they do, it’s the wrong thing.  And no matter who
+they are, it’s somebody they shouldn’t be.  They do exasperate me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gilbert and Captain Jim are men, and it is through them that the truth
+has been discovered at last,” said Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, I admit that,” conceded Miss Cornelia reluctantly.  “I’m sorry I
+raked the doctor off so.  It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever felt
+ashamed of anything I said to a man.  I don’t know as I shall tell him
+so, though.  He’ll just have to take it for granted.  Well, Anne,
+dearie, it’s a mercy the Lord doesn’t answer all our prayers.  I’ve
+been praying hard right along that the operation wouldn’t cure Dick.
+Of course I didn’t put it just quite so plain.  But that was what was
+in the back of my mind, and I have no doubt the Lord knew it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, He has answered the spirit of your prayer.  You really wished
+that things shouldn’t be made any harder for Leslie.  I’m afraid that
+in my secret heart I’ve been hoping the operation wouldn’t succeed, and
+I am wholesomely ashamed of it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How does Leslie seem to take it?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She writes like one dazed.  I think that, like ourselves, she hardly
+realises it yet.  She says, 'It all seems like a strange dream to me,
+Anne.’  That is the only reference she makes to herself.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Poor child!  I suppose when the chains are struck off a prisoner he’d
+feel queer and lost without them for a while.  Anne, dearie, here’s a
+thought keeps coming into my mind.  What about Owen Ford?  We both know
+Leslie was fond of him.  Did it ever occur to you that he was fond of
+her?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It&mdash;did&mdash;once,” admitted Anne, feeling that she might say so much.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, I hadn’t any reason to think he was, but it just appeared to me
+he MUST be.  Now, Anne, dearie, the Lord knows I’m not a match-maker,
+and I scorn all such doings.  But if I were you and writing to that
+Ford man I’d just mention, casual-like, what has happened.  That is
+what <I>I</I>’d do.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Of course I will mention it when I write him,” said Anne, a trifle
+distantly.  Somehow, this was a thing she could not discuss with Miss
+Cornelia.  And yet, she had to admit that the same thought had been
+lurking in her mind ever since she had heard of Leslie’s freedom.  But
+she would not desecrate it by free speech.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Of course there is no great rush, dearie.  But Dick Moore’s been dead
+for thirteen years and Leslie has wasted enough of her life for him.
+We’ll just see what comes of it.  As for this George Moore, who’s gone
+and come back to life when everyone thought he was dead and done for,
+just like a man, I’m real sorry for him.  He won’t seem to fit in
+anywhere.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He is still a young man, and if he recovers completely, as seems
+likely, he will be able to make a place for himself again.  It must be
+very strange for him, poor fellow.  I suppose all these years since his
+accident will not exist for him.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap33"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 33
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+LESLIE RETURNS
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+A fortnight later Leslie Moore came home alone to the old house where
+she had spent so many bitter years.  In the June twilight she went over
+the fields to Anne’s, and appeared with ghost-like suddenness in the
+scented garden.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie!” cried Anne in amazement.  “Where have you sprung from?  We
+never knew you were coming.  Why didn’t you write?  We would have met
+you.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I couldn’t write somehow, Anne.  It seemed so futile to try to say
+anything with pen and ink.  And I wanted to get back quietly and
+unobserved.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne put her arms about Leslie and kissed her.  Leslie returned the
+kiss warmly.  She looked pale and tired, and she gave a little sigh as
+she dropped down on the grasses beside a great bed of daffodils that
+were gleaming through the pale, silvery twilight like golden stars.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And you have come home alone, Leslie?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes.  George Moore’s sister came to Montreal and took him home with
+her.  Poor fellow, he was sorry to part with me&mdash;though I was a
+stranger to him when his memory first came back.  He clung to me in
+those first hard days when he was trying to realise that Dick’s death
+was not the thing of yesterday that it seemed to him.  It was all very
+hard for him.  I helped him all I could.  When his sister came it was
+easier for him, because it seemed to him only the other day that he had
+seen her last.  Fortunately she had not changed much, and that helped
+him, too.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It is all so strange and wonderful, Leslie.  I think we none of us
+realise it yet.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I cannot.  When I went into the house over there an hour ago, I felt
+that it MUST be a dream&mdash;that Dick must be there, with his childish
+smile, as he had been for so long.  Anne, I seem stunned yet. I’m not
+glad or sorry&mdash;or ANYTHING.  I feel as if something had been torn
+suddenly out of my life and left a terrible hole.  I feel as if I
+couldn’t be <I>I</I>&mdash;as if I must have changed into somebody else and
+couldn’t get used to it.  It gives me a horrible lonely, dazed,
+helpless feeling.  It’s good to see you again&mdash;it seems as if you were
+a sort of anchor for my drifting soul.  Oh, Anne, I dread it all&mdash;the
+gossip and wonderment and questioning.  When I think of that, I wish
+that I need not have come home at all.  Dr. Dave was at the station
+when I came off the train&mdash;he brought me home.  Poor old man, he feels
+very badly because he told me years ago that nothing could be done for
+Dick.  'I honestly thought so, Leslie,’ he said to me today.  'But I
+should have told you not to depend on my opinion&mdash;I should have told
+you to go to a specialist.  If I had, you would have been saved many
+bitter years, and poor George Moore many wasted ones.  I blame myself
+very much, Leslie.’  I told him not to do that&mdash;he had done what he
+thought right.  He has always been so kind to me&mdash;I couldn’t bear to
+see him worrying over it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And Dick&mdash;George, I mean?  Is his memory fully restored?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Practically.  Of course, there are a great many details he can’t
+recall yet&mdash;but he remembers more and more every day.  He went out for
+a walk on the evening after Dick was buried.  He had Dick’s money and
+watch on him; he meant to bring them home to me, along with my letter.
+He admits he went to a place where the sailors resorted&mdash;and he
+remembers drinking&mdash;and nothing else.  Anne, I shall never forget the
+moment he remembered his own name.  I saw him looking at me with an
+intelligent but puzzled expression.  I said, 'Do you know me, Dick?’
+He answered, 'I never saw you before.  Who are you?  And my name is not
+Dick.  I am George Moore, and Dick died of yellow fever yesterday!
+Where am I?  What has happened to me?’  I&mdash;I fainted, Anne.  And ever
+since I have felt as if I were in a dream.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You will soon adjust yourself to this new state of things, Leslie.
+And you are young&mdash;life is before you&mdash;you will have many beautiful
+years yet.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Perhaps I shall be able to look at it in that way after a while, Anne.
+Just now I feel too tired and indifferent to think about the future.
+I’m&mdash;I’m&mdash;Anne, I’m lonely.  I miss Dick.  Isn’t it all very strange?
+Do you know, I was really fond of poor Dick&mdash;George, I suppose I should
+say&mdash;just as I would have been fond of a helpless child who depended on
+me for everything.  I would never have admitted it&mdash;I was really
+ashamed of it&mdash;because, you see, I had hated and despised Dick so much
+before he went away.  When I heard that Captain Jim was bringing him
+home I expected I would just feel the same to him.  But I never
+did&mdash;although I continued to loathe him as I remembered him before.
+From the time he came home I felt only pity&mdash;a pity that hurt and wrung
+me.  I supposed then that it was just because his accident had made him
+so helpless and changed.  But now I believe it was because there was
+really a different personality there.  Carlo knew it, Anne&mdash;I know now
+that Carlo knew it.  I always thought it strange that Carlo shouldn’t
+have known Dick.  Dogs are usually so faithful.  But HE knew it was not
+his master who had come back, although none of the rest of us did.  I
+had never seen George Moore, you know.  I remember now that Dick once
+mentioned casually that he had a cousin in Nova Scotia who looked as
+much like him as a twin; but the thing had gone out of my memory, and
+in any case I would never have thought it of any importance.  You see,
+it never occurred to me to question Dick’s identity.  Any change in him
+seemed to me just the result of the accident.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, Anne, that night in April when Gilbert told me he thought Dick
+might be cured!  I can never forget it.  It seemed to me that I had
+once been a prisoner in a hideous cage of torture, and then the door
+had been opened and I could get out.  I was still chained to the cage
+but I was not in it.  And that night I felt that a merciless hand was
+drawing me back into the cage&mdash;back to a torture even more terrible
+than it had once been.  I didn’t blame Gilbert.  I felt he was right.
+And he had been very good&mdash;he said that if, in view of the expense and
+uncertainty of the operation, I should decide not to risk it, he would
+not blame me in the least.  But I knew how I ought to decide&mdash;and I
+couldn’t face it.  All night I walked the floor like a mad woman,
+trying to compel myself to face it.  I couldn’t, Anne&mdash;I thought I
+couldn’t&mdash;and when morning broke I set my teeth and resolved that I
+WOULDN’T.  I would let things remain as they were.  It was very wicked,
+I know.  It would have been just punishment for such wickedness if I
+had just been left to abide by that decision.  I kept to it all day.
+That afternoon I had to go up to the Glen to do some shopping.  It was
+one of Dick’s quiet, drowsy days, so I left him alone.  I was gone a
+little longer than I had expected, and he missed me.  He felt lonely.
+And when I got home, he ran to meet me just like a child, with such a
+pleased smile on his face.  Somehow, Anne, I just gave way then.  That
+smile on his poor vacant face was more than I could endure.  I felt as
+if I were denying a child the chance to grow and develop.  I knew that
+I must give him his chance, no matter what the consequences might be.
+So I came over and told Gilbert.  Oh, Anne, you must have thought me
+hateful in those weeks before I went away.  I didn’t mean to be&mdash;but I
+couldn’t think of anything except what I had to do, and everything and
+everybody about me were like shadows.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I know&mdash;I understood, Leslie.  And now it is all over&mdash;your chain is
+broken&mdash;there is no cage.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There is no cage,” repeated Leslie absently, plucking at the fringing
+grasses with her slender, brown hands.  “But&mdash;it doesn’t seem as if
+there were anything else, Anne.  You&mdash;you remember what I told you of
+my folly that night on the sand-bar?  I find one doesn’t get over being
+a fool very quickly.  Sometimes I think there are people who are fools
+forever.  And to be a fool&mdash;of that kind&mdash;is almost as bad as being
+a&mdash;a dog on a chain.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You will feel very differently after you get over being tired and
+bewildered,” said Anne, who, knowing a certain thing that Leslie did
+not know, did not feel herself called upon to waste overmuch sympathy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie laid her splendid golden head against Anne’s knee.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anyhow, I have YOU,” she said.  “Life can’t be altogether empty with
+such a friend.  Anne, pat my head&mdash;just as if I were a little
+girl&mdash;MOTHER me a bit&mdash;and let me tell you while my stubborn tongue is
+loosed a little just what you and your comradeship have meant to me
+since that night I met you on the rock shore.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap34"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 34
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+THE SHIP O’DREAMS COMES TO HARBOR
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+One morning, when a windy golden sunrise was billowing over the gulf in
+waves of light, a certain weary stork flew over the bar of Four Winds
+Harbor on his way from the Land of Evening Stars.  Under his wing was
+tucked a sleepy, starry-eyed, little creature.  The stork was tired,
+and he looked wistfully about him.  He knew he was somewhere near his
+destination, but he could not yet see it.  The big, white light-house
+on the red sandstone cliff had its good points; but no stork possessed
+of any gumption would leave a new, velvet baby there.  An old gray
+house, surrounded by willows, in a blossomy brook valley, looked more
+promising, but did not seem quite the thing either.  The staring green
+abode further on was manifestly out of the question.  Then the stork
+brightened up.  He had caught sight of the very place&mdash;a little white
+house nestled against a big, whispering firwood, with a spiral of blue
+smoke winding up from its kitchen chimney&mdash;a house which just looked as
+if it were meant for babies.  The stork gave a sigh of satisfaction,
+and softly alighted on the ridge-pole.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Half an hour later Gilbert ran down the hall and tapped on the
+spare-room door.  A drowsy voice answered him and in a moment Marilla’s
+pale, scared face peeped out from behind the door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Marilla, Anne has sent me to tell you that a certain young gentleman
+has arrived here.  He hasn’t brought much luggage with him, but he
+evidently means to stay.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“For pity’s sake!” said Marilla blankly.  “You don’t mean to tell me,
+Gilbert, that it’s all over.  Why wasn’t I called?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne wouldn’t let us disturb you when there was no need.  Nobody was
+called until about two hours ago.  There was no 'passage perilous’ this
+time.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And&mdash;and&mdash;Gilbert&mdash;will this baby live?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He certainly will.  He weighs ten pounds and&mdash;why, listen to him.
+Nothing wrong with his lungs, is there?  The nurse says his hair will
+be red.  Anne is furious with her, and I’m tickled to death.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That was a wonderful day in the little house of dreams.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The best dream of all has come true,” said Anne, pale and rapturous.
+“Oh, Marilla, I hardly dare believe it, after that horrible day last
+summer.  I have had a heartache ever since then&mdash;but it is gone now.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“This baby will take Joy’s place,” said Marilla.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, no, no, NO, Marilla.  He can’t&mdash;nothing can ever do that.  He has
+his own place, my dear, wee man-child.  But little Joy has hers, and
+always will have it.  If she had lived she would have been over a year
+old.  She would have been toddling around on her tiny feet and lisping
+a few words.  I can see her so plainly, Marilla.  Oh, I know now that
+Captain Jim was right when he said God would manage better than that my
+baby would seem a stranger to me when I found her Beyond.  I’ve learned
+THAT this past year.  I’ve followed her development day by day and week
+by week&mdash;I always shall.  I shall know just how she grows from year to
+year&mdash;and when I meet her again I’ll know her&mdash;she won’t be a stranger.
+Oh, Marilla, LOOK at his dear, darling toes!  Isn’t it strange they
+should be so perfect?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It would be stranger if they weren’t,” said Marilla crisply.  Now that
+all was safely over, Marilla was herself again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I know&mdash;but it seems as if they couldn’t be quite FINISHED, you
+know&mdash;and they are, even to the tiny nails.  And his hands&mdash;JUST look
+at his hands, Marilla.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“They appear to be a good deal like hands,” Marilla conceded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“See how he clings to my finger.  I’m sure he knows me already.  He
+cries when the nurse takes him away.  Oh, Marilla, do you think&mdash;you
+don’t think, do you&mdash;that his hair is going to be red?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t see much hair of any color,” said Marilla.  “I wouldn’t worry
+about it, if I were you, until it becomes visible.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Marilla, he HAS hair&mdash;look at that fine little down all over his head.
+Anyway, nurse says his eyes will be hazel and his forehead is exactly
+like Gilbert’s.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And he has the nicest little ears, Mrs. Doctor, dear,” said Susan.
+“The first thing I did was to look at his ears.  Hair is deceitful and
+noses and eyes change, and you cannot tell what is going to come of
+them, but ears is ears from start to finish, and you always know where
+you are with them.  Just look at their shape&mdash;and they are set right
+back against his precious head.  You will never need to be ashamed of
+his ears, Mrs. Doctor, dear.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne’s convalescence was rapid and happy.  Folks came and worshipped
+the baby, as people have bowed before the kingship of the new-born
+since long before the Wise Men of the East knelt in homage to the Royal
+Babe of the Bethlehem manger.  Leslie, slowly finding herself amid the
+new conditions of her life, hovered over it, like a beautiful,
+golden-crowned Madonna.  Miss Cornelia nursed it as knackily as could
+any mother in Israel.  Captain Jim held the small creature in his big
+brown hands and gazed tenderly at it, with eyes that saw the children
+who had never been born to him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What are you going to call him?” asked Miss Cornelia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne has settled his name,” answered Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“James Matthew&mdash;after the two finest gentlemen I’ve ever known&mdash;not
+even saving your presence,” said Anne with a saucy glance at Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert smiled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I never knew Matthew very well; he was so shy we boys couldn’t get
+acquainted with him&mdash;but I quite agree with you that Captain Jim is one
+of the rarest and finest souls God ever clothed in clay.  He is so
+delighted over the fact that we have given his name to our small lad.
+It seems he has no other namesake.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, James Matthew is a name that will wear well and not fade in the
+washing,” said Miss Cornelia.  “I’m glad you didn’t load him down with
+some highfalutin, romantic name that he’d be ashamed of when he gets to
+be a grandfather.  Mrs. William Drew at the Glen has called her baby
+Bertie Shakespeare.  Quite a combination, isn’t it?  And I’m glad you
+haven’t had much trouble picking on a name.  Some folks have an awful
+time.  When the Stanley Flaggs’ first boy was born there was so much
+rivalry as to who the child should be named for that the poor little
+soul had to go for two years without a name.  Then a brother came along
+and there it was&mdash;'Big Baby’ and 'Little Baby.’ Finally they called Big
+Baby Peter and Little Baby Isaac, after the two grandfathers, and had
+them both christened together.  And each tried to see if it couldn’t
+howl the other down.  You know that Highland Scotch family of MacNabs
+back of the Glen?  They’ve got twelve boys and the oldest and the
+youngest are both called Neil&mdash;Big Neil and Little Neil in the same
+family.  Well, I s’pose they ran out of names.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I have read somewhere,” laughed Anne, “that the first child is a poem
+but the tenth is very prosy prose.  Perhaps Mrs. MacNab thought that
+the twelfth was merely an old tale re-told.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, there’s something to be said for large families,” said Miss
+Cornelia, with a sigh.  “I was an only child for eight years and I did
+long for a brother and sister.  Mother told me to pray for one&mdash;and
+pray I did, believe ME.  Well, one day Aunt Nellie came to me and said,
+'Cornelia, there is a little brother for you upstairs in your ma’s
+room.  You can go up and see him.’  I was so excited and delighted I
+just flew upstairs.  And old Mrs. Flagg lifted up the baby for me to
+see.  Lord, Anne, dearie, I never was so disappointed in my life.  You
+see, I’d been praying for A BROTHER TWO YEARS OLDER THAN MYSELF.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How long did it take you to get over your disappointment?” asked Anne,
+amid her laughter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, I had a spite at Providence for a good spell, and for weeks I
+wouldn’t even look at the baby.  Nobody knew why, for I never told.
+Then he began to get real cute, and held out his wee hands to me and I
+began to get fond of him.  But I didn’t get really reconciled to him
+until one day a school chum came to see him and said she thought he was
+awful small for his age.  I just got boiling mad, and I sailed right
+into her, and told her she didn’t know a nice baby when she saw one,
+and ours was the nicest baby in the world.  And after that I just
+worshipped him.  Mother died before he was three years old and I was
+sister and mother to him both.  Poor little lad, he was never strong,
+and he died when he wasn’t much over twenty.  Seems to me I’d have
+given anything on earth, Anne, dearie, if he’d only lived.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia sighed.  Gilbert had gone down and Leslie, who had been
+crooning over the small James Matthew in the dormer window, laid him
+asleep in his basket and went her way.  As soon as she was safely out
+of earshot, Miss Cornelia bent forward and said in a conspirator’s
+whisper:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne, dearie, I’d a letter from Owen Ford yesterday.  He’s in
+Vancouver just now, but he wants to know if I can board him for a month
+later on.  YOU know what that means.  Well, I hope we’re doing right.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We’ve nothing to do with it&mdash;we couldn’t prevent him from coming to
+Four Winds if he wanted to,” said Anne quickly.  She did not like the
+feeling of match-making Miss Cornelia’s whispers gave her; and then she
+weakly succumbed herself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t let Leslie know he is coming until he is here,” she said.  “If
+she found out I feel sure she would go away at once.  She intends to go
+in the fall anyhow&mdash;she told me so the other day.  She is going to
+Montreal to take up nursing and make what she can of her life.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, well, Anne, dearie,” said Miss Cornelia, nodding sagely “that is
+all as it may be.  You and I have done our part and we must leave the
+rest to Higher Hands.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap35"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 35
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+POLITICS AT FOUR WINDS
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+When Anne came downstairs again, the Island, as well as all Canada, was
+in the throes of a campaign preceding a general election.  Gilbert, who
+was an ardent Conservative, found himself caught in the vortex, being
+much in demand for speech-making at the various county rallies.  Miss
+Cornelia did not approve of his mixing up in politics and told Anne so.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Dr. Dave never did it.  Dr. Blythe will find he is making a mistake,
+believe ME.  Politics is something no decent man should meddle with.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Is the government of the country to be left solely to the rogues
+then?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes&mdash;so long as it’s Conservative rogues,” said Miss Cornelia,
+marching off with the honors of war.  “Men and politicians are all
+tarred with the same brush.  The Grits have it laid on thicker than the
+Conservatives, that’s all&mdash;CONSIDERABLY thicker.  But Grit or Tory, my
+advice to Dr. Blythe is to steer clear of politics.  First thing you
+know, he’ll be running an election himself, and going off to Ottawa for
+half the year and leaving his practice to go to the dogs.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Ah, well, let’s not borrow trouble,” said Anne.  “The rate of interest
+is too high.  Instead, let’s look at Little Jem.  It should be spelled
+with a G.  Isn’t he perfectly beautiful?  Just see the dimples in his
+elbows.  We’ll bring him up to be a good Conservative, you and I, Miss
+Cornelia.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Bring him up to be a good man,” said Miss Cornelia.  “They’re scarce
+and valuable; though, mind you, I wouldn’t like to see him a Grit.  As
+for the election, you and I may be thankful we don’t live over harbor.
+The air there is blue these days.  Every Elliott and Crawford and
+MacAllister is on the warpath, loaded for bear.  This side is peaceful
+and calm, seeing there’s so few men.  Captain Jim’s a Grit, but it’s my
+opinion he’s ashamed of it, for he never talks politics.  There isn’t
+any earthly doubt that the Conservatives will be returned with a big
+majority again.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia was mistaken.  On the morning after the election Captain
+Jim dropped in at the little house to tell the news.  So virulent is
+the microbe of party politics, even in a peaceable old man, that
+Captain Jim’s cheeks were flushed and his eyes were flashing with all
+his old-time fire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Mistress Blythe, the Liberals are in with a sweeping majority.  After
+eighteen years of Tory mismanagement this down-trodden country is going
+to have a chance at last.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I never heard you make such a bitter partisan speech before, Captain
+Jim.  I didn’t think you had so much political venom in you,” laughed
+Anne, who was not much excited over the tidings.  Little Jem had said
+“Wow-ga” that morning.  What were principalities and powers, the rise
+and fall of dynasties, the overthrow of Grit or Tory, compared with
+that miraculous occurrence?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s been accumulating for a long while,” said Captain Jim, with a
+deprecating smile.  “I thought I was only a moderate Grit, but when the
+news came that we were in I found out how Gritty I really was.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You know the doctor and I are Conservatives.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Ah, well, it’s the only bad thing I know of either of you, Mistress
+Blythe.  Cornelia is a Tory, too.  I called in on my way from the Glen
+to tell her the news.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Didn’t you know you took your life in your hands?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, but I couldn’t resist the temptation.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How did she take it?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Comparatively calm, Mistress Blythe, comparatively calm.  She says,
+says she, 'Well, Providence sends seasons of humiliation to a country,
+same as to individuals.  You Grits have been cold and hungry for many a
+year.  Make haste to get warmed and fed, for you won’t be in long.’
+'Well, now Cornelia,’ I says, 'mebbe Providence thinks Canada needs a
+real long spell of humiliation.’  Ah, Susan, have YOU heard the news?
+The Liberals are in.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Susan had just come in from the kitchen, attended by the odor of
+delectable dishes which always seemed to hover around her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Now, are they?” she said, with beautiful unconcern.  “Well, I never
+could see but that my bread rose just as light when Grits were in as
+when they were not.  And if any party, Mrs. Doctor, dear, will make it
+rain before the week is out, and save our kitchen garden from entire
+ruination, that is the party Susan will vote for.  In the meantime,
+will you just step out and give me your opinion on the meat for dinner?
+I am fearing that it is very tough, and I think that we had better
+change our butcher as well as our government.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One evening, a week later, Anne walked down to the Point, to see if she
+could get some fresh fish from Captain Jim, leaving Little Jem for the
+first time.  It was quite a tragedy.  Suppose he cried?  Suppose Susan
+did not know just exactly what to do for him?  Susan was calm and
+serene.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I have had as much experience with him as you, Mrs. Doctor, dear, have
+I not?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, with him&mdash;but not with other babies.  Why, I looked after three
+pairs of twins, when I was a child, Susan.  When they cried, I gave
+them peppermint or castor oil quite coolly.  It’s quite curious now to
+recall how lightly I took all those babies and their woes.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, well, if Little Jem cries, I will just clap a hot water bag on his
+little stomach,” said Susan.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Not too hot, you know,” said Anne anxiously.  Oh, was it really wise
+to go?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Do not you fret, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Susan is not the woman to burn a
+wee man.  Bless him, he has no notion of crying.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne tore herself away finally and enjoyed her walk to the Point after
+all, through the long shadows of the sun-setting.  Captain Jim was not
+in the living room of the lighthouse, but another man was&mdash;a handsome,
+middle-aged man, with a strong, clean-shaven chin, who was unknown to
+Anne.  Nevertheless, when she sat down, he began to talk to her with
+all the assurance of an old acquaintance.  There was nothing amiss in
+what he said or the way he said it, but Anne rather resented such a
+cool taking-for-granted in a complete stranger.  Her replies were
+frosty, and as few as decency required.  Nothing daunted, her companion
+talked on for several minutes, then excused himself and went away.
+Anne could have sworn there was a twinkle in his eye and it annoyed
+her.  Who was the creature?  There was something vaguely familiar about
+him but she was certain she had never seen him before.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Captain Jim, who was that who just went out?” she asked, as Captain
+Jim came in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Marshall Elliott,” answered the captain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Marshall Elliott!” cried Anne.  “Oh, Captain Jim&mdash;it wasn’t&mdash;yes, it
+WAS his voice&mdash;oh, Captain Jim, I didn’t know him&mdash;and I was quite
+insulting to him!  WHY didn’t he tell me?  He must have seen I didn’t
+know him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He wouldn’t say a word about it&mdash;he’d just enjoy the joke.  Don’t
+worry over snubbing him&mdash;he’ll think it fun.  Yes, Marshall’s shaved
+off his beard at last and cut his hair.  His party is in, you know.  I
+didn’t know him myself first time I saw him.  He was up in Carter
+Flagg’s store at the Glen the night after election day, along with a
+crowd of others, waiting for the news.  About twelve the ’phone came
+through&mdash;the Liberals were in.  Marshall just got up and walked out&mdash;he
+didn’t cheer or shout&mdash;he left the others to do that, and they nearly
+lifted the roof off Carter’s store, I reckon.  Of course, all the
+Tories were over in Raymond Russell’s store.  Not much cheering THERE.
+Marshall went straight down the street to the side door of Augustus
+Palmer’s barber shop.  Augustus was in bed asleep, but Marhall hammered
+on the door until he got up and come down, wanting to know what all the
+racket was about.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Come into your shop and do the best job you ever did in your life,
+Gus,’ said Marshall.  'The Liberals are in and you’re going to barber a
+good Grit before the sun rises.’
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Gus was mad as hops&mdash;partly because he’d been dragged out of bed, but
+more because he’s a Tory.  He vowed he wouldn’t shave any man after
+twelve at night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“'You’ll do what I want you to do, sonny,’ said Marshall, 'or I’ll jest
+turn you over my knee and give you one of those spankings your mother
+forgot.’
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He’d have done it, too, and Gus knew it, for Marshall is as strong as
+an ox and Gus is only a midget of a man.  So he gave in and towed
+Marshall in to the shop and went to work.  'Now,’ says he, 'I’ll barber
+you up, but if you say one word to me about the Grits getting in while
+I’m doing it I’ll cut your throat with this razor,’ says he.  You
+wouldn’t have thought mild little Gus could be so bloodthirsty, would
+you?  Shows what party politics will do for a man.  Marshall kept quiet
+and got his hair and beard disposed of and went home.  When his old
+housekeeper heard him come upstairs she peeked out of her bedroom door
+to see whether ’twas him or the hired boy.  And when she saw a strange
+man striding down the hall with a candle in his hand she screamed blue
+murder and fainted dead away.  They had to send for the doctor before
+they could bring her to, and it was several days before she could look
+at Marshall without shaking all over.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim had no fish.  He seldom went out in his boat that summer,
+and his long tramping expeditions were over.  He spent a great deal of
+his time sitting by his seaward window, looking out over the gulf, with
+his swiftly-whitening head leaning on his hand.  He sat there tonight
+for many silent minutes, keeping some tryst with the past which Anne
+would not disturb.  Presently he pointed to the iris of the West:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That’s beautiful, isn’t, it, Mistress Blythe?  But I wish you could
+have seen the sunrise this morning.  It was a wonderful
+thing&mdash;wonderful.  I’ve seen all kinds of sunrises come over that gulf.
+I’ve been all over the world, Mistress Blythe, and take it all in all,
+I’ve never seen a finer sight than a summer sunrise over the gulf.  A
+man can’t pick his time for dying, Mistress Blythe&mdash;jest got to go when
+the Great Captain gives His sailing orders.  But if I could I’d go out
+when the morning comes across that water.  I’ve watched it many a time
+and thought what a thing it would be to pass out through that great
+white glory to whatever was waiting beyant, on a sea that ain’t mapped
+out on any airthly chart.  I think, Mistress Blythe, that I’d find lost
+Margaret there.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim had often talked to Anne of lost Margaret since he had told
+her the old story.  His love for her trembled in every tone&mdash;that love
+that had never grown faint or forgetful.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anyway, I hope when my time comes I’ll go quick and easy.  I don’t
+think I’m a coward, Mistress Blythe&mdash;I’ve looked an ugly death in the
+face more than once without blenching.  But the thought of a lingering
+death does give me a queer, sick feeling of horror.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t talk about leaving us, dear, DEAR Captain, Jim,” pleaded Anne,
+in a choked voice, patting the old brown hand, once so strong, but now
+grown very feeble.  “What would we do without you?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim smiled beautifully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, you’d get along nicely&mdash;nicely&mdash;but you wouldn’t forget the old
+man altogether, Mistress Blythe&mdash;no, I don’t think you’ll ever quite
+forget him.  The race of Joseph always remembers one another.  But
+it’ll be a memory that won’t hurt&mdash;I like to think that my memory won’t
+hurt my friends&mdash;it’ll always be kind of pleasant to them, I hope and
+believe.  It won’t be very long now before lost Margaret calls me, for
+the last time.  I’ll be all ready to answer.  I jest spoke of this
+because there’s a little favor I want to ask you.  Here’s this poor old
+Matey of mine”&mdash;Captain Jim reached out a hand and poked the big, warm,
+velvety, golden ball on the sofa.  The First Mate uncoiled himself like
+a spring with a nice, throaty, comfortable sound, half purr, half meow,
+stretched his paws in air, turned over and coiled himself up again.
+“HE’ll miss me when I start on the V’yage.  I can’t bear to think of
+leaving the poor critter to starve, like he was left before.  If
+anything happens to me will you give Matey a bite and a corner,
+Mistress Blythe?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Indeed I will.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Then that is all I had on my mind.  Your Little Jem is to have the few
+curious things I picked up&mdash;I’ve seen to that.  And now I don’t like to
+see tears in those pretty eyes, Mistress Blythe.  I’ll mebbe hang on
+for quite a spell yet.  I heard you reading a piece of poetry one day
+last winter&mdash;one of Tennyson’s pieces.  I’d sorter like to hear it
+again, if you could recite it for me.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Softly and clearly, while the seawind blew in on them, Anne repeated
+the beautiful lines of Tennyson’s wonderful swan song&mdash;“Crossing the
+Bar.”  The old captain kept time gently with his sinewy hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, yes, Mistress Blythe,” he said, when she had finished, “that’s
+it, that’s it.  He wasn’t a sailor, you tell me&mdash;I dunno how he could
+have put an old sailor’s feelings into words like that, if he wasn’t
+one.  He didn’t want any 'sadness o’ farewells’ and neither do I,
+Mistress Blythe&mdash;for all will be well with me and mine beyant the bar.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap36"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 36
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+BEAUTY FOR ASHES
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+“Any news from Green Gables, Anne?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Nothing very especial,” replied Anne, folding up Marilla’s letter.
+“Jake Donnell has been there shingling the roof.  He is a full-fledged
+carpenter now, so it seems he has had his own way in regard to the
+choice of a life-work.  You remember his mother wanted him to be a
+college professor.  I shall never forget the day she came to the school
+and rated me for failing to call him St. Clair.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Does anyone ever call him that now?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Evidently not.  It seems that he has completely lived it down.  Even
+his mother has succumbed.  I always thought that a boy with Jake’s chin
+and mouth would get his own way in the end.  Diana writes me that Dora
+has a beau.  Just think of it&mdash;that child!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Dora is seventeen,” said Gilbert.  “Charlie Sloane and I were both mad
+about you when you were seventeen, Anne.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Really, Gilbert, we must be getting on in years,” said Anne, with a
+half-rueful smile, “when children who were six when we thought
+ourselves grown up are old enough now to have beaux.  Dora’s is Ralph
+Andrews&mdash;Jane’s brother.  I remember him as a little, round, fat,
+white-headed fellow who was always at the foot of his class.  But I
+understand he is quite a fine-looking young man now.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Dora will probably marry young.  She’s of the same type as Charlotta
+the Fourth&mdash;she’ll never miss her first chance for fear she might not
+get another.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well; if she marries Ralph I hope he will be a little more
+up-and-coming than his brother Billy,” mused Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“For instance,” said Gilbert, laughing, “let us hope he will be able to
+propose on his own account.  Anne, would you have married Billy if he
+had asked you himself, instead of getting Jane to do it for him?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I might have.” Anne went off into a shriek of laughter over the
+recollection of her first proposal.  “The shock of the whole thing
+might have hypnotized me into some such rash and foolish act.  Let us
+be thankful he did it by proxy.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I had a letter from George Moore yesterday,” said Leslie, from the
+corner where she was reading.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, how is he?” asked Anne interestedly, yet with an unreal feeling
+that she was inquiring about some one whom she did not know.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He is well, but he finds it very hard to adapt himself to all the
+changes in his old home and friends.  He is going to sea again in the
+spring.  It’s in his blood, he says, and he longs for it.  But he told
+me something that made me glad for him, poor fellow.  Before he sailed
+on the Four Sisters he was engaged to a girl at home.  He did not tell
+me anything about her in Montreal, because he said he supposed she
+would have forgotten him and married someone else long ago, and with
+him, you see, his engagement and love was still a thing of the present.
+It was pretty hard on him, but when he got home he found she had never
+married and still cared for him.  They are to be married this fall.
+I’m going to ask him to bring her over here for a little trip; he says
+he wants to come and see the place where he lived so many years without
+knowing it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“What a nice little romance,” said Anne, whose love for the romantic
+was immortal.  “And to think,” she added with a sigh of self-reproach,
+“that if I had had my way George Moore would never have come up from
+the grave in which his identity was buried.  How I did fight against
+Gilbert’s suggestion!  Well, I am punished:  I shall never be able to
+have a different opinion from Gilbert’s again!  If I try to have, he
+will squelch me by casting George Moore’s case up to me!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“As if even that would squelch a woman!” mocked Gilbert.  “At least do
+not become my echo, Anne.  A little opposition gives spice to life.  I
+do not want a wife like John MacAllister’s over the harbor.  No matter
+what he says, she at once remarks in that drab, lifeless little voice
+of hers, 'That is very true, John, dear me!’”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne and Leslie laughed.  Anne’s laughter was silver and Leslie’s
+golden, and the combination of the two was as satisfactory as a perfect
+chord in music.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Susan, coming in on the heels of the laughter, echoed it with a
+resounding sigh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Why, Susan, what is the matter?” asked Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There’s nothing wrong with little Jem, is there, Susan?” cried Anne,
+starting up in alarm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, no, calm yourself, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Something has happened,
+though.  Dear me, everything has gone catawampus with me this week.  I
+spoiled the bread, as you know too well&mdash;and I scorched the doctor’s
+best shirt bosom&mdash;and I broke your big platter.  And now, on the top of
+all this, comes word that my sister Matilda has broken her leg and
+wants me to go and stay with her for a spell.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I’m very sorry&mdash;sorry that your sister has met with such an
+accident, I mean,” exclaimed Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Ah, well, man was made to mourn, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  That sounds as if
+it ought to be in the Bible, but they tell me a person named Burns
+wrote it.  And there is no doubt that we are born to trouble as the
+sparks fly upward.  As for Matilda, I do not know what to think of her.
+None of our family ever broke their legs before.  But whatever she has
+done she is still my sister, and I feel that it is my duty to go and
+wait on her, if you can spare me for a few weeks, Mrs. Doctor, dear.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Of course, Susan, of course.  I can get someone to help me while you
+are gone.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If you cannot I will not go, Mrs. Doctor, dear, Matilda’s leg to the
+contrary notwithstanding.  I will not have you worried, and that
+blessed child upset in consequence, for any number of legs.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, you must go to your sister at once, Susan.  I can get a girl from
+the cove, who will do for a time.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne, will you let me come and stay with you while Susan is away?”
+exclaimed Leslie.  “Do!  I’d love to&mdash;and it would be an act of charity
+on your part.  I’m so horribly lonely over there in that big barn of a
+house.  There’s so little to do&mdash;and at night I’m worse than
+lonely&mdash;I’m frightened and nervous in spite of locked doors.  There was
+a tramp around two days ago.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne joyfully agreed, and next day Leslie was installed as an inmate of
+the little house of dreams.  Miss Cornelia warmly approved of the
+arrangement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It seems Providential,” she told Anne in confidence.  “I’m sorry for
+Matilda Clow, but since she had to break her leg it couldn’t have
+happened at a better time.  Leslie will be here while Owen Ford is in
+Four Winds, and those old cats up at the Glen won’t get the chance to
+meow, as they would if she was living over there alone and Owen going
+to see her.  They are doing enough of it as it is, because she doesn’t
+put on mourning.  I said to one of them, 'If you mean she should put on
+mourning for George Moore, it seems to me more like his resurrection
+than his funeral; and if it’s Dick you mean, I confess <I>I</I> can’t see
+the propriety of going into weeds for a man who died thirteen years ago
+and good riddance then!’  And when old Louisa Baldwin remarked to me
+that she thought it very strange that Leslie should never have
+suspected it wasn’t her own husband <I>I</I> said, 'YOU never suspected it
+wasn’t Dick Moore, and you were next-door neighbor to him all his life,
+and by nature you’re ten times as suspicious as Leslie.’  But you can’t
+stop some people’s tongues, Anne, dearie, and I’m real thankful Leslie
+will be under your roof while Owen is courting her.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Owen Ford came to the little house one August evening when Leslie and
+Anne were absorbed in worshipping the baby.  He paused at the open door
+of the living room, unseen by the two within, gazing with greedy eyes
+at the beautiful picture.  Leslie sat on the floor with the baby in her
+lap, making ecstatic dabs at his fat little hands as he fluttered them
+in the air.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, you dear, beautiful, beloved baby,” she mumbled, catching one wee
+hand and covering it with kisses.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Isn’t him ze darlingest itty sing,” crooned Anne, hanging over the arm
+of her chair adoringly.  “Dem itty wee pads are ze very tweetest
+handies in ze whole big world, isn’t dey, you darling itty man.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne, in the months before Little Jem’s coming, had pored diligently
+over several wise volumes, and pinned her faith to one in especial,
+“Sir Oracle on the Care and Training of Children.”  Sir Oracle implored
+parents by all they held sacred never to talk “baby talk” to their
+children.  Infants should invariably be addressed in classical language
+from the moment of their birth.  So should they learn to speak English
+undefiled from their earliest utterance.  “How,” demanded Sir Oracle,
+“can a mother reasonably expect her child to learn correct speech, when
+she continually accustoms its impressionable gray matter to such absurd
+expressions and distortions of our noble tongue as thoughtless mothers
+inflict every day on the helpless creatures committed to their care?
+Can a child who is constantly called 'tweet itty wee singie’ ever
+attain to any proper conception of his own being and possibilities and
+destiny?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne was vastly impressed with this, and informed Gilbert that she
+meant to make it an inflexible rule never, under any circumstances, to
+talk “baby talk” to her children.  Gilbert agreed with her, and they
+made a solemn compact on the subject&mdash;a compact which Anne shamelessly
+violated the very first moment Little Jem was laid in her arms.  “Oh,
+the darling itty wee sing!” she had exclaimed.  And she had continued
+to violate it ever since.  When Gilbert teased her she laughed Sir
+Oracle to scorn.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He never had any children of his own, Gilbert&mdash;I am positive he hadn’t
+or he would never have written such rubbish.  You just can’t help
+talking baby talk to a baby.  It comes natural&mdash;and it’s RIGHT.  It
+would be inhuman to talk to those tiny, soft, velvety little creatures
+as we do to great big boys and girls.  Babies want love and cuddling
+and all the sweet baby talk they can get, and Little Jem is going to
+have it, bless his dear itty heartums.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But you’re the worst I ever heard, Anne,” protested Gilbert, who, not
+being a mother but only a father, was not wholly convinced yet that Sir
+Oracle was wrong.  “I never heard anything like the way you talk to
+that child.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Very likely you never did.  Go away&mdash;go away.  Didn’t I bring up three
+pairs of Hammond twins before I was eleven?  You and Sir Oracle are
+nothing but cold-blooded theorists.  Gilbert, JUST look at him!  He’s
+smiling at me&mdash;he knows what we’re talking about.  And oo dest agwees
+wif evy word muzzer says, don’t oo, angel-lover?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert put his arm about them.  “Oh you mothers!” he said.  “You
+mothers!  God knew what He was about when He made you.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So Little Jem was talked to and loved and cuddled; and he throve as
+became a child of the house of dreams.  Leslie was quite as foolish
+over him as Anne was.  When their work was done and Gilbert was out of
+the way, they gave themselves over to shameless orgies of love-making
+and ecstasies of adoration, such as that in which Owen Ford had
+surprised them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie was the first to become aware of him.  Even in the twilight
+Anne could see the sudden whiteness that swept over her beautiful face,
+blotting out the crimson of lip and cheeks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Owen came forward, eagerly, blind for a moment to Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie!” he said, holding out his hand.  It was the first time he had
+ever called her by her name; but the hand Leslie gave him was cold; and
+she was very quiet all the evening, while Anne and Gilbert and Owen
+laughed and talked together.  Before his call ended she excused herself
+and went upstairs.  Owen’s gay spirits flagged and he went away soon
+after with a downcast air.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert looked at Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne, what are you up to?  There’s something going on that I don’t
+understand.  The whole air here tonight has been charged with
+electricity.  Leslie sits like the muse of tragedy; Owen Ford jokes and
+laughs on the surface, and watches Leslie with the eyes of his soul.
+You seem all the time to be bursting with some suppressed excitement.
+Own up.  What secret have you been keeping from your deceived husband?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Don’t be a goose, Gilbert,” was Anne’s conjugal reply.  “As for
+Leslie, she is absurd and I’m going up to tell her so.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne found Leslie at the dormer window of her room.  The little place
+was filled with the rhythmic thunder of the sea.  Leslie sat with
+locked hands in the misty moonshine&mdash;a beautiful, accusing presence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne,” she said in a low, reproachful voice, “did you know Owen Ford
+was coming to Four Winds?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I did,” said Anne brazenly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, you should have told me, Anne,” Leslie cried passionately. “If I
+had known I would have gone away&mdash;I wouldn’t have stayed here to meet
+him.  You should have told me.  It wasn’t fair of you, Anne&mdash;oh, it
+wasn’t fair!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie’s lips were trembling and her whole form was tense with emotion.
+But Anne laughed heartlessly.  She bent over and kissed Leslie’s
+upturned reproachful face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Leslie, you are an adorable goose.  Owen Ford didn’t rush from the
+Pacific to the Atlantic from a burning desire to see ME.  Neither do I
+believe that he was inspired by any wild and frenzied passion for Miss
+Cornelia.  Take off your tragic airs, my dear friend, and fold them up
+and put them away in lavender.  You’ll never need them again.  There
+are some people who can see through a grindstone when there is a hole
+in it, even if you cannot.  I am not a prophetess, but I shall venture
+on a prediction.  The bitterness of life is over for you.  After this
+you are going to have the joys and hopes&mdash;and I daresay the sorrows,
+too&mdash;of a happy woman.  The omen of the shadow of Venus did come true
+for you, Leslie.  The year in which you saw it brought your life’s best
+gift for you&mdash;your love for Owen Ford.  Now, go right to bed and have a
+good sleep.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie obeyed orders in so far that she went to bed: but it may be
+questioned if she slept much.  I do not think she dared to dream
+wakingly; life had been so hard for this poor Leslie, the path on which
+she had had to walk had been so strait, that she could not whisper to
+her own heart the hopes that might wait on the future.  But she watched
+the great revolving light bestarring the short hours of the summer
+night, and her eyes grew soft and bright and young once more.  Nor,
+when Owen Ford came next day, to ask her to go with him to the shore,
+did she say him nay.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap37"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 37
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+MISS CORNELIA MAKES A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Miss Cornelia sailed down to the little house one drowsy afternoon,
+when the gulf was the faint, bleached blue of the August seas, and the
+orange lilies at the gate of Anne’s garden held up their imperial cups
+to be filled with the molten gold of August sunshine.  Not that Miss
+Cornelia concerned herself with painted oceans or sun-thirsty lilies.
+She sat in her favorite rocker in unusual idleness.  She sewed not,
+neither did she spin.  Nor did she say a single derogatory word
+concerning any portion of mankind.  In short, Miss Cornelia’s
+conversation was singularly devoid of spice that day, and Gilbert, who
+had stayed home to listen to her, instead of going a-fishing, as he had
+intended, felt himself aggrieved.  What had come over Miss Cornelia?
+She did not look cast down or worried.  On the contrary, there was a
+certain air of nervous exultation about her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Where is Leslie?” she asked&mdash;not as if it mattered much either.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Owen and she went raspberrying in the woods back of her farm,”
+answered Anne.  “They won’t be back before supper time&mdash;if then.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“They don’t seem to have any idea that there is such a thing as a
+clock,” said Gilbert.  “I can’t get to the bottom of that affair.  I’m
+certain you women pulled strings.  But Anne, undutiful wife, won’t tell
+me.  Will you, Miss Cornelia?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, I shall not.  But,” said Miss Cornelia, with the air of one
+determined to take the plunge and have it over, “I will tell you
+something else.  I came today on purpose to tell it.  I am going to be
+married.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne and Gilbert were silent.  If Miss Cornelia had announced her
+intention of going out to the channel and drowning herself the thing
+might have been believable.  This was not.  So they waited.  Of course
+Miss Cornelia had made a mistake.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, you both look sort of kerflummexed,” said Miss Cornelia, with a
+twinkle in her eyes.  Now that the awkward moment of revelation was
+over, Miss Cornelia was her own woman again.  “Do you think I’m too
+young and inexperienced for matrimony?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You know&mdash;it IS rather staggering,” said Gilbert, trying to gather his
+wits together.  “I’ve heard you say a score of times that you wouldn’t
+marry the best man in the world.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m not going to marry the best man in the world,” retorted Miss
+Cornelia.  “Marshall Elliott is a long way from being the best.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Are you going to marry Marshall Elliott?” exclaimed Anne, recovering
+her power of speech under this second shock.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes.  I could have had him any time these twenty years if I’d lifted
+my finger.  But do you suppose I was going to walk into church beside a
+perambulating haystack like that?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I am sure we are very glad&mdash;and we wish you all possible happiness,”
+said Anne, very flatly and inadequately, as she felt.  She was not
+prepared for such an occasion.  She had never imagined herself offering
+betrothal felicitations to Miss Cornelia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Thanks, I knew you would,” said Miss Cornelia.  “You are the first of
+my friends to know it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We shall be so sorry to lose you, though, dear Miss Cornelia,” said
+Anne, beginning to be a little sad and sentimental.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, you won’t lose me,” said Miss Cornelia unsentimentally.  “You
+don’t suppose I would live over harbor with all those MacAllisters and
+Elliotts and Crawfords, do you? 'From the conceit of the Elliotts, the
+pride of the MacAllisters and the vain-glory of the Crawfords, good
+Lord deliver us.’  Marshall is coming to live at my place.  I’m sick
+and tired of hired men.  That Jim Hastings I’ve got this summer is
+positively the worst of the species.  He would drive anyone to getting
+married.  What do you think?  He upset the churn yesterday and spilled
+a big churning of cream over the yard.  And not one whit concerned
+about it was he!  Just gave a foolish laugh and said cream was good for
+the land.  Wasn’t that like a man?  I told him I wasn’t in the habit of
+fertilising my back yard with cream.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, I wish you all manner of happiness too, Miss Cornelia,” said
+Gilbert, solemnly; “but,” he added, unable to resist the temptation to
+tease Miss Cornelia, despite Anne’s imploring eyes, “I fear your day of
+independence is done.  As you know, Marshall Elliott is a very
+determined man.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I like a man who can stick to a thing,” retorted Miss Cornelia.  “Amos
+Grant, who used to be after me long ago, couldn’t.  You never saw such
+a weather-vane.  He jumped into the pond to drown himself once and then
+changed his mind and swum out again.  Wasn’t that like a man?  Marshall
+would have stuck to it and drowned.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And he has a bit of a temper, they tell me,” persisted Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He wouldn’t be an Elliott if he hadn’t.  I’m thankful he has.  It will
+be real fun to make him mad.  And you can generally do something with a
+tempery man when it comes to repenting time.  But you can’t do anything
+with a man who just keeps placid and aggravating.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You know he’s a Grit, Miss Cornelia.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, he IS,” admitted Miss Cornelia rather sadly.  “And of course
+there is no hope of making a Conservative of him.  But at least he is a
+Presbyterian.  So I suppose I shall have to be satisfied with that.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Would you marry him if he were a Methodist, Miss Cornelia?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, I would not.  Politics is for this world, but religion is for
+both.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And you may be a 'relict’ after all, Miss Cornelia.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Not I.  Marshall will live me out.  The Elliotts are long-lived, and
+the Bryants are not.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“When are you to be married?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“In about a month’s time.  My wedding dress is to be navy blue silk.
+And I want to ask you, Anne, dearie, if you think it would be all right
+to wear a veil with a navy blue dress.  I’ve always thought I’d like to
+wear a veil if I ever got married.  Marshall says to have it if I want
+to.  Isn’t that like a man?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Why shouldn’t you wear it if you want to?” asked Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, one doesn’t want to be different from other people,” said Miss
+Cornelia, who was not noticeably like anyone else on the face of the
+earth.  “As I say, I do fancy a veil.  But maybe it shouldn’t be worn
+with any dress but a white one.  Please tell me, Anne, dearie, what you
+really think.  I’ll go by your advice.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t think veils are usually worn with any but white dresses,”
+admitted Anne, “but that is merely a convention; and I am like Mr.
+Elliott, Miss Cornelia.  I don’t see any good reason why you shouldn’t
+have a veil if you want one.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Miss Cornelia, who made her calls in calico wrappers, shook her
+head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“If it isn’t the proper thing I won’t wear it,” she said, with a sigh
+of regret for a lost dream.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Since you are determined to be married, Miss Cornelia,” said Gilbert
+solemnly, “I shall give you the excellent rules for the management of a
+husband which my grandmother gave my mother when she married my father.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, I reckon I can manage Marshall Elliott,” said Miss Cornelia
+placidly.  “But let us hear your rules.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The first one is, catch him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He’s caught.  Go on.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The second one is, feed him well.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“With enough pie.  What next?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The third and fourth are&mdash;keep your eye on him.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I believe you,” said Miss Cornelia emphatically.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap38"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 38
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+RED ROSES
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The garden of the little house was a haunt beloved of bees and reddened
+by late roses that August.  The little house folk lived much in it, and
+were given to taking picnic suppers in the grassy corner beyond the
+brook and sitting about in it through the twilights when great night
+moths sailed athwart the velvet gloom.  One evening Owen Ford found
+Leslie alone in it.  Anne and Gilbert were away, and Susan, who was
+expected back that night, had not yet returned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The northern sky was amber and pale green over the fir tops.  The air
+was cool, for August was nearing September, and Leslie wore a crimson
+scarf over her white dress.  Together they wandered through the little,
+friendly, flower-crowded paths in silence.  Owen must go soon.  His
+holiday was nearly over.  Leslie found her heart beating wildly.  She
+knew that this beloved garden was to be the scene of the binding words
+that must seal their as yet unworded understanding.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Some evenings a strange odor blows down the air of this garden, like a
+phantom perfume,” said Owen.  “I have never been able to discover from
+just what flower it comes.  It is elusive and haunting and wonderfully
+sweet.  I like to fancy it is the soul of Grandmother Selwyn passing on
+a little visit to the old spot she loved so well.  There should be a
+lot of friendly ghosts about this little old house.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I have lived under its roof only a month,” said Leslie, “but I love it
+as I never loved the house over there where I have lived all my life.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“This house was builded and consecrated by love,” said Owen.  “Such
+houses, MUST exert an influence over those who live in them.  And this
+garden&mdash;it is over sixty years old and the history of a thousand hopes
+and joys is written in its blossoms.  Some of those flowers were
+actually set out by the schoolmaster’s bride, and she has been dead for
+thirty years.  Yet they bloom on every summer.  Look at those red
+roses, Leslie&mdash;how they queen it over everything else!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I love the red roses,” said Leslie.  “Anne likes the pink ones best,
+and Gilbert likes the white.  But I want the crimson ones.  They
+satisfy some craving in me as no other flower does.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“These roses are very late&mdash;they bloom after all the others have
+gone&mdash;and they hold all the warmth and soul of the summer come to
+fruition,” said Owen, plucking some of the glowing, half-opened buds.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The rose is the flower of love&mdash;the world has acclaimed it so for
+centuries.  The pink roses are love hopeful and expectant&mdash;the white
+roses are love dead or forsaken&mdash;but the red roses&mdash;ah, Leslie, what
+are the red roses?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Love triumphant,” said Leslie in a low voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes&mdash;love triumphant and perfect.  Leslie, you know&mdash;you understand.
+I have loved you from the first.  And I KNOW you love me&mdash;I don’t need
+to ask you.  But I want to hear you say it&mdash;my darling&mdash;my darling!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie said something in a very low and tremulous voice.  Their hands
+and lips met; it was life’s supreme moment for them and as they stood
+there in the old garden, with its many years of love and delight and
+sorrow and glory, he crowned her shining hair with the red, red rose of
+a love triumphant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne and Gilbert returned presently, accompanied by Captain Jim.  Anne
+lighted a few sticks of driftwood in the fireplace, for love of the
+pixy flames, and they sat around it for an hour of good fellowship.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“When I sit looking at a driftwood fire it’s easy to believe I’m young
+again,” said Captain Jim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Can you read futures in the fire, Captain Jim?” asked Owen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim looked at them all affectionately and then back again at
+Leslie’s vivid face and glowing eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I don’t need the fire to read your futures,” he said.  “I see
+happiness for all of you&mdash;all of you&mdash;for Leslie and Mr. Ford&mdash;and the
+doctor here and Mistress Blythe&mdash;and Little Jem&mdash;and children that
+ain’t born yet but will be.  Happiness for you all&mdash;though, mind you, I
+reckon you’ll have your troubles and worries and sorrows, too.  They’re
+bound to come&mdash;and no house, whether it’s a palace or a little house of
+dreams, can bar ’em out.  But they won’t get the better of you if you
+face ’em TOGETHER with love and trust.  You can weather any storm with
+them two for compass and pilot.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The old man rose suddenly and placed one hand on Leslie’s head and one
+on Anne’s.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Two good, sweet women,” he said.  “True and faithful and to be
+depended on.  Your husbands will have honor in the gates because of
+you&mdash;your children will rise up and call you blessed in the years to
+come.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a strange solemnity about the little scene.  Anne and Leslie
+bowed as those receiving a benediction.  Gilbert suddenly brushed his
+hand over his eyes; Owen Ford was rapt as one who can see visions.  All
+were silent for a space.  The little house of dreams added another
+poignant and unforgettable moment to its store of memories.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I must be going now,” said Captain Jim slowly at last.  He took up his
+hat and looked lingeringly about the room.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Good night, all of you,” he said, as he went out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne, pierced by the unusual wistfulness of his farewell, ran to the
+door after him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Come back soon, Captain Jim,” she called, as he passed through the
+little gate hung between the firs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Ay, ay,” he called cheerily back to her.  But Captain Jim had sat by
+the old fireside of the house of dreams for the last time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne went slowly back to the others.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It’s so&mdash;so pitiful to think of him going all alone down to that
+lonely Point,” she said.  “And there is no one to welcome him there.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Captain Jim is such good company for others that one can’t imagine him
+being anything but good company for himself,” said Owen.  “But he must
+often be lonely.  There was a touch of the seer about him tonight&mdash;he
+spoke as one to whom it had been given to speak.  Well, I must be
+going, too.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne and Gilbert discreetly melted away; but when Owen had gone Anne
+returned, to find Leslie standing by the hearth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, Leslie&mdash;I know&mdash;and I’m so glad, dear,” she said, putting her arms
+about her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne, my happiness frightens me,” whispered Leslie.  “It seems too
+great to be real&mdash;I’m afraid to speak of it&mdash;to think of it.  It seems
+to me that it must just be another dream of this house of dreams and it
+will vanish when I leave here.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, you are not going to leave here&mdash;until Owen takes you.  You are
+going to stay with me until that times comes.  Do you think I’d let you
+go over to that lonely, sad place again?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Thank you, dear.  I meant to ask you if I might stay with you.  I
+didn’t want to go back there&mdash;it would seem like going back into the
+chill and dreariness of the old life again.  Anne, Anne, what a friend
+you’ve been to me&mdash;'a good, sweet woman&mdash;true and faithful and to be
+depended on’&mdash;Captain Jim summed you up.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He said 'women,’ not 'woman,’” smiled Anne.  “Perhaps Captain Jim sees
+us both through the rose-colored spectacles of his love for us.  But we
+can try to live up to his belief in us, at least.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Do you remember, Anne,” said Leslie slowly, “that I once said&mdash;that
+night we met on the shore&mdash;that I hated my good looks?  I did&mdash;then.
+It always seemed to me that if I had been homely Dick would never have
+thought of me.  I hated my beauty because it had attracted him, but
+now&mdash;oh, I’m glad that I have it.  It’s all I have to offer Owen,&mdash;his
+artist soul delights in it.  I feel as if I do not come to him quite
+empty-handed.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Owen loves your beauty, Leslie.  Who would not?  But it’s foolish of
+you to say or think that that is all you bring him.  HE will tell you
+that&mdash;I needn’t.  And now I must lock up.  I expected Susan back
+tonight, but she has not come.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, yes, here I am, Mrs. Doctor, dear,” said Susan, entering
+unexpectedly from the kitchen, “and puffing like a hen drawing rails at
+that!  It’s quite a walk from the Glen down here.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I’m glad to see you back, Susan.  How is your sister?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“She is able to sit up, but of course she cannot walk yet.  However,
+she is very well able to get on without me now, for her daughter has
+come home for her vacation.  And I am thankful to be back, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear.  Matilda’s leg was broken and no mistake, but her tongue was not.
+She would talk the legs off an iron pot, that she would, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear, though I grieve to say it of my own sister.  She was always a
+great talker and yet she was the first of our family to get married.
+She really did not care much about marrying James Clow, but she could
+not bear to disoblige him.  Not but what James is a good man&mdash;the only
+fault I have to find with him is that he always starts in to say grace
+with such an unearthly groan, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  It always frightens
+my appetite clear away.  And speaking of getting married, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear, is it true that Cornelia Bryant is going to be married to
+Marshall Elliott?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, quite true, Susan.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, Mrs. Doctor, dear, it does NOT seem to me fair.  Here is me, who
+never said a word against the men, and I cannot get married nohow.  And
+there is Cornelia Bryant, who is never done abusing them, and all she
+has to do is to reach out her hand and pick one up, as it were.  It is
+a very strange world, Mrs. Doctor, dear.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“There’s another world, you know, Susan.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes,” said Susan with a heavy sigh, “but, Mrs. Doctor, dear, there is
+neither marrying nor giving in marriage there.”
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap39"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 39
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+CAPTAIN JIM CROSSES THE BAR
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+One day in late September Owen Ford’s book came at last.  Captain Jim
+had gone faithfully to the Glen post office every day for a month,
+expecting it.  This day he had not gone, and Leslie brought his copy
+home with hers and Anne’s.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We’ll take it down to him this evening,” said Anne, excited as a
+schoolgirl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The long walk to the Point on that clear, beguiling evening along the
+red harbor road was very pleasant.  Then the sun dropped down behind
+the western hills into some valley that must have been full of lost
+sunsets, and at the same instant the big light flashed out on the white
+tower of the point.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Captain Jim is never late by the fraction of a second,” said Leslie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Neither Anne nor Leslie ever forgot Captain Jim’s face when they gave
+him the book&mdash;HIS book, transfigured and glorified.  The cheeks that
+had been blanched of late suddenly flamed with the color of boyhood;
+his eyes glowed with all the fire of youth; but his hands trembled as
+he opened it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was called simply The Life-Book of Captain Jim, and on the title
+page the names of Owen Ford and James Boyd were printed as
+collaborators.  The frontispiece was a photograph of Captain Jim
+himself, standing at the door of the lighthouse, looking across the
+gulf.  Owen Ford had “snapped” him one day while the book was being
+written.  Captain Jim had known this, but he had not known that the
+picture was to be in the book.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Just think of it,” he said, “the old sailor right there in a real
+printed book.  This is the proudest day of my life.  I’m like to bust,
+girls.  There’ll be no sleep for me tonight.  I’ll read my book clean
+through before sun-up.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We’ll go right away and leave you free to begin it,” said Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim had been handling the book in a kind of reverent rapture.
+Now he decidedly closed it and laid it aside.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, no, you’re not going away before you take a cup of tea with the
+old man,” he protested.  “I couldn’t hear to that&mdash;could you, Matey?
+The life-book will keep, I reckon.  I’ve waited for it this many a
+year.  I can wait a little longer while I’m enjoying my friends.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim moved about getting his kettle on to boil, and setting out
+his bread and butter.  Despite his excitement he did not move with his
+old briskness.  His movements were slow and halting.  But the girls did
+not offer to help him.  They knew it would hurt his feelings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You just picked the right evening to visit me,” he said, producing a
+cake from his cupboard.  “Leetle Joe’s mother sent me down a big basket
+full of cakes and pies today.  A blessing on all good cooks, says I.
+Look at this purty cake, all frosting and nuts.  ’Tain’t often I can
+entertain in such style.  Set in, girls, set in!  We’ll 'tak a cup o’
+kindness yet for auld lang syne.’”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girls “set in” right merrily.  The tea was up to Captain Jim’s best
+brewing.  Little Joe’s mother’s cake was the last word in cakes;
+Captain Jim was the prince of gracious hosts, never even permitting his
+eyes to wander to the corner where the life-book lay, in all its
+bravery of green and gold.  But when his door finally closed behind
+Anne and Leslie they knew that he went straight to it, and as they
+walked home they pictured the delight of the old man poring over the
+printed pages wherein his own life was portrayed with all the charm and
+color of reality itself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I wonder how he will like the ending&mdash;the ending I suggested,” said
+Leslie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was never to know.  Early the next morning Anne awakened to find
+Gilbert bending over her, fully dressed, and with an expression of
+anxiety on his face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Are you called out?” she asked drowsily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No.  Anne, I’m afraid there’s something wrong at the Point.  It’s an
+hour after sunrise now, and the light is still burning.  You know it
+has always been a matter of pride with Captain Jim to start the light
+the moment the sun sets, and put it out the moment it rises.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne sat up in dismay.  Through her window she saw the light blinking
+palely against the blue skies of dawn.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Perhaps he has fallen asleep over his life-book,” she said anxiously,
+“or become so absorbed in it that he has forgotten the light.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert shook his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That wouldn’t be like Captain Jim.  Anyway, I’m going down to see.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Wait a minute and I’ll go with you,” exclaimed Anne.  “Oh, yes, I
+must&mdash;Little Jem will sleep for an hour yet, and I’ll call Susan.  You
+may need a woman’s help if Captain Jim is ill.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was an exquisite morning, full of tints and sounds at once ripe and
+delicate.  The harbor was sparkling and dimpling like a girl; white
+gulls were soaring over the dunes; beyond the bar was a shining,
+wonderful sea.  The long fields by the shore were dewy and fresh in
+that first fine, purely-tinted light.  The wind came dancing and
+whistling up the channel to replace the beautiful silence with a music
+more beautiful still.  Had it not been for the baleful star on the
+white tower that early walk would have been a delight to Anne and
+Gilbert.  But they went softly with fear.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Their knock was not responded to.  Gilbert opened the door and they
+went in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The old room was very quiet.  On the table were the remnants of the
+little evening feast.  The lamp still burned on the corner stand.  The
+First Mate was asleep in a square of sunshine by the sofa.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim lay on the sofa, with his hands clasped over the life-book,
+open at the last page, lying on his breast.  His eyes were closed and
+on his face was a look of the most perfect peace and happiness&mdash;the
+look of one who has long sought and found at last.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“He is asleep?” whispered Anne tremulously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert went to the sofa and bent over him for a few moments.  Then he
+straightened up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, he sleeps&mdash;well,” he added quietly.  “Anne, Captain Jim has
+crossed the bar.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They could not know precisely at what hour he had died, but Anne always
+believed that he had had his wish, and went out when the morning came
+across the gulf.  Out on that shining tide his spirit drifted, over the
+sunrise sea of pearl and silver, to the haven where lost Margaret
+waited, beyond the storms and calms.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A id="chap40"></A>
+<H3 class="center">
+CHAPTER 40
+</H3>
+
+<H3 class="center">
+FAREWELL TO THE HOUSE OF DREAMS
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Captain Jim was buried in the little over-harbor graveyard, very near
+to the spot where the wee white lady slept.  His relatives put up a
+very expensive, very ugly “monument”&mdash;a monument at which he would have
+poked sly fun had he seen it in life.  But his real monument was in the
+hearts of those who knew him, and in the book that was to live for
+generations.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leslie mourned that Captain Jim had not lived to see the amazing
+success of it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“How he would have delighted in the reviews&mdash;they are almost all so
+kindly.  And to have seen his life-book heading the lists of the best
+sellers&mdash;oh, if he could just have lived to see it, Anne!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Anne, despite her grief, was wiser.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It was the book itself he cared for, Leslie&mdash;not what might be said of
+it&mdash;and he had it.  He had read it all through.  That last night must
+have been one of the greatest happiness for him&mdash;with the quick,
+painless ending he had hoped for in the morning.  I am glad for Owen’s
+sake and yours that the book is such a success&mdash;but Captain Jim was
+satisfied&mdash;I KNOW.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The lighthouse star still kept a nightly vigil; a substitute keeper had
+been sent to the Point, until such time as an all-wise government could
+decide which of many applicants was best fitted for the place&mdash;or had
+the strongest pull.  The First Mate was at home in the little house,
+beloved by Anne and Gilbert and Leslie, and tolerated by a Susan who
+had small liking for cats.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I can put up with him for the sake of Captain Jim, Mrs. Doctor, dear,
+for I liked the old man.  And I will see that he gets bite and sup, and
+every mouse the traps account for.  But do not ask me to do more than
+that, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  Cats is cats, and take my word for it, they
+will never be anything else.  And at least, Mrs. Doctor, dear, do keep
+him away from the blessed wee man.  Picture to yourself how awful it
+would be if he was to suck the darling’s breath.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“That might be fitly called a CAT-astrophe,” said Gilbert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, you may laugh, doctor, dear, but it would be no laughing matter.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Cats never suck babies’ breaths,” said Gilbert.  “That is only an old
+superstition, Susan.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, well, it may be a superstition or it may not, doctor, dear.  All
+that I know is, it has happened.  My sister’s husband’s nephew’s wife’s
+cat sucked their baby’s breath, and the poor innocent was all but gone
+when they found it.  And superstition or not, if I find that yellow
+beast lurking near our baby I will whack him with the poker, Mrs.
+Doctor, dear.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Elliott were living comfortably and harmoniously
+in the green house.  Leslie was busy with sewing, for she and Owen were
+to be married at Christmas.  Anne wondered what she would do when
+Leslie was gone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Changes come all the time.  Just as soon as things get really nice
+they change,” she said with a sigh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“The old Morgan place up at the Glen is for sale,” said Gilbert,
+apropos of nothing in especial.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Is it?” asked Anne indifferently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes.  Now that Mr. Morgan has gone, Mrs. Morgan wants to go to live
+with her children in Vancouver.  She will sell cheaply, for a big place
+like that in a small village like the Glen will not be very easy to
+dispose of.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, it’s certainly a beautiful place, so it is likely she will find
+a purchaser,” said Anne, absently, wondering whether she should
+hemstitch or feather-stitch little Jem’s “short” dresses.  He was to be
+shortened the next week, and Anne felt ready to cry at the thought of
+it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Suppose we buy it, Anne?” remarked Gilbert quietly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne dropped her sewing and stared at him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You’re not in earnest, Gilbert?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Indeed I am, dear.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“And leave this darling spot&mdash;our house of dreams?” said Anne
+incredulously.  “Oh, Gilbert, it’s&mdash;it’s unthinkable!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Listen patiently to me, dear.  I know just how you feel about it.  I
+feel the same.  But we’ve always known we would have to move some day.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, but not so soon, Gilbert&mdash;not just yet.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We may never get such a chance again.  If we don’t buy the Morgan
+place someone else will&mdash;and there is no other house in the Glen we
+would care to have, and no other really good site on which to build.
+This little house is&mdash;well, it is and has been what no other house can
+ever be to us, I admit, but you know it is out-of-the-way down here for
+a doctor.  We have felt the inconvenience, though we’ve made the best
+of it.  And it’s a tight fit for us now.  Perhaps, in a few years, when
+Jem wants a room of his own, it will be entirely too small.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, I know&mdash;I know,” said Anne, tears filling her eyes.  “I know all
+that can be said against it, but I love it so&mdash;and it’s so beautiful
+here.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You would find it very lonely here after Leslie goes&mdash;and Captain Jim
+has gone too.  The Morgan place is beautiful, and in time we would love
+it.  You know you have always admired it, Anne.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, yes, but&mdash;but&mdash;this has all seemed to come up so suddenly,
+Gilbert.  I’m dizzy.  Ten minutes ago I had no thought of leaving this
+dear spot.  I was planning what I meant to do for it in the
+spring&mdash;what I meant to do in the garden.  And if we leave this place
+who will get it?  It IS out-of-the-way, so it’s likely some poor,
+shiftless, wandering family will rent it&mdash;and over-run it&mdash;and oh, that
+would be desecration.  It would hurt me horribly.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I know.  But we cannot sacrifice our own interests to such
+considerations, Anne-girl.  The Morgan place will suit us in every
+essential particular&mdash;we really can’t afford to miss such a chance.
+Think of that big lawn with those magnificent old trees; and of that
+splendid hardwood grove behind it&mdash;twelve acres of it.  What a play
+place for our children!  There’s a fine orchard, too, and you’ve always
+admired that high brick wall around the garden with the door in
+it&mdash;you’ve thought it was so like a story-book garden.  And there is
+almost as fine a view of the harbor and the dunes from the Morgan place
+as from here.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You can’t see the lighthouse star from it.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Yes, You can see it from the attic window.  THERE’S another advantage,
+Anne-girl&mdash;you love big garrets.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+ “There’s no brook in the garden.”<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, no, but there is one running through the maple grove into the
+Glen pond.  And the pond itself isn’t far away.  You’ll be able to
+fancy you have your own Lake of Shining Waters again.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, don’t say anything more about it just now, Gilbert.  Give me
+time to think&mdash;to get used to the idea.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“All right.  There is no great hurry, of course.  Only&mdash;if we decide to
+buy, it would be well to be moved in and settled before winter.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gilbert went out, and Anne put away Little Jem’s short dresses with
+trembling hands.  She could not sew any more that day.  With tear-wet
+eyes she wandered over the little domain where she had reigned so happy
+a queen.  The Morgan place was all that Gilbert claimed.  The grounds
+were beautiful, the house old enough to have dignity and repose and
+traditions, and new enough to be comfortable and up-to-date.  Anne had
+always admired it; but admiring is not loving; and she loved this house
+of dreams so much.  She loved EVERYTHING about it&mdash;the garden she had
+tended, and which so many women had tended before her&mdash;the gleam and
+sparkle of the little brook that crept so roguishly across the
+corner&mdash;the gate between the creaking fir trees&mdash;the old red sandstone
+step&mdash;the stately Lombardies&mdash;the two tiny quaint glass cupboards over
+the chimney-piece in the living-room&mdash;the crooked pantry door in the
+kitchen&mdash;the two funny dormer windows upstairs&mdash;the little jog in the
+staircase&mdash;why, these things were a part of her!  How could she leave
+them?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And how this little house, consecrated aforetime by love and joy, had
+been re-consecrated for her by her happiness and sorrow!  Here she had
+spent her bridal moon; here wee Joyce had lived her one brief day; here
+the sweetness of motherhood had come again with Little Jem; here she
+had heard the exquisite music of her baby’s cooing laughter; here
+beloved friends had sat by her fireside.  Joy and grief, birth and
+death, had made sacred forever this little house of dreams.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now she must leave it.  She knew that, even while she had contended
+against the idea to Gilbert.  The little house was outgrown.  Gilbert’s
+interests made the change necessary; his work, successful though it had
+been, was hampered by his location.  Anne realised that the end of
+their life in this dear place drew nigh, and that she must face the
+fact bravely.  But how her heart ached!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It will be just like tearing something out of my life,” she sobbed.
+“And oh, if I could hope that some nice folk would come here in our
+place&mdash;or even that it would be left vacant.  That itself would be
+better than having it overrun with some horde who know nothing of the
+geography of dreamland, and nothing of the history that has given this
+house its soul and its identity.  And if such a tribe come here the
+place will go to rack and ruin in no time&mdash;an old place goes down so
+quickly if it is not carefully attended to.  They’ll tear up my
+garden&mdash;and let the Lombardies get ragged&mdash;and the paling will come to
+look like a mouth with half the teeth missing&mdash;and the roof will
+leak&mdash;and the plaster fall&mdash;and they’ll stuff pillows and rags in
+broken window panes&mdash;and everything will be out-at-elbows.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne’s imagination pictured forth so vividly the coming degeneration of
+her dear little house that it hurt her as severely as if it had already
+been an accomplished fact.  She sat down on the stairs and had a long,
+bitter cry.  Susan found her there and enquired with much concern what
+the trouble was.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You have not quarrelled with the doctor, have you now, Mrs. Doctor,
+dear?  But if you have, do not worry.  It is a thing quite likely to
+happen to married couples, I am told, although I have had no experience
+that way myself.  He will be sorry, and you can soon make it up.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“No, no, Susan, we haven’t quarrelled.  It’s only&mdash;Gilbert is going to
+buy the Morgan place, and we’ll have to go and live at the Glen.  And
+it will break my heart.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Susan did not enter into Anne’s feelings at all.  She was, indeed,
+quite rejoiced over the prospect of living at the Glen.  Her one
+grievance against her place in the little house was its lonesome
+location.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Why, Mrs. Doctor, dear, it will be splendid.  The Morgan house is such
+a fine, big one.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I hate big houses,” sobbed Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, well, you will not hate them by the time you have half a dozen
+children,” remarked Susan calmly.  “And this house is too small already
+for us.  We have no spare room, since Mrs. Moore is here, and that
+pantry is the most aggravating place I ever tried to work in.  There is
+a corner every way you turn.  Besides, it is out-of-the-world down
+here.  There is really nothing at all but scenery.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Out of your world perhaps, Susan&mdash;but not out of mine,” said Anne with
+a faint smile.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“I do not quite understand you, Mrs. Doctor, dear, but of course I am
+not well educated.  But if Dr. Blythe buys the Morgan place he will
+make no mistake, and that you may tie to.  They have water in it, and
+the pantries and closets are beautiful, and there is not another such
+cellar in P. E.  Island, so I have been told.  Why, the cellar here,
+Mrs. Doctor, dear, has been a heart-break to me, as well you know.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, go away, Susan, go away,” said Anne forlornly.  “Cellars and
+pantries and closets don’t make a HOME.  Why don’t you weep with those
+who weep?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, I never was much hand for weeping, Mrs. Doctor, dear.  I would
+rather fall to and cheer people up than weep with them.  Now, do not
+you cry and spoil your pretty eyes.  This house is very well and has
+served your turn, but it is high time you had a better.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Susan’s point of view seemed to be that of most people.  Leslie was the
+only one who sympathised understandingly with Anne.  She had a good
+cry, too, when she heard the news.  Then they both dried their tears
+and went to work at the preparations for moving.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Since we must go let us go as soon as we can and have it over,” said
+poor Anne with bitter resignation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“You know you will like that lovely old place at the Glen after you
+have lived in it long enough to have dear memories woven about it,”
+said Leslie.  “Friends will come there, as they have come
+here&mdash;happiness will glorify it for you.  Now, it’s just a house to
+you&mdash;but the years will make it a home.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne and Leslie had another cry the next week when they shortened
+Little Jem.  Anne felt the tragedy of it until evening when in his long
+nightie she found her own dear baby again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But it will be rompers next&mdash;and then trousers&mdash;and in no time he will
+be grown-up,” she sighed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Well, you would not want him to stay a baby always, Mrs. Doctor, dear,
+would you?” said Susan.  “Bless his innocent heart, he looks too sweet
+for anything in his little short dresses, with his dear feet sticking
+out.  And think of the save in the ironing, Mrs. Doctor, dear.”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Anne, I have just had a letter from Owen,” said Leslie, entering with
+a bright face.  “And, oh! I have such good news.  He writes me that he
+is going to buy this place from the church trustees and keep it to
+spend our summer vacations in.  Anne, are you not glad?”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Oh, Leslie, 'glad’ isn’t the word for it!  It seems almost too good to
+be true.  I sha’n’t feel half so badly now that I know this dear spot
+will never be desecrated by a vandal tribe, or left to tumble down in
+decay.  Why, it’s lovely!  It’s lovely!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One October morning Anne wakened to the realisation that she had slept
+for the last time under the roof of her little house.  The day was too
+busy to indulge regret and when evening came the house was stripped and
+bare.  Anne and Gilbert were alone in it to say farewell.  Leslie and
+Susan and Little Jem had gone to the Glen with the last load of
+furniture.  The sunset light streamed in through the curtainless
+windows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“It has all such a heart-broken, reproachful look, hasn’t it?” said
+Anne.  “Oh, I shall be so homesick at the Glen tonight!”
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“We have been very happy here, haven’t we, Anne-girl?” said Gilbert,
+his voice full of feeling.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne choked, unable to answer.  Gilbert waited for her at the fir-tree
+gate, while she went over the house and said farewell to every room.
+She was going away; but the old house would still be there, looking
+seaward through its quaint windows.  The autumn winds would blow around
+it mournfully, and the gray rain would beat upon it and the white mists
+would come in from the sea to enfold it; and the moonlight would fall
+over it and light up the old paths where the schoolmaster and his bride
+had walked.  There on that old harbor shore the charm of story would
+linger; the wind would still whistle alluringly over the silver
+sand-dunes; the waves would still call from the red rock-coves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“But we will be gone,” said Anne through her tears.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She went out, closing and locking the door behind her.  Gilbert was
+waiting for her with a smile.  The lighthouse star was gleaming
+northward.  The little garden, where only marigolds still bloomed, was
+already hooding itself in shadows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anne knelt down and kissed the worn old step which she had crossed as a
+bride.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+“Good-bye, dear little house of dreams,” she said.
+</P>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 544 ***</div>
+</body>
+
+</html>
+
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