 CHAPTER IX. 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 come here, and I'm not going to deny myself just because you haven't got down to see me. There oughtn't 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 longs we have our pleasant little chat, it don't matter a mite what roofs 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 Paddy's place. "'Aren't they just 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 knickknacks 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, just 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 pretty 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 somberly in great 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 shadows, 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 an incarnadine 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 ingrainess 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 Moors 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 insatiable when they are only near-neighbours. 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've 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 swaths of light through it, sweeping in a circle over the fields in the harbour, the sandbar and the gulf. "'I feel as if it might catch me and whisk me leagues out to seas,' 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 grey 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 a down 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 scot act in that lemonade you gave me just before we left home, did you? "'No, I didn't,' said Anne, stifling her laughter, lest that the retreating enigma should hear her. "'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-harbour clans. Uncle Dave says they have several freaks over there.' "'Uncle Dave's a little prejudiced, I think. You know all the over-harbour people who come to the Glen Church seem very nice. Oh, Gilbert, isn't this beautiful?' The forewind's light was built on a spur of red sandstone cliff jutting out into the gulf. On one side, across the channels, stretched a 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, un-sharable sorrow, which shuts it up into itself for all eternity. We can never pierce its infinite wistory. We may only wander, odd 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 out 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 a gentle unconscious courtesy that became him so well. This has been a pretty 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 sort of rather 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 offshore, 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 silk and vapor, cloud fleets rowed an anchor along the horizons, and 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 marketplace, 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 pretty 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 green 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 from Ark, Captain Jim. The government don't give lighthousekeepers such luxuries. Look at the colors that wood makes. If you'd like some driftwood for your fire, Mr. Splithe, 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. Tisnt my favorite brand of fiction, but I'm reading it just 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 as 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 bloodthirstiest 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 effected a fine indifference. The secret is I don't scrimp the cream, he remarked, eerily. Captain Jim had never heard of Oliver Wendrell 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 Marshal Elliott, a mighty fine man, with geest one streak of foolishness in him. I suppose you wondered what his object was in turning himself into such a dying museum freak. Is he a modern Nazarite or a Hebrew prophet left over from olden times, Astan? Neither of them, its politics is at the bottom of his freak. All those Eliot's and Crawford's and McAllister's are dyed in the wool of 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 Marshal Elliott was born a grit. I'm a grit myself in moderation, but there's no moderation about Marshal. Fifteen years ago there was a specially bitter general election. Marshal 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, it didn't go in, and they've never got in yet, and you saw the result today for yourselves. Marshal stuck to his word. What does his wife think of it, Astan? He's a bachelor. But if he had a wife I reckon she couldn't make him break that vow. That family of Elliott's has always been more stubborn than natural. Marshal's brother Alexander had a dog he set great store by, and when it died the man actually wanted to have it buried in the graveyard along with the other Christians, he said. Of 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, just to say so. Alexander Elliott was a stubborn mule, but he was fond of his wife so he give in and said, well, Dernet, 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 Dern Elliott or Crawford or McAllister that ever strutted. Then was his parting words. As for Marshal 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 weren'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 version by springing upon Captain Jim's eyes. 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 terrible thoughtless people in the world, Mr. Splithe. Some of them city folks who have summer homes over the harbour 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 them and doll them up with ribbons and collars, and then in the fall they go off and leave them to starve or freeze. It makes my blood boil, Mr. Splithe. 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 died trying to shelter him. She had her poor stiff paws around him. Master I cried. Then I swore. Then I carried them poor little kittens home and fed them up and found good homes for them. I knew the woman who left the cat, and when she came back this summer I just went over the harbour 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 suppose that'll be held for a good excuse in the day of judgment 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 dirnful 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? Mady's only a pal. I'm fond of Mady. All the fond are 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 Elliot 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 there is 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 terrible. If you've done your tea, I have a few little things you might like to look at. Picked them up in the queer corners I used to be poking my nose into. Captain Jim's few little things turned out to be 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 marvelous edge that Anne and Gilbert secretly wondered if he was not drawing a rather long bow at their credulous expense. But in this, as they found out later, they did him an 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 them all jotted down in my life-book, but I haven't got the knack of writing them out properly. If I could hit on just the right words and string them together proper on paper, I could make a great book. It would beat a mad love holler, and I believe Joed like it as well as the pirate yarns. Yes, I've had some adventures in my time. And do you know, Mr. Splithe, I still lust after them. Yes, old and useless as I be, there's an awful longing sweeps over me at times, to sail out, out, out, there, for ever and ever. Like Ulysses you would sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars until you die, said Andremily. Ulysses, I've read of him. Yes, that's just how I feel. Just how all of us old sailors feel, I reckon. I'll die on land after all, I suppose. Well, what is to be will be. There was old William Ford at the glen who never went on the water in his life because 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? We'll 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 so delonesome here by times. It's been worse since Elizabeth's Russell died. Her and me were 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 Gontier'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 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 X I'm going for a walk to the outside shore tonight, Anne told Gog and May Gog 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 any one 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 hide 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. Trouble and misty and tempest-torn the erstwhile blue piece 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 tails 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 slapped 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. Could it be Envy? She was bareheaded 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 were 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 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 harbour 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 seemed to be the neighbour whom Anne had pictured as a common place for a wind's housewife. Anne could not quickly adjust her mental focus to this astonishing change. Then you live in that grey 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 of or excuse for not having gone. I wish you would come, said Anne, recovering herself somewhat. We're such near neighbours, we ought to be friends. That is the sole fault of four winds, there aren't quite enough neighbours. 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 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 seems 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 foreboded 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 settled down contentedly in eight room houses that seemed 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 of 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 sense 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. Dickmore 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 harbour, 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 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. Some must die. Gilbert will probably be home. But I am so glad we both came to the shore to-night 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 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 upon it. Then I'll come. Good night, Leslie. Good night, Mrs. Blythe. Anne walked home in a brown study and poured out her tail to Gilbert. So Mrs. Dick Moore isn't one of the race that knows Joseph, said Gilbert teasingly? No. Not exactly. 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 Lind. 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 everyone 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 Ms. Cornelia about her. The baby arrived fortnight ago, said Ms. 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 Ms. 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's suicide at 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 and four wins 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 up 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 wins 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 learned what her life has been. It's been a tragedy. A tragedy, repeated Miss Cornelia, emphatically. I wish she would tell me about her. That is, if you can do so without betraying any confidence. Lord, dearie, everybody in four wins 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 wins. 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 clap our 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, shellfish, whining creature. Frank was no hand to work, and 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 her cry 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 Deary. 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 mopey 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 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 than she had to cry to 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. She 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 Glenn 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 Cornelius snipped her thread off as viciously as if, nero-like, she was severing the head of mankind by the stroke. Dick Moore came into her life that summer. His father 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'd 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 weeped, 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 time 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 had 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 it apart with her dear daughter, and lived there for the winter. In the spring Rose took Pneumonia and died, a year too late. Leslie was heartbroken 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 to. 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 thought her out more than you think, or she wouldn't have said that much itself to you. Oh, that poor heartbroken girl! I never see Dick more, but what I want to run a knife clean through him. Miss Cornelia wiped her eyes, and having relieved her feelings by her bloodthirsty wish, took up her tail. 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 Moors investigated, and found she had got to Havana and discharged her crew, 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 more 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 sailor's 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 right 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 suppose 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 border 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's been like for her, Anne, dearie, with her beauty and spirit and pride and cleverness. It's just been a living death. Our 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 thought 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 belong 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 night, 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 thousandfold 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, married 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 ye 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 ye just remember that she is a real strong Presbyterian at heart, Anne, dearie. END OF CHAPTER XII Leslie came over to the House of Dreams when frosty October night, when moonlit mists were hanging over the harbour, 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 to-night for a call, she said gaily. I made up a lot of extra good fudges afternoon, or you 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 made me come here, she added, half defiantly. I'll say 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'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 enlourment. 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 Cat and 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 book cases 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 fathers, 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 picked 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 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 realize it was so late. Captain Jim is always saying it doesn't take long to stay an hour. But I've stayed too, and oh, but I've enjoyed them, as 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 that he was a little less enthusiastic. Gilbert, would you like my hair better if it were 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, did you 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 likes, said Anne, magnanimously. CHAPTER XIII. OF ANNE'S HOUSE OF DREAMS. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Anne's House of Dreams by Lucy Maud Montgomery. CHAPTER XIII. A Ghostly Evening. One evening a week later Anne decided to run over the fields to the house of 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 shuttered. 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 Charlotown. Anne longed for an hour of fellowship with some girlfriend. Captain Jim and Miss Cornelia were good fellows each in their own way, but youth yearned to youth. If only Diana or Phil or Priss 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 prickling 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 trist 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 to fairly put her cap on coat on and push her out of the door. It'll be too long in 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 more 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 house cleaning time helping Leslie a bit, and I was frying donuts. 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 more, 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 intermedal with this bitterness. Her heart ached with the sympathy she might not utter. To go in now would be to shut the door for ever 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 ought to be roaming about alone on a night like this. You could get lost in this fog easier than not.' "'Just 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 La Force 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 kind of 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 a 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 notice that? Yes, one is blue and the other is hazel. His father had the same. It's a more peculiarity. That was what told me he was Dick Moore when I saw him first down in Cubie. If it hadn't have been for his eyes I might have known him with his beard and fat. You know, I reckon that it was me that 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 such was the only thing. There ain't no question in my mind about that. But my 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 have something of that feeling myself,' admitted Captain Jim. I reckon when the darkness is close to us it is a friend. But when we sort of 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 XIV NOVEMBER DAYS The splendour of colour which had glowed for weeks along the shores of Four Winds Harbour had faded out into the soft grey-blue of late autumn-noll hills. There came many days when fields and shores were dim with misty rain, or shivering before the breath of a melancholy sea wind's nights, too, of storms 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 flowerpots. The gay little garden of the skillmaster's bride was rather a fallen place now, and the lombardies and birches were under bare poles, as Captain Jim said, but the firwood 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 harbour danced and sparkled as lightly 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 sung 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 Panolope 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 kin of Cat or King. I like to ponder on all kinds of problems, though I can't solve them, 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 is 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 powerwows won't do us or anyone much harm, so let's have another whack at the wits. Why and wither this evening, Doctor? While they whacked and 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 be tied, the great forgotten world outside. Leslie seemed always to enjoy those lighthouse carousels 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 sabre 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 bumbling 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 wins. 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 willfully squanders and wastes his own life, which Leslie Moore certainly hasn't done. And some people might think that a Redmond BA, whom editors were beginning to honor, was wasted as the wife of a struggling country doctor in the rural community of four wins. 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 wins. Gilbert Blythe, you know, you were in love with him at one time, Anne. Gilbert, that means Pison 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 Paul 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 harbour, the further side of which was shadowy and suggestive, with dim coves and rich glooms and dueling lights. How the home lights shine out tonight through the dark, said Anne. That string of them over the harbour 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 hope to come home to a dark house. Our home light, Gilbert, isn't it lovely to see? Just one of the 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, inner, what more needy 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. End of Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Anne's House of Dreams This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, all to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Lucy Burgoyne. Anne's House of Dreams by Lucy Maude Montgomery Chapter 15 Christmas at Four Winds At first, Anne and Gilbert talked of going home to Avonlea for Christmases, 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 Lind 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 60 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 noticed 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 harbour 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 Christmases, 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 sons hold not their courses in one spear, 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, Mr Spleith, 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 skill master's bride cooked it. That was 60 years ago today, Mr Spleith and a day very like this. Just enough snow to make the hills white and the harbour 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 the 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 20 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 boil collar? No, he wasn't and he didn't come neither. I could have had him long ago when he was fresh. I don't want any secondhand 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 might he 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 Comet 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 Ellipolet, imagine 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. Ellipolet Baxter lived too much alone. Hadn't even a cat or dog to keep him human. When a man is alone he's mighty 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. Manlike 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 with 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 76 years and it isn't likely my theology will hoist anchor at this late day. It's setting a bad example, said Miss Cornelia Grimley. 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 have a better opinion of the Almighty's ear for music than that. What caused the trouble in our choir? Ask 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 than 200 yards apart but you'd have thought they were a thousand by the bitterness of that fight. We were split up into three factions, one one at the east side 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 ed. 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 Boone's got up and made a speech? He stated his opinions forcibly. Callus vades vade, Captain. You mean he got red mad and raked them all, four and aft. They deserved it too, a pack of incapable, but what would you expect of a committee of men? That building committee held 27 meetings and at the end of the 27th weren't no nearer having a church than when they began. 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 worshiping. 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 canvas for subscriptions. We got them too. When any of the men tried to sass us we told them they 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. Manlike, 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 had in 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 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 Harbour. Well you know he had a good deal to try him, Cornelia. Even you can't defend his wife. I always remember that old William McAllister said of her at her funeral. There's no doubt she was a Christian woman but she had the devil'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 suppose poor old Mrs Job did make like 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'd 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 Taylor's, 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 prized pigs, said Miss Cornelia. He's noted for his beautiful pigs. He's a hate 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 skin milk. They are timed, 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 pisons my own life and sups for days afterwards. Gilbert went out to the kitchen in response to Anne's beckoning. Anne shut the door and gave him a condubile 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 need an egg around like that. Dinner is ready now. Anne, 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 ABCD 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. Mary was the feast and long and when it was over they gathered around the cheer of the red half flame and Captain Jim told them stories until the red sun swung low over four winds harbour 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 just have time to walk home before sundown. Thank you for a beautiful Christmas, Mr Splife. Bring Master Davey down to the light some night before he goes home. I want to see those stone gods, said Davey, with a relish. End of Chapter 15. Chapter 16 of Anne's House of Dreams. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Randy Warwick. Anne's House of Dreams by Lucy Maud Montgomery. 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 harbour froze over but the gulf was still 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 shadow 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 a loose of mistiness in that searching glitter. The only things that held their own individuality were the furs for the fur is the tree of mystery and shadow and yields never to the encroachments of crude radiance. But finally the day began to realize 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 harbour put on soft grays and pinks. The faraway 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 Marshal 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 Marshal Elliott soon proved his legitimate claim to the membership in the household of Joseph. He was a witty, intelligent, well-read man, rivaling 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 the 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 before 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 came down tonight. Uncle Jim, says he, saw him as a tombstone. I had a venture in the Glen today. Yes, what was it, says I, expecting something quite startling, but no wise prepared for what I really got. I met a wolf in the street, says he, enormous wolf with a big red mouth and awful long teeth, Uncle Jim. I didn't know there was any wolves up at the Glen, says I. Oh, he came there from far, far away, says Joe, and I thought he was going to eat me up, Uncle Jim. Were you scared, says I? No, because 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 Marshal 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 know-how, 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 island 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 began 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 Marshal 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 fire lit 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 Marshal Elliott, with his long beard and hair, could not spoil the picture. On the contrary, it seemed to enhance it. Marshal Elliott looked like a viking of elder days, dancing with one of the blue-eyed, golden-haired daughters of the Northland. The prettiest dancing I ever saw, and I've seen some in my time, declared Captain Jim, when it 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. Their old Bank of P.E. Island notes, had them by me when the bank failed, and I had them framed and hung up, partly as a reminder not to put your trust in banks, and partly to give me a real luxurious, millionary feeling. Hello, 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 golf 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 veil of tears. But when she takes a sixth spell, there's a fuss. Doctors from town and a trained nurse and enough medicine to kill a dog. Life may be a veil of tears, all right, but there are some folks who enjoy weeping, I reckon. They spent the old years 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.