 CHAPTER XVII. A Four Wins Winter. Winter set in vigorously after New Year's. Big, white drifts heaped themselves about the little house, and palms of frost covered its windows. The harbor ice grew harder and thicker until the Four Wins people began their usual winter traveling over it. The safe ways were bushed by a benevolent government, and night and day the gay tinkle of the sleigh bells sounded on it. On moonlit nights Anne heard them in her house of dreams like fairy chimes. The gulf froze over, and the Four Wins light flashed no more. During the months when navigation was closed Captain Jim's office was a sinecure. The first mate and I will have nothing to do till spring except to keep warm and amuse ourselves. The last lighthouse keeper used always to move up to the glen in winter, but I'd rather stay at the point. The first mate might get poisoned or chewed up by dogs at the glen. It's a mite lonely to be sure, with neither the light nor the water for company, but if our friends come to see us often we'll weather it through. Captain Jim had an ice boat, and many a wild glorious spin Gilbert and Anne and Leslie had over the glib harbor ice with him. Anne and Leslie took long snowshoe tramps together too over the fields, or across the harbor after storms, or through the woods beyond the glen. They were very good comrades in their rambles and their fireside communes. Each had something to give the other, each felt life the richer for friendly exchange of thought and friendly silence. Each looked across the white fields between their homes with a pleasant consciousness of a friend beyond. But, in spite of all this, Anne felt that there was always a barrier between Leslie and herself, a constraint that never wholly vanished. I don't know why I can't get closer to her, Anne said one evening to Captain Jim. I like her so much. I admire her so much. I want to take her right into my heart and creep right into hers, but I can never cross that barrier. You've been too happy all your life, Mistress Blythe, said Captain Jim thoughtfully. I reckon that's why you and Leslie can't get real close together in your souls. The barrier between you and her, experience of sorrow and trouble, she ain't responsible for it and you ain't. But it's there, and neither of you can cross it. My childhood wasn't very happy before I came to Green Gables, said Anne, gazing soberly out of the window at the still, sad, dead beauty of the leafless tree shadows on a smooth-lit snow. Maybe not, but it was just the usual unhappiness of a child who hasn't anyone to look after it properly. There hasn't been any tragedy in your life, Mistress Blythe, and poor Leslie's has been almost all tragedy. She feels, I reckon, though maybe she hardly knows she feels it, that there's a vast deal in her life you can't enter nor understand, and so she has to keep you back from it, hold you off, so to speak, from hurting her. You know, if we've got anything about us that hurts, we shriek from anyone's touch on or near it. It holds good with our souls as well as our bodies, I reckon. Leslie's soul must be near raw. It's no wonder she hides it away. If that were really all I wouldn't mind, Captain Jim, I would understand. But there are times, not always, but now and again, when I almost have to believe that Leslie doesn't like me. Sometimes I surprise a look in her eyes that seems to show resentment and dislike. It goes so quickly, but I've seen it, I'm sure of it, and it hurts me, Captain Jim. I'm not used to being disliked, and I've tried so hard to win Leslie's friendship. You have won it, Mistress Blythe. Don't you go cherishing any foolish notion that Leslie don't like you? If she didn't, she wouldn't have anything to do with you, much less chumming around with you as she does. I know Leslie more too well, not to be sure of that. The first time I ever saw her, driving her geese down the hill in a day, I came to forewinds. She looked at me with the same expression, persisted Anne. I felt it, even in the midst of my admiration of her beauty. She looked at me resentfully. She did, indeed, Captain Jim. The resentment must have been about something else, Mistress Blythe, and you just come in for a share of it, because you have been passed. Leslie does take sullen spells now and again, poor girl. I can't blame her when I know what she has to put up with. I don't know why it's permitted. The Doctor and I have talked a lot about the origin of evil, but we haven't quite found out all about it yet. There's a vast of un-understandable things in life, ain't there, Mistress Blythe? Sometimes things seem to work out real proper like. Same as with you and the Doctor. And then again, they all seem to go catty-wampus. There's Leslie, so clever and beautiful, you'd think she was meant for a queen. And instead she's cooped up over there, robbed of almost everything of womaned value, with no prospect except waiting for Dick Moore all her life. Though mind you, Mistress Blythe, I daresay she'd choose her life now, such as it is, rather than a life she lived with Dick before he went away. That's something a clumsy old sailor's tongue mustn't meddle with. But you've helped Leslie a lot. She's a different creature since you came to Four Winds. Us old friends see the difference in her as you can't. Miss Cornelia and me was talking it over the other day, and it's one of the mighty few pints that we see eye to eye on. So just you throw overboard any ideas of her not liking you, and could hardly discard it completely, for there were undoubtedly times when she felt with an instinct that was not to be combated by reason that Leslie harbored a queer, undefinable resentment towards her. At times this secret consciousness marred the delight of their comradeship. At others it was almost forgotten, but Anne always felt the hidden thorn was there, and might prick her at any moment. She felt a cruel sting from it on the day when she told Leslie of what she hoped the spring would bring to the little house of dreams. Leslie looked at her with hard, bitter, unfriendly eyes. So you are to have that, too, she said in a choked voice, and without another word she had turned and gone across the field homeward. Anne was deeply hurt for the moment she felt as if she could never like Leslie again. But when Leslie came over a few evenings later she was so pleasant, so friendly, so frank and witty and whine-some that Anne was charmed into forgiveness and forgetfulness. Only she never mentioned her darling hope to Leslie again, nor did Leslie ever refer to it. But one evening, when late winter was listening for the word of spring, she came over to the little house for a twilight chat, and when she went home she left a small, white box on the table. Anne found it after she was gone and opened it, wonderingly. And it was a tiny white dress of exquisite workmanship, delicate embroidery, wonderful tucking, sheer loveliness. Every stitch in it was handwork, and the little frills of lace at neck and sleeve were of real valenciance. Lying on it was a card with Leslie's love. What hours of work she must have put on it, said Anne, and the material must have cost more than she could really afford. It was very sweet of her. But Leslie was brusque and curt when Anne thanked her, and again the latter felt thrown back upon herself. Leslie's gift was not alone in the little house. Miss Cornelia had, for the time being, given up sewing for unwanted, unwelcome eighth babies, and fallen to sewing for a very much wanted first one, whose welcome would leave nothing to be desired. Philippa Blake and Diana Wright each sent a marvelous garment, and Miss Rachel Linn sent several, in which good material and honest stitches took the place of embroidery and frills. Anne herself made many desecrated, by no touch of machinery, spending over them the happiest hours of the happy winter. Captain Jim was the most frequent guest of the little house, and none was more welcome. Every day Anne loved the simple sold true-hearted old sailor more and more. He was as refreshing as the sea breeze, as interesting as some ancient chronicle. She was never tired of listening to his stories, and his quaint remarks and comments were a continual delight to her. Captain Jim was one of those rare and interesting people who never speak, but they say something. The milk of human kindness and the wisdom of the serpent were mangled in his composition in delightful proportions. Nothing ever seemed to put Captain Jim out or depress him in any way. I've kind of contracted a habit of enjoying things, he remarked once, when Anne had commented on his invariable cheerfulness. It's got so chronic that I believe I even enjoy the disagreeable things. It's great fun thinking they can't last. Old rheumatism says I when it grips me hard you've got to stop baking some time. The worse you are the sooner you'll stop, maybe. I'm bound to get the better of you in the long run, whether in the body or out of the body. One night by the fireside at the light Anne saw Captain Jim's life-book. He needed no coaxing to show it and proudly give it to her to read. I write it to leave to little Joe, he said. I don't like the idea of everything I've done and seen being clean forgot after I've shipped for my last voyage. Joe, he'll remember it and tell the urns to his children. It was an old leather-bound book filled with the record of his voyages and adventures. Anne thought what a treasure-trove it would be to a writer. Every sentence was a nugget. In itself the book had no literary merit. Captain Jim's charms of storytelling failed him when he came to pen and ink. He could only jot roughly down the outline of his famous tales, and both spelling and grammar were sadly a skew. But Anne felt that if anyone possessed of the gift could take that simple record of a brave, adventurous life reading between the bald lines the tales of dangers staunchly faced and duty manfully done a wonderful story might be made from it. Rich comedy and thrilling tragedy were both lying hidden in Captain Jim's life-book, waiting for the touch of the master hand to waken the laughter and grief and horror of thousands. Anne said something of this to Gilbert as they walked home. Why don't you try your hand at it yourself, Anne? Anne shook her head. No, I only wish I could, but it's not in the power of my gift. You know what my forte is, Gilbert, the fanciful, the fairy-like, the pretty. To write Captain Jim's life-book as it should be written one should be a master of vigorous yet subtle style, a keen psychologist, a born humorist, and a born tragedyan, a rare combination of gifts as needed. Paul might do it if he were older. Anyhow, I'm going to ask him to come down next summer and meet Captain Jim. Come to this shore, wrote Anne to Paul. I am afraid you cannot find here Nora or the Golden Lady or the Twin Sailors, but you will find one old sailor who can tell you wonderful stories. Paul, however, wrote back, saying regretfully that he could not come that year. He was going abroad for two years' study. When I return, I'll come to forewins, dear teacher, he wrote. But meanwhile, Captain Jim is growing old, said Anne sarfally, and there is nobody to write his life-book. Chapter 18 of Anne's House of Dreams The ice in the harbour grew black and rotten in the March suns. In April there were blue waters and a windy, white-capped gulf again, and again the forewind's light bejemmed the twilight's. I'm so glad to see it once more, said Anne, on the first evening of its reappearance. I've missed it so all winter. The northwestern sky has seen blank and lonely without it. The land was tender with brand new, golden-green baby leaves. There was an emerald mist on the woods beyond the Glen. The seaward valleys were full of fairy mists at dawn. Vibrant winds came and went with salt foam in their breath. The sea laughed and flashed and preened and allured like a beautiful, coquettish woman. The herring school and the fishing village woke to life. The harbour was alive with white sails making for the channel. The ships began to sail outward and inward again. On a spring day like this, said Anne, I know exactly what my soul will feel like on the resurrection morning. There are times in spring when I sort or feel that I might have been a poet if I'd been caught young, remarked Captain Jim. I catch myself conning over old lines and verses I heard the schoolmaster reciting sixty years ago. They don't trouble me at other times. Now I feel as if I had to get out on the rocks or the fields or the water and spout them. Captain Jim had come up that afternoon to bring Anne a load of shells for her garden and a little bunch of sweet grass which she had found in a ramble over the sand dunes. It's getting real scarce along this shore now, he said. When I was a boy there was a plenty of it, but now it's only once in a while you'll find a plot, and never when you're looking for it. You just have to stumble on it. You're walking along on the sand hills, never thinking of sweet grass, and all at once the air is full of sweetness and there's the grass under your feet. I favour the smell of sweet grass, it always makes me think of my mother. She was fond of it, asked Anne. Not that I knows on. I don't know if she's ever saw any sweet grass. No, it's because it has a kind of motherly perfume, not too young, you understand, something kind of seasoned and wholesome and dependable just like a mother. The schoolmaster's bride always kept it among her handkerchiefs. You might put that little bunch among yours, Mistress Blythe. I don't like these botten scents, but a whiff of sweet grass belongs anywhere a lady does. Anne had not been especially enthusiastic over the idea of surrounding her flower beds with quahogs shells. As a decoration they did not appeal to her on first thought. But she would not have hurt Captain Jim's feelings for anything, so she assumed of virtue she did not at first feel, and thanked him heartily. And when Captain Jim had proudly encircled every bed with a rim of the big milk-white shells, Anne found to her surprise that she liked the effect. On a town lawn, or even up at the Glen, they would not have been in keeping. But here in the old-fashioned sea-bound garden of the little house of dreams they belonged. They do look nice, she said sincerely. The schoolmaster's bride always had cow-hawks round her bed, said Captain Jim. She was a master hand with flowers. She looked at them and touched them, so, and they grew like mad. Some folks have that knack. I reckon you have it too, Mistress Blythe. Oh, I don't know, but I love my garden, and I love working in it. To potter with green growing things, watching each day to see the dear new sprouts come up, is like taking a hand in creation, I think. Just now my garden is like faith, the substance of things hoped for, but by de we. It always amazes me to look at the little wrinkled brown seeds, and think of the rainbows in them, said Captain Jim. When I ponder on them seeds, I don't find it no wise hard to believe that we've got souls that'll live in other worlds. You couldn't hardly believe there was life in them tiny things, some no bigger than grains of dust, let alone color and scent. If you hadn't seen the miracle, could you? Anne, who was counting her days like silver beads on a rosary, could not now take the long walk to the lighthouse or up the Glen Road. But Miss Cornelia and Captain Jim came very often to the little house. Miss Cornelia was the joy of Anne and Gilbert's existence. They laughed side-splittingly over her speeches after every visit. When Captain Jim and she happened to visit the little house at the same time, there was much sport for the listening. They waged wordy warfare, she attacking he defending. Anne once reproached the Captain for his baiting of Miss Cornelia. Oh, I do love to set her going, Mistress Blythe, chuckle the unrepentant sinner. It's the greatest amusement I have in life. That tongue of hers would blister a stone. And you and that young dog of a doctor enjoy listening to her as much as I do. Captain Jim came along another evening to bring Anne some Mayflowers. The garden was full of the moist scented air of a maritime spring evening. There was a milk-white mist on the edge of the sea with a young moon kissing it and a silver gladness of stars over the Glen. The bell of the church across the harbor was ringing dreamily sweet. The mellow chime drifted through the dusk to mingle with the soft spring moan of the sea. Captain Jim's Mayflowers added the last completing touch to the charm of the night. I haven't seen any this spring and I've missed them, said Anne, bearing her face in them. They ain't to be found around four winds, only in the barons away behind the Glen up yonder. I took a little trip today to the land of nothing to do and hunted these up for you. I reckon they're the last you'll see this spring, for they're nearly done. How kind and thoughtful you are, Captain Jim. Nobody else, not even Gilbert, with a shake of her head at him, remembered that I always longed for Mayflowers in the spring. Well, I had another errand, too. I wanted to take Mr. Howard back yonder a mess of trout. He likes one occasional, and it's all I can do for a kindness he did me once. I stayed all the afternoon and talked to him. He likes to talk to me, though he's a highly educated man, and I'm only an ignorant old sailor, because he's one of the folks that's got to talk, or they're miserable, and he finds listeners scarce around here. The Glen folks fight shy of him because they think he's an infidel. He ain't that far gone exactly, few men is, I reckon, but he's what you might call a heretic. Heretics are wicked, but they're mighty interesting. It's just that they've got sort of lost looking for God, being under the impression that he's hard to find, which he ain't never. Most of them blunder to him after a while, I guess. I don't think listening to Mr. Howard's arguments is likely to do me much harm. Mind you, I believe what I was brought up to believe. It saves a vast of bother, and back of it all, God is good. The trouble with Mr. Howard is that he's a little too clever. He thinks that he's bound to live up to his cleverness, and that it's smarter to thrash out some new way of getting to heaven than to go by the old track the common ignorant folks is travelling. But he'll get there some time, all right, and then he'll laugh at himself. Mr. Howard was a Methodist to begin with, said Miss Cornelia, as if she thought he had not far to go from that to heresy. Do you know Cornelia, said Captain Jim Gravely? I've often thought that if I wasn't a Presbyterian, I'd be a Methodist. Oh, well, conceded Miss Cornelia, if you weren't a Presbyterian it wouldn't matter much what you were. Speaking of heresy reminds me, doctor, I brought back that book you lent me, that natural law in the spiritual world. I didn't read more than a third of it. I can read sense, and I can read nonsense, but that book is neither the one nor the other. It is considered rather heretical in some quarters, admitted Gilbert. But I told you that before you took it, Miss Cornelia. Oh, I wouldn't have minded its being heretical. I can stand wickedness, but I can't stand foolishness, said Miss Cornelia calmly, and with the air of having said the last thing there was to say about natural law. Speaking of books, a mad love came to an end at last two weeks ago remarked Captain Jim musingly. It runned to one hundred and three chapters. When they got married the book stopped right off, so I reckon their troubles were all over. It's real nice that that's the way in books anyhow, isn't it, even if it isn't so anywhere else? I never read novels, said Miss Cornelia. Did you hear how Geordie Russell was today, Captain Jim? Yes, I called in on my way home to see him. He's getting round all right, but stewing in a broth of trouble as usual, poor man. Of course he brews up most of it himself, but I reckon that don't make it any easier to bear. He's an awful pessimist, said Miss Cornelia. Well, no, he ain't a pessimist exactly, Cornelia. He only just never finds anything that suits him. And isn't that a pessimist? No, no. A pessimist is one who never expects to find anything to suit him. Geordie ain't got that far yet. You'd find something good to say of the devil himself, Jim Boyd. Well, you've heard the story of the old lady who said he was persevering. But no, Cornelia, I've nothing good to say of the devil. Do you believe in him at all, asked Miss Cornelia seriously? How can you ask that when you know what a good Presbyterian I am, Cornelia? How could a Presbyterian get along without a devil? Do you persisted, Miss Cornelia? Captain Jim suddenly became grave. I believe in what I heard a minister once call a mighty and malignant and intelligent power of evil working in the universe, he said solemnly. I do that, Cornelia. You can call it the devil or the principle of evil or the old scratch or any name you like. It's there, and all the infidels and heretics in the world can't argue it away. Any moron they can argue got away. It's there and it's working. But mind you, Cornelia, I believe it's going to get the worst of it in the long run. I am sure I hope so, said Miss Cornelia, none too hopefully. But speaking of the devil, I am positive that Billy Booth is possessed by him now. Have you heard of Billy's latest performance? No, what was that? He's gone and burned up his wife's new brown broadcloth suit that she paid twenty-five dollars for in Charlottetown, because he declares the men looked too admiring at her when she worked church the first time. Wasn't that like a man? Mr. Booth is mighty pretty, and browns her colors, said Captain Jim, reflectively. Is that any good reason why he should poke her new suit into the kitchen stove? Billy Booth is a jealous fool, and he makes his wife's life miserable. She's cried all the week about her suit. Oh, Anne, I wish I could write like you, believe me. Wouldn't I score some of the men round here? Those Booths are all a mite queer, said Captain Jim. Billy seemed the sanest of the lot till he got married, and then this queer jealous streak cropped out in him. His brother Daniel now was always odd. Took tantrums every few days or so and wouldn't get out of bed, said Miss Cornelia with a relish. His wife would have to do all the barn work till he got over his spell. When he died people wrote her letters of condolence. If I'd written anything it would have been one of congratulation. Their father, old Abram Booth, was a disgusting old sought. He was drunk at his wife's funeral and kept reeling round and hiccuping. I didn't drink much, but I feel awfully queer. I gave him a good jab in the back with my umbrella when he came near me and it sobered him up until he got the casket out of the house. Young Johnny Booth was to have been married yesterday, but he couldn't because he's gone and got the mumps. Wasn't that like a man? How could he help getting the mumps, poor fellow? I'd poor fellow him, believe me, if I was Kate Stearns. I don't know how he could help getting the mumps, but I do know the wedding supper was all prepared and everything will be spoiled before he's well again. Such a waste! He should have had the mumps when he was a boy. Come, come, Cornelia, don't you think you're a mite unreasonable? Miss Cornelia disdained to reply and turned instead to Susan Baker, a grim-faced, kind-hearted, elderly spinster of the Glen who had been installed as maid of all work at the little house for some weeks. Susan had been up to the Glen to make a sick call and had just returned. How is poor old Aunt Mandy tonight, asked Miss Cornelia? Susan sighed. Very poorly, very poorly, Cornelia. I'm afraid she will soon be in heaven, poor thing. Oh, surely it's not so bad as that, exclaimed Miss Cornelia sympathetically. Captain Jim and Gilbert looked at each other, then they suddenly rose and went out. There are times, said Captain Jim, between spasms, when it would be a sin not to laugh, them two excellent women. End of CHAPTER XVIII CHAPTER XIX 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. Recording by Sarah Jennings ANNE'S HOUSE OF DREAMS by Lucy Montgomery CHAPTER XIX DAWN AND DUSK In early June, when the Sandhills were a great glory of pink wild roses and the Glen was smothered in apple blossoms, Marilla arrived at the Little House, accompanied by a black horse-hair trunk, patterned with brass nails, which had reposed undisturbed in the Green Gables Garrett for half a century. Susan Baker, who during her few weeks sojourn in the Little House, had come to worship young Mrs. Doctor, as she called Anne, with blind fervour, looked rather jealously ascance at Marilla at first. But as Marilla did not try to interfere in kitchen matters, and showed no desire to interrupt Susan's ministrations to young Mrs. Doctor, the good handmaiden became reconciled to her presence, and told her cronies at the Glen that Miss Cuthbert was a fine old lady, and knew her place. One evening, when the sky's limpid bowl was filled with a red glory, and the Robins were thrilling the golden twilight with jubilant hymns to the stars of evening, there was a sudden commotion in the Little House of Dreams. Telephone messages were sent up to the Glen. Doctor Dave and a white-capped nurse came hastily down. Marilla paced the garden walks between the Quayhog Shells, murmuring prayers between her set lips, and Susan sat in the kitchen, with cotton wool in her ears, and her apron over her head. Leslie, looking out from the house up the brook, saw that every window of the Little House was a light, and did not sleep that night. The June night was short, but it seemed an eternity to those who waited and watched. Oh, will it never end, said Marilla. Then she saw how grave the nurse and Doctor Dave looked, and she dared ask no more questions. Suppose Anne, but Marilla could not suppose it. Do not tell me, said Susan fiercely, answering the anguish in Marilla's eyes, that God could be so cruel as to take that darling lamb from us when we all love her so much. He has taken others as well-beloved, said Marilla hoarsely. But at dawn, when the rising sun rent apart the mists hanging over the sandbar, and made rainbows of them, Joy came to the Little House. Anne was safe, and a wee white lady with her mother's big eyes was lying beside her. Gilbert, his face gray and haggard from his night's agony, came down to tell Marilla and Susan. Thank God, shuddered Marilla. Susan got up and took the cotton wool out of her ears. Now for breakfast, she said briskly, I am of the opinion that we will all be glad of a bite and sup. You tell young Mrs. Doctor not to worry about a single thing. Susan is at the helm. You tell her just to think of her baby. Gilbert smiled rather sadly as he went away. Anne, her pale face, blanched with its baptism of pain, her eyes aglow with the holy passion of motherhood, did not need to be told to think of her baby. She thought of nothing else. For a few hours she tasted of happiness so rare and exquisite that she wondered if the angels in heaven did not envy her. Little Joyce, she murmured when Marilla came in to see the baby. We planned to call her that if she were a girly. There were so many we would have liked to name her for. We couldn't choose between them, and we decided on Joyce. We can call her Joy for short. Joy, it suits so well. Oh, Marilla, I thought I was happy before. Now I know that I just dreamed a pleasant dream of happiness. This is the reality. You mustn't talk, Anne. Wait till you're stronger, said Marilla warningly. You know how hard it is for me not to talk, smile, Anne. At first she was too weak and too happy to notice that Gilbert and the nurse looked grave and Marilla sorrowful. Then, as subtly and coldly and remorselessly as a sea fogs dealing landward, fear crept into her heart. Why was not Gilbert gladder? Why would he not talk about the baby? Why would they not let her have it with her after that first heavenly happy hour? Was there anything wrong? Gilbert, whispered Anne imploringly, the baby is all right, isn't she? Tell me, tell me. Gilbert was a long while and turning round. Then he bent over Anne and looked in her eyes. Marilla, listening fearfully outside the door, heard a pitiful heartbroken moan and fled to the kitchen where Susan was weeping. Oh, the poor lamb. The poor lamb. How can she bear it, Miss Cuthbert? I'm afraid it will kill her. She's been that built up and happy, longing for that baby and planning for it. Cannot anything be done? Know how, Miss Cuthbert? I'm afraid not, Susan. Gilbert says there is no hope. He knew from the first the little thing couldn't live. And it is such a sweet baby, sobbed Susan. I never saw one so white. They're mostly red or yellow, and it opened its big eyes as if it was months old. Little, little thing. Oh, the poor young Mrs. Doctor. At sunset, the little soul that had come with the dawning went away, leaving heartbreak behind it. Miss Cornelia took the wee white lady from the kindly but stranger hands of the nurse and dressed the tiny wax and form in the beautiful dress Leslie had made for it. Leslie had asked her to do that. Then she took it back and laid it beside the poor, heartbroken, tearblinded little mother. The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away, dearie, she said through her own tears. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Then she went away, leaving Anne and Gilbert alone with their dead. The next day the small white joy was laid in a velvet casket which Leslie had lined with apple blossoms and taken to the graveyard of their church across the harbour. Miss Cornelia and Marilla put all the little love-made garments away. Together with the ruffled basket which had been befriiled and belaced were dimpled limbs and downy head. Little joy was never to sleep there. She had found a colder, narrower bed. This has been an awful disappointment to me, sighed Miss Cornelia. I've looked forward to this baby and I did want it to be a girl too. I can only be thankful that Anne's life was spared, said Marilla, with a shiver, recalling those hours of darkness when the girl she loved was passing through the valley of the shadow. Poor, poor lamb, her heart is broken, said Susan. I envy Anne, said Leslie, suddenly and fiercely, and I'd envy her even if she had died. She was a mother for one beautiful day. I'd gladly give my life for that. I wouldn't talk like that, Leslie Deary, said Miss Cornelia deprecatingly. She was afraid that the dignified Miss Cuthbert would think Leslie quite terrible. Anne's convalescence was long and made bitter for her by many things. The bloom and sunshine of the four winds world graded harshly on her, and yet when the rain fell heavily she pictured it beating so mercilessly down on that little grave across the harbour, and when the wind blew around the eaves she heard sad voices in it she had never heard before. Callers hurt her too, with the well-meant platitudes with which they strove to cover the nakedness of bereavement. A letter from Phil Blake was an added sting. Phil had heard of the baby's birth, but not of its death, and she wrote Anne a congratulatory letter of sweet mirth which hurt her horribly. I would have laughed over it so happily if I had my baby, she saw up to Marilla. But when I haven't it just seems like wanton cruelty, though I know Phil wouldn't hurt me for the world. Oh, Marilla, I don't see how I can ever be happy again. Everything will hurt me all the rest of my life. Time will help you, said Marilla, who was wracked with sympathy but could never learn to express it in other than age-worn formulas. It doesn't seem fair, said Anne rebelliously. Babies are born and live where they are not wanted, where they will be neglected, where they will have no chance. I would have loved my baby so and cared for it so tenderly and tried to give her every chance for good, and yet I wasn't allowed to keep her. It was God's will, Anne, said Marilla, helpless before the riddle of the universe, the why of undeserved pain. And little joy is better off. I can't believe that, cried Anne bitterly. Then seeing that Marilla looked shocked, she added passionately, why should she be born at all? Why should anyone be born at all if she's better off dead? I don't believe it is better for a child to die at birth than to live its life out and love and be loved and enjoy and suffer and do its work and develop a character that would give it a personality and eternity. And how do you know it was God's will? Perhaps it was just a thwarting of his purpose by the power of evil. We can't be expected to be resigned to that. Oh, Anne, don't talk so, said Marilla, genuinely alarmed lest Anne were drifting into deep and dangerous waters. We can't understand, but we must have faith. We must believe that it is all for the best. I know you find it hard to think so just now, but try to be brave for Gilbert's sake. He's so worried about you. You aren't getting strong as fast as you should. Oh, I've been very selfish, sighed Anne. I love Gilbert more than ever, and I want to live for his sake. But it seems as if part of me was buried over there in that little harbour graveyard, and it hurts so much that I'm afraid of life. It won't hurt so much always, Anne. I thought that it may stop hurting sometimes hurts me worse than all else, Marilla. Yes, I know. I've felt that too about other things. But we all love you, Anne. Captain Jim has been up every day to ask for you, and Mrs. Moore haunts the place, and Miss Bryant spends most of her time, I think, cooking up nice things for you. Susan doesn't like it very well. She thinks she can cook as well as Miss Bryant. Dear Susan, oh, everybody has been so dear and good and lovely to me, Marilla. I'm not ungrateful, and perhaps when this horrible ache grows a little less, I'll find that I can go on living. End of Chapter 19 Chapter 20 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. Recording by Sarah Jennings Anne's House of Dreams by Lucy Mon Montgomery Chapter 20 Lost Margaret Anne found that she could go on living. The day came when she even smiled again over one of Miss Cornelia's speeches. But there was something in the smile that had never been an Anne's smile before and would never be absent from it again. On the first day she was able to go for a drive, Gilbert took her down to the forewind's point and left her there while he rode over the channel to see a patient at the fishing village. A rollicking wind was scutting across the harbour and the dunes, whipping the water into white caps, and washing the sand shore with long lines of silvery breakers. I'm real proud to see you here again, Mr. Splithe, said Captain Jim. Sit down, sit down. I'm a feared it's mighty dusty here today, but there's no need of looking at dust when you can look at such scenery as there. I don't mind the dust, said Anne, but Gilbert says I must keep in the open air. I think I'll go and sit on the rocks down there. Would you let company, or would you rather be alone? If by company you mean yours, I'd much rather have it than be alone, said Anne, smiling. Then she sighed. She had never before minded being alone. Now she dreaded it. When she was alone now she felt so dreadfully alone. Here's a nice little spot where the wind can't get at you, said Captain Jim, when they reached the rocks. I often sit here. It's a great place just to sit and dream. Oh, dreams, sighed Anne. I can't dream now, Captain Jim. I'm done with dreams. Oh, no you're not, Mr. Splithe. Oh, no you're not, said Captain Jim meditatively. I know how you feel just now, but if you keep on living you'll get glad again, and the first thing you know you'll be dreaming again. Thank the good Lord for it. If it wasn't for our dreams they might as well bury us. How'd we stand living if it wasn't for our dream of immortality? And that's a dream bound to come true, Mr. Splithe. You'll see your little joist again some day. But she won't be my baby, said Anne with trembling lips. Oh, she may be as long fellow says, a fair maiden clothed with celestial grace. But she'll be a stranger to me. God will manage better than that, I believe, said Captain Jim. They were both silent for a little time. Then Captain Jim said very softly, Mr. Splithe, may I tell you about Lost Margaret? Of course, said Anne gently. She did not know who Lost Margaret was, but she felt that she was going to hear the romance of Captain Jim's life. I've often wanted to tell you about her, Captain Jim went on. Do you know why, Mr. Splithe? It's because I want somebody to remember and think of her some time after I'm gone. I can't bear that her name should be forgotten by all living souls. And now nobody remembers Lost Margaret but me. Then Captain Jim told the story, an old, old, forgotten story. For it was over fifty years since Margaret had fallen asleep one day in her father's dory and drifted, or so it was supposed, for nothing was ever certainly known as to her fate, out of the channel, beyond the bar, to perish in the black thundersquall which had come up so suddenly that long ago summer afternoon. But to Captain Jim, those fifty years were but as yesterday when it is passed. I walked the shore for months after that, he said sadly, looking to find her dear sweet little body. But the sea never gave her back to me. I'll find her sometime, Mr. Splithe. I'll find her sometime. She's waiting for me. I wish I could tell you just how she looked, but I can't. I've seen a fine silvery mist hanging over the bar at sunrise that seemed like her, and then again I've seen a white birch in the woods back yonder that made me think of her. She had pale brown hair and a little white sweet face and long slender fingers like yours, Mr. Splithe, only browner for she was a shore girl. Sometimes I wake up in the night and hear the sea calling to me in the old way, and it seems as if Lost Margaret called in it. And when there's a storm and the waves are sobbing and moaning I hear her lamenting among them. And when they laugh on a gay day it's her laugh. Lost Margaret's sweet, roguish little laugh. The sea took her from me, but someday I'll find her, Mr. Splithe. It can't keep us apart forever. I am glad you have told me about her, said Anne. I have often wondered why you had lived all your life alone. I couldn't ever care for anyone else. Lost Margaret took my heart with her out there, said the old lover who had been faithful for fifty years to his drowned sweetheart. You won't mind if I talk a good deal about her will you, Mr. Splithe? It's a pleasure to me, for all the pain went out of her memory years ago and just left its blessing. I know you'll never forget her, Mr. Splithe. And if the years, as I hope, bring other little folks to your home, then I want you to promise me that you'll tell them the story of Lost Margaret, so that her name won't be forgotten among humankind. End of Chapter 20. Chapter 21 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. Recording by Mary Anderson. Anne's House of Dreams by Lucy Modmont-Gumry. Chapter 21. Barriers Swept Away. Anne, said Leslie, breaking abruptly a short silence. You don't know how good it is to be sitting here with you again, working and talking and being silent together. They were sitting among the blue-eyed grasses on the bank of the brook in Anne's garden. The water sparkled and crooned past them. The birches threw dappled shadows over them. Roses bloomed along the walks. The sun was beginning to be low, and the air was full of woven music. There was one music of the wind in the furs behind the house, and another of the waves in the bar, and still another from the distant bell of the church near which the wee white lady slept. Anne loved that bell, though it brought sorrowful thoughts now. She looked curiously at Leslie who had thrown down her sewing and spoken with a lack of restraint that was very unusual with her. On that horrible night when you were so ill, Leslie went on, I kept thinking that perhaps we'd have no more talks and walks and works together, and I realized just what your friendship had come to mean to me, just what you meant, and just what a hateful little beast I had been. Leslie, Leslie, I never allow anyone to call my friends' names. It's true, that's exactly what I am, a hateful little beast. There's something I've got to tell you, Anne. I suppose it will make you despise me, but I must confess it. Anne, there have been times this past winter and spring that I have hated you. I knew it, said Anne calmly. You knew it? Yes, I saw it in your eyes. And yet you went on liking me and being my friend? Well, it was only now and then you hated me, Leslie, between times you loved me, I think. I certainly did, but that other horrid feeling was always there, spoiling it back in my heart. I kept it down. Sometimes I forgot it, but sometimes it would surge up and take possession of me. I hated you because I envied you. Oh, I was sick with envy of you at times. You had a dear little home and love and happiness and glad dreams. Everything I wanted and never had and never could have. Oh, never could have. That was what stung. I wouldn't have envied you if I had had any hope that life would ever be different for me, but I hadn't. I hadn't. And it didn't seem fair. It made me rebellious, and it hurt me, and so I hated you at times. Oh, I was so ashamed of it. I'm dying of shame now, but I couldn't conquer it. That night when I was afraid you mightn't live, I thought I was going to be punished for my wickedness. And I loved you so then. Ann. Ann. I never had anything to love since my mother died except Dick's old dog, and it's so dreadful to have nothing to love. Life is so empty, and there's nothing worse than emptiness. And I might have loved you so much, and that horrible thing had spoiled it. Leslie was trembling and growing almost incoherent with the violence of her emotion. Don't Leslie, implored Ann. Oh, don't. I understand. Don't talk of it any more. I must. I must. When I knew you were going to live, I vowed that I would tell you as soon as you were well that I wouldn't go on accepting your friendship and companionship without telling you how unworthy I was of it. And I've been so afraid it would turn you against me. Ann. You needn't fear that, Leslie. Oh, I'm so glad. So glad, Ann. Leslie clasped her brown work-hardened hands tightly together to still their shaking. But I want to tell you everything now I've begun. You don't remember the first time I saw you, I suppose. It wasn't that night on the shore. No. It was the night Gilbert and I came home. You were driving your geese down the hill. I should think I do remember it. I thought you were so beautiful. I longed for weeks after to find out who you were. I know who you were, although I'd never seen either of you before. I had heard of the new doctor and his bride who were coming to live in Miss Russell's little house. I hated you that very moment, Ann. I felt the resentment in your eyes. Then I doubted. I thought I must be mistaken, because why should I do that? Why should it be? It was because you looked so happy. Oh, you'll agree with me now that I am a hateful beast. To hate another woman just because she was happy. And when her happiness didn't take anything from me? That was why I never went to see you. I knew quite well I ought to go, even our simple four wins customs demanded that. But I couldn't. I used to watch you from my window. I could see you and your husband strolling about your garden in the evening, or you running down the poplar lane to meet him, and it hurt me. And yet in another way I wanted to go. I felt that if I were not so miserable I could have liked you and found in you what I've never had in my life, an intimate real friend of my own age. And then you remember that night at the shore? You were afraid I would think you crazy. You must have thought I was. No, but I couldn't understand you Leslie. One moment you drew me to you, the next you pushed me back. I was very unhappy that evening. I had had a hard day. Dick had been very, very hard to manage that day. Generally he is quite good natured and easily controlled, you know Anne. But some days he is very different. I was so heart-sick I ran away to the shore as soon as he went to sleep. It was my only refuge. I sat there thinking of how my poor father had ended his life, and wondering if I wouldn't be driven to it some day. Oh, my heart was full of black thoughts. And then you came dancing along the cove like a glad, light-hearted child. I, I hated you more then than I've ever done since. And yet I craved your friendship. The one feeling swayed me, one moment, the other feeling the next. When I got home that night I cried for shame of what you must think of me. But it's always been just the same when I came over here. Sometimes I'd be happy and enjoy my visit, and at other times that hideous feeling would mar it all. There were times when everything about you and your house hurt me. You had so many dear little things I couldn't have. Do you know, it's ridiculous, but I had a special spite at those china dogs of yours. There were times when I wanted to catch up Gog and Magog and bang their purple black noses together. Oh, you smile, Anne, but it was never funny to me. I would come here and see you and Gilbert with your books and your flowers, and your household goods, and your little family jokes, and your love for each other showing in every look and word, even when you didn't know it. And I would go home too. You know what I went home to. Oh, Anne, I don't believe I'm jealous and envious by nature. When I was a girl I lacked many things my schoolmates had, but I never cared. I never disliked them for it. But I seem to have grown so hateful. Leslie, dearest, stop blaming yourself. You were not hateful or jealous or envious. The life you have to live has warped you a little, perhaps. But it would have ruined a nature less fine and noble than yours. I'm letting you tell me all this because I believe it's better for you to talk it out and rid your soul of it. But don't blame yourself any more. Well, I won't. I just wanted you to know me as I am. The time you told me of your darling hope for the spring was the worst of all, Anne. I shall never forgive myself for the way I behaved then. I repented it with tears. And I did put many a tender and loving thought of you into the little dress I made. But I might have known that anything I made could only be a shroud in the end. Now, Leslie, that is bitter and morbid. Put such thoughts away. I was so glad when you brought the little dress. And since I had to lose little Joyce, I like to think that the dress she wore was the one you made for her when you let yourself love me. Anne, do you know I believe I shall always love you after this? I don't think I'll ever feel that dreadful way about you again. Talking it all out seems to have done away with it somehow. It's very strange. And I thought it's so real and bitter. It's like opening the door of a dark room to show some hideous creature you've believed to be there. And when the light streams in, your monster turns out to have been just a shadow, vanishing when the light comes. It will never come between us again. No, we are real friends now, Leslie, and I am very glad. I hope you won't misunderstand me if I say something else. Anne, I was grieved to the core of my heart when you lost your baby. And if I could have saved her for you by cutting off one of my hands, I would have done it. But your sorrow has brought us closer together. Your perfect happiness isn't a barrier any longer. Oh, don't misunderstand me, dearest. I'm not glad that your happiness isn't perfect any longer. I can say that sincerely. But since it isn't, there isn't such a gulf between us. I do understand that, too, Leslie. Now we'll just shut up the past and forget what was unpleasant in it. It's all going to be different. We're both of the race of Joseph now. I think you've been wonderful. Wonderful. And Leslie, I can't help believing that life has something good and beautiful for you yet. Leslie shook her head. No, she said, Dully, there isn't any hope. Dick will never be better. And even if his memory were to come back. Oh, Anne, it would be worse, even worse, than it is now. This is something you can't understand, you happy bride. Anne, did Miss Cornelia ever tell you how I came to marry Dick? Yes. I'm glad. I wanted you to know, but I couldn't bring myself to talk of it if you hadn't known. Anne, it seems to me that ever since I was twelve years old, life has been bitter. Before that, I had a happy childhood. We were very poor, but we didn't mind. Father was so splendid, so clever and loving and sympathetic. We were chums as far back as I can remember. And Mother was so sweet. She was very, very beautiful. I look like her, but I'm not so beautiful as she was. Miss Cornelia says you are far more beautiful. She is mistaken or prejudiced. I think my figure is better. Mother was slight and bent by hard work, but she had the face of an angel. I used just to look up at her and worship. We all worshiped her, Father and Kenneth and I. Anne remember that Miss Cornelia had given her a very different impression of Leslie's mother, but had not loved the truer vision. Still it was selfish of Rose West to make her daughter marry Dick Moore. Kenneth was my brother went on Leslie. Oh, I can't tell you how I loved him. And he was cruelly killed. Do you know how? Yes. Anne, I saw his little face as the wheel went over him. He fell on his back. Anne, Anne, I can see it now. I shall always see it. Anne, all I ask of heaven is that that recollection should be blotted out of my memory. Oh my God! Leslie, don't speak of it. I know the story. Don't go into details that only harrow your soul up unavailingly. It will be blotted out. After a moment's struggle Leslie regained a measure of self-control. Then Father's health got worse and he grew despondent. His mind became unbalanced. You've heard all that too? Yes. After that I had just mother to live for. But I was very ambitious. I meant to teach and earn my way through college. I meant to climb to the very top. Oh, I won't talk of that either. It's no use. You know what happened. I couldn't see my dear little heartbroken mother who had been such a slave all her life turned out of her home. Of course I could have earned enough for us to live on. But mother couldn't leave her home. She had come there as a bride, and she had loved Father so, and all her memories were there. Even yet, Anne, when I think that I made her last year happy, I'm not sorry for what I did. As for Dick, I didn't hate him when I married him. I just felt for him the indifferent, friendly feeling I had for most of my schoolmates. I knew he drank some, but I had never heard the story of the girl down at the fishing-cove. If I had, I couldn't have married him, even for mother's sake. Afterwards I did hate him, but mother never knew. She died and then I was alone. I was only seventeen and I was alone. Dick had gone off in the Four Sisters. I hoped he wouldn't be home very much more. The sea had always been in his blood. I had no other hope. Well, Captain Jim brought him home, as you know, and that's all there is to say. You know me now, Anne, the worst of me, the barriers are all down, and you still want to be my friend? Anne looked up through the birches at the white paper lantern of a half-moon drifting downwards to the gulf of sunset. Her face was very sweet. I am your friend and you are mine for always, she said, such a friend as I never had before. I have had many dear and beloved friends, but there is something in you, Leslie, that I never found in anyone else. You have more to offer me in that rich nature of yours, and I have more to give you than I had in my careless girl-herd. You we are both women and friends forever. They clasped hands and smiled at each other through the tears that filled the gray eyes and the blue. End of Chapter 21. Chapter 22 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. Recording by Sarah Jennings. Anne's House of Dreams by Lucy Modman-Gemery. Chapter 22 Miss Cornelia Arranges Matters. Gilbert insisted that Susan should be kept on at the little house for the summer. Anne protested at first. Life here with just the two of us is so sweet, Gilbert. It spoils it a little to have anyone else. Susan is a dear soul, but she is an outsider. It won't hurt me to do the work here. You must take your doctor's advice, said Gilbert. There's an old proverb to the effect that shoemaker's wives go barefoot, and doctor's wives die young. I don't mean that it shall be true in my household. You will keep Susan until the old spring comes back into your step, and those little hollows on your cheeks fill out. You just take it easy, Mrs. Dr. Dear, said Susan, coming abruptly in. Have a good time and do not worry about the pantry. Susan is at the helm. There is no use in keeping a dog and doing your own barking. I am going to take your breakfast up to you every morning. Indeed you are not, laughed Anne. I agree with Miss Cornelia that it's a scandal for a woman who isn't sick to eat her breakfast in bed and almost justifies the men in any enormities. Oh, Cornelia, said Susan, with ineffable contempt. I think you have better sense, Mrs. Dr. Dear, than to heed what Cornelia Bryant says. I cannot see why she must be always running down the men, even if she is an old maid. I am an old maid, but you never hear me abusing the men. I like them. I would have married one if I could. Is it not funny nobody ever asked me to marry him, Mrs. Dr. Dear? I am no beauty, but I am as good-looking as most of the married women you see. But I never had a beau. Why do you suppose is the reason? It may be predestination, suggested Anne, with unearthly solemnity. Susan nodded. That is what I have often thought, Mrs. Dr. Dear, and a great comfort it is. I do not mind nobody wanting me if the Almighty decreed it so for his own wise purposes. But sometimes doubt creeps in, Mrs. Dr. Dear, and I wonder if maybe the old scratch has not more to do with it than anyone else. I cannot feel resigned then. But maybe, added Susan, brightening up, I will have a chance to get married yet. I often and often think of the old verse my aunt used to repeat. There never was a goose so gray, but sometimes sooner late, some honest gander came her way and took her for his mate. A woman cannot ever be sure of not being married till she is buried with his Dr. Dear, and meanwhile I will make a batch of cherry pies. I notice the doctor favours them, and I do like cooking for a man who appreciates his victuals. Miss Cornelia dropped in that afternoon, puffing a little. I don't mind the world or the devil much, but the flesh does rather bother me, she admitted. You always look as cool as a cucumber, Anne Deary. Do I smell cherry pie? If I do, ask me to stay to tea. Haven't tasted a cherry pie this summer. My cherries have all been stolen by those scamps of Gilman boys from the Glen. Now, now, Cornelia, remonstrated Captain Jim, who had been reading a sea novel in a corner of the living room. You shouldn't say that about those two poor motherless Gilman boys, unless you've got certain proof. Just because their father ain't none too honest isn't reason for calling them thieves. It's more likely it's been the Robins who took your cherries. They're terrible thick this year. Robins, said Miss Cornelia disdainfully. Two-legged Robins, believe me. Well, most of the Four Winds Robins are constructed on that principle, said Captain Jim gravely. Miss Cornelia stared at him for a moment. Then she leaned back in her rocker and laughed long and ungrudgingly. Well, you have got one on me at last, Jim Boyd, I'll admit. Just look how pleased he is, Anne Deary, grinning like a Chessie Hat. As for the Robins' legs, if Robins have great big, bare sun-burned legs with ragged trousers hanging on them, such as I saw up in my cherry-tree one morning at sunrise last week, I'll beg the Gilman boys pardon. By the time I got down they were gone. I couldn't understand how they had disappeared so quick, but Captain Jim has enlightened me. They flew away, of course. Captain Jim laughed and went away, regretfully declining an invitation to stay to supper in partake of cherry pie. I'm on my way to see Leslie and ask her if she'll take a border, Miss Cornelia resumed. I had a letter yesterday for Mrs. Daly in Toronto, who boarded a spell with me two years ago. She wanted me to take a friend of hers for the summer. His name is Owen Ford, and he's a newspaper man, and it seems he's a grandson of the schoolmaster who built this house. John Selwyn's oldest daughter married an Ontario man named Ford, and this is her son. He wants to see the old place his grandparents lived in. He had a bad spell of typhoid in the spring and hasn't got rightly over it, so his doctor has ordered him to the sea. He doesn't want to go to the hotel, he just wants a quiet home place. I can't take him for I have to be away in August. I've been appointed a delegate to the WFMS convention in Kingsport, and I'm going. I don't know whether Leslie'll want to be bothered with him either, but there's no one else. She can't take him, he'll have to go over the harbour. When you see her come back and help us eat our cherry pies, sit down. Bring Leslie and Dick, too, if they can come. And so you're going to Kingsport. What a nice time they'll have there. I must give you a letter to a friend of mine there, Mrs. Jonas Blake. I've prevailed on Mrs. Thomas Holt to go with me, said Miss Cornelia complacently. It's time she had a little holiday, believe me. She has just about worked herself to death. Tom Holt can crochet beautifully, but he can't make a living for his family. He never seems to be able to get up early enough to do any work, but I notice he can always get up early to go fishing. Isn't that like a man? Anne smiled. She had learned to discount largely Miss Cornelia's opinions of the four windsmen. Otherwise she must have believed them the most hopeless assortment of reprobates and ne'er-duels in the world, with veritable slaves and martyrs for wives. This particular Tom Holt, for example, she knew to be a kind husband, a much-loved father, and an excellent neighbour. If he were rather inclined to be lazy, liking better the fishing he had been born for than the farming he had not, and if he had a harmless eccentricity for doing fancy work, nobody save Miss Cornelia seemed to hold it against him. His wife was a hustler who gloried in hustling. His family got a comfortable living off the farm, and his strapping sons and daughters inheriting their mother's energy were all in a fair way to do well in the world. There was not a happier household in Glen St. Mary than the Holt's. Miss Cornelia returned satisfied from the house up the brook. Leslie's going to take him, she announced. She jumped at the chance. She wants to make a little money to shingle the roof of her house this fall, and she didn't know how she was going to manage it. I expect Captain Jimmel be more than interested when he hears that a grandson of the Selwins is coming here. Leslie said to tell you she hankered after Cherry Pie, but she couldn't come to tea because she has to go and hunt up her turkeys. They've strayed away. But she said if there was a piece left, for you to put it in the pantry and she'd run over in the cat's light, when prowling's in order to get it. You don't know, Ann Deary, what good it did my heart to hear Leslie send you a message like that, laughing like she used to long ago. There's a great change come over her lately. She laughs and jokes like a girl, and from her talk I gather she's here real often. Every day, or else I'm over there, said Ann. I don't know what I'd do without Leslie, especially just now when Gilbert is so busy. He's hardly ever home except for a few hours in the wee smaws. He's really working himself to death. So many of the over-harbour people send for him now. They might better be contented with their own doctor, said Miss Cornelia. Though to be sure I can't blame them, for he's a Methodist. Ever since Dr. Blythe brought Mrs. Allenby round, folks think he can raise the dead. I believe Dr. Dave is a might jealous, just like a man. He thinks Dr. Blythe has too many newfangled notions. Well, I says to him. It was a newfangled notion saved Roe to Allenby. If you'd been attending her, she'd have died, and had a tombstone saying it had pleased God to take her away. Oh, I do like to speak my mind to Dr. Dave. He's bossed the Glen for years, and he thinks he's forgotten more than other people ever knew. Speaking of doctors, I wish Dr. Blythe'd run over and see to that boil on Dick Moore's neck. It's getting beyond Leslie's skill. I'm sure I don't know what Dick Moore wants to start having in boils for, as if he wasn't enough trouble without that. Do you know? Dick has taken quite a fancy to me, said Anne. He follows me round like a dog, and smiles like a pleased child when I notice him. Does it make you creepy? Not at all. I rather like poor Dick Moore. He seems so pitiful and appealing somehow. You wouldn't think him very appealing if you'd see him on his cantankerous days, believe me. But I'm glad you don't mind him. It's all the nicer for Leslie. She'll have more to do when her border comes. I hope he'll be a decent creature. You'll probably like him. He's a writer. I wonder why people so commonly suppose that if two individuals are both writers, they must therefore be hugely congenial, said Anne, rather scornfully. Nobody would expect two blacksmiths to be violently attracted toward each other merely because they were both blacksmiths. Nevertheless, she looked forward to the advent of Owen Ford with a pleasant sense of expectation. If he were young and likable, he might prove a very pleasant addition to society and forewinds. The last string of the little house was always out for the race of Joseph. End of Chapter 22 Chapter 23 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. Recording by Sarah Jennings. Anne's House of Dreams By Lucy Maud Montgomery Chapter 23 Owen Ford Comes One evening Miss Cornelia telephoned down to Anne. The writer-man has just arrived here. I'm going to drive him down to your place, and you can show him the way over to Leslie's. It's shorter than driving round by the other road, and I'm in a mortal hurry. The Reese baby has gone and fallen into a pail of hot water at the Glen, and got nearly scalded to death, and they want me right off to put a new skin on the child, I presume. Mrs. Reese is always so careless, and then expects other people to mend her mistakes. He won't mind, will you, dearie? His trunk can go down tomorrow. Very well, said Anne. What is he like, Miss Cornelia? You'll see what he's like outside when I take him down. As for what he's like inside, only the Lord who made him knows that. I'm not going to say another word for every receiver in the Glen is down. Miss Cornelia evidently can't find much fault with Mr. Ford's looks, or she would find it in spite of the receiver's, said Anne. I conclude therefore, Susan, that Mr. Ford is rather handsome than otherwise. Well, Mrs. Dr. Dear, I do enjoy seeing a well-looking man, said Susan candidly. Had I not better get up a snack for him, there is a strawberry pie that would melt in your mouth. No, Leslie is expecting him, and has his supper ready. Besides, I want that strawberry pie for my own poor man. He won't be home till late, so leave the pie and a glass of milk out for him, Susan. That I will, Mrs. Dr. Dear. Susan is at the helm. After all, it is better to give pie to your own men than to strangers, who may be only seeking to devour. And the doctor himself is as well-looking a man as you often come across. When Owen Ford came, and secretly admitted, as Miss Cornelia told him in, that he was very well-looking indeed. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with thick brown hair, finely cut nose and chin, large and brilliant dark gray eyes. And did you notice his ears and teeth, Mrs. Dr. Dear, queried Susan later on? He has got the nicest-shaped ears I ever saw on a man's head. I am choice about ears. When I was young I was scared that I might have to marry a man with ears like flaps. But I need not have worried, for never a chance did I have with any kind of ears. Anne had not noticed Owen Ford's ears. But she did see his teeth, as his lips parted over them in a frank and friendly smile. Unsmiling, his face was rather sad and absent in expression, not unlike the melancholy and scruitable hero of Anne's own early dreams. But mirth and humor and charm lighted it up when he smiled. Certainly on the outside, as Miss Cornelia said, Owen Ford was a very presentable fellow. You cannot realize how delighted I am to be here, Mrs. Blythe, he said, looking around him with eager, interested eyes. I have an odd feeling of coming home. My mother was born and spent her childhood here, you know. She used to talk a great deal to me of her old home. I know the geography of it as well as the one I lived in, and of course she told me the story of the building of the house, and of my grandfather's agonized watch for the Royal William. I had thought that so old a house must have vanished years ago, or should have come to see it before this. Old houses don't vanish easily on this enchanted coast, smile Anne. This is a land where all things always seem the same. Nearly always, at least. John Selwyn's house hasn't even been much changed, and outside the rose bushes your grandfather planted for his bride are blooming this very minute. How the thought links me with them. With your leave I must explore the whole place soon. Our latch string will always be out for you, promised Anne. And do you know that the old sea captain who keeps the four winds light knew John Selwyn and his bride well in his boyhood? He told me their story the night I came here, the third bride of the old house. Can it be possible? This is a discovery. I must hunt him up. It won't be difficult. We are all cronies of Captain Jim. He will be as eager to see you as you could be to see him. Your grandmother shines like a star in his memory. But I think Mrs. Moore is expecting you. I'll show you our cross-lots road. Anne walked with him to the house up the brook, over a field that was as white as snow with daisies. A boatload of people were singing far across the harbor. The sound drifted over the water like faint unearthly music, wind blown across a starlet sea. The big light flashed and beaconed. Owen Ford looked around him with satisfaction. And so this is four winds, he said. I wasn't prepared to find it quite so beautiful. In spite of all mother's praises. What colours! What scenery! What charm! I shall get as strong as a horse in no time. And if inspiration comes from beauty, I should certainly be able to begin my great Canadian novel here. You haven't begun it yet? Asked Anne. I lack a day, no. I've never been able to get the right central idea for it. It lurks beyond me. It allures and beckons and recedes. I almost grasp it and it's gone. Perhaps amid this peace and loveliness I shall be able to capture it. Miss Bryant tells me that you write. Oh, I do little things for children. I haven't done much since I was married. And I have no designs on a great Canadian novel. Laughed Anne. That is quite beyond me. Owen Ford laughed, too. I daresay it is beyond me as well. All the same I mean to have a try at it some day if I can ever get time. A newspaper man doesn't have much chance for that sort of thing. I've done a good deal of short story writing for the magazines, but I've never had the leisure that seems to be necessary for the writing of a book. With three months of liberty I ought to be able to make a start, though, if I could only get the necessary motif for it, the soul of the book. An idea whisked through Anne's brain with a suddenness that made her jump, but she did not utter it for they had reached the Moor House. As they entered the yard Leslie came out on the veranda from the side door, peering through the gloom for some sign of her expected guest. She stood just where the warm yellow light flooded her from the open door. She wore a plain dress of cheap cream-tinted cotton wall, with the usual girdle of crimson. Leslie was never without her touch of crimson. She had told Anne that she never felt satisfied without a gleam of red somewhere about her. Fit were only a flower. To Anne it always seemed to symbolize Leslie's glowing pent-up personality, denied all expression save in that flaming glint. Leslie's dress was cut a little away at the neck and had short sleeves. Her arms gleamed like ivory-tinted marble. Every exquisite curve of her form was outlined in soft darkness against the light. Her hair shone in it like flame. Beyond her was a purple sky, flowering with stars over the harbor. Anne heard her companion give a gasp. Even in the dusk she could see the amazement and admiration on his face. Who is that beautiful creature? he asked. That is Mrs. Moore, said Anne. She is very lovely, isn't she? I—I never saw anything like her, he answered, rather daisily. I wasn't prepared. I didn't expect. Good heavens, one doesn't expect a goddess for a landlady. Why, if she were clothed in a gown of sea-purple with a rope of amethysts in her hair, she would be a veritable sea-queen, and she takes in borders. Even goddesses must live, said Anne. And Leslie isn't a goddess, she's just a very beautiful woman, as human as the rest of us. Did Miss Bryant tell you about Mr. Moore? Yes, he's mentally deficient or something of the sort, isn't he? But she said nothing of Mrs. Moore, and I supposed she'd be the usual hustling country housewife who takes in borders to earn an honest penny. Well, that's just what Leslie is doing, said Anne crisply, and it isn't altogether pleasant for her, either. I hope you won't mind, Dick. If you do, please don't let Leslie see it. It would hurt her terribly. He's just a big baby, and sometimes a rather annoying one. Oh, I won't mind him. I don't suppose I'll be much in the house anyhow, except for meals. But what a shame it all is. Her life must be a hard one. It is, but she doesn't like to be pitied. Leslie had gone back into the house and now met them at the front door. She greeted Owen Ford with cold civility, and told him in a business-like tone that his room and his supper were ready for him. Dick, with a pleased grin, shambled upstairs with the lilies, and Owen Ford was installed as an inmate of the old house among the willows. End of Chapter 23 House of Dreams, Chapter 24 by Lucy Maud Montgomery The Life Book of Captain Jim I have a little brown cocoon of an idea that may possibly expand into a magnificent moth of fulfillment, Anne told Gilbert when she reached home. He had returned earlier than she had expected and was enjoying Susan's cherry pie. Susan herself hovered in the background, like a rather grim but beneficent guardian spirit, and found as much pleasure in watching Gilbert eat pie as he did in eating it. What is your idea, he asked? I shan't tell you just yet, not till I see if I can bring the thing about. What sort of chap is Ford? Oh, very nice and quite good-looking. Such beautiful ears, Dr. Dear, interjects Susan with a relish. He is about thirty or thirty-five, I think, and he meditates, writing a novel. His voice is pleasant and his smile delightful, and he knows how to dress. He looks as if life hasn't been altogether easy for him somehow. Owen Ford came over the next evening with a note to Anne from Leslie. They spent the sunset time in the garden and then went for a moonlit sail on the harbor, in the little boat Gilbert had set up for summer outings. They liked Owen immensely and had that feeling of having known him for many years which distinguishes the free masonry of the House of Joseph. He is as nice as his ears, Mrs. Dr. Dear, said Susan when he had gone. He had told Susan that he had never tasted anything like her strawberry shortcake, and Susan's susceptible heart was his forever. He has got away with him, she reflected, as she cleared up the relics of the supper. It is real queer he is not married, for a man like that could have anybody for the asking. Well maybe he is like me and has not met the right one yet. Susan really grew quite romantic in her musings as she washed the supper dishes. Two nights later Anne took Owen Ford down to Fourwinds Point to introduce him to Captain Jim. The clover fields along the harbor shore were whitening in the western wind, and Captain Jim had one of his finest sunsets on exhibition. He himself had just returned from a trip over the harbor. I had to go over until Henry Pollock he was dying. Everybody else was afraid to tell him. They had expected he take on terrible, for he has been dreadful determined to live and been making no end of a plans for the fall. His wife thought he ought to be told, and that I would be the best one to break it to him that he could not get better. Henry and me are old cronies. We sailed in the gray gold for years together. Well, I went over and sat down by Henry's bed, and I says to him, says I, just ride out plain and simple, for if a thing's got to be told, it may as well be told first as last, says I. Mate, I reckon you've got your sailing orders this time. I was sort or quaken inside, for it's an awful thing to have to tell a man who ain't any idea he's dying that he is. But lo and behold, Mr. Splithe, Henry looks up at me with those bright old black eyes of his in his wheezing face, and says, says he, Tell me something I don't know, Jim Boyd, if you want to give me information. I've known that for a week. I was too astonished to speak, and Henry he chuckled, to see you coming in here, says he, with your face as solemn as a tombstone and sitting down there with your hands clasped over your stomach, and passing me out a blue moldy old item of news like that. It'd make a cat laugh, Jim Boyd, says he. Who told you, says I, stupid like? Nobody, says he. A week ago Tuesday night I was lying here awake, and I just knew. I'd suspicioned it before, but then I knew. I'd been keeping up for the wife's sake, and I'd like to have got that barn built, for even'll never get it right. But anyhow, now that you've eased me your mind, Jim, put on a smile and tell me something interesting. Well, there it was. They'd been so scared to tell him, and he knew it all the time. Strange how nature looks out for us, ain't it, and lets us know what we should know when the time comes? Did I never tell you the yarn about Henry getting the fishhook in his nose, Mr. Splithe? No. Well, him and me had a laugh over it today. It happened nigh and a thirty years ago. Him and me, and several more, were out mackerel fishing one day. It was a great day. Never saw such a school of mackerel in the gulf. And in the general excitement Henry got quite wild and contrived to stick a fishhook, clean through one side of his nose. Well, there he was. There was the barb on one end, and a big piece of lead on the other, so it couldn't be pulled out. We wanted to take him ashore at once, but Henry was game. He said he'd be jiggered if he'd leave a school like that for anything short of lockjaw. Then he kept fishing away, hauling in, hand over fist, and groaning between times. Finally the school passed and we came in with a load. I got a file and began to try and file through that hook. I tried to be as easy as I could, but you should have heard Henry. No, you shouldn't either. It was well no ladies were around. Henry wasn't a swearing man. But he'd heard some matters of that sort along shore in his time, and he fished them all out of his recollection and hurled them at me. Finally he declared he couldn't stand it and I had no bowels of compassion. So we hitched up and I drove him to a doctor in Charlottetown, 35 miles. There weren't none nearer in them days, with that blessed hook still hanging out from his nose. When we got there, old Dr. Crab just took a file and filed that hook just the same as I'd tried to do. Only he weren't a mite particular about doing it easy. Captain Jim's visit to his old friend had revived many recollections and he was now in the full tide of reminiscences. Henry was asking me today if I remembered the time old Fr. Chinnequie blessed Alexander McAllister's boat. Another odd yarn and true was gospel. I was in the boat myself. We went out, him and me, in Alexander McAllister's boat one morning at sunrise. Besides, there was a French boy in the boat—Catholic, of course. He knew old Fr. Chinnequie had turned Protestant. So the Catholics hadn't much use for him. Well, we sat out in the gulf in the broiling sun till noon, and not a bite did we get. When we went ashore, old Fr. Chinnequie had to go, so he set in that polite way of his. I'm very sorry I cannot go out with you this afternoon, Mr. McAllister. But I leave you my blessing. You will catch a thousand this afternoon. Well, we did not catch a thousand, but we caught exactly nine hundred and ninety-nine—the biggest catch for a small boat on the whole North shore that summer. Curious, wasn't it? Alexander McAllister, he says to Andrew Peters, well, and what do you think of Fr. Chinnequie now? Well, growled Andrew, I think the old devil has got a blessing left yet. Laws how Henry did laugh over that to-day. Do you know who Mr. Ford is, Captain Jim, asked Anne, seeing that Captain Jim's fountain of merminiscences had run out for the present? I want you to guess. Captain Jim shook his head. I never was any-handed guessing Mr. Splithe, and yet somehow, when I come in, I thought, where have I seen them eyes before? For I have seen them. Think of a September morning many years ago, said Anne softly. Think of a ship sailing up the harbour, a ship long-waited for and despaired of. Think of the day the royal William came in and the first silk you had at the schoolmaster's bride. Captain Jim sprang up. There purses Selwyn's eyes, he almost shouted. You can't be her son. You must be her. Grandson, yes, I am Alice Selwyn's son. Captain Jim swooped down on Owen Ford and shook his hand over again. Alice Selwyn's son, Lord, but you're welcome. Many's the time I wondered where the descendants of the schoolmaster were living. I knew there was none on the island. Alice, Alice, the first baby ever born in that little house. No baby ever brought more joy. I've dandled her a hundred times. It was from my knees she took her first steps alone. Can't I see her mother's face watching her? And it was near sixty years ago. Is she living yet? No. She died when I was only a boy. Oh, it doesn't seem right that I should be living to hear that, side Captain Jim. But I'm heart glad to see you. It's brought back my youth for a little while. You don't know yet what a boon that is. Mistress Blythe here has the trick. She does it quite often for me. Captain Jim was still more excited when he discovered that Owen Ford was what he called a real writing man. He gazed at him as at a superior being. Captain Jim knew that Anne wrote, but he had never taken that fact very seriously. Captain Jim thought women were delightful creatures who ought to have the vote and everything else they wanted. Bless their hearts. But he did not believe they could write. Just look at a mad love he would protest. A woman wrote that. And just look at it. One hundred and three chapters when it could all have been told in ten. A writing woman never knows when to stop. That's the trouble. The point of good writing is to know when to stop. Mr. Ford wants to hear some of your stories, Captain Jim, said Anne. Tell him the one about the Captain who went crazy and imagined he was the flying Dutchman. This was Captain Jim's best story. It was a compound of horror and humor, and though Anne had heard it several times, she laughed as heartily and shivered as friersomely over it as Mr. Ford did. Other tales followed, for Captain Jim had an audience after his own heart. He told how his vessel had been run down by a steamer, how he had been boarded by melee pirates, how his ship had caught fire, how he helped a political prisoner escape from a South African Republic, how he had been wrecked one fall on the Magdalans and stranded there for the winter, how a tiger had broken loose on board ship, how his crew had mutinied and marooned him on a barren island. These and many other tales, tragic or humorous or grotesque, did Captain Jim relate. The mystery of the sea, the fascination of far lands, the lure of adventure, the laughter of the world, his hearers felt and realized them all. Owen Ford listened, with his head on his hand and the first mate purring on his knee, his brilliant eyes fastened on Captain Jim's rugged, eloquent face. Won't you let Mr. Ford see your lifebook, Captain Jim, asked Anne, when Captain Jim finally declared that yarn spinning must end for the time? Oh, he don't want to be bothered with that, protested Captain Jim, who was secretly dying to show it. I should like nothing better than to see it, Captain Boyd said, Owen, if it is half as wonderful as your tales it will be worth seeing. With pretended reluctance Captain Jim dug a his lifebook out of his old chest and handed it to Owen. I reckon you won't care to rass along with my old hand to write. I never had much schooling, he observed carelessly, just wrote that there to amuse my nephew Joe. He's always wanting stories, comes here yesterday and says to me, reproachful like, as I was lifting a twenty pound codfish out of my boat. Uncle Jim ain't a codfish a dumb animal. I'd been a-telling him, you see, that he must be real kind to dumb animals and never hurt them in any way. I got out of the scrape by saying a codfish was dumb enough but it wasn't an animal. But Joe didn't look satisfied and I wasn't satisfied myself. You've got to be mighty careful what you tell them, little creeders. They can see through you. While talking Captain Jim watched Owen Ford from the corner of his eye as the latter examined the lifebook and presently observing that his guest was lost in his pages he turned smilingly to his cupboard and proceeded to make a pot of tea. Owen Ford separated himself from the lifebook with as much reluctance as a miser wrenches himself from his gold, long enough to drink his tea and then return to it hungrily. Oh, you can take that thing home with you if you want to, said Captain Jim, as if the thing were not his most treasured possession. I must go down and pull my boat up a bit on the skids. There's a wind coming. Did you notice the sky tonight? Mackerel's skies and Mary's tales make tall ships carry short sails. Owen Ford accepted the offer of the lifebook gladly, on their way home and told him the story of lost Margaret. That old Captain is a wonderful old fellow, he said, what a life he has led. Why the man had more adventures in one week of his life than most of us have in a lifetime. Do you really think his tales are all true? I certainly do. I am sure Captain Jim could not tell a lie and besides all the people about here say everything happened as he relates it. There used to be plenty of his old shipmates alive to corroborate him. He's one of the last of the old types of PE Island Sea captains. They are almost extinct now. Writing of the Book Will you go down to the point with me this evening, Mrs. Blythe? I'll ask him about that lifebook myself, but I want you to tell him that you told me the story of lost Margaret and ask him if he will let me use it as a thread of romance with which to weave the stories of the lifebook into a harmonious whole. Captain Jim was more excited than ever when Owen Ford told him of his plan. At last his cherished dream was to be realized in his lifebook given to the world. He was also pleased that the story of lost Margaret should be woven into it. It will keep her name from being forgotten, he said wistfully. That's why I want to put it in. We'll collaborate, cried Owen delightedly. You will give the soul and I the body. Oh, we'll write a famous book between us, Captain Jim, and we'll get right to work. And to think my book is to be written by the schoolmaster's grandson, exclaimed Captain Jim. Lad, your grandfather was my dearest friend. I thought there was nobody like him. I see now why I had to wait so long. Couldn't be writ till the right man come. You belong here. You've got the soul of this old North Shore in you. You're the only one who could write it. It was arranged that the tiny room off the living room at the lighthouse should be given over to Owen for a workshop. It was necessary that Captain Jim should be near him, as he wrote, for consultation upon many matters of seafaring and gull floor, of which Owen was quite ignorant. He began work on the book the very next morning, and flung himself into it hard and soul. As for Captain Jim, he was a happy man that summer. He looked upon the little room where Owen worked as a sacred shrine. Owen talked everything over with Captain Jim, but he would not let him see the manuscript. You must wait until it is published, he said. Then you'll get it all at once in its best shape. He delved into the treasures of the life-book and used them freely. He dreamed and brooded over Lost Margaret until she became a vivid reality to him, and lived in his pages. As the book progressed, it took possession of him, and he worked at it with feverish eagerness. He let Anne and Leslie read the manuscript and criticize it, and the concluding chapter of the book, which the critics later on were pleased to call idyllic, was modelled upon as suggestion of Leslie's. Anne fairly hugged herself with delight over the success of her idea. I knew when I looked at Owen for that he was the very man for it, she told Gilbert, both humor and passion were in his face, and that, together with the art of expression, was just what was necessary for the writing of such a book, as Mrs. Rachel would say he was predestined for the part. Owen Ford wrote in the mornings. The afternoons were generally spent in some merry outing with the blithes. Leslie often went, too, for Captain Jim took charge of Dick frequently in order to set her free. They went boating on the harbour, and up the three pretty rivers that flowed into it. They had clam bakes on the bar and muscle bakes on the rocks. They picked strawberries on the sand dunes. They went out cod fishing with Captain Jim. They shot plover in the shore fields, and wild ducks in the cove, at least amended. In the evenings they rambled in the low-lying, daisy shore fields under a golden moon, or they sat in the living room at the little house, where often the coolness of the sea breeze justified a driftwood fire, and talked of the thousand and one things which happy, eager, clever young people can find to talk about. Ever since the day on which she made her confession to Anne, Leslie had been a changed creature. There was no trace of her old coldness and reserve, no shadow of her old bitterness. The girlhood of which she had been cheated seemed to come back to her with the ripeness of womanhood. She expanded like a flower of flame and perfume. No laugh was reddier than hers, no wit quicker, in the twilight circles of that enchanted summer. When she could not be with them, all felt that some exquisite saver was lacking in their intercourse. Her beauty was illumined by the awakened soul within. As some rosy lamp might shine through a flawless vase of alabaster. There were hours when Anne's eyes seemed to ache with the splendor of her. As for Owen Ford, the Margaret of his book, although she had the soft brown hair and elfin face of the real girl who had vanished so long ago, pillowed where lost Atlantis sleeps, had the personality of Leslie Moore, as it was revealed to him in those Halcyon days at Four Winds Harbor. All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer, one of those summers which come seldom into any life but leave a rich heritage of beautiful memories in their going. One of those summers which, in a fortunate combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful doings, came as near to perfection as anything can come in this world. Too good to last, Anne told herself with a little sigh. On the September day when a certain nip in the wind and a certain shade of intense blue on the gulf water said that autumn was hard by. That evening Owen Ford came to tell them he had finished his book and that his vacation must come to an end. I have a good deal to do to it yet, revising and pruning and so forth, he said, but in the main it's done. I wrote the last sentence this morning. If I can find a publisher for it, it will probably be out next summer or fall. Owen had not much doubt that he would find a publisher. He knew that he had written a great book, a book that would score a wonderful success, a book that would live. He knew that it would bring him both fame and fortune. But when he had written the last line of it, he had bowed his head on the manuscript and so sat for a long time, and his thoughts were not of the good work he had done. I'm so sorry Gilbert is away, said Anne. He had to go. Allen Lyons at the Glen has met with a serious accident. He will not likely be home till very late. But he told me to tell you he'd be up and over early enough in the morning to see you before you left. It's too provoking. Susan and I had planned such a nice little jamboree for your last night here. She was sitting beside the garden-brook on the little rustic seat Gilbert had built. Owen Ford stood before her, leaning against the bronze column of a yellow birch. He was very pale, and his face bore the marks of the preceding sleepless night. Anne, glancing up at him, wondered if, after all, his summer had brought him the strength it should. Had he worked too hard over his book? She remembered that for a week he had not been looking well. I'm rather glad the doctors away, said Owen. I wanted to see you alone, Mrs. Blythe. There is something I must tell somebody, or I think it will drive me mad. I've been trying for a week to look it in the face, and I can't. I know I can trust you, and besides, you will understand. A woman with eyes like yours always understands. You are one of the folks people instinctively tell things to. Mrs. Blythe, I love Leslie. Love her. That seems too weak a word. His voice suddenly broke with the suppressed passion of his utterance. He turned his head away and hid his face on his arm. His whole form shook. Anne sat looking at him, pale, and aghast. She had never thought of this. And yet, how was it she had never thought of it? It now seemed a natural and inevitable thing. She wondered at her own blindness. But—but things like this did not happen in four winds. Elsewhere in the world human passions might set at defiance human conventions and laws, but not here, surely. Leslie had kept summer borders off and on for ten years, and nothing like this had happened. But perhaps they had not been like Owen Ford. And the vivid living Leslie of this summer was not the cold, sullen girl of other years. Oh, somebody should have thought of this. Why hadn't Miss Cornelia thought of it? Miss Cornelia was always ready enough to sound the alarm where men were concerned. Anne felt an unreasonable resentment against Miss Cornelia. Then she gave a little inward groan. No matter who was to blame, the mischief was done. And Leslie—one of Leslie? It was for Leslie Anne felt most concerned. Does Leslie know this, Mr. Ford? She asked quietly. No, no—unless she has guessed it. You surely don't think I'd be cat and scoundrel enough to tell her, Mrs. Blythe. I couldn't help loving her, that's all. And my misery is greater than I can bear. Does she care? Asked Anne. The moment the question crossed her lips she felt she should not have asked it. Owen Ford answered it with overeager protest. No, no, of course not. But I could make her care if she were free. I know I could. She does care, and he knows it, thought Anne. Allowed, she said, sympathetically but decidedly. But she is not free, Mr. Ford, and the only thing you can do is to go away in silence and leave her to her own life. I know, I know, groaned Owen. He sat down on the grassy bank, and stared moodily into the amber water beneath him. I know there's nothing to do—nothing but to say conventionally. Goodbye, Mrs. Moore, thank you for all your kindnesses to me this summer. Just as I would have said it to the sonsy, bustling, keen-eyed housewife I expected her to be when I came, then I'll pay my bored money like any honest border and go. Oh, it's very simple—no doubt, no perplexity—a straight road to the end of the world. And I'll walk it. You needn't fear that I won't, Mrs. Blythe. But it would be easier to walk over red-hot plowshares. Anne flinched with the pain of his voice. And there was so little she could say that would be adequate to the situation. Blame was out of the question. Advice was not needed. Sympathy was mocked by the man's stark agony. She could only feel with him in a maze of compassion and regret. Her heart ached for Leslie. Had not that poor girl suffered enough without this? It wouldn't be so hard to go and leave her if she were only happy, resumed Owen passionately, but to think of her living death, to realize what it is to which I do leave her. That is the worst of all. I would give my life to make her happy, and I can do nothing even to help her. Nothing. She is bound forever to that poor wretch with nothing to look forward to, but growing old in a succession of empty, meaningless, barren years. It drives me mad to think of it. But I must go through my life never seeing her, but always knowing what she's enduring. It's hideous—hideous. It is very hard, said Anne sorrowfully. We—her friends here—all know how hard it is for her. And she is so richly fitted for life, said Owen rebelliously. Her beauty is the least of her dour, and she is the most beautiful woman I've ever known—that laugh of hers. I've angled all summer to evoke that laugh just for the delight of hearing it. And her eyes—they are as deep and blue as the gulf out there. I never saw such blueness and gold. Did you ever see her hair down, Mrs. Blythe? No. I did, once. I had gone down to the point fishing with Captain Jim, but it was too rough to go out, so I came back. She had taken the opportunity of what she expected to be an afternoon alone to wash her hair, and she was standing on the veranda in the sunshine to dry it. It fell, all about her, to her feet, in a fountain of living gold. When she saw me, she hurried in, and the wind caught her hair and swirled it all around her, denaying her cloud. Somehow, just then, the knowledge that I loved her came home to me, and realized that I had loved her from the moment I first saw her standing against the darkness in that glow of light. And she must live on here, petting and soothing, dick, pinching and saving for a mere existence, while I spend my life longing vainly for her, and debarred by that very fact from even giving her the little help a friend might. I walked the shore last night, almost till dawn, and thrashed it all out over and over again, and yet in spite of everything, I can't find it in my heart to be sorry that I came to forewins. It seemed to me that, bad as everything is, it would be still worse never to have known Leslie. It's burning, searing pain to love her and leave her, but not to have loved her is unthinkable. I suppose all this sounds very crazy. All these terrible emotions always do sound foolish when we put them into our inadequate words. They're not meant to be spoken, only felt and endured. I shouldn't have spoken, but it has helped some. At least it has given me strength to go away respectively tomorrow morning, without making a scene. You'll write to me now, and then won't you, Mrs. Blythe, and give me what news there is to give of her? Yes, said Anne. Oh, I'm so sorry you are going. We'll miss you so. We've all been such friends. If it were not for this you could come back other summers. Perhaps, even yet, by and by, when you've forgotten, perhaps, I shall never forget, and I shall never come back to forewinds, said Owen briefly. Silence and twilight fell over the garden. Far away the sea was lapping gently and monotonously on the bar. The wind of evening in the poplars sounded like some sad, weird old rune, some broken dream of old memories. A slender, shapely young aspen rose up before them against the fine maze and emerald and paling rose of the western sky, which brought out every leaf and twig in dark, tremulous, elfin loveliness. Isn't that beautiful, said Owen, pointing to it with the air of a man who puts a certain conversation behind him? It is so beautiful that it hurts me, said Anne softly. Perfect things like that always did hurt me. I remember I called it the queer ache when I was a child. What is the reason that pain like this seems inseparable from perfection? Is it the pain of finality, when we realize that there can be nothing beyond but retrogression? Perhaps, said Owen dreamily, it is the prisoned infinite in us calling out to its kindred infinite as expressed in that visible perfection. You seem to have a cold in the head. Better rub some tallow on your nose when you go to bed, said Miss Cornelia, who had come in through the little gate between the furs in time to catch Owen's last remark. Miss Cornelia liked Owen, but it was a matter of principle with her to visit any highfalutin language from a man with a snub. Miss Cornelia personated the comedy that ever peeps around the corner at the tragedy of life. Anne, whose nerves had been rather strained, laughed hysterically, and even Owen smiled. Certainly sentiment and passion had a way of shrinking out of sight in Miss Cornelia's presence. And yet to Anne nothing seemed quite as hopeless and dark and painful as it had seemed a few moments before. But sleep was far from her eyes that night.