 Section 70 of Uncollected Short Stories of L. M. Montgomery. 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 April 6,090, California, United States of America. Uncollected Short Stories of L. M. Montgomery by Lucy Maud Montgomery. The Old Cookie Woman Bert MacDonald and Archie Adams were talking together on the academy campus at Millboro. Ellis Saunders had just gone past with his books under his arm. They watched his straight, well-set-up figure down the elm-shaded street. What does Ellis mean to do when he graduates? asked Bert. Go to college? No. He's going right to work if he can find anything to do, answered Archie. He has applied for that position in the steel manufacturing company that Jack Wallace had. He hasn't much chance there, Neil Blair is almost sure of that. His father has a poll, he says. Well, I'm not so sure about that, as Neil is. Mr. Burgess is the man who has most to say in the matter, and I've given to understand that he doesn't altogether favor Neil. Things his academy record isn't just what such irresponsible employees ought to be, I imagine. But there are other applicants. All of them, with some influence at their backs, and some of them are just as competent as Ellis. He hasn't anyone to push his claims. Well, Ellis is a fine fellow, said Bert heartily, and I hope he'll get something else if this goes against him. Burgess is an odd ticket anyway. They say you never can tell what he is going to do till he does it. But they have great faith in his judgment. Well, I must be off. A fellow mustn't waste time with exams only two weeks away. Meanwhile, Ellis Saunders had gone to his boarding-house in a brown study. He had been talking to Alan Burgess, the captain of the academy football team. And Burgess had told him that a match had been arranged between the Invincibles and the Sheffield High School, Wayfarers, to be played at Sheffield, fifty miles distant, any week's time. Dr. Whiddon has given us a holiday for it, and all the academy boys must go for the honour of Milborough. We'll have a regular celebration, especially if we wipe the Wayfarers out of existence, as we fondly hope to do. He concluded with a laugh. Ellis did not respond as enthusiastically as usual. His face had flushed slightly at the mention of Sheffield, and he listened rather absently to Burgess's details. Just before they parted, the latter said, You've applied for the position in the steel works, haven't you, Saunders? Ellis nodded. Thought as much from the questions Father has been asking about you. Was glad my answers could be favourable. Hope you'll get it. I don't expect it in the least, said Ellis rather curtly. Burgess shrugged his shoulders. Well, you can never tell. Neil Blair has lots of pull, and there's a Stanton fellow from Shattuck that Father rather likes. Still, I think you've got a good fighting chance, Saunders. At first Ellis wondered if he could escape going to the football match. He decided that he could not, and then told himself firmly that he was a cad to want to. Ellis belonged to Sheffield. Allen Burgess did not know that. Not many of the Academy boys knew it. Indeed it was surprising how little they did know about Ellis Saunders, in spite of the fact that he had many friends and was one of the most popular boys in school. They could not even have told if he were poor or well off, all that any of them knew was that his parents were dead and that he lived with an aunt. He dressed well, belonged to two or three societies, and always contributed his share to any Academy project. On the day of the football match, the train that left Milborough, in the morning, was crowded with very hilarious boys. Every Akimidesian who could stand on his legs went down to Sheffield, and one or two unfortunate lads who were sick and could not go, thought that there was really nothing worth living for. Ellis Saunders was, perhaps, the only one who did not enjoy himself. He was quiet and abstracted. His chums concluded he was not feeling well, and left him to himself. When the train reached Sheffield, the high school boys were down to receive the Invincibles in state. The two teams greeted each other frantically, and then all hurried to the football grounds, for it was almost time for the game to begin. Sheffield was a small village, but there were a great many people in it, judging from the crowd around the grounds. Everywhere Ellis encountered faces he knew. He nodded pleasantly and sometimes stopped to speak, but his eyes robed over the scene as if seeking for something else. Presently he gave a little sigh of relief. She can't have come, he thought. I'm a cat to feel relieved. Still before all those fellows, and Alan Burgess and Nelson Evits, too, I'll go up and see her after the game is over, of course. When the match was fairly on, even Ellis forgot everything else. The Milborough boys ranged to themselves on one side, and cheered and shouted themselves worse. The Sheffield lads did the same on the other side. The contest was long and stubborn for the Invincibles, found that the Wayfarers, Fomen, were they of their steel. But in the end they vindicated their name, and the game was theirs with a narrow margin. When conquerors and conquered left the grounds the excitement rapidly subsided. Ellis found himself next to Mr. Burgess, who had come down to see the game at Alan's request. He shook hands with Ellis, in a friendly fashion, looking keenly at the lad from under his bushy eyebrows. Pretty well played game, eh? He said good-humoredly. Ellis nodded enthusiastically. The Invincibles would look out for that, he said proudly. Well, I'm ravenously hungry, interjected Nelson Evans, the son of a Milborough mill millionaire and the biggest swell, as the boys said at the Academy. Where an obscure individual, like myself, can get a bite. The Invincibles are to be lynched by their friends, the enemy. But we ragtag and bobtagel must forage for ourselves. Here comes Mother Bunch, exclaimed Burt McDonald with a laugh. She's got a big basket, and I've warned there's something to eat in it. Hurrah! Ellis looked in the direction he indicated, with a face suddenly grown crimson. He knew what he could see, a little stout woman in an old-fashioned bonnet and shawl, selling cookies to the crowd as she plotted through it. For a minute he turned away. All his cronies were there, as well as Alan Burgess, who had come up to speak to his father. For one brief instant Ellis was tempted to walk swiftly away. The old cookie woman, as the boys were calling her, had not yet seen him. I believe I'll go and invest in some of those cookies myself, said Mr. Burgess. They looked good, like the ones my mother used to make, when I was a little shaver. Suddenly Ellis stepped forward and elbowed his way through the crowd. A flush of shame was on his face, but this time it was shame of himself. His voice was clear and steady when he reached the cookie woman's side. That basket is too heavy for you, Auntie. He said gently. Here, let me take it. He turned and faced the boys squarely. Come on, boys, I'm running this thing now. Auntie, you must go and sit down over there under the trees. I'll sell your cakes for you. The old woman, whose tired, lined face, had lighted up with love and pride, tried to protest, but Ellis put her gently aside. You're tired out as it is. This is my place. I won't let them cheat you, he said, laughingly. For a minute there had been an amazed silence around them. Then Neil Blair laughed out loud. Ellis heard and lifted his head a little higher. He did not see the furious look that Alan Burgess flashed at Neil Blair before he said. Give me half a dozen cookies, Saunders. There's a good fellow. I'm so ravenous I can't wait till I get to the spread the way fares have for us. Thank you. As Alan moved away, munching his purchases, the other boys crowded around again and bought their cookies. Ellis passed out cakes and changed quarters with his usual easy manner. In a few minutes the basket was empty and he turned to the little woman under the trees. Come now, Auntie, we'll go home. I want to spend the rest of my time here with you. You'll excuse me, won't you, boys? Oh, certainly," said Neil Blair, with a faint sneer in his tone, but Nelson Evans walked up to the old lady and held out his hand. I want to shake hands with the aunt of the smartest boy at Millborough Academy, he said heartily. He's going to carry off all the honors, and we're proud of him for it. He is my special crony, and I'm glad to meet his aunt. The old woman's worn face flushed with pride. Thank you," she said, Ellis is a good boy, and always was. I'm glad to think he is a bit clever, too, and that his classmates like him. When Ellis and his aunt had gone, the other boys hurried off in various directions, and Mr. Burgess, who had been a spectator of the whole affair, found himself alone. He nodded his head several times in a peculiar way. Any one of his business acquaintances, seeing that, would have said. Burgess has made up his mind about something. The Millborough boys on the train that evening were even more hilarious than in the morning, if that was possible. One or two of Ellis's former friends avoided him significantly, but the others made no difference, and Ellis understood that most of his friends were worth having. For the first time since he had left the little bakery in Sheffield two years before, he was rid of a big feeling that he was sailing under false colors. He had never been able to free himself of the belief. Snobbish, though, he knew it to be, that if the Academy Boys knew of that bakery and the queer, plain little woman who tended it, they would look down on him. A week later Ellis Saunders was notified that the steel company had accepted his application for the vacant position, and would expect him to begin work immediately after his graduation. Allen Burgess met him the same afternoon on the campus. Congratulations, Saunders. Father has informed me that you've got the place. Good for you. It is good for me, said Ellis, frankly. But I don't understand how I came to get it. That man from Shattuck now, and Neil Blair. Neil Blair's chances fizzled out on the day of the football match, answered Burgess, with his characteristic shrug. And by the same token yours went up. Father took a fancy to you that day, said that you were a man after his own heart. When he came home from Sheffield you had practically got the situation then. And look here, Ellis, will you ask your aunt for her recipe for those cookies? I never tasted such delicious ones, and Father says so, too. My mother never could make good cookies, bless her. But she says she'll try to learn if your aunt will give her the recipe. I can give it to you myself, said Ellis with a laugh, for I've helped Auntie make them hundreds of times. End of Section 70. Section 71 of Uncollected Stories of L. M. Montgomery 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 Marcia Epic Harris. Uncollected Short Stories of L. M. Montgomery by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Section 71, A Garden of Old Delights What wonder, the wise old Eden story placed the beginning of life in a garden. A garden fitly belongs to the youth of the world and the youth of the race, for it never grows old. The years, which steal so much from everything else, bring added loveliness and sweetness to it, enriching it with memories beautiful and tender, but never blighting its immortal freshness. It is foolishness to speak as we do of old gardens. Gardens are perennially young, the haunt of flowers and children, and Grandmother's Garden was always full of both. Some of her many grandchildren always came to the old homestead for their summer holidays. One summer there were a half a dozen there as guests, and counting the other ten who lived near her and spent more time at Grandmother's than at their own homes, we were the merriest little crew in the world. The garden was our favorite haunt, and we passed most of our waking moments there. It was to us an enchanted pleasure-ground, and there is nothing in all our store of remembrance so sweet and witching as our recollections of it. Places visited in later years have grown dim and indistinct, but every nook and corner of Grandmother's Garden is as vivid in memory as on the day I saw it last. That was many years ago, but I could go straight with shut eyes at this very moment to the bed beside the snowball tree where the first violets grew. The door of the big living room opened directly into the garden. We went down four wide shallow steps formed of natural slabs of red sandstone, which great-grandfather had brought up from the shore. The lower one was quite sunk into the earth, and mint grew thickly about its edges, often crushed by so many little feet, it gave out its essence freely, and the spicy odor always hung around that door like an invisible benediction. The garden was long and narrow, and sloped slightly to the west. On two sides it was surrounded by a high stone wall, at least we thought it high, but I have a mature suspicion that I might not think so now. Things have such an unwholesome habit of dwindling as we grow older, but then we could barely see over it by standing on tiptoe, and we had to climb to its top by the little ladder fastened against the western end if we wanted to get a good view of the wide sloping green fields beyond, and the sea calling so softly on its silvery glistening sand shore. The third side was shut in by the house itself, a long, quaint, whitewashed building lavishly festooned with Virginia creeper and climbing roses. Nothing about the five square windows in the second story gave it an appearance of winking at us in a friendly fashion through its vines, at least, so the story girl said, and indeed, we could always see it for ourselves after she had once pointed out to us. At one corner of the house, a little gate opened into the kitchen garden where the vegetables grew, but we never felt much interest in that, perhaps because grandmother's old servant, Jean, looked upon it as her special domain and discouraged intruders. Get away with you into the flower garden, that's the proper place for barns, she would say, with an instinctive perception of the fitness of things. The fourth side was rimmed in by a grove of fir trees, a dim, cool place where the winds were fond of purring, and where there was always a resinous woodsy odor. On the farther side of the firs was a thick plantation of slender silver birches and whispering poplars, and just beyond it what we called the Wild Garden, a sunny triangle shut in by the meadow fences and as full of wildflowers as it could hold. Blue and white violets, dandelions, Junebells, wild roses, daisies, buttercups, asters, and goldenrod, all lavish in their season. The garden was intersected by right-angled paths, bordered by the big white clam shells which were always found in abundance by the bay, and laid with gravel from the shore, colored pebbles and little white shells well grounded to the soil. In the beds between the paths and around the wall grew all the flowers of the world, or so at least we used to think, the same things were always found in the same place. We always looked for the clove pinks, sewn in grandmother's bridal days. Behind the big waxberry bush in the shadowy corner behind the sumax was always sweet in spring with white narcissus. There were many roses of course, roses that grew without any trouble, and flung a year's hoarded sweetness into luxuriant bloom every summer. One never heard of mildew or slugs or aphis there, and nothing was ever done to the rosebushes beyond a bit of occasional pruning. There was a row of big double pink ones at one side of the front door, and the red and white ones grew in the middle plot. There was one yellow rose tree to the left of the steps, but the ones we loved best were the dear little scotch roses. Oh, how fragrant and dainty and thorny were those wee semi-double roses with their wax and outer petals and the faint shell pink of their hearts. Catherine had brought the rosebush with her all the way from an old Scottish garden when she was a slip of a lassie, so that in our eyes there was a touch of romance about them that the other roses lacked. Grandmother's bed of lavender and caraway and sweet clover was very dear to her heart. The caraway and sweet clover had a tendency to spread wildly, and it was one of our duties to keep them in proper bounds. Rooting up every stray bit that straggled from the allotted space, we picked and dried the lavender from Grandmother's linen closet, and she made us delicious caraway cookies, such as I have never eaten anywhere else. I'm afraid such cookies are not made nowadays. All the beds were edged with ribbon grass. The big red peonies grew along the edge of the fur grove, splendid against its darkness, and the hollyhocks stood up in stiff ranks by the kitchen garden gate. The bed next to them was a sight to see when the yellow daffodils and tulips came out. There was a clump of tiger lilies before the door, and a row of Madonna lilies farther down. One big pine tree grew in the garden, and underneath it was a stone bench made like the steps of flat shore stones worn smooth by the long polish of wind and wave. Just behind this bench grew pale sweet flowers, which had no name that we could ever find out. Many seemed to know anything about them. They had been there when Grandfather's father bought the place. I have never seen them elsewhere, or found them described in any catalog. We called them the White Ladies. The story girl gave them the name. She said they looked like the souls of good women. They were very aerial and wonderfully dainty, with a strange haunting perfume that was only to be detected at a little distance and vanished if you bent over them. They faded whenever they were plucked, and although strangers greatly admiring them often carried away roots and seeds, they can never be coaxed to grow elsewhere. There is one very old fashioned bed full of bleeding hearts, sweet William, brides bouquet, butter and eggs, Adam and Eve, Columbines, pink and white daisies, and bouncing bets. We liked this bed best, because we might always pluck the flowers in it whenever we pleased. For the others we had to ask permission, which however was seldom refused. Poppies were the only things in the garden with their license to ramble. They sprang up everywhere, but the bed of them was in the northwest corner, and there they shook out their fringed, silken skirts against a low coppice of young furs. Asparagus, permitted because of the feathery grace of its later development, grew behind the well house, near the lollies of the valley. The middle path was spanned at regular intervals by three arches, and these were garland with honeysuckle. The well house was a quaint, likened old structure built over the well at the bottom of the garden. Four posts supported an odd, peaked little roof, like the roof of a Chinese pagoda, and it was almost covered with vines that hung from it in long, swinging the stones nearly to the ground. The well was very deep and dark, and the water, drawn up by a windlass and chain and a mossy old bucket shaped like a little barrel and bound with icy hoops, was icy cold. As far down as we could see, the walls of the well were grown over with the most beautiful ferns. The garden was full of birds, some of them we regarded as old friends, for they nested in the same place every year and never seemed afraid of us. A pair of bluebirds had an odd liking for a nook in the stonework of the well. Two yellow hammers had preempted an old hollow poplar in the southwestern corner. Wild canaries set up household in the big lilac bush before the parlor windows. One exciting summer, a pair of hummingbirds built a nest in the central honeysuckle arch. A wild August gale and rainstorm tore it from its frail hold and dashed it to the ground, where we found it the next morning. We girls cried over it, and then we cast lots to decide who should have the wonderful thing, fashioned of down and lichen and no bigger than a walnut. The hummingbirds never came back, though we looked wistfully for them every summer. Robins were numerous, especially in early spring, great sleek saucy fellows strutting along the paths. In the summer evenings after sunset, they would whistle among the furs, making sweet half melancholy music. A garden with so many years behind it would naturally have some legends of its own. There was one fascinating story about the poet who was kissed. One long ago day, so long ago that grandfather was only a little boy, a young man had come into this garden, one whose name had already begun to bud out with the garland of fame that later encrowned it. He went into the garden to write a poem, and fell asleep with his head pillowed on the old stone bench. Into the garden came Great Aunt Alice, who was nobody's aunt then, but a laughing-eyed girl of eighteen, red of lip and dark of hair, willful and sweet, and a wee bit daring. She had been away, and had just come home, and she knew nothing at all of her brother's famous guests. But in the garden fast asleep under the pine tree, with his curly head on the hard stones and his half-finished poem beside him, was the handsomest youth she had ever seen. Mischievous Alice took him for an unexpected cousin from Scotland, and bending over until her long dark curls swept his shoulder, she dropped a kiss, light and dainty, as a falling rose petal on his sunburned cheek. Then he opened his big blue eyes, and looked into Alice's blushing face, blushing hotly, for she realized all at once that this could not be the Scotch cousin. She knew, for she had been told, that he had eyes as velvet-brown as her own. Fair Alice sprang to her feet, and fled through the garden in dire confusion, a confusion which was not mended any when she found out who the sleeping prince really was. But it all ended happily, as one would expect, in wedding bells for Alice and her poet. The story which had the greatest fascination for us was that of the lost diamond. Soon after grandfather and grandmother were married, a certain great lady had come to visit them, a lady on whose white, high-bread hand sparkled a diamond ring. She had gone to walk in the garden. The diamond was in the ring when she went down the sandstone steps, for grandmother noted at Sparkle, as the great lady lifted her silken gown. But when she came in again, the setting was empty, and the diamond gone. Nor was it ever found, then, or afterwards, searches they might, and never was anything better searched for. This story had a perennial charm for us children. We always had a secret hope that we might find the stone, and it made our labors seem light indeed. Nobody objected to pulling up weeds when every pulse did the chance of being rewarded by the starry glitter of the lost gem. And then our garden had its ghost. We children were not supposed to know anything about this, grandmother thought it would frighten us and have forbidden any illusion to it in our presence. Her precaution was useless, for we all knew about it. The story girl had told us how the story girl knew it, I cannot say, but the legend did not frighten us at all. Instead, we were intensely interested and very proud of it. Not every garden has a ghost, so it seemed to confer a certain distinction on ours. We never saw our ghost, but that was not for lack of looking for it. The legend, as related to us, won misty twilight by the story girl and told in whispers with furtive glances backwards that rendered it very impressive, oh she knew how to tell a story that girl was as follows. Long ago, even before grandfather was born, an orphaned cousin of his lived with his parents. Her name was Edith, and she was small and sweet and wistful-eyed, with very long sleek brown curls and a tiny birthmark like a pink butterfly right on one oval cheek. She had a lover, the young son of a neighbor, and one day he had told her shyly that he was coming on the morrow to ask her a very important question, and he wanted to find her in the garden when he came. Edith promised to meet him at the old stone bench, and on the morrow she dressed herself in her pale blue muslin and slicked her curls and waited smiling at the tristing spot. After her, there came a heedless cousin bursting out boyishly that her lover had been killed that morning by the accidental discharge of his gun. Edith was never quite herself after that, and she was never contented unless she was dressed in her blue gown and sitting on the old bench waiting for him, because he would be sure to come sometime, she said. She grew paler every day, but the little pink butterfly grew redder until it looked like a stain of blood against the whiteness of her face. When the winter came she died, but the next summer it began to be whispered about that Edith was sometimes seen sitting on the bench waiting, more than one person had seen her. Grandfather saw her when he was a little boy, said the story girl, nodding mysteriously, and my mother saw her once too, only once. Did you ever see her, the skeptical boy wanted to know? The story girl shook her head, no, but I shall someday, if I keep on believing, she said confidently. I wouldn't like to see her, I should be afraid, said the timid girl with a little shiver. There wouldn't be anything to be afraid of, said the story girl reassuringly. It's not as if it were a stranger ghost, it's our own family ghost, so of course it wouldn't hurt us. We often acted out the story of Alice and her poet. We discovered the lost diamond in a thousand different ways and places, but we never acted out the story of Edith. Ghosts are not chancey folks to meddle with, even when they are your own family ghosts. We had our own games and sports, mostly original, for the story girl could invent them more easily than most children could talk. Our playhouse was in the fur grove. We had shelves on the trees, covered with a dazzling array of broken dishes and pieces of colored glass. And we had cupboards, scooped out among the big roots and lined with moss. We wove wreaths and crowns of pink daisies, and every girl was queen for a day, turn about. We had picnics and little festivals galore, but when all was said and done, we liked best to hear the story girl tell stories. We would climb to the top of the western wall, or sit on the grass under the swinging fur bows and listen for hours. The story girl was an orphan grandchild who had always lived at grandmothers. She was a slim, light-footed thing with an oval brown face and large, dark blue, dreamy eyes. She had a marvelous memory and a knack of dramatic word painting. Of her stories, she made out of her own head, and we thought them wonderful. Even now, I still think they were wonderful, and if she had lived, I believe the world would have heard of her. She died in her early teens in a foreign land, far away from her beloved garden. It was she kept the garden book. I found it in a box in the attic the last time I was at the old homestead and brought it away with me. Many of its entries made the past seem the present again. April 20th. It is spring, and I am so glad. The beauty of winter is that it makes you appreciate spring. Little green things are poking up everywhere in the garden. I always run out first thing every morning to see how much they have grown since yesterday. I helped grandmother plant the sweet peas today, and I planted a little bit of my own. I'm not going to dig them up this year to see if they have sprouted. It is bad for them. I'm going to try to cultivate patience. I read a new fairy book in the fur grove today. A fur grove is the right kind of a place to read fairy stories. Sally says she can't see that it makes any difference where you read them, but oh it does. May 10th. Warm with south wind, grandmother and Jean finish planting their vegetable garden today. I never like the vegetable garden except when I am hungry. Then I do like to go and look at the nice little rows of onions and beets. May 28th. I was busy weeding all day. Sally and Jack came over and helped me. I don't mind weeding, but I always feel so sorry for the poor weeds. It must be hard to be rooted up, but then you should not grow in the wrong place. I suppose if weeds ever get to heaven, they will be flowers. I hope heaven will be all flowers. I think I could be always good if I lived in a garden all the time, but then Adam and Eve lived in a garden and they were not always good, far from it. June 8th. It rained this morning. The garden is always so sweet after a rain. Everything is so fresh and clean and the perfumes are lovelier than ever. I wish one could see perfumes as well as smell them. I'm sure they would be beautiful. Billy says it was just like a girl to wish something silly. Billy is very practical. He would never think of being sorry for the weeds. Grandfather says he is very level-headed. It is best to be level-headed, of course, but you miss lots of fun. Our canterbury bells are out. I think canterbury bells is a lovely name. It makes you think of cathedrals. Sweet William is a dreadful name for a flower. William is a man's name and men are never sweet. They are a great many admirable things, but they are not sweet and shouldn't be. That is for women. June 17th. The garden does not look the same by moonlight at all. It is very beautiful, but it is different. When I was a little wee girl, I used to believe that fairies danced in the garden by moonlight. I would like to believe it still, but it is so hard to believe things you know are not true. Uncle James told me there were no such things as fairies. He is a minister, so of course I knew he spoke the truth. It was his duty to tell me, and I do not blame him, but I have never felt quite the same to Uncle James' sense. We acted Alice and the poet today. I like it mostly, but not today, for Billy was the poet, and he didn't look a bit poetical. His face was so round and freckled. I just wanted to laugh, and that spoiled it all for me. I always like it better when Jack is the poet. He looks the part, and he never screws his eyes up as tight as Billy does, but she can seldom coax Jack to be the poet, and Billy is so obliging that way. July 20th. We all helped grandmother make her rose jar today. We picked courts of rose leaves. The most fragrant ones grow on grandmother's wedding bush. When grandmother was married, she had a bouquet of white roses, and she stuck one of the green shoots from it down in the garden, never thinking it would really prowl, but it did, and it is the biggest bush in the garden now. It does seem so funny to think that there ever was a time when grandfather and grandmother were not married. You would think to look at them, that they always had been. What a dreadful thing it would have been if they had not got married to each other. I don't suppose there would have been a single one of us children here at all, or if we were, we would be part somebody else, and that would be almost as bad. When I think how awful it would have been to be born part somebody else, or not born at all, I cannot feel sufficiently thankful that grandfather and grandmother happened to marry each other, when there are so many other people in the world they might have married. I am trying to love the zinnias best because nobody seems to like them at all, and I am sure they must feel it, but all the time deep down in my heart, I know I love the roses best. You just can't help loving the roses, August 19th. Grandmother let us have our tea in the garden this afternoon, and it was lovely. We spread the tablecloth on the grass by the well house, and it was just like a picnic. Everything tasted twice as good, and we did not mind the ants at all. I am going to call the southern wood apple ringy after this. Jean says that is what they call it in Scotland, and I think it sounds ever so much more poetical than southern wood. Jack says the right name is Boy's Love, but I think that is silly. September 5th. Billy says that a rich man in town has a floral clock in his garden. It looks just like the face of a clock, and there are flowers in it that open every hour, and you can always tell the time. Billy wishes we had one here, but I don't. What would be the good of it? Nobody ever wants to know the time in a garden. It was my turn to be queen, and I wore the daisy crown all day. I like to be queen, but there is really not as much fun in it as being a common person after all. Besides, the rest I'll call you Your Majesty and Curtsy whenever they come into your presence, if they don't forget, and it makes you feel a little lonely. September 27th. Shadows are such pretty things, and the garden is always full of them. Sometimes they are so still you would think them asleep. Then again, they are laughing and skipping. Outside, down on the shore fields, they are always chasing each other. They are wild shadows. The shadows in the garden are tame shadows. October 20th. Everything seems to be rather tired of growing. The pine tree and the firs and the mums. The sunshine is thick and yellow and lazy, and the crickets sing all the time. The birds have nearly all gone. The other day, I thought I saw the ghost at last. I was coming through the fir grove, and I saw somebody in blue sitting on the bench. How my heart beat, but it was only a visitor after all. I don't know whether I was glad or disappointed. I don't think it would be a pleasant experience to see the ghost, but after you had seen it, think what a heroine you would be. November 10th. There is a little snow last night, but it all melted as soon as the sun came out. Everything in the garden has gone to sleep, and it is lonely and sad there now. I don't think I shall write any more in my garden book till spring. Early morning was an exquisite time in the garden. Delicate dews glistened everywhere, and the shadows were black and long and clear cut. Pale peach-tinted mists hung over the bay, and little winds crisped across the fields and rustled in the poplar leaves in the wild corner. But the evening was more beautiful still, when the sunset sky was all aglow with delicate shadings, and a young moon swung above the sea in the west. The robins whistled in the furs, and over the fields sometimes came lingering music from the boats in the bay, and you watch the light fading out on the water and the stars coming out over the sea. And at last, grandmother would come down the honeysuckle path and tell us it was time that birds and buds and babies should be in bed. Then we would troop off to our nests in the house, and a fragrant gloom of a summer night would settle down over the garden of old delights. End of Section 71, Recording by Marsha Epicarrus. Section 72 of Uncollected Stories of LM Montgomery. 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 Marsha Epicarrus. Uncollected Short Stories of LM Montgomery by Lucy Mod Montgomery. Section 72, Margaret Ann's Mother. Madge Hamlin and Howard Sherman came down the long elm-shaded street together. It was a holiday, and they had been celebrating it by a stroll in the park and a look at the bicycle races. Miss Hamlin was sub-editor of the ladies' banner and was as clever and charming as she was handsome. Howard Sherman was clever, too, if he was not exactly handsome. He was the junior member of a law firm and was known to be well on the way to fame and fortune. Consequently, he was much sought after by mamas with eligible daughters. At present, he and Miss Hamlin were excellent friends. Their fellow boarders at Mrs. Dehaven's would have unanimously declared that they would soon be something more. The other boarders were loitering about the porch of Hillside Hall as Miss Hamlin and her escort turned in at the gate. They were Ned Mitchell, the government clerk whom everyone liked, and Fred Owen, whom nobody liked. Then there was Mrs. Austin, the pretty plaintive widow who had thorns beneath her roses and who didn't like Miss Hamlin. And lastly, there was foolish frivolous Nellie Sterling, who was not too foolish to be spiteful nor too frivolous to be malicious and who cordially envied Miss Hamlin. Miss Hamlin paused on the porch. The group had been laughing, and Ned Mitchell was looking roguish, which was circumstantial evidence that he had been mimicking somebody. Oh, Miss Hamlin, said Nellie Sterling. There's the funniest old body up in the parlor. You should see her. I'm certain her bonnet came out of the ark, and she has a huge carpet bag beside her. Ned struck up a conversation with her, and he says it was very amusing. She isn't a battled soul, you know, put in Mitchell. Good and motherly and all that, but her grammar and her accent. She is shrewd, though. Wouldn't give away her name or business, but I fancy the maid made a mistake in showing her into the parlor. Probably she came to call on the cook. Miss Hamlin had listened indifferently. Possibly some country relation of Mrs. Dehaven's, she suggested. If so, I should say the poor old soul didn't get a very gushing reception. She has been sitting there for two hours and looks tired to death. Miss Hamlin passed on into the library. Mrs. Dehaven met her, looking rather flurried. Miss Hamlin, she said. Your mother is here. She came after you went out, and said she would wait. She is up in my parlor. I asked her to take off her things, but she said she would rather not until you came. Miss Hamlin had turned crimson and then pale, but she only said, Thank you, Miss Dehaven, and went swiftly upstairs, but not to the parlor. Instead, she fled up a second flight to her own room, shut the door, and sat down on her bed. In the mirror before her, she saw herself reflected, handsome, graceful, well-gowned. And she saw, plainly enough also, the figure in the parlor below, short and dumpy, and bent, in the old scant ill-fitting alpaca dress, the faded shawl and ancient bonnet, with bony hands and wrinkled face, her mother. How Mrs. Austin and Miss Sterling would sneer, how Fred Owen would stare with unconcealed and supercilious disgust, and Howard Sherman, the fastidious and critical, what would he think of her mother? Well, he would not forget that he was a gentleman, he would not act as the others would, but he would quietly cease his attentions to her, and look elsewhere for a mother-in-law. Suddenly she got up with a determined face. I won't do it, she said aloud. It would spoil everything. I'll go down and put the whole case frankly before mother. She'll see how things are, and she'll be quite willing to go quietly away to some nice boarding house for the night. She took a step toward the door and then paused. What was it she was going to do? Was she actually ashamed of the dear old mother to whom she owed so much? She turned again and went over to the window, pushing aside the lace draperies. She looked out on the maple boughs and over them down the vista of misty blue streets. She had not always been Miss Hamlin, B.A., sub-editor of The Lady's Banner. It was not so very long as years ago, since she had been a little girl in print dresses and sunbonnets, living with her widowed mother out among the country hills in the little brown house hidden by apple trees. They had been poor, and life was a hard struggle for her mother, who managed the little farm and strove to shield her daughter from the hardships she herself had known. But they had been very happy there. Then when she had grown into a big girl, clever and ambitious, she had gone away to school and after that to college. The little mother had worked and pinched and planned at home, denying herself all luxuries and even comforts for the sake of her daughter. Madge Hamlin had not been ungrateful, nor was she idle. In vacation, she taught school and at college earned some money by her pen, in addition to the scholarship she had taken. When Miss Hamlin got her position on the staff of The Banner, she did not forget her mother. She wanted her to come and live with her in town, but Mrs. Hamlin said she would not be contented there and preferred to keep to her farm. So every summer, Madge went home to spend her vacation in the old village among the friends of her girlhood. If mother had spent on herself all that she spent on me, said the girl, she would not be so queer and old looking now, and I wouldn't be where I am. I had to be proud of her and I am proud of her. She is the best and dearest mother ever a girl had. I wonder if those people down there would do one-tenth as much for me as my mother has done. She went down to the parlor contritely. At the door she paused unseen, looking at the shabby, dusty little woman, sitting forlornly at the further end and so oddly out of place in the fashionable apartment. She ran forward. Mothered here, she cried. Oh Margaret Ann, the old woman rose eagerly, her face brightened at the girl's warm greeting. So you're glad to see me, Margaret Ann? Oh yes, mother, I am so sorry I was out. Why didn't you let me know you were coming? I didn't know myself till this morning. I've been kind of hankering to see you forever so long. I ain't been awful well lately and I missed you awful. I just felt as if I must come up and see you. That was right. How tired you look and dusty. Why didn't you ask Mr. Haven to take you right to my room? You could have had a bath and a nap. The old woman hesitated. Well Margaret Ann, I didn't know. Some way I kinder felt lost here. I didn't expect such a stylish place. The folks all seemed so toney and everything so dreadful high class. It just come over me that you mightn't want a queer awkward old body like me coming in among your fine friends. So I thought I'd just wait here and see what you said. And if you thought I'd better go somewhere else and not disgrace you. Oh mother. Said the daughter with a pang of self-reproach. No indeed. I am not ashamed of you. Don't I owe everything to you? I didn't think you'd be but I didn't want to do anything that injure you Margaret Ann. You must come to my room now mother. She said gently. You'll have time to bathe your face before dinner and I'll brush your hair. You must be very tired. With a sigh of relief, Mrs. Hanlon sank into a rocker in her daughter's room and looked about her with a keen appreciative eye. This is an elegant room of yours, Margaret Ann. Not much like that little old one of yours out home, way up under the eaves, is it? No mother. And yet, do you know I love that little old room out home? Far better than this one. And sometimes, very often, I just long to fly back there and be your own little girl again to have you sing me to sleep and hear the poplar leaves rustling outside. Mrs. Hanlon padded the hand lying on her shoulder. It's just the same as when you left it, Margaret Ann. I never have a thing change. All your little pictures and traps are there in your old chair. When I get lonesome, I go and sit there and fancy I can see you sitting there, reading or writing as you used to do. Come, mother, it's dinner time. You know, dinner at night is the custom here. All feelings save love and tenderness had vanished from the girl's heart. She drew the bony knotted hand through her arm and led Mrs. Hanlon down to the drawing room. There is a decided glitter in her eyes and an unmistakable ring in her voice as she said, Mrs. Dehaven, this is my mother. Mrs. Dehaven rose to the situation like the true lady she was. Mrs. Austin smiled and said sweetly, so glad to meet our dear Miss Hamlin's mother. Nellie Sterling giggled audibly and Fred Owen stared superciliously. Ned Mitchell shook hands with boyish heartiness and Mr. Sherman in the background bowed in grave silence. Miss Hanlon felt relieved when dinner was announced. Mrs. Hanlon was at first to overcome by the splendor of the table appointments and the variety of the courses to talk, but this soon wore off. She had a good deal of the assertiveness that belonged in a refined way to her daughter and possessed the same faculty of making herself at home in all circumstances. She talked wholly to her daughter about the folks at home and the various interests of her farm and dairy. Mrs. Austin listened with a covert smile and occasionally shrugged her shoulders at Ned Mitchell, but Howard Sherman maintained an unbroken silence. When dinner was finally over, she took her mother to her room again. Nell, mother dear, she said, slipping down on a cushion at her mother's feet, let me lay my head in your lap and play I'm your little girl again. The older woman passed her toil-worn hand caressingly up and down the bright waves of auburn hair. I'm so sorry, mother, said Miss Hanlon after a while, but I'll have to leave you alone for an hour or so. I must go up to the office. The issue goes to press tomorrow. You won't mind, will you? Bless you, dearie. Of course I won't mind. I wouldn't want you to neglect anything. I'll go down to the parlor and chat with some of the folks. That yellow-haired young chap seemed real nice and sociable today. Silence fell between them for a few minutes. A sense of rest and tender protection filled Madge Hanlon's heart as she sat with her head in her mother's lap. There was nothing so dear as a mother. She reached up and pulled the hard hands down to her lips. There's nothing so good and true as your love after all, mother. I wish I could see you oftener. I'm afraid I've grown hard and selfish. It was nine o'clock when Miss Hanlon came down from the banner office. She had been detained longer than she had expected. A fine mist was falling. The streets were wet and slippery. It was not often she had to stay late, and when it was necessary, Howard Sherman was always on hand to see her home. He was not there tonight. If he is so easily frightened away as that, perhaps it is just as well he should be, she said to herself. Miss Hanlon paused in the hall to remove her rubbers. Out through the door floated Nellie Sterling's voice. Did you ever in your life see anything so funny as Old Mother Bunch? I fancy our beloved Margaret Ann won't hold her head quite so high after this, laughed Miss Austin. Yet she actually seemed proud of the old lady. Miss Hanlon fled to the library. She pushed open the door, and there sat her mother and Mr. Sherman. The latter rose. I was sorry I could not bring you home this evening, he said. But I have been trying to entertain your mother. She was rather lonely in your absence. That's a real nice young man, Margaret Ann, said Mrs. Hanlon, confidentially when they got upstairs. I like him real well. Is he your beau, Margaret Ann? Dear me, no mother, at least. I don't know. Maybe you don't, but I have my guess as child. Mrs. Hanlon decided to go home next morning on the early train. Mr. Sherman and Maj went to the train to see her off. When it had rumbled out, they walked down the cool street and out under the elms where Mr. Sherman asked his companion a certain question. But it was not until long afterward that he told her how he came to. Do you remember the day your mother came to hillside hall? I heard what the others said. I wanted to see what you would do when you brought her down so proudly. I knew then that you were loyal and true. And what if I had failed you? Asked his wife. Then, then I'm afraid I should never have asked that question under the elms. End of Section 72, Recording by Marcia Epicaris. Section number 73 of Uncollected Short Stories of LM Montgomery. 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 B. L. Newman. Uncollected Short Stories of LM Montgomery by Lucy Mod Montgomery. Section 73. The letter Patricia wrote. Do I look pretty nice, Pat? asked Sally posing. Patricia stopped gnawing her pen handle, laid it down carefully, and looked at Sally critically, as she was wont to look at beautiful pictures. She was curled up, Turk fashion, on the middle of the bed, with a ragged portfolio in her lap, and her new yellow teagound gathered gracefully about her. Out of its billows and laces rose her thin, eager little face, with big, dark, long, lashed eyes that were looking Sally over. Patricia's only beauty was in her eyes, and she knew it. When her gaze had traveled from the tip of Sally's satin slipper to the crown of her sleek brown head, Patricia drew a long sigh and dropped her pointed chin in her hands. Sally fair facts, she said. Do you know how pretty you are? Sally nodded. Of course, what are looking glasses for, and men? That wasn't what I meant. Are all my ends tucked in? Is my skirt straight? And would this rose look better lower down? I'm afraid it's too high. It will make me look lopsided. But I do hate things tickling my ears. Sally, said Patricia again, ignoring the question. There are times when I hate you fiercely because you are beautiful and I am not. Just now is one of them. I would give anything in the world to be beautiful. All I don't know, said Sally absently, craning her head over her neck to see the back of her skirt in the mirror. Beauty isn't everything. I'd be willing to give all I've got for your brains, Pat. No, you wouldn't. There isn't a woman in the world that wouldn't rather be beautiful than be president. Not one. Sally, you are a little fool. You haven't an ounce of braininess to my pound, but the men would give more for that southwest dimple of yours than for all my gray matter. There is one who wouldn't, and the very one I am going to marry at that, declared Sally gloomily. Stephen doesn't care anything about my good looks. They only make him cross because I'm frankly pleased with him. He says a woman has no business to exist unless she's clever. Pictures can be bought. He's always urging me to study and improve my mind. Just as if I had any mind to improve. He knows I haven't, as well as you do. That was why I was so delighted when your aunt asked me up here for a long visit. It is jolly to be with you, Pat, of course, but I'd have come gladly even if I had detested you. Anything to get away from Stephen and his everlasting theories for a breathing spell. If he knew you, Pat, he'd adore you. You're just the kind of elusive, clever, provoking creature he would worship. And yet you are going to marry him? said Patricia, frowning darkly at a photograph of Stephen on the table. Family arrangement, dear Pat. Stephen and I have been brought up to it. We are both pretty well reconciled to the idea now. If only Stephen would give up trying to make me over. I daresay we should get on very comfortably. To be sure, there are times when I think I should like Charlie Rowland ever so much better, and he'd be willing to take Sally Fairfax as she is. Pat, you little brown monkey, why have you made me think of Stephen? It reminds me that I should have written to him tonight, and now I haven't time, and he'll scold me. I can't write a decent letter, anyway. My scrawls can't be a scrap of pleasure to him. But Stephen is conscientious, and he is bound that I shall be conscientious, too. He writes me a great, long, stupid—you'd call it clever—but it's all the same thing. Epistle every week, and insist that I shall do the same. I ought to have written to him yesterday, but I forgot all about going to the opera tonight, and put it off. If I had a lover like Stephen Avery, said Patricia scornfully, I'd write to him every day. I'd glory in it. Oh, Sally Fairfax, I'd love to shake you. Oh, do it! Write the letter, I mean, Pat. It's an inspiration. He'll never know the difference. Your handwriting is so much like mine. I've often wondered why Providence ordained it so, and now I understand. Just a note—that's all I ever send. You know all that I've been doing since Sunday. It would serve you right if I did, said Patricia. But Pat, dear, I'm in earnest. You don't want me to be scolded, do you? And it would be so easy. I never put any love nonsense in them, you know. Dear me, there's the bell. Patsy darling, bye-bye. Fair, kiss me and don't look so fierce. You're so horribly intense in everything. Isn't it uncomfortable? I believe I'd rather be stupid after all. When Sally had gone, Patricia scrambled off the bed and sat frowning before the photograph on the table. I've always liked you, she said, shaking her fingers at the likeness. You have such a good, strong, stubborn face. You'll go on trying to make Sally over all your life and never succeed, won't you? I've half a mind to write that letter for Sally to you tonight, Stephen Avery. To give you something satisfying for once in your life, you would think you would waken Sally up at last. I will, too. I'll write to you as if you were that dream lover of mine. Such letters as he has had written to him, deep down in my soul, you shall have one of them, Stephen, for the sake of that big heart of yours that dear, little, pretty, stupid Sally can't fill. Two days afterward, Stephen Avery received a plump letter addressed in the handwriting of his absent fiance. He carried it about unread in his pocket all day, for he did not believe in mixing love letters with business. Besides, Sally's letters kept well. In his stem that night, Stephen read the letter Patricia had written. Heart of my heart. I am alone tonight, and am going to write you a letter right out of my soul, out of the real me whom nobody in the world knows. Such a letter as I have never written to you before, dear love, oh mine. Will you like to read it, I wonder, this page from a woman's heart? Will you only be coldly curious over it? Or perhaps, only contemptuously tolerant? Or will you kiss each word as I could kiss it, just because it is to be read by your eyes? You will understand me, because you are clever. If you were not clever, you would think all that was in this letter was just the black and white of it, and even that would puzzle you. But a woman can say anything she likes to a man like you, and be sure that she will not be misunderstood. I am all alone, and I am not alone, because my thoughts of you are all around me like benedictions, and I sit among them inqueened because of them. Dear heart, the thought of you would make a woman better and nobler if she was in the dust at your feet. When I think of you, I am a glorious creature, loving and aspiring, and reverencing with all my heart and soul and mind. I am better and higher than myself in the glamour of your love. The moment someone speaks of you is a golden moment to me, and I wonder what I have done to deserve such happiness as your love. I have done nothing, and am nothing. It is just life's most beautiful gift to me, a gift that I take, thanking God for it, and praying that it may never be taken from me, though I am not worthy of it. You dear one, did I ever tell you how much I like the way your hair grows over your forehead? Almost as much as I like your crooked mouth, and that one little curl at the point, always looking as if it was just going to drop down on your eyebrow, but never dropping. How much I want to poke my finger through it, and have it glistening there like the gold of a ring of troth. I love your hair because it's curly, but if it was straight, I should love it because it was straight. You dear one, do you know that you went walking with me in the park yesterday? Yes, you did. We were there together, you and I, and nobody knew it but me. It was my dear secret, and I kept it close in my heart and warmed me with it. You walked by my side under the pines, and the echo of your footsteps rang true to mine, and made me dizzy with the joy of it as you tramped sturdily along. And once, when we were in a lonely road where nobody could see, we walked hand in hand, and I told you dear foolish things, and you listened with your quizzical smile, a smile that would have made me think you were laughing at me if it hadn't been for your eyes. And we went down to the point to watch the sun set together. You liked the music that came drifting over the harbour from a boatload of picnickers, but all the music I cared for was just in your voice, saying common sensible everyday things. But once, just as a big white star came out over the hills across the harbour, you bent over me and said something tender that nobody else would say, as nobody else could say it, and it has made a song in my heart ever since to which every fibre of me beats delicious time. The foolish folk around me think that I was alone in the park. They don't understand, but you do. How I hoard up your looks and tones in my memory, as if they were jewels beyond price. When I'm away from you, I count them over and revel in them. Yes, even in some cold or impatient words you once spoke. They hurt me then, and they hurt me yet. But I love the pain because you inflicted it. I love better your coldest, cruelest words than all the tender, loving things that any other man could say. Am I spoiling you by this? I daresay. But what is the good of loving people if you don't spoil them? I like to spoil you. I shouldn't half love you if you were not spoilable. And you understand this, too. You understand all about me. You clear-sided one. And now that you have read what I've written, I leave you to read what I've not written. The dear, subtle undercurrents of thought that cannot be expressed in anything so clumsy as human speech. In the unworded messages of soul to soul across whatever may divide them. Heart of my heart, good night. I go to dream of you. So you wish our engagement to be broken? said Stephen Avery. Sally nodded. I know you don't mind, Stephen. Of course all our families will have a grouch about it. But that needn't matter. If you back me up, they will soon reconcile themselves. And I'm so fond of Charlie. You'll set me free, won't you? On one condition, said Stephen gravely. Of course, agreed Sally recklessly. Stephen produced a letter from his pocketbook and held it out that Sally might see the address in postmark. You may marry anybody you like. If you will tell me who wrote that letter and introduce me to her, he said. Sally had the grace to blush. It's one of mine, isn't it? she asked guiltily. No. You couldn't have written that letter, Sally, any more than you could have composed a sonnet. The writing is like yours, but that is all. Own up, Sally. It must be the letter I got Patricia Windham to write to you one night last winter when I was in a hurry. I just asked her for a joke. She never would tell me what she put in it. Pat can be so provoking by spells. What did she write, Stephen? Little girls mustn't be curious, said Stephen, restoring the letter to its resting place. Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Sally? Getting another girl to write your love letters for you. I did it only once, protested Sally. And Patricia isn't like any other girl. I didn't suppose you'd ever know or care. You're not going to be nasty to her about it, are you? Certainly not. But I mean to make her own up to it. Don't forget your promise, Sally. I'll have Pat down for my bridesmaid, but you are not to scold her, remember? It was all my doing. When Stephen was alone he read Patricia's letter over again. When he folded it up there was a twinkle, half amusement, half tenderness in his eyes. Little girl, you shall write me other letters like this some day, he said determinately. End of Section 73. Section 74 of Uncollected Short Stories of L. M. Montgomery 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 D. Rando. Uncollected Short Stories of L. M. Montgomery by Lucy Mott Montgomery. For the Good of Anthony. First published in the Sunday Magazine of the Philadelphia Press, October 23, 1910. My very dear cousin, what shall I say? I am tired, so tired, having reached Halifax at three yesterday, and Beachlands half an hour later, yet tired as I am. I am in the seventh heaven of delight. Halifax is a dear, quaint, grimy, romantic place, and so charmingly old. There is none of our blatant western newness about it. Then, too, what a flavor life must have in a garrison town. I feel already as if I were living in one of Kipling's stories. But my impressions of the Wharton of the honor of the North are yet too raw to be of any value. And well do I know that if they were finished to the nicest degree, they would only bore you. You want to hear about Beachlands, Uncle Clara, Uncle Maurice, and Elizabeth? Well, you shall have the very best picture my weary pen can sketch. Beachlands is delightful. A staunch old house of mellow red brick, looking as if it had been steep in the sunshine of a century's summers with ivy and the glamour of royalty hanging about it. For you must know, dear Mills, as Uncle Maurice did not fail to tell me before I was well under his roof, that the Duke of Kent lived at Beachlands for as long as six weeks during his ancient sojourn in Halifax. And it is said that he planted the aforesaid ivy with his own royal hands, which you may believe or not as you like. But on no account let Uncle Maurice suspect your heresy if you do not. The grounds were also laid out under the same princely supervision and due credit to his taste being magnificent. Such trees, dear Mills, you never saw. And the view of the harbor is the finest in Halifax. Uncle and aunt are kind, old-fashioned folk, much surprised to find that I am not still the little girl of ten from whom they parted nine years ago. And Elizabeth, ah, now you are interested, much more interested than in all my chatter of Beachland and its ducal memories. You want to hear all about this cousin of yours and sister of mine whom you have never seen and I have not seen for ten years ever since our mother died and your parents took me into your western home while Elizabeth came to Beachlands. Well, Elizabeth is very beautiful. And I am so like her that when we look in the glass together, I am half puzzled to know which is my own face. Are you shocked at my vanity? My dear, it is a simple truth. Elizabeth and I are marvelously alike. In spite of ten-year seniority, we might, as Uncle assures us, be taken for twins. The only noticeable difference is that I have color while Elizabeth is pale, both our looks, all resemblance between us ends. I am, as you know, a most friendly creature. Elizabeth is cold and reserved in manner. I laugh always. Elizabeth never, though her smile is sweet enough to atone for the absence of laughter. I prattle my secrets to all in sundry. Alas, Elizabeth shows no sign of being confidential. I have no dignity. Elizabeth is dignity incarnate. I am capable of holding resentment long enough for it to be serviceable. But I am much mistaken if my stately, sweetly smiling sister has not a most high spirit to resent an injury and a strength of will. Stubbornness, if you think it the more honest word, to sustain it for longer than is wise. With it all, she is charming, and I love her dearly already. I shall write more of Elizabeth in a few days, when my western breeziness and her eastern conventionality shall have been mutually adjusted. Until then, dear cause, I am your most affectionate and most weary eve. Dear cause, a week has gone by, and I have not wasted it. I have found out the secret of Elizabeth's romance, for Elizabeth has a romance and has shared it with me, very unwillingly. Be it confessed and only because she could not help herself. I fear that Elizabeth has a most unsisterly disapproval of me, in spite of the fact that I think she loves me also. At first, I did not suspect Elizabeth of human weakness, although it struck even my frivolous perception that in repulse or solitude, her face was much sadder than the face of a beautiful girl of nineteen ought to be. But I did not speak of this to her, nor would you, dear mills. There is a fire in Elizabeth's dark eyes, which would daunt any unwarranted curiosity. I think those eyes of hers can flash fiercely upon occasion. She has even favored me with some glance as far from loving, and yet if you only knew how charming she is with it all, even her very pride and coldness seem virtues in her. One day at luncheon, Uncle Maurice remarked casually that Anthony Allen would return from New York next week. Now, I had never heard of Anthony Allen and Uncle's item of news, and it would have gone in at one of my small ears and out of the other if I had not at that very moment happened to glance at Elizabeth. Wonder of wonders. My sister's eyes were studiously cast down at her plate, but the point of dissemblance between us was gone, for Elizabeth was no longer pale. Pale, dear mills, you never saw a roll so crimson. From the tip of her deliciously pointed chin to the moonshine parting in her hair was all one painful blush. So amazed was I that I stared at her, quite forgetful of all good form, until she looked haughtily up and finding my curious eyes upon her, favored me with an indignant flash of those before mentioned proud dark orbs. I looked promptly away and was just in time to intercept an amused family look on its way from Uncle Maurice to Aunt Clara. Not being duller than most people, I could divine a meaning in all this. But what meaning? Who is Anthony Allen, and why should Elizabeth's steward blush so painfully at the mere mention of his name? I determined to find out. And you, dear mills, who know me taller be well, do not need to be told that I succeeded in my determination. At the cost I fear of some of Elizabeth's affection, for she loves me none the better for compelling her confidence. After lunch in that day I followed Elizabeth to her room and found her standing at the window looking out on the pine walk. She was pale again, and her eyes were sad, but oh how proud her face was. Elizabeth said I, sitting down in the chair once I could see her profile. Who is Anthony Allen? Again that magnificent color, but her voice was steady and even toned as she answered without turning her head. He is the son of our neighbor, Mr. Allen. They live over there at Rocky Road. You could see the house over the pines of the walk. Is he your lover, Elizabeth? I asked daringly. Elizabeth flashed round upon me in right royal anger. How dare you, Evelyn? She cried. No, no, no. Me thinks the lady do a protest too much, I quoted provokingly. One know would have been more convincing. Anthony Allen is nothing to me, said Elizabeth Coley, mastering that blaze of temper instantly. I should not put myself to blush over the name of a man who was nothing to me, I said with a smile. How angry she was, and how well she hid it. She did not deign to answer me, but turned hotly away to her contemplation of the pine walk. I went over and slipped my arm about her. Sister, mine, tell me all about it, I coaxed. There is nothing to tell, said Elizabeth freezingly. Then Aunt Clara can tell it as well as another, said I. You would not ask her, cried Elizabeth. Oh, Evelyn, you are cruel. Since you will have the truth of the matter, take it. Anthony Allen and I were to have been married this fall. But his conduct was so—he behaved disgracefully to me, and I broke the engagement. I do not repent it. I do not care for him in the least now. That was a fib, dear Mills, and I knew it. This little bit of femininity endured Elizabeth to me wonderfully. Does he care, I asked sympathetically. He has tried to make our quarrel up, she answered reluctantly, but he need not, for I will never forgive him. And if you have seen the light in her eyes and the haughty curve of her lips as she spoke, you would have thought poor Anthony's chances about as fair as I do. Then after having told me so much, she took leave to be angry with me and told me never to speak of the matter to her again. But I shall please myself about that. And I know quite well that Elizabeth is breaking her heart in secret over this same Anthony. Uncleira has since told me something of him. He is, she says, a gay handsome fellow, frank and friendly, and very fun, or so it would appear, of jesting and talking with our sex, among whom he is a decided favorite. Not at all a flirt, you understand. But simply as nature made him. And this it seems Elizabeth does not like. Oh, in spite of her queenliness, she is not above a little honest human jealousy. Hence her quarrel with Anthony, and the present deplorable state of affairs. Yet aunt says that Anthony cares for no woman in the world except Elizabeth, and never has cared for any other. But such is my sister's pride that she will not listen for a moment to any pleas of his for forgiveness and has sent back all his letters unopened. Now I love my sister who is unhappy. And although I have never seen him, I also like this Anthony, who is very certainly unhappy too. With that I could unravel this tangle in their loves. Perhaps fate has brought me to Halifax for no other purpose. And though I must confess that I do not at present see any way of helping this unlucky pair of lovers out of their dilemma, still my vision may be clearer later on. It is on the needs of the gods. Be assured that if I can do anything I shall, even if, as I suspect, this strange Elizabeth would resent successful interference as keenly as failure. But her anger shall not daunt me from knowing her a sisterly kindness. I am, dear cause, your most affectionate eve. Dear cause, did I not tell you that fate was mixed up in this matter? When you hear my story, you will doubtless say that Evelyn Stewart seems to have taken a much more prominent part in it than fate. But that will be your shortness of sight, my dear, even as Elizabeth persists in being angry with me. For two whole days she has not vouchsafed me a word or a look, but I have the approval of my conscience. And besides, I think Elizabeth will come to her senses and forgive me in time. But to my story, oh my dear, such a story, and I remember it is a secret which none but you and I and my lovely and provoking sister must ever know, least of all Anthony, who must go to his grave in ignorance of it. Four days ago I was curled up comfortably in the library at dusk, indulging in brilliant daydreams when one of the maids entered with a letter which she said had just been left at the door for me. I took it, opened it without looking at the address, and walked to the window to read it by the fast fading light. Well, the letter was not for me. It began, my dear Elizabeth, and was signed, yours repentently, Anthony Allen. I picked up the envelope, which was addressed plainly enough to Miss Elizabeth Stewart. In the dim light the maid had mistaken me for her, which happens frequently. Did I read the letter, you ask? Verily yes, or rather when I glanced at it, the meaning of the few lines written on the page was borne in upon me without any effort on my part. As nearly as I can remember, for I had no after opportunity of refreshing my memory, the letter being an ashes five minutes later, they ran thus. For the last time I employ your forgiveness. On Friday morning I sell for England. I am going there on business, but I shall remain there indefinitely if you will not pardon me. Will you meet me at the old spot at the end of the pine walk tomorrow evening at sunset? If you do not come, I shall know that you have wholly ceased to care for me, and I shall never trouble you again. I went to Elizabeth with the letter. The maid brought me this, I said, laying it on the table before her. I opened it and caught the sense of it before I knew it was not mine. Elizabeth snatched up the letter, glanced at it, and flung it into the smoldering fire in the grave beside her. With all her beauty and dignity, I must say that for the moment she looked the shrew and vixen and nothing else. Oh, Elizabeth, I cried in dismay. Won't you forgive him? Won't you go to the pine walk? Which was a foolish speech. For I had had time enough to learn right well that my sister goes by countries. No, said Elizabeth, all her pride and anger flaming in her face and behind it the heartbreak looking out of her eyes. But he is going away, I pleaded still unwisely, and he will not come back unless you forgive him. You are setting the feet of your pride on the neck of your happiness, dearest. Do not speak of this again, Evelyn, if you value my affections, said Elizabeth in her heartiest manner. Once for all I will not go to meet Anthony Allen. I said no more then, but ventured to hope that she heartly meant it. Anxiously all the next day I watched for a hint of relenting. No such hint came. Dearly would I have loved to shake the girl. At sunset I went to her again as she was reading in the library. I say reading, dear Mills, but considering the fact that she was holding the book upside down, I take the liberty to think that the pain of deciphering it must have overweight the pleasure of the story. Elizabeth, I said plainly, he is waiting there for you now. Think of it, won't you go? Evelyn Stewart, said she icily, must I tell you in plain English that I permit no interference with my affairs before you will cease to intrude yourself into that which does not concern you. Indeed, at that I had almost left her to her fate, and I should have had she alone been concerned. But there was Anthony. It was for his good I did what I did. I ran upstairs to her room, whipped her crimson dress out of her wardrobe, and hastened to my own. The dress fitted me perfectly. And when I had wrapped Elizabeth's red scarf around my head to shape my face, and peered into the mirror, I was well satisfied. True, it was a very rosy Elizabeth I saw. But surely even she at such a time would be flushed. And by now the light would be very dim in the pine wall. I slipped out of the side door and hurried down past the pines. A curve in the wall shut me from the house just before I came to the hedge between the domains of Beechwood and Rockywall. There at the gate was a manly figure. Indeed my heart could not have beaten more uncomfortably if I had been Elizabeth herself. At sight of me he sprang over the gate and hastened toward me. Oh dear mills, he was very handsome, this same Anthony. No wonder that Elizabeth loves him in spite of herself. A dash of fair hair over a sunburned brow, a pair of frank blue eyes, a laughing mouth, so much I had time to see before I found myself engulfed in his arms. Elizabeth, he cried, my darling, my darling. And then, and then. But I really could not help it, dear mills. And I took good care that it should not happen again. For I drew myself quite heartily away and averted my face. You have forgiven me, he said, holding my hand. Yes, I whispered. But I cannot stay any longer now. I must hurry back, Anthony. You have forgotten that this is the night of Mrs. Dayquist's dance, and I have yet to dress. Oh yes, he cried gaily. I wasn't going, but now I will, and I shall meet you there, my sweet. Yes, I promise, although I had my painful doubts. Wait, just another moment, he entreated. He put his hand into his vast pocket, and the next moment I felt something slip over my finger. That is never to be taken from its rightful place again, he said triumphantly, and then he bent his head. But I broke away and fairly ran back through the pine walk. Arriving at the house, I went straight to the library again. Dear mills, surely my errand was a righteous one, and I needed that assurance to sustain me. Elizabeth, I said. It is time you were dressing for the dark race dance. Remember, it is six miles out to the place. I am not going, said Elizabeth, without looking up from her book, and indeed it had been arranged that Unclear and I should go without her. Oh yes, you are, I said. I have just been down to the pine walk to meet Anthony. He took me for you, not unnaturally, and I forgave him most wholeheartedly, and promised him that you would meet him at the dance. Evelyn! Elizabeth stood up. If you could have seen her, dear mills. For once in my life I was frightened, but I would not show it. Don't eat me, dear sister, I said. I knew you wanted to forgive Anthony, and that your pride would not let you. You ought to be very grateful to me for having spared you the trouble and humiliation. I shall not go to the dance, and you will. If you keep your own counsel, Anthony will never know it was not you he met in the pine walk. And here is your ring. I laid it on the table beside her and got myself out of the room. For dear mills, she looked as if she might throw it at me. And I was not at all easy in my mind either, for I had not the least idea whether she would go to the dance or not. But go she did, with mystified Unclear and I stayed home. The next day Unclear told me that Anthony and Elizabeth were reconciled. She was very gracious to me at Dockery's last night, said our good, unsuspecting aunt. I was a little surprised, for the child is so proud and so resentful when her anger is really aroused that I fear she would never forgive him. But I suppose that when she found out he was going away her love got the better of her pride. It was hardly that way, dear mills, but I did not say so to Unclear. And all is well that ends well. Elizabeth will be longing for giving me. But I think that in time she will. As for Anthony, he is safely off to England. And before he returns, I shall be gone. So he will never suspect that the girl of the pine walk was not his stately Elizabeth after all. Dear mills, is it not all a delightful little comedy? I laugh merrily to myself about it. Laugh with me when you read this. You're a passionate cause, Steve. End of section 74. Section 75 of Uncollected Short Stories by Lucy Mod Montgomery. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Mike Overby, Midland Washington. Uncollected Short Stories of L.M. Montgomery by Lucy Mod Montgomery. The Story of a Love. The June Night. Moonlight must have an intoxicating quality. It is a fine, airy, silver wine, such as fairies may drink at their revels, unharmed of it. But when a mere mortal sips it, it straight away mounts to his brain and loosens all his old fair dreams and visions to the undoing of his daylight common sense. Tonight I feel I dwell in a world of beauty and love, ruler by right of airship and possession, a world shaped out of the moonlight and my sweetest fancies, and therefore a world where I may think of her without doing violence to the sacredness of the thought of her. I walk in the alleys of this old garden. The moonlight is lying on the grass, and a little invisible wind is tiptoeing all over it. All about me are roses, like sweet old songs set to flowering, roses wide enough to lie in her bosom, and red enough to star the soft, dark cloud of her hair. It was among the roses I first saw her in that other old garden, adjoining mine, just beyond the box hedge. Today two women asked me if I had ever really loved. One of them was a woman of the world, who should have known better, and to her I made the answer accordingly. Madam, a poet such as you are good enough to term me little as I deserve the name, should not love one woman personally, because he loves all impersonally. Your sex is to him a beautiful enigma, whose meaning he must ever seek and never find, and until he does find it, he should not bind down his quest to the pursuit of one. She smiled as if she did not believe me, which was no more than I deserved, since I did not believe myself. But she asked no more questions. The other woman was a mere child, tiptoeing wistfully on the brink of her birthright, and her question was that of a child who has not learned that it is unfitting to be curious. I honored her just departing childhood with its meat of sincerity. I have loved and loved still, and shall always love. I said gravely, and she too smiled as if she did not believe me. Yet I had told her the simple truth. Here in this wondrous white moonlight I realize how truly I spoke. I love with a love too fine and untainted to be put into words, it should be put only into the most reverent thoughts. It is my delight so to think of Avril. She is a woman now. She was a child when I saw her. Yet I do not think of her as a child. My love has kept pace with her unseen growth in that land across the sea, walking into womanhood. It is as woman I think of her, as woman I shall meet her when our meeting comes, as come it must and will. Love must fulfill its own prophecy, and all that is my own shall come to me in the ripeness of time. I would not hasten it or rush impatiently to meet it. Yet I have wooed her in my poems. I do not know if she has read them, but if she has, she must know that I love her. She must know that I wrote them because of her, and by inspiration of her, that I have crowned her my queen of song. Someday, I hope to hear her tell me that she has understood. It is twelve years since I saw her. I was a boy of twenty then, a shy, awkward youth, knowing nothing of the real world, but much of the world of dream and fancy, with a heart virgin of any woman's image, and lips virgin of any woman's kiss. I had been wandering one evening in this garden, and I had come to the box hedge that formed its boundary. There was a little gap in it, where a footpath ran into the garden of our neighbor, and, standing there, I saw her wonderful face, turned upward to the sunset. She was a child in everything, save her eyes. Only ten sweet years had gone into the making of her. The slender little figure, the thick braid of dark hair, the delicate brows, the parted, dimpled mouth. These were of a child, but her eyes, her glorious eyes, were a woman's eyes. The woman who was mine, with all their prophecy of the one whom I was to love, nay, whom I loved then, although knowing eyes, full of sweetness and graciousness and dream, foretold of her. I knew the child must be Avril Sidney, the daughter of our neighbor. He was a man who preferred life abroad and lived there for the most part, leaving his estate to the mercy of housekeepers and stewards. His wife had died early in their married life, and her little daughter was brought up by her sister. Cecil Sidney was home for a brief sojourn. Avril had come to visit him, and I had met her thus in the rose garden. She looked at me gravely, smilelessly. Yet her whole expression was a smile, and there was a sweet, beguiling laughter in her eyes. I, who had always loved children and been at ease with them, found myself shamed face and shy in her presence. Perhaps she saw my confusion. Those eyes must have read my very heart, for she broke a white, half-open rose from its bush and held it out to me. I took it as wordlessly as she offered it, then someone in the house called to her, and she was gone. But at the curve of the walk, she paused for a moment and looked back with a little gesture of goodbye. I have never seen her since, but tidings of her have drifted to me every year. I knew when she went abroad to join her father. They have lived in Europe for the past six years. All this time, she must have been growing into the promise of her eyes, and my love has grown with her. It has consecrated every word I have written. My critics have tried to dissect my poems and find therein that strange, elusive soul of love, which they declare animates them. Then they cannot find it. It is in her keeping, and can be made incarnate only in her loveliness. I have heard that she is very beautiful, yet I have felt no jealousy, no fear of other men. She is not for any other. She belongs to me. I have the key of her heart, and it must remain a fair and tenetless chamber, until I may enter it as inheritance. The July Night I walk again in the moonlight. It is calm, like an untroubled silver sea, bearing softly on its breast a fleet of poppies, for the roses have gone, and the poppies have taken their places. But I cannot share the calm of the moonlight. I am shaken, tossed about with hope and fear. I have heard today that Avril and her father are coming home. I shall see her again. But what shall I see? The Avril of my dreams? Or another? All my certainty is gone. I am distracted with doubts. Have I deceived myself all these years? Have I given myself over to the beguilement of a vain dream? And is the moment of a miserable awakening near? Perhaps Avril, the woman, has not fulfilled the promise of Avril, the child. I fear I dread to meet her. If she be not my Avril, how shall I bear it? I shall have wasted my love, and lavished my soul on a mere creation. What do I know of her? Nothing save that as a child she seemed to me the unfolded bloom for me alone. A poet's vain ideal, perhaps, destined to be shattered by a contact with the real. She may be beautiful, but her beauty will be nothing to me if it is not the beauty I have dreamed of and worshipped. What if, when we meet, her eyes express only a girl's coquetry, or a stranger's indifference? I cannot. I will not believe it possible. Yet I shall dwell till our meeting, in a miserable suspense and doubt. Which yet I shall shrink from exchanging for a still more miserable certainty. How the poppies dance in the moonlight. The light-hearted, silken coquettes. I love them not. Yet if she should be like them, instead of if she should be a beautiful and scentless flower. Nay, it is impossible. I shall have faith in those remembered eyes. The August night. It is the time of lilies. Tonight they are holding up their chalices of gold and crimson and frosty white to be filled with the moonshine. Now and then the air is sweet with their breath, as if the angels walked invisibly in this garden and swung sensors of perfume in their hands. I love the lilies, but I love the roses better, and she, my love, is like the white rose. Last night the old house in the next garden blazed with light. I knew that this betokan the coming of Avril and her father. This morning I rose at sunrise and went for a walk, seeking calmness wherewith to face this day of destiny. I thought myself alone in a young world, but as I went down a wooded hill, all green with pines and breasting the east, I saw a girl at the curve of the path, looking down the long, dewy valley, a bloom with the sunrise. Its light was all about and around her, smiting her bared dark head with a glory of delicate rays. As I drew near, she turned, and I knew her. Avril, my Avril, the Avril of my dreams and love, how fair, how very fair she was, and her eyes were unchanged, for they could not be more lovely than they had always been, nor could they be less. Avril, I said, helplessly, foolishly like a boy. She held out her hand to me, simply and joyfully. It is Paul. I am glad to see you. Why did you not come to welcome us home last night? I was afraid to, I said. Avril, do you remember our first or last meeting years ago in the rose garden? I remember, she said, a beautiful flush coming into her face. I feared to meet you again, lest you had forgotten. I said, because I have never forgotten, Avril. I thought, from your poems that you remembered, she answered. We walked home together over the pine path and the hill, and talked of many things such as all the world might have listened to. But underneath this common placeness was a gladness and a joy that spoke in tone and eye and smile. Therefore, tonight I walk in the moonlight, championed with happiness, beyond in that other garden Avril waits, and I go to join her. End of section 75