风吹白杨的安妮-7

"Windy Poplars, "January 5th, "The street where ghosts (should) walk."MY ESTEEMED FRIEND:"That isn't anything Aunt Chatty's grandmother wrote. It's only something she would have written if she'd thought of it."I've made a New Year resolution to write sensible love-letters. Do you suppose such a thing is possible?"I have left dear Green Gables but I have returned to dear Windy Poplars. Rebecca Dew had a fire lighted in the tower room for me and a hot-water bottle in the bed."I'm so glad I like Windy Poplars. It would be dreadful to live in a place I didn't like . . . that didn't seem friendly to me . . . that didn't say, 'I'm glad you're back.' Windy Poplars does. It's a bit old-fashioned and a bit prim, but it likes me."And I was glad to see Aunt Kate and Aunt Chatty and Rebecca Dew again. I can't help seeing their funny sides but I love them well for all that."Rebecca Dew said such a nice thing to me yesterday."'Spook's Lane has been a different place since you came here, Miss Shirley.'"I'm glad you liked Katherine, Gilbert. She was surprisingly nice to you. It's amazing to find how nice she can be when she tries. And I think she is just as much amazed at it herself as any one else. She had no idea it would be so easy."It's going to make so much difference in school, having a Vice you can really work with. She is going to change her boarding-house, and I have already persuaded her to get that velvet hat and have not yet given up hope of persuading her to sing in the choir."Mr. Hamilton's dog came down yesterday and chivied Dusty Miller. 'This is the last straw,' said Rebecca Dew. And with her red cheeks redder still, her chubby back shaking with anger, and in such a hurry that she put her hat on hindside before and never knew it, she toddled up the road and gave Mr. Hamilton quite a large piece of her mind. I can just see his foolish, amiable face while he was listening to her."'I do not like That Cat,' she told me, 'but he is OURS and no Hamilton dog is going to come here and give him impudence in his own back yard. "He only chased your cat in fun," said Jabez Hamilton. "The Hamilton ideas of fun are different from the MacComber ideas of fun or the MacLean ideas of fun or, if it comes to that, the Dew ideas of fun," I told him. "Tut, tut, you musthave had cabbage for dinner, Miss Dew," said he. "No," I said, "but I could have had. Mrs. Captain MacComber didn't sell all her cabbages last fall and leave her family without any because the price was so good. There are some people," sez I, "that can't hear anything because of the jingle in their pocket." And I left that to sink in. But what could you expect from a Hamilton? Low scum!'"There is a crimson star hanging low over the white Storm King. I wish you were here to watch it with me. If you were, I really think it would be more than a moment of esteem and friendship.""January 12th."Little Elizabeth came over two nights ago to find out if I could tell her what peculiar kind of terrible animals Papal bulls were, and to tell me tearfully that her teacher had asked her to sing at a concert the public school is getting up but that Mrs. Campbell put her foot down and said 'no' most decidedly. When Elizabeth attempted to plead, Mrs. Campbell said,"'Have the goodness not to talk back to me, Elizabeth, if you please.'"Little Elizabeth wept a few bitter tears in the tower room that night and said she felt it would make her Lizzie forever. She could never be any of her other names again."'Last week I loved God, this week I don't,' she said defiantly."All her class were taking part in the program and she felt 'like a leopard.' I think the sweet thing meant she felt like a leper and that was sufficiently dreadful. Darling Elizabeth must not feel like a leper."So I manufactured an errand to The Evergreens next evening. The Woman . . . who might really have lived before the flood, she looks so ancient . . . gazed at me coldly out of great gray, expressionless eyes, showed me grimly into the drawing-room and went to tell Mrs. Campbell that I had asked for her."I don't think there has been any sunshine in that drawing-room since the house was built. There was a piano, but I'm sure it could never have been played on. Stiff chairs, covered with silk brocade, stood against the wall . . . All the furniture stood against the wall except a central marble-topped table, and none of it seemed to be acquainted with the rest."Mrs. Campbell came in. I had never seen her before. She has a fine, sculptured old face that might have been a man's, with black eyes and black bushy brows under frosty hair. She has not quite eschewed all vain adornment of the body, for she wore large black onyx earrings that reached to her shoulders. She was painfully polite to me and I was painlessly polite to her. We sat and exchanged civilities about the weather for a few moments . . . both, as Tacitus remarked a few thousand years ago, 'with countenances adjusted to the occasion.' I told her, truthfully, that I hadcome to see if she would lend me the Rev. James Wallace Campbell's Memoirs for a short time, because I understood there was a good deal about the early history of Prince County in them which I wished to make use of in school."Mrs. Campbell thawed quite markedly and summoning Elizabeth, told her to go up to her room and bring down the Memoirs. Elizabeth's face showed signs of tears and Mrs. Campbell condescended to explain that it was because little Elizabeth's teacher had sent another note begging that she be allowed to sing at the concert, and that she, Mrs. Campbell, had written a very stinging reply which little Elizabeth would have to carry to her teacher the next morning."'I do not approve of children of Elizabeth's age singing in public,' said Mrs. Campbell. 'It tends to make them bold and forward.'"As if anything could make little Elizabeth bold and forward!"'I think perhaps you are wise, Mrs. Campbell,' I remarked in my most patronizing tone. 'In any event Mabel Phillips is going to sing, and I am told that her voice is really so wonderful that she will make all the others seem as nothing. No doubt it is much better that Elizabeth should not appear in competition with her.'"Mrs. Campbell's face was a study. She may be Campbell outside but she is Pringle at the core. She said nothing, however, and I knew the psychological moment for stopping. I thanked her for the Memoirs and came away."The next evening when little Elizabeth came to the garden gate for her milk, her pale, flower-like face was literally a-star. She told me that Mrs. Campbell had told her she might sing after all, if she were careful not to let herself get puffed up about it."You see, Rebecca Dew had told me that the Phillips and the Campbell clans have always been rivals in the matter of good voices!"I gave Elizabeth a bit of a picture for Christmas to hang above her bed . . . just a light-dappled woodland path leading up a hill to a quaint little house among some trees. Little Elizabeth says she is not so frightened now to go to sleep in the dark, because as soon as she gets into bed she pretends that she is walking up the path to the house and that she goes inside and it is all lighted and her father is there."Poor darling! I can't help detesting that father of hers!""January 19th."There was a dance at Carry Pringle's last night. Katherine was there in a dark red silk with thenew side flounces and her hair had been done by a hairdresser. Would you believe it, people who had known her ever since she came to teach in Summerside actually asked one another who she was when she came into the room. But I think it was less the dress and hair that made the difference than some indefinable change in herself."Always before, when she was out with people, her attitude seemed to be, 'These people bore me. I expect I bore them and I hope I do.' But last night it was as if she had set lighted candles in all the windows of her house of life."I've had a hard time winning Katherine's friendship. But nothing worth while is ever easy come by and I have always felt that her friendship would be worth while."Aunt Chatty has been in bed for two days with a feverish cold and thinks she may have the doctor tomorrow, in case she is taking pneumonia. So Rebecca Dew, her head tied up in a towel, has been cleaning the house madly all day to get it in perfect order before the doctor's possible visit. Now she is in the kitchen ironing Aunt Chatty's white cotton nighty with the crochet yoke, so that it will be ready for her to slip over her flannel one. It was spotlessly clean before, but Rebecca Dew thought it was not quite a good color from lying in the bureau drawer.""January 28th."January so far has been a month of cold gray days, with an occasional storm whirling across the harbor and filling Spook's Lane with drifts. But last night we had a silver thaw and today the sun shone. My maple grove was a place of unimaginable splendors. Even the commonplaces had been made lovely. Every bit of wire fencing was a wonder of crystal lace."Rebecca Dew has been poring this evening over one of my magazines containing an article on 'Types of Fair Women,' illustrated by photographs."'Wouldn't it be lovely, Miss Shirley, if some one could just wave a wand and make everybody beautiful?' she said wistfully. 'Just fancy my feelings, Miss Shirley, if I suddenly found myself beautiful! But then' . . . with a sigh . . . 'if we were all beauties who would do the work?'""I'm so tired," sighed Cousin Ernestine Bugle, dropping into her chair at the Windy Poplars supper-table. "I'm afraid sometimes to sit down for fear I'll never be able to git up again."Cousin Ernestine, a cousin three times removed of the late Captain MacComber, but still, as Aunt Kate used to reflect, much too close, had walked in from Lowvale that afternoon for a visit to Windy Poplars. It cannot be said that either of the widows had welcomed her very heartily, in spite of the sacred ties of family. Cousin Ernestine was not an exhilarating person, being one of those unfortunates who are constantly worrying not only about their own affairs but everybody else's as well and will not give themselves or others any rest at all. The very look of her, Rebecca Dew declared, made you feel that life was a vale of tears.Certainly Cousin Ernestine was not beautiful and it was extremely doubtful if she ever had been. She had a dry, pinched little face, faded, pale blue eyes, several badly placed moles and a whining voice. She wore a rusty black dress and a decrepit neck-piece of Hudson seal which she would not remove even at the table, because she was afraid of draughts.Rebecca Dew might have sat at the table with them had she wished, for the widows did not regard Cousin Ernestine as any particular "company." But Rebecca always declared she couldn't "savor her victuals" in that old kill-joy's society. She preferred to "eat her morsel" in the kitchen, but that did not prevent her from saying her say as she waited on the table."Likely it's the spring getting into your bones," she remarked unsympathetically."Ah, I hope it's only that, Miss Dew. But I'm afraid I'm like poor Mrs. Oliver Gage. She et mushrooms last summer but there must-a been a toadstool among them, for she's never felt the same since."But you can't have been eating mushrooms as early as this," said Aunt Chatty."No, but I'm afraid I've et something else. Don't try to cheer me up, Charlotte. You mean well, but it ain't no use. I've been through too much. Are you sure there ain't a spider in that cream jug, Kate? I'm afraid I saw one when you poured my cup.""We never have spiders in our cream jugs," said Rebecca Dew ominously, and slammed the kitchen door."Mebbe it was only a shadder," said Cousin Ernestine meekly. "My eyes ain't what they were. I'm afraid I'll soon be blind. That reminds me . . . I dropped in to see Martha MacKay this afternoon and she was feeling feverish and all out in some kind of a rash. 'Looks to me as though you had the measles,' I told her. 'Likely they'll leave you almost blind. Your family all have weak eyes.' I thought she ought to be prepared. Her mother isn't well either. The doctor says it's indigestion, but I'm afraid it's a growth. 'And if you have to have an operation and take chloroform,' I told her, 'I'm afraid you'll never come out of it. Remember you're a Hillis and the Hillises all had weak hearts. Your father died of heart-failure, you know.'""At eighty-seven!" said Rebecca Dew, whisking away a plate."And you know three score and ten is the Bible limit," said Aunt Chatty cheerfully.Cousin Ernestine helped herself to a third teaspoonful of sugar and stirred her tea sadly."So King David said, Charlotte, but I'm afraid David wasn't a very nice man in some respects."Anne caught Aunt Chatty's eye and laughed before she could help herself.Cousin Ernestine looked at her disapprovingly."I've heerd you was a great girl to laugh. Well, I hope it'll last, but I'm afraid it won't. I'm afraid you'll find out all too soon that life's a melancholy business. Ah well, I was young myself once.""Was you really?" inquired Rebecca Dew sarcastically, bringing in the muffins. "Seems to me you must always have been afraid to be young. It takes courage, I can tell you that, Miss Bugle.""Rebecca Dew has such an odd way of putting things," complained Cousin Ernestine. "Not that I mind her of course. And it's well to laugh when you can, Miss Shirley, but I'm afraid you're tempting Providence by being so happy. You're awful like our last minister's wife's aunt . . . she was always laughing and she died of a parralattic stroke. The third one kills you. I'm afraid our new minister out at Lowvale is inclined to be frivolous. The minute I saw him I sez to Louisy, 'I'm afraid a man with legs like that must be addicted to dancing.' I s'pose he's give it up since he turned minister, but I'm afraid the strain will come out in his family. He's got a young wife and they say she's scandalously in love with him. I can't seem to git over the thought of any one marrying a minister for love. I'm afraid it's awful irreverent. He preaches pretty fair sermons, but I'm afraid from what he said of Elijah the Tidbit last Sunday that he's far too liberal in his views of the Bible.""I see by the papers that Peter Ellis and Fanny Bugle were married last week," said Aunt Chatty."Ah, yes. I'm afraid that'll be a case of marrying in haste and repenting at leisure. They've only known each other three years. I'm afraid Peter'll find out that fine feathers don't always make fine birds. I'm afraid Fanny's very shiftless. She irons her table napkins on the right side first and only. Not much like her sainted mother. Ah, she was a thorough woman if ever there was one. When she was in mourning she always wore black nightgowns. Said she felt as bad in the night as in the day. I was down at Andy Bugle's, helping them with the cooking, and when I come downstairs on the wedding morning if there wasn't Fanny eating an egg for her breakfast . . . and her gitting married that day. I don't s'pose you'll believe that . . . I wouldn't if I hadn't a-seen it with my own eyes. My poor dead sister never et a thing for three days afore she was married. And after her husband died we was all afraid she was never going to eat again. There are times when I feel I can't understand the Bugles any longer. There was a time when you knew where you was with your own connection, but it ain't that way now.""Is it true that Jean Young is going to be married again?" asked Aunt Kate."I'm afraid it is. Of course Fred Young is supposed to be dead, but I'm dreadful afraid he'll turn up yet. You could never trust that man. She's going to marry Ira Roberts. I'm afraid he's only marrying her to make her happy. His Uncle Philip once wanted to marry me, but I sez to him, sez I, 'Bugle I was born and Bugle I will die. Marriage is a leap in the dark,' sez I, 'and I ain't going to be drug into it.' There's been an awful lot of weddings in Lowvale this winter. I'm afraid there'll be funerals all summer to make up for it. Annie Edwards and Chris Hunter were married last month. I'm afraid they won't be as fond of each other in a few years' time as they are now. I'm afraid she was just swept off her feet by his dashing ways. His Uncle Hiram was crazy . . . he belieft he was a dog for years.""If he did his own barking nobody need have grudged him the fun of it," said Rebecca Dew, bringing in the pear preserves and the layer cake."I never heerd that he barked," said Cousin Ernestine. "He just gnawed bones and buried them when nobody was looking. His wife felt it.""Where is Mrs. Lily Hunter this winter?" asked Aunt Chatty."She's been spending it with her son in San Francisco and I'm awful afraid there'll be another earthquake afore she gits out of it. If she does, she'll likely try to smuggle and have trouble at the border. If it ain't one thing, it's another when you're traveling. But folks seem to be crazy for it. My cousin Jim Bugle spent the winter in Florida. I'm afraid he's gitting rich and worldly. I said to him afore he went, sez I . . . I remember it was the night afore the Colemans' dog died . . . or was it? . . . yes, it was . . . 'Pride goeth afore destruction and a haughty spirit afore a fall,' sez I. His daughter is teaching over in the Bugle Road school and she can't make up her mind which of her beaus to take. 'There's one thing I can assure you of, Mary Annetta,' sez I, 'and that is you'll never git the one you love best. So you'd better take the one as loves you . . . if you kin be sure he does.' I hope she'll make a better choice than Jessie Chipman did. I'm afraid she's just going to marry Oscar Green because he was always round. 'Is that what you've picked out?' I sez to her. His brother died of galloping consumption. 'And don't be married in May,' sez I, 'for May's awful unlucky for a wedding.'""How encouraging you always are!" said Rebecca Dew, bringing in a plate of macaroons."Can you tell me," said Cousin Ernestine, ignoring Rebecca Dew and taking a second helping of pears, "if a calceolaria is a flower or a disease?""A flower," said Aunt Chatty.Cousin Ernestine looked a little disappointed."Well, whatever it is, Sandy Bugle's widow's got it. I heerd her telling her sister in church lastSunday that she had a calceolaria at last. Your geraniums are dreadful scraggy, Charlotte. I'm afraid you don't fertilize them properly. Mrs. Sandy's gone out of mourning and poor Sandy only dead four years. Ah well, the dead are soon forgot nowadays. My sister wore crape for her husband twenty-five years.""Did you know your placket was open?" said Rebecca, setting a coconut pie before Aunt Kate."I haven't time to be always staring at my face in the glass," said Cousin Ernestine acidly. "What if my placket is open? I've got three petticoats on, haven't I? They tell me the girls nowadays only wear one. I'm afraid the world is gitting dreadful gay and giddy. I wonder if they ever think of the judgment day.""Do you s'pose they'll ask us at the judgment day how many petticoats we've got on?" asked Rebecca Dew, escaping to the kitchen before any one could register horror. Even Aunt Chatty thought Rebecca Dew really had gone a little too far."I s'pose you saw old Alec Crowdy's death last week in the paper," sighed Cousin Ernestine. "His wife died two years ago, lit'rally harried into her grave, poor creetur. They say he's been awful lonely since she died, but I'm afraid that's too good to be true. And I'm afraid they're not through with their troubles with him yet, even if he is buried. I hear he wouldn't make a will and I'm afraid there'll be awful ructions over the estate. They say Annabel Crowdy is going to marry a jack-of-all-trades. Her mother's first husband was one, so mebbe it's heredit'ry. Annabel's had a hard life of it, but I'm afraid she'll find it's out of the frying-pan into the fire, even if it don't turn out he's got a wife already.""What is Jane Goldwin doing with herself this winter?" asked Aunt Kate. "She hasn't been in to town for a long time.""Ah, poor Jane! She's just pining away mysteriously. They don't know what's the matter with her, but I'm afraid it'll turn out to be an alibi. What is Rebecca Dew laughing like a hyenus out in the kitchen for? I'm afraid you'll have her on your hands yet. There's an awful lot of weak minds among the Dews.""I see Thyra Cooper has a baby," said Aunt Chatty."Ah, yes, poor little soul. Only one, thank mercy. I was afraid it would be twins. Twins run so in the Coopers.""Thyra and Ned are such a nice young couple," said Aunt Kate, as if determined to salvage something from the wreck of the universe.But Cousin Ernestine would not admit that there was any balm in Gilead much less in Lowvale."Ah, she was real thankful to git him at last. There was a time she was afraid he wouldn't comeback from the west. I warned her. 'You may be sure he'll disappoint you,' I told her. 'He's always disappointed people. Every one expected him to die afore he was a year old, but you see he's alive yet.' When he bought the Holly place I warned her again. 'I'm afraid that well is full of typhoid,' I told her. 'The Holly hired man died of typhoid there five years ago.' They can't blame me if anything happens. Joseph Holly has some misery in his back. He calls it lumbago, but I'm afraid it's the beginning of spinal meningitis.""Old Uncle Joseph Holly is one of the best men in the world," said Rebecca Dew, bringing in a replenished teapot."Ah, he's good," said Cousin Ernestine lugubriously. "Too good! I'm afraid his sons will all go to the bad. You see it like that so often. Seems as if an average has to be struck. No, thank you, Kate, I won't have any more tea . . . well, mebbe a macaroon. They don't lie heavy on the stomach, but I'm afraid I've et far too much. I must be taking French leave, for I'm afraid it'll be dark afore I git home. I don't want to git my feet wet; I'm so afraid of ammonia. I've had something traveling from my arm to my lower limbs all winter. Night after night I've laid awake with it. Ah, nobody knows what I've gone through, but I ain't one of the complaining sort. I was determined I'd git up to see you once more, for I may not be here another spring. But you've both failed terrible, so you may go afore me yet. Ah well, it's best to go while there's some one of your own left to lay you out. Dear me, how the wind is gitting up! I'm afraid our barn roof will blow off if it comes to a gale. We've had so much wind this spring I'm afraid the climate is changing. Thank you, Miss Shirley . . ." as Anne helped her into her coat . . . "Be careful of yourself. You look awful washed out. I'm afraid people with red hair never have real strong constitutions.""I think my constitution is all right," smiled Anne, handing Cousin Ernestine an indescribable bit of millinery with a stringy ostrich feather dripping from its back. "I have a touch of sore throat tonight, Miss Bugle, that's all.""Ah!" Another of Cousin Ernestine's dark forebodings came to her. "You want to watch a sore throat. The symptoms of diptheria and tonsillitis are exactly the same till the third day. But there's one consolation . . . you'll be spared an awful lot of trouble if you die young.""Tower Room, "Windy Poplars, "April 20th."POOR DEAR GILBERT:"'I said of laughter, it is mad, and of mirth, what doeth it?' I'm afraid I'll turn gray young . . . I'm afraid I'll end up in the poorhouse . . . I'm afraid none of my pupils will pass their finals . . . Mr. Hamilton's dog barked at me Saturday night and I'm afraid I'll have hydrophobia . . . I'm afraid my umbrella will turn inside out when I keep a tryst with Katherine tonight . . . I'm afraid Katherine likes me so much now that she can't always like me as much . . . I'm afraid my hair isn't auburn after all . . . I'm afraid I'll have a mole on the end of my nose when I'm fifty . . . I'm afraid my school is a fire-trap . . . I'm afraid I'll find a mouse in my bed tonight . . . I'm afraid you got engaged to me just because I was always around . . . I'm afraid I'll soon be picking at the counterpane."No, dearest, I'm not crazy . . . not yet. It's only that Cousin Ernestine Bugle is catching."I know now why Rebecca Dew has always called her 'Miss Much-afraid.' The poor soul has borrowed so much trouble, she must be hopelessly in debt to fate."There are so many Bugles in the world . . . not many quite so far gone in Buglism as Cousin Ernestine, perhaps, but so many kill-joys, afraid to enjoy today because of what tomorrow will bring."Gilbert darling, don't let's ever be afraid of things. It's such dreadful slavery. Let's be daring and adventurous and expectant. Let's dance to meet life and all it can bring to us, even if it brings scads of trouble and typhoid and twins!"Today has been a day dropped out of June into April. The snow is all gone and the fawn meadows and golden hills just sing of spring. I know I heard Pan piping in the little green hollow in my maple bush and my Storm King was bannered with the airiest of purple hazes. We've had a great deal of rain lately and I've loved sitting in my tower in the still, wet hours of the spring twilights. But tonight is a gusty, hurrying night . . . even the clouds racing over the sky are in a hurry and the moonlight that gushes out between them is in a hurry to flood the world."Suppose, Gilbert, we were walking hand in hand down one of the long roads in Avonlea tonight!"Gilbert, I'm afraid I'm scandalously in love with you. You don't think it's irreverent, do you? But then, you're not a minister.""I'm so different," sighed Hazel.It was really dreadful to be so different from other people . . . and yet rather wonderful, too, as if you were a being strayed from another star. Hazel would not have been one of the common herd for anything . . . no matter what she suffered by reason of her differentness."Everybody is different," said Anne amusedly."You are smiling." Hazel clasped a pair of very white, very dimpled hands and gazed adoringly at Anne. She emphasized at least one syllable in every word she uttered. "You have such a fascinating smile . . . such a haunting smile. I knew the moment I first saw you that you would understand everything. We are on the same plane. Sometimes I think I must be psychic, Miss Shirley. I always know so instinctively the moment I meet any one whether I'm going to like them or not. I felt at once that you were sympathetic . . . that you would understand. It's so sweet to be understood. Nobody understands me, Miss Shirley . . . nobody. But when I saw you, some inner voice whispered to me, 'She will understand . . . with her you can be your real self.' Oh, Miss Shirley, let's be real . . . let's always be real. Oh, Miss Shirley, do you love me the leastest, tiniest bit?""I think you're a dear," said Anne, laughing a little and ruffling Hazel's golden curls with her slender fingers. It was quite easy to be fond of Hazel.Hazel had been pouring out her soul to Anne in the tower room, from which they could see a young moon hanging over the harbor and the twilight of a late May evening filling the crimson cups of the tulips below the windows."Don't let's have any light yet," Hazel had begged, and Anne had responded,"No . . . it's lovely here when the dark is your friend, isn't it? When you turn on the light, it makes the dark your enemy . . . and it glowers in at you resentfully.""I can think things like that but I can never express them so beautifully," moaned Hazel in an anguish of rapture. "You talk in the language of the violets, Miss Shirley."Hazel couldn't have explained in the least what she meant by that, but it didn't matter. It sounded so poetic.The tower room was the only peaceful room in the house. Rebecca Dew had said that morning, with a hunted look, "We must get the parlor and spare-room papered before the Ladies' Aid meets here," and had forthwith removed all the furniture from both to make way for a paper-hanger who then refused to come until the next day. Windy Poplars was a wilderness of confusion, with one sole oasis in the tower room.Hazel Marr had a notorious "crush" on Anne. The Marrs were new-comers in Summerside, having moved there from Charlottetown during the winter. Hazel was an "October blonde," as she liked todescribe herself, with hair of golden bronze and brown eyes, and, so Rebecca Dew declared, had never been much good in the world since she found out she was pretty. But Hazel was popular, especially among the boys, who found her eyes and curls a quite irresistible combination.Anne liked her. Earlier in the evening she had been tired and a trifle pessimistic, with the fag that comes with late afternoon in a schoolroom, but she felt rested now; whether as a result of the May breeze, sweet with apple blossom, blowing in at the window, or of Hazel's chatter, she could not have told. Perhaps both. Somehow, to Anne, Hazel recalled her own early youth, with all its raptures and ideals and romantic visions.Hazel caught Anne's hand and pressed her lips to it reverently."I hate all the people you have loved before me, Miss Shirley. I hate all the other people you love now. I want to possess you exclusively.""Aren't you a bit unreasonable, honey? You love other people besides me. How about Terry, for example?""Oh, Miss Shirley! It's that I want to talk to you about. I can't endure it in silence any longer . . . I cannot. I must talk to some one about it . . . some one who understands. I went out the night before last and walked round and round the pond all night . . . well, nearly . . . till twelve, anyhow. I've suffered everything . . . everything."Hazel looked as tragic as a round, pink-and-white face, long-lashed eyes and a halo of curls would let her."Why, Hazel dear, I thought you and Terry were so happy . . . that everything was settled."Anne could not be blamed for thinking so. During the preceding three weeks, Hazel had raved to her about Terry Garland, for Hazel's attitude was, what was the use of having a beau if you couldn't talk to some one about him?"Everybody thinks that," retorted Hazel with great bitterness. "Oh, Miss Shirley, life seems so full of perplexing problems. I feel sometimes as if I wanted to lie down somewhere . . . anywhere . . . and fold my hands and never think again.""My dear girl, what has gone wrong?""Nothing . . . and everything. Oh, Miss Shirley, can I tell you all about it . . . can I pour out my whole soul to you?""Of course, dear.""I have really no place to pour out my soul," said Hazel pathetically. "Except in my journal, ofcourse. Will you let me show you my journal some day, Miss Shirley? It is a self-revelation. And yet I cannot write out what burns in my soul. It . . . it stifles me!" Hazel clutched dramatically at her throat."Of course I'd like to see it if you want me to. But what is this trouble between you and Terry?""Oh, Terry!! Miss Shirley, will you believe me when I tell you that Terry seems like a stranger to me? A stranger! Some one I'd never seen before," added Hazel, so that there might be no mistake."But, Hazel . . . I thought you loved him . . . you said . . .""Oh, I know. I thought I loved him, too. But now I know it was all a terrible mistake. Oh, Miss Shirley, you can't dream how difficult my life is . . . how impossible.""I know something about it," said Anne sympathetically, remembering Roy Gardiner."Oh, Miss Shirley, I'm sure I don't love him enough to marry him. I realize that now . . . now that it is too late. I was just moonlighted into thinking I loved him. If it hadn't been for the moon I'm sure I would have asked for time to think it over. But I was swept off my feet . . . I can see that now. Oh, I'll run away . . . I'll do something desperate!""But, Hazel dear, if you feel you've made a mistake, why not just tell him . . .""Oh, Miss Shirley, I couldn't! It would kill him. He simply adores me. There isn't any way out of it really. And Terry's beginning to talk of getting married. Think of it . . . a child like me . . . I'm only eighteen. All the friends I've told about my engagement as a secret are congratulating me . . . and it's such a farce. They think Terry is a great catch because he comes into ten thousand dollars when he is twenty-five. His grandmother left it to him. As if I cared about such a sordid thing as money! Oh, Miss Shirley, why is it such a mercenary world . . . why?""I suppose it is mercenary in some respects, but not in all, Hazel. And if you feel like this about Terry . . . we all make mistakes . . . it's very hard to know our own minds sometimes. . . .""Oh, isn't it? I knew you'd understand. I did think I cared for him, Miss Shirley. The first time I saw him I just sat and gazed at him the whole evening. Waves went over me when I met his eyes. He was so handsome . . . though I thought even then that his hair was too curly and his eyelashes too white. That should have warned me. But I always put my soul into everything, you know . . . I'm so intense. I felt little shivers of ecstasy whenever he came near me. And now I feel nothing . . . nothing! Oh, I've grown old these past few weeks, Miss Shirley . . . old! I've hardly eaten anything since I got engaged. Mother could tell you. I'm sure I don't love him enough to marry him. Whatever else I may be in doubt about, I know that.""Then you shouldn't . . .""Even that moonlight night he proposed to me, I was thinking of what dress I'd wear to Joan Pringle's fancy dress party. I thought it would be lovely to go as Queen of the May in pale green, with a sash of darker green and a cluster of pale pink roses in my hair. And a May-pole decked with tiny roses and hung with pink and green ribbons. Wouldn't it have been fetching? And then Joan's uncle had to go and die and Joan couldn't have the party after all, so it all went for nothing. But the point is . . . I really couldn't have loved him when my thoughts were wandering like that, could I?""I don't know . . . our thoughts play us curious tricks some times.""I really don't think I ever want to get married at all, Miss Shirley. Do you happen to have an orangewood stick handy? Thanks. My half-moons are getting ragged. I might as well do them while I'm talking. Isn't it just lovely to be exchanging confidences like this? It's so seldom one gets the opportunity . . . the world intrudes itself so. Well, what was I talking of . . . oh, yes, Terry. What am I to do, Miss Shirley? I want your advice. Oh, I feel like a trapped creature!""But, Hazel, it's so very simple . . .""Oh, it isn't simple at all, Miss Shirley! It's dreadfully complicated. Mamma is so outrageously pleased, but Aunt Jean isn't. She doesn't like Terry, and everybody says she has such good judgment. I don't want to marry anybody. I'm ambitious . . . I want a career. Sometimes I think I'd like to be a nun. Wouldn't it be wonderful to be the bride of heaven? I think the Catholic church is so picturesque, don't you? But of course I'm not a Catholic . . . and anyway, I suppose you could hardly call it a career. I've always felt I'd love to be a nurse. It's such a romantic profession, don't you think? Smoothing fevered brows and all that . . . and some handsome millionaire patient falling in love with you and carrying you off to spend a honeymoon in a villa on the Riviera, facing the morning sun and the blue Mediterranean. I've seen myself in it. Foolish dreams, perhaps, but, oh, so sweet. I can't give them up for the prosaic reality of marrying Terry Garland and settling down in Summerside!"Hazel shivered at the very idea and scrutinized a half-moon critically."I suppose . . ." began Anne."We haven't anything in common, you know, Miss Shirley. He doesn't care for poetry and romance, and they're my very life. Sometimes I think I must be a reincarnation of Cleopatra . . . or would it be Helen of Troy? . . . one of those languorous, seductive creatures, anyhow. I have such wonderful thoughts and feelings . . . I don't know where I get them if that isn't the explanation. And Terry is so terribly matter-of-fact . . . he can't be a reincarnation of anybody. What he said when I told him about Vera Fry's quill pen proves that, doesn't it?""But I never heard of Vera Fry's quill pen," said Anne patiently."Oh, haven't you? I thought I'd told you. I've told you so much. Vera's fiance gave her a quill penhe'd made out of a feather he'd picked up that had fallen from a crow's wing. He said to her, 'Let your spirit soar to heaven with it whenever you use it, like the bird who once bore it.' Wasn't that just wonderful? But Terry said the pen would wear out very soon, especially if Vera wrote as much as she talked, and anyway he didn't think crows ever soared to heaven. He just missed the meaning of the whole thing completely . . . it's very essence.""What was its meaning?""Oh . . . why . . . why . . . soaring, you know . . . getting away from the clods of earth. Did you notice Vera's ring? A sapphire. I think sapphires are too dark for engagement rings. I'd rather have your dear, romantic little hoop of pearls. Terry wanted to give me my ring right away . . . but I said not yet a while . . . it would seem like a fetter . . . so irrevocable, you know. I wouldn't have felt like that if I'd really loved him, would I?""No, I'm afraid not . . .""It's been so wonderful to tell somebody what I really feel like. Oh, Miss Shirley, if I could only find myself free again . . . free to seek the deeper meaning of life! Terry wouldn't understand what I meant if I said that to him. And I know he has a temper . . . all the Garlands have. Oh, Miss Shirley . . . if you would just talk to him . . . tell him what I feel like . . . he thinks you're wonderful . . . he'd be guided by what you say.""Hazel, my dear little girl, how could I do that?""I don't see why not." Hazel finished the last new moon and laid the orangewood stick down tragically. "If you can't, there isn't any help anywhere. But I can never, never, NEVER marry Terry Garland.""If you don't love Terry, you ought to go to him and tell him so . . . no matter how badly it will make him feel. Some day you'll meet some one you can really love, Hazel dear . . . you won't have any doubts then . . . you'll know.""I shall never love anybody again," said Hazel, stonily calm. "Love brings only sorrow. Young as I am I have learned that. This would make a wonderful plot for one of your stories, wouldn't it, Miss Shirley? I must be going . . . I'd no idea it was so late. I feel so much better since I've confided in you . . . 'touched your soul in shadowland,' as Shakespeare says.""I think it was Pauline Johnson," said Anne gently."Well, I knew it was somebody . . . somebody who had lived. I think I shall sleep tonight, Miss Shirley. I've hardly slept since I found myself engaged to Terry, without the least notion how it had all come about."Hazel fluffed out her hair and put on her hat, a hat with a rosy lining to its brim and rosy blossomsaround it. She looked so distractingly pretty in it that Anne kissed her impulsively. "You're the prettiest thing, darling," she said admiringly.Hazel stood very still.Then she lifted her eyes and stared clear through the ceiling of the tower room, clear through the attic above it, and sought the stars."I shall never, never forget this wonderful moment, Miss Shirley," she murmured rapturously. "I feel that my beauty . . . if I have any . . . has been consecrated. Oh, Miss Shirley, you don't know how really terrible it is to have a reputation for beauty and to be always afraid that when people meet you they will not think you as pretty as you were reported to be. It's torture. Sometimes I just die of mortification because I fancy I can see they're disappointed. Perhaps it's only my imagination . . . I'm so imaginative . . . too much so for my own good, I fear. I imagined I was in love with Terry, you see. Oh, Miss Shirley, can you smell the apple-blossom fragrance?"Having a nose, Anne could."Isn't it just divine? I hope heaven will be all flowers. One could be good if one lived in a lily, couldn't one?""I'm afraid it might be a little confining," said Anne perversely."Oh, Miss Shirley, don't . . . don't be sarcastic with your little adorer. Sarcasm just shrivels me up like a leaf.""I see she hasn't talked you quite to death," said Rebecca Dew, when Anne had come back after seeing Hazel to the end of Spook's Lane. "I don't see how you put up with her.""I like her, Rebecca, I really do. I was a dreadful little chatterbox when I was a child. I wonder if I sounded as silly to the people who had to listen to me as Hazel does sometimes.""I didn't know you when you was a child but I'm sure you didn't," said Rebecca. "Because you would mean what you said no matter how you expressed it and Hazel Marr doesn't. She's nothing but skim milk pretending to be cream.""Oh, of course she dramatizes herself a bit as most girls do, but I think she means some of the things she says," said Anne, thinking of Terry. Perhaps it was because she had a rather poor opinion of the said Terry that she believed Hazel was quite in earnest in all she said about him. Anne thought Hazel was throwing herself away on Terry in spite of the ten thousand he was "coming into." Anne considered Terry a good-looking, rather weak youth who would fall in love with the first pretty girl who made eyes at him and would, with equal facility, fall in love with the next one if Number One turned him down or left him alone too long.Anne had seen a good deal of Terry that spring, for Hazel had insisted on her playing gooseberry frequently; and she was destined to see more of him, for Hazel went to visit friends in Kingsport and during her absence Terry rather attached himself to Anne, taking her out for rides and "seeing her home" from places. They called each other "Anne" and "Terry," for they were about the same age, although Anne felt quite motherly towards him. Terry felt immensely flattered that "the clever Miss Shirley" seemed to like his companionship and he became so sentimental the night of May Connelly's party, in a moonlit garden, where the shadows of the acacias blew crazily about, that Anne amusedly reminded him of the absent Hazel."Oh, Hazel!" said Terry. "That child!""You're engaged to 'that child,' aren't you?" said Anne severely."Not really engaged . . . nothing but some boy-and-girl nonsense. I . . . I guess I was just swept off my feet by the moonlight."Anne did a bit of rapid thinking. If Terry really cared so little for Hazel as this, the child was far better freed from him. Perhaps this was a heaven-sent opportunity to extricate them both from the silly tangle they had got themselves into and from which neither of them, taking things with all the deadly seriousness of youth, knew how to escape."Of course," went on Terry, misinterpreting her silence. "I'm in a bit of a predicament, I'll own. I'm afraid Hazel has taken me a little bit too seriously, and I don't just know the best way to open her eyes to her mistake."Impulsive Anne assumed her most maternal look."Terry, you are a couple of children playing at being grown up. Hazel doesn't really care anything more for you than you do for her. Apparently the moonlight affected both of you. She wants to be free but is afraid to tell you so for fear of hurting your feelings. She's just a bewildered, romantic girl and you're a boy in love with love, and some day you'll both have a good laugh at yourselves."("I think I've put that very nicely," thought Anne complacently.)Terry drew a long breath."You've taken a weight off my mind, Anne. Hazel's a sweet little thing, of course, I hated to think of hurting her, but I've realized my . . . our . . . mistake for some weeks. When one meets a woman . . . the woman . . . you're not going in yet, Anne? Is all this good moonlight to be wasted? You look like a white rose in the moonlight . . .Anne. . . ."But Anne had flown.Anne, correcting examination papers in the tower room one mid-June evening, paused to wipe her nose. She had wiped it so often that evening that it was rosy-red and rather painful. The truth was that Anne was the victim of a very severe and very unromantic cold in the head. It would not allow her to enjoy the soft green sky behind the hemlocks of The Evergreens, the silver-white moon hanging over the Storm King, the haunting perfume of the lilacs below her window or the frosty, blue-penciled irises in the vase on her table. It darkened all her past and overshadowed all her future."A cold in the head in June is an immoral thing," she told Dusty Miller, who was meditating on the window-sill. "But in two weeks from today I'll be in dear Green Gables instead of stewing here over examination papers full of howlers and wiping a worn-out nose. Think of it, Dusty Miller."Apparently Dusty Miller thought of it. He may also have thought that the young lady who was hurrying along Spook's Lane and down the road and along the perennial path looked angry and disturbed and un-June-like. It was Hazel Marr, only a day back from Kingsport, and evidently a much disturbed Hazel Marr, who, a few minutes later, burst stormily into the tower room without waiting for a reply to her sharp knock."Why, Hazel dear . . ." (Kershoo!) . . . "are you back from Kingsport already? I didn't expect you till next week.""No, I suppose you didn't," said Hazel sarcastically. "Yes, Miss Shirley, I am back. And what do I find? That you have been doing your best to lure Terry away from me . . . and all but succeeding."