up the mists that curtained the Island's red shores with gleams
of gold foretokening a fine day after all. Besides, Charlie

Sloane promptly became so seasick that he had to go below, and
Anne and Gilbert were left alone on deck.

"I am very glad that all the Sloanes get seasick as soon as they
go on water," thought Anne mercilessly. "I am sure I couldn't

take my farewell look at the `ould sod' with Charlie standing
there pretending to look sentimentally at it, too."

"Well, we're off," remarked Gilbert unsentimentally.
"Yes, I feel like Byron's `Childe Harold' -- only it isn't really

my `native shore' that I'm watching," said Anne, winking her gray
eyes vigorously. "Nova Scotia is that, I suppose. But one's

native shore is the land one loves the best, and that's good old
P.E.I. for me. I can't believe I didn't always live here.

Those eleven years before I came seem like a bad dream.
It's seven years since I crossed on this boat -- the evening

Mrs. Spencer brought me over from Hopetown. I can see myself,
in that dreadful old wincey dress and faded sailor hat, exploring

decks and cabins with enraptured curiosity. It was a fine evening;
and how those red Island shores did gleam in the sunshine. Now I'm

crossing the strait again. Oh, Gilbert, I do hope I'll like Redmond
and Kingsport, but I'm sure I won't!"

"Where's all your philosophy gone, Anne?"
"It's all submerged under a great, swamping wave of loneliness

and homesickness. I've longed for three years to go to Redmond
-- and now I'm going -- and I wish I weren't! Never mind! I

shall be cheerful and philosophical again after I have just one
good cry. I MUST have that, `as a went' -- and I'll have to wait

until I get into my boardinghouse bed tonight, wherever it may
be, before I can have it. Then Anne will be herself again. I

wonder if Davy has come out of the closet yet."
It was nine that night when their train reached Kingsport, and

they found themselves in the blue-white glare of the crowded station.
Anne felt horribly bewildered, but a moment later she was seized by

Priscilla Grant, who had come to Kingsport on Saturday.
"Here you are, beloved! And I suppose you're as tired as I was

when I got here Saturday night."
"Tired! Priscilla, don't talk of it. I'm tired, and green,

and provincial, and only about ten years old. For pity's sake
take your poor, broken-down chum to some place where she can

hear herself think."
"I'll take you right up to our boardinghouse. I've a cab ready outside."

"It's such a blessing you're here, Prissy. If you weren't I
think I should just sit down on my suitcase, here and now, and

weep bitter tears. What a comfort one familiar face is in a
howling wilderness of strangers!"

"Is that Gilbert Blythe over there, Anne? How he has grown up
this past year! He was only a schoolboy when I taught in Carmody.

And of course that's Charlie Sloane. HE hasn't changed -- couldn't!
He looked just like that when he was born, and he'll look like that

when he's eighty. This way, dear. We'll be home in twenty minutes."
"Home!" groaned Anne. "You mean we'll be in some horrible boardinghouse,

in a still more horrible hall bedroom, looking out on a dingy back yard."
"It isn't a horrible boardinghouse, Anne-girl. Here's our cab.

Hop in -- the driver will get your trunk. Oh, yes, the boardinghouse
-- it's really a very nice place of its kind, as you'll admit tomorrow

morning when a good night's sleep has turned your blues rosy pink.
It's a big, old-fashioned, gray stone house on St. John Street,

just a nice little constitutional from Redmond. It used to be the
`residence' of great folk, but fashion has deserted St. John Street

and its houses only dream now of better days. They're so big that
people living in them have to take boarders just to fill up. At least,

that is the reason our landladies are very anxious to impress on us.
They're delicious, Anne -- our landladies, I mean."

"How many are there?"
"Two. Miss Hannah Harvey and Miss Ada Harvey. They were born twins

about fifty years ago."
"I can't get away from twins, it seems," smiled Anne. "Wherever I

go they confront me."
"Oh, they're not twins now, dear. After they reached the age of

thirty they never were twins again. Miss Hannah has grown old,
not too gracefully, and Miss Ada has stayed thirty, less

gracefully still. I don't know whether Miss Hannah can smile or
not; I've never caught her at it so far, but Miss Ada smiles all

the time and that's worse. However, they're nice, kind souls,
and they take two boarders every year because Miss Hannah's

economical soul cannot bear to `waste room space' -- not because
they need to or have to, as Miss Ada has told me seven times

since Saturday night. As for our rooms, I admit they are hall
bedrooms, and mine does look out on the back yard. Your room is

a front one and looks out on Old St. John's graveyard, which is
just across the street."

"That sounds gruesome," shivered Anne. "I think I'd rather have
the back yard view."

"Oh, no, you wouldn't. Wait and see. Old St. John's is a
darling place. It's been a graveyard so long that it's ceased to

be one and has become one of the sights of Kingsport. I was all
through it yesterday for a pleasure exertion. There's a big

stone wall and a row of enormous trees all around it, and rows of
trees all through it, and the queerest old tombstones, with the

queerest and quaintest inscriptions. You'll go there to study, Anne,
see if you don't. Of course, nobody is ever buried there now.

But a few years ago they put up a beautiful monument to the
memory of Nova Scotian soldiers who fell in the Crimean War.

It is just opposite the entrance gates and there's `scope for
imagination' in it, as you used to say. Here's your trunk at

last -- and the boys coming to say good night. Must I really
shake hands with Charlie Sloane, Anne? His hands are always so

cold and fishy-feeling. We must ask them to call occasionally.
Miss Hannah gravely told me we could have `young gentlemen

callers' two evenings in the week, if they went away at a
reasonable hour; and Miss Ada asked me, smiling, please to be

sure they didn't sit on her beautiful cushions. I promised to
see to it; but goodness knows where else they CAN sit, unless

they sit on the floor, for there are cushions on EVERYTHING.
Miss Ada even has an elaborate Battenburg one on top of the piano."

Anne was laughing by this time. Priscilla's gay chatter had the
intended effect of cheering her up; homesickness vanished for the

time being, and did not even return in full force when she
finally found herself alone in her little bedroom. She went to

her window and looked out. The street below was dim and quiet.
Across it the moon was shining above the trees in Old St. John's,

just behind the great dark head of the lion on the monument.
Anne wondered if it could have been only that morning that

she had left Green Gables. She had the sense of a long
passage of time which one day of change and travel gives.

"I suppose that very moon is looking down on Green Gables now,"
she mused. "But I won't think about it -- that way homesickness

lies. I'm not even going to have my good cry. I'll put that off
to a more convenient season, and just now I'll go calmly and

sensibly to bed and to sleep."
Chapter IV

April's Lady
Kingsport is a quaint old town, hearking back to early Colonial

days, and wrapped in its ancient atmosphere, as some fine old dame
in garments fashioned like those of her youth. Here and there