But when she had to walk home alone from prayer meetings and
A.V.I.S. pow-wows, while Diana and Fred, and many other gay couples,
loitered along the dusky, starlit country roads, there was a queer,
lonely ache in her heart which she could not explain away. Gilbert
did not even write to her, as she thought he might have done.
She knew he wrote to Diana
occasionally, but she would not inquire
about him; and Diana, supposing that Anne heard from him, volunteered
no information. Gilbert's mother, who was a gay, frank, light-hearted
lady, but not overburdened with tact, had a very embarrassing habit of
asking Anne, always in a
painfullydistinct voice and always in the
presence of a crowd, if she had heard from Gilbert
lately. Poor Anne
could only blush
horribly and murmur, "not very
lately," which was
taken by all, Mrs. Blythe included, to be merely a maidenly evasion.
Apart from this, Anne enjoyed her summer. Priscilla came for a
merry visit in June; and, when she had gone, Mr. and Mrs. Irving,
Paul and Charlotta the Fourth came "home" for July and August.
Echo Lodge was the scene of gaieties once more, and the echoes
over the river were kept busy mimicking the
laughter that rang in
the old garden behind the spruces.
"Miss Lavendar" had not changed, except to grow even sweeter and
prettier. Paul adored her, and the
companionship between them
was beautiful to see.
"But I don't call her `mother' just by itself," he explained to
Anne. "You see, THAT name belongs just to my own little mother,
and I can't give it to any one else. You know, teacher. But I
call her `Mother Lavendar' and I love her next best to father.
I -- I even love her a LITTLE better than you, teacher."
"Which is just as it ought to be," answered Anne.
Paul was thirteen now and very tall for his years. His face and
eyes were as beautiful as ever, and his fancy was still like a prism,
separating everything that fell upon it into rainbows. He and Anne
had
delightful rambles to wood and field and shore. Never were there
two more
thoroughly "kindred spirits."
Charlotta the Fourth had blossomed out into young ladyhood. She
wore her hair now in an
enormous pompador and had discarded the
blue
ribbon bows of auld lang syne, but her face was as freckled,
her nose as snubbed, and her mouth and smiles as wide as ever.
"You don't think I talk with a Yankee
accent, do you, Miss
Shirley, ma'am?" she demanded anxiously.
"I don't notice it, Charlotta."
"I'm real glad of that. They said I did at home, but I thought
likely they just wanted to
aggravate me. I don't want no Yankee
accent. Not that I've a word to say against the Yankees, Miss
Shirley, ma'am. They're real
civilized. But give me old P.E.
Island every time."
Paul spent his first
fortnight with his
grandmother Irving in
Avonlea. Anne was there to meet him when he came, and found him
wild with
eagerness to get to the shore -- Nora and the Golden
Lady and the Twin Sailors would be there. He could hardly wait
to eat his supper. Could he not see Nora's elfin face peering
around the point, watching for him
wistfully? But it was a very
sober Paul who came back from the shore in the twilight.
"Didn't you find your Rock People?" asked Anne.
Paul shook his
chestnut curls sorrowfully.
"The Twin Sailors and the Golden Lady never came at all," he said.
"Nora was there -- but Nora is not the same, teacher. She is changed."
"Oh, Paul, it is you who are changed," said Anne. "You have
grown too old for the Rock People. They like only children for
playfellows. I am afraid the Twin Sailors will never again come
to you in the pearly, enchanted boat with the sail of moonshine;
and the Golden Lady will play no more for you on her golden harp.
Even Nora will not meet you much longer. You must pay the penalty
of growing-up, Paul. You must leave
fairyland behind you."
"You two talk as much
foolishness as ever you did," said old
Mrs. Irving, half-indulgently, half-reprovingly.
"Oh, no, we don't," said Anne, shaking her head
gravely. "We are
getting very, very wise, and it is such a pity. We are never
half so interesting when we have
learned that language is given
us to
enable us to
conceal our thoughts."
"But it isn't -- it is given us to exchange our thoughts," said
Mrs. Irving
seriously. She had never heard of Tallyrand and did
not understand epigrams.
Anne spent a
fortnight of halcyon days at Echo Lodge in the
golden prime of August. While there she
incidentally contrived
to hurry Ludovic Speed in his
leisurely courting of Theodora Dix,
as
related duly in another
chronicle of her history.[1] Arnold
Sherman, an
elderly friend of the Irvings, was there at the same
time, and added not a little to the general pleasantness of life.
([1] Chronicles of Avonlea.)
"What a nice play-time this has been," said Anne. "I feel like a
giant refreshed. And it's only a
fortnight more till I go back
to Kingsport, and Redmond and Patty's Place. Patty's Place
is the dearest spot, Miss Lavendar. I feel as if I had two homes
-- one at Green Gables and one at Patty's Place. But where has the
summer gone? It doesn't seem a day since I came home that spring
evening with the Mayflowers. When I was little I couldn't see from
one end of the summer to the other. It stretched before me like
an unending season. Now, `'tis a handbreadth, 'tis a tale.'"
"Anne, are you and Gilbert Blythe as good friends as you used to be?"
asked Miss Lavendar quietly.
"I am just as much Gilbert's friend as ever I was, Miss Lavendar."
Miss Lavendar shook her head.
"I see something's gone wrong, Anne. I'm going to be impertinent
and ask what. Have you quarrelled?"
"No; it's only that Gilbert wants more than friendship and I can't
give him more."
"Are you sure of that, Anne?"
"Perfectly sure."
"I'm very, very sorry."
"I wonder why everybody seems to think I ought to marry Gilbert Blythe,"
said Anne petulantly.
"Because you were made and meant for each other, Anne -- that is why.
You needn't toss that young head of yours. It's a fact."
Chapter XXIV
Enter Jonas
"PROSPECT POINT,
"August 20th.
"Dear Anne -- spelled -- with -- an -- E," wrote Phil, "I must
prop my eyelids open long enough to write you. I've neglected
you shamefully this summer, honey, but all my other correspondents
have been neglected, too. I have a huge pile of letters to answer,
so I must gird up the loins of my mind and hoe in. Excuse my
mixed metaphors. I'm
fearfully
sleepy. Last night Cousin Emily
and I were
calling at a neighbor's. There were several other
callers there, and as soon as those
unfortunate creatures left,
our
hostess and her three daughters picked them all to pieces.
I knew they would begin on Cousin Emily and me as soon as the door
shut behind us. When we came home Mrs. Lilly informed us that the
aforesaid neighbor's hired boy was
supposed to be down with
scarletfever. You can always trust Mrs. Lilly to tell you
cheerful things
like that. I have a
horror of
scarlet fever. I couldn't sleep when
I went to bed for thinking of it. I tossed and tumbled about,
dreaming
fearful dreams when I did snooze for a minute; and at
three I wakened up with a high fever, a sore
throat, and a
raging
headache. I knew I had
scarlet fever; I got up in a
panic and hunted up Cousin Emily's 'doctor book' to read up
the symptoms. Anne, I had them all. So I went back to bed,
and
knowing the worst, slept like a top the rest of the night.
Though why a top should sleep sounder than anything else I
never could understand. But this morning I was quite well,
so it couldn't have been the fever. I suppose if I did catch
it last night it couldn't have developed so soon. I can remember
that in
daytime, but at three o'clock at night I never can be logical.
"I suppose you wonder what I'm doing at Prospect Point. Well, I
always like to spend a month of summer at the shore, and father
insists that I come to his second-cousin Emily's `select
boardinghouse' at Prospect Point. So a
fortnight ago I came as
usual. And as usual old `Uncle Mark Miller' brought me from the
station with his ancient buggy and what he calls his `generous
purpose' horse. He is a nice old man and gave me a
handful of
pink peppermints. Peppermints always seem to me such a religious
sort of candy -- I suppose because when I was a little girl
Grandmother Gordon always gave them to me in church. Once I
asked, referring to the smell of peppermints, `Is that the odor
of sanctity?' I didn't like to eat Uncle Mark's peppermints
because he just fished them loose out of his pocket, and had to
pick some rusty nails and other things from among them before he
gave them to me. But I wouldn't hurt his dear old feelings for
anything, so I carefully sowed them along the road at intervals.
When the last one was gone, Uncle Mark said, a little rebukingly,
`Ye shouldn't a'et all them candies to onct, Miss Phil. You'll
likely have the stummick-ache.'
"Cousin Emily has only five boarders besides myself -- four old
ladies and one young man. My
right-hand neighbor is Mrs. Lilly.
She is one of those people who seem to take a gruesome pleasure
in detailing all their many aches and pains and sicknesses.
You cannot mention any
ailment but she says, shaking her head, `Ah,
I know too well what that is' -- and then you get all the details.
Jonas declares he once spoke of locomotor ataxia in
hearing and
she said she knew too well what that was. She suffered from it
for ten years and was finally cured by a traveling doctor.
"Who is Jonas? Just wait, Anne Shirley. You'll hear all about
Jonas in the proper time and place. He is not to be mixed up
with estimable old ladies.
"My left-hand neighbor at the table is Mrs. Phinney. She always
speaks with a wailing, dolorous voice -- you are
nervously expecting
her to burst into tears every moment. She gives you the impression
that life to her is indeed a vale of tears, and that a smile, never
to speak of a laugh, is a frivolity truly reprehensible. She has a
worse opinion of me than Aunt Jamesina, and she doesn't love me hard
to atone for it, as Aunty J. does, either.
"Miss Maria Grimsby sits cati-corner from me. The first day I
came I remarked to Miss Maria that it looked a little like rain
-- and Miss Maria laughed. I said the road from the station was
very pretty -- and Miss Maria laughed. I said there seemed to be
a few mosquitoes left yet -- and Miss Maria laughed. I said that
Prospect Point was as beautiful as ever -- and Miss Maria laughed.
If I were to say to Miss Maria, `My father has hanged himself,
my mother has taken
poison, my brother is in the penitentiary,
and I am in the last stages of consumption,' Miss Maria would laugh.
She can't help it -- she was born so; but is very sad and awful.
"The fifth old lady is Mrs. Grant. She is a sweet old thing;
but she never says anything but good of anybody and so she is a
very uninteresting conversationalist.
"And now for Jonas, Anne.
"That first day I came I saw a young man sitting opposite me at
the table, smiling at me as if he had known me from my cradle.
I knew, for Uncle Mark had told me, that his name was Jonas Blake,
that he was a Theological Student from St. Columbia, and that he had
taken
charge of the Point Prospect Mission Church for the summer.
"He is a very ugly young man -- really, the ugliest young man
I've ever seen. He has a big, loose-jointed figure with absurdly
long legs. His hair is tow-color and lank, his eyes are green,
and his mouth is big, and his ears -- but I never think about his
ears if I can help it.
"He has a lovely voice -- if you shut your eyes he is adorable --
and he certainly has a beautiful soul and disposition.
"We were good chums right way. Of course he is a graduate of
Redmond, and that is a link between us. We fished and boated
together; and we walked on the sands by
moonlight. He didn't
look so
homely by
moonlight and oh, he was nice. Niceness fairly