have in the world."
Anne wondered
secretly why, if this were so, Miss
Cornelia had never mentioned Mrs. Dick Moore to her.
Miss Cornelia had certainly talked
freely about every
other individual in or near Four Winds.
"Isn't that beautiful?" said Leslie, after a brief
silence, pointing to the
exquisite effect of a shaft of
light falling through a cleft in the rock behind them,
across a dark green pool at its base. "If I had come
here--and seen nothing but just that--I would go home
satisfied."
"The effects of light and shadow all along these shores
are wonderful," agreed Anne. "My little
sewing room
looks out on the harbor, and I sit at its window and
feast my eyes. The colors and shadows are never the
same two minutes together."
"And you are never
lonely?" asked Leslie abruptly.
"Never-- when you are alone?"
"No. I don't think I've ever been really
lonely in my
life," answered Anne. "Even when I'm alone I have
real good company-- dreams and imaginations and
pretendings. I LIKE to be alone now and then, just to
think over things and TASTE them. But I love
friendship-- and nice, jolly little times with people.
Oh, WON'T you come to see me--often? Please do. I
believe," Anne added, laughing, "that you'd like me if
you knew me."
"I wonder if YOU would like ME," said Leslie
seriously. She was not
fishing for a
compliment. She
looked out across the waves that were
beginning to be
garlanded with blossoms of
moonlit foam, and her eyes
filled with shadows.
"I'm sure I would," said Anne. "And please don't
think I'm utterly irresponsible because you saw me
dancing on the shore at
sunset. No doubt I shall be
dignified after a time. You see, I haven't been
married very long. I feel like a girl, and sometimes
like a child, yet."
"I have been married twelve years," said Leslie.
Here was another unbelievable thing.
"Why, you can't be as old as I am!" exclaimed Anne.
"You must have been a child when you were married."
"I was sixteen," said Leslie, rising, and picking up
the cap and
jacket lying beside her. "I am
twenty-eight now. Well, I must go back."
"So must I. Gilbert will probably be home. But I'm so
glad we both came to the shore tonight and met each
other."
Leslie said nothing, and Anne was a little chilled.
She had offered friendship
frankly but it had not been
accepted very
graciously, if it had not been absolutely
repelled. In silence they climbed the cliffs and
walked across a pasture-field of which the feathery,
bleached, wild grasses were like a
carpet of creamy
velvet in the
moonlight. When they reached the shore
lane Leslie turned.
"I go this way, Mrs. Blythe. You will come over and
see me some time, won't you?"
Anne felt as if the
invitation had been thrown at her.
She got the
impression that Leslie Moore gave it
reluctantly.
"I will come if you really want me to," she said a
little coldly.
"Oh, I do--I do," exclaimed Leslie, with an eagerness
which seemed to burst forth and beat down some
restraint that had been imposed on it.
"Then I'll come. Good-night--Leslie."
"Good-night, Mrs. Blythe."
Anne walked home in a brown study and poured out her
tale to Gilbert.
"So Mrs. Dick Moore isn't one of the race that knows
Joseph?" said Gilbert teasingly.
"No--o--o, not exactly. And yet--I think she WAS one
of them once, but has gone or got into exile," said
Anne musingly. "She is certainly very different from
the other women about here. You can't talk about eggs
and butter to HER. To think I've been imagining her a
second Mrs. Rachel Lynde! Have you ever seen Dick
Moore, Gilbert?"
"No. I've seen several men
working about the fields of
the farm, but I don't know which was Moore."
"She never mentioned him. I KNOW she isn't happy."
"From what you tell me I suppose she was married before
she was old enough to know her own mind or heart, and
found out too late that she had made a mistake. It's a
common
tragedy enough, Anne.
A fine woman would have made the best of it. Mrs.
Moore has
evidently let it make her bitter and
resentful."
"Don't let us judge her till we know," pleaded Anne.
"I don't believe her case is so ordinary. You will
understand her
fascination when you meet her, Gilbert.
It is a thing quite apart from her beauty. I feel that
she possesses a rich nature, into which a friend might
enter as into a kingdom; but for some reason she bars
every one out and shuts all her possibilities up in
herself, so that they cannot develop and blossom.
There, I've been struggling to
define her to myself
ever since I left her, and that is the nearest I can
get to it. I'm going to ask Miss Cornelia about her."
CHAPTER 11
THE STORY OF LESLIE MOORE
"Yes, the eighth baby arrived a
fortnight ago," said
Miss Cornelia, from a rocker before the fire of the
little house one
chilly October afternoon. "It's a
girl. Fred was ranting mad--said he wanted a
boy--when the truth is he didn't want it at all. If it
had been a boy he'd have ranted because it wasn't a
girl. They had four girls and three boys before, so I
can't see that it made much difference what this one
was, but of course he'd have to be cantankerous, just
like a man. The baby is real pretty, dressed up in its
nice little clothes. It has black eyes and the
dearest, tiny hands."
"I must go and see it. I just love babies," said
Anne, smiling to herself over a thought too dear and
sacred to be put into words.
"I don't say but what they're nice," admitted Miss
Cornelia. "But some folks seem to have more than they
really need, believe ME. My poor cousin Flora up at
the Glen had eleven, and such a slave as she is! Her
husband suicided three years ago. Just like a man!"
"What made him do that?" asked Anne, rather shocked.
"Couldn't get his way over something, so he jumped into
the well . A good riddance! He was a born tyrant.
But of course it spoiled the well. Flora could never
abide the thought of using it again, poor thing! So
she had another dug and a
frightful expense it was, and
the water as hard as nails. If he HAD to drown himself
there was plenty of water in the harbor, wasn't there?
I've no
patience with a man like that. We've only had
two suicides in Four Winds in my
recollection. The
other was Frank West--Leslie Moore's father. By the
way, has Leslie ever been over to call on you yet?"
"No, but I met her on the shore a few nights ago and we
scraped an acquaintance," said Anne, pricking up her
ears.
Miss Cornelia nodded.
"I'm glad, dearie. I was hoping you'd foregather with
her. What do you think of her?"
"I thought her very beautiful."
"Oh, of course. There was never anybody about Four
Winds could touch her for looks. Did you ever see her
hair? It reaches to her feet when she lets it down.
But I meant how did you like her?"
"I think I could like her very much if she'd let me,"
said Anne slowly.
"But she wouldn't let you--she pushed you off and kept
you at arm's length. Poor Leslie! You wouldn't be
much surprised if you knew what her life has been.
It's been a
tragedy--a
tragedy!"
repeated Miss
Cornelia emphatically.
"I wish you would tell me all about her--that is, if
you can do so without betraying any confidence."
"Lord, dearie, everybody in Four Winds knows poor
Leslie's story. It's no secret--the OUTSIDE, that is.
Nobody knows the INSIDE but Leslie herself, and she
doesn't take folks into her confidence. I'm about the
best friend she has on earth, I
reckon, and she's never
uttered a word of
complaint to me. Have you ever seen
Dick Moore?"
"No."
"Well, I may as well begin at the
beginning and tell
you everything straight through, so you'll understand
it. As I said, Leslie's father was Frank West. He was
clever and shiftless--just like a man. Oh, he had
heaps of brains--and much good they did him! He
started to go to college, and he went for two years,
and then his health broke down. The Wests were all
inclined to be consumptive. So Frank came home and
started farming. He married Rose Elliott from over
harbor. Rose was
reckoned the beauty of Four
Winds--Leslie takes her looks from her mother, but she
has ten times the spirit and go that Rose had, and a
far better figure. Now you know, Anne, I always take
the ground that us women ought to stand by each other.
We've got enough to
endure at the hands of the men, the
Lord knows, so I hold we hadn't ought to clapper-claw
one another, and it isn't often you'll find me running
down another woman. But I never had much use for Rose
Elliott. She was spoiled to begin with, believe ME,
and she was nothing but a lazy,
selfish, whining
creature. Frank was no hand to work, so they were
poor as Job's
turkey. Poor! They lived on potatoes
and point, believe ME. They had two children--Leslie
and Kenneth. Leslie had her mother's looks and her
father's brains, and something she didn't get from
either of them. She took after her Grandmother West--a
splendid old lady. She was the brightest, friendliest,
merriest thing when she was a child, Anne. Everybody
liked her. She was her father's favorite and she was
awful fond of him. They were `chums,' as she used to
say. She couldn't see any of his faults--and he WAS a
taking sort of man in some ways.
"Well, when Leslie was twelve years old, the first
dreadful thing happened. She worshipped little
Kenneth--he was four years younger than her, and he WAS
a dear little chap. And he was killed one day--fell
off a big load of hay just as it was going into the
barn, and the wheel went right over his little body and
crushed the life out of it. And mind you, Anne, Leslie