“Can’t we take a ramble up Lovers’
Lane before you go in?” asked Gilbert as they
crossed the bridge over the Lake of Shining Waters,
in which the moon lay like a great, drowned blossom
of gold.
Anne assented readily. Lovers’ Lane was
a veritable path in a fairyland that night—a
shimmering, mysterious place, full of wizardry in the
white-woven enchantment of moonlight. There had
been a time when such a walk with Gilbert through
Lovers’ Lane would have been far too dangerous.
But Roy and Christine had made it very safe now.
Anne found herself thinking a good deal about Christine
as she chatted lightly to Gilbert. She had met
her several times before leaving Kingsport, and had
been charmingly sweet to her. Christine had also
been charmingly sweet. Indeed, they were a most
cordial pair. But for all that, their acquaintance
had not ripened into friendship. Evidently Christine
was not a kindred spirit.
“Are you going to be in Avonlea all summer?”
asked Gilbert.
“No. I’m going down east to Valley
Road next week. Esther Haythorne wants me to
teach for her through July and August. They have
a summer term in that school, and Esther isn’t
feeling well. So I’m going to substitute
for her. In one way I don’t mind. Do
you know, I’m beginning to feel a little bit
like a stranger in Avonlea now? It makes me sorry—but
it’s true. It’s quite appalling to
see the number of children who have shot up into big
boys and girls—really young men and women—these
past two years. Half of my pupils are grown up.
It makes me feel awfully old to see them in the places
you and I and our mates used to fill.”
Anne laughed and sighed. She felt very old and
mature and wise—which showed how young
she was. She told herself that she longed greatly
to go back to those dear merry days when life was
seen through a rosy mist of hope and illusion, and
possessed an indefinable something that had passed
away forever. Where was it now—the
glory and the dream?
“‘So wags the world away,’”
quoted Gilbert practically, and a trifle absently.
Anne wondered if he were thinking of Christine.
Oh, Avonlea was going to be so lonely now—with
Diana gone!
Mrs. Skinner’s Romance
Anne stepped off the train at Valley Road station
and looked about to see if any one had come to meet
her. She was to board with a certain Miss Janet
Sweet, but she saw no one who answered in the least
to her preconception of that lady, as formed from
Esther’s letter. The only person in sight
was an elderly woman, sitting in a wagon with mail
bags piled around her. Two hundred would have
been a charitable guess at her weight; her face was
as round and red as a harvest-moon and almost as featureless.
She wore a tight, black, cashmere dress, made in the
fashion of ten years ago, a little dusty black straw
hat trimmed with bows of yellow ribbon, and faded
black lace mits.
