“Isabella.”  It was David’s voice in her ear—­a voice full of tenderness and pleading—­the voice of the young wooer of her girlhood—­“Is it too late to ask you to forgive me?  I’ve been a stubborn fool—­but there hasn’t been an hour in all these years that I haven’t thought about you and our baby and longed for you.”

Isabella Spencer had hated this man; yet her hate had been but a parasite growth on a nobler stem, with no abiding roots of its own.  It withered under his words, and lo, there was the old love, fair and strong and beautiful as ever.

“Oh—­David—­I—­was—­all—­to—­blame,” she murmured brokenly.

Further words were lost on her husband’s lips.

When the hubbub of handshaking and congratulating had subsided, Isabella Spencer stepped out before the company.  She looked almost girlish and bridal herself, with her flushed cheeks and bright eyes.

“Let’s go back now and have supper, and be sensible,” she said crisply.  “Rachel, your father is coming, too.  He is coming to stay,”—­with a defiant glance around the circle.  “Come, everybody.”

They went back with laughter and raillery over the quiet autumn fields, faintly silvered now by the moon that was rising over the hills.  The young bride and groom lagged behind; they were very happy, but they were not so happy, after all, as the old bride and groom who walked swiftly in front.  Isabella’s hand was in her husband’s and sometimes she could not see the moonlit hills for a mist of glorified tears.

“David,” she whispered, as he helped her over the fence, “how can you ever forgive me?”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” he said.  “We’re only just married.  Who ever heard of a bridegroom talking of forgiveness?  Everything is beginning over new for us, my girl.”

IV.  JANE’S BABY

Miss Rosetta Ellis, with her front hair in curl-papers, and her back hair bound with a checked apron, was out in her breezy side yard under the firs, shaking her parlor rugs, when Mr. Nathan Patterson drove in.  Miss Rosetta had seen him coming down the long red hill, but she had not supposed he would be calling at that time of the morning.  So she had not run.  Miss Rosetta always ran if anybody called and her front hair was in curl-papers; and, though the errand of the said caller might be life or death, he or she had to wait until Miss Rosetta had taken her hair out.  Everybody in Avonlea knew this, because everybody in Avonlea knew everything about everybody else.

But Mr. Patterson had wheeled into the lane so quickly and unexpectedly that Miss Rosetta had had no time to run; so, twitching off the checked apron, she stood her ground as calmly as might be under the disagreeable consciousness of curl-papers.

“Good morning, Miss Ellis,” said Mr. Patterson, so somberly that Miss Rosetta instantly felt that he was the bearer of bad news.  Usually Mr. Patterson’s face was as broad and beaming as a harvest moon.  Now his expression was very melancholy and his voice positively sepulchral.