Anne of Windy Poplars (Anne of Green Gables #4)

by L.M. Montgomery

"It's dusk, dearest. (In passing, isn't 'dusk' a lovely word? I like it better than twilight. It sounds so velvety and shadowy and … and … dusky.) In daylight I belong to the world … in the night to sleep and eternity. But in the dusk I'm free from both and belong only to myself … and you.

I hated to leave Green Gables. No matter how often and long I'm away from it, the minute a vacation comes I'm part of it again as if I had never been away, and my heart is torn over leaving it. But I know I'll like it here. And it likes me. I always know whether a house likes me or not.

It has come to an end now, for far up the harbor the moon is 'sinking into shadow-land.'

(Several pages omitted. Anne's pen being evidently neither sharp, stub nor rusty.)

I hope you don't think I'm one of those terrible people who make you feel that you have to talk to them all the time. We'll just talk when we feel like it. I admit I'm likely to feel like it a good part of the time, but you're under no obligation to take any notice of what I'm saying."

The poor soul has borrowed so much trouble, she must be hopelessly in debt to fate.

I'm glad I don't live in Yesterday … that Tomorrow is still a friend.

"I think this road leads right to God," she said dreamily. "Perhaps," said Anne. "Perhaps all roads do, little Elizabeth.

For a week after I get back to Green Gables I'm going to be lazy … do absolutely nothing but run free in a green world of summer loveliness. I'll dream by the Dryad's Bubble in the twilight. I'll drift on the Lake of Shining Waters in a shallop shaped from a moonbeam … or in Mr. Barry's flat, if moonbeam shallops are not in season. I'll gather starflowers and June bells in the Haunted Wood. I'll find plots of wild strawberries in Mr. Harrison's hill pasture. I'll join the dance of fireflies in Lover's Lane and visit Hester Gray's old, forgotten garden … and sit out on the back door-step under the stars and listen to the sea calling in its sleep. "And when the week is ended you will be home … and I won't want anything else."