The Anne of Green Gables Collection

by L.M. Montgomery

was November—the month of crimson sunsets, parting birds, deep, sad hymns of the sea, passionate wind-songs in the pines.

They captured in their ramble all the mysteries and magics of a March evening. Very still and mild it was, wrapped in a great, white, brooding silence—a silence which was yet threaded through with many little silvery sounds which you could hear if you hearkened as much with your soul as your ears. The girls wandered down a long pineland aisle that seemed to lead right out into the heart of a deep-red, overflowing winter sunset. “I’d go home and write a poem this blessed minute if I only knew how,” declared Phil, pausing in an open space where a rosy light was staining the green tips of the pines. “It’s all so wonderful here—this great, white stillness, and those dark trees that always seem to be thinking.”

Davy was sitting tailor-fashion on the grass,

“Oh,” she thought, “how horrible it is that people have to grow up—and marry—and CHANGE!”

The night was so very still that one should have been able to hear the whisper of roses in blossom—the laughter of daisies—the piping of grasses—many sweet sounds, all tangled up together. The beauty of moonlight on familiar fields irradiated the world.

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,’”

Jog along, black mare. As for Thomas, he was poor, and if his house didn’t leak in dry weather it was about all that could be said for it, though it looks kind of pictureaskew.

he’s so contrary that he wears his fur coat when the thermometer’s at ninety. The only way to git him to do anything is to coax him to do the opposite. But there ain’t any love to smooth things down and it’s a poor way of living.

Janet is a dear soul and very nicelooking; tall, but not over-tall; stoutish, yet with a certain restraint of outline suggestive of a thrifty soul who is not going to be overlavish even in the matter of avoirdupois.

Robby’s face is so lugubrious that it is no wonder I have bad dreams. Why, the first night I was here I dreamed I COULDN’T LAUGH.

His hands were big, his hair wanted barbering, and his moustache was unkempt. But Anne thought she liked his face; it was kind and honest and tender; there was something else in it, too—just what, Anne found it hard to define. She finally concluded that this man had suffered and been strong, and it had been made manifest in his face. There was a sort of patient, humorous endurance in his expression which indicated that he would go to the stake if need be, but would keep on looking pleasant until he really had to begin squirming.

Let that man know you are not going to endure his shillyshallying any longer. I’LL back you up.”

I don’t want to see myself as others see me. I’m sure it would be horribly uncomfortable most of the time. I don’t believe Burns was really sincere in that prayer, either.”

A pouring rainy night like this, coming after a hard day’s grind, would squelch any one but a Mark Tapley.

“Of all sad words of tongue or pen The saddest are it might have been,”

“I wish I were dead, or that it were tomorrow night,” groaned Phil. “If you live long enough both wishes will come true,” said Anne calmly. “It’s easy for you to be serene. You’re at home in Philosophy. I’m not—and when I think of that horrible paper tomorrow I quail. If I should fail in it what would Jo say?” “You won’t fail. How did you get on in Greek today?” “I don’t know. Perhaps it was a good paper and perhaps it was bad enough to make Homer turn over in his grave. I’ve studied and mulled over notebooks until I’m incapable of forming an opinion of anything. How thankful little Phil will be when all this examinating is over.” “Examinating? I never heard such a word.” “Well, haven’t I as good a right to make a word as any one else?” demanded Phil. “Words aren’t made—they grow,” said Anne.

“But I mistrust you haven’t any too much sense yet. It’s not to be expected, of course. Experience teaches sense. You can’t learn it in a college course. You’ve been to college four years and I never was, but I know heaps more than you do, young ladies.” “There are lots of things that never go by rule, There’s a powerful pile o’ knowledge That you never get at college, There are heaps of things you never learn at school,” quoted Stella.

“We’ve learned the truth of what Professor Woodleigh told us last Philomathic,” said Phil. “He said, ‘Humor is the spiciest condiment in the feast of existence. Laugh at your mistakes but learn from them, joke over your troubles but gather strength from them, make a jest of your difficulties but overcome them.’ Isn’t that worth learning, Aunt Jimsie?”

She wondered if old dreams could haunt rooms—if, when one left forever the room where she had joyed and suffered and laughed and wept, something of her, intangible and invisible, yet nonetheless real, did not remain behind like a voiceful memory.

When Roy paused for his answer she opened her lips to say her fateful yes. And then—she found herself trembling as if she were reeling back from a precipice. To her came one of those moments when we realize, as by a blinding flash of illumination, more than all our previous years have taught us. She pulled her hand from Roy’s.

“I DO know my own mind,” protested Anne. “The trouble is, my mind changes and then I have to get acquainted with it all over again.”

“I’ve tried the world—it wears no more The coloring of romance it wore,” sighed Anne—and was straightway much comforted by the romance in the idea of the world being denuded of romance!