"Well, no, but there is one running through the maple grove into the Glen pond. And the pond itself isn"t far away. You"ll be able to fancy you have your own Lake of Shining Waters again."
"Well, don"t say anything more about it just now, Gilbert. Give me time to think--to get used to the idea."
"All right. There is no great hurry, of course. Only--if we decide to buy, it would be well to be moved in and settled before winter."
Gilbert went out, and Anne put away Little Jem"s short dresses with trembling hands. She could not sew any more that day. With tear-wet eyes she wandered over the little domain where she had reigned so happy a queen. The Morgan place was all that Gilbert claimed. The grounds were beautiful, the house old enough to have dignity and repose and traditions, and new enough to be comfortable and up-to-date. Anne had always admired it; but admiring is not loving; and she loved this house of dreams so much. She loved EVERYTHING about it--the garden she had tended, and which so many women had tended before her--the gleam and sparkle of the little brook that crept so roguishly across the corner--the gate between the creaking fir trees--the old red sandstone step--the stately Lombardies-- the two tiny quaint gla.s.s cupboards over the chimney- piece in the living-room--the crooked pantry door in the kitchen-- the two funny dormer windows upstairs--the little jog in the staircase-- why, these things were a part of her! How could she leave them?
And how this little house, consecrated aforetime by love and joy, had been re-consecrated for her by her happiness and sorrow! Here she had spent her bridal moon; here wee Joyce had lived her one brief day; here the sweetness of motherhood had come again with Little Jem; here she had heard the exquisite music of her baby"s cooing laughter; here beloved friends had sat by her fireside. Joy and grief, birth and death, had made sacred forever this little house of dreams.
And now she must leave it. She knew that, even while she had contended against the idea to Gilbert. The little house was outgrown. Gilbert"s interests made the change necessary; his work, successful though it had been, was hampered by his location. Anne realised that the end of their life in this dear place drew nigh, and that she must face the fact bravely. But how her heart ached!
"It will be just like tearing something out of my life," she sobbed. "And oh, if I could hope that some nice folk would come here in our place--or even that it would be left vacant. That itself would be better than having it overrun with some horde who know nothing of the geography of dreamland, and nothing of the history that has given this house its soul and its ident.i.ty. And if such a tribe come here the place will go to rack and ruin in no time--an old place goes down so quickly if it is not carefully attended to. They"ll tear up my garden--and let the Lombardies get ragged--and the paling will come to look like a mouth with half the teeth missing--and the roof will leak--and the plaster fall--and they"ll stuff pillows and rags in broken window panes--and everything will be out-at-elbows."
Anne"s imagination pictured forth so vividly the coming degeneration of her dear little house that it hurt her as severely as if it had already been an accomplished fact. She sat down on the stairs and had a long, bitter cry. Susan found her there and enquired with much concern what the trouble was.
"You have not quarrelled with the doctor, have you now, Mrs. Doctor, dear? But if you have, do not worry. It is a thing quite likely to happen to married couples, I am told, although I have had no experience that way myself. He will be sorry, and you can soon make it up."
"No, no, Susan, we haven"t quarrelled. It"s only--Gilbert is going to buy the Morgan place, and we"ll have to go and live at the Glen. And it will break my heart."
Susan did not enter into Anne"s feelings at all. She was, indeed, quite rejoiced over the prospect of living at the Glen. Her one grievance against her place in the little house was its lonesome location.
"Why, Mrs. Doctor, dear, it will be splendid. The Morgan house is such a fine, big one."
"I hate big houses," sobbed Anne.
"Oh, well, you will not hate them by the time you have half a dozen children," remarked Susan calmly. "And this house is too small already for us. We have no spare room, since Mrs. Moore is here, and that pantry is the most aggravating place I ever tried to work in. There is a corner every way you turn. Besides, it is out-of-the-world down here. There is really nothing at all but scenery."
"Out of your world perhaps, Susan--but not out of mine," said Anne with a faint smile.
"I do not quite understand you, Mrs. Doctor, dear, but of course I am not well educated. But if Dr. Blythe buys the Morgan place he will make no mistake, and that you may tie to. They have water in it, and the pantries and closets are beautiful, and there is not another such cellar in P. E. Island, so I have been told. Why, the cellar here, Mrs. Doctor, dear, has been a heart-break to me, as well you know."
"Oh, go away, Susan, go away," said Anne forlornly. "Cellars and pantries and closets don"t make a HOME. Why don"t you weep with those who weep?"
"Well, I never was much hand for weeping, Mrs. Doctor, dear. I would rather fall to and cheer people up than weep with them. Now, do not you cry and spoil your pretty eyes. This house is very well and has served your turn, but it is high time you had a better."
Susan"s point of view seemed to be that of most people. Leslie was the only one who sympathised understandingly with Anne. She had a good cry, too, when she heard the news. Then they both dried their tears and went to work at the preparations for moving.
"Since we must go let us go as soon as we can and have it over," said poor Anne with bitter resignation.
"You know you will like that lovely old place at the Glen after you have lived in it long enough to have dear memories woven about it," said Leslie. "Friends will come there, as they have come here-- happiness will glorify it for you. Now, it"s just a house to you--but the years will make it a home."
Anne and Leslie had another cry the next week when they shortened Little Jem. Anne felt the tragedy of it until evening when in his long nightie she found her own dear baby again.
"But it will be rompers next--and then trousers--and in no time he will be grown-up," she sighed.
"Well, you would not want him to stay a baby always, Mrs. Doctor, dear, would you?" said Susan. "Bless his innocent heart, he looks too sweet for anything in his little short dresses, with his dear feet sticking out. And think of the save in the ironing, Mrs. Doctor, dear."
"Anne, I have just had a letter from Owen," said Leslie, entering with a bright face. "And, oh! I have such good news. He writes me that he is going to buy this place from the church trustees and keep it to spend our summer vacations in. Anne, are you not glad?"
"Oh, Leslie, `glad" isn"t the word for it! It seems almost too good to be true. I sha"n"t feel half so badly now that I know this dear spot will never be desecrated by a vandal tribe, or left to tumble down in decay. Why, it"s lovely! It"s lovely!"
One October morning Anne wakened to the realisation that she had slept for the last time under the roof of her little house. The day was too busy to indulge regret and when evening came the house was stripped and bare. Anne and Gilbert were alone in it to say farewell. Leslie and Susan and Little Jem had gone to the Glen with the last load of furniture. The sunset light streamed in through the curtainless windows.
"It has all such a heart-broken, reproachful look, hasn"t it?" said Anne. "Oh, I shall be so homesick at the Glen tonight!"
"We have been very happy here, haven"t we, Anne-girl?" said Gilbert, his voice full of feeling.
Anne choked, unable to answer. Gilbert waited for her at the fir-tree gate, while she went over the house and said farewell to every room. She was going away; but the old house would still be there, looking seaward through its quaint windows. The autumn winds would blow around it mournfully, and the gray rain would beat upon it and the white mists would come in from the sea to enfold it; and the moonlight would fall over it and light up the old paths where the schoolmaster and his bride had walked. There on that old harbor sh.o.r.e the charm of story would linger; the wind would still whistle alluringly over the silver sand-dunes; the waves would still call from the red rock-coves.
"But we will be gone," said Anne through her tears.
She went out, closing and locking the door behind her. Gilbert was waiting for her with a smile. The lighthouse star was gleaming northward. The little garden, where only marigolds still bloomed, was already hooding itself in shadows.
Anne knelt down and kissed the worn old step which she had crossed as a bride.
"Good-bye, dear little house of dreams," she said.