Anne of Windy Poplars

1

”Windy Poplars,

”Spook's Lane,

”September 8th.

”Dearest:

”The summer is over ... the summer in which I have seen you only that week-end in May. And I am back at Windy Poplars for my third and last year in Summerside High. Katherine and I had a delightful time together at Green Gables and I'm going to miss her dreadfully this year. The new Junior teacher is a jolly little personage, chubby and rosy and friendly as a puppy ... but somehow, there's nothing more to her than that. She has sparkling shallow blue eyes with no thought behind them. I like her ... I'll always like her ... neither more nor less ... there's nothing to DISCOVER in her. There was so much to discover in Katherine, when you once got past her guard.

”There is no change at Windy Poplars ... yes there is. The old red cow has gone to her long home, so Rebecca Dew sadly informed me when I came down to supper Monday night. The widows have decided not to bother with another one but to get milk and cream from Mr. Cherry. This means that little Elizabeth will come no more to the garden gate for her new milk. But Mrs. Campbell seems to have grown reconciled to her coming over here when she wants to, so that does not make so much difference now.

”And another change is brewing. Aunt Kate told me, much to my sorrow, that they have decided to give Dusty Miller away as soon as they can find a suitable home for him. When I protested, she said they were really driven to it for peace' sake. Rebecca Dew has been constantly complaining about him all summer and there seems to be no other way of satisfying her. Poor Dusty Miller ... and he is such a nice, prowly, purry darling!

”Tomorrow, being Saturday, I'm going to look after Mrs. Raymond's twins while she goes to Charlottetown to the funeral of some relative. Mrs. Raymond is a widow who came to our town last winter. Rebecca Dew and the Windy Poplars widows ... really, Summerside is a great place for widows ... think her a 'little too grand' for Summerside, but she was really a wonderful help to Katherine and me in our Dramatic Club activities. One good turn deserves another.

”Gerald and Geraldine are eight and are a pair of angelic-looking youngsters, but Rebecca Dew 'pulled a mouth,' to use one of her own expressions, when I told her what I was going to do.

”'But I love children, Rebecca.'

”'Children, yes, but them's holy terrors, Miss Shirley. Mrs. Raymond doesn't believe in punishing children no matter what they do. She says she's determined they'll have a "natural" life. They take people in by that saintly look of theirs, but I've heard what her neighbors have to say of them. The minister's wife called one afternoon ... well, Mrs. Raymond was sweet as sugar pie to her, but when she was leaving a shower of Spanish onions came flying down the stairs and one of them knocked her hat off. "Children always behave so abominably when you 'specially want them to be good," was all Mrs. Raymond said ... kinder as if she was rather proud of them being so unmanageable. They're from the States, you know' ... as if that explained everything. Rebecca has about as much use for 'Yankees' as Mrs. Lynde has.”

2

Saturday forenoon Anne betook herself to the pretty, old-fashioned cottage on a street that straggled out into the country, where Mrs. Raymond and her famous twins lived. Mrs. Raymond was all ready to depart ... rather gayly dressed for a funeral, perhaps ... especially with regard to the beflowered hat perched on top of the smooth brown waves of hair that flowed around her head ... but looking very beautiful. The eight-year-old twins, who had inherited her beauty, were sitting on the stairs, their delicate faces wreathed with a quite cherubic expression. They had complexions of pink and white, large China-blue eyes and aureoles of fine, fluffy, pale yellow hair.

They smiled with engaging sweetness when their mother introduced them to Anne and told them that dear Miss Shirley had been so kind as to come and take care of them while Mother was away at dear Aunty Ella's funeral, and of course they would be good and not give her one teeny-weeny bit of trouble, wouldn't they, darlings?

The darlings nodded gravely and contrived, though it hadn't seemed possible, to look more angelic than ever.

Mrs. Raymond took Anne down the walk to the gate with her.

”They're all I've got ... now," she said pathetically. "Perhaps I may have spoiled them a little ... I know people say I have ... people always know so much better how you ought to bring up your children than you know yourself, haven't you noticed, Miss Shirley?

But I think loving is better than spanking any day, don't you, Miss Shirley? I'm sure YOU will have no trouble with them.

Children always KNOW whom they can play on and whom they can't, don't you think? That poor old Miss Prouty up the street ... I had her to stay with them one day, but the poor darlings couldn't bear her. So of course they teased her a good bit ... YOU know what children are. She has revenged herself by telling the most ridiculous tales about them all over town. But they'll just love you and I know they'll be angels. Of course, they have high spirits ... but children should have, don't you think? It's so pitiful to see children with a cowed appearance, isn't it? I like them to be natural, don't you? Too good children don't seem natural, DO they? Don't let them sail their boats in the bathtub or go wading in the pond, will you? I'm SO afraid of them catching cold ... their father died of pneumonia.”

Mrs. Raymond's large blue eyes looked as if they were going to overflow, but she gallantly blinked the tears away.

”Don't worry if they quarrel a little--children always DO quarrel, don't you think? But if any outsider attacks them ... my dear!!

They really just worship each other, you know. I could have taken ONE of them to the funeral, but they simply wouldn't hear of it.

They've never been separated a day in their lives. And I COULDN'T look after twins at a funeral, could I now?”

”Don't worry, Mrs. Raymond," said Anne kindly. "I'm sure Gerald and Geraldine and I will have a beautiful day together. I love children.”

”I know it. I felt sure the minute I saw you that you loved children. One can always tell, don't you think? There's SOMETHING about a person who loves children. Poor old Miss Prouty detests them. She looks for the worst in children and so of course she finds it. You can't conceive what a comfort it is to me to reflect that my darlings are under the care of one who loves and understands children. I'm sure I'll quite enjoy the day.”

”You might take US to the funeral," shrieked Gerald, suddenly sticking his head out of an upstairs window. "We never have any fun like that.”

”Oh, they're in the bathroom!" exclaimed Mrs. Raymond tragically.

"Dear Miss Shirley, please go and take them out. Gerald darling, you know mother couldn't take you BOTH to the funeral. Oh, Miss Shirley, he's got that coyote skin from the parlor floor tied round his neck by the paws again. He'll ruin it. Please make him take it off at once. I MUST hurry or I'll miss the train.”

Mrs. Raymond sailed elegantly away and Anne ran upstairs to find that the angelic Geraldine had grasped her brother by the legs and was apparently trying to hurl him bodily out of the window.

”Miss Shirley, make Gerald stop putting out his tongue at me," she demanded fiercely.

”Does it hurt you?" asked Anne smilingly.

”Well, he's not going to put out his tongue at ME," retorted Geraldine, darting a baleful look at Gerald, who returned it with interest.

”My tongue's my own and YOU can't stop me from putting it out when I like ... can she, Miss Shirley?”

Anne ignored the question.

”Twins dear, it's just an hour till lunch-time. Shall we go and sit in the garden and play games and tell stories? And, Gerald, won't you put that coyote skin back on the floor?”

”But I want to play wolf," said Gerald.

”He wants to play wolf," cried Geraldine, suddenly aligning herself on her brother's side.

”We want to play wolf," they both cried together.

A peal from the door-bell cut the knot of Anne's dilemma.

”Come on and see who it is," cried Geraldine. They flew to the stairs and by reason of sliding down the banisters, got to the front door much quicker than Anne, the coyote skin coming unloosed and drifting away in the process.

”We never buy anything from peddlers," Gerald told the lady standing on the door-stone.

”Can I see your mother?" asked the caller.

”No, you can't. Mother's gone to Aunt Ella's funeral. Miss Shirley's looking after us. That's her coming down the stairs.

SHE'LL make you scat.”

Anne DID feel rather like making the caller "scat" when she saw who it was. Miss Pamela Drake was not a popular caller in Summerside.

She was always "canvassing" for something and it was generally quite impossible to get rid of her unless you bought it, since she was utterly impervious to snubs and hints and had apparently all the time in the world at her command.

This time she was "taking orders" for an encyclopedia ... something no school-teacher could afford to be without. Vainly Anne protested that she did not need an encyclopedia ... the High School already possessed a very good one.

”Ten years out of date," said Miss Pamela firmly. "We'll just sit down here on this rustic bench, Miss Shirley, and I'll show you my prospectus.”

”I'm afraid I haven't time, Miss Drake. I have the children to look after.”

”It won't take but a few minutes. I've been meaning to call on you, Miss Shirley, and I call it real fortunate to find you here.

Run away and play, children, while Miss Shirley and I skim over this beautiful prospectus.”

”Mother's hired Miss Shirley to look after us," said Geraldine, with a toss of her aerial curls. But Gerald had tugged her backward and they slammed the door shut.

”You see, Miss Shirley, what this encyclopedia MEANS. Look at the beautiful paper ... FEEL it ... the splendid engravings ... no other encyclopedia on the market has half the number of engravings ... the wonderful print--a blind man could read it-- and all for eighty dollars ... eight dollars down and eight dollars a month till it's all paid. You'll never have such another chance ... we're just doing this to introduce it ... next year it will be a hundred and twenty.”

”But I don't want an encyclopedia, Miss Drake," said Anne desperately.

”Of course you want an encyclopedia ... EVERY ONE wants an encyclopedia ... a National encyclopedia. I don't know how I lived before I became acquainted with the National encyclopedia.

Live! I didn't live ... I merely existed. LOOK at that engraving of the cassowary, Miss Shirley. Did you ever really SEE a cassowary before?”

”But, Miss Drake, I ...”

”If you think the terms a little too onerous I feel sure I can make a special arrangement for you, being a school-teacher ... six a month instead of eight. You simply can't refuse an offer like that, Miss Shirley.”

Anne almost felt she couldn't. Wouldn't it be worth six dollars a month to get rid of this terrible woman who had so evidently made up her mind not to go until she had got an order? Besides, WHAT were the twins doing? They were alarmingly quiet. Suppose they were sailing their boats in the bathtub. Or had sneaked out of the back door and gone wading in the pond.

She made one more pitiful effort to escape.

”I'll think this over, Miss Drake, and let you know ...”

”There's no time like the present," said Miss Drake, briskly getting out her fountain-pen. "You KNOW you're going to take the National, so you might just as well sign for it now as any other time. Nothing is ever gained by putting things off. The price may go up any moment and then you'd have to pay a hundred and twenty.

Sign here, Miss Shirley.”

Anne felt the fountain-pen being forced into her hand ... another moment ... and then there was such a blood-curdling shriek from Miss Drake that Anne dropped the fountain-pen under the clump of golden glow that flanked the rustic seat, and gazed in amazed horror at her companion.

Was THAT Miss Drake ... that indescribable object, hatless, spectacleless, almost hairless? Hat, spectacles, false front were floating in the air above her head half-way up to the bathroom window, out of which two golden heads were hanging. Gerald was grasping a fishing-rod to which were tied two cords ending in fish- hooks. By what magic he had contrived to make a triple catch, only he could have told. Probably it was sheer luck.

Anne flew into the house and upstairs. By the time she reached the bathroom the twins had fled. Gerald had dropped the fishing-rod and a peep from the window revealed a furious Miss Drake retrieving her belongings, including the fountain-pen, and marching to the gate. For once in her life Miss Pamela Drake had failed to land her order.

Anne discovered the twins seraphically eating apples on the back porch. It was hard to know what to do. Certainly, such behavior could not be allowed to pass without a rebuke ... but Gerald had undoubtedly rescued her from a difficult position and Miss Drake WAS an odious creature who needed a lesson. Still ...

”You've et a great big worm!" shrieked Gerald. "I saw it disappear down your throat.”

Geraldine laid down her apple and promptly turned sick ... very sick. Anne had her hands full for some time. And when Geraldine was better, it was lunch-hour and Anne suddenly decided to let Gerald off with a very mild reproof. After all, no lasting harm had been done Miss Drake, who would probably hold her tongue religiously about the incident for her own sake.

”Do you think, Gerald," she said gently, "that what you did was a gentlemanly action?”

”Nope," said Gerald, "but it was good fun. Gee, I'm some fisherman, ain't I?”

The lunch was excellent. Mrs. Raymond had prepared it before she left and whatever her shortcomings as a disciplinarian might be, she was a good cook. Gerald and Geraldine, being occupied with gorging, did not quarrel or display worse table manners than the general run of children. After lunch Anne washed the dishes, getting Geraldine to help dry them and Gerald to put them carefully away in the cupboard. They were both quite knacky at it and Anne reflected complacently that all they needed was wise training and a little firmness.

3

At two o'clock Mr. James Grand called. Mr. Grand was the chairman of the High School board of trustees and had matters of importance to talk of, which he wished to discuss fully before he left on Monday to attend an educational conference in Kingsport. Could he come to Windy Poplars in the evening? asked Anne. Unfortunately he couldn't.

Mr. Grand was a good sort of man in his own fashion, but Anne had long ago found out that he must be handled with gloves. Moreover, Anne was very anxious to get him on her side in a battle royal over new equipment that was looming up. She went out to the twins.

”Darlings, will you play nicely out in the back yard while I have a little talk with Mr. Grand? I won't be very long ... and then we'll have an afternoon-tea picnic on the banks of the pond ... and I'll teach you to blow soap-bubbles with red dye in them ... the loveliest things!”

”Will you give us a quarter apiece if we behave?" demanded Gerald.

”No, Gerald dear," said Anne firmly, "I'm not going to bribe you.

I know you are going to be good, just because I ask you, as a gentleman should.”

”We'll be good, Miss Shirley," promised Gerald solemnly.

”Awful good," echoed Geraldine, with equal solemnity.

It is possible they would have kept their promise if Ivy Trent had not arrived almost as soon as Anne was closeted with Mr. Grand in the parlor. But Ivy Trent did arrive and the Raymond twins hated Ivy Trent ... the impeccable Ivy Trent who never did anything wrong and always looked as if she had just stepped out of a band- box.

On this particular afternoon there was no doubt that Ivy Trent had come over to show off her beautiful new brown boots and her sash and shoulder bows and hair bows of scarlet ribbon. Mrs. Raymond, whatever she lacked in some respects, had fairly sensible ideas about dressing children. Her charitable neighbors said she put so much money on herself that she had none to spend on the twins ... and Geraldine never had a chance to parade the street in the style of Ivy Trent, who had a dress for every afternoon in the week.

Mrs. Trent always arrayed her in "spotless white." At least. Ivy was always spotless when she left home. If she were not quite so spotless when she returned that, of course, was the fault of the

”jealous" children with whom the neighborhood abounded.

Geraldine WAS jealous. She longed for scarlet sash and shoulder bows and white embroidered dresses. What would she not have given for buttoned brown boots like those?

”How do you like my new sash and shoulder bows?" asked Ivy proudly.

”How do you like my new sash and shoulder bows?" mimicked Geraldine tauntingly.

”But you haven't got shoulder bows," said Ivy grandly.

”But you haven't got shoulder bows," squeaked Geraldine.

Ivy looked puzzled.

”I have so. Can't you see them?”

”I have so. Can't you see them?" mocked Geraldine, very happy in this brilliant idea of repeating everything Ivy said scornfully.

”They ain't paid for," said Gerald.

Ivy Trent had a temper. It showed itself in her face, which grew as red as her shoulder bows.

”They are, too. MY mother always pays her bills.”

”MY mother always pays her bills," chanted Geraldine.

Ivy was uncomfortable. She didn't know exactly how to cope with this. So she turned to Gerald, who was undoubtedly the handsomest boy on the street. Ivy had made up her mind about him.

”I came over to tell you I'm going to have you for my beau," she said, looking eloquently at him out of a pair of brown eyes that, even at seven, Ivy had learned had a devastating effect on most of the small boys of her acquaintance.

Gerald turned crimson.

”I won't be your beau," he said.

”But you've got to be," said Ivy serenely.

”But you've got to be," said Geraldine, wagging her head at him.

”I won't be," shouted Gerald furiously. "And don't you give me any more of your lip, Ivy Trent.”

”You have to be," said Ivy stubbornly.

”You have to be," said Geraldine.

Ivy glared at her.

”You just shut up, Geraldine Raymond!”

”I guess I can talk in my own yard," said Geraldine.

”'Course she can," said Gerald. "And if YOU don't shut up, Ivy Trent, I'll just go over to your place and dig the eyes out of your doll.”

”My mother would spank you if you did," cried Ivy.

”Oh, she would, would she? Well, do you know what MY mother would do to her if she did? She'd just sock her on the nose.”

”Well, anyway, you've got to be my beau," said Ivy, returning calmly to the vital subject.

”I'll ... I'll duck your head in the rain-barrel," yelled the maddened Gerald ... "I'll rub your face in an ant's nest ...

I'll ... I'll tear them bows and sash off you ..." triumphantly, for this at least was feasible.

”Let's do it," squealed Geraldine.

They pounced like furies on the unfortunate Ivy, who kicked and shrieked and tried to bite but was no match for the two of them.

Together they hauled her across the yard and into the woodshed, where her howls could not be heard.

”Hurry," gasped Geraldine, "'fore Miss Shirley comes out.”

No time was to be lost. Gerald held Ivy's legs while Geraldine held her wrists with one hand and tore off her hair bow and shoulder bows and sash with the other.

”Let's paint her legs," shouted Gerald, his eyes falling on a couple of cans of paint left there by some workmen the previous week. "I'll hold her and you paint her.”

Ivy shrieked vainly in despair. Her stockings were pulled down and in a few moments her legs were adorned with wide stripes of red and green paint. In the process a good deal of the paint got spattered over her embroidered dress and new boots. As a finishing touch they filled her curls with burrs.

She was a pitiful sight when they finally released her. The twins howled mirthfully as they looked at her. Long weeks of airs and condescensions from Ivy had been avenged.

”Now you go home," said Gerald. "This'll teach you to go 'round telling people they have to be your beaus.”

”I'll tell my mother," wept Ivy. "I'll go straight home and tell my mother on you, you horrid, horrid, hateful, UGLY boy!”

”Don't you call my brother ugly, you stuck-up thing," cried Geraldine. "You and your shoulder bows! Here, take them with you.

WE don't want them cluttering up OUR woodshed.”

Ivy, pursued by the bows, which Geraldine pelted after her, ran sobbing out of the yard and down the street.

”Quick ... let's sneak up the back stairs to the bathroom and clean up 'fore Miss Shirley sees us," gasped Geraldine.

4

Mr. Grand had talked himself out and bowed himself away. Anne stood for a moment on the door-stone, wondering uneasily where her charges were. Up the street and in at the gate came a wrathful lady, leading a forlorn and still sobbing atom of humanity by the hand.

”Miss Shirley, where is Mrs. Raymond?" demanded Mrs. Trent.

”Mrs. Raymond is ...”

”I insist on seeing Mrs. Raymond. She shall see with her own eyes what HER children have done to poor, helpless, innocent Ivy. Look at her, Miss Shirley ... just LOOK at her!”

”Oh, Mrs. Trent ... I'm so sorry! It is all my fault. Mrs. Raymond is away ... and I promised to look after them ... but Mr. Grand came ...”

”No, it isn't your fault, Miss Shirley. I don't blame YOU. No one can cope with those diabolical children. The whole street knows them. If Mrs. Raymond isn't here, there is no point in my remaining. I shall take my poor child home. But Mrs. Raymond shall hear of this ... indeed she shall. Listen to THAT, Miss Shirley. Are they tearing each other limb from limb?”

”That" was a chorus of shrieks, howls and yells that came echoing down the stairs. Anne ran upwards. On the hall floor was a twisting, writhing, biting, tearing, scratching mass. Anne separated the furious twins with difficulty and, holding each firmly by a squirming shoulder, demanded the meaning of such behavior.

”She says I've got to be Ivy Trent's beau," snarled Gerald.

”So he has got to be," screamed Geraldine.

”I won't be!”

”You've got to be!”

”Children!" said Anne. Something in her tone quelled them. They looked at her and saw a Miss Shirley they had not seen before. For the first time in their young lives they felt the force of authority.

”You, Geraldine," said Anne quietly, "will go to bed for two hours.

You, Gerald, will spend the same length of time in the hall closet.

Not a word. You have behaved abominably and you must take your punishment. Your mother left you in my charge and you will obey me.”

”Then punish us TOGETHER," said Geraldine, beginning to cry.

”Yes ... you've no right to sep'rate us ... we've never been sep'rated," muttered Gerald.

”You will be now." Anne was still very quiet. Meekly Geraldine took off her clothes and got into one of the cots in their room.

Meekly Gerald entered the hall closet. It was a large airy closet with a window and a chair and nobody could have called the punishment an unduly severe one. Anne locked the door and sat down with a book by the hall window. At least, for two hours she would know a little peace of mind.

A peep at Geraldine a few minutes later showed her to be sound asleep, looking so lovely in her sleep that Anne almost repented her sternness. Well, a nap would be good for her, anyway. When she wakened she should be permitted to get up, even if the two hours had not expired.

At the end of an hour Geraldine was still sleeping. Gerald had been so quiet that Anne decided that he had taken his punishment like a man and might be forgiven. After all, Ivy Trent was a vain little monkey and had probably been very irritating.

Anne unlocked the closet door and opened it.

There was no Gerald in the closet. The window was open and the roof of the side porch was just beneath it. Anne's lips tightened.

She went downstairs and out into the yard. No sign of Gerald. She explored the woodshed and looked up and down the street. Still no sign.

She ran through the garden and through the gate into the lane that led through a patch of scrub woodland to the little pond in Mr. Robert Creedmore's field. Gerald was happily poling himself about on it in the small flat Mr. Creedmore kept there. Just as Anne broke through the trees Gerald's pole, which he had stuck rather deep in the mud, came away with unexpected ease at his third tug and Gerald promptly shot heels over head backward into the water.

Anne gave an involuntary shriek of dismay, but there was no real cause for alarm. The pond at its deepest would not come up to Gerald's shoulders and where he had gone over, it was little deeper than his waist. He had somehow got on his feet and was standing there rather foolishly, with his aureole plastered drippingly down on his head, when Anne's shriek was re-echoed behind her, and Geraldine, in her nightgown, tore through the trees and out to the edge of the little wooden platform to which the flat was commonly moored.

With a despairing shriek of "Gerald!" she took a flying leap that landed her with a tremendous splash by Gerald's side and almost gave him another ducking.

”Gerald, are you drowned?" cried Geraldine. "Are you drowned, darling?”

”No ... no ... darling," Gerald assured her through his chattering teeth.

They embraced and kissed passionately.

”Children, come in here this minute," said Anne.

They waded to the shore. The September day, warm in the morning, had turned cold and windy in the late afternoon. They shivered terribly ... their faces were blue. Anne, without a word of censure, hurried them home, got off their wet clothes and got them into Mrs. Raymond's bed, with hot-water bottles at their feet.

They still continued to shiver. Had they got a chill? Were they headed for pneumonia?

”You should have taken better care of us, Miss Shirley," said Gerald, still chattering.

”'Course you should," said Geraldine.

A distracted Anne flew downstairs and telephoned for the doctor.

By the time he came the twins had got warm, and he assured Anne that they were in no danger. If they stayed in bed till tomorrow they would be all right.

He met Mrs. Raymond coming up from the station on the way back, and it was a pale, almost hysterical lady who presently rushed in.

”Oh, Miss Shirley, how COULD you have let my little treasures get into such danger!”

”That's just what we told her, Mother," chorused the twins.

”I trusted you ... I told you ...”

”I hardly see how I was to blame, Mrs. Raymond," said Anne, with eyes as cold as gray mist. "You will realize this, I think, when you are calmer. The children are quite all right ... I simply sent for the doctor as a precautionary measure. If Gerald and Geraldine had obeyed me, this would not have happened.”

”I thought a TEACHER would have a little authority over children,” said Mrs. Raymond bitterly.

”Over children perhaps ... but not young demons," thought Anne.

She said only,

”Since you are here, Mrs. Raymond, I think I will go home. I don't think I can be of any further service and I have some school work to do this evening.”

As one child the twins hurled themselves out of bed and flung their arms around her.

”I hope there'll be a funeral every week," cried Gerald. "'Cause I like you, Miss Shirley, and I hope you'll come and look after us every time Mother goes away.”

”So do I," said Geraldine.

”I like you ever so much better than Miss Prouty.”

”Oh, ever so much," said Geraldine.

”Will you put us in a story?" demanded Gerald.

”Oh, do," said Geraldine.

”I'm sure you MEANT well," said Mrs. Raymond tremulously.

”Thank you," said Anne icily, trying to detach the twins' clinging arMs. ”Oh, don't let's quarrel about it," begged Mrs. Raymond, her enormous eyes filling with tears. "I CAN'T endure quarreling with anybody.”

”Certainly not." Anne was at her stateliest and Anne COULD be very stately. "I don't think there is the slightest necessity for quarreling. I think Gerald and Geraldine have quite enjoyed the day, though I don't suppose poor little Ivy Trent did.”

Anne went home feeling years older.

”To think I ever thought Davy was mischievous," she reflected.

She found Rebecca in the twilight garden gathering late pansies.

”Rebecca Dew, I used to think the adage, 'Children should be seen and not heard,' entirely too harsh. But I see its points now.”

”My poor darling. I'll get you a nice supper," said Rebecca Dew. And did NOT say, "I told you so.”

5

(Extract from letter to Gilbert.)

”Mrs. Raymond came down last night and, with tears in her eyes, begged me to forgive her for her 'hasty behavior.' 'If you knew a mother's heart, Miss Shirley, you would not find it hard to forgive.'

”I didn't find it hard to forgive as it was ... there is really something about Mrs. Raymond I can't help liking and she was a duck about the Dramatic Club. Just the same I did NOT say, 'Any Saturday you want to be away, I'll look after your offspring.' One learns by experience ... even a person so incorrigibly optimistic and trustful as myself.

”I find that a certain section of Summerside society is at present very much exercised over the loves of Jarvis Morrow and Dovie Westcott ... who, as Rebecca Dew says, have been engaged for over a year but can't get any 'forrader.' Aunt Kate, who is a distant aunt of Dovie's ... to be exact, I think she's the aunt of a second cousin of Dovie's on the mother's side ... is deeply interested in the affair because she thinks Jarvis is such an excellent match for Dovie ... and also, I suspect, because she hates Franklin Westcott and would like to see him routed, horse, foot and artillery. Not that Aunt Kate would admit she 'hated' anybody, but Mrs. Franklin Westcott was a very dear girlhood friend of hers and Aunt Kate solemnly avers that he murdered her.

”I am interested in it, partly because I'm very fond of Jarvis and moderately fond of Dovie and partly, I begin to suspect, because I am an inveterate meddler in other people's business ... always with excellent intentions, of course.

”The situation is briefly this:--Franklin Westcott is a tall, somber, hard-bitten merchant, close and unsociable. He lives in a big, old-fashioned house called Elmcroft just outside the town on the upper harbor road. I have met him once or twice but really know very little about him, except that he has an uncanny habit of saying something and then going off into a long chuckle of soundless laughter. He has never gone to church since hymns came in and he insists on having all his windows open even in winter storms. I confess to a sneaking sympathy with him in this, but I am probably the only person in Summerside who would. He has got into the habit of being a leading citizen and nothing municipal dares to be done without his approval.

”His wife is dead. It is common report that she was a slave, unable to call her soul her own. Franklin told her, it is said, when he brought her home that he would be master.

”Dovie, whose real name is Sibyl, is his only child ... a very pretty, plump, lovable girl of nineteen, with a red mouth always falling a little open over her small white teeth, glints of chestnut in her brown hair, alluring blue eyes and sooty lashes so long you wonder if they can be real. Jen Pringle says it is her eyes Jarvis is really in love with. Jen and I have actually talked the affair over. Jarvis is her favorite cousin.

”(In passing, you wouldn't believe how fond Jen is of me ... and I of Jen. She's really the cutest thing.)

”Franklin Westcott has never allowed Dovie to have any beaus and when Jarvis Morrow began to 'pay her attention,' he forbade him the house and told Dovie there was to be no more 'running round with that fellow.' But the mischief had been done. Dovie and Jarvis were already fathoms deep in love.

”Everybody in town is in sympathy with the lovers. Franklin Westcott is really unreasonable. Jarvis is a successful young lawyer, of good family, with good prospects, and a very nice, decent lad in himself.

”'Nothing could be more suitable,' declares Rebecca Dew. 'Jarvis Morrow could have ANY girl he wanted in Summerside. Franklin Westcott has just made up his mind that Dovie is to be an old maid.

He wants to be sure of a housekeeper when Aunt Maggie dies.'

”'Isn't there any one who has any influence with him?' I asked.

”'Nobody can argue with Franklin Westcott. He's too sarcastical.

And if you get the better of him he throws a tantrum. I've never seen him in one of his tantrums but I've heard Miss Prouty describe how he acted one time she was there sewing. He got mad over something ... nobody knew what. He just grabbed everything in sight and flung it out of the window. Milton's poems went flying clean over the fence into George Clarke's lily pond. He's always kind of had a grudge at life. Miss Prouty says her mother told her that the yelps of him when he was born passed anything she ever heard. I suppose God has some reason for making men like that, but you'd wonder. No, I can't see any chance for Jarvis and Dovie unless they elope. It's a kind of low-down thing to do, though there's been a terrible lot of romantic nonsense talked about eloping. But this is a case where anybody would excuse it.'

”I don't know what to do but I must do something. I simply can't sit still and see people make a mess of their lives under my very nose, no matter how many tantrums Franklin Westcott takes. Jarvis Morrow is not going to wait forever ... rumor has it that he is getting out of patience already and has been seen savagely cutting Dovie's name out of a tree on which he had cut it. There is an attractive Palmer girl who is reported to be throwing herself at his head, and his sister is said to have said that his mother has said that HER son has no need to dangle for years at any girl's apron-string.

”Really, Gilbert, I'm quite unhappy about it.

”It's moonlight tonight, beloved ... moonlight on the poplars of the yard ... moonlit dimples all over the harbor where a phantom ship is drifting outwards ... moonlight on the old graveyard ... on my own private valley ... on the Storm King. And it will be moonlight in Lover's Lane and on the Lake of Shining Waters and the old Haunted Wood and Violet Vale. There should be fairy dances on the hills tonight. But, Gilbert dear, moonlight with no one to share it is just ... just MOONSHINE.

”I wish I could take little Elizabeth for a walk. She loves a moonlight walk. We had some delightful ones when she was at Green Gables. But at home Elizabeth never sees moonlight except from the window.

”I am beginning to be a little worried about her, too. She is going on ten now and those two old ladies haven't the least idea what she needs, spiritually and emotionally. As long as she has good food and good clothes, they cannot imagine her needing anything more. And it will be worse with every succeeding year.

What kind of girlhood will the poor child have?”

6

Jarvis Morrow walked home from the High School Commencement with Anne and told her his woes.

”You'll have to run away with her, Jarvis. Everybody says so. As a rule I don't approve of elopements" ("I said that like a teacher of forty years' experience," thought Anne with an unseen grin) "but there are exceptions to all rules.”

”It takes two to make a bargain, Anne. I can't elope alone. Dovie is so frightened of her father, I can't get her to agree. And it wouldn't be an elopement ... really. She'd just come to my sister Julia's ... Mrs. Stevens, you know ... some evening.

I'd have the minister there and we could be married respectably enough to please anybody and go over to spend our honeymoon with Aunt Bertha in Kingsport. Simple as that. But I can't get Dovie to chance it. The poor darling has been giving in to her father's whims and crotchets so long, she hasn't any will-power left.”

”You'll simply have to make her do it, Jarvis.”

”Great Peter, you don't suppose I haven't tried, do you, Anne?

I've begged till I was black in the face. When she's with me she'll almost promise it, but the minute she's home again she sends me word she can't. It seems odd, Anne, but the poor child is really fond of her father and she can't bear the thought of his never forgiving her.”

”You must tell her she has to choose between her father and you.”

”And suppose she chooses him?”

”I don't think there's any danger of that.”

”You can never tell," said Jarvis gloomily. "But something has to be decided soon. I can't go on like this forever. I'm crazy about Dovie ... everybody in Summerside knows that. She's like a little red rose just out of reach ... I MUST reach her, Anne.”

”Poetry is a very good thing in its place, but it won't get you anywhere in this instance, Jarvis," said Anne coolly. "That sounds like a remark Rebecca Dew would make, but it's quite true. What you need in this affair is plain, hard common sense. Tell Dovie you're tired of shilly-shallying and that she must take you or leave you. If she doesn't care enough for you to leave her father for you, it's just as well for you to realize it.”

Jarvis groaned.

”You haven't been under the thumb of Franklin Westcott all your life, Anne. You haven't any realization of what he's like. Well, I'll make a last and final effort. As you say, if Dovie really cares for me she'll come to me ... and if she doesn't, I might as well know the worst. I'm beginning to feel I've made myself rather ridiculous.”

”If you're beginning to feel like that," thought Anne, "Dovie would better watch out.”

Dovie herself slipped into Windy Poplars a few evenings later to consult Anne.

”What shall I do, Anne? What CAN I do? Jarvis wants me to elope ... practically. Father is to be in Charlottetown one night next week attending a Masonic banquet ... and it WOULD be a good chance. Aunt Maggie would never suspect. Jarvis wants me to go to Mrs. Stevens' and be married there.”

”And why don't you, Dovie?”

”Oh, Anne, do you really think I ought to?" Dovie lifted a sweet, coaxing face. "Please, PLEASE make up my mind for me. I'm just distracted." Dovie's voice broke on a tearful note. "Oh, Anne, you don't know Father. He just hates Jarvis ... I can't imagine why ... can you? How can ANYBODY hate Jarvis? When he called on me the first time, Father forbade him the house and told him he'd set the dog on him if he ever came again ... our big bull. You know they never let go once they take hold. And he'll never forgive me if I run away with Jarvis.”

”You must choose between them, Dovie.”

”That's just what Jarvis said," wept Dovie. "Oh, he was so stern ... I never saw him like that before. And I can't ... I CAN'T li .. i .. i .. ve without him, Anne.”

”Then live with him, my dear girl. And don't call it eloping.

Just coming into Summerside and being married among his friends isn't eloping.”

”Father will call it so," said Dovie, swallowing a sob. "But I'm going to take your advice, Anne. I'm sure YOU wouldn't advise me to take any step that was wrong. I'll tell Jarvis to go ahead and get the license and I'll come to his sister's the night Father is in Charlottetown.”

Jarvis told Anne triumphantly that Dovie had yielded at last.

”I'm to meet her at the end of the lane next Tuesday night ... she won't have me go down to the house for fear Aunt Maggie might see me ... and we'll just step up to Julia's and be married in a brace of shakes. All my folks will be there, so it will make the poor darling quite comfortable. Franklin Westcott said I should never get his daughter. I'll show him he was mistaken.”

7

Tuesday was a gloomy day in late November. Occasional cold, gusty showers drifted over the hills. The world seemed a dreary outlived place, seen through a gray drizzle.

”Poor Dovie hasn't a very nice day for her wedding," thought Anne.

"Suppose ... suppose ..." she quaked and shivered ... "suppose it doesn't turn out well, after all. It will be my fault.

Dovie would never have agreed to it if I hadn't advised her to.

And suppose Franklin Westcott never forgives her. Anne Shirley, stop this! The weather is all that's the matter with you.”

By night the rain had ceased but the air was cold and raw and the sky lowering. Anne was in her tower room, correcting school papers, with Dusty Miller coiled up under her stove. There came a thunderous knock at the front door.

Anne ran down. Rebecca Dew poked an alarmed head out of her bedroom door. Anne motioned her back.

”It's some one at the FRONT DOOR!" said Rebecca hollowly.

”It's all right, Rebecca dear. At least, I'm afraid it's all wrong ... but, anyway, it's only Jarvis Morrow. I saw him from the side tower window and I know he wants to see me.”

”Jarvis Morrow!" Rebecca went back and shut her door. "This IS the last straw.”

”Jarvis, whatever is the matter?”

”Dovie hasn't come," said Jarvis wildly. "We've waited HOURS ... the minister's there ... and my friends ... and Julia has supper ready ... and Dovie hasn't come. I waited for her at the end of the lane till I was half crazy. I didn't dare go down to the house because I didn't know what had happened. That old brute of a Franklin Westcott may have come back. Aunt Maggie may have locked her up. But I've got to KNOW. Anne, you must go to Elmcroft and find out why she hasn't come.”

”Me?" said Anne incredulously and ungrammatically.

”Yes, you. There's no one else I can trust ... no one else who knows. Oh, Anne, don't fail me now. You've backed us up right along. Dovie says you are the only real friend she has. It isn't late ... only nine. Do go.”

”And be chewed up by the bulldog?" said Anne sarcastically.

”That old dog!" said Jarvis contemptuously. "He wouldn't say boo to a tramp. You don't suppose I was afraid of the dog, do you?

Besides, he's always shut up at night. I simply don't want to make any trouble for Dovie at home if they've found out. Anne, please!”

”I suppose I'm in for it," said Anne with a shrug of despair.

Jarvis drove her to the long lane of Elmcroft, but she would not let him come further.

”As you say, it might complicate matters for Dovie in case her father has come home.”

Anne hurried down the long, tree-bordered lane. The moon occasionally broke through the windy clouds, but for the most part it was gruesomely dark and she was not a little dubious about the dog.

There seemed to be only one light in Elmcroft ... shining from the kitchen window. Aunt Maggie herself opened the side door to Anne. Aunt Maggie was a very old sister of Franklin Westcott's, a little bent, wrinkled woman who had never been considered very bright mentally, though she was an excellent housekeeper.

”Aunt Maggie, is Dovie home?”

”Dovie's in bed," said Aunt Maggie stolidly.

”In bed? Is she sick?”

”Not as I knows on. She seemed to be in a dither all day. After supper she says she was tired and ups and goes to bed.”

”I must see her for a moment, Aunt Maggie. I ... I just want a little important information.”

”Better go up to her room then. It's the one on the right side as you go up.”

Aunt Maggie gestured to the stairs and waddled out to the kitchen.

Dovie sat up as Anne walked in, rather unceremoniously, after a hurried rap. As could be seen by the light of a tiny candle, Dovie was in tears, but her tears only exasperated Anne.

”Dovie Westcott, did you forget that you promised to marry Jarvis Morrow tonight ... TONIGHT?”

”No ... no ..." whimpered Dovie. "Oh, Anne, I'm so unhappy ... I've put in such a dreadful day. You can never, never know what I've gone through.”

”I know what poor Jarvis has gone through, waiting for two hours at that lane in the cold and drizzle," said Anne mercilessly.

”Is he ... is he very angry, Anne?”

”Just what you could notice" ... bitingly.

”Oh, Anne, I just got frightened. I never slept one wink last night. I couldn't go through with it ... I couldn't. I ... there's really something disgraceful about eloping, Anne. And I wouldn't get any nice presents ... well, not many, anyhow. I've always wanted to be m ... m ... arried in church ... with lovely decorations ... and a white veil and dress ... and s ... s ... ilver slippers!”

”Dovie Westcott, get right out of that bed ... AT ONCE ... and get dressed ... and come with me.”

”Anne ... it's too late now.”

”It isn't too late. And it's now or never ... you must know that, Dovie, if you've a grain of sense. You must know Jarvis Morrow will never speak to you again if you make a fool of him like this.”

”Oh, Anne, he'll forgive me when he knows ...”

”He won't. I know Jarvis Morrow. He isn't going to let you play indefinitely with his life. Dovie, do you want me to drag you bodily out of bed?”

Dovie shuddered and sighed.

”I haven't any suitable dress ...”

”You've half-a-dozen pretty dresses. Put on your rose taffeta.”

”And I haven't ANY trousseau. The Morrows will always cast that up to me....”

”You can get one afterwards. Dovie, didn't you weigh all these things in the balance before?”

”No ... no ... that's just the trouble. I only began to think of them last night. And Father ... you don't know Father, Anne....”

”Dovie. I'll give you just ten minutes to get dressed!”

Dovie was dressed in the specified time.

”This dress is g ... g ... getting too tight for me," she sobbed as Anne hooked her up. "If I get much fatter I don't suppose Jarvis will l ... l ... love me. I wish I was tall and slim and pale, like you, Anne. Oh, Anne, what if Aunt Maggie hears us!”

”She won't. She's shut in the kitchen and you know she's a little deaf. Here's your hat and coat and I've tumbled a few things into this bag.”

”Oh, my heart is fluttering so. Do I look terrible, Anne?”

”You look lovely," said Anne sincerely. Dovie's satin skin was rose and cream and all her tears hadn't spoiled her eyes. But Jarvis couldn't see her eyes in the dark and he was just a little annoyed with his adored fair one and rather cool during the drive to town.

”For Heaven's sake, Dovie, don't look so scared over having to marry me," he said impatiently as she came down the stairs of the Stevens house. "And don't cry ... it will make your nose swell.

It's nearly ten o'clock and we've got to catch the eleven o'clock train.”

Dovie was quite all right as soon as she found herself irrevocably married to Jarvis. What Anne rather cattishly described in a letter to Gilbert as "the honeymoon look" was already on her face.

”Anne, darling, we owe it all to you. We'll never forget it, will we, Jarvis? And, oh, Anne darling, will you do just one more thing for me? Please break the news to Father. He'll be home early tomorrow evening ... and SOMEBODY has got to tell him. You can smooth him over if anybody can. Please do your best to get him to forgive me.”

Anne felt she rather needed some smoothing-over herself just then; but she also felt rather uneasily responsible for the outcome of the affair, so she gave the required promise.

”Of course he'll be terrible ... simply terrible, Anne ... but he can't kill you," said Dovie comfortingly. "Oh, Anne, you don't know ...you can't realize ... how SAFE I feel with Jarvis.”

When Anne got home Rebecca Dew had reached the point where she had to satisfy her curiosity or go mad. She followed Anne to the tower room in her night-dress, with a square of flannel wrapped round her head, and heard the whole story.

”Well, I suppose this is what you might call 'life,'" she said sarcastically. "But I'm real glad Franklin Westcott has got his come-uppance at last, and so will Mrs. Captain MacComber be. But I don't envy you the job of breaking the news to him. He'll rage and utter vain things. If I was in your shoes, Miss Shirley, I wouldn't sleep one blessed wink tonight.”

”I feel that it won't be a very pleasant experience," agreed Anne ruefully.

8

Anne betook herself to Elmcroft the next evening, walking through the dream-like landscape of a November fog with a rather sinking sensation pervading her being. It was not exactly a delightful errand. As Dovie had said, of course Franklin Westcott wouldn't kill her. Anne did not fear physical violence ... though if all the tales told of him were true, he might throw something at her.

Would he gibber with rage? Anne had never seen a man gibbering with rage and she imagined it must be a rather unpleasant sight.

But he would probably exercise his noted gift for unpleasant sarcasm, and sarcasm, in man or woman, was the one weapon Anne dreaded. It always hurt her ... raised blisters on her soul that smarted for months.

”Aunt Jamesina used to say, 'Never, if you can help it, be the bringer of ill news,'" reflected Anne. "She was as wise in that as in everything else. Well, here I am.”

Elmcroft was an old-fashioned house with towers at every corner and a bulbous cupola on the roof. And at the top of the flight of front steps sat the dog.

”'If they take hold they never let go,'" remembered Anne. Should she try going round to the side door? Then the thought that Franklin Westcott might be watching her from the window braced her up. Never would she give him the satisfaction of seeing that she was afraid of his dog. Resolutely, her head held high, she marched up the steps, past the dog and rang the bell. The dog had not stirred. When Anne glanced at him over her shoulder he was apparently asleep.

Franklin Westcott, it transpired, was not at home but was expected every minute, as the Charlottetown train was due. Aunt Maggie convoyed Anne into what she called the "liberry" and left her there. The dog had got up and followed them in. He came and arranged himself at Anne's feet.

Anne found herself liking the "liberry." It was a cheerful, shabby room, with a fire glowing cozily in the grate, and bearskin rugs on the worn red carpet of the floor. Franklin Westcott evidently did himself well in regard to books and pipes.

Presently she heard him come in. He hung up his hat and coat in the hall: he stood in the library doorway with a very decided scowl on his brow. Anne recalled that her impression of him the first time she had seen him was that of a rather gentlemanly pirate, and she felt a repetition of it.

”Oh, it's you, is it?" he said rather gruffly. "Well, and what do you want?”

He had not even offered to shake hands with her. Of the two, Anne thought the dog had decidedly the better manners.

”Mr. Westcott, please hear me through patiently before ...”

”I am patient ... very patient. Proceed!”

Anne decided that there was no use beating about the bush with a man like Franklin Westcott.

”I have come to tell you," she said steadily, "that Dovie has married Jarvis Morrow.”

Then she waited for the earthquake. None came. Not a muscle of Franklin Westcott's lean brown face changed. He came in and sat down in the bandy-legged leather chair opposite Anne.

”When?" he said.

”Last night ... at his sister's," said Anne.

Franklin Westcott looked at her for a moment out of yellowish brown eyes deeply set under penthouses of grizzled eyebrow. Anne had a moment of wondering what he had looked like when he was a baby.

Then he threw back his head and went into one of his spasms of soundless laughter.

”You mustn't blame Dovie, Mr. Westcott," said Anne earnestly, recovering her powers of speech now that the awful revelation was over. "It wasn't her fault....”

”I'll bet it wasn't," said Franklin Westcott.

WAS he trying to be sarcastic?

”No, it was all mine," said Anne, simply and bravely. "I advised her to elo ... to be married ... I MADE her do it. So please forgive her, Mr. Westcott.”

Franklin Westcott coolly picked up a pipe and began to fill it.

”If you've managed to make Sibyl elope with Jarvis Morrow, Miss Shirley, you've accomplished more than I ever thought anybody could. I was beginning to be afraid she'd never have backbone enough to do it. And then I'd have had to back down ... and Lord, how we Westcotts hate backing down! You've saved my face, Miss Shirley, and I'm profoundly grateful to you.”

There was a very loud silence while Franklin Westcott tamped his tobacco down and looked with an amused twinkle at Anne's face.

Anne was so much at sea she didn't know what to say.

”I suppose," he said, "that you came here in fear and trembling to break the terrible news to me?”

”Yes," said Anne, a trifle shortly.

Franklin Westcott chuckled soundlessly.

”You needn't have. You couldn't have brought me more welcome news.

Why, I picked Jarvis Morrow out for Sibyl when they were kids.

Soon as the other boys began taking notice of her, I shooed them off. That gave Jarvis his first notion of her. He'd show the old man! But he was so popular with the girls that I could hardly believe the incredible luck when he did really take a genuine fancy to her. Then I laid out my plan of campaign. I knew the Morrows root and branch. You don't. They're a good family, but the men don't want things they can get easily. And they're determined to get a thing when they're told they can't. They always go by contraries. Jarvis' father broke three girls' hearts because their families threw them at his head. In Jarvis' case I knew exactly what would happen. Sibyl would fall head over heels in love with him ... and he'd be tired of her in no time. I knew he wouldn't keep on wanting her if she was too easy to get. So I forbade him to come near the place and forbade Sibyl to have a word to say to him and generally played the heavy parent to perfection. Talk about the charm of the uncaught! It's nothing to the charm of the uncatchable. It all worked out according to schedule, but I struck a snag in Sibyl's spinelessness. She's a nice child but she IS spineless. I've been thinking she'd never have the pluck to marry him in my teeth. Now, if you've got your breath back, my dear young lady, unbosom yourself of the whole story.”

Anne's sense of humor had again come to her rescue. She could never refuse an opportunity for a good laugh, even when it was on herself. And she suddenly felt very well acquainted with Franklin Westcott.

He listened to the tale, taking quiet, enjoyable whiffs of his pipe. When Anne had finished he nodded comfortably.

”I see I'm more in your debt even than I thought. She'd never have got up the courage to do it if it hadn't been for you. And Jarvis Morrow wouldn't have risked being made a fool of twice ... not if I know the breed. Gosh, but I've had a narrow escape! I'm yours to command for life. You're a real brick to come here as you did, believing all the yarns gossip told you. You've been told a- plenty, haven't you now?”

Anne nodded. The bulldog had got his head on her lap and was snoring blissfully.

”Every one agreed that you were cranky, crabbed and crusty," she said candidly.

”And I suppose they told you I was a tyrant and made my poor wife's life miserable and ruled my family with a rod of iron?”

”Yes; but I really did take all that with a grain of salt, Mr. Westcott. I felt that Dovie couldn't be as fond of you as she was if you were as dreadful as gossip painted you.”

”Sensible gal! My wife was a happy woman, Miss Shirley. And when Mrs. Captain MacComber tells you I bullied her to death, tick her off for me. Excuse my common way. Mollie was pretty ... prettier than Sibyl. Such a pink-and-white skin ... such golden- brown hair ... such dewy blue eyes! She was the prettiest woman in Summerside. Had to be. I couldn't have stood it if a man had walked into church with a handsomer wife than me. I ruled my household as a man should but NOT tyrannically. Oh, of course, I had a spell of temper now and then, but Mollie didn't mind them after she got used to them. A man has a right to have a row with his wife now and then, hasn't he? Women get tired of monotonous husbands. Besides, I always gave her a ring or a necklace or some such gaud after I calmed down. There wasn't a woman in Summerside had more nice jewelry. I must get it out and give it to Sibyl.”

Anne went wicked.

”What about Milton's poems?”

”Milton's poems? Oh, that! It wasn't Milton's poems ... it was Tennyson's. I reverence Milton but I can't abide Alfred. He's too sickly sweet. Those last two lines of Enoch Arden made me so mad one night, I did fire the book through the window. But I picked it up the next day for the sake of the Bugle Song. I'd forgive anybody anything for that. It DIDN'T go into George Clarke's lily pond - that was old Prouty's embroidery. You're not going? Stay and have a bite of supper with a lonely old fellow robbed of his only whelp.”

”I'm really sorry I can't, Mr. Westcott, but I have to attend a meeting of the staff tonight.”

”Well, I'll be seeing you when Sibyl comes back. I'll have to fling a party for them, no doubt. Good gosh, what a relief this has been to my mind. You've no idea how I'd have hated to have to back down and say, 'Take her.' NOW all I have to do is to pretend to be heart-broken and resigned and forgive her sadly for the sake of her poor mother. I'll do it beautifully ... Jarvis must never suspect. Don't YOU give the show away.”

”I won't," promised Anne.

Franklin Westcott saw her courteously to the door. The bulldog sat up on his haunches and cried after her.

Franklin Westcott took his pipe out of his mouth at the door and tapped her on the shoulder with it.

”Always remember," he said solemnly, "there's more than one way to skin a cat. It can be done so that the animal'll never know he's lost his hide. Give my love to Rebecca Dew. A nice old puss, if you stroke her the right way. And thank you ... thank you.”

Anne betook herself home, through the soft, calm evening. The fog had cleared, the wind had shifted and there was a look of frost in the pale green sky.

”People told me I didn't know Franklin Westcott," reflected Anne.

"They were right ... I didn't. And neither did they.”

”How did he take it?" Rebecca Dew was keen to know. She had been on tenterhooks during Anne's absence.

”Not so badly after all," said Anne confidentially . "I THINK he'll forgive Dovie in time.”

”I never did see the beat of you, Miss Shirley, for talking people round," said Rebecca Dew admiringly. "You have certainly got a way with you.”

”'Something attempted, something done has earned a night's repose,'" quoted Anne wearily as she climbed the three steps into her bed that night. "But just wait till the next person asks my advice about eloping!”

9

(Extract from letter to Gilbert.)

”I am invited to have supper tomorrow night with a lady of Summerside. I know you won't believe me, Gilbert, when I tell you her name is Tomgallon ... Miss Minerva Tomgallon. You'll say I've been reading Dickens too long and too late.

”Dearest, aren't you glad your name is Blythe? I am sure I could never marry you if it were Tomgallon. Fancy ... Anne Tomgallon!

No, you can't fancy it.

”This is the ultimate honor Summerside has to bestow ... an invitation to Tomgallon House. It has no other name. No nonsense about Elms or Chestnuts or Crofts for the Tomgallons.

”I understand they were the 'Royal Family' in old days. The Pringles are mushrooms compared to them. And now there is left of them all only Miss Minerva, the sole survivor of six generations of Tomgallons. She lives alone in a huge house on Queen Street ... a house with great chimneys, green shutters and the only stained- glass window in a private house in town. It is big enough for four families and is occupied only by Miss Minerva, a cook and a maid.

It is very well kept up, but somehow whenever I walk past it I feel that it is a place which life has forgotten.

”Miss Minerva goes out very little, excepting to the Anglican church, and I had never met her until a few weeks ago, when she came to a meeting of staff and trustees to make a formal gift of her father's valuable library to the school. She looks exactly as you would expect a Minerva Tomgallon to look ... tall and thin, with a long, narrow white face, a long thin nose and a long thin mouth. That doesn't sound very attractive, yet Miss Minerva is quite handsome in a stately, aristocratic style and is always dressed with great, though somewhat old-fashioned, elegance. She was quite a beauty when she was young, Rebecca Dew tells me, and her large black eyes are still full of fire and dark luster. She suffers from no lack of words, and I don't think I ever heard any one enjoy making a presentation speech more.

”Miss Minerva was especially nice to me, and yesterday I received a formal little note inviting me to have supper with her. When I told Rebecca Dew, she opened her eyes as widely as if I had been invited to Buckingham Palace.

”'It's a great honor to be asked to Tomgallon House,' she said in a rather awed tone. I never heard of Miss Minerva asking any of the principals there before. To be sure, they were all men, so I suppose it would hardly have been proper. Well, I hope she won't talk you to death, Miss Shirley. The Tomgallons could all talk the hind leg off a cat. And they liked to be in the front of things.

Some folks think the reason Miss Minerva lives so retired is because now that she's old she can't take the lead as she used to do and she won't play second fiddle to any one. What are you going to wear, Miss Shirley? I'd like to see you wear your cream silk gauze with your black velvet bows. It's so dressy.'

”'I'm afraid it would be rather too "dressy" for a quiet evening out,' I said.

”'Miss Minerva would like it, I think. The Tomgallons all liked their company to be nicely arrayed. They say Miss Minerva's grandfather once shut the door in the face of a woman who had been asked there to a ball, because she came in her second-best dress.

He told her her best was none too good for the Tomgallons.'

”Nevertheless, I think I'll wear my green voile, and the ghosts of the Tomgallons must make the best of it.

”I'm going to confess something I did last week, Gilbert. I suppose you'll think I'm meddling again in other folks' business.

But I HAD to do something. I'll not be in Summerside next year and I can't bear the thought of leaving little Elizabeth to the mercy of those two unloving old women who are growing bitterer and narrower every year. What kind of a girlhood will she have with them in that gloomy old place?

”'I wonder,' she said to me wistfully, not long ago, 'what it would be like to have a grandmother you weren't afraid of.'

”This is what I did: I WROTE TO HER FATHER. He lives in Paris and I didn't know his address, but Rebecca Dew had heard and remembered the name of the firm whose branch he runs there, so I took a chance and addressed him in care of it. I wrote as diplomatic a letter as I could, but I told him plainly that he ought to take Elizabeth. I told him how she longs for and dreams about him and that Mrs. Campbell was really too severe and strict with her. Perhaps nothing will come of it, but if I hadn't written I would be forever haunted by the conviction that I ought to have done it.

”What made me think of it was Elizabeth telling me very seriously one day that she had 'written a letter to God,' asking Him to bring her father back to her and make him love her. She said she had stopped on the way home from school, in the middle of a vacant lot, and read it, looking up at the sky. I knew she had done something odd, because Miss Prouty had seen the performance and told me about it when she came to sew for the widows next day. She thought Elizabeth was getting 'queer' ... 'talking to the sky like that.'

”I asked Elizabeth about it and she told me.

”'I thought God might pay more attention to a letter than a prayer,' she said. 'I've prayed so long. He must get so many prayers.'

”That night I wrote to her father.

”Before I close I must tell you about Dusty Miller. Some time ago Aunt Kate told me that she felt she must find another home for him because Rebecca Dew kept complaining about him so that she felt she really could not endure it any longer. One evening last week when I came home from school there was no Dusty Miller. Aunt Chatty said they had given him to Mrs. Edmonds, who lives on the other side of Summerside from Windy Poplars. I felt sorry, for Dusty Miller and I have been excellent friends. 'But, at least,' I thought, 'Rebecca Dew will be a happy woman.'

”Rebecca was away for the day, having gone to the country to help a relative hook rugs. When she returned at dusk nothing was said, but at bedtime when she was calling Dusty Miller from the back porch Aunt Kate said quietly:

”'You needn't call Dusty Miller, Rebecca. He is not here. We have found a home for him elsewhere. You will not be bothered with him any more.'

”If Rebecca Dew could have turned pale she would have done so.

”'Not here? Found a home for him? Good grief! Isn't this his home?'

”'We have given him to Mrs. Edmonds. She has been very lonely since her daughter married and thought a nice cat would be company.'

”Rebecca Dew came in and shut the door. She looked very wild.

”'This IS the last straw,' she said. And indeed it seemed to be.

I've never seen Rebecca Dew's eyes emit such sparkles of rage.

'I'll be leaving at the end of the month, Mrs. MacComber, and sooner if you can be suited.'

”'But, Rebecca,' said Aunt Kate in bewilderment, 'I don't understand. You've always disliked Dusty Miller. Only last week you said ...'

”'That's right,' said Rebecca bitterly. 'Cast things up to me!

Don't have any regard for my feelings! That poor dear Cat! I've waited on him and pampered him and got up nights to let him in.

And now he's been spirited away behind my back without so much as a by-your-leave. And to Sarah Edmonds, who wouldn't buy a bit of liver for the poor creature if he was dying for it! The only company I had in the kitchen!'

”'But, Rebecca, you've always ...'

”'Oh, keep on ... keep on! Don't let ME get a word in edgewise, Mrs. MacComber. I've raised that cat from a kitten ... I've looked after his health and his morals ... and what for? That Jane Edmonds should have a well-trained cat for company. Well, I hope she'll stand out in the frost at nights, as I've done, calling that cat for HOURS rather than leave him out to freeze, but I doubt it ... I seriously doubt it. Well, Mrs. MacComber, all I hope is that your conscience won't trouble you the next time it's ten below zero. I won't sleep a wink when it happens, but of course THAT doesn't matter an old shoe to any one.'

”'Rebecca, if you would only ...'

”'Mrs. MacComber, I am not a worm, neither am I a doormat. Well, this has been a lesson for me ... a valuable lesson! Never again will I allow my affections to twine themselves around an animal of any kind or description. And if you'd done it open and aboveboard ... but behind my back ... taking advantage of me like that! I never heard of anything so dirt mean! But who am I that I should expect MY feelings to be considered!'

”'Rebecca,' said Aunt Kate desperately, 'if you want Dusty Miller back we can get him back.'

”'Why didn't you say so before then?' demanded Rebecca Dew. 'And I doubt it. Jane Edmonds has got her claws in him. Is it likely she'll give him up?'

”'I think she will,' said Aunt Kate, who had apparently reverted to jelly. 'And if he comes back you won't leave us, will you, Rebecca?'

”'I may think it over,' said Rebecca, with the air of one making a tremendous concession.

”Next day, Aunt Chatty brought Dusty Miller home in a covered basket. I caught a glance exchanged between her and Aunt Kate after Rebecca had carried Dusty Miller out to the kitchen and shut the door. I wonder! Was it all a deep-laid plot on the part of the widows, aided and abetted by Jane Edmonds?

”Rebecca has never uttered a word of complaint about Dusty Miller since and there is a veritable clang of victory in her voice when she shouts for him at bedtime. It sounds as if she wanted all Summerside to know that Dusty Miller is back where he belongs and that she has once more got the better of the widows!”

10

It was on a dark, windy March evening, when even the clouds scudding over the sky seemed in a hurry, that Anne skimmed up the triple flight of broad, shallow steps flanked by stone urns and stonier lions, that led to the massive front door of Tomgallon House. Usually, when she had passed it after dark it was somber and grim, with a dim twinkle of light in one or two windows. But now it blazed forth brilliantly, even the wings on either side being lighted up, as if Miss Minerva were entertaining the whole town. Such an illumination in her honor rather overcame Anne. She almost wished she had put on her cream gauze.

Nevertheless she looked very charming in her green voile and perhaps Miss Minerva, meeting her in the hall, thought so, for her face and voice were very cordial. Miss Minerva herself was regal in black velvet, a diamond comb in the heavy coils of her iron-gray hair and a massive cameo brooch surrounded by a braid of some departed Tomgallon's hair. The whole costume was a little outmoded, but Miss Minerva wore it with such a grand air that it seemed as timeless as royalty's.

”Welcome to Tomgallon House, my dear," she said, giving Anne a bony hand, likewise well sprinkled with diamonds. "I am very glad to have you here as my guest.”

”I am ...”

”Tomgallon House was always the resort of beauty and youth in the old days. We used to have a great many parties and entertained all the visiting celebrities," said Miss Minerva, leading Anne to the big staircase over a carpet of faded red velvet. "But all is changed now. I entertain very little. I am the last of the Tomgallons. Perhaps it is as well. Our family, my dear, are UNDER A CURSE.”

Miss Minerva infused such a gruesome tinge of mystery and horror into her tones that Anne almost shivered. The Curse of the Tomgallons! What a title for a story!

”This is the stair down which my Great-grandfather Tomgallon fell and broke his neck the night of his house-warming given to celebrate the completion of his new home. This house was consecrated by human blood. He fell THERE ..." Miss Minerva pointed a long white finger so dramatically at a tiger-skin rug in the hall that Anne could almost see the departed Tomgallon dying on it. She really did not know what to say, so said inanely, "Oh!”

Miss Minerva ushered her along a hall, hung with portraits and photographs of faded loveliness, with the famous stained-glass window at its end, into a large, high-ceilinged, very stately guest-room. The high walnut bed, with its huge headboard, was covered with so gorgeous a silken quilt that Anne felt it was a desecration to lay her coat and hat on it.

”You have very beautiful hair, my dear," said Miss Minerva admiringly. "I always liked red hair. My Aunt Lydia had it ... she was the only red-haired Tomgallon. One night when she was brushing it in the north room it caught fire from her candle and she ran shrieking down the hall wrapped in flames. All part of the Curse, my dear ... all part of the Curse.”

”Was she ...”

”No, she wasn't burned to death, but she lost all her beauty. She was very handsome and vain. She never went out of the house from that night to the day of her death and she left directions that her coffin was to be shut so that no one might see her scarred face.

Won't you sit down to remove your rubbers, my dear? This is a very comfortable chair. My sister died in it from a stroke. She was a widow and came back home to live after her husband's death. Her little girl was scalded in our kitchen with a pot of boiling water.

Wasn't that a tragic way for a child to die?”

”Oh, how ...”

”But at least we knew HOW it died. My half-aunt Eliza ... at least, she would have been my half-aunt if she had lived ... just DISAPPEARED when she was six years old. Nobody ever knew what became of her.”

”But surely ...”

”EVERY search was made but nothing was ever discovered. It was said that her mother ... my step-grandmother ... had been very cruel to an orphan niece of my grandfather's who was being brought up here. She locked it up in the closet at the head of the stairs, one hot summer day, for punishment and when she went to let it out she found it ... DEAD. Some people thought it was a judgment on her when her own child vanished. But I think it was just Our Curse.”

”Who put ... ?”

”What a high instep you have, my dear! My instep used to be admired too. It was said a stream of water could run under it ... the test of an aristocrat.”

Miss Minerva modestly poked a slipper from under her velvet skirt and revealed what was undoubtedly a very handsome foot.

”It certainly ...”

”Would you like to see over the house, my dear, before we have supper? It used to be the Pride of Summerside. I suppose everything is very old-fashioned now, but perhaps there are a few things of interest. That sword hanging by the head of the stairs belonged to my great-great-grandfather who was an officer in the British Army and received a grant of land in Prince Edward Island for his services. He never lived in this house, but my great- great-grandmother did for a few weeks. She did not long survive her son's tragic death.”

Miss Minerva marched Anne ruthlessly over the whole huge house, full of great square rooms ... ballroom, conservatory, billiard- room, three drawing-rooms, breakfast-room, no end of bedrooms and an enormous attic. They were all splendid and dismal.

”Those were my Uncle Ronald and my Uncle Reuben," said Miss Minerva, indicating two worthies who seemed to be scowling at each other from the opposite sides of a fireplace. "They were twins and they hated each other bitterly from birth. The house rang with their quarrels. It darkened their mother's whole life. And during their final quarrel in this very room, while a thunderstorm was going on, Reuben was killed by a flash of lightning. Ronald never got over it. He was a HAUNTED MAN from that day. His wife," Miss Minerva added reminiscently, "swallowed her wedding-ring.”

”What an ex ...”

”Ronald thought it was very careless and wouldn't have anything done. A prompt emetic might have ... but it was never heard of again. It spoiled her life. She always felt so UNmarried without a wedding-ring.”

”What a beautiful ...”

”Oh, yes, that was my Aunt Emilia ... not my aunt really, of course. Just the wife of Uncle Alexander. She was noted for her spiritual look, but she poisoned her husband with a stew of mushrooms ... toadstools really. We always pretended it was an accident, because a murder is such a messy thing to have in a family, but we all knew the truth. Of course she married him against her will. She was a gay young thing and he was far too old for her. December and May, my dear. Still, that did not really justify toadstools. She went into a decline soon afterwards. They are buried together in Charlottetown ... all the Tomgallons bury in Charlottetown. This was my Aunt Louise. She drank laudanum.

The doctor pumped it out and saved her, but we all felt we could never trust her again. It was really rather a relief when she died respectably of pneumonia. Of course, some of us didn't blame her much. You see, my dear, her husband had spanked her.”

”Spanked ...”

”Exactly. There are really some things no gentleman should do, my dear, and one of them is spank his wife. Knock her down ... possibly ... but spank her, never! I would like," said Miss Minerva, very majestically, "to see the man who would dare to spank ME.”

Anne felt she would like to see him also. She realized that there are limits to the imagination after all. By no stretch of hers could she imagine a husband spanking Miss Minerva Tomgallon.

”This is the ballroom. Of course it is never used now. But there have been any number of balls here. The Tomgallon balls were famous. People came from all over the Island to them. That chandelier cost my father five hundred dollars. My Great-aunt Patience dropped dead while dancing here one night ... right there in that corner. She had fretted a great deal over a man who had disappointed her. I cannot imagine any girl breaking her heart over a man. Men," said Miss Minerva, staring at a photograph of her father ... a person with bristling side-whiskers and a hawk- like nose ... "have always seemed to me such TRIVIAL creatures.”

11

The dining-room was in keeping with the rest of the house. There was another ornate chandelier, an equally ornate, gilt-framed mirror over the mantelpiece, and a table beautifully set with silver and crystal and old Crown Derby. The supper, served by a rather grim and ancient maid, was bountiful and exceedingly good, and Anne's healthy young appetite did full justice to it. Miss Minerva kept silence for a time and Anne dared say nothing for fear of starting another avalanche of tragedies. Once a large, sleek black cat came into the room and sat down by Miss Minerva with a hoarse meow. Miss Minerva poured a saucer of cream and set it down before him. She seemed so much more human after this that Anne lost a good deal of her awe of the last of the Tomgallons.

”Do have some more of the peaches, my dear. You've eaten nothing ... positively nothing.”

”Oh, Miss Tomgallon, I've enjoyed ...”

”The Tomgallons always set a good table," said Miss Minerva complacently. "My Aunt Sophia made the best sponge-cake I ever tasted. I think the only person my father ever really hated to see come to our house was his sister Mary, because she had such a poor appetite. She just minced and tasted. He took it as a personal insult. Father was a very unrelenting man. He never forgave my brother Richard for marrying against his will. He ordered him out of the house and he was never allowed to enter it again. Father always repeated the Lord's Prayer at family worship every morning, but after Richard flouted him he always left out the sentence, 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.' I can see him," said Miss Minerva dreamily, "kneeling there leaving it out.”

After supper they went to the smallest of the three drawing-rooms ... which was still rather big and grim ... and spent the evening before the huge fire ... a pleasant, friendly enough fire.

Anne crocheted at a set of intricate doilies and Miss Minerva knitted away at an afghan and kept up what was practically a monologue composed in great part of colorful and gruesome Tomgallon history.

”This is a house of tragical memories, my dear.”

”Miss Tomgallon, didn't ANY pleasant thing ever happen in this house?" asked Anne, achieving a complete sentence by a mere fluke.

Miss Minerva had had to stop talking long enough to blow her nose.

”Oh, I suppose so," said Miss Minerva, as if she hated to admit it.

"Yes, of course, we used to have gay times here when I was a girl.

They tell me you're writing a book about every one in Summerside, my dear.”

”I'm not ... there isn't a word of truth ...”

”Oh!" Miss Minerva was plainly a little disappointed. "Well, if ever you do you are at liberty to use any of our stories you like, perhaps with the names disguised. And now what do you say to a game of parchesi?”

”I'm afraid it is time I was going....”

”Oh, my dear, you can't go home tonight. It's pouring cats and dogs ... and listen to the wind. I don't keep a carriage now ... I have so little use for one ... and you can't walk half a mile in that deluge. You must be my guest for the night.”

Anne was not sure she wanted to spend a night in Tomgallon House.

But neither did she want to walk to Windy Poplars in a March tempest. So they had their game of parchesi ... in which Miss Minerva was so interested that she forgot to talk about horrors ... and then a "bedtime snack." They ate cinnamon toast and drank cocoa out of old Tomgallon cups of marvelous thinness and beauty.

Finally Miss Minerva took her up to a guest-room which Anne at first was glad to see was not the one where Miss Minerva's sister had died of a stroke.

”This is Aunt Annabella's room," said Miss Minerva, lighting the candles in the silver candlesticks on a rather pretty green dressing-table and turning out the gas. Matthew Tomgallon had blown out the gas one night ... whereupon exit Matthew Tomgallon.

"She was the handsomest of all the Tomgallons. That's her picture above the mirror. Do you notice what a proud mouth she had? She made that crazy quilt on the bed. I hope you'll be comfortable, my dear. Mary has aired the bed and put two hot bricks in it. And she has aired this night-dress for you ..." pointing to an ample flannel garment hanging over a chair and smelling strongly of moth balls. "I hope it will fit you. It hasn't been worn since poor Mother died in it. Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you ..." Miss Minerva turned back at the door ... "this is the room Oscar Tomgallon came back to life in--after being thought dead for two days. They DIDN'T WANT HIM TO, you know--THAT was the tragedy. I hope you'll sleep well, my dear.”

Anne did not know if she could sleep at all or not. Suddenly there seemed something strange and alien in the room ... something a little hostile. But is there not something strange about any room that has been occupied through generations? Death has lurked in it ... love has been rosy red in it ... births have been here ... all the passions ... all the hopes. It is full of wraths.

But this was really rather a terrible old house, full of the ghosts of dead hatreds and heart-breaks, crowded with dark deeds that had never been dragged into light and were still festering in its corners and hidy-holes. Too many women must have wept here. The wind wailed very eerily in the spruces by the window. For a moment Anne felt like running out, storm or no storm.

Then she took herself resolutely in hand and commanded common sense. If tragic and dreadful things had happened here, many shadowy years agone, amusing and lovely things must have happened, too. Gay and pretty girls had danced here and talked over their charming secrets; dimpled babies had been born here; there had been weddings and balls and music and laughter. The sponge-cake lady must have been a comfortable creature and the unforgiven Richard a gallant lover.

”I'll think on these things and go to bed. What a quilt to sleep under! I wonder if I'll be as crazy as it by morning. And this is a spare room! I've never forgotten what a thrill it used to give me to sleep in any one's spare room.”

Anne uncoiled and brushed her hair under the very nose of Annabella Tomgallon, who stared down at her with a face in which there were pride and vanity, and something of the insolence of great beauty.

Anne felt a little creepy as she looked in the mirror. Who knew what faces might look out of it at her? All the tragic and haunted ladies who had ever looked into it, perhaps. She bravely opened the closet door, half expecting any number of skeletons to tumble out, and hung up her dress. She sat down calmly on a rigid chair, which looked as if it would be insulted if anybody sat on it, and took off her shoes. Then she put on the flannel nightgown, blew out the candles and got into the bed, pleasantly warm from Mary's bricks. For a little while the rain streaming on the panes and the shriek of the wind around the old eaves prevented her from sleeping. Then she forgot all the Tomgallon tragedies in dreamless slumber until she found herself looking at dark fir boughs against a red sunrise.

”I've enjoyed having you so much, my dear," said Miss Minerva when Anne left after breakfast. "We've had a real cheerful visit, haven't we? Though I've lived so long alone I've almost forgotten how to talk. And I need not say what a delight it is to meet a really charming and unspoiled young girl in this frivolous age. I didn't tell you yesterday but it was my birthday, and it was very pleasant to have a bit of youth in the house. There is nobody to remember my birthday now ..." Miss Minerva gave a faint sigh ... "and once there were so many.”

”Well, I suppose you heard a pretty grim chronicle," said Aunt Chatty that night.

”Did all those things Miss Minerva told me really happen, Aunt Chatty?”

”Well, the queer thing is, they did," said Aunt Chatty. "It's a curious thing, Miss Shirley, but a lot of awful things did happen to the Tomgallons.”

”I don't know that there were many more than happen in any large family in the course of six generations," said Aunt Kate.

”Oh, I think there were. They really did seem under a curse. So many of them died sudden or violent deaths. Of course there is a streak of insanity in them ... every one knows that. That was curse enough ... but I've heard an old story ... I can't recall the details ... of the carpenter who built the house cursing it.

Something about the contract ... old Paul Tomgallon held him to it and it ruined him, it cost so much more than he had figured.”

”Miss Minerva seems rather proud of the curse," said Anne.

”Poor old thing, it's all she has," said Rebecca Dew.

Anne smiled to think of the stately Miss Minerva being referred to as a poor old thing. But she went to the tower room and wrote to Gilbert:

”I thought Tomgallon House was a sleepy old place where nothing ever happened. Well, perhaps things don't happen now but evidently they DID. Little Elizabeth is always talking of Tomorrow. But the old Tomgallon house is Yesterday. I'm glad I don't live in Yesterday ... that Tomorrow is still a friend.

”Of course I think Miss Minerva has all the Tomgallon liking for the spotlight and gets no end of satisfaction out of her tragedies.

They are to her what husband and children are to other women. But, oh, Gilbert, no matter how old we get in years to come, don't let's ever see life as ALL tragedy and revel in it. I think I'd hate a house one hundred and twenty years old. I hope when we get our house of dreams it will either be new, ghostless and traditionless, or, if that can't be, at least have been occupied by reasonably happy people. I shall never forget my night at Tomgallon House.

And for once in my life I've met a person who could talk me down.”

12

Little Elizabeth Grayson had been born expecting things to happen.

That they seldom happened under the watchful eyes of Grandmother and the Woman never brighted her expectations in the least. Things were just bound to happen some time ... if not today, then tomorrow.

When Miss Shirley came to live at Windy Poplars Elizabeth felt that Tomorrow must be very close at hand and her visit to Green Gables was like a foretaste of it. But now in the June of Miss Shirley's third and last year in Summerside High, little Elizabeth's heart had descended into the nice buttoned boots Grandmother always got for her to wear. Many children at the school where she went envied little Elizabeth those beautiful buttoned kid boots. But little Elizabeth cared nothing about buttoned boots when she could not tread the way to freedom in them. And now her adored Miss Shirley was going away from her forever. At the end of June she would be leaving Summerside and going back to that beautiful Green Gables.

Little Elizabeth simply could not bear the thought of it. It was of no use for Miss Shirley to promise that she would have her down to Green Gables in the summer before she was married. Little Elizabeth knew somehow that Grandmother would not let her go again.

Little Elizabeth knew Grandmother had never really approved of her intimacy with Miss Shirley.

”It will be the end of everything, Miss Shirley," she sobbed.

”Let's hope, darling, that it is only a new beginning," said Anne cheerfully. But she felt downcast herself. No word had ever come from little Elizabeth's father. Either her letter had never reached him or he did not care. And, if he did not care, what was to become of Elizabeth? It was bad enough now in her childhood, but what would it be later on?

”Those two old dames will boss her to death," Rebecca Dew had said.

Anne felt that there was more truth than elegance in her remark.

Elizabeth knew that she was "bossed." And she especially resented being bossed by the Woman. She did not like it in Grandmother, of course, but one conceded reluctantly that perhaps a grandmother had a certain right to boss you. But what right had the Woman?

Elizabeth always wanted to ask her that right out. She WOULD do it some time ... when Tomorrow came. And oh, how she would enjoy the look on the Woman's face!

Grandmother would never let little Elizabeth go out walking by herself ... for fear, she said, that she might be kidnaped by gypsies. A child had been once, forty years before. It was very seldom gypsies came to the Island now, and little Elizabeth felt that it was only an excuse. But why should Grandmother care whether she were kidnaped or not? Elizabeth knew that Grandmother and the Woman didn't love her at all. Why, they never even spoke of her by her name if they could help it. It was always "the child." How Elizabeth hated to be called "the child" just as they might have spoken of "the dog" or "the cat" if there had been one.

But when Elizabeth had ventured a protest, Grandmother's face had grown dark and angry and little Elizabeth had been punished for impertinence, while the Woman looked on, well content. Little Elizabeth often wondered just why the Woman hated her. Why should any one hate you when you were so small? Could you be worth hating? Little Elizabeth did not know that the mother whose life she had cost had been that bitter old woman's darling and, if she had known, could not have understood what perverted shapes thwarted love can take.

Little Elizabeth hated the gloomy, splendid Evergreens, where everything seemed unacquainted with her although she had lived in it all her life. But after Miss Shirley had come to Windy Poplars everything had changed magically. Little Elizabeth lived in a world of romance after Miss Shirley's coming. There was beauty wherever you looked. Fortunately Grandmother and the Woman couldn't prevent you from looking, though Elizabeth had no doubt they would if they could. The short walks along the red magic of the harbor road, which she was all too rarely permitted to share with Miss Shirley, were the high lights in her shadowy life. She loved everything she saw ... the far-away lighthouse painted in odd red and white rings ... the far, dim blue shores ... the little silvery blue waves ... the range lights that gleamed through the violet dusks ... all gave her so much delight that it hurt. And the harbor with its smoky islands and glowing sunsets!

Elizabeth always went up to a window in the mansard roof to watch them through the treetops ... and the ships that sailed at the rising of the moon. Ships that came back ... ships that never came back. Elizabeth longed to go in one of them ... on a voyage to the Island of Happiness. The ships that never came back stayed there, where it was always Tomorrow.

That mysterious red road ran on and on and her feet itched to follow it. Where did it lead to? Sometimes Elizabeth thought she would burst if she didn't find out. When Tomorrow really came she would fare forth on it and perhaps find an island all her own where she and Miss Shirley could live alone and Grandmother and the Woman could never come. They both hated water and would not put foot in a boat for anything. Little Elizabeth liked to picture herself standing on her island and mocking them, as they stood vainly glowering on the mainland shore.

”This is Tomorrow," she would taunt them. "You can't catch me any more. You're only in Today.”

What fun it would be! How she would enjoy the look on the Woman's face!

Then one evening in late June an amazing thing happened. Miss Shirley had told Mrs. Campbell that she had an errand next day at Flying Cloud, to see a certain Mrs. Thompson, who was convener of the refreshment committee of the Ladies' Aid, and might she take Elizabeth with her. Grandmother had agreed with her usual dourness ... Elizabeth could never understand why she agreed at all, being completely ignorant of the Pringle horror of a certain bit of information Miss Shirley possessed ... but she had agreed.

”We'll go right down to the harbor mouth," whispered Anne, "after I've done my errand at Flying Cloud.”

Little Elizabeth went to bed in such excitement that she didn't expect to sleep a wink. At last she was going to answer the lure of the road that had called so long. In spite of her excitement, she conscientiously went through her little ritual of retiring.

She folded her clothes and cleaned her teeth and brushed her golden hair. She thought she had rather pretty hair, though of course it wasn't like Miss Shirley's lovely red-gold with the ripples in it and the little love-locks that curled around her ears. Little Elizabeth would have given anything to have had hair like Miss Shirley's.

Before she got into bed little Elizabeth opened one of the drawers in the high, black, polished old bureau and took a carefully hidden picture from under a pile of hankies ... a picture of Miss Shirley which she had cut out of a special edition of the Weekly Courier that had reproduced a photograph of the High School staff.

”Good night, dearest Miss Shirley." She kissed the picture and returned it to its hiding-place. Then she climbed into bed and cuddled down under the blankets ... for the June night was cool and the breeze of the harbor searching. Indeed, it was more than a breeze tonight. It whistled and banged and shook and thumped, and Elizabeth knew the harbor would be a tossing expanse of waves under the moonlight. What fun it would be to steal down close to it under the moon! But it was only in Tomorrow one could do that.

Where was Flying Cloud? What a name! Out of Tomorrow again. It was maddening to be so near Tomorrow and not be able to get into it. But suppose the wind blew up rain for tomorrow! Elizabeth knew she would never be allowed to go anywhere in rain.

She sat up in bed and clasped her hands.

”Dear God," she said, "I don't like to meddle, but COULD You see that it is fine tomorrow? PLEASE, dear God.”

The next afternoon was glorious. Little Elizabeth felt as if she had slipped from some invisible shackles when she and Miss Shirley walked away from that house of gloom. She took a huge gulp of freedom, even if the Woman was scowling after them through the red glass of the big front door. How heavenly to be walking through the lovely world with Miss Shirley! It was always so wonderful to be alone with Miss Shirley. What would she do when Miss Shirley had gone? But little Elizabeth put the thought firmly away. She wouldn't spoil the day by thinking it. Perhaps ... a great perhaps ... she and Miss Shirley would get into Tomorrow this afternoon and then they would never be separated. Little Elizabeth just wanted to walk quietly on towards that blueness at the end of the world, drinking in the beauty around her. Every turn and kink of the road revealed new lovelinesses ... and it turned and kinked interminably, following the windings of a tiny river that seemed to have appeared from nowhere.

On every side were fields of buttercups and clover where bees buzzed. Now and then they walked through a milky way of daisies.

Far out the strait laughed at them in silver-tipped waves. The harbor was like watered silk. Little Elizabeth liked it better that way than when it was like pale blue satin. They drank the wind in. It was a very gentle wind. It purred about them and seemed to coax them on.

”Isn't it nice, walking with the wind like this?" said little Elizabeth.

”A nice, friendly, perfumed wind," said Anne, more to herself than Elizabeth. "Such a wind as I used to think a MISTRAL was. Mistral SOUNDS like that. What a disappointment when I found out it was a rough, disagreeable wind!”

Elizabeth didn't quite understand ... she had never heard of the mistral ... but the music of her beloved's voice was enough for her. The very sky was glad. A sailor with gold rings in his ears ... the very kind of person one would meet in Tomorrow ... smiled as he passed them. Elizabeth thought of a verse she had learned in Sunday-school ... "The little hills rejoice on every side." Had the man who wrote that ever seen hills like those blue ones over the harbor?

”I think this road leads right to God," she said dreamily.

”Perhaps," said Anne. "Perhaps all roads do, little Elizabeth.

We turn off here just now. We must go over to that island ... that's Flying Cloud.”

Flying Cloud was a long, slender islet, lying about a quarter of a mile from the shore. There were trees on it and a house. Little Elizabeth had always wished she might have an island of her own, with a little bay of silver sand in it.

”How do we get to it?”

”We'll row out in this flat," said Miss Shirley, picking up the oars in a small boat tied to a leaning tree.

Miss Shirley could row. Was there anything Miss Shirley couldn't do? When they reached the island, it proved to be a fascinating place where anything might happen. Of course it was in Tomorrow.

Islands like this didn't happen except in Tomorrow. They had no part or lot in humdrum Today.

A little maid who met them at the door of the house told Anne she would find Mrs. Thompson on the far end of the island, picking wild strawberries. Fancy an island where wild strawberries grew!

Anne went to hunt Mrs. Thompson up, but first she asked if little Elizabeth might wait in the living-room. Anne was thinking that little Elizabeth looked rather tired after her unaccustomedly long walk and needed a rest. Little Elizabeth didn't think she did, but Miss Shirley's lightest wish was law.

It was a beautiful room, with flowers everywhere and wild sea- breezes blowing in. Elizabeth liked the mirror over the mantel which reflected the room so beautifully and, through the open window, a glimpse of harbor and hill and strait.

All at once a man came through the door. Elizabeth felt a moment of dismay and terror. Was he a gypsy? He didn't look like her idea of a gypsy but of course she had never seen one. He might be one ... and then in a swift flash of intuition Elizabeth decided she didn't care if he did kidnap her. She liked his crinkly hazel eyes and his crinkly brown hair and his square chin and his smile.

For he was smiling.

”Now, who are you?" he asked.

”I'm ... I'm me," faltered Elizabeth, still a little flustered.

”Oh, to be sure ... you. Popped out of the sea, I suppose ... come up from the dunes ... no name known among mortals.”

Elizabeth felt that she was being made fun of a little. But she didn't mind. In fact she rather liked it. But she answered a bit primly.

”My name is Elizabeth Grayson.”

There was a silence ... a very queer silence. The man looked at her for a moment without saying anything. Then he politely asked her to sit down.

”I'm waiting for Miss Shirley," she explained. "She's gone to see Mrs. Thompson about the Ladies' Aid Supper. When she comes back we are going down to the end of the world.”

Now, if you have any notion of kidnaping me, Mr. Man!

”Of course. But meanwhile you might as well be comfortable. And I must do the honors. What would you like in the way of light refreshment? Mrs. Thompson's cat has probably brought something in.”

Elizabeth sat down. She felt oddly happy and at home.

”Can I have just what I like?”

”Certainly.”

”Then," said Elizabeth triumphantly, "I'd like some ice-cream with strawberry jam on it.”

The man rang a bell and gave an order. Yes, this must be Tomorrow ... no doubt about it. Ice-cream and strawberry jam didn't appear in this magical manner in Today, cats or no cats.

”We'll set a share aside for your Miss Shirley," said the man.

They were good friends right away. The man didn't talk a great deal, but he looked at Elizabeth very often. There was a tenderness in his face ... a tenderness she had never seen before in anybody's face, not even Miss Shirley's. She felt that he liked her. And she knew that she liked him.

Finally he glanced out of the window and stood up.

”I think I must go now," he said. "I see your Miss Shirley coming up the walk, so you'll not be alone.”

”Won't you wait and see Miss Shirley?" asked Elizabeth, licking her spoon to get the last vestige of the jam. Grandmother and the Woman would have died of horror had they seen her.

”Not this time," said the man.

Elizabeth knew he hadn't the slightest notion of kidnaping her, and she felt the strangest, most unaccountable sensation of disappointment.

”Good-by and thank you," she said politely. "It is very nice here in Tomorrow.”

”Tomorrow?”

”This is Tomorrow," explained Elizabeth. "I've always wanted to get into Tomorrow and now I have.”

”Oh, I see. Well, I'm sorry to say I don't care much about Tomorrow. I would like to get back into Yesterday.”

Little Elizabeth was sorry for him. But how could he be unhappy?

How could any one living in Tomorrow be unhappy?

Elizabeth looked longingly back to Flying Cloud as they rowed away.

Just as they pushed through the scrub spruces that fringed the shore to the road, she turned for another farewell look at it. A flying team of horses attached to a truck wagon whirled around the bend, evidently quite beyond their driver's control.

Elizabeth heard Miss Shirley shriek....

13

The room went around oddly. The furniture nodded and jiggled. The bed ... how came she to be in bed? Somebody with a white cap on was just going out of the door. What door? How funny one's head felt! There were voices somewhere ... low voices. She could not see who was talking, but somehow she knew it was Miss Shirley and the man.

What were they saying? Elizabeth heard sentences here and there, bobbing out of a confusion of murmuring.

”Are you really ... ?" Miss Shirley's voice sounded so excited.

”Yes ... your letter ... see for myself ... before approaching Mrs. Campbell ... Flying Cloud is the summer home of our General Manager....”

If that room would only stay put! Really, things behaved rather queerly in Tomorrow. If she could only turn her head and see the talkers ... Elizabeth gave a long sigh.

Then they came over to her bed ... Miss Shirley and the man.

Miss Shirley all tall and white, like a lily, looking as if she had been through some terrible experience but with some inner radiance shining behind it all ... a radiance that seemed part of the golden sunset light which suddenly flooded the room. The man was smiling down at her. Elizabeth felt that he loved her very much and that there was some secret, tender and dear, between them which she would learn as soon as she had learned the language spoken in Tomorrow.

”Are you feeling better, darling?" said Miss Shirley.

”Have I been sick?”

”You were knocked down by a team of runaway horses on the mainland road," said Miss Shirley. "I ... I wasn't quick enough. I thought you were killed. I brought you right back here in the flat and your ... this gentleman telephoned for a doctor and nurse.”

”Will I die?" said little Elizabeth.

”No, indeed, darling. You were only stunned and you will be all right soon. And, Elizabeth darling, this is your father.”

”Father is in France. Am I in France, too?" Elizabeth would not have been surprised at it. Wasn't this Tomorrow? Besides, things were still a bit wobbly.

”Father is very much here, my sweet." He had such a delightful voice ... you loved him for his voice. He bent and kissed her.

"I've come for you. We'll never be separated anymore.”

The woman in the white cap was coming in again. Somehow, Elizabeth knew whatever she had to say must be said before she got quite in.

”Will we live together?”

”Always," said Father.

”And will Grandmother and the Woman live with us?”

”They will not," said Father.

The sunset gold was fading and the nurse was looking her disapproval. But Elizabeth didn't care.

”I've found Tomorrow," she said, as the nurse looked Father and Miss Shirley out.

”I've found a treasure I didn't know I possessed," said Father, as the nurse shut the door on him. "And I can never thank you enough for that letter, Miss Shirley.”

”And so," wrote Anne to Gilbert that night, "little Elizabeth's road of mystery has led on to happiness and the end of her old world.”

14

”Windy Poplars,

”Spook's Lane,

”(For the last time),

”June 27th.

”DEAREST:

”I've come to another bend in the road. I've written you a good many letters in this old tower room these past three years. I suppose this is the last one I will write you for a long, long time. Because after this there won't be any need of letters. In just a few weeks now we'll belong to each other forever ... we'll be together. Just think of it ... being together ... talking, walking, eating. dreaming, planning together ... sharing each other's wonderful moments ... making a home out of our house of dreams. OUR house! Doesn't that sound 'mystic and wonderful,' Gilbert? I've been building dream houses all my life and now one of them is going to come true. As to whom I really want to share my house of dreams with ... well, I'll tell you that at four o'clock next year.

”Three years sounded endless at the beginning, Gilbert. And now they are gone like a watch in the night. They have been very happy years ... except for those first few months with the Pringles.

After that, life has seemed to flow by like a pleasant golden river. And my old feud with the Pringles seems like a dream. They like me now for myself ... they have forgotten they ever hated me. Cora Pringle, one of the Widow Pringle's brood, brought me a bouquet of roses yesterday and twisted round the stems was a bit of paper bearing the legend, 'To the sweetest teacher in the whole world.' Fancy that for a Pringle!

”Jen is broken-hearted because I am leaving. I shall watch Jen's career with interest. She is brilliant and rather unpredictable.

One thing is certain ... she will have no commonplace existence.

She can't look so much like Becky Sharp for nothing.

”Lewis Allen is going to McGill. Sophy Sinclair is going to Queen's. Then she means to teach until she has saved up enough money to go to the School of Dramatic Expression in Kingsport.

Myra Pringle is going to 'enter society' in the fall. She is so pretty that it won't matter a bit that she wouldn't know a past perfect participle if she met it on the street.

”And there is no longer a small neighbor on the other side of the vine-hung gate. Little Elizabeth has gone forever from that sunshineless house ... gone into her Tomorrow. If I were staying on in Summerside I should break my heart, missing her. But as it is, I'm glad. Pierce Grayson took her away with him. He is not going back to Paris but will be living in Boston. Elizabeth cried bitterly at our parting but she is so happy with her father that I feel sure her tears will soon be dried. Mrs. Campbell and the Woman were very dour over the whole affair and put all the blame on me ... which I accept cheerfully and unrepentantly.

”'She has had a good home here,' said Mrs. Campbell majestically.

”'Where she never heard a single word of affection,' I thought but did not say.

”'I think I'll be Betty all the time now, darling Miss Shirley,' were Elizabeth's last words. 'Except,' she called back, 'when I'm lonesome for you, and then I'll be Lizzie.'

”'Don't you ever dare to be Lizzie, no matter what happens,' I said.

”We threw kisses to each other as long as we could see, and I came up to my tower room with tears in my eyes. She's been so sweet, the dear little golden thing. She always seemed to me like a little aeolian harp, so responsive to the tiniest breath of affection that blew her way. It's been an adventure to be her friend. I hope Pierce Grayson realizes what a daughter he has ... and I think he does. He sounded very grateful and repentant.

”'I didn't realize she was no longer a baby,' he said, 'nor how unsympathetic her environment was. Thank you a thousand times for all you have done for her.'

”I had our map of fairyland framed and gave it to little Elizabeth for a farewell keepsake.

”I'm sorry to leave Windy Poplars. Of course, I'm really a bit tired of living in a trunk, but I've loved it here ... loved my cool morning hours at my window ... loved my bed into which I have veritably climbed every night ... loved my blue doughnut cushion ... loved all the winds that blew. I'm afraid I'll never be quite so chummy with the winds again as I've been here. And shall I ever have a room again from which I can see both the rising and the setting sun?

”I've finished with Windy Poplars and the years that have been linked with it. And I've kept the faith. I've never betrayed Aunt Chatty's hidy-hole to Aunt Kate or the buttermilk secret of each to either of the others.

”I think they are all sorry to see me go ... and I'm glad of it.

It would be terrible to think they were glad I am going ... or that they would not miss me a little when I'm gone. Rebecca Dew has been making all my favorite dishes for a week now ... she even devoted ten eggs to angel-cake TWICE ... and using the 'company' china. And Aunt Chatty's soft brown eyes brim over whenever I mention my departure. Even Dusty Miller seems to gaze at me reproachfully as he sits about on his little haunches.

”I had a long letter from Katherine last week. She has a gift for writing letters. She has got a position as private secretary to a globe-trotting M. P. What a fascinating phrase 'globe-trotting' is! A person who would say, 'Let's go to Egypt,' as one might say, 'Let's go to Charlottetown' ... and GO! That life will just suit Katherine.

”She persists in ascribing all her changed outlook and prospects to me. 'I wish I could tell you what you've brought into my life,' she wrote. I suppose I did help. And it wasn't easy at first.

She seldom said anything without a sting in it, and listened to any suggestion I made in regard to the school work with an air of disdainfully humoring a lunatic. But somehow, I've forgotten it all. It was just born of her secret bitterness against life.

”Everybody has been inviting me to supper ... even Pauline Gibson. Old Mrs. Gibson died a few months ago, so Pauline dared do it. And I've been to Tomgallon House for another supper with Miss Minerva of that ilk and another one-sided conversation. But I had a very good time, eating the delicious meal Miss Minerva provided, and she had a good time airing a few more tragedies. She couldn't quite hide the fact that she was sorry for any one who was not a Tomgallon, but she paid me several nice compliments and gave me a lovely ring set with an aquamarine ... a moonlight blend of blue and green ... that her father had given her on her eighteenth birthday ... 'when I was young and handsome, dear ... QUITE handsome. I may say that NOW, I suppose.' I was glad it belonged to Miss Minerva and not to the wife of Uncle Alexander. I'm sure I could never have worn it if it had. It is very beautiful. There is a mysterious charm about the jewels of the sea.

”Tomgallon House is certainly very splendid, especially now when its grounds are all a-leaf and a-flower. But I wouldn't give my as yet unfounded house of dreams for Tomgallon House and grounds with the ghosts thrown in.

”Not but what a ghost might be a nice, aristocratic sort of thing to have around. My only quarrel with Spook's Lane is that there are no spooks.

”I went to my old graveyard yesterday evening for a last prowl ... walked all round it and wondered if Herbert Pringle occasionally chuckled to himself in his grave. And I'm saying good-by tonight to the old Storm King, with the sunset on its brow, and my little winding valley full of dusk.

”I'm a wee bit tired after a month of exams and farewells and 'last things.' 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.”

When the time came the next day for Anne to say good-by to the folks at Windy Poplars, Rebecca Dew was not on hand. Instead, Aunt Kate gravely handed Anne a letter.

”Dear Miss Shirley," wrote Rebecca Dew, "I am writing this to bid my farewell because I cannot trust myself to say it. For three years you have sojourned under our roof. The fortunate possessor of a cheerful spirit and a natural taste for the gaieties of youth, you have never surrendered yourself to the vain pleasures of the giddy and fickle crowd. You have conducted yourself on all occasions and to every one, especially the one who pens these lines, with the most refined delicacy. You have always been most considerate of my feelings and I find a heavy gloom on my spirits at the thought of your departure. But we must not repine at what Providence has ordained. (First Samuel, 29th and 18th.)

”You will be lamented by all in Summerside who had the privilege of knowing you, and the homage of one faithful though humble heart will ever be yours, and my prayer will ever be for your happiness and welfare in this world and your eternal felicity in that which is to come.

”Something whispers to me that you will not be long 'Miss Shirley' but that you will erelong be linked together in a union of souls with the choice of your heart, who, I understand from what I have heard, is a very exceptional young man. The writer, possessed of but few personal charms and beginning to feel her age (not but what I'm good for a good few years yet), has never permitted herself to cherish any matrimonial aspirations. But she does not deny herself the pleasure of an interest in the nuptials of her friends and may I express a fervent wish that your married life will be one of continued and uninterrupted Bliss? (Only do not expect too much of a man.)

”My esteem and, may I say, my affection for you will never lessen, and once in a while when you have nothing better to do will you kindly remember that there is such a person as

”Your obedient servant,

”REBECCA DEW.

”P.S. God bless you.”

Anne's eyes were misty as she folded the letter up. Though she strongly suspected Rebecca Dew had got most of her phrases out of her favorite "Book of Deportment and Etiquette," that did not make them any the less sincere, and the P. S. certainly came straight from Rebecca Dew's affectionate heart.

”Tell dear Rebecca Dew I'll never forget her and that I'm coming back to see you all every summer.”

”We have memories of you that nothing can take away," sobbed Aunt Chatty.

”Nothing," said Aunt Kate, emphatically.

But as Anne drove away from Windy Poplars the last message from it was a large white bath-towel fluttering frantically from the tower window. Rebecca Dew was waving it.