第27章

"Oh, yes. She has been down to my house of dreams several times.""Your house of dreams?"

"Oh, that's a dear, foolish little name Gilbert and Ihave for our home. We just call it that between ourselves. It slipped out before I thought.""So Miss Russell's little white house is YOUR house of dreams," said Leslie wonderingly. "_I_ had a house of dreams once--but it was a palace," she added, with a laugh, the sweetness of which was marred by a little note of derision.

"Oh, I once dreamed of a palace, too," said Anne. "Isuppose all girls do. And then we settle down contentedly in eight-room houses that seem to fulfill all the desires of our hearts--because our prince is there. YOU should have had your palace really, though--you are so beautiful. You MUST let me say it--it has to be said--I'm nearly bursting with admiration. You are the loveliest thing I ever saw, Mrs. Moore.""If we are to be friends you must call me Leslie,"said the other with an odd passion.

"Of course I will. And MY friends call me Anne.""I suppose I am beautiful," Leslie went on, looking stormily out to sea. "I hate my beauty. I wish I had always been as brown and plain as the brownest and plainest girl at the fishing village over there.

Well, what do you think of Miss Cornelia?"The abrupt change of subject shut the door on any further confidences.

"Miss Cornelia is a darling, isn't she?" said Anne.

"Gilbert and I were invited to her house to a state tea last week. You've heard of groaning tables.""I seem to recall seeing the expression in the newspaper reports of weddings," said Leslie, smiling.

"Well, Miss Cornelia's groaned--at least, it creaked--positively. You couldn't have believed she would have cooked so much for two ordinary people. She had every kind of pie you could name, I think--except lemon pie. She said she had taken the prize for lemon pies at the Charlottetown Exhibition ten years ago and had never made any since for fear of losing her reputation for them.""Were you able to eat enough pie to please her?""_I_ wasn't. Gilbert won her heart by eating--I won't tell you how much. She said she never knew a man who didn't like pie better than his Bible. Do you know, Ilove Miss Cornelia."

"So do I," said Leslie. "She is the best friend Ihave in the world."

Anne wondered secretly why, if this were so, Miss Cornelia had never mentioned Mrs. Dick Moore to her.

Miss Cornelia had certainly talked freely about every other individual in or near Four Winds.

"Isn't that beautiful?" said Leslie, after a brief silence, pointing to the exquisite effect of a shaft of light falling through a cleft in the rock behind them, across a dark green pool at its base. "If I had come here--and seen nothing but just that--I would go home satisfied.""The effects of light and shadow all along these shores are wonderful," agreed Anne. "My little sewing room looks out on the harbor, and I sit at its window and feast my eyes. The colors and shadows are never the same two minutes together.""And you are never lonely?" asked Leslie abruptly.

"Never-- when you are alone?"

"No. I don't think I've ever been really lonely in my life," answered Anne. "Even when I'm alone I have real good company-- dreams and imaginations and pretendings. I LIKE to be alone now and then, just to think over things and TASTE them. But I love friendship-- and nice, jolly little times with people.