Anne's House of Dreams

eir promised visit. They had often planned to go, but something always occurred

f jest because you haven't got down to see me. There oughtn't to be no bargaining like that among the race that knows Joseph. I'll co

iding over the destinies of the hearth in the little house wit

eeting and farewell as gravely and invariably as he did his host and hostess. Captain

't have the pretty little curtains and pictures and nicknacks you have. As for Elizabeth, she lived in the past. You've kinder brought the future into it, so to speak. I'd be r

or seen gave him a deep, subtle, inner joy that irradiated his life. He wa

y half as good and put the rest of it into looks. But there, I reckon He knew what He was about, as a good Capt

he north was a mackerel sky of little, fiery golden clouds. The red light flamed on the white sails of a vessel gliding down the channel, bound to a southern port in a land of palms. Beyond her, it smote upon and incarnadined the shining, white, grassless faces of the sand dunes. To the r

don't think there's much coming and going. It seems odd we've never met the Moores yet, when they live within fifteen minutes' walk of us. I m

s Joseph," laughed Gilbert. "Have you ever found o

e never seen her anywhere, so I suppose she must have been a s

of light through it, sweeping in a circle over th

ne drenched them with radiance; and she felt rather relieved when they got so nea

fine-looking person-tall, broad-shouldered, well-featured, with a Roman nose and frank gray eyes; he was dressed in a prosperous farmer's Sunday best; in so far he might have been any inhabitant of Four Winds

didn't put what Uncle Dave calls 'a little of the Scott Act' i

aughter, lest the retreating enigma shoul

ld iron in my pocket when I come here. He wasn't a sailor, or one might pardon his eccentricity of app

all the over-harbor people who come to the Glen Chur

gic and mystery of storm and star. There is a great solitude about such a shore. The woods are never solitary-they are full of whispering, beckoning, friendly life. But the sea is a mighty soul, forever moaning of some great, unshareable sorrow, which shuts it up into itself for all eternity. We can

the finishing touches to a wonderful, full-rigged, toy schooner. He rose and welco

plaything for my little grand nephew, Joe, up at the Glen. After I promised to make it for him I was kinder sorry, for his mother was vexed. She's afraid he'll be wanting to go to sea later on and she doesn't want

nd headland, like transparent wings. The dusk was hanging a curtain of violet gloom over the sand dunes and the headlands where gulls were huddling.

and selling and getting gain. You don't have to pay anything-all that sea and sky free-'without money and without price.' There's going to be a moo

ey went up into the tower, and Captain Jim showed and explained the mechanism of the great light. Finally they found themselv

ers such luxuries. Look at the colors that wood makes. If you'd like some driftwood for your fire,

having first removed therefrom a huge

and of fiction, but I'm reading it jest to see how long she can spin it out. It's at the sixty-second chapter now, and the wedding ain't any nearer than when it begun,

," said Anne. "He wants t

was pleased as a child with Anne's complim

im had never heard of Oliver Wendell Holmes, but he evidently agreed w

coming out of your lane," said Gi

n Jim

eak of foolishness in him. I s'pose you wondered what his ob

a Hebrew prophet left over f

where there's probably no politics, is more than I can fathom. This Marshall Elliott was born a Grit. I'm a Grit myself in moderation, but there's no moderation about Marshall. Fifteen years ago there was a specially bitter general election. Marshall fought for his party tooth and nail. He wa

wife think of i

and read his Bible all the time service was going on. They say when he was dying he asked his wife to bury him beside the dog; she was a meek little soul but she fired up at THAT. She said SHE wasn't going to be buried beside no dog, and if he'd rather have his last resting place beside the dog than beside her, jest to say so. Alexander Elliott was a stubborn mule, but he was fond of his wife, so he give in and said, 'Well, durn it, bury me where you please. But when Gabriel's trump blows I expect my dog to rise with the re

ringing upon Captain Jim's knee. He was a gorgeous beastie, with a face as round as a full moon

uel. It's the worst kind of cruelty-the thoughtless kind. You can't cope with it. They keep cats there in the summer, and feed and pet 'em, and doll 'em up with ribbons and collars. And then in the fall they go off and leave 'em to starve or freeze. It makes my blood boil, Mistress Blythe. One day last winter I found a poor old mother cat dead on the shore, lying against the skin-and-bone bodies of her t

take it?" a

he day of Jedgment, when you'll have to account for that poor old mother's life? The Lord'll ask you what He giv

ked Anne, making advances to him which were

Blythe! He was nothing but a kitten, and he'd got his living somehow since he'd been left until he got hung up. When I loosed him he gave my hand a pitiful swipe with his little re

cted you to have a

im shook

t that's in him-like there is in all cats. But I LOVED my dog. I always had a sneaking sympathy for Alexander Elliott about HIS dog. There isn't any devil in a good dog. That's why they're more lovable than cats, I reckon. But I'm darned if they're as interest

eresting collection of curios, hideous, quaint and beautiful.

t moonlit evening by that enchanted driftwood fire, while the silver sea cal

resourceful, unselfish. He sat there in his little room and made those things live again for his hearers. By a lift of

w at their credulous expense. But in this, as they found later, they did him injustice. His tales were all literally true. Captain Jim had

, and once Anne found herself crying. Captain Jim su

m out properly. If I could hit on jest the right words and string 'em together proper on paper I could make a great book. It would beat A Mad Love holler, and I believe Joe'd like it as well as the pirate yarns. Yes,

ysses, y

the sunset

stern stars u

nne dr

nt on the water in his life, 'cause he was afraid of being drowned. A fortune-teller had predicted he would be. And one day he fainted and fell with his face in the barn trough and was drowned. Must you go? Well, come

em one by one-friends whose place can never be quite filled by those of a younger generat

, isn't he?" said Gilbe

kindly personality with the wild, adve

along the shore. Captain Jim fairly scorched the wretched fellow with the lightning of his eyes. He seemed a man transformed. He didn't say much-but the way he said it!

r ships at sea now, and grandchildren climbing over him to hear his storie

Captain Jim had more th