Anne's House of Dreams

omain in the speckless order one would expect of anyone brought up by Marilla Cuthbert, and felt that she could gad shoreward with a clear conscience. Many and delightful had been her shor

l she loved the rock shore, with its cliffs and caves and piles of surf-worn boulders, and its co

over the bar, troubled and misty and tempest-torn the erstwhile blue peace of Four Winds Harbor. Now it was over, and the shore lay clean-washed after the storm; not a w

nding her far gaze across the tossing waters from the top of the cliff where she stood. Presently she scr

no one here to see me-the seagulls won't carry t

ith their spent foam. Whirling round and round, laughing like a child, she reached the little headland that ran out to the east

ver like Browning's "gorgeous snake," was bound about her head with a crimson ribbon. She wore a dress of some dark material, very plainly made; but swathed about her waist, outlining its fine curves, was a vivid girdle of red silk. Her hands, clasped over her knee, were brown and som

ession. To be seen by this stately girl in such an abandon of childishness-she

the girl,

there was something in her eyes-eager yet shy, defiant yet pleading-which turned Anne

ever yet failed to win confidence and friendliness. "I am Mrs. B

. "I am Leslie Moore-Mrs. Di

ere seemed nothing of the wife about her. And that she should be the neighbor whom Anne had pictured as a c

that gray house up th

long ago," said the other. She did not offer

such near neighbors we ought to be friends. That is the sole fault of Fo

lik

It is the most beauti

Moore, slowly, "but I've always thought i

d an odd impression that this strange girl-the word "

to the shore

"It's a wonder we ha

k-when I come. And I love to come just after a storm-like this. I don't like the sea

o untamed-something broke loose in me, too, out of sympathy. That was why I danced along the shore in that wild way. I didn't suppose a

quisite laugh; it bubbled up suddenly and unexpectedly with so

n down to my house of

ouse of

and I have for our home. We just call it that be

wonderingly. "I had a house of dreams once-but it was a palace," she added,

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 beau

must call me Leslie," said

l. And MY friend

y beauty. I wish I had always been as brown and plain as the brownest and plainest

bject shut the door on

. "Gilbert and I were invited to her house to a st

ession in the newspaper reports o

o ordinary people. She had every kind of pie you could name, I think-except lemon pie. She said she had taken the prize for lem

o eat enough pie

how much. She said she never knew a man who didn't like pi

"She is the best frien

ver mentioned Mrs. Dick Moore to her. Miss Cornelia had certainly

of a shaft of light falling through a cleft in the rock behind them, across a dark green po

nne. "My little sewing room looks out on the harbor, and I sit at its window and

" asked Leslie abruptly. "

ations 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 li

for a compliment. She looked out across the waves that were beginning to b

ou saw me dancing on the shore at sunset. No doubt I shall be dignified after a time. You

ried twelve year

ther unbelie

" exclaimed Anne. "You must have b

king up the cap and jacket lying beside her.

home. But I'm so glad we both came to

ly, if it had not been absolutely repelled. In silence they climbed the cliffs and walked across a pasture-field of which the fea

. You will come over and se

n thrown at her. She got the impressio

eally want me to," sh

erness which seemed to burst forth and beat do

ome. Good-ni

ght, Mrs

rown study and poured o

e of the race that knows Jos

singly. "She is certainly very different from the other women about here. You can't talk about eggs and butte

g about the fields of the farm, b

oned him. I KNOW

old enough to know her own mind or heart, and found out too late

st of it. Mrs. Moore has evidently l

beauty. I feel that she possesses a rich nature, into which a friend might enter as into a kingdom; but for some reason she bars every one out and shuts all her possibilities up in herself, so t