Anne's House of Dreams by Lucy Maud Montgomery Read Free Book Online Page B

house and brought his bride here. They were a gay young pair, as I remember them. Miss Elizabeth Russell was Alec’s sister. She came to live with them a year or so later, and she was a creature of mirth, too. The walls of this house must be sorter
soaked
with laughing and good times. You’re the third bride I’ve seen come here, Mistress Blythe – and the handsomest.’
    Captain Jim contrived to give his sunflower compliment the delicacy of a violet, and Anne wore it proudly. She was looking her best that night, with the bridal rose on her cheeks and the love-light in her eyes; even gruff old Doctor Dave gave her an approving glance, and told his wife, as they drove home together, that that red-headed wife of the boy’s was something of a beauty.
    ‘I must be getting back to the light,’ announced Captain Jim. ‘I’ve enj’yed this evening something tremenjus.’
    ‘You must come often to see us,’ said Anne.
    ‘I wonder if you’d give that invitation if you knew how likely I’ll be to accept it,’ Captain Jim remarked whimsically.
    ‘Which is another way of saying you wonder if I mean it,’ smiled Anne. ‘I do, “cross my heart”, as we used to say at school.’
    ‘Then I’ll come. You’re likely to be pestered with me at any hour. And I’ll be proud to have you drop down and visit me now and then, too. Gin’rally I haven’t anyone to talk to but the First Mate, bless his sociable heart. He’s a mighty good listener, and has forgot more’n any MacAllister of them all ever knew, but he isn’t much of a conversationalist. You’re young and I’m old, but our souls are about the same age, I reckon. We both belong to the race that knows Joseph, as Cornelia Bryant would say.’
    ‘The race that knows Joseph?’ puzzled Anne.
    ‘Yes. Cornelia divides all the folks in the world into two kinds – the race that knows Joseph and the race that don’t. If a person sorter sees eye to eye with you, and has pretty much the same ideas about things, and the same taste in jokes – why, then he belongs to the race that knows Joseph.’
    ‘Oh, I understand,’ exclaimed Anne, light breaking in upon her. ‘It’s what I used to call – and still call in quotation marks – “kindred spirits”.’
    ‘Jest so – jest so,’ agreed Captain Jim. ‘We’re
it
, whatever it is. When you come in tonight, Mistress Blythe, I says to myself, says I, “Yes, she’s of the race that knows Joseph.” And mighty glad I was, for if it wasn’t so we couldn’t have had any real satisfaction in each other’s company. The race that knows Joseph is the salt of the airth, I reckon.’
    The moon had just risen when Anne and Gilbert went to the door with their guests. Four Winds Harbour was beginning to be a thing of dream and glamour and enchantment – a spellbound haven where no tempest might ever ravin. The Lombardies down the lane, tall and sombre as the priestly forms of some mystic band, were tipped with silver.
    ‘Always like Lombardies,’ said Captain Jim, waving a long arm at them. ‘They’re the trees of princesses. They’re out of fashion now. Folks complain that they die at the top and get ragged-looking. So they do – so they do, if you don’t risk your neck every spring climbing up a light ladder to trim them out. I always did it for Miss Elizabeth, so her Lombardies never got out-at-elbows. She was especially fond of them. She liked their dignity and stand-offishness.
They
don’t hob-nob with every Tom, Dick, and Harry. If it’s maples for company, Mistress Blythe, it’s Lombardies for society.’
    ‘What a beautiful night,’ said Mrs Doctor Dave, as she climbed into the Doctor’s buggy.
    ‘Most nights are beautiful,’ said Captain Jim. ‘But I ’low that moonlight over Four Winds makes me sorter wonder what’s left for heaven. The moon’s a great friend of mine, Mistress Blythe. I’ve loved her ever since I can remember. When I was a little chap of eight I fell asleep in the garden