we watch the ships coming up the harbor before a fair wind, over a glistening pathway, through the transparent spring air, and Elizabeth wonders if her father may be on board one of them. She clings to the hope that he may come some day. I can’t imagine why he doesn’t. I’m sure he would if he knew what a darling little daughter he has here longing for him. I suppose he never realizes she is quite a girl now … . I suppose he still thinks of her as the little baby who cost his wife her life.
“I’ll soon have finished my first year in Summerside High. The first term was a nightmare, but the last two have been very pleasant. The Pringles are delightful people. How could I ever have compared them to the Pyes? Sid Pringle brought me a bunch of trilliums today. Jen is going to lead her class and Miss Ellen is reported to have said that I am the only teacher who ever really understood the child! The only fly in my ointment is Katherine Brooke, who continues unfriendly and distant. I’m going to give up trying to be friends with her. After all, as Rebecca Dew says, there are limits.
“Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you… . Sally Nelson has asked me to be one of her bridesmaids. She is going to be married the last of June at Bonnyview, Dr. Nelson’s summer home down at the jumping-off place. She is marrying Gordon Hill. Then Nora Nelson will be the only one of Dr. Nelson’s six girls left unmarried. Jim Wilcox has been going with her for years … ‘off and on’ as Rebecca Dew says … but it never seems to come to anything and nobody thinks it will now. I’m very fond of Sally, but I’ve never made much headway getting acquainted with Nora. She’s a good deal older than I am, of course, and rather reserved and proud. Yet I’d like to be friends with her. She isn’t pretty or clever or charming but somehow she’s got a tang. I’ve a feeling she’d be worth while.
“Speaking of weddings, Esme Taylor was married to her Ph.D. last month. As it was on Wednesday afternoon I couldn’t go to the church to see her, but every one says she looked very beautiful and happy and Lennox looked as if he knew he had done the right thing and had the approval of his conscience. Cyrus Taylor and I are great friends. He often refers to the dinner which he has come to consider a great joke on everybody. ‘I’ve never dared sulk since,’ he told me. ‘Momma might accuse me of sewing patchwork next time.’ And then he tells me to be sure and give his love to ‘the widows.’ Gilbert, people are delicious and life is delicious and I am
“Forevermore
“Yours!
“P.S. Our old red cow down at Mr. Hamilton’s has a spotted calf. We’ve been buying our milk for three months from Lew Hunt. Rebecca says we’ll have cream again now … and that she has always heard the Hunt well was inexhaustible and now she believes it. Rebecca didn’t want that calf to be born at all. Aunt Kate had to get Mr. Hamilton to tell her that the cow was really too old to have a calf before she would consent.”
Chapter XIII
“Ah, when you’ve been old and bed-rid as long as me you’ll have more sympathy,” whined Mrs. Gibson.
“Please don’t think I’m lacking in sympathy, Mrs. Gibson,” said Anne, who, after half an hour’s vain effort, felt like wringing Mrs. Gibson’s neck. Nothing but poor Pauline’s pleading eyes in the background kept her from giving up in despair and going home. “I assure you, you won’t be lonely and neglected. I will be here all day and see that you lack nothing in any way.”
“Oh, I know I’m of no use to any one,” said Mrs. Gibson, apropos of nothing that had been said. “You don’t need to rub that in, Miss Shirley. I’m ready to go any time … any time. Pauline can gad round all she wants to then. I won’t be here to feel neglected. None of the young people of today have any sense. Giddy … very giddy.”
Anne didn’t know whether it was Pauline or herself who was the giddy young person without sense, but she tried the last shot in her locker.
“Well, you know, Mrs. Gibson, people will talk so terribly if Pauline doesn’t go to her cousin’s silver wedding.”
“Talk!” said Mrs. Gibson sharply. “What will they talk about?”
“Dear Mrs. Gibson …” (‘May I be forgiven the adjective!’ thought Anne) “in your long life you have learned, I know, just what idle tongues can say.”
“You needn’t be casting my age up to me,” snapped Mrs. Gibson. “And I don’t need to be told it’s a censorious world. Too well … too well I know it. And I don’t need to be told that this town is full of tattling toads neither. But I dunno’s I fancy them jabbering about me … saying, I s’pose, that I’m an old tyrant. I ain’t stopping Pauline from going. Didn’t I leave it to her conscience?”
“So few people will believe that,” said Anne, carefully sorrowful.
Mrs. Gibson sucked a peppermint lozenge fiercely for a minute or two. Then she said,
“I hear there’s mumps at White Sands.”
“Ma, dear, you know I’ve had the mumps.”
“There’s folks as takes them twice. You’d be just the one to take them twice, Pauline. You always took everything that come round. The nights I’ve set up with you, not expecting you’d see the morning! Ah me, a mother’s sacrifices ain’t long remembered. Besides, how would you get to White Sands? You ain’t been on a train for years. And there ain’t any train back Saturday night.”
“She could go on the Saturday morning train,” said Anne. “And I’m sure Mr. James Gregor will bring her back.”
“I never liked Jim Gregor. His mother was a Tarbush.”
“He is taking his double-seated buggy and going down Friday, or else he would take her down, too. But she’ll be quite safe on the train, Mrs. Gibson. Just step on at Summerside … step off at White Sands … no changing.”
“There’s something behind all this,” said Mrs. Gibson suspiciously. “Why are you so set on her going, Miss Shirley? Just tell me that.”
Anne smiled into the beady-eyed face.
“Because I think Pauline is a good, kind daughter to you, Mrs. Gibson, and needs a day off now and then, just as everybody does.”
Most people found it hard to resist Anne’s smile. Either that, or the fear of gossip vanquished Mrs. Gibson.
“I s’pose it never occurs to any one I’d like a day off from this wheel-chair if I could get it. But I can’t … I just have to bear my affliction patiently. Well, if she must go she must. She’s always been one to get her own way. If she catches mumps or gets poisoned by strange mosquitoes, don’t blame me for it. I’ll have to get along as best I can. Oh, I s’pose you’ll be here, but you ain’t used to my ways as Pauline is. I s’pose I can stand it for one day. If I can’t … well, I’ve been living on borrowed time many’s the year now so what’s the difference?” Not a gracious assent by any means but still an assent. Anne in her relief and gratitude found herself doing something she could never have imagined herself doing … she bent over and kissed Mrs. Gibson’s leathery cheek. “Thank you,” she said.
“Never mind your wheedling ways,”
