are the flowers of love and faith.”
Diana was standing nervously in the middle of the room, arrayed in her bridal white, her black curls frosted over with the film of her wedding veil. Anne had draped that veil, in accordance with the sentimental compact of years before.
“It’s all pretty much as I used to imagine it long ago, when I wept over your inevitable marriage and our consequent parting,” she laughed. “You are the bride of my dreams, Diana, with the ‘lovely misty veil’; and I am YOUR bridesmaid. But, alas! I haven’t the puffed sleeves — though these short lace ones are even prettier. Neither is my heart wholly breaking nor do I exactly hate Fred.”
“We are not really parting, Anne,” protested Diana. “I’m not going far away. We’ll love each other just as much as ever. We’ve always kept that ‘oath’ of friendship we swore long ago, haven’t we?”
“Yes. We’ve kept it faithfully. We’ve had a beautiful friendship, Diana. We’ve never marred it by one quarrel or coolness or unkind word; and I hope it will always be so. But things can’t be quite the same after this. You’ll have other interests. I’ll just be on the outside. But ‘such is life’ as Mrs. Rachel says. Mrs. Rachel has given you one of her beloved knitted quilts of the ‘tobacco stripe’ pattern, and she says when I am married she’ll give me one, too.”
“The mean thing about your getting married is that I won’t be able to be your bridesmaid,” lamented Diana.
“I’m to be Phil’s bridesmaid next June, when she marries Mr. Blake, and then I must stop, for you know the proverb ‘three times a bridesmaid, never a bride,’” said Anne, peeping through the window over the pink and snow of the blossoming orchard beneath. “Here comes the minister, Diana.”
“Oh, Anne,” gasped Diana, suddenly turning very pale and beginning to tremble. “Oh, Anne — I’m so nervous — I can’t go through with it — Anne, I know I’m going to faint.”
“If you do I’ll drag you down to the rainwater hogshed and drop you in,” said Anne unsympathetically. “Cheer up, dearest. Getting married can’t be so very terrible when so many people survive the ceremony. See how cool and composed I am, and take courage.”
“Wait till your turn comes, Miss Anne. Oh, Anne, I hear father coming upstairs. Give me my bouquet. Is my veil right? Am I very pale?”
“You look just lovely. Di, darling, kiss me goodbye for the last time. Diana Barry will never kiss me again.”
“Diana Wright will, though. There, mother’s calling. Come.”
Following the simple, old-fashioned way in vogue then, Anne went down to the parlor on Gilbert’s arm. They met at the top of the stairs for the first time since they had left Kingsport, for Gilbert had arrived only that day. Gilbert shook hands courteously. He was looking very well, though, as Anne instantly noted, rather thin. He was not pale; there was a flush on his cheek that had burned into it as Anne came along the hall towards him, in her soft, white dress with lilies-of-the-valley in the shining masses of her hair. As they entered the crowded parlor together a little murmur of admiration ran around the room. “What a fine-looking pair they are,” whispered the impressible Mrs. Rachel to Marilla.
Fred ambled in alone, with a very red face, and then Diana swept in on her father’s arm. She did not faint, and nothing untoward occurred to interrupt the ceremony. Feasting and merrymaking followed; then, as the evening waned, Fred and Diana drove away through the moonlight to their new home, and Gilbert walked with Anne to Green Gables.
Something of their old comradeship had returned during the informal mirth of the evening. Oh, it was nice to be walking over that well-known road with Gilbert again!
The night was so very still that one should have been able to hear the whisper of roses in blossom — the laughter of daisies — the piping of grasses — many sweet sounds, all tangled up together. The beauty of moonlight on familiar fields irradiated the world.
“Can’t we take a ramble up Lovers’ Lane before you go in?” asked Gilbert as they crossed the bridge over the Lake of Shining Waters, in which the moon lay like a great, drowned blossom of gold.
Anne assented readily. Lovers’ Lane was a veritable path in a fairyland that night — a shimmering, mysterious place, full of wizardry in the white-woven enchantment of moonlight. There had been a time when such a walk with Gilbert through Lovers’ Lane would have been far too dangerous. But Roy and Christine had made it very safe now. Anne found herself thinking a good deal about Christine as she chatted lightly to Gilbert. She had met her several times before leaving Kingsport, and had been charmingly sweet to her. Christine had also been charmingly sweet. Indeed, they were a most cordial pair. But for all that, their acquaintance had not ripened into friendship. Evidently Christine was not a kindred spirit.
“Are you going to be in Avonlea all summer?” asked Gilbert.
“No. I’m going down east to Valley Road next week. Esther Haythorne wants me to teach for her through July and August. They have a summer term in that school, and Esther isn’t feeling well. So I’m going to substitute for her. In one way I don’t mind. Do you know, I’m beginning to feel a little bit like a stranger in Avonlea now? It makes me sorry — but it’s true. It’s quite appalling to see the number of children who have shot up into big boys and girls — really young men and women — these past two years. Half of my pupils are grown up. It makes me feel awfully old to see them in the places you and I and our mates used to fill.”
Anne laughed and sighed. She felt very old and mature and wise — which showed how young she was. She told herself that she longed greatly to go back to those dear merry days when life was seen through a rosy mist of hope and illusion, and possessed an indefinable something that had passed away forever. Where was it now — the glory and the dream?
“‘So wags the world away,’” quoted Gilbert practically, and a trifle absently. Anne wondered if he were thinking of Christine. Oh, Avonlea was going to be so lonely now — with Diana gone!
Chapter XXX.
Mrs. Skinner’s Romance
Anne stepped off the train at Valley Road station and looked about to see if any one had come to meet her. She was to board with a certain Miss Janet Sweet, but she saw no one who answered in the least to her preconception of that lady, as formed from Esther’s letter. The only person in sight was an elderly woman, sitting in a wagon with mail bags piled around her. Two hundred would have been a charitable guess at her weight; her face was as round and red as a harvest-moon and almost as featureless. She wore a tight, black, cashmere dress, made in the fashion of ten years ago, a little dusty black straw hat trimmed with bows of yellow ribbon, and faded black lace mits.
“Here, you,” she called, waving her whip at Anne. “Are you the new Valley Road schoolma’am?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I thought so. Valley Road is noted for its goodlooking schoolma’ams, just as Millersville is noted for its humly ones. Janet Sweet asked me this morning if I could bring you out. I said, ‘Sartin I kin, if she don’t mind being scrunched up some. This rig of mine’s kinder small for the mail bags and I’m some heftier than Thomas!’ Just wait, miss, till I shift these bags a bit and I’ll tuck you in somehow. It’s only two
