"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," said Mrs. Gibson. "Have a peppermint."
"How can I ever thank you, Miss Shirley?" said Pauline, as she went a little way down the street with Anne.
"By going to White Sands with a light heart and enjoying every minute of the time."
"Oh, I'll do that. You don't know what this means to me, Miss Shirley. It's not only Louisa I want to see. The old Luckley place next to her home is going to be sold and I did so want to see it once more before it passed into the hands of strangers. Mary Luckley . . . she's Mrs. Howard Flemming now and lives out west . . . was my dearest friend when I was a girl. We were like sisters. I used to be at the Luckley place so much and I loved it so. I've often dreamed of going back. Ma says I'm getting too old to dream. Do you think I am, Miss Shirley?"
"Nobody is ever too old to dream. And dreams never grow old."
"I'm so glad to hear you say that. Oh, Miss Shirley, to think of seeing the gulf again. I haven't seen

it for fifteen years. The harbor is beautiful, but it isn't the gulf. I feel as if I was walking on air. And I owe it all to you. It was just because Ma likes you she let me go. You've made me happy . . . you are always making people happy. Why, whenever you come into a room, Miss Shirley, the people in it feel happier."
"That's the very nicest compliment I've ever had paid me, Pauline."
"There's just one thing, Miss Shirley . . . I've nothing to wear but my old black taffeta. It's too gloomy for a wedding, isn't it? And it's too big for me since I got thin. You see it's six years since I got it."
"We must try to induce your mother to let you have a new dress," said Anne hopefully.
But that proved to be beyond her powers. Mrs. Gibson was adamant. Pauline's black taffeta was plenty good for Louisa Hilton's wedding.
"I paid two dollars a yard for it six years ago and three to Jane Sharp for making it. Jane was a good dressmaker. Her mother was a Smiley. The idea of you wanting something 'light,' Pauline Gibson! She'd go dressed in scarlet from head to foot, that one, if she was let, Miss Shirley. She's just waiting till I'm dead to do it. Ah, well, you'll soon be shet of all the trouble I am to you, Pauline. Then you can dress as gay and giddy as you like, but as long as I'm alive you'll be decent. And what's the matter with your hat? It's time you wore a bonnet, anyhow."
Poor Pauline had a lively horror of having to wear a bonnet. She would wear her old hat for the rest of her life before she would do that.
"I'm just going to be glad inside and forget all about my clothes," she told Anne, when they went out to the garden to pick a bouquet of June lilies and bleeding-heart for the widows.
"I've a plan," said Anne, with a cautious glance to make sure Mrs. Gibson couldn't hear her, though she was watching from the sitting-room window. "You know that silver-gray poplin of mine? I'm going to lend you that for the wedding."
Pauline dropped the basket of flowers in her agitation, making a pool of pink and white sweetness at Anne's feet.
"Oh, my dear, I couldn't. . . . Ma wouldn't let me."
"She won't know a thing about it. Listen. Saturday morning you'll put it on under your black taffeta. I know it will fit you. It's a little long, but I'll run some tucks in it tomorrow . . . tucks are fashionable now. It's collarless, with elbow sleeves so no one will suspect. As soon as you get to Gull Cove, take off the taffeta. When the day is over you can leave the poplin at Gull Cove and I can get it the next week-end I'm home."

"But wouldn't it be too young for me?"
"Not a bit of it. Any age can wear gray."
"Do you think it would be . . . right . . . to deceive Ma?" faltered Pauline.
"In this case entirely right," said Anne shamelessly. "You know, Pauline, it would never do to wear a black dress to a wedding. It might bring the bride bad luck."
"Oh, I wouldn't do that for anything. And of course it won't hurt Ma. I do hope she'll get through Saturday all right. I'm afraid she won't eat a bite when I'm away . . . she didn't the time I went to Cousin Matilda's funeral. Miss Prouty told me she didn't. . . . Miss Prouty stayed with her. She was so provoked at Cousin Matilda for dying . . . Ma was, I mean."
"She'll eat. . . . I'll see to that."
"I know you've a great knack of managing her," conceded Pauline. "And you won't forget to give her her medicine at the regular times, will you, dear? Oh, perhaps I oughtn't to go after all."
"You've been out there long enough to pick forty bokays," called Mrs. Gibson irately. "I dunno what the widows want of your flowers. They've plenty of their own. I'd go a long time without flowers if I waited for Rebecca Dew to send me any. I'm dying for a drink of water. But then I'm of no consequence."
Friday night Pauline telephoned Anne in terrible agitation. She had a sore throat and did Miss Shirley think it could possibly be the mumps? Anne ran down to reassure her, taking the gray poplin in a brown paper parcel. She hid it in the lilac bush and late that night Pauline, in a cold perspiration, managed to smuggle it upstairs to the little room where she kept her clothes and dressed, though she was never permitted to sleep there. Pauline was not quite easy about the dress. Perhaps her sore throat was a judgment on her for deception. But she couldn't go to Louisa's silver wedding in that dreadful old black taffeta . . . she simply couldn't.
Saturday morning Anne was at the Gibson house bright and early. Anne always looked her best on a sparkling summer morning such as this. She seemed to sparkle with it and she moved through the golden air like a slender figure on a Grecian urn. The dullest room sparkled, too . . . lived . . . when she came into it.
"Walking as if you owned the earth," commented Mrs. Gibson sarcastically.
"So I do," said Anne gayly.
"Ah, you're very young," said Mrs. Gibson maddeningly.
"'I withhold not my heart from any joy,'" quoted Anne. "That is Bible authority for you, Mrs.

Gibson."
"'Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.' That's in the Bible, too," retorted Mrs. Gibson. The fact that she had so neatly countered Miss Shirley, B.A., put her in comparatively good humor. "I never was one to flatter, Miss Shirley, but that chip hat of yours with the blue flower kind of sets you. Your hair don't look so red under it, seems to me. Don't you admire a fresh young girl like this, Pauline? Wouldn't you like to be a fresh young girl yourself, Pauline?"
Pauline was too happy and excited to want to be any one but herself just then. Anne went to the upstairs room with her to help her dress.
"It's so lovely to think of all the pleasant things that must happen today, Miss Shirley. My throat is quite well and Ma is in such a good humor. You mightn't think so, but I know she is because she is talking, even if she is sarcastic. If she was mad or riled she'd be sulking. I've peeled the potatoes and the steak is in the ice-box and Ma's blanc mange is down cellar. There's canned chicken for supper and a sponge cake in the pantry. I'm just on tenterhooks Ma'll change her mind yet. I couldn't bear it if she did. Oh, Miss Shirley, do you think I'd better wear that gray dress . . . really?"
"Put it on," said Anne in her best school-teacherish manner.
Pauline obeyed and emerged a transformed Pauline. The gray dress fitted her beautifully. It was collarless and had dainty lace ruffles in the elbow sleeves. When Anne had done her hair Pauline hardly knew herself.
"I hate to cover it up with that horrid old black taffeta, Miss Shirley."
But it had to be. The taffeta covered it very securely. The old hat went on . . . but it would be taken off, too, when she got to Louisa's . . . and Pauline had a new pair of shoes. Mrs. Gibson had actually allowed her to get a new pair of shoes, though she thought the heels "scandalous high." "I'll make quite a sensation going away on the train alone. I hope people won't think it's a death. I wouldn't want Louisa's silver wedding to be connected in any way with the thought of death. Oh, perfume, Miss Shirley! Apple-blossom! Isn't that lovely? Just a whiff . . . so lady-like, I always think. Ma won't let me buy any. Oh, Miss Shirley, you won't forget to feed my dog, will you? I've left his bones in the pantry in the covered dish. I do hope" . . . dropping her voice to a shamed whisper . . . "that he won't . . . misbehave . . . in the house while you're here."
Pauline had to pass her mother's inspection before leaving. Excitement over her outing and guilt in regard to the hidden poplin combined to give her a very unusual flush. Mrs. Gibson gazed at her discontentedly.
"Oh me, oh my! Going to London to look at the Queen, are we? You've got too much color. People will think you're painted. Are you sure you ain't?"

"Oh, no, Ma . . . no," in shocked tones.
"Mind your manners now and when you set down, cross your ankles decently. Mind you don't set in a draught or talk too much." "I won't, Ma," promised Pauline earnestly, with a nervous glance at the clock. "I'm sending Louisa a bottle of my sarsaparilla wine to drink the toasts in. I never cared for Louisa,
but her mother was a Tackaberry. Mind you bring back the bottle and don't let her give you a
kitten. Louisa's always giving people kittens."
"I won't, Ma."
"You're sure you didn't leave the soap in the water?"
"Quite sure, Ma," with another anguished glance at the clock.
"Are your shoe-laces tied?"
"Yes, Ma."
"You don't smell respectable . . . drenched with scent."
"Oh, no, Ma dear . . . just a little . . . the tiniest bit . . ."
"I said drenched and I mean drenched. There isn't, a rip under your arm, is there?"
"Oh, no, Ma."
"Let me see . . ." inexorably.
Pauline quaked. Suppose the skirt of the gray dress showed when she lifted her arms! "Well, go, then." With a long sigh. "If I ain't here when you come back, remember that I want to be laid out in my lace shawl and my black satin slippers. And see that my hair is crimped."
"Do you feel any worse, Ma?" The poplin dress had made Pauline's conscience very sensitive. "If
you do . . . I'll not go . . ." "And waste the money for them shoes! 'Course you're going. And mind you don't slide down the banister."
But at this the worm turned.

"Ma! Do you think I would?" "You did at Nancy Parker's wedding." 'Thirty-five years ago! Do you think I would do it now?" "It's time you were off. What are you jabbering here for? Do you want to miss your train?" Pauline hurried away and Anne sighed with relief. She had been afraid that old Mrs. Gibson had,
at the last moment, been taken with a fiendish impulse to detain Pauline until the train was gone. "Now for a little peace," said Mrs. Gibson. "This house is in an awful condition of untidiness, Miss Shirley. I hope you realize it ain't always so. Pauline hasn't known which end of her was up these last few days. Will you please set that vase an inch to the left? No, move it back again. That
lamp shade is crooked. Well, that's a little straighter. But that blind is an inch lower than the other. I wish you'd fix it." Anne unluckily gave the blind too energetic a twist; it escaped her fingers and went whizzing to
the top. "Ah, now you see," said Mrs. Gibson. Anne didn't see but she adjusted the blind meticulously. "And now wouldn't you like me to make you a nice cup of tea, Mrs. Gibson?" "I do need something. . . . I'm clean wore out with all this worry and fuss. My stomach seems to be
dropping out of me," said Mrs. Gibson pathetically. "Kin you make a decent cup of tea? I'd as
soon drink mud as the tea some folks make." "Marilla Cuthbert taught me how to make tea. You'll see. But first I'm going to wheel you out to the porch so that you can enjoy the sunshine."
"I ain't been out on the porch for years," objected Mrs. Gibson. "Oh, it's so lovely today, it can't hurt you. I want you to see the crab tree in bloom. You can't see it unless you go out. And the wind is south today, so you'll get the clover scent from Norman
Johnson's field. I'll bring you your tea and we'll drink it together and then I'll get my embroidery and we'll sit there and criticize everybody who passes." "I don't hold with criticizing people," said Mrs. Gibson virtuously. "It ain't Christian. Would you
mind telling me if that is all your own hair?" "Every bit," laughed Anne.

"Pity it's red. Though red hair seems to be gitting popular now. I sort of like your laugh. That nervous giggle of poor Pauline's always gits on my nerves. Well, if I've got to git out, I s'pose I've got to. I'll likely ketch my death of cold, but the responsibility is yours, Miss Shirley. Remember I'm eighty . . . every day of it, though I hear old Davy Ackham has been telling all around Summerside I'm only seventy-nine. His mother was a Watt. The Watts were always jealous."
Anne moved the wheel-chair deftly out, and proved that she had a knack of arranging pillows. Soon after she brought out the tea and Mrs. Gibson deigned approval.
"Yes, this is drinkable, Miss Shirley. Ah me, for one year I had to live entirely on liquids. They never thought I'd pull through. I often think it might have been better if I hadn't. Is that the crab tree you was raving about?"
"Yes . . . isn't it lovely . . . so white against that deep blue sky?"
"It ain't poetical," was Mrs. Gibson's sole comment. But she became rather mellow after two cups of tea and the forenoon wore away until it was time to think of dinner.
"I'll go and get it ready and then I'll bring it out here on a little table."
"No, you won't, miss. No crazy monkey-shines like that for me! People would think it awful queer, us eating out here in public. I ain't denying it's kind of nice out here . . . though the smell of clover always makes me kind of squalmish . . . and the forenoon's passed awful quick to what it mostly does, but I ain't eating my dinner out-of-doors for any one. I ain't a gypsy. Mind you wash your hands clean before you cook the dinner. My, Mrs. Storey must be expecting more company. She's got all the spare-room bed-clothes airing on the line. It ain't real hospitality . . . just a desire for sensation. Her mother was a Carey."
The dinner Anne produced pleased even Mrs. Gibson.
"I didn't think any one who wrote for the papers could cook. But of course Marilla Cuthbert brought you up. Her mother was a Johnson. I s'pose Pauline will eat herself sick at that wedding. She don't know when she's had enough . . . just like her father. I've seen him gorge on strawberries when he knew he'd be doubled up with pain an hour afterwards. Did I ever show you his picture, Miss Shirley? Well, go to the spare-room and bring it down. You'll find it under the bed. Mind you don't go prying into the drawers while you're up there. But take a peep and see if there's any dust curls under the bureau. I don't trust Pauline. . . . Ah, yes, that's him. His mother was a Walker. There's no men like that nowadays. This is a degenerate age, Miss Shirley."
"Homer said the same thing eight hundred years, B.C.," smiled Anne.
"Some of them Old Testament writers was always croaking," said Mrs. Gibson. "I daresay you're shocked to hear me say so, Miss Shirley, but my husband was very broad in his views. I hear

you're engaged . . . to a medical student. Medical students mostly drink, I believe . . . have to, to stand the dissecting-room. Never marry a man who drinks, Miss Shirley. Nor one who ain't a good provider. Thistledown and moonshine ain't much to live on, I kin tell you. Mind you clean the sink and rinse the dish-towels. I can't abide greasy dish-towels. I s'pose you'll have to feed the dog. He's too fat now, but Pauline just stuffs him. Sometimes I think I'll have to get rid of him."
"Oh, I wouldn't do that, Mrs. Gibson. There are always burglaries, you know . . . and your house is lonely, off here by itself. You really do need protection."
"Oh, well, have it your own way. I'd ruther do anything than argue with people, 'specially when I've such a queer throbbing in the back of my neck. I s'pose it means I'm going to have a stroke."
"You need your nap. When you've had it you'll feel better. I'll tuck you up and lower your chair. Would you like to go out on the porch for your nap?"
"Sleeping in public! That'd be worse than eating. You do have the queerest ideas. You just fix me up right here in the sitting-room and draw the blinds down and shut the door to keep the flies out. I daresay you'd like a quiet spell yourself . . . your tongue's been going pretty steady."
Mrs. Gibson had a good long nap, but woke up in a bad humor. She would not let Anne wheel her out to the porch again.
"Want me to ketch my death in the night air, I s'pose," she grumbled, although it was only five o'clock. Nothing suited her. The drink Anne brought her was too cold . . . the next one wasn't cold enough . . . of course anything would do for her. Where was the dog? Misbehaving, no doubt. Her back ached . . . her knees ached . . . her head ached . . . her breastbone ached. Nobody sympathized with her . . . nobody knew what she went through. Her chair was too high . . . her chair was too low. . . . She wanted a shawl for her shoulders and an afghan for her knees and a cushion for her feet. And would Miss Shirley see where that awful draught was coming from? She could do with a cup of tea, but she didn't want to be a trouble to any one and she would soon be at rest in her grave. Maybe they might appreciate her when she was gone.
"Be the day short or be the day long, at last it weareth to evening song." There were moments when Anne thought it never would, but it did. Sunset came and Mrs. Gibson began to wonder why Pauline wasn't coming. Twilight came . . . still no Pauline. Night and moonshine and no Pauline.
"I knew it," said Mrs. Gibson cryptically.
"You know she can't come till Mr. Gregor comes and he's generally the last dog hung," soothed Anne. "Won't you let me put you to bed, Mrs. Gibson? You're tired . . . I know it's a bit of a strain having a stranger round instead of some one you're accustomed to."
The little puckery lines about Mrs. Gibson's mouth deepened obstinately.

"I'm not going to bed till that girl comes home. But if you're so anxious to be gone, go. I can stay alone . . . or die alone."
At half past nine Mrs. Gibson decided that Jim Gregor was not coming home till Monday. "Nobody could ever depend on Jim Gregor to stay in the same mind twenty-four hours. And he thinks it's wrong to travel on Sunday even to come home. He's on your school board, ain't he? What do you really think of him and his opinions on eddication?"
Anne went wicked. After all, she had endured a good deal at Mrs. Gibson's hands that day. "I think he's a psychological anachronism," she answered gravely. Mrs. Gibson did not bat an eyelash. "I agree with you," she said. But she pretended to go to sleep after that.
It was ten o'clock when Pauline came at last . . . a flushed, starry-eyed Pauline, looking ten years younger, in spite of the resumed taffeta and the old hat, and carrying a beautiful bouquet which she hurriedly presented to the grim lady in the wheel-chair.
"The bride sent you her bouquet, Ma. Isn't it lovely? Twenty-five white roses."
"Cat's hindfoot! I don't s'pose any one thought of sending me a crumb of wedding-cake. People nowadays don't seem to have any family feeling. Ah, well, I've seen the day . . ."
"But they did. I've a great big piece here in my bag. And everybody asked about you and sent you their love, Ma."
"Did you have a nice time?" asked Anne.
Pauline sat down on a hard chair because she knew her mother would resent it if she sat on a soft one.
"Very nice," she said cautiously. "We had a lovely wedding-dinner and Mr. Freeman, the Gull Cove minister, married Louisa and Maurice over again. . . ."

"I call that sacrilegious. . . ."
"And then the photographer took all our pictures. The flowers were simply wonderful. The parlor was a bower . . ."
"Like a funeral I s'pose . . ."
"And, oh, Ma. Mary Luckley was there from the west . . . Mrs. Flemming, you know. You remember what friends she and I always were. We used to call each other Polly and Molly. . . ."
"Very silly names . . ."
"And it was so nice to see her again and have a long talk over old times. Her sister Em was there, too, with such a delicious baby."
"You talk as if it was something to eat," grunted Mrs. Gibson. "Babies are common enough."
"Oh, no, babies are never common," said Anne, bringing a bowl of water for Mrs. Gibson's roses. "Every one is a miracle."
"Well, I had ten and I never saw much that was miraculous about any of them. Pauline, do sit still if you kin. You fidget me. I notice you ain't asking how I got along. But I s'pose I couldn't expect it."
"I can tell how you got along without asking, Ma . . . you look so bright and cheerful." Pauline was still so uplifted by the day that she could be a little arch even with her mother. "I'm sure you and Miss Shirley had a nice time together."
"We got on well enough. I just let her have her own way. I admit it's the first time in years I've heard some interesting conversation. I ain't so near the grave as some people would like to make out. Thank heaven I've never got deaf or childish. Well, I s'pose the next thing you'll be off to the moon. And I s'pose they didn't care for my sarsaparilla wine by any chance?"
"Oh, they did. They thought it delicious."
"You've taken your own time telling me that. Did you bring back the bottle . . . or would it be too much to expect you'd remember that?"
"The . . . the bottle got broke," faltered Pauline. "Some one knocked it over in the pantry. But Louisa gave me another just exactly the same, Ma, so you needn't worry."
"I've had that bottle ever since I started housekeeping. Louisa's can't be exactly the same. They don't make such bottles nowadays. I wish you'd bring me another shawl. I'm sneezing . . . I expect I've got a terrible cold. You can't either of you seem to remember not to let the night air git at me.

Likely it'll bring my neuritis back."
An old neighbor up the street dropped in at this Juncture and Pauline snatched at the chance to go a little way with Anne.
"Good night, Miss Shirley," said Mrs. Gibson quite graciously. "I'm much obliged to you. If there was more people like you in this town, it would be the better for it." She grinned toothlessly and pulled Anne down to her. "I don't care what people say . . . I think you're real nice-looking," she whispered.
Pauline and Anne walked along the street, through the cool, green night, and Pauline let herself go, as she had not dared do before her mother.
"Oh, Miss Shirley, it was heavenly. How can I ever repay you? I've never spent such a wonderful day . . . I'll live on it for years. It was such fun being a bridesmaid again. And Captain Isaac Kent was groomsman. He . . . he used to be an old beau of mine . . . well, no, hardly a beau . . . . I don't think he ever had any real intentions but we drove round together . . . and he paid me two compliments. He said, 'I remember how pretty you looked at Louisa's wedding in that wine-colored dress.' Wasn't it wonderful his remembering the dress? And he said, 'Your hair looks just as much like molasses taffy as it ever did.' There wasn't anything improper in his saying that, was there, Miss Shirley?"
"Nothing whatever."
"Lou and Molly and I had such a nice supper together after everybody had gone. I was so hungry . . . I don't think I've been so hungry for years. It was so nice to eat just what I wanted and nobody to warn me about things that wouldn't agree with my stomach. After supper Mary and I went over to her old home and wandered around the garden, talking over old times. We saw the lilac bushes we planted years ago. We had some beautiful summers together when we were girls. Then when it came sunset we went down to the dear old shore and sat there on a rock in silence. There was a bell ringing down at the harbor and it was lovely to feel the wind from the sea again and see the stars trembling in the water. I had forgotten night on the gulf could be so beautiful. When it got quite dark we went back and Mr. Gregor was ready to start . . . and so," concluded Pauline with a laugh, "The Old Woman Got Home That Night."
"I wish . . . I wish you didn't have such a hard time at home, Pauline. . . ."
"Oh, dear Miss Shirley, I won't mind it now," said Pauline quickly. "After all, poor Ma needs me. And it's nice to be needed, my dear."
Yes, it was nice to be needed. Anne thought of this in her tower room, where Dusty Miller, having evaded both Rebecca Dew and the widows, was curled up on her bed. She thought of Pauline trotting back to her bondage but companied by "the immortal spirit of one happy day."

"I hope some one will always need me," said Anne to Dusty Miller. "And it's wonderful, Dusty Miller, to be able to give happiness to somebody. It has made me feel so rich, giving Pauline this day. But, oh, Dusty Miller, you don't think I'll ever be like Mrs. Adoniram Gibson, even if I live to be eighty? Do you, Dusty Miller?"
Dusty Miller, with rich, throaty purrs, assured her he didn't.
Anne went down to Bonnyview on the Friday night before the wedding. The Nelsons were giving a dinner for some family friends and wedding-guests arriving by the boat train. The big, rambling house which was Dr. Nelson's "summer home" was built among spruces on a long point with the bay on both sides and a stretch of golden-breasted dunes beyond that knew all there was to be known about winds.
Anne liked it the moment she saw it. An old stone house always looks reposeful and dignified. It fears not what rain or wind or changing fashion can do. And on this June evening it was bubbling over with young life and excitement, the laughter of girls, the greetings of old friends, buggies coming and going, children running everywhere, gifts arriving, every one in the delightful turmoil of a wedding, while Dr. Nelson's two black cats, who rejoiced in the names of Barnabas and Saul, sat on the railing of the veranda and watched everything like two imperturbable sable sphinxes.
Sally detached herself from a mob and whisked Anne upstairs.
"We've saved the north gable room for you. Of course you'll have to share it with at least three others. There's a perfect riot here. Father's having a tent put up for the boys down among the spruces and later on we can have cots in the glassed-in porch at the back. And we can pack most of the children in the hay-loft of course. Oh, Anne, I'm so excited. It's really no end of fun getting married. My wedding-dress just came from Montreal today. It's a dream . . . cream corded silk with a lace bertha and pearl embroidery. The loveliest gifts have come. This is your bed. Mamie Gray and Dot Fraser and Sis Palmer have the others. Mother wanted to put Amy Stewart here but I wouldn't let her. Amy hates you because she wanted to be my bridesmaid. But I couldn't have any one so fat and dumpy, could I now? Besides, she looks like somebody seasick in Nile green. Oh, Anne, Aunt Mouser is here. She came just a few minutes ago and we're simply horror-stricken. Of course we had to invite her, but we never thought of her coming before tomorrow."
"Who in the world is Aunt Mouser?"
"Dad's aunt, Mrs. James Kennedy. Oh, of course she's really Aunt Grace, but Tommy nicknamed

her Aunt Mouser because she's always mousing round pouncing on things we don't want her to find out. There's no escaping her. She even gets up early in the morning for fear of missing something and she's the last to go to bed at night. But that isn't the worst. If there's a wrong thing to say she's certain to say it and she's never learned that there are questions that mustn't be asked. Dad calls her speeches 'Aunt Mouser's felicities.' I know she'll spoil the dinner. Here she comes now."
The door opened and Aunt Mouser came in . . . a fat, brown, pop-eyed little woman, moving in an atmosphere of moth-balls and wearing a chronically worried expression. Except for the expression she really did look a good deal like a hunting pussy-cat.
"So you're the Miss Shirley I've always heard so much of. You ain't a bit like a Miss Shirley I once knew. She had such beautiful eyes. Well, Sally, so you're to be married at last. Poor Nora is the only one left. Well, your mother is lucky to be rid of five of you. Eight years ago I said to her, 'Jane,' sez I, 'do you think you'll ever get all those girls married off?' Well, a man is nothing but trouble as I sees it and of all the uncertain things marriage is the uncertainest, but what else is there for a woman in this world? That's what I've just been saying to poor Nora. 'Mark my words, Nora,' I said to her, 'there isn't much fun in being an old maid. What's Jim Wilcox thinking of?' I said to her."
"Oh, Aunt Grace, I wish you hadn't! Jim and Nora had some sort of a quarrel last January and he's never been round since."
"I believe in saying what I think. Things is better said. I'd heard of that quarrel. That's why I asked her about him. 'It's only right,' I told her, 'that you should know they say he's driving Eleanor Pringle.' She got red and mad and flounced off. What's Vera Johnson doing here? She ain't any relation."
"Vera's always been a great friend of mine, Aunt Grace. She's going to play the wedding-march."
"Oh, she is, is she? Well, all I hope is she won't make a mistake and play the Dead March like Mrs. Tom Scott did at Dora Best's wedding. Such a bad omen. I don't know where you're going to put the mob you've got here for the night. Some of us will have to sleep on the clothes-line I reckon."
"Oh, we'll find a place for every one, Aunt Grace."
"Well, Sally, all I hope is you won't change your mind at the last moment like Helen Summers did. It clutters things up so. Your father is in terrible high spirits. I never was one to go looking for trouble but all I hope is it ain't the forerunner of a stroke. I've seen it happen that way."
"Oh, Dad's fine, Aunt Mouser. He's just a bit excited."
"Ah, you're too young, Sally, to know all that can happen. Your mother tells me the ceremony is at high noon tomorrow. The fashions in weddings are changing like everything else and not for the

better. When I was married it was in the evening and my father laid in twenty gallons of liquor for the wedding. Ah, dear me, times ain't what they used to be. What's the matter with Mercy Daniels? I met her on the stairs and her complexion has got terrible muddy."
"'The quality of mercy is not strained,'" giggled Sally, wriggling into her dinner-dress.
"Don't quote the Bible flippantly," rebuked Aunt Mouser. "You must excuse her, Miss Shirley. She just ain't used to getting married. Well, all I hope is the groom won't have a hunted look like so many of them do. I s'pose they do feel that way, but they needn't show it so plain. And I hope he won't forget the ring. Upton Hardy did. Him and Flora had to be married with a ring off one of the curtain poles. Well, I'll be taking another look at the wedding-presents. You've got a lot of nice things, Sally. All I hope is it won't be as hard to keep the handles of them spoons polished as I think likely."
Dinner that night in the big, glassed-in porch was a gay affair. Chinese lanterns had been hung all about it, shedding mellow-tinted lights on the pretty dresses and glossy hair and white, unlined brows of girls. Barnabas and Saul sat like ebony statues on the broad arms of the Doctor's chair, where he fed them tidbits alternately.
"Just about as bad as Parker Pringle," said Aunt Mouser. "He has his dog sit at the table with a chair and napkin of his own. Well, sooner or later there'll be a judgment."
It was a large party, for all the married Nelson girls and their husbands were there, besides ushers and bridesmaids; and it was a merry one, in spite of Aunt Mouser's "felicities" . . . or perhaps because of them. Nobody took Aunt Mouser very seriously; she was evidently a joke among the young fry. When she said, on being introduced to Gordon Hill, "Well, well, you ain't a bit like I expected. I always thought Sally would pick out a tall handsome man," ripples of laughter ran through the porch. Gordon Hill, who was on the short side and called no more than "pleasant-faced" by his best friends, knew he would never hear the last of it. When she said to Dot Fraser, "Well, well, a new dress every time I see you! All I hope is your father's purse will be able to stand it for a few years yet," Dot could, of course, have boiled her in oil, but some of the other girls found it amusing. And when Aunt Mouser mournfully remarked, apropos of the preparations of the wedding-dinner, "All I hope is everybody will get her teaspoons afterwards. Five were missing after Gertie Paul's wedding. They never turned up," Mrs. Nelson, who had borrowed three dozen and the sisters-in-law she had borrowed them from all looked harried. But Dr. Nelson haw-hawed cheerfully.
"We'll make everyone turn out their pockets before they go, Aunt Grace."
"Ah, you may laugh, Samuel. It is no joking-matter to have anything like that happen in the family. Some one must have those teaspoons. I never go anywhere but I keep my eyes open for them. I'd know them wherever I saw them, though it was twenty-eight years ago. Poor Nora was just a baby then. You remember you had her there, Jane, in a little white embroidered dress? Twenty-eight years! Ah, Nora, you're getting on, though in this light you don't show your age so much."

Nora did not join in the laugh that followed. She looked as if she might flash lightning at any moment. In spite of her daffodil-hued dress and the pearls in her dark hair, she made Anne think of a black moth. In direct contrast with Sally, who was a cool, snowy blonde, Nora Nelson had magnificent black hair, dusky eyes, heavy black brows and velvety red cheeks. Her nose was beginning to look a trifle hawk-like and she had never been accounted pretty, but Anne felt an odd attraction to her in spite of her sulky, smoldering expression. She felt that she would prefer Nora as a friend to the popular Sally.
They had a dance after dinner and music and laughter came tumbling out of the broad low windows of the old stone house in a flood. At ten Nora had disappeared. Anne was a little tired of the noise and merriment. She slipped through the hall to a back door that opened almost on the bay, and flitted down a flight of rocky steps to the shore, past a little grove of pointed firs. How divine the cool salt air was after the sultry evening! How exquisite the silver patterns of moonlight on the bay! How dream-like that ship which had sailed at the rising of the moon and was now approaching the harbor bar! It was a night when you might expect to stray into a dance of mermaids.
Nora was hunched up in the grim black shadow of a rock by the water's edge, looking more like a thunderstorm than ever.
"May I sit with you for a while?" asked Anne. "I'm a little tired of dancing and it's a shame to miss this wonderful night. I envy you with the whole harbor for a back yard like this."
"What would you feel like at a time like this if you had no beau?" asked Nora abruptly and sullenly. "Or any likelihood of one," she added still more sullenly.
"I think it must be your own fault if you haven't," said Anne, sitting down beside her. Nora found herself telling Anne her troubles. There was always something about Anne that made people tell her their troubles.
"You're saying that to be polite of course. You needn't. You know as well as I do that I'm not a girl men are likely to fall in love with . . . I'm 'the plain Miss Nelson.' It isn't my fault that I haven't anybody. I couldn't stand it in there any longer. I had to come down here and just let myself be unhappy. I'm tired of smiling and being agreeable to every one and pretending not to care when they give me digs about not being married. I'm not going to pretend any longer. I do care . . . I care horribly. I'm the only one of the Nelson girls left. Five of us are married or will be tomorrow. You heard Aunt Mouser casting my age up to me at the dinnertable. And I heard her telling Mother before dinner that I had 'aged quite a bit' since last summer. Of course I have. I'm twenty-eight. In twelve more years I'll be forty. How will I endure life at forty, Anne, if I haven't got any roots of my own by that time?"
"I wouldn't mind what a foolish old woman said."

"Oh, wouldn't you? You haven't a nose like mine. I'll be as beaky as Father in ten more years. And I suppose you wouldn't care, either, if you'd waited years for a man to propose . . . and he just wouldn't?"
"Oh, yes, I think I would care about that."
"Well, that's my predicament exactly. Oh, I know you've heard of Jim Wilcox and me. It's such an old story. He's been hanging around me for years . . . but he's never said anything about getting married."
"Do you care for him?"
"Of course I care. I've always pretended I didn't but, as I've told you, I'm through with pretending. And he's never been near me since last January. We had a fight . . . but we've had hundreds of fights. He always came back before . . . but he hasn't come this time . . . and he never will. He doesn't want to. Look at his house across the bay, shining in the moonlight. I suppose he's there . . . and I'm here . . . and all the harbor between us. That's the way it always will be. It . . . it's terrible! And I can't do a thing."
"If you sent for him, wouldn't he come back?"
"Send for him! Do you think I'd do that? I'd die first. If he wants to come, there's nothing to prevent him coming. If he doesn't, I don't want him to. Yes, I do . . . I do! I love Jim . . . and I want to get married. I want to have a home of my own and be 'Mrs.' and shut Aunt Mouser's mouth. Oh, I wish I could be Barnabas or Saul for a few moments just to swear at her! If she calls me 'poor Nora' again I'll throw a scuttle at her. But after all, she only says what everybody thinks. Mother has despaired long ago of my ever marrying, so she leaves me alone, but the rest rag me. I hate Sally . . . of course I'm dreadful . . . but I hate her. She's getting a nice husband and a lovely home. It isn't fair she should have everything and I nothing. She isn't better or cleverer or much prettier than me . . . only luckier. I suppose you think I'm awful . . . not that I care what you think."
"I think you're very, very tired, after all these weeks of preparation and strain, and that things which were always hard have become too hard all at once."
"You understand . . . oh, yes, I always knew you would. I've wanted to be friends with you, Anne Shirley. I like the way you laugh. I've always wished I could laugh like that. I'm not as sulky as I look . . . it's these eyebrows. I really think they're what scare the men away. I never had a real girl friend in my life. But of course I always had Jim. We've been . . . friends . . . ever since we were kids. Why, I used to put a light up in that little window in the attic whenever I wanted him over particularly and he'd sail across at once. We went everywhere together. No other boy ever had a chance . . . not that any one wanted it, I suppose. And now it's all over. He was just tired of me and was glad of the excuse of a quarrel to get free. Oh, won't I hate you tomorrow because I've told you this!"

"Why?"
"We always hate people who surprise our secrets, I suppose," said Nora drearily. "But there's something gets into you at a wedding . . . and I just don't care . . . I don't care for anything. Oh, Anne Shirley, I'm so miserable! Just let me have a good cry on your shoulder. I've got to smile and look happy all day tomorrow. Sally thinks it's because I'm superstitious that I wouldn't be her bridesmaid. . . . 'Three times a bridesmaid, never a bride,' you know. 'Tisn't! I just couldn't endure to stand there and hear her saying, 'I will,' and know I'd never have a chance to say it for Jim. I'd have flung back my head and howled. I want to be a bride . . . and have a trousseau . . . and monogrammed linen . . . and lovely presents. Even Aunt Mouser's silver butter-dish. She always gives a butter-dish to every bride . . . awful things with tops like the dome of St. Peter's. We could have had it on the breakfast table just for Jim to make fun of. Anne, I think I'm going crazy."
The dance was over when the girls went back to the house, hand in hand. People were being stowed away for the night. Tommy Nelson was taking Barnabas and Saul to the barn. Aunt Mouser was still sitting on a sofa, thinking of all the dreadful things she hoped wouldn't happen on the morrow.
"I hope nobody will get up and give a reason why they shouldn't be joined together. That happened at Tillie Hatfield's wedding."
"No such good luck for Gordon as that," said the groomsman. Aunt Mouser fixed him with a stony brown eye.
"Young man, marriage isn't exactly a joke."
"You bet it isn't," said the unrepentant. "Hello, Nora, when are we going to have a chance to dance at your wedding?"
Nora did not answer in words. She went closer up to him and deliberately slapped him, first on one side of his face and then on the other. The slaps were not make-believe ones. Then she went upstairs without looking behind her.
"That girl," said Aunt Mouser, "is overwrought."
The forenoon of Saturday passed in a whirl of last-minute things. Anne, shrouded in one of Mrs. Nelson's aprons, spent it in the kitchen helping Nora with the salads. Nora was all prickles,

evidently repenting, as she had foretold, her confidences of the night before.

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