t carry tales of the matter. I may be as crazy as
I like."

She caught up her skirt and pirouetted along the hard strip of sand
just out of reach of the waves that almost lapped her feet with their
spent foam. Whirling round and round, laughing like a child, she
reached the little headland that ran out to the east of the cove; then
she stopped suddenly, blushing crimson; she was not alone; there had
been a witness to her dance and laughter.

The girl of the golden hair and sea-blue eyes was sitting on a boulder
of the headland, half-hidden by a jutting rock. She was looking
straight at Anne with a strange expression--part wonder, part sympathy,
part--could it be?--envy. She was bare-headed, and her splendid hair,
more than ever 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 somewhat work-hardened; but the skin of her throat
and cheeks was as white as cream. A flying gleam of sunset broke
through a low-lying western cloud and fell across her hair. For a
moment she seemed the spirit of the sea personified--all its mystery,
all its passion, all its elusive charm.

"You--you must think me crazy," stammered Anne, trying to recover her
self-possession. To be seen by this stately girl in such an abandon of
childishness--she, Mrs. Dr. Blythe, with all the dignity of the matron
to keep up--it was too bad!

"No," said the girl, "I don't."

She said nothing more; her voice was expressionless; her manner
slightly repellent; but there was something in her eyes--eager yet shy,
defiant yet pleading--which turned Anne from her purpose of walking
away. Instead, she sat down on the boulder beside the girl.

"Let's introduce ourselves," she said, with the smile that had never
yet failed to win confidence and friendliness. "I am Mrs. Blythe--and
I live in that little white house up the harbor shore."

"Yes, I know," said the girl. "I am Leslie Moore--Mrs. Dick Moore,"
she added stiffly.

Anne was silent for a moment from sheer amazement. It had not occurred
to her that this girl was married--there seemed nothing of the wife
about her. And that she should be the neighbor whom Anne had pictured
as a commonplace Four Winds housewife! Anne could not quickly adjust
her mental focus to this ast