ally. "I'll jest
have time to walk home before sundown. Thank you for a beautiful
Christmas, Mistress Blythe. Bring Master Davy down to the light some
night before he goes home.

"I want to see those stone gods," said Davy with a relish.

CHAPTER 16

NEW YEAR'S EVE AT THE LIGHT

The Green Gables folk went home after Christmas, Marilla under solemn
covenant to return for a month in the spring. More snow came before
New Year's, and the harbor froze over, but the gulf still was free,
beyond the white, imprisoned fields. The last day of the old year was
one of those bright, cold, dazzling winter days, which bombard us with
their brilliancy, and command our admiration but never our love. The
sky was sharp and blue; the snow diamonds sparkled insistently; the
stark trees were bare and shameless, with a kind of brazen beauty; the
hills shot assaulting lances of crystal. Even the shadows were sharp
and stiff and clear-cut, as no proper shadows should be. Everything
that was handsome seemed ten times handsomer and less attractive in the
glaring splendor; and everything that was ugly seemed ten times uglier,
and everything was either handsome or ugly. There was no soft
blending, or kind obscurity, or elusive mistiness in that searching
glitter. The only things that held their own individuality were the
firs--for the fir is the tree of mystery and shadow, and yields never
to the encroachments of crude radiance.

But finally the day began to realise that she was growing old. Then a
certain pensiveness fell over her beauty which dimmed yet intensified
it; sharp angles, glittering points, melted away into curves and
enticing gleams. The white harbor put on soft grays and pinks; the
far-away hills turned amethyst.

"The old year is going away beautifully," said Anne.

She and Leslie and Gilbert were on their way to the Four Winds Point,
having plotted with Captain Jim to watch the New Year in at the light.
The sun had set and in the southwestern sky hung Venus, glorious and
golden, having drawn as near to her earth-sister as is possible for
her. For the first time Anne and Gilbert saw the shadow cast by that
brilliant star of evening, that faint, mysterious shadow, never seen
save when there is white snow to reveal it, and then only with averted
vision, vanishing when you gaze at it directly.

"It's like the spirit of a shadow, isn't it?" whispered Anne. "You can
see it so plainly haunting your side when yo