ap of eight
I fell asleep in the garden one evening and wasn't missed. I woke up
along in the night and I was most scared to death. What shadows and
queer noises there was! I dursn't move. Jest crouched there quaking,
poor small mite. Seemed 's if there weren't anyone in the world but
meself and it was mighty big. Then all at once I saw the moon looking
down at me through the apple boughs, jest like an old friend. I was
comforted right off. Got up and walked to the house as brave as a
lion, looking at her. Many's the night I've watched her from the deck
of my vessel, on seas far away from here. Why don't you folks tell me
to take in the slack of my jaw and go home?"

The laughter of the goodnights died away. Anne and Gilbert walked hand
in hand around their garden. The brook that ran across the corner
dimpled pellucidly in the shadows of the birches. The poppies along
its banks were like shallow cups of moonlight. Flowers that had been
planted by the hands of the schoolmaster's bride flung their sweetness
on the shadowy air, like the beauty and blessing of sacred yesterdays.
Anne paused in the gloom to gather a spray.

"I love to smell flowers in the dark," she said. "You get hold of
their soul then. Oh, Gilbert, this little house is all I've dreamed
it. And I'm so glad that we are not the first who have kept bridal
tryst here!"

CHAPTER 8

MISS CORNELIA BRYANT COMES TO CALL

That September was a month of golden mists and purple hazes at Four
Winds Harbor--a month of sun-steeped days and of nights that were
swimming in moonlight, or pulsating with stars. No storm marred it, no
rough wind blew. Anne and Gilbert put their nest in order, rambled on
the shores, sailed on the harbor, drove about Four Winds and the Glen,
or through the ferny, sequestered roads of the woods around the harbor
head; in short, had such a honeymoon as any lovers in the world might
have envied them.

"If life were to stop short just now it would still have been richly
worth while, just for the sake of these past four weeks, wouldn't it?"
said Anne. "I don't suppose we will ever have four such perfect weeks
again--but we've HAD them. Everything--wind, weather, folks, house of
dreams--has conspired to make our honeymoon delightful. There hasn't
even been a rainy day since we came here."

"And we haven't quarrelled once," teased Gilbert.

"Well, 'that's a pleasure all the greater for being deferred,'" quoted
Anne.