s beauty and belle. It must surely impress
Anne. She would see that some people appreciated him at his real value.

Gilbert and Anne loitered a little behind the others, enjoying the calm,
still beauty of the autumn afternoon under the pines of the park, on the
road that climbed and twisted round the harbor shore.

"The silence here is like a prayer, isn't it?" said Anne, her face
upturned to the shining sky. "How I love the pines! They seem to strike
their roots deep into the romance of all the ages. It is so comforting
to creep away now and then for a good talk with them. I always feel so
happy out here."

"'And so in mountain solitudes o'ertaken
As by some spell divine,
Their cares drop from them like the needles shaken
From out the gusty pine,'"

quoted Gilbert.

"They make our little ambitions seem rather petty, don't they, Anne?"

"I think, if ever any great sorrow came to me, I would come to the pines
for comfort," said Anne dreamily.

"I hope no great sorrow ever will come to you, Anne," said Gilbert, who
could not connect the idea of sorrow with the vivid, joyous creature
beside him, unwitting that those who can soar to the highest heights can
also plunge to the deepest depths, and that the natures which enjoy most
keenly are those which also suffer most sharply.

"But there must--sometime," mused Anne. "Life seems like a cup of glory
held to my lips just now. But there must be some bitterness in it--there
is in every cup. I shall taste mine some day. Well, I hope I shall be
strong and brave to meet it. And I hope it won't be through my own
fault that it will come. Do you remember what Dr. Davis said last Sunday
evening--that the sorrows God sent us brought comfort and strength
with them, while the sorrows we brought on ourselves, through folly
or wickedness, were by far the hardest to bear? But we mustn't talk
of sorrow on an afternoon like this. It's meant for the sheer joy of
living, isn't it?"

"If I had my way I'd shut everything out of your life but happiness and
pleasure, Anne," said Gilbert in the tone that meant "danger ahead."

"Then you would be very unwise," rejoined Anne hastily. "I'm sure no
life can be properly developed and rounded out without some trial and
sorrow--though I suppose it is only when we are pretty comfortable that
we admit it. Come--the others have got to the pavilion and are beckoning
to us."

They all sat down in