The rustle of the poplar leaves about the house worried her, it sounded so like pattering raindrops, and the dull, far-away roar of the gulf, to which she listened delightedly at other times, loving its strange, sonorous, haunting rhythm, now seemed like a prophecy of storm and disaster to a small maiden who particularly wanted a fine day.
Mrs. Hammon told me that God made my hair red on purpose and I haven’t card for him since.
Oh, Gilbert, don’t let’s ever grow too old and wise... no, not too old and silly for fairyland.
A child of about eleven, garbed in a very short, very tight, very ugly dress of yellowish-gray wincey. She wore a faded brown sailor hat and beneath the hat, extending down her back, were two braids of very thick, decidedly red hair. Her face was small, white and thin, also much freckled; her mouth was large and so were her eyes, which looked green in some lights and moods and gray in others.
But there is a destiny which shapes the ends of young misses who are born with the itch for writing tingling in their baby fingertips, and in the fullness of time this destiny gave to Emily the desire of her heart – gave.
Oh, WHY can’t boys be just sensible!
If I had my way I’d shut everything out of your life but happiness and pleasure, Anne,” said Gilbert.
Do you know what? I think the evening star is a lighthouse on the land where the fairies dwell.
It is sometimes a little lonely to be surrounded everywhere by happiness that is not your own.
Life is rich and full here... everywhere... if we can only learn how to open our whole hearts to its richness and fullness.
There is so much in the world for us all if we only have the eyes to see it, and the heart to love it, and the hand to gather it to ourselves.
The faint laughter of winds was always about them and the colors of Mistawis, imperial and spiritual, under the changing clouds, were something that cannot be expressed in mere words. Shadows, too. Clustering in the pines until a wind shook them out and pursued them over Mistawis. They lay all day along the shores, threaded by ferns and wild blossoms. They stole around the headlands in the glow of the sunset, until twilight wove them all into one great web of dusk.
But Gilbert’s visits were not what they once were. Anne almost dreaded them. It was very disconcerting to look up in the midst of a sudden silence and find Gilbert’s hazel eyes fixed upon her with a quite unmistakable expression in their grave depths; and it was still more disconcerting to find herself blushing hotly and uncomfortably under his gaze, just as if – just as if – well, it was very embarrassing.
I am grateful that my childhood was spent in a spot where there were many trees, trees of personality, planted and tended by hands long dead, bound up with everything of joy or sorrow that visited our lives. When I have “lived with” a tree for many years it seems to me like a beloved human companion.
If it had not rained on a certain May morning Valancy Stirling’s whole life would have been entirely different. She would have gone, with the rest of her clan, to Aunt Wellington’s engagement picnic and Dr. Trent would have gone to Montreal. But it did rain and you shall hear what happened to her because of it.
No. I don’t think I’ve ever been really lonely in my life,” answered Anne. “Even when I’m alone I have real good company – dreams and imaginations and pretendings. I LIKE to be alone now and then, just to think over things and TASTE them.
It’s a dreadful mistake to cherish bitterness for years... hugging it to our hearts like a treasure.
Shirking responsibilities is the curse of our modern life-the secret of all the unrest and discontent that is seething in the world.
Note: – One can do a great deal with appropriate smiles. I must study the subject carefully. The friendly smile – the scornful smile – the detached smile – the entreating smile – the common or garden grin.
Flour is so essential to cakes, you know.