“We are going for a walk in the park,” answered Anne. “I ought to stay in and finish my blouse. But I couldn’t sew on a day like this. There’s something in the air that gets into my blood and makes a sort of glory in my soul. My fingers would twitch1 and I’d sew a crooked2 seam. So it’s ho for the park and the pines.”
“Does ‘we’ include any one but yourself and Priscilla?”
“Yes, it includes Gilbert and Charlie, and we’ll be very glad if it will include you, also.”
“But,” said Philippa dolefully, “if I go I’ll have to be gooseberry, and that will be a new experience for Philippa Gordon.”
“Well, new experiences are broadening. Come along, and you’ll be able to sympathize with all poor souls who have to play gooseberry often. But where are all the victims?”
“Oh, I was tired of them all and simply couldn’t be bothered with any of them today. Besides, I’ve been feeling a little blue—just a pale, elusive3 azure4. It isn’t serious enough for anything darker. I wrote Alec and Alonzo last week. I put the letters into envelopes and addressed them, but I didn’t seal them up. That evening something funny happened. That is, Alec would think it funny, but Alonzo wouldn’t be likely to. I was in a hurry, so I snatched Alec’s letter—as I thought—out of the envelope and scribbled5 down a postscript6. Then I mailed both letters. I got Alonzo’s reply this morning. Girls, I had put that postscript to his letter and he was furious. Of course he’ll get over it—and I don’t care if he doesn’t—but it spoiled my day. So I thought I’d come to you darlings to get cheered up. After the football season opens I won’t have any spare Saturday afternoons. I adore football. I’ve got the most gorgeous cap and sweater striped in Redmond colors to wear to the games. To be sure, a little way off I’ll look like a walking barber’s pole. Do you know that that Gilbert of yours has been elected Captain of the Freshman7 football team?”
“Yes, he told us so last evening,” said Priscilla, seeing that outraged8 Anne would not answer. “He and Charlie were down. We knew they were coming, so we painstakingly9 put out of sight or out of reach all Miss Ada’s cushions. That very elaborate one with the raised embroidery10 I dropped on the floor in the corner behind the chair it was on. I thought it would be safe there. But would you believe it? Charlie Sloane made for that chair, noticed the cushion behind it, solemnly fished it up, and sat on it the whole evening. Such a wreck11 of a cushion as it was! Poor Miss Ada asked me today, still smiling, but oh, so reproachfully, why I had allowed it to be sat upon. I told her I hadn’t—that it was a matter of predestination coupled with inveterate12 Sloanishness and I wasn’t a match for both combined.”
“Miss Ada’s cushions are really getting on my nerves,” said Anne. “She finished two new ones last week, stuffed and embroidered13 within an inch of their lives. There being absolutely no other cushionless place to put them she stood them up against the wall on the stair landing. They topple over half the time and if we come up or down the stairs in the dark we fall over them. Last Sunday, when Dr. Davis prayed for all those exposed to the perils14 of the sea, I added in thought ‘and for all those who live in houses where cushions are loved not wisely but too well!’ There! we’re ready, and I see the boys coming through Old St. John’s. Do you cast in your lot with us, Phil?”
“I’ll go, if I can walk with Priscilla and Charlie. That will be a bearable degree of gooseberry. That Gilbert of yours is a darling, Anne, but why does he go around so much with Goggle-eyes?”
Anne stiffened15. She had no great liking16 for Charlie Sloane; but he was of Avonlea, so no outsider had any business to laugh at him.
“Charlie and Gilbert have always been friends,” she said coldly. “Charlie is a nice boy. He’s not to blame for his eyes.”
“Don’t tell me that! He is! He must have done something dreadful in a previous existence to be punished with such eyes. Pris and I are going to have such sport with him this afternoon. We’ll make fun of him to his face and he’ll never know it.”
Doubtless, “the abandoned P’s,” as Anne called them, did carry out their amiable17 intentions. But Sloane was blissfully ignorant; he thought he was quite a fine fellow to be walking with two such coeds, especially Philippa Gordon, the class beauty and belle18. 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.”
As by some spell divine,
Their cares drop from them like the needles shaken
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, joyous21 creature beside him, unwitting that those who can soar to the highest heights can also plunge22 to the deepest depths, and that the natures which enjoy most keenly are those which also suffer most sharply.
“But there must—sometime,” mused23 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 folly24 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 beckoning25 to us.”
They all sat down in the little pavilion to watch an autumn sunset of deep red fire and pallid26 gold. To their left lay Kingsport, its roofs and spires27 dim in their shroud28 of violet smoke. To their right lay the harbor, taking on tints29 of rose and copper30 as it stretched out into the sunset. Before them the water shimmered31, satin smooth and silver gray, and beyond, clean shaven William’s Island loomed32 out of the mist, guarding the town like a sturdy bulldog. Its lighthouse beacon33 flared34 through the mist like a baleful star, and was answered by another in the far horizon.
“Did you ever see such a strong-looking place?” asked Philippa. “I don’t want William’s Island especially, but I’m sure I couldn’t get it if I did. Look at that sentry35 on the summit of the fort, right beside the flag. Doesn’t he look as if he had stepped out of a romance?”
“Speaking of romance,” said Priscilla, “we’ve been looking for heather—but, of course, we couldn’t find any. It’s too late in the season, I suppose.”
“Heather!” exclaimed Anne. “Heather doesn’t grow in America, does it?”
“There are just two patches of it in the whole continent,” said Phil, “one right here in the park, and one somewhere else in Nova Scotia, I forget where. The famous Highland36 Regiment37, the Black Watch, camped here one year, and, when the men shook out the straw of their beds in the spring, some seeds of heather took root.”
“Let’s go home around by Spofford Avenue,” suggested Gilbert. “We can see all ‘the handsome houses where the wealthy nobles dwell.’ Spofford Avenue is the finest residential40 street in Kingsport. Nobody can build on it unless he’s a millionaire.”
“Oh, do,” said Phil. “There’s a perfectly41 killing42 little place I want to show you, Anne. IT wasn’t built by a millionaire. It’s the first place after you leave the park, and must have grown while Spofford Avenue was still a country road. It DID grow—it wasn’t built! I don’t care for the houses on the Avenue. They’re too brand new and plateglassy. But this little spot is a dream—and its name—but wait till you see it.”
They saw it as they walked up the pine-fringed hill from the park. Just on the crest43, where Spofford Avenue petered out into a plain road, was a little white frame house with groups of pines on either side of it, stretching their arms protectingly over its low roof. It was covered with red and gold vines, through which its green-shuttered windows peeped. Before it was a tiny garden, surrounded by a low stone wall. October though it was, the garden was still very sweet with dear, old-fashioned, unworldly flowers and shrubs—sweet may, southern-wood, lemon verbena, alyssum, petunias44, marigolds and chrysanthemums45. A tiny brick wall, in herring-bone pattern, led from the gate to the front porch. The whole place might have been transplanted from some remote country village; yet there was something about it that made its nearest neighbor, the big lawn-encircled palace of a tobacco king, look exceedingly crude and showy and ill-bred by contrast. As Phil said, it was the difference between being born and being made.
“It’s the dearest place I ever saw,” said Anne delightedly. “It gives me one of my old, delightful funny aches. It’s dearer and quainter46 than even Miss Lavendar’s stone house.”
“It’s the name I want you to notice especially,” said Phil. “Look—in white letters, around the archway over the gate. ‘Patty’s Place.’ Isn’t that killing? Especially on this Avenue of Pinehursts and Elmwolds and Cedarcrofts? ‘Patty’s Place,’ if you please! I adore it.”
“Have you any idea who Patty is?” asked Priscilla.
“Patty Spofford is the name of the old lady who owns it, I’ve discovered. She lives there with her niece, and they’ve lived there for hundreds of years, more or less—maybe a little less, Anne. Exaggeration is merely a flight of poetic47 fancy. I understand that wealthy folk have tried to buy the lot time and again—it’s really worth a small fortune now, you know—but ‘Patty’ won’t sell upon any consideration. And there’s an apple orchard48 behind the house in place of a back yard—you’ll see it when we get a little past—a real apple orchard on Spofford Avenue!”
“I’m going to dream about ‘Patty’s Place’ tonight,” said Anne. “Why, I feel as if I belonged to it. I wonder if, by any chance, we’ll ever see the inside of it.”
“It isn’t likely,” said Priscilla.
Anne smiled mysteriously.
“No, it isn’t likely. But I believe it will happen. I have a queer, creepy, crawly feeling—you can call it a presentiment49, if you like—that ‘Patty’s Place’ and I are going to be better acquainted yet.”
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1
twitch
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| v.急拉，抽动，痉挛，抽搐；n.扯，阵痛，痉挛 | |
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crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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elusive
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| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
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azure
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| adj.天蓝色的，蔚蓝色的 | |
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scribbled
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| v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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postscript
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| n.附言，又及；(正文后的)补充说明 | |
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7
freshman
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| n.大学一年级学生(可兼指男女) | |
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8
outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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9
painstakingly
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| adv. 费力地 苦心地 | |
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10
embroidery
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| n.绣花，刺绣；绣制品 | |
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wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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inveterate
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| adj.积习已深的，根深蒂固的 | |
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13
embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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14
perils
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| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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15
stiffened
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| 加强的 | |
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liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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belle
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| n.靓女 | |
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19
solitudes
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| n.独居( solitude的名词复数 )；孤独；荒僻的地方；人迹罕至的地方 | |
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gusty
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| adj.起大风的 | |
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joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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22
plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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23
mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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24
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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25
beckoning
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| adj.引诱人的，令人心动的v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的现在分词 ) | |
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pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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27
spires
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| n.（教堂的） 塔尖，尖顶( spire的名词复数 ) | |
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shroud
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| n.裹尸布，寿衣；罩，幕；vt.覆盖，隐藏 | |
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29
tints
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| 色彩( tint的名词复数 )； 带白的颜色； （淡色）染发剂； 痕迹 | |
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30
copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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31
shimmered
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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32
loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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beacon
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| n.烽火，（警告用的）闪火灯，灯塔 | |
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34
Flared
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| adj. 端部张开的, 爆发的, 加宽的, 漏斗式的 动词flare的过去式和过去分词 | |
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sentry
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| n.哨兵，警卫 | |
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highland
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| n.(pl.)高地，山地 | |
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regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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39
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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40
residential
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| adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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42
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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43
crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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44
petunias
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| n.矮牵牛（花）( petunia的名词复数 ) | |
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45
chrysanthemums
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| n.菊花( chrysanthemum的名词复数 ) | |
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46
quainter
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| adj.古色古香的( quaint的比较级 )；少见的，古怪的 | |
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47
poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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48
orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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49
presentiment
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| n.预感，预觉 | |
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