Anne of the Island
creature there who _looked_ as lonely and friendless as I _felt_. I had
_you_, but she had no one.”
“I think she felt pretty all-by-herselfish, too. Several times I saw
her make a motion as if to cross over to us, but she never did it—too
shy, I suppose. I wished she would come. If I hadn’t felt so much like
the aforesaid elephant I’d have gone to her. But I couldn’t lumber
across that big hall with all those boys howling on the stairs. She was
the prettiest freshette I saw today, but probably favor is deceitful
and even beauty is vain on your first day at Redmond,” concluded
Priscilla with a laugh.
“I’m going across to Old St. John’s after lunch,” said Anne. “I don’t
know that a graveyard is a very good place to go to get cheered up, but
it seems the only get-at-able place where there are trees, and trees I
must have. I’ll sit on one of those old slabs and shut my eyes and
imagine I’m in the Avonlea woods.”
Anne did not do that, however, for she found enough of interest in Old
St. John’s to keep her eyes wide open. They went in by the entrance
gates, past the simple, massive, stone arch surmounted by the great
lion of England.
“‘And on Inkerman yet the wild bramble is gory,
And those bleak heights henceforth shall be famous in story,’”
quoted Anne, looking at it with a thrill. They found themselves in a
dim, cool, green place where winds were fond of purring. Up and down
the long grassy aisles they wandered, reading the quaint, voluminous
epitaphs, carved in an age that had more leisure than our own.
“‘Here lieth the body of Albert Crawford, Esq.,’” read Anne from a
worn, gray slab, “‘for many years Keeper of His Majesty’s Ordnance at
Kingsport. He served in the army till the peace of 1763, when he
retired from bad health. He was a brave officer, the best of husbands,
the best of fathers, the best of friends. He died October 29th, 1792,
aged 84 years.’ There’s an epitaph for you, Prissy. There is certainly
some ‘scope for imagination’ in it. How full such a life must have been
of adventure! And as for his personal qualities, I’m sure human eulogy
couldn’t go further. I wonder if they told him he was all those best
things while he was alive.”
“Here’s another,” said Priscilla. “Listen—
‘To the memory of Alexander Ross, who died on the 22nd of September,
1840, aged 43 years. This is raised as a tribute of affection by one
whom he served so faithfully for 27 years that he was regarded as a
friend, deserving the fullest confidence and attachment.’”
“A very good epitaph,” commented Anne thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t wish a
better. We are all servants of some sort, and if the fact that we are
faithful can be truthfully inscribed on our tombstones nothing more
need be added. Here’s a sorrowful little gray stone, Prissy—‘to the
memory of a favorite child.’ And here is another ‘erected to the memory
of one who is buried elsewhere.’ I wonder where that unknown grave is.
Really, Pris, the graveyards of today will never be as interesting as
this. You were right—I shall come here often. I love it already. I see
we’re not alone here—there’s a girl down at the end of this avenue.”
“Yes, and I believe it’s the very girl we saw at Redmond this morning.
I’ve been watching her for five minutes. She has started to come up the
avenue exactly half a dozen times, and half a dozen times has she
turned and gone back. Either she’s dreadfully shy or she has got
something on her conscience. Let’s go and meet her. It’s easier to get
acquainted in a graveyard than at Redmond, I believe.”
They walked down the long grassy arcade towards the stranger, who was
sitting on a gray slab under an enormous willow. She was certainly very
pretty, with a vivid, irregular, bewitching type of prettiness. There
was a gloss as of brown nuts on her satin-smooth hair and a soft, ripe
glow on her round cheeks. Her eyes were big and brown and velvety,
under oddly-pointed black brows, and her crooked mouth was rose-red.
She wore a smart brown suit, with two very modish little shoes peeping
from beneath it; and her hat of dull pink straw, wreathed with
golden-brown poppies, had the indefinable, unmistakable air which
pertains to the “creation” of an artist in millinery. Priscilla had a
sudden stinging consciousness that her own hat had been trimmed by her
village store milliner, and Anne wondered uncomfortably if the blouse
she had made herself, and which Mrs. Lynde had fitted, looked _very_
countrified and home-made besides the stranger’s smart attire. For a
moment both girls felt like turning back.
But they had already stopped and turned towards the gray slab. It was
too late to retreat, for the brown-eyed girl had evidently concluded
that they were coming to speak to her. Instantly she sprang up and came
forward with outstretched hand and a gay, friendly smile in which there
seemed not a shadow of either shyness or burdened conscience.
“Oh, I want to know who you two girls are,” she exclaimed eagerly.
“I’ve been _dying_ to know. I saw you at Redmond this morning. Say,
wasn’t it _awful_ there? For the time I wished I had stayed home and
got married.”
Anne and Priscilla both broke into unconstrained laughter at this
unexpected conclusion. The brown-eyed girl laughed, too.
“I really did. I _could_ have, you know. Come, let’s all sit down on
this gravestone and get acquainted. It won’t be hard. I know we’re
going to adore each other—I knew it as soon as I saw you at Redmond
this morning. I wanted so much to go right over and hug you both.”
“Why didn’t you?” asked Priscilla.
“Because I simply couldn’t make up my mind to do it. I never can make
up my mind about anything myself—I’m always afflicted with indecision.
Just as soon as I decide to do something I feel in my bones that
another course would be the correct one. It’s a dreadful misfortune,
but I was born that way, and there is no use in blaming me for it, as
some people do. So I couldn’t make up my mind to go and speak to you,
much as I wanted to.”
“We thought you were too shy,” said Anne.
“No, no, dear. Shyness isn’t among the many failings—or virtues—of
Philippa Gordon—Phil for short. Do call me Phil right off. Now, what
are your handles?”
“She’s Priscilla Grant,” said Anne, pointing.
“And _she’s_ Anne Shirley,” said Priscilla, pointing in turn.
“And we’re from the Island,” said both together.
“I hail from Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia,” said Philippa.
“Bolingbroke!” exclaimed Anne. “Why, that is where I was born.”
“Do you really mean it? Why, that makes you a Bluenose after all.”
“No, it doesn’t,” retorted Anne. “Wasn’t it Dan O’Connell who said that
if a man was born in a stable it didn’t make him a horse? I’m Island to
the core.”
“Well, I’m glad you were born in Bolingbroke anyway. It makes us kind
of neighbors, doesn’t it? And I like that, because when I tell you
secrets it won’t be as if I were telling them to a stranger. I have to
tell them. I can’t keep secrets—it’s no use to try. That’s my worst
failing—that, and indecision, as aforesaid. Would you believe it?—it
took me half an hour to decide which hat to wear when I was coming
here—_here_, to a graveyard! At first I inclined to my brown one with
the feather; but as soon as I put it on I thought this pink one with
the floppy brim would be more becoming. When I got _it_ pinned in place
I liked the brown one better. At last I put them close together on the
bed, shut my eyes, and jabbed with a hat pin. The pin speared the pink
one, so I put it on. It is becoming, isn’t it? Tell me, what do you
think of my looks?”
At this naive demand, made in a perfectly serious tone, Priscilla
laughed again. But Anne said, impulsively squeezing Philippa’s hand,
“We thought this morning that you were the prettiest girl we saw at
Redmond.”
Philippa’s crooked mouth flashed into a bewitching, crooked smile over
very white little teeth.
“I thought that myself,” was her next astounding statement, “but I
wanted some one else’s opinion to bolster mine up. I can’t decide even
on my own appearance. Just as soon as I’ve decided that I’m pretty I
begin to feel miserably that I’m not. Besides, have a horrible old
great-aunt who is always saying to me, with a mournful sigh, ‘You were
such a pretty baby. It’s strange how children change when they grow
up.’ I adore aunts, but I detest great-aunts. Please tell me quite
often that I am pretty, if you don’t mind. I feel so much more
comfortable when I can believe I’m pretty. And I’ll be just as obliging
to you if you want me to—I _can_ be, with a clear conscience.”
“Thanks,” laughed Anne, “but Priscilla and I are so firmly convinced of
our own good looks that we don’t need any assurance about them, so you
needn’t trouble.”
“Oh, you’re laughing at me. I know you think I’m abominably vain, but
I’m not. There really isn’t one spark of vanity in me. And I’m never a
bit grudging about paying compliments to other girls when they deserve
them. I’m so glad I know you folks. I came up on Saturday and I’ve
nearly died of homesickness ever since. It’s a horrible feeling, isn’t
it? In Bolingbroke I’m an important personage, and in Kingsport I’m
just nobody! There were times when I could feel my soul turning a
delicate blue. Where do you hang out?”
“Thirty-eight St. John’s Street.”
“Better and better. Why, I’m just around the corner on Wallace Street.
I don’t like my boardinghouse, though. It’s bleak and lonesome, and my
room looks out on such an unholy back yard. It’s the ugliest place in
the world. As for cats—well, surely _all_ the Kingsport cats can’t
congregate there at night, but half of them must. I adore cats on
hearth rugs, snoozing before nice, friendly fires, but cats in back
yards at midnight are totally different animals. The first night I was
here I cried all night, and so did the cats. You should have seen my
nose in the morning. How I wished I had never left home!”
“I don’t know how you managed to make up your mind to come to Redmond
at all, if you are really such an undecided person,” said amused
Priscilla.
“Bless your heart, honey, I didn’t. It was father who wanted me to come
here. His heart was set on it—why, I don’t know. It seems perfectly
ridiculous to think of me studying for a B.A. degree, doesn’t it? Not
but what I can do it, all right. I have heaps of brains.”
“Oh!” said Priscilla vaguely.
“Yes. But it’s such hard work to use them. And B.A.’s are such learned,
dignified, wise, solemn creatures—they must be. No, _I_ didn’t want to
come to Redmond. I did it just to oblige father. He _is_ such a duck.
Besides, I knew if I stayed home I’d have to get married. Mother wanted
that—wanted it decidedly. Mother has plenty of decision. But I really
hated the thought of being married for a few years yet. I want to have
heaps of fun before I settle down. And, ridiculous as the idea of my
being a B.A. is, the idea of my being an old married woman is still
more absurd, isn’t it? I’m only eighteen. No, I concluded I would
rather come to Redmond than be married. Besides, how could I ever have
made up my mind which man to marry?”
“Were there so many?” laughed Anne.
“Heaps. The boys like me awfully—they really do. But there were only
two that mattered. The rest were all too young and too poor. I must
marry a rich man, you know.”
“Why must you?”
“Honey, you couldn’t imagine _me_ being a poor man’s wife, could you? I
can’t do a single useful thing, and I am _very_ extravagant. Oh, no, my
husband must have heaps of money. So that narrowed them down to two.
But I couldn’t decide between two any easier than between two hundred.
I knew perfectly well that whichever one I chose I’d regret all my life
that I hadn’t married the other.”
“Didn’t you—love—either of them?” asked Anne, a little hesitatingly. It