"Montgomery, Lucy Maud - Anne Of The Island" - читать интересную книгу автора (Montgomery Lucy Maud)

Lucy Maud Montgomery

ANNE of the ISLAND



to all the girls all over the world
who have "wanted more" about ANNE


All precious things discovered late
To those that seek them issue forth,
For Love in sequel works with Fate,
And draws the veil from hidden worth.
TENNYSON




1. The Shadow of Change

"Harvest is ended and summer is gone," quoted Anne Shirley, gazing
across the shorn fields dreamily. She and Diana Barry had been picking
apples in the Green Gables orchard, but were now resting from their labors
in a sunny corner, where airy fleets of thistledown drifted by on the
wings of a wind that was still summer-sweet with the incense of ferns in
the Haunted Wood.
But everything in the landscape around them spoke of autumn. The sea
was roaring hollowly in the distance, the fields were bare and sere,
scarfed with golden rod, the brook valley below Green Gables overflowed
with asters of ethereal purple, and the Lake of Shining Waters was blue -
blue - blue; not the changeful blue of spring, nor the pale azure of
summer, but a clear, steadfast, serene blue, as if the water were past all
moods and tenses of emotion and had settled down to a tranquility unbroken
by fickle dreams.
"It has been a nice summer," said Diana, twisting the new ring on her
left hand with a smile. "And Miss Lavendar's wedding seemed to come as a
sort of crown to it. I suppose Mr. and Mrs. Irving are on the Pacific
coast now."
"It seems to me they have been gone long enough to go around the
world," sighed Anne.
"I can't believe it is only a week since they were married.
Everything has changed. Miss Lavendar and Mr. and Mrs. Allan gone - how
lonely the manse looks with the shutters all closed! I went past it last
night, and it made me feel as if everybody in it had died."
"We'll never get another minister as nice as Mr. Allan," said Diana,
with gloomy conviction. "I suppose we'll have all kinds of supplies this
winter, and half the Sundays no preaching at all. And you and Gilbert gone
- it will be awfully dull."