the sorrowful,
cheated woman who answered the invitation almost coldly and got herself
away with a pitiful haste.

Anne watched her until she was lost in the shadows of the chill and
misty night. Then she turned slowly back to the glow of her own
radiant hearthstone.

"Isn't she lovely, Gilbert? Her hair fascinates me. Miss Cornelia
says it reaches to her feet. Ruby Gillis had beautiful hair--but
Leslie's is ALIVE--every thread of it is living gold."

"She is very beautiful," agreed Gilbert, so heartily that Anne almost
wished he were a LITTLE less enthusiastic.

"Gilbert, would you like my hair better if it were like Leslie's?" she
asked wistfully.

"I wouldn't have your hair any color but just what it is for the
world," said Gilbert, with one or two convincing accompaniments.

You wouldn't be ANNE if you had golden hair--or hair of any color but"--

"Red," said Anne, with gloomy satisfaction.

"Yes, red--to give warmth to that milk-white skin and those shining
gray-green eyes of yours. Golden hair wouldn't suit you at all Queen
Anne--MY Queen Anne--queen of my heart and life and home."

"Then you may admire Leslie's all you like," said Anne magnanimously.

CHAPTER 13

A GHOSTLY EVENING

One evening, a week later, Anne decided to run over the fields to the
house up the brook for an informal call. It was an evening of gray fog
that had crept in from the gulf, swathed the harbor, filled the glens
and valleys, and clung heavily to the autumnal meadows. Through it the
sea sobbed and shuddered. Anne saw Four Winds in a new aspect, and
found it weird and mysterious and fascinating; but it also gave her a
little feeling of loneliness. Gilbert was away and would be away until
the morrow, attending a medical pow-wow in Charlottetown. Anne longed
for an hour of fellowship with some girl friend. Captain Jim and Miss
Cornelia were "good fellows" each, in their own way; but youth yearned
to youth.

"If only Diana or Phil or Pris or Stella could drop in for a chat," she
said to herself, "how delightful it would be! This is such a GHOSTLY
night. I'm sure all the ships that ever sailed out of Four Winds to
their doom could be seen tonight sailing up the harbor with their
drowned crews on their decks, if that shrouding fog could suddenly be
drawn aside. I feel as if it concealed innumerable mysteries--as if I
were surrounded by the wraiths of old generations of Four Winds people
peering at me through