d she and Anne wandered along the shore
in the eerie twilight, or sat on the rocks below the lighthouse until
the darkness drove them back to the cheer of the driftwood fire. Then
Captain Jim would brew them tea and tell them

"tales of land and sea
And whatsoever might betide
The great forgotten world outside."

Leslie seemed always to enjoy those lighthouse carousals very much, and
bloomed out for the time being into ready wit and beautiful laughter,
or glowing-eyed silence. There was a certain tang and savor in the
conversation when Leslie was present which they missed when she was
absent. Even when she did not talk she seemed to inspire others to
brilliancy. Captain Jim told his stories better, Gilbert was quicker
in argument and repartee, Anne felt little gushes and trickles of fancy
and imagination bubbling to her lips under the influence of Leslie's
personality.

"That girl was born to be a leader in social and intellectual circles,
far away from Four Winds," she said to Gilbert as they walked home one
night. "She's just wasted here--wasted."

"Weren't you listening to Captain Jim and yours truly the other night
when we discussed that subject generally? We came to the comforting
conclusion that the Creator probably knew how to run His universe quite
as well as we do, and that, after all, there are no such things as
'wasted' lives, saving and except when an individual wilfully squanders
and wastes his own life--which Leslie Moore certainly hasn't done. And
some people might think that a Redmond B.A., whom editors were
beginning to honor, was 'wasted' as the wife of a struggling country
doctor in the rural community of Four Winds."

"Gilbert!"

"If you had married Roy Gardner, now," continued Gilbert mercilessly,
"YOU could have been 'a leader in social and intellectual circles far
away from Four Winds.'"

"Gilbert BLYTHE!"

"You KNOW you were in love with him at one time, Anne."

"Gilbert, that's mean--'pisen mean, just like all the men,' as Miss
Cornelia says. I NEVER was in love with him. I only imagined I was.
YOU know that. You KNOW I'd rather be your wife in our house of dreams
and fulfillment than a queen in a palace."

Gilbert's answer was not in words; but I am afraid that both of them
forgot poor Leslie speeding her lonely way across the fields to a house
that was neither a palace nor the fulfillment of a dream.

The moon was rising over the sad, dark sea behind them a