The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Golden Road, by Lucy Maud Montgomery
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Title: The Golden Road
Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery
Release Date: July 5, 2008 [EBook #316]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN ROAD ***
Produced by John Hamm
THE GOLDEN ROAD
By L. M. Montgomery
"Life was a rose-lipped comrade
With purple flowers dripping from her fingers."
--The Author.
TO
THE MEMORY OF
Aunt Mary Lawson
WHO TOLD ME MANY OF THE TALES
REPEATED BY THE
STORY GIRL
FOREWORD
Once upon a time we all walked on the golden road. It was a fair
highway, through the Land of Lost Delight; shadow and sunshine were
blessedly mingled, and every turn and dip revealed a fresh charm and a
new loveliness to eager hearts and unspoiled eyes.
On that road we heard the song of morning stars; we drank in fragrances
aerial and sweet as a May mist; we were rich in gossamer fancies and
iris hopes; our hearts sought and found the boon of dreams; the years
waited beyond and they were very fair; life was a rose-lipped comrade
with purple flowers dripping from her fingers.
We may long have left the golden road behind, but its memories are the
dearest of our eternal possessions; and those who cherish them as such
may haply find a pleasure in the pages of this book, whose people are
pilgrims on the golden road of youth.
THE GOLDEN ROAD
CHAPTER I. A NEW DEPARTURE
"I've thought of something amusing for the winter," I said as we
drew into a half-circle around the glorious wood-fire in Uncle Alec's
kitchen.
It had been a day of wild November wind, closing down into a wet, eerie
twilight. Outside, the wind was shrilling at the windows and around the
eaves, and the rain was playing on the roof. The old willow at the gate
was writhing in the storm and the orchard was a place of weird music,
born of all the tears and fears that haunt the halls of night. But
little we cared for the gloom and the loneliness of the outside world;
we kept
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