answered Anne, pointing to a radiance of
sifted sunlight streaming through a birch tree. "Only with shape and
features of course. I like to fancy souls as being made of light. And
some are all shot through with rosy stains and quivers . . . and some
have a soft glitter like moonlight on the sea . . . and some are pale and
transparent like mist at dawn."

"I read somewhere once that souls were like flowers," said Priscilla.

"Then your soul is a golden narcissus," said Anne, "and Diana's is like
a red, red rose. Jane's is an apple blossom, pink and wholesome and
sweet."

"And your own is a white violet, with purple streaks in its heart,"
finished Priscilla.

Jane whispered to Diana that she really could not understand what they
were talking about. Could she?

The girls went home by the light of a calm golden sunset, their baskets
filled with narcissus blossoms from Hester's garden, some of which Anne
carried to the cemetery next day and laid upon Hester's grave. Minstrel
robins were whistling in the firs and the frogs were singing in the
marshes. All the basins among the hills were brimmed with topaz and
emerald light.

"Well, we have had a lovely time after all," said Diana, as if she had
hardly expected to have it when she set out.

"It has been a truly golden day," said Priscilla.

"I'm really awfully fond of the woods myself," said Jane.

Anne said nothing. She was looking afar into the western sky and
thinking of little Hester Gray.

XIV

A Danger Averted

Anne, walking home from the post office one Friday evening, was joined
by Mrs. Lynde, who was as usual cumbered with all the cares of church
and state.

"I've just been down to Timothy Cotton's to see if I could get Alice
Louise to help me for a few days," she said. "I had her last week, for,
though she's too slow to stop quick, she's better than nobody. But
she's sick and can't come. Timothy's sitting there, too, coughing and
complaining. He's been dying for ten years and he'll go on dying for
ten years more. That kind can't even die and have done with it . . . they
can't stick to anything, even to being sick, long enough to finish it.
They're a terrible shiftless family and what is to become of them I
don't know, but perhaps Providence does."

Mrs. Lynde sighed as if she rather doubted the extent of Providential
knowledge on the subject.

"Marilla was in about her eyes again Tuesday, wasn't she? What did the
specialist think of them