“If you do I’ll drag you down to the rainwater hogshed and drop you in,” said
Anne unsympathetically. “Cheer up, dearest. Getting married can’t be so very
terrible when so many people survive the ceremony. See how cool and
composed I am, and take courage.”
“Wait till your turn comes, Miss Anne. Oh, Anne, I hear father coming
upstairs. Give me my bouquet. Is my veil right? Am I very pale?”
“You look just lovely. Di, darling, kiss me good-bye for the last time. Diana
Barry will never kiss me again.”
“Diana Wright will, though. There, mother’s calling. Come.”
Following the simple, old-fashioned way in vogue then, Anne went down to
the parlor on Gilbert’s arm. They met at the top of the stairs for the first time
since they had left Kingsport, for Gilbert had arrived only that day. Gilbert
shook hands courteously. He was looking very well, though, as Anne instantly
noted, rather thin. He was not pale; there was a flush on his cheek that had
burned into it as Anne came along the hall towards him, in her soft, white dress
with lilies-of-the-valley in the shining masses of her hair. As they entered the
crowded parlor together a little murmur of admiration ran around the room.
“What a fine-looking pair they are,” whispered the impressible Mrs. Rachel to
Marilla.
Fred ambled in alone, with a very red face, and then Diana swept in on her
father’s arm. She did not faint, and nothing untoward occurred to interrupt the
ceremony. Feasting and merry-making followed; then, as the evening waned,
Fred and Diana drove away through the moonlight to their new home, and
Gilbert walked with Anne to Green Gables.
Something of their old comradeship had returned during the informal mirth of
the evening. Oh, it was nice to be walking over that well-known road with
Gilbert again!
The night was so very still that one should have been able to hear the whisper
of roses in blossom—the laughter of daisies—the piping of grasses—many
sweet sounds, all tangled up together. The beauty of moonlight on familiar fields
irradiated the world.
“Can’t we take a ramble up Lovers’ Lane before you go in?” asked Gilbert as
they crossed the bridge over the Lake of Shining Waters, in which the moon lay
like a great, drowned blossom of gold.
Anne assented readily. Lovers’ Lane was a veritable path in a fairyland that
night—a shimmering, mysterious place, full of wizardry in the white-woven
enchantment of moonlight. There had been a time when such a walk with Gilbert