beauty of the autumn afternoon under the pines of the park, on the road that
climbed and twisted round the harbor shore.
“The silence here is like a prayer, isn’t it?” said Anne, her face upturned to the
shining sky. “How I love the pines! They seem to strike their roots deep into the
romance of all the ages. It is so comforting to creep away now and then for a
good talk with them. I always feel so happy out here.”
“‘And so in mountain solitudes o’ertaken
As by some spell divine,
Their cares drop from them like the needles shaken
From out the gusty pine,’”
quoted Gilbert.
“They make our little ambitions seem rather petty, don’t they, Anne?”
“I think, if ever any great sorrow came to me, I would come to the pines for
comfort,” said Anne dreamily.
“I hope no great sorrow ever will come to you, Anne,” said Gilbert, who could
not connect the idea of sorrow with the vivid, joyous creature beside him,
unwitting that those who can soar to the highest heights can also plunge to the
deepest depths, and that the natures which enjoy most keenly are those which
also suffer most sharply.
“But there must—sometime,” mused Anne. “Life seems like a cup of glory
held to my lips just now. But there must be some bitterness in it—there is in
every cup. I shall taste mine some day. Well, I hope I shall be strong and brave
to meet it. And I hope it won’t be through my own fault that it will come. Do
you remember what Dr. Davis said last Sunday evening—that the sorrows God
sent us brought comfort and strength with them, while the sorrows we brought
on ourselves, through folly or wickedness, were by far the hardest to bear? But
we mustn’t talk of sorrow on an afternoon like this. It’s meant for the sheer joy
of living, isn’t it?”
“If I had my way I’d shut everything out of your life but happiness and
pleasure, Anne,” said Gilbert in the tone that meant “danger ahead.”
“Then you would be very unwise,” rejoined Anne hastily. “I’m sure no life
can be properly developed and rounded out without some trial and sorrow—
though I suppose it is only when we are pretty comfortable that we admit it.
Come—the others have got to the pavilion and are beckoning to us.”
They all sat down in the little pavilion to watch an autumn sunset of deep red
fire and pallid gold. To their left lay Kingsport, its roofs and spires dim in their
shroud of violet smoke. To their right lay the harbor, taking on tints of rose and
copper as it stretched out into the sunset. Before them the water shimmered,