Paul spent his first fortnight with his grandmother Irving in Avonlea. Anne was there to meet him when he came, and found him wild with eagerness to get to the shore -- Nora and the Golden Lady and the Twin Sailors would be there. He could hardly wait to eat his supper. Could he not see Nora's elfin face peering around the point, watching for him wistfully? But it was a very sober Paul who came back from the shore in the twilight.
"Didn't you find your Rock People?" asked Anne.
Paul shook his chestnut curls sorrowfully.
"The Twin Sailors and the Golden Lady never came at all," he said.
"Nora was there -- but Nora is not the same, teacher. She is changed.""Oh, Paul, it is you who are changed," said Anne. "You have grown too old for the Rock People. They like only children for playfellows. I am afraid the Twin Sailors will never again come to you in the pearly, enchanted boat with the sail of moonshine;and the Golden Lady will play no more for you on her golden harp.
Even Nora will not meet you much longer. You must pay the penalty of growing-up, Paul. You must leave fairyland behind you.""You two talk as much foolishness as ever you did," said old Mrs. Irving, half-indulgently, half-reprovingly.
"Oh, no, we don't," said Anne, shaking her head gravely. "We are getting very, very wise, and it is such a pity. We are never half so interesting when we have learned that language is given us to enable us to conceal our thoughts.""But it isn't -- it is given us to exchange our thoughts," said Mrs. Irving seriously. She had never heard of Tallyrand and did not understand epigrams.
Anne spent a fortnight of halcyon days at Echo Lodge in the golden prime of August. While there she incidentally contrived to hurry Ludovic Speed in his leisurely courting of Theodora Dix, as related duly in another chronicle of her history.[1] Arnold Sherman, an elderly friend of the Irvings, was there at the same time, and added not a little to the general pleasantness of life.
([1] Chronicles of Avonlea.)
"What a nice play-time this has been," said Anne. "I feel like a giant refreshed. And it's only a fortnight more till I go back to Kingsport, and Redmond and Patty's Place. Patty's Place is the dearest spot, Miss Lavendar. I feel as if I had two homes -- one at Green Gables and one at Patty's Place. But where has the summer gone? It doesn't seem a day since I came home that spring evening with the Mayflowers. When I was little I couldn't see from one end of the summer to the other. It stretched before me like an unending season. Now, `'tis a handbreadth, 'tis a tale.'""Anne, are you and Gilbert Blythe as good friends as you used to be?"asked Miss Lavendar quietly.
"I am just as much Gilbert's friend as ever I was, Miss Lavendar."Miss Lavendar shook her head.
"I see something's gone wrong, Anne. I'm going to be impertinent and ask what. Have you quarrelled?""No; it's only that Gilbert wants more than friendship and I can't give him more.""Are you sure of that, Anne?"
"Perfectly sure."
"I'm very, very sorry."
"I wonder why everybody seems to think I ought to marry Gilbert Blythe,"said Anne petulantly.
"Because you were made and meant for each other, Anne -- that is why.
You needn't toss that young head of yours. It's a fact."
