Anne's House of Dreams

The book starts with Anne's wedding to Gilbert, which is very small and takes place in the Green Gables orchard. After Anne and Gilbert's wedding, they move to a house that Anne has long anticipated as her "house of dreams", in Four Winds Point, an area near the village of the Glen St. Mary. There, Anne and Gilbert meet many interesting people, such as the eccentric Captain Jim and Miss Cornelia Bryant, who deems the Blythes as part of "the race that knows Joseph." Anne also meets Leslie Moore, who lost her beloved brother and her father, and then was forced by her mother to marry the mean-spirited and unscrupulous Dick Moore. She felt free for a year or so after her husband disappeared on a sea voyage, but then he turned up, amnesiac, brain-damaged and generally helpless. She becomes friends with Anne, but is sometimes bitter towards her because she is so happy and free. Anne's former guardian Marilla visits her ocassionally and still plays an important role in her life. In the middle of the book, Anne becomes pregnant and gives birth to her first child, Joyce, who dies shortly afterward [as Montgomery's second son did]. After that Anne and Leslie become closer as Anne is more able to understand Leslie's unhappiness after her own tragedy - as Leslie puts it, her happiness, although still great, is no longer perfect so there is less of a gulf between them.