CHRONICLES OF AVONLEA

Contents



I. The Hurrying of Ludovic

II. Old Lady Lloyd

III. Each In His Own Tongue

IV. Little Joscelyn

V. The Winning of Lucinda

VI. Old Man Shaw's Girl

VII. Aunt Olivia's Beau

VIII. The Quarantine at Alexander Abraham's

IX. Pa Sloane's Purchase

X. The Courting of Prissy Strong

XI. The Miracle at Carmody

XII. The End of a Quarrel




CHRONICLES OF AVONLEA




I. The Hurrying of Ludovic


Anne Shirley was curled up on the window-seat of Theodora Dix's
sitting-room one Saturday evening, looking dreamily afar at some fair
starland beyond the hills of sunset. Anne was visiting for a fortnight
of her vacation at Echo Lodge, where Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Irving were
spending the summer, and she often ran over to the old Dix homestead
to chat for awhile with Theodora. They had had their chat out, on this
particular evening, and Anne was giving herself over to the delight of
building an air-castle. She leaned her shapely head, with its braided
coronet of dark red hair, against the window-casing, and her gray eyes
were like the moonlight gleam of shadowy pools.

Then she saw Ludovic Speed coming down the lane. He was yet far from the
house, for the Dix lane was a long one, but Ludovic could be recognized
as far as he could be seen. No one else in Middle Grafton had such a
tall, gently-stooping, placidly-moving figure. In every kink and turn of
it there was an individuality all Ludovic's own.

Anne roused herself from her dreams, thinking it would only be tactful
to take her departure. Ludovic was courting Theodora. Everyone in
Grafton knew that, or, if anyone were in ignorance of the fact, it was
not because he had not had time to find out. Ludovic had been coming
down that lane to see Theodora, in the same ruminating, unhastening
fashion, for fifteen years!

When Anne, who was slim and girlish and romantic, rose to go, Theodora,
who was plump and middle-aged and practical, said, with a twinkle in her
eye:

"There isn't any hurry, child. Sit down and have your call out. You've
seen Ludovic coming down the lane, and, I suppose, you think you'll be a
crowd. But you won't. Ludovic rather likes a third person around, and
so do I. It spurs up the conversation as it were. When a man has been
coming to see you straight along, twice a week for fifteen years, you
get rather talked out by spells."

Theodora never pretended to bashfulness where Ludovic was concerned.
She was not at all shy of referring to him and his dilatory courtship.
Indeed, it seemed to amuse her.

Anne sat down again and together they watched Ludovic coming down the
lane, gazing calmly about him at the lush clover fields and the blue
loops of the river winding in and out of the misty valley below.