Page:Anne's house of dreams (1920 Canada).djvu/109

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LESLIE MOORE
99

She had every kind of pie you could name, I think—except lemon pie. She said she had taken the prize for lemon pies at the Charlottetown Exhibition ten years ago and had never made any since for fear of losing her reputation for them.”

“Were you able to eat enough pie to please her?”

I wasn’t. Gilbert won her heart by eating—I won’t tell you how much. She said she never knew a man who didn’t like pie better than his Bible. Do you know, I love Miss Cornelia.”

“So do I,” said Leslie. “She is the best friend I have in the world.”

Anne wondered secretly why, if this were so, Miss Cornelia had never mentioned Mrs. Dick Moore to her. Miss Cornelia had certainly talked freely about every other individual in or near Four Winds.

“Isn’t that beautiful?” said Leslie, after a brief silence, pointing to the exquisite effect of a shaft of light falling through a cleft in the rock behind them, across a dark green pool at its base. “If I had come here—and seen nothing but just that—I would go home satisfied.”

“The effects of light and shadow all along these shores are wonderful,” agreed Anne. “My little sewing room looks out on the harbor, and I sit at its window and feast my eyes. The colors and shadows are never the same two minutes together.”

“And you are never lonely?” asked Leslie abruptly. “Never—when you are alone?”