house of dreams. Telephone messages were sent up to the Glen, Doctor Dave and a white-capped nurse came hastily down, Marilla paced the garden walks between the quahog shells, murmuring prayers between her set lips, and Susan sat in the kitchen with cotton wool in her ears and her apron over her head.
Leslie, looking out from the house up the brook, saw that every window of the little house was alight, and did not sleep that night.
The June night was short; but it seemed an eternity to those who waited and watched.
“Oh, will it never end?” said Marilla; then she saw how grave the nurse and Doctor Dave looked, and she dared ask no more questions. Suppose Anne—but Marilla could not suppose it.
“Do not tell me,” said Susan fiercely, answering the anguish in Marilla’s eyes, “that God could be so cruel as to take that darling lamb from us when we all love her so much.”
“He has taken others as well beloved,” said Marilla hoarsely.
But at dawn, when the rising sun rent apart the mists hanging over the sandbar, and made rainbows of them, joy came to the little house. Anne was safe, and a wee, white lady, with her mother’s big eyes, was lying beside her. Gilbert, his face gray and haggard from his night’s agony, came down to tell Marilla and Susan.
“Thank God,” shuddered Marilla.
