A/N: Inspired by EstellaB's Paul/Elizabeth fic, and rubygillis's Bertha of Green Gables, I remembered I had been hatching my own Paul/Elizabeth fanfiction for a long time. I decided it's time to dust it off and present it in its full glory.

Windermere was a dark mahogany mansion on a quiet, stately street in Boston. With its ponderous woodwork walls and innumerable oil-portraits in gilt frames -- monuments to the company's founders hearkening back a hundred years, -- Elizabeth Grayson marvelled that the old feelings of oppression did not permeate the rooms in the same way the Evergreens was musty with Yesterday. Perhaps the mellow sunlight, falling amply through the wide old windows and scattering living tapestries over wallpaper and carpet, dispelled all lurking ghosts and cobwebs. When the sunrise made a spectacle of rose-red hues in Elizabeth's room, such that she awoke to a sunbeam falling athwart the map of fairyland on her wall, Little Elizabeth greeted the young morning with especial expectancy.

On such days Elizabeth was wont to receive letters from Miss Shirley. The correspondence was Anne and Elizabeth's manna for fairyland -- Elizabeth always thrilled to open a letter full of joyous news and gossamer sketches of a realm neither of them would ever leave behind. She tore open the pretty seal and removed the bulky contents, and then sat down in surprise to see a script she did not recognize.

There were only a few pages without address or date. Little Elizabeth glanced over the fragments involuntarily, and then read as one spellbound:

"At the end of the day I found myself by the beach. The shore was engoldened by the setting sun, and I could taste the sea air on my breath. It brought to mind my childhood fantasy of a voyage into sunset land. I sat down and scribbled the following verse:

"We shall launch our shallop on waters blue from some dim primrose shore,
We shall sail with the magic of dusk behind and enchanted coasts before,
Over oceans that stretch to the sunset land where lost Atlantis lies,
And our pilot shall be the vesper star that shines in the amber skies.

"Do you remember Nora, teacher? Dark of hair and white of skin, with the sea in her eyes - my dearest friend as a boy, really, until you came - I am sad to have left her behind on the shores of my Island childhood. Sometimes, I fancy myself in love with her still - if only because, as they say - a poet needs a muse.

"The sirens will call to us again, all sweet and demon-fair,
And a pale mermaiden will beckon us, with mist on her night-black hair;
We shall see the flash of her ivory arms, her mocking and luring face,
And her guiling laughter will echo through the great, wind-winnowed space.

"And at last, on some white and wondrous dawn, we shall reach the fairy isle
Where our hope and our dream are waiting us, and the to-morrows smile;
With song on our lips and faith in our hearts we sail on our ancient quest,
And each man shall find, at the end of the voyage, the thing he loves the best.

"When the sea wind blows against my face in a certain way - it calls me in a way I can't explain. That was the last verse, Teacher - ambition - or is it passion? is beckoning me in a call I dare not obey. And I like to dream that Nora is the lure (perhaps the reward?) of this call.

"I don't talk like this to anybody here at school, Teacher. If anyone in Boston were to get a hold of this letter! How my classmates would laugh at me - pummel me down on the football field I dare say. But you - you who have never left fairyland behind yourself - I know you will understand and I'm most grateful that pen and ink will let one kindred heart speak to another."

There the page ended. Little Elizabeth put it down, and waltzed to her window that looked seaward. "Oh!" she gasped. She flew back to her table and caught up the letter again, reading aloud some of the lines of the poem. But the last paragraph intrigued her most. "Who could it be, here in Boston, who speaks my language?"