It was a pleasant afternoon filled with sunshine. One of those late summer afternoons when everything seems to be more intense; when colors are richer and brighter than in any other time of the year. When flowers smell so sweetly and when the sun is so generous as to leave freckles on young girls' cheeks.

Irrespective of the danger, Nan lifted her face to its warm rays. Before she closed her dazzled eyes, she had had them exposed to a gallore of beauty. Behind the serene, lucid waves of Barry's Pond, which her mother had rechristened so very felicitously, trunks of pines and birches were percolated with sunlight, their crowns adorned with gold and mint hems. Among the emerald carpet of grass, here and there, one could spot the rust of withering fern leaves and silver of gray mosses. And all that beauty, like an enchanted painting, was sunk in complete silence and empitness of air. Single chirps ringed at times, only to be muffled soon by a snug rustle of dry stalks in birds' nests.

Nan was sitting in a buggy, which was quite well known to her now, for during the past week they had made a lot of excursions. Her shoulder neighbored one of a great companion and three of her fingers were enlaced by a dainty, sunburned hand of a child. It was enough to make her beam with joy.

"Look up to the sky. It's not just blue, it's full to the brim with azure!" she exclaimed with fervent delight.

Delia looked up, just as chuffed as Nan, but more restrained and wistful in her bearing.

"It's the farewell of summer. He knows he has to go soon, but he wants us to long for him- and wait- so he tries to bewitch us with all that beauty."

"He?" Sarah's eyes wandered over her mother's face. "Is summer a man?"

"Yes, and a gentleman at that," Delia nodded her head with ultimate solemnity. She was the greatest source of fairytales for her two daughters- and since Nan had been there to come to her assistance, the fertile soil of Sarah's imagination was nourished even more frequently than before.

"He is tall," Nan narrowed her eyes and lowered her voice, as if that could help her see him, "and always dressed in white. He goes around barefoot. His hair is long, straight and fair... very much like ears of wheat..."

"And he wears a straw hat," Delia cut in.

Black eyes met the hazel ones and warm, intimate glances were exchanged. It wasn't the first time they had reached a harmony of the kind. They were already familiar to that feeling, yet they still cherished it. For Delia, it was a break in her somewhat lonely life, for she might have loved her family dearly- and love them she did!- but she had never had a bosom friend before. Some chums, surely- but never a kindred spirit like Nan. They would speak at the same time- and say the same things. They would laugh at stories that no one else understood and express thoughts they would not let out in different company for fear of being laughed at.

For Nan it had even more value. Delia's amity dragged her out of the depths of homesickness that sweeped her off her feet the first night, half of which she spent crying in her pillow and the other half calling herself names, among which 'goose' prevailed. Moreover, although Nan was a part of the Blythe- Meredith bunch, which took Glen St. Mary by storm, and was now, represented by Jerry, Faith and Jem, putting down roots in Kingsport, she wasn't quite as popular with the girls as she was with the boys. She knew they thought her stuck-up and proud. She didn't even mind it all that much, it wasn't that she held most of them in high esteem. But... They also thought her shallow and an airhead and that was like a red rag to a bull. She wasn't stupid, it was the one thing that she knew for sure about herself and that she never doubted. When she and Di took to facetious exchanges of repartees at times, the other girls could only turn their eyes from one twin to the other and blink in confusion. And yet, before Faith and Una arrived in Glen St. Mary, it was Nan who was forever in for some backbiting- she could feel it in her bones. And that hurt, too.

Jack, who was driving, shook his head a little. Nan sent him a frisky look. He wasn't as much after her own heart as his sister was, but... They hit it off too, on their very first day. To Nan, he was a wonderful combination of her two favorite brothers; just as protective and laughable as Jem, but with Shirley's quiet ways and reticence. He barely ever answered when she spoke to him, but, just as Shirley, he could really listen.

"Are you disgusted with our being childish, Wright?" she asked him, falling into their little routine of adressing each other with their last names.

"No, Blythe, I'm not," his answer was just as succinct as she had expected it to be.

"Then why do you sigh so much up there?"

He did not answer, he simply turned around and handed Emily, frolicsome and kicking about, over to her. To put the child on her lap, Nan had to let Sarah go and she soon jumped over the bench to sit with Jack in the front seat which he patted invitingly. 'Aunt Anne' took this swap with hardly concealed displeasure. Out of her two nieces, Sarah was her undeniable favorite; bright and sunny, but in an agreeable, tranquil way and endowed with imagination that equalled her mother's. Emily was a cutie pie... when she was asleep. Awake, she was a little, chubby hurricane. Spoiled rotten, as younger children often are.

Nan had observed that while Uncle Fred and Jack liked Sarah far more than her little sister- as she did herself- and Aunt Diana remained impartial, Delia was isolated in her unconditional love for her younger daughter. And it worried her that while she was a firm and demanding mother to Sarah, though very loving all the same, she mollycoddled Emily immensily and never chided her, even when she disobeyed her deliberately.

"Shouldn't he have a cape?" Sarah's voice broke Nan's reverie. She looked so natty in her dark blue little taffeta, a white straw hat covering her forehead, that Nan had to smile at her. "It's not always warm in July!"

"He has one. It's blue, but not as dark as your dresses, more like..." Nan's voice suddenly broke, for she had shades of other colors to focus on.

Busy with the chat, she did not realize they had already reached their destination- Green Gables. But it wasn't the only reason she did not spot it.

Ever since she could remember, the name of Green Gables was the most appropriate one for this place. The house was green- a faded, snug tinge of green. The numerous trees that surrounded it added to that picture. And now..!

It wasn't only that the trees had been cut off- and what a crime on that farm it was!- but the house had been painted beige. Nan jumped off the buggy, took a few unsteady steps and came to a halt, bewildered. But she was not destined to stay there for long.

"Why, Nan, you came at last!"

Hardly had she turned around when she felt her hand gripped in two strong, somewhat coarse ones and shaken vigorously. Uncle Davy.

"Pretty, ain't you!" he grinned, squashed her in an embrace and shook her hands again. Jack was observing her confusion with a smirk, but it was not Uncle Davy that baffled her. She liked him a lot; she had always had.

She just couldn't believe that this newfangled, empty place was Green Gables. Did Mother know about this?

Uncle Davy's laughter lured a boy, who suddenly popped up between him and Nan, and splattered her skirt with mud.

"Paul!" Uncle Davy's voice sounded sharp and the boy looked at her with an ocean of rue in his eyes.

"No, it's nothing... Nothing at all, barely a mark," Nan came to the rescue. Faint as it was, for she was still in shock, it worked.

"You see, Millie and I called him Paul because we hoped him to take his manners after Paul Irving. But he is a chip off the old block.\'

"Indeed, he is," Nan's smile widened a bit at last . Paul did not only bear striking physical resemblance to his father- he even had that single dimple in his cheek- but also answered to the picture of Uncle Davy's childish years, which Nan knew from her mother's stories. As soon as he realized she wasn't cross, he tossed his head and winked at her slyly.

His two older sisters, not similar to him or his father at all, appeared at the threshold. They were just as different as two sisters could be; it was the reason why she and Di had goten on so well with them as children.

The older one, Mary Dora, was now fifteen. Her second name, which she got after her aunt, seemed to have exerted an influence over her whole creature. She behaved and looked strikingly like her, though she was her dimmed version with her onyx, sleek tresses and lustrous gray eyes. She was tall and slim, with decided 'prunes and prisms' mouth that, according to her younger sister, were even more so ever since she was accepted at Queen's. She was to be leaving in a few days time. She greeted Nan, whom she had not seen for a long time, with all courtesy but very listlessly. It gave Nan a pang of being a stranger to her- and maybe to Green Gables as a whole.

Fortunately, at fourteen, Rachel had a different notion of proper greeting. She clasped Nan impulsively and kept smiling at her. She was a very pretty girl- prettier than her sister, even- with a sweet face, nut- brown eyes and thick waves of like- colored hair. She was slightly more plump than Mary; her dimples were almost as wonderful as Aunt Diana's. Her adorned, lavender silk dress was maybe a bit too festive for the occasion... And the way she spoke, putting emphasis on so many words, and what she said reminded Nan of Baby Rilla. Especially when Rachel reavealed that she did not wish to go to Queen's and that she would be more than happy to be taught by Nan in Avonlea.

When Aunt Millie opened the kitchen door and released the smell of her famous cherry tarts, luring Emily, Sarah and Jack inside, Nan slipped away and climbed upstairs. The adjustments made downstairs, luckily not as disturbing as those made outside, had not reached the garret... as yet, at least. And Nan had a strong feeling she would find Aunt Marilla there.

When Aunt Diana told Nan gently that Marilla was bed-ridden and 'not well', Nan's eyes immediately filled with tears of anxiety and, for the most part, remorse. They had not visited her for such a long time... And her qualm overwhelmed her when she entered Mother's old room. Nan knew it very well- she had so often slept there with Di- but now, even though no furnitures had been added or taken away, the room seemed entirely different. Nan's heart cringed as she came to learn one of her first bitter lessons. Rooms- places- mirror the way their inhabitants feel. And this room, once so gay and merry, was now full of resigned sorrow.

Aunt Marilla was not asleep as she had assumed. She was awake- and she had been listening to the buzz that was getting in through a half- open window. When Nan approached her bed, she turned her head away a bit hastily. As if she was trying to hide something from her.

So Nan gave her time, turning away to take a chair for herself and sit next to the bed. She then simply leaned down and kissed Marilla's cheek. Her skin felt almost like paper.

She did not know what to say. In her thoughts she had already made dozens of promises- to pay visists as often as possible... everyday... to read and talk to her and to be silent when she needed that.

To be near her, when she felt as lonely as her lips, bitter and pursed, indicated she did.


I know it's taking forever and not turning out any good... I'm very impatient to move on to my next story- or at least a further part of this one. but if I want to convey my message, I have to take my time.

Walter Blythe, thank you so much for the review! I'm always very happy for suggestions. I tried to answer to yours- it was very pertinent- but descriptions have never been my forte, so I'm sorry it's so meagre.