"I''ve never fallen in love at first sight before." Little Elizabeth told Anne Blythe. They were walking down a long red road again, fragrant and alluring in the warm September afternoon. Elizabeth had a tale to confide in her beloved Miss Shirley.
"At school, the boys who are considered 'handsome' behave horridly. All the girls in my class rave about them, but I didn't think it would be very comfortable to like someone just because they had nice features. I much preferred Nora's way, of loving someone because your love for them had grown out of a friendship."
"That's the way it was with me." Anne said.
"But I liked Paul's looks so much the minute I saw him. And he turned out to be just as nice as his looks. I really didn't know you could have such perfection, in a 'flawed world.' " Elizabeth crimsoned, and Anne agreed.
"You can imagine my joy when I found out he was The Poet, and I had really known him all along. I asked to see his poetry - I never felt shy around him at all, not from the minute we began talking - isn't that surprising, Miss Shirley?"
"It only shows that you are kindred spirits." said Anne.
"So he left a notebook on Dora's doorstep at the end of the week, just before he went back to Echo Lodge. We had become such good friends in the meantime - no, we were good friends the minute we met. I read some of the poems and recognized them, Miss Shirley! There was one on Nora, and one on the garden of the sunset, and half a dozen others that I already knew by heart. And then I realized who he must be. I could hardly believe it.
"I told Dora that Paul had invited us to Echo Lodge, so since it was a quiet day before harvest, she asked Ralph if he wouldn't drive us over. I told her that there were wild strawberries in the woods near Echo Lodge. Dora was so eager to pick them, and Ralph teased her all the way, saying that she was sweet on Paul when she was a little girl. I realized all over again how much older Paul was than me.
"Echo Lodge is fairyland, Miss Shirley. I had never seen a place so full of yesterday and so steeped in magic. I think if Nora hankers for the sea, I will be homesick for the Irving's woodland glade when I am in Paris. I told Paul that I should like to live there always.
"Paul showed us the echoes and when we were tired of that ,we all went to Mr. Kimball's back woods to pick strawberries. Dora decided to make her turnovers right there for the Irvings, but Paul and I lingered in the garden. I was so happy, Miss Shirley! I had never been so happy - it frightens me. We were under the willow where Mr. and Mrs. Irving had plighted their troth as children, and where they were married.
"I told Paul that I now knew he was the Poet I had corresponded with and counted amongst my dearest friends. He embraced me, then and there, for a long time.
"Ralph teased me all the rest of the summer.
'Oh if I could write o' poetry,
the ladies that would be after me!'
He makes very bad rhymes." Elizabeth and Anne cringed.
"Even Mr. Irving teased, and he is such a nice, kindly gentleman. I find something about his features very interesting to look at - the steady face and massive silver hair - he looks majestic. He'd look at Paul and I so wistfully - I would take your shortcut from the Green Gables woods back there almost every afternoon when it wasn't too hot to walk four miles- reminisce how he was betrothed at age nine. I took father to Echo Lodge when he took the train up to Avonlea - father has been using the branch office at Flying Cloud in Summerside, to work from, since we came to the Island. He knows Mr. Irving slightly and was friends with Paul's 'little mother.' They had such a conversation - a political debate, I think. Paul and I stayed in the room for awhile, but we didn't truly enter into the sprit of it, thinking of Tennyson's lines
what is it all but a struggle of ants
in the gleam of a million million suns?
Isn't it strange that all the poetry I've loved has so much more meaning now that I can share it with Paul? Our fathers are so alike - and Paul and I have had such similar childhoods."
"Yes - you both know that with an imagination, you can never really be lonely." Anne smiled gently.
"Do you know, that Dora smiled at me meaningfully all month? I'm glad you don't smile at me like that, Miss Shirley. She let me wear her wedding ring for a day - it is a lovely little sapphire - and she got out her wedding dress to show me. 'I was married at seventeen,' she said. Fifteen isn't far off, was what she implied."
"So are you going to get married, my Little - I can't help call you little, so, please forgive me - little Elizabeth?" Anne asked seriously.
"No - no!" Elizabeth laughed. "I will get married some day, but I haven't any plans for it now." She looked her beloved Miss Shirley in the eye. "When I do, you will be the first to know."
Elizabeth couldn't help but quirk up her lips devilishly at Anne's puzzled stare. When had Elizabeth learn to smile like that? Anne thought. This young creature, radiating with happiness, was not the wistful child she had bid good-bye to at Windy Poplars.
"Paul is eight years older than me." Elizabeth explained gravely. "That's too old - for fifteen, and twenty four. So we've promised not to promise anything just now." Anne caught the look of pain that crossed the young sweetheart's face even as she mentioned the words. "I am going to Paris to study, and Paul will finish his professorship in literature in Boston. I may not see him for years."
Anne told Elizabeth how she admired her bravery.
"As Paul says, my soul is growing older every day, and his is growing younger. Someday, after many years, we'll meet." Elizabeth reassured Anne and herself.
"In the meantime, we'll continue writing letters!"