It was the RIGHT thing to do -- and so 't was the only thing . There ai n't no question in my mind about THAT . But my old heart aches for Leslie . She 's only twenty-eight and she 's eaten more bread with sorrow than most women do in eighty years . '' They walked on in silence for a little while . Presently Anne said , `` Do you know , Captain Jim , I never like walking with a lantern . I have always the strangest feeling that just outside the circle of light , just over its edge in the darkness , I am surrounded by a ring of furtive , sinister things , watching me from the shadows with hostile eyes . I 've had that feeling from childhood . What is the reason ? I never feel like that when I 'm really in the darkness -- when it is close all around me -- I 'm not the least frightened . '' `` I 've something of that feeling myself , '' admitted Captain Jim . `` I reckon when the darkness is close to us it is a friend . But when we sorter push it away from us -- divorce ourselves from it , so to speak , with lantern light -- it becomes an enemy . But the fog is lifting . `` There 's a smart west wind rising , if you notice . The stars will be out when you get home . '' They were out ; and when Anne re-entered her house of dreams the red embers were still glowing on the hearth , and all the haunting presences were gone . CHAPTER 14 NOVEMBER DAYS The splendor of color which had glowed for weeks along the shores of Four Winds Harbor had faded out into the soft gray-blue of late autumnal hills . There came many days when fields and shores were dim with misty rain , or shivering before the breath of a melancholy sea-wind -- nights , too , of storm and tempest , when Anne sometimes wakened to pray that no ship might be beating up the grim north shore , for if it were so not even the great , faithful light whirling through the darkness unafraid , could avail to guide it into safe haven . `` In November I sometimes feel as if spring could never come again , '' she sighed , grieving over the hopeless unsightliness of her frosted and bedraggled flower-plots .
The gay little garden of the schoolmaster 's bride was rather a forlorn place now , and the Lombardies and birches were under bare poles , as Captain XXXXX said .
't Anne DAYS Jim embers flower-plots sea-wind sorter unsightliness weeks