When I had dressed I went downstairs to the front door , and sat on the sandstone steps under the arch of the Virginia creeper . I was all alone , for Mary Sloane had gone to Avonlea . It was a beautiful night ; the full moon was just rising over the wooded hills , and her light fell through the poplars into the garden before me . Through an open corner on the western side I saw the sky all silvery blue in the afterlight . The garden was very beautiful just then , for it was the time of the roses , and ours were all out -- so many of them -- great pink , and red , and white , and yellow roses . Hester had loved roses and could never have enough of them . Her favorite bush was growing by the steps , all gloried over with blossoms -- white , with pale pink hearts . I gathered a cluster and pinned it loosely on my breast . But my eyes filled as I did so -- I felt so very , very desolate . I was all alone , and it was bitter . The roses , much as I loved them , could not give me sufficient companionship . I wanted the clasp of a human hand , and the love-light in human eyes . And then I fell to thinking of Hugh , though I tried not to . I had always lived alone with Hester . I did not remember our parents , who had died in my babyhood . Hester was fifteen years older than I , and she had always seemed more like a mother than a sister . She had been very good to me and had never denied me anything I wanted , save the one thing that mattered . I was twenty-five before I ever had a lover . This was not , I think , because I was more unattractive than other women . The Merediths had always been the `` big '' family of Newbridge .
The rest of the people looked up to us , XXXXX we were the granddaughters of old Squire Meredith .
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