Then she locked the door and sat down under the silver poplar to wait for Gilbert , feeling very tired but still unweariedly thinking `` long , long thoughts . '' `` What are you thinking of , Anne ? '' asked Gilbert , coming down the walk . He had left his horse and buggy out at the road . `` Of Miss Lavendar and Mr. Irving , '' answered Anne dreamily . `` Is n't it beautiful to think how everything has turned out ... how they have come together again after all the years of separation and misunderstanding ? '' `` Yes , it 's beautiful , '' said Gilbert , looking steadily down into Anne 's uplifted face , `` but would n't it have been more beautiful still , Anne , if there had been NO separation or misunderstanding ... if they had come hand in hand all the way through life , with no memories behind them but those which belonged to each other ? '' For a moment Anne 's heart fluttered queerly and for the first time her eyes faltered under Gilbert 's gaze and a rosy flush stained the paleness of her face . It was as if a veil that had hung before her inner consciousness had been lifted , giving to her view a revelation of unsuspected feelings and realities . Perhaps , after all , romance did not come into one 's life with pomp and blare , like a gay knight riding down ; perhaps it crept to one 's side like an old friend through quiet ways ; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose , until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music , perhaps ... perhaps ... love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship , as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath . Then the veil dropped again ; but the Anne who walked up the dark lane was not quite the same Anne who had driven gaily down it the evening before . The page of girlhood had been turned , as by an unseen finger , and the page of womanhood was before her with all its charm and mystery , its pain and gladness . Gilbert wisely said nothing more ; but in his silence he read the history of the next four years in the light of Anne 's remembered blush . Four years of earnest , happy work ... and then the guerdon of a useful knowledge gained and a sweet heart won . Behind them in the garden the little stone house brooded among the shadows . It was lonely but not forsaken . It had not yet done with dreams and laughter and the joy of life ; there were to be future summers for the little stone house ; meanwhile , it could wait . CHAPTER I. Mrs. Rachel Lynde is Surprised Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow , fringed with alders and ladies ' eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place ; it was reputed to be an intricate , headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods , with dark secrets of pool and cascade ; but by the time it reached Lynde 's Hollow it was a quiet , well-conducted little stream , for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde 's door without due regard for decency and decorum ; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window , keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed , from brooks and children up , and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof . There are plenty of people in Avonlea and out of it , who can attend closely to their neighbor 's business by dint of neglecting their own ; but Mrs. Rachel Lynde was one of those capable creatures who can manage their own concerns and those of other folks into the bargain . She was a notable housewife ; her work was always done and well done ; she `` ran '' the Sewing Circle , helped run the Sunday-school , and was the strongest prop of the Church Aid Society and Foreign Missions Auxiliary .
Yet XXXXX all this Mrs. Rachel found abundant time to sit for hours at her kitchen window , knitting `` cotton warp '' quilts -- she had knitted sixteen of them , as Avonlea housekeepers were wont to tell in awed voices -- and keeping a sharp eye on the main road that crossed the hollow and wound up the steep red hill beyond .
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