It had not been occupied for many years , but a grass-grown dyke surrounded it and inside was an ancient garden where the Ingleside children could find violets and daisies and June lilies still blooming in season . For the rest , the garden was overgrown with caraway that swayed and foamed in the moonshine of summer eves like seas of silver . To the sought lay the pond and beyond it the ripened distance lost itself in purple woods , save where , on a high hill , a solitary old gray homestead looked down on glen and harbour . There was a certain wild woodsiness and solitude about Rainbow Valley , in spite of its nearness to the village , which endeared it to the children of Ingleside . The valley was full of dear , friendly hollows and the largest of these was their favourite stamping ground . Here they were assembled on this particular evening . There was a grove of young spruces in this hollow , with a tiny , grassy glade in its heart , opening on the bank of the brook . By the brook grew a silver birch-tree , a young , incredibly straight thing which Walter had named the `` White Lady . '' In this glade , too , were the `` Tree Lovers , '' as Walter called a spruce and maple which grew so closely together that their boughs were inextricably intertwined . Jem had hung an old string of sleigh-bells , given him by the Glen blacksmith , on the Tree Lovers , and every visitant breeze called out sudden fairy tinkles from it . `` How nice it is to be back ! '' said Nan . `` After all , none of the Avonlea places are quite as nice as Rainbow Valley . '' But they were very fond of the Avonlea places for all that . A visit to Green Gables was always considered a great treat . Aunt Marilla was very good to them , and so was Mrs. Rachel Lynde , who was spending the leisure of her old age in knitting cotton-warp quilts against the day when Anne 's daughters should need a `` setting-out . '' There were jolly playmates there , too -- `` Uncle '' Davy 's children and `` Aunt '' Diana 's children . They knew all the spots their mother had loved so well in her girlhood at old Green Gables -- the long Lover 's Lane , that was pink-hedged in wild-rose time , the always neat yard , with its willows and poplars , the Dryad 's Bubble , lucent and lovely as of yore , the Lake of Shining Waters , and Willowmere . The twins had their mother 's old porch-gable room , and Aunt Marilla used to come in at night , when she thought they were asleep , to gloat over them . But they all knew she loved Jem the best .
Jem was at present busily occupied in frying a mess of small trout which he had just caught XXXXX the pond .
By about against as at beyond for from in of