An old house with its windows gone always makes me think of something dead with its eyes picked out . '' `` I think an old , deserted house is such a sad sight , '' said Anne dreamily . `` It always seems to me to be thinking about its past and mourning for its old-time joys . Marilla says that a large family was raised in that old house long ago , and that it was a real pretty place , with a lovely garden and roses climbing all over it . It was full of little children and laughter and songs ; and now it is empty , and nothing ever wanders through it but the wind . How lonely and sorrowful it must feel ! Perhaps they all come back on moonlit nights ... the ghosts of the little children of long ago and the roses and the songs ... and for a little while the old house can dream it is young and joyous again . '' Diana shook her head . `` I never imagine things like that about places now , Anne . Do n't you remember how cross mother and Marilla were when we imagined ghosts into the Haunted Wood ? To this day I ca n't go through that bush comfortably after dark ; and if I began imagining such things about the old Boulter house I 'd be frightened to pass it too . Besides , those children are n't dead . They 're all grown up and doing well ... and one of them is a butcher . And flowers and songs could n't have ghosts anyhow . '' Anne smothered a little sigh . She loved Diana dearly and they had always been good comrades . But she had long ago learned that when she wandered into the realm of fancy she must go alone . The way to it was by an enchanted path where not even her dearest might follow her . A thunder-shower came up while the girls were at Carmody ; it did not last long , however , and the drive home , through lanes where the raindrops sparkled on the boughs and little leafy valleys where the drenched ferns gave out spicy odors , was delightful . But just as they turned into the Cuthbert lane Anne saw something that spoiled the beauty of the landscape for her .
Before them on the right extended Mr. Harrison 's broad , gray-green field of late oats , wet and luxuriant ; and there , standing squarely in the middle of it , up to her sleek sides in the lush growth , and blinking XXXXX them calmly over the intervening tassels , was a Jersey cow !
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