chain of bowery old homesteads, tilled meadows and quiet gardens. The
western sky was like a great golden pearl. Far down the harbour was
frosted with a dawning moonlight. The air was full of exquisite sounds--
sleepy robin whistles, wonderful, mournful, soft murmurs of wind in the
twilit trees, rustle of aspen poplars talking in silvery whispers and
shaking their dainty, heart-shaped leaves, lilting young laughter from
the windows of rooms where the girls were making ready for the dance.
The world was steeped in maddening loveliness of sound and colour. He
would think only of these things and of the deep, subtle joy they gave
him. "Anyhow, no one will expect me to go," he thought. "As Jem says,
typhoid has seen to that."

Rilla was leaning out of her room window, dressed for the dance. A
yellow pansy slipped from her hair and fell out over the sill like a
falling star of gold. She caught at it vainly--but there were enough
left. Miss Oliver had woven a little wreath of them for her pet's hair.

"It's so beautifully calm--isn't that splendid? We'll have a perfect
night. Listen, Miss Oliver--I can hear those old bells in Rainbow
Valley quite clearly. They've been hanging there for over ten years."

"Their wind chime always makes me think of the aerial, celestial music
Adam and Eve heard in Milton's Eden," responded Miss Oliver.

"We used to have such fun in Rainbow Valley when we were children," said
Rilla dreamily.

Nobody ever played in Rainbow Valley now. It was very silent on summer
evenings. Walter liked to go there to read. Jem and Faith trysted there
considerably; Jerry and Nan went there to pursue uninterruptedly the