noon--the first bride of Green Gables, slender and
shining-eyed, in the mist of her maiden veil, with her
arms full of roses. Gilbert, waiting for her in the
hall below, looked up at her with adoring eyes. She
was his at last, this evasive, long-sought Anne, won
after years of patient waiting. It was to him she was
coming in the sweet surrender of the bride. Was he
worthy of her? Could he make her as happy as he hoped?
If he failed her--if he could not measure up to her
standard of manhood--then, as she held out her hand,
their eyes met and all doubt was swept away in a glad
certainty. They belonged to each other; and, no matter
what life might hold for them, it could never alter
that. Their happiness was in each other's keeping and
both were unafraid.

They were married in the sunshine of the old orchard,
circled by the loving and kindly faces of long-familiar
friends. Mr. Allan married them, and the Reverend Jo
made what Mrs. Rachel Lynde afterwards pronounced to be
the "most beautiful wedding prayer" she had ever
heard. Birds do not often sing in September, but one
sang sweetly from some hidden bough while Gilbert and
Anne repeated their deathless vows. Anne heard it and
thrilled to it; Gilbert heard it, and wondered only
that all the birds in the world had not burst into
jubilant song; Paul heard it and later wrote a lyric
about it which was one of the most admired in his first
volume of verse; Charlotta the Fourth heard it and was
blissfully sure it meant good luck for her adored Miss