Page:Anne's house of dreams (1920 Canada).djvu/191

 “Would you like company or would you rather be alone?”

“If by company you mean yours I’d much rather have it than be alone,” said Anne, smiling. Then she sighed. She had never before minded being alone. Now she dreaded it. When she was alone now she felt so dreadfully alone.

“Here’s a nice little spot where the wind can’t get at you,” said Captain Jim, when they reached the rocks. “I often sit here. It’s a great place jest to sit and dream.”

“Oh—dreams,” sighed Anne. “I can’t dream now, Captain Jim—I’m done with dreams.”

“Oh, no, you’re not, Mistress Blythe—oh, no, you’re not,” said Captain Jim meditatively. “I know how you feel jest now—but if you keep on living you’ll get glad again, and the first thing you know you’ll be dreaming again—thank the good Lord for it! If it wasn’t for our dreams they might as well bury us. How’d we stand living if it wasn’t for our dream of immortality? And that’s a dream that’s bound to come true, Mistress Blythe. You’ll see your little Joyce again some day.”

“But she won’t be my baby,” said Anne, with trembling lips. “Oh, she may be, as Longfellow says, ’a fair maiden clothed with celestial grace’—but she’ll be a stranger to me.”

“God will manage better’n that, I believe,” said Captain Jim.