Page:Anne of Avonlea (1909).djvu/256

 The house was a low-eaved structure built of undressed blocks of red Island sandstone, with a little peaked roof out of which peered two dormer windows, with quaint wooden hoods over them, and two great chimneys. The whole house was covered with a luxuriant growth of ivy, finding easy foothold on the rough stonework and turned by autumn frosts to most beautiful bronze and wine-red tints.

Before the house was an oblong garden into which the lane gate where the girls were standing opened. The house bounded it on one side; on the three others it was enclosed by an old stone dyke, so overgrown with moss and grass and ferns that it looked like a high, green bank. On the right and left the tall, dark spruces spread their palm-like branches over it; but below it was a little meadow, green with clover aftermath, sloping down to the blue loop of the Grafton River. No other house or clearing was in sight nothing but hills and valleys covered with feathery young firs.

“I wonder what sort of a person Miss Lewis is,” speculated Diana as they opened the gate into the garden. “They say she is very peculiar.”

“She’ll be interesting then,” said Anne decidedly. “Peculiar people are always that at least, whatever else they are or are not. Didn’t I tell you we would come to an enchanted palace? I knew the elves hadn’t woven magic over that lane for nothing.”

“But Miss Lavendar Lewis is hardly a spellbound Rh