Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the second chapter of Anne's House of Dreams.

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Wherever you listen to podcasts today, we'll be continuing anne's House of Dreams by Lucy Maud Montgomery chapter Two The House of Dreams there was more excitement in the air of Green Gables than there had ever been before in all its history.

Even Marilla was so excited that she couldn't help showing it, which was little short of being phenomenal.

There's never been a wedding in this house, she said, half apologetically to Mrs.

Rachel Lind.

When I was a child, I heard an old minister say that a house was not a real home until it had been consecrated by a birth, a wedding and a death.

We've had deaths here.

My father and mother died here, as well as Matthew, and we've even had a birth here long ago, just after we moved into this house.

We had a married hired man for a little while, and his wife had a baby here.

But there's never been a wedding before.

It does seem so strange to think of Anne being married.

In a way, she just seems to me the little girl Matthew brought home here 14 years ago.

I can't realize that she's grown up.

I shall never forget what I felt when I saw Matthew bringing in a girl.

I wonder what became of the boy we would have got if there hadn't been a mistake.

I wonder what his fate was.

Well, it was a fortunate mistake, said Mrs.

Rachel Lind.

No.

Mind you, there was a time I didn't think so.

That evening I came up to see Anne, and she treated us to such a scene.

Many things have changed since then.

That's what Mrs.

Rachel sighed, and then brisked up again when weddings were in order.

Mrs.

Rachel was ready to let the dead pass.

Barry, its dead.

I'm going to give Anne two of my cotton warp spreads.

She resumed.

A tobacco stripe one and an apple leaf one.

She tells me they're getting to be real fashionable again.

Well, fashion or no fashion, I don't believe there's anything prettier for a spare room bed than a nice apple leaf spread.

That's what I must see about getting them bleached.

I've had them sewed up in cotton bags ever since Thomas died, and no doubt they're an awful color.

But there's a month yet, and do bleaching will work wonders.

Only a month?

Marilla sighed and then said proudly, I'm giving Anne that half dozen braided rugs I have in the garret.

I never supposed she'd want them.

They're so old fashioned and nobody seems to want anything but hooked mats now.

But she asked me for them.

Said she'd rather have them than anything else or her floors.

They are pretty.

I made them of the nicest rags and braided them in stripes.

It was such company these last few winters, and I'll make her enough blue plum preserve to stock her jam closet for a year.

It seems real strange.

Those blue plum trees haven't even a blossom for three years, and I thought they might as well be cut down.

And this last spring they were white and such a crop of plums I never remember at Green Gables.

Well, thank goodness that Anne and Gilbert really are going to be married after all.

It's what I've always prayed for, said Mrs.

Rachel.

And the tone of one who's comfortably sure that her prayers have availed much.

It was a great relief to find out that she really didn't mean to take the king sport.

Man, he was rich, to be sure, and Gilbert is poor, at least to begin with.

But then he's an island boy.

He's gilbert Blithe said marilla contentedly.

Marilla would have died the death before she would have put into words the thought that was always in the background of her mind whenever she had looked at Gilbert from his childhood up.

The thought that had it not been for her own willful pride long, long ago, he might have been her son.

Marilla felt that in some strange way his marriage with Anne would put right that old mistake good had come out of the evil of the ancient bitterness.

As for Anne herself, she was so happy that she almost felt frightened.

The gods, so says the old superstition, do not like to behold two happy mortals.

It is certain, at least, that some human beings do not.

Two of that ilk descended upon Anne one violet dusk and proceeded to do what in them lay to p**** the rainbow bubble of her satisfaction.

If she thought she was getting any particular prize in young Dr.

Blithe, or if she imagined that he was still as infatuated with her as he might have been in his salad days, it was surely their duty to put that matter before her in another light.

Yet these two worthy ladies were not enemies of Anne.

On the contrary, they were really quite fond of her, and would have defended her as their own young had anyone else attacked her.

Human nature is not obliged to be consistent, Mrs.

Inglis.

Nay, Jane Andrews, to quote from the Daily Enterprise, came with her mother and Mrs.

Jasper Bell.

But in Jane the milk of human kindness had not been curdled by years of matrimonial bickerings.

Her lines had fallen in pleasant places in spite of the fact, as Mrs.

Rachel Lind would say, that she had married a millionaire.

Her marriage had been happy.

Wealth had not spoiled her.

She was still the placid, amiable, pink cheeked Jane of the old quartet, sympathizing with her old CHUM's happiness, and is keenly interested in all the dainty details of Anne's Drew so as if it could rival her own silken and bejewelled splendors.

Jane was not brilliant and had probably never made a remark worth listening to in her life, but she never said anything that would hurt anyone's feelings, which may be a negative talent, but is likewise a rare and enviable one.

So Gilbert didn't go back on you after all, said Mrs.

Harmon.

Andrews contriving to convey an expression of surprise in her tone.

Well, the blithes generally keep their word when they've once passed it, no matter what happens.

Let me see.

You're 25, aren't you, Anne?

When I was a girl, 25 was the first corner.

But you look quite young, redheaded.

People always do.

Red hair is very fashionable now, said Anne, trying to smile but speaking rather coldly.

Life had developed in her a sense of humor which helped her over many difficulties, but as yet nothing had availed to steal her against a reference to her hair.

So it is.

So it is, conceded Mrs.

Harmon.

There's no telling what queer freaks fashion will take.

Well, Anne, your things are very pretty and very suitable to your position in life, aren't they, Jane?

I hope you'll be very happy.

You have my best wishes, I'm sure.

A long engagement doesn't often turn out well, but of course, in your case it couldn't be helped.

Gilbert looks very young for a doctor.

I'm afraid people won't have much confidence in him, said Mrs.

Jasper Bell gloomily.

Then she shut her mouth tightly, as if she had said what she considered it her duty to say, and held her conscience clear.

She belonged to the type which always had a stringy black feather in its hat and straggling locks of hair on its neck and surface.

Pleasure in her pretty bridal things was temporarily shadowed.

But the deeps of happiness below could not thus be disturbed.

And the little stings of MAS, Dame's, Bell and Andrews were forgotten when Gilbert came later and they wandered down to the birches of the Brook, which had been saplings when Anne had come to Green Gables, but were now tall ivory columns in a fairy palace of twilight and stars.

In their shadows, anne and Gilbert talked in lover fashion of their new home and their new life together.

I found a nest for us, Anne.

Oh?

Where?

Not right in the village, I hope.

I wouldn't like that altogether.

No, there was no house to be had in the village.

There's a little white house on the harbor shore halfway between Glenn St.

Mary and Fourwind's Point.

It's a little out of the way, but when we get a phone in, that won't matter much.

The situation is beautiful.

It looks to the sunset and has the great blue harbor before it.

The sand dunes aren't very far away.

The sea winds blow over them, and the sea spray drenches them.

But the house itself, Gilbert, our first home.

What is it like?

Not very large, but large enough for us.

There's a splendid living room with a fireplace in it downstairs, and a dining room that looks out on the harbor, and a little room that will do for my office.

It is about 60 years old, the oldest house in Four Winds, but it has been kept in pretty good repair and was all done over about 15 years ago.

Shingled, plastered and reflored.

It was well built to begin with.

I understand that there was some romantic story connected with its building, but the man I rented it from didn't know it.

He said Captain Jim was the only one who could spin that old yarn.

Now, who is Captain Jim?

The keeper of the lighthouse on Four Winds Point.

You'll love that.

Four winds light, Ann.

It's a revolving one, and it flashes like a magnificent star through the twilights.

We can see it from our living room windows and our front door.

Who owns the house?

Well, it's the property of the Glenn St.

Mary Presbyterian Church now, and I rented it from the trustees.

But it belonged until lately to a very old lady, miss Elizabeth Russell.

She died last spring, and as she had no near relatives, she left her property to the Glenn St.

Mary church.

Her furniture is still in the house, and I bought most of it for a mere song, you might say, because it was also old fashioned that the trustees despaired of selling it.

Glenn St.

Mary folks prefer blush brocade and sideboards with mirrors and ornamentations, I fancy.

But Miss Russell's furniture is very good, and I feel sure you'll like it, Anne, so far.

Good, said Anne, nodding cautious approval.

But, Gilbert, people cannot live by furniture alone.

You haven't yet mentioned one very important thing.

Are there trees about this house?

Heaps of them.

Oh, dryad.

There's a big grove of fur trees behind it.

Two rows of Lombardi poplars down the lane, and a ring of white birches around a very delightful garden.

Our front door opens right into the garden, but there's another entrance, a little gate hung between two furs.

The hinges are on one trunk and the catch on the other.

Their boughs form an arch overhead.

Oh, I'm so glad I couldn't live where there were no trees.

Something vital in me would starve.

Well, after that, there's no use asking you if there's a brook anywhere near that would be expecting too much.

But there is a brook, and it actually cuts across one corner of the garden.

Then, said Anne with a long sigh of supreme satisfaction, this house you have found is my house of dreams and none other.

Thank you for joining Bite at Time books today while we read a bite of one of your favorite classics.

Again, my name is Brie Carlyle, and I hope you come back tomorrow for the next bite of Anne's House of Dreams.

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