Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the thirty-ninth chapter of Anne of the Island by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

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Wherever you listen to podcasts today, we'll be continuing Anne of the island by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Chapter 39 deals with weddings and felt that life partook of the nature of an anticlimax.

During the first few weeks after her return to Green Gables, she missed the merry comradeship of Patty's Place.

She had dreamed some brilliant dreams during the past winter, and now they lay in the dust around her.

In her present mood of selfdisgust, she could not immediately begin dreaming again, and she discovered that while solitude with dreams is glorious, solitude without them has few charms.

She had not seen Roy again after their painful parting in the Park Pavilion, but Dorothy came to see her before she left Kingsport.

I'm awfully sorry you won't marry Roy, she said.

I did want you for a sister, but you are quite right, he would bore you to death.

I love him, and he is a dear, sweet boy, but really he isn't a bit interesting.

He looks as if he ought to be, but he isn't.

This won't spoil our friendship, will it, Dorothy?

Anne had asked Wistfully.

No indeed.

You're too good to lose.

If I can't have you for a sister, I mean to keep you as a chum anyway.

And don't fret over Roy.

He's feeling terribly just now.

I have to listen to his outpourings every day.

But he'll get over it.

He always does.

Oh, always, said Anne with a slight change of voice.

So he has got over it before?

Dear me, yes, said Dorothy frankly.

Twice before.

And he raved to me just the same both times.

Not that the others actually refused him, they simply announced their engagements to someone else.

Of course, when he met you, he vowed to me that he had never really loved before, that the previous affairs had been merely boyish fancies.

But I don't think you need worry.

Anne decided not to worry.

Her feelings were a mixture of relief and resentment.

Roy had certainly told her she was the only one he had ever loved.

No doubt he believed it.

But it was a comfort to feel that she had not, in all likelihood ruined his life.

There were other goddesses, and Roy, according to Dorothy, must needs be worshipping at some shrine.

Nevertheless, life was stripped of several more illusions, and Anne began to think drearily that it seemed rather bare.

She came down from the Porch Gable on the evening of her return with a sorrowful face.

What has happened to the old snow queen, Marilla?

Oh, I knew you'd feel bad over that, said Marilla.

I felt bad myself.

That tree was there ever since I was a young girl.

It blew down in the big gale we had in March.

It was rotten at the core.

I'll miss it so, grieved Anne.

The porch gable doesn't seem the same room without it.

I'll never look from its window again without a sense of loss.

And, oh, I never came home to Green Gables before that.

Diana wasn't here to welcome me.

Diana has something else to think of just now, said Mrs.

Lynn significantly.

Well, tell me all the avenley news, said Anne, sitting down on the porch steps where the evening sunshine fell over her hair in a fine, golden rain.

There isn't much news except what we wrote you, said Mrs.

Lind.

I suppose you haven't heard that Simon Fletcher broke his leg last week.

It's a great thing for his family.

They're getting 100 things done that they've always wanted to do but couldn't as long as he was about the old crank.

He came of an aggravating family, remarked Marilla.

Aggravating?

Well, rather.

His mother used to get up in prayer meeting and tell all her children's shortcomings and ask prayer for them.

Of course, it made them mad and worse than ever.

You haven't told Anne the news about Jane, suggested Marilla.

Oh, jane sniffed Mrs.

Lynde.

Well, she conceded grudgingly, jane Andrews is home from the west.

Came home last week, and she's going to be married to a Winnipeg millionaire.

You may be sure.

Mrs.

Harmon lost no time in telling.

It far and wide.

Dear old Jane.

I'm so glad, said Anne heartily.

She deserves the good things of life.

Oh, I ain't saying anything against Jane.

She's a nice enough girl, but she isn't in the millionaire class.

And you'll find there's not much to recommend that man but his money.

That's what Mrs.

Harmon says.

He's an Englishman who has made money in minds, but I believe he'll turn out to be a Yankee.

He certainly must have money.

Freeze just showered Jane with jewelry.

Her engagement ring is a diamond cluster so big that it looks like a plaster on Jane's fat paw.

Mrs.

Lynde could not keep some bitterness out of her tone.

Here was Jane Andrews, that plain little plotter engaged to a millionaire, while Anne, it seemed, was not yet bespoken by anyone, rich or poor, and Mrs.

Harmon Andrews did brag insufferably.

What has Gilbert Blithe been doing to at college?

Asked Marilla.

I saw him when he came home last week, and he's so pale and thin, I hardly knew him.

He studied very hard last winter, said Anne.

You know, he took high honors in Classics in the Cooper Prize.

It hasn't been taken for five years, so I think he's rather run down.

We're all a little tired anyhow.

You're a BA, and Jane Andrews isn't and never will be, said Mrs.

Lynde with gloomy satisfaction.

A few evenings later, Anne went down to see Jane, but the latter was away in Charlotte Town getting sewing done.

Mrs.

Harmon informed Anne proudly.

Of course, an Avonlea dressmaker wouldn't do for Jane under the circumstances.

I've heard something very nice about Jane, said Anne.

Yes, Jane has done pretty well, even if she isn't a BA, said Mrs.

Harmon with a slight toss of her head.

Mr.

English is worth millions, and they're going to Europe on their wedding tour.

When they come back, they'll live in a perfect mansion of marble in Winnipeg.

Jane has only one trouble.

She can cook so well, and her husband won't let her cook.

He's so rich he hires his cooking done.

They're going to keep a cook and two other maids and a coachman and a man of all work.

But what about you, Anne?

I don't hear anything of your being married after your college going.

Oh, laughed Anne.

I'm going to be an old maid.

I really can't find anyone to suit me.

It was rather wicked of her.

She deliberately meant to remind Mrs.

Andrews that if she became an old maid, it was not because she had not had at least one chance of marriage.

But Mrs.

Harmon took Swift revenge.

Well, the over particular girls generally get left, I notice.

And what's this I hear about Gilbert Bly's being engaged to a Ms.

Stewart?

Charlie Sloane tells me she's perfectly beautiful.

Is it true?

I don't know if it is true that he's engaged to Miss Stuart, replied Anne with spartan composure, but it is certainly true that she is lovely.

I once thought you and Gilbert would have made a match of it, said Mrs.

Harmon.

If you don't take care, Anne, all of your bows will slip through your fingers.

Anne decided not to continue her duel with Mrs.

Harmon.

You could not sense with an antagonist who met rape your thrust with blow of battle axe.

Since Jane is away, she said, rising haughtily.

I don't think I can stay longer this morning.

I'll come down when she comes home.

Do, said Mrs.

Harmon, effusively.

Jane isn't a bit proud.

She just means to associate with her old friends the same as ever.

She'll be real glad to see you.

Jane's millionaire arrived the last of May and carried her off in a blaze of splendor.

Mrs.

Lynde was spitefully gratified to find that Mr.

Inglis was every day of 40 and short and thin and grayish.

Mrs.

Lind did not spare him in her enumeration of his shortcomings.

You may be sure it will take all his gold to guild a pill like him.

That's what said, Mrs.

Rachel.

Solemnly.

He looks kind and goodhearted, said Anne loyally.

And I'm sure he thinks the world of Jane, said Mrs.

Rachel.

Phil Gordon was married the next week, and Anne went over to bowling broke to be her bridesmaid.

Phil made a dainty fairy of a bride, and the Reverend Joe was so radiant in his happiness that nobody thought him playing.

We're going for a lover saunter through the land of Evangeline, said Phil, and then we'll settle down on Paterson Street.

Mother thinks it is terrible.

She thinks Joe might at least take a church in a decent place.

But the wilderness of the Patterson slums will blossom like the rose for me if Joe is there.

Oh, Anne, I'm so happy.

My heart aches with it.

Anne was always glad in the happiness of her friends, but it is sometimes a little lonely to be surrounded everywhere by a happiness that is not your own.

And it was just the same when she went back to Avonlea.

This time it was Diana who was bathed in the wonderful glory that comes to a woman when her first born is laid beside her.

Anne looked at the white young mother with a certain awe that had never entered into her feelings for Diana before.

Could this pale woman with the rapture in her eyes be the little black curled, rosy cheek Diana she had played with in vanished school days?

It gave her a queer, desolate feeling that she herself somehow belonged only in those past years, and had no business in the present at all.

Isn't he perfectly beautiful?

Said Diana proudly.

The little fat fellow was absurdly like Fred, just as round, just as red.

Anne really could not say conscientiously that she thought him beautiful, but she vowed sincerely that he was sweet and kissable and altogether delightful before he came.

I wanted a girl so that I could call her Anne, said Diana.

But now that little Fred is here, I wouldn't exchange him for a million girls.

He just couldn't have been anything but his own precious self.

Every little baby is the sweetest and the best, quoted Mrs.

Allen gaily.

If little Anne had come, you'd have felt just the same about her.

Mrs.

Allen was visiting in Avonlea for the first time since leaving it.

She was as gay and sweet and sympathetic as ever.

Her old girlfriends had welcomed her back, rapturously the reigning minister's wife was an esteemable lady but she was not exactly a kindred spirit.

I can hardly wait till he gets old enough to talk, sighed Diana.

I just longed to hear him say mother and oh, I'm determined that his first memory of me shall be a nice one.

The first memory I have of my mother is of her slapping me for something I had done.

I'm sure I deserved it.

And my mother was always a good mother and I loved her dearly.

But I do wish my first memory of her was nicer.

I have just one memory of my mother and it is the sweetest of all my memories, said Mrs.

Allen.

I was five years old and I had been allowed to go to school one day with my two older sisters.

When school came out, my sisters went home in different groups, each supposing I was with the other.

Instead I had run off with a little girl I had played with at recess we went to her home, which was near the school and began making mud pies.

We were having a glorious time when my older sister arrived breathless and angry.

You naughty girl.

She cried, snatching my reluctant hand and dragging me along with her.

Come home this minute.

Oh, you're going to catch it.

Mother is awful cross.

She's going to give you a good whipping.

I had never been whipped.

Dread and terror filled my poor little heart.

I've never been so miserable in all my life as I was on that walk home.

I had not meant to be naughty femme Cameron had asked me to go home with her and I had not known it was wrong to go and now I was to be whipped for it.

When we got home, my sister dragged me into the kitchen where mother was sitting by the fire in the twilight.

My poor wheel legs were trembling so that I could hardly stand and mother mother just took me up in her arms without one word of rebuke or harshness kissed me and held me close to her heart.

I was so afraid you were lost, darling, she said tenderly.

I could see the love shining in her eyes as she looked down on me.

She never scolded or reproached me for what I had done only told me I must never go away again without asking permission.

She died very soon afterwards.

That is the only memory I have of her.

Isn't it a beautiful one?

Anne felt lonelier than ever as she walked home going by way of the birch path and willowmir.

She had not walked that way from many moons.

It was a darkly purple bloomy night.

The air was heavy with blossom fragrance almost too heavy.

The Cloyd senses recoiled from it as from an overflow cup.

The birches of the path had grown from the fairy saplings of old to big trees.

Everything had changed.

Anne felt that she would be glad when the summer was over and she was away at work again, perhaps life would not seem so empty then I've tried the world it wears no more the coloring of romance it wore, sighed Anne, and was straight away much comforted by the romance and the idea of the world being denuded of romance.

Thank you for joining Bite at a 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 of the island.

Don't forget to tag us on your social media posts at Bite at a Time Books, and we hope to be able to feature you in this Saturday segment.

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