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Description: This is the 3rd in the
4 book series of the Anne of Green Gable books about an orphan who is adopted by
an elderly couple who live on Prince Edward Island. In the second book,
Anne leaves home to become a school teacher.
Classification: Children's
Bookshelf / Literature
Publication Date: 1915
Length: 41 Chapters
Illustrations: None
Book attributes: Printable / No code required to
open book
Book ID: GC-ATI-Montgomery
Download Size: 818 kb
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Gilbert and Anne, happily unconscious that their future was thus being
settled by Mrs. Rachel, were sauntering through the shadows of the
Haunted Wood. Beyond, the harvest hills were basking in an amber sunset
radiance, under a pale, aerial sky of rose and blue. The distant spruce
groves were burnished bronze, and their long shadows barred the upland
meadows. But around them a little wind sang among the fir tassels, and
in it there was the note of autumn.
"This wood really is haunted now—by old memories," said Anne, stooping
to gather a spray of ferns, bleached to waxen whiteness by frost. "It
seems to me that the little girls Diana and I used to be play here
still, and sit by the Dryad's Bubble in the twilights, trysting with
the ghosts. Do you know, I can never go up this path in the dusk without
feeling a bit of the old fright and shiver? There was one especially
horrifying phantom which we created—the ghost of the murdered child
that crept up behind you and laid cold fingers on yours. I confess that,
to this day, I cannot help fancying its little, furtive footsteps behind
me when I come here after nightfall. I'm not afraid of the White Lady or
the headless man or the skeletons, but I wish I had never imagined that
baby's ghost into existence. How angry Marilla and Mrs. Barry were over
that affair," concluded Anne, with reminiscent laughter.
The woods around the head of the marsh were full of purple vistas,
threaded with gossamers. Past a dour plantation of gnarled spruces and
a maple-fringed, sun-warm valley they found the "something" Gilbert was
looking for.
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