Rainbow Valley

s no place like the little valley behind the maple grove. It was a fairy realm of romance to them. Once, looking from the attic windows of Ingleside, through the mist and aftermath of a summe

said Walter delightedly, and Ra

he dark spruces. A little brook with amber waters ran through it from the Glen village. The houses of the village were comfortably far away; only at the upper end of the valley was a little tumble-down, deserted cottage, referred to as "the old Bailey house." It had not been occupied for many years

hill, a solitary old gray homestead looked down on glen and harbour. There was a certain wild woodsiness and soli

its heart, opening on the bank of the brook. By the brook grew a silver birch-tree, a young, incredibly straight thing which Walter had named the "White Lady." In this glade, too, were the "Tree Lovers," as Walter called a spruce and maple w

"After all, none of the Avonlea place

uld need a "setting-out." There were jolly playmates there, too-"Uncle" Davy's children and "Aunt" Diana's children. They knew all the spots their mother had loved so well in her girlhood at old Green Gables-the long Lover's Lane, that was pink-hedged in wild-rose time, the always neat yard, with its w

onsisted of a circle of red stones, with a fire kindled in it, and his culinary utensils were an old tin can, hammer

her's; he had his mother's fine nose and his father's steady, humorous mouth. And he was the only one of the family who had ears nice enough to please Susan. But

" he had cried indignantly, on hi

ed again; and she never called him Lit

ue for several days. But Jem did not grudge suffering in the interests of science. By constant experiment and observation he learned a great deal and his brothers and sisters thought his extensive knowledge of their little world quite wonderful. Jem always knew where the first and ripest berries grew, where the first pale violets shyly wakened from their winter's sleep, and how many blue eggs were in a given robin's nest in the maple grove. He could tell fortunes from daisy petals and suck honey fr

pond, and now at a flock of clouds, like little silver sheep, herded by the wind, that were drifting over Rainbow Valley, with rapture in his wide splendid eyes. Walter

Ingleside children, with straight black hair and finely modelled features. But he had all his mother's vivid imagination and p

-the music of the immortals. Walter cherished the ambition to be a poet himself some day. The thing could be done. A certain Uncle Paul-so called out of courtesy-who lived now in that mysterious realm called "the States," was Walter's model. Uncle Paul had once been a little school boy in Avonlea and now his poetry was read everywhere. But the Glen schoolboys did not know of Walter's dreams and would not ha

as very pretty, with velvety nut-brown eyes and silky nut-brown hair. She was a very blithe and dainty little maiden-Blythe by

er who can wear pink," Mrs. Bl

s why she was her father's favourite. She and Walter were especial chums; Di was the only one to whom he would ever read the verses he wrote himself-the only one who knew t

em?" said Nan, sniffing with her dainty

one a dexterous turn. "Get out the brea

means; but with Walter food for the soul always took first place. "The flower angel has been walkin

s I ever saw were

sty blue, just like the haze in the valley. Oh

in dreams some

ground and float over the fences and the trees. It's delightful-and I always think, 'This ISN'T a dr

, Nan," o

ished the dishes. From a tin box secreted at the root of a spruce tree Nan brought forth bread and salt. The brook gave Adam's ale of unsurpassed crystal. For the rest, there was a certain sauce, compounded of fresh air and appetite of youth, which gave to everything a divine flavour. To sit in Rainbow Valley, steeped in a twilight half gold

sizzling tin platter of trout on the ta

ho hated saying grace. "Let Walter say it. He LIKES sa

short or long, just then

wn from the mans