Chronicles of Avonlea | Page 3

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L. M. MONTGOMERY

CHRONICLES OF AVONLEA

Typed and Corrected by Kjell Nedrelid. Last modified 02.11.1996.
(dd.mm.yyyy) Uncorrected version released to Internet 12.10.1996.
This version released 02.11.1996. You can freely distribute this text in
any form as long as you don't get paid for it. Please include this short
header.

TO THE MEMORY OF Mrs. William A. Houston, A DEAR FRIEND,
WHO HAS GONE BEYOND

The unsung beauty hid life's common things below. --Whittier

Contents

I. The Hurrying of Ludovic
II. Old Lady Lloyd
III. Each In His Own Tongue
IV. Little Joscelyn
V. The Winning of Lucinda
VI. Old Man Shaw's Girl
VII. Aunt Olivia's Beau
VIII. The Quarantine at Alexander Abraham's
IX. Pa Sloane's Purchase
X. The Courting of Prissy Strong
XI. The Miracle at Carmody
XII. The End of a Quarrel

Chronicles of Avonlea

I. The Hurrying of Ludovic
Anne Shirley was curled up on the window-seat of Theodora Dix's
sitting-room one Saturday evening, looking dreamily afar at some fair
starland beyond the hills of sunset. Anne was visiting for a fortnight of
her vacation at Echo Lodge, where Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Irving were
spending the summer, and she often ran over to the old Dix homestead
to chat for awhile with Theodora. They had had their chat out, on this
particular evening, and Anne was giving herself over to the delight of
building an air-castle. She leaned her shapely head, with its braided
coronet of dark red hair, against the window-casing, and her gray eyes
were like the moonlight gleam of shadowy pools.
Then she saw Ludovic Speed coming down the lane. He was yet far
from the house, for the Dix lane was a long one, but Ludovic could be
recognized as far as he could be seen. No one else in Middle Grafton
had such a tall, gently-stooping, placidly-moving figure. In every kink
and turn of it there was an individuality all Ludovic's own.
Anne roused herself from her dreams, thinking it would only be tactful
to take her departure. Ludovic was courting Theodora. Everyone in
Grafton knew that, or, if anyone were in ignorance of the fact, it was
not because he had not had time to find out. Ludovic had been coming
down that lane to see Theodora, in the same ruminating, unhastening

fashion, for fifteen years!
When Anne, who was slim and girlish and romantic, rose to go,
Theodora, who was plump and middle-aged and practical, said, with a
twinkle in her eye:
"There isn't any hurry, child. Sit down and have your call out. You've
seen Ludovic coming down the lane, and, I suppose, you think you'll be
a crowd. But you won't. Ludovic rather likes a third person around, and
so do I. It spurs up the conversation as it were. When a man has been
coming to see you straight along, twice a week for fifteen years, you
get rather talked out by spells."
Theodora never pretended to bashfulness where Ludovic was
concerned. She was not at all shy of referring to him and his dilatory
courtship. Indeed, it seemed to amuse her.
Anne sat down again and together they watched Ludovic coming down
the lane, gazing calmly about him at the lush clover fields and the blue
loops of the river winding in and out of the misty valley below.
Anne looked at Theodora's placid, finely-moulded face and tried to
imagine what she herself would feel like if she were sitting there,
waiting for an elderly lover who had, seemingly, taken so long to make
up his mind. But even Anne's imagination failed her for this.
"Anyway," she thought, impatiently, "if I wanted him I think I'd find
some way of hurrying him up. Ludovic