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the bridge DID crumple up I'd want to SEE it crumple. What a jolly rumble it makes! I always like the rumble part of it. Isn't it splendid there are so many things to like in this world? There we're over. Now I'll look back. Good night, dear Lake of Shining Waters. I always say good night to the things I love, just as I would to people I think they like it. That water looks as if it was smiling at me."
     
      When they had driven up the further hill and around a corner Matthew said:
     
      "We're pretty near home now. That's Green Gables over--"
     
      "Oh, don't tell me," she interrupted breathlessly, catching at his partially raised arm and shutting her eyes that she might not see his gesture. "Let me guess. I'm sure I'll guess right."
     
      She opened her eyes and looked about her. They were on the crest of a hill. The sun had set some time since, but the landscape was still clear in the mellow afterlight. To the west a dark church spire rose up against a marigold sky. Below was a little valley and beyond a long, gently-rising slope with snug farmsteads scattered along it. From one to another the child's eyes darted, eager and wistful. At last they lingered on one away to the left, far back from the road, dimly white with blossoming trees in the twilight of the surrounding woods. Over it, in the stainless southwest sky, a great crystal-white star was shining like a lamp of guidance and promise.
     
      "That's it, isn't it?" she said, pointing.
     
      Matthew slapped the reins on the sorrel's back delightedly.
     
      "Well now, you've guessed it! But I reckon Mrs. Spencer described it so's you could tell."
     
      "No, she didn't--really she didn't. All she said might just as well have been about most of those other places. I hadn't any real idea what it looked like. But just as soon as I saw it I felt it was home. Oh, it seems as if I must be in a dream. Do you know, my arm must be black and blue from the elbow up, for I've pinched myself so many times today. Every little while a horrible sickening feeling would come over me and I'd be so afraid it was all a dream. Then I'd pinch myself to see if it was real--until suddenly I remembered that even supposing it was only a dream I'd better go on dreaming as long as I could; so I stopped pinching. But it IS real and we're nearly home."
     
      With a sigh of rapture she relapsed into silence. Matthew stirred uneasily. He felt glad that it would be Marilla and not he who would have to tell this waif of the world that the home she longed for was not to be hers after all. They drove over Lynde's Hollow, where it was already quite dark, but not so dark that Mrs. Rachel could not see them from her window vantage, and up the hill and into the long lane of Green Gables. By the time they arrived at the house Matthew was shrinking from the approaching revelation with an energy he did not understand. It was not of Marilla or himself he was thinking of the trouble this mistake was probably going to make for them, but of the child's disappointment. When he thought of that rapt light being quenched in her eyes he had an uncomfortable feeling that he was going to assist at murdering something--much the same feeling that came over him when he had to kill a lamb or calf or any other innocent little creature.
     
      The yard was quite dark as they turned into it and the poplar leaves were rustling silkily all round it.
     
      "Listen to the trees talking in their sleep," she whispered, as he lifted her to the ground. "What nice dreams they must have!"
     
      Then, holding tightly to the carpet-bag which contained "all her worldly goods," she followed him into the house.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER III: Marilla Cuthbert is Surprised
     
     
     
     
      M arilla came briskly forward as Matthew opened the door. But when her eyes fell of the odd