How I loathed
that load of obligation at first! I don't deserve the
happiness that has come to me."
Gilbert laughed and clasped tighter the girlish hand
that wore his ring. Anne's engagement ring was a
circlet of pearls. She had refused to wear a diamond.
"I've never really liked diamonds since I found out
they weren't the lovely purple I had dreamed. They
will always suggest my old disappointment ."
"But pearls are for tears, the old legend says,"
Gilbert had objected.
"I'm not afraid of that. And tears can be happy as
well as sad. My very happiest moments have been when I
had tears in my eyes-- when Marilla told me I might
stay at Green Gables--when Matthew gave me the first
pretty dress I ever had--when I heard that you were
going to recover from the fever. So give me pearls for
our troth ring, Gilbert, and I'll willingly accept the
sorrow of life with its joy."
But tonight our lovers thought only of joy and never of
sorrow. For the morrow was their wedding day, and
their house of dreams awaited them on the misty, purple
shore of Four Winds Harbor.
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