Anne's House of Dreams

Anne, do you know, I believe I shall always love you after this. I don't think I'll ever feel that dreadful way about you again. Talking it all out seems to have done away with it, somehow. It's very strange—and I have thought it so real and bitter. It's like opening the door of a dark room to show some hideous creature you've believed to be there—and when the light steams in your monster turns out to have been just a shadow, vanishing when the light comes. It will never come between us again.

A slender shapely young aspen rose up before them against the fine maize and emerald and paling rose of the western sky, which brought out every leaf and twig in dark, tremulous, elfin loveliness.