“I am very glad that all the Sloanes get seasick as soon as they go on water,” thought Anne mercilessly.  “I am sure I couldn’t take my farewell look at the ‘ould sod’ with Charlie standing there pretending to look sentimentally at it, too.”

“Well, we’re off,” remarked Gilbert unsentimentally.

“Yes, I feel like Byron’s ’Childe Harold’—­only it isn’t really my ‘native shore’ that I’m watching,” said Anne, winking her gray eyes vigorously.  “Nova Scotia is that, I suppose.  But one’s native shore is the land one loves the best, and that’s good old P.E.I. for me.  I can’t believe I didn’t always live here.  Those eleven years before I came seem like a bad dream.  It’s seven years since I crossed on this boat—­the evening Mrs. Spencer brought me over from Hopetown.  I can see myself, in that dreadful old wincey dress and faded sailor hat, exploring decks and cabins with enraptured curiosity.  It was a fine evening; and how those red Island shores did gleam in the sunshine.  Now I’m crossing the strait again.  Oh, Gilbert, I do hope I’ll like Redmond and Kingsport, but I’m sure I won’t!”

“Where’s all your philosophy gone, Anne?”

“It’s all submerged under a great, swamping wave of loneliness and homesickness.  I’ve longed for three years to go to Redmond—­and now I’m going—­and I wish I weren’t!  Never mind!  I shall be cheerful and philosophical again after I have just one good cry.  I must have that, ’as a went’—­and I’ll have to wait until I get into my boardinghouse bed tonight, wherever it may be, before I can have it.  Then Anne will be herself again.  I wonder if Davy has come out of the closet yet.”

It was nine that night when their train reached Kingsport, and they found themselves in the blue-white glare of the crowded station.  Anne felt horribly bewildered, but a moment later she was seized by Priscilla Grant, who had come to Kingsport on Saturday.

“Here you are, beloved!  And I suppose you’re as tired as I was when I got here Saturday night.”

“Tired!  Priscilla, don’t talk of it.  I’m tired, and green, and provincial, and only about ten years old.  For pity’s sake take your poor, broken-down chum to some place where she can hear herself think.”

“I’ll take you right up to our boardinghouse.  I’ve a cab ready outside.”

“It’s such a blessing you’re here, Prissy.  If you weren’t I think I should just sit down on my suitcase, here and now, and weep bitter tears.  What a comfort one familiar face is in a howling wilderness of strangers!”

“Is that Gilbert Blythe over there, Anne?  How he has grown up this past year!  He was only a schoolboy when I taught in Carmody.  And of course that’s Charlie Sloane.  He hasn’t changed—­couldn’t!  He looked just like that when he was born, and he’ll look like that when he’s eighty.  This way, dear.  We’ll be home in twenty minutes.”

“Home!” groaned Anne.  “You mean we’ll be in some horrible boardinghouse, in a still more horrible hall bedroom, looking out on a dingy back yard.”