"My name is Deborah—Aunt Deborah; and I do wish, Ruth, you would not forget it so constantly. In a boat? Well, perhaps he did. But I don't see how that helps it. To-morrow is market-day, and I must go in to the village and look out for left-handed men; they won't escape me though they fairly dance jigs on their right!"
"He went away in a boat," repeated Anne, as they walked homeward through the dusky fields.
But the man was no nearer or plainer because she had taken him from the main road and placed him on the river; he seemed, indeed, more distant and shadowy than before.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
| "The burnished dragon-fly is thine attendant, |
| And tilts against the field, |
| And down the listed sunbeam rides resplendent, |
| With steel-blue mail and shield." |
| —Longfellow. |
Miss Lois came home excited. She had seen a left-handed man. True, he was a well-known farmer of the neighborhood, a jovial man, apparently frank and honest as the daylight. But there was no height of impossibility impossible to Miss Lois when she was on a quest. She announced her intention of going to his farm on the morrow under the pretext of looking at his peonies, which, she had been told, were remarkably fine, "for of course I made inquiries immediately, in order to discover the prominent points, if there were any. If it had been onions, I should have been deeply interested in them just the same."
Anne, obliged for the present to let Miss Lois make the tentative efforts, listened apathetically; then she mentioned her wish to row on the river.
"Better stay at home," said Miss Lois. "Then I shall know you are safe."
"But I should like to go, if merely for the air," replied Anne. "My head throbs as I sit here through the long hours. It is not that I expect to accomplish anything, though I confess I am haunted by the river, but the motion and fresh air would perhaps keep me from thinking so constantly."