"The day was warm, and the curtain at the window swung with a lulling motion, giving glimpses of blue sky with white clouds sailing over, and, below, of the top of a grape-vine full of leaves and small green grapes.
"Anne gazed at the sky till it made her feel sleepy—gazing at bright things does make one sleepy—then she gazed at the grape-vine. Presently, she saw something in this vine that looked like a tiny ladder, hidden among the leaves. It looked so much like a ladder that she leaned forward and pulled the curtain aside, to see more plainly. Sure enough! It was the loveliest ladder, or stairway, winding down and down. Its steps were dark, like vine branches, and there was a railing at each side of twigs and tendrils, and it wound down and down, in sight and out of sight. And, more wonderful still, it was no longer a yard, with the city about, she saw, but a great vine covering all the window, and glimpses of a moonlighted forest down below.
"'I must go down,' says Anne; and so down she went on the beautiful stairs.
"Lights and shades fluttered over her, and the leaves clapped together, and little tendrils caught at her dress in play. And by-and-by she stepped on to the brightest greensward that could be, full of blue and white violets. The trees arched over her, the air was sweet, and there was a smooth pond near by. The water was so very smooth that she would never have known it was water if the banks had not turned the wrong way in it, and the trees grown down instead of up. A little white boat, too, had another little white boat under it, the two keel to keel. Swans ran down the shore as she looked, and splashed into the water, dipping their heads under, and making the whole surface so full of motion that the upside-down trees and banks and boat disappeared. Words cannot describe how beautiful the place was. There was every kind of flower, and hosts of birds, and the moonlight was so bright that all could be distinctly seen. There were also a great many splendid moths that looked like flowers flying about, and flapping their petals.
"But the most beautiful part was that everything seemed to breathe of peace and love. The birds sang and cooed to each other, the blossoms leaned cheek to cheek, the water laughed at the stones it ran over, and the wet stones smiled back, the gray old rocks held tenderly the flowers and mosses that grew in their hollows, and the mosses and flowers held on to the rocks with their tiny roots, like little children clinging to old people who are fond of them.
"'How beautiful it is to see them so loving,' Anne said. 'They are a sort of people, too; for they look alive. I wish other folks would be as good. I'm sure I try; but then somebody always comes along and says something ugly; and then, of course, I can't help being ugly back again.'
"'Oh! yes, you can,' said a sweet voice close by.
"Anne looked and saw a charming little lady standing beside her. She was so beautiful that words cannot describe her, and she carried a pink petunia for a parasol to preserve her complexion. For she was exquisitely fair, and the moonlight was really very bright.
"'Oh! yes, you can,' she repeated when Anne looked at her. 'You can give a pleasant answer, and then people will stop being ugly.'
"'I could do it if everybody else would,' Anne said. 'The beginning is the trouble. How nice it would be if there were a king over all the world, and he would say, Now, after I have counted three, all of you stop being cross, and begin to love each other, and keep on loving a whole hour. If you don't, I'll cut your heads off!'