182 OVER ON THE ISLAND
Grandville, Stanley Bridge, and Bayview. It is a beautiful drive—over hills, along rivers, the sea, and sand dunes. There are picturesque dips. There is a salty smell in the air. Even the cows are picturesque.”
The last decided me. If even the cows were picturesque, the area most certainly warranted exploration. But here we were in Cavendish. We could not very well leap to the Stone Cottage and begin the ramble as directed. We did the second best thing. We took the ramble backwards. What if we did have to stop every now and then and peer back over our shoulder to see the sand dunes, and the breakers piling huge billows on the shore. What is a stiff neck if you have really seen something? We came back to Cavendish the same way—hills and all. We had intended to return by another route, but we simply could not. Surely in all the Island there is no lovelier drive. There isn’t. There couldn’t be.
Cavendish is the Anne country. And it is the Anne country just as plainly as Devon is the Hardy country, and the Trossachs the Scot country. Like Peter Pan, Anne really existed, and still exists in this lovely land of the North Shore. And here in this district she grew up, and played, and quarrelled, and went to school. Certainly, Anne lives and lives in the minds and afl‘ections of the whole world.
There are four places in particular that stand out in the mind of every pilgrim to this district: Green Gables, Lover‘s Lane, the Haunted Wood and the Lake of Shining Waters. They are all Anne places.
To many people, Cavendish is overdrawn, but to me Cavendish is overdrawn only when compared with other places on the Island. It is, strictly speaking, not the most beautiful part, for there is Fortune, and