face, you know. You just accept Philippa Gordon, as the Lord made her, with all her faults, and I believe you’ll come to like her. Isn’t this graveyard a sweet place? I’d love to be buried here. Here’s a grave I didn’t see before—this one in the iron railing—oh, girls, look, see—the stone says it’s the grave of a middy who was killed in the fight between the Shannon and the Chesapeake. Just fancy!”
Anne paused by the railing and looked at the worn stone, her pulses thrilling with sudden excitement. The old graveyard, with its over-arching trees and long aisles of shadows, faded from her sight. Instead, she saw the Kingsport Harbor of nearly a century agone. Out of the mist came slowly a great frigate, brilliant with “the meteor flag of England.” Behind her was another, with a still, heroic form, wrapped in his own starry flag, lying on the quarter deck—the gallant Lawrence. Time’s finger had turned back his pages, and that was the Shannon sailing triumphant up the bay with the Chesapeake as her prize.
“Come back, Anne Shirley—come back,” laughed Philippa, pulling her arm. “You’re a hundred years away from us. Come back.”
Anne came back with a sigh; her eyes were shining softly.
“I’ve always loved that old story,” she said, “and although the English won that victory, I think it was because of the brave, defeated commander I love it. This grave seems to bring it so near and make it so real. This poor little middy was only eighteen. He ‘died
