asked the doctor , who even yet , after twenty-four years of marriage , occasionally addressed his wife thus when nobody was about . Anne was sitting on the veranda steps , gazing absently over the wonderful bridal world of spring blossom , Beyond the white orchard was a copse of dark young firs and creamy wild cherries , where the robins were whistling madly ; for it was evening and the fire of early stars was burning over the maple grove . Anne came back with a little sigh . `` I was just taking relief from intolerable realities in a dream , Gilbert -- a dream that all our children were home again -- and all small again -- playing in Rainbow Valley . It is always so silent now -- but I was imagining I heard clear voices and gay , childish sounds coming up as I used to . I could hear Jem 's whistle and Walter 's yodel , and the twins ' laughter , and for just a few blessed minutes I forgot about the guns on the Western front , and had a little false , sweet happiness . '' The doctor did not answer . Sometimes his work tricked him into forgetting for a few moments the Western front , but not often . There was a good deal of grey now in his still thick curls that had not been there two years ago . Yet he smiled down into the starry eyes he loved -- the eyes that had once been so full of laughter , and now seemed always full of unshed tears . Susan wandered by with a hoe in her hand and her second best bonnet on her head . `` I have just finished reading a piece in the Enterprise which told of a couple being married in an aeroplane . Do you think it would be legal , doctor dear ? '' she inquired anxiously . `` I think so , '' said the doctor gravely . `` Well , '' said Susan dubiously , `` it seems to me that a wedding is too solemn for anything so giddy as an aeroplane . But nothing is the same as it used to be . Well , it is half an hour yet before prayer-meeting time , so I am going around to the kitchen garden to have a little evening hate with the weeds . But all the time I am strafing them I will be thinking about this new worry in the Trentino . I do not like this Austrian caper , Mrs. Dr. dear . ''
`` Nor I , '' XXXXX Mrs. Blythe ruefully .
answer blessed forgetting imagining loved said seems taking think whistle