When Christmas holidays came the girls of Patty’s Place scattered to their respective homes, but Aunt Jamesina elected to stay where she was. 'I couldn’t go to any of the places I’ve been invited and take those three cats,' she said.
'And I’m not going to leave the poor creatures here alone for nearly three weeks. If we had any decent neighbors who would feed them I might, but there’s nothing except millionaires on this street. So I’ll stay here and keep Patty’s Place warm for you.
' Anne went home with the usual joyous anticipations—which were not wholly fulfilled. She found Avonlea in the grip of such an early, cold, and stormy winter as even the 'oldest inhabitant' could not recall. Green Gables was literally hemmed in by huge drifts.
Almost every day of that ill-starred vacation it stormed fiercely; and even on fine days it drifted unceasingly. No sooner were the roads broken than they filled in again. It was almost impossible to stir out. The A. V. I. S.
tried, on three evenings, to have a party in honor of the college students, and on each evening the storm was so wild that nobody could go, so they gave up the attempt in despair.
Anne, despite her love of and loyalty to Green Gables, could not help thinking longingly of Patty’s Place, its cosy open fire, Aunt Jamesina’s mirthful eyes, the three cats, the merry chatter of the girls, the pleasantness of Friday evenings when college friends dropped in to talk of grave and gay.
Anne was lonely; Diana, during the whole of the holidays, was imprisoned at home with a bad attack of bronchitis. She could not come to Green Gables and it was rarely Anne could get to Orchard Slope, for the old way through the Haunted Wood was