Chapter One

Avonlea was a quiet village—and quiet villages naturally crave excitement. Even the smallest event, such as the passage of the regular transport coach, held promise, and today was no exception. Mrs. Potts and Mrs. Ray, two of the sharpest-tongued busybodies around, paused in the street as the heavy vehicle came rumbling through. The two liked to do their shopping at just about the time the coach was scheduled to arrive. They chewed over every scandal Avonlea had to offer, and lived in hopes that the coach might yield some juicy new morsel to add some variety to the usual gossip and speculation.

Usually their hopes were in vain. The coach rarely stopped. Hardly anyone at all ever got on or off, never mind someone interesting enough to stir up a commotion in Avonlea. That’s why both women were quite taken by surprise when a hearty voice boomed out, “Stop here, driver,” just as the coach drew abreast of them.

Obligingly, the coach clattered to a halt before the general store, which was pretty well in the center of the village. The door swung open. A handsome, extremely well-dressed gentleman in the prime of life stepped out, carrying a single valise.

“I prefer to walk the rest of the way, thank you,” he called up to the driver, shutting the coach door with a thud.

His very voice carried an air of brisk command, proclaiming the arrival of a man of action, a man who wasted no time in getting what he wanted once he had made up his mind. The response was a deferential nod from the driver, who then drove off.

The passenger was left standing in the street, looking about him the way a man looks at a place he hasn’t seen for a good many years. The expression on his face might have been called nostalgic, or it might have been called grim, depending on who was describing it. Shaking himself, he gripped his valise more tightly. With an unmistakable air of purpose, he headed out of sight down the road.

He hadn’t noticed his two observers, but if he’d wanted to cause a stir, the effect he had upon the two women was everything a sensationalist could have desired. They stood stock-still, their mouths agape, until the man was almost out of sight. If someone had had a feather handy, Mrs. Potts and Mrs. Ray could have been knocked over right there in the street with no trouble at all.

“My land!” exclaimed Mrs. Potts, jerking back to life, “Look what the wind blew in!”

Her companion emitted a long hiss of breath. Her gaze struck the man’s retreating back so forcefully, it’s a wonder he didn’t feel hot darts between his shoulder blades.

“If my memory serves, Mrs. Potts, it’s an ill wind that blows no good,” Mrs. Ray returned with a kind of perverse satisfaction. Mrs. Ray was a stern, bony, narrow-eyed woman who wallowed in pessimism. Already she saw storm clouds descending upon the neighborhood.

Mrs. Potts twitched her bonnet in agreement. She never forgot a single misdeed in the village.

“You’re right, Mrs. Ray. Remember that awful ruckus last time he was in Avonlea?”

“And at the funeral, of all places. Well, I suppose nothing’s sacred to some people.”

Both women drew together disapprovingly, but their eyes gleamed in anticipation of some renewed upheaval in Avonlea. The object of their interest, quite far down the road now, strode along vigorously. Despite his citified dress, he seemed to know exactly where he was going. As he went, he gazed about him at the wintry landscape, his step increasingly buoyant, until he was well out of sight.

Not far down that same road lay the King farm, its prosperous acres spreading around a big, friendly farmhouse and a weathered, gray barn set firmly on a high, fieldstone foundation. Inside the barn, at that very moment, Alec King was leading the way across the barn floor towards a hulking shape that satin the gloom, all covered with dust and bits of straw. Two of his three children, Felicity and Felix, followed at his heels, in company with their cousin, Sara Stanley. Alec was grinning very much like a man with a surprise up his sleeve. His grin was shared by Felix and Felicity. Alex paused dramatically, grabbed the corner of the shape, and suddenly whipped the cover off a wonderful, old-fashioned, two-horse sleigh. The sleigh was painted bright red, with long, slender runners curved high in front, and seats enough for the whole King family.

“There’s the old cutter. What do you think?”

The drama had all been for Sara’s benefit, for Sara had lived most of her life in Montreal and never seen a real country sleigh.

She let out a delighted squeal. “It’s beautiful, Uncle Alec.”

Alec chuckled. Sara could always be counted on for a gratifying reaction. He knew the sleigh would delight this irrepressible twelve-year-old who had so unexpectedly come to live with her Avonlea relatives in the last year. Though Sara’s warm, often headlong enthusiasm for life got her into trouble again and again, it was that very same quality that soon won hearts and made everyone want to please her. Walking around the front of the cutter, Alec patted the elegantly arching dash.

“Yes, indeed, and we haven’t had her out since last year’s skating party.”

The Avonlea skating party was the jolliest of all Avonlea social events. Sara, who had been hearing of nothing else from her cousins for weeks, had her heart set on whirling and gliding merrily over the frozen pond. Since her father had sent her away from Montreal some months before, Sara had had to adjust to a great many things about life in the country. Some—like the strict ideas of her Aunt Hetty, with whom she lived—had come as a shock. Some—like Avonlea parties and running about with her King cousins—had proved quite wonderful. Sara had got through spring, summer and fall. Now, with the ground frozen hard and the air tingling with hints of snow, Sara looked forward to sampling all the delights winter in Avonlea had to offer.

“Here, Sara, try this.”

Felicity, who was almost fourteen, reached into the cutter and pulled out a heavy bearskin rug used to keep the the sleigh riders wrapped up snug and warm against the biting winter winds. Sara pressed the rough brown fur against her cheek, already imagining the jingle of sleigh bells and the hiss of runners over the pristine white road. Passionately, she hoped drifts and drifts of snow would fall so that the big cutter could come out of storage and carry them all, laughing and shouting, to the skating party.

“Oh, I love fur rugs. They’re always so warm and cozy.”

Besides being Felicity’s cousin, Sara was also her best friend, though this state of affairs hadn’t come about easily. Felicity hadn’t taken well to the intrusion of a city-bred cousin with a trunkful of Paris dresses and a nanny of her own. Aunt Hetty, eldest of the King clan and also the Avonlea schoolmistress, had got rid of the nanny pretty quickly and taken Sara firmly in hand.

However, Sara had turned out to have more imagination than the Kings had ever encountered before, and a talent for getting herself calamitously mixed up in other people’s affairs. Felicity had all but lost count of the scrapes Sara’s farfetched ideas had led them all into. Yet, since Sara’s heart had always been in the right place, it was hard not to fall under her charm. Now Felicity couldn’t imagine what she’d do without Sara around to make life interesting.

Felix, eleven, liked Sara too. Just the thought of having her at the skating party threw him into a festive mood. Dashing suddenly behind the sleigh, he scooped up an armful of hay and tossed it playfully at his father.

“Yahoo!” he cried, as the hay caught his father on the side of the shoulder.

Alex batted it aside with a laugh and ducked his head in mock-menace.

“All right, Felix King, you’re in trouble now!”

Turning boyish himself, Alec ran after his son, caught him by the tail of his coat and tossed him into a heap of straw. Instantly, Felicity and Sara jumped into the game, throwing more hay all over Alec. This rough-and-tumble family life was something Sara had never known in her sheltered existence before Avonlea, and she plunged into it with delight. Before Alec knew it, the three children had ganged up on him, flinging great handfuls of hay and tangling his legs so that he, too, went rolling onto the barn floor along with Felix. Shrieking with delight, the children bolted for the door as Alec scrambled to his feet again and made lumbering attempts to catch them.

“I’m going to get you for that,” he growled, giving them a head start and then thumping after them into the open barnyard.

Screaming and giggling, the three children flung themselves out of the barn, making a fumbling attempt to close the door behind them. They were too late. Alec was already pushing through it and making grabs in their direction.

Felix and Sara might have made a clean getaway, but Felicity, in front of them, tripped, and all three went tumbling down into a squealing tangle.

Sara, her tam all askew, was just squirming out from under Felix’s feet when she caught sight of a tall, masculine figure leaning against the fence, watching all the exuberant horseplay—the very same man who had alighted from the coach in Avonlea. As though struck by an unseen thunderbolt, Sara went utterly still, her eyes as big as silver coins.

“Papa!” she whispered, completely heedless of Felicity and Felix tumbling sideways against her and getting clumsily to their knees.

They no sooner had their balance than Sara knocked them to the ground again as she exploded upright and began to race toward the man.

“Papa,” she cried now, at the top of her lungs, her face transformed with joy. “Papa!”

“Sara!”

Blair Stanley dropped his valise to the ground and was already swinging one long leg over the barnyard fence in total disregard of his expensive tailoring. His rugged face was lit up just as much as Sara’s.

Luckily, he got both legs over the fence in time to take the impact of the flying girl as she launched herself bodily against him. In a single, fluid motion, he lifted her effortlessly into the air and swung her round and round.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Sara choked out.

“Oh, I missed you too.”

“I was so afraid…”

The rest of the words were cut off as Sara was swung round again and then gathered into her father’s strong arms.

“I’m glad to see you.” The visitor spoke quickly, his voice rough with emotion, his whole manner saying that the things Sara was afraid about didn’t have to be spoken of any more.

Felix and Felicity were so astonished by Sara’s behavior that they remained on their knees, staring up at this striking stranger. Their father came to a halt beside them, almost as taken aback.

“Look who that is!” he whistled, hauling Felicity to her feet and scrambling to regain his own composure. “That’s Blair—Sara’s father. Well, well.”