“I . . .  I don’t think I shall object,” said Miss Lavendar.  She turned and went in very quickly; but a moment later she was waving a gay and smiling good-bye to them from the window.

“I like Miss Lavendar,” announced Paul, as they walked through the beech woods.  “I like the way she looked at me, and I like her stone house, and I like Charlotta the Fourth.  I wish Grandma Irving had a Charlotta the Fourth instead of a Mary Joe.  I feel sure Charlotta the Fourth wouldn’t think I was wrong in my upper story when I told her what I think about things.  Wasn’t that a splendid tea we had, teacher?  Grandma says a boy shouldn’t be thinking about what he gets to eat, but he can’t help it sometimes when he is real hungry.  You know, teacher.  I don’t think Miss Lavendar would make a boy eat porridge for breakfast if he didn’t like it.  She’d get things for him he did like.  But of course” . . .  Paul was nothing if not fair-minded . . . “that mightn’t be very good for him.  It’s very nice for a change though, teacher.  You know.”

XXIV

A Prophet in His Own Country

One May day Avonlea folks were mildly excited over some “Avonlea Notes,” signed “Observer,” which appeared in the Charlottetown ’Daily Enterprise.’  Gossip ascribed the authorship thereof to Charlie Sloane, partly because the said Charlie had indulged in similar literary flights in times past, and partly because one of the notes seemed to embody a sneer at Gilbert Blythe.  Avonlea juvenile society persisted in regarding Gilbert Blythe and Charlie Sloane as rivals in the good graces of a certain damsel with gray eyes and an imagination.

Gossip, as usual, was wrong.  Gilbert Blythe, aided and abetted by Anne, had written the notes, putting in the one about himself as a blind.  Only two of the notes have any bearing on this history: 

“Rumor has it that there will be a wedding in our village ere the daisies are in bloom.  A new and highly respected citizen will lead to the hymeneal altar one of our most popular ladies.

“Uncle Abe, our well-known weather prophet, predicts a violent storm of thunder and lightning for the evening of the twenty-third of May, beginning at seven o’clock sharp.  The area of the storm will extend over the greater part of the Province.  People traveling that evening will do well to take umbrellas and mackintoshes with them.”

“Uncle Abe really has predicted a storm for sometime this spring,” said Gilbert, “but do you suppose Mr. Harrison really does go to see Isabella Andrews?”

“No,” said Anne, laughing, “I’m sure he only goes to play checkers with Mr. Harrison Andrews, but Mrs. Lynde says she knows Isabella Andrews must be going to get married, she’s in such good spirits this spring.”

Poor old Uncle Abe felt rather indignant over the notes.  He suspected that “Observer” was making fun of him.  He angrily denied having assigned any particular date for his storm but nobody believed him.