“With a hug like a bear’s,” said Mr. Irving, putting his arms around Paul’s shoulder smilingly.  “I hardly knew my boy, he had grown so big and brown and sturdy.”

“I don’t know which was the most pleased to see father, Grandma or I,” continued Paul.  “Grandma’s been in kitchen all day making the things father likes to eat.  She wouldn’t trust them to Mary Joe, she says.  That’s her way of showing gladness. I like best just to sit and talk to father.  But I’m going to leave you for a little while now if you’ll excuse me.  I must get the cows for Mary Joe.  That is one of my daily duties.”

When Paul had scampered away to do his “daily duty” Mr. Irving talked to Anne of various matters.  But Anne felt that he was thinking of something else underneath all the time.  Presently it came to the surface.

“In Paul’s last letter he spoke of going with you to visit an old . . . friend of mine . . .  Miss Lewis at the stone house in Grafton.  Do you know her well?”

“Yes, indeed, she is a very dear friend of mine,” was Anne’s demure reply, which gave no hint of the sudden thrill that tingled over her from head to foot at Mr. Irving’s question.  Anne “felt instinctively” that romance was peeping at her around a corner.

Mr. Irving rose and went to the window, looking out on a great, golden, billowing sea where a wild wind was harping.  For a few moments there was silence in the little dark-walled room.  Then he turned and looked down into Anne’s sympathetic face with a smile, half-whimsical, half-tender.

“I wonder how much you know,” he said.

“I know all about it,” replied Anne promptly.  “You see,” she explained hastily, “Miss Lavendar and I are very intimate.  She wouldn’t tell things of such a sacred nature to everybody.  We are kindred spirits.”

“Yes, I believe you are.  Well, I am going to ask a favor of you.  I would like to go and see Miss Lavendar if she will let me.  Will you ask her if I may come?”

Would she not?  Oh, indeed she would!  Yes, this was romance, the very, the real thing, with all the charm of rhyme and story and dream.  It was a little belated, perhaps, like a rose blooming in October which should have bloomed in June; but none the less a rose, all sweetness and fragrance, with the gleam of gold in its heart.  Never did Anne’s feet bear her on a more willing errand than on that walk through the beechwoods to Grafton the next morning.  She found Miss Lavendar in the garden.  Anne was fearfully excited.  Her hands grew cold and her voice trembled.

“Miss Lavendar, I have something to tell you . . . something very important.  Can you guess what it is?”

Anne never supposed that Miss Lavendar could guess; but Miss Lavendar’s face grew very pale and Miss Lavendar said in a quiet, still voice, from which all the color and sparkle that Miss Lavendar’s voice usually suggested had faded.