“Stephen Irving is home?”

“How did you know?  Who told you?” cried Anne disappointedly, vexed that her great revelation had been anticipated.

“Nobody.  I knew that must be it, just from the way you spoke.”

“He wants to come and see you,” said Anne.  “May I send him word that he may?”

“Yes, of course,” fluttered Miss Lavendar.  “There is no reason why he shouldn’t.  He is only coming as any old friend might.”

Anne had her own opinion about that as she hastened into the house to write a note at Miss Lavendar’s desk.

“Oh, it’s delightful to be living in a storybook,” she thought gaily.  “It will come out all right of course . . . it must . . . and Paul will have a mother after his own heart and everybody will be happy.  But Mr. Irving will take Miss Lavendar away . . . and dear knows what will happen to the little stone house . . . and so there are two sides to it, as there seems to be to everything in this world.”  The important note was written and Anne herself carried it to the Grafton post office, where she waylaid the mail carrier and asked him to leave it at the Avonlea office.

“It’s so very important,” Anne assured him anxiously.  The mail carrier was a rather grumpy old personage who did not at all look the part of a messenger of Cupid; and Anne was none too certain that his memory was to be trusted.  But he said he would do his best to remember and she had to be contented with that.

Charlotta the Fourth felt that some mystery pervaded the stone house that afternoon . . . a mystery from which she was excluded.  Miss Lavendar roamed about the garden in a distracted fashion.  Anne, too, seemed possessed by a demon of unrest, and walked to and fro and went up and down.  Charlotta the Fourth endured it till patience ceased to be a virtue; then she confronted Anne on the occasion of that romantic young person’s third aimless peregrination through the kitchen.

“Please, Miss Shirley, ma’am,” said Charlotta the Fourth, with an indignant toss of her very blue bows, “it’s plain to be seen you and Miss Lavendar have got a secret and I think, begging your pardon if I’m too forward, Miss Shirley, ma’am, that it’s real mean not to tell me when we’ve all been such chums.”

“Oh, Charlotta dear, I’d have told you all about it if it were my secret . . . but it’s Miss Lavendar’s, you see.  However, I’ll tell you this much . . . and if nothing comes of it you must never breathe a word about it to a living soul.  You see, Prince Charming is coming tonight.  He came long ago, but in a foolish moment went away and wandered afar and forgot the secret of the magic pathway to the enchanted castle, where the princess was weeping her faithful heart out for him.  But at last he remembered it again and the princess is waiting still. . . because nobody but her own dear prince could carry her off.”

“Oh, Miss Shirley, ma’am, what is that in prose?” gasped the mystified Charlotta.