“I think he is a very disagreeable man,” said Anne, with a resentful toss of her ruddy head.

“You never said a truer word,” said Mrs. Rachel solemnly.  “I knew there’d be trouble when Robert Bell sold his place to a New Brunswick man, that’s what.  I don’t know what Avonlea is coming to, with so many strange people rushing into it.  It’ll soon not be safe to go to sleep in our beds.”

“Why, what other strangers are coming in?” asked Marilla.

“Haven’t you heard?  Well, there’s a family of Donnells, for one thing.  They’ve rented Peter Sloane’s old house.  Peter has hired the man to run his mill.  They belong down east and nobody knows anything about them.  Then that shiftless Timothy Cotton family are going to move up from White Sands and they’ll simply be a burden on the public.  He is in consumption . . . when he isn’t stealing . . . and his wife is a slack-twisted creature that can’t turn her hand to a thing.  She washes her dishes sitting down.  Mrs. George Pye has taken her husband’s orphan nephew, Anthony Pye.  He’ll be going to school to you, Anne, so you may expect trouble, that’s what.  And you’ll have another strange pupil, too.  Paul Irving is coming from the States to live with his grandmother.  You remember his father, Marilla . . .  Stephen Irving, him that jilted Lavendar Lewis over at Grafton?”

“I don’t think he jilted her.  There was a quarrel . . .  I suppose there was blame on both sides.”

“Well, anyway, he didn’t marry her, and she’s been as queer as possible ever since, they say . . . living all by herself in that little stone house she calls Echo Lodge.  Stephen went off to the States and went into business with his uncle and married a Yankee.  He’s never been home since, though his mother has been up to see him once or twice.  His wife died two years ago and he’s sending the boy home to his mother for a spell.  He’s ten years old and I don’t know if he’ll be a very desirable pupil.  You can never tell about those Yankees.”

Mrs Lynde looked upon all people who had the misfortune to be born or brought up elsewhere than in Prince Edward Island with a decided can-any-good-thing-come-out-of-Nazareth air.  They might be good people, of course; but you were on the safe side in doubting it.  She had a special prejudice against “Yankees.”  Her husband had been cheated out of ten dollars by an employer for whom he had once worked in Boston and neither angels nor principalities nor powers could have convinced Mrs. Rachel that the whole United States was not responsible for it.

“Avonlea school won’t be the worse for a little new blood,” said Marilla drily, “and if this boy is anything like his father he’ll be all right.  Steve Irving was the nicest boy that was ever raised in these parts, though some people did call him proud.  I should think Mrs. Irving would be very glad to have the child.  She has been very lonesome since her husband died.”