Significance of Miss Lavendar

Miss Lavendar is a long time resident of the Avonlea area, living in a secluded cottage called Echo Lodge where Anne and Diana randomly stumble upon her one day when they get lost. Though an "old maid" unmarried at the age of forty-five, Miss Lavendar maintains a youthful appearance and attitude, except for her oddly snow white hair. Miss Lavendar was once engaged to Paul Irving's father Stephen but they quarreled a quarter-century ago and he left Prince Edward Island for America. She is another kindred spirit to Anne, happy to live in a fantasy world of beauty and poetry, but there is a certain amount of despair in her for the life she could have lived with Stephen but that she has instead spent alone and lonely.