to know all about him. What sort of a boy is he?”
“He is the dearest, sweetest child I ever knew, Miss Lavendar . . . and he pretends things too, just as you and I do.”
“I’d like to see him,” said Miss Lavendar softly, as if talking to herself. “I wonder if he looks anything like the little dream-boy who lives here with me . . . my little dream-boy.”
“If you would like to see Paul I’ll bring him through with me sometime,” said Anne.
“I would like it . . . but not too soon. I want to get used to the thought. There might be more pain than pleasure in it . . . if he looked too much like Stephen . . . or if he didn’t look enough like him. In a month’s time you may bring him.”
Accordingly, a month later Anne and Paul walked through the woods to the stone house, and met Miss Lavendar in the lane. She had not been expecting them just then and she turned very pale.
“So this is Stephen’s boy,” she said in a low tone, taking Paul’s hand and looking at him as he stood, beautiful and boyish, in his smart little fur coat and cap. “He . . . he is very like his father.”
“Everybody says I’m a chip of the old block,” remarked Paul, quite at his ease.
Anne, who had been watching the little scene, drew a relieved breath. She saw that Miss Lavendar and Paul had “taken” to each other, and that there would be no constraint or stiffness. Miss Lavendar was a
