“What a foolish, frivolous person I must be,” she sighed. “I’m wholesomely ashamed to think that a new dress . . . even it is a forget-me-not organdie . . . should exhilarate me so, when a good conscience and an extra contribution to Foreign Missions couldn’t do it.”
Midway in her visit Anne went home to Green Gables for a day to mend the twins’ stockings and settle up Davy’s accumulated store of questions. In the evening she went down to the shore road to see Paul Irving. As she passed by the low, square window of the Irving sitting room she caught a glimpse of Paul on somebody’s lap; but the next moment he came flying through the hall.
“Oh, Miss Shirley,” he cried excitedly, “you can’t think what has happened! Something so splendid. Father is here . . . just think of that! Father is here! Come right in. Father, this is my beautiful teacher. You know, father.”
Stephen Irving came forward to meet Anne with a smile. He was a tall, handsome man of middle age, with iron-gray hair, deep-set, dark-blue eyes, and a strong, sad face, splendidly modelled about chin and brow. Just the face for a hero of romance, Anne thought with a thrill of intense satisfaction. It was so disappointing to meet someone who ought to be a hero and find him bald or stooped, or otherwise lacking in manly beauty. Anne would have thought it dreadful if the object of Miss Lavendar’s romance had not looked the part.
