w her very well but I liked her as far as I did know her. Some
folks thought her peculiar even then. DAVY, if ever I catch you at such
a trick again you'll be made to wait for your meals till everyone else
is done, like the French."

Most conversations between Anne and Marilla in the presence of the
twins, were punctuated by these rebukes Davy-ward. In this instance,
Davy, sad to relate, not being able to scoop up the last drops of his
syrup with his spoon, had solved the difficulty by lifting his plate in
both hands and applying his small pink tongue to it. Anne looked at him
with such horrified eyes that the little sinner turned red and said,
half shamefacedly, half defiantly,

"There ain't any wasted that way."

"People who are different from other people are always called peculiar,"
said Anne. "And Miss Lavendar is certainly different, though it's hard
to say just where the difference comes in. Perhaps it is because she is
one of those people who never grow old."

"One might as well grow old when all your generation do," said Marilla,
rather reckless of her pronouns. "If you don't, you don't fit in
anywhere. Far as I can learn Lavendar Lewis has just dropped out of
everything. She's lived in that out of the way place until everybody has
forgotten her. That stone house is one of the oldest on the Island. Old
Mr. Lewis built it eighty years ago when he came out from England.
Davy, stop joggling Dora's elbow. Oh, I saw you! You needn't try to look
innocent. What does make you behave so this morning?"

"Maybe I got out of the wrong side of the bed," suggested Davy. "Milty
Boulter says if you do that things are bound to go wrong with you all
day. His grandmother told him. But which is the right side? And what are
you to do when your bed's against the wall? I want to know."

"I've always wondered what went wrong between Stephen Irving and
Lavendar Lewis," continued Marilla, ignoring Davy. "They were certainly
engaged twenty-five years ago and then all at once it was broken off.
I don't know what the trouble was but it must have been something
terrible, for he went away to the States and never come home since."

"Perhaps it was nothing very dreadful after all. I think the little
things in life often make more trouble than the big things," said Anne,
with one of those flashes of insight which experience could not have
bettered. "Marilla, please don't say anything about my being at Miss
Lavendar's to Mrs. Lynde. She'd