Miss Lavendar Lewis and Stephen Irving

Miss Lavendar Lewis and Stephen Irving are former lovers whose reunion transforms a romance suspended in the past into a marriage in the present. Their return to one another is first glimpsed through Anne Shirley’s intuition, then confirmed in a meeting at the old stone house in Grafton. The house and garden, unchanged since Stephen last saw them twenty-five years earlier, give their renewed attachment a setting where memory seems to have endured intact—until the pair leave together for a fuller life beyond it.

A Past Preserved in the Stone House

Stephen’s return brings his old connection with Miss Lavendar into the conversation indirectly. In speaking with Anne, he refers to her as an old friend and asks whether Anne knows her well. Anne recognizes the emotional weight beneath the careful description: she is intimate with Miss Lavendar, knows the story is sacred to her, and senses that romance is approaching. Stephen then asks Anne to find out whether Miss Lavendar will receive him. His request is modest in form, but it opens the way for a meeting that neither the old friendship nor the years between them can make ordinary.

The time separating them is made tangible by the house and garden. When Stephen arrives, he says that nothing there has changed since his visit twenty-five years earlier, and that the unchanged place makes him feel young again. The setting is not merely a backdrop: it holds the past in visible continuity with the present. Anne answers through the language of an enchanted palace, where time stands still until the prince comes and things begin to happen. Stephen replies that sometimes the prince comes too late. Their exchange gives the impending reunion the shape of a romance delayed, while leaving its outcome uncertain for a moment.

Recognition and the Request to Meet

Anne carries Stephen’s request through the beechwoods to Grafton, excited and physically unsettled by the importance of her errand. She intends to surprise Miss Lavendar with the news, but Miss Lavendar guesses that Stephen is home from Anne’s manner before she has been told. Her face turns pale, and her voice loses its customary sparkle. The recognition is immediate: Stephen’s return is the explanation that comes to her without prompting.

When Anne says that Stephen wants to visit, Miss Lavendar agrees. She presents the visit as one an old friend might make, a guarded description that contrasts with Anne’s conviction that this is a real romance. The distinction matters: the reunion is not announced through an open declaration but moves forward through a permission, a carefully maintained composure, and the knowledge each woman brings to the moment. Miss Lavendar pretends calm, even as the evening’s preparations reveal her excitement.

The Evening of the Reunion

On the night Stephen is expected, the usual tea at Echo Lodge becomes a ritual nobody can attend to: the company goes through the motions, but nobody really eats. Miss Lavendar changes into her new forget-me-not organdy, and Anne does her hair. Miss Lavendar tries to occupy herself with ordinary domestic concerns, inspecting a torn curtain and noticing that the stair railing has not been dusted. These small efforts at composure make the tension legible without displacing the central fact: Stephen is coming, and the reunion matters deeply to her.

Stephen arrives at the house and garden he remembers, and Anne ushers him inside to Miss Lavendar. She and Charlotta the Fourth wait rather than intrude. When the front door shuts, Charlotta fears that Stephen has left too soon and that nothing will come of the visit. Looking out, they see that he has not gone: he and Miss Lavendar are walking slowly down the middle path toward the stone bench. Charlotta then sees his arm around Miss Lavendar’s waist and concludes that he has proposed. Anne and Charlotta celebrate together, and Anne predicts a wedding at the stone house before the maple leaves turn red. The scene moves from anxious watching to shared certainty, though the proposal itself is not narrated directly.

Marriage and Departure

The wedding takes place in the garden, without elaborate formality. Mr. Allan conducts the ceremony because the Grafton minister is away on vacation. Miss Lavendar comes downstairs to meet Stephen at the foot of the stairs; as he takes her hand, she looks up at him, and Anne and Diana stand beside the old stone bench with Charlotta between them. The ceremony joins the pair in the place that has preserved their earlier connection.

At the moment Mr. Allan pronounces them man and wife, the sun breaks through the gray and shines on the bride. The garden fills with shifting light and shadow, which Anne takes as a lovely omen. The image gives the reunion a visible culmination: a long-delayed relationship passes from remembered possibility into marriage. After the ceremony, the guests prepare the feast, and at half past two the Irvings leave for Bright River to catch the afternoon train. Rice is thrown, Charlotta’s old shoe strikes Mr. Allan, and Paul rings an old brass dinner bell. As its sound fades, the echoes across the river seem to ring out a farewell for Miss Lavendar.

From Make-Believe to Shared Life

The ending marks both continuity and change. The stone house and garden remain associated with the old romance, and Stephen’s return makes their unaltered appearance feel like time held still. Yet the marriage takes Miss Lavendar out of that preserved world. She departs from the life of dreams and make-believe for what the narrative describes as a fuller life of realities beyond Grafton. The beloved echoes give her farewell a sound rooted in the place she leaves, while the train carries the newly married couple away from it.

Their relationship is thus shaped not by a detailed account of the years apart, but by the contrast between long suspension and decisive return. The old house keeps the past present; Anne’s romantic interpretation helps others recognize what is at stake; and the final departure prevents the reunion from ending as a mere restoration of the past. Miss Lavendar and Stephen recover their bond by moving forward together, from the stillness of remembered love into married life.