Paul Irving's first meeting with Lavendar Lewis brings Stephen Irving’s past into the present in a startlingly personal form: his son is not merely someone she has heard about, but a boy whose face resembles the man she once loved. The initial shock gives way to a warm afternoon, and then to a small, defining exchange in which Paul recognizes Lavendar’s wish to kiss him and invites her into his circle of friends.

The Meeting Is Delayed

The encounter is arranged only after Lavendar has had time to prepare herself. On Anne Shirley’s first visit, the news that Stephen Irving has a son shocks Lavendar. She says she has wanted to ask about him but has been unable to bring him up, then asks what kind of boy he is. Anne describes Paul as exceptionally dear and sweet, and adds that he, like Anne and Lavendar, pretends things. Lavendar wonders whether he resembles the dream-boy who lives in her imagination, whom she calls her own.

Anne offers to bring Paul to see her. Lavendar wants to meet him, but not at once: either resemblance to Stephen or lack of resemblance might bring more pain than pleasure. She asks Anne to wait a month. That hesitation gives the meeting its emotional shape before Paul arrives. Lavendar is curious, but the hoped-for encounter also carries the risk that a living child will sharpen the ache attached to an old relationship.

Recognition at the Stone House

When the month has passed, Anne and Paul walk through the woods toward the stone house. They meet Lavendar in the lane, where she has not expected them; on seeing Paul, she turns very pale. Taking his hand, she looks at him in his fur coat and cap and says, “He. . .he is very like his father.” Her first response confirms the likeness she had feared might matter so much. The boy before her makes Stephen’s connection to her present and visible.

Paul, by contrast, is at ease. He remarks that everyone says he is “a chip off the old block.” His casual answer does not erase the significance of the resemblance, but it keeps the meeting from becoming a solemn examination of it. Anne watches closely and draws a relieved breath when she sees that Paul and Lavendar have taken to each other. Lavendar, sensible despite her dreams and romantic feeling, puts those feelings aside after the first moment and entertains him brightly and naturally, as she might any boy who had come to visit.

A Friendship Begins

The visit becomes a cheerful afternoon, followed by a generous supper. Its abundance is striking enough that Anne imagines it would alarm Mrs. Irving, who would fear for Paul’s digestion. The detail also distinguishes Lavendar’s welcome from the stricter habits Paul associates with his grandmother’s household. At parting, Lavendar invites him to come again. Paul gravely tells her that she may kiss him if she likes, and she does.

When Lavendar asks how he knew she wanted to, Paul explains that she looked at him as his little mother used to when she wanted to kiss him. He adds that, as a rule, he does not like being kissed, as boys do not, but that he thinks he rather likes her kissing him. The moment joins two kinds of recognition: Lavendar sees Stephen in Paul, while Paul recognizes in Lavendar’s look a gesture associated with his mother. His response is not a general surrender of his preference; he makes clear that this affection is particular to her.

Paul then offers the relationship a name, saying he would like her to be one of his particular friends if she does not object. Lavendar accepts, though she turns and goes inside quickly; a moment later, she is smiling and waving goodbye from the window. The contrast between her quick retreat and her bright farewell registers the depth of feeling the visit has stirred without interrupting its ease. The new friendship is mutual, but each approaches it through a different personal recognition.

The Walk Home and the Event’s Significance

On the walk through the beech woods, Paul tells Anne that he likes Lavendar, the stone house, and Charlotta the Fourth. He compares her household favorably with his grandmother’s in a child’s concrete terms: he imagines that Charlotta the Fourth would not think him wrong in the head for the things he says, and that Lavendar would not make a boy eat porridge for breakfast if he disliked it. Yet Paul is careful not to make indulgence his only standard. He acknowledges that giving a boy everything he likes might not be good for him, even if a change is pleasant.

That fairness and candor complete the portrait of the meeting. Paul is affectionate without being indiscriminately demonstrative, and he is able to welcome Lavendar while retaining his own preferences. Lavendar, whose romantic imagination has supplied an imagined boy connected to Stephen, meets not a dream figure but Stephen’s actual son, with a character and perceptions of his own. Their first afternoon does not resolve the history between Lavendar and Stephen; it establishes a living bond with Paul instead. Through Anne’s introduction, a potentially painful resemblance becomes the opening for a particular friendship.