Stephen Irving and Miss Lavendar Lewis’s reunion transforms a long-remembered romance into a possibility in the present. Stephen’s return is first announced by his son, Paul Irving, and the news sets in motion a meeting carefully arranged through Anne Shirley. The scene culminates not in an explicit declaration but in a shared walk, an arm around Miss Lavendar’s waist, and Anne’s prediction of a wedding—an ending charged with promise while preserving a trace of uncertainty.

The Return and the News

During Anne’s visit with Miss Lavendar, Anne had already helped draw her friend back toward pleasure and activity. A shopping trip to town led to the purchase of a new forget-me-not organdy dress, which Anne and Miss Lavendar cut and made together while Charlotta the Fourth basted and swept up the scraps. Miss Lavendar had said she could feel little interest in anything; the dressmaking restored a sparkle to her eyes. That renewed animation forms a quiet prelude to the more consequential news that follows.

Midway through the visit, Anne returned to Green Gables for a day to mend the twins’ stockings and answer the questions Davy Keith had accumulated. That evening she went to see Paul. Glancing through the low, square window of the Irving sitting room, she saw him on someone’s lap; then he came rushing into the hall with the news that his father was home. His excitement makes the return immediate and domestic: this is not an abstract report about a man from the past, but the sudden arrival of the father Paul has long wanted beside him.

Stephen came forward to meet Anne. The narrative describes him as tall and handsome, with iron-gray hair, deep-set dark-blue eyes, and a face marked by sadness. Anne is pleased that the man connected to Miss Lavendar’s romance looks, in her view, the part. Her response shows how strongly she has invested herself in the story, even as the sadness in Stephen’s appearance hints that the past has not been simple.

Stephen thanks Anne for her influence on Paul. Paul’s letters, he explains, have been full of his teacher, and he believes her understanding has supplied something the boy’s grandmother, Mrs. Irving, could not always provide with her practical temperament. Paul soon leaves to do his daily duty of getting the cows. His departure gives Stephen and Anne an opportunity to speak privately, and the conversation turns to the old friend whose name makes Anne feel that romance is gathering around them.

Anne Arranges the Meeting

Stephen asks whether Anne knows Miss Lavendar Lewis well, referring to Paul’s letter about their visit to the stone house in Grafton. Anne answers that Miss Lavendar is a dear friend and that they are intimate. She senses the importance beneath Stephen’s question and recognizes that their friendship has made her a trusted intermediary. Stephen then asks her to find out whether Miss Lavendar will receive him.

Anne’s walk through the beechwoods to Grafton the next morning carries the news like a revelation she can hardly wait to deliver. She finds Miss Lavendar in the garden and begins by saying she has something important to tell her. Before Anne can name it, Miss Lavendar’s face pales and she quietly asks whether Stephen Irving is home. She has guessed from Anne’s manner alone. The moment reverses the expected order: Anne arrives as messenger, but Miss Lavendar’s instinct shows that Stephen’s return is already emotionally present to her.

Anne asks whether she may tell Stephen that he can come. Miss Lavendar agrees, but tries to frame the visit as an ordinary one between old friends. Anne privately sees more significance in the request. Her role is active but restrained: she carries the invitation, observes what neither participant yet says plainly, and allows the two former lovers to meet without speaking for them.

The Visit at the Stone House

That evening, tea at Echo Lodge follows its usual form, but nobody really eats. Miss Lavendar goes upstairs and puts on the new organdy dress; Anne does her hair. Their excitement contrasts with Miss Lavendar’s performance of calm. She turns her attention to a rent in the curtain and dust on the stair railing, small household imperfections that give her something ordinary to discuss while the expected visitor approaches.

Anne waits on the porch steps when Stephen comes down the lane and across the garden. He looks around with delight and says that nothing in the house or garden has changed since he was there twenty-five years before. The unchanged setting gives their meeting a striking relation to time: the place seems to preserve an earlier moment even as the people entering it have lived through the years that followed.

Anne answers with the image of an enchanted palace in which events begin when the prince arrives. Stephen smiles sadly and remarks that sometimes the prince comes too late. He does not ask her to translate the metaphor into plain terms; the narration presents him as understanding her meaning. Their exchange lets the old romance surface indirectly. The house, the prince, and lateness are not merely playful figures for Anne: they give the meeting a language for the gap between a remembered possibility and the present chance to renew it.

After tea, Anne and Miss Lavendar try to pass the time by cleaning the silver spoons. The task lasts an hour, but neither can concentrate. When the front door shuts, they fear Stephen may be leaving without anything having changed. Charlotta the Fourth voices that fear aloud. Looking through the window, however, they see Stephen and Miss Lavendar strolling slowly down the middle path toward the stone bench.

A Promise, Not a Confirmed Ending

The decisive gesture is visible from the window: Stephen has his arm around Miss Lavendar’s waist. Charlotta takes this as evidence that he has proposed, reasoning that Miss Lavendar would not otherwise have allowed such closeness. The scene supports the inference of renewed intimacy, but it does not show the proposal itself or report an answer. Anne responds by dancing Charlotta around the kitchen and predicting that there will be a wedding at the stone house before the maple leaves turn red. The prediction conveys her confidence and joy, not confirmation that the wedding has already been arranged.

Anne’s tears hold the scene’s two emotional registers together. She calls the moment beautiful, storybook-like, romantic, and sad. The sadness does not cancel the promise: it acknowledges that the reunion comes late, after the years evoked by Stephen’s return to a house unchanged for a quarter-century. In the garden, the pair’s closeness suggests that the old attachment has survived, while the passage stops short of resolving its future in explicit terms.

The reunion is therefore both a romantic turning point and a carefully staged scene of recognition. Paul’s announcement brings Stephen back into the present; Anne’s friendship with Miss Lavendar enables the visit; and the familiar garden makes past and present meet in one place. The final view through the window gives Anne and Charlotta—and the reader—a visible sign of change, but leaves the couple’s private words beyond the scene. Its promise rests in that balance: the return has become a meeting, and the meeting appears to open the way to marriage.