Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the twenty-third chapter of Anne of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

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So many adventures and mountains we can climb.

Take your word for word line but line one part at our time.

Welcome to Bite at a Time Books.

Where we read you your favorite classics.

One byte at a time.

My name is Brie Carlyle and I love to read and wanted to share my passion with listeners like you.

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Today we'll be continuing Anne of Aven.

Lee by Lucy Maud Montgomery, 23 Ms.

Lavender's Romance I think I'll take a walk through to Echo Lodge this evening, said Anne one Friday afternoon in December.

It looks like snow, said Marilla dubiously.

I'll be there before the snow comes, and I mean to stay all night.

Diana can't go because she has company, and I'm sure Miss Lavender will be looking for me tonight.

It's a whole fortnight since I was there.

Anne had paid many a visit to Echo Lodge since that October day.

Sometimes she and Diana drove around by the road, sometimes they walked through the woods.

When Diana could not go, Anne went alone.

Between her and Miss Lavender had sprung up one of those fervent helpful friendships possible only between a woman who has kept the freshness of youth in her heart and soul, and a girl whose imagination and intuition supplied the place of experience.

Anne had at last discovered a real kindred spirit, while into the little lady's lonely, sequestered life of dreams, anne and Diana came with the wholesome joy and exhilaration of the outer existence, which Miss Lavender, the world forgetting by the world forgot, had long ceased to share.

They brought an atmosphere of youth and reality to the little stone house.

Charlotte is a fourth always greeted them with her very widest smile, and Charlotte's smiles were fearfully wide, loving them for the sake of her adored mistress as well as for their own.

Never had there been such hijinks held in the little stone house as were held there that beautiful, late, lingering autumn, when November seemed October over again, and even December apes the sunshine and hazes of summer.

But on this particular day it seemed as if December had remembered that it was time for winter and had turned suddenly dull and brooding with a winless hush predictive of coming snow.

Nevertheless, Anne keenly enjoyed her walk through the great gray maze of the Beachlands.

Though alone, she never found it lonely.

Her imagination peopled her past with Mary companions, and with these she carried on a gay pretended conversation that was wittier and more fascinating than conversations are apt to be in real life.

Where people sometimes fail most lamentably to talk up to the requirements in a make believe assembly of choice spirits, everybody says just the thing you want her to say and so gives you the chance to say just what you want to say.

Attended by this invisible company, anne traversed the woods and arrived at the fur lane just as broad feathery flakes began to flutter down softly.

At the first bend, she came upon Miss Lavender, standing under a big, broad, branching fur.

She wore a gown of warm, rich red, and her head and shoulders were wrapped in a silvery greysilk shawl.

You look like the queen of the furwood fairies, cried Anne merrily.

I thought you would come tonight, Anne, said Miss Lavender, running forward, and I'm doubly glad, for Charlotte IV is away.

Her mother is sick, and she had to go home for the night.

I should have been very lonely if you hadn't come.

Even the dreams and the echoes wouldn't have been enough company.

Oh, Anne, how pretty you are, she added, suddenly looking up at the tall, slim girl with the soft rose flesh of walking on her face.

How pretty and how young.

It is so delightful to be 17, isn't it?

I do envy you, concluded Miss Lavender candidly.

But you are only 17 at heart, smiled Anne.

No, I'm old, or rather middle aged, which is far worse, sighed Miss Lavender.

Sometimes I can pretend I'm not, but at other times I realize it, and I can't reconcile myself to it, as most women seem to.

I'm just as rebellious as I was when I discovered my first gray hair.

Now, Anne, don't look as if you were trying to understand.

17 can't understand.

I'm going to pretend right away that I am 17, too, and I can do it now that you're here.

You always bring youth in your hand like a gift.

We're going to have a jolly evening tea first.

What do you want for tea?

We'll have whatever you like.

Do you think of something nice and indigestible?

There were sounds of riot and mirth in the little stone house that night, but with cooking and feasting and making candy and laughing and pretending.

It is quite true that Miss Lavender and Anne comported themselves in a fashion entirely unsuited to the dignity of a Spencer of 45 and a sedate school ma'am.

Then, when they retired, they sat down on the rug before the grate in the parlour, lighted only by the soft fire shine and perfumed deliciously by Miss Lavender's open rose jar on the mantle.

The wind had risen and was sawing and wailing around the eaves, and the snow was studting softly against the windows as if 100 storm sprites were tapping for entrance.

I am so glad you're here, Anne, said Miss Lavender, nibbling at her candy.

If you weren't, I should be blue, very blue, almost navy blue.

Dreams and make believe.

They're all very well in the daytime and the sunshine, but when dark and storm come, they fail to satisfy.

One wants real things then.

But you don't know this.

17 never knows it.

At 17, dreams do satisfy because you think the realities are waiting for you further on.

When I was 17 and I didn't think 45 would find me a white haired little old maid with nothing but dreams to fill my life.

But you aren't an old maid, said Anne, smiling into Miss Lavender's wistful Woodbrown eyes.

Old maids are born, they don't become.

Some are born old maids, some achieve old maidenhood, and some have old maidenhood thrust upon them, parodied Miss Lavender.

Whimsically.

You are one of those who have achieved it then, laughed Anne.

And you've done it so beautifully that if every old maid were like you, they would come into the fashion.

I think I always like to do things as well as possible, said Miss Lavender meditatively, and since an old maid I had to be, I was determined to be a very nice one.

People say I'm odd, but it's just because I follow my own way of being an old maid and refuse to copy the traditional pattern.

And did anyone ever tell you anything about Stephen Irving and me?

Yes, said Anne candidly.

I've heard that you and he were engaged once.

So we were.

25 years ago, a lifetime ago.

And we were to have been married the next spring.

I had my wedding dress made, although nobody but Mother and Stephen ever knew that we'd been engaged, in a way, almost all our lives, you might say.

When Stephen was a little boy, his mother would bring him here when she came to see my mother, and the second time he ever came, he was nine and I was six, he told me out in the garden that he had pretty well made up his mind to marry me when he grew up.

I remember that I said thank you, and when he was gone, I told Mother very gravely that there was a great weight off my mind because I wasn't frightened anymore about having to be an old maid.

How poor Mother laughed.

And what went wrong?

Asked Anne breathlessly.

We had just a stupid, silly, commonplace quarrel.

So commonplace that, if you'll believe me, I don't even remember just how it began.

I hardly know who was the more to blame for it.

Steven did really begin it, but I suppose I provoked him by some foolishness of mine.

He had a rivalry, too, you see.

I was vain and coquettish and liked to tease him a little.

He was a very high strung, sensitive fellow.

Well, we parted in a temper on both sides, but I thought it would all come out right, and it would have if Stephen hadn't come back too soon.

And, my dear, I'm sorry to say, Miss Lavender dropped her voice as if she were about to confess a predilection for murdering people that I am.

A dreadfully, sulky person.

Oh, you needn't smile.

It's only too true.

I do sulk.

And Stephen came back before I had finished sulking.

I wouldn't listen to him and I wouldn't forgive him.

And so he went away for good.

He was too proud to come again.

And then I sulked because he didn't come.

I might have sent for him, perhaps, but I couldn't humble myself to do that.

I was just as proud as he was.

Pride and sulkiness make a very bad combination, Anne.

But I could never care for anybody else and I didn't want to.

I knew I would rather be an old maid for 1000 years than marry anybody who wasn't Stephen Irving.

Well, it all seems like a dream now, of course.

How sympathetic you look, Anne.

As sympathetic as only 17 can look.

But don't overdo it.

I'm really a very happy, contented little person, in spite of my broken heart.

My heart did break, if ever a heart did, when I realized that Stephen Irving was not coming back.

But Anne, a broken heart in real life isn't half as dreadful as it is in books.

It's a good deal like a bad tooth, though you won't think that a very romantic simile.

It takes spells of aching and gives you a sleepless night now and then, but between times it lets you enjoy life and dreams and echoes and peanut candy as if there was nothing the matter with it.

And now you're looking disappointed.

You don't think I'm half as interesting a person as you did five minutes ago when you believed I was always the prey of a tragic memory bravely hidden beneath external smiles.

That's the worst or the best of real life, Anne.

It won't let you be miserable.

It keeps on trying to make you comfortable and succeeding even when you're determined to be unhappy and romantic.

Isn't this candy scrumptious?

I've eaten far more than it's good for me already.

But I'm going to keep recklessly on.

After a little silence.

Ms.

Lavender said abruptly it gave me a shock to hear about Stephen's son that first day you were here.

And I've never been able to mention him to you since.

But I've wanted to know all about him.

What sort of a boy is he?

He is the dearest, sweetest child I ever knew, Miss Lavender.

And he pretends things too, just as you and I do.

I'd like to see him, said Miss Lavender softly, as if talking to herself.

I wonder if he looks anything like the little dream boy who lives here with me.

My little dream boy.

If you would like to see Paul, I'll bring him through with me sometime, said Anne.

I would like it, but not too soon.

I want to get used to the thought there might be more pain than pleasure in it if he looked too much like Stephen, or if he didn't look enough like him.

In a month's time.

You may bring him accordingly.

A month later, Anne and Paul walked through the woods to the stone house and met Miss Lavender in the lane.

She had not been expecting them just then, and she turned very pale.

So this is Stephen's boy, she said in a low tone, taking Paul's hand and looking at him as he stood.

Beautiful and boyish in his smart little fur coat and cap.

He is very like his father.

Everybody says I'm a chip off the old block, remarked Paul, quite at ease.

Anne, who had been watching the little scene, drew a relieved breath.

She saw that Ms.

Lavender and Paul had taken to each other, and that there would be no constraint or stiffness.

Miss Lavender was a very sensible person, in spite of her dreams and romance.

And after that first little betrayal, she tucked her feelings out of sight and entertained Paul as brightly and naturally as if he were anybody's son who had come to see her.

They all had a jolly afternoon together, and such a feast of fat things by way of supper as would have made old Mrs.

Irving hold up her hands in horror, believing that Paul's digestion would be ruined forever.

Come again, lady, said Miss Lavender, shaking hands with him at parting.

You may kiss me if you like, said Paul gravely.

Ms.

Lavender stooped and kissed him.

How did you know I wanted to?

She whispered.

Because you looked at me just as my little mother used to do when she wanted to kiss me.

As a rule, I don't like to be kissed.

Boys.

Don't you know Miss Lewis?

But I think I'd rather like to have you kiss me.

And of course, I'll come to see you again.

I think I'd like to have you for a particular friend of mine, if you don't object.

I don't think I shall object, said Miss Lavender.

She turned and went in very quickly, but a moment later she was waving a gay and smiling goodbye to them from the window.

I like Ms.

Lavender, announced Paul as they walked through the beach woods.

I like the way she looked at me.

And I like her stone house.

And I like Charlotte IV.

I wish Grandma Irving had a Charlotte of the Fourth instead of a Mary Joe.

I feel sure Charlotte IV wouldn't think I was wrong in my upper story when I told her what I think about things.

Wasn't that a splendid tea we had, teacher?

Grandma says a boy shouldn't be thinking about what he gets to eat, but he can't help it sometimes when he is really hungry.

You know, teacher, I don't think Ms.

Lavender would make a boy eat porridge for breakfast.

If he didn't like it.

She'd get things for him he did like.

But of course, Paul was nothing if not fairminded.

That might not be very good for him.

It's very nice for a change, though, teacher.

You know.

Thank you for joining Bite at a.

Time Books today while we read a.

Bite of one of your favorite classics.

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Again, my name is Brie Carlyle and I hope you come back tomorrow for the next bite of Anne of Avonlea.