Anne of Avonlea eBook

“I’m going to give you girls a bunch of lavendar apiece,” said Miss Lavendar brightly, as if she had not heard the answer to her question.  “It’s very sweet, don’t you think?  Mother always loved it.  She planted these borders long ago.  Father named me Lavendar because he was so fond of it.  The very first time he saw mother was when he visited her home in East Grafton with her brother.  He fell in love with her at first sight; and they put him in the spare room bed to sleep and the sheets were scented with lavendar and he lay awake all night and thought of her.  He always loved the scent of lavendar after that . . . and that was why he gave me the name.  Don’t forget to come back soon, girls dear.  We’ll be looking for you, Charlotta the Fourth and I.”

She opened the gate under the firs for them to pass through.  She looked suddenly old and tired; the glow and radiance had faded from her face; her parting smile was as sweet with ineradicable youth as ever, but when the girls looked back from the first curve in the lane they saw her sitting on the old stone bench under the silver poplar in the middle of the garden with her head leaning wearily on her hand.

“She does look lonely,” said Diana softly.  “We must come often to see her.”

“I think her parents gave her the only right and fitting name that could possibly be given her,” said Anne.  “If they had been so blind as to name her Elizabeth or Nellie or Muriel she must have been called Lavendar just the same, I think.  It’s so suggestive of sweetness and old-fashioned graces and ‘silk attire.’  Now, my name just smacks of bread and butter, patchwork and chores.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Diana.  “Anne seems to me real stately and like a queen.  But I’d like Kerrenhappuch if it happened to be your name.  I think people make their names nice or ugly just by what they are themselves.  I can’t bear Josie or Gertie for names now but before I knew the Pye girls I thought them real pretty.”

“That’s a lovely idea, Diana,” said Anne enthusiastically.  “Living so that you beautify your name, even if it wasn’t beautiful to begin with . . . making it stand in people’s thoughts for something so lovely and pleasant that they never think of it by itself.  Thank you, Diana.”

XXII

Odds and Ends

“So you had tea at the stone house with Lavendar Lewis?” said Marilla at the breakfast table next morning.  “What is she like now?  It’s over fifteen years since I saw her last . . . it was one Sunday in Grafton church.  I suppose she has changed a great deal.  Davy Keith, when you want something you can’t reach, ask to have it passed and don’t spread yourself over the table in that fashion.  Did you ever see Paul Irving doing that when he was here to meals?”