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 The important note was written and Anne herself carried it to the Grafton postoffice [sic], where she waylaid the mail-carrier and asked him to leave it at the Avonlea office.

“It’s so very important,” Anne assured him anxiously. The mail carrier was a rather grumpy old personage who did not at all look the part of a messenger of Cupid; and Anne was none too certain that his memory was to be trusted. But he said he would do his best to remember and she had to be contented with that.

Charlotta the Fourth felt that some mystery pervaded the stone house that afternoon a mystery from which she was excluded. Miss Lavendar roamed about the garden in a distracted fashion. Anne, too, seemed possessed by a demon of unrest, and walked to and fro and went up and down. Charlotta the Fourth endured it till patience ceased to be a virtue; then she confronted Anne on the occasion of that romantic young person’s third aimless peregrination through the kitchen.

“Please, Miss Shirley, ma’am,” said Charlotta the Fourth, with an indignant toss of her very blue bows, “it’s plain to be seen you and Miss Lavendar have got a secret and I think, begging your pardon if I’m too forward, Miss Shirley, ma’am, that it’s real mean not to tell me when we’ve all been such chums.”

“Oh, Charlotta dear, I’d have told you all about it if it were my secret but it’s Miss Lavendar’s, you see. However, I’ll tell you this much and Rh