she looked at me, and I like her stone house, and
I like Charlotta the Fourth. I wish Grandma Irving had a Charlotta the
Fourth instead of a Mary Joe. I feel sure Charlotta the Fourth 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 real hungry. YOU know, teacher. I don't think Miss
Lavendar 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 fair-minded . . . "that mightn't be very good for him. It's
very nice for a change though, teacher. YOU know."

XXIV

A Prophet in His Own Country

One May day Avonlea folks were mildly excited over some "Avonlea
Notes," signed "Observer," which appeared in the Charlottetown 'Daily
Enterprise.' Gossip ascribed the authorship thereof to Charlie Sloane,
partly because the said Charlie had indulged in similar literary flights
in times past, and partly because one of the notes seemed to embody a
sneer at Gilbert Blythe. Avonlea juvenile society persisted in regarding
Gilbert Blythe and Charlie Sloane as rivals in the good graces of a
certain damsel with gray eyes and an imagination.

Gossip, as usual, was wrong. Gilbert Blythe, aided and abetted by Anne,
had written the notes, putting in the one about himself as a blind. Only
two of the notes have any bearing on this history:

"Rumor has it that there will be a wedding in our village ere the
daisies are in bloom. A new and highly respected citizen will lead to
the hymeneal altar one of our most popular ladies.

"Uncle Abe, our well-known weather prophet, predicts a violent storm
of thunder and lightning for the evening of the twenty-third of May,
beginning at seven o'clock sharp. The area of the storm will extend over
the greater part of the Province. People traveling that evening will do
well to take umbrellas and mackintoshes with them."

"Uncle Abe really has predicted a storm for sometime this spring," said
Gilbert, "but do you suppose Mr. Harrison really does go to see Isabella
Andrews?"

"No," said Anne, laughing, "I'm sure he only goes to play checkers with
Mr. Harrison Andrews, but Mrs. Lynde says she knows Isabella Andrews
must be going to get married, she's in such good spirits this spring."

Poor old Uncle Abe felt rathe