But Dora had one misgiving . `` Was Uncle Richard buried ? '' she whispered to Anne . `` Yes , dear , of course . '' `` He ... he ... is n't like Mirabel Cotton 's uncle , is he ? '' in a still more agitated whisper . `` He wo n't walk about houses after being buried , will he , Anne ? '' XXIII Miss Lavendar '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 ca n't go because she has company , and I 'm sure Miss Lavendar 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 Lavendar 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 Lavendar , `` 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 . Charlotta the Fourth always greeted them with her very widest smile ... and Charlotta '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 `` high jinks '' held in the little stone house as were held there that beautiful , late-lingering autumn , when November seemed October over again , and even December aped 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 windless hush predictive of coming snow .
Nevertheless , Anne keenly enjoyed her walk through the great gray maze XXXXX the beechlands ; though alone she never found it lonely ; her imagination peopled her path with merry 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 .
as at before by in like of that to up