`` It will be a great loss to the community ... though I always did think that Mrs. Allan dressed rather too gay for a minister 's wife . But we are none of us perfect . Did you notice how neat and snug Mr. Harrison looked today ? I never saw such a changed man . He goes to church every Sunday and has subscribed to the salary . '' `` Has n't that Paul Irving grown to be a big boy ? '' said Mrs. Andrews . `` He was such a mite for his age when he came here . I declare I hardly knew him today . He 's getting to look a lot like his father . '' `` He 's a smart boy , '' said Mrs. Bell . `` He 's smart enough , but '' ... Mrs. Andrews lowered her voice ... `` I believe he tells queer stories . Gracie came home from school one day last week with the greatest rigmarole he had told her about people who lived down at the shore ... stories there could n't be a word of truth in , you know . I told Gracie not to believe them , and she said Paul did n't intend her to . But if he did n't what did he tell them to her for ? '' `` Anne says Paul is a genius , '' said Mrs. Sloane . `` He may be . You never know what to expect of them Americans , '' said Mrs. Andrews . Mrs. Andrews ' only acquaintance with the word `` genius '' was derived from the colloquial fashion of calling any eccentric individual `` a queer genius . '' She probably thought , with Mary Joe , that it meant a person with something wrong in his upper story .
Back in the schoolroom Anne was sitting alone XXXXX her desk , as she had sat on the first day of school two years before , her face leaning on her hand , her dewy eyes looking wistfully out of the window to the Lake of Shining Waters .
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