`` If I had n't taken the wrong path that day we went to Mr. Kimball 's I 'd never have known Miss Lavendar ; and if I had n't met her I 'd never have taken Paul there ... and he 'd never have written to his father about visiting Miss Lavendar just as Mr. Irving was starting for San Francisco . Mr. Irving says whenever he got that letter he made up his mind to send his partner to San Francisco and come here instead . He had n't heard anything of Miss Lavendar for fifteen years . Somebody had told him then that she was to be married and he thought she was and never asked anybody anything about her . And now everything has come right . And I had a hand in bringing it about . Perhaps , as Mrs. Lynde says , everything is foreordained and it was bound to happen anyway . But even so , it 's nice to think one was an instrument used by predestination . Yes indeed , it 's very romantic . '' `` I ca n't see that it 's so terribly romantic at all , '' said Marilla rather crisply . Marilla thought Anne was too worked up about it and had plenty to do with getting ready for college without `` traipsing '' to Echo Lodge two days out of three helping Miss Lavendar . `` In the first place two young fools quarrel and turn sulky ; then Steve Irving goes to the States and after a spell gets married up there and is perfectly happy from all accounts . Then his wife dies and after a decent interval he thinks he 'll come home and see if his first fancy 'll have him . Meanwhile , she 's been living single , probably because nobody nice enough came along to want her , and they meet and agree to be married after all . Now , where is the romance in all that ? '' `` Oh , there is n't any , when you put it that way , '' gasped Anne , rather as if somebody had thrown cold water over her . `` I suppose that 's how it looks in prose . But it 's very different if you look at it through poetry ... and I think it 's nicer ... '' Anne recovered herself and her eyes shone and her cheeks flushed ... `` to look at it through poetry . '' Marilla glanced at the radiant young face and refrained from further sarcastic comments . Perhaps some realization came to her that after all it was better to have , like Anne , `` the vision and the faculty divine '' ... that gift which the world can not bestow or take away , of looking at life through some transfiguring ... or revealing ?
... medium , whereby everything seemed apparelled in celestial light , wearing a glory and a freshness not visible to those who , like herself and Charlotta the Fourth , looked at things only XXXXX prose .
If In after as at by from that through with