Chronicles of Avonlea | Page 5

The Speeds are all dreadfully deliberate. They spend years
thinking over a thing before they make up their minds to do it.
Sometimes they get so much in the habit of thinking about it that they
never get over it--like old Alder Speed, who was always talking of
going to England to see his brother, but never went, though there was
no earthly reason why he shouldn't. They're not lazy, you know, but
they love to take their time."
"And Ludovic is just an aggravated case of Speedism," suggested
Anne.
"Exactly. He never hurried in his life. Why, he has been thinking for
the last six years of getting his house painted. He talks it over with me
every little while, and picks out the colour, and there the matter stays.
He's fond of me, and he means to ask me to have him sometime. The
only question is-- will the time ever come?"
"Why don't you hurry him up?" asked Anne impatiently.

Theodora went back to her stitches with another laugh.
"If Ludovic could be hurried up, I'm not the one to do it. I'm too shy. It
sounds ridiculous to hear a woman of my age and inches say that, but it
is true. Of course, I know it's the only way any Speed ever did make
out to get married. For instance, there's a cousin of mine married to
Ludovic's brother. I don't say she proposed to him out and out, but,
mind you, Anne, it wasn't far from it. I couldn't do anything like that. I
DID try once. When I realized that I was getting sere and mellow, and
all the girls of my generation were going off on either hand, I tried to
give Ludovic a hint. But it stuck in my throat. And now I don't mind. If
I don't change Dix to Speed until I take the initiative, it will be Dix to
the end of life. Ludovic doesn't realize that we are growing old, you
know. He thinks we are giddy young folks yet, with plenty of time
before us. That's the Speed failing. They never find out they're alive
until they're dead."
"You're fond of Ludovic, aren't you?" asked Anne, detecting a note of
real bitterness among Theodora's paradoxes.
"Laws, yes," said Theodora candidly. She did not think it worth while
to blush over so settled a fact. "I think the world and all of Ludovic.
And he certainly does need somebody to look after HIM. He's
neglected--he looks frayed. You can see that for yourself. That old aunt
of his looks after his house in some fashion, but she doesn't look after
him. And he's coming now to the age when a man needs to be looked
after and coddled a bit. I'm lonesome here, and Ludovic is lonesome up
there, and it does seem ridiculous, doesn't it? I don't wonder that we're
the standing joke of Grafton. Goodness knows, I laugh at it enough
myself. I've sometimes thought that if Ludovic could be made jealous it
might spur him along. But I never could flirt and there's nobody to flirt
with if I could. Everybody hereabouts looks upon me as Ludovic's
property and nobody would dream of interfering with him."
"Theodora," cried Anne, "I have a plan!"
"Now, what are you going to do?" exclaimed Theodora.
Anne told her. At first Theodora laughed and protested. In the end, she
yielded somewhat doubtfully, overborne by Anne's enthusiasm.
"Well, try it, then," she said, resignedly. "If Ludovic gets mad and
leaves me, I'll be worse off than ever. But nothing venture, nothing win.
And there is a fighting chance, I suppose. Besides, I must admit I'm

tired of his dilly-dallying."
Anne went back to Echo Lodge tingling with delight in her plot. She
hunted up Arnold Sherman, and told him what was required of him.
Arnold Sherman listened and laughed. He was an elderly widower, an
intimate friend of Stephen Irving, and had come down to spend part of
the summer with him and his wife in Prince Edward Island. He was
handsome in a mature style, and he had a dash of mischief in him still,
so that he entered readily enough into Anne's plan. It amused him to
think of hurrying Ludovic Speed, and he knew that Theodora Dix could
be depended on to do her part. The comedy would not be dull, whatever
its outcome.
The curtain rose on the first act after prayer meeting on the next
Thursday night. It was bright moonlight when the people came out of
church, and everybody saw it plainly. Arnold Sherman stood upon the
steps close to the door, and Ludovic Speed leaned up against a corner
of the graveyard fence, as he had done for years. The boys said he had