Further Chronicles of Avonlea | Page 5

to her Aunt Cynthia will hold us responsible,"
said Ismay darkly.
"Do you think Anne Shirley is really engaged to Gilbert Blythe?" I
asked curiously.
"I've heard that she was," said Ismay, absently. "Does she eat anything
but milk? Will it do to give her mice?"
"Oh, I guess so. But do you think Max has really fallen in love with
her?"
"I dare say. What a relief it will be for you if he has."
"Oh, of course," I said, frostily. "Anne Shirley or Anne Anybody Else,
is perfectly welcome to Max if she wants him. I certainly do not. Ismay
Meade, if that stove doesn't stop smoking I shall fly into bits. This is a
detestable day. I hate that creature!"

"Oh, you shouldn't talk like that, when you don't even know her,"
protested Ismay. "Every one says Anne Shirley is lovely--"
"I was talking about Fatima," I cried in a rage.
"Oh!" said Ismay.
Ismay is stupid at times. I thought the way she said "Oh" was
inexcusably stupid.
Fatima arrived the next day. Max brought her out in a covered basket,
lined with padded crimson satin. Max likes cats and Aunt Cynthia. He
explained how we were to treat Fatima and when Ismay had gone out
of the room--Ismay always went out of the room when she knew I
particularly wanted her to remain--he proposed to me again. Of course I
said no, as usual, but I was rather pleased. Max had been proposing to
me about every two months for two years. Sometimes, as in this case,
he went three months, and then I always wondered why. I concluded
that he could not be really interested in Anne Shirley, and I was
relieved. I didn't want to marry Max but it was pleasant and convenient
to have him around, and we would miss him dreadfully if any other girl
snapped him up. He was so useful and always willing to do anything
for us--nail a shingle on the roof, drive us to town, put down carpets--in
short, a very present help in all our troubles.
So I just beamed on him when I said no. Max began counting on his
fingers. When he got as far as eight he shook his head and began over
again.
"What is it?" I asked.
"I'm trying to count up how many times I have proposed to you," he
said. "But I can't remember whether I asked you to marry me that day
we dug up the garden or not. If I did it makes--"
"No, you didn't," I interrupted.
"Well, that makes it eleven," said Max reflectively. "Pretty near the
limit, isn't it? My manly pride will not allow me to propose to the same
girl more than twelve times. So the next time will be the last, Sue
darling."
"Oh," I said, a trifle flatly. I forgot to resent his calling me darling. I
wondered if things wouldn't be rather dull when Max gave up
proposing to me. It was the only excitement I had. But of course it
would be best--and he couldn't go on at it forever, so, by the way of
gracefully dismissing the subject, I asked him what Miss Shirley was

like.
"Very sweet girl," said Max. "You know I always admired those
gray-eyed girls with that splendid Titian hair."
I am dark, with brown eyes. Just then I detested Max. I got up and said
I was going to get some milk for Fatima.
I found Ismay in a rage in the kitchen. She had been up in the garret,
and a mouse had run across her foot. Mice always get on Ismay's
nerves.
"We need a cat badly enough," she fumed, "but not a useless, pampered
thing, like Fatima. That garret is literally swarming with mice. You'll
not catch me going up there again."
Fatima did not prove such a nuisance as we had feared. Huldah Jane
liked her, and Ismay, in spite of her declaration that she would have
nothing to do with her, looked after her comfort scrupulously. She even
used to get up in the middle of the night and go out to see if Fatima was
warm. Max came in every day and, being around, gave us good advice.
Then one day, about three weeks after Aunt Cynthia's departure, Fatima
disappeared--just simply disappeared as if she had been dissolved into
thin air. We left her one afternoon, curled up asleep in her basket by the
fire, under Huldah Jane's eye, while we went out to make a call. When
we came home Fatima was gone.
Huldah Jane wept and was as one whom the gods had made mad. She
vowed that she had never let Fatima out of her sight the whole time,
save once for three minutes when