Further Chronicles of Avonlea | Page 9

him.
Nevertheless, I kept on at it, and what with my flowers and my cats and
my magazines and my little book, I was really very happy and
contented. But it DID sting that Adella Gilbert, across the road, who
has a drunken husband, should pity "poor Charlotte" because nobody
had ever wanted her. Poor Charlotte indeed! If I had thrown myself at a
man's head the way Adella Gilbert did at-- but there, there, I must
refrain from such thoughts. I must not be uncharitable.
The Sewing Circle met at Mary Gillespie's on my fortieth birthday. I
have given up talking about my birthdays, although that little scheme is
not much good in Avonlea where everybody knows your age--or if they
make a mistake it is never on the side of youth. But Nancy, who grew
accustomed to celebrating my birthdays when I was a little girl, never
gets over the habit, and I don't try to cure her, because, after all, it's nice
to have some one make a fuss over you. She brought me up my

breakfast before I got up out of bed--a concession to my laziness that
Nancy would scorn to make on any other day of the year. She had
cooked everything I like best, and had decorated the tray with roses
from the garden and ferns from the woods behind the house. I enjoyed
every bit of that breakfast, and then I got up and dressed, putting on my
second best muslin gown. I would have put on my really best if I had
not had the fear of Nancy before my eyes; but I knew she would never
condone THAT, even on a birthday. I watered my flowers and fed my
cats, and then I locked myself up and wrote a poem on June. I had
given up writing birthday odes after I was thirty.
In the afternoon I went to the Sewing Circle. When I was ready for it I
looked in my glass and wondered if I could really be forty. I was quite
sure I didn't look it. My hair was brown and wavy, my cheeks were
pink, and the lines could hardly be seen at all, though possibly that was
because of the dim light. I always have my mirror hung in the darkest
corner of my room. Nancy cannot imagine why. I know the lines are
there, of course; but when they don't show very plain I forget that they
are there.
We had a large Sewing Circle, young and old alike attending. I really
cannot say I ever enjoyed the meetings--at least not up to that
time--although I went religiously because I thought it my duty to go.
The married women talked so much of their husbands and children, and
of course I had to be quiet on those topics; and the young girls talked in
corner groups about their beaux, and stopped it when I joined them, as
if they felt sure that an old maid who had never had a beau couldn't
understand at all. As for the other old maids, they talked gossip about
every one, and I did not like that either. I knew the minute my back was
turned they would fasten into me and hint that I used hair-dye and
declare it was perfectly ridiculous for a woman of FIFTY to wear a
pink muslin dress with lace-trimmed frills.
There was a full attendance that day, for we were getting ready for a
sale of fancy work in aid of parsonage repairs. The young girls were
merrier and noisier than usual. Wilhelmina Mercer was there, and she
kept them going. The Mercers were quite new to Avonlea, having come
here only two months previously.
I was sitting by the window and Wilhelmina Mercer, Maggie
Henderson, Susette Cross and Georgie Hall were in a little group just

before me. I wasn't listening to their chatter at all, but presently Georgie
exclaimed teasingly:
"Miss Charlotte is laughing at us. I suppose she thinks we are awfully
silly to be talking about beaux."
The truth was that I was simply smiling over some very pretty thoughts
that had come to me about the roses which were climbing over Mary
Gillespie's sill. I meant to inscribe them in the little blank book when I
went home. Georgie's speech brought me back to harsh realities with a
jolt. It hurt me, as such speeches always did.
"Didn't you ever have a beau, Miss Holmes?" said Wilhelmina
laughingly.
Just as it happened, a silence had fallen over the room for a moment,
and everybody in it heard Wilhelmina's question.
I really do not know what got into me and possessed me. I have never
been able to account for what I said and did, because I am naturally