Page:Further Chronicles of Avonlea (1920).djvu/52

26 had always been my favorite name for a man; it figured quite frequently in the blank book. As for the Fenwick part of it, I had a bit of newspaper in my hand, measuring a hem, with “Try Fenwick’s Porous Plasters” printed across it, and I simply joined the two in sudden and irrevocable matrimony.

“Where did you meet him?” asked Georgie.

I hastily reviewed my past. There was only one place to locate Cecil Fenwick. The only time I had ever been far enough away from Avonlea in my life was when I was eighteen and had gone to visit an aunt in New Brunswick.

“In Blakely, New Brunswick,” I said, almost believing that I had when I saw how they all took it in unsuspectingly. “I was just eighteen and he was twenty-three.”

“What did he look like?” Susette wanted to know.

“Oh, he was very handsome.” I proceeded glibly to sketch my ideal. To tell the dreadful truth, I was enjoying myself; I could see respect dawning in those girls’ eyes, and I knew that I had forever thrown off my reproach. Henceforth I should be a - woman with a romantic past, faithful to the one love of her life — a very, very different thing from an old maid who had never had a lover.

“He was tall and dark, with lovely, curly black hair and brilliant, piercing eyes. He had a splendid