He was really a dear. Niceness fairly
exhaled from him.
"No-o-o," I said, "but when we are married you will have to take
care of Fatima, _I_ won't."
"Dear Fatima," said Max gratefully.
II. THE MATERALIZING OF CECIL
It had never worried me in the least that I wasn't married,
although everybody in Avonlea pitied old maids; but it DID worry
me, and I frankly confess it, that I had never had a chance to
be. Even Nancy, my old nurse and servant, knew that, and pitied
me for it. Nancy is an old maid herself, but she has had two
proposals. She did not accept either of them because one was a
widower with seven children, and the other a very shiftless,
good-for-nothing fellow; but, if anybody twitted Nancy on her
single condition, she could point triumphantly to those two as
evidence that "she could an she would." If I had not lived all
my life in Avonlea I might have had the benefit of the doubt; but
I had, and everybody knew everything about me--or thought they
did.
I had really often wondered why nobody had ever fallen in love
with me. I was not at all homely; indeed, years ago, George
Adoniram Maybrick had written a poem addressed to me, in which he
praised my beauty quite extravagantly; that didn't mean anything
because George Adoniram wrote poetry to all the good-looking
girls and never went with anybody but Flora King, who was
cross-eyed and red-haired, but it proves that it was not my
appearance that put me out of the running.
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