It's dreadful enough, but not as
dreadful as you might otherwise think. Those--those stories--I
have a confession to make. I did tell them, but I didn't know
there was such a person as Cecil Fenwick in existence."
He looked puzzled, as well he might. Then he smiled, took my
hand and led me away from the door--to the knob of which I was
still holding with all my might--to the sofa.
"Let's sit down and talk it over 'comfy,'" he said.
I just confessed the whole shameful business. It was terribly
humiliating, but it served me right. I told him how people were
always twitting me for never having had a beau, and how I had
told them I had; and then I showed him the porous plaster
advertisement.
He heard me right through without a word, and then he threw back
his big, curly, gray head and laughed.
"This clears up a great many mysterious hints I've been receiving
ever since I came to Avonlea," he said, "and finally a Mrs.
Gilbert came to my sister this afternoon with a long farrago of
nonsense about the love affair I had once had with some Charlotte
Holmes here. She declared you had told her about it yourself. I
confess I flamed up. I'm a peppery chap, and I thought--I
thought--oh, confound it, it might as well out: I thought you
were some lank old maid who was amusing herself telling
ridiculous stories about me. When you came into the room I knew
that, whoever was to blame, you were not.
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