XV. TANNIS OF THE FLATS
Few people in Avonlea could understand why Elinor Blair had never
married. She had been one of the most beautiful girls in our
part of the Island and, as a woman of fifty, she was still very
attractive. In her youth she had had ever so many beaux, as we
of our generation well remembered; but, after her return from
visiting her brother Tom in the Canadian Northwest, more than
twenty-five years ago, she had seemed to withdraw within herself,
keeping all men at a safe, though friendly, distance. She had
been a gay, laughing girl when she went West; she came back quiet
and serious, with a shadowed look in her eyes which time could
not quite succeed in blotting out.
Elinor had never talked much about her visit, except to describe
the scenery and the life, which in that day was rough indeed.
Not even to me, who had grown up next door to her and who had
always seemed more a sister than a friend, did she speak of other
than the merest commonplaces. But when Tom Blair made a flying
trip back home, some ten years later, there were one or two of us
to whom he related the story of Jerome Carey,--a story revealing
only too well the reason for Elinor's sad eyes and utter
indifference to masculine attentions. I can recall almost his
exact words and the inflections of his voice, and I remember,
too, that it seemed to me a far cry from the tranquil, pleasant
scene before us, on that lovely summer day, to the elemental life
of the Flats.
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