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. Neither was it the
fact that I wrote poetry myself--although not of George
Adoniram's kind--because nobody ever knew that. When I felt it
coming on I shut myself up in my room and wrote it out in a
little blank book I kept locked up. It is nearly full now,
because I have been writing poetry all my life. It is the only
thing I have ever been able to keep a secret from Nancy. Nancy,
in any case, has not a very high opinion of my ability to take
care of myself; but I tremble to imagine what she would think if
she ever found out about that little book. I am convinced she
would send for the doctor post-haste and insist on mustard
plasters while waiting for 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