and contented. But it DID sting that Adella Gilbert, across the
road, who has a drunken husband, should pity "poor Charlotte"
because nobody had ever wanted her. Poor Charlotte indeed! If I
had thrown myself at a man's head the way Adella Gilbert did at--
but there, there, I must refrain from such thoughts. I must not
be uncharitable.

The Sewing Circle met at Mary Gillespie's on my fortieth
birthday. I have given up talking about my birthdays, although
that little scheme is not much good in Avonlea where everybody
knows your age--or if they make a mistake it is never on the side
of youth. But Nancy, who grew accustomed to celebrating my
birthdays when I was a little girl, never gets over the habit,
and I don't try to cure her, because, after all, it's nice to
have some one make a fuss over you. She brought me up my
breakfast before I got up out of bed--a concession to my laziness
that Nancy would scorn to make on any other day of the year. She
had cooked everything I like best, and had decorated the tray
with roses from the garden and ferns from the woods behind the
house. I enjoyed every bit of that breakfast, and then I got up
and dressed, putting on my second best muslin gown. I would have
put on my really best if I had not had the fear of Nancy before
my eyes; but I knew she would never condone THAT, even on a
birthday. I watered my flowers and fed my cats, and then I
locked myself up and wrote a poem on June. I had given up
writing birthday odes after I was thirty.

In the afternoon I went to the Sewing Circle. When I was ready
for it I looked in my glass and wondered if I could really be
forty. I was quite sure I didn't look it. My hair was brown and