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 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 wavy, my cheeks were pink, and the lines could hardly be seen at all, though possibly that was because of the dim light.  I always have my mirror hung in the darkest corner of my room.  Nancy cannot imagine why.  I know the lines are there, of course; but when they don’t show very plain I forget that they are there.