"You are one of those who have achieved it then," laughed Anne, "and you've done it so beautifully that if every old maid were like you they would come into the fashion, I think.""I always like to do things as well as possible," said Miss Lavendar meditatively, "and since an old maid I had to be I was determined to be a very nice one. People say I'm odd; but it's just because I follow my own way of being an old maid and refuse to copy the traditional pattern. Anne, did anyone ever tell you anything about Stephen Irving and me?""Yes," said Anne candidly, "I've heard that you and he were engaged once.""So we were. . .twenty-five years ago. . .a lifetime ago. And we were to have been married the next spring. I had my wedding dress made, although nobody but mother and Stephen ever knew THAT.
We'd been engaged in a way almost all our lives, you might say.
When Stephen was a little boy his mother would bring him here when she came to see my mother; and the second time he ever came. . .
he was nine and I was six. . .he told me out in the garden that he had pretty well made up his mind to marry me when he grew up.
I remember that I said `Thank you'; and when he was gone I told mother very gravely that there was a great weight off my mind, because I wasn't frightened any more about having to be an old maid. How poor mother laughed!""And what went wrong?" asked Anne breathlessly.
"We had just a stupid, silly, commonplace quarrel. So commonplace that, if you'll believe me, I don't even remember just how it began.
I hardly know who was the more to blame for it. Stephen did really begin it, but I suppose I provoked him by some foolishness of mine.
He had a rival or two, you see. I was vain and coquettish and liked to tease him a little. He was a very high-strung, sensitive fellow.
Well, we parted in a temper on both sides. But I thought it would all come right; and it would have if Stephen hadn't come back too soon.
Anne, my dear, I'm sorry to say". . .Miss Lavendar dropped her voice as if she were about to confess a predilection for murdering people, "that I am a dreadfully sulky person. Oh, you needn't smile,. . .
it's only too true. I DO sulk; and Stephen came back before I had finished sulking. I wouldn't listen to him and I wouldn't forgive him;and so he went away for good. He was too proud to come again. And then I sulked because he didn't come. I might have sent for him perhaps, but I couldn't humble myself to do that. I was just as proud as he was. . .pride and sulkiness make a very bad combination, Anne. But I could never care for anybody else and I didn't want to.
I knew I would rather be an old maid for a thousand years than marry anybody who wasn't Stephen Irving. Well, it all seems like a dream now, of course. How sympathetic you look, Anne. . .as sympathetic as only seventeen can look. But don't overdo it. I'm really a very happy, contented little person in spite of my broken heart. My heart did break, if ever a heart did, when I realized that Stephen Irving was not coming back.
But, Anne, a broken heart in real life isn't half as dreadful as it is in books. It's a good deal like a bad tooth. . .though you won't think THAT a very romantic simile. It takes spells of aching and gives you a sleepless night now and then, but between times it lets you enjoy life and dreams and echoes and peanut candy as if there were nothing the matter with it. And now you're looking disappointed.
You don't think I'm half as interesting a person as you did five minutes ago when you believed I was always the prey of a tragic memory bravely hidden beneath external smiles. That's the worst. . .or the best. . .
