Nobody ever said anything more to me about Cecil Fenwick , but the girls all chattered freely to me of their little love affairs , and I became a sort of general confidant for them . It just warmed up the cockles of my heart , and I began to enjoy the Sewing Circle famously . I got a lot of pretty new dresses and the dearest hat , and I went everywhere I was asked and had a good time . But there is one thing you can be perfectly sure of . If you do wrong you are going to be punished for it sometime , somehow and somewhere . My punishment was delayed for two months , and then it descended on my head and I was crushed to the very dust . Another new family besides the Mercers had come to Avonlea in the spring -- the Maxwells . There were just Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell ; they were a middle-aged couple and very well off . Mr. Maxwell had bought the lumber mills , and they lived up at the old Spencer place which had always been `` the '' place of Avonlea . They lived quietly , and Mrs. Maxwell hardly ever went anywhere because she was delicate . She was out when I called and I was out when she returned my call , so that I had never met her . It was the Sewing Circle day again -- at Sarah Gardiner 's this time . I was late ; everybody else was there when I arrived , and the minute I entered the room I knew something had happened , although I could n't imagine what . Everybody looked at me in the strangest way . Of course , Wilhelmina Mercer was the first to set her tongue going . `` Oh , Miss Holmes , have you seen him yet ? '' she exclaimed . `` Seen whom ? '' I said non-excitedly , getting out my thimble and patterns . `` Why , Cecil Fenwick .
He 's here -- in XXXXX -- visiting his sister , Mrs. Maxwell . ''
Avonlea Fenwick Gardiner Maxwells Mercer Mercers cockles day first months