I did tell them , but I did n't know there was such a person as Cecil Fenwick in existence . '' He looked puzzled , as well he might . Then he smiled , took my hand and led me away from the door -- to the knob of which I was still holding with all my might -- to the sofa . `` Let 's sit down and talk it over ` comfy , ' '' he said . I just confessed the whole shameful business . It was terribly humiliating , but it served me right . I told him how people were always twitting me for never having had a beau , and how I had told them I had ; and then I showed him the porous plaster advertisement . He heard me right through without a word , and then he threw back his big , curly , gray head and laughed . `` This clears up a great many mysterious hints I 've been receiving ever since I came to Avonlea , '' he said , `` and finally a Mrs. Gilbert came to my sister this afternoon with a long farrago of nonsense about the love affair I had once had with some Charlotte Holmes here . She declared you had told her about it yourself . I confess I flamed up . I 'm a peppery chap , and I thought -- I thought -- oh , confound it , it might as well out : I thought you were some lank old maid who was amusing herself telling ridiculous stories about me . When you came into the room I knew that , whoever was to blame , you were not . '' `` But I was , '' I said ruefully . `` It was n't right of me to tell such a story -- and it was very silly , too . But who would ever have supposed that there could be real Cecil Fenwick who had lived in Blakely ? I never heard of such a coincidence . '' `` It 's more than a coincidence , '' said Mr. Fenwick decidedly . `` It 's predestination ; that is what it is . And now let 's forget it and talk of something else . ''
We talked XXXXX something else -- or at least Mr. Fenwick did , for I was too ashamed to say much -- so long that Nancy got restive and clumped through the hall every five minutes ; but Mr. Fenwick never took the hint .
about from in of out over since than that to