Everything seemed to me to be coming out most horribly wrong . I was so mixed up I did n't know what to do or say . I felt as if I were in a bad dream -- it MUST be a dream -- there could n't really be a Cecil Fenwick ! My feelings were simply indescribable . Fortunately every one put my agitation down to quite a different cause , and they very kindly left me alone to recover myself . I shall never forget that awful afternoon . Right after tea I excused myself and went home as fast as I could go . There I shut myself up in my room , but NOT to write poetry in my blank book . No , indeed ! I felt in no poetical mood . I tried to look the facts squarely in the face . There was a Cecil Fenwick , extraordinary as the coincidence was , and he was here in Avonlea . All my friends -- and foes -- believed that he was the estranged lover of my youth . If he stayed long in Avonlea , one of two things was bound to happen . He would hear the story I had told about him and deny it , and I would be held up to shame and derision for the rest of my natural life ; or else he would simply go away in ignorance , and everybody would suppose he had forgotten me and would pity me maddeningly . The latter possibility was bad enough , but it was n't to be compared to the former ; and oh , how I prayed -- yes , I DID pray about it -- that he would go right away . But Providence had other views for me . Cecil Fenwick did n't go away . He stayed right on in Avonlea , and the Maxwells blossomed out socially in his honor and tried to give him a good time . Mrs. Maxwell gave a party for him .
I got a card -- but you may be very sure I did n't go , although Nancy thought I was crazy not XXXXX .
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