`` Anne Shirley or Anne Anybody Else , is perfectly welcome to Max if she wants him . I certainly do not . Ismay Meade , if that stove does n't stop smoking I shall fly into bits . This is a detestable day . I hate that creature ! '' `` Oh , you should n't talk like that , when you do n't even know her , '' protested Ismay . `` Every one says Anne Shirley is lovely -- '' `` I was talking about Fatima , '' I cried in a rage . `` Oh ! '' said Ismay . Ismay is stupid at times . I thought the way she said `` Oh '' was inexcusably stupid . Fatima arrived the next day . Max brought her out in a covered basket , lined with padded crimson satin . Max likes cats and Aunt Cynthia . He explained how we were to treat Fatima and when Ismay had gone out of the room -- Ismay always went out of the room when she knew I particularly wanted her to remain -- he proposed to me again . Of course I said no , as usual , but I was rather pleased . Max had been proposing to me about every two months for two years . Sometimes , as in this case , he went three months , and then I always wondered why . I concluded that he could not be really interested in Anne Shirley , and I was relieved . I did n't want to marry Max but it was pleasant and convenient to have him around , and we would miss him dreadfully if any other girl snapped him up .
He was so useful and always willing to do anything for us -- nail a shingle on the roof , drive us XXXXX town , put down carpets -- in short , a very present help in all our troubles .
Of about as at if in into like to with