`` 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 was n'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 do n'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 XXXXX a temper on both sides .
So about although as because by if in off to