I watered my flowers and fed my cats , and then I locked myself up and wrote a poem on June . I had given up writing birthday odes after I was thirty . In the afternoon I went to the Sewing Circle . When I was ready for it I looked in my glass and wondered if I could really be forty . I was quite sure I did n't look it . My hair was brown and wavy , my cheeks were pink , and the lines could hardly be seen at all , though possibly that was because of the dim light . I always have my mirror hung in the darkest corner of my room . Nancy can not imagine why . I know the lines are there , of course ; but when they do n't show very plain I forget that they are there . We had a large Sewing Circle , young and old alike attending . I really can not say I ever enjoyed the meetings -- at least not up to that time -- although I went religiously because I thought it my duty to go . The married women talked so much of their husbands and children , and of course I had to be quiet on those topics ; and the young girls talked in corner groups about their beaux , and stopped it when I joined them , as if they felt sure that an old maid who had never had a beau could n't understand at all . As for the other old maids , they talked gossip about every one , and I did not like that either . I knew the minute my back was turned they would fasten into me and hint that I used hair-dye and declare it was perfectly ridiculous for a woman of FIFTY to wear a pink muslin dress with lace-trimmed frills . There was a full attendance that day , for we were getting ready for a sale of fancy work in aid of parsonage repairs . The young girls were merrier and noisier than usual . Wilhelmina Mercer was there , and she kept them going . The Mercers were quite new to Avonlea , having come here only two months previously . I was sitting by the window and Wilhelmina Mercer , Maggie Henderson , Susette Cross and Georgie Hall were in a little group just before me . I was n't listening to their chatter at all , but presently Georgie exclaimed teasingly : `` Miss Charlotte is laughing at us .
I suppose she thinks we are awfully silly XXXXX be talking about beaux . ''
In although at because by for into of though to