`` The place is alive with mice , '' said Max . `` No , girls , there is no doubt the cat has been here the whole fortnight . She must have followed Huldah Jane up here , unobserved , that day . It 's a wonder you did n't hear her crying -- if she did cry . But perhaps she did n't , and , of course , you sleep downstairs . To think you never thought of looking here for her ! '' `` It has cost us over a hundred dollars , '' said Ismay , with a malevolent glance at the sleek Fatima . `` It has cost me more than that , '' I said , as I turned to the stairway . Max held me back for an instant , while Ismay and Fatima pattered down . `` Do you think it has cost too much , Sue ? '' he whispered . I looked at him sideways . He was really a dear . Niceness fairly exhaled from him . `` No-o-o , '' I said , `` but when we are married you will have to take care of Fatima , I wo n't . '' `` Dear Fatima , '' said Max gratefully . II . THE MATERALIZING OF CECIL It had never worried me in the least that I was n't married , although everybody in Avonlea pitied old maids ; but it DID worry me , and I frankly confess it , that I had never had a chance to be . Even Nancy , my old nurse and servant , knew that , and pitied me for it . Nancy is an old maid herself , but she has had two proposals .
She did not accept either XXXXX them because one was a widower with seven children , and the other a very shiftless , good-for-nothing fellow ; but , if anybody twitted Nancy on her single condition , she could point triumphantly to those two as evidence that `` she could an she would . ''
as for from if in of over than that to