`` I 'm so glad you 're here , Anne , '' said Miss Lavendar , nibbling at her candy . `` If you were n't I should be blue ... very blue ... almost navy blue . Dreams and make-believes are all very well in the daytime and the sunshine , but when dark and storm come they fail to satisfy . One wants real things then . But you do n't know this ... seventeen never knows it . At seventeen dreams DO satisfy because you think the realities are waiting for you further on . When I was seventeen , Anne , I did n't think forty-five would find me a white-haired little old maid with nothing but dreams to fill my life . '' `` But you are n't an old maid , '' said Anne , smiling into Miss Lavendar 's wistful woodbrown eyes . `` Old maids are BORN ... they do n't BECOME . '' `` Some are born old maids , some achieve old maidenhood , and some have old maidenhood thrust upon them , '' parodied Miss Lavendar whimsically . `` You are one of those who have achieved it then , '' laughed Anne , `` and you 've done it so beautifully that if every old maid were like you they would come into the fashion , I think . '' `` 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 XXXXX 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 .
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