Chester had been born to her at an age when most women are letting their children slip from them into the world , with some natural tears and heartaches , but content to let them go , after enjoying their sweetest years . Thyra 's late-come motherhood was all the more intense and passionate because of its very lateness . She had been very ill when her son was born , and had lain helpless for long weeks , during which other women had tended her baby for her . She had never been able to forgive them for this . Her husband had died before Chester was a year old . She had laid their son in his dying arms and received him back again with a last benediction . To Thyra that moment had something of a sacrament in it . It was as if the child had been doubly given to her , with a right to him solely that nothing could take away or transcend . Marrying ! She had never thought of it in connection with him . He did not come of a marrying race . His father had been sixty when he had married her , Thyra Lincoln , likewise well on in life . Few of the Lincolns or Carewes had married young , many not at all . And , to her , Chester was her baby still . He belonged solely to her . And now another woman had dared to look upon him with eyes of love . Damaris Garland ! Thyra now remembered seeing her . She was a new-comer in Avonlea , having come to live with her uncle and aunt after the death of her mother . Thyra had met her on the bridge one day a month previously .
Yes , a man might think she was pretty -- a low-browed girl , with a wave XXXXX reddish-gold hair , and crimson lips blossoming out against the strange , milk-whiteness of her skin .
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