Well, I'm not going to moon out here in the dew any longer.
I'm going in to read the smartest, frilliest, frothiest society
novel in my trunk."
In the week that followed Nancy enjoyed herself after her own fashion.
She read and swung in the garden, having a hammock hung under the firs.
She went far afield, in rambles to woods and lonely uplands.
"I like it much better than meeting people," she said,
when Louisa suggested going to see this one and that one,
"especially the Avonlea people. All my old chums are gone,
or hopelessly married and changed, and the young set who have come
up know not Joseph, and make me feel uncomfortably middle-aged.
It's far worse to feel middle-aged than old, you know.
Away there in the woods I feel as eternally young as Nature herself.
And oh, it's so nice not having to fuss with thermometers
and temperatures and other people's whims. Let me indulge my
own whims, Louisa dear, and punish me with a cold bite when I
come in late for meals. I'm not even going to church again.
It was horrible there yesterday. The church is so offensively
spick-and-span brand new and modern."
"It's thought to be the prettiest church in these parts,"
protested Louisa, a little sorely.
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