It seems the time of year when romance is in the air and all of Avonlea society is atwitter with the gossip of whom is pairing up with whom! Of course, as the esteemed Mrs. Rachel Lynde is known to expound, “when your heart skips a beat, it isn’t love, it’s indigestion,” so perhaps you should take the following with a grain of salt, reader. Although it is a well known fact that in each chin wag of gossip, there is a whisper of truth.
Could the King family soon be expecting joyous felicitations? Reliable sources have informed us that Mr. Gus Pike, lately promoted to Assistant Manager of the White Sands Hotel, escorted Miss Felicity King to dinner where he asked for her hand. The two seemed to finish the dinner on tense terms, with the aforementioned Miss King abruptly standing from the table and quitting the scene. Mr. Pike left Avonlea soon after for parts unknown, but sources say they witnessed the two embrace before Mr. Pike took his leave in the local coach. This publication has not been tasked to print the banns, nor have either party made comment. Miss King has lately declared her intention to attend Medical School and one wonders, reader, if she has set herself up for spinsterhood in the stead of marriage.
It would seem the King family has made themselves the focal point of Avonlea scrutiny. Miss Sara Stanley, niece of indomitable schoolmarm Hetty King, has lately been seen in the company of Mr. Booth Elliot, son of Avonlea’s new Minister. The Minister’s arrival has of course set Avonlea’s most notable gossips’ tongues wagging-one cannot help noticing the stir the Minister’s wife, Viola Elliot, has caused, nor the rag-time tendencies of his son Mr. Booth Elliot. Sources say that Mr. Elliot often calls on Miss Stanley, and a reliable source has told us, reader, that the connection between the two began with “godless social dancing,” in Ms. Hetty King’s own sitting room. Mr. Booth and Miss Stanley have been spotted together at various social outings, including this past week at the town ice skating social. Neither party has chosen to comment, but it is the opinion of this publication that a love connection may have been formed.
In an aside to the amorous connections that have lately occurred in Avonlea- sources have also spotted Mr. Clive Pettibone attending to Ms. Muriel Stacey at the ice skating social- it would seem the aforementioned Mrs. Viola Booth and the King Family matriarch, Mrs. Janet King, absconded with Ms. Muriel Stacey’s Motor Car and took a scandalous, and apparently liquor induced, ride through the snow filled streets of Avonlea. Upon crashing the car, sources say Mrs. Elliot joyfully declared “that’s one way to get it to stop,” and that Mrs. King’s own family is astonished by her “teener” behaviour, and insist she was unaware that she had imbibed. Perhaps Mrs. Elliot and Mrs.King are not entirely to blame for their afternoon jaunt and it is indeed the fault of the demon liquor, whether knowingly consumed or not.
