Dear Father, Cecilia wrote one blustery September afternoon, staring out the windows at the dripping rain and grateful for the comfort of Judah, who was competing with her pen and paper for space on her lap. She was finding that writing the letter was very hard going-- she was used to writing self-censored letters to Mother, but this was the first time in her life that she didn't tell Father everything.

There's no Indian summer for us this year, Dad. The last week of August was perfectly wonderful-- we all expected it to never end. But the first of September dawned cool and rainy and it hasn't stopped raining since. That means no more visits to the shore this year. My lovely tan has already faded and I'm getting to be as pale as ever again. Except Joy did point out that I seem to be more freckled than usual. Auntie Rilla heard her though and chucked her arm around me and said to Joy, haughtily, that the Blythe girls are prized for their freckles. Aunt Rilla is simply covered in them, and she explained that they were the bane of her existence at my age. Sometimes I really do believe that Aunt Rilla is still my age at heart. We're always chatting together on the sofa at Ingleside in the afternoons and I like talking to her as much as I do Trudy or Leslie or Bertie or Cathy Douglas.

What Cecilia did not write was that she had spent far more of her afternoons away from Ingleside in recent weeks. Sid had not been telling tales when he said that Silver Bush was just a hop, skip and jump away from the Glen. And because he was already sixteen, his father let him use the car. He'd whisked Cecilia over to Silver Bush four times and found it almost as lovely as Ingleside. When she said as much to Sid's sister, Pat, the older girl laughed and said,

"I suppose you think there's no place on earth sweeter than your Ingleside?"

"There isn't," Cecilia insisted.

Pat Gardiner's impish, elfin face had dimpled and she said, "Cecilia Blythe, I think we are going to get along just fine. You're by far the nicest one of Sid's girls."

Did Sid have a lot of other girls? For some reason this rankled in Cecilia's heart. And was she even Sid's girl? They had been to the cinemas, and to the soda shoppe on some afternoons, and her heart thrilled when Sid smiled his lopsided smile at her and reached for her hand. But he hadn't tried to kiss her at all. Surely if he liked her as much as she liked him-- if she really and truly was his girl-- he would have tried to kiss her? But of course she couldn't write to Father about all that. She should be able to, but she just couldn't. Cecilia scratched her black head and tried to think of something else to write, to fill up the interminably blank space on her letterhead.

School has started and I'm doing very well, as I'm sure Grandmother has told you. They are all in a tizzy over me winning the History essay. That was after your letter came about Leslie being ill with the croup, and I was so distraught that I just rewrote an essay I did last year for Miss. Branston's world geography class. I was too worried to write a new one. When Mrs. Jane found out that we had already covered this topic last year she looked at me in a funny way and asked me a few more questions, not just about history, but literature and math, too. Then she said that she had to talk a few things over with the rest of the board, but she thought I should move up a grade, since I was so advanced. Grandmother and Grandfather were so proud-- and all of the aunts and uncles, and even Mary Vance. But I shocked them all by refusing. I like my classmates. I like my teachers. I'd much rather stay where I am, and I hope you won't be disappointed at my lack of ambition.

Cecilia had another reason for not wanting to move up. Joy was a year ahead of her. Cecilia could not bear to be in the same classes with Joy. At school Joy was one of the older girls and terribly popular and admired by all. Once the other girls in her clique had found out that she had no liking for her short, slight, quiet cousin, they all had immediately written Cecilia off. But she didn't care.

"If they are the kind of people who would prefer Joyce over me, I don't want to associate with them anyway," she had written in a letter to Leslie, and Leslie had heartily agreed.

She wasn't unhappy, despite not being popular at school. She never had been at home. She had her own group of girls: Trudy, and Cathy and Nell Douglas, and a few others who were all in her grade. Cecilia was popular enough among them. She was such fun once you knew her-- and the best at acting out plays and singing and skating. Though Cecilia wished at times that they would think of her as an Island girl, instead of a stranger from Montreal. She had been born here, after all.

That reminds me, Dad-- thanks for the lovely new coat! Peacoats haven't come into being the rage here, yet-- only a few girls have them and none of them have a lovely blue velvet one like me. Aunt Rilla's been teaching me to knit and I've made the most adorable cream colored tam to go with it. When I wear it out, with my new patent leather shoes, I feel like the most sophisticated girl alive. I'm sure that I could fit right in if I ever was to visit New York. Please thank Aunt Persis for helping you choose these things for me-- I know you didn't-- you'd still have me in pinafores if you could. You are so good to me, Dad.

That was enough so that the page didn't look so empty. Cecilia signed her name with big, loopy letters and added a row of kisses and the page was quite filled. She had a momentary pang-- she felt guilty for not wanting to write more-- but then was distracted by a whoop from the driveway. Sid had come for her--they were going into town-- she must go.

"I thought we are going into town," Cecilia said to Sid once he had driven in the opposite to the Shore Road.

"I thought we might go to Silver Bush instead," Sid said. "There is something I want to show you. You look so cute in that sweater, Cee-- like a little bluebird. You should always wear something that color, you know."

Cecilia thrilled at his compliments and made a mental note to do just that.

"Well, what is it you want to show me?" she laughed, wriggling in delight.

"Secret," said Sid cryptically and drove on.

They were hustled into the warm Silver Bush kitchen by the wonderful Judy Plum, who made them take a glass of milk to put color in their cheeks and made them take two slices of pie each-- though Cecilia could only finish one and half of the other.

"Sure, and that's the way you can be telling she's a lady," said Judy approvingly. "Never trust a girl with too big an appetate, Siddy. I'm glad to see ye're getting some sense in your age--the Blythes are terrible good women-- and Susan Baker taught the Ingleside girls how to run their kitchens. No doubt they've passed it on to the children. There won't be any waste there, not like with the Binnies. And ye've got the daintiest hands, Cecilia darlint--like Connemara marble. Yes, Sid me boy, this one will be making you a good wife, D.V. "

"Judy," Sid pleaded helplessly, his cheeks red.

"Oh, oh, and I've embarrassed ye, have I?" said the mischevous Judy. "Never be forgetting, Siddy, that I knew ye when you were in daypers. Oh, and oh, the stories I could tell!"

At that Sid pulled Cecilia out of the kitchen.

It was a shame to go out into the chill of the afternoon-- the sun had come out for a bit but the sky was still heavy and gray. Silver Bush was such a nice, loving place. Cecilia loved the Gardiners-- they were far quieter and more restful than the Ingleside folk. Mrs. Gardiner with her soft gray hair and even softer eyes--Long Alec Gardiner's full beard and easy smile-- the sweet questions of little Cuddles, the baby-- and the charming, piquant laughter of Pat as she ran in and out with her friend Jingle and his dog, McGinty.

Sid stopped her in front of a little path.

"What are you going to show me?" Cecilia asked.

Sid took her hand in his own-- Judy was right, they were such tiny, delicate hands. He said,

"I'm going to show you the Secret Field."

"The Secret Field!" Cecilia thrilled at the very name of it. "That sounds so charming, Sid-- I have the most wonderful picture of it in my mind, just from the way you said those words. But why is it a secret?"

"It's a secret between me and Pat," Sid said. "We swore we would never show it to anyone else-- but it's my favorite place on earth-- and I want to show it to you."

He did not kiss her, then, but he did not have to. His very look was a kiss. Cecilia trembled with the feeling of it. Through the spruces she could just see the glint of the sun on green, green grass, but she quickly turned her head away.

"Oh--Sid!" she said. "I--would so--like to see it, but don't you see that you can't show it to me? Pat would never forgive you-- and I wouldn't want to see it if it meant breeching a secret between you two. Secrets are such dear things, and--once broken" Quickly she told him of how betrayed she had felt when Blythe had showed Joy the house at Red Apple Farm.

Sid did kiss her, then. It was Cecilia's first kiss and she kept her blue eyes open the whole time, so that when Sid looked back up at her he saw his own feelings reflected there.

"You're a pearl of a girl, Cecilia Blythe," he said. "Wait right here and don't move. I'll be right back." Sid disappeared into the underbrush and Cecilia stood still as he had directed her and listened to the sweet sound of a mockingbird trilling high above in the trees.

When Sid came back his arms were laden with the last of the summer roses.

"If you can't come to the Secret Field," he said, laughing, and placing the flowers in her black hair, "Then the Secret Field must come to you."

Some time later, very much later that night, Cecilia lay in bed and thought her heart would burst if she couldn't tell someone about Sid. Sighing she got up and took out her pen and paper and began a letter to Leslie. But then sighed again and tore the paper into bits. She was not a writer, like Grandmother, or a poet, like Blythe. She could not put into her own words everything that made Sid so charming, and being with him so wonderful. Cecilia had a realization that Sid would have to be her own dear secret, and she lay back down, still feeling restless, but somehow more contented.

"Feeling that your heart is going to burst isn't pleasant," she murmured drowsily. "But oh--it isn't unpleasant, either!"