Warning: If you have a visual impairment, use the manuscript transcript version including the Lucy Maud Montgomery’s foot notes and contextual annotation references.

Chapter 10

164

pray right now and not find it a bit hard.”

Something warm and pleasant welled up in Marilla’s heart at touch of that thin little hand in her own. Its very —a throb of the maternity she had missed perhaps. Its very unaccustomedness and sweetness disturbed her. She hastened to restore her sensations to their normal calm by inculcating a moral.

“If you’ll be a good girl you’ll always be happy, Anne. And you should never find it hard to say your prayers.”

“Saying one’s prayers is different isn’t exactly the same thing as praying,” said Anne meditatively. “But I’m going to imagine that I’m the wind that is blowing up there in


TEXT ANNOTATION

"Saying one's prayers isn't exactly the same thing as praying": The profound depth of this comment might pass right over younger readers, but it helps to account for the power of the novel to speak to readers of all ages and to accompany them, through re-reading, all their lives.