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 12

190

broken pieces of china that are out in the wood-shed? Diana is going Diana’s birthday is in February and mine is in March. Don’t you think that is a very strange coincidence? Diana is going to lend me a book to read. She says it’s very perfectly splendid and tremendjusly exciting. She’s going to show me a place back in the woods where rice lilies grow. Don’t you think Diana has got very soulful eyes? She is I wish I had soulful eyes. Diana is going to teach me to sing a song, ‘Nelly In The Hazel Dell.” She’s going to give me a picture to


TEXT ANNOTATION

"rice lilies": The editors of The Annotated Anne guess these may be wild lily-of-the-valley, which would be plentiful in the damp, low areas in the woods around Cavendish (p. 140). But "rice lilies" could be a colloquial name for something else.

TEXT ANNOTATION

"tremendjusly": On one hand, Montgomery is trying to capture Anne's excited, innocent pronunciation. But the phonetic spelling may also be reference to a favourite book of hers, A Bad Boy's Diary, by Little Georgie. The book was a comic diary of a young boy, written with his original spelling, and it inspired Montgomery to begin keeping her own diary. Learn more about the book in Christy Woster's article in The Shining Scroll.

TEXT ANNOTATION

"Nelly in the Hazel Dell" (1852): A popular song by George Frederick Root.