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 14

215

every door and window.(begin subscript)^(end subscript)(begin superscript)R7(end superscript) The birches in the hollow waved joyful hands as if watching for Anne’s usual morning greeting from the east gable. But Anne was not at her window. When Marilla took her breakfast up to her she found the child sitting primly on her bed, pale and resolute, with tight-shut lips and gleaming eyes.

“Marilla, I’m ready to confess.”

“Ah!” Marilla laid down her tray. Once again her method had succeeded, but her success was very bitter to her. “Let me hear what you have to say then, Anne.”

“I took the amethyst brooch,” said Anne, (begin subscript)^(end subscript)(begin superscript)as if repeating a lesson she had learned.(end superscript)”I took it just as you said. I didn’t mean to take it when I went in. But it did look so beautiful, Marilla, when I pinned

 

LMM Notes

LMM Note R7
and wandered through halls and rooms like spirits of benediction.


TEXT ANNOTATION

"as if repeating a lesson she had learned.": Schooling at the time meant a great deal of rote memorization. So Anne is telling her story as if she "learned" or rehearsed it thoroughly. Both Anne and Montgomery had great talents for memorizing long passages.