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 25

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vanity, Matthew, and she’s as vain as a peacock now. Well, I hope she’ll be satisfied at last, for I know she’s been hankering after those silly sleeves ever since they came in, although she never said a word after the first.” A15  

Christmas morning broke on a beautiful white world. It had been a very mild December and people had looked forward to a green Christmas; but just enough snow fell softly in the night to transfigure Avonlea. Anne peeped out from her (begin subscript)^(end subscript)(begin superscript)frosted(end superscript) gable window with delighted eyes. The firs in the Haunted Wood were all feathery and wonderful; the birches and wild cherry-trees were outlined in pearl; (begin subscript)^(end subscript)(begin superscript)B15(end superscript) and there was a crisp tang in the air that was glorious. Anne ran downstairs singing, until her voice re-echoed through Green Gables[.]

“Merry Christmas, Marilla! Merry Merry Christmas, Matthew! Isn’t it a

 

LMM Notes

LMM Note A15
The puffs have been getting bigger and more ridiculous right along; they're as big as balloons now. Next year anybody who wears them will have to go through a door sideways.

LMM Note B15
the ploughed fields were stretches of snowy dimples[.]


TEXT ANNOTATION

"getting bigger and more ridiculous" [in A15]: A short article on "Fashion Hints" in the Charlottetown Daily Examiner (February 26, 1896), notes that "Sleeves are showing many changes. They are less stiff and more graceful, but as yet there is no change in the amount of space they occupy."

PHOTO ANNOTATION

a snowy country scene with a fence running up through the trees

"just enough snow": Montgomery's photo of a "Winter view of Lover's Lane."
Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph, L.M. Montgomery Collection