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 33

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the high window (begin subscript)^(end subscript)(begin superscript)and fluttered in the vagrant breezes.(end superscript) were of pale green art muslin. The walls, hung not with gold and silver brocade tapestry, but with a dainty apple-blossom paper, were adorned with a few good pictures given Anne by Mrs. Allan. Miss Stacy’s photograph occupied the place of honour, (begin subscript)^(end subscript)(begin superscript)D18(end superscript) There was no “mahogany furniture” but there was a white painted book-case filled with books, a cushioned wicker rocker, a toilet-table befrilled with white muslin, a quaint, gilt-framed mirror with chubby pink cupids (begin subscript)^(end subscript)(begin superscript)and purple grapes(end superscript) painted over its arched top, that used to hang in the spare room, and a low white bed.

Anne was dressing for a concert at the White Sands Hotel. The guests had got it up in aid of

 

LMM Notes

LMM Note D18
and Anne made a sentimental point of keeping fresh flowers on the bracket under it. Tonight a spike of white lilies faintly perfumed the room like the dream of a fragrance.


TEXT ANNOTATION

"art muslin": According to Household Sewing and Dressmaking (1898), art muslin "is a thin, coarse Indian muslin, painted in elaborate designs, but seldom used as dress material," something like sheer voile curtains today. Dress muslin was a bit thicker.

PHOTO ANNOTATION

photo of a cozy bedroom corner with a side table and desk, many portraits on the walls, and a rug

"There was no 'mahogany furniture'": The changes in Anne's bedroom are emblematic of the changes in the Cuthbert household itself, with attention to comfort and beauty as well as usefulness. Anne had longed for those fine furnishings, but it is clear in her contentedness that she did not need them.

Montgomery loved her summer-time upstairs bedroom in the Macneill house in Cavendish, where she wrote much of Anne.
Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph, L.M. Montgomery Collection