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 7

107

at once. Plainly there was no time to be lost.(begin strikethrough)”(end strikethrough)

“You must say your prayers while you are under my roof, Anne.”

“Why, of course, if you want me to,” assented Anne cheerfully. “I’d do anything to oblige you. But you’ll have to tell me what to say for this once.(begin strikethrough)”(end strikethrough) X3

“You must kneel down,” said Marilla in embarrassment.

Anne knelt at Marilla’s knee and looked up gravely. Y3

(begin strikethrough)”(end strikethrough)Well, I’m ready. What am I to say?”

Marilla felt more embarrassed than ever. She had intended to teach Anne the childish classic, “Now I lay me down to sleep.” But she had, as I have told you, the glimmerings of a sense of humour—which is simply another name for a sense

 

LMM Notes

LMM Note X3*
after I get into bed I'll imagine out a real nice prayer to say always. I believe that will be quite interesting now that I come to think of it."

LMM Note Y3*
"Why must people kneel down to pray. If I really wanted to pray I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd go out into a great big field all alone or into the deep deep woods and I'd look up into the sky—up—up—up—into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blue-ness. And then I'd just feel a prayer[.](begin strikethrough)"(end strikethrough)



TEXT ANNOTATION

"Now I lay me down to sleep": A version of this children's prayer appeared in 18(begin superscript)th(end superscript)-century primers: "Now I lay me down to sleep, / I pray the Lord my soul to keep. / If I should die before I wake, / I pray the Lord my soul to take."

TEXT ANNOTATION

"as I have told you": One of the rare times in the novel when the narrator slips into first person, this time to remind us of the "glimmerings" of Marilla's sense of humour.