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 8

115

and we will try to do right by you. You must go to school; but it’s only a fortnight till vacation, so it isn’t worth while for you to start before it opens again in September.”

“What am I to call you?” asked Anne. (begin subscript)^(end subscript)(begin superscript)”Shall I always say Miss Cuthbert?(end superscript) Can I call call you Aunt Marilla?”

“No; you’ll call me just plain Marilla. I’m not used to being called Miss Cuthbert and it would make me nervous.”

“It sounds awfully disrespectful to say just Marilla,” protested Anne.

“I guess there’ll be nothing disrespectful in it if you’re careful to speak respectfully. Everybody, young and old, in Avonlea calls me Marilla except the minister. He says Miss Cuthbert—when he thinks of it.”


TEXT ANNOTATION

"calls me Marilla": Marilla might have been "just plain Marilla," but Montgomery was known as "Maud" to close friends and family, "L.M. Montgomery" as a public figure, and "Mrs. Rev. Ewan Macdonald." A woman's name(s) could say a lot about her place in society.