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

123

“Diana is a very pretty little girl. She has black eyes and hair and rosy cheeks. And she is good and smart which is better than being pretty.
N4
“Oh, I’m so glad she’s pretty. Next to being beautiful oneself (begin subscript)^(end subscript)(begin superscript)—and that’s impossible in my case, (end superscript)it would be best to have a beautiful bosom friend. When I lived with Mrs. Thomas she had a book-case  (begin subscript)^(end subscript)(begin superscript)in her sitting-room(end superscript) with glass doors. There weren’t any books in it; Mrs. Thomas kept her best china and preserves there(begin subscript)^(end subscript)(begin superscript)—when she had any preserves to keep. (end superscript)One of the doors was
O4
But the other was whole and I used to pretend that my reflection in it was another little girl who lived in it. I called her Katie Maurice (begin subscript)^(end subscript)(begin superscript)and we were very intimate. (end superscript)I used to talk to her by the hour (begin subscript)^(end subscript)(begin superscript)especially on Sunday(end superscript) and tell her everything. Katie was the comfort and consolation of my life. We used to pretend that the bookcase was enchanted

 

LMM Notes

LMM Note N4
Marilla was as fond of morals as the Duchess in Wonderland and was firmly convinced that one should be tacked on to every remark (begin strikethrough)made(end strikethrough) made to a child who was being brought up.

But Anne waved the moral inconsequently aside and seized only on the delightful possibilities before it.

LMM Note O4
Mr. Thomas smashed it one night when he was slightly intoxicated.


PHOTO ANNOTATION

ink sketch of a young, aproned Alice holding a flamingo croquet mallet next to the Duchess with exaggerated features

"Duchess in Wonderland" [in N4] refers to a rather irritatingly moralizing character in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). While Carroll does not describe any of the denizens of Wonderland in lengthy detail, John Tenniel's iconic illustrations, like this one, have come to define them.

TEXT ANNOTATION

"One of the doors was": The word "broken" is missing here but was added in the published text.

PHOTO ANNOTATION

black and white photo of the corner of a room with a lace-curtained window and central table, a glass-doored bookcase in the far corner

"book-case": As a child, Montgomery imagined (and talked to) Katie Maurice and Lucy Gray, who lived in the room reflected in the two oval glass doors of the bookcase in the Macneill sitting room, shown here in Montgomery's photograph. The bookcase is now on display in the parlour of the Anne of Green Gables Museum in Park Corner, P.E.I.
Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph, L.M. Montgomery Collection