Verso Pages
These back-of-page seemingly random, out-of-order scrap pieces are drafts of Montgomery’s early short stories and poems. Some were already published when she drafted Anne in 1905 and 1906, and others were probably typed up and kept elsewhere. Some verso scrap sheets show early experiments: “A Baking of Gingersnaps” (1895) was her first published short story; she tests the pen names Maud Cavendish and Maud Eglinton. After Chapter 15, she started writing Anne front-to-back. Why did she switch from scrap pages to fresh sheets?
View an index of the verso contents here, or explore the full collection of Verso pages below:
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all. Prissy gave one scared, appealing look at Emmeline and then said, “No, thank you, not to-night.” Stephen just turned on his heel and went. He was a high-spirited fellow and I knew he would never overlook a public slight like that. If he had had as much sense as he ought to have had he would have known that Emmeline was at the bottom of it; but he didn’t, and he began going to see Althea Gillis, and they were married the next year. Althea was a820705 31
self-consciousness, eating his supper like a man whose heart and mind were alike on good terms with him. Nancy felt wretched – and at the same time ridiculously happy. It seemed the most grotesque thing in the world that she should be presiding there at Peters table, and yet the most natural. There were moments when she felt like crying – other moments when her laughter was as ready and spontaneous as a girl’s. Sentiment and humour had always waged an equal contest in Nancy’s nature.
When Peter had finished his strawberries he folded his arms on the table and looked admiringly at Nancy.
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and found herself in the yard of the Wright farm!
Passing the house – the house where she had once dreamed of reigning as mistress – Nancy’s curiosity overcame her. Four Winds was not in The place was not in view of any other near house. She deliberately went up to it, intending – low be it spoken – to peep in at the kitchen window. But seeing the door wide open, she went to it instead and halted on the step, looking about her keenly.
The kitchen was certainly pitiful in its disorder. The floor had apparently not been swept for a fortnight. On the bare deal table were the remnants of Peter’s dinner, a meal that could not have been very tempting at
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should paste himself up against the church door. Theodora would come out as usual, and he would join her as she went past the corner.
This was what happened; Theodora came down the steps, her stately figure outlined in its darkness against the gush of lamplight from the porch. Arnold Sherman asked her if he might see her home. Theodora took his arm calmly, and together they swept past the stupefied Ludovic, who stood helplessly gazing after them as if unable to believe his eyes.
For a few moments he stood there limply; then he started down
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fond of company and conversation. To be sure, when you have talked to nobody but yourself for nearly twenty years it is apt to grow somewhat monotonous; and there were times when the Old Lady would have sacrificed everything but her pride for a little human companionship. At such times she felt very bitter and resentful towards fate for having taken everything from her. She had nothing to love, and that is about as unwholesome condition as is possibl possible to anyone.
It was always hardest on the spring. Once upon a time the Old Lady – when she had not been an Old Lady, but pretty, wilful, high-spirited Margaret Lloyd – had loved spring; now she hated
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main road in a different direction, but this “back lane” furnished a short cut and his children always went to school that way.
The Old Lady shrank hastily back behind a clump clump of young spruces. She did not like the Spencer children because they always seemed so afraid of her. Through the spruce screen she could see them coming gaily down the lane – the two older ones in front, the twins behind, clinging to the hands of a tall, slim, young girl – the new music teacher probably. The Old Lady had heard from the egg pedlar that she was going to board at the William Spencer’s, but she had not heard her name.
She looked at her with some curiosity
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in a dream. Crooked Jack was delving vigorously in the garden; ordinarily the Old Lady did not talk much with Crooked Jack, for she disliked his weakness for gossip; but now she went into the garden, a stately old figure in her purple, gold-spotted silk, with the sunshine gleaming on her white hair.
Crooked Jack had seen her go out and had remarked to himself that the Old Lady was losing ground; she was pale and peaked-looking. He now concluded that he had been mistaken. The Old Lady’s cheeks were pink and her eyes shining. Somewhere in her walk she had shed ten years at least. Crooked Jack leaned on his spade and decided that there
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in the beech hollow.
“His daughter! And she might have been my daughter,” murmere murmured the Old Lady. “Oh, if I could only know her and love her – and perhaps win her love in return! But I cannot. I could not have Leslie Gray’s daughter know how poor I am – how low I have been brought. I could not bear that. And to think she is living so near me, the darling – just up the lane and over the hill. I can see her go by every day – I can have that dear pleasure at least. But oh, if I could only do something for her – give her some little pleasure! It would be a delight.”
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time a more insistent voice than pride spoke to her soul – and for the first time the Old Lady listened to it. It was too true that she had never gone to church since the day on which she had to begin wearing her mother’s silk dresses. The Old Lady herself thought that this was very wicked; and she tried to atone by keeping Sunday very strictly, and always having a little service of her own, morning and evening. She sang three hymns in her cracked voice, prayed aloud, and read a sermon. But she could not bring herself to go to church in her out-of-date clothes – she, who had once set the fashions in Spencervale; and the longer she stayed away the
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forgot the reception the Old Lady gave her; but, being wise in her day and generation, she left her card, she saying that if Miss Lloyd ever changed her mind about selling the jug she would find that she, the aforesaid collector, had not changed hers about buying it. People who make a lobby of heirloom china must meekly overlook snubs, and this particular person had never seen anything she coveted so much as that grape jug.
The Old Lady had torn the card to pieces; but she remembered the name and address. She went to the cupboard and took down the beloved jug.
“I never thought to part with it,” she said wistfully, “but Sylvia
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Presently she resolutely put Andrew Cameron out of her mind. It was desecration to think of him and Sylvia together. When she laid her weary head on her pillow that night she was so happy that even the thought of the vacant shelf in the room below, where the grape jug had always been, gave her only a momentary pang.
“It’s sweet to sacrifice for one we love – it’s sweet to have someone to sacrifice for,” thought the Old Lady.
Desire grows by what it feeds on. The Old Lady thought she was content, but Friday evening came and found her in a perfect fever to see see Sylvia in her party dress. It was not enough to fancy her in it; nothing would do the Old Lady
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she might pinch and contrive. Old Lady Lloyd worried quite absurdly over this, and it haunted her like a spectre until the next Sewing Circle day.
It met at Mrs. Moore’s, and Mrs. Moore was especially gracious to Old Lady Lloyd, and insisted on her taking the wicker rocker in the parlor. The Old Lady would rather have been in the sitting room with the young girls, but she submitted for courtesy’s sake – and she had her reward. Her chair was just behind the parlor door, and presently Janet Moore and Sylvia Gray came and sat on the stairs in the hall outside, where a cool breeze blew
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closet.
Into the Old Lady’s white face came a sudden faint stain of color, as if a rough hand had struck her cheek.
“Yes, I’ve heard of him,” she said.
“Well, it seems that he had a daughter, who was a very beautiful girl, and whom he idolized. She had a fine voice, and he was going to send her abroad to have it trained. But And she died. It nearly broke his heart, I understand. But ever since he sends one young girl away to Europe every year for a thorough musical education under the best teachers – in memory of his daughter. He has sent nine or ten already; but I fear there isn’t much chance for Sylvia
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victimized him.
Andrew Cameron had not quite done this; he had meant well enough by his uncle at first; and what he had finally done he tried to justify to himself by the doctrine that a man must look out for Number One.
Margaret Lloyd made no such excuses for him; she held him responsible, not only for her lost fortune, but for her fathers death and never forgave him for it. When Abraham Lloyd had died, Andrew Cameron, perhaps pricked by his conscience, had come to her, sleekly and smoothly, to offer his financial aid. He would see, he told her, that she never suffered want.
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manse, came running down the slope from the direction of the Old Lloyd place. Teddy’s freckled face was very pale.
“Oh, Miss Gray,” he gasped, “I guess Old Lady Lloyd has gone clean crazy at last. The minister’s wife asked me to run up to the Old Lady, with a message about the Sewing Circle – and I knocked – and nobody came – so I thought I’d just step in and leave the letter on the table. But when I opened the door I heard an awful queer laugh in the sitting room and next minute the Old Lady came to the sitting room door. Oh, Miss Gray, she looked awful. Her face was red and her eyes awful wild – and she was muttering and
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Nothing could give him greater pleasure than to grant grant his dear cousin Margaret’s request – he only wished it involved more trouble on his part. Her little protege should have her musical education assuredly – she should go abroad next year — and he was de-lighted—
“Thank you,” said the Old Lady, cutting him short again. “I am much obliged to you – and I ask you not to let Miss Gray know anything of my interference. And I shall not take up any more of your valuable time. Good – afternoon.”
“Oh, you mustn’t go so soon,” he said, with some real kindness or clannishness permeating the
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hands with him, for Sylvia’s sake she sat down in the chair he offered. But for no living human being’s sake could this determined Old Lady infuse any cordiality into her manner or her words. She went straight to the point with Lloyd simplicity.
“I have come to ask a favor of you,” she said, looking him in the eye, not at all humbly or mee meekly, as became a suppliant, but challengingly an challengingly and defiantly, as if she dared him to refuse.
“De-lighted to hear it, Cousin Margaret.” Never was anything so bland and gracious as his tone. “Anything I can do for
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her ticket thought Old Lady Lloyd looked uncommonly white and peaked – “as if she hadn’t slept a wink or eaten a bite for a week,” he told his wife at dinner time. “Guess there’s something wrong in her business affairs. This is the second time she’d gone to town this summer.”
When the Old Lady reached the town she ate the slender little lunch and then walked out to the suburb where the Cameron factories and warehouses were. It was a long walk for her, but she could not afford to drive. She felt very tired when she was shown into the shining, luxurious office where Andrew Cameron sat at his desk.
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“What a delicious thing he is playing! He has quite a gift for the violin. But how can he play such a thing as that — a battered old hulk of a man who has, at one time or another, wallowed in almost every sin to which human nature can sink? He was on one of his sprees three days ago – the first one for over a year — lying dead drunk in the market square in Charlottetown among the dogs; and now he is playing something that only a young archangel on the hills of heaven ought to be able to play. Well, it will make my task all the easier. Abel is always repentant by the time
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along the path where the red and golden maple leaves were falling very softly, one by one. The Reverend Andrew Stephen Leonard heard it, as he came along the way; and the Reverend Stephen Leonard smiled. Now, when Stephen Leonard smiled, children ran to him, and grown people as if they looked from Pisgah over to some fair land of promise beyond the fret and worry of their care-dimmed earthly lives.
Mr. Leonard loved music, as he loved all things beautiful, whether in the material or ^the spiritual world, though he did not realize how much he loved them for their
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grandfather, it isn’t Abel’s fault. I came over here on purpose to play, because I thought you had gone to the harbor. I have come here often, ever since I have lived with you.”
“Ever since you lived with me you have been deceiving me like this, Felix?”
There was no anger in Mr. Leonard’s tone – only measureless sorrow. The boy’s sensitive lips quivered.
“Forgive me, grandfather,” he whispered beseechingly.
“You never forbid him to come,” old Abel broke in angrily. “Be just, Mr. Leonard – be just.”
“I am just. Felix knows that
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reach her before the end. Her body was taken home to be buried beside her mother in the little Lends Carmody churchyard. Mr. Leonard wished to have take the child, but Martin Moore refused to give him up.
Six years later Moore, too, died, and at last Mr. Leonard had his heart’s desire – the possession of Margaret’s son. The grandfather awaited the child’s coming with mingled feelings. His ye, heart yearned for him, yet he dreaded to meet a second edition of Martin Moore. Suppose Margaret’s son resembled his handsome vagabond of a father! Or, worse
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her very spirit again. From that moment the soul of the old man was knit to the soul of the child, and they loved each other with a love surpassing that of women.
Felix’s only inheritance from his father was his love of music. The But the child had genius, where his father had possessed only talent. To Martin Moore’s technical outward mastery of the violin was added the mystery and intensity of his mothers nature, with some more sub subtle quality still, which had perhaps come to him from the grandmother he so strongly resembled. Moore had understood
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school she could not and would not be held responsible if he learned more there than arithmetic and Latin.
“What do you know of Naomi Clark to like or dislike?” she asked curiously. “Did you ever see her?”
“Oh, yes,” Felix replied, addressing himself to his cherry preserve with considerable gusto. “I was down at Spruce Cove one night last summer when a big thunderstorm came up. I went to Naomi’s house for shelter, The door was open, so I walked right in, because nobody answered my back. Naomi Clark
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except Mr. Leonard, who went to expostulate with Naomi, and, as Rachel Janet said, for his pains got her door shut in his face.
But from the day when Maggie Peterson went to live with her, Naomi ceased to be the harbour Magdalen.
VI
The sun had set when Mr. Leonard reached Spruce Cove, and the harbour was veiling itself in a wonderous twilight splendour. Afar out, the sea lay throbbing and purple and the moan of the bar came through the sweet, chill spring air with its burden of hopeless, endless longing and seeking. The sky was blossoming
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on the mysteries of the Trinity.
“Christ died for you, Naomi. He bore your sins in His own body on the cross.“
“We bear our own sins,“ said Naomi fiercely. “I’ve borne mine all my life – and I’ll bear them for all eternity. I can’t believe anything else. I can’t believe God can forgive me. I’ve ruined people body and soul – I’ve broken hearts and poisoned homes – I’m worse than a murderess. No – no – no, there’s no hope for me.“ Her voice rose again into that shrill, intolerable shriek. “I’ve got to go to hell. It aint so much the fire I’m skeered of as the outer darkness. I’ve always been so
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of many a soul, were naught save idle, empty words to Naomi Clark. In his anguish of mind Stephen Leonard gasped out the briefest and sincerest prayer his lips had ever uttered.
“O, God, our Father! Help this woman. Speak to her in a tongue which she can understand.”
VII
A beautiful, white face appeared for a moment in the light that streamed out of the doorway into the darkness of the night. No one noticed it, and it quickly drew back into the shadow. Suddenly Naomi fell back on her pillow, her lips blue, her face horribly panicked,
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poignancy. But on the dying woman’s face was only a strange relief as if some dumb, long-hidden pain had at last won to the healing of utterance.
The sullen indifference of despair came next, the bitterness of smoldering revolt and misery, the reckless casting away of all good. There was something indescribably evil in the music now – so evil that Mr. Leonard’s white soul shuddered away in loathing, and Maggie cowered and whined like a frightened animal.
Again the music changed. And in it now there was agony and fear – and repentance and a cry for pardon. For Mr. Leonard there was something
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forgive my baby if she’d lived, no matter how bad she was, or what she did. The minister told me that but I couldn’t believe it. I know it now. And He sent you here tonight, boy, to tell it to me in a way that I could feel it.“
VIII
Naomi Clark died just as the dawn came up over the sea. Mr. Leonard rose from his watch at her bedside and went to the door. Before him spread the harbor, gray and austere in the faint light, but afar out the sun was rending asunder the milk-white mists in which the sea was scarfed, and under it was a virgin glow of sparkling water.
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going to bring her out here as soon I can, never saying a word. I’ll fetch her though the spruce lane, and when we come to the end of the path I’ll step back, casual-like, and let her go out from under the trees alone, never suspecting. It’ll be worth ten times the trouble to see her big, brown eyes open wide and hear her say, ‘Oh, daddy! Why, daddy!’“
He rubbed his hands again and laughed softly to himself. He was a tall, bent old man, whose hair was snow-white; but whose face was fresh and rosy. His eyes were a boy’s eyes, large, blue, and merry, and his mouth had never got
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“with no advantages and no education,“ said Mrs. Adair scornfully, not understanding that wisdom and knowledge are two entirely different things.
“At least let me give my dear sister’s child what I would have given my own daughter if I had had one,“ she pleaded tearfully. “Let me take her with me and send her to a good school for a few years. Then, if she wishes, she may come back to you, of course.“
Privately, Mrs. Adair did not for a moment believe that Sara would want to come back to
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sea sparkling and crinkling down at the foot of the green slope, he reflected with satisfaction that all was in perfect order. There was nothing left to do save count the hours until that beautiful, longed-for day after tomorrow. He gave himself over to a reverie, as sweet as a day-dream in a haunted valley.
The red roses were out in bloom. Sara had ^always loved those red roses. They were as vivid as herself, with all her own fulness of life and joy of living. And besides these, a miracle had happened in Old Man Shaw’s garden. The one corner was a Sat Scstch
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with a rich dusky sort of darkness, suggestive of the bloom on purple plums, or the glow of deep red apples among bronze leaves. Her big brown eyes lingered on everything in sight, and little gurgles of sound now and again came through her parted lips, as if inarticulate joy were thus expressing itself.
At the garden gate she saw the bent figure on the old bench, and the next minute she was flying along the rose walk.
“Daddy!“ she called, “Daddy!“
Old Man Shaw stood up in hasty bewilderment; then a pair of girlish arms were about
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tiful deeds to admire; but – she wound her arm about his neck and laid her cheek against his – “there was no daddy!“
And Old Man Reeves Shaw looked silently at the sunset – or, rather, through the sunset to still grander and more radiant splendours beyond, of which the things seen were only the pale reflections, not worthy of attention from those who had the gift of further sight.
————– ——————
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sat down on the bench beneath the window.
“There’s Marthy Blair with the Garland baby,“ said Robert Lawson to Pa. “I’d like to know what’s to become of that poor young one.”
“Aint there any of the father’s or mother’s folks to take him?“ asked Pa.
“No. Horace had no relatives that anybody ever herd of. Mrs. Horace had a brother; but he went to Manitoba years ago, and nobody knows where hi he is now. Somebody’l Somebody’ll have to take the baby and nobody seems anxious to. I’ve
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“As if there was going to be a funeral in the house,“ sniffed Peggy.
Peggy and I were up in the south-west room at dusk that evening, piecing a quilt when we heard Mr. Malcolm MacPherson shouting out in the hall below to know if anyone was home. I ran out to the landing, but as I did so Aunt Olivia came out of her room, brushed past me, and flitted downstairs.
“Mr. MacPherson,“ I heard her say, with double-distilled primness, “will you please come into the parlor? I have something to say to you.“
They went in, and I retired to the southwest room.
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contents feverishly about her person. Rings, three broaches, a locket, three chains and a watch all went on – any way and any how. A wonderful sight it was to see Aunt Olivia bedizened like that!
“I would never wear them before – but I’ll put them all on now to show him I’m sorry,“ she gasped with trembling lips.
When the three of us crowded into the buggy, Aunt Olivia grasped the whip before we could prevent her and, leaning out, gave poor Dick such a lash as he had never felt in his life before. He went tearing down the steep, stony, fast- darkening road in a fashion which made Peggy
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When Mr. Malcolm MacPherson had gone, after an hour of useless pleading, Aunt Olivia came up to us, pale and prim and determined, and told us that there was to be no wedding. We could not pretend surprise, but Peggy ventured a faint protest.
“Oh, Aunt Olivia, do you think you have done right?“
“It was the only thing I could do do,“ said Aunt Olivia stonily. “I could not marry Mr. Malcolm MacPherson and I told him so. Please tell your father – and kindly say nothing more to me about the matter.“
Then Aunt Olivia went downstairs, got a broom, and
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Her engagement ring she did wear – it was a rather “loud“ combination of engraved gold and opals. Sometimes we caught her turning it on her finger with a very troubled face.
“I would be sorry for Mr. Malcolm MacPherson if he were not so much in love with her,“ said Peggy. “But as he thinks that she is perfection he doesn’t need sympathy.“
“I am sorry for Aunt Olivia,“ I said. “Yes, Peggy, I am. Mr. MacPherson is a splendid man, but Aunt is a born old maid, and it is outraging
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carpet.
“I picked these for you in the river field, Nillie,“ he said. “Where will I be getting something to stick them in? Here, this will do.“
He grasped a frail, painted vase on the mantel, stuffed the flowers in it, and set it on the table. The look on Aunt Olivia’s face was too much for me at last. I turned, caught Peggy by the shoulder and dragged her out of the house.
“He will horrify the very soul out of Aunt Olivia’s body if he goes on like this,“ I gasped. “But he’s splendid – and he thinks the world of her – and, O, Peggy, did you ever
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Malcolm MacPherson as a real, live man, instead of a nebulous ‘party of the second part’ in the marriage ceremony?“ queried Peggy, as she hemmed table-napkins for Aunt Olivia, sitting on her well-scoured sandstone steps, and carefully putting all thread-clippings and ravellings into the little basket which Aunt Olivia had placed there for that purpose.
“It may transform her from a self-centered old maid into a woman for whom marriage does not seem such an incongruous thing,“ I said.
The day on which Mr. Malcolm MacPherson was expected Peggy and I went over. We had planned to
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until Mr. Malcolm MacPherson comes. But it will not be before September, at the earliest. There will be so much to do. You will tell your father, won’t you?“
We promised that we would, and Aunt Olivia arose with an air of relief. Peggy and I hurried over home, stopping, when we were safely out of earshot, to laugh. The romances of the middle-aged may be to them as tender and sweet as those of youth, but they are apt to possess a good deal of humour for onlookers. Only youth can be sentimental without being mirth-provoking. We loved Aunt Olivia and were glad for her late, new-blossoming happiness,.
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have told us more about him than did Aunt Olivia’s voice when she pronounced his name. We knew, as if it had been proclaimed to us in trum trumpet tones, that Mr. Malcolm MacPherson must be Aunt Olivia’s beau, and the knowledge took away our breath. We even forgot to be curious, so astonished were we.
And there sat Aunt Olivia, proud and shy and exulting and shamefaced, all at once!
“He is a brother of Mrs. John Seaman’s across across the bridge,“ explained Aunt Olivia with a little simper. “Of course you don’t remember him. He went out to British Columbia twenty years ago. But he is coming home now – and –
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growled Thomas. He detests Emmeline Strong, and always did.
“She’s that, all right,“ I agreed, “and that is just the reason she can turn poor Prissy any way she likes. You mark my words, she’ll put her foot right down on this as soon as she finds it out.“
Thomas said that I was probably right. I lay awake for a long time after I went to bed that night, thinking of Prissy and Stephen. As a general rule I don’t concern my head about other people’s affairs, but Prissy was such a helpless creature I couldn’t get her off my mind,
Twenty years ago Stephen Clark had tried to go with Prissy Strong.
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poking and prying into things while Jane was asleep. The minute she clapped eyes on Prissy she suspected something. It wasn’t any wonder, for there was Prissy, all dressed up, with flushed cheeks and shining eyes. She was all in a quiver of excitement, and looked ten years younger.
“Priscilla Strong, you’ve been expecting Stephen Clark here this evening!“ burst out Emmeline. “You wicked, deceitful, underhanded, ungrateful creature!“
And she went on storming upon Prissy who began to cry, and looked so weak and babyish that I was frightened she would betray the whole thing.
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myself and slipped out. Luckily my kitchen was on the off side of the house, but I was a nervous woman as I rushed across to the Strong place and dashed up Emmeline’s garret stairs to Stephen. It was fortunate I had come, for he didn’t know we had gone. Prissy had hidden him behind the loom and he didn’t dare move move for fear Emmeline would hear him on that creaky floor. He was a sight with cobwebs.
I got him down and smuggled him over into our barn, and he stayed there until it was dark and the Strong girls had gone home. Emmeline began to rage at Prissy the moment they were outside my door.
Then Stephen came in and we talked things over. He and Prissy
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I saw a twinkle in his eye.
“Thomas, go over and bring our little ladder over here,“ I said.
Thomas forgot he was an elder, and he brought the ladder as quick as it was possible for a fat man to do it. After all it was too short to reach the window, but there was no time to go after another. Stephen went went up to the top of it, and he reached up and Prissy reached down, and they could just barely clasp hands so. I shall never forget the look of Prissy. The window was so small she could only get her head and one arm out of it. Besides, she was almost frightened to death.
Mr. Leonard stood at the foot of
While Nancy looked back only over the narrow gap that empty years make.
“You haven’t changed much yourself, Nancy,“ she said, looking admiringly at Nancy’s trim figure, in the nurse’s uniform she had donned to show Louisa what it was like, her firm, pink-and-white face, and the glossy waves of golden brown hair. “You’ve held your own wonderfully well.”
“Haven’t I?“ said Nancy complacently. “Modern methods of massage and cold cream have kept away the crowsfeet, and fortunately I had the Rogerson complexion to start with. You wouldn’t think I was really thirty-eight, would you? Thirty-eight! Twenty years ago I
“I guess you are better off as you are,“ said Louisa[.]
“Oh, I don’t know.“ Nancy looked up at the white house on the hill again. “I have an awfully good time out of life, but it doesn’t seem to satisfy, somehow. To be candid – and oh, Louisa, candor is a rare thing among women when it comes to talking of then men – I believe I’d rather be cooking Peter’s meals and dusting his house. I wouldn’t mind his bad grammar now. I’ve learned one or two valuable little things out yonder and one is that it doesn’t matter how if a man’s grammar is askew, so long as he doesn’t swear at you. By the way, is Peter as
3
Dear friends were we and hand in hand we went
Down the green lane where sunshine thickly lay,
The soft low voices of the woods were blent,
A drowsy cow-bell tinkled far away,
Heart spoke to heart that far fair sunny day.
For us the sunshine laughed, the wild birds sang,
The purple darlings of the spring were fair,
For us each vagrant note of music rang
And every passing breeze was like a prayer.
Heart-whisperings of nature everywhere
——————– —————————
3
Had fought the battle of his native land
Bravely and well; the slender boyish form
Was ever in the thickest battle storm;
His was the dauntless spirit all to dare,
Duty or danger called – and he was there.
But Death’s fell minion well-fulfilled its part
And sheathed itself too near that brave young heart,
And far from Albion’s wave-encircled shore
Her soldier hero fell to rise no more.
There, too, his comrades at the close of day
Found him as in his own lifes blood blood he lay
47 Notes
as the heart of a diamond.
K8 —which, with Anne and Diana, happened about once in a blue moon.
L8 and were carved all ove[r] their lids with the initials and hieroglyphics of three generations of school children.
M8 There are a lot of nice girls in school and we had scrumptious fun playing at dinner time. It’s so nice to have a lot of little girls to play with. But of course I like Diana best and always will. I adore Diana.
N8. Our seat is right by the window and we can look down to the Lake of Shining Waters.
O8 Can I have some of those pearl beads off the old pincushion in the garret to make myself a ring?
49 Notes
V8 A
She should look at him, that red-haired Shirley girl with the little pointed chin and the big eyes that weren’t like the eyes of any other girl in Avonlea school.
W8 Avonlea school always enjoyed a scene. This was an especially enjoyable one. Everybody said “Oh,” in horrified delight. Diana gasped. Ruby Gillis, began who was inclined to the hysterical, began to cry. Tommy Sloane let his team of crickets escape him altogether while he stared open mouthed at the tableau tableau.
X8. It was asking too much of flesh and blood to expect her to tell before the whole school that she had been called “Carrots.”
Y8 as if the mere fact of being a pupil of his ought to root out all evil
50 Notes
“ackshually never seen anything like it— it was so white, with awful little red spots on it.”
D8 Her whole being seethed with shame and humiliation anger and humiliation[.]
E8 I’d let myself be torn limb from limb if it would do you any good.
F8. And we’re going to learn a new song—Jane Andrews is practicing it up now; and Alice Andrews is going to bring a new Pansy book next week and we’re all going to read it out loud, chapter about, down by the brook. And you know you are so fond of reading out loud, Anne[.]”
G8. Far as I can make out from her story Mr. Phillips has been
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what.
L8. Mrs. Rachel shook her head, as much as to say if she were only at the head of the educational system of the Province things would be much better managed.
M8 , with all the love of her passionate little heart, equally intense in its likes and dislikes.
N8. I hate her husband – I just hate him furiously.
O8 —Diana dressed in white snowy garments, with a veil, and looking as beautiful ^and regal as a queen; and me the bridesmaid, with a breaking a lovely dress, too, and puffed sleeves, but with a breaking heart hid beneath my smiling face
P8 and the wild cherry trees along the lane put on the loveliest shades of dark red and bronzy green.
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very thing.
U8. and a cooky to eat along with it in the afternoon, for I daresay Matthew’ll be late coming in to tea since he’s he’s hauling potatoes to the vessel.”
V8. I suppose Mr. Cuthbert is hauling potatoes to the Lily Sands this afternoon, is he?” said Diana, who had ridden down to Mr. Harmon Andrews that morning in Matthew’s cart.
“Yes, our potato crop is very good this year. I hope your father’s potato crop is good, too.”
“It is fairly good thank you.
X W8 Ruby Gillis had charmed all her warts away, true’s you live, with a magic pebble that Old Mary Joe from the Creek gave her. You had to rub
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I took the smallpox and died and I was buried under those poplar trees in the graveyard and you planted a rose bush by my grave and watered it with your tears; and you never, never forgot the friend of your youth who sacrificed her life for you. Oh, it was such a sad pathetic little tale, Diana. The tears just rained down over my cheeks while I mixed the cake. But I forgot the flour and the cake was a dismal failure.
A9. She was terribly mortified about the pudding sauce last week. We had a plum pudding for dinner on Tuesday and there was half the pudding and a pitcherful of sauce left over. Marilla said there was enough for another dinner and
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and I fully intended to ask her when she came in if I’d give the sauce to the pigs; but when she did come in I was imaging that I was a ^frost fairy going through the woods turning the trees red and yellow, so I never whichever they wanted to be, so I never thought about the pudding sauce again and Marilla sent me out to pick apples. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Spencer Chester Ross from Spencervale came here that morning morning. You know they are very stylish people, especially Mrs. Chester Ross. When Marilla called me in dinner was all ready and everybody was at the table. I tried to be as polite ^and dignified as I could be, for I wanted Mrs. Chester
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us. Marilla turned red as fire but she never said a word She just –Then, she just carried that sauce and pudding out and brought in some strawberry preserves. She even offered me some but I couldn’t swallow a mouthful. It was like heaping coals of fire on my head. After Mrs[.] Chester Ross went away Marilla gave me a dreadful scolding.
B9. “I’ll get it right off – I’ll go and put the tea down this very minute.”
C9 sorrowfully put the remainder of the raspberry cordial back into the pantry and
D9. Into the kitchen she dashed and flung herself face downwards on the sofa in an agony.
E9 No answer from Anne save more
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H9. The stars in their courses fight against me, Marilla. Diana and I are parted forever.
I9 lighted by a pale little moon hanging low over the western woods.
J9 which would have softened good Mrs. Lynde’s heart in a twinkling
K9. But when she stepped into the eas east gable before going to bed and found that Anne had cried herself to sleep in an unaccustomed softness crept into her face. “Poor little soul,“ she murmured, lifting a loose curl of hair from the child’s tear-stained face. Then she bent down and kissed the flushed cheek on the pillow.
L9: the friend of your youth, no matter what dearer friends may caress thee?”
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dull and poky and never seems to have a good time.
R9 I’m going round by the road. I couldn’t bear to go by the Birch Path all alone. I should weep bitter tears if I did[.]
S9 —she had been told by Mr. Phillips to sit with the model Minnie Andrews–
T9 Anne dropped the apple as if it were a red-hot coal and ostentatiously wiped her fingers on her handkerchief.
U9. Charlie Sloane’s slate pencil, gorgeously bedizened with striped red and yellow paper, costing two cents where ordinary papers cost only one, which he sent up to her after dinner hour, met with a more
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as her loves.
V9 with a toss of her long red braids,
W9 having wrestled wildly with decimals the entire evening before,
X9 There is no scope for imagination in it at all. Mr. Phillips says I’m the worst dunce ev he ever saw at it.
Y9 –Thomas would be useful in looking after the horse–
Z9. You can’t sympathize properly if you’ve never studied it. It is casting a cloud over my whole life.
A10. ‘Rapid progress’ was his very words. There’s them as runs down Teddy Phillips and says he ain’t much of a teacher; but I guess he’s
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E10 But it’s a terrible temptation, Matthew. Even when I turn my back on it I can see it there just as plain. Jane said she cried herself sick over it. I love a book that makes me cry. But I think I’ll carry that book into the sitting room and lock it in the jam closet and give you the key. And you must not give it to me, Matthew, until my lessons are done, not even if I implore you on my bended knees. It’s all very well to say resist temptation but it’s ever so much easier to resist it if you can’t get the key[.]
F10. Anne promptly let go of her candle and plate in her surprise and plate candle and apples crashed together down the cellar ladder and were
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J10 all ebony of shadow and silver of snowy slope
K10. a buxom, broad-faced French girl from the Creek, whom Mrs. Barry had engaged to stay with the children in during her absence.
L10 , honestly anxious to do all she could,
M10 until she was sicker than ever the Hammond twins were, even the last pair.
N10 —not to Diana or Young Mary Joe because I didn’t want to worry them any more than they were worried, but I had to say it to myself just to relieve my feelings—
O10 And I’m glad Mrs Hammond had three pair of twins after all. If she hadn’t I mightn’t have known
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U10. And we had fruit cake and pound cake and dogh doughnuts and two kinds of preserves, Marilla.
V10. After tea Diana and I made taffy taffy. The taffy wasn’t very good, I suppose because neither Diana nor I had ever made any before. Diana left me to stir it while she buttered the plates and I forgot and let it burn; and then when we set it out on the platform to cool the cat walked over one plate and that had to be thrown away. But the making of it was splendid fun.
W10. “You and Diana walked home from school together and then stood down there in the snow for half an hour more,
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Z10. with the air of producing the last shot in her locker,
A11. It would unsettle her for a week. I understand that child’s disposition and what’s good for it better than you, Matthew[.]”
B11. If you catch pneumonia sleeping in a strange bed or coming out of that hot hall in the middle of the night, don’t blame me, blame Matthew.
C11. but then just think of all the mistakes I don’t make aloth although I might.
D11. Oh, Marilla, my heart was just set on going to that concert. I never was to a concert in my
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the mirth of wood elves came from every quarter.
H11 ; and when Mr. Phillips gave Mark Antony’s oration over the dead body of Cesaer Caesar in the most heart stirring tones–looking at Prissy Andrews at the end of every sentence–Anne felt that she could rise and mutiny on the spot if but one Roman citizen led the way.
I11. Do you suppose we will ever be asked to do it, Diana?”
“Yes, of course, someday. They’re always wanting the big scholars to recite. Gilbert Blythe does often and he’s only two years older than us. Oh, Anne, how could you pretend not to listen to him?
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N11. stifling a giggle with an apprehensive glance over her shoulder at the closed sitting room door,
O11 and that my parents ought to be ashamed of the way they had brought me up.
P11 I’ve had practice in confessing fortunately.”
Q11 her wrath quite unappeased and her eyes snapping through her gold-rimmed glasses.
R11 clasping her hands with her characteristic gesture,
S11 Diana is a very lady-like girl, Miss Barry.
T11 and was replaced by a twinkle of amused interest.
U11 Little girls never indulged in that kind of fun when I was young[.]
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come to town you visit you’re to visit me and I’ll put you in my very sparest spare room bed to sleep.
Z11 coming home in the clear, echoing twilight with arms and baskets full of flowery spoil.
A12 Charlie Sloane dared Arty Gillis to jump over it and Arty did because he wouldn’t take a dare. Nobody would in school. It is very fashionable to dare.
B12 I can’t tell you the person’s name because I have vowed never to let it cross my lips.
C12 when the orchards were pink-blossomed again, when the frogs were singing silverly sweet in the marches about the head of the
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G12 And Mrs. Thomas’ father was pursued home one night by a lamb of fire with its head cut off hanging by a strip of skin. He said he knew it was the spirit of his brother and that it was a warning he would die within nine days. He didn’t, but he died two years after, so you see it was really true.
H12
“Oh, Marilla, how can you be so cruel?” sobbed Anne. “What would you feel like if a white thing did snatch me up and carry me off?”
“I’ll risk it,” said Marilla unfeelingly. “You know I always mean what I say. I’ll cure you of imagining ghosts into places. March, now[.]”
I12 A white strip of birch bark blowing up from the hollow over the brown floor of the grove made her heart stand still. The long drawn wail of two old boughs rubbing
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remorseful for all the times I’d talked in school and drawn pictures of him on my slate and made fun of him and Prissy. I can tell you I wished I’d been a model pupil like Jane A Minnie Andrews. She hadn’t anything to on her conscience.
N12 Besides, she’s only been a minister’s wife for a little while, so one should make allowances, shouldn’t they?
O12 and discussed the same in full with Matthew, Marilla always declining from principle to criticize ministers in any shape or form.
P12 just as I did mine in the matter of the Haunted Wood.
Q12 Mr. Gresham was a very good man but he and a very religious man, but he tried too many funny stories ;he was and made the people laugh in church; he
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W12 setting a particularly well-balsamed twig afloat.
X12: Diana’s mother had found out about the Haunted Wood and had been decidedly angry over it. As a result Diana had abstained from any further imitative flights of imagination and did not think it prudent to cultivate a spirit of belief even in harmless dryads.
Y12 And Mrs. Lynde says you can never be sure of getting good baking powder nowadays when everything is so adulterated. Mrs. Lynde says the Government ought to take the matter up but she says we’ll never see the day when a Tory Government will do it.
Z12 “and the minister paid her an elegant compliment. He said it was
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a kindred spirit.
G13 Excitement hung around Anne like a garment, shone in her eyes, kindled every feature. She had come dancing up the lane, like a wind-blown sprite, through the mellow sunshine and lazy shadows of the August evening.
H13 I shall cherish it forever among my choicest treasures.
I13 and not sufficiently understanding that the equally great capacity for delight might more than compensate.
J13 Neither would she have believed that she really liked Anne much better than she was.
K13 it sounded so much like pattering rain-drops,
L13 You know I never had tea at a manse before and I’m not sure that
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up together into something unutterably sweet and enchanting.
O13 A minister mightn’t mind my red hair because he wouldn’t be thinking of such worldly things.
P13 I’m one of the others. Mrs. Lynde says I’m full of original thing sin. No matter how hard I try to be good I can never make such a success of it as those who are naturally good. It’s a good deal like geometry, I expect. But don’t you think the trying so hard ought to count for something?
Q13. Not exactly a kindred spirit you know but still very nice.
R13 I’ve longed so to sing in the Sunday-school choir, as Diana does, but I feared it was an honour I could never aspire to[.]
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W13. If I am killed you are to have my pearl-bead ring.
X13 Diana would probably have fallen hair heir to the pearl-bead ring then and there.
Y13 —except Ruby Gillis who remained as if rooted to the ground and went into hysterics–
Z13 And I’m sure I couldn’t hop so far on one foot when Jane couldn’t even hop around the garden.”
A14. She would have crowed over me all my life.
B14. She won’t be new any more by the time I’m able to go to school[.]
C14. What do people who haven’t any imagination do when they break their bones, do you suppose, Marilla?”
D14. Not a kindred spirit, of course; but
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I14 as if the spirit of autumn had poured them in for the sun to drain —
J14 when she pronounces my name I feel instinctively that she’s spelling it with an E.
K14 K14. Although I’m really beginning to see through it a little, too. Miss Stacy makes it so clear. Still, I’ll never be good at it and I assure you it is a humbling reflection.
L14: That is, if I don’t go out as a foreign missionary. That would be very romantic but one would have to be very good to be a missionary and that would be a stumbling block.
M14 for the laudable purpose of helping to pay for a schoolhouse flag.
N14 —The Society for the Suppression of Gossip and The Fairy Queen.
O14 I’m going to practice my recitations
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the other girls wore.
T14 that surely could not be objected to as an unwarranted putting in of his oar.
U14 ; it was almost as much a matter of conscience with them as to attend the Presbyterian church and vote Conservative.
V14 with a huge, drooping pompadour, big ^rolling brown eyes, and a most extensive and bewildering smile.
W14 Matthew felt sure she would throw cold water on his project at once[.]
X14. No, it isn’t any a mite of trouble. I like sewing. I’ll make it to fit my niece, Jenny Gillis, for she and Anne Anne are alike as two peas as far as figure goes[.]”
Y14. To herself she added when Matthew had gone,
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her mistake. I suppose she’s trying to cultivate a spirit of humility in Anne by dressing her as she does; but it’s more likely to cultivate envy and discontent. I’m sure Anne the child must feel the difference between her clothes and the other girls’. But to think of Matthew taking notice of it! That man is waking up after being asleep for over sixty years.”
Z14 There’s enough material in those sleeves alone to make a waist, I declare there is.
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.
B15 the ploughed fields were stretches of snowy dimples[.]
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for the first time in twenty years,
J15 Though tonight it struck me she was growing quite a big girl. Mrs. Lynde made that dress a mite too long and it makes Anne look so tall. She’s quick to learn and I guess the best thing we can do for her will be to send her to Queen’s after a spell. But nothing need be said about that for a year or two yet.”
K15 as it was in those happy olden days.” She said mournfully, as if referring to a period period of at least fifty years back.
L15 I simply couldn’t sleep last night for ever so long. I just lay awake and imagined the concert over and over again. That’s one splendid thing about such affairs—it’s so lovely to look back to them.
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overcome it and now that I’m really thirteen perhaps I’ll get on better[.]”
Q15. especially when she saw the necklace and the diamond ring.
R15. It’s so much more romantic to end a story up with a funeral than a wedding.
S15 —although Ruby Gillis opined that their admission would make it more exciting—
T15. I mostly always have to tell them what to write about but that isn’t hard for I’ve millions of ideas.”
U15 of still, crimson-budded maples around a mirror-like wood-pool,
V15 as she shaved up kindlings with a carving knife and more more vim than was strictly ne-
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respects.
A16. Diana alone of outsiders knew the fatal secret, but she promised solemnly never to tell and it may be stated here and now that she kept her word.
B16. And I won’t try to imagine it away either[.]
C16 I know it is, but it’s sometimes so hard to believe a thing even when you know it.
D16 not without an eye to the romance of it,
E16 The Superintendent of Education having prescribed it in the English course for Prince Edward Island Schools.
F16 We can’t have the old dumb servitor because there isn’t room for two in the flat when one is lying down
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of years ago, but romance is not appreciated now.
M16. It was a September evening and all the gaps and clearings in the woods were brimmed up with ruby ^sunset light. Here and there the lane was splashed with it, but for the most part it was already quite shadowy beneath the maples, and the spaces under the firs were filled with a clear violet dusk ^like airy wine. The winds were out in their tops and there is no sweeter music on earth than that which the wind makes in the fir trees at evening.
N16 finding it necessary to lean up against a maple tree for support,
O16 I felt so heart-broken that I wouldn’t say my prayers when
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little smoke-blue mists curled curled through the valleys and floated off from the hills.
R16 again it mounted to hills whence a far sweep of curving upland or misty blue sky could be seen;
S16 I just wish Julia Bell could see this —she puts on such airs about her mother’s parlor.”
T16 I was real glad she did. And I was glad that I felt glad for it shows I’m improving ^don’t you think, Marilla, when I can rejoice in Josie’s success.?
U16 It’s always wrong to do anything you can’t tell the minister’s wife. It’s as good as an extra conscience to have a minister’s wife for your friend.
V16 I looked carefully at all the
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world with a start and a sigh.
C17 —the ferns and the satin leaves and the crackerberries —
D17 Young men are all very well in their place, but it doesn’t do to drag them into everything, does it?
E17 It’s perfectly appalling to think of being twenty, Marilla. It sounds so fearfully old and grown up.
F17 —that is, for the last six months, ever since Ruby and Jane began to talk of studying for the entrance.
G17. Not for worlds would Marilla have told Anne just what Miss Stacy had said about her; that would have been to pamper vanity.
H17. Mrs. Lynde isn’t exactly a comforting person sometimes, but there’s no
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L17 new pieces to be practised for the Sunday School choir;
M17. It will be the tug of war, you know – the last year before the Entrance.
N17 — that she had been offered a position in the graded school of her own home district and meant to accept. it
O17. Jane Andrews was over once last summer and she says it was a dazzling sight to see the electric lights and the flowers and all the lady guests in such beautiful dresses. Jane says it was her first glimpse of high life and she’ll never forget it to her dying day.”
P17 Doesn’t Mr. Allan preach magnificent sermons? Mrs. Lynde says he is improving every day and the first thing we know some city church
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course I know it wasn’t really necessary but flounces are so stylish this fall and Josie Pye has flounces on all her dresses[.] I know I’ll be able to study better because of mine. I know I’ll be able to study better because of mine. I shall have such a comfortable feeling deep down in my mind about that flounce.”
“It’s worth something to have that,” admitted Marilla.
S17 determined to enjoy her luxury of grief uncomforted.
T17. “What has become of your story club? I haven’t heard you speak of it for a long time.”
“The story club isn’t in existence any longer. We hadn’t time for it – and anyhow I think we had got tired of it. It was silly to be writing about love and murder and
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lucky. I’m not superstitious and I know it can make no difference. But still I wish it wasn’t thirteen.”
W17. There are times and seasons even yet when I don’t feel that I’ve made any great headway in learning to like Josie Pye.
X17 No need of the multiplication table for good steady sensible Jane!
Y17 If I thought the multiplication table would help me any I would recite it from now till tomorrow morning.
Z17 Josie says the geometry was so easy a child of ten could do it!
8A18 Mrs. Lynde wanted to know what else you could expect with a Tory superintendent of education at the head of affairs, and Matthew, noting Anne’s paleness and indifference and the lagging steps that bore
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C18
slowly deepening from her pallid lustre to burnished silver,
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.
E18. Lovely dimples like little dents in cream.
F18: Marilla emitted a sound between a sniff and a grunt.
G18 Just let them tell him a thing is pretty and fashionable and Matthew plunks his money down for it.
F18 and already visioned herself telling Matthew all about it at the next morning’s breakfast table.
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the murmur of the sea sounding through it and the darkling cliffs beyond like grim guardians guarding enchanted coasts.
K18 Would you want to be that white-lace girl and wear a sour look all your life,? Or the pink lady as if you’d been born turning up your nose at the world? Or the pink lady ^kind and nice as she is, so short and stout that you’d really no figure at all? Or even Mrs. Evans, with that sad, sad look in her eyes? She must have been dreadfully unhappy sometime to have such a look. We
L18 I got Mrs. Allan to help me pick it in town last week and we’ll get Emily Gillis to make it for you. Emily has got taste and her fits aren’t to be equalled.
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the homelights of Avonlea twinkling beyond, were the best and dearest hours in the whole week.
S18 over the crisp fields and along the ferny byways,
T18 thoughtful, imaginative ambitious students like herself.
U18 with a small but critical minority in favour of Anne Shirley.
V18 It saves me so much trouble in making myself love them.
W18 Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing[.]
X18 —each year a rose of promise to be woven into an immortal chaplet.
Y18 Josie said you were infatuated with her.”
Z18 so free from shadow and so lavish of blossom.
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in the homestead garden in her bridal days and for which Matthew had always had a secret, wordless love.
F19 looking up to the stars beyond the hills —
G19 I couldn’t have Diana stay, she’s good and kind and sweet—but it’s not her sorrow—she’s outside of it and she couldn’t come close enough to my heart to help me. It’s our sorrow – yours and mine.
H19 But I understand your feeling. I think we all experience the same thing. We resent the thought that anything can please us when someone we love is no longer here to share the pleasure with us, and we
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come here to question and sympathize and talk about it.
M19. And even in winter I can come home on Fridays.
N19. I shall give life here my best and I believe it will give its best to me in return. When I left Queen’s my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don’t know what lies around it the bend but I’m going to believe the best does. It has a fascination of its own, Marilla that bend, Marilla. I wonder how the road beyond it goes—what there is of green glory and soft, checkered light and shadows – what new landscapes —what new beauties – what curves and hills and valleys, further on.”
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S19. There was a freshness in the air as of a wind that had blown over honey-sweet fields of clover[.]
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