First came a delightful thrill, as of something very pleasant; then a horrible remembrance.
I’m going to imagine that I’m the wind that is blowing up there in those tree tops. When I get tired of the trees I’ll imagine I’m gently waving down here in the ferns – and then I’ll fly over to Mrs. Lynde’s garden and set the flowers dancing – and then I’ll go with one great swoop over the clover field – and then I’ll blow over the Lake of Shining Waters and ripple it all up into little sparkling waves. Oh, there’s so much scope for imagination in a wind!
What I want is a housekeeper. If I shaved every Sunday and went to church I’d get all the housekeepers I’d want. I’d be respectable then. But what’s the use of going to church when it’s all settled by predestination? Tell me that, Miss.
Susan Baker,′ she says to me, ‘I hope you never light a fire with coal-oil. Or leave oily rags lying around, Susan. They have been known to cause spontaneous combustion in less than an hour. How would you like to stand and watch this house burn down, Susan, knowing it was your fault?’ Well, Miss Dew dear, I had my laugh on her over that. It was that very night she set her curtains on fire and the yells of her are ringing in my ears yet.
It’s nice to be needed.
Cornelia was rightfully Mrs. Marshall Elliott, and had been Mrs. Marshall Elliott for thirteen years, but even yet more people referred to her as Miss.
Green Gables has been translated into Swedish and Dutch. My copy of the Swedish edition always gives me the inestimable boon of a laugh. The cover design is a full length figure of Anne, wearing a sunbonnet, carrying the famous carpet-bag, and with hair that is literally of an intense scarlet!
Occasionally she would come to church, stalking unconcernedly up the aisle to a prominent seat. She never put on hat or shoes on such occasions, but when she wanted to be especially grand she powdered face, arms and legs with flour!
Big guns are good but the Almighty is better, and He is on our side, no matter what the Kaiser says about it.
Oh, I like things to have handles even if they are only geraniums. It makes them seem more like people. How do you know but that it hurts a geranium’s feelings just to be called a geranium and nothing else? You wouldn’t like to be called nothing but a woman all the time.
The Blue Chest of Rachel Ward” was another “ower-true tale.” Rachel Ward was Eliza Montgomery, a cousin of my father’s, who died in Toronto a few years ago. The blue chest was in the kitchen of Uncle John Campbell’s house at Park Corner from 1849 until her death. We children heard its story many a time and speculated and dreamed over its contents, as we sat on it to study our lessons or eat our bed-time snacks.
But it’s a million times nicer to be Anne of Green Gables than Anne of nowhere in particular, isn’t it?
Reformation with men and dogs never goes very deep.
There was a blue, waiting sea at the end and an old grey house fronting the sunset, so close to the purring waves that in storms their spray dashed over its very doorstep... a wise old house that knew many things, as Pat always felt. Mother’s old home and therefore to be loved, whether one could love the people in it or not.
I shall always be pointed at as the girl who flavored a cake with anodyne liniment.
I know they’ll take their knitting with them everywhere. They simply couldn’t be parted from it. They will walk about Westminster Abbey and knit, I feel sure.
Well, I don’t want to be any one but myself, even if I go uncomforted by diamonds all my life.
I think it would be charitable to believe that he was mistaken about.
Yesterday she had been all her own. Now she was this man’s.
Anne was a sweet-souled lass, but she could instill some venom into innocent italics when occasion required. “What.