Anne of Green Gables Stories; by L.M. Montgomery.

Anne Stories

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Contents:- 

Anne of Green Gables (1908)

Anne of Avonlea (1909)

Anne of the Island (1915)

Anne's House of Dreams (1917)

Rainbow Valley (1919)

Rilla of Ingleside (1921)

Chronicles of Avonlea (1912)

Further Chronicles of Avonlea (1920)

The Story Girl (1911)

The Golden Road (Sequel to The Story Girl, 1913)

Kilmeny of the Orchard (1910)

The Watchman and Other Poems (1916)

The Short Story Collection (1896-1922)

"Unfortunately, there are two books in the Anne of Green Gables series which were published later and can't yet be included in this Kindle collection because of copyright restrictions. These are "Anne of Windy Poplars" (1936) and "Anne of Ingleside" (1939)."

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Most classic literature by women authors is reflection of their collected wisdom through their lives, and the morality and ethics of the writing follows a lifeblood path as do the romances, rather than a study and a fancy clubbed together.

This set of tales was probably serialized originally, especially the second one on, from the tone of separate chapters - each a complete story, and yet they follow smoothly, flowing quite nicely one after another together.

The titles seem to indicate Anne's progress in life via the procession of widening circles they indicate - the house, the village, the island, and then they go specifying again, with house her home, and it's location.

One exasperation for a reader would be, when tempted by the beautiful descriptions of various places, one looks for just where it all is - and the place doesn't exist, or at least pieces don't match. Names are taken from wherever the author liked, and while descriptions might fit a place, it's hard to find just where any of them exists on maps.
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Anne of Green Gables
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The book begins with Mrs. Rachel Lynde, who is as much antithesis of Elizabeth from Elizabeth's German Garden as could be. That, one supposes after the protagonist appears, was a little bitter dose so the cherry cake Anne is that much more astounding, taking one by complete surprise.

It's a surprise that the protagonist is a little orphan girl arriving fresh at the home named Green Gables, rather than the woman of indeterminate age one sees on the cover, but that passes. Before long, before one knows, one is deep in comfort with Anne's world. The book is about halfway before one realises she's not going to be grown up in this volume, the author being in no hurry, and one is to enjoy the girlhood and the world thereof, with school and friends, teachers and walks in woods, and not talking to boys who are interested in one.

Nice to have descriptions of loveliness of nature and seasons strewn all over, but characterisation are good, and one expects Anne would grow out of hating Gilbert Blythe, which she is more than done already, long before they tie for top at entrance exam to Queen's.

And they are friends just as this ends, bringing satisfaction to reader despite the tragedy that smites in the silent Matthew departing and Marilla dealing with more.
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June 26, 2020 - July 01, 2020.
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Anne of Avonlea
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Here we have Anne's career as a schoolteacher and beginning of society of her generation of Avonlea, with Gilbert Blythe now her close friend, apart from Diana (now courted by Fred Wright), and other schoolmates that had been at Queen's.

Her life now moreover is already centred on children, her pupils at school and twins at home who are Marilla's cousins.

Anne and her friends try to improve Avonlea by getting people to improve their properties and fronts, fences and sidewalks, but are confronted by unexpected problems, from mixups leading to a hall painted bright blue instead of green, to serious horrors looming in shape of people renting their fences for advertisements.

Anne lingers in girlhood, woods and flowers and children, with Gilbert still only a friend, although she's become aware he's growing out of boyhood. Her first acquaintance with the phenomenon of love is via a love story of two people of a prior generation, one a father of a favourite student and another she discovers living in a lovely house far out of the village, surrounded by a forest anne is enchanted with; the now middle aged woman finds a kindred spirit in the young boy so like his father, the love of her life.

And the romance does blossom, with Stephen Irving returning to marry Lavender Lewis finally, after Paul writes him about meeting her. But Marilla has the sensible comment:-

""I can't see that it's so terribly romantic at all," said Marilla rather crisply. Marilla thought Anne was too worked up about it and had plenty to do with getting ready for college without "traipsing" to Echo Lodge two days out of three helping Miss Lavendar. "In the first place two young fools quarrel and turn sulky; then Steve Irving goes to the States and after a spell gets married up there and is perfectly happy from all accounts. Then his wife dies and after a decent interval he thinks he'll come home and see if his first fancy'll have him. Meanwhile, she's been living single, probably because nobody nice enough came along to want her, and they meet and agree to be married after all. Now, where is the romance in all that?""

Exactly what those not fooled by the candy floss KJ copy, KKHH, thought. But meanwhile Anne is being sent off to college after all by Marilla, and that's the end of this part of the story and of her teaching Avonlea school for now, with a possible glimmer of romance with Gilbert Blythe on horizon.
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July 01, 2020 - July 07, 2020.
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Anne of the Island
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One must give credit for continuity of the narrative that it picks up exactly where it left off, strengthening the guess that these were serialised writings published in periodicals before a suitable bunch was published as a book, rather than individual books published at intervals.

Changes are smooth - Diana Barry, engaged to Fred Wright back in Avonlea, has another path in life, and Priscilla Grant, familiar since Queen's, is now close friend and companion of Anne, who is at Redmond college at kingsport in Nova Scotia along with Gilbert Blythe and another Avonlea boy, Charlie Sloane. And now they meet Philippa Gordon from Bolingbroke, NS, where Anne originated.

Letters from Avonlea secured her life at college.

"Mrs. Lynde had more time than ever to devote to church affairs and had flung herself into them heart and soul. She was at present much worked up over the poor "supplies" they were having in the vacant Avonlea pulpit.

""I don't believe any but fools enter the ministry nowadays," she wrote bitterly. "Such candidates as they have sent us, and such stuff as they preach! Half of it ain't true, and, what's worse, it ain't sound doctrine. The one we have now is the worst of the lot. He mostly takes a text and preaches about something else. And he says he doesn't believe all the heathen will be eternally lost. The idea! If they won't all the money we've been giving to Foreign Missions will be clean wasted, that's what! Last Sunday night he announced that next Sunday he'd preach on the axe-head that swam. I think he'd better confine himself to the Bible and leave sensational subjects alone. Things have come to a pretty pass if a minister can't find enough in Holy Writ to preach about, that's what. What church do you attend, Anne? I hope you go regularly. People are apt to get so careless about church-going away from home, and I understand college students are great sinners in this respect. I'm told many of them actually study their lessons on Sunday. I hope you'll never sink that low, Anne."

This book is about change experienced through college years, with summers spent at home in Avonlea even as home is coming to be in two places. And instead of it being limited to light frolic and serious study - which is there, of course, with a couple of exasperating and very unexpected proposals Anne has to turn down, and a attempt at story writing that ends in disappointment at rejection by publishers - there is serious life too, with death of a beautiful friend from school, experienced deeply by Anne. And the anticlimactic winning of story competition because Diana Barry sent the story in without telling Anne, modifying it to suit the advertising of a baking powder, and Anne consequently winning twenty five dollars, to her great mortification! Splendid!

It only gets better thereafter, with millionaire neighbour asking to buy Mrs Lynde's gift of tulip patchwork quilt from Anne, the cats, and Aunt Jamesina, at Patty's Place. There's the very rich, beautiful and brainy Phillipa Gordon sharing this new home and consequently learning frugal life, and saying shopping for groceries was more fun than parties with beaux fighting over her.

It ends well, with several satisfactory weddings, and finally uniting Gilbert Blythe with Anne, after she's had every chance at her romantic fancies - refusing him, meeting the dark handsome Roy Gardner who promptly falls in love and courts her and proposes after graduation, realising she didnt love him, and finally understanding that she could only love Gilbert - so it's quite satisfactory.
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July 07, 2020 - July 09, 2020.
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Anne's House of Dreams
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Three years have passed between where the last volume ends and this begins, and Anne has taught school at Summerside while Gilbert Blythe finished his medical school. Their wedding is set and he's to join his great uncle's practice or rather take it over, at Four Winds Point, and he's found a dream house for them - hence the title. Diana Wright, who'd had her son Fred as the last volume ends, meanwhile has a two year old daughter called Small Anne Cordelia, mystifying Avonlea. There's a beautiful wedding in the orchard, with Allens presiding and Philippa Gordon's husband Jonas Blake leading a prayer, a bird singing through it all.

Marilla keeps in her grief at Anne no longer living at Green Gables, and expecting her to visit no longer through every vacation, after the fourteen years of lighting up Marilla's life with love. But Anne's friends - Diana with babies, Allans and Irvings - stay through the evening to supper, comforting them, and the twins are grown and taking over. Marilla might grieve Anne, but she won't be left lonely.

Anne's new home, unlike Green Gables, is close to harbour, and it's her first close acquaintance with the ocean with its might, beauty and more. The author compares the difference of woods verses ocean as human society versus mighty lonely soul, and one gets a feeling on the other hand that a veiled comparison here is that of childhood versus adult life - woods being comparatively safe, comfy, beautiful, while ocean has all the unpredictability and lurking dangers one might encounter in life as adults.

A glimpse thereof is already in the previous volume, where Anne meets her perfect romantic fantasy in Roy on seaside walk in heavy storm, and is brought back to the same spot by him when he proposes. Gilbert, on the other hand, proposes both times in woods, in a park first and in an overgrown garden finally. She rejects Roy and the uncertainty, because she realises she doesn't love him; she realises she loves Gilbert Blythe before he proposes again, and faces life in a harbour in a home facing the ocean - in secure company of the love and security thereof that she found in woods.

In a way, this progression runs parallel to that of her life moving from village of Avonlea to the college life in town of Kingsport, and then to the harbour of Four Winds, signifying possibilities of global travel and adventures.

This volume is as much about the beauty of a harbour as it's about the stunningly beautiful neighbour of Anne and Gilbert Blythe, Leslie Moore, and her travails, the very lovable Captain Jim whose life's story is entrusted to Owen Ford the incredibly handsome author, and it's all woven together in reflections somehow of light and ocean, mist and shore, lighthouse and garden. The resolution of it all is unexpected too, and answers the question one wonders about, which is, why isn't there more about the twins and Marilla and so on.

It's because they are there, doing fine, but life moves on, and Anne's life is blossoming. She and Gilbert are to buy a larger house with property across the harbour so it's convenient, and Owen Ford is buying the little house of drems so he and his bride Leslie can have vacations there.
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July 09, 2020 - July 12, 2020.
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Rainbow Valley
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By the time one begins this one, one is hooked. Then comes the surprise, of Rainbow Valley - the title corresponding more to the various chikdren portrayed than the valley unseen by the reader, hence quite misty.

Now thirteen years have lapsed, Anne is a mother of half a dozen, the eldest who looks like both parents born before the family shifted at the end of the last one; next son a dreamer like Anne, twin daughters Anne and Diana who look one each like one of the parents except its diana who takes her mother's colouring, the youngest a six year old daughter Rilla - short, presumably, for Marilla - in Anne's own image, and another son; and the household at Ingleside still retains Susan Baker for housekeeping and cooking, while Cornelia Bryant - who'd married Marshall Elliott after Liberals won and he got a haircut and a shave, after seventeen years - still visits regularly. And Mrs rachel lynde disapproves of Susan pampering the children. The Blythe couple has been to Europe for summer as this opens and left children in Avonlea except one whom Susan kept, since he's her pet. Their gossip session is how the author introduces next batch of characters and their histories, characters and more.

There is a new minister, and the four Meredith children make friends with the Blythe children while the latter picnic at Rainbow Valley, so named by them because they saw a rainbow stretch over it once.  Here the author has a variation of the Avonlea woods for Anne's children.

And then the Meredith children find a starving orphan and adopt her for a while, with no adult any wiser, before Cornelia Bryant steps in to correct the situation - and is coaxed by Una Meredith into adopting her! So now we have a kaleidoscope of variations of the original Anne, none quite like her, and some even boys. The author is far more comfortable with children, unless it was readers who steered the author. Anne is now in background, with occasional comments from her, in conversations with Gilbert Blythe, Susan, Cornelia Bryant and others.

Cornelia Bryant continues to be the window for a reader not well versed in politics of churches, politics between communities of different churches, and what's considered propriety, which are all startling if one assumed any of it had anything to do with values such as truth, humanity, or kindness. Hence the Meredith children being always in soup despite their goodness.

Trust Anne to set the gossipers right, and point out that Meredith family is an extraordinary collection of people with rare virtues.

The author ends the book with a double wedding in immediate future, Anne's eldest Jem going off to Queen's soon, and gives a hint of the impending WWI that none of them have foreseen, except for Ellen West, sister of Rosemary,  the soon to be new Mrs Meredith, bride of the pastor and already a friend to his daughters.
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July 12, 2020 - July 14, 2020.
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Rilla of Ingleside
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As much comfortingly halfway between a fairy tale and a dolls house as the other volumes of the Anne series have been until this one, this one is far too alive, gripping, from go - so much so one has to wonder if this wasn't written when it was all current, and the rest written to catch up, from stories told.

Having read others so far, what remains of them is a fragrant idyllic world of gardens and woods in a corner of the world that's Prince Edward Island, where girls might linger, walk or picnic by themselves in woods and remain safe, knowing no fear.

Having read this one, what remains with one is the dog, waiting for Jem at the train station, howling the morning Walter died thousands of miles across Atlantic - and refusing food that day; so much so, when Jem is missing, one of the Ingleside household goes to the train station to ask around if the dog howled or was refusing food.

Much, of course, has been written about the WWII and it's significance regarding survival of very human civilisation, under attack by the dark forces. But this began already in WWI, as pointed out by both Jem and Walter Blythe in their letters home, and their awareness of this being what they were fighting for; in Walter's death in war, somehow the author indicates death of sensitive spirit of poet and visionary that WWI brought about, and not just that of royal houses of Europe.
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Snobbish propaganda against Gone With The Wind - and it's heroine, more than anything else - notwithstanding, it remains a lasting influence, and Scarlett O'Hara remains one of the most endearing figures in psyche of those familar with films. And here we have this volume in the Anne series, based in Prince Edward Island, tiþled after just such a figure, at least to begin with, and so too the first few chapters where she's concerned with beaux and with one in particular, with her dress and a party and who she'd dance with, even as war is being declared in Europe.

This one opens on the day the news of assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo flashed across the globe - including in Ingleside, PE, Canada, where Susan Baker - and millions everywhere, likewise - ignored it, as something about someone not known at some unknown place with a strange name. Susan ignores the huge black headline on the front page, as did others around the globe, looking for more important news. One surmises, from the conversation about Rilla going to Redmond, that this is about eight years after the beginning of the last volume, perhaps close to nine.

""' The many friends of Miss Faith Meredith, Gerald Meredith and James Blythe,'" read Susan, rolling the names like sweet morsels under her tongue, "' were very much pleased to welcome them home a few weeks ago from Redmond College. James Blythe, who was graduated in Arts in 1913, had just completed his first year in medicine.'"

""Faith Meredith has really got to be the most handsomest creature I ever saw," commented Miss Cornelia above her filet crochet."

Merediths have a new baby, Bruce, who looks like his aunt Ellen, and adores Jem Blythe,  following him around silently. Una adores Bruce and Rosemary. Cornelia Bryant wonders if Jem Blythe and Faith Meredith are a couple yet.

""' Carl Meredith and Shirley Blythe came home last Friday evening from Queen's Academy. We understand that Carl will be in charge of the school at Harbour Head next year and we are sure he will be a popular and successful teacher.'""

""' Walter Blythe, who has been teaching for the past two years at Lowbridge, has resigned,'" read Susan. "' He intends going to Redmond this fall.'""

The Blythe twins, Anne or Nan and Diana or Di, are going to Redmond too, at their dad's insistence, instead of teaching; Cornelia Bryant wonders what's to come of Jerry Meredith's interest in Nan.

" ... Well, that is all the notes and there is not much else in the paper of any importance. I never take much interest in foreign parts. Who is this Archduke man who has been murdered?"

""What does it matter to us?" asked Miss Cornelia, unaware of the hideous answer to her question which destiny was even then preparing. "Somebody is always murdering or being murdered in those Balkan States. It's their normal condition and I don't really think that our papers ought to print such shocking things. The Enterprise is getting far too sensational with its big headlines. ... "

And thus the opening chapter of this volume connects the Anne series here, floating until then in romantic era albeit on Prince Edward Island, now to the time and place of the author's then present.

"Miss Oliver, who was going home that night for vacation, had boarded for a year at Ingleside. ... Walter and Rilla were her favourites and she was the confidante of the secret wishes and aspirations of both. She knew that Rilla longed to be "out"— to go to parties as Nan and Di did, and to have dainty evening dresses and— yes, there is no mincing matters— beaux! In the plural, at that! As for Walter, Miss Oliver knew that he had written a sequence of sonnets "to Rosamond"— i.e., Faith Meredith— and that he aimed at a Professorship of English literature in some big college. She knew his passionate love of beauty and his equally passionate hatred of ugliness; she knew his strength and his weakness."

"On this particular afternoon Rilla had no quarrel on hand with existing conditions.

""Hasn't June been a delightful month?" she asked, looking dreamily afar at the little quiet silvery clouds hanging so peacefully over Rainbow Valley. "We've had such lovely times—and such lovely weather. It has just been perfect every way."

""I don't half like that," said Miss Oliver, with a sigh. "It's ominous—somehow. A perfect thing is a gift of the gods—a sort of compensation for what is coming afterwards. I've seen that so often that I don't care to hear people say they've had a perfect time. June has been delightful, though."

""Of course, it hasn't been very exciting," said Rilla. "The only exciting thing that has happened in the Glen for a year was old Miss Mead fainting in Church. Sometimes I wish something dramatic would happen once in a while."

""Don't wish it. Dramatic things always have a bitterness for some one."

Rilla likes to have fun.

""Well, what else is fifteen for? But have you any notion of going to college this fall?"

""No— nor any other fall. I don't want to. I never cared for all those ologies and isms Nan and Di are so crazy about. And there's five of us going to college already. Surely that's enough. There's bound to be one dunce in every family . I'm quite willing to be a dunce if I can be a pretty, popular , delightful one. I can't be clever. I have no talent at all, and you can't imagine how comfortable it is. Nobody expects me to do anything so I'm never pestered to do it. And I can't be a housewifely, cookly creature, either. I hate sewing and dusting, and when Susan couldn't teach me to make biscuits nobody could. Father says I toil not neither do I spin. Therefore, I must be a lily of the field," concluded Rilla, with another laugh."

""The new day is knocking at the window. What will it bring us, I wonder."

"Miss Oliver shivered a little. She never greeted the days with Rilla's enthusiasm. She had lived long enough to know that a day may bring a terrible thing.

""I think the nicest thing about days is their unexpectedness," went on Rilla. "It's jolly to wake up like this on a golden -fine morning and wonder what surprise packet the day will hand you. I always day-dream for ten minutes before I get up, imagining the heaps of splendid things that may happen before night."

""I hope something very unexpected will happen today," said Gertrude. "I hope the mail will bring us news that war has been averted between Germany and France."

""Oh— yes," said Rilla vaguely. "It will be dreadful if it isn't, I suppose. But it won't really matter much to us, will it? I think a war would be so exciting. The Boer war was, they say, but I don't remember anything about it, of course. Miss Oliver, shall I wear my white dress tonight or my new green one? ..."

Does remind one, ominously, of the opening chapter or two of Gone With The Wind!
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In the previous volume, Rilla was a chubby, sweet six year old, and one hated Mary Vance for being malicious enough to scare her into screaming and falling, ruining the dress and new hat she was so happy to wear to deliver a basket of strawberries to the Meredith house.

But even then, the author had Anne, her mother, comment that Rilla was too vain, and the incident might teach her better. Mary on the other hand, rather than her baby daughter, had Anne's sympathy. This was unexpected, but seems to continue.

This might on the face of it seem like fairness on Anne's part, but it's questionable. Anne might remember how she suffered from being dressed unattractively by the strict disciplinarian Marilla, until Matthew overrode her objections and had a splendid dress tailored for Anne, puff sleeves and all; she might remember how she felt when she received it, when subsequently Marilla allowed her attire to be less extremely plain and a tad more in keeping with her peers. And she might recall that she had no sisters to make her feel smaller, lesser, overlooked. Rilla isn't unreasonable.

One wonders if this has to do with Rilla being born into a happy family of a well settled, well to do couple, with a large home and friends galore, while Anne herself was an orphan who worked very hard as a youngster, and hence her ready sympathy with Mary Vance while a tad less with Rilla, born to wealthy parents.

Rilla's lack of ambition might be explained similarly, apart from difference in genetic variations, and it's quite visible everywhere how wealthy families or nations tend to produce generations comparatively less of achievers, especially academically so, than those with middle levels of prosperity.

Those characteristics, however, are precisely why this volume is titled Rilla Of Ingleside. The story here centres on this happy, backwater corner of the world being affected by the war that tore apart Europe, and Rilla represents the happy youth of the new world, unconcerned with old world civilisation and it's learning, history, or culture, or anything that doesn't affect the immediate present and happiness thereof.

One may compare them to plants that grow in shade of a forest versus large shady trees that have not much of a possibility of similar ones very close, except it wouldn't be an exact comparison, of course.

"Rilla loved life— its bloom and brilliance; she loved the ripple of music, the hum of merry conversation; she wanted to walk on forever over this road of silver and shadow."

"How cool and fresh the gulf breeze blew; how white and wonderful the moonlight was over everything! This was life—enchanting life. Rilla felt as if her feet and her soul both had wings."

"A momentary break in the whirling throng gave her a glimpse of Kenneth Ford standing at the other side.

"Rilla's heart skipped a beat— or, if that be a physiological impossibility, she thought it did. So he was here, after all."
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""England declared war on Germany today," said Jack Elliott slowly. "The news came by wire just as I left town."

""God help us," whispered Gertrude Oliver under her breath. "My dream— my dream! The first wave has broken." She looked at Allan Daly and tried to smile.

""Is this Armageddon?" she asked.

""I am afraid so," he said gravely."

"Walter Blythe had turned pale and left the room. Outside he met Jem, hurrying up the rock steps.

""Have you heard the news, Jem?"

""Yes. The Piper has come. Hurrah! I knew England wouldn't leave France in the lurch. ... "

""What a fuss to make over nothing," said Mary Vance disdainfully as Jem dashed off. ... "What does it matter if there's going to be a war over there in Europe? I'm sure it doesn't concern us."

"Walter looked at her and had one of his odd visitations of prophecy. "Before this war is over," he said—or something said through his lips—" every man and woman and child in Canada will feel it—you, Mary, will feel it—feel it to your heart's core. You will weep tears of blood over it. The Piper has come—and he will pipe until every corner of the world has heard his awful and irresistible music. It will be years before the dance of death is over—years, Mary. And in those years millions of hearts will break.""

""Aren't you painting it rather strong, Walter?" asked Harvey Crawford, coming up just then. "This war won't last for years— it'll be over in a month or two. England will just wipe Germany off the map in no time."

""Do you think a war for which Germany has been preparing for twenty years will be over in a few weeks?" said Walter passionately. "This isn't a paltry struggle in a Balkan corner, Harvey. It is a death grapple. Germany comes to conquer or to die. And do you know what will happen if she conquers? Canada will be a German colony."

""Well, I guess a few things will happen before that," said Harvey shrugging his shoulders. "The British navy would have to be licked for one; ... "

" ... They left Walter standing alone on the rock steps, looking out over the beauty of Four Winds with brooding eyes that saw it not.

"The best of the evening was over for Rilla, too. Ever since Jack Elliott's announcement, she had sensed that Kenneth was no longer thinking about her. She felt suddenly lonely and unhappy. It was worse than if he had never noticed her at all. Was life like this— something delightful happening and then, just as you were revelling in it, slipping away from you? Rilla told herself pathetically that she felt years older than when she had left home that evening. Perhaps she did— perhaps she was. Who knows? It does not do to laugh at the pangs of youth. They are very terrible because youth has not yet learned that "this, too, will pass away." Rilla sighed and wished she were home, in bed, crying into her pillow.

""Tired?" said Kenneth, gently but absently— oh, so absently. He really didn't care a bit whether she were tired or not, she thought.

""Kenneth," she ventured timidly, "you don't think this war will matter much to us in Canada, do you?"

""Matter? Of course it will matter to the lucky fellows who will be able to take a hand. I won't— thanks to this confounded ankle. Rotten luck, I call it."

""I don't see why we should fight England's battles," cried Rilla. "She's quite able to fight them herself."

""That isn't the point. We are part of the British Empire. It's a family affair. We've got to stand by each other. The worst of it is, it will be over before I can be of any use."

""Do you mean that you would really volunteer to go if it wasn't for your ankle? asked Rilla incredulously.

""Sure I would. You see they'll go by thousands. Jem'll be off, I'll bet a cent— Walter won't be strong enough yet, I suppose. And Jerry Meredith —he'll go! And I was worrying about being out of football this year!"

"Rilla was too startled to say anything. Jem— and Jerry! Nonsense! Why father and Mr. Meredith wouldn't allow it. They weren't through college. Oh, why hadn't Jack Elliott kept his horrid news to himself?"
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Jem and Jerry left for ValCartier, Kenneth Ford returned home, most of the Blythe and Meredith youngsters - Faith, Nan, Di, Walter, Shirley - left for their studies, and Rilla on her rounds of war work found an infant with its mother dead and it's father, who was from England, gone to war; she took it home, and was forced to care for it herself. Walter praised her for courage.

"And, meanwhile, everywhere , the lads of the world rich and poor, low and high, white and brown, were following the Piper's call.

""Even Billy Andrews ' boy is going— and Jane's only son— and Diana's little Jack," said Mrs. Blythe. "Priscilla's son has gone from Japan and Stella's from Vancouver— and both the Rev. Jo's boys. Philippa writes that her boys 'went right away, not being afflicted with her indecision.'""

Jem and Jerry sailed without visiting home.

"October passed out and the dreary days of November and December dragged by. The world shook with the thunder of contending armies; Antwerp fell— Turkey declared war— gallant little Serbia gathered herself together and struck a deadly blow at her oppressor; and in quiet, hill-girdled Glen St. Mary, thousands of miles away, hearts beat with hope and fear over the varying dispatches from day to day."

""It is an unfortunate thing that the mail comes in just when our dinner rush is on, and I think the Government could arrange things better. But the drive on Calais has failed, as I felt perfectly sure it would, and the Kaiser will not eat his Christmas dinner in London this year. ... I have been told on good authority— or else you may be sure I would not be repeating it when it concerns a minster— that the Rev. Mr. Arnold goes to Charlottetown every week and takes a Turkish bath for his rheumatism. The idea of him doing that when we are at war with Turkey? ... ""

""When I wake up in the night and cannot go to sleep again," remarked Susan, who was knitting and reading at the same time, "I pass the moments by torturing the Kaiser to death. Last night I fried him in boiling oil and a great comfort it was to me, remembering those Belgian babies."

""If the Kaiser were here and had a pain in his shoulder you'd be the first to run for the liniment bottle to rub him down," laughed Miss Oliver. "Would I?" cried outraged Susan.

""Would I, Miss Oliver? I would rub him down with coal oil, Miss Oliver—and leave it to blister. That is what I would do and that you may tie to. A pain in his shoulder, indeed! He will have pains all over him before he is through with what he has started."

""We are told to love our enemies, Susan," said the doctor solemnly.

""Yes, our enemies, but not King George's enemies, doctor dear," retorted Susan crushingly."

""I saw Mrs. Meredith down at the store," said Susan, "and she tells me that they are really troubled over Bruce, he takes things so much to heart. He has cried himself to sleep for a week, over the starving Belgians. 'Oh, mother,' he will say to her, so beseeching-like, 'surely the babies are never hungry— oh, not the babies, mother! Just say the babies are not hungry, mother.' And she cannot say it because it would not be true, and she is at her wits' end. They try to keep such things from him but he finds them out and then they cannot comfort him ."
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""We have been under fire since the last week in February. ... We're in an absolutely different world. The only things that are the same are the stars— and they are never in their right places, somehow.

""Tell mother not to worry— I'm all right— fit as a fiddle— and glad I came. There's something across from us here that has got to be wiped out of the world, that's all— an emanation of evil that would otherwise poison life for ever. It's got to be done, dad, however long it takes, and whatever it costs, and you tell the Glen people this for me. They don't realize yet what it is has broken loose— I didn't when I first joined up. I thought it was fun. Well , it isn't! But I'm in the right place all right— make no mistake about that. When I saw what had been done here to homes and gardens and people— well, dad, I seemed to see a gang of Huns marching through Rainbow Valley and the Glen, and the garden at Ingleside. There were gardens over here— beautiful gardens with the beauty of centuries— and what are they now? Mangled, desecrated things! We are fighting to make those dear old places where we had played as children, safe for other boys and girls— fighting for the preservation and safety of all sweet, wholesome things."
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"Perhaps Susan was unjust in connecting Mr. Pryor's smile with the sinking of the Lusitania, news of which circulated an hour later when the mail was distributed. But the Glen boys turned out that night in a body and broke all his windows in a fine frenzy of indignation over the Kaiser's doings."

Walter enlisted.

""The Germans have recaptured Premysl," said Susan despairingly, looking up from her newspaper, "and now I suppose we will have to begin calling it by that uncivilised name again. Cousin Sophia was in when the mail came and when she heard the news she hove a sigh up from the depths of her stomach, Mrs. Dr. dear, and said , 'Ah yes, and they will get Petrograd next I have no doubt.' I said to her, 'My knowledge of geography is not so profound as I wish it was but I have an idea that it is quite a walk from Premysl to Petrograd.' Cousin Sophia sighed again and said, 'The Grand Duke Nicholas is not the man I took him to be.' 'Do not let him know that, ' said I. 'It might hurt his feelings and he has likely enough to worry him as it is. But you cannot cheer Cousin Sophia up, no matter how sarcastic you are, Mrs. Dr. dear. She sighed for the third time and groaned out, 'But the Russians are retreating fast,' and I said, 'Well, what of it? They have plenty of room for retreating, have they not?' But all the same , Mrs. Dr. dear, though I would never admit it to Cousin Sophia, I do not like the situation on the eastern front."

"Nobody else liked it either; but all summer the Russian retreat went on— a long-drawn-out agony."

Kenneth called before leaving, but they had to contend with baby James crying, and then Susan returned, staying with them to relieve Rilla of burden of entertaining young Ken. They managed a moment before he left, Rilla wondering if she was now engaged.

Walter's poem, about Pied Piper, three verses written in the trench, was published, and picked up everywhere, becoming the quintessential poem of the war.

""There is a young moon tonight— a slender, silver, lovely thing hanging over these pits of torment. Will you see it tonight over the maple grove?

""I'm enclosing a little scrap of verse, Rilla. I wrote it one evening in my trench dug-out by the light of a bit of candle— or rather it came to me there— I didn't feel as if I were writing it— something seemed to use me as an instrument. I've had that feeling once or twice before, but very rarely and never so strongly as this time. That was why I sent it over to the London Spectator. It printed it and the copy came today. I hope you'll like it. It's the only poem I've written since I came overseas."

"The poem was a short, poignant little thing . In a month it had carried Walter's name to every corner of the globe. Everywhere it was copied— in metropolitan dailies and little village weeklies— in profound reviews and " agony columns," in Red Cross appeals and Government recruiting propaganda. Mothers and sisters wept over it, young lads thrilled to it, the whole great heart of humanity caught it up as an epitome of all the pain and hope and pity and purpose of the mighty conflict, crystallized in three brief immortal verses. A Canadian lad in the Flanders trenches had written the one great poem of the war. "The Piper," by Pte. Walter Blythe, was a classic from its first printing."

""As for Verdun, the battle goes on and on, and we see-saw between hope and fear. But I know that strange dream of Miss Oliver's foretold the victory of France. 'They shall not pass.'""
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"A letter came from Walter's commanding officer, telling them that he had been killed instantly by a bullet during a charge at Courcelette. The same day there was a letter for Rilla from Walter himself."

""We're going over the top tomorrow, Rilla-my-Rilla," wrote Walter. "I wrote mother and Di yesterday, but somehow I feel as if I must write you tonight. I hadn't intended to do any writing tonight— but I've got to. Do you remember old Mrs. Tom Crawford over-harbour, who was always saying that it was 'laid on her' to do such and such a thing? Well, that is just how I feel. It's 'laid on me' to write you tonight— you, sister and chum of mine. There are some things I want to say before— well, before tomorrow.

""You and Ingleside seem strangely near me tonight. It's the first time I've felt this since I came. Always home has seemed so far away— so hopelessly far away from this hideous welter of filth and blood. But tonight it is quite close to me —it seems to me I can almost see you— hear you speak. And I can see the moonlight shining white and still on the old hills of home. It has seemed to me ever since I came here that it was impossible that there could be calm gentle nights and unshattered moonlight anywhere in the world. But tonight somehow, all the beautiful things I have always loved seem to have become possible again— and this is good, and makes me feel a deep, certain, exquisite happiness. It must be autumn at home now— the harbour is a-dream and the old Glen hills blue with haze, and Rainbow Valley a haunt of delight with wild asters blowing all over it— our old "farewell-summers." I always liked that name better than 'aster'— it was a poem in itself.

""Rilla, you know I've always had premonitions. You remember the Pied Piper— but no, of course you wouldn't— you were too young. One evening long ago when Nan and Di and Jem and the Merediths and I were together in Rainbow Valley I had a queer vision or presentiment— whatever you like to call it. Rilla, I saw the Piper coming down the Valley with a shadowy host behind him. The others thought I was only pretending— but I saw him for just one moment. And Rilla, last night I saw him again . I was doing sentry-go and I saw him marching across No-man's-land from our trenches to the German trenches— the same tall shadowy form, piping weirdly— and behind him followed boys in khaki. Rilla, I tell you I saw him— it was no fancy— no illusion. I heard his music, and then— he was gone. But I had seen him— and I knew what it meant—I knew that I was among those who followed him.

""Rilla, the Piper will pipe me 'west' tomorrow. I feel sure of this. And Rilla, I'm not afraid. When you hear the news , remember that. I've won my own freedom here— freedom from all fear. I shall never be afraid of anything again— not of death— nor of life, if after all, I am to go on living. And life, I think, would be the harder of the two to face— for it could never be beautiful for me again. There would always be such horrible things to remember— things that would make life ugly and painful always for me. I could never forget them. But whether it's life or death, I'm not afraid, Rilla-my-Rilla, and I am not sorry that I came. I'm satisfied. I'll never write the poems I once dreamed of writing— but I've helped to make Canada safe for the poets of the future— for the workers of the future— ay, and the dreamers, too— for if no man dreams, there will be nothing for the workers to fulfil— the future, not of Canada only but of the world— when the 'red rain' of Langemarck and Verdun shall have brought forth a golden harvest— not in a year or two, as some foolishly think, but a generation later, when the seed sown now shall have had time to germinate and grow. Yes, I'm glad I came, Rilla. It isn't only the fate of the little sea-born island I love that is in the balance— nor of Canada nor of England. It's the fate of mankind. That is what we're fighting for. And we shall win— never for a moment doubt that, Rilla. For it isn't only the living who are fighting— the dead are fighting too. Such an army cannot be defeated."

" ... I just want to say something that may help you over the worst when you hear that I've gone 'west.' I've a premonition about you, Rilla, as well as about myself. I think Ken will go back to you—and that there are long years of happiness for you by-and-by. And you will tell your children of the Idea we fought and died for—teach them it must be lived for as well as died for, else the price paid for it will have been given for nought. This will be part of your work, Rilla. And if you—all you girls back in the homeland—do it, then we who don't come back will know that you have not 'broken faith' with us.

""I meant to write to Una tonight, too, but I won't have time now. Read this letter to her and tell her it's really meant for you both—you two dear, fine loyal girls. Tomorrow, when we go over the top—I'll think of you both—of your laughter, Rilla-my-Rilla, and the steadfastness in Una's blue eyes—somehow I see those eyes very plainly tonight, too. Yes, you'll both keep faith—I'm sure of that—you and Una. And so—goodnight. We go over the top at dawn.""

Rilla read the letter to Una, and seeing her eyes, asked if she'd like to keep it.

"Una took the letter and when Rilla had gone she pressed it against her lonely lips . Una knew that love would never come into her life now— it was buried for ever under the blood-stained soil "Somewhere in France." No one but herself— and perhaps Rilla— knew it— would ever know it. She had no right in the eyes of her world to grieve. She must hide and bear her long pain as best she could— alone. But she, too, would keep faith."
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"Shirley went—not radiantly, as to a high adventure, like Jem, not in a white flame of sacrifice, like Walter, but in a cool, business-like mood, as of one doing something, rather dirty and disagreeable, that had just got to be done."

"Vimy Ridge is a name written in crimson and gold on the Canadian annals of the Great War. "The British couldn't take it and the French couldn't take it," said a German prisoner to his captors, "but you Canadians are such fools that you don't know when a place can't be taken!"

"So the "fools" took it— and paid the price."

Jerry Meredith was seriously wounded, shot in back;

""Poor Nan," said Mrs. Blythe, when the news came. She thought of her own happy girlhood at old Green Gables. There had been no tragedy like this in it. How the girls of to-day had to suffer! When Nan came home from Redmond two weeks later her face showed what those weeks had meant to her. John Meredith, too, seemed to have grown old suddenly in them. Faith did not come home; she was on her way across the Atlantic as a V.A.D. Di had tried to wring from her father consent to her going also, but had been told that for her mother's sake it could not be given. So Di, after a flying visit home, went back to her Red Cross work in Kingsport."

"The Russian line broke again that summer and Susan said bitterly that she had expected it ever since Kerensky had gone and got married."
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" ... Miller Douglas, who had been wounded when the Canadians took Hill 70, had had to have his leg amputated. The Ingleside folk sympathized with Mary, whose zeal and patriotism had taken some time to kindle but now burned with a glow as steady and bright as any one's.

""Some folks have been twitting me about having a husband with only one leg. But," said Mary, rising to a lofty height, "I would rather Miller with only one leg than any other man in the world with a dozen— unless," she added as an after -thought, "unless it was Lloyd George. Well, I must be going. I thought you'd be interested in hearing about Miller so I ran up from the store, but I must hustle home for I promised Luke MacAllister I'd help him build his grain stack this evening. It's up to us girls to see that the harvest is got in, since the boys are so scarce. I've got overalls and I can tell you they're real becoming . Mrs. Alec Douglas says they're indecent and shouldn't be allowed, and even Mrs. Elliott kinder looks askance at them. But bless you, the world moves, and anyhow there's no fun for me like shocking Kitty Alec."

""By the way, father," said Rilla, "I'm going to take Jack Flagg's place in his father's store for a month. I promised him today that I would, if you didn't object. Then he can help the farmers get the harvest in. I don't think I'd be much use in a harvest myself— though lots of the girls are— but I can set Jack free while I do his work. Jims isn't much bother in the daytime now, and I'll always be home at night."

""Do you think you'll like weighing out sugar and beans, and trafficking in butter and eggs?" said the doctor, twinkling.

""Probably not. That isn't the question. It's just one way of doing my bit." So Rilla went behind Mr. Flagg's counter for a month; and Susan went into Albert Crawford's oat-fields."

"Susan, standing on a load of grain, her grey hair whipping in the breeze and her skirt kilted up to her knees for safety and convenience— no overalls for Susan, if you please— neither a beautiful nor a romantic figure; but the spirit that animated her gaunt arms was the self-same one that captured Vimy Ridge and held the German legions back from Verdun.

"It is not the least likely, however, that this consideration was the one which appealed most strongly to Mr. Pryor when he drove past one afternoon and saw Susan pitching sheaves gamely.

""Smart woman that," he reflected. "Worth two of many a younger one yet. I might do worse— I might do worse. If Milgrave comes home alive I'll lose Miranda and hired housekeepers cost more than a wife and are liable to leave a man in the lurch any time. I'll think it over."

"A week later Mrs. Blythe, coming up from the village late in the afternoon, paused at the gate of Ingleside in an amazement which temporarily bereft her of the power of motion. An extraordinary sight met her eyes. Round the end of the kitchen burst Mr. Pryor, running as stout, pompous Mr. Pryor had not run in years, with terror imprinted on every lineament— a terror quite justifiable, for behind him, like an avenging fate, came Susan, with a huge, smoking iron pot grasped in her hands, and an expression in her eye that boded ill to the object of her indignation , if she should overtake him. Pursuer and pursued tore across the lawn. Mr. Pryor reached the gate a few feet ahead of Susan, wrenched it open , and fled down the road, without a glance at the transfixed lady of Ingleside.

""Susan," gasped Anne.

"Susan halted in her mad career, set down her pot, and shook her fist after Mr. Pryor, who had not ceased to run, evidently believing that Susan was still full cry after him.

""Susan, what does this mean?" demanded Anne, a little severely.

""You may well ask that , Mrs. Dr. dear," Susan replied wrathfully. "I have not been so upset in years. That—that— that pacifist has actually had the audacity to come up here and, in my own kitchen, to ask me to marry him. HIM!""
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"Ingleside,

"1st November 1917

""Every fall since the war began there has been some terrible blow to our troops— Antwerp in 1914, Serbia in 1915 ; last fall, Rumania, and now Italy, the worst of all. I think I would give up in despair if it were not for what Walter said in his dear last letter— that 'the dead as well as the living were fighting on our side and such an army cannot be defeated .' No it cannot. We will win in the end. I will not doubt it for one moment. To let myself doubt would be to 'break faith.'"

""The Russian news is bad, too— Kerensky's government has fallen and Lenin is dictator of Russia. Somehow, it is very hard to keep up courage in the dull hopelessness of these grey autumn days of suspense and boding news."

"23rd November 1917

""The Piave line still holds— and General Byng has won a splendid victory at Cambrai."

""This very evening as I put Jims to bed he looked up and asked me gravely, 'Why can't yesterday come back, Willa?'

""Oh, why can't it, Jims? That beautiful 'yesterday ' of dreams and laughter— when our boys were home—when Walter and I read and rambled and watched new moons and sunsets together in Rainbow Valley. If it could just come back! But yesterdays never come back, little Jims— and the todays are dark with clouds— and we dare not think about the tomorrows.""

"1st March 1918

""' What will spring bring?' Gertrude said today. 'I dread it as I never dreaded spring before. Do you suppose there will ever again come a time when life will be free from fear? For almost four years we have lain down with fear and risen up with it. It has been the unbidden guest at every meal, the unwelcome companion at every gathering.'

""' Hindenburg says he will be in Paris on 1st April,' sighed Cousin Sophia.

""' Hindenburg!' There is no power in pen and ink to express the contempt which Susan infused into that name. 'Has he forgotten what day the first of April is?'"

"23rd March 1918

""Armageddon has begun!—'"

""Over there in France tonight— does the line hold?""
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"4th August 1918

""It is four years tonight since the dance at the lighthouse— four years of war. It seems like three times four. I was fifteen then. I am nineteen now. I expected that these past four years would be the most delightful years of my life and they have been years of war— years of fear and grief and worry—"

They heard from Jem, who'd escaped from prison and was in Holland, but was to be treated in hospital in England for a while before he could return. Carl was wounded and lost one eye, and would return sooner.

Rilla had heard from Jim Anderson who'd married an english girl and was returning to take his son. She worried about the little boy, despite his future being secured by a legacy due to a chance encounter with a formidable woman.

"Clear across Cousin Sophia's doleful voice cut the telephone bell. Gertrude Oliver answered it. "Yes— what? What? Is it true— is it official? Thank you— thank you."

"Gertrude turned and faced the room dramatically, her dark eyes flashing, her dark face flushed with feeling. All at once the sun broke through the thick clouds and poured through the big crimson maple outside the window. Its reflected glow enveloped her in a weird immaterial flame. She looked like a priestess performing some mystic, splendid rite.

""Germany and Austria are suing for peace," she said.

"Rilla went crazy for a few minutes. She sprang up and danced around the room, clapping her hands, laughing, crying."

""Can we have as much sugar as we want to now?" asked Jims eagerly. It was a never-to-be-forgotten afternoon.

"As the news spread excited people ran about the village and dashed up to Ingleside. The Merediths came over and stayed to supper and everybody talked and nobody listened."

Carl returned before Xmas, and others kept coming in twos and threes over next several weeks.

"One spring day, when the daffodils were blowing on the Ingleside lawn, and the banks of the brook in Rainbow Valley were sweet with white and purple violets, the little, lazy afternoon accommodation train pulled into the Glen station. It was very seldom that passengers for the Glen came by that train, so nobody was there to meet it except the new station agent and a small black-and-yellow dog , who for four and a half years had met every train that had steamed into Glen St. Mary. Thousands of trains had Dog Monday met and never had the boy he waited and watched for returned. Yet still Dog Monday watched on with eyes that never quite lost hope. Perhaps his dog-heart failed him at times; he was growing old and rheumatic; when he walked back to his kennel after each train had gone his gait was very sober now— he never trotted but went slowly with a drooping head and a depressed tail that had quite lost its old saucy uplift.

"One passenger stepped off the train— a tall fellow in a faded lieutenant's uniform, who walked with a barely perceptible limp. He had a bronzed face and there were some grey hairs in the ruddy curls that clustered around his forehead. The new station agent looked at him anxiously. He was used to seeing the khaki-clad figures come off the train, some met by a tumultuous crowd, others, who had sent no word of their coming, stepping off quietly like this one. But there was a certain distinction of bearing and features in this soldier that caught his attention and made him wonder a little more interestedly who he was.

"A black-and-yellow streak shot past the station agent. Dog Monday stiff? Dog Monday rheumatic? Dog Monday old? Never believe it. Dog Monday was a young pup, gone clean mad with rejuvenating joy."

The dog never left his side then on, even in church.

""One night when Jem and I were talking things over in Rainbow Valley, I asked him if he had ever felt afraid at the front. "

"Jem laughed.

""' Afraid! I was afraid scores of times— sick with fear— I who used to laugh at Walter when he was frightened. Do you know, Walter was never frightened after he got to the front. Realities never scared him—only his imagination could do that. His colonel told me that Walter was the bravest man in the regiment. Rilla, I never realized that Walter was dead till I came back home. You don't know how I miss him now— you folks here have got used to it in a sense —but it's all fresh to me. Walter and I grew up together— we were chums as well as brothers— and now here, in this old valley we loved when we were children, it has come home to me that I'm not to see him again.' "

"Jem is going back to college in the fall and so are Jerry and Carl. I suppose Shirley will, too. He expects to be home in July. Nan and Di will go on teaching. Faith doesn't expect to be home before September. I suppose she will teach then too, for she and Jem can't be married until he gets through his course in medicine. Una Meredith has decided, I think, to take a course in Household Science at Kingsport— and Gertrude is to be married to her Major and is frankly happy about it—' shamelessly happy' she says; but I think her attitude is very beautiful. They are all talking of their plans and hopes— more soberly than they used to do long ago, but still with interest, and a determination to carry on and make good in spite of lost years. "'

"We're in a new world,' Jem says, 'and we've got to make it a better one than the old. That isn't done yet, though some folks seem to think it ought to be. The job isn't finished— it isn't really begun. The old world is destroyed and we must build up the new one. It will be the task of years. I've seen enough of war to realize that we've got to make a world where wars can't happen. We've given Prussianism its mortal wound but it isn't dead yet and it isn't confined to Germany either. It isn't enough to drive out the old spirit— we've got to bring in the new.'"

Finally, Ken returned, to claim Rilla.
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July 14, 2020 - July 16, 2020.
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Chronicles of Avonlea
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As one begins, it's slightly disconcerting to realise this book has Anne as a young girl, although a reader going through this compilation left her youngest daughter grown up and engaged at the end of the last volume, and two of her children dead - her second son on battlefield in France in WWI.

So one has to think that Chronicles of Avonlea ought to have been included in the Anne Stories compilation definitely before Anne's House Of Dreams, and perhaps even before Anne Of The Island. It belongs with Anne Of Avonlea, in its earliest parts really, and reading it so much later is quite disconcerting. And the very first story, about Theodora Dix and Ludovic Speed, has been referred to more than once in Anne Of The Island, if not before.

But by the time one reads next couple of stories in this, one realises that these are all separate stories and aren't sequential in time either, much less all before Anne married and left. So one settles to enjoy them individually as their early readers did when they were first published.
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The Dix- Speed romance is delightful enough, especially with the last touch that's a twist.

But the next, about the Old Lady Lloyd, is touching, almost heartbreaking,  from the very start. And yet, one has to wonder, did the author modify this heartwrenching story into the Lavender Lewis Irving romance, to begin with a heartache but end into something sweetened, albeit not without the loss and pain of years, life, lost?

Each In His Own Tongue is set in time long after Anne has grow up and left, and it's presumably several years after her marriage as well. The author doesnt say just how many years it has been, but when one finishes it, one hopes Felix would meet Una in time to light up her world with life and love.

Little Joscelyn returns further back to when Anne was new at Green Gables. It's again about music, this time Joscelyn being the golden voice.

The Winning Of Lucinda, next story, is set in Anne's youth, and is, unexpectedly, completely delightful, unlike the preceding stories where there were heartaches, and hardships were severe. Anne is a tangential but key figure - with similar colouring and similarly coloured dress, she is mistakenly given a message at a key moment, which she has no clue about the meaning of, or that it wasn't meant for her, by someone newly related to the host family at a wedding.

Old Man Shaw's Girl brings the heartache back with the recurring, albeit not all pervading, theme of this collection - loving heart of an older person yearning for the young, this time a father and daughter. As the author does often enough, there is a recurrence of certain heartwarming themes - here, a daughter returning a day sooner, as Anne did in an earlier volume in the collection.

Aunt Olivia's Beau opens with the said Aunt Olivia informing the young girls that she's going to marry Malcolm McPherson  - the name familiar from the young days of Anne before she left Avonlea to set up her married home. Here the author does with humans what she's always fond of in her portrayals of nature - there's the golden sun of a late afternoon breaking through clouds, in that an old maid set in her neat ways, but never happy with the status, has to confront the reality of her magnificent, ardent beau unsettling her ways, neatness and life. How she manages to deal with it and overcomes herself with her heart leading, is the story.

Whether The Quarantine at Alexander Abraham's has the same protagonist as the last one, isn't clear - the name here is McPherson, unlike the one before who was a niece of Olivia. The time is again back to when the Allan couple were in charge of the church as pastor and his wife. Which is to say, Anne isn't married yet. She's, in fact, in school, so it's not Mary but another McPherson, when asked to teach Sunday school, selects to teach boys, rather than face questions from Anne. Delight from go, the delight merely goes on in increasing tempo, and the mistake a reader makes assuming it's Mary McPherson is cleared as one reads on - this one is named Peter Angelina, and prefers to be called Peter! One may at first have assumed it was Mary, but no, that would be a schoolmate of Anne. This story is delightful from scratch to finish.

Pa Sloane's Purchase is another delightful story, about an old couple and an orphan baby.

The Courting of Prissy Strong might have been written earlier, since it is seemingly the germ for the Rainbow Valley tale of West sisters except for the history - here the beau is claiming Prissy again after two decades, unlike in the other case. This story is set in Anne's girlhood, though, and has the protagonist a relative of Diana, visited at a key moment by Anne visiting home from Redmond brought over by Diana, since the protagonist wished to see her. In Rainbow Valley The story was softened, unlike here where the elder sister remains a dragon. The story is quite thrilling and the end satisfactory, and the best is the last quip by the minister.

The Miracle at Carmody repeats again the pairing of old maid sisters theme with the elder dark, grim and set, while the younger one is big blue eyed, with golden curls and youth of baby face - very similar to the last story and to Rainbow Valley pairs. The little boy who they're bringing up, who has them in despair with his naughty acts and doesn't know he's naughty, is very evocative of Dave from Anne Of Avonlea. This story is about atheism turned due to a loved one cured, though, rather simplistic, unlike the conversion of Marilla due to Anne in her life.

The End of a Quarrel is yet another favourite theme of the author, a couple with a tiff separated for years, coming across one another after decades, while there's still a chance for a life together.
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Must say this author is as incapable of imagining a woman with a home of her own, and content and happy as an adult functioning normally and well adjusted in society, without portraying her as a horrible dragon of an old maid, at whatever age; any normal woman she portrays has to be either married before thirty or consider herself an old maid and hate it, and definitely is incapable of owning her own home happily, despite twenty years of earning well and a "fat bank account" - she can only be happy cleaning a man's house!
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July 16, 2020 - July 19, 2020.
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Further Chronicles of Avonlea
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Aunt Cynthia's Persian Cat begins amusingly enough, and is set in time when Anne was teaching but not yet married - there's a casual mention of Anne seen walking with Dr Irving, presumably not Stephen Irving; and a bit later Anne's being engaged to Gilbert Blythe is discussed and confirmed between the protagonist and her sister, Sue and Ismay Meade respectively. Here again is an aunt trying to get her niece to marry someone she keeps refusing. Ultimately it's the Persian cat who's the matchmaker, quite unintentionally.

The Materializing Of Cecil has a woman of forty making up a story, when asked by a young girl new to Avonlea, about a beau she had at eighteen, just to avoid a humiliation in the sewing circle - with a made up name and description - just to have a person of that name and description turn up shortly thereafter in town as a visitor to a family new in town. That it eventually turns into a romance and marriage, is the authors usual satisfactory finishing touch.

Her Father's Daughter involves a deeply inherent caste system of society of Europe and lands of European migration, which has seafaring communities held lower than the settled farming ones; in its more known form, caste systems of these societies has lanholding gentry at the beginning rung of respectable castes, while wealth and titles count for more when added to lanholding and history thereof. All that is in the background of the story, though, and the story is beautiful.

Jane's Baby has the author take up her favourite theme again, about an older sister displeased at a younger one for being married; here the story goes further, and the two are finally united again in their need of one another, after a cousin has died and her baby daughter was left to the younger one.

The Dream-Child has a male protagonist,  a first, not only in this volume but in this whole collection so far. The story has a young couple deal with the death of a toddler firstborn, a son, with the mother beginning to hear him call her at nights, and her trying to catch him on the seashore. Then comes the surprise, mystery, a ghastly revelation, and a good satisfactory solution all around.

The Brother Who Failed has a family, a clan, acknowledge the debt they owe to the eldest for his virtues, although they are huge successes in the world and he's barely keeping out of debt - they owe it to his guidance and help at a key point in life of each one.

The Return Of Hester has the author yet again deal with her favourite theme, here with a variation - a younger sister deprived of a full life of love and marriage by an older sister who prevails even in her death, leaving the younger one lonely. Here the author again has a spirit healing the rift.

The Little Brown Book Of Miss Emily is set in time when Stephen Irving and Lavender Lewis are married and back in her home, and here the protagonist is Anne Shirley, visiting them with Diana Barry. The story unfolds with an old aunt, of the Leith girls they befriend, dying, and Anne finding her trunk bequeathed to her, sent to Green Gables. It contains a diary of her youth. And a heart rending love story, of two young lovers separated by his cold calculating parents making the girl refuse him, because she has nothing except youth and beauty and love to offer him, since she's poor.

Sara's Way has a scene very reminiscent of Melanie Wilkes defending Scarlett O'Hara and telling off her cousin and sister in law, in just such a gathering of women - only, here its Sara defending the honest, upright beau Lige she was until then resisting agreeing to marry.

The Son Of His Mother tackles the theme of a possessive mother forcing her son to choose between her and his new found love, reducing them to misery, even at the cost of losing the previous open intimacy between herself and her son. In the process the author also takes in the malignant spirit that would repay lifelong kindnesses of someone superior by inflicting pain and torture, just to see the benefactor reduced to agony and writhing, resulting in this power over the superior. The author resolves it as often with forgiveness for the latter, and a seemingly intervention from above bringing wisdom for the former.

The Education Of Betty is unlike any other story by this author, but a theme not unknown in literature, about an older man and a young girl whose relationship changes from fatherly guardianship of a ward to one of love, engagement and marriage; even the theme of a man in love first with the mother, and later the daughter, isn't unknown. The author combines the two, and brings about a satisfactory end, but with a puzzle left unsolved - how did Betty know about her love by being at the boarding school, as she tells him?

In Her Selfless Mood begins with a dying woman making her never loved daughter promise to look after the half brother that the mother loves. This brings about sacrifice of the girl's youth in taking care of the house and farm for the brother, and refusing to marry because the brother throws a fit at the thought of her not housekeeping for him; yet he himself not only finds his own need to marry only natural, and brushes aside any objections as lack of common sense, but unceremoniously informs the suster thst shed have to leave the house when hes married, treating her as a slave until he marries and an unwanted servant thereafter. She then takes place of his late unmarried aunt in his uncle's house, as an unpaid servant employed for all work in exchange for board and lodging. And then she dies of a heart attack, after she's nursed the brother during his small pox until his own death, while the wife stayed away for safety.

The Conscience Case Of David Bell is, to begin with, about evangelism, "coming out", "testifying", and expectations thereof in the community from those not known against such things, of their known vociferous opposition thereto. There is an explicit description of the meeting, the call for standing up for "the master", and testifying. Whether the author is serious about it all, or silently ironic, isn't clear.

Only A Common Fellow has Philippa Clark awake at dawn of her wedding day when her aunt Rachel goes to her, they reminisce about her beau who died in France in war, and Rachel hates Philippa's stepmother Isabella for making Philippa marry Mark Foster. Only, after Rachel has helped Philippa get dressed, there's a knock, and it's Owen when Rachel opens the door. Hed written several times, but Isabella had never given the letters to Philippa, because Mark Foster had declared that he'd foreclose unless Philippa married him. Mark asks Philippa to choose, but then declares he was only hoping to marry and win her love because he thought Owen was no more, and wouldn't stand in the way of their love. Rachel has her estimation of him changed, since his actions are of a true gentleman.

Tannis Of The Flats is about a beautiful girl of very mixed racial ancestry, which - the author assures the reader - is disastrous bringing only a veneer of civilisation even after education, since the girl understands nothing of platonic flirtation when a lonely Englishman in Canadian Northwest spends day after day with her, with no intention or thought of marrying a mixed half breed, especially since he has a third cousin who's a baronet. When an Elinor Blair of Avonlea with her unfixed racial ancestry visits her brother in the vicinity, the said Englishman Carey falls in love with her immediately, and forgets about Tannis immediately. It ends violently when Carey is shot in a quarrel between Paul, brother of Tannis, who worked with Carey, and another man of mixed racial ancestry - native and French - who was after Tannis, and Tannis performs an act of unselfish sacrifice in bringing Elinor Blair to see him before he's dead.

From start to finish, the story is in language and thought racist and colonial imperialist, without any consciousness thereof on part of the author that she thinks this way - to her, this is the only way of seeing things. Not really different from those religions that hold it as a fact that everyone else is going to hell, or for that matter Chinese where the word for all non Chinese is "foreign devil". Pear S. Buck mentions another word or phrase too, but it escapes memory, half a century after reading it.

And yet - coming back to author of this work, Montgomery - this whole collection is replete with descriptions of physical beauty of people of PE in particular, and most are presumably of ancestry from Europe at that, because she mentions no other alternative except in this story - well, quite a lot of them are dark eyed or black eyed and black haired, and quite a few are described as brown skinned. She describes these details as part of their beauty more often than not, except in cases of stories about old maid sisters where the elder one is described as dark and portrayed as dominating, but obviously with a blue eyed blond sister there's no question of another race.
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July 19, 2020 - July 21, 2020.
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The Story Girl
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The Story Girl has a pair of brothers set forth to return to the ancestral home in PE, familiar through their father's takes, from Toronto, and arrive to meet cousins who live there with parents. The grandparents had over a dozen children, and the grandfather planted his orchard with one tree each in name of children as they came, and grandchildren thereafter, and visitors as well.

A cousin at a neighbouring house is the Story girl, with a magical voice that brings life to the stories  or anything else she says. But the stories are not only those of the family and clan.

The whole excitement of the cousins at Jerry Cowan selling the children a picture of god he tore from a book at home, and subsequent feeling of being punished when they'd seen the picture, quite priceless!
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One of the most delightful is An Old Proverb With A New Meaning, when the parents had gone out of town visiting relatives in Halifax, and one day a lot of visitors came, and Dan was left in charge of the sleeping two year old while everyone visited the cemetery after dinner; when they returned, the baby was missing, Dan hadn't noticed it but insisted it hadn't got out because he was sitting in the door reading,  and people searched frantically for the baby.

""This beats me," said Uncle Roger, when a fruitless hour had elapsed. "I do hope that baby hasn't wandered down to the swamp. It seems impossible he could walk so far; but I must go and see. Felicity, hand me my high boots out from under the sofa, there's a girl."

"Felicity, pale and tearful , dropped on her knees and lifted the cretonne frill of the sofa. There, his head pillowed hardly on Uncle Roger's boots, lay Jimmy Patterson, still sound asleep!

""Well, I'll be— jiggered!" said Uncle Roger.

""I knew he never went out of the door," cried Dan triumphantly.

"When the last buggy had driven away, Felicity set a batch of bread, and the rest of us sat around the back porch steps in the cat's light and ate cherries, shooting the stones at each other. Cecily was in quest of information.

""What does 'it never rains but it pours' mean?"

""Oh, it means if anything happens something else is sure to happen," said the Story Girl. "I'll illustrate. There's Mrs. Murphy. She never had a proposal in her life till she was forty, and then she had three in the one week, and she was so flustered she took the wrong one and has been sorry ever since. Do you see what it means now?"

""Yes, I guess so," said Cecily somewhat doubtfully. Later on we heard her imparting her newly acquired knowledge to Felicity in the pantry.

""' It never rains but it pours' means that nobody wants to marry you for ever so long, and then lots of people do.""
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Then there's the story of the sawdust pudding!

And just when you think it could get funnier, it gets colossal, because it's not only funny but a silent commentary on society and it's beliefs and prejudices as taught children, in the chapter wher the newspaper tells them that tomorrow would be judgement day according to a prophet in California - and they are frightened, arguing that since its printed it must be true.
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The whole dreambooks affair is amusing enough, but the lurid dreams to order recipe!

Peter Makes An Impression is really hilarious, beginning with his sermon.

""It's no wonder we can't understand the grown-ups," said the Story Girl indignantly , "because we've never been grown-up ourselves. But they have been children, and I don't see why they can't understand us."
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The Shadow Feared Of Man has Peter begin recovering from measles, after he was considered close to death, and the children's praying, fear, grief, and reaction of Sara Stanley when they hear he'll recover after all, is very affecting.

A Compound Letter has them writing to him. Cecily writes to say she's still praying for him in case of a relapse.

"We have got all the apples picked, and are all ready to take the measles now, if we have to, but I hope we won't. If we have to , though, I'd rather catch them from you than from any one else, because we are acquainted with you. If I do take the measles and anything happens to me Felicity is to have my cherry vase. I'd rather give it to the Story Girl, but Dan says it ought to be kept in the family, even if Felicity is a crank. I haven't anything else valuable, since I gave Sara Ray my forget-me-not jug, but if you would like anything I've got let me know, and I'll leave instructions for you to have it."

Rest of the letters are cute, too, personality of each writer stamped on it, and Sara Stanley's the most erudite, well written and spelled.

But next, On The Edge Of Light And Dark, has Sara Stanley tell a story about a local man who had devil accost him because he went fishing instead of church on a Sunday!

Not funny, Montgomery!
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"Our summer was over. It had been a beautiful one. We had known the sweetness of common joys, the delight of dawns, the dream and glamour of noontides, the long, purple peace of carefree nights. We had had the pleasure of bird song, of silver rain on greening fields, of storm among the trees, of blossoming meadows, and of the converse of whispering leaves. We had had brotherhood with wind and star, with books and tales, and hearth fires of autumn. Ours had been the little, loving tasks of every day, blithe companion ship, shared thoughts, and adventuring. Rich were we in the memory of those opulent months that had gone from us—richer than we then knew or suspected. And before us was the dream of spring. It is always safe to dream of spring. For it is sure to come; and if it be not just as we have pictured it, it will be infinitely sweeter."
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July 21, 2020 - July 30, 2020.
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The Golden Road
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"Once upon a time we all walked on the golden road. It was a fair highway, through the Land of Lost Delight; shadow and sunshine were blessedly mingled, and every turn and dip revealed a fresh charm and a new loveliness to eager hearts and unspoiled eyes.

"On that road we heard the song of morning stars; we drank in fragrances aerial and sweet as a May mist; we were rich in gossamer fancies and iris hopes; our hearts sought and found the boon of dreams; the years waited beyond and they were very fair; life was a rose-lipped comrade with purple flowers dripping from her fingers."
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The Golden Road begins just where The Story Girl left off, in November.

"We had been having a splendid game of Blind-Man's Buff. That is, it had been splendid at first; but later the fun went out of it because we found that Peter was, of malice prepense, allowing himself to be caught too easily, in order that he might have the pleasure of catching Felicity— which he never failed to do, no matter how tightly his eyes were bound. What remarkable goose said that love is blind? Love can see through five folds of closely-woven muffler with ease!"

Beverley, the protagonist, introduces the idea privately proposed by Sara Stanley, so Felicity wouldn't oppose it - that of the kids getting up their own newspaper; Sara pretends to oppose it, as planned, so Felicity promptly goes for it, as does therefore Peter. Dan wasn't sure.

""' Remember it is harder still

"To have no work to do,'"

"quoted Cecily reprovingly.

""I don't believe that," rejoined Dan. "I'm like the Irishman who said he wished the man who begun work had stayed and finished it.""
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A Will, A Way And A Woman is one of the nicer stories from the Island told by Sara Stanley, and the interjections by various listeners, quite telling too.

The Christmas Harp is nice in descriptions of presents, especially relating to those received by Sara Stanley from her father. But then there is description of Uncle Alec and his concern for Cecily, and one wonders if she's going to survive, one would hate it if she didnt - it's too Little Women and its Beth!

But New Year Resolutions begins lovely, with a smile at the boys displeasure about being told by Aunt Janet to escort Sara Ray home.

"We knew perfectly well that next day in school she would tell her chums as a "dead" secret that "So-and-So King saw her home" from the hill farm the night before. Now, seeing a young lady home from choice, and being sent home with her by your aunt or mother are two entirely different things, and we thought Sara Ray ought to have sense enough to know it."

Meanwhile there are resolutions to decide.

""I can't think of any resolutions I want to make," said Felicity, who was perfectly satisfied with herself.

""I could suggest a few to you," said Dan sarcastically.

""There are so many I would like to make," said Cecily, "that I'm afraid it wouldn't be any use trying to keep them all."

""Well, let's all make a few, just for the fun of it, and see if we can keep them," I said. "And let's get paper and ink and write them out. That will make them seem more solemn and binding."

""And then pin them up on our bedroom walls, where we'll see them every day," suggested the Story Girl, "and every time we break a resolution we must put a cross opposite it. That will show us what progress we are making, as well as make us ashamed if we have too many crosses."

""And let's have a Roll of Honour in Our Magazine," suggested Felix, "and every month we'll publish the names of those who keep their resolutions perfect."

""I think it's all nonsense," said Felicity. But she joined our circle around the table , though she sat for a long time with a blank sheet before her."

Later

"Sara and Felix departed and we watched them down the lane in the moonlight— Sara walking demurely in one runner track, and Felix stalking grimly along in the other. I fear the romantic beauty of that silver shining night was entirely thrown away on my misanthropic brother.

"And it was, as I remember it, a most exquisite night— a white poem, a frosty, starry lyric of light. It was one of those nights on which one might fall asleep and dream happy dreams of gardens of mirth and song, feeling all the while through one's sleep the soft splendour and radiance of the white moon-world outside, as one hears soft, faraway music sounding through the thoughts and words that are born of it.

"As a matter of fact, however, Cecily dreamed that night that she saw three full moons in the sky, and wakened up crying with the horror of it."
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Great-Aunt Eliza's Visit, hilarious, and of course the reader knows early on why. But even then the author manages an unexpected last laugh with the recipe for risks by Felicity.

Our Magazine, the monthly written and edited by children, is illuminating - Felicity, for example, isn't as knowledgeable when she writes an essay on Shakespeare, as she's at household concerns; Peter isn't that much beneath her, after all, despite her consciousness about his being "just a hired boy" and thus lower to her socially.

We Visit Peg Bowen has several predictions by Peg Bowen, and one hopes Cecily shall live! But she squander the wishbone given by Peg Bowen to wish for safe return of the cat!

They went gathering Mayflowers and made sprays and bouquets collected in their baskets each, and came to talk of difficulty of keeping resolutions and of thinking beautiful thoughts.

""That's so," conceded the Story Girl. "There are times when I can't think anything but gray thoughts. Then, other days, I think pink and blue and gold and purple and rainbow thoughts all the time.""

"In later years, when we were grown up, she told me of it again. She said that everything had colour in her thought; the months of the year ran through all the tints of the spectrum, the days of the week were arrayed as Solomon in his glory, morning was golden, noon orange, evening crystal blue, and night violet. Every idea came to her mind robed in its own especial hue. Perhaps that was why her voice and words had such a charm, conveying to the listeners' perception such fine shadings of meaning and tint and music."
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""All the same, I wish something exciting would happen," finished the Story Girl, as we walked up through the orchard, peopled with its nun-like shadows.

""There's a new moon tonight, so may be you'll get your wish," said Peter. "My Aunt Jane didn't believe there was anything in the moon business, but you never can tell."

"The Story Girl did get her wish. Something happened the very next day."

""Tell us right off," implored Felix. "You look as if it was something tremendous."

""So it is. Listen— Aunt Olivia is going to be married."

"We stared in blank amazement. Peg Bowen's hint had faded from our minds and we had never put much faith in it."

While Aunt Olivia and the girls were busy getting their dresses ready for the wedding - Sara Stanley was to be bridesmaid - Peter came and said his father had returned, a changed man due to a revivalist meeting, and was going to take care of Peter and his mother, so they need not work. That's another of Peg Bowen's predictions coming true!

Meanwhile Cyrus Brisk has been not only pursuing Cecily with love letters containing poetry and promises of desperate acts, but threatening to beat up William Fraser if he continues his attentions towards her. Felicity is displeased that Cecily has been proposed to, and that Cyrus didn't prefer her over Cecily. But Cecily's aversion was true, and her problems solved in an unforeseen way by a strict schoolteacher with unorthodox punishments, when he caught a pupil in process of passing a note from Cyrus to Cecily in class, and asked Cecily to write out the contents on the blackboard with the name of the sender.

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Sara Stanley has possibly seen a match, Alice Meade who has a beautiful house with a beautiful garden, with her friend the Awkward Man, Jasper Dale. Sara Stanley saw it happen. 

"Jasper Dale, under all his shyness and aloofness, possessed a nature full of delicate romance and poesy, which, denied expression in the common ways of life, bloomed out in the realm of fancy and imagination. Left alone, just when the boy's nature was deepening into the man's, he turned to this ideal kingdom for all he believed the real world could never give him. Love—a strange, almost mystical love—played its part here for him. He shadowed forth to himself the vision of a woman, loving and beloved; he cherished it until it became almost as real to him as his own personality and he gave this dream woman the name he liked best—Alice. In fancy he walked and talked with her, spoke words of love to her, and heard words of love in return. When he came from work at the close of day she met him at his threshold in the twilight—a strange, fair, starry shape, as elusive and spiritual as a blossom reflected in a pool by moonlight—with welcome on her lips and in her eyes. 

"One day, when he was in Charlottetown on business, he had been struck by a picture in the window of a store. It was strangely like the woman of his dream love. He went in, awkward and embarrassed, and bought it. When he took it home he did not know where to put it. It was out of place among the dim old engravings of bewigged portraits and conventional landscapes on the walls of Golden Milestone. As he pondered the matter in his garden that evening he had an inspiration. The sunset, flaming on the windows of the west gable, kindled them into burning rose. Amid the splendour he fancied Alice's fair face peeping archly down at him from the room. The inspiration came then. It should be her room; he would fit it up for her; and her picture should hang there. 

"He was all summer carrying out his plan. Nobody must know or suspect, so he must go slowly and secretly. One by one the furnishings were purchased and brought home under cover of darkness. He arranged them with his own hands. He bought the books he thought she would like best and wrote her name in them; he got the little feminine knick-knacks of basket and thimble. Finally he saw in a store a pale blue tea-gown and the satin slippers. He had always fancied her as dressed in blue. He bought them and took them home to her room. Thereafter it was sacred to her; he always knocked on its door before he entered; he kept it sweet with fresh flowers; he sat there in the purple summer evenings and talked aloud to her or read his favourite books to her. In his fancy she sat opposite to him in her rocker, clad in the trailing blue gown, with her head leaning on one slender hand, as white as a twilight star. 

"But Carlisle people knew nothing of this—would have thought him tinged with mild lunacy if they had known. To them, he was just the shy, simple farmer he appeared. They never knew or guessed at the real Jasper Dale. 

"One spring Alice Reade came to teach music in Carlisle. Her pupils worshipped her, but the grown people thought she was rather too distant and reserved. They had been used to merry, jolly girls who joined eagerly in the social life of the place. Alice Reade held herself aloof from it—not disdainfully, but as one to whom these things were of small importance. She was very fond of books and solitary rambles; she was not at all shy but she was as sensitive as a flower; and after a time Carlisle people were content to let her live her own life and no longer resented her unlikeness to themselves. 

"She boarded with the Armstrongs, who lived beyond Golden Milestone around the hill of pines. Until the snow disappeared she went out to the main road by the long Armstrong lane; but when spring came she was wont to take a shorter way, down the pine hill, across the brook, past Jasper Dale's garden, and out through his lane. And one day, as she went by, Jasper Dale was working in his garden. 

"He was on his knees in a corner, setting out a bunch of roots—an unsightly little tangle of rainbow possibilities. It was a still spring morning; the world was green with young leaves; a little wind blew down from the pines and lost itself willingly among the budding delights of the garden. The grass opened eyes of blue violets. The sky was high and cloudless, turquoise-blue, shading off into milkiness on the far horizons. Birds were singing along the brook valley. Rollicking robins were whistling joyously in the pines. Jasper Dale's heart was filled to over flowing with a realization of all the virgin loveliness around him; the feeling in his soul had the sacredness of a prayer. At this moment he looked up and saw Alice Reade. 

"She was standing outside the garden fence, in the shadow of a great pine tree, looking not at him, for she was unaware of his presence, but at the virginal bloom of the plum trees in a far corner, with all her delight in it outblossoming freely in her face. For a moment Jasper Dale believed that his dream love had taken visible form before him. She was like—so like; not in feature, perhaps, but in grace and colouring—the grace of a slender, lissome form and the colouring of cloudy hair and wistful, dark gray eyes, and curving red mouth; and more than all, she was like her in expression—in the subtle revelation of personality exhaling from her like perfume from a flower. It was as if his own had come to him at last and his whole soul suddenly leaped out to meet and welcome her."

Jasper was in love and slow to recognise it. Here again the author has her favourite romantic ploy - he put flowers, meant for Alice, on the path she took. She knew he'd put them for her, took them, and had liked him after seeing him in church, although she'd heard Carlisle stories about him. They eventually managed to find one another, and were engaged. 

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Sara's father, Blair Stanley, suddenly returned, and while everyone loved him, they were sorry about Sara being taken back with him when he returned to Paris, because he didn't want to miss her any more. 

"There was not in all that vanished October one day that did not come in with auroral splendour and go out attended by a fair galaxy of evening stars— not a day when there were not golden lights in the wide pastures and purple hazes in the ripened distances. Never was anything so gorgeous as the maple trees that year. Maples are trees that have primeval fire in their souls. It glows out a little in their early youth, before the leaves open , in the redness and rosy-yellowness of their blossoms, but in summer it is carefully hidden under a demure, silver-lined greenness. Then when autumn comes, the maples give up trying to be sober and flame out in all the barbaric splendour and gorgeousness of their real nature, making of the hills things out of an Arabian Nights dream in the golden prime of good Haroun Alraschid."

Sara's father, Blair Stanley, suddenly returned, and while everyone loved him, they were sorry about Sara being taken back with him when he returned to Paris, because he didn't want to miss her any more. 

"There was not in all that vanished October one day that did not come in with auroral splendour and go out attended by a fair galaxy of evening stars— not a day when there were not golden lights in the wide pastures and purple hazes in the ripened distances. Never was anything so gorgeous as the maple trees that year. Maples are trees that have primeval fire in their souls. It glows out a little in their early youth, before the leaves open , in the redness and rosy-yellowness of their blossoms, but in summer it is carefully hidden under a demure, silver-lined greenness. Then when autumn comes, the maples give up trying to be sober and flame out in all the barbaric splendour and gorgeousness of their real nature, making of the hills things out of an Arabian Nights dream in the golden prime of good Haroun Alraschid."

The boys' father wrote to say he'd be back in November and take them back to Toronto. 

""Thank goodness there are no more fathers to come back," breathed Cecily with a vicious earnestness that made us all laugh, even in the midst of our dismay."

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July 30, 2020 - August 05, 2020.
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Kilmeny of the Orchard
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Here we seem to depart again from the characters familiar so far in these stories, whether of the Anne series or the King clan of the Story Girl volumes. Here we have a bright young man Eric Marshall, graduating from Queenslea College with a degree in arts, eager to join his father in Marshall & Company, expand the company's department store business, and big dreams for it. But his friend is unwell and Eric must take his place teaching school in Lindsay, PE, for the rest of the term after the spring vacation. He liked it more than he thought, despite the lack of excitement. 

"The Williamson place, where Eric boarded , was on the crest of the succeeding hill. He liked it as well as Larry West had prophesied that he would. The Williamsons, as well as the rest of the Lindsay people, took it for granted that he was a poor college student working his way through as Larry West had been doing. Eric did not disturb this belief, although he said nothing to contribute to it."

Eric went out one evening for a walk, and having walked through woods, came upon a neglected orchard. He walked through and flopped down on grass at the end under lilacs, and suddenly heard music enchanting, and discovered a girl on a bench under a lilac playing violin. He was struck with her beauty, but when she noticed him she was terrified and ran away. He couldn't get her out of his mind, to his chagrin, and looked for her in the orchard and in church, without success. Finally he asked Mrs Williamson. 

""I suppose it must have been Kilmeny Gordon, Master." 

""Kilmeny Gordon? Do you mean the niece of Thomas Gordon of whom your husband spoke?" 

""Yes." 

""I can hardly believe that the girl I saw can be a member of Thomas Gordon's family." 

""Well, if it wasn't Kilmeny Gordon I don't know who it could have been. There is no other house near that orchard and I've heard she plays the violin. If it was Kilmeny you've seen what very few people in Lindsay have ever seen, Master. And those few have never seen her close by. I have never laid eyes on her myself. It's no wonder she ran away, poor girl. She isn't used to seeing strangers." 

""I'm rather glad if that was the sole reason of her flight," said Eric. "I admit I didn't like to see any girl so frightened of me as she appeared to be. She was as white as paper, and so terrified that she never uttered a word, but fled like a deer to cover." 

""Well, she couldn't have spoken a word in any case," said Mrs. Williamson quietly. "Kilmeny Gordon is dumb.""

Kilmeny could hear and understand, but not speak, said Mrs Williamson. She told him the history of her mother, Margaret Gordon, her close friend and classmate, and what she knew about Kilmeny, whom nobody in Lindsay had seen outside the Gordon family, except Eric. He went to the orchard again, and saw her, and this time had a conversation with her, her using a slate hung around her waist. She promised to play for him next day, and he asked her for some of the June lilies - white narcissus -  that she'd been picking. 

"When she came to him, radiant, her hands full of the lilies, a couplet from a favourite poem darted into his head— 

""A blossom vermeil white 

"That lightly breaks a faded flower sheath, 

"Here, by God's rood, is the one maid for me.""

"Eric discovered that she had read a great deal of poetry and history, and a few books of biography and travel. She did not know what a novel meant and had never heard of one. Curiously enough, she was well informed regarding politics and current events, from the weekly paper for which her uncle subscribed."

They went on meeting in the orchard, unþil one day Mrs Williamson confronted Eric and told him he shouldn't, because Kilmeny wasn't used to the world and might care for him, while he was unlikely to marry her. 

"He was face to face with the knowledge that he loved Kilmeny Gordon with the love that comes but once, and is for all time. He wondered how he could have been so long blind to it. He knew that he must have loved her ever since their first meeting that May evening in the old orchard.

"And he knew that he must choose between two alternatives— either he must never go to the orchard again, or he must go as an avowed lover to woo him a wife."

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Neil Gordon, the Italian orphan brought up by Gordon family as their own, spied on their last meeting in the orchard. He informed her uncle and aunt Thomas and Janet, and quarrelled with Eric next day. Eric dealt with him quietly as an adult with a boy, went to meet the Gordon family, and convinced them about his serious and honourable intentions, winning their approval to court Kilmeny to win her. 

They had happy time until Kilmeny realised she loved him; she was distant, and when Eric confessed his love and proposed, she refused because she couldn't speak. He couldn't believe it, and tried to make her change her mind. 

"He did not understand that it was the very intensity of her love which gave her the strength to resist his pleading, where a more shallow affection might have yielded. It held her back unflinchingly from doing him what she believed to be a wrong."

But Eric spoke with Janet. They discussed about her inability to speak, and Eric proposed Kilmeny being examined by David Baker. 

"Janet plainly had no faith in the possibility of anything being done for Kilmeny. But a rosy glow of hope flashed over Kilmeny's face when Eric told her what he meant to do. 

""Oh, do you think he can make me speak?" she wrote eagerly. 

""I don't know, Kilmeny. I hope that he can, and I know he will do all that mortal skill can do. If he can remove your defect will you promise to marry me, dearest?" 

"She nodded. The grave little motion had the solemnity of a sacred promise. 

""Yes," she wrote, "when I can speak like other women I will marry you.""

David Baker arrived, and having won the Williamson household over, chided Eric in private. Eric told him hed but one argument. 

"The next morning Eric took David up to the Gordon homestead. As they approached the old orchard a strain of music came floating through the resinous morning arcades of the spruce wood— a wild, sorrowful, appealing cry, full of indescribable pathos, yet marvellously sweet. 

""What is that?" exclaimed David, starting. 

""That is Kilmeny playing on her violin," answered Eric. "She has great talent in that respect and improvises wonderful melodies." 

"When they reached the orchard Kilmeny rose from the old bench to meet them, her lovely luminous eyes distended, her face flushed with the excitement of mingled hope and fear. 

""Oh, ye gods!" muttered David helplessly."

Having examined her, David told Eric that there was nothing wrong in her vocal instruments, and it was psychological; it needed a great sudden desire for her to get over a barrier and say a word, that was all. But there was nothing he could do. David left, and Kilmeny refused to see Eric then on. Thomas advised him to leave Lindsay, however much they wanted to see him because they loved him. 

Eric went to the orchard without hope when the school was closed due to a local funeral, and saw Neil mending a fence. He felt pity for him. He walked through and sat, and was unaware of steps, and didn't know Kilmeny was coming. 

"Kilmeny walked through the lane slowly and absently like a woman in a dream. When she came to the gap in the fence where the lane ran into the orchard she lifted her wan, drooping face and saw Eric, sitting in the shadow of the wood at the other side of the orchard with his bowed head in his hands. She stopped quickly and the blood rushed wildly over her face. 

"The next moment it ebbed, leaving her white as marble. Horror filled her eyes,— blank, deadly horror, as the livid shadow of a cloud might fill two blue pools. 

"Behind Eric Neil Gordon was standing tense, crouched, murderous. Even at that distance Kilmeny saw the look on his face, saw what he held in his hand, and realized in one agonized flash of comprehension what it meant. 

"All this photographed itself in her brain in an instant. She knew that by the time she could run across the orchard to warn Eric by a touch it would be too late. Yet she must warn him— she must—she MUST! A mighty surge of desire seemed to rise up within her and overwhelm her like a wave of the sea,— a surge that swept everything before it in an irresistible flood. As Neil Gordon swiftly and vindictively, with the face of a demon, lifted the axe he held in his hand, Kilmeny sprang forward through the gap. 

""Eric, Eric, look behind you— look behind you!" 

"Eric started up, confused, bewildered, as the voice came shrieking across the orchard. He did not in the least realize that it was Kilmeny who had called to him, but he instinctively obeyed the command. 

"He wheeled around and saw Neil Gordon, who was looking, not at him, but past him at Kilmeny. The Italian boy's face was ashen and his eyes were filled with terror and incredulity, as if he had been checked in his murderous purpose by some supernatural interposition. The axe, lying at his feet where he had dropped it in his unutterable consternation on hearing Kilmeny's cry, told the whole tale. But before Eric could utter a word Neil turned, with a cry more like that of an animal than a human being, and fled like a hunted creature into the shadow of the spruce wood. 

"A moment later Kilmeny , her lovely face dewed with tears and sunned over with smiles, flung herself on Eric's breast. 

""Oh, Eric, I can speak,— I can speak! Oh, it is so wonderful! Eric, I love you— I love you!""

They arranged the wedding for spring, and Eric wrote his father, who promptly arrived. He was just as taken with the Williamson household and the Gordons, and floored by Kilmeny, he welcomed her into the family. 

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August 05, 2020 - August 10, 2020.
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The Watchman and Other Poems

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DEDICATION

""TO THE MEMORY OF THE GALLANT 

CANADIAN SOLDIERS WHO HAVE LAID 

DOWN THEIR LIVES FOR THEIR COUNTRY 

AND THEIR EMPIRE.""

Lofty, only until before the third line. 

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The Watchman and Other Poems 

The author's writing is poetic when she writes prose describing nature, which she does often. Her poetry, going by the first one, is another matter. Perhaps the waxing eloquent about beauty of nature comes in other poems, later. 

But the first one is as obviously racist as the dedication, above, is obliquely so. One has to wonder, was the author aware her beliefs were not only racist, they were founded on false information too? 

That first poem, as powerful as it is, destroys the idyllic world built in one's mind by having read the author - rest of the books in the Anne Stories compilation - until now, of a world so genteel, beautiful, safe and secure. It brings us back to the lies propagated by most churches, lies that led to a holocaust shortly after, the said holocaust not unknown to most of western powers but nevertheless not stopped when they could easily have done so. 

But the rest are largely about the author's forte - beauty of nature, ocean and skies, stars and hills, and more. One wonders if she sat looking at a harbour, every day, inspired to write verses about the beauty of it all, so varied the verses about the scenes same every day and yet fresh. Then one reflects, Monet was a contemporary and painted various subjects over and over, and one is never tired of looking at them as and when one finds the possibility, and stand enraptured for hours. Montgomery has a similar quality when she writes about the ocean and skies, orchards and wildflowers, and in stories, people. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

 THE WATCHMAN 

It begins with a man asking his woman to love him, and then goes on to what he's been up to, what he's witnessed, becoming suddenly a powerful poem. 

"Down in Jerusalem they slew a man, 

"Or god— it may be that he was a god— 

"Those mad, wild Jews whom Pontius Pilate rules. 

"Thou knowest Pilate, Claudia— a vain man, 

"Too weak to govern such a howling horde 

"As those same Jews. 

"This man they crucified. 

"I knew nought of him— had not heard his name 

"Until the day they dragged him to his death; 

"Then all tongues wagged about him and his deeds; 

"Some said that he had claimed to be their King, 

"Some that he had blasphemed their deity; 

"'Twas certain he was poor and meanly born, 

"No warrior he, nor hero; and he taught 

"Doctrines that surely would upset the world; 

"And so they killed him to be rid of him— 

"Wise, very wise, if he were only man, 

"Not quite so wise if he were half a god!"

Discoveries later, of gospels supposedly destroyed by church centuries ago but had survived hidden in desert caves, and research leading to Holy Blood, Holy Trail that began by questioning various suppositions and teaching and events, was still in future when the lines above were written; but slavery had been banished, sympathy and horror regarding treatment of slaves in confederate states was not unknown in Canada, and yet the lines about Jews subjugated by Roman empire are entirely as devoid of any such sympathy as only the rulers of the then British empire could have regarding their subjects of non European ancestry. Rabbit proof fences were a fact, as were whitewashing of indigenous by force and destroying families thereby, and official preference under British for racist and other castes of British caste system, imposed throughout empire. 

One only wonders, what kind of disgusting people go massacring a whole race, only because they worship one they - inheritors of Roman empire - murdered, and he belonged to that race? Well, as per knowledge that has since been exposed, they - the church - went after his descendants, too, attempting to murder every single one, so massacring the whole race must seem like a non sequitur. 

The poem is powerful, speaks of a level of spiritual experience uncommon to say the least, and yet racism taught by church - church that is no more than Roman empire, after all - pervades on and on. 

"Never was such a conqueror! Yet no pride 

"Was in it— nought but love and tenderness, 

"Such as we Romans scoff at; and his eyes 

Bespake him royal. Oh, my Claudia, 

"Surely he was no Jew but very god!"

Very god, all very well, but why the no Jew bit, that too with a surely? Because Jews being unholy must be the unwritten assumption of all that is civilised as per definition by Roman empire? And this, because Jews are after all an Asiatic race, like all those from India, China, ...... and in fact anything not of origin of ancestry from dark Nordic latitudes? 

Oh, Montgomery! To destroy the idyllic world you created in your writings, making PE into a haven on earth, only to hit a reader with this hammer of a racist hatred so ingrained for centuries! 

And yet it's civilisations of Egypt and India, China and Persia - and of Mayan and others - that far precede anything of Europe, including perhaps Greece but definitely Rome! 

Here's clinching finale -

"I cannot even hate those Jews; my lips 

"Speak harshly of them, but within my heart 

"I feel a strange compassion; and I love 

"All creatures, to the vilest of the slaves 

"Who seem to me as brothers! Claudia, 

"Scorn me not for this weakness; it will pass— 

"Surely 'twill pass in time and I shall be 

"Maximus strong and valiant once again, 

"Forgetting that slain god! and yet— and yet— 

"He looked as one who could not be forgot!"

Surely it's slaveowners that must be vile?

August 31, 2020. 

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SONGS OF THE SEA 

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................................................................................................

RAIN ALONG SHORE 

Lovely contrast between storming seas and winds that force fishing villages to perforce enjoy a respite with their loved ones. 

September 01, 2020. 

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SEA SUNSET 

Beautiful description of a sunset on ocean! The author has given similar descriptions, albeit a tad briefly, all through her PE stories. 

September 01, 2020. ........................................................

WHEN THE DARK COMES DOWN 

Nicely correlated, the darkening of skies with fishing boats returning to shore, homes lighting up, and more. 

September 01, 2020. 

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HARBOR MOONRISE 

Another favourite of the author, often lyrically described in her stories, here she gives it a free rein. 

September 01, 2020. 

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BEFORE STORM 

Well put, the concerns of those at home with someone dear still on sea. 

September 01, 2020. 

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ON THE BAY 

Very beautifully written, about seas and shore, boats and skies, from dawn to dark. 

September 01, 2020. 

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SHORE TWILIGHT 

"Oh, what a poignant rapture thus to be 

"Lingering at twilight by the ancient sea!"

Indeed. 

September 01, 2020. 

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SONG OF THE SEA-WIND 

"I scatter the dawn across the sea 

"Like wine of amber flung 

"From a crystal goblet all far and fine 

"Where the morning star is hung; 

"I blow from east and I blow from west 

"Wherever my longing be— 

"The wind of the land is a hindered thing 

"But the ocean wind is free!"

September 01, 2020. 

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MORNING ALONG SHORE 

"Who would drowze in dull devotion 

"To his ease when dark is done, 

"And upon its breast the ocean 

"Like a jewel wears the sun?"

September 01, 2020. 

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OFF TO THE FISHING GROUND 

"We are the heirs of its tingling strife, 

"Its courage and liberty. 

"Sing as the white sails cream and fill, 

"And the foam in our wake is long, 

"Sing till the headlands black and grim 

"Echo us back our song! 

"Oh, 'tis a glad and heartsome thing 

"To wake ere the night be done 

"And steer the course that our fathers steered 

"In the path of the rising sun."

September 01, 2020. 

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IN PORT 

"Shipmates, furl we our sails— we have left the seas behind us, 

"Gladly finding at last our homes and our loves once more."

September 01, 2020. 

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THE GULLS 

Nice. 

September 01, 2020. 

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SUNRISE ALONG SHORE 

"Across the ocean, wan and gray, 

"Gay fleets of golden ripples come, 

"For at the birth-hour of the day 

"The roistering, wayward winds are dumb. 

"The rocks that stretch to meet the tide 

"Are smitten with a ruddy glow, 

"And faint reflections come and go 

"Where fishing boats at anchor ride."

Beautiful. 

"One boat alone beyond the bar 

"Is sailing outward blithe and free, 

"To carry sturdy hearts afar 

"Across those wastes of sparkling sea; 

"Staunchly to seek what may be won 

"From out the treasures of the deep, 

"To toil for those at home who sleep 

"And be the first to greet the sun."

Really nice. 

September 01, 2020. 

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THE SEA SPIRIT 

Here said in verse form, this thought recurs through the writings of the author, quite often. 

"And if one for love of me 

"Gives to my call an ear, 

"I will woo him and hold him dear, 

"And teach him the way of the sea, 

"And my glamor shall ever over him be; 

"Though he wander afar in the cities of men 

"He will come at last to my arms again."

September 01, 2020. 

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HARBOR DAWN 

"There's a hush and stillness calm and deep, 

"For the waves have wooed all the winds to sleep 

"In the shadow of headlands bold and steep; 

"But some gracious spirit has taken the cup 

"Of the crystal sky and filled it up 

"With rosy wine, and in it afar 

"Has dissolved the pearl of the morning star."

Really beautiful, followed by more - 

"With the first red sunlight on mast and spar 

A ship is sailing beyond the bar,"

And

"Fortune and favor the ship shall win 

"That crosses the bar when the dawn comes in."

The author makes it come alive.

September 01, 2020. 

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MY 'LONGSHORE LASS 

Difficult to believe this was written by a woman, not a sailor waxing eloquent, about his girl's bright eyes and other charms, comparing them with the light, wind, stars and ocean. 

But then again, women notice beauty of other women, of course, and feelings of the men - and while a sailor may feel it, it takes a poet to pen it, so skilfully wielding her words forming verses and rhymes, so variant. 

September 01, 2020. 
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WHEN THE FISHING BOATS GO OUT 

"Salt is the breath of ocean slopes and fresher blows the breeze, 

"And swifter still each bounding keel cuts through the combing seas, 

"Athwart our masts the shadows of the dipping sea-gulls float, 

"And all the water-world's alive when the fishing boats go out."

September 01, 2020. 

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THE BRIDAL 

"Last night a pale young Moon was wed 

"Unto the amorous, eager Sea; 

"Her maiden veil of mist she wore 

"His kingly purple vesture, he. 

"With her a bridal train of stars 

"Walked sisterly through shadows dim, 

"And, master minstrel of the world, 

"The great Wind sang the marriage hymn. 

"Thus came she down the silent sky 

"Unto the Sea her faith to plight, 

"And the grave priest who wedded them 

"Was ancient, sombre-mantled Night."

Exquisite!!!

September 01, 2020. 

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THE SEA TO THE SHORE 

"Tell me how I may win thee, tell me how I must woo. 

"Shall I creep to thy white feet, in guise of a humble lover? 

"Shall I croon in mild petition, murmuring vows anew? 

"Shall I stretch my arms unto thee, biding thy maiden coyness, 

"Under the silver of morning, under the purple of night? 

"Taming my ancient rudeness, checking my heady clamor— 

"Thus, is it thus I must woo thee, oh, my delight? 

"Nay, 'tis no way of the sea thus to be meekly suitor— 

"I shall storm thee away with laughter wrapped in my beard of snow, 

"With the wildest of billows for chords I shall harp thee a song for thy bridal, 

"A mighty lyric of love that feared not nor would forego! 

"With a red-gold wedding ring, mined from the caves of sunset,"

Amazing!

September 01, 2020. 

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THE VOYAGERS 

"We shall launch our shallop on waters blue from some dim primrose shore, 

"We shall sail with the magic of dusk behind and enchanted coasts before, 

"Over oceans that stretch to the sunset land where lost Atlantis lies, 

"And our pilot shall be the vesper star that shines in the amber skies."

"And at last, on some white and wondrous dawn, we shall reach the fairy isle 

"Where our hope and our dream are waiting us, and the to-morrows smile; 

"With song on our lips and faith in our hearts we sail on our ancient quest, 

"And each man shall find, at the end of the voyage, the thing he loves the best."

So true to the spirit of voyages! 

September 01, 2020. 

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SONGS OF THE HILLS AND WOODS 

In this section, especially in the very first poem, it's another recurring theme, much loved of the author, familiar to a reader who's read her prose.

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TWILIGHT AND I WENT HAND IN HAND 

"I could have lingered now and then 

"By gates of moonrise that might lead 

"To some forgotten, spiceried mead, 

"Or in some mossy, cloistered glen, 

"Where silence, very still and deep, 

"Seemed fallen in enchanted sleep. 

"But Twilight ever led me on, 

"As lovers walk, until we came 

"To hills where sunset's shaken flame 

"Had paled to ashes dead and wan; 

"And there, with footsteps stolen-light 

"She left me to the lure of night."

September 01, 2020. 

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COME, REST AWHILE 

Takes one to that other world! 

"The wayward chimes of memory's pensive bells, 

"Wind-blown o'er misty hills and curtained dells. 

"One step aside and dewy buds unclose 

"The sweetness of the violet and the rose; 

"Song and romance still linger in the green, 

"Emblossomed ways by you so seldom seen,"

September 01, 2020. 

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AN APRIL NIGHT 

This one is bound to remind one of a young Anne. 

September 01, 2020. 

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RAIN ON THE HILL 

Lovely. 

September 01, 2020. 

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FOR LITTLE THINGS 

Nice. 

September 01, 2020. 

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SPRING SONG 

Beautiful. 

September 01, 2020. 

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A DAY OFF 

If one could....

September 01, 2020. 

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THE WIND 

Of life, love and death. 

September 01, 2020. 

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THE WOOD POOL 

Another favourite theme, known to those familar with Anne. 

September 01, 2020. 

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DOWN STREAM 

"While the world's tired children sleep we bend to our oars with faces 

"Set in our eager gladness towards the morning's gate; 

"Lo, 'tis the sweet of the day! On, comrades mine, for beyond us 

"All its dower of beauty, its glory and wonder, wait."

September 02, 2020. 

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ECHO DELL 

One could quote much of this poem that paints a lovely picture, one that is like a caleidoscopic combination of several that are familiar to readers of Anne series, of a discovered dell and echo and woods and hills and more. But quoting a part won't do.

September 02, 2020. 

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THE ROVERS 

"Other delights may pall, but the joy of the open never"

September 02, 2020. 

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AMONG THE PINES 

"If it be night, the moonlight will wander winsomely with us, 

"If it be hour of dawn, all heaven will bloom, 

"If it be sunset, it's glow will enfold and pursue us. 

"To the remotest valley of purple gloom. 

"Lo! the pine wood is a temple where the days meet to worship,"

September 02, 2020. 

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A DAY IN THE OPEN 

"Where the sea evermore 

"Surgeth over the gray reef, and drowns 

"The fierce rocks with white foam; 

"It is ours with untired feet to roam 

"Where the pines in green gloom of wide vales make their murmuring home, 

"Or the pools that the sunlight hath kissed 

"Mirror back a blue sky that is winnowed of cloud and of mist!"

September 02, 2020. 

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MIDNIGHT IN CAMP 

"Beyond the lake, white, girdling peaks uplift 

"Untroubled brows to virgin skies afar, 

"And o'er the uncertain water glimmers drift 

"Of fitful cloud and star."

September 02, 2020. 

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THE HILL MAPLES 

"Down in the valleys beneath us is wooing and winning and wedding, 

"Down in the long, dim valleys earth-children wail and weep; 

"But here on these free hills we grow and are strong and flourish, 

"Comrades shoulder to shoulder our watch of the years to keep."

September 02, 2020. 

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A SUMMER DAY 

"Adown the golden sunset way 

"The evening comes in wimple gray; 

"By burnished shore and silver lake 

"Cool winds of ministration wake; 

"O'er occidental meadows far 

"There shines the light of moon and star, 

"And sweet, low-tinkling music rings 

"About the lips of haunted springs."

September 02, 2020. 

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SEPTEMBER 

"Lo! a ripe sheaf of many golden days 

"Gleaned by the year in autumn's harvest ways,"

September 02, 2020. 

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IN LOVERS' LANE 

Familiar from Anne series, here in verse form - 

"There slender harebells nod and dream, 

"And pale wild roses offer up 

"The fragrance of their golden hearts, 

"As from some incense-brimméd cup. 

"It holds the sunshine sifted down 

"Softly through many a beechen screen, 

"Save where, by deeper woods embraced, 

"Cool shadows linger, dim and green."

September 02, 2020. 

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ON THE HILLS 

"We passed by woods where the day aside 

"Knelt like a pensive nun and tender, 

"We looked on valleys of purple pride 

"Where she reigned a queen in her misty splendor; 

"But out on the hills she was wild and free,"

September 02, 2020. 

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AN AUTUMN EVENING 

Beautiful verses, but - why begin autumn of Northeast (of US and Canada) with an evening, instead of the glorious days with beauty matched nowhere else? 

September 02, 2020. 

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NOVEMBER EVENING 

"Silent the woods are and gray; but the firs than ever are greener,"

Lucky you, if you have the evergreens around in Nordic latitudes!

September 02, 2020. 

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OUT O' DOORS 

"Hope within us like a questing bird upsoars, 

"And there's room for song and laughter out o' doors."

September 02, 2020. 

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IN THE DAYS OF THE GOLDEN ROD 

"In this latest comer the vanished summer 

"Has left its sunshine the world to cheer, 

"And bids us remember in late September 

"What beauty mates with the passing year. 

"The days that are fleetest are still the sweetest,"

September 02, 2020. 

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A WINTER DAY 

"Wide, sparkling fields snow-vestured lie 

"Beneath a blue, unshadowed sky; 

"A glistening splendor crowns the woods 

"And bosky, whistling solitudes;"

September 02, 2020. 

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TWILIGHT 

"The fair, wild Night," 

Fair? Night? 

"Crowned with her chaplet of out-blossoming stars,"

September 02, 2020. 

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THE CALL OF THE WINDS 

"I whistle gaily on starry nights 

"Through the arch of the elfin northern lights, 

"But in long white valleys I pause to hark 

"Where the ring of the home-lights gems the dark."

September 02, 2020. 

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A WINTER DAWN 

Trust Montgomery to see, and tell of, beauty in winter dawn in Nordic latitudes! 

September 02, 2020. 

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THE FOREST PATH 

Familiar, from Anne series. 

September 02, 2020. 

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AT NIGHTFALL 

Wonder if the author realised this might be allegorical, right up to the final line? Her outward consciousness would probably not permit her that final line to be understood as reality in the allegorical sense, and wonder if she was familiar with works of Herman Hesse, specifically one that might open her mind in this context. 

September 02, 2020. 

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THE TRUCE O' NIGHT 

From fairy tale and elves to mystical. 

September 02, 2020. 

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MISCELLANEOUS 

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TO MY ENEMY 

"And thus, while all the world may laud 

"The gifts of love and loyalty, 

"I lay my meed of gratitude 

"Before thy feet, mine enemy!"

Hm!!!!!!! 

September 02, 2020. 

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AS THE HEART HOPES 

"Can any exquisite, unearthly morn, 

"Silverly breaking o'er a starry plain, 

"Give to your soul the poignant pleasure born 

"Of virgin moon and sunset's lustrous stain 

"When we together watch them? 

"Oh, apart A hundred universes you may roam, 

"But still I know— I know— your only home 

"Is here within my heart!"

September 02, 2020. 

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TWO LOVES 

"Let us together drain the wide world's cup 

"With gladness brimméd up!""

"And I would count it all the wide world's gain 

"To spare or share thy pain!""

September 02, 2020. 

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THE CHRISTMAS NIGHT 

"And every thought in her soul was a prayer; 

"While under the dome of the desert sky 

"The Kings of the East from afar drew nigh, 

"And the great white star that was guide to them"

Wonder if she was aware that he wasn't born the day celebrated as his birth, of course - it was Saturnalia, the harvest festival celebrated through Europe, that church sought to make people forget, by changing mere label, so to speak.

September 02, 2020. 

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IN AN OLD FARMHOUSE 

"From the clutch of the cities and paths of the sea 

"We have come again to our own roof-tree, 

"And forgetting the loves of the stranger lands 

"We yearn for the clasp of our kindred's hands."

September 03, 2020. 

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A REQUEST 

Between eerie and gruesome. 

September 03, 2020. 

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MEMORY PICTURES 

Nice.

September 03, 2020. 

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DOWN HOME 

"Beside the open kitchen door 

"My mother stands all lovingly, 

"And o'er the pathways of the dark 

"She sends a yearning thought to me."

September 03, 2020. 

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THE CHOICE 

"I would share widely, Life, 

"In all thy joy and strife"

Was that written before the wars?

September 03, 2020. 

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TWILIGHT IN THE GARDEN 

"In the dewy shade 

"Of the tall, dark poplars whose slender tops 

"Against the sunset bloom are laid, 

"And a robin is whistling in the copse 

"By the dim spruce wood."

September 03, 2020. 

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MY LEGACY 

"My friend has gone away from me 

"From shadow into perfect light, 

"But leaving a sweet legacy."

"A faith of unstained purity, 

"A thought of beauty for delight— 

"These did my friend bequeath to me;"

September 03, 2020. 

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GRATITUDE 

"Deep in the life of my soul it has wrought 

"With its own rare essence to ever imbue me, 

"To gleam like a star over devious ways, 

"To bloom like a flower on the drearest days—"

September 03, 2020. 

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FANCIES 

"Oh! surely the blossoms of all the springs 

"Must be the souls of beautiful things."

September 03, 2020. 

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ONE OF THE SHEPHERDS 

Here the author returns to Bethlehem - 

"Was it the dawn that silvered and broke 

"Over the hill? 

"Each at the other looked in amaze, 

"And never a breathless word we spoke. 

"Fast into rose and daffodil 

"Deepened that splendor; athwart its blaze 

"That pierced like a sword the gulf of night"

The light, usually referred to as a star, was a supernova, chronicled in Chinese history and thereby reckoned by scientists of West as to its timing, which wasn't December, but spring. 

"The light died out as the sunset dies 

"In the western skies; 

"Swift went we to the Bethlehem khan,"

Khan? She couldn't have meant they were Mongols, and another abrahmic religion that uses that title was still over half a millennium in the future! The dictionary gives another meaning, saying it's a Persian word for a caravanserai. But did Judea use Persian terms? Israel was then under Roman subjugation. In any case, an average reader - especially in U.S., or generally in West, is far from likely to think or ask as much, and is far more likely to simply infer that she means that Israel was (and thereby Jews are) Mongol hordes. 

Is it only when it comes to religion that this author, or West in general, suddenly become indistinguishable from nazis? What does that say about preaching of church?

September 03, 2020. 

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IF MARY HAD KNOWN 

"If Mary had known 

"When she held her Babe's hands in her own— 

"Little hands that were tender and white as a rose, 

"All dented with dimples from finger to wrist, 

"Such as mothers have kissed— 

"That one day they must feel the fierce blows 

"Of a hatred insane."

Again, this author in particular, and West in general, persis in this strange confusion, where simultaneously, Jews are seen as non "white", while Mary - and more so this one son - are seen as unquestionably "white"! It points to a psychological deep confusion, between skin colour that results from exposure to light, not merely immediately but also over centuries, and supposed inner virtues of mind and heart! 

If there were any truth in that, wouldn't nazi war criminals be easy to know, simply because they had faces black as shoe polish for black shoes? 

But the crucifixion was decreed, and every part thereof carried out, by the occupying military rulers, Romans. The insane hatred was what emanated from them towards all non Europeans, still reflected in racism, including this author when she mentions those of different ancestry, even of Italy! 

Here's more of that same racism and confusion - 

"As she held him so closely, her own, 

"Cradling his shining, fair head on her breast, 

"Sunned over with ringlets as bright as the morn"

Why assume he wasn't dark or black haired? Most of Jews are. Church falsified much, but this assumption is ridiculous. 

September 03, 2020. 

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AT THE LONG SAULT 

The explanation before the poem says little that could identify precisely which war this is about, and one might mistakenly assume it was WWI, specifically France, even till the end - 

"My spirit must to-morrow go 

"To seek my comrades; but I bear 

"The tidings that our desperate stand 

By the Long Sault has saved our land, 

"And God has answered Daulac's prayer."

But the assumption isn't satisfactory enough, and then google tells us about 1660 Canadian history. 

September 03, 2020. 

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THE EXILE 

 The first stanza doesn't clarify the specific origin of the exile.

"We told her that her far off shore was bleak and dour to view, 

"And that her sky was dull and mirk while ours was smiling blue. 

"She only sighed in answer, "It is even as ye say, 

"But oh, the ragged splendor when the sun bursts through the gray!""

One assumes England, until later when she says - 

"We bade her listen to the birds that sang so madly sweet, 

"The lyric of the laughing stream that dimpled at our feet; 

""But, O," she cried, "I weary for the music wild that stirs 

"When keens the mournful western wind among my native firs!""

One might wonder if it's Ireland. But then the final lines 

"We prayed her take the fresher loves, we prayed her be of cheer; 

""Oh, ye are kind and true," she wept, "but woe's me for the grace 

"Of tenderness that shines upon my mother's wrinkled face!""

And it's about every exile, every migrant. 

September 03, 2020. 

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THE THREE SONGS 

Nice. 

September 03, 2020. 

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IN AN OLD TOWN GARDEN 

"Upgathering to themselves the breath 

"Of wide-blown roses white and red, 

"The spice of musk and lavender 

"Along its winding alleys shed."

Musk? It isn't a flower or a plant, it's a specific deer, only in Himaalayan heights, and rare to find, that it originates from! 

September 03, 2020. 

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THE SEEKER 

Nice. 

September 03, 2020. 

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THE POET'S THOUGHT 

Nice. 

September 03, 2020. 

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THE CALL 

Surely Andrew isn't a name common to Israel, Judea, Jews, then or now? 

September 04, 2020. 

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THE OLD HOME CALLS 

"I keep for you all your childhood dreams, your gladness and delights, 

"The joy of days in the sun and rain, the sleep of carefree nights, 

"All the sweet faiths ye have lost and sought again shall be your own, 

"Darlings, come to my empty heart— I am old and still and alone!"

Always heartbreaking! 

September 04, 2020. 

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GENIUS 

Nice.

September 04, 2020. 

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LOVE'S PRAYER 

"Beloved, this the heart I offer thee 

"Is purified from old idolatry,"

???????

Beneath contempt, the underlying assumptions and attitude nurtured by abrahmic cultures.

September 04, 2020. 

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THE PRISONER 

Nice, except for the assumed association of lions with heat, sand and deserts. Lions are fine with tropical forests too, including in India where it was British hunting that brought them to brink of extinction. 

September 04, 2020. 

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COMPANIONED 

Nice. 

September 04, 2020. 

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YOU 

Nice.

September 04, 2020. 

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UNRECORDED 

"No evangelist's golden pen 

"Wrote them for us— 

"The words of the Master to those he might meet 

"By the carpenter's bench or in Nazareth street— 

"But in them I think there well might be— 

"It is surely sweet to fancy thus— 

"All of the benediction for men 

"All of the tender humanity, 

"That leaven the words of his later age 

"On the holy page."

It's easy to forget that he was one of them, belonged to them as a rabbi and a king by his heritage, and god or not, perceived as great solace by many, still, the idolatry that permeates this poem in particular and West in general is a product of centuries of efforts by church, not only via preaching but also - and definitely chiefly so - via centuries of inquisition, formal or otherwise, burning to death not only every independent thought but every possessor - outside ordained members of church - of any bit of knowledge, so the authority of church over minds of Europe was as absolute as that of nazis over Germany. 

September 04, 2020. 

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WITH TEARS THEY BURIED YOU TO-DAY 

Nice. 

September 04, 2020. 

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IN MEMORY OF "MAGGIE" 

"Many we know of human-kind 

"Are not so fond and true;"

September 04, 2020. 

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REALIZATION 

Between romantic and surreal . 

September 04, 2020. 

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THE GARDEN IN WINTER 

"In the summer days of blue 

"All its dreamings will come true."

Blue? Aren't summers green and gold? 

September 04, 2020. 

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THE DIFFERENCE 

Probably true of all love separated by necessity, such as a parent and child.

September 04, 2020. 

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THE POET 

Nice. 

September 04, 2020. 

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THE MOTHER 

Does the mother see the baby, not as a baby, a child, but as a male or female? 

September 04, 2020. 

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TO ONE HATED 

Surely hatred isn't merely a matter of a different path?

September 04, 2020. 

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WHILE THE FATES SLEEP 

Does the concept exist elsewhere, or did this author invent it?

September 04, 2020. 

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THE FAREWELL 

About WWI?

September 04, 2020. 

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THE OLD MAN'S GRAVE 

Hm.

September 04, 2020. 

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FOREVER 

This must have been personal. 

September 04, 2020. 

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BY AN AUTUMN FIRE

Why does one get the impression that Montgomery was less than appreciative of the glorious beauty that's autumn of Northeast US and Canada?

September 04, 2020. 

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August 31, 2020 - September 04, 2020.
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The Short Story Collection
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The Short Story Collection 

(143 stories)

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August 10, 2020 - August 11, 2020.
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1. A Case of Trespass 

Sam French tried to dissuade Dan Phillips from his intention of meeting Mr Walters and informing him about having fished on his property as he was unaware that this new owner objected.  But Dan was set on the course of honesty determined by him and his widowed mother whom he helped support the family, and so met Mr Walters despite trepidation. Mr Walters gave him written permission to continue fishing, offered to buy what he fished at market prices, and offered him a job, too, for being honest. 

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August 11, 2020 - August 11, 2020.
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2. A Christmas Inspiration 

Few girls at the boarding house who couldn't go home for Xmas but had received plenty of gifts by mail themselves, noticed that Miss Allen hadn't received any. They hadn't liked her until then, but we're inspired to give her gifts themselves. She was quite transformed on seeing them. 

""How lovely the world is," said Jean. 

"This is really the very happiest Christmas morning I have ever known," declared Nellie. 

""I never felt so really Christmassy in my inmost soul before." 

""I suppose," said Beth thoughtfully, "that it is because we have discovered for ourselves the old truth that it is more blessed to give than to receive. I've always known it, in a way, but I never realized it before." 

""Blessing on Jean's Christmas inspiration," said Nellie. "But, girls, let us try to make it an all-the-year-round inspiration, I say. We can bring a little of our own sunshine into Miss Allen's life as long as we live with her.""

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August 11, 2020 - August 11, 2020.
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3. A Christmas Mistake 

Mrs Grant had to inform her half a dozen children that they wouldn't have a Xmas dinner, what with their father having died a year ago, bills to be paid, and so on. But the schoolteacher came over to inform her that Miss Miller had invited them all, children and mother, for Xmas dinner. She was a cousin of Mrs Grant, estranged for years, so Mrs Grant was surprised, and happy to accept. But the teacher had made a mistake and conveyed invitation to Grant family instead of the intended Smithsons. Miss Miller was glad when he told her, and asked him to invite Smithsons as well. The two cousins were friends again, and children happy. Miss Miller was grateful for the mistake. 

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August 11, 2020 - August 11, 2020.
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4. A Strayed Allegiance 

Marian and Esterbrook, engaged recently after having known one another for ever, met Magdalen the niece of a poor family in The Cove, a fishing village, and were struck with her beauty, but differently. Esterbrook returned to The Cove to meet her, and Magdalen told him off, commanding he never meet her. But he returned and insisted he'd be with her. It took him two weeks of meeting her before conquering himself and making up his mind to keep his promise. But Marian knew, and asked him to free her from the engagement. 

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August 11, 2020 - August 11, 2020.
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5. An Invitation Given on Impulse 

Carol Golden was permitted by her family to invite a friend for holidays, and intended to invite Maud Russell, but found out Ruth Mannering was orphaned and had no home to go to; she fought her impulse to invite Ruth, but did it next day. At home, Carol was surprised, everyone liked Ruth. To the surprise of everyone, it turned out that their very rich neighbour Swift, who'd lost his wife and daughter, was a half-brother of Ruth's mother, and they'd lost touch when their mother died. Swift insisted Ruth at once come live with him, but allowed her to continue the holiday and return to school meanwhile. 

""I shall graduate next year, Uncle, and then I can come back to you for good." 

"That evening when Ruth was alone in her room, trying to collect her thoughts and realize that the home and love that she had so craved were really to be hers at last, Golden Carol was with her mother in the room below, talking it all over. 

""Just think , Mother, if I had not asked Ruth to come here, this would not have happened. And I didn't want to, I wanted to ask Maud so much, and I was dreadfully disappointed when I couldn't-for I really couldn't. I could not help remembering the look in Ruth's eyes when she said that she had no home to go to, and so I asked her instead of Maud. How dreadful it would have been if I hadn't.""

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August 11, 2020 - August 11, 2020.
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6. Detected by the Camera 

Amy was invited by neighbours to photograph their beautiful orchards in bloom, and incidentally it so happened that the neighbours' poor protege Ned Brooke was caught on camera in act of stealing the wallet of the master when he thought - quite rightly - that no one was around. 

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August 12, 2020 - August 12, 2020.
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7. In Spite of Myself 

Carslake was asked by Aunt Lucy to look after their business while her husband was away, although her daughter Augusta thought there was no need since she could do so; he went with a prejudice against her, taking leave of his very feminine and diminutive fiancee Nellie for the few weeks. He had arguments with the cousin and lost them, and she found him conceited. But they were thrown together and he found his attentions changing. It ended well, in two separate weddings - Nellie had an old beau return rich from West. 

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August 12, 2020 - August 12, 2020.
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8. Kismet 

They met unexpectedly at the race track. 

"They had not met for five years. She shut her eyes and looked in on her past. It all came back very vividly. She had been eighteen when they were married-a gay, high-spirited girl and the season's beauty. He was much older and a quiet, serious student. Her friends had wondered why she married him-sometimes she wondered herself, but she had loved him, or thought so. 

"The marriage had been an unhappy one. She was fond of society and gaiety, he wanted quiet and seclusion. She Was impulsive and impatient, he deliberate and grave. The strong wills clashed. After two years of an unbearable sort of life they had separated-quietly, and without scandal of any sort. She had wanted a divorce, but he would not agree to that, so she had taken her own independent fortune and gone back to her own way of life. In the following five years she had succeeded in burying all remembrance well out of sight. No one knew if she were satisfied or not; her world was charitable to her and she lived a gay and quite irreproachable life."

The short story describes their reactions and uncertainty, and the unexpected coming together again. 

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August 12, 2020 - August 12, 2020.
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9. Lilian's Business Venture 

After her father's death their fortunes had sharply declined, but she could cook, and turned the fortunes around by supplying the town with various necessities from bread to preserves to party catering. 

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August 12, 2020 - August 12, 2020.
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10. Miriam's Lover 

Mrs Sefton and protagonist discussed spirits. 

""Surely, Mary," I exclaimed, "you don't mean to say that you believe people ever do or can see spirits-ghosts, as the word goes?" 

"I didn't say I believed it. I never saw anything of the sort. I neither believe nor disbelieve. But you know queer things do happen at times-things you can't account for. At least, people who you know wouldn't lie say so. Of course, they may be mistaken. And I don't think that everybody can see spirits either, provided they are to be seen. It requires people of a certain organization-with a spiritual eye, as it were. We haven't all got that-in fact, I think very few of us have. I dare say you think I'm talking nonsense.""

""Possibly not. Try me; I may be convinced." 

""No," returned Mrs. Sefton calmly. "Nobody ever is convinced by hearsay. When a person has once seen a spirit-or thinks he has-he thenceforth believes it. And when somebody else is intimately associated with that person and knows all the circumstances-well, he admits the possibility, at least. That is my position. But by the time it gets to the third person-the outsider-it loses power."

Protagonist having persuaded successfully, Mrs Sefton tells about Miriam and her fiance, love of her life, who communicated without material means. 

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August 12, 2020 - August 12, 2020.
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11. Miss Calista's Peppermint Bottle 

Miss Calista needed a man to work for her, but had refused Ches May in who was an orphan, because the community branded him after his father; but when she surprised a midnight prowler in her house and threw a bottle at him as he escaped through the window, she recognised him next day due to the scent, and caught Ches. He was honest in telling her why, and she offered him the job. He proved her right. 

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August 12, 2020 - August 12, 2020.
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12. The Jest That Failed 

Grace didn't know her college girls looked down on her because she was poor, and the invitation to prom night from Sidney Hill was a prank by them; Sidney got her acceptance note, understood someone had played a prank on her, and decided to honour that invitation. At the prom not only she was a success with the guys but Sidney's family too, and his brother recognised her as the sister of the doctor out West who'd saved his life. The Hill family told her she must consider their home as hers, and the girls who'd played a joke never knew why it failed. 

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August 12, 2020 - August 12, 2020.
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13. The Penningtons' Girl 

"At the end of a fortnight Riverside folks began to talk about Winslow and the Penningtons' hired girl. He was reported to be "dead gone" on her; he took her out rowing every evening, drove her to preaching up the Bend on Sunday nights, and haunted the Pennington farmhouse. Wise folks shook their heads over it and wondered that Mrs. Pennington allowed it. Winslow was a gentleman, and that Nelly Ray, whom nobody knew anything about, not even where she came from, was only a common hired girl, and he had no business to be hanging about her. She was pretty , to be sure; but she was absurdly stuck-up and wouldn't associate with other Riverside "help" at all. Well, pride must have a fall; there must be something queer about her when she was so awful sly as to her past life.

"Winslow and Nelly did not trouble themselves in the least over all this gossip; in fact, they never even heard it. Winslow was hopelessly in love, when he found this out he was aghast. He thought of his father, the ambitious railroad magnate; of his mother, the brilliant society leader; of his sisters, the beautiful and proud; he was honestly frightened. It would never do; he must not go to see Nelly again. He kept this prudent resolution for twenty-four hours and then rowed over to the West shore. He found Nelly sitting on the bank in her old faded print dress and he straightway forgot everything he ought to have remembered."

He proposed and was accepted, before her identity was out. 

""Oh, do forgive me," she said merrily. "I shouldn't have, I suppose-but you know you took me for the hired girl the very first time you saw me, and you patronized me and called me Nelly; so I let you think so just for fun . I never thought it would come to this. When Father and I came north I took a fancy to come here and stay with Mrs. Pennington-who is an old nurse of mine-until Father decided where to take up our abode. I got here the night before we met. My trunk was delayed so I put on an old cotton dress her niece had left here-and you came and saw me. I made Mrs. Pennington keep the secret-she thought it great fun; and I really was a great hand to do little chores and keep the cats in subjection too. I made mistakes in grammar and dropped my g's on purpose -it was such fun to see you wince when I did it. It was cruel to tease you so, I suppose, but it was so sweet just to be loved for myself-not because I was an heiress and a belle-I couldn't bear to tell you the truth. Did you think I couldn't read your thoughts this afternoon, when I insisted on going ashore? You were a little ashamed of me-you know you were. I didn't blame you for that, but if you hadn't gone ashore and taken me as you did I would never have spoken to you again. Mrs. Keyton-Wells won't snub me next time we meet. And some way I don't think your father will turn you out, either. Have you forgiven me yet, Burton?" 

""I shall never call you anything but Nelly," said Winslow irrelevantly."

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August 12, 2020 - August 12, 2020.
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14. The Red Room 

Quite a horror story about beauty, passion, old family Montressor that has a son Hugh marry Alicia from foreign shores of "Indies", with blood of foreign race that the family distrust - although, as per description, it's more Viking than anything different from Europe - and the protagonist Beatrice telling her grandchild about her childhood, when her witnessing the drama, of estrangement between Hugh and Alicia, brought about by a scene she witnessed of Alicia and a lover being discovered by Hugh, and later saw Hugh being killed by Alicia when he attempted to stop her fleeing with the lover! 

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August 13, 2020 - August 13, 2020.
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15. The Setness of Theodosia 

She refused to go West with her husband, but fifteen years later was told he was sick and dying, and promptly set off to see him; they were united, he recovered, and offered to return, but she decided they'd stay on. 

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August 13, 2020 - August 13, 2020.
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16. The Story of an Invitation 

Bertha noticed her roommate Grace was even more pale and thin since she'd arrived, and having to work through summer wouldn't be good for her health. She asked her Aunt Meg to invite Grace in her stead, and at the end of vacation heard from both - Meg was adopting Grace. 

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August 13, 2020 - August 13, 2020.
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17. The Touch of Fate 

Mrs Major Hill in Dufferin Bluff out West has opportunity to indulge her matchmaking skills when Miss Violet Thayer visits, and has decided on Ned Madison; Violet enjoys the attention, talks to all, narrows down to Ned, but her attention is with John Spencer who's not MP, but works for government. He's not dazzled by her, even when she makes an effort. But he returned unexpectedly next evening, and she began to spend time with him, exclusively, until he suddenly went away. Violet confronted Mrs Hill,  who confessed having hinted about her being engaged to someone back home. Mrs Hill wrote and dispatched an urgent letter, and Spencer returned promptly. 

""It seems a year of misery since last night," sighed Violet happily. 

""You couldn't have been quite as miserable as I was," said Spencer earnestly. "You were everything-absolutely everything to me. Other men have little rills and driblets of affection for sisters and cousins and aunts, but everything in me went out to you. Do you remember you told me the first time we met that love would be a revelation to me? It has been more. It has been a new gospel. I hardly dared hope you could care for me. Even yet I don't know why you do." 

""I love you," said Violet gravely, "because you are you.""

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August 13, 2020 - August 13, 2020.
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18. The Waking of Helen 

Robert Reeves offered to paint Helen Fraser, and pay for her time, because he noticed her in tears when her aunt had been especially bitter. He was surprised at the transformation in her, and again more so especially after he'd been reading to her when she said her aunt didn't allow her to read.  But the day she saved his life by coming in the nick of time with a dory when he was caught at high tide in the rocky cove, he was staggered to to realise she was in love with him. He had someone, very different, back home. He had not flirted, and wasn't used to women falling for him. Next day he told Helen about his expected wedding in spring, and since she sounded calm, he left with peace of mind. Helen walked to the cove and sat there as tide came in. 

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August 13, 2020 - August 13, 2020.
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19. The Way of the Winning of Anne 

"Jerome Irving had been courting Anne Stockard for fifteen years. He had begun when she was twenty and he was twenty- five, and now that Jerome was forty, and Anne, in a village where everybody knew everybody else's age, had to own to being thirty-five, the courtship did not seem any nearer a climax than it had at the beginning. But that was not Jerome's fault, poor fellow! At the end of the first year he had asked Anne to marry him, and Anne had refused."

"Three years later Jerome tried his luck again, with precisely the same result, and after that he had asked Anne regularly once a year to marry him, and just as regularly Anne said no a little more brusquely and a little more decidedly every year. Now, in the mellowness of a fifteen-year-old courtship, Jerome did not mind it at all. He knew that everything comes to the man who has patience to wait."

"It was Jerome's fortieth birthday when Anne refused him again. He realized this as he went down the road in the moonlight, and doubt and dismay began to creep into his heart. Anne and he were both getting old-there was no disputing that fact. It was high time that he brought her to terms if he was ever going to. Jerome was an easy-going mortal and always took things placidly, but he did not mean to have all those fifteen years of patient courting go for nothing He had thought Anne would get tired of saying no, sooner or later, and say yes, if for no other reason than to have a change; but getting tired did not seem to run in the Stockard blood."

Jerome had an idea, and it worked - Anne married him, to everybody's surprise. 

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August 13, 2020 - August 13, 2020.
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20. Young Si 

Beautiful Ethel Lennox comes to a fishing village saying she wishes quiet and the picturesque place was recommended by a friend; she wishes to see fishermen, and is told about a mysterious one arrived from elsewhere. She meets him, they know one another. She is a poor schoolteacher and Miles Lesley from wealthy family, they were engaged, but his family didn't approve. They'd quarrelled over Ethel misbehaving at a gathering at his home when she felt ignored, and she'd broken up; he'd vanished. They avoided one another now, until on her last day she went sailing with another fisherman in a leaky boat. The storm had Miles rush in his boat to save her, and they were united. 

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August 13, 2020 - August 14, 2020.
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21. A Patent Medicine Testimonial 

Prudence and Murray Melville, twins, were being stopped from going to college by uncle Melville, after their father died. Prudence wrote testimonials to liniment companies to be used in advertising, in exchange for a fee that would be useful towards college. Uncle Melville was forced to relent, due to pride of family name. 

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August 14, 2020 - August 14, 2020.
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22. A Sandshore Wooing 

Margaritas Forrest was in charge of an aunt Martha who wouldn't allow her any freedom, recreation, or socialising, but happened to be seen by the brother of her friend Connie at seashore, and the two managed despite aunt Martha to meet and get engaged. 

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August 14, 2020 - August 14, 2020.
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23. After Many Days 

Ben Butler returns to his old town after many years, where people remember him but don't recognise him; he hears of his benefactor of yore, old man Stephen, having fallen on bad times and expected to be turned out of his home, despite having helped several people throughout his life. Ben didn't think it was sensible to let go of his only lately earned money to help old Stephen, but next day did so, and returned West determined to do better to justify the old man's faith in him, without anyone else being any wiser to his identity. 

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August 14, 2020 - August 14, 2020.
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24. An Unconventional Confidence 

The girl ran into the pavilion on shore out of the rain just as the young man, a stranger, did, just escaping rain; they had to keep to the one seat that was not getting rained on. She began to talk to him, and he thought her adorable. 

""Well," began the Girl, "the root of the whole trouble is simply this. There is a young man in England. I always think of him as the Creature. He is the son of a man who was Father's especial crony in boyhood, before Father emigrated to Canada. Worse than that, he comes of a family which has contracted a vile habit of marrying into our family. It has come down through the ages so long that it has become chronic. Father left most of his musty traditions in England, but he brought this pet one with him. He and this friend agreed that the latter's son should marry one of Father's daughters. It ought to have been Beatrix-she is the oldest. But Beatrix had a pug nose. So Father settled on me. From my earliest recollection I have been given to understand that just as soon as I grew up there would be a ready-made husband imported from England for me. I was doomed to it from my cradle. Now," said the Girl, with a tragic gesture, "I ask you, could anything be more hopelessly, appallingly stupid and devoid of romance than that?""

Of course, she's no clue. When they meet at home, she admits she's glad of having promised him to not refuse the guy no matter what. 

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August 14, 2020 - August 14, 2020.
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25. Aunt Cyrilla's Christmas Basket 

Lucy Rose tried, as always in vain, to dissuade aunt Cyrilla from carrying a huge basket of country goodies when visiting Edward and Geraldine, the relatives in town. Uncle leopold said it was going to storm, he thought they couldn't go to Pembroke. It was snowing thick when they got to the train station. But the train stopped several times due to snow and finally stopped in evening, far enough from Pembroke, with woods around. Aunt Cyrilla fed people from the basket, and gave Xmas gifts to children. They shared stories, and connected. Lucy Rose changed her opinion about the basket. 

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August 14, 2020 - August 14, 2020.
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26. Davenport's Story 

About a father of a girl being warned by his long dead brother to stop his daughter sailing on Aragon. 

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August 14, 2020 - August 14, 2020.
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27. Emily's Husband 

Emily had married Stephen despite the family feud, the two very much in love.

"Stephen's mother lived with them. Janet Fair had never liked Emily. She had not been willing for Stephen to marry her. But, apart from this, the woman had a natural, ineradicable love of making mischief and took a keen pleasure in it. She loved her son and she had loved her husband, but nevertheless, when Thomas Fair had been alive she had fomented continual strife and discontent between him and Stephen. Now it became her pleasure to make what trouble she could between Stephen and his wife."

Emily had left Stephen, and never looked back, but now she heard he was dying and went to him. The doctors had given up, but her arrival turned him around. 

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August 14, 2020 - August 14, 2020.
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28. Min 

A minister living in a remote village, despairing of his effectiveness among the locals, about to give up and accept another place, meets the woman most hated by them, and lives of the two change. 

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August 14, 2020 - August 15, 2020.
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29. Miss Cordelia's Accommodation 

Cordelia, a schoolteacher, had a small house in a four acre land, but a cousin sent her his old horse when he left to go West, and Cordelia got a wagon to cart off factory children to a place of woods and meadows for the day. She met Abraham Smiles whose house and farm she intended to have the children get water from, after she'd fed them on bred and butter, but he offered them milk and jam, and invited her to do this weekly. Come fall, she could no longer keep the horse, but Abraham not only wanted to buy the horse, he proposed marriage,  and said they'd go on with the weekly picnics for children too. 

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August 15, 2020 - August 15, 2020.
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30. Ned's Stroke of Business 

Ned needs to find some money to go to college, and comes up with a scheme to propose to old Mr Dutcher to let his pond be used for skating. When he went to college, Mr Rogers said he could work for him after college  as bookkeeper, having showed business acumen. 

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August 15, 2020 - August 15, 2020.
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31. Our Runaway Kite 

Beautiful story about a kite patched up with an old letter becoming instrumental in reuniting family. 

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August 17, 2020 - August 17, 2020.
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32. The Bride Roses 

Another beautiful family reunion, helped by a rose tree blossoming after twenty years. 

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August 17, 2020 - August 17, 2020.
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33. The Josephs' Christmas 

"From fourteen-year-old Mollie down to four-year-old Lennie there were eight small Josephs in all in the little log house on the prairie ; so that when each little Joseph wanted to give a Christmas box to each of the other little Josephs, and something to Father and Mother Joseph besides, it is no wonder that they had to cudgel their small brains for ways and means thereof."

But the severe storm brought visitors, wealthy couple Ralstons, on their way to visit relatives, who had to find shelter, and were happy to leave contents of their baskets of gifts meant for the relatives, along with a note hoping they could return the hospitality some time. 

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August 17, 2020 - August 18, 2020.
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34. The Magical Bond of the Sea 

Nora yearned for life beyond the ocean of her fishing village, and Cameron couple wanted to take her as their own. On return next summer, she returned whole, just as her father had done in his time. She'd loved the Camerons and the life they gave her, but her heart was here. 

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August 18, 2020 - August 18, 2020.
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35. The Martyrdom of Estella 

Bowes family took in boarders sometimes, and this time it was a very beautiful actress. Estella was annoyed that she was in the parlour despite it being the day Estella received her fiance, but she brought him in and introduced him with pride. 

"Vivienne LeMar watched the two faces before her; a hard gleam, half mockery, half malice, flashed into her eyes and a smile crept about her lips. She looked straight in Spencer Morgan's honest blue eyes and read there the young man's dazzled admiration. There was contempt in the look she turned on Estella."

Estella was mortified. She confronted Vivienne after a few days. 

""Miss LeMar," said Estella in a quivering voice, "what do you mean by all this? You know I'm engaged to Spencer Morgan!" 

"Miss LeMar laughed softly. "Really? If you are engaged to the young man, my dear Miss Bowes, I would advise you to look after him more sharply. He seems very willing to flirt, I should say." 

"She passed on to her room with a malicious smile. Estella shrank back against the wall, humiliated and baffled. When she found herself alone, she crawled back to her room and threw herself face downward on the bed, praying that she might die. 

"But she had to live through the horrible month that followed-a month so full of agony that she seemed to draw every breath in pain. Spencer never sought her again; he went everywhere with Miss LeMar. His infatuation was the talk of the settlement . Estella knew that her story was in everyone's mouth, and her pride smarted; but she carried a brave front outwardly. No one should say she cared."

Quite worth reading, and material enough in the short story for a feature film. 

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August 18, 2020 - August 18, 2020.
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36. The Old Chest at Wyther Grange 

Aunt Winifred and Amy opened the chest a few years after old Mrs Laurence and Eliza were both dead, and having seen the contents, Winifred told Amy about Eliza who was very beautiful but not rich, unlike her namesake cousin the other Eliza Laurence. The beautiful Eliza got engaged to Willis Starr, new in town and very handsome. 

""A week before the wedding, Willis Starr was spending the evening at the Grange. We were all chattering gaily about the coming event, and in speaking of the invited guests Eliza said something about the other Eliza Laurance, the great heiress, looking archly at Willis over her shoulder as she spoke. It was some merry badinage about the cousin whose namesake she was but whom she so little resembled. 

""We all laughed, but I shall never forget the look that came over Willis Starr's face. It passed quickly, but the chill fear that it gave me remained. A few minutes later I left the room on some trifling errand, and as I returned through the dim hall I was met by Willis Starr. He laid his hand on my arm and bent his evil face-for it was evil then, Amy-close to mine. 

""' Tell me,' he said in a low but rude tone, 'is there another Eliza Laurance who is an heiress?' 

""' Certainly there is,' I said sharply. 'She is our cousin and the daughter of our Uncle George. Our Eliza is not an heiress. You surely did not suppose she was!' 

""Willis stepped aside with a mocking smile. "' I did-what wonder? I had heard much about the great heiress, Eliza Laurance, and the great beauty, Eliza Laurance. I supposed they were one and the same. You have all been careful not to undeceive me.' 

""' You forget yourself, Mr. Starr, when you speak so to me,' I retorted coldly. 'You have deceived yourself. We have never dreamed of allowing anyone to think that Eliza was an heiress. She is sweet and lovely enough to be loved for her own sake.'"

On the wedding day, they received a note from him to Eliza, explaining he couldn't afford to marry; she was very ill, and as she recovered they heard he'd managed after all and married the cousin Eliza Laurence who was an heiress, his object from the time he'd come to town. 

Winifred asked Amy if she wanted to have anything from the chest, linen or pearls or - Amy declined all except the miniature portrait of Eliza. 

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August 18, 2020 - August 18, 2020.
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37. The Osbornes' Christmas 

The kids were bored with Xmas, but took up the suggestion of Cousin Myra whom they adored, and gave a Xmas to poor neighbour children, and were very happy. 

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August 18, 2020 - August 18, 2020.
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38. The Romance of Aunt Beatrice 

Margaret, with her own little grievance, visited Aunt Beatrice, who had wanted to go to the "at home" in honour of John Reynolds - once her fiance, now M.P. and very wealthy - just to steal a look, but she'd  been discouraged by her brother's wife from going without a new silk dress; Margaret fixed that, insisting she go in Margaret's new dress, and she brought the whole ensemble and fixed her hair too. John had come only to see her, and took her off the hall to talk privately. Margaret saw them return before Beatrice entered and having demanded she be invited when they were married, told Beatrice she'd better keep that dress. 

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August 18, 2020 - August 18, 2020.
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39. The Running Away of Chester 

Perhaps the most deeply touching story of the lot, so far anyway! Chester, an orphan who is treated horribly and forbidden to schooling by his father's stepsister, runs away and finds work and a home with Miss Salome Whitney and her housekeeper Clemantiny, and with his hard work and good behaviour and respectful attitude becomes dear to both; when he realises they think it's wrong to run away, and tells them about himself, they in turn realise that he's a nephew of the late mother of Johny, a nephew of Miss Salome, and Clemantiny knew not only his parents but also the horrible aunt. Fortunately for all three, his step-aunt not only does not want him but is rude to Miss Salome as well, and he's brought back for good. 

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August 18, 2020 - August 18, 2020.
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40. The Strike at Putney 

Most delightful! Putney, the exemplary community where there was no trouble regarding church, had one row - Mrs Cotterell, missionary, had been invited by Women's Auxiliary Foreign Missions of Putney, and since she accepted for a sunday when the minister was to be away, they decided on the church instead of the smaller school room since they expected a large gathering to hear her. Then the men including the minister declared that a woman speaking from pulpit in church was not going to be allwed. The women argued, had a meeting, and decided to strike by accepting that women speaking, or doing anything else related to church other than hearing in silence, was not to be tolerated! No singing, no dusting, no flowers, no baking! Men gave in. 

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August 18, 2020 - August 18, 2020.
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41. The Unhappiness of Miss Farquhar 

The beautiful blue blooded heiress Frances was jilted by the selfish guy who married someone else, but didn't let the society see her heartbreak; then for holidays, she visited Aunt Eleanor in the remote country on seaside instead of the fashionable beach, and began to live in contact with realities. The young minister, and his sister who was her own age, helped begin her living a new life.

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August 19, 2020 - August 19, 2020.
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42. Why Mr. Cropper Changed His Mind 

The new teacher was using her new Kodak and happened to catch Mr Cropped stealing plums from a tree that belonged to a neighbour. 

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August 19, 2020 - August 19, 2020.
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43. A Fortunate Mistake 

She wasn't invited to school picnic because her father was only a factory supervisor, and most girls who tried talking to her found it difficult because she was conscious of the status gap that had some look with disdain on her. But accidentally it all changed. 

"Winboro girlhood discovered that the Wallace girls were taking Florrie Hamilton into their lives. If the Wallace girls liked her, there must be something in the girl more than was at first thought-thus more than one of Miss Braxton's girls reasoned. And gradually the other girls found, as Nan had found, that Florrie was full of fun and an all-round good companion when drawn out of her diffidence. When Miss Braxton's school reopened Florrie was the class favourite. Between her and Nan Wallace a beautiful and helpful friendship had been formed which was to grow and deepen through their whole lives. 

""And all because Maude in a fit of abstraction wrote 'Hamilton' for 'Hastings,'" said Nan to herself one day. But that is something Florrie Hamilton will never know."

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August 19, 2020 - August 19, 2020.
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44. An Unpremeditated Ceremony 

Selwyn had left because he couldn't see Esme married to Tom, but nobody had told Jen that that engagement had been off; when he returned unexpectedly and met Esme after his younger brother married her younger sister, the misunderstanding was cleared, and he didn't waste time. 

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August 19, 2020 - August 19, 2020.
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45. At the Bay Shore Farm 

The Newburys wanted to to to the governor's picnic, each for a different reason, but grandmother Newbury wrote to ask one granddaughter to come spend the day, and expected Cecilia who was self sacrificing, but was pleased to see Frances, and said she wanted her to meet Mrs Kennedy from down South, a friend of her uncle, who was a guest for a while. Frances was happy to converse with her the whole day, and it was only as she was leaving that grandmother Newbury told her who Mrs Kennedy was. 

"The Newburys were sitting on the verandah at dusk, too tired and too happy to talk. Ralph and Elliott had seen the Governor; more than that, they had been introduced to him, and he had shaken hands with them both and told them that their father and he had been chums when just their size. And Cecilia had spent a whole day with Nan Harris, who had not changed at all except to grow taller. But there was one little cloud on her content. 

""I wanted to see Sara Beaumont to tell Frances about her, but I couldn't get a glimpse of her. I don't even know if she was there." 

""There comes Fran up the station road now," said Ralph. "My eyes, hasn't she a step!" 

Frances came smiling over the lawn and up the steps. 

""So you are all home safe," she said gaily. "I hope you feasted your eyes on your beloved Governor, boys. I can tell that Cecilia forgathered with Nan by the beatific look on her face." 

""Oh, Fran, it was lovely!" cried Cecilia. " But I felt so sorry-why didn't you let me go to Ashland? It was too bad you missed it-and Sara Beaumont." 

""Sara Beaumont was at the Bay Shore Farm," said Frances. "I'll tell you all about it when I get my breath-I've been breathless ever since Grandmother Newbury told me of it. There's only one drawback to my supreme bliss -the remembrance of how complacently self-sacrificing I felt this morning. It humiliates me wholesomely to remember it!""

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August 19, 2020 - August 19, 2020.
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46. Elizabeth's Child 

"Sheldon was a handsome, shiftless ne'er-do-well, without any violent bad habits, but also "without any backbone ," as the Ingelows declared. "There is sometimes hope of a man who is actively bad," Charlotte Ingelow had said sententiously, "but who ever heard of reforming a jellyfish?""

Funny, the author - and whosoever coined that idea about jellyfish - seem to have no clue about being stung by one: it isn't funny!

But the story, about reconciliation between family members after seventeen years, is lovely. 

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August 19, 2020 - August 19, 2020.
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47. Freda's Adopted Grave 

"The northeast winds swept whistling up the bay and blew rawly over the long hill that sloped down to it, blighting everything that was in their way. Only the sturdy firs and spruces could hold their own against it. So there were no orchards or groves or flower gardens in North Point. 

"Just over the hill, in a sheltered southwest valley, was the North Point church with the graveyard behind it, and this graveyard was the most beautiful spot in North Point or near it. The North Point folk loved flowers. They could not have them about their homes, so they had them in their graveyard . It was a matter of pride with each family to keep the separate plot neatly trimmed and weeded and adorned with beautiful blossoms."

""Freda can't plant anything," said Winnie Bell cruelly, although she did not mean to be cruel. "She hasn't got a grave." 

"Just then Freda felt as if her gravelessness were a positive disgrace and crime, as if not to have an interest in a single grave in North Point cemetery branded you as an outcast forever and ever. It very nearly did in North Point. The other little girls pitied Freda, but at the same time they rather looked down upon her for it with the complacency of those who had been born into a good heritage of family graves and had an undisputed right to celebrate Graveyard Day."

Freda had been brought by Mrs Wilson from orphanage and had no grave to plant flowers, nor did Mrs Wilson approve of the custom, but Freda found an untended grave in a corner. Mrs Wilson said it was of someone disreputable, and the only relative had been a beautiful little sister who'd been adopted by a rich family and taken West. 

"Thereafter, Freda spent her few precious spare-time moments in the graveyard. She clipped the blueberry shrubs and long, tangled grasses from the grave with a pair of rusty old shears that blistered her little brown hands badly . She brought ferns from the woods to plant about it. She begged a root of heliotrope from Nan Gray, a clump of day lilies from Katie Morris, a rosebush slip from Nellie Bell, some pansy seed from old Mrs. Bennett, and a geranium shoot from Minnie Hutchinson's big sister. She planted, weeded and watered faithfully, and her efforts were rewarded. "Her" grave soon looked as nice as any in the graveyard. 

"Nobody but Freda knew about it. The poplar growth concealed the corner from sight, and everybody had quite forgotten poor, disreputable Jordan Slade's grave. At least, it seemed as if everybody had. But one evening, when Freda slipped down to the graveyard with a little can of water and rounded the corner of the poplars, she saw a lady standing by the grave-a strange lady dressed in black, with the loveliest face Freda had ever seen, and tears in her eyes."

It was the sister. 

"That summer was a wonderful one for Freda. She had found a firm friend in Mrs . Halliday. The latter was a wealthy woman. Her husband had died a short time previously and she had no children. When she went away in the fall, Freda went with her "to be her own little girl for always.""

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August 20, 2020 - August 20, 2020.
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48. How Don Was Saved 

Old Paul had seen Don, Curtis's dog, with Ventnor's dog, on Tuesday evening, and lost six sheep that night; he insisted the dog be shot, or else they pay. Curtis's uncle agreed about shooting the dog, although Curtis protested Don was innocent. But that night the schooner struck rock as it came ashore and the sea being high, men of the village couldn't rescue them. Don swam out and brought the stick thrown by Paul's son who was on the schooner, and the villagers secured the line, so the sailors were saved. Paul said Don couldn't be shot, and if he wanted sheep he could have them. But Don was proved innocent thereafter, when he was kept chained to separate him from Ventnor's dog. 

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August 20, 2020 - August 20, 2020.
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49. Miss Madeline's Proposal 

Lina was pretty as aunt Madeline had been in her time, except Lina was now engaged and Madeline had never received a proposal. But the day after their talk, a letter came from reverend Thorne for Miss Madeline Churchill, and it was a proposal.  He came the next day, saw Lina in the garden with her fiance, and Madeline came down to answer him. She declined. 

"Mr. Thorne put his hand over his eyes again. He understood now that there had been some mistake and that Miss Madeline had received the letter he had written to her niece. Well, it did not matter-the appearance of the young man in the garden had settled that. Would he tell Miss Madeline of her mistake? No, it would only humiliate her and it made no difference, since she had refused him."

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August 20, 2020 - August 20, 2020.
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50. Miss Sally's Company 

Ida and Mary Seymour stopped at Golden Gate Cottage, the home of Sally Temple, for a drink of water, and the lonely old woman welcomed them to tea. They asked if they could visit again, and bring friends. 

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August 20, 2020 - August 20, 2020.
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51. Mrs. March's Revenge 

Louise Carroll had insulted Anna March, nee' Bennett, when they were young, because Trenham Manning was paying attention only to Anna; Louise had come up to them at the party. 

"'Miss Bennett, Mother told me to tell you to tell your ma that if that plain sewing isn't done by tomorrow night she'll send for it and give it to somebody else; if people engage to have work done by a certain time and don't keep their word, they needn't expect to get it.'"

Anna had run away crying, and never forgotten. Now she'd inherited wealth from a brother they'd mourned forty years ago, and bought the Carroll place, while Louise had married a no good Dency Baxter and was down, they knew not where. After Anna had fixed the house and moved in she heard about Louise staying at a hotel, dying of consumption. Next day Louise came, in cold gusty wind. Anna forgot about the revenge she'd looked forward to, and took care of the dying woman. 

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August 20, 2020 - August 20, 2020.
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52. Nan 

Bryan Lee, not understanding Nan, foreclosed on John Osborne, just as his aunt died. 

"A week later the Osborne homestead had passed into Bryan Lee's hands and John Osborne was staying with his cousin at Thornhope, pending his departure for the west. He had never been to see Nan since that last afternoon, but Bryan Lee haunted the Stewart place. One day he suddenly stopped coming and, although Nan was discreetly silent, in due time it came to old Abe's ears by various driblets of gossip that Nan had refused him. 

"Old Abe marched straightway home to Nan in a fury and demanded if this were true. Nan curtly admitted that it was. Old Abe was so much taken aback by her coolness that he asked almost meekly what was her reason for doing such a fool trick. 

""Because he turned John Osborne out of house and home," returned Nan composedly. "If he hadn't done that there is no telling what might have happened. I might even have married him, because I liked him very well and it would have pleased you. At any rate, I wouldn't have married John when you were against him. Now I mean to." 

"Old Abe stormed furiously at this, but Nan kept so provokingly cool that he was conscious of wasting breath. He went off in a rage, but Nan did not feel particularly anxious now that the announcement was over. He would cool down, she knew. John Osborne worried her more. She didn't see clearly how she was to marry him unless he asked her, and he had studiously avoided her since the foreclosure. 

"But Nan did not mean to be baffled or to let her lover slip through her fingers for want of a little courage. She was not old Abe Stewart's daughter for nothing."

She went and suggested he might need her against being lonely. 

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August 20, 2020 - August 20, 2020.
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53. Natty of Blue Point 

"David Miller had died the preceding winter after a long illness. He had been lighthouse keeper at Blue Point for thirty years. His three children had been born and brought up there, and there, four years ago, the mother had died. But womanly little Prue had taken her place well, and the boys were devoted to their sister. When their father died, Everett had applied for the position of lighthouse keeper. The matter was not yet publicly decided, but old Cooper Creasy had sized the situation up accurately. The Millers had no real hope that Everett would be appointed."

But Natty saved lives of men on a foggy, stormy night, rowing out a mile across to another island after hearing them, and they turned out to be the ones that mattered. Everett got the appointment, and the Millers could stay on, after all.

""It was about a miracle that a boy could do what he did on such a night," said Charles Macey. 

""Where's Ford?" asked Natty uncomfortably. He hated to have his exploit talked about. 

""Ford has cleared out," said Cooper, "gone down to Summerside to go into Tobe Meekins's factory there. Best thing he could do , that's what. Folks here hadn't no use for him after letting that death trap to them two men-even if they was Lib'rals. The Cockawee druv ashore on Little Bear, and there she's going to remain, I guess. D'ye want a berth in my mackerel boat this summer, Natty?" 

""I do," said Natty, "but I thought you said you were full." 

""I guess I can make room for you," said Cooper. "A boy with such grit and muscle ain't to be allowed to go to seed on Blue Point, that's what. Yesser, we'll make room for you." 

"And Natty's cup of happiness was full."

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August 20, 2020 - August 21, 2020.
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54. Penelope's Party Waist 

Penelope wanted a dress for Blanche's party, but they couldn't afford it. Then they received an heirloom quilt from an aunt and Doris made the dress from the lining, which is how they were reconnected with their mother's half sister who was at the party. Their lives changed, with the aunt taking care of them. 

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August 21, 2020 - August 21, 2020.
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55. The Girl and The Wild Race 

"Of all Judith's admirers Eben King alone found favor in Mrs. Theodora's eyes. He owned the adjoining farm, was well off and homely-so homely that Judith declared it made her eyes ache to look at him. 

"Bruce Marshall, Judith's "right one" was handsome, but Mrs. Theodora looked upon him with sour disapproval. He owned a stony little farm at the remote end of Ramble Valley and was reputed to be fonder of many things than of work. To be sure, Judith had enough capability and energy for two; but Mrs. Theodora detested a lazy man. She ordered Judith not to encourage him and Judith obeyed. Judith generally obeyed her aunt; but, though she renounced Bruce Marshall, she would have nothing to do with Eben King or anybody else and all Mrs. Theodora's grumblings did not mend matters."

But the aunt provoked her, Judith said she'd marry the first man who'd ask her, and both men heard at the store. Bruce, coming over fields and risking over creek, managed to ask first. 

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August 21, 2020 - August 21, 2020.
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56. The Promise of Lucy Ellen 

This story deals with a topic somewhat favourite of the author, repeated with variations through her works - that of two old maids, sisters generally, with a promise to one another that they'd never marry, which one of them subsequently wants to be freed from; here they are cousins, and a lover who had jilted the pretty one for someone prettier has returned, now wealthy, to woo the one he jilted. Needless to say eventually the couple is united finally, here because the other cousin relented, despite having made the promise at behest of the jilted Lucy, and having refused a chance to marry herself only due to the promise. 

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August 21, 2020 - August 21, 2020.
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57. The Pursuit of the Ideal 

""' What must my lady be that I must love her?'" he had quoted. "Well, I will paint my dream-love for you, Freda. She must be tall and slender, with chestnut hair of wonderful gloss, with just the suggestion of a ripple in it. She must have an oval face, colourless ivory in hue, with the expression of a Madonna; and her eyes must be 'passionless, peaceful blue,' deep and tender as a twilight sky." 

"Freda, looking at herself along her arm in the mirror, recalled this description and smiled faintly. She was short and plump, with a piquant, irregular little face, vivid tinting, curly, unmanageable hair of ruddy brown, and big grey eyes. Certainly, she was not his ideal."

""I haven't met her yet . I have only seen her. It was in the park yesterday. She was in a carriage with the Mandersons. So beautiful, Freda! Our eyes met as she drove past and I realized that I had found my long-sought ideal. I rushed back to town and hunted up Pete Manderson at the club. Pete is a donkey but he has his ways of being useful. He told me who she was. Her name is Stephanie Gardiner; she is his cousin from the south and is visiting his mother. And, Freda, I am to dine at the Mandersons' tonight. I shall meet her.""

"Roger came out to Lowlands oftener than ever after that. He had to talk to somebody about Stephanie Gardiner and Freda was the safest vent. The "pursuit of the Ideal," as she called it, went on with vim and fervour. Sometimes Roger would be on the heights of hope and elation; the next visit he would be in the depths of despair and humility. Freda had learned to tell which it was by the way he opened the snuggery door.

"One day when Roger came he found six feet of young man reposing at ease in his particular chair. Freda was sipping chocolate in her corner and looking over the rim of her cup at the intruder just as she had been wont to look at Roger. She had on a new dark red gown and looked vivid and rose-hued. 

"She introduced the stranger as Mr. Grayson and called him Tim. They seemed to be excellent friends. Roger sat bolt upright on the edge of a fragile, gilded chair which Freda kept to hide a shabby spot in the carpet, and glared at Tim until the latter said goodbye and lounged out."

"Roger did not feel as if he wanted to talk about the Ideal. He noticed how vivid Freda's smile was and how lovable were the curves of her neck where the dusky curls were caught up from it. He had also an inner vision of Freda making taffy with Tim and he did not approve of it. 

"He refused to talk about the Ideal. On his way back to town he found himself thinking that Freda had the most charming, glad little laugh of any girl he knew. He suddenly remembered that he had never heard the Ideal laugh . She smiled placidly-he had raved to Freda about that smile-but she did not laugh. Roger began to wonder what an ideal without any sense of humour would be like when translated into the real.

"He went to Lowlands the next afternoon and found Tim there-in his chair again. He detested the fellow but he could not deny that he was good-looking and had charming manners. Freda was very nice to Tim. On his way back to town Roger decided that Tim was in love with Freda. He was furious at the idea. The presumption of the man! 

"He also remembered that he had not said a word to Freda about the Ideal. And he never did say much more-perhaps because he could not get the chance. Tim was always there before him and generally outstayed him."

It took social discussion about charms of Freda, and praise of Tim who was considered fortunate in being  expected to marry her, to wake up Roger; when he heard Tim had returned West, he promptly went and proposed to Freda. 

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August 21, 2020 - August 21, 2020.
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58. The Softening of Miss Cynthia 

It took danger of death for the orphan son of her stepbrother before Cynthia softened enough to admit she had been wrong to send him to a hard master for work, instead of taking care of him. 

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August 21, 2020 - August 21, 2020.
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59. Them Notorious Pigs 

The new neighbour's pigs were ruining the cherished garden of old bachelor Harrington, but he fell in love with the widow and married her, and her son's got a sister now, just as blue eyed and adorable. 

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August 21, 2020 - August 21, 2020.
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60. Why Not Ask Miss Price? 

They were suddenly short of one guest for thanksgiving dinner, and Mrs Allen suggested the daughters invite Miss Price; when she came, they realised she looked like their brother's friend Maxwell Seeley. The two talked, and found they were brother and sister, separated when they were orphaned.

"Frances and Alma talked it all over before they went to sleep that night. 

""Just think," said Frances, "if we hadn't asked her here today she might never have found her brother! It's all Mother's doing , bless her! Things do happen like a storybook sometimes, don't they, Al? And didn't I tell you they looked alike?""

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August 21, 2020 - August 21, 2020.
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61. A Correspondence and A Climax 

A hard worked orphan carried on a correspondence initiated via a newspaper with someone out West, giving herself a life of wealth and leisure in the descriptions, and had no thought of meeting the penfriend. But she signs her own name, and he writes to say he's coming East. It all turned out well, though. 

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August 21, 2020 - August 21, 2020.
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62. An Adventure on Island Rock 

Ned's uncle Richard wouldn't hear pleas of the orphan boy about not selling his dog, but later that day the two saved Ned

"At the breakfast table Uncle Richard scarcely spoke. But, just as we finished, he said abruptly to Ernest, "I'm not going to sell Laddie. You and the dog saved Ned's life between you, and no dog who helped do that is ever going to be sold by me. Henceforth he belongs to you. I give him to you for your very own." 

""Oh, Mr. Lawson!" said Ernest, with shining eyes."

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August 21, 2020 - August 22, 2020.
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63. At Five O'Clock in the Morning 

Another theme author gives a variation of, about a young man of wealthy family falling in love with a beautiful girl he finds working on a country farm, unaware that she's an heiress visiting and helping out an old nanny. 

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August 22, 2020 - August 22, 2020.
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64. Aunt Susanna's Birthday Celebration 

The estranged couple each wrote aunt Susanna, and she simply mailed letter of each to the other. 

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August 22, 2020 - August 22, 2020.
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65. Bertie's New Year 

Bertie lent his mittens to his cousin as he went off on errands, and at home of Dr Forbes he was invited in to warm up. The daughters sent mittens for the little cousin of Bertie, and invited both for dinner for New Year. The doctor offered to keep him for errands and school him and find him another place. He was sent off with gifts for both. 

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August 22, 2020 - August 22, 2020.
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66. Between the Hill and the Valley 

Sara Stuart and Jeffrey Miller had been childhood friends, until she went away to school and abroad; she'd lived at Pinehurst on hill, until her father died, but the estate was entailed; Jeffrey Miller still loved her and was not married. He went to offer his help, and seeing her tears, lost the restraint against speaking of his own feelings. She'd always loved him too, it turned out. 

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August 22, 2020 - August 22, 2020.
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67. Clorinda's Gifts 

Clorinda understood meaning of real gifts. 

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August 22, 2020 - August 22, 2020.
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68. Cyrilla's Inspiration 

Writing jolly letters to everyone in the boarding house on a rainy day. 

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August 22, 2020 - August 22, 2020.
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69. Dorinda's Desperate Deed 

Dorinda Page had returned home at fifteen after five years of living with aunt Mary Carter, and saw her mother's problems; she decided she'd go ask uncle Eugene page for help. Grandfather Page had disinherited Dorinda's father at his wedding. 

""Anything more?" said Uncle Eugene, when Dorinda stopped. 

""Nothing more just now, I think," said Dorinda reflectively. 

""Why don't you ask for something for yourself?" said Uncle Eugene. 

""I don't want anything for myself," said Dorinda promptly. "Or-yes, I do, too. I want your friendship, Uncle Eugene." 

""Be kind enough to sit down," said Uncle Eugene. Dorinda sat. 

""You are a Page," said Uncle Eugene. "I saw that as soon as I came in. I will send Leicester to college and I shall not ask or expect to be paid back. Jean shall have her music lessons, and a piano to practise them on as well. The house shall be shingled, and the money for the new dress and coat shall be forthcoming. You and I will be friends." 

""Thank you," gasped Dorinda, wondering if, after all, it wasn't a dream. 

""I would have gladly assisted your mother before," said Uncle Eugene, "if she had asked me. I had determined that she must ask me first. I knew that half the money should have been your father's by rights. I was prepared to hand it over to him or his family, if I were asked for it. But I wished to humble his pride, and the Carter pride, to the point of asking for it. Not a very amiable temper, you will say? I admit it. I am not amiable and I never have been amiable. You must be prepared to find me very unamiable. I see that you are waiting for a chance to say something polite and pleasant on that score, but you may save yourself the trouble. I shall hope and expect to have you visit me often. If your mother and your brothers and sisters see fit to come with you, I shall welcome them also. I think that this is all it is necessary to say just now. Will you stay to tea with me this evening?" 

"Dorinda stayed to tea, since she knew that Jean was at home to attend to matters there. She and Uncle Eugene got on famously. When she left, Uncle Eugene, grim and hard-lipped as ever, saw her to the door. 

""Good evening, Niece Dorinda. You are a Page and I am proud of you. Tell your mother that many things in this life are lost through not asking for them. I don't think you are in need of the information for yourself.""

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August 22, 2020 - August 22, 2020.
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70. Her Own People 

Miss Channing recommended a boarding house in Pine Valley for the bitter and lonely colleague Constance Foster for summer vacation. 

"A fortnight later Miss Channing received a letter from Constance. 

""I am so happy," she wrote. "Oh, Miss Channing, I have found 'mine own people,' and Heartsease Farm is to be my own, own dear home for always. "It was such a strange coincidence, no, Aunt Flora says it was Providence, and I believe it was, too. I came here one rainy night, and Aunty put me in my mother's room, think of it! My own dear mother's room, and I found her name in a book. And now the mystery is all cleared up, and we are so happy. 

""Everything is dear and beautiful, and almost the dearest and most beautiful thing is that I am getting acquainted with my mother , the mother I never knew before. She no longer seems dead to me. I feel that she lives and loves me, and I am learning to know her better every day. I have her room and her books and all her little girlish possessions. When I read her books, with their passages underlined by her hand, I feel as if she were speaking to me. She was very good and sweet, in spite of her one foolish, bitter mistake, and I want to be as much like her as I can."

""I am not going back to Taunton. I have sent in my resignation. I am going to stay home with Aunty and Uncle. It is so sweet to say home and know what it means. 

""Aunty says you must come and spend all your next vacation with us. You see, I have lots of vacation plans now, even for a year ahead. After all, there is no need of the blue pills!"

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August 22, 2020 - August 22, 2020.
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71. Ida's New Year Cake 

Ida Mitchell's fruitcake from her mother sent for New Year was delivered by mistake to the other Ida Mitchell, an orphan, but Ida didn't tell her; instead she made friends with her, and bought other goodies for her own guests. 

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August 22, 2020 - August 22, 2020.
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72. In the Old Valley 

He returned seeking home after having achieved power and wealth, and knowing he needed more. He didn't expect it, but found what was wanting. 

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August 22, 2020 - August 22, 2020.
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73. Jane Lavinia 

She wanted to go to art school in New York, but decided not to, because when she realised she'd forgotten her mother's watch and ran back to retrieve it, she saw Aunt Rebecca crying. 

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August 22, 2020 - August 22, 2020.
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75. Mackereling Out in the Gulf 

Benjamin had loved Mary Stella all his life, but she hadn't given her heart until her cousin Braithwaite came from New York. One day Braithwaite was late coming in as the storm broke. 

"Braithwaite and Leon were clinging to the boat. Benjamin Selby, standing in the background, his lips set, his hands clenched, was fighting the hardest battle of his life. He knew that he alone, out of all the men there, possessed the necessary skill and nerve to reach the boat if she could be reached at all. There was a bare chance and a great risk. This man whom he hated was drowning before his eyes. Let him drown, then! Why should he risk-ay, and perchance lose-his life for his enemy? No one could blame him for refusing-and if Braithwaite were out of the way, Mary Stella might yet be his! 

"The temptation and victory passed in a few brief seconds. He stepped forward, cool and self-possessed. 

""I'm going out. I want one man with me. No one with child or wife. Who'll go?""

He saved Braithwaite for sake of Mary Stella. 

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August 22, 2020 - August 22, 2020.
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76. Millicent's Double 

"When Millicent Moore and Worth Gordon met each other on the first day of the term in the entrance hall of the Kinglake High School, both girls stopped short, startled. Millicent Moore had never seen Worth Gordon before, but Worth Gordon's face she had seen every day of her life, looking at her out of her own mirror!"

Millicent had two invitations conflicting, and asked Worth to take her place, but later they repented and went together to confess and apologise. Hearing her name, Mr Kirby asked Worth about her mother, and told her he was her mother's half brother separated years ago. 

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August 22, 2020 - August 22, 2020.
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77. The Blue North Room 

""This," said Sara, laying Aunt Josephina's letter down on the kitchen table with such energy that in anybody but Sara it must have been said she threw it down, "this is positively the last straw! I have endured all the rest . I have given up my chance of a musical education, when Aunt Nan offered it, that I might stay home and help Willard pay the mortgage off-if it doesn't pay us off first-and I have, which was much harder, accepted the fact that we can't possibly afford to send Ray to the Valley Academy, even if I wore the same hat and coat for four winters. I did not grumble when Uncle Joel came here to live because he wanted to be 'near his dear nephew's children.' I felt it my Christian duty to look pleasant when we had to give Cousin Caroline a home to save her from the poorhouse. But my endurance and philosophy, and worst of all, my furniture, has reached a limit. I cannot have Aunt Josephina come here to spend the winter, because I have no room to put her in.""

""Mother was always very fond of Aunt Josephina ," said Ray reflectively. Sara had her lips open, all ready to answer whatever Ray might say, but she shut them suddenly and the boy went on. "Aunt Josephina thought a lot of Mother , too. She used to say she knew there was always a welcome for her at Maple Hollow. It does seem a pity, Sally dear, for your mother's daughter to send word to Aunt Josephina, per my mother's son, that there isn't room for her any longer at Maple Hollow.""

""I've been poking about in the garret and in the carriage house loft," said Ray, "and I've found furniture galore. It's very old and cobwebby-witness my appearance-and very much in want of scrubbing and a few nails. But it will do.""

Aunt Josephina said she knew someone in Boston who'd pay good money for the old things, and they did - enough to send Ray to college. 

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August 22, 2020 - August 23, 2020.
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78. The Christmas Surprise at Enderly Road 

Frank and Phil asked little Maggie for directions, and why she was crying. 

"The semi-annual public examination was to be held on Monday afternoon, the day before Christmas. Miss Davis had been drilling her little flock for the occasion; and a program of recitations, speeches, and dialogues had been prepared. Our small informant, whose name was Maggie Bates, together with Minnie Lawler and several other little girls, had conceived the idea that it would be a fine thing to decorate the schoolroom with greens. For this it was necessary to ask the help of the boys. Boys were scarce at Enderly school, but the Dickeys, three in number, had promised to see that the thing was done. 

""And now they won't," sobbed Maggie. "Matt Dickey is mad at Miss Davis 'cause she stood him on the floor today for not learning his lesson, and he says he won't do a thing nor let any of the other boys help us. Matt just makes all the boys do as he says. I feel dreadful bad, and so does Minnie.""

So they did it themselves, and brought gifts on Monday, too, uniting the two villages. 

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August 23, 2020 - August 23, 2020.
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79. The Dissipation of Miss Ponsonby 

They'd made friends with the lonely woman across the windows. Then Stephen Shaw came to town. 

"Then Mrs. George Hubbard gave a big dance. Jerry and I were pleasantly excited. The Hubbards were the smartest of the Glenboro smart set and their entertainments were always quite brilliant affairs for a small country village like ours. This party was professedly given in honour of Stephen Shaw, who was to leave for the west again in a week's time. 

"On the evening of the party Jerry and I went to our room to dress. And there, across at her window in the twilight, sat Miss Ponsonby, crying. I had never seen Miss Ponsonby cry before. 

""What is the matter?" I called out softly and anxiously. 

""Oh, nothing," sobbed Miss Ponsonby, "only-only-I'm invited to the party tonight-Susan Hubbard is my cousin, you know-and I would like so much to go." 

""Then why don't you?" said Jerry briskly. 

""My father won't let me," said Miss Ponsonby, swallowing a sob as if she were a little girl of ten years old. Jerry had to dodge behind the curtain to hide a smile. 

""It's too bad," I said sympathetically, but wondering a little why Miss Ponsonby seemed so worked up about it. I knew she had sometimes been invited out before and had not been allowed to go, but she had never cared apparently. 

""Well, what is to be done?" I whispered to Jerry. 

""Take Miss Ponsonby to the party with us, of course," said Jerry, popping out from behind the curtain. 

"I didn't ask her if she expected to fly through the air with Miss Ponsonby, although short of that I couldn't see how the latter was to be got out of the house without her father knowing. The old gentleman had a den off the hall where he always sat in the evening and smoked fiercely, after having locked all the doors to keep the servants in. He was a delightful sort of person, that old Mr. Ponsonby. 

"Jerry poked her head as far as she could out of the window. "Miss Ponsonby, you are going to the dance," she said in a cautious undertone, "so don't cry any more or your eyes will be dreadfully red." 

""It is impossible," said Miss Ponsonby resignedly. 

""Nothing is impossible when I make up my mind," said Jerry firmly. "You must get dressed, climb down that acacia tree, and join us in our yard . It will be pitch dark in a few minutes and your father will never know.""

"Miss Ponsonby's long habit of obedience to whatever she was told stood her in good stead now. She obeyed Jerry without another word. Jerry seized me by the waist and waltzed me around the room in an ecstasy."

"We pushed through a little gap in the privet hedge and found ourselves under the acacia tree with Miss Ponsonby peering anxiously at us from above. I wanted to shriek with laughter, the whole thing seemed so funny and unreal. Jerry , although she hasn't climbed trees since she was twelve, went up that acacia as nimbly as a pussy-cat, took the box and things from me, passed them to Miss Ponsonby, and got in at the window while I went back to my own room to dress, hoping old Mr. Ponsonby wouldn't be running out to ring the fire alarm. 

"In a very short time I heard Miss Ponsonby and Jerry at the opposite window, and I rushed to mine to see the sight. But Miss Ponsonby, with a red fascinator over her head and a big cape wrapped round her, slipped out of the window and down that blessed acacia tree as neatly and nimbly as if she had been accustomed to doing it for exercise every day of her life. There were possibilities in Miss Ponsonby. In two more minutes they were both safe in our room."

"Miss Ponsonby, as she stood there, was a pretty woman, with fifteen apparent birthdays the less."

They went, taking care to be unseen by Ponsonby. 

 

"We were early, but Stephen Shaw was there before us. He came up to us at once, and just then Miss Ponsonby turned around. 

""Alicia!" he said. 

""How do you do, Stephen?" she said tremulously. 

"And there he was looking down at her with an expression on his face that none of the Glenboro girls he had been calling on had ever seen. Jerry and I just simply melted away. We can see through grindstones when there are holes in them!"

They'd been engaged, but Ponsonby had objected. 

""Do you think your father will object this time?" I queried. 

""No, I don't think so. Stephen is a rich man now, you know. That wouldn't make any difference with me-but Father is very-practical. Stephen is going to see him tomorrow." 

""But what if he does object?" I persisted anxiously. 

""The acacia tree will still be there," said Miss Ponsonby firmly."

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August 23, 2020 - August 23, 2020.
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80. The Falsoms' Christmas Dinner 

Alexina and Stephen had lost their parents, and couldn't afford the education they wanted. A wealthy great uncle wrote he'd visit them on Xmas, and did, but the dinner was stolen just as they were ready. But the neighbours rescued them by bringing over everything, and the satisfied great uncle offered home and education. 

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August 23, 2020 - August 23, 2020.
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81. The Fraser Scholarship 

Elliott Campbell needed the Fraser scholarship he'd won, but didn't know that his last name was a necessary condition, since another one with a similarly stipulated name had barely qualified. On finding out, he told the principal about his last name being that of the stepfather, and the scholarship went to the much less deserving guy who'd barely qualified, but Elliott was reunited with his aunt Mrs Fraser who had lost lost touch with his mother. 

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August 23, 2020 - August 23, 2020.
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82. The Girl at the Gate 

Mr Lawrence had told her about Margaret, her grandfather's sister, who had promised Herbert Lawrence, as she died at eighteen, that she'd come for him.

"As I came up to the little gate I saw a young girl standing on the other side of it. She stood in the full moonlight and I saw her distinctly. 

"She was tall and slight and her head was bare. I saw that her hair was a pale gold, shining somewhat strangely about her head as if catching the moonbeams. Her face was very lovely and her eyes large and dark. She was dressed in something white and softly shimmering, and in her hand she held a white rose … a very large and perfect one. Even at the time I found myself wondering where she could have picked it. It was not a Woodlands rose. All the Woodlands roses were smaller and less double."

Next morning they told her he'd died soon after she left.

"After the funeral Mrs. Stewart gave me Margaret's miniature. I had never seen it or any picture of Margaret before. The face was very lovely-also strangely like my own, although I am not beautiful. It was the face of the young girl I had met at the gate!"

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August 23, 2020 - August 23, 2020.
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83. The Light on the Big Dipper 

Mary Margaret was alone in charge of little Nellie and the house on Little Dipper island. 

"Mary Margaret found plenty to do that day and wasn't a bit lonesome. But when evening came she didn't feel quite so cheerful . Nellie had fallen asleep, and there wasn't another living creature except the cat on the Little Dipper. Besides, it looked like a storm. The harbour was glassy calm, but the sky was very black and dour in the northeast-like snow, thought weather-wise Mary Margaret. She hoped her mother would get home before it began, and she wished the lighthouse star would gleam out on the Big Dipper. It would seem like the bright eye of a steady old friend. Mary Margaret always watched for it every night; just as soon as the sun went down the big lighthouse star would flash goldenly out in the northeastern sky. 

""I'll sit down by the window and watch for it," said Mary Margaret to herself. "Then, when it is lighted, I'll get up a nice warm supper for Mother and Uncle Martin." 

"Mary Margaret sat down by the kitchen window to watch. Minute after minute passed, but no light flashed out on the Big Dipper. What was the matter? Mary Margaret began to feel uneasy. It was too cloudy to tell just when the sun had set, but she was sure it must be down, for it was quite dark in the house. She lighted a lamp, got the almanac, and hunted out the exact time of sunsetting. The sun had been down fifteen minutes! 

"And there was no light on the Big Dipper!"

"It was half an hour after sunset and the Big Dipper light, the most important one along the whole coast, was not lighted. What would she do? What could she do? 

"The answer came swift and dear into Mary Margaret's steady, sensible little mind. She must go to the Big Dipper and light the lamps!"

She secured Nellie and left, although she heard a little wail, and rowed over, to find uncle George on floor with a broken leg and hurt back.

"That night was a very long and anxious one. The storm grew rapidly worse, and snow and wind howled around the lighthouse. Uncle George soon grew feverish and delirious, and Mary Margaret, between her anxiety for him and her dismal thoughts of poor Nellie tied in her chair over at the Little Dipper, and the dark possibility of her mother and Uncle Martin being out in the storm, felt almost distracted. But the morning came at last, as mornings blessedly will, be the nights never so long and anxious, and it dawned fine and clear over a white world. Mary Margaret ran to the shore and gazed eagerly across at the Little Dipper. No smoke was visible from Uncle Martin's house! 

"She could not leave Uncle George, who was raving wildly, and yet it was necessary to obtain assistance somehow. Suddenly she remembered the distress signal. She must hoist it. How fortunate that Uncle George had once shown her how!"

She was rowed over back when rescue arrived, and saw her parents. They'd been unable to come before morning. 

""We came in last night," said Captain Campbell, "and it was pitch dark, not a light to be seen and beginning to snow. We didn't know where we were and I was terribly worried, when all at once the Big Dipper light I'd been looking for so vainly flashed out, and everything was all right in a moment. But, Mary Margaret, if that light hadn't appeared, we'd never have got in past the reefs. You've saved your father's ship and all the lives in her, my brave little girl.""

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August 23, 2020 - August 23, 2020.
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84. The Prodigal Brother 

"Flowers were all Miss Hannah had to give, for she was very poor, but she gave them with a great wealth of friendliness and goodwill."

She was expecting her brother to return, having made his fortune, any day. People thought it unlikely. 

"When October had passed and the grey November days came, the glory of Miss Hannah's garden was over. She was very lonely without her flowers. She missed them more this year than ever. On fine days she paced up and down the walks and looked sadly at the drooping, unsightly stalks and vines. She was there one afternoon when the northeast wind was up and doing, whipping the gulf waters into whitecaps and whistling up the inlet and around the grey eaves. Miss Hannah was mournfully patting a frosted chrysanthemum under its golden chin when she saw a man limping slowly down the lane. 

""Now, who can that be?" she murmured. "It isn't any Prospect man, for there's nobody lame around here.""

It was Ralph. 

""It's a poor wreck of a man I am come back to you, Hannah," he said. "I've never accomplished anything and my health's broken and I'm a cripple as ye see. For a time I thought I'd never show my face back here, such a failure as I be, but the longing to see you got too strong. It's naught but a wreck I am, Hannah." 

""You're my own dear brother," cried Miss Hannah. "Do you think I care how poor you are? And if your health is poor I'm the one to nurse you up, who else than your only sister, I'd like to know! Come right in. You're shivering in this wind. I'll mix you a good hot currant drink. I knew them black currants didn't bear so plentiful for nothing last summer. Oh, this is a good day and no mistake!""

Jacob brought his trunk. 

""He isn't very rich, though," said Jacob jokingly. He was relieved to find that Miss Hannah did not seem to be worrying over this. 

""That doesn't matter," cried Miss Hannah. "Why, he's my brother! Isn't that enough? I'm rich if he isn't, rich in love and happiness. And I'm better pleased in a way than if he had come back rich. He might have wanted to take me away or build a fine house, and I'm too old to be making changes. And then he wouldn't have needed me. I'd have been of no use to him. As it is, it's just me he needs to look after him and coddle him. Oh, it's fine to have somebody to do things for, somebody that belongs to you. I was just dreading the loneliness of the winter , and now it's going to be such a happy winter. I declare last night Ralph and I sat up till morning talking over everything. He's had a hard life of it. Bad luck and illness right along. And last winter in the lumber woods he got his leg broke. But now he's come home and we're never going to be parted again as long as we live. I could sing for joy, Jacob." 

""Oh, sure," assented Jacob cordially. He felt a little dazed. Miss Hannah's nimble change of base was hard for him to follow, and he had an injured sense of having wasted a great deal of commiseration on her when she didn't need it at all. "Only I kind of thought, we all thought, you had such plans." 

""Well, they served their turn," interrupted Miss Hannah briskly. "They amused me and kept me interested till something real would come in their place. If I'd had to carry them out I dare say they'd have bothered me a lot. Things are more comfortable as they are. I'm happy as a bird, Jacob.""

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August 23, 2020 - August 23, 2020.
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85. The Redemption of John Churchill 

"He was only forty; he was thirty when he had been convicted of embezzling the bank funds for purposes of speculation and had been sent to prison, leaving behind a wife and father who were broken-hearted and a sister whose pride had suffered more than her heart. 

"He had never seen them since, but he knew what had happened in his absence. His wife had died two months later , leaving behind her a baby boy; his father had died within the year."

"His sister had taken the baby, his little son whom he had never seen, but for whom he had prepared such a birthright of dishonour. She had never forgiven her brother and she never wrote to him."

"So he would go to his own place. 

"But first he must see little Joey, who must be quite a big boy now, nearly ten years old."

"Nobody at the station where he alighted recognized him or paid any attention to him. He was as a dead man who had come back to life to find himself effaced from recollection and his place knowing him no more. It was three miles from the station to where his sister lived, and he resolved to walk the distance. Now that the critical moment drew near, he shrank from it and wished to put it off as long as he could. 

"When he reached his sister's home he halted on the road and surveyed the place over its snug respectability of iron fence."

"He walked furtively up the back way between high, screening hedges of spruce. When he came to the gate of the yard, he paused."

He saw his son and heard him, and changed, determined to take him West and do well. 

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August 23, 2020 - August 23, 2020.
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86. The Schoolmaster's Letters 

The schoolmaster's letters to beautiful Una, locked in his trunk, were stolen. Someone had sent them to Una, to make trouble. But the result was completely opposite. 

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August 23, 2020 - August 23, 2020.
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87. The Story of Uncle Dick 

Dick Oliver and Rose Lawrence had to wait because his stepmother made him promise not to marry before she died, which took twenty years, and then Rose was tending to her father in California. 

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August 23, 2020 - August 24, 2020.
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88. The Understanding of Sister Sara 

Beatrice Mason was brought up by her sister, Sara. Beatrice thought Sara was immersed in practical necessities, understanding nothing of romance or emotions, until Sara brought Walter back to Beatrice. 

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August 24, 2020 - August 24, 2020.
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89. The Unforgotten One 

The family had come together for Xmas and each had much to celebrate, but none had forgotten the one departed. 

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August 24, 2020 - August 24, 2020.
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90. The Wooing of Bessy 

"When Lawrence Eastman began going to see Bessy Houghton the Lynnfield people shrugged their shoulders and said he might have picked out somebody a little younger and prettier-but then, of course, Bessy was well off."

But that wasn't it. His mother separated them viciously with a lie, but only briefly, and lost him.

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August 24, 2020 - August 24, 2020.
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91. Their Girl Josie 

The Morgans brought up Joscelyn when their son and his wife died, but cut her off when she wanted to be an actress like her mother. But when she was criticised in the newspaper, they were riled enough to stand by her. 

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August 24, 2020 - August 24, 2020.
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92. When Jack and Jill Took a Hand 

The twins were happy about the minister courting the aunt, but nit about him being slow; Jill asked Jack to tell the minister that the aunt kept the photograph of someone in New York at her bedside table and kissed it every night. Instead of his being spurred on to propose, it seemed to break them up. So Jill went over to tell the minister that it was only her old uncle Matthew, and why they'd done it, and brought him back. 

"Well, the wedding came off last week. It was a perfectly gorgeous affair. Aunt Tommy's dress was a dream-and so was mine, all pink silk and chiffon and carnations. Jacky made a magnificent page too, in a suit of white velvet. The wedding cake was four stories high, and Dick looked perfectly handsome. He kissed me too, right after he kissed Aunt Tommy. 

"So everything turned out all right, and I believe Dick would never have dared to speak up if we hadn't helped things along. But Jacky and I have decided that we will never meddle in an affair of the kind again. It is too hard on the nerves."

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August 24, 2020 - August 24, 2020.
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93. A Millionaire's Proposal 

Kitty refused Jack Willoughby, because despite being an M.D. he was happy to settle in country, and Alice had written about a rich nephew of Sinclairs who was a catch, telling Kitty not to get engaged to Jack. Kitty proceeded as planned by Alicia, right up to the moment Gus Sinclair proposed, but couldn't accept him, and told him everything. He and Roger both took her side, despite displeasure of Alicia, and she went home to marry Jack. 

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August 24, 2020 - August 24, 2020.
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94. A Substitute Journalist 

"The Baxters lived in Aylmer, a lively little town with two newspapers, the Chronicle and the Ledger. Between these two was a sharp journalistic rivalry in the matter of "beats" and "scoops." In the preceding spring Clifford had been taken on the Chronicle on trial, as a sort of general handyman. There was no pay attached to the position, but he was getting training and there was the possibility of a permanency in September if he proved his mettle. Mr. Baxter had died two years before, and the failure of the company in which Mrs. Baxter's money was invested had left the little family dependent on their own resources. Clifford, who had cherished dreams of a course in mechanical engineering, knew that he must give them up and go to the first work that offered itself, which he did staunchly and uncomplainingly. Patty, who hitherto had had no designs on a "career," but had been sunnily content to be a home girl and Mother's right hand, also realized that it would be well to look about her for something to do. She was not really needed so far as the work of the little house went, and the whole burden must not be allowed to fall on Clifford's eighteen-year-old shoulders. Patty was his senior by a year, and ready to do her part unflinchingly."

But Clifford missed his train, so Patty went instead to interview the politician. 

"Mr. Reefer proceeded to tell her, and Patty's pencil flew as she scribbled down his terse, pithy sentences. She found herself asking questions too, and enjoying it. For the first time, Patty thought she might rather like politics if she understood them-and they did not seem so hard to understand when a man like Mr. Reefer explained them. For half an hour he talked to her, and at the end of that time Patty was in full possession of his opinion on the famous railroad bill in all its aspects. 

""There now, I'm talked out," said Mr. Reefer. "You can tell your news editor that you know as much about the railroad bill as Andrew Reefer knows. I hope you'll succeed in pleasing him , and that your brother will get the position he wants. But he shouldn't have missed that train. You tell him that. Boys with important things to do mustn't miss trains. Perhaps it's just as well he did in this case though, but tell him not to let it happen again.""

Patty went to the Chronicle office with the interview notes.  

""Oh," cried Patty breathlessly, "please, Mr. Harmer, I have the interview here. I thought perhaps I could do it in Clifford's place, and I went out to Mr. Reid's and saw Mr. Reefer. He was very kind and-" 

""Mr. who?" fairly shouted Mr. Harmer. 

""Mr. Reefer-Mr. Andrew Reefer. He told me to tell you that this article contained all he knew or thought about the railroad bill and-" 

"But Mr. Harmer was no longer listening. He had snatched the neatly written sheets of Patty's report and was skimming over them with a practised eye. Then Patty thought he must have gone crazy. He danced around the office, waving the sheets in the air, and then he dashed frantically up the stairs to the composing room. 

"Ten minutes later, he returned and shook the mystified Patty by the hand. 

""Patty, it's the biggest beat we've ever had! We've scooped not only the Ledger, but every other newspaper in the country. How did you do it? How did you ever beguile or bewitch Andrew Reefer into giving you an interview?""

She told him. 

""It wasn't Andrew Reefer I told Clifford to interview," laughed Mr. Harmer. "It was John C. Keefe. I didn't know Reefer was in town, but even if I had I wouldn't have thought it a particle of use to send a man to him. He has never consented to be interviewed before on any known subject, and he's been especially close-mouthed about this bill, although men from all the big papers in the country have been after him. He is notorious on that score . Why, Patty, it's the biggest journalistic fish that has ever been landed in this office. Andrew Reefer's opinion on the bill will have a tremendous influence. We'll run the interview as a leader in a special edition that is under way already. Of course, he must have been ready to give the information to the public or nothing would have induced him to open his mouth. But to think that we should be the first to get it! Patty, you're a brick!""

Clifford returned. 

""Now, Patty, don't scold until you hear why I missed the train. I met Mr. Peabody of the Steel and Iron Company at Mr. Moreland's and got into conversation with him. When he found out who I was, he was greatly interested and said Father had been one of his best friends when they were at college together. I told him about wanting to get the position in the company, and he had me go right out to the works and see about it. And, Patty, I have the place. Goodbye to the grind of newspaper items and fillers . I tried to get back to the station at Bancroft in time to catch the train but I couldn't, and it was just as well, for Mr. Keefe was suddenly summoned home this afternoon, and when the three-thirty train from town stopped at Bancroft he was on it. I found that out and I got on, going to the next station with him and getting my interview after all. It's here in my notebook, and I must hurry up to the office and hand it in. I suppose Mr. Harmer will be very much vexed until he finds that I have it.""

She told him. 

"The next day Mr. Harmer sent word to Patty that he wanted to see her. 

""So Clifford is leaving," he said abruptly when she entered the office. "Well, do you want his place?" 

""Mr. Harmer, are you joking?" demanded Patty in amazement. 

""Not I. That stuff you handed in was splendidly written-I didn't have to use the pencil more than once or twice. You have the proper journalist instinct all right. We need a lady on the staff anyhow, and if you'll take the place it's yours for saying so, and the permanency next month." 

""I'll take it," said Patty promptly and joyfully. 

""Good. Go down to the Symphony Club rehearsal this afternoon and report it. You've just ten minutes to get there," and Patty joyfully and promptly departed."

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August 24, 2020 - August 24, 2020.
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95. Anna's Love Letters 

Anna had no intention of keeping her promise to wait for Gilbert, so Alma wrote to him instead, and he came home to find the truth and realised hed loved Alma all along, however much dazzled by Anna. 

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August 24, 2020 - August 24, 2020.
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96. Aunt Caroline's Silk Dress 

"For five years, ever since her mother's death, Carry had supported herself and Patty by dressmaking. They had been a hard five years of pinching and economizing and going without, for Enderby was only a small place, and there were two other dressmakers. Then there was always the mortgage to devour everything. Carry had kept it at bay till now, but at last she was conquered. She had had typhoid fever in the spring and had not been able to work for a long time. Indeed, she had gone to work before she should. The doctor's bill was yet unpaid, but Dr. Hamilton had told her to take her time. Carry knew she would not be pressed for that, and next year Patty would be able to help her. But next year would be too late. The dear little home would be lost then."

Carry made over her dress for Patty for a party, and Patty came inspired from it, telling Carry  how to make over the dress that aunt Caroline had given her, to wear for her friend's wedding. In the process she discovered a note from aunt Caroline, and a hundred dollars she'd hidden in the dress to give Carry secretly. Carry and Patty had their problem solved. 

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August 24, 2020 - August 25, 2020.
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97. Aunt Susanna's Thanksgiving Dinner. 

The girls hoped to impress aunt Susanna, who was critical of their various talents and suspicious of their occupations, but she needed them to cook for her guests for thanksgiving. They managed, but the neighbours impish children tricked them into thinking one was falling into the well, and they ran out to save him, while the dog got into the dinner. So they ran home and brought their own dinner, and aunt Susanna was pleased.  

"Aunt Susanna came down the next day and told Margaret that she would send her to college. Also she commissioned Laura to paint her a water-color for her dining-room and said she'd pay her five dollars for it. 

"Kate and I were rather left out in the cold in this distribution of favors, but when you come to reflect that Laura and Magsie had really cooked that dinner, it was only just. 

"Anyway, Aunt Susanna has never since insinuated that we can't cook, and that is as much as we deserve."

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August 25, 2020 - August 25, 2020.
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98. By Grace of Julius Caesar 

The two cousins were asked as usual to go round with subscription lists, this time for cushions for church pews. 

"Isaac was a well-to-do old bachelor who had never had any notion of getting married until his sister died in the winter. And then, as soon as the spring planting was over, he began to look round for a wife. He came to me first and I said "No" good and hard. I liked Isaac well enough; but I was snug and comfortable, and didn't feel like pulling up my roots and moving into another lot; besides, Isaac's courting seemed to me a shade too business-like. I can't get along without a little romance; it's my nature. 

"Isaac was disappointed and said so, but intimated that it wasn't crushing and that the next best would do very well. The next best was Melissa, and he proposed to her after the decent interval of a fortnight. Melissa also refused him. I admit I was surprised at this, for I knew Melissa was rather anxious to marry; but she has always been down on Isaac Appleby, from principle, because of a family feud on her mother's side; besides, an old beau of hers, a widower at Kingsbridge, was just beginning to take notice again, and I suspected Melissa had hopes concerning him. Finally, I imagine Melissa did not fancy being second choice."

They went to his house, but when the dog came charging they climbed the ladder and sat on the roof until Isaac came. 

""Won't you call off your dog and let us get down, Isaac?" I said pleadingly. 

"Isaac stood and reflected for a moment or two. Then he came slowly forward and , before we realized what he was going to do, he took that ladder down and laid it on the ground. 

""Isaac Appleby, what do you mean?" demanded Melissa wrathfully.

""I mean that you two women will stay up on that roof until one of you agrees to marry me," said Isaac solemnly."

"But it was the thunderstorm that decided me. When I saw it coming up, black and quick, from the northwest, I gave in at once. I had endured a good deal and was prepared to endure more; but I had paid ten dollars for my hat and I was not going to have it ruined by a thunderstorm. I called to Isaac and out he came. 

""If you will let us down and promise to dispose of that dog before I come here I will marry you, Isaac," I said, "but I'll make you sorry for it afterwards, though.""

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August 25, 2020 - August 25, 2020.
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99. By the Rule of Contrary 

""Madge," said Miss Susan solemnly, but with dancing eyes, "do you know how to drive a pig? Just try to make it go in the opposite direction and it will bolt the way you want it. Remember that, my dear.""

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August 25, 2020 - August 25, 2020.
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100. Fair Exchange and No Robbery 

""Oh," sighed Edith happily, "it is almost too good to be true." "It is really providentially ordered, isn't it?" said Katherine. "Ned and I would never have got on together in the world, and you and Sidney would have bored each other to death. As it is, there will be four perfectly happy people instead of four miserable ones. I'll tell Ned so tomorrow.""

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August 25, 2020 - August 25, 2020.
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101. Four Winds 

"The young women he knew in Rexton, whose simple, pleasant friendship he valued, had the placid, domestic charm of their own sweet-breathed, windless orchards. Lynde Oliver had the fascination of the lake shore-wild, remote, untamed-the lure of the wilderness and the primitive. There was nothing more personal in his thought of her, and yet when he recalled Isabel King's sneer he felt an almost personal resentment."

Beautiful, haunting story. Here the familiar theme us that of a lookalike of the dreaded hysband, and the thereby thwarted love of the beautiful wife for someone good, all cleared when the identity of the stranger is revealed along with confirmation of death of the husband. 

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August 25, 2020 - August 25, 2020.
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102. Marcella's Reward 

"If they were not so desperately poor! Marcella's bitterness overflowed her soul at the thought. Everywhere around her were evidences of wealth-wealth often lavishly and foolishly spent-and she could not get money enough anywhere to save her sister's life! She almost felt that she hated all those smiling, well-dressed people who thronged the streets. By the time she reached the store, poor Marcella's heart was seething with misery and resentment. 

"Three years before, when Marcella had been sixteen and Patty nine, their parents had died, leaving them absolutely alone in the world except for their father's half-sister, Miss Gibson, who lived in Canning and earned her livelihood washing and mending for the hands employed in the big factory nearby. She had grudgingly offered the girls a home, which Marcella had accepted because she must. She obtained a position in one of the Canning stores at three dollars a week, out of which she contrived to dress herself and Patty and send the latter to school. Her life for three years was one of absolute drudgery, yet until now she had never lost courage, but had struggled bravely on, hoping for better times in the future when she should get promotion and Patty would be old enough to teach school. 

"But now Marcella's courage and hopefulness had gone out like a spent candle. She was late at the store, and that meant a fine; her head ached, and her feet felt like lead as she climbed the stairs to her department-a hot, dark, stuffy corner behind the shirtwaist counter. It was warm and close at any time, but today it was stifling, and there was already a crowd of customers, for it was the day of a bargain sale. The heat and noise and chatter got on Marcella's tortured nerves. She felt that she wanted to scream , but instead she turned calmly to a waiting customer-a big, handsome, richly dressed woman. Marcella noted with an ever-increasing bitterness that the woman wore a lace collar the price of which would have kept Patty in the country for a year."

Again, there's a very satisfying solution. 

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August 25, 2020 - August 25, 2020.
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103. Margaret's Patient 

"Margaret Campbell had been an orphan ever since she could remember. She had been brought up by a distant relative of her father's-that is, she had been given board, lodging, some schooling and indifferent clothes for the privilege of working like a little drudge in the house of the grim cousin who sheltered her. The death of this cousin flung Margaret on her own resources. A friend had procured her employment as the "companion" of a rich, eccentric old lady, infirm of health and temper. Margaret lived with her for five years, and to the young girl they seemed treble the time. Her employer was fault-finding, peevish, unreasonable, and many a time Margaret's patience almost failed her-almost, but not quite. In the end it brought her a more tangible reward than sometimes falls to the lot of the toiler. Mrs. Constance died, and in her will she left to Margaret her little up-country cottage and enough money to provide her an income for the rest of her life. 

"Margaret took immediate possession of her little house and, with the aid of a capable old servant, soon found herself very comfortable. She realized that her days of drudgery were over, and that henceforth life would be a very different thing from what it had been. Margaret meant to have "a good time." She had never had any pleasure and now she was resolved to garner in all she could of the joys of existence. 

""I'm not going to do a single useful thing for a year," she had told Mrs. Boyd gaily. "Just think of it-a whole delightful year of vacation, to go and come at will, to read, travel, dream, rest. After that, I mean to see if I can find something to do for other folks, but I'm going to have this one golden year. And the first thing in it is our trip to Vancouver. I'm so glad I have the chance to go with you. It's a wee bit short notice, but I'll be ready when you want to start." 

"Altogether, Margaret felt pretty well satisfied with life as she tripped blithely down the country road between the ranks of snow-laden spruces, with the blue sky above and the crisp, exhilarating air all about. There was only one drawback, but it was a pretty serious one. 

"It's so lonely by spells, Margaret sometimes thought wistfully. All the joys my good fortune has brought me can't quite fill my heart. There's always one little empty, aching spot. Oh, if I had somebody of my very own to love and care for, a mother, a sister , even a cousin. But there's nobody. I haven't a relative in the world, and there are times when I'd give almost anything to have one. Well, I must try to be satisfied with friendship, instead."

But Dr Forbes told her about a patient she was needed to nurse, and her conscience made her do it; they were first cousins, it turned out. 

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August 25, 2020 - August 25, 2020.
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104. Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves 

Wonder if this story is the little seed that the Anne series grew from! 

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August 25, 2020 - August 25, 2020.
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105. Missy's Room 

"Late that night, when Missy had fallen asleep in her improvised bed, the wakeful mother crept in to gloat over her. 

""Just to think," she whispered, "if I hadn't taken Camilla Clark in, Missy wouldn't have heard me telling about the room, and she'd have gone away again and never have known. Oh, I don't deserve such a blessing when I was so unwilling to take Camilla! But I know one thing: this is going to be Camilla's home. There'll be no leaving it even when she does get well. She shall be my daughter, and I'll love her next to Missy.""

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August 26, 2020 - August 26, 2020.
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106. Ted's Afternoon Off 

Ted was hoping to go to a picnic, but consented instead to sit with Jimmy who wasn't well, and played his violin - and the maestro who'd come to visit his nurse heard him, recognising genius, and not only gave him lessons while he was there,  but also finally got Ted to stay with him to grow and learn. 

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August 26, 2020 - August 26, 2020.
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107. The Doctor's Sweetheart 

"Marcella was only eight years old when she came to live in Bridgeport. Her father, Chester Barry, had just died. Her mother, who was a sister of Miss Sara Bryant, my next door neighbor, had been dead for four years. Marcella's father left her to the guardianship of his brother, Richard Barry; but Miss Sara pleaded so hard to have the little girl that the Barrys consented to let Marcella live with her aunt until she was sixteen. Then, they said, she would have to go back to them, to be properly educated and take the place of her father's daughter in his world. For, of course, it is a fact that Miss Sara Bryant's world was and is a very different one from Chester Barry's world. As to which side the difference favors, that isn't for me to say. It all depends on your standard of what is really worth while, you know. 

"So Marcella came to live with us in Bridgeport. I say "us" advisedly. She slept and ate in her aunt's house, but every house in the village was a home to her; for, with all our little disagreements and diverse opinions, we are really all one big family, and everybody feels an interest in and a good working affection for everybody else. Besides , Marcella was one of those children whom everybody loves at sight, and keeps on loving. One long, steady gaze from those big grayish-blue black-lashed eyes of hers went right into your heart and stayed there. 

"She was a pretty child and as good as she was pretty. It was the right sort of goodness, too, with just enough spice of original sin in it to keep it from spoiling by reason of over-sweetness. She was a frank, loyal, brave little thing, even at eight, and wouldn't have said or done a mean or false thing to save her life. 

"She and I were right good friends from the beginning. She loved me and she loved her Aunt Sara; but from the very first her best and deepest affection went out to Doctor John Haven, who lived in the big brick house on the other side of Miss Sara's."

"Doctor John was always a quiet, bookish fellow , who didn't care a button for society, and had never been guilty of a flirtation in his life. I knew Doctor John's heart far better than Martha Riddell could know anybody's ; and I knew there was nothing of the old bachelor in his nature. He just had to wait for the right woman, that was all, not being able to content himself with less as some men can and do. If she never came Doctor John would never marry; but he wouldn't be an old bachelor for all that. 

"He was thirty when Marcella came to Bridgeport -a tall, broad-shouldered man with a mane of thick brown curls and level, dark hazel eyes. He walked with a little stoop, his hands clasped behind him; and he had the sweetest, deepest voice. Spoken music, if ever a voice was. He was kind and brave and gentle, but a little distant and reserved with most people. Everybody in Bridgeport liked him , but only a very few ever passed the inner gates of his confidence or were admitted to any share in his real life. I am proud to say I was one; I think it is something for an old woman to boast of. 

"Doctor John was always fond of children, and they of him. It was natural that he and little Marcella should take to each other. He had the most to do with bringing her up, for Miss Sara consulted him in everything. Marcella was not hard to manage for the most part; but she had a will of her own, and when she did set it up in opposition to the powers that were, nobody but the doctor could influence her at all; she never resisted him or disobeyed his wishes. 

"Marcella was one of those girls who develop early. I suppose her constant association with us elderly folks had something to do with it, too. But, at fifteen, she was a woman, loving, beautiful, and spirited. 

"And Doctor John loved her-loved the woman, not the child. I knew it before he did-but not, as I think, before Marcella did, for those young, straight-gazing eyes of hers were wonderfully quick to read into other people's hearts. I watched them together and saw the love growing between them, like a strong, fair, perfect flower, whose fragrance was to endure for eternity. Miss Sara saw it, too, and was half-pleased and half-worried; even Miss Sara thought the Doctor too old for Marcella; and besides, there were the Barrys to be reckoned with. Those Barrys were the nightmare dread of poor Miss Sara's life."

"When the doctor wrote to Richard Barry, Marcella's guardian, asking his consent to their engagement, Richard Barry promptly made trouble-the very worst kind of trouble. He descended on Bridgeport and completely overwhelmed poor Miss Sara in his wrath. He laughed at the idea of countenancing an engagement between a child like Marcella and an obscure country doctor. And he carried Marcella off with him!"

""It is goodbye for five years, Miss Tranquil," she said steadily. "When I am twenty-one I will come back. That is the only promise I can make. They will not let me write to John or Aunt Sara and I will do nothing underhanded. But I will not forget and I will come back.""

And she did, to the surprise of all but two - Dr John, and the other neighbour of her aunt. 

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August 26, 2020 - August 26, 2020.
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108. The End of the Young Family Feud 

The nieces went to the old Young home because thats where the stationmaster directed them, and thus surprised the uncle. 

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August 26, 2020 - August 26, 2020.
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109. The Genesis of the Doughnut Club 

One of the boys brought his uncle to her farewell Thanksgiving dinner, and he, the railroad tycoon, proposed she take charge of the restaurant they wanted in the out West growing town, with good home cooking. So she didnt have to return East after all. 

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August 26, 2020 - August 26, 2020.
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110. The Girl Who Drove the Cows 

""Well, I am going to try to get acquainted with that girl," said Pauline resolutely . "She looks nice and jolly." 

""I don't know where you get your low tastes from," groaned Mrs. Wallace. "I'm sure it wasn't from your poor mother. What do you suppose the Morgan Knowles would think if they saw you taking up with some tomboy girl on a farm?" 

""I don't see why it should make a great deal of difference what they would think, since they don't seem to be aware of my existence, or even of yours, Aunty," said Pauline, with twinkling eyes. She knew it was her aunt's dearest desire to get in with the Morgan Knowles' "set"-a desire that seemed as far from being realized as ever. Mrs. Wallace could never understand why the Morgan Knowles shut her from their charmed circle. They certainly associated with people much poorer and of more doubtful worldly station than hers-the Markhams, for instance, who lived on an unfashionable street and wore quite shabby clothes. Just before she had left Colchester, Mrs. Wallace had seen Mrs. Knowles and Mrs. Markham together in the former's automobile. James Wallace and Morgan Knowles were associated in business dealings; but in spite of Mrs. Wallace's schemings and aspirations and heart burnings, the association remained a purely business one and never advanced an inch in the direction of friendship. 

"As for Pauline, she was hopelessly devoid of social ambitions and she did not in the least mind the Morgan Knowles' remote attitude."

Pauline made friends with Ada Cameron, and her photograph brought Mrs Knowles asking pauline who it was. 

""Well, who would ever have supposed that a girl who drove cows to pasture was connected with the Morgan Knowles?" said poor Aunt Olivia piteously."

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August 26, 2020 - August 26, 2020.
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111. The Growing Up of Cornelia 

Adorable love story. 

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August 26, 2020 - August 26, 2020.
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112. The Old Fellow's Letter 

A prank by schoolboys resulted in a couple in love finally admit to each other so, and get engaged, to the surprise of the boys. 

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August 27, 2020 - August 27, 2020.
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113. The Parting of The Ways 

""Wasn't there some talk about Mrs. Longworth and Cunningham last winter?" asked the other. 

""Yes. They were much together. Still, there may have been nothing wrong. She was old Judge Carmody's daughter, you know. Longworth got Carmody under his thumb in money matters and put the screws on. They say he made Carmody's daughter the price of the old man's redemption. The girl herself was a mere child, I shall never forget her face on her wedding day. But she's been plucky since then, I must say. If she has suffered, she hasn't shown it. I don't suppose Longworth ever ill-treats her. He isn't that sort. He's simply a grovelling cad-that's all. Nobody would sympathise much with the poor devil if his wife did run off with Cunningham.""

But meanwhile, there was a boy who adored her and would be devastated if she did, so she changed her plan, even though the boy and she werent related socially or romantically. 

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August 27, 2020 - August 27, 2020.
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114. The Promissory Note 

"Life seemed good to Ernest just then. Mr. White had given him a rise in salary that day, and had told him that he was satisfied with him. Mr. White was not easy to please in the matter of clerks, and it had been with fear and trembling that Ernest had gone into his store six months before. He had thought himself fortunate to secure such a chance. His father had died the preceding year, leaving nothing in the way of worldly goods except the house he had lived in. For several years before his death he had been unable to do much work, and the finances of the little family had dwindled steadily. After his father's death Ernest, who had been going to school and expecting to go to college, found that he must go to work at once instead to support himself and his mother."

He was doing well and White planned to take him as partner, but meanwhile Jacob Patterdon found a promissory note by his father and insisted on being paid; he'd inherited his brother's property and found the note that should have been destroyed, since it was blotted and his brother had immediately made another and it had been paid subsequently. But they couldn't find it, so they had to sell the house and rent a small place. Moreover they had to take in two boys orphaned when their father died. 

On Ernest's birthday the boys gave him gifts, one being a book that had belonged to their father, who had been a friend of Ernest's father, and in that book Ernest found the missing note. They showed it, and got their house back. 

""We can't be too good to them, Mother," said Ernest. "We really owe all our happiness to them." 

""Yes, but, Ernest, if you had not consented to take the homeless little lads in their time of need this wouldn't have come about." 

""I've been well rewarded , Mother," said Ernest quietly, "but, even if nothing of the sort had happened, I would be glad that I did the best I could for Frank and Danny. I'm ashamed to think that I was unwilling to do it at first. If it hadn't been for what you said, I wouldn't have. So it is your unselfishness we have to thank for it all, Mother dear.""

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August 27, 2020 - August 27, 2020.
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115. The Revolt of Mary Isabel 

Louisa locked out Mary Isabel the first time she had disagreed and not given in, and the rain would have ruined her new dress and hst, so Mary Isabel ran to Dr Hamilton, and as a result they got married since his nephew was a minister and was home with him. 

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August 27, 2020 - August 27, 2020.
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116. The Twins and a Wedding 

The twins wanted to go to a cousin's wedding, but the parents left them at home; the twins set off on their own, but the conductor got them off ten miles before at another station, and a couple about to be separated got married instead because the twins desperately wanted to see a wedding. 

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August 27, 2020 - August 27, 2020.
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117. A Golden Wedding 

Lovell had come to visit the couple who had taken him in as a boy, but used all his savings to buy them back their house and belongings when he heard they were in poorhouse, and so they had a golden wedding celebration at home. 

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August 27, 2020 - August 27, 2020.
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118. A Redeeming Sacrifice 

Paul King heard the men talking about him being worthless scamp, and agreed, but their judgement about him ruining Joan Shelley's life shook him. He loved her, and didn't want to change, so he got himself on crew of a schooner going out to South America. 

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August 27, 2020 - August 27, 2020.
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119. A Soul That Was Not at Home 

This story has a young boy talking of "rock people", and could be genesis of one incorporated in the Anne series. There he's a student of Anne with a father who's united through the son and Anne with his first love; here a stranger that Miss Trevor discovers on the shore, and wishes to adopt and bring up and send to school, except hes overcome by homesickness for the life he's lived in unison with sea and stars. The theme of an abandoned and recaptured first love is here too, but in form of Stephen who is bringing up the boy alone, his mother having died soon after returning to the cove as a widow, and her love only for the man she had married in the first place. 

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August 27, 2020 - August 27, 2020.
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120. Abel and His Great Adventure 

""I think I'll come often," I said, "perhaps too often." 

""Not likely, master-not likely-not after we've watched a moonrise contentedly together. It's as good a test of compatibility as any I know. You're young and I'm old, but our souls are about the same age, I reckon, and we'll find lots to say to each other. Are you going straight home from here?" 

""Yes." 

""Then I'm going to bother you to stop for a moment at Mary Bascom's and give her a bouquet of my white lilacs. She loves 'em and I'm not going to wait till she's dead to send her flowers." 

""She's very ill just now, isn't she?" 

""She's got the Bascom consumption. That means she may die in a month, like her brother, or linger on for twenty years, like her father. But long or short, white lilac in spring is sweet, and I'm sending her a fresh bunch every day while it lasts. It's a rare night, master. I envy you your walk home in the moonlight along that shore." 

""Better come part of the way with me," I suggested. 

""No." Abel glanced at the house. "Tamzine never likes to be alone o' nights. So I take my moonlight walks in the garden. The moon's a great friend of mine, master. I've loved her ever since I can remember. When I was a little lad of eight I fell asleep in the garden one evening and wasn't missed. I woke up alone in the night and I was most scared to death, master. Lord, what shadows and queer noises there were! I darsn't move. I just sat there quaking, poor small mite. Then all at once I saw the moon looking down at me through the pine boughs, just like an old friend. I was comforted right off. Got up and walked to the house as brave as a lion, looking at her. Goodnight, master. Tell Mary the lilacs'll last another week yet.""

"He never preached, but he radiated courage and endurance and a frank acceptance of the hard things of life, as well as a cordial welcome of its pleasant things. He was the sanest soul I ever met. He neither minimized ill nor exaggerated good, but he held that we should never be controlled by either. Pain should not depress us unduly, nor pleasure lure us into forgetfulness and sloth. All unknowingly he made me realize that I had been a bit of a coward and a shirker. I began to understand that my personal woes were not the most important things in the universe, even to myself. In short, Abel taught me to laugh again; and when a man can laugh wholesomely things are not going too badly with him.

"That old garden was always such a cheery place. Even when the east wind sang in minor and the waves on the gray shore were sad, hints of sunshine seemed to be lurking all about it. Perhaps this was because there were so many yellow flowers in it. Tamzine liked yellow flowers. Captain Kidd, too, always paraded it in panoply of gold. He was so large and effulgent that one hardly missed the sun. Considering his presence I wondered that the garden was always so full of singing birds. But the Captain never meddled with them. Probably he understood that his master would not have tolerated it for a moment. So there was always a song or a chirp somewhere. Overhead flew the gulls and the cranes. The wind in the pines always made a glad salutation. Abel and I paced the walks, in high converse on matters beyond the ken of cat or king."

"Summer passed through the garden with her procession of roses and lilies and hollyhocks and golden glow. The golden glow was particularly fine that year. There was a great bank of it at the lower end of the garden, like a huge billow of sunshine. Tamzine revelled in it, but Abel liked more subtly-tinted flowers. There was a certain dark wine-hued hollyhock which was a favourite with him. He would sit for hours looking steadfastly into one of its shallow satin cups. I found him so one afternoon in the hop-vine arbour."

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August 27, 2020 - August 27, 2020.
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121. Akin To Love 

"Josephine set the table with her mother's wedding china. She used it because it was the anniversary of her mother's wedding day, but David thought it was out of compliment to him."

She refused him again, but had to go help when he and Zillah were both sick, and the fortnight she spent taking care of the house hsd her reverse her decision. 

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August 27, 2020 - August 28, 2020.
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122. Aunt Philippa and the Men 

"Old John Fenwick was not much better pleased about Mark and me than Father was, though he didn't go to the length of forbidding it; he just acted grumpily and disagreeably. Things were unpleasant enough all round without a quarrel between Mark and me; yet quarrel we did-and over next to nothing, too, you understand. And now I had to set out for Prince Edward Island without even seeing him, for he was away in Toronto on business."

"Aunt Philippa looked at me out of the corner of her eye and disdained any skirmish of flippant epigram. 

""So you want to get married?" she said. "You'd better wait till you're grown up.""

""There's a man you don't want to have much to do with," she said portentously. "He's a Methodist minister." 

""Why, Auntie, the Methodists are a very nice denomination," I protested. "My stepmother is a Methodist, you know." 

""No, I didn't know, but I'd believe anything of a stepmother. I've no use for Methodists or their ministers. This fellow just came last spring, and it's my opinion he smokes. And he thinks every girl who looks at him falls in love with him-as if a Methodist minister was any prize! Don't you take much notice of him, Ursula." 

""I'll not be likely to have the chance," I said, with an amused smile. 

""Oh, you'll see enough of him. He boards at Mrs. John Callman's, just across the road from us, and he's always out sunning himself on her verandah. Never studies, of course. Last Sunday they say he preached on the iron that floated. If he'd confine himself to the Bible and leave sensational subjects alone it would be better for him and his poor congregation, and so I told Mrs. John Callman to her face. I should think she would have had enough of his sex by this time. She married John Callman against her father's will, and he had delirious trembles for years. That's the men for you.""

"There's the Presbyterian manse in the hollow. Mr. Bentwell's our minister. He's a good man and he'd be a rather nice one if he didn't think it was his duty to be a little miserable all the time. He won't let his wife wear a fashionable hat, and his daughter can't fix her hair the way she wants to. Even being a minister can't prevent a man from being a crank. Here's Ebenezer Milgrave coming. You take a good look at him. He used to be insane for years. He believed he was dead and used to rage at his wife because she wouldn't bury him. I'd a-done it.""

But when Mark wrote to say he had to leave for South Africa so she had to marry him in three weeks in halifax if she wanted to, it was Aunt Philippa who told her the wedding would be at her home, and arranged a big one. 

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August 28, 2020 - August 28, 2020.
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123. Bessie's Doll 

Miss Octavia was surprised when she returned to find her garden not destroyed by frost, and was more surprised it was because Tommy took care of it. She asked him if she could do something for him, and was again surprised he wanted a doll for the pining Bessie, but she had exactly the one, and gave it. Bessie improved and meanwhile Miss Octavia arranged an apprenticeship for Tommy in her brother's flower shop. 

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August 28, 2020 - August 28, 2020.
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124. Charlotte's Ladies 

Little Charlotte discovered two gaps in the fence of the asylum and two ladies she liked, and became the means of reuniting a pair of estranged sisters when bith came to adopt her. 

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August 28, 2020 - August 28, 2020.
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125. Christmas at Red Butte 

Lovely story, with a reunion. 

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August 28, 2020 - August 28, 2020.
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126. How We Went to the Wedding 

The story of a sojourn through prairie invorporates an incident - about visiting a friend who seems to have gone away, using the house by getting in through a kitchen window, and waking up next morning to find that the house belongs to complete strangers - thats used elsewhere in the Anne series. The following quoted is used, almost verbatim, except for change of names, in that story as well. 

"If they had been nice to us, Kate would probably have gone on feeling confused and ashamed. But when they were so disagreeable she quickly regained her self-possession. She sat up again and said in her haughtiest voice, "I do not know when you were born, or where, but it must have been somewhere where very peculiar manners were taught. If you will have the decency to leave our room-this room-until we can get up and dress we will not transgress upon your hospitality" (Kate put a most satirical emphasis on that word) "any longer. And we shall pay you amply for the food we have eaten and the night's lodging we have taken." 

"The black-and-white apparition went through the motion of clapping her hands, but not a sound did she make. Whether he was cowed by Kate's tone, or appeased by the prospect of payment, I know not, but Mr. Chapman spoke more civilly. "Well, that's fair. If you pay up it's all right." 

""They shall do no such thing as pay you," said Madam Black-and-White in a surprisingly clear, resolute, authoritative voice. "If you haven't any shame for yourself, Robert Chapman, you've got a mother-in-law who can be ashamed for you. No strangers shall be charged for food or lodging in any house where Mrs. Matilda Pitman lives. Remember that I've come down in the world, but I haven't forgot all decency for all that. I knew you was a skinflint when Amelia married you and you've made her as bad as yourself. But I'm boss here yet. Here, you, Robert Chapman, take yourself out of here and let those girls get dressed. And you, Amelia, go downstairs and cook a breakfast for them.""

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August 28, 2020 - August 28, 2020.
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127. Jessamine 

Jessamine had to live with the brother in town after her country home was gone, and was wilting until the vegetable man's young nephew cam in his stead one day and noticed her. 

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August 28, 2020 - August 28, 2020.
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128. Miss Sally's Letter 

"Miss Sally could speak very graciously when she chose, even to men. You would not have thought she hated them , but she did. In all sincerity, too. Also, she had brought her niece up to hate and distrust them. Or, she had tried to do so. But at times Miss Sally was troubled with an uncomfortable suspicion that Joyce did not hate and distrust men quite as thoroughly as she ought. The suspicion had recurred several times this summer since Willard Stanley had come to take charge of the biological station at the harbour. Miss Sally did not distrust Willard on his own account. She merely distrusted him on principle and on Joyce's account. Nevertheless, she was rather nice to him. Miss Sally, dear, trim, dainty Miss Sally, with her snow-white curls and her big girlish black eyes, couldn't help being nice, even to a man. 

"Willard had come a great deal to Miss Sally's. If it were Joyce he were after Miss Sally blocked his schemes with much enjoyment. He never saw Joyce alone-that Miss Sally knew of, at least-and he did not make much apparent headway. But now all danger was removed, Miss Sally thought. He was going to be married to somebody else, and Joyce was safe."

One expects early on that Willard is to marry Joyce, but the twists sre unexpected, and its a beautiful story of love and more. 

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August 28, 2020 - August 29, 2020.
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129. My Lady Jane 

This begins with a theme from a story earlier in this collection, about two people who look identical enough to confuse most people. Here the two are cousins, both adult, unlike the earlier story where they were schoolgirls who became fast friends after meeting. There, it was the substitute who was discovered a relative of someone at the party, while here its a love story gone sur that promises to right itself, and the reader knows why before the protagonist does. 

"Jane here! Jane going out to dinner with me, believing me to be Clark Oliver! Jane-but it was incredible! The whole thing was a dream-or I had gone crazy! 

"I looked at her sideways when we had got into our places at the table. She was more beautiful than ever, that tall, brown-haired, disdainful Jane. The settlement work story I was inclined to dismiss as a myth. Settlement work in a beautiful woman generally means crowsfeet or a broken heart. Jane, according to my sight and belief, possessed neither. 

"Once upon a time I had been engaged to Jane. I had been idiotically in love with her in those days and still more idiotically believed that she loved me. The trouble was that, although I had been cured of the latter phase of my idiocy, the former had become chronic. I had never been able to get over loving Jane. All through those two years I had hugged the fond hope that sometime I might stumble across her in a mild mood and make matters up. There was no such thing as seeking her out or writing to her, since she had icily forbidden me to do so , and Jane had a most detestable habit-in a woman-of meaning what she said. But the deity I had invoked was the god of chance-and this was how he had answered my prayers. I was eating my dinner beside Jane, who supposed me to be Clark Oliver!"

Delightful story, especially the conversation that follows, and the ending. 

"Clark Oliver couldn't come to our wedding-or wouldn't. Jane has never met him since, but she cannot understand why I have such an aversion to him, especially when he has such a good opinion of me. She says she thought him charming, and one of the most interesting conversationalists she ever went out to dinner with."

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August 29, 2020 - August 29, 2020.
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130. Robert Turner's Revenge 

""There goes my revenge-and a fine bit of property eminently suited for a summer residence-all for a bit of old, rusty sentiment," he said with a shrug. "I didn't suppose I was capable of such a mood. But then-little Lisbeth. There never was a sweeter girl. I'm glad I didn't go with the boy to see her. She's an old woman now-and Neil Jameson's widow. I prefer to keep my old memories of her undisturbed-little Lisbeth of the silvery-golden curls and the roguish blue eyes. Little Lisbeth of the old time! I'm glad to be able to have done you the small service of securing your home to you. It is my thanks to you for the friendship and affection you gave my lonely boyhood-my tribute to the memory of my first sweetheart.""

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August 29, 2020 - August 29, 2020.
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131. The Fillmore Elderberries 

"As he walked homeward his thoughts were very bitter. All Uncle Timothy had said about his father was true, and Ellis realized what a count it was against him in his efforts to obtain employment. Nobody wanted to be bothered with "Old Sam Duncan's son," though nobody had been so brutally outspoken as his Uncle Timothy. 

"Sam Duncan and Timothy Robinson had been half-brothers. Sam, the older, had been the son of Mrs. Robinson's former marriage. Never were two lads more dissimilar. Sam was a lazy, shiftless fellow, deserving all the hard things that came to be said of him. He would not work and nobody could depend on him, but he was a handsome lad with rather taking ways in his youth, and at first people had liked him better than the close, blunt, industrious Timothy. Their mother had died in their childhood, but Mr. Robinson had been fond of Sam and the boy had a good home. When he was twenty-two and Timothy eighteen, Mr. Robinson had died very suddenly, leaving no will. Everything he possessed went to Timothy. Sam immediately left. He said he would not stay there to be "bossed" by Timothy. 

"He rented a little house in the village, married a girl "far too good for him," and started in to support himself and his wife by days' work. He had lounged, borrowed, and shirked through life. Once Timothy Robinson, perhaps moved by pity for Sam's wife and baby, had hired him for a year at better wages than most hired men received in Dalrymple. Sam idled through a month of it, then got offended and left in the middle of haying. Timothy Robinson washed his hands of him after that."

They met after two months, after Ellis had cleared out elderberry bushes and roots out of Fillmore's pasture. 

""Ellis," said his uncle abruptly, after a moment's silence, "I'm going to discharge my man. He's no earthly good. Will you take his place? I'll give you fifteen dollars a month and found." 

"Ellis stared at Timothy Robinson. "I thought you told me that you had no place for my father's son," he said slowly. 

""I've changed my mind. I've seen how you went at that elderberry job. Great snakes, there couldn't be a better test for anybody than rooting out them things. I know you can work. When Jacob Green told me why you'd refused his offer I knew you could be depended on. You come to me and I'll do well by you. I've no kith or kin of my own except you. And look here, Ellis. I'm tired of hired housekeepers. Will your mother come up and live with us and look after things a bit? I've a good girl, and she won't have to work hard, but there must be somebody at the head of a household. She must have a good headpiece-for you have inherited good qualities from someone, and goodness knows it wasn't from your father." 

""Uncle Timothy," said Ellis respectfully but firmly, "I'll accept your offer gratefully, and I am sure Mother will too. But there is one thing I must say. Perhaps my father deserves all you say of him-but he is dead-and if I come to you it must be with the understanding that nothing more is ever to be said against him." 

"Timothy Robinson smiled-a queer, twisted smile that yet had a hint of affection and comprehension in it. "Very well," he said. "I'll never cast his shortcomings up to you again. Come to me-and if I find you always as industrious and reliable as you've proved yourself to be negotiating them elders, I'll most likely forget that you ain't my own son some of these days.""

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August 29, 2020 - August 29, 2020.
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132. The Finished Story 

He'd thought he should leave withought admitting his love to her, even in words, but this had hurt her, not knowing if he cared; it was only when she knew he did thst her hurt was healed. 

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August 29, 2020 - August 29, 2020.
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133. The Garden of Spices 

Aunt Augusta shut up Jims in the blue room, and he dared to escape through the window, climbing over the pine boughs down into the next door gsrden - and became the reason two estranged lovers were united after decades. 

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August 29, 2020 - August 30, 2020.
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134. The Girl and the Photograph 

He was united by fortunate accident of confusion with the young girl he saw for a few seconds, despite the misunderstanding about photographs and names. 

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August 30, 2020 - August 30, 2020.
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135. The Gossip of Valley View 

A fourteen year old boy, desperate to fool somebody, made up a story about two people marrying in near future, telling it to someone who never lied - and the village gossip made it come true, after all. 

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August 30, 2020 - August 30, 2020.
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136. The Letters 

About the unwanted only daughter made to feel plain by a despot, loved by the handsome son of the family they were supposed to hate for generations. 

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August 30, 2020 - August 30, 2020.
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137. The Life-Book of Uncle Jesse 

Here's yet another theme repeated in the Anne series, that of an old sailor's true life stories that he tells well but needs, hankars for, another, to pen them for posterity. And the stoty of lost Margaret, too. With only names - and a few of the other unimportant details - changed, this story is half of Anne's House Of Dreams.

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August 30, 2020 - August 30, 2020.
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138. The Little Black Doll 

This story has a variation in one of the Chronicles of Avonlea, about a great artist visiting someone dying, and the variation being about another theme elsewhere in this collection, the said artist encouraging talent of a young one. 

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August 30, 2020 - August 30, 2020.
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139. The Man on the Train 

"She never would say or listen to a word against Mark Hartwell, and she had only pity for him whom everyone else condemned. With her own trembling hands she wrote him a letter to accompany the money Samuel sent before Hartwell was taken to the penitentiary for life. She thanked him again for his kindness to her and assured him that she knew he was sorry for what he had done and that she would pray for him every night of her life. Mark Hartwell had been hard and defiant enough, but the prison officials told that he cried like a child over Grandma Sheldon's little letter. 

""There's nobody all bad," says Grandma when she relates the story. "I used to believe a murderer must be, but I know better now. I think of that poor man often and often. He was so kind and gentle to me-he must have been a good boy once. I write him a letter every Christmas and I send him tracts and papers. He's my own little charity. But I've never been on the cars since and I never will be again. You never can tell what will happen to you or what sort of people you'll meet if you trust yourself on a train.""

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August 30, 2020 - August 30, 2020.
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140. The Romance of Jedediah 

"Romance cares not for appearances and apparently delights in contradictions. The homely shambling man you pass unnoticed on the street may have, tucked away in his past, a story more exciting and thrilling than anything you have ever read in fiction. So it was, in a measure, with Jedediah; poor, unknown to fame, afflicted with a double chin and bald spot, reduced to driving a tin-wagon for a living, he yet had his romance and he was still romantic."

"The Adams place itself was not unromantic. The house was a large, old-fashioned white one, with green shutters and a front porch with Grecian columns. These were thought very elegant in Amberley. Mrs. Carmody said they gave a house such a classical air. In this instance the classical effect was somewhat smothered in honeysuckle, which rioted over the whole porch and hung in pale yellow, fragrant festoons over the rows of potted scarlet geraniums that flanked the green steps. Beyond the house a low-boughed orchard covered the slope between it and the main road, and behind it there was a revel of colour betokening a flower garden."

"Fifteen years before Jedediah Crane had been Mattie Adams's beau. Jedediah was romantic even then, but, as he was a slim young fellow at the time, with an abundance of fair, curly hair and innocent blue eyes, his romance was rather an attraction than not. At least the then young and pretty Mattie had found it so. 

"The Adamses looked with no favour on the match. They were a thrifty, well-to-do folk. As for the Cranes-well, they were lazy and shiftless, for the most part. It would be a mésalliance for an Adams to marry a Crane. Still, it would doubtless have happened-for Mattie, though a meek-looking damsel, had a mind of her own-had it not been for Selena Ford, Mattie's older sister. 

"Selena, people said, had married James Ford for no other reason than that his house commanded a view of nearly every dooryard in Amberley. This may or may not have been sheer malice. Certainly nothing that went on in the Adams yard escaped Selena.

"She watched Mattie and Jed in the moonlight one night. She saw Jed kiss Mattie. It was the first time he had ever done so-and the last, poor fellow. For Selena swooped down on her parents the next day. Such a storm did she brew up that Mattie was forbidden to speak to Jed again. Selena herself gave Jed a piece of her mind. Jed usually was not afflicted with undue sensitiveness. But he had some slumbering pride at the basis of his character and it was very stubborn when roused. Selena roused it. Jed vowed he would never creep and crawl at the feet of the Adamses, and he went west forthwith, determined, as aforesaid, to make his fortune and hurl Selena's scorn back in her face. 

"And now he had come home, driving a tin-wagon. Mattie smiled to think of it. She bore Jed no ill will for his failure. She felt sorry for him and inclined to think that fate had used him hardly -fate and Selena together. Mattie had never had another beau. People thought she was engaged to Jed Crane until her time for beaus went by. Mattie did not mind; she had never liked anybody so well as Jed. To be sure, she had not thought of him for years. It was strange he should come back like this-" romantic," as he said himself."

"When Selena had come over Mattie had not the slightest idea of resuming her former relationship with the romantic Jedediah. She had merely shown him kindness for old friendship's sake. But so well did the unconscious Selena work in Jed's behalf that when she flounced off home in a pet Mattie was resolved that she would take Jed back if he wanted to come. She wasn't going to put up with Selena's everlasting interference. She would show her that she was independent."

And the couple not only courted, but married, all due to Selena. 

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August 30, 2020 - August 30, 2020.
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141. The Tryst of the White Lady 

Roger Temple longed to fall in live with someone beautiful, and vidited the grave of Isabel wh had been seen by several relatives, but the beautiful vision he saw turned out to be living, disappointing him not in beauty but that it should be not Isabel. To his surprise, he discovered he was in love with her, and even more surprisingly, she was friendly with him. It was a matvh despite disparities. 

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August 30, 2020 - August 30, 2020.
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142. Uncle Richard's New Year's Dinner 

"Prissy hurried home, put her matches away, took a regretful peep at her unopened book, then locked the door and started up the road to Uncle Richard's house half a mile away. She meant to go and cook Uncle Richard's dinner for him, get it all beautifully ready, then slip away before he came home. He would never suspect her of it. Prissy would not have him suspect for the world; she thought he would be more likely to throw a dinner of her cooking out of doors than to eat it."

But he came before she had finished setting his table, and this ended the quarrel between brothers. 

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August 30, 2020 - August 30, 2020.
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143. White Magic

""Oh, what have I done? What have I done?" moaned poor Janet, wringing her hands. She had seen Avery's face quite plainly-had seen the look in her eyes. Avery had never looked at Randall Burnley like that. Granny Thomas' abominable ointment had worked all right-and Avery had fallen in love with the wrong man."

"It was a pallid, dull-eyed Janet who went through the birch wood to the Burnley farm next afternoon, leaving behind her an excited household where the sudden change of bridegrooms, as announced by Avery, had rather upset everybody. Janet found Randall working in the garden of his new house-setting out rosebushes for Avery-Avery, who was to jilt him at the very altar, so to speak. He came over to open the gate for Janet, smiling his dear smile. It was a dear smile-Janet caught her breath over the dearness of it-and she was going to blot it off his face. 

"She spoke out, with plainness and directness. When you had to deal a mortal blow, why try to lighten it? 

""Avery sent me to tell you that she is going to marry Bruce Gordon instead of you. He came last night-and she says that she has always liked him best." 

"A very curious change came over Randall's face-but not the change Janet had expected to see. Instead of turning pale Randall flushed; and instead of a sharp cry of pain and incredulity, Randall said in no uncertain tones, "Thank God!" 

"Janet wondered if she were dreaming. Granny Thomas' love potion seemed to have turned the world upside down. For Randall's arms were about her and Randall was pressing his lean bronzed cheek to hers and Randall was saying: 

""Now I can tell you, Janet, how much I love you.""

They had a double wedding. 

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August 30, 2020 - August 30, 2020.
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August 10, 2020 - August 30, 2020.
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Contents:- 

Anne of Green Gables (1908)
Anne of Avonlea (1909)
Anne of the Island (1915)
Anne's House of Dreams (1917)
Rainbow Valley (1919)
Rilla of Ingleside (1921)
Chronicles of Avonlea (1912)
Further Chronicles of Avonlea (1920)
The Story Girl (1911)
The Golden Road (Sequel to The Story Girl, 1913)
Kilmeny of the Orchard (1910)
The Watchman and Other Poems (1916)
The Short Story Collection (1896-1922)

Unfortunately, there are two books in the Anne of Green Gables series which were published later and can't yet be included in this Kindle collection because of copyright restrictions. These are "Anne of Windy Poplars" (1936) and "Anne of Ingleside" (1939).

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June 26, 2020 - July 01, 2020.

July 01, 2020 - July 07, 2020.

July 07, 2020 - July 09, 2020.

July 09, 2020 - July 12, 2020.

July 12, 2020 - July 14, 2020.

July 14, 2020 - July 16, 2020.

July 16, 2020 - July 19, 2020.

July 19, 2020 - July 21, 2020.

July 21, 2020 - July 30, 2020.

July 30, 2020 - August 10, 2020.

August 10, 2020 - August , 2020.

August 10, 2020 - August 30, 2020.

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Anne of Green Gables
Anne of Avonlea
Anne of the Island
Anne's House of Dreams
Rainbow Valley
Rilla of Ingleside
Chronicles of Avonlea
Further Chronicles of Avonlea
The Story Girl
The Golden Road
Kilmeny of the Orchard
The Watchman and Other Poems
The Short Story Collection

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June 26, 2020 - July 01, 2020.

July 01, 2020 - July 07, 2020.

July 07, 2020 - July 09, 2020.

July 09, 2020 - July 12, 2020.

July 12, 2020 - July 14, 2020.

July 14, 2020 - July 16, 2020.

July 16, 2020 - July 19, 2020.

July 19, 2020 - July 21, 2020.

July 21, 2020 - July 30, 2020.

July 30, 2020 - August 05, 2020.

August 05, 2020.- August 10, 2020.

August 10, 2020 - August 30, 2020.

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