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Lucy Maud Montgomery, Short Stories Collection
Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874 - 1942), called "Maud" by family and friends and publicly known as L. M. Montgomery, was a Canadian author best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908. Anne of Green Gables was an immediate success. The central character, Anne, an orphaned girl, made Montgomery famous in her lifetime and gave her an international following.The first novel was followed by a series of sequels with Anne as the central character. Montgomery went on to publish 20 novels as well as 530 short stories, 500 poems, and 30 essays. Most of the novels were set on Prince Edward Island, Canada, and places in the Canadian province became literary landmarks. She was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1935. Montgomery's work, diaries and letters have been read and studied by scholars and readers worldwide. In this book: Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901, Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903, Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904, Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906, Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908, Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922
- GenresClassics
604 pages, Paperback
First published March 20, 2008
49 people are currently reading
142 people want to read
About the author
L.M. Montgomery
1,987 books13.3k followersLucy Maud Montgomery was a Canadian author, best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908.
Montgomery was born at Clifton, Prince Edward Island, Nov. 30, 1874. She came to live at Leaskdale, north of Uxbridge Ontario, after her wedding with Rev. Ewen Macdonald on July 11, 1911. She had three children and wrote close to a dozen books while she was living in the Leaskdale Manse before the family moved to Norval, Ontario in 1926. She died in Toronto April 24, 1942 and was buried at Cavendish, Prince Edward Island.
Montgomery was born at Clifton, Prince Edward Island, Nov. 30, 1874. She came to live at Leaskdale, north of Uxbridge Ontario, after her wedding with Rev. Ewen Macdonald on July 11, 1911. She had three children and wrote close to a dozen books while she was living in the Leaskdale Manse before the family moved to Norval, Ontario in 1926. She died in Toronto April 24, 1942 and was buried at Cavendish, Prince Edward Island.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 30, 2020
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.
August 11, 2020.
............
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.""
August 11, 2020.
............
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.
August 11, 2020.
............
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.
August 11, 2020.
............
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.""
August 11, 2020.
............
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.
August 12, 2020.
............
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.
August 12, 2020.
............
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.
August 12, 2020.
............
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.
August 12, 2020.
............
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.
August 12, 2020.
............
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.
August 12, 2020.
............
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.
August 12, 2020.
............
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."
August 12, 2020.
............
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!
August 13, 2020.
............
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.
August 13, 2020.
............
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.
August 13, 2020.
............
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.""
August 13, 2020.
............
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 ....
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.
August 11, 2020.
............
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.""
August 11, 2020.
............
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.
August 11, 2020.
............
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.
August 11, 2020.
............
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.""
August 11, 2020.
............
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.
August 12, 2020.
............
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.
August 12, 2020.
............
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.
August 12, 2020.
............
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.
August 12, 2020.
............
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.
August 12, 2020.
............
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.
August 12, 2020.
............
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.
August 12, 2020.
............
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."
August 12, 2020.
............
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!
August 13, 2020.
............
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.
August 13, 2020.
............
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.
August 13, 2020.
............
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.""
August 13, 2020.
............
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 ....
August 28, 2014
I finally finished all 142 short stories! And in time for the collection to count as my 50th book for the year :)
I loved all the stories. Many were predictable and themes repeated and some were almost identical to events in the Anne books, but they were all so wholesome and sweet and (for the most part) happy that I loved them anyway :) I just love Montgomery's prose and imagery. Escaping to her Canada is always such a pleasure for me.
I loved all the stories. Many were predictable and themes repeated and some were almost identical to events in the Anne books, but they were all so wholesome and sweet and (for the most part) happy that I loved them anyway :) I just love Montgomery's prose and imagery. Escaping to her Canada is always such a pleasure for me.
December 11, 2018
Whew, I made it through all those short stories!!
Fun, clean, upbeat reads. It was interesting to catch glimpses of characters in the shorts that I recognized from her novels. Some of the stories Montgomery must have almost dropped into her later books with only a few names changes (for example "The Life Book of Uncle Jesse" has large paragraphs that made their way without alteration into Anne's House of Dreams). This does make it seem repetitive sometimes-- and a lot of the stories are very similar (hence why they were called "pot-boilers")-- but very enjoyable for fans of Montgomery's work.
Fun, clean, upbeat reads. It was interesting to catch glimpses of characters in the shorts that I recognized from her novels. Some of the stories Montgomery must have almost dropped into her later books with only a few names changes (for example "The Life Book of Uncle Jesse" has large paragraphs that made their way without alteration into Anne's House of Dreams). This does make it seem repetitive sometimes-- and a lot of the stories are very similar (hence why they were called "pot-boilers")-- but very enjoyable for fans of Montgomery's work.
May 6, 2021
Ok so these are sweet and sentimental.
And life isn’t really like that. But I wish it were. If you wish dreams came true, and men and women and their love were true and constant...then this book us for you. Sweet.
And life isn’t really like that. But I wish it were. If you wish dreams came true, and men and women and their love were true and constant...then this book us for you. Sweet.
July 1, 2022
I love all things Montgomery and these short stories did not disappoint.
September 15, 2013
A collection of nutritious bonbons. Certainly, only for those among us who are devoted to a simpler, structured world, where good triumphs and happily ever after is a destination, but for us, hours of reading these small morsels, or listening to them courtesy of Librivox, it is a satisfying reading holiday.
June 14, 2019
all excellent little stories! really enjoyed reading this, made me feel happy! :)
August 22, 2019
Thoroughly enjoyed!
Well done LM Montgomery like always! Fabulous collection of short stories that catch you from the first and make your day!
Well done LM Montgomery like always! Fabulous collection of short stories that catch you from the first and make your day!
July 26, 2017
Nice little stories. One or two seemed repetitive, but they all gave a nice glimpse of life in Canada in a time already lost.
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