Anne of Ingleside

by L.M. Montgomery

Why hadn't she saved some of the gingerbread and cream for him? S'pose the rest of them had et it all. Pigs!

He had always hated that fat, pink, smiling cherub because it looked just like Sissy Flagg who had told round school that Jem Blythe was her beau.

Aunt Mary Maria stalked to the telephone and took down the receiver, her crimpers making a horned silhouette on the wall which, Susan reflected, in spite of her anguish, looked like the old Nick himself.

Nan and Di... I would not breathe this to a soul but you, Miss Dew...the doctor and his wife never dream of it or they would put a stop to it...Nan and Di have named their old china doll with the split head after Aunt Mary Maria and whenever she scolds them they go out and drown her...the doll I mean... In the rainwater hogshead. Many's the jolly drowning we have had, I can assure you.

Thomasine Fair, if Thomasine Fair it was...and she knew now it was Thomasine Fair...was certainly old. And fat! She looked like the feather-bed with the string tied round its middle to which angular Susan was always comparing stout ladies. She was barefooted, wore a green dress that had faded yellowish, and a man's old felt hat on her sparse, sandy-grey hair. Her face was round as an O, ruddy and wrinkled, with a snub nose. Her eyes were a faded blue, surrounded by great, jolly-looking crow's-feet.

Can I make you an onion sandwich?"

"I don't know... It was just a creature. It almost drove her to suicide. I am really afraid she will be driven to it yet. You know, Susan, she had an uncle who committed suicide twice." "Was not once enough?" asked Susan heartlessly.

There was no question that Christine was as handsome as ever. A bit too sleek and well-preserved, perhaps...yes, considerably stouter. Her nose had assuredly not grown any shorter and her chin was definitely middle-aged. Standing in the doorway like that, you saw that her feet were...substantial.