Canada

Chronicles of Avonlea

Anne Shirley was curled up on the window-seat of Theodora Dix’s sitting-room one Saturday evening, looking dreamily afar at some fair starland beyond the hills of sunset. Anne was visiting for a fortnight of her vacation at Echo Lodge, where Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Irving were sp...

Chapters

1. Chapter 1

Anne Shirley was curled up on the window-seat of Theodora Dix’s sitting-room one Saturday evening, looking dreamily afar at some fair starland beyond the hills of sunset. Anne w...

2. Chapter 2

It was always hardest in the spring. Once upon a time the Old Lady--when she had not been the Old Lady, but pretty, wilful, high-spirited Margaret Lloyd--had loved springs; now...

3. Chapter 3

The Old Lady listened to the opening hymns with keen pleasure. Sylvia’s voice thrilled through and dominated them all. But when the ushers got up to take the collection, an unde...

4. Chapter 4

In September the Old Lady looked back on the summer and owned to herself that it had been a strangely happy one, with Sundays and Sewing Circle days standing out like golden pun...

5. Chapter 5

The honey-tinted autumn sunshine was falling thickly over the crimson and amber maples around old Abel Blair’s door. There was only one outer door in old Abel’s house, and it al...

6. Chapter 6

Only once in the long winter did he come near to breaking his promise. One evening, when March was melting into April, and the pulses of spring were stirring under the lingering...

7. Chapter 7

Aunty Nan sighed, and patted the tiny, furry, gray morsel of a kitten in her lap with trembling fingers. She knew, better than anyone else could know it, that she was not strong...

8. Chapter 8

Thin Mrs. Nathaniel Penhallow sat in a rocking chair and toasted her toes at the grate, for the brilliant autumn afternoon was slightly chilly and Lucinda, as usual, had the win...

9. Chapter 9

“Day after to-morrow--day after to-morrow,” said Old Man Shaw, rubbing his long slender hands together gleefully. “I have to keep saying it over and over, so as to really believ...

10. Chapter 10

Aunt Olivia told Peggy and me about him on the afternoon we went over to help her gather her late roses for pot-pourri. We found her strangely quiet and preoccupied. As a rule s...

11. Chapter 11

Peggy and I went home and told father. We felt very flat, but there was nothing to be done or said. Father laughed at the whole thing, but I could not laugh. I was sorry for Mr....

12. Chapter 12

“If I had been a boy my parents intended to call me Peter in honour of a rich uncle. When I--fortunately--turned out to be a girl my mother insisted that I should be called Ange...

13. Chapter 13

A laugh went through the crowd. The sale had been a dull affair, and they were ready for some fun. Someone called out, “Put him up, Jacob.” The joke found favour and the call wa...

14. Chapter 14

Well, I watched and Stephen watched, and Mr. Leonard was in the plot, too. Prissy was always a favourite of his, and he would have been more than human, saint as he is, if he’d...

15. Chapter 15

Salome limped out of the yard and down the lane bordered by its asters and goldenrod. Fortunately the church was just outside the lane, across the main road; but Salome found it...

16. Chapter 16

“To be sure it is--rank foolishness. But oh, it is so delightful to be foolish after being compelled to be unbrokenly sensible for twenty years. Well, I’m going picking strawber...