They throw a glamor over that Northern land which otherwise you might imagine as rather cold and barren . What charming Springs they must have there ! One sees all the fruit-trees clad in bridal garments of pink and white ; and what a translucent sky smiles down on the ponds and the reaches of bay and cove ! `` The Eastern sky was a great arc of crystal , smitten through with auroral crimsonings . '' `` She was as slim and lithe as a young white-stemmed birch-tree ; her hair was like a soft dusky cloud , and her eyes were as blue as Avonlea Harbor in a fair twilight , when all the sky is a-bloom over it . '' Sentiment with a humorous touch to it prevails in the first two stories of the present book . The one relates to the disappearance of a valuable white Persian cat with a blue spot in its tail . `` Fatima '' is like the apple of her eye to the rich old aunt who leaves her with two nieces , with a stern injunction not to let her out of the house . Of course both Sue and Ismay detest cats ; Ismay hates them , Sue loathes them ; but Aunt Cynthia 's favor is worth preserving . You become as much interested in Fatima 's fate as if she were your own pet , and the climax is no less unexpected than it is natural , especially when it is made also the last act of a pretty comedy of love . Miss Montgomery delights in depicting the romantic episodes hidden in the hearts of elderly spinsters as , for instance , in the case of Charlotte Holmes , whose maid Nancy would have sent for the doctor and subjected her to a porous plaster while waiting for him , had she known that up stairs there was a note-book full of original poems . Rather than bear the stigma of never having had a love-affair , this sentimental lady invents one to tell her mocking young friends . The dramatic and unexpected denouement is delightful fun . Another note-book reveals a deeper romance in the case of Miss Emily ; this is related by Anne of Green Gables , who once or twice flashes across the scene , though for the most part her friends and neighbors at White Sands or Newbridge or Grafton as well as at Avonlea are the persons involved . In one story , the last , `` Tannis of the Flats , '' the secret of Elinor Blair 's spinsterhood is revealed in an episode which carries the reader from Avonlea to Saskatchewan and shows the unselfish devotion of a half-breed Indian girl . The story is both poignant and dramatic . Its one touch of humor is where Jerome Carey curses his fate in being compelled to live in that desolate land in `` the picturesque language permissible in the far Northwest . '' Self-sacrifice , as the real basis of happiness , is a favorite theme in Miss Montgomery 's fiction . It is raised to the nth power in the story entitled , `` In Her Selfless Mood , '' where an ugly , misshapen girl devotes her life and renounces marriage for the sake of looking after her weak and selfish half-brother . The same spirit is found in `` Only a Common Fellow , '' who is haloed with a certain splendor by renouncing the girl he was to marry in favor of his old rival , supposed to have been killed in France , but happily delivered from that tragic fate .
Miss Montgomery loves to introduce a little child or a baby as a solvent XXXXX old feuds or domestic quarrels .
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