asked, referring to the smell of peppermints, ‘Is that the odor of sanctity?’ I
didn’t like to eat Uncle Mark’s peppermints because he just fished them loose
out of his pocket, and had to pick some rusty nails and other things from among
them before he gave them to me. But I wouldn’t hurt his dear old feelings for
anything, so I carefully sowed them along the road at intervals. When the last
one was gone, Uncle Mark said, a little rebukingly, ‘Ye shouldn’t a’et all them
candies to onct, Miss Phil. You’ll likely have the stummick-ache.’
“Cousin Emily has only five boarders besides myself—four old ladies and one
young man. My right-hand neighbor is Mrs. Lilly. She is one of those people
who seem to take a gruesome pleasure in detailing all their many aches and pains
and sicknesses. You cannot mention any ailment but she says, shaking her head,
‘Ah, I know too well what that is’—and then you get all the details. Jonas
declares he once spoke of locomotor ataxia in hearing and she said she knew too
well what that was. She suffered from it for ten years and was finally cured by a
traveling doctor.
“Who is Jonas? Just wait, Anne Shirley. You’ll hear all about Jonas in the
proper time and place. He is not to be mixed up with estimable old ladies.
“My left-hand neighbor at the table is Mrs. Phinney. She always speaks with a
wailing, dolorous voice—you are nervously expecting her to burst into tears
every moment. She gives you the impression that life to her is indeed a vale of
tears, and that a smile, never to speak of a laugh, is a frivolity truly
reprehensible. She has a worse opinion of me than Aunt Jamesina, and she
doesn’t love me hard to atone for it, as Aunty J. does, either.
“Miss Maria Grimsby sits cati-corner from me. The first day I came I
remarked to Miss Maria that it looked a little like rain—and Miss Maria laughed.
I said the road from the station was very pretty—and Miss Maria laughed. I said
there seemed to be a few mosquitoes left yet—and Miss Maria laughed. I said
that Prospect Point was as beautiful as ever—and Miss Maria laughed. If I were
to say to Miss Maria, ‘My father has hanged himself, my mother has taken
poison, my brother is in the penitentiary, and I am in the last stages of
consumption,’ Miss Maria would laugh. She can’t help it—she was born so; but
is very sad and awful.
“The fifth old lady is Mrs. Grant. She is a sweet old thing; but she never says
anything but good of anybody and so she is a very uninteresting
conversationalist.
“And now for Jonas, Anne.
“That first day I came I saw a young man sitting opposite me at the table,