The humor is honest and golden ; it never wearies the reader ; the pathos is never sentimentalized , never degenerates into bathos , is never morbid . This combination holds throughout all her works , longer or shorter , and is particularly manifest in the present collection of fifteen short stories , which , together with those in the first volume of the Chronicles of Avonlea , present a series of piquant and fascinating pictures of life in Prince Edward Island . The humor is shown not only in the presentation of quaint and unique characters , but also in the words which fall from their mouths . Aunt Cynthia `` always gave you the impression of a full-rigged ship coming gallantly on before a favorable wind ; '' no further description is needed -- only one such personage could be found in Avonlea . You would recognize her at sight . Ismay Meade 's disposition is summed up when we are told that she is `` good at having presentiments -- after things happen . '' What cleverer embodiment of innate obstinacy than in Isabella Spencer -- `` a wisp of a woman who looked as if a breath would sway her but was so set in her ways that a tornado would hardly have caused her to swerve an inch from her chosen path ; '' or than in Mrs. Eben Andrews -LRB- in `` Sara 's Way '' -RRB- who `` looked like a woman whose opinions were always very decided and warranted to wear ! '' This gift of characterization in a few words is lavished also on material objects , as , for instance ; what more is needed to describe the forlornness of the home from which Anne was rescued than the statement that even the trees around it `` looked like orphans '' ? The poetic touch , too , never fails in the right place and is never too frequently introduced in her descriptions . 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 XXXXX had a love-affair , this sentimental lady invents one to tell her mocking young friends .
degenerates having holds imagine introduced sees sentimentalized set shown smitten