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 of old feuds or domestic quarrels.
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