Valancy herself had never quite relinquished a certain pitiful, shamed, little hope that Romance would come her way yet - never, until this wet, horrible morning, when she wakened to the fact that she was twenty-nine and unsought by any man. Ay, there lay the sting. Valancy did not mind so much being an old maid. After all, she thought, being an old maid couldn’t possibly be as dreadful as being married to an Uncle Wellignton or an Uncle Benjamin, or even an Uncle Herbert. What hurt her was that she had never had a chance to be anything but an old maid.

Gilbert, I'm afraid I'm scandalously in love with you.

It's the fools that make all the trouble in the world, not the wicked.

Anne, are you killed?' shrieked Diana, throwing herself on her knees beside her friend. 'Oh, Anne, dear Anne, speak just one word to me and tell me if you're killed.

Rilla was fond of italics, as most girls of fifteen are.

I don't know which is worse - to have somebody you DON'T like ask you to marry him or NOT have some one you DO like. Both are rather unpleasant.

I doubt if I shall ever have time to read the book again -- there are too many new ones coming out all the time which I want to read. Yet an old book has something for me which no new book can ever have -- for at every reading the memories and atmosphere of other readings come back and I am reading old years as well as an old book.