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 (in "Sara's Way") 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