Isn’t it nice to think that to-morrow is a new…

The scene comes near the end of chapter XXI of Anne of Green Gables. Anne has baked a layer cake for Mrs Allan, the new minister’s wife, and flavoured it by mistake with liniment instead of vanilla. Mortified, she weeps on her bed, fearing Mrs Allan will think she tried to poison her. But Mrs Allan comes up to comfort her: “it’s all just a funny mistake that anybody might make.” Anne decides that she is a kindred spirit.

Once the guests have gone, Anne sighs and turns to Marilla with this line. Marilla replies drily that she will make plenty of mistakes tomorrow. Anne answers that she never makes the same mistake twice, and that there must be a limit to the mistakes one person can make: “That’s a very comforting thought.”

Lucy Maud Montgomery published the novel in 1908. The story of Anne Shirley, the talkative orphan taken in on Prince Edward Island by a brother and sister who had asked for a boy, was an immediate success.

Anne of Green Gables, Chapter XXI (Anne to Marilla), 1908

Checked word for word in the work itself.

Read the passage in the work