Katie Maurice was Anne’s imaginary window friend who helped her through some tough times at the orphanage, but did you know L.M. Montgomery based Katie off her own window friends? In March 26, 1905 she wrote.“In our sitting room there has always been a big bookcase used as a china cabinet. In each door is a large, oval glass, dimly reflecting the room. When I was very small each of my reflections in these glass doors were ‘real folks’ to my imagination. The one in the left-hand door was Katie Maurice, the one in the right-hand Lucy Gray. Why I named them thus I cannot say....Katie was a little girl like myself and I loved her dearly. I would stand before that door and prattle to her for hours, giving and receiving confidences...Lucy Gray was grown-up—and a Widow! I did not like her as well as Katie. She was always sad and always had dismal stories of her troubles to relate to me; nevertheless, I always visited her scrupulously in turn, lest her feelings should be hurt, because she was jealous of Katie, who also disliked her. All this sounds like the veriest nonsense, but I cannot describe how real it was to me. I never passed through the room without a wave of my hand to Kate in the glass door at the other end.”
