Free The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery

And could she not tell you the best way to do everything, from cooking mushrooms to picking up a snake? What a bore she was! What ugly moles she had on her face!
    Cousin Gladys, who was always praising her son, who had died young, and always fighting with her living one. She had neuritis—or what she called neuritis. It jumped about from one part of her body to another. It was a convenient thing. If anybody wanted her to go somewhere she didn’t want to go, she had neuritis in her legs. And always if any mental effort was required she could have neuritis in her head. You can’t think with neuritis in your head, my dear.
    â€œWhat an old humbug you are!” thought Valancy impiously.
    Aunt Isabel. Valancy counted her chins. Aunt Isabel was the critic of the clan. She had always gone about squashing people flat. More members of it than Valancy were afraid of her. She had, it was conceded, a biting tongue.
    â€œI wonder what would happen to your face if you ever smiled,” speculated Valancy, unblushingly.
    Second Cousin Sarah Taylor, with her great, pale, expressionless eyes, who was noted for the variety of her pickle recipes and for nothing else. So afraid of saying something indiscreet that she never said anything worth listening to. So proper that she blushed when she saw the advertisement picture of a corset and had put a dress on her Venus de Milo statuette which made it look “real tasty.”
    Little Cousin Georgiana. Not such a bad little soul. But dreary—very. Always looking as if she had just been starched and ironed. Always afraid to let herself go. The only thing she really enjoyed was a funeral. You knew where you were with a corpse. Nothing more could happen to it. But while there was life there was fear.
    Uncle James. Handsome, black, with his sarcastic, trap-like mouth and iron-gray sideburns, whose favorite amusement was to write controversial letters to the Christian Times, attacking Modernism. Valancy always wondered if he looked as solemn when he was asleep as he did when awake. No wonder his wife had died young. Valancy remembered her. A pretty, sensitive thing. Uncle James had denied her everything she wanted and showered on her everything she didn’t want. He had killed her—quite legally. She had been smothered and starved.
    Uncle Benjamin, wheezy, pussy-mouthed. With great pouches under his eyes that held nothing in reverence.
    Uncle Wellington. Long, pallid face, thin, pale-yellow hair—“one of the fair Stirlings”—thin, stooping body, abominably high forehead with such ugly wrinkles, and “eyes about as intelligent as a fish’s , ” thought Valancy. “Looks like a cartoon of himself.”
    Aunt Wellington. Named Mary but called by her husband’s name to distinguish her from Great-aunt Mary. A massive, dignified, permanent lady. Splendidly arranged, iron-gray hair. Rich, fashionable beaded dress. Had her moles removed by electrolysis—which Aunt Mildred thought was a wicked evasion of the purposes of God.
    Uncle Herbert, with his spiky gray hair. Aunt Alberta, who twisted her mouth so unpleasantly in talking and had a great reputation for unselfishness because she was always giving up a lot of things she didn’t want. Valancy let them off easily in her judgment because she liked them, even if they were, in Milton’s expressive phrase, “stupidly good.” But she wondered for what inscrutable reason Aunt Alberta had seen fit to tie a black velvet ribbon around each of her chubby arms above the elbow.
    Then she looked across the table at Olive. Olive, who had been held up to her as a paragon of beauty, behavior and success as long as she could remember. “Why can’t you hold yourself like Olive, Doss? Why can’t you stand correctly like Olive, Doss? Why can’t you speak prettily like Olive, Doss? Why can’t you make an effort, Doss?”
    Valancy’s elfin eyes lost their mocking