Patricia Gardiner is another of Montgomery's sweet-natured and agreeable heroines. She grows up in the beautiful house of Silver Bush, surrounded by a large family, whose true mother-figure is their Irish cook, Judy. She loves and clings to the house as the best and most constant source of happiness in her life. As she matures she becomes more accepting of the inevitability of change, despite her experiences of illness and loss. Montgomery said that there was more of herself in Pat than any of her other heroines, and this novel strongly echoes her own lovingly remembered childhood on Prince Edward Island, with Silver Bush standing in for her cousins' house, Park Corner.
