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Title: Rilla of Ingleside

Author: L. M. Montgomery

Release date: February 1, 2003 [eBook #3796]
Most recently updated: January 9, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3796

Credits: Produced by Sheila Perkins. HTML version by Al Haines

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RILLA OF
INGLESIDE ***

Rilla of Ingleside

by

Lucy Maud Montgomery

CONTENTS
I GLEN "NOTES" AND OTHER MATTERS
II DEW OF MORNING
III MOONLIT MIRTH
IV THE PIPER PIPES
V "THE SOUND OF A GOING"
VI SUSAN, RILLA, AND DOG MONDAY MAKE A
RESOLUTION
VII A WAR-BABY AND A SOUP TUREEN
VIII RILLA DECIDES
IX DOC HAS A MISADVENTURE
X THE TROUBLES OF RILLA
XI DARK AND BRIGHT
XII IN THE DAYS OF LANGEMARCK
XIII A SLICE OF HUMBLE PIE
XIV THE VALLEY OF DECISION
XV UNTIL THE DAY BREAK
XVI REALISM AND ROMANCE
XVII THE WEEKS WEAR BY
XVIII A WAR-WEDDING
XIX "THEY SHALL NOT PASS"
XX NORMAN DOUGLAS SPEAKS OUT IN MEETING
XXI "LOVE AFFAIRS ARE HORRIBLE"
XXII LITTLE DOG MONDAY KNOWS
XXIII "AND SO, GOODNIGHT"
XXIV MARY IS JUST IN TIME
XXV SHIRLEY GOES
XXVI SUSAN HAS A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE
XXVII WAITING

XXVIIIBLACK SUNDAY
XXIX "WOUNDED AND MISSING"
XXX THE TURNING OF THE TIDE
XXXI MRS. MATILDA PITTMAN
XXXIIWORD FROM JEM
XXXIIIVICTORY!
XXXIV MR. HYDE GOES TO HIS OWN PLACE AND SUSAN
TAKES A HONEYMOON
XXXV "RILLA-MY-RILLA!"

CHAPTER I

GLEN "NOTES" AND OTHER MATTERS

It was a warm, golden-cloudy, lovable afternoon. In the big living-room
at Ingleside Susan Baker sat down with a certain grim satisfaction hovering
about her like an aura; it was four o'clock and Susan, who had been working
incessantly since six that morning, felt that she had fairly earned an hour of
repose and gossip. Susan just then was perfectly happy; everything had
gone almost uncannily well in the kitchen that day. Dr. Jekyll had not been
Mr. Hyde and so had not grated on her nerves; from where she sat she could
see the pride of her heart—the bed of peonies of her own planting and
culture, blooming as no other peony plot in Glen St. Mary ever did or could
bloom, with peonies crimson, peonies silvery pink, peonies white as drifts
of winter snow.

Susan had on a new black silk blouse, quite as elaborate as anything
Mrs. Marshall Elliott ever wore, and a white starched apron, trimmed with
complicated crocheted lace fully five inches wide, not to mention insertion
to match. Therefore Susan had all the comfortable consciousness of a well-
dressed woman as she opened her copy of the Daily Enterprise and
prepared to read the Glen "Notes" which, as Miss Cornelia had just
informed her, filled half a column of it and mentioned almost everybody at

Ingleside. There was a big, black headline on the front page of the
Enterprise, stating that some Archduke Ferdinand or other had been
assassinated at a place bearing the weird name of Sarajevo, but Susan
tarried not over uninteresting, immaterial stuff like that; she was in quest of
something really vital. Oh, here it was—"Jottings from Glen St. Mary."
Susan settled down keenly, reading each one over aloud to extract all
possible gratification from it.

Mrs. Blythe and her visitor, Miss Cornelia—alias Mrs. Marshall Elliott
—were chatting together near the open door that led to the veranda, through
which a cool, delicious breeze was blowing, bringing whiffs of phantom
perfume from the garden, and charming gay echoes from the vine-hung
corner where Rilla and Miss Oliver and Walter were laughing and talking.
Wherever Rilla Blythe was, there was laughter.

There was another occupant of the living-room, curled up on a couch,
who must not be overlooked, since he was a creature of marked
individuality, and, moreover, had the distinction of being the only living
thing whom Susan really hated.

All cats are mysterious but Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde—"Doc" for short—
was trebly so. He was a cat of double personality—or else, as Susan vowed,
he was possessed by the devil. To begin with, there had been something
uncanny about the very dawn of his existence. Four years previously Rilla
Blythe had had a treasured darling of a kitten, white as snow, with a saucy
black tip to its tail, which she called Jack Frost. Susan disliked Jack Frost,
though she could not or would not give any valid reason therefor.

"Take my word for it, Mrs. Dr. dear," she was wont to say ominously,
"that cat will come to no good."

"But why do you think so?" Mrs. Blythe would ask.

"I do not think—I know," was all the answer Susan would vouchsafe.

With the rest of the Ingleside folk Jack Frost was a favourite; he was so
very clean and well groomed, and never allowed a spot or stain to be seen

on his beautiful white suit; he had endearing ways of purring and snuggling;
he was scrupulously honest.

And then a domestic tragedy took place at Ingleside. Jack Frost had
kittens!

It would be vain to try to picture Susan's triumph. Had she not always
insisted that that cat would turn out to be a delusion and a snare? Now they
could see for themselves!

Rilla kept one of the kittens, a very pretty one, with peculiarly sleek
glossy fur of a dark yellow crossed by orange stripes, and large, satiny,
golden ears. She called it Goldie and the name seemed appropriate enough
to the little frolicsome creature which, during its kittenhood, gave no
indication of the sinister nature it really possessed. Susan, of course, warned
the family that no good could be expected from any offspring of that
diabolical Jack Frost; but Susan's Cassandra-like croakings were unheeded.

The Blythes had been so accustomed to regard Jack Frost as a member
of the male sex that they could not get out of the habit. So they continually
used the masculine pronoun, although the result was ludicrous. Visitors
used to be quite electrified when Rilla referred casually to "Jack and his
kitten," or told Goldie sternly, "Go to your mother and get him to wash your
fur."

"It is not decent, Mrs. Dr. dear," poor Susan would say bitterly. She
herself compromised by always referring to Jack as "it" or "the white
beast," and one heart at least did not ache when "it" was accidentally
poisoned the following winter.

In a year's time "Goldie" became so manifestly an inadequate name for
the orange kitten that Walter, who was just then reading Stevenson's story,
changed it to Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde. In his Dr. Jekyll mood the cat was a
drowsy, affectionate, domestic, cushion-loving puss, who liked petting and
gloried in being nursed and patted. Especially did he love to lie on his back
and have his sleek, cream-coloured throat stroked gently while he purred in
somnolent satisfaction. He was a notable purrer; never had there been an
Ingleside cat who purred so constantly and so ecstatically.

"The only thing I envy a cat is its purr," remarked Dr. Blythe once,
listening to Doc's resonant melody. "It is the most contented sound in the
world."

Doc was very handsome; his every movement was grace; his poses
magnificent. When he folded his long, dusky-ringed tail about his feet and
sat him down on the veranda to gaze steadily into space for long intervals
the Blythes felt that an Egyptian sphinx could not have made a more fitting
Deity of the Portal.

When the Mr. Hyde mood came upon him—which it invariably did
before rain, or wind—he was a wild thing with changed eyes. The
transformation always came suddenly. He would spring fiercely from a
reverie with a savage snarl and bite at any restraining or caressing hand. His
fur seemed to grow darker and his eyes gleamed with a diabolical light.
There was really an unearthly beauty about him. If the change happened in
the twilight all the Ingleside folk felt a certain terror of him. At such times
he was a fearsome beast and only Rilla defended him, asserting that he was
"such a nice prowly cat." Certainly he prowled.

Dr. Jekyll loved new milk; Mr. Hyde would not touch milk and growled
over his meat. Dr. Jekyll came down the stairs so silently that no one could
hear him. Mr. Hyde made his tread as heavy as a man's. Several evenings,
when Susan was alone in the house, he "scared her stiff," as she declared,
by doing this. He would sit in the middle of the kitchen floor, with his
terrible eyes fixed unwinkingly upon hers for an hour at a time. This played
havoc with her nerves, but poor Susan really held him in too much awe to
try to drive him out. Once she had dared to throw a stick at him and he had
promptly made a savage leap towards her. Susan rushed out of doors and
never attempted to meddle with Mr. Hyde again—though she visited his
misdeeds upon the innocent Dr. Jekyll, chasing him ignominiously out of
her domain whenever he dared to poke his nose in and denying him certain
savoury tidbits for which he yearned.

"'The many friends of Miss Faith Meredith, Gerald Meredith and James
Blythe,'" read Susan, rolling the names like sweet morsels under her tongue,
"'were very much pleased to welcome them home a few weeks ago from

Redmond College. James Blythe, who was graduated in Arts in 1913, had
just completed his first year in medicine.'"

"Faith Meredith has really got to be the most handsomest creature I ever
saw," commented Miss Cornelia above her filet crochet. "It's amazing how
those children came on after Rosemary West went to the manse. People
have almost forgotten what imps of mischief they were once. Anne, dearie,
will you ever forget the way they used to carry on? It's really surprising
how well Rosemary got on with them. She's more like a chum than a step-
mother. They all love her and Una adores her. As for that little Bruce, Una
just makes a perfect slave of herself to him. Of course, he is a darling. But
did you ever see any child look as much like an aunt as he looks like his
Aunt Ellen? He's just as dark and just as emphatic. I can't see a feature of
Rosemary in him. Norman Douglas always vows at the top of his voice that
the stork meant Bruce for him and Ellen and took him to the manse by
mistake."

"Bruce adores Jem," said Mrs Blythe. "When he comes over here he
follows Jem about silently like a faithful little dog, looking up at him from
under his black brows. He would do anything for Jem, I verily believe."

"Are Jem and Faith going to make a match of it?"

Mrs. Blythe smiled. It was well known that Miss Cornelia, who had been
such a virulent man-hater at one time, had actually taken to match-making
in her declining years.

"They are only good friends yet, Miss Cornelia."

"Very good friends, believe me," said Miss Cornelia emphatically. "I
hear all about the doings of the young fry."

"I have no doubt that Mary Vance sees that you do, Mrs. Marshall
Elliott," said Susan significantly, "but I think it is a shame to talk about
children making matches."

"Children! Jem is twenty-one and Faith is nineteen," retorted Miss
Cornelia. "You must not forget, Susan, that we old folks are not the only

grown-up people in the world."

Outraged Susan, who detested any reference to her age—not from vanity
but from a haunting dread that people might come to think her too old to
work—returned to her "Notes."

"'Carl Meredith and Shirley Blythe came home last Friday evening from
Queen's Academy. We understand that Carl will be in charge of the school
at Harbour Head next year and we are sure he will be a popular and
successful teacher.'"

"He will teach the children all there is to know about bugs, anyhow,"
said Miss Cornelia. "He is through with Queen's now and Mr. Meredith and
Rosemary wanted him to go right on to Redmond in the fall, but Carl has a
very independent streak in him and means to earn part of his own way
through college. He'll be all the better for it."

"'Walter Blythe, who has been teaching for the past two years at
Lowbridge, has resigned,'" read Susan. "'He intends going to Redmond this
fall.'"

"Is Walter quite strong enough for Redmond yet?" queried Miss Cornelia
anxiously.

"We hope that he will be by the fall," said Mrs. Blythe. "An idle summer
in the open air and sunshine will do a great deal for him."

"Typhoid is a hard thing to get over," said Miss Cornelia emphatically,
"especially when one has had such a close shave as Walter had. I think he'd
do well to stay out of college another year. But then he's so ambitious. Are
Di and Nan going too?"

"Yes. They both wanted to teach another year but Gilbert thinks they had
better go to Redmond this fall."

"I'm glad of that. They'll keep an eye on Walter and see that he doesn't
study too hard. I suppose," continued Miss Cornelia, with a side glance at

Susan, "that after the snub I got a few minutes ago it will not be safe for me
to suggest that Jerry Meredith is making sheep's eyes at Nan."

Susan ignored this and Mrs. Blythe laughed again.

"Dear Miss Cornelia, I have my hands full, haven't I?—with all these
boys and girls sweethearting around me? If I took it seriously it would quite
crush me. But I don't—it is too hard yet to realize that they're grown up.
When I look at those two tall sons of mine I wonder if they can possibly be
the fat, sweet, dimpled babies I kissed and cuddled and sang to slumber the
other day—only the other day, Miss Cornelia. Wasn't Jem the dearest baby
in the old House of Dreams? and now he's a B.A. and accused of courting."

"We're all growing older," sighed Miss Cornelia.

"The only part of me that feels old," said Mrs. Blythe, "is the ankle I
broke when Josie Pye dared me to walk the Barry ridge-pole in the Green
Gables days. I have an ache in it when the wind is east. I won't admit that it
is rheumatism, but it does ache. As for the children, they and the Merediths
are planning a gay summer before they have to go back to studies in the
fall. They are such a fun-loving little crowd. They keep this house in a
perpetual whirl of merriment."

"Is Rilla going to Queen's when Shirley goes back?"

"It isn't decided yet. I rather fancy not. Her father thinks she is not quite
strong enough—she has rather outgrown her strength—she's really absurdly
tall for a girl not yet fifteen. I am not anxious to have her go—why, it would
be terrible not to have a single one of my babies home with me next winter.
Susan and I would fall to fighting with each other to break the monotony."

Susan smiled at this pleasantry. The idea of her fighting with "Mrs. Dr.
dear!"

"Does Rilla herself want to go?" asked Miss Cornelia.

"No. The truth is, Rilla is the only one of my flock who isn't ambitious. I
really wish she had a little more ambition. She has no serious ideals at all—

her sole aspiration seems to be to have a good time."

"And why should she not have it, Mrs. Dr. dear?" cried Susan, who
could not bear to hear a single word against anyone of the Ingleside folk,
even from one of themselves. "A young girl should have a good time, and
that I will maintain. There will be time enough for her to think of Latin and
Greek."

"I should like to see a little sense of responsibility in her, Susan. And you
know yourself that she is abominably vain."

"She has something to be vain about," retorted Susan. "She is the
prettiest girl in Glen St. Mary. Do you think that all those over-harbour
MacAllisters and Crawfords and Elliotts could scare up a skin like Rilla's in
four generations? They could not. No, Mrs. Dr. dear, I know my place but I
cannot allow you to run down Rilla. Listen to this, Mrs. Marshall Elliott."

Susan had found a chance to get square with Miss Cornelia for her digs
at the children's love affairs. She read the item with gusto.

"'Miller Douglas has decided not to go West. He says old P.E.I. is good
enough for him and he will continue to farm for his aunt, Mrs. Alec Davis.'"

Susan looked keenly at Miss Cornelia.

"I have heard, Mrs. Marshall Elliott, that Miller is courting Mary Vance."

This shot pierced Miss Cornelia's armour. Her sonsy face flushed.

"I won't have Miller Douglas hanging round Mary," she said crisply. "He
comes of a low family. His father was a sort of outcast from the Douglases
—they never really counted him in—and his mother was one of those
terrible Dillons from the Harbour Head."

"I think I have heard, Mrs. Marshall Elliott, that Mary Vance's own
parents were not what you could call aristocratic."

"Mary Vance has had a good bringing up and she is a smart, clever,
capable girl," retorted Miss Cornelia. "She is not going to throw herself

away on Miller Douglas, believe me! She knows my opinion on the matter
and Mary has never disobeyed me yet."

"Well, I do not think you need worry, Mrs. Marshall Elliott, for Mrs.
Alec Davis is as much against it as you could be, and says no nephew of
hers is ever going to marry a nameless nobody like Mary Vance."

Susan returned to her mutton, feeling that she had got the best of it in
this passage of arms, and read another "note."

"'We are pleased to hear that Miss Oliver has been engaged as teacher for
another year. Miss Oliver will spend her well-earned vacation at her home
in Lowbridge.'"

"I'm so glad Gertrude is going to stay," said Mrs. Blythe. "We would
miss her horribly. And she has an excellent influence over Rilla who
worships her. They are chums, in spite of the difference in their ages."

"I thought I heard she was going to be married?"

"I believe it was talked of but I understand it is postponed for a year."

"Who is the young man?"

"Robert Grant. He is a young lawyer in Charlottetown. I hope Gertrude
will be happy. She has had a sad life, with much bitterness in it, and she
feels things with a terrible keenness. Her first youth is gone and she is
practically alone in the world. This new love that has come into her life
seems such a wonderful thing to her that I think she hardly dares believe in
its permanence. When her marriage had to be put off she was quite in
despair—though it certainly wasn't Mr. Grant's fault. There were
complications in the settlement of his father's estate—his father died last
winter—and he could not marry till the tangles were unravelled. But I think
Gertrude felt it was a bad omen and that her happiness would somehow
elude her yet."

"It does not do, Mrs. Dr. dear, to set your affections too much on a man,"
remarked Susan solemnly.

"Mr. Grant is quite as much in love with Gertrude as she is with him,
Susan. It is not he whom she distrusts—it is fate. She has a little mystic
streak in her—I suppose some people would call her superstitious. She has
an odd belief in dreams and we have not been able to laugh it out of her. I
must own, too, that some of her dreams—but there, it would not do to let
Gilbert hear me hinting such heresy. What have you found of much interest,
Susan?"

Susan had given an exclamation.

"Listen to this, Mrs. Dr. dear. 'Mrs. Sophia Crawford has given up her
house at Lowbridge and will make her home in future with her niece, Mrs.
Albert Crawford.' Why that is my own cousin Sophia, Mrs. Dr. dear. We
quarrelled when we were children over who should get a Sunday-school
card with the words 'God is Love,' wreathed in rosebuds, on it, and have
never spoken to each other since. And now she is coming to live right
across the road from us."

"You will have to make up the old quarrel, Susan. It will never do to be
at outs with your neighbours."

"Cousin Sophia began the quarrel, so she can begin the making up also,
Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan loftily. "If she does I hope I am a good enough
Christian to meet her half-way. She is not a cheerful person and has been a
wet blanket all her life. The last time I saw her, her face had a thousand
wrinkles—maybe more, maybe less—from worrying and foreboding. She
howled dreadful at her first husband's funeral but she married again in less
than a year. The next note, I see, describes the special service in our church
last Sunday night and says the decorations were very beautiful."

"Speaking of that reminds me that Mr. Pryor strongly disapproves of
flowers in church," said Miss Cornelia. "I always said there would be
trouble when that man moved here from Lowbridge. He should never have
been put in as elder—it was a mistake and we shall live to rue it, believe
me! I have heard that he has said that if the girls continue to 'mess up the
pulpit with weeds' that he will not go to church."

"The church got on very well before old Whiskers-on-the-moon came to
the Glen and it is my opinion it will get on without him after he is gone,"
said Susan.

"Who in the world ever gave him that ridiculous nickname?" asked Mrs.
Blythe.

"Why, the Lowbridge boys have called him that ever since I can
remember, Mrs. Dr. dear—I suppose because his face is so round and red,
with that fringe of sandy whisker about it. It does not do for anyone to call
him that in his hearing, though, and that you may tie to. But worse than his
whiskers, Mrs. Dr. dear, he is a very unreasonable man and has a great
many queer ideas. He is an elder now and they say he is very religious; but I
can well remember the time, Mrs. Dr. dear, twenty years ago, when he was
caught pasturing his cow in the Lowbridge graveyard. Yes, indeed, I have
not forgotten that, and I always think of it when he is praying in meeting.
Well, that is all the notes and there is not much else in the paper of any
importance. I never take much interest in foreign parts. Who is this
Archduke man who has been murdered?"

"What does it matter to us?" asked Miss Cornelia, unaware of the
hideous answer to her question which destiny was even then preparing.
"Somebody is always murdering or being murdered in those Balkan States.
It's their normal condition and I don't really think that our papers ought to
print such shocking things. The Enterprise is getting far too sensational with
its big headlines. Well, I must be getting home. No, Anne dearie, it's no use
asking me to stay to supper. Marshall has got to thinking that if I'm not
home for a meal it's not worth eating—just like a man. So off I go. Merciful
goodness, Anne dearie, what is the matter with that cat? Is he having a
fit?"—this, as Doc suddenly bounded to the rug at Miss Cornelia's feet, laid
back his ears, swore at her, and then disappeared with one fierce leap
through the window.

"Oh, no. He's merely turning into Mr. Hyde—which means that we shall
have rain or high wind before morning. Doc is as good as a barometer."

"Well, I am thankful he has gone on the rampage outside this time and
not into my kitchen," said Susan. "And I am going out to see about supper.

With such a crowd as we have at Ingleside now it behooves us to think
about our meals betimes."

CHAPTER II

DEW OF MORNING

Outside, the Ingleside lawn was full of golden pools of sunshine and
plots of alluring shadows. Rilla Blythe was swinging in the hammock under
the big Scotch pine, Gertrude Oliver sat at its roots beside her, and Walter
was stretched at full length on the grass, lost in a romance of chivalry
wherein old heroes and beauties of dead and gone centuries lived vividly
again for him.

Rilla was the "baby" of the Blythe family and was in a chronic state of
secret indignation because nobody believed she was grown up. She was so
nearly fifteen that she called herself that, and she was quite as tall as Di and
Nan; also, she was nearly as pretty as Susan believed her to be. She had
great, dreamy, hazel eyes, a milky skin dappled with little golden freckles,
and delicately arched eyebrows, giving her a demure, questioning look
which made people, especially lads in their teens, want to answer it. Her
hair was ripely, ruddily brown and a little dent in her upper lip looked as if
some good fairy had pressed it in with her finger at Rilla's christening.
Rilla, whose best friends could not deny her share of vanity, thought her
face would do very well, but worried over her figure, and wished her
mother could be prevailed upon to let her wear longer dresses. She, who
had been so plump and roly-poly in the old Rainbow Valley days, was
incredibly slim now, in the arms-and-legs period. Jem and Shirley harrowed
her soul by calling her "Spider." Yet she somehow escaped awkwardness.
There was something in her movements that made you think she never
walked but always danced. She had been much petted and was a wee bit
spoiled, but still the general opinion was that Rilla Blythe was a very sweet
girl, even if she were not so clever as Nan and Di.

Miss Oliver, who was going home that night for vacation, had boarded
for a year at Ingleside. The Blythes had taken her to please Rilla who was
fathoms deep in love with her teacher and was even willing to share her
room, since no other was available. Gertrude Oliver was twenty-eight and
life had been a struggle for her. She was a striking-looking girl, with rather
sad, almond-shaped brown eyes, a clever, rather mocking mouth, and
enormous masses of black hair twisted about her head. She was not pretty
but there was a certain charm of interest and mystery in her face, and Rilla
found her fascinating. Even her occasional moods of gloom and cynicism
had allurement for Rilla. These moods came only when Miss Oliver was
tired. At all other times she was a stimulating companion, and the gay set at
Ingleside never remembered that she was so much older than themselves.
Walter and Rilla were her favourites and she was the confidante of the
secret wishes and aspirations of both. She knew that Rilla longed to be
"out"—to go to parties as Nan and Di did, and to have dainty evening
dresses and—yes, there is no mincing matters—beaux! In the plural, at that!
As for Walter, Miss Oliver knew that he had written a sequence of sonnets
"to Rosamond"—i.e., Faith Meredith—and that he aimed at a Professorship
of English literature in some big college. She knew his passionate love of
beauty and his equally passionate hatred of ugliness; she knew his strength
and his weakness.

Walter was, as ever, the handsomest of the Ingleside boys. Miss Oliver
found pleasure in looking at him for his good looks—he was so exactly like
what she would have liked her own son to be. Glossy black hair, brilliant
dark grey eyes, faultless features. And a poet to his fingertips! That sonnet
sequence was really a remarkable thing for a lad of twenty to write. Miss
Oliver was no partial critic and she knew that Walter Blythe had a
wonderful gift.

Rilla loved Walter with all her heart. He never teased her as Jem and
Shirley did. He never called her "Spider." His pet name for her was "Rilla-
my-Rilla"—a little pun on her real name, Marilla. She had been named after
Aunt Marilla of Green Gables, but Aunt Marilla had died before Rilla was
old enough to know her very well, and Rilla detested the name as being
horribly old-fashioned and prim. Why couldn't they have called her by her
first name, Bertha, which was beautiful and dignified, instead of that silly

"Rilla"? She did not mind Walter's version, but nobody else was allowed to
call her that, except Miss Oliver now and then. "Rilla-my-Rilla" in Walter's
musical voice sounded very beautiful to her—like the lilt and ripple of
some silvery brook. She would have died for Walter if it would have done
him any good, so she told Miss Oliver. Rilla was as fond of italics as most
girls of fifteen are—and the bitterest drop in her cup was her suspicion that
he told Di more of his secrets than he told her.

"He thinks I'm not grown up enough to understand," she had once
lamented rebelliously to Miss Oliver, "but I am! And I would never tell
them to a single soul—not even to you, Miss Oliver. I tell you all my own—
I just couldn't be happy if I had any secret from you, dearest—but I would
never betray his. I tell him everything—I even show him my diary. And it
hurts me dreadfully when he doesn't tell me things. He shows me all his
poems, though—they are marvellous, Miss Oliver. Oh, I just live in the
hope that some day I shall be to Walter what Wordsworth's sister Dorothy
was to him. Wordsworth never wrote anything like Walter's poems—nor
Tennyson, either."

"I wouldn't say just that. Both of them wrote a great deal of trash," said
Miss Oliver dryly. Then, repenting, as she saw a hurt look in Rilla's eye, she
added hastily,

"But I believe Walter will be a great poet, too—some day—and you will
have more of his confidence as you grow older."

"When Walter was in the hospital with typhoid last year I was almost
crazy," sighed Rilla, a little importantly. "They never told me how ill he
really was until it was all over—father wouldn't let them. I'm glad I didn't
know—I couldn't have borne it. I cried myself to sleep every night as it
was. But sometimes," concluded Rilla bitterly—she liked to speak bitterly
now and then in imitation of Miss Oliver—"sometimes I think Walter cares
more for Dog Monday than he does for me."

Dog Monday was the Ingleside dog, so called because he had come into
the family on a Monday when Walter had been reading Robinson Crusoe.
He really belonged to Jem but was much attached to Walter also. He was
lying beside Walter now with nose snuggled against his arm, thumping his

tail rapturously whenever Walter gave him an absent pat. Monday was not a
collie or a setter or a hound or a Newfoundland. He was just, as Jem said,
"plain dog"—very plain dog, uncharitable people added. Certainly,
Monday's looks were not his strong point. Black spots were scattered at
random over his yellow carcass, one of them, apparently, blotting out an
eye. His ears were in tatters, for Monday was never successful in affairs of
honour. But he possessed one talisman. He knew that not all dogs could be
handsome or eloquent or victorious, but that every dog could love. Inside
his homely hide beat the most affectionate, loyal, faithful heart of any dog
since dogs were; and something looked out of his brown eyes that was
nearer akin to a soul than any theologian would allow. Everybody at
Ingleside was fond of him, even Susan, although his one unfortunate
propensity of sneaking into the spare room and going to sleep on the bed
tried her affection sorely.

On this particular afternoon Rilla had no quarrel on hand with existing
conditions.

"Hasn't June been a delightful month?" she asked, looking dreamily afar
at the little quiet silvery clouds hanging so peacefully over Rainbow Valley.
"We've had such lovely times—and such lovely weather. It has just been
perfect every way."

"I don't half like that," said Miss Oliver, with a sigh. "It's ominous—
somehow. A perfect thing is a gift of the gods—a sort of compensation for
what is coming afterwards. I've seen that so often that I don't care to hear
people say they've had a perfect time. June has been delightful, though."

"Of course, it hasn't been very exciting," said Rilla. "The only exciting
thing that has happened in the Glen for a year was old Miss Mead fainting
in Church. Sometimes I wish something dramatic would happen once in a
while."

"Don't wish it. Dramatic things always have a bitterness for some one.
What a nice summer all you gay creatures will have! And me moping at
Lowbridge!"

"You'll be over often, won't you? I think there's going to be lots of fun
this summer, though I'll just be on the fringe of things as usual, I suppose.
Isn't it horrid when people think you're a little girl when you're not?"

"There's plenty of time for you to be grown up, Rilla. Don't wish your
youth away. It goes too quickly. You'll begin to taste life soon enough."

"Taste life! I want to eat it," cried Rilla, laughing. "I want everything—
everything a girl can have. I'll be fifteen in another month, and then nobody
can say I'm a child any longer. I heard someone say once that the years from
fifteen to nineteen are the best years in a girl's life. I'm going to make them
perfectly splendid—just fill them with fun."

"There's no use thinking about what you're going to do—you are
tolerably sure not to do it."

"Oh, but you do get a lot of fun out of the thinking," cried Rilla.

"You think of nothing but fun, you monkey," said Miss Oliver
indulgently, reflecting that Rilla's chin was really the last word in chins.
"Well, what else is fifteen for? But have you any notion of going to college
this fall?"

"No—nor any other fall. I don't want to. I never cared for all those
ologies and isms Nan and Di are so crazy about. And there's five of us
going to college already. Surely that's enough. There's bound to be one
dunce in every family. I'm quite willing to be a dunce if I can be a pretty,
popular, delightful one. I can't be clever. I have no talent at all, and you
can't imagine how comfortable it is. Nobody expects me to do anything so
I'm never pestered to do it. And I can't be a housewifely, cookly creature,
either. I hate sewing and dusting, and when Susan couldn't teach me to
make biscuits nobody could. Father says I toil not neither do I spin.
Therefore, I must be a lily of the field," concluded Rilla, with another
laugh.

"You are too young to give up your studies altogether, Rilla."

"Oh, mother will put me through a course of reading next winter. It will
polish up her B.A. degree. Luckily I like reading. Don't look at me so
sorrowfully and so disapprovingly, dearest. I can't be sober and serious—
everything looks so rosy and rainbowy to me. Next month I'll be fifteen—
and next year sixteen—and the year after that seventeen. Could anything be
more enchanting?"

"Rap wood," said Gertrude Oliver, half laughingly, half seriously. "Rap
wood, Rilla-my-Rilla."

CHAPTER III

MOONLIT MIRTH

Rilla, who still buttoned up her eyes when she went to sleep so that she
always looked as if she were laughing in her slumber, yawned, stretched,
and smiled at Gertrude Oliver. The latter had come over from Lowbridge
the previous evening and had been prevailed upon to remain for the dance
at the Four Winds lighthouse the next night.

"The new day is knocking at the window. What will it bring us, I
wonder."

Miss Oliver shivered a little. She never greeted the days with Rilla's
enthusiasm. She had lived long enough to know that a day may bring a
terrible thing.

"I think the nicest thing about days is their unexpectedness," went on
Rilla. "It's jolly to wake up like this on a golden-fine morning and wonder
what surprise packet the day will hand you. I always day-dream for ten
minutes before I get up, imagining the heaps of splendid things that may
happen before night."

"I hope something very unexpected will happen today," said Gertrude. "I
hope the mail will bring us news that war has been averted between
Germany and France."

"Oh—yes," said Rilla vaguely. "It will be dreadful if it isn't, I suppose.
But it won't really matter much to us, will it? I think a war would be so
exciting. The Boer war was, they say, but I don't remember anything about
it, of course. Miss Oliver, shall I wear my white dress tonight or my new
green one? The green one is by far the prettier, of course, but I'm almost
afraid to wear it to a shore dance for fear something will happen to it. And
will you do my hair the new way? None of the other girls in the Glen wear
it yet and it will make such a sensation."

"How did you induce your mother to let you go to the dance?"

"Oh, Walter coaxed her over. He knew I would be heart-broken if I didn't
go. It's my first really-truly grown-up party, Miss Oliver, and I've just lain
awake at nights for a week thinking it over. When I saw the sun shining this
morning I wanted to whoop for joy. It would be simply terrible if it rained
tonight. I think I'll wear the green dress and risk it. I want to look my nicest
at my first party. Besides, it's an inch longer than my white one. And I'll
wear my silver slippers too. Mrs. Ford sent them to me last Christmas and
I've never had a chance to wear them yet. They're the dearest things. Oh,
Miss Oliver, I do hope some of the boys will ask me to dance. I shall die of
mortification—truly I will, if nobody does and I have to sit stuck up against
the wall all the evening. Of course Carl and Jerry can't dance because
they're the minister's sons, or else I could depend on them to save me from
utter disgrace."

"You'll have plenty of partners—all the over-harbour boys are coming—
there'll be far more boys than girls."

"I'm glad I'm not a minister's daughter," laughed Rilla. "Poor Faith is so
furious because she won't dare to dance tonight. Una doesn't care, of course.
She has never hankered after dancing. Somebody told Faith there would be
a taffy-pull in the kitchen for those who didn't dance and you should have
seen the face she made. She and Jem will sit out on the rocks most of the
evening, I suppose. Did you know that we are all to walk down as far as

that little creek below the old House of Dreams and then sail to the
lighthouse? Won't it just be absolutely divine?"

"When I was fifteen I talked in italics and superlatives too," said Miss
Oliver sarcastically. "I think the party promises to be pleasant for young fry.
I expect to be bored. None of those boys will bother dancing with an old
maid like me. Jem and Walter will take me out once out of charity. So you
can't expect me to look forward to it with your touching young rapture."

"Didn't you have a good time at your first party, though, Miss Oliver?"

"No. I had a hateful time. I was shabby and homely and nobody asked
me to dance except one boy, homelier and shabbier than myself. He was so
awkward I hated him—and even he didn't ask me again. I had no real
girlhood, Rilla. It's a sad loss. That's why I want you to have a splendid,
happy girlhood. And I hope your first party will be one you'll remember all
your life with pleasure."

"I dreamed last night I was at the dance and right in the middle of things
I discovered I was dressed in my kimono and bedroom shoes," sighed Rilla.
"I woke up with a gasp of horror."

"Speaking of dreams—I had an odd one," said Miss Oliver absently. "It
was one of those vivid dreams I sometimes have—they are not the vague
jumble of ordinary dreams—they are as clear cut and real as life."

"What was your dream?"

"I was standing on the veranda steps, here at Ingleside, looking down
over the fields of the Glen. All at once, far in the distance, I saw a long,
silvery, glistening wave breaking over them. It came nearer and nearer—
just a succession of little white waves like those that break on the sandshore
sometimes. The Glen was being swallowed up. I thought, 'Surely the waves
will not come near Ingleside'—but they came nearer and nearer—so rapidly
—before I could move or call they were breaking right at my feet—and
everything was gone—there was nothing but a waste of stormy water where
the Glen had been. I tried to draw back—and I saw that the edge of my
dress was wet with blood—and I woke—shivering. I don't like the dream.

There was some sinister significance in it. That kind of vivid dream always
'comes true' with me."

"I hope it doesn't mean there's a storm coming up from the east to spoil
the party," murmured Rilla.

"Incorrigible fifteen!" said Miss Oliver dryly. "No, Rilla-my-Rilla, I
don't think there is any danger that it foretells anything so awful as that."

There had been an undercurrent of tension in the Ingleside existence for
several days. Only Rilla, absorbed in her own budding life, was unaware of
it. Dr. Blythe had taken to looking grave and saying little over the daily
paper. Jem and Walter were keenly interested in the news it brought. Jem
sought Walter out in excitement that evening.

"Oh, boy, Germany has declared war on France. This means that
England will fight too, probably—and if she does—well, the Piper of your
old fancy will have come at last."

"It wasn't a fancy," said Walter slowly. "It was a presentiment—a vision
—Jem, I really saw him for a moment that evening long ago. Suppose
England does fight?"

"Why, we'll all have to turn in and help her," cried Jem gaily. "We
couldn't let the 'old grey mother of the northern sea' fight it out alone, could
we? But you can't go—the typhoid has done you out of that. Sort of a
shame, eh?"

Walter did not say whether it was a shame or not. He looked silently
over the Glen to the dimpling blue harbour beyond.

"We're the cubs—we've got to pitch in tooth and claw if it comes to a
family row," Jem went on cheerfully, rumpling up his red curls with a
strong, lean, sensitive brown hand—the hand of the born surgeon, his father
often thought. "What an adventure it would be! But I suppose Grey or some
of those wary old chaps will patch matters up at the eleventh hour. It'll be a
rotten shame if they leave France in the lurch, though. If they don't, we'll

see some fun. Well, I suppose it's time to get ready for the spree at the
light."

Jem departed whistling "Wi' a hundred pipers and a' and a'," and Walter
stood for a long time where he was. There was a little frown on his
forehead. This had all come up with the blackness and suddenness of a
thundercloud. A few days ago nobody had even thought of such a thing. It
was absurd to think of it now. Some way out would be found. War was a
hellish, horrible, hideous thing—too horrible and hideous to happen in the
twentieth century between civilized nations. The mere thought of it was
hideous, and made Walter unhappy in its threat to the beauty of life. He
would not think of it—he would resolutely put it out of his mind. How
beautiful the old Glen was, in its August ripeness, with its chain of bowery
old homesteads, tilled meadows and quiet gardens. The western sky was
like a great golden pearl. Far down the harbour was frosted with a dawning
moonlight. The air was full of exquisite sounds—sleepy robin whistles,
wonderful, mournful, soft murmurs of wind in the twilit trees, rustle of
aspen poplars talking in silvery whispers and shaking their dainty, heart-
shaped leaves, lilting young laughter from the windows of rooms where the
girls were making ready for the dance. The world was steeped in
maddening loveliness of sound and colour. He would think only of these
things and of the deep, subtle joy they gave him. "Anyhow, no one will
expect me to go," he thought. "As Jem says, typhoid has seen to that."

Rilla was leaning out of her room window, dressed for the dance. A
yellow pansy slipped from her hair and fell out over the sill like a falling
star of gold. She caught at it vainly—but there were enough left. Miss
Oliver had woven a little wreath of them for her pet's hair.

"It's so beautifully calm—isn't that splendid? We'll have a perfect night.
Listen, Miss Oliver—I can hear those old bells in Rainbow Valley quite
clearly. They've been hanging there for over ten years."

"Their wind chime always makes me think of the aerial, celestial music
Adam and Eve heard in Milton's Eden," responded Miss Oliver.

"We used to have such fun in Rainbow Valley when we were children,"
said Rilla dreamily.

Nobody ever played in Rainbow Valley now. It was very silent on
summer evenings. Walter liked to go there to read. Jem and Faith trysted
there considerably; Jerry and Nan went there to pursue uninterruptedly the
ceaseless wrangles and arguments on profound subjects that seemed to be
their preferred method of sweethearting. And Rilla had a beloved little
sylvan dell of her own there where she liked to sit and dream.

"I must run down to the kitchen before I go and show myself off to
Susan. She would never forgive me if I didn't."

Rilla whirled into the shadowy kitchen at Ingleside, where Susan was
prosaically darning socks, and lighted it up with her beauty. She wore her
green dress with its little pink daisy garlands, her silk stockings and silver
slippers. She had golden pansies in her hair and at her creamy throat. She
was so pretty and young and glowing that even Cousin Sophia Crawford
was compelled to admire her—and Cousin Sophia Crawford admired few
transient earthly things. Cousin Sophia and Susan had made up, or ignored,
their old feud since the former had come to live in the Glen, and Cousin
Sophia often came across in the evenings to make a neighbourly call. Susan
did not always welcome her rapturously for Cousin Sophia was not what
could be called an exhilarating companion. "Some calls are visits and some
are visitations, Mrs. Dr. dear," Susan said once, and left it to be inferred that
Cousin Sophia's were the latter.

Cousin Sophia had a long, pale, wrinkled face, a long, thin nose, a long,
thin mouth, and very long, thin, pale hands, generally folded resignedly on
her black calico lap. Everything about her seemed long and thin and pale.
She looked mournfully upon Rilla Blythe and said sadly,

"Is your hair all your own?"

"Of course it is," cried Rilla indignantly.

"Ah, well!" Cousin Sophia sighed. "It might be better for you if it
wasn't! Such a lot of hair takes from a person's strength. It's a sign of
consumption, I've heard, but I hope it won't turn out like that in your case. I
s'pose you'll all be dancing tonight—even the minister's boys most likely. I
s'pose his girls won't go that far. Ah, well, I never held with dancing. I knew

a girl once who dropped dead while she was dancing. How any one could
ever dance aga' after a judgment like that I cannot comprehend."

"Did she ever dance again?" asked Rilla pertly.

"I told you she dropped dead. Of course she never danced again, poor
creature. She was a Kirke from Lowbridge. You ain't a-going off like that
with nothing on your bare neck, are you?"

"It's a hot evening," protested Rilla. "But I'll put on a scarf when we go
on the water."

"I knew of a boat load of young folks who went sailing on that harbour
forty years ago just such a night as this—just exactly such a night as this,"
said Cousin Sophia lugubriously, "and they were upset and drowned—every
last one of them. I hope nothing like that'll happen to you tonight. Do you
ever try anything for the freckles? I used to find plantain juice real good."

"You certainly should be a judge of freckles, Cousin Sophia," said
Susan, rushing to Rilla's defence. "You were more speckled than any toad
when you was a girl. Rilla's only come in summer but yours stayed put,
season in and season out; and you had not a ground colour like hers behind
them neither. You look real nice, Rilla, and that way of fixing your hair is
becoming. But you are not going to walk to the harbour in those slippers,
are you?"

"Oh, no. We'll all wear our old shoes to the harbour and carry our
slippers. Do you like my dress, Susan?"

"It minds me of a dress I wore when I was a girl," sighed Cousin Sophia
before Susan could reply. "It was green with pink posies on it, too, and it
was flounced from the waist to the hem. We didn't wear the skimpy things
girls wear nowadays. Ah me, times has changed and not for the better I'm
afraid. I tore a big hole in it that night and someone spilled a cup of tea all
over it. Ruined it completely. But I hope nothing will happen to your dress.
It orter to be a bit longer I'm thinking—your legs are so terrible long and
thin."

"Mrs. Dr. Blythe does not approve of little girls dressing like grown-up
ones," said Susan stiffly, intending merely a snub to Cousin Sophia. But
Rilla felt insulted. A little girl indeed! She whisked out of the kitchen in
high dudgeon. Another time she wouldn't go down to show herself off to
Susan—Susan, who thought nobody was grown up until she was sixty! And
that horrid Cousin Sophia with her digs about freckles and legs! What
business had an old—an old beanpole like that to talk of anybody else being
long and thin? Rilla felt all her pleasure in herself and her evening clouded
and spoiled. The very teeth of her soul were set on edge and she could have
sat down and cried.

But later on her spirits rose again when she found herself one of the gay
crowd bound for the Four Winds light.

The Blythes left Ingleside to the melancholy music of howls from Dog
Monday, who was locked up in the barn lest he make an uninvited guest at
the light. They picked up the Merediths in the village, and others joined
them as they walked down the old harbour road. Mary Vance, resplendent in
blue crepe, with lace overdress, came out of Miss Cornelia's gate and
attached herself to Rilla and Miss Oliver who were walking together and
who did not welcome her over-warmly. Rilla was not very fond of Mary
Vance. She had never forgotten the humiliating day when Mary had chased
her through the village with a dried codfish. Mary Vance, to tell the truth,
was not exactly popular with any of her set. Still, they enjoyed her society
—she had such a biting tongue that it was stimulating. "Mary Vance is a
habit of ours—we can't do without her even when we are furious with her,"
Di Blythe had once said.

Most of the little crowd were paired off after a fashion. Jem walked with
Faith Meredith, of course, and Jerry Meredith with Nan Blythe. Di and
Walter were together, deep in confidential conversation which Rilla envied.

Carl Meredith was walking with Miranda Pryor, more to torment Joe
Milgrave than for any other reason. Joe was known to have a strong
hankering for the said Miranda, which shyness prevented him from
indulging on all occasions. Joe might summon enough courage to amble up
beside Miranda if the night were dark, but here, in this moonlit dusk, he
simply could not do it. So he trailed along after the procession and thought

things not lawful to be uttered of Carl Meredith. Miranda was the daughter
of Whiskers-on-the-moon; she did not share her father's unpopularity but
she was not much run after, being a pale, neutral little creature, somewhat
addicted to nervous giggling. She had silvery blonde hair and her eyes were
big china blue orbs that looked as if she had been badly frightened when
she was little and had never got over it. She would much rather have walked
with Joe than with Carl, with whom she did not feel in the least at home.
Yet it was something of an honour, too, to have a college boy beside her,
and a son of the manse at that.

Shirley Blythe was with Una Meredith and both were rather silent
because such was their nature. Shirley was a lad of sixteen, sedate, sensible,
thoughtful, full of a quiet humour. He was Susan's "little brown boy" yet,
with his brown hair, brown eyes, and clear brown skin. He liked to walk
with Una Meredith because she never tried to make him talk or badgered
him with chatter. Una was as sweet and shy as she had been in the Rainbow
Valley days, and her large, dark-blue eyes were as dreamy and wistful. She
had a secret, carefully-hidden fancy for Walter Blythe that nobody but Rilla
ever suspected. Rilla sympathized with it and wished Walter would return it.
She liked Una better than Faith, whose beauty and aplomb rather
overshadowed other girls—and Rilla did not enjoy being overshadowed.

But just now she was very happy. It was so delightful to be tripping with
her friends down that dark, gleaming road sprinkled with its little spruces
and firs, whose balsam made all the air resinous around them. Meadows of
sunset afterlight were behind the westerning hills. Before them was the
shining harbour. A bell was ringing in the little church over-harbour and the
lingering dream-notes died around the dim, amethystine points. The gulf
beyond was still silvery blue in the afterlight. Oh, it was all glorious—the
clear air with its salt tang, the balsam of the firs, the laughter of her friends.
Rilla loved life—its bloom and brilliance; she loved the ripple of music, the
hum of merry conversation; she wanted to walk on forever over this road of
silver and shadow. It was her first party and she was going to have a
splendid time. There was nothing in the world to worry about—not even
freckles and over-long legs—nothing except one little haunting fear that
nobody would ask her to dance. It was beautiful and satisfying just to be
alive—to be fifteen—to be pretty. Rilla drew a long breath of rapture—and

caught it midway rather sharply. Jem was telling some story to Faith—
something that had happened in the Balkan War.

"The doctor lost both his legs—they were smashed to pulp—and he was
left on the field to die. And he crawled about from man to man, to all the
wounded men round him, as long as he could, and did everything possible
to relieve their sufferings—never thinking of himself—he was tying a bit of
bandage round another man's leg when he went under. They found them
there, the doctor's dead hands still held the bandage tight, the bleeding was
stopped and the other man's life was saved. Some hero, wasn't he, Faith? I
tell you when I read that—"

Jem and Faith moved on out of hearing. Gertrude Oliver suddenly
shivered. Rilla pressed her arm sympathetically.

"Wasn't it dreadful, Miss Oliver? I don't know why Jem tells such
gruesome things at a time like this when we're all out for fun."

"Do you think it dreadful, Rilla? I thought it wonderful—beautiful. Such
a story makes one ashamed of ever doubting human nature. That man's
action was godlike. And how humanity responds to the ideal of self-
sacrifice. As for my shiver, I don't know what caused it. The evening is
certainly warm enough. Perhaps someone is walking over the dark,
starshiny spot that is to be my grave. That is the explanation the old
superstition would give. Well, I won't think of that on this lovely night. Do
you know, Rilla, that when night-time comes I'm always glad I live in the
country. We know the real charm of night here as town dwellers never do.
Every night is beautiful in the country—even the stormy ones. I love a wild
night storm on this old gulf shore. As for a night like this, it is almost too
beautiful—it belongs to youth and dreamland and I'm half afraid of it."

"I feel as if I were part of it," said Rilla.

"Ah yes, you're young enough not to be afraid of perfect things. Well,
here we are at the House of Dreams. It seems lonely this summer. The Fords
didn't come?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Ford and Persis didn't. Kenneth did—but he stayed with
his mother's people over-harbour. We haven't seen a great deal of him this
summer. He's a little lame, so didn't go about very much."

"Lame? What happened to him?"

"He broke his ankle in a football game last fall and was laid up most of
the winter. He has limped a little ever since but it is getting better all the
time and he expects it will be all right before long. He has been up to
Ingleside only twice."

"Ethel Reese is simply crazy about him," said Mary Vance. "She hasn't
got the sense she was born with where he is concerned. He walked home
with her from the over-harbour church last prayer-meeting night and the airs
she has put on since would really make you weary of life. As if a Toronto
boy like Ken Ford would ever really think of a country girl like Ethel!"

Rilla flushed. It did not matter to her if Kenneth Ford walked home with
Ethel Reese a dozen times—it did not! Nothing that he did mattered to her.
He was ages older than she was. He chummed with Nan and Di and Faith,
and looked upon her, Rilla, as a child whom he never noticed except to
tease. And she detested Ethel Reese and Ethel Reese hated her—always had
hated her since Walter had pummelled Dan so notoriously in Rainbow
Valley days; but why need she be thought beneath Kenneth Ford's notice
because she was a country girl, pray? As for Mary Vance, she was getting to
be an out-and-out gossip and thought of nothing but who walked home with
people!

There was a little pier on the harbour shore below the House of Dreams,
and two boats were moored there. One boat was skippered by Jem Blythe,
the other by Joe Milgrave, who knew all about boats and was nothing loth
to let Miranda Pryor see it. They raced down the harbour and Joe's boat
won. More boats were coming down from the Harbour Head and across the
harbour from the western side. Everywhere there was laughter. The big
white tower on Four Winds Point was overflowing with light, while its
revolving beacon flashed overhead. A family from Charlottetown, relatives
of the light's keeper, were summering at the light, and they were giving the
party to which all the young people of Four Winds and Glen St. Mary and

over-harbour had been invited. As Jem's boat swung in below the lighthouse
Rilla desperately snatched off her shoes and donned her silver slippers
behind Miss Oliver's screening back. A glance had told her that the rock-cut
steps climbing up to the light were lined with boys, and lighted by Chinese
lanterns, and she was determined she would not walk up those steps in the
heavy shoes her mother had insisted on her wearing for the road. The
slippers pinched abominably, but nobody would have suspected it as Rilla
tripped smilingly up the steps, her soft dark eyes glowing and questioning,
her colour deepening richly on her round, creamy cheeks. The very minute
she reached the top of the steps an over-harbour boy asked her to dance and
the next moment they were in the pavilion that had been built seaward of
the lighthouse for dances. It was a delightful spot, roofed over with fir-
boughs and hung with lanterns. Beyond was the sea in a radiance that
glowed and shimmered, to the left the moonlit crests and hollows of the
sand-dunes, to the right the rocky shore with its inky shadows and its
crystalline coves. Rilla and her partner swung in among the dancers; she
drew a long breath of delight; what witching music Ned Burr of the Upper
Glen was coaxing from his fiddle—it was really like the magical pipes of
the old tale which compelled all who heard them to dance. How cool and
fresh the gulf breeze blew; how white and wonderful the moonlight was
over everything! This was life—enchanting life. Rilla felt as if her feet and
her soul both had wings.

CHAPTER IV

THE PIPER PIPES

Rilla's first party was a triumph—or so it seemed at first. She had so
many partners that she had to split her dances. Her silver slippers seemed
verily to dance of themselves and though they continued to pinch her toes
and blister her heels that did not interfere with her enjoyment in the least.
Ethel Reese gave her a bad ten minutes by beckoning her mysteriously out
of the pavilion and whispering, with a Reese-like smirk, that her dress

gaped behind and that there was a stain on the flounce. Rilla rushed
miserably to the room in the lighthouse which was fitted up for a temporary
ladies' dressing-room, and discovered that the stain was merely a tiny grass
smear and that the gap was equally tiny where a hook had pulled loose.
Irene Howard fastened it up for her and gave her some over-sweet,
condescending compliments. Rilla felt flattered by Irene's condescension.
She was an Upper Glen girl of nineteen who seemed to like the society of
the younger girls—spiteful friends said because she could queen it over
them without rivalry. But Rilla thought Irene quite wonderful and loved her
for her patronage. Irene was pretty and stylish; she sang divinely and spent
every winter in Charlottetown taking music lessons. She had an aunt in
Montreal who sent her wonderful things to wear; she was reported to have
had a sad love affair—nobody knew just what, but its very mystery allured.
Rilla felt that Irene's compliments crowned her evening. She ran gaily back
to the pavilion and lingered for a moment in the glow of the lanterns at the
entrance looking at the dancers. A momentary break in the whirling throng
gave her a glimpse of Kenneth Ford standing at the other side.

Rilla's heart skipped a beat—or, if that be a physiological impossibility,
she thought it did. So he was here, after all. She had concluded he was not
coming—not that it mattered in the least. Would he see her? Would he take
any notice of her? Of course, he wouldn't ask her to dance—that couldn't be
hoped for. He thought her just a mere child. He had called her "Spider" not
three weeks ago when he had been at Ingleside one evening. She had cried
about it upstairs afterwards and hated him. But her heart skipped a beat
when she saw that he was edging his way round the side of the pavilion
towards her. Was he coming to her—was he?—was he?—yes, he was! He
was looking for her—he was here beside her—he was gazing down at her
with something in his dark grey eyes that Rilla had never seen in them. Oh,
it was almost too much to bear! and everything was going on as before—the
dancers were spinning round, the boys who couldn't get partners were
hanging about the pavilion, canoodling couples were sitting out on the
rocks—nobody seemed to realize what a stupendous thing had happened.

Kenneth was a tall lad, very good looking, with a certain careless grace
of bearing that somehow made all the other boys seem stiff and awkward by
contrast. He was reported to be awesomely clever, with the glamour of a

far-away city and a big university hanging around him. He had also the
reputation of being a bit of a lady-killer. But that probably accrued to him
from his possession of a laughing, velvety voice which no girl could hear
without a heartbeat, and a dangerous way of listening as if she were saying
something that he had longed all his life to hear.

"Is this Rilla-my-Rilla?" he asked in a low tone.

"Yeth," said Rilla, and immediately wished she could throw herself
headlong down the lighthouse rock or otherwise vanish from a jeering
world.

Rilla had lisped in early childhood; but she had grown out of it. Only on
occasions of stress and strain did the tendency re-assert itself. She hadn't
lisped for a year; and now at this very moment, when she was so especially
desirous of appearing grown up and sophisticated, she must go and lisp like
a baby! It was too mortifying; she felt as if tears were going to come into
her eyes; the next minute she would be—blubbering—yes, just blubbering
—she wished Kenneth would go away—she wished he had never come.
The party was spoiled. Everything had turned to dust and ashes.

And he had called her "Rilla-my-Rilla"—not "Spider" or "Kid" or
"Puss," as he had been used to call her when he took any notice whatever of
her. She did not at all resent his using Walter's pet name for her; it sounded
beautifully in his low caressing tones, with just the faintest suggestion of
emphasis on the "my." It would have been so nice if she had not made a
fool of herself. She dared not look up lest she should see laughter in his
eyes. So she looked down; and as her lashes were very long and dark and
her lids very thick and creamy, the effect was quite charming and
provocative, and Kenneth reflected that Rilla Blythe was going to be the
beauty of the Ingleside girls after all. He wanted to make her look up—to
catch again that little, demure, questioning glance. She was the prettiest
thing at the party, there was no doubt of that.

What was he saying? Rilla could hardly believe her ears.

"Can we have a dance?"

"Yes," said Rilla. She said it with such a fierce determination not to lisp
that she fairly blurted the word out. Then she writhed in spirit again. It
sounded so bold—so eager—as if she were fairly jumping at him! What
would he think of her? Oh, why did dreadful things like this happen, just
when a girl wanted to appear at her best?

Kenneth drew her in among the dancers.

"I think this game ankle of mine is good for one hop around, at least," he
said.

"How is your ankle?" said Rilla. Oh, why couldn't she think of
something else to say? She knew he was sick of inquiries about his ankle.
She had heard him say so at Ingleside—heard him tell Di he was going to
wear a placard on his breast announcing to all and sundry that the ankle was
improving, etc. And now she must go and ask this stale question again.

Kenneth was tired of inquiries about his ankle. But then he had not often
been asked about it by lips with such an adorable kissable dent just above
them. Perhaps that was why he answered very patiently that it was getting
on well and didn't trouble him much, if he didn't walk or stand too long at a
time.

"They tell me it will be as strong as ever in time, but I'll have to cut
football out this fall."

They danced together and Rilla knew every girl in sight envied her. After
the dance they went down the rock steps and Kenneth found a little flat and
they rowed across the moonlit channel to the sand-shore; they walked on
the sand till Kenneth's ankle made protest and then they sat down among
the dunes. Kenneth talked to her as he had talked to Nan and Di. Rilla,
overcome with a shyness she did not understand, could not talk much, and
thought he would think her frightfully stupid; but in spite of this it was all
very wonderful—the exquisite moonlit night, the shining sea, the tiny little
wavelets swishing on the sand, the cool and freakish wind of night crooning
in the stiff grasses on the crest of the dunes, the music sounding faintly and
sweetly over the channel.

"'A merry lilt o' moonlight for mermaiden revelry,'" quoted Kenneth
softly from one of Walter's poems.

And just he and she alone together in the glamour of sound and sight! If
only her slippers didn't bite so! and if only she could talk cleverly like Miss
Oliver—nay, if she could only talk as she did herself to other boys! But
words would not come, she could only listen and murmur little
commonplace sentences now and again. But perhaps her dreamy eyes and
her dented lip and her slender throat talked eloquently for her. At any rate
Kenneth seemed in no hurry to suggest going back and when they did go
back supper was in progress. He found a seat for her near the window of the
lighthouse kitchen and sat on the sill beside her while she ate her ices and
cake. Rilla looked about her and thought how lovely her first party had
been. She would never forget it. The room re-echoed to laughter and jest.
Beautiful young eyes sparkled and shone. From the pavilion outside came
the lilt of the fiddle and the rhythmic steps of the dancers.

There was a little disturbance among a group of boys crowded about the
door; a young fellow pushed through and halted on the threshold, looking
about him rather sombrely. It was Jack Elliott from over-harbour—a McGill
medical student, a quiet chap not much addicted to social doings. He had
been invited to the party but had not been expected to come since he had to
go to Charlottetown that day and could not be back until late. Yet here he
was—and he carried a folded paper in his hand.

Gertrude Oliver looked at him from her corner and shivered again. She
had enjoyed the party herself, after all, for she had foregathered with a
Charlottetown acquaintance who, being a stranger and much older than
most of the guests, felt himself rather out of it, and had been glad to fall in
with this clever girl who could talk of world doings and outside events with
the zest and vigour of a man. In the pleasure of his society she had forgotten
some of her misgivings of the day. Now they suddenly returned to her.
What news did Jack Elliott bring? Lines from an old poem flashed
unbidden into her mind—"there was a sound of revelry by night"—"Hush!
Hark! A deep sound strikes like a rising knell"—why should she think of
that now? Why didn't Jack Elliott speak—if he had anything to tell? Why
did he just stand there, glowering importantly?

"Ask him—ask him," she said feverishly to Allan Daly. But somebody
else had already asked him. The room grew very silent all at once. Outside
the fiddler had stopped for a rest and there was silence there too. Afar off
they heard the low moan of the gulf—the presage of a storm already on its
way up the Atlantic. A girl's laugh drifted up from the rocks and died away
as if frightened out of existence by the sudden stillness.

"England declared war on Germany today," said Jack Elliott slowly.
"The news came by wire just as I left town."

"God help us," whispered Gertrude Oliver under her breath. "My dream
—my dream! The first wave has broken." She looked at Allan Daly and
tried to smile.

"Is this Armageddon?" she asked.

"I am afraid so," he said gravely.

A chorus of exclamations had arisen round them—light surprise and idle
interest for the most part. Few there realized the import of the message—
fewer still realized that it meant anything to them. Before long the dancing
was on again and the hum of pleasure was as loud as ever. Gertrude and
Allan Daly talked the news over in low, troubled tones. Walter Blythe had
turned pale and left the room. Outside he met Jem, hurrying up the rock
steps.

"Have you heard the news, Jem?"

"Yes. The Piper has come. Hurrah! I knew England wouldn't leave
France in the lurch. I've been trying to get Captain Josiah to hoist the flag
but he says it isn't the proper caper till sunrise. Jack says they'll be calling
for volunteers tomorrow."

"What a fuss to make over nothing," said Mary Vance disdainfully as
Jem dashed off. She was sitting out with Miller Douglas on a lobster trap
which was not only an unromantic but an uncomfortable seat. But Mary and
Miller were both supremely happy on it. Miller Douglas was a big,
strapping, uncouth lad, who thought Mary Vance's tongue uncommonly

gifted and Mary Vance's white eyes stars of the first magnitude; and neither
of them had the least inkling why Jem Blythe wanted to hoist the lighthouse
flag. "What does it matter if there's going to be a war over there in Europe?
I'm sure it doesn't concern us."

Walter looked at her and had one of his odd visitations of prophecy.

"Before this war is over," he said—or something said through his lips
—"every man and woman and child in Canada will feel it—you, Mary, will
feel it—feel it to your heart's core. You will weep tears of blood over it. The
Piper has come—and he will pipe until every corner of the world has heard
his awful and irresistible music. It will be years before the dance of death is
over—years, Mary. And in those years millions of hearts will break."

"Fancy now!" said Mary who always said that when she couldn't think of
anything else to say. She didn't know what Walter meant but she felt
uncomfortable. Walter Blythe was always saying odd things. That old Piper
of his—she hadn't heard anything about him since their playdays in
Rainbow Valley—and now here he was bobbing up again. She didn't like it,
and that was the long and short of it.

"Aren't you painting it rather strong, Walter?" asked Harvey Crawford,
coming up just then. "This war won't last for years—it'll be over in a month
or two. England will just wipe Germany off the map in no time."

"Do you think a war for which Germany has been preparing for twenty
years will be over in a few weeks?" said Walter passionately. "This isn't a
paltry struggle in a Balkan corner, Harvey. It is a death grapple. Germany
comes to conquer or to die. And do you know what will happen if she
conquers? Canada will be a German colony."

"Well, I guess a few things will happen before that," said Harvey
shrugging his shoulders. "The British navy would have to be licked for one;
and for another, Miller here, now, and I, we'd raise a dust, wouldn't we,
Miller? No Germans need apply for this old country, eh?"

Harvey ran down the steps laughing.

"I declare, I think all you boys talk the craziest stuff," said Mary Vance
in disgust. She got up and dragged Miller off to the rock-shore. It didn't
happen often that they had a chance for a talk together; Mary was
determined that this one shouldn't be spoiled by Walter Blythe's silly blather
about Pipers and Germans and such like absurd things. They left Walter
standing alone on the rock steps, looking out over the beauty of Four Winds
with brooding eyes that saw it not.

The best of the evening was over for Rilla, too. Ever since Jack Elliott's
announcement, she had sensed that Kenneth was no longer thinking about
her. She felt suddenly lonely and unhappy. It was worse than if he had never
noticed her at all. Was life like this—something delightful happening and
then, just as you were revelling in it, slipping away from you? Rilla told
herself pathetically that she felt years older than when she had left home
that evening. Perhaps she did—perhaps she was. Who knows? It does not
do to laugh at the pangs of youth. They are very terrible because youth has
not yet learned that "this, too, will pass away." Rilla sighed and wished she
were home, in bed, crying into her pillow.

"Tired?" said Kenneth, gently but absently—oh, so absently. He really
didn't care a bit whether she were tired or not, she thought.

"Kenneth," she ventured timidly, "you don't think this war will matter
much to us in Canada, do you?"

"Matter? Of course it will matter to the lucky fellows who will be able to
take a hand. I won't—thanks to this confounded ankle. Rotten luck, I call
it."

"I don't see why we should fight England's battles," cried Rilla. "She's
quite able to fight them herself."

"That isn't the point. We are part of the British Empire. It's a family
affair. We've got to stand by each other. The worst of it is, it will be over
before I can be of any use."

"Do you mean that you would really volunteer to go if it wasn't for your
ankle? asked Rilla incredulously.

"Sure I would. You see they'll go by thousands. Jem'll be off, I'll bet a
cent—Walter won't be strong enough yet, I suppose. And Jerry Meredith—
he'll go! And I was worrying about being out of football this year!"

Rilla was too startled to say anything. Jem—and Jerry! Nonsense! Why
father and Mr. Meredith wouldn't allow it. They weren't through college.
Oh, why hadn't Jack Elliott kept his horrid news to himself?

Mark Warren came up and asked her to dance. Rilla went, knowing
Kenneth didn't care whether she went or stayed. An hour ago on the sand-
shore he had been looking at her as if she were the only being of any
importance in the world. And now she was nobody. His thoughts were full
of this Great Game which was to be played out on bloodstained fields with
empires for stakes—a Game in which womenkind could have no part.
Women, thought Rilla miserably, just had to sit and cry at home. But all this
was foolishness. Kenneth couldn't go—he admitted that himself—and
Walter couldn't—thank goodness for that—and Jem and Jerry would have
more sense. She wouldn't worry—she would enjoy herself. But how
awkward Mark Warren was! How he bungled his steps! Why, for mercy's
sake, did boys try to dance who didn't know the first thing about dancing;
and who had feet as big as boats? There, he had bumped her into
somebody! She would never dance with him again!

She danced with others, though the zest was gone out of the performance
and she had begun to realize that her slippers hurt her badly. Kenneth
seemed to have gone—at least nothing was to be seen of him. Her first
party was spoiled, though it had seemed so beautiful at one time. Her head
ached—her toes burned. And worse was yet to come. She had gone down
with some over-harbour friends to the rock-shore where they all lingered as
dance after dance went on above them. It was cool and pleasant and they
were tired. Rilla sat silent, taking no part in the gay conversation. She was
glad when someone called down that the over-harbour boats were leaving.
A laughing scramble up the lighthouse rock followed. A few couples still
whirled about in the pavilion but the crowd had thinned out. Rilla looked
about her for the Glen group. She could not see one of them. She ran into
the lighthouse. Still, no sign of anybody. In dismay she ran to the rock

steps, down which the over-harbour guests were hurrying. She could see the
boats below—where was Jem's—where was Joe's?

"Why, Rilla Blythe, I thought you'd be gone home long ago," said Mary
Vance, who was waving her scarf at a boat skimming up the channel,
skippered by Miller Douglas.

"Where are the rest?" gasped Rilla.

"Why, they're gone—Jem went an hour ago—Una had a headache. And
the rest went with Joe about fifteen minutes ago. See—they're just going
around Birch Point. I didn't go because it's getting rough and I knew I'd be
seasick. I don't mind walking home from here. It's only a mile and a half. I
s'posed you'd gone. Where were you?"

"Down on the rocks with Jem and Mollie Crawford. Oh, why didn't they
look for me?"

"They did—but you couldn't be found. Then they concluded you must
have gone in the other boat. Don't worry. You can stay all night with me and
we'll 'phone up to Ingleside where you are."

Rilla realized that there was nothing else to do. Her lips trembled and
tears came into her eyes. She blinked savagely—she would not let Mary
Vance see her crying. But to be forgotten like this! To think nobody had
thought it worth while to make sure where she was—not even Walter. Then
she had a sudden dismayed recollection.

"My shoes," she exclaimed. "I left them in the boat."

"Well, I never," said Mary. "You're the most thoughtless kid I ever saw.
You'll have to ask Hazel Lewison to lend you a pair of shoes."

"I won't." cried Rilla, who didn't like the said Hazel. "I'll go barefoot
first."

Mary shrugged her shoulders.

"Just as you like. Pride must suffer pain. It'll teach you to be more
careful. Well, let's hike."

Accordingly they hiked. But to "hike" along a deep-rutted, pebbly lane
in frail, silver-hued slippers with high French heels, is not an exhilarating
performance. Rilla managed to limp and totter along until they reached the
harbour road; but she could go no farther in those detestable slippers. She
took them and her dear silk stockings off and started barefoot. That was not
pleasant either; her feet were very tender and the pebbles and ruts of the
road hurt them. Her blistered heels smarted. But physical pain was almost
forgotten in the sting of humiliation. This was a nice predicament! If
Kenneth Ford could see her now, limping along like a little girl with a stone
bruise! Oh, what a horrid way for her lovely party to end! She just had to
cry—it was too terrible. Nobody cared for her—nobody bothered about her
at all. Well, if she caught cold from walking home barefoot on a dew-wet
road and went into a decline perhaps they would be sorry. She furtively
wiped her tears away with her scarf—handkerchiefs seemed to have
vanished like shoes!—but she could not help sniffling. Worse and worse!

"You've got a cold, I see," said Mary. "You ought to have known you
would, sitting down in the wind on those rocks. Your mother won't let you
go out again in a hurry I can tell you. It's certainly been something of a
party. The Lewisons know how to do things, I'll say that for them, though
Hazel Lewison is no choice of mine. My, how black she looked when she
saw you dancing with Ken Ford. And so did that little hussy of an Ethel
Reese. What a flirt he is!"

"I don't think he's a flirt," said Rilla as defiantly as two desperate sniffs
would let her.

"You'll know more about men when you're as old as I am," said Mary
patronizingly. "Mind you, it doesn't do to believe all they tell you. Don't let
Ken Ford think that all he has to do to get you on a string is to drop his
handkerchief. Have more spirit than that, child."

To be thus hectored and patronized by Mary Vance was unendurable!
And it was unendurable to walk on stony roads with blistered heels and bare

feet! And it was unendurable to be crying and have no handkerchief and not
to be able to stop crying!

"I'm not thinking"—sniff—"about Kenneth"—sniff—"Ford"—two sniffs
—"at all," cried tortured Rilla.

"There's no need to fly off the handle, child. You ought to be willing to
take advice from older people. I saw how you slipped over to the sands with
Ken and stayed there ever so long with him. Your mother wouldn't like it if
she knew."

"I'll tell my mother all about it—and Miss Oliver—and Walter," Rilla
gasped between sniffs. "You sat for hours with Miller Douglas on that
lobster trap, Mary Vance! What would Mrs. Elliott say to that if she knew?"

"Oh, I'm not going to quarrel with you," said Mary, suddenly retreating
to high and lofty ground. "All I say is, you should wait until you're grown-
up before you do things like that."

Rilla gave up trying to hide the fact that she was crying. Everything was
spoiled—even that beautiful, dreamy, romantic, moonlit hour with Kenneth
on the sands was vulgarized and cheapened. She loathed Mary Vance.

"Why, whatever's wrong?" cried mystified Mary. "What are you crying
for?"

"My feet—hurt so—" sobbed Rilla clinging to the last shred of her pride.
It was less humiliating to admit crying because of your feet than because—
because somebody had been amusing himself with you, and your friends
had forgotten you, and other people patronized you.

"I daresay they do," said Mary, not unkindly. "Never mind. I know where
there's a pot of goose-grease in Cornelia's tidy pantry and it beats all the
fancy cold creams in the world. I'll put some on your heels before you go to
bed."

Goose-grease on your heels! So this was what your first party and your
first beau and your first moonlit romance ended in!

Rilla gave over crying in sheer disgust at the futility of tears and went to
sleep in Mary Vance's bed in the calm of despair. Outside, the dawn came
greyly in on wings of storm; Captain Josiah, true to his word, ran up the
Union Jack at the Four Winds Light and it streamed on the fierce wind
against the clouded sky like a gallant unquenchable beacon.

CHAPTER V

"THE SOUND OF A GOING"

Rilla ran down through the sunlit glory of the maple grove behind
Ingleside, to her favourite nook in Rainbow Valley. She sat down on a
green-mossed stone among the fern, propped her chin on her hands and
stared unseeingly at the dazzling blue sky of the August afternoon—so blue,
so peaceful, so unchanged, just as it had arched over the valley in the
mellow days of late summer ever since she could remember.

She wanted to be alone—to think things out—to adjust herself, if it were
possible, to the new world into which she seemed to have been transplanted
with a suddenness and completeness that left her half bewildered as to her
own identity. Was she—could she be—the same Rilla Blythe who had
danced at Four Winds Light six days ago—only six days ago? It seemed to
Rilla that she had lived as much in those six days as in all her previous life
—and if it be true that we should count time by heart-throbs she had. That
evening, with its hopes and fears and triumphs and humiliations, seemed
like ancient history now. Could she really ever have cried just because she
had been forgotten and had to walk home with Mary Vance? Ah, thought
Rilla sadly, how trivial and absurd such a cause of tears now appeared to
her. She could cry now with a right good will—but she would not—she
must not. What was it mother had said, looking, with her white lips and
stricken eyes, as Rilla had never seen her mother look before,
"When our women fail in courage,
Shall our men be fearless still?"

Yes, that was it. She must be brave—like mother—and Nan—and Faith
—Faith, who had cried with flashing eyes, "Oh, if I were only a man, to go
too!" Only, when her eyes ached and her throat burned like this she had to
hide herself in Rainbow Valley for a little, just to think things out and
remember that she wasn't a child any longer—she was grown-up and
women had to face things like this. But it was—nice—to get away alone
now and then, where nobody could see her and where she needn't feel that
people thought her a little coward if some tears came in spite of her.

How sweet and woodsey the ferns smelled! How softly the great
feathery boughs of the firs waved and murmured over her! How elfinly rang
the bells of the "Tree Lovers"—just a tinkle now and then as the breeze
swept by! How purple and elusive the haze where incense was being
offered on many an altar of the hills! How the maple leaves whitened in the
wind until the grove seemed covered with pale silvery blossoms!
Everything was just the same as she had seen it hundreds of times; and yet
the whole face of the world seemed changed.

"How wicked I was to wish that something dramatic would happen!" she
thought. "Oh, if we could only have those dear, monotonous, pleasant days
back again! I would never, never grumble about them again."

Rilla's world had tumbled to pieces the very day after the party. As they
lingered around the dinner table at Ingleside, talking of the war, the
telephone had rung. It was a long-distance call from Charlottetown for Jem.
When he had finished talking he hung up the receiver and turned around,
with a flushed face and glowing eyes. Before he had said a word his mother
and Nan and Di had turned pale. As for Rilla, for the first time in her life
she felt that every one must hear her heart beating and that something had
clutched at her throat.

"They are calling for volunteers in town, father," said Jem. "Scores have
joined up already. I'm going in tonight to enlist."

"Oh—Little Jem," cried Mrs. Blythe brokenly. She had not called him
that for many years—not since the day he had rebelled against it. "Oh—no
—no—Little Jem."

"I must, mother. I'm right—am I not, father?" said Jem.

Dr. Blythe had risen. He was very pale, too, and his voice was husky.
But he did not hesitate.

"Yes, Jem, yes—if you feel that way, yes—"

Mrs. Blythe covered her face. Walter stared moodily at his plate. Nan
and Di clasped each others' hands. Shirley tried to look unconcerned. Susan
sat as if paralysed, her piece of pie half-eaten on her plate. Susan never did
finish that piece of pie—a fact which bore eloquent testimony to the
upheaval in her inner woman for Susan considered it a cardinal offence
against civilized society to begin to eat anything and not finish it. That was
wilful waste, hens to the contrary notwithstanding.

Jem turned to the phone again. "I must ring the manse. Jerry will want to
go, too."

At this Nan had cried out "Oh!" as if a knife had been thrust into her, and
rushed from the room. Di followed her. Rilla turned to Walter for comfort
but Walter was lost to her in some reverie she could not share.

"All right," Jem was saying, as coolly as if he were arranging the details
of a picnic. "I thought you would—yes, tonight—the seven o'clock—meet
me at the station. So long."

"Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan. "I wish you would wake me up. Am I
dreaming—or am I awake? Does that blessed boy realize what he is saying?
Does he mean that he is going to enlist as a soldier? You do not mean to tell
me that they want children like him! It is an outrage. Surely you and the
doctor will not permit it."

"We can't stop him," said Mrs. Blythe, chokingly. "Oh, Gilbert!"

Dr. Blythe came up behind his wife and took her hand gently, looking
down into the sweet grey eyes that he had only once before seen filled with
such imploring anguish as now. They both thought of that other time—the
day years ago in the House of Dreams when little Joyce had died.

"Would you have him stay, Anne—when the others are going—when he
thinks it his duty—would you have him so selfish and small-souled?"

"No—no! But—oh—our first-born son—he's only a lad—Gilbert—I'll
try to be brave after a while—just now I can't. It's all come so suddenly.
Give me time."

The doctor and his wife went out of the room. Jem had gone—Walter
had gone—Shirley got up to go. Rilla and Susan remained staring at each
other across the deserted table. Rilla had not yet cried—she was too stunned
for tears. Then she saw that Susan was crying—Susan, whom she had never
seen shed a tear before.

"Oh, Susan, will he really go?" she asked.

"It—it—it is just ridiculous, that is what it is," said Susan.

She wiped away her tears, gulped resolutely and got up.

"I am going to wash the dishes. That has to be done, even if everybody
has gone crazy. There now, dearie, do not you cry. Jem will go, most likely
—but the war will be over long before he gets anywhere near it. Let us take
a brace and not worry your poor mother."

"In the Enterprise today it was reported that Lord Kitchener says the war
will last three years," said Rilla dubiously.

"I am not acquainted with Lord Kitchener," said Susan, composedly, "but
I dare say he makes mistakes as often as other people. Your father says it
will be over in a few months and I have as much faith in his opinion as I
have in Lord Anybody's. So just let us be calm and trust in the Almighty
and get this place tidied up. I am done with crying which is a waste of time
and discourages everybody."

Jem and Jerry went to Charlottetown that night and two days later they
came back in khaki. The Glen hummed with excitement over it. Life at
Ingleside had suddenly become a tense, strained, thrilling thing. Mrs.
Blythe and Nan were brave and smiling and wonderful. Already Mrs.

Blythe and Miss Cornelia were organizing a Red Cross. The doctor and Mr.
Meredith were rounding up the men for a Patriotic Society. Rilla, after the
first shock, reacted to the romance of it all, in spite of her heartache. Jem
certainly looked magnificent in his uniform. It was splendid to think of the
lads of Canada answering so speedily and fearlessly and uncalculatingly to
the call of their country. Rilla carried her head high among the girls whose
brothers had not so responded. In her diary she wrote:
"He goes to do what I had done
Had Douglas's daughter been his son,"

and was sure she meant it. If she were a boy of course she would go, too!
She hadn't the least doubt of that.

She wondered if it was very dreadful of her to feel glad that Walter
hadn't got strong as soon as they had wished after the fever.

"I couldn't bear to have Walter go," she wrote. "I love Jem ever so much
but Walter means more to me than anyone in the world and I would die if he
had to go. He seems so changed these days. He hardly ever talks to me. I
suppose he wants to go, too, and feels badly because he can't. He doesn't go
about with Jem and Jerry at all. I shall never forget Susan's face when Jem
came home in his khaki. It worked and twisted as if she were going to cry,
but all she said was, 'You look almost like a man in that, Jem.' Jem laughed.
He never minds because Susan thinks him just a child still. Everybody
seems busy but me. I wish there was something I could do but there doesn't
seem to be anything. Mother and Nan and Di are busy all the time and I just
wander about like a lonely ghost. What hurts me terribly, though, is that
mother's smiles, and Nan's, just seem put on from the outside. Mother's eyes
never laugh now. It makes me feel that I shouldn't laugh either—that it's
wicked to feel laughy. And it's so hard for me to keep from laughing, even if
Jem is going to be a soldier. But when I laugh I don't enjoy it either, as I
used to do. There's something behind it all that keeps hurting me—
especially when I wake up in the night. Then I cry because I am afraid that
Kitchener of Khartoum is right and the war will last for years and Jem may
be—but no, I won't write it. It would make me feel as if it were really going
to happen. The other day Nan said, 'Nothing can ever be quite the same for
any of us again.' It made me feel rebellious. Why shouldn't things be the

same again—when everything is over and Jem and Jerry are back? We'll all
be happy and jolly again and these days will seem just like a bad dream.

"The coming of the mail is the most exciting event of every day now.
Father just snatches the paper—I never saw father snatch before—and the
rest of us crowd round and look at the headlines over his shoulder. Susan
vows she does not and will not believe a word the papers say but she always
comes to the kitchen door, and listens and then goes back, shaking her head.
She is terribly indignant all the time, but she cooks up all the things Jem
likes especially, and she did not make a single bit of fuss when she found
Monday asleep on the spare-room bed yesterday right on top of Mrs. Rachel
Lynde's apple-leaf spread. 'The Almighty only knows where your master
will be having to sleep before long, you poor dumb beast,' she said as she
put him quite gently out. But she never relents towards Doc. She says the
minute he saw Jem in khaki he turned into Mr. Hyde then and there and she
thinks that ought to be proof enough of what he really is. Susan is funny,
but she is an old dear. Shirley says she is one half angel and the other half
good cook. But then Shirley is the only one of us she never scolds.

"Faith Meredith is wonderful. I think she and Jem are really engaged
now. She goes about with a shining light in her eyes, but her smiles are a
little stiff and starched, just like mother's. I wonder if I could be as brave as
she is if I had a lover and he was going to the war. It is bad enough when it
is your brother. Bruce Meredith cried all night, Mrs. Meredith says, when
he heard Jem and Jerry were going. And he wanted to know if the 'K of K.'
his father talked about was the King of Kings. He is the dearest kiddy. I just
love him—though I don't really care much for children. I don't like babies
one bit—though when I say so people look at me as if I had said something
perfectly shocking. Well, I don't, and I've got to be honest about it. I don't
mind looking at a nice clean baby if somebody else holds it—but I wouldn't
touch it for anything and I don't feel a single real spark of interest in it.
Gertrude Oliver says she just feels the same. (She is the most honest person
I know. She never pretends anything.) She says babies bore her until they
are old enough to talk and then she likes them—but still a good ways off.
Mother and Nan and Di all adore babies and seem to think I'm unnatural
because I don't.

"I haven't seen Kenneth since the night of the party. He was here one
evening after Jem came back but I happened to be away. I don't think he
mentioned me at all—at least nobody told me he did and I was determined I
wouldn't ask—but I don't care in the least. All that matters absolutely
nothing to me now. The only thing that does matter is that Jem has
volunteered for active service and will be going to Valcartier in a few more
days—my big, splendid brother Jem. Oh, I'm so proud of him!

"I suppose Kenneth would enlist too if it weren't for his ankle. I think
that is quite providential. He is his mother's only son and how dreadful she
would feel if he went. Only sons should never think of going!"

Walter came wandering through the valley as Rilla sat there, with his
head bent and his hands clasped behind him. When he saw Rilla he turned
abruptly away; then as abruptly he turned and came back to her.

"Rilla-my-Rilla, what are you thinking of?"

"Everything is so changed, Walter," said Rilla wistfully. "Even you—
you're changed. A week ago we were all so happy—and—and—now I just
can't find myself at all. I'm lost."

Walter sat down on a neighbouring stone and took Rilla's little appealing
hand.

"I'm afraid our old world has come to an end, Rilla. We've got to face
that fact."

"It's so terrible to think of Jem," pleaded Rilla. "Sometimes I forget for a
little while what it really means and feel excited and proud—and then it
comes over me again like a cold wind."

"I envy Jem!" said Walter moodily.

"Envy Jem! Oh, Walter you—you don't want to go too."

"No," said Walter, gazing straight before him down the emerald vistas of
the valley, "no, I don't want to go. That's just the trouble. Rilla, I'm afraid to

go. I'm a coward."

"You're not!" Rilla burst out angrily. "Why, anybody would be afraid to
go. You might be—why, you might be killed."

"I wouldn't mind that if it didn't hurt," muttered Walter. "I don't think I'm
afraid of death itself—it's of the pain that might come before death—it
wouldn't be so bad to die and have it over—but to keep on dying! Rilla, I've
always been afraid of pain—you know that. I can't help it—I shudder when
I think of the possibility of being mangled or—or blinded. Rilla, I cannot
face that thought. To be blind—never to see the beauty of the world again—
moonlight on Four Winds—the stars twinkling through the fir-trees—mist
on the gulf. I ought to go—I ought to want to go—but I don't—I hate the
thought of it—I'm ashamed—ashamed."

"But, Walter, you couldn't go anyhow," said Rilla piteously. She was sick
with a new terror that Walter would go after all. "You're not strong enough."

"I am. I've felt as fit as ever I did this last month. I'd pass any
examination—I know it. Everybody thinks I'm not strong yet—and I'm
skulking behind that belief. I—I should have been a girl," Walter concluded
in a burst of passionate bitterness.

"Even if you were strong enough, you oughtn't to go," sobbed Rilla.
"What would mother do? She's breaking her heart over Jem. It would kill
her to see you both go."

"Oh, I'm not going—don't worry. I tell you I'm afraid to go—afraid. I
don't mince the matter to myself. It's a relief to own up even to you, Rilla. I
wouldn't confess it to anybody else—Nan and Di would despise me. But I
hate the whole thing—the horror, the pain, the ugliness. War isn't a khaki
uniform or a drill parade—everything I've read in old histories haunts me. I
lie awake at night and see things that have happened—see the blood and
filth and misery of it all. And a bayonet charge! If I could face the other
things I could never face that. It turns me sick to think of it—sicker even to
think of giving it than receiving it—to think of thrusting a bayonet through
another man." Walter writhed and shuddered. "I think of these things all the
time—and it doesn't seem to me that Jem and Jerry ever think of them.

They laugh and talk about 'potting Huns'! But it maddens me to see them in
the khaki. And they think I'm grumpy because I'm not fit to go."

Walter laughed bitterly. "It is not a nice thing to feel yourself a coward."
But Rilla got her arms about him and cuddled her head on his shoulder. She
was so glad he didn't want to go—for just one minute she had been horribly
frightened. And it was so nice to have Walter confiding his troubles to her—
to her, not Di. She didn't feel so lonely and superfluous any longer.

"Don't you despise me, Rilla-my-Rilla?" asked Walter wistfully.
Somehow, it hurt him to think Rilla might despise him—hurt him as much
as if it had been Di. He realized suddenly how very fond he was of this
adoring kid sister with her appealing eyes and troubled, girlish face.

"No, I don't. Why, Walter, hundreds of people feel just as you do. You
know what that verse of Shakespeare in the old Fifth Reader says—'the
brave man is not he who feels no fear.'"

"No—but it is 'he whose noble soul its fear subdues.' I don't do that. We
can't gloss it over, Rilla. I'm a coward."

"You're not. Think of how you fought Dan Reese long ago."

"One spurt of courage isn't enough for a lifetime."

"Walter, one time I heard father say that the trouble with you was a
sensitive nature and a vivid imagination. You feel things before they really
come—feel them all alone when there isn't anything to help you bear them
—to take away from them. It isn't anything to be ashamed of. When you
and Jem got your hands burned when the grass was fired on the sand-hills
two years ago Jem made twice the fuss over the pain that you did. As for
this horrid old war, there'll be plenty to go without you. It won't last long."

"I wish I could believe it. Well, it's supper-time, Rilla. You'd better run. I
don't want anything."

"Neither do I. I couldn't eat a mouthful. Let me stay here with you,
Walter. It's such a comfort to talk things over with someone. The rest all

think that I'm too much of a baby to understand."

So they two sat there in the old valley until the evening star shone
through a pale-grey, gauzy cloud over the maple grove, and a fragrant dewy
darkness filled their little sylvan dell. It was one of the evenings Rilla was
to treasure in remembrance all her life—the first one on which Walter had
ever talked to her as if she were a woman and not a child. They comforted
and strengthened each other. Walter felt, for the time being at least, that it
was not such a despicable thing after all to dread the horror of war; and
Rilla was glad to be made the confidante of his struggles—to sympathize
with and encourage him. She was of importance to somebody.

When they went back to Ingleside they found callers sitting on the
veranda. Mr. and Mrs. Meredith had come over from the manse, and Mr.
and Mrs. Norman Douglas had come up from the farm. Cousin Sophia was
there also, sitting with Susan in the shadowy background. Mrs. Blythe and
Nan and Di were away, but Dr. Blythe was home and so was Dr. Jekyll,
sitting in golden majesty on the top step. And of course they were all talking
of the war, except Dr. Jekyll who kept his own counsel and looked
contempt as only a cat can. When two people foregathered in those days
they talked of the war; and old Highland Sandy of the Harbour Head talked
of it when he was alone and hurled anathemas at the Kaiser across all the
acres of his farm. Walter slipped away, not caring to see or be seen, but
Rilla sat down on the steps, where the garden mint was dewy and pungent.
It was a very calm evening with a dim, golden afterlight irradiating the glen.
She felt happier than at any time in the dreadful week that had passed. She
was no longer haunted by the fear that Walter would go.

"I'd go myself if I was twenty years younger," Norman Douglas was
shouting. Norman always shouted when he was excited. "I'd show the
Kaiser a thing or two! Did I ever say there wasn't a hell? Of course there's a
hell—dozens of hells—hundreds of hells—where the Kaiser and all his
brood are bound for."

"I knew this war was coming," said Mrs. Norman triumphantly. "I saw it
coming right along. I could have told all those stupid Englishmen what was
ahead of them. I told you, John Meredith, years ago what the Kaiser was up

to but you wouldn't believe it. You said he would never plunge the world in
war. Who was right about the Kaiser, John? You—or I? Tell me that."

"You were, I admit," said Mr. Meredith.

"It's too late to admit it now," said Mrs. Norman, shaking her head, as if
to intimate that if John Meredith had admitted it sooner there might have
been no war.

"Thank God, England's navy is ready," said the doctor.

"Amen to that," nodded Mrs. Norman. "Bat-blind as most of them were
somebody had foresight enough to see to that."

"Maybe England'll manage not to get into trouble over it," said Cousin
Sophia plaintively. "I dunno. But I'm much afraid."

"One would suppose that England was in trouble over it already, up to
her neck, Sophia Crawford," said Susan. "But your ways of thinking are
beyond me and always were. It is my opinion that the British Navy will
settle Germany in a jiffy and that we are all getting worked up over
nothing."

Susan spat out the words as if she wanted to convince herself more than
anybody else. She had her little store of homely philosophies to guide her
through life, but she had nothing to buckler her against the thunderbolts of
the week that had just passed. What had an honest, hard-working,
Presbyterian old maid of Glen St. Mary to do with a war thousands of miles
away? Susan felt that it was indecent that she should have to be disturbed
by it.

"The British army will settle Germany," shouted Norman. "Just wait till
it gets into line and the Kaiser will find that real war is a different thing
from parading round Berlin with your moustaches cocked up."

"Britain hasn't got an army," said Mrs. Norman emphatically. "You
needn't glare at me, Norman. Glaring won't make soldiers out of timothy

stalks. A hundred thousand men will just be a mouthful for Germany's
millions."

"There'll be some tough chewing in the mouthful, I reckon," persisted
Norman valiantly. "Germany'll break her teeth on it. Don't you tell me one
Britisher isn't a match for ten foreigners. I could polish off a dozen of 'em
myself with both hands tied behind my back!"

"I am told," said Susan, "that old Mr. Pryor does not believe in this war. I
am told that he says England went into it just because she was jealous of
Germany and that she did not really care in the least what happened to
Belgium."

"I believe he's been talking some such rot," said Norman. "I haven't
heard him. When I do, Whiskers-on-the-moon won't know what happened
to him. That precious relative of mine, Kitty Alec, holds forth to the same
effect, I understand. Not before me, though—somehow, folks don't indulge
in that kind of conversation in my presence. Lord love you, they've a kind
of presentiment, so to speak, that it wouldn't be healthy for their complaint."

"I am much afraid that this war has been sent as a punishment for our
sins," said Cousin Sophia, unclasping her pale hands from her lap and
reclasping them solemnly over her stomach. "'The world is very evil—the
times are waxing late.'"

"Parson here's got something of the same idea," chuckled Norman.
"Haven't you, Parson? That's why you preached t'other night on the text
'Without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.' I didn't agree with
you—wanted to get up in the pew and shout out that there wasn't a word of
sense in what you were saying, but Ellen, here, she held me down. I never
have any fun sassing parsons since I got married."

"Without shedding of blood there is no anything," said Mr. Meredith, in
the gentle dreamy way which had an unexpected trick of convincing his
hearers. "Everything, it seems to me, has to be purchased by self-sacrifice.
Our race has marked every step of its painful ascent with blood. And now
torrents of it must flow again. No, Mrs. Crawford, I don't think the war has
been sent as a punishment for sin. I think it is the price humanity must pay

for some blessing—some advance great enough to be worth the price—
which we may not live to see but which our children's children will inherit."

"If Jerry is killed will you feel so fine about it?" demanded Norman, who
had been saying things like that all his life and never could be made to see
any reason why he shouldn't. "Now, never mind kicking me in the shins,
Ellen. I want to see if Parson meant what he said or if it was just a pulpit
frill."

Mr. Meredith's face quivered. He had had a terrible hour alone in his
study on the night Jem and Jerry had gone to town. But he answered
quietly.

"Whatever I felt, it could not alter my belief—my assurance that a
country whose sons are ready to lay down their lives in her defence will win
a new vision because of their sacrifice."

"You do mean it, Parson. I can always tell when people mean what they
say. It's a gift that was born in me. Makes me a terror to most parsons, that!
But I've never caught you yet saying anything you didn't mean. I'm always
hoping I will—that's what reconciles me to going to church. It'd be such a
comfort to me—such a weapon to batter Ellen here with when she tries to
civilize me. Well, I'm off over the road to see Ab. Crawford a minute. The
gods be good to you all."

"The old pagan!" muttered Susan, as Norman strode away. She did not
care if Ellen Douglas did hear her. Susan could never understand why fire
did not descend from heaven upon Norman Douglas when he insulted
ministers the way he did. But the astonishing thing was Mr. Meredith
seemed really to like his brother-in-law.

Rilla wished they would talk of something besides war. She had heard
nothing else for a week and she was really a little tired of it. Now that she
was relieved from her haunting fear that Walter would want to go it made
her quite impatient. But she supposed—with a sigh—that there would be
three or four months of it yet.

CHAPTER VI

SUSAN, RILLA, AND DOG MONDAY MAKE A
RESOLUTION

The big living-room at Ingleside was snowed over with drifts of white
cotton. Word had come from Red Cross headquarters that sheets and
bandages would be required. Nan and Di and Rilla were hard at work. Mrs.
Blythe and Susan were upstairs in the boys' room, engaged in a more
personal task. With dry, anguished eyes they were packing up Jem's
belongings. He must leave for Valcartier the next morning. They had been
expecting the word but it was none the less dreadful when it came.

Rilla was basting the hem of a sheet for the first time in her life. When
the word had come that Jem must go she had her cry out among the pines in
Rainbow Valley and then she had gone to her mother.

"Mother, I want to do something. I'm only a girl—I can't do anything to
win the war—but I must do something to help at home."

"The cotton has come up for the sheets," said Mrs. Blythe. "You can help
Nan and Di make them up. And Rilla, don't you think you could organize a
Junior Red Cross among the young girls? I think they would like it better
and do better work by themselves than if mixed up with the older people."

"But, mother—I've never done anything like that."

"We will all have to do a great many things in the months ahead of us
that we have never done before, Rilla."

"Well"—Rilla took the plunge—"I'll try, mother—if you'll tell me how to
begin. I have been thinking it all over and I have decided that I must be as
brave and heroic and unselfish as I can possibly be."

Mrs. Blythe did not smile at Rilla's italics. Perhaps she did not feel like
smiling or perhaps she detected a real grain of serious purpose behind
Rilla's romantic pose. So here was Rilla hemming sheets and organizing a
Junior Red Cross in her thoughts as she hemmed; moreover, she was
enjoying it—the organizing that is, not the hemming. It was interesting and
Rilla discovered a certain aptitude in herself for it that surprised her. Who
would be president? Not she. The older girls would not like that. Irene
Howard? No, somehow Irene was not quite as popular as she deserved to
be. Marjorie Drew? No, Marjorie hadn't enough backbone. She was too
prone to agree with the last speaker. Betty Mead—calm, capable, tactful
Betty—the very one! And Una Meredith for treasurer; and, if they were
very insistent, they might make her, Rilla, secretary. As for the various
committees, they must be chosen after the Juniors were organized, but Rilla
knew just who should be put on which. They would meet around—and
there must be no eats—Rilla knew she would have a pitched battle with
Olive Kirk over that—and everything should be strictly business-like and
constitutional. Her minute book should be covered in white with a Red
Cross on the cover—and wouldn't it be nice to have some kind of uniform
which they could all wear at the concerts they would have to get up to raise
money—something simple but smart?

"You have basted the top hem of that sheet on one side and the bottom
hem on the other," said Di.

Rilla picked out her stitches and reflected that she hated sewing.
Running the Junior Reds would be much more interesting.

Mrs. Blythe was saying upstairs, "Susan, do you remember that first day
Jem lifted up his little arms to me and called me 'mo'er'—the very first word
he ever tried to say?"

"You could not mention anything about that blessed baby that I do not
and will not remember till my dying day," said Susan drearily.

"Susan, I keep thinking today of once when he cried for me in the night.
He was just a few months old. Gilbert didn't want me to go to him—he said
the child was well and warm and that it would be fostering bad habits in
him. But I went—and took him up—I can feel that tight clinging of his little

arms round my neck yet. Susan, if I hadn't gone that night, twenty-one years
ago, and taken my baby up when he cried for me I couldn't face tomorrow
morning."

"I do not know how we are going to face it anyhow, Mrs. Dr. dear. But
do not tell me that it will be the final farewell. He will be back on leave
before he goes overseas, will he not?"

"We hope so but we are not very sure. I am making up my mind that he
will not, so that there will be no disappointment to bear. Susan, I am
determined that I will send my boy off tomorrow with a smile. He shall not
carry away with him the remembrance of a weak mother who had not the
courage to send when he had the courage to go. I hope none of us will cry."

"I am not going to cry, Mrs. Dr. dear, and that you may tie to, but
whether I shall manage to smile or not will be as Providence ordains and as
the pit of my stomach feels. Have you room there for this fruit-cake? And
the shortbread? And the mince-pie? That blessed boy shall not starve,
whether they have anything to eat in that Quebec place or not. Everything
seems to be changing all at once, does it not? Even the old cat at the manse
has passed away. He breathed his last at a quarter to ten last night and Bruce
is quite heart-broken, they tell me."

"It's time that pussy went where good cats go. He must be at least fifteen
years old. He has seemed so lonely since Aunt Martha died."

"I should not have lamented, Mrs. Dr. dear, if that Hyde-beast had died
also. He has been Mr. Hyde most of the time since Jem came home in
khaki, and that has a meaning I will maintain. I do not know what Monday
will do when Jem is gone. The creature just goes about with a human look
in his eyes that takes all the good out of me when I see it. Ellen West used
to be always railing at the Kaiser and we thought her crazy, but now I see
that there was a method in her madness. This tray is packed, Mrs. Dr. dear,
and I will go down and put in my best licks preparing supper. I wish I knew
when I would cook another supper for Jem but such things are hidden from
our eyes."

Jem Blythe and Jerry Meredith left next morning. It was a dull day,
threatening rain, and the clouds lay in heavy grey rolls over the sky; but
almost everybody in the Glen and Four Winds and Harbour Head and
Upper Glen and over-harbour—except Whiskers-on-the-moon—was there
to see them off. The Blythe family and the Meredith family were all
smiling. Even Susan, as Providence did ordain, wore a smile, though the
effect was somewhat more painful than tears would have been. Faith and
Nan were very pale and very gallant. Rilla thought she would get on very
well if something in her throat didn't choke her, and if her lips didn't take
such spells of trembling. Dog Monday was there, too. Jem had tried to say
good-bye to him at Ingleside but Monday implored so eloquently that Jem
relented and let him go to the station. He kept close to Jem's legs and
watched every movement of his beloved master.

"I can't bear that dog's eyes," said Mrs. Meredith.

"The beast has more sense than most humans," said Mary Vance. "Well,
did we any of us ever think we'd live to see this day? I bawled all night to
think of Jem and Jerry going like this. I think they're plumb deranged.
Miller got a maggot in his head about going but I soon talked him out of it
—likewise his aunt said a few touching things. For once in our lives Kitty
Alec and I agree. It's a miracle that isn't likely to happen again. There's Ken,
Rilla."

Rilla knew Kenneth was there. She had been acutely conscious of it from
the moment he had sprung from Leo West's buggy. Now he came up to her
smiling.

"Doing the brave-smiling-sister-stunt, I see. What a crowd for the Glen
to muster! Well, I'm off home in a few days myself."

A queer little wind of desolation that even Jem's going had not caused
blew over Rilla's spirit.

"Why? You have another month of vacation."

"Yes—but I can't hang around Four Winds and enjoy myself when the
world's on fire like this. It's me for little old Toronto where I'll find some

way of helping in spite of this bally ankle. I'm not looking at Jem and Jerry
—makes me too sick with envy. You girls are great—no crying, no grim
endurance. The boys'll go off with a good taste in their mouths. I hope
Persis and mother will be as game when my turn comes."

"Oh, Kenneth—the war will be over before your turn cometh."

There! She had lisped again. Another great moment of life spoiled! Well,
it was her fate. And anyhow, nothing mattered. Kenneth was off already—
he was talking to Ethel Reese, who was dressed, at seven in the morning, in
the gown she had worn to the dance, and was crying. What on earth had
Ethel to cry about? None of the Reeses were in khaki. Rilla wanted to cry,
too—but she would not. What was that horrid old Mrs. Drew saying to
mother, in that melancholy whine of hers? "I don't know how you can stand
this, Mrs. Blythe. I couldn't if it was my pore boy." And mother—oh,
mother could always be depended on! How her grey eyes flashed in her
pale face. "It might have been worse, Mrs. Drew. I might have had to urge
him to go." Mrs. Drew did not understand but Rilla did. She flung up her
head. Her brother did not have to be urged to go.

Rilla found herself standing alone and listening to disconnected scraps of
talk as people walked up and down past her.

"I told Mark to wait and see if they asked for a second lot of men. If they
did I'd let him go—but they won't," said Mrs. Palmer Burr.

"I think I'll have it made with a crush girdle of velvet," said Bessie Clow.

"I'm frightened to look at my husband's face for fear I'll see in it that he
wants to go too," said a little over-harbour bride.

"I'm scared stiff," said whimsical Mrs. Jim Howard. "I'm scared Jim will
enlist—and I'm scared he won't."

"The war will be over by Christmas," said Joe Vickers.

"Let them European nations fight it out between them," said Abner
Reese.

"When he was a boy I gave him many a good trouncing," shouted
Norman Douglas, who seemed to be referring to some one high in military
circles in Charlottetown. "Yes, sir, I walloped him well, big gun as he is
now."

"The existence of the British Empire is at stake," said the Methodist
minister.

"There's certainly something about uniforms," sighed Irene Howard.

"It's a commercial war when all is said and done and not worth one drop
of good Canadian blood," said a stranger from the shore hotel.

"The Blythe family are taking it easy," said Kate Drew.

"Them young fools are just going for adventure," growled Nathan
Crawford.

"I have absolute confidence in Kitchener," said the over-harbour doctor.

In these ten minutes Rilla passed through a dizzying succession of anger,
laughter, contempt, depression and inspiration. Oh, people were—funny!
How little they understood. "Taking it easy," indeed—when even Susan
hadn't slept a wink all night! Kate Drew always was a minx.

Rilla felt as if she were in some fantastic nightmare. Were these the
people who, three weeks ago, were talking of crops and prices and local
gossip?

There—the train was coming—mother was holding Jem's hand—Dog
Monday was licking it—everybody was saying good-bye—the train was in!
Jem kissed Faith before everybody—old Mrs. Drew whooped hysterically
—the men, led by Kenneth, cheered—Rilla felt Jem seize her hand
—"Good-bye, Spider"—somebody kissed her cheek—she believed it was
Jerry but never was sure—they were off—the train was pulling out—Jem
and Jerry were waving to everybody—everybody was waving back—
mother and Nan were smiling still, but as if they had just forgotten to take
the smile off—Monday was howling dismally and being forcibly restrained

by the Methodist minister from tearing after the train—Susan was waving
her best bonnet and hurrahing like a man—had she gone crazy?—the train
rounded a curve. They had gone.

Rilla came to herself with a gasp. There was a sudden quiet. Nothing to
do now but to go home—and wait. The doctor and Mrs. Blythe walked off
together—so did Nan and Faith—so did John Meredith and Rosemary.
Walter and Una and Shirley and Di and Carl and Rilla went in a group.
Susan had put her bonnet back on her head, hindside foremost, and stalked
grimly off alone. Nobody missed Dog Monday at first. When they did
Shirley went back for him. He found Dog Monday curled up in one of the
shipping-sheds near the station and tried to coax him home. Dog Monday
would not move. He wagged his tail to show he had no hard feelings but no
blandishments availed to budge him.

"Guess Monday has made up his mind to wait there till Jem comes
back," said Shirley, trying to laugh as he rejoined the rest. This was exactly
what Dog Monday had done. His dear master had gone—he, Monday, had
been deliberately and of malice aforethought prevented from going with
him by a demon disguised in the garb of a Methodist minister. Wherefore,
he, Monday, would wait there until the smoking, snorting monster, which
had carried his hero off, carried him back.

Ay, wait there, little faithful dog with the soft, wistful, puzzled eyes. But
it will be many a long bitter day before your boyish comrade comes back to
you.

The doctor was away on a case that night and Susan stalked into Mrs.
Blythe's room on her way to bed to see if her adored Mrs. Dr. dear were
"comfortable and composed." She paused solemnly at the foot of the bed
and solemnly declared,

"Mrs. Dr. dear, I have made up my mind to be a heroine."

"Mrs. Dr. dear" found herself violently inclined to laugh—which was
manifestly unfair, since she had not laughed when Rilla had announced a
similar heroic determination. To be sure, Rilla was a slim, white-robed
thing, with a flower-like face and starry young eyes aglow with feeling;

whereas Susan was arrayed in a grey flannel nightgown of strait simplicity,
and had a strip of red woollen worsted tied around her grey hair as a charm
against neuralgia. But that should not make any vital difference. Was it not
the spirit that counted? Yet Mrs. Blythe was hard put to it not to laugh.

"I am not," proceeded Susan firmly, "going to lament or whine or
question the wisdom of the Almighty any more as I have been doing lately.
Whining and shirking and blaming Providence do not get us anywhere. We
have just got to grapple with whatever we have to do whether it is weeding
the onion patch, or running the Government. I shall grapple. Those blessed
boys have gone to war; and we women, Mrs. Dr. dear, must tarry by the
stuff and keep a stiff upper lip."

CHAPTER VII

A WAR-BABY AND A SOUP TUREEN

"Liege and Namur—and now Brussels!" The doctor shook his head. "I
don't like it—I don't like it."

"Do not you lose heart, Dr. dear; they were just defended by foreigners,"
said Susan superbly. "Wait you till the Germans come against the British;
there will be a very different story to tell and that you may tie to."

The doctor shook his head again, but a little less gravely; perhaps they
all shared subconsciously in Susan's belief that "the thin grey line" was
unbreakable, even by the victorious rush of Germany's ready millions. At
any rate, when the terrible day came—the first of many terrible days—with
the news that the British army was driven back they stared at each other in
blank dismay.

"It—it can't be true," gasped Nan, taking a brief refuge in temporary
incredulity.

"I felt that there was to be bad news today," said Susan, "for that cat-
creature turned into Mr. Hyde this morning without rhyme or reason for it,
and that was no good omen."

"'A broken, a beaten, but not a demoralized, army,'" muttered the doctor,
from a London dispatch. "Can it be England's army of which such a thing is
said?"

"It will be a long time now before the war is ended," said Mrs. Blythe
despairingly.

Susan's faith, which had for a moment been temporarily submerged, now
reappeared triumphantly.

"Remember, Mrs. Dr. dear, that the British army is not the British navy.
Never forget that. And the Russians are on their way, too, though Russians
are people I do not know much about and consequently will not tie to."

"The Russians will not be in time to save Paris," said Walter gloomily.
"Paris is the heart of France—and the road to it is open. Oh, I wish"—he
stopped abruptly and went out.

After a paralysed day the Ingleside folk found it was possible to "carry
on" even in the face of ever-darkening bad news. Susan worked fiercely in
her kitchen, the doctor went out on his round of visits, Nan and Di returned
to their Red Cross activities; Mrs. Blythe went to Charlottetown to attend a
Red Cross Convention; Rilla after relieving her feelings by a stormy fit of
tears in Rainbow Valley and an outburst in her diary, remembered that she
had elected to be brave and heroic. And, she thought, it really was heroic to
volunteer to drive about the Glen and Four Winds one day, collecting
promised Red Cross supplies with Abner Crawford's old grey horse. One of
the Ingleside horses was lame and the doctor needed the other, so there was
nothing for it but the Crawford nag, a placid, unhasting, thick-skinned
creature with an amiable habit of stopping every few yards to kick a fly off
one leg with the foot of the other. Rilla felt that this, coupled with the fact
that the Germans were only fifty miles from Paris, was hardly to be
endured. But she started off gallantly on an errand fraught with amazing
results.

Late in the afternoon she found herself, with a buggy full of parcels, at
the entrance to a grassy, deep-rutted lane leading to the harbour shore,
wondering whether it was worth while to call down at the Anderson house.
The Andersons were desperately poor and it was not likely Mrs. Anderson
had anything to give. On the other hand, her husband, who was an
Englishman by birth and who had been working in Kingsport when the war
broke out, had promptly sailed for England to enlist there, without, it may
be said, coming home or sending much hard cash to represent him. So
possibly Mrs. Anderson might feel hurt if she were overlooked. Rilla
decided to call. There were times afterwards when she wished she hadn't,
but in the long run she was very thankful that she did.

The Anderson house was a small and tumbledown affair, crouching in a
grove of battered spruces near the shore as if rather ashamed of itself and
anxious to hide. Rilla tied her grey nag to the rickety fence and went to the
door. It was open; and the sight she saw bereft her temporarily of the power
of speech or motion.

Through the open door of the small bedroom opposite her, Rilla saw
Mrs. Anderson lying on the untidy bed; and Mrs. Anderson was dead. There
was no doubt of that; neither was there any doubt that the big, frowzy, red-
headed, red-faced, over-fat woman sitting near the door-way, smoking a
pipe quite comfortably, was very much alive. She rocked idly back and
forth amid her surroundings of squalid disorder, and paid no attention
whatever to the piercing wails proceeding from a cradle in the middle of the
room.

Rilla knew the woman by sight and reputation. Her name was Mrs.
Conover; she lived down at the fishing village; she was a great-aunt of Mrs.
Anderson; and she drank as well as smoked.

Rilla's first impulse was to turn and flee. But that would never do.
Perhaps this woman, repulsive as she was, needed help—though she
certainly did not look as if she were worrying over the lack of it.

"Come in," said Mrs. Conover, removing her pipe and staring at Rilla
with her little, rat-like eyes.

"Is—is Mrs. Anderson really dead?" asked Rilla timidly, as she stepped
over the sill.

"Dead as a door nail," responded Mrs. Conover cheerfully. "Kicked the
bucket half an hour ago. I've sent Jen Conover to 'phone for the undertaker
and get some help up from the shore. You're the doctor's miss, ain't ye?
Have a cheer?"

Rilla did not see any chair which was not cluttered with something. She
remained standing.

"Wasn't it—very sudden?"

"Well, she's been a-pining ever since that worthless Jim lit out for
England—which I say it's a pity as he ever left. It's my belief she was took
for death when she heard the news. That young un there was born a
fortnight ago and since then she's just gone down and today she up and
died, without a soul expecting it."

"Is there anything I can do to—to help?" hesitated Rilla.

"Bless yez, no—unless ye've a knack with kids. I haven't. That young un
there never lets up squalling, day or night. I've just got that I take no notice
of it."

Rilla tiptoed gingerly over to the cradle and more gingerly still pulled
down the dirty blanket. She had no intention of touching the baby—she had
no "knack with kids" either. She saw an ugly midget with a red, distorted
little face, rolled up in a piece of dingy old flannel. She had never seen an
uglier baby. Yet a feeling of pity for the desolate, orphaned mite which had
"come out of the everywhere" into such a dubious "here", took sudden
possession of her.

"What is going to become of the baby?" she asked.

"Lord knows," said Mrs. Conover candidly. "Min worried awful over
that before she died. She kept on a-saying 'Oh, what will become of my
pore baby' till it really got on my nerves. I ain't a-going to trouble myself

with it, I can tell yez. I brung up a boy that my sister left and he skinned out
as soon as he got to be some good and won't give me a mite o' help in my
old age, ungrateful whelp as he is. I told Min it'd have to be sent to an
orphan asylum till we'd see if Jim ever came back to look after it. Would
yez believe it, she didn't relish the idee. But that's the long and short of it."

"But who will look after it until it can be taken to the asylum?" persisted
Rilla. Somehow the baby's fate worried her.

"S'pose I'll have to," grunted Mrs. Conover. She put away her pipe and
took an unblushing swig from a black bottle she produced from a shelf near
her. "It's my opinion the kid won't live long. It's sickly. Min never had no
gimp and I guess it hain't either. Likely it won't trouble any one long and
good riddance, sez I."

Rilla drew the blanket down a little farther.

"Why, the baby isn't dressed!" she exclaimed, in a shocked tone.

"Who was to dress him I'd like to know," demanded Mrs. Conover
truculently. "I hadn't time—took me all the time there was looking after
Min. 'Sides, as I told yez, I don't know nithing about kids. Old Mrs. Billy
Crawford, she was here when it was born and she washed it and rolled it up
in that flannel, and Jen she's tended it a bit since. The critter is warm
enough. This weather would melt a brass monkey."

Rilla was silent, looking down at the crying baby. She had never
encountered any of the tragedies of life before and this one smote her to the
core of her heart. The thought of the poor mother going down into the
valley of the shadow alone, fretting about her baby, with no one near but
this abominable old woman, hurt her terribly. If she had only come a little
sooner! Yet what could she have done—what could she do now? She didn't
know, but she must do something. She hated babies—but she simply could
not go away and leave that poor little creature with Mrs. Conover—who
was applying herself again to her black bottle and would probably be
helplessly drunk before anybody came.

"I can't stay," thought Rilla. "Mr. Crawford said I must be home by
supper-time because he wanted the pony this evening himself. Oh, what can
I do?"

She made a sudden, desperate, impulsive resolution.

"I'll take the baby home with me," she said. "Can I?"

"Sure, if yez wants to," said Mrs. Conover amiably. "I hain't any
objection. Take it and welcome."

"I—I can't carry it," said Rilla. "I have to drive the horse and I'd be
afraid I'd drop it. Is there a—a basket anywhere that I could put it in?"

"Not as I knows on. There ain't much here of anything, I kin tell yez.
Min was pore and as shiftless as Jim. Ef ye opens that drawer over there
yez'll find a few baby clo'es. Best take them along."

Rilla got the clothes—the cheap, sleazy garments the poor mother had
made ready as best she could. But this did not solve the pressing problem of
the baby's transportation. Rilla looked helplessly round. Oh, for mother—or
Susan! Her eyes fell on an enormous blue soup tureen at the back of the
dresser.

"May I have this to—to lay him in?" she asked.

"Well, 'tain't mine but I guess yez kin take it. Don't smash it if yez can
help—Jim might make a fuss about it if he comes back alive—which he
sure will, seein' he ain't any good. He brung that old tureen out from
England with him—said it'd always been in the family. Him and Min never
used it—never had enough soup to put in it—but Jim thought the world of
it. He was mighty perticuler about some things but didn't worry him none
that there weren't much in the way o' eatables to put in the dishes."

For the first time in her life Rilla Blythe touched a baby—lifted it—
rolled it in a blanket, trembling with nervousness lest she drop it or—or—
break it. Then she put it in the soup tureen.

"Is there any fear of it smothering?" she asked anxiously.

"Not much odds if it do," said Mrs. Conover.

Horrified Rilla loosened the blanket round the baby's face a little. The
mite had stopped crying and was blinking up at her. It had big dark eyes in
its ugly little face.

"Better not let the wind blow on it," admonished Mrs. Conover. "Take its
breath if it do."

Rilla wrapped the tattered little quilt around the soup tureen.

"Will you hand this to me after I get into the buggy, please?"

"Sure I will," said Mrs. Conover, getting up with a grunt.

And so it was that Rilla Blythe, who had driven to the Anderson house a
self-confessed hater of babies, drove away from it carrying one in a soup
tureen on her lap!

Rilla thought she would never get to Ingleside. In the soup tureen there
was an uncanny silence. In one way she was thankful the baby did not cry
but she wished it would give an occasional squeak to prove that it was alive.
Suppose it were smothered! Rilla dared not unwrap it to see, lest the wind,
which was now blowing a hurricane, should "take its breath," whatever
dreadful thing that might be. She was a thankful girl when at last she
reached harbour at Ingleside.

Rilla carried the soup tureen to the kitchen, and set it on the table under
Susan's eyes. Susan looked into the tureen and for once in her life was so
completely floored that she had not a word to say.

"What in the world is this?" asked the doctor, coming in.

Rilla poured out her story. "I just had to bring it, father," she concluded.
"I couldn't leave it there."

"What are you going to do with it?" asked the doctor coolly.

Rilla hadn't exactly expected this kind of question.

"We—we can keep it here for awhile—can't we—until something can be
arranged?" she stammered confusedly.

Dr. Blythe walked up and down the kitchen for a moment or two while
the baby stared at the white walls of the soup tureen and Susan showed
signs of returning animation.

Presently the doctor confronted Rilla.

"A young baby means a great deal of additional work and trouble in a
household, Rilla. Nan and Di are leaving for Redmond next week and
neither your mother nor Susan is able to assume so much extra care under
present conditions. If you want to keep that baby here you must attend to it
yourself."

"Me!" Rilla was dismayed into being ungrammatical. "Why—father—I
—I couldn't!"

"Younger girls than you have had to look after babies. My advice and
Susan's is at your disposal. If you cannot, then the baby must go back to
Meg Conover. Its lease of life will be short if it does for it is evident that it
is a delicate child and requires particular care. I doubt if it would survive
even if sent to an orphans' home. But I cannot have your mother and Susan
over-taxed."

The doctor walked out of the kitchen, looking very stern and immovable.
In his heart he knew quite well that the small inhabitant of the big soup
tureen would remain at Ingleside, but he meant to see if Rilla could not be
induced to rise to the occasion.

Rilla sat looking blankly at the baby. It was absurd to think she could
take care of it. But—that poor little, frail, dead mother who had worried
about it—that dreadful old Meg Conover.

"Susan, what must be done for a baby?" she asked dolefully.

"You must keep it warm and dry and wash it every day, and be sure the
water is neither too hot nor too cold, and feed it every two hours. If it has
colic, you put hot things on its stomach," said Susan, rather feebly and flatly
for her.

The baby began to cry again.

"It must be hungry—it has to be fed anyhow," said Rilla desperately.
"Tell me what to get for it, Susan, and I'll get it."

Under Susan's directions a ration of milk and water was prepared, and a
bottle obtained from the doctor's office. Then Rilla lifted the baby out of the
soup tureen and fed it. She brought down the old basket of her own infancy
from the attic and laid the now sleeping baby in it. She put the soup tureen
away in the pantry. Then she sat down to think things over.

The result of her thinking things over was that she went to Susan when
the baby woke.

"I'm going to see what I can do, Susan. I can't let that poor little thing go
back to Mrs. Conover. Tell me how to wash and dress it."

Under Susan's supervision Rilla bathed the baby. Susan dared not help,
other than by suggestion, for the doctor was in the living-room and might
pop in at any moment. Susan had learned by experience that when Dr.
Blythe put his foot down and said a thing must be, that thing was. Rilla set
her teeth and went ahead. In the name of goodness, how many wrinkles and
kinks did a baby have? Why, there wasn't enough of it to take hold of. Oh,
suppose she let it slip into the water—it was so wobbly! If it would only
stop howling like that! How could such a tiny morsel make such an
enormous noise. Its shrieks could be heard over Ingleside from cellar to
attic.

"Am I really hurting it much, Susan, do you suppose?" she asked
piteously.

"No, dearie. Most new babies hate like poison to be washed. You are real
knacky for a beginner. Keep your hand under its back, whatever you do,

and keep cool."

Keep cool! Rilla was oozing perspiration at every pore. When the baby
was dried and dressed and temporarily quieted with another bottle she was
as limp as a rag.

"What must I do with it tonight, Susan?"

A baby by day was dreadful enough; a baby by night was unthinkable.

"Set the basket on a chair by your bed and keep it covered. You will have
to feed it once or twice in the night, so you would better take the oil heater
upstairs. If you cannot manage it call me and I will go, doctor or no doctor."

"But, Susan, if it cries?"

The baby, however, did not cry. It was surprisingly good—perhaps
because its poor little stomach was filled with proper food. It slept most of
the night but Rilla did not. She was afraid to go to sleep for fear something
would happen to the baby. She prepared its three o'clock ration with a grim
determination that she would not call Susan. Oh, was she dreaming? Was it
really she, Rilla Blythe, who had got into this absurd predicament? She did
not care if the Germans were near Paris—she did not care if they were in
Paris—if only the baby wouldn't cry or choke or smother or have
convulsions. Babies did have convulsions, didn't they? Oh, why had she
forgotten to ask Susan what she must do if the baby had convulsions? She
reflected rather bitterly that father was very considerate of mother's and
Susan's health, but what about hers? Did he think she could continue to
exist if she never got any sleep? But she was not going to back down now—
not she. She would look after this detestable little animal if it killed her. She
would get a book on baby hygiene and be beholden to nobody. She would
never go to father for advice—she wouldn't bother mother—and she would
only condescend to Susan in dire extremity. They would all see!

Thus it came about that Mrs. Blythe, when she returned home two nights
later and asked Susan where Rilla was, was electrified by Susan's composed
reply.

"She's upstairs, Mrs. Dr. dear, putting her baby to bed."

CHAPTER VIII

RILLA DECIDES

Families and individuals alike soon become used to new conditions and
accept them unquestioningly. By the time a week had elapsed it seemed as
it the Anderson baby had always been at Ingleside. After the first three
distracted nights Rilla began to sleep again, waking automatically to attend
to her charge on schedule time. She bathed and fed and dressed it as
skilfully as if she had been doing it all her life. She liked neither her job nor
the baby any the better; she still handled it as gingerly as if it were some
kind of a small lizard, and a breakable lizard at that; but she did her work
thoroughly and there was not a cleaner, better-cared-for infant in Glen St.
Mary. She even took to weighing the creature every day and jotting the
result down in her diary; but sometimes she asked herself pathetically why
unkind destiny had ever led her down the Anderson lane on that fatal day.
Shirley, Nan, and Di did not tease her as much as she had expected. They all
seemed rather stunned by the mere fact of Rilla adopting a war-baby;
perhaps, too, the doctor had issued instructions. Walter, of course, never had
teased her over anything; one day he told her she was a brick.

"It took more courage for you to tackle that five pounds of new infant,
Rilla-my-Rilla, than it would be for Jem to face a mile of Germans. I wish I
had half your pluck," he said ruefully.

Rilla was very proud of Walter's approval; nevertheless, she wrote
gloomily in her diary that night:—

"I wish I could like the baby a little bit. It would make things easier. But
I don't. I've heard people say that when you took care of a baby you got
fond of it—but you don't—I don't, anyway. And it's a nuisance—it
interferes with everything. It just ties me down—and now of all times when
I'm trying to get the Junior Reds started. And I couldn't go to Alice Clow's

party last night and I was just dying to. Of course father isn't really
unreasonable and I can always get an hour or two off in the evening when
it's necessary; but I knew he wouldn't stand for my being out half the night
and leaving Susan or mother to see to the baby. I suppose it was just as
well, because the thing did take colic—or something—about one o'clock. It
didn't kick or stiffen out, so I knew that, according to Morgan, it wasn't
crying for temper; and it wasn't hungry and no pins were sticking in it. It
screamed till it was black in the face; I got up and heated water and put the
hot-water bottle on its stomach, and it howled worse than ever and drew up
its poor wee thin legs. I was afraid I had burnt it but I don't believe I did.
Then I walked the floor with it although 'Morgan on Infants' says that
should never be done. I walked miles, and oh, I was so tired and
discouraged and mad—yes, I was. I could have shaken the creature if it had
been big enough to shake, but it wasn't. Father was out on a case, and
mother had had a headache and Susan is squiffy because when she and
Morgan differ I insist upon going by what Morgan says, so I was
determined I wouldn't call her unless I had to.

"Finally, Miss Oliver came in. She has rooms with Nan now, not me, all
because of the baby, and I am broken-hearted about it. I miss our long talks
after we went to bed, so much. It was the only time I ever had her to myself.
I hated to think the baby's yells had wakened her up, for she has so much to
bear now. Mr. Grant is at Valcartier, too, and Miss Oliver feels it dreadfully,
though she is splendid about it. She thinks he will never come back and her
eyes just break my heart—they are so tragic. She said it wasn't the baby that
woke her—she hadn't been able to sleep because the Germans are so near
Paris; she took the little wretch and laid it flat on its stomach across her
knee and thumped its back gently a few times, and it stopped shrieking and
went right off to sleep and slept like a lamb the rest of the night. I didn't—I
was too worn out.

"I'm having a perfectly dreadful time getting the Junior Reds started. I
succeeded in getting Betty Mead as president, and I am secretary, but they
put Jen Vickers in as treasurer and I despise her. She is the sort of girl who
calls any clever, handsome, or distinguished people she knows slightly by
their first names—behind their backs. And she is sly and two-faced. Una
doesn't mind, of course. She is willing to do anything that comes to hand

and never minds whether she has an office or not. She is just a perfect
angel, while I am only angelic in spots and demonic in other spots. I wish
Walter would take a fancy to her, but he never seems to think about her in
that way, although I heard him say once she was like a tea rose. She is too.
And she gets imposed upon, just because she is so sweet and willing; but I
don't allow people to impose on Rilla Blythe and 'that you may tie to,' as
Susan says.

"Just as I expected, Olive was determined we should have lunch served
at our meetings. We had a battle royal over it. The majority was against eats
and now the minority is sulking. Irene Howard was on the eats side and she
has been very cool to me ever since and it makes me feel miserable. I
wonder if mother and Mrs. Elliott have problems in the Senior Society too.
I suppose they have, but they just go on calmly in spite of everything. I go
on—but not calmly—I rage and cry—but I do it all in private and blow off
steam in this diary; and when it's over I vow I'll show them. I never sulk. I
detest people who sulk. Anyhow, we've got the society started and we're to
meet once a week, and we're all going to learn to knit.

"Shirley and I went down to the station again to try to induce Dog
Monday to come home but we failed. All the family have tried and failed.
Three days after Jem had gone Walter went down and brought Monday
home by main force in the buggy and shut him up for three days. Then
Monday went on a hunger strike and howled like a Banshee night and day.
We had to let him out or he would have starved to death.

"So we have decided to let him alone and father has arranged with the
butcher near the station to feed him with bones and scraps. Besides, one of
us goes down nearly every day to take him something. He just lies curled up
in the shipping-shed, and every time a train comes in he will rush over to
the platform, wagging his tail expectantly, and tear around to every one who
comes off the train. And then, when the train goes and he realizes that Jem
has not come, he creeps dejectedly back to his shed, with his disappointed
eyes, and lies down patiently to wait for the next train. Mr. Gray, the station
master, says there are times when he can hardly help crying from sheer
sympathy. One day some boys threw stones at Monday and old Johnny
Mead, who never was known to take notice of anything before, snatched up

a meat axe in the butcher's shop and chased them through the village.
Nobody has molested Monday since.

"Kenneth Ford has gone back to Toronto. He came up two evenings ago
to say good-bye. I wasn't home—some clothes had to be made for the baby
and Mrs. Meredith offered to help me, so I was over at the manse, and I
didn't see Kenneth. Not that it matters; he told Nan to say good-bye to
Spider for him and tell me not to forget him wholly in my absorbing
maternal duties. If he could leave such a frivolous, insulting message as that
for me it shows plainly that our beautiful hour on the sandshore meant
nothing to him and I am not going to think about him or it again.

"Fred Arnold was at the manse and walked home with me. He is the new
Methodist minister's son and very nice and clever, and would be quite
handsome if it were not for his nose. It is a really dreadful nose. When he
talks of commonplace things it does not matter so much, but when he talks
of poetry and ideals the contrast between his nose and his conversation is
too much for me and I want to shriek with laughter. It is really not fair,
because everything he said was perfectly charming and if somebody like
Kenneth had said it I would have been enraptured. When I listened to him
with my eyes cast down I was quite fascinated; but as soon as I looked up
and saw his nose the spell was broken. He wants to enlist, too, but can't
because he is only seventeen. Mrs. Elliott met us as we were walking
through the village and could not have looked more horrified if she caught
me walking with the Kaiser himself. Mrs. Elliott detests the Methodists and
all their works. Father says it is an obsession with her."

About 1st September there was an exodus from Ingleside and the manse.
Faith, Nan, Di and Walter left for Redmond; Carl betook himself to his
Harbour Head school and Shirley was off to Queen's. Rilla was left alone at
Ingleside and would have been very lonely if she had had time to be. She
missed Walter keenly; since their talk in Rainbow Valley they had grown
very near together and Rilla discussed problems with Walter which she
never mentioned to others. But she was so busy with the Junior Reds and
her baby that there was rarely a spare minute for loneliness; sometimes,
after she went to bed, she cried a little in her pillow over Walter's absence

and Jem at Valcartier and Kenneth's unromantic farewell message, but she
was generally asleep before the tears got fairly started.

"Shall I make arrangements to have the baby sent to Hopetown?" the
doctor asked one day two weeks after the baby's arrival at Ingleside.

For a moment Rilla was tempted to say "Yes." The baby could be sent to
Hopetown—it would be decently looked after—she could have her free
days and untrammelled nights back again. But—but—that poor young
mother who hadn't wanted it to go to the asylum! Rilla couldn't get that out
of her thoughts. And that very morning she discovered that the baby had
gained eight ounces since its coming to Ingleside. Rilla had felt such a thrill
of pride over this.

"You—you said it mightn't live if it went to Hopetown," she said.

"It mightn't. Somehow, institutional care, no matter how good it may be,
doesn't always succeed with delicate babies. But you know what it means if
you want it kept here, Rilla."

"I've taken care of it for a fortnight—and it has gained half a pound,"
cried Rilla. "I think we'd better wait until we hear from its father anyhow.
He mightn't want to have it sent to an orphan asylum, when he is fighting
the battles of his country."

The doctor and Mrs. Blythe exchanged amused, satisfied smiles behind
Rilla's back; and nothing more was said about Hopetown.

Then the smile faded from the doctor's face; the Germans were twenty
miles from Paris. Horrible tales were beginning to appear in the papers of
deeds done in martyred Belgium. Life was very tense at Ingleside for the
older people.

"We eat up the war news," Gertrude Oliver told Mrs. Meredith, trying to
laugh and failing. "We study the maps and nip the whole Hun army in a few
well-directed strategic moves. But Papa Joffre hasn't the benefit of our
advice—and so Paris—must—fall."

"Will they reach it—will not some mighty hand yet intervene?"
murmured John Meredith.

"I teach school like one in a dream," continued Gertrude; "then I come
home and shut myself in my room and walk the floor. I am wearing a path
right across Nan's carpet. We are so horribly near this war."

"Them German men are at Senlis. Nothing nor nobody can save Paris
now," wailed Cousin Sophia. Cousin Sophia had taken to reading the
newspapers and had learned more about the geography of northern France,
if not about the pronunciation of French names, in her seventy-first year
than she had ever known in her schooldays.

"I have not such a poor opinion of the Almighty, or of Kitchener," said
Susan stubbornly. "I see there is a Bernstoff man in the States who says that
the war is over and Germany has won—and they tell me Whiskers-on-the-
moon says the same thing and is quite pleased about it, but I could tell them
both that it is chancy work counting chickens even the day before they are
hatched, and bears have been known to live long after their skins were
sold."

"Why ain't the British navy doing more?" persisted Cousin Sophia.

"Even the British navy cannot sail on dry land, Sophia Crawford. I have
not given up hope, and I shall not, Tomascow and Mobbage and all such
barbarous names to the contrary notwithstanding. Mrs. Dr. dear, can you tell
me if R-h-e-i-m-s is Rimes or Reems or Rames or Rems?"

"I believe it's really more like 'Rhangs,' Susan."

"Oh, those French names," groaned Susan.

"They tell me the Germans has about ruined the church there," sighed
Cousin Sophia. "I always thought the Germans was Christians."

"A church is bad enough but their doings in Belgium are far worse," said
Susan grimly. "When I heard the doctor reading about them bayonetting the
babies, Mrs. Dr. dear, I just thought, 'Oh, what if it were our little Jem!' I

was stirring the soup when that thought came to me and I just felt that if I
could have lifted that saucepan full of that boiling soup and thrown it at the
Kaiser I would not have lived in vain."

"Tomorrow—tomorrow—will bring the news that the Germans are in
Paris," said Gertrude Oliver, through her tense lips. She had one of those
souls that are always tied to the stake, burning in the suffering of the world
around them. Apart from her own personal interest in the war, she was
racked by the thought of Paris falling into the ruthless hands of the hordes
who had burned Louvain and ruined the wonder of Rheims.

But on the morrow and the next morrow came the news of the miracle of
the Marne. Rilla rushed madly home from the office waving the Enterprise
with its big red headlines. Susan ran out with trembling hands to hoist the
flag. The doctor stalked about muttering "Thank God." Mrs. Blythe cried
and laughed and cried again.

"God just put out His hand and touched them—'thus far—no farther',"
said Mr. Meredith that evening.

Rilla was singing upstairs as she put the baby to bed. Paris was saved—
the war was over—Germany had lost—there would soon be an end now—
Jem and Jerry would be back. The black clouds had rolled by.

"Don't you dare have colic this joyful night," she told the baby. "If you
do I'll clap you back into your soup tureen and ship you off to Hopetown—
by freight—on the early train. You have got beautiful eyes—and you're not
quite as red and wrinkled as you were—but you haven't a speck of hair—
and your hands are like little claws—and I don't like you a bit better than I
ever did. But I hope your poor little white mother knows that you're tucked
in a soft basket with a bottle of milk as rich as Morgan allows instead of
perishing by inches with old Meg Conover. And I hope she doesn't know
that I nearly drowned you that first morning when Susan wasn't there and I
let you slip right out of my hands into the water. Why will you be so
slippery? No, I don't like you and I never will but for all that I'm going to
make a decent, upstanding infant of you. You are going to get as fat as a
self-respecting child should be, for one thing. I am not going to have people
saying 'what a puny little thing that baby of Rilla Blythe's is' as old Mrs.

Drew said at the senior Red Cross yesterday. If I can't love you I mean to be
proud of you at least."

CHAPTER IX

DOC HAS A MISADVENTURE

"The war will not be over before next spring now," said Dr. Blythe, when
it became apparent that the long battle of the Aisne had resulted in a
stalemate.

Rilla was murmuring "knit four, purl one" under her breath, and rocking
the baby's cradle with one foot. Morgan disapproved of cradles for babies
but Susan did not, and it was worth while to make some slight sacrifice of
principle to keep Susan in good humour. She laid down her knitting for a
moment and said, "Oh, how can we bear it so long?"—then picked up her
sock and went on. The Rilla of two months before would have rushed off to
Rainbow Valley and cried.

Miss Oliver sighed and Mrs. Blythe clasped her hands for a moment.
Then Susan said briskly, "Well, we must just gird up our loins and pitch in.
Business as usual is England's motto, they tell me, Mrs. Dr. dear, and I have
taken it for mine, not thinking I could easily find a better. I shall make the
same kind of pudding today I always make on Saturday. It is a good deal of
trouble to make, and that is well, for it will employ my thoughts. I will
remember that Kitchener is at the helm and Joffer is doing very well for a
Frenchman. I shall get that box of cake off to little Jem and finish that pair
of socks today likewise. A sock a day is my allowance. Old Mrs. Albert
Mead of Harbour Head manages a pair and a half a day but she has nothing
to do but knit. You know, Mrs. Dr. dear, she has been bed-rid for years and
she has been worrying terrible because she was no good to anybody and a
dreadful expense, and yet could not die and be out of the way. And now
they tell me she is quite chirked up and resigned to living because there is

something she can do, and she knits for the soldiers from daylight to dark.
Even Cousin Sophia has taken to knitting, Mrs. Dr. dear, and it is a good
thing, for she cannot think of quite so many doleful speeches to make when
her hands are busy with her needles instead of being folded on her stomach.
She thinks we will all be Germans this time next year but I tell her it will
take more than a year to make a German out of me. Do you know that Rick
MacAllister has enlisted, Mrs. Dr. dear? And they say Joe Milgrave would
too, only he is afraid that if he does that Whiskers-on-the-moon will not let
him have Miranda. Whiskers says that he will believe the stories of German
atrocities when he sees them, and that it is a good thing that Rangs
Cathedral has been destroyed because it was a Roman Catholic church.
Now, I am not a Roman Catholic, Mrs. Dr. dear, being born and bred a good
Presbyterian and meaning to live and die one, but I maintain that the
Catholics have as good a right to their churches as we have to ours and that
the Huns had no kind of business to destroy them. Just think, Mrs. Dr.
dear," concluded Susan pathetically, "how we would feel if a German shell
knocked down the spire of our church here in the glen, and I'm sure it is
every bit as bad to think of Rangs cathedral being hammered to pieces."

And, meanwhile, everywhere, the lads of the world rich and poor, low
and high, white and brown, were following the Piper's call.

"Even Billy Andrews' boy is going—and Jane's only son—and Diana's
little Jack," said Mrs. Blythe. "Priscilla's son has gone from Japan and
Stella's from Vancouver—and both the Rev. Jo's boys. Philippa writes that
her boys 'went right away, not being afflicted with her indecision.'"

"Jem says that he thinks they will be leaving very soon now, and that he
will not be able to get leave to come so far before they go, as they will have
to start at a few hours' notice," said the doctor, passing the letter to his wife.

"That is not fair," said Susan indignantly. "Has Sir Sam Hughes no
regard for our feelings? The idea of whisking that blessed boy away to
Europe without letting us even have a last glimpse of him! If I were you,
doctor dear, I would write to the papers about it."

"Perhaps it is as well," said the disappointed mother. "I don't believe I
could bear another parting from him—now that I know the war will not be

over as soon as we hoped when he left first. Oh, if only—but no, I won't say
it! Like Susan and Rilla," concluded Mrs. Blythe, achieving a laugh, "I am
determined to be a heroine."

"You're all good stuff," said the doctor, "I'm proud of my women folk.
Even Rilla here, my 'lily of the field,' is running a Red Cross Society full
blast and saving a little life for Canada. That's a good piece of work. Rilla,
daughter of Anne, what are you going to call your war-baby?"

"I'm waiting to hear from Jim Anderson," said Rilla. "He may want to
name his own child."

But as the autumn weeks went by no word came from Jim Anderson,
who had never been heard from since he sailed from Halifax, and to whom
the fate of wife and child seemed a matter of indifference. Eventually Rilla
decided to call the baby James, and Susan opined that Kitchener should be
added thereto. So James Kitchener Anderson became the possessor of a
name somewhat more imposing than himself. The Ingleside family
promptly shortened it to Jims, but Susan obstinately called him "Little
Kitchener" and nothing else.

"Jims is no name for a Christian child, Mrs. Dr. dear," she said
disapprovingly. "Cousin Sophia says it is too flippant, and for once I
consider she utters sense, though I would not please her by openly agreeing
with her. As for the child, he is beginning to look something like a baby,
and I must admit that Rilla is wonderful with him, though I would not
pamper pride by saying so to her face. Mrs. Dr. dear, I shall never, no never,
forget the first sight I had of that infant, lying in that big soup tureen, rolled
up in dirty flannel. It is not often that Susan Baker is flabbergasted, but
flabbergasted I was then, and that you may tie to. For one awful moment I
thought my mind had given way and that I was seeing visions. Then thinks
I, 'No, I never heard of anyone having a vision of a soup tureen, so it must
be real at least,' and I plucked up confidence. When I heard the doctor tell
Rilla that she must take care of the baby I thought he was joking, for I did
not believe for a minute she would or could do it. But you see what has
happened and it is making a woman of her. When we have to do a thing,
Mrs. Dr. dear, we can do it."

Susan added another proof to this concluding dictum of hers one day in
October. The doctor and his wife were away. Rilla was presiding over Jims'
afternoon siesta upstairs, purling four and knitting one with ceaseless vim.
Susan was seated on the back veranda, shelling beans, and Cousin Sophia
was helping her. Peace and tranquility brooded over the Glen; the sky was
fleeced over with silvery, shining clouds. Rainbow Valley lay in a soft,
autumnal haze of fairy purple. The maple grove was a burning bush of
colour and the hedge of sweet-briar around the kitchen yard was a thing of
wonder in its subtle tintings. It did not seem that strife could be in the
world, and Susan's faithful heart was lulled into a brief forgetfulness,
although she had lain awake most of the preceding night thinking of little
Jem far out on the Atlantic, where the great fleet was carrying Canada's first
army across the ocean. Even Cousin Sophia looked less melancholy than
usual and admitted that there was not much fault to be found in the day,
although there was no doubt it was a weather-breeder and there would be an
awful storm on its heels.

"Things is too calm to last," she said.

As if in confirmation of her assertion, a most unearthly din suddenly
arose behind them. It was quite impossible to describe the confused medley
of bangs and rattles and muffled shrieks and yowls that proceeded from the
kitchen, accompanied by occasional crashes. Susan and Cousin Sophia
stared at each other in dismay.

"What upon airth has bruk loose in there?" gasped Cousin Sophia.

"It must be that Hyde-cat gone clean mad at last," muttered Susan. "I
have always expected it."

Rilla came flying out of the side door of the living-room.

"What has happened?" she demanded.

"It is beyond me to say, but that possessed beast of yours is evidently at
the bottom of it," said Susan. "Do not go near him, at least. I will open the
door and peep in. There goes some more of the crockery. I have always said
that the devil was in him and that I will tie to."

"It is my opinion that the cat has hydrophobia," said Cousin Sophia
solemnly. "I once heard of a cat that went mad and bit three people—and
they all died a most terrible death, and turned black as ink."

Undismayed by this, Susan opened the door and looked in. The floor was
littered with fragments of broken dishes, for it seemed that the fatal tragedy
had taken place on the long dresser where Susan's array of cooking bowls
had been marshalled in shining state. Around the kitchen tore a frantic cat,
with his head wedged tightly in an old salmon can. Blindly he careered
about with shrieks and profanity commingled, now banging the can madly
against anything he encountered, now trying vainly to wrench it off with his
paws.

The sight was so funny that Rilla doubled up with laughter. Susan looked
at her reproachfully.

"I see nothing to laugh at. That beast has broken your ma's big blue
mixing-bowl that she brought from Green Gables when she was married.
That is no small calamity, in my opinion. But the thing to consider now is
how to get that can off Hyde's head."

"Don't you dast go touching it," exclaimed Cousin Sophia, galvanized
into animation. "It might be your death. Shut the kitchen up and send for
Albert."

"I am not in the habit of sending for Albert during family difficulties,"
said Susan loftily. "That beast is in torment, and whatever my opinion of
him may be, I cannot endure to see him suffering pain. You keep away,
Rilla, for little Kitchener's sake, and I will see what I can do."

Susan stalked undauntedly into the kitchen, seized an old storm coat of
the doctor's and after a wild pursuit and several fruitless dashes and
pounces, managed to throw it over the cat and can. Then she proceeded to
saw the can loose with a can-opener, while Rilla held the squirming animal,
rolled in the coat. Anything like Doc's shrieks while the process was going
on was never heard at Ingleside. Susan was in mortal dread that the Albert
Crawfords would hear it and conclude she was torturing the creature to
death. Doc was a wrathful and indignant cat when he was freed. Evidently

he thought the whole thing was a put-up job to bring him low. He gave
Susan a baleful glance by way of gratitude and rushed out of the kitchen to
take sanctuary in the jungle of the sweet-briar hedge, where he sulked for
the rest of the day. Susan swept up her broken dishes grimly.

"The Huns themselves couldn't have worked more havoc here," she said
bitterly. "But when people will keep a Satanic animal like that, in spite of
all warnings, they cannot complain when their wedding bowls get broken.
Things have come to a pretty pass when an honest woman cannot leave her
kitchen for a few minutes without a fiend of a cat rampaging through it with
his head in a salmon can."

CHAPTER X

THE TROUBLES OF RILLA

October passed out and the dreary days of November and December
dragged by. The world shook with the thunder of contending armies;
Antwerp fell—Turkey declared war—gallant little Serbia gathered herself
together and struck a deadly blow at her oppressor; and in quiet, hill-girdled
Glen St. Mary, thousands of miles away, hearts beat with hope and fear over
the varying dispatches from day to day.

"A few months ago," said Miss Oliver, "we thought and talked in terms
of Glen St. Mary. Now, we think and talk in terms of military tactics and
diplomatic intrigue."

There was just one great event every day—the coming of the mail. Even
Susan admitted that from the time the mail-courier's buggy rumbled over
the little bridge between the station and the village until the papers were
brought home and read, she could not work properly.

"I must take up my knitting then and knit hard till the papers come, Mrs.
Dr. dear. Knitting is something you can do, even when your heart is going
like a trip-hammer and the pit of your stomach feels all gone and your
thoughts are catawampus. Then when I see the headlines, be they good or
be they bad, I calm down and am able to go about my business again. It is
an unfortunate thing that the mail comes in just when our dinner rush is on,
and I think the Government could arrange things better. But the drive on
Calais has failed, as I felt perfectly sure it would, and the Kaiser will not eat
his Christmas dinner in London this year. Do you know, Mrs. Dr. dear,"—
Susan's voice lowered as a token that she was going to impart a very
shocking piece of information,—"I have been told on good authority—or
else you may be sure I would not be repeating it when it concerns a minster
—that the Rev. Mr. Arnold goes to Charlottetown every week and takes a
Turkish bath for his rheumatism. The idea of him doing that when we are at
war with Turkey? One of his own deacons has always insisted that Mr.
Arnold's theology was not sound and I am beginning to believe that there is
some reason to fear it. Well, I must bestir myself this afternoon and get little
Jem's Christmas cake packed up for him. He will enjoy it, if the blessed boy
is not drowned in mud before that time."

Jem was in camp on Salisbury Plain and was writing gay, cheery letters
home in spite of the mud. Walter was at Redmond and his letters to Rilla
were anything but cheerful. She never opened one without a dread tugging
at her heart that it would tell her he had enlisted. His unhappiness made her
unhappy. She wanted to put her arm round him and comfort him, as she had
done that day in Rainbow Valley. She hated everybody who was responsible
for Walter's unhappiness.

"He will go yet," she murmured miserably to herself one afternoon, as
she sat alone in Rainbow Valley, reading a letter from him, "he will go yet
—and if he does I just can't bear it."

Walter wrote that some one had sent him an envelope containing a white
feather.

"I deserved it, Rilla. I felt that I ought to put it on and wear it—
proclaiming myself to all Redmond the coward I know I am. The boys of
my year are going—going. Every day two or three of them join up. Some

days I almost make up my mind to do it—and then I see myself thrusting a
bayonet through another man—some woman's husband or sweetheart or son
—perhaps the father of little children—I see myself lying alone torn and
mangled, burning with thirst on a cold, wet field, surrounded by dead and
dying men—and I know I never can. I can't face even the thought of it. How
could I face the reality? There are times when I wish I had never been born.
Life has always seemed such a beautiful thing to me—and now it is a
hideous thing. Rilla-my-Rilla, if it weren't for your letters—your dear,
bright, merry, funny, comical, believing letters—I think I'd give up. And
Una's! Una is really a little brick, isn't she? There's a wonderful fineness
and firmness under all that shy, wistful girlishness of her. She hasn't your
knack of writing laugh-provoking epistles, but there's something in her
letters—I don't know what—that makes me feel at least while I'm reading
them, that I could even go to the front. Not that she ever says a word about
my going—or hints that I ought to go—she isn't that kind. It's just the spirit
of them—the personality that is in them. Well, I can't go. You have a brother
and Una has a friend who is a coward."

"Oh, I wish Walter wouldn't write such things," sighed Rilla. "It hurts
me. He isn't a coward—he isn't—he isn't!"

She looked wistfully about her—at the little woodland valley and the
grey, lonely fallows beyond. How everything reminded her of Walter! The
red leaves still clung to the wild sweet-briars that overhung a curve of the
brook; their stems were gemmed with the pearls of the gentle rain that had
fallen a little while before. Walter had once written a poem describing them.
The wind was sighing and rustling among the frosted brown bracken ferns,
then lessening sorrowfully away down the brook. Walter had said once that
he loved the melancholy of the autumn wind on a November day. The old
Tree Lovers still clasped each other in a faithful embrace, and the White
Lady, now a great white-branched tree, stood out beautifully fine, against
the grey velvet sky. Walter had named them long ago; and last November,
when he had walked with her and Miss Oliver in the Valley, he had said,
looking at the leafless Lady, with a young silver moon hanging over her, "A
white birch is a beautiful Pagan maiden who has never lost the Eden secret
of being naked and unashamed." Miss Oliver had said, "Put that into a
poem, Walter," and he had done so, and read it to them the next day—just a

short thing with goblin imagination in every line of it. Oh, how happy they
had been then!

Well—Rilla scrambled to her feet—time was up. Jims would soon be
awake—his lunch had to be prepared—his little slips had to be ironed—
there was a committee meeting of the Junior Reds that night—there was her
new knitting bag to finish—it would be the handsomest bag in the Junior
Society—handsomer even than Irene Howard's—she must get home and get
to work. She was busy these days from morning till night. That little
monkey of a Jims took so much time. But he was growing—he was
certainly growing. And there were times when Rilla felt sure that it was not
merely a pious hope but an absolute fact that he was getting decidedly
better looking. Sometimes she felt quite proud of him; and sometimes she
yearned to spank him. But she never kissed him or wanted to kiss him.

"The Germans captured Lodz today," said Miss Oliver, one December
evening, when she, Mrs. Blythe, and Susan were busy sewing or knitting in
the cosy living-room. "This war is at least extending my knowledge of
geography. Schoolma'am though I am, three months ago I didn't know there
was such a place in the world such as Lodz. Had I heard it mentioned I
would have known nothing about it and cared as little. I know all about it
now—its size, its standing, its military significance. Yesterday the news that
the Germans have captured it in their second rush to Warsaw made my heart
sink into my boots. I woke up in the night and worried over it. I don't
wonder babies always cry when they wake up in the night. Everything
presses on my soul then and no cloud has a silver lining."

"When I wake up in the night and cannot go to sleep again," remarked
Susan, who was knitting and reading at the same time, "I pass the moments
by torturing the Kaiser to death. Last night I fried him in boiling oil and a
great comfort it was to me, remembering those Belgian babies."

"If the Kaiser were here and had a pain in his shoulder you'd be the first
to run for the liniment bottle to rub him down," laughed Miss Oliver.

"Would I?" cried outraged Susan. "Would I, Miss Oliver? I would rub
him down with coal oil, Miss Oliver—and leave it to blister. That is what I

would do and that you may tie to. A pain in his shoulder, indeed! He will
have pains all over him before he is through with what he has started."

"We are told to love our enemies, Susan," said the doctor solemnly.

"Yes, our enemies, but not King George's enemies, doctor dear," retorted
Susan crushingly. She was so well pleased with herself over this flattening
out of the doctor completely that she even smiled as she polished her
glasses. Susan had never given in to glasses before, but she had done so at
last in order to be able to read the war news—and not a dispatch got by her.
"Can you tell me, Miss Oliver, how to pronounce M-l-a-w-a and B-z-u-r-a
and P-r-z-e-m-y-s-l?"

"That last is a conundrum which nobody seems to have solved yet,
Susan. And I can make only a guess at the others."

"These foreign names are far from being decent, in my opinion," said
disgusted Susan.

"I dare say the Austrians and Russians would think Saskatchewan and
Musquodoboit about as bad, Susan," said Miss Oliver. "The Serbians have
done wonderfully of late. They have captured Belgrade."

"And sent the Austrian creatures packing across the Danube with a flea
in their ear," said Susan with a relish, as she settled down to examine a map
of Eastern Europe, prodding each locality with the knitting needle to brand
it on her memory. "Cousin Sophia said awhile ago that Serbia was done for,
but I told her there was still such a thing as an over-ruling Providence,
doubt it who might. It says here that the slaughter was terrible. For all they
were foreigners it is awful to think of so many men being killed, Mrs. Dr.
dear—for they are scarce enough as it is."

Rilla was upstairs relieving her over-charged feelings by writing in her
diary.

"Things have all 'gone catawampus,' as Susan says, with me this week.
Part of it was my own fault and part of it wasn't, and I seem to be equally
unhappy over both parts.

"I went to town the other day to buy a new winter hat. It was the first
time nobody insisted on coming with me to help me select it, and I felt that
mother had really given up thinking of me as a child. And I found the
dearest hat—it was simply bewitching. It was a velvet hat, of the very shade
of rich green that was made for me. It just goes with my hair and
complexion beautifully, bringing out the red-brown shades and what Miss
Oliver calls my 'creaminess' so well. Only once before in my life have I
come across that precise shade of green. When I was twelve I had a little
beaver hat of it, and all the girls in school were wild over it. Well, as soon
as I saw this hat I felt that I simply must have it—and have it I did. The
price was dreadful. I will not put it down here because I don't want my
descendants to know I was guilty of paying so much for a hat, in war-time,
too, when everybody is—or should be—trying to be economical.

"When I got home and tried on the hat again in my room I was assailed
by qualms. Of course, it was very becoming; but somehow it seemed too
elaborate and fussy for church going and our quiet little doings in the Glen
—too conspicuous, in short. It hadn't seemed so at the milliner's but here in
my little white room it did. And that dreadful price tag! And the starving
Belgians! When mother saw the hat and the tag she just looked at me.
Mother is some expert at looking. Father says she looked him into love with
her years ago in Avonlea school and I can well believe it—though I have
heard a weird tale of her banging him over the head with a slate at the very
beginning of their acquaintance. Mother was a limb when she was a little
girl, I understand, and even up to the time when Jem went away she was
full of ginger. But let me return to my mutton—that is to say, my new green
velvet hat.

"'Do you think, Rilla,' mother said quietly—far too quietly—'that it was
right to spend so much for a hat, especially when the need of the world is so
great?'

"'I paid for it out of my own allowance, mother,' I exclaimed.

"'That is not the point. Your allowance is based on the principle of a
reasonable amount for each thing you need. If you pay too much for one
thing you must cut off somewhere else and that is not satisfactory. But if

you think you did right, Rilla, I have no more to say. I leave it to your
conscience.'

"I wish mother would not leave things to my conscience! And anyway,
what was I to do? I couldn't take that hat back—I had worn it to a concert in
town—I had to keep it! I was so uncomfortable that I flew into a temper—a
cold, calm, deadly temper.

"'Mother,' I said haughtily, 'I am sorry you disapprove of my hat—'

"'Not of the hat exactly,' said mother, 'though I consider it in doubtful
taste for so young a girl—but of the price you paid for it.'

"Being interrupted didn't improve my temper, so I went on, colder and
calmer and deadlier than ever, just as if mother had not spoken.

"'—but I have to keep it now. However, I promise you that I will not get
another hat for three years or for the duration of the war, if it lasts longer
than that. Even you'—oh, the sarcasm I put into the 'you'—'cannot say that
what I paid was too much when spread over at least three years.'

"'You will be very tired of that hat before three years, Rilla,' said mother,
with a provoking grin, which, being interpreted, meant that I wouldn't stick
it out.

"'Tired or not, I will wear it that long,' I said: and then I marched upstairs
and cried to think that I had been sarcastic to mother.

"I hate that hat already. But three years or the duration of the war, I said,
and three years or the duration of the war it shall be. I vowed and I shall
keep my vow, cost what it will.

"That is one of the 'catawampus' things. The other is that I have
quarrelled with Irene Howard—or she quarrelled with me—or, no, we both
quarrelled.

"The Junior Red Cross met here yesterday. The hour of meeting was
half-past two but Irene came at half-past one, because she got the chance of

a drive down from the Upper Glen. Irene hasn't been a bit nice to me since
the fuss about the eats; and besides I feel sure she resents not being
president. But I have been determined that things should go smoothly, so I
have never taken any notice, and when she came yesterday she seemed so
nice and sweet again that I hoped she had got over her huffiness and we
could be the chums we used to be.

"But as soon as we sat down Irene began to rub me the wrong way. I saw
her cast a look at my new knitting-bag. All the girls have always said Irene
was jealous-minded and I would never believe them before. But now I feel
that perhaps she is.

"The first thing she did was to pounce on Jims—Irene pretends to adore
babies—pick him out of his cradle and kiss him all over his face. Now,
Irene knows perfectly well that I don't like to have Jims kissed like that. It is
not hygienic. After she had worried him till he began to fuss, she looked at
me and gave quite a nasty little laugh but she said, oh, so sweetly,

"'Why, Rilla, darling, you look as if you thought I was poisoning the
baby.'

"'Oh, no, I don't, Irene,' I said—every bit as sweetly, 'but you know
Morgan says that the only place a baby should be kissed is on its forehead,
for fear of germs, and that is my rule with Jims.'

"'Dear me, am I so full of germs?' said Irene plaintively. I knew she was
making fun of me and I began to boil inside—but outside no sign of a
simmer. I was determined I would not scrap with Irene.

"Then she began to bounce Jims. Now, Morgan says bouncing is almost
the worst thing that can be done to a baby. I never allow Jims to be
bounced. But Irene bounced him and that exasperating child liked it. He
smiled—for the very first time. He is four months old and he has never
smiled once before. Not even mother or Susan have been able to coax that
thing to smile, try as they would. And here he was smiling because Irene
Howard bounced him! Talk of gratitude!

"I admit that smile made a big difference in him. Two of the dearest
dimples came out in his cheeks and his big brown eyes seemed full of
laughter. The way Irene raved over those dimples was silly, I consider. You
would have supposed she thought she had really brought them into
existence. But I sewed steadily and did not enthuse, and soon Irene got tired
of bouncing Jims and put him back in his cradle. He did not like that after
being played with, and he began to cry and was fussy the rest of the
afternoon, whereas if Irene had only left him alone he would not have been
a bit of trouble.

"Irene looked at him and said, 'Does he often cry like that?' as if she had
never heard a baby crying before.

"I explained patiently that children have to cry so many minutes per day
in order to expand their lungs. Morgan says so.

"'If Jims didn't cry at all I'd have to make him cry for at least twenty
minutes,' I said.

"'Oh, indeed!' said Irene, laughing as if she didn't believe me. 'Morgan
on the Care of Infants' was upstairs or I would soon have convinced her.
Then she said Jims didn't have much hair—she had never seen a four
months' old baby so bald.

"Of course, I knew Jims hadn't much hair—yet; but Irene said it in a tone
that seemed to imply it was my fault that he hadn't any hair. I said I had
seen dozens of babies every bit as bald as Jims, and Irene said, Oh very
well, she hadn't meant to offend me—when I wasn't offended.

"It went on like that the rest of the hour—Irene kept giving me little digs
all the time. The girls have always said she was revengeful like that if she
were peeved about anything; but I never believed it before; I used to think
Irene just perfect, and it hurt me dreadfully to find she could stoop to this.
But I corked up my feelings and sewed away for dear life on a Belgian
child's nightgown.

"Then Irene told me the meanest, most contemptible thing that someone
had said about Walter. I won't write it down—I can't. Of course, she said it

made her furious to hear it and all that—but there was no need for her to tell
me such a thing even if she did hear it. She simply did it to hurt me.

"I just exploded. 'How dare you come here and repeat such a thing about
my brother, Irene Howard?' I exclaimed. 'I shall never forgive you—never.
Your brother hasn't enlisted—hasn't any idea of enlisting.'

"'Why Rilla, dear, I didn't say it,' said Irene. 'I told you it was Mrs.
George Burr. And I told her—'

"'I don't want to hear what you told her. Don't you ever speak to me
again, Irene Howard.'

"Oh course, I shouldn't have said that. But it just seemed to say itself.
Then the other girls all came in a bunch and I had to calm down and act the
hostess' part as well as I could. Irene paired off with Olive Kirk all the rest
of the afternoon and went away without so much as a look. So I suppose
she means to take me at my word and I don't care, for I do not want to be
friends with a girl who could repeat such a falsehood about Walter. But I
feel unhappy over it for all that. We've always been such good chums and
until lately Irene was lovely to me; and now another illusion has been
stripped from my eyes and I feel as if there wasn't such a thing as real true
friendship in the world.

"Father got old Joe Mead to build a kennel for Dog Monday in the
corner of the shipping-shed today. We thought perhaps Monday would
come home when the cold weather came but he wouldn't. No earthly
influence can coax Monday away from that shed even for a few minutes.
There he stays and meets every train. So we had to do something to make
him comfortable. Joe built the kennel so that Monday could lie in it and still
see the platform, so we hope he will occupy it.

"Monday has become quite famous. A reporter of the Enterprise came
out from town and photographed him and wrote up the whole story of his
faithful vigil. It was published in the Enterprise and copied all over Canada.
But that doesn't matter to poor little Monday, Jem has gone away—Monday
doesn't know where or why—but he will wait until he comes back.

Somehow it comforts me: it's foolish, I suppose, but it gives me a feeling
that Jem will come back or else Monday wouldn't keep on waiting for him.

"Jims is snoring beside me in his cradle. It is just a cold that makes him
snore—not adenoids. Irene had a cold yesterday and I know she gave it to
him, kissing him. He is not quite such a nuisance as he was; he has got
some backbone and can sit up quite nicely, and he loves his bath now and
splashes unsmilingly in the water instead of twisting and shrieking. Oh,
shall I ever forget those first two months! I don't know how I lived through
them. But here I am and here is Jims and we both are going to 'carry on.' I
tickled him a little bit tonight when I undressed him—I wouldn't bounce
him but Morgan doesn't mention tickling—just to see if he would smile for
me as well as Irene. And he did—and out popped the dimples. What a pity
his mother couldn't have seen them!

"I finished my sixth pair of socks today. With the first three I got Susan
to set the heel for me. Then I thought that was a bit of shirking, so I learned
to do it myself. I hate it—but I have done so many things I hate since 4th of
August that one more or less doesn't matter. I just think of Jem joking about
the mud on Salisbury Plain and I go at them."

CHAPTER XI

DARK AND BRIGHT

At Christmas the college boys and girls came home and for a little while
Ingleside was gay again. But all were not there—for the first time one was
missing from the circle round the Christmas table. Jem, of the steady lips
and fearless eyes, was far away, and Rilla felt that the sight of his vacant
chair was more than she could endure. Susan had taken a stubborn freak
and insisted on setting out Jem's place for him as usual, with the twisted
little napkin ring he had always had since a boy, and the odd, high Green

Gables goblet that Aunt Marilla had once given him and from which he
always insisted on drinking.

"That blessed boy shall have his place, Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan firmly,
"and do not you feel over it, for you may be sure he is here in spirit and
next Christmas he will be here in the body. Wait you till the Big Push comes
in the spring and the war will be over in a jiffy."

They tried to think so, but a shadow stalked in the background of their
determined merrymaking. Walter, too, was quiet and dull, all through the
holidays. He showed Rilla a cruel, anonymous letter he had received at
Redmond—a letter far more conspicuous for malice than for patriotic
indignation.

"Nevertheless, all it says is true, Rilla."

Rilla had caught it from him and thrown it into the fire.

"There isn't one word of truth in it," she declared hotly. "Walter, you've
got morbid—as Miss Oliver says she gets when she broods too long over
one thing."

"I can't get away from it at Redmond, Rilla. The whole college is aflame
over the war. A perfectly fit fellow, of military age, who doesn't join up is
looked upon as a shirker and treated accordingly. Dr. Milne, the English
professor, who has always made a special pet of me, has two sons in khaki;
and I can feel the change in his manner towards me."

"It's not fair—you're not fit."

"Physically I am. Sound as a bell. The unfitness is in the soul and it's a
taint and a disgrace. There, don't cry, Rilla. I'm not going if that's what
you're afraid of. The Piper's music rings in my ears day and night—but I
cannot follow."

"You would break mother's heart and mine if you did," sobbed Rilla.
"Oh, Walter, one is enough for any family."

The holidays were an unhappy time for her. Still, having Nan and Di and
Walter and Shirley home helped in the enduring of things. A letter and book
came for her from Kenneth Ford, too; some sentences in the letter made her
cheeks burn and her heart beat—until the last paragraph, which sent an icy
chill over everything.

"My ankle is about as good as new. I'll be fit to join up in a couple of
months more, Rilla-my-Rilla. It will be some feeling to get into khaki all
right. Little Ken will be able to look the whole world in the face then and
owe not any man. It's been rotten lately, since I've been able to walk without
limping. People who don't know look at me as much as to say 'Slacker!'
Well, they won't have the chance to look it much longer."

"I hate this war," said Rilla bitterly, as she gazed out into the maple
grove that was a chill glory of pink and gold in the winter sunset.

"Nineteen-fourteen has gone," said Dr. Blythe on New Year's Day. "Its
sun, which rose fairly, has set in blood. What will nineteen-fifteen bring?"

"Victory!" said Susan, for once laconic.

"Do you really believe we'll win the war, Susan?" said Miss Oliver
drearily. She had come over from Lowbridge to spend the day and see
Walter and the girls before they went back to Redmond. She was in a rather
blue and cynical mood and inclined to look on the dark side.

"'Believe' we'll win the war!" exclaimed Susan. "No, Miss Oliver, dear, I
do not believe—I know. That does not worry me. What does worry me is
the trouble and expense of it all. But then you cannot make omelets without
breaking eggs, so we must just trust in God and make big guns."

"Sometimes I think the big guns are better to trust in than God," said
Miss Oliver defiantly.

"No, no, dear, you do not. The Germans had the big guns at the Marne,
had they not? But Providence settled them. Do not ever forget that. Just
hold on to that when you feel inclined to doubt. Clutch hold of the sides of
your chair and sit tight and keep saying, 'Big guns are good but the

Almighty is better, and He is on our side, no matter what the Kaiser says
about it.' I would have gone crazy many a day lately, Miss Oliver, dear, if I
had not sat tight and repeated that to myself. My cousin Sophia is, like you,
somewhat inclined to despond. 'Oh, dear me, what will we do if the
Germans ever get here,' she wailed to me yesterday. 'Bury them,' said I, just
as off-hand as that. 'There is plenty of room for the graves.' Cousin Sophia
said that I was flippant but I was not flippant, Miss Oliver, dear, only calm
and confident in the British navy and our Canadian boys. I am like old Mr.
William Pollock of the Harbour Head. He is very old and has been ill for a
long time, and one night last week he was so low that his daughter-in-law
whispered to some one that she thought he was dead. 'Darn it, I ain't,' he
called right out—only, Miss Oliver, dear, he did not use so mild a word as
'darn'—'darn it, I ain't, and I don't mean to die until the Kaiser is well
licked.' Now, that, Miss Oliver, dear," concluded Susan, "is the kind of spirit
I admire."

"I admire it but I can't emulate it," sighed Gertrude. "Before this, I have
always been able to escape from the hard things of life for a little while by
going into dreamland, and coming back like a giant refreshed. But I can't
escape from this."

"Nor I," said Mrs. Blythe. "I hate going to bed now. All my life I've liked
going to bed, to have a gay, mad, splendid half-hour of imagining things
before sleeping. Now I imagine them still. But such different things."

"I am rather glad when the time comes to go to bed," said Miss Oliver. "I
like the darkness because I can be myself in it—I needn't smile or talk
bravely. But sometimes my imagination gets out of hand, too, and I see
what you do—terrible things—terrible years to come."

"I am very thankful that I never had any imagination to speak of," said
Susan. "I have been spared that. I see by this paper that the Crown Prince is
killed again. Do you suppose there is any hope of his staying dead this
time? And I also see that Woodrow Wilson is going to write another note. I
wonder," concluded Susan, with the bitter irony she had of late begun to use
when referring to the poor President, "if that man's schoolmaster is alive."

In January Jims was five months old and Rilla celebrated the anniversary
by shortening him.

"He weighs fourteen pounds," she announced jubilantly. "Just exactly
what he should weigh at five months, according to Morgan."

There was no longer any doubt in anybody's mind that Jims was getting
positively pretty. His little cheeks were round and firm and faintly pink, his
eyes were big and bright, his tiny paws had dimples at the root of every
finger. He had even begun to grow hair, much to Rilla's unspoken relief.
There was a pale golden fuzz all over his head that was distinctly visible in
some lights. He was a good infant, generally sleeping and digesting as
Morgan decreed. Occasionally he smiled but he had never laughed, in spite
of all efforts to make him. This worried Rilla also, because Morgan said that
babies usually laughed aloud from the third to the fifth month. Jims was
five months and had no notion of laughing. Why hadn't he? Wasn't he
normal?

One night Rilla came home late from a recruiting meeting at the Glen
where she had been giving patriotic recitations. Rilla had never been willing
to recite in public before. She was afraid of her tendency to lisp, which had
a habit of reviving if she were doing anything that made her nervous. When
she had first been asked to recite at the Upper Glen meeting she had
refused. Then she began to worry over her refusal. Was it cowardly? What
would Jem think if he knew? After two days of worry Rilla phoned to the
president of the Patriotic Society that she would recite. She did, and lisped
several times, and lay awake most of the night in an agony of wounded
vanity. Then two nights after she recited again at Harbour Head. She had
been at Lowbridge and over-harbour since then and had become resigned to
an occasional lisp. Nobody except herself seemed to mind it. And she was
so earnest and appealing and shining-eyed! More than one recruit joined up
because Rilla's eyes seemed to look right at him when she passionately
demanded how could men die better than fighting for the ashes of their
fathers and the temples of their gods, or assured her audience with thrilling
intensity that one crowded hour of glorious life was worth an age without a
name. Even stolid Miller Douglas was so fired one night that it took Mary
Vance a good hour to talk him back to sense. Mary Vance said bitterly that

if Rilla Blythe felt as bad as she had pretended to feel over Jem's going to
the front she wouldn't be urging other girls' brothers and friends to go.

On this particular night Rilla was tired and cold and very thankful to
creep into her warm nest and cuddle down between her blankets, though as
usual with a sorrowful wonder how Jem and Jerry were faring. She was just
getting warm and drowsy when Jims suddenly began to cry—and kept on
crying.

Rilla curled herself up in her bed and determined she would let him cry.
She had Morgan behind her for justification. Jims was warm, physically
comfortable—his cry wasn't the cry of pain—and had his little tummy as
full as was good for him. Under such circumstances it would be simply
spoiling him to fuss over him, and she wasn't going to do it. He could cry
until he got good and tired and ready to go to sleep again.

Then Rilla's imagination began to torment her. Suppose, she thought, I
was a tiny, helpless creature only five months old, with my father
somewhere in France and my poor little mother, who had been so worried
about me, in the graveyard. Suppose I was lying in a basket in a big, black
room, without one speck of light, and nobody within miles of me, for all I
could see or know. Suppose there wasn't a human being anywhere who
loved me—for a father who had never seen me couldn't love me very much,
especially when he had never written a word to or about me. Wouldn't I cry,
too? Wouldn't I feel just so lonely and forsaken and frightened that I'd have
to cry?

Rilla hopped out. She picked Jims out of his basket and took him into
her own bed. His hands were cold, poor mite. But he had promptly ceased
to cry. And then, as she held him close to her in the darkness, suddenly Jims
laughed—a real, gurgly, chuckly, delighted, delightful laugh.

"Oh, you dear little thing!" exclaimed Rilla. "Are you so pleased at
finding you're not all alone, lost in a huge, big, black room?" Then she
knew she wanted to kiss him and she did. She kissed his silky, scented little
head, she kissed his chubby little cheek, she kissed his little cold hands. She
wanted to squeeze him—to cuddle him, just as she used to squeeze and

cuddle her kittens. Something delightful and yearning and brooding seemed
to have taken possession of her. She had never felt like this before.

In a few minutes Jims was sound asleep; and, as Rilla listened to his soft,
regular breathing and felt the little body warm and contented against her,
she realized that—at last—she loved her war-baby.

"He has got to be—such—a—darling," she thought drowsily, as she
drifted off to slumberland herself.

In February Jem and Jerry and Robert Grant were in the trenches and a
little more tension and dread was added to the Ingleside life. In March
"Yiprez," as Susan called it, had come to have a bitter significance. The
daily list of casualties had begun to appear in the papers and no one at
Ingleside ever answered the telephone without a horrible cold shrinking—
for it might be the station-master phoning up to say a telegram had come
from overseas. No one at Ingleside ever got up in the morning without a
sudden piercing wonder over what the day might bring.

"And I used to welcome the mornings so," thought Rilla.

Yet the round of life and duty went steadily on and every week or so one
of the Glen lads who had just the other day been a rollicking schoolboy
went into khaki.

"It is bitter cold out tonight, Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan, coming in out of
the clear starlit crispness of the Canadian winter twilight. "I wonder if the
boys in the trenches are warm."

"How everything comes back to this war," cried Gertrude Oliver. "We
can't get away from it—not even when we talk of the weather. I never go
out these dark cold nights myself without thinking of the men in the
trenches—not only our men but everybody's men. I would feel the same if
there were nobody I knew at the front. When I snuggle down in my
comfortable bed I am ashamed of being comfortable. It seems as if it were
wicked of me to be so when many are not."

"I saw Mrs. Meredith down at the store," said Susan, "and she tells me
that they are really troubled over Bruce, he takes things so much to heart.
He has cried himself to sleep for a week, over the starving Belgians. 'Oh,
mother,' he will say to her, so beseeching-like, 'surely the babies are never
hungry—oh, not the babies, mother! Just say the babies are not hungry,
mother.' And she cannot say it because it would not be true, and she is at her
wits' end. They try to keep such things from him but he finds them out and
then they cannot comfort him. It breaks my heart to read about them myself,
Mrs. Dr. dear, and I cannot console myself with the thought that the tales
are not true. When I read a novel that makes me want to weep I just say
severely to myself, 'Now, Susan Baker, you know that is all a pack of lies.'
But we must carry on. Jack Crawford says he is going to the war because he
is tired of farming. I hope he will find it a pleasant change. And Mrs.
Richard Elliott over-harbour is worrying herself sick because she used to be
always scolding her husband about smoking up the parlour curtains. Now
that he has enlisted she wishes she had never said a word to him. You know
Josiah Cooper and William Daley, Mrs. Dr. dear. They used to be fast
friends but they quarrelled twenty years ago and have never spoken since.
Well, the other day Josiah went to William and said right out, 'Let us be
friends. 'Tain't any time to be holding grudges.' William was real glad and
held out his hand, and they sat down for a good talk. And in less than half
an hour they had quarrelled again, over how the war ought to be fought,
Josiah holding that the Dardanelles expedition was rank folly and William
maintaining that it was the one sensible thing the Allies had done. And now
they are madder at each other than ever and William says Josiah is as bad a
pro-German as Whiskers-on-the-Moon. Whiskers-on-the-moon vows he is
no pro-German but calls himself a pacifist, whatever that may be. It is
nothing proper or Whiskers would not be it and that you may tie to. He says
that the big British victory at New Chapelle cost more than it was worth and
he has forbid Joe Milgrave to come near the house because Joe ran up his
father's flag when the news came. Have you noticed, Mrs. Dr. dear, that the
Czar has changed that Prish name to Premysl, which proves that the man
had good sense, Russian though he is? Joe Vickers told me in the store that
he saw a very queer looking thing in the sky tonight over Lowbridge way.
Do you suppose it could have been a Zeppelin, Mrs. Dr. dear?"

"I do not think it very likely, Susan."

"Well, I would feel easier about it if Whiskers-on-the-moon were not
living in the Glen. They say he was seen going through strange manoeuvres
with a lantern in his back yard one night lately. Some people think he was
signalling."

"To whom—or what?"

"Ah, that is the mystery, Mrs. Dr. dear. In my opinion the Government
would do well to keep an eye on that man if it does not want us to be all
murdered in our beds some night. Now I shall just look over the papers a
minute before going to write a letter to little Jem. Two things I never did,
Mrs. Dr. dear, were write letters and read politics. Yet here I am doing both
regular and I find there is something in politics after all. Whatever
Woodrow Wilson means I cannot fathom but I am hoping I will puzzle it
out yet."

Susan, in her pursuit of Wilson and politics, presently came upon
something that disturbed her and exclaimed in a tone of bitter
disappointment,

"That devilish Kaiser has only a boil after all."

"Don't swear, Susan," said Dr. Blythe, pulling a long face.

"'Devilish' is not swearing, doctor, dear. I have always understood that
swearing was taking the name of the Almighty in vain?"

"Well, it isn't—ahem—refined," said the doctor, winking at Miss Oliver.

"No, doctor, dear, the devil and the Kaiser—if so be that they are really
two different people—are not refined. And you cannot refer to them in a
refined way. So I abide by what I said, although you may notice that I am
careful not to use such expressions when young Rilla is about. And I
maintain that the papers have no right to say that the Kaiser has pneumonia
and raise people's hopes, and then come out and say he has nothing but a
boil. A boil, indeed! I wish he was covered with them."

Susan stalked out to the kitchen and settled down to write to Jem;
deeming him in need of some home comfort from certain passages in his
letter that day.

"We're in an old wine cellar tonight, dad," he wrote, "in water to our
knees. Rats everywhere—no fire—a drizzling rain coming down—rather
dismal. But it might be worse. I got Susan's box today and everything was
in tip-top order and we had a feast. Jerry is up the line somewhere and he
says the rations are rather worse than Aunt Martha's ditto used to be. But
here they're not bad—only monotonous. Tell Susan I'd give a year's pay for
a good batch of her monkey-faces; but don't let that inspire her to send any
for they wouldn't keep.

"We have been under fire since the last week in February. One boy—he
was a Nova Scotian—was killed right beside me yesterday. A shell burst
near us and when the mess cleared away he was lying dead—not mangled
at all—he just looked a little startled. It was the first time I'd been close to
anything like that and it was a nasty sensation, but one soon gets used to
horrors here. We're in an absolutely different world. The only things that are
the same are the stars—and they are never in their right places, somehow.

"Tell mother not to worry—I'm all right—fit as a fiddle—and glad I
came. There's something across from us here that has got to be wiped out of
the world, that's all—an emanation of evil that would otherwise poison life
for ever. It's got to be done, dad, however long it takes, and whatever it
costs, and you tell the Glen people this for me. They don't realize yet what it
is has broken loose—I didn't when I first joined up. I thought it was fun.
Well, it isn't! But I'm in the right place all right—make no mistake about
that. When I saw what had been done here to homes and gardens and people
—well, dad, I seemed to see a gang of Huns marching through Rainbow
Valley and the Glen, and the garden at Ingleside. There were gardens over
here—beautiful gardens with the beauty of centuries—and what are they
now? Mangled, desecrated things! We are fighting to make those dear old
places where we had played as children, safe for other boys and girls—
fighting for the preservation and safety of all sweet, wholesome things.

"Whenever any of you go to the station be sure to give Dog Monday a
double pat for me. Fancy the faithful little beggar waiting there for me like

that! Honestly, dad, on some of these dark cold nights in the trenches, it
heartens and braces me up no end to think that thousands of miles away at
the old Glen station there is a small spotted dog sharing my vigil.

"Tell Rilla I'm glad her war-baby is turning out so well, and tell Susan
that I'm fighting a good fight against both Huns and cooties."

"Mrs. Dr. dear," whispered Susan solemnly, "what are cooties?"

Mrs. Blythe whispered back and then said in reply to Susan's horrified
ejaculations, "It's always like that in the trenches, Susan."

Susan shook her head and went away in grim silence to re-open a parcel
she had sewed up for Jem and slip in a fine tooth comb.

CHAPTER XII

IN THE DAYS OF LANGEMARCK

"How can spring come and be beautiful in such a horror," wrote Rilla in
her diary. "When the sun shines and the fluffy yellow catkins are coming
out on the willow-trees down by the brook, and the garden is beginning to
be beautiful I can't realize that such dreadful things are happening in
Flanders. But they are!

"This past week has been terrible for us all, since the news came of the
fighting around Ypres and the battles of Langemarck and St. Julien. Our
Canadian boys have done splendidly—General French says they 'saved the
situation,' when the Germans had all but broken through. But I can't feel
pride or exultation or anything but a gnawing anxiety over Jem and Jerry
and Mr. Grant. The casualty lists are coming out in the papers every day—
oh, there are so many of them. I can't bear to read them for fear I'd find
Jem's name—for there have been cases where people have seen their boys'
names in the casualty lists before the official telegram came. As for the

telephone, for a day or two I just refused to answer it, because I thought I
could not endure the horrible moment that came between saying 'Hello' and
hearing the response. That moment seemed a hundred years long, for I was
always dreading to hear 'There is a telegram for Dr. Blythe.' Then, when I
had shirked for a while, I was ashamed of leaving it all for mother or Susan,
and now I make myself go. But it never gets any easier. Gertrude teaches
school and reads compositions and sets examination papers just as she
always has done, but I know her thoughts are over in Flanders all the time.
Her eyes haunt me.

"And Kenneth is in khaki now, too. He has got a lieutenant's commission
and expects to go overseas in midsummer, so he wrote me. There wasn't
much else in the letter—he seemed to be thinking of nothing but going
overseas. I shall not see him again before he goes—perhaps I will never see
him again. Sometimes I ask myself if that evening at Four Winds was all a
dream. It might as well be—it seems as if it happened in another life lived
years ago—and everybody has forgotten it but me.

"Walter and Nan and Di came home last night from Redmond. When
Walter stepped off the train Dog Monday rushed to meet him, frantic with
joy. I suppose he thought Jem would be there, too. After the first moment,
he paid no attention to Walter and his pats, but just stood there, wagging his
tail nervously and looking past Walter at the other people coming out, with
eyes that made me choke up, for I couldn't help thinking that, for all we
knew, Monday might never see Jem come off that train again. Then, when
all the people were out, Monday looked up at Walter, gave his hand a little
lick as if to say, 'I know it isn't your fault he didn't come—excuse me for
feeling disappointed,' and then he trotted back to his shed, with that funny
little sidelong waggle of his that always makes it seem that his hind legs are
travelling directly away from the point at which his forelegs are aiming.

"We tried to coax him home with us—Di even got down and kissed him
between the eyes and said, 'Monday, old duck, won't you come up with us
just for the evening?' And Monday said—he did!—'I am very sorry but I
can't. I've got a date to meet Jem here, you know, and there's a train goes
through at eight.'

"It's lovely to have Walter back again though he seems quiet and sad,
just as he was at Christmas. But I'm going to love him hard and cheer him
up and make him laugh as he used to. It seems to me that every day of my
life Walter means more to me.

"The other evening Susan happened to say that the mayflowers were out
in Rainbow Valley. I chanced to be looking at mother when Susan spoke.
Her face changed and she gave a queer little choked cry. Most of the time
mother is so spunky and gay you would never guess what she feels inside;
but now and then some little thing is too much for her and we see under the
surface. 'Mayflowers!' she said. 'Jem brought me mayflowers last year!' and
she got up and went out of the room. I would have rushed off to Rainbow
Valley and brought her an armful of mayflowers, but I knew that wasn't
what she wanted. And after Walter got home last night he slipped away to
the valley and brought mother home all the mayflowers he could find.
Nobody had said a word to him about it—he just remembered himself that
Jem used to bring mother the first mayflowers and so he brought them in
Jem's place. It shows how tender and thoughtful he is. And yet there are
people who send him cruel letters!

"It seems strange that we can go in with ordinary life just as if nothing
were happening overseas that concerned us, just as if any day might not
bring us awful news. But we can and do. Susan is putting in the garden, and
mother and she are housecleaning, and we Junior Reds are getting up a
concert in aid of the Belgians. We have been practising for a month and
having no end of trouble and bother with cranky people. Miranda Pryor
promised to help with a dialogue and when she had her part all learnt her
father put his foot down and refused to allow her to help at all. I am not
blaming Miranda exactly, but I do think she might have a little more spunk
sometimes. If she put her foot down once in a while she might bring her
father to terms, for she is all the housekeeper he has and what would he do
if she 'struck'? If I were in Miranda's shoes I'd find some way of managing
Whiskers-on-the-moon. I would horse-whip him, or bite him, if nothing else
would serve. But Miranda is a meek and obedient daughter whose days
should be long in the land.

"I couldn't get anyone else to take the part, because nobody liked it, so
finally I had to take it myself. Olive Kirk is on the concert committee and
goes against me in every single thing. But I got my way in asking Mrs.
Channing to come out from town and sing for us, anyhow. She is a beautiful
singer and will draw such a crowd that we will make more than we will
have to pay her. Olive Kirk thought our local talent good enough and
Minnie Clow won't sing at all now in the choruses because she would be so
nervous before Mrs. Channing. And Minnie is the only good alto we have!
There are times when I am so exasperated that I feel tempted to wash my
hands of the whole affair; but after I dance round my room a few times in
sheer rage I cool down and have another whack at it. Just at present I am
racked with worry for fear the Isaac Reeses are taking whooping-cough.
They have all got a dreadful cold and there are five of them who have
important parts in the programme and if they go and develop whooping-
cough what shall I do? Dick Reese's violin solo is to be one of our titbits
and Kit Reese is in every tableau and the three small girls have the cutest
flag-drill. I've been toiling for weeks to train them in it, and now it seems
likely that all my trouble will go for nothing.

"Jims cut his first tooth today. I am very glad, for he is nearly nine
months old and Mary Vance has been insinuating that he is awfully
backward about cutting his teeth. He has begun to creep but doesn't crawl as
most babies do. He trots about on all fours and carries things in his mouth
like a little dog. Nobody can say he isn't up to schedule time in the matter of
creeping anyway—away ahead of it indeed, since ten months is Morgan's
average for creeping. He is so cute, it will be a shame if his dad never sees
him. His hair is coming on nicely too, and I am not without hope that it will
be curly.

"Just for a few minutes, while I've been writing of Jims and the concert,
I've forgotten Ypres and the poison gas and the casualty lists. Now it all
rushes back, worse than ever. Oh, if we could just know that Jem is all
right! I used to be so furious with Jem when he called me Spider. And now,
if he would just come whistling through the hall and call out, 'Hello,
Spider,' as he used to do, I would think it the loveliest name in the world."

Rilla put away her diary and went out to the garden. The spring evening
was very lovely. The long, green, seaward-looking glen was filled with
dusk, and beyond it were meadows of sunset. The harbour was radiant,
purple here, azure there, opal elsewhere. The maple grove was beginning to
be misty green. Rilla looked about her with wistful eyes. Who said that
spring was the joy of the year? It was the heart-break of the year. And the
pale-purply mornings and the daffodil stars and the wind in the old pine
were so many separate pangs of the heart-break. Would life ever be free
from dread again?

"It's good to see P.E.I. twilight once more," said Walter, joining her. "I
didn't really remember that the sea was so blue and the roads so red and the
wood nooks so wild and fairy haunted. Yes, the fairies still abide here. I
vow I could find scores of them under the violets in Rainbow Valley."

Rilla was momentarily happy. This sounded like the Walter of yore. She
hoped he was forgetting certain things that had troubled him.

"And isn't the sky blue over Rainbow Valley?" she said, responding to
his mood. "Blue—blue—you'd have to say 'blue' a hundred times before
you could express how blue it is."

Susan wandered by, her head tied up with a shawl, her hands full of
garden implements. Doc, stealthy and wild-eyed, was shadowing her steps
among the spirea bushes.

"The sky may be blue," said Susan, "but that cat has been Hyde all day
so we will likely have rain tonight and by the same token I have
rheumatism in my shoulder."

"It may rain—but don't think rheumatism, Susan—think violets," said
Walter gaily—rather too gaily, Rilla thought.

Susan considered him unsympathetic.

"Indeed, Walter dear, I do not know what you mean by thinking violets,"
she responded stiffly, "and rheumatism is not a thing to be joked about, as
you may some day realize for yourself. I hope I am not of the kind that is

always complaining of their aches and pains, especially now when the news
is so terrible. Rheumatism is bad enough but I realize, and none better, that
it is not to be compared to being gassed by the Huns."

"Oh, my God, no!" exclaimed Walter passionately. He turned and went
back to the house.

Susan shook her head. She disapproved entirely of such ejaculations. "I
hope he will not let his mother hear him talking like that," she thought as
she stacked the hoes and rake away.

Rilla was standing among the budding daffodils with tear-filled eyes.
Her evening was spoiled; she detested Susan, who had somehow hurt
Walter; and Jem—had Jem been gassed? Had he died in torture?

"I can't endure this suspense any longer," said Rilla desperately.

But she endured it as the others did for another week. Then a letter came
from Jem. He was all right.

"I've come through without a scratch, dad. Don't know how I or any of
us did it. You'll have seen all about it in the papers—I can't write of it. But
the Huns haven't got through—they won't get through. Jerry was knocked
stiff by a shell one time, but it was only the shock. He was all right in a few
days. Grant is safe, too."

Nan had a letter from Jerry Meredith. "I came back to consciousness at
dawn," he wrote. "Couldn't tell what had happened to me but thought that I
was done for. I was all alone and afraid—terribly afraid. Dead men were all
around me, lying on the horrible grey, slimy fields. I was woefully thirsty—
and I thought of David and the Bethlehem water—and of the old spring in
Rainbow Valley under the maples. I seemed to see it just before me—and
you standing laughing on the other side of it—and I thought it was all over
with me. And I didn't care. Honestly, I didn't care. I just felt a dreadful
childish fear of loneliness and of those dead men around me, and a sort of
wonder how this could have happened to me. Then they found me and
carted me off and before long I discovered that there wasn't really anything

wrong with me. I'm going back to the trenches tomorrow. Every man is
needed there that can be got."

"Laughter is gone out of the world," said Faith Meredith, who had come
over to report on her letters. "I remember telling old Mrs. Taylor long ago
that the world was a world of laughter. But it isn't so any longer."

"It's a shriek of anguish," said Gertrude Oliver.

"We must keep a little laughter, girls," said Mrs. Blythe. "A good laugh
is as good as a prayer sometimes—only sometimes," she added under her
breath. She had found it very hard to laugh during the three weeks she had
just lived through—she, Anne Blythe, to whom laughter had always come
so easily and freshly. And what hurt most was that Rilla's laughter had
grown so rare—Rilla whom she used to think laughed over-much. Was all
the child's girlhood to be so clouded? Yet how strong and clever and
womanly she was growing! How patiently she knitted and sewed and
manipulated those uncertain Junior Reds! And how wonderful she was with
Jims.

"She really could not do better for that child than if she had raised a
baker's dozen, Mrs. Dr. dear," Susan had avowed solemnly. "Little did I
ever expect it of her on the day she landed here with that soup tureen."

CHAPTER XIII

A SLICE OF HUMBLE PIE

"I am very much afraid, Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan, who had been on a
pilgrimage to the station with some choice bones for Dog Monday, "that
something terrible has happened. Whiskers-on-the-moon came off the train
from Charlottetown and he was looking pleased. I do not remember that I
ever saw him with a smile on in public before. Of course he may have just

been getting the better of somebody in a cattle deal but I have an awful
presentiment that the Huns have broken through somewhere."

Perhaps Susan was unjust in connecting Mr. Pryor's smile with the
sinking of the Lusitania, news of which circulated an hour later when the
mail was distributed. But the Glen boys turned out that night in a body and
broke all his windows in a fine frenzy of indignation over the Kaiser's
doings.

"I do not say they did right and I do not say they did wrong," said Susan,
when she heard of it. "But I will say that I wouldn't have minded throwing a
few stones myself. One thing is certain—Whiskers-on-the-moon said in the
post office the day the news came, in the presence of witnesses, that folks
who could not stay home after they had been warned deserved no better
fate. Norman Douglas is fairly foaming at the mouth over it all. 'If the devil
doesn't get those men who sunk the Lusitania then there is no use in there
being a devil,' he was shouting in Carter's store last night. Norman Douglas
always has believed that anybody who opposed him was on the side of the
devil, but a man like that is bound to be right once in a while. Bruce
Meredith is worrying over the babies who were drowned. And it seems he
prayed for something very special last Friday night and didn't get it, and
was feeling quite disgruntled over it. But when he heard about the Lusitania
he told his mother that he understood now why God didn't answer his
prayer—He was too busy attending to the souls of all the people who went
down on the Lusitania. That child's brain is a hundred years older than his
body, Mrs. Dr. dear. As for the Lusitania, it is an awful occurrence,
whatever way you look at it. But Woodrow Wilson is going to write a note
about it, so why worry? A pretty president!" and Susan banged her pots
about wrathfully. President Wilson was rapidly becoming anathema in
Susan's kitchen.

Mary Vance dropped in one evening to tell the Ingleside folks that she
had withdrawn all opposition to Miller Douglas's enlisting.

"This Lusitania business was too much for me," said Mary brusquely.
"When the Kaiser takes to drowning innocent babies it's high time
somebody told him where he gets off at. This thing must be fought to a
finish. It's been soaking into my mind slow but I'm on now. So I up and told

Miller he could go as far as I was concerned. Old Kitty Alec won't be
converted though. If every ship in the world was submarined and every
baby drowned, Kitty wouldn't turn a hair. But I flatter myself that it was me
kept Miller back all along and not the fair Kitty. I may have deceived
myself—but we shall see."

They did see. The next Sunday Miller Douglas walked into the Glen
Church beside Mary Vance in khaki. And Mary was so proud of him that
her white eyes fairly blazed. Joe Milgrave, back under the gallery, looked at
Miller and Mary and then at Miranda Pryor, and sighed so heavily that
every one within a radius of three pews heard him and knew what his
trouble was. Walter Blythe did not sigh. But Rilla, scanning his face
anxiously, saw a look that cut into her heart. It haunted her for the next
week and made an undercurrent of soreness in her soul, which was
externally being harrowed up by the near approach of the Red Cross concert
and the worries connected therewith. The Reese cold had not developed into
whooping-cough, so that tangle was straightened out. But other things were
hanging in the balance; and on the very day before the concert came a
regretful letter from Mrs. Channing saying that she could not come to sing.
Her son, who was in Kingsport with his regiment, was seriously ill with
pneumonia, and she must go to him at once.

The members of the concert committee looked at each other in blank
dismay. What was to be done?

"This comes of depending on outside help," said Olive Kirk,
disagreeably.

"We must do something," said Rilla, too desperate to care for Olive's
manner. "We've advertised the concert everywhere—and crowds are coming
—there's even a big party coming out from town—and we were short
enough of music as it was. We must get some one to sing in Mrs.
Channing's place."

"I don't know who you can get at this late date," said Olive. "Irene
Howard could do it; but it is not likely she will after the way she was
insulted by our society."

"How did our society insult her?" asked Rilla, in what she called her
'cold-pale tone.' Its coldness and pallor did not daunt Olive.

"You insulted her," she answered sharply. "Irene told me all about it—
she was literally heart-broken. You told her never to speak to you again—
and Irene told me she simply could not imagine what she had said or done
to deserve such treatment. That was why she never came to our meetings
again but joined in with the Lowbridge Red Cross. I do not blame her in the
least, and I, for one, will not ask her to lower herself by helping us out of
this scrape."

"You don't expect me to ask her?" giggled Amy MacAllister, the other
member of the committee. "Irene and I haven't spoken for a hundred years.
Irene is always getting 'insulted' by somebody. But she is a lovely singer, I'll
admit that, and people would just as soon hear her as Mrs. Channing."

"It wouldn't do any good if you did ask her," said Olive significantly.
"Soon after we began planning this concert, back in April, I met Irene in
town one day and asked her if she wouldn't help us out. She said she'd love
to but she really didn't see how she could when Rilla Blythe was running
the programme, after the strange way Rilla had behaved to her. So there it is
and here we are, and a nice failure our concert will be."

Rilla went home and shut herself up in her room, her soul in a turmoil.
She would not humiliate herself by apologizing to Irene Howard! Irene had
been as much in the wrong as she had been; and she had told such mean,
distorted versions of their quarrel everywhere, posing as a puzzled, injured
martyr. Rilla could never bring herself to tell her side of it. The fact that a
slur at Walter was mixed up in it tied her tongue. So most people believed
that Irene had been badly used, except a few girls who had never liked her
and sided with Rilla. And yet—the concert over which she had worked so
hard was going to be a failure. Mrs. Channing's four solos were the feature
of the whole programme.

"Miss Oliver, what do you think about it?" she asked in desperation.

"I think Irene is the one who should apologize," said Miss Oliver. "But
unfortunately my opinion will not fill the blanks in your programme."

"If I went and apologized meekly to Irene she would sing, I am sure,"
sighed Rilla. "She really loves to sing in public. But I know she'll be nasty
about it—I feel I'd rather do anything than go. I suppose I should go—if
Jem and Jerry can face the Huns surely I can face Irene Howard, and
swallow my pride to ask a favour of her for the good of the Belgians. Just at
present I feel that I cannot do it but for all that I have a presentiment that
after supper you'll see me meekly trotting through Rainbow Valley on my
way to the Upper Glen Road."

Rilla's presentiment proved correct. After supper she dressed herself
carefully in her blue, beaded crepe—for vanity is harder to quell than pride
and Irene always saw any flaw or shortcoming in another girl's appearance.
Besides, as Rilla had told her mother one day when she was nine years old,
"It is easier to behave nicely when you have your good clothes on."

Rilla did her hair very becomingly and donned a long raincoat for fear of
a shower. But all the while her thoughts were concerned with the coming
distasteful interview, and she kept rehearsing mentally her part in it. She
wished it were over—she wished she had never tried to get up a Belgian
Relief concert—she wished she had not quarreled with Irene. After all,
disdainful silence would have been much more effective in meeting the slur
upon Walter. It was foolish and childish to fly out as she had done—well,
she would be wiser in the future, but meanwhile a large and very
unpalatable slice of humble pie had to be eaten, and Rilla Blythe was no
fonder of that wholesome article of diet than the rest of us.

By sunset she was at the door of the Howard house—a pretentious
abode, with white scroll-work round the eaves and an eruption of bay-
windows on all its sides. Mrs. Howard, a plump, voluble dame, met Rilla
gushingly and left her in the parlour while she went to call Irene. Rilla
threw off her rain-coat and looked at herself critically in the mirror over the
mantel. Hair, hat, and dress were satisfactory—nothing there for Miss Irene
to make fun of. Rilla remembered how clever and amusing she used to
think Irene's biting little comments about other girls. Well, it had come
home to her now.

Presently, Irene skimmed down, elegantly gowned, with her pale, straw-
coloured hair done in the latest and most extreme fashion, and an over-

luscious atmosphere of perfume enveloping her.

"Why how do you do, Miss Blythe?" she said sweetly. "This is a very
unexpected pleasure."

Rilla had risen to take Irene's chilly finger-tips and now, as she sat down
again, she saw something that temporarily stunned her. Irene saw it too, as
she sat down, and a little amused, impertinent smile appeared on her lips
and hovered there during the rest of the interview.

On one of Rilla's feet was a smart little steel-buckled shoe and a filmy
blue silk stocking. The other was clad in a stout and rather shabby boot and
black lisle!

Poor Rilla! She had changed, or begun to change her boots and stockings
after she had put on her dress. This was the result of doing one thing with
your hands and another with your brain. Oh, what a ridiculous position to
be in—and before Irene Howard of all people—Irene, who was staring at
Rilla's feet as if she had never seen feet before! And once she had thought
Irene's manner perfection! Everything that Rilla had prepared to say
vanished from her memory. Vainly trying to tuck her unlucky foot under her
chair, she blurted out a blunt statement.

"I have come to athk a favour of you, Irene."

There—lisping! Oh, she had been prepared for humiliation but not to
this extent! Really, there were limits!

"Yes?" said Irene in a cool, questioning tone, lifting her shallowly-set,
insolent eyes to Rilla's crimson face for a moment and then dropping them
again as if she could not tear them from their fascinated gaze at the shabby
boot and the gallant shoe.

Rilla gathered herself together. She would not lisp—she would be calm
and composed.

"Mrs. Channing cannot come because her son is ill in Kingsport, and I
have come on behalf of the committee to ask you if you will be so kind as

to sing for us in her place." Rilla enunciated every word so precisely and
carefully that she seemed to be reciting a lesson.

"It's something of a fiddler's invitation, isn't it?" said Irene, with one of
her disagreeable smiles.

"Olive Kirk asked you to help when we first thought of the concert and
you refused," said Rilla.

"Why, I could hardly help—then—could I?" asked Irene plaintively.
"After you ordered me never to speak to you again? It would have been
very awkward for us both, don't you think?"

Now for the humble pie.

"I want to apologize to you for saying that, Irene." said Rilla steadily. "I
should not have said it and I have been very sorry ever since. Will you
forgive me?"

"And sing at your concert?" said Irene sweetly and insultingly.

"If you mean," said Rilla miserably, "that I would not be apologizing to
you if it were not for the concert perhaps that is true. But it is also true that I
have felt ever since it happened that I should not have said what I did and
that I have been sorry for it all winter. That is all I can say. If you feel you
can't forgive me I suppose there is nothing more to be said."

"Oh, Rilla dear, don't snap me up like that," pleaded Irene. "Of course I'll
forgive you—though I did feel awfully about it—how awfully I hope you'll
never know. I cried for weeks over it. And I hadn't said or done a thing!"

Rilla choked back a retort. After all, there was no use in arguing with
Irene, and the Belgians were starving.

"Don't you think you can help us with the concert," she forced herself to
say. Oh, if only Irene would stop looking at that boot! Rilla could just hear
her giving Olive Kirk an account of it.

"I don't see how I really can at the last moment like this," protested
Irene. "There isn't time to learn anything new."

"Oh, you have lots of lovely songs that nobody in the Glen ever heard
before," said Rilla, who knew Irene had been going to town all winter for
lessons and that this was only a pretext. "They will all be new down there."

"But I have no accompanist," protested Irene.

"Una Meredith can accompany you," said Rilla.

"Oh, I couldn't ask her," sighed Irene. "We haven't spoken since last fall.
She was so hateful to me the time of our Sunday-school concert that I
simply had to give her up."

Dear, dear, was Irene at feud with everybody? As for Una Meredith
being hateful to anybody, the idea was so farcical that Rilla had much ado
to keep from laughing in Irene's very face.

"Miss Oliver is a beautiful pianist and can play any accompaniment at
sight," said Rilla desperately. "She will play for you and you could run over
your songs easily tomorrow evening at Ingleside before the concert."

"But I haven't anything to wear. My new evening-dress isn't home from
Charlottetown yet, and I simply cannot wear my old one at such a big affair.
It is too shabby and old-fashioned."

"Our concert," said Rilla slowly, "is in aid of Belgian children who are
starving to death. Don't you think you could wear a shabby dress once for
their sake, Irene?"

"Oh, don't you think those accounts we get of the conditions of the
Belgians are very much exaggerated?" said Irene. "I'm sure they can't be
actually starving you know, in the twentieth century. The newspapers
always colour things so highly."

Rilla concluded that she had humiliated herself enough. There was such
a thing as self-respect. No more coaxing, concert or no concert. She got up,

boot and all.

"I am sorry you can't help us, Irene, but since you cannot we must do the
best we can."

Now this did not suit Irene at all. She desired exceedingly to sing at that
concert, and all her hesitations were merely by way of enhancing the boon
of her final consent. Besides, she really wanted to be friends with Rilla
again. Rilla's whole-hearted, ungrudging adoration had been very sweet
incense to her. And Ingleside was a very charming house to visit, especially
when a handsome college student like Walter was home. She stopped
looking at Rilla's feet.

"Rilla, darling, don't be so abrupt. I really want to help you, if I can
manage it. Just sit down and let's talk it over."

"I'm sorry, but I can't. I have to be home soon—Jims has to be settled for
the night, you know."

"Oh, yes—the baby you are bringing up by the book. It's perfectly sweet
of you to do it when you hate children so. How cross you were just because
I kissed him! But we'll forget all that and be chums again, won't we? Now,
about the concert—I dare say I can run into town on the morning train after
my dress, and out again on the afternoon one in plenty of time for the
concert, if you'll ask Miss Oliver to play for me. I couldn't—she's so
dreadfully haughty and supercilious that she simply paralyses poor little
me."

Rilla did not waste time or breath defending Miss Oliver. She coolly
thanked Irene, who had suddenly become very amiable and gushing, and
got away. She was very thankful the interview was over. But she knew now
that she and Irene could never be the friends they had been. Friendly, yes—
but friends, no. Nor did she wish it. All winter she had felt under her other
and more serious worries, a little feeling of regret for her lost chum. Now it
was suddenly gone. Irene was not as Mrs. Elliott would say, of the race that
knew Joseph. Rilla did not say or think that she had outgrown Irene. Had
the thought occurred to her she would have considered it absurd when she
was not yet seventeen and Irene was twenty. But it was the truth. Irene was

just what she had been a year ago—just what she would always be. Rilla
Blythe's nature in that year had changed and matured and deepened. She
found herself seeing through Irene with a disconcerting clearness—
discerning under all her superficial sweetness, her pettiness, her
vindictiveness, her insincerity, her essential cheapness. Irene had lost for
ever her faithful worshipper.

But not until Rilla had traversed the Upper Glen Road and found herself
in the moon-dappled solitude of Rainbow Valley did she fully recover her
composure of spirit. Then she stopped under a tall wild plum that was
ghostly white and fair in its misty spring bloom and laughed.

"There is only one thing of importance just now—and that is that the
Allies win the war," she said aloud. "Therefore, it follows without dispute
that the fact that I went to see Irene Howard with odd shoes and stockings
on is of no importance whatever. Nevertheless, I, Bertha Marilla Blythe,
swear solemnly with the moon as witness"—Rilla lifted her hand
dramatically to the said moon—"that I will never leave my room again
without looking carefully at both my feet."

CHAPTER XIV

THE VALLEY OF DECISION

Susan kept the flag flying at Ingleside all the next day, in honour of
Italy's declaration of war.

"And not before it was time, Mrs. Dr. dear, considering the way things
have begun to go on the Russian front. Say what you will, those Russians
are kittle cattle, the grand duke Nicholas to the contrary notwithstanding. It
is a fortunate thing for Italy that she has come in on the right side, but
whether it is as fortunate for the Allies I will not predict until I know more
about Italians than I do now. However, she will give that old reprobate of a

Francis Joseph something to think about. A pretty Emperor indeed—with
one foot in the grave and yet plotting wholesale murder"—and Susan
thumped and kneaded her bread with as much vicious energy as she could
have expended in punching Francis Joseph himself if he had been so
unlucky as to fall into her clutches.

Walter had gone to town on the early train, and Nan offered to look after
Jims for the day and so set Rilla free. Rilla was wildly busy all day, helping
to decorate the Glen hall and seeing to a hundred last things. The evening
was beautiful, in spite of the fact that Mr. Pryor was reported to have said
that he "hoped it would rain pitch forks points down," and to have wantonly
kicked Miranda's dog as he said it. Rilla, rushing home from the hall,
dressed hurriedly. Everything had gone surprisingly well at the last; Irene
was even then downstairs practising her songs with Miss Oliver; Rilla was
excited and happy, forgetful even of the Western front for the moment. It
gave her a sense of achievement and victory to have brought her efforts of
weeks to such a successful conclusion. She knew that there had not lacked
people who thought and hinted that Rilla Blythe had not the tact or patience
to engineer a concert programme. She had shown them! Little snatches of
song bubbled up from her lips as she dressed. She thought she was looking
very well. Excitement brought a faint, becoming pink into her round creamy
cheeks, quite drowning out her few freckles, and her hair gleamed with red-
brown lustre. Should she wear crab-apple blossoms in it, or her little fillet
of pearls? After some agonised wavering she decided on the crab-apple
blossoms and tucked the white waxen cluster behind her left ear. Now for a
final look at her feet. Yes, both slippers were on. She gave the sleeping Jims
a kiss—what a dear little warm, rosy, satin face he had—and hurried down
the hill to the hall. Already it was filling—soon it was crowded. Her concert
was going to be a brilliant success.

The first three numbers were successfully over. Rilla was in the little
dressing-room behind the platform, looking out on the moonlit harbour and
rehearsing her own recitations. She was alone, the rest of the performers
being in the larger room on the other side. Suddenly she felt two soft bare
arms slipping round her waist, then Irene Howard dropped a light kiss on
her cheek.

"Rilla, you sweet thing, you're looking simply angelic to-night. You have
spunk—I thought you would feel so badly over Walter's enlisting that you'd
hardly be able to bear up at all, and here you are as cool as a cucumber. I
wish I had half your nerve."

Rilla stood perfectly still. She felt no emotion whatever—she felt
nothing. The world of feeling had just gone blank.

"Walter—enlisting"—she heard herself saying—then she heard Irene's
affected little laugh.

"Why, didn't you know? I thought you did of course, or I wouldn't have
mentioned it. I am always putting my foot in it, aren't I? Yes, that is what he
went to town for to-day—he told me coming out on the train to-night, I was
the first person he told. He isn't in khaki yet—they were out of uniforms—
but he will be in a day or two. I always said Walter had as much pluck as
anybody. I assure you I felt proud of him, Rilla, when he told me what he'd
done. Oh, there's an end of Rick MacAllister's reading. I must fly. I
promised I'd play for the next chorus—Alice Clow has such a headache."

She was gone—oh, thank God, she was gone! Rilla was alone again,
staring out at the unchanged, dream-like beauty of moonlit Four Winds.
Feeling was coming back to her—a pang of agony so acute as to be almost
physical seemed to rend her apart.

"I cannot bear it," she said. And then came the awful thought that
perhaps she could bear it and that there might be years of this hideous
suffering before her.

She must get away—she must rush home—she must be alone. She could
not go out there and play for drills and give readings and take part in
dialogues now. It would spoil half the concert; but that did not matter—
nothing mattered. Was this she, Rilla Blythe—this tortured thing, who had
been quite happy a few minutes ago? Outside, a quartette was singing
"We'll never let the old flag fall"—the music seemed to be coming from
some remote distance. Why couldn't she cry, as she had cried when Jem told
them he must go? If she could cry perhaps this horrible something that
seemed to have seized on her very life might let go. But no tears came!

Where were her scarf and coat? She must get away and hide herself like an
animal hurt to the death.

Was it a coward's part to run away like this? The question came to her
suddenly as if someone else had asked it. She thought of the shambles of
the Flanders front—she thought of her brother and her playmate helping to
hold those fire-swept trenches. What would they think of her if she shirked
her little duty here—the humble duty of carrying the programme through
for her Red Cross? But she couldn't stay—she couldn't—yet what was it
mother had said when Jem went: "When our women fail in courage shall
our men be fearless still?" But this—this was unbearable.

Still, she stopped half-way to the door and went back to the window.
Irene was singing now; her beautiful voice—the only real thing about her—
soared clear and sweet through the building. Rilla knew that the girls' Fairy
Drill came next. Could she go out there and play for it? Her head was
aching now—her throat was burning. Oh, why had Irene told her just then,
when telling could do no good? Irene had been very cruel. Rilla
remembered now that more than once that day she had caught her mother
looking at her with an odd expression. She had been too busy to wonder
what it meant. She understood now. Mother had known why Walter went to
town but wouldn't tell her until the concert was over. What spirit and
endurance mother had!

"I must stay here and see things through," said Rilla, clasping her cold
hands together.

The rest of the evening always seemed like a fevered dream to her. Her
body was crowded by people but her soul was alone in a torture-chamber of
its own. Yet she played steadily for the drills and gave her readings without
faltering. She even put on a grotesque old Irish woman's costume and acted
the part in the dialogue which Miranda Pryor had not taken. But she did not
give her "brogue" the inimitable twist she had given it in the practices, and
her readings lacked their usual fire and appeal. As she stood before the
audience she saw one face only—that of the handsome, dark-haired lad
sitting beside her mother—and she saw that same face in the trenches—saw
it lying cold and dead under the stars—saw it pining in prison—saw the
light of its eyes blotted out—saw a hundred horrible things as she stood

there on the beflagged platform of the Glen hall with her own face whiter
than the milky crab-blossoms in her hair. Between her numbers she walked
restlessly up and down the little dressing-room. Would the concert never
end!

It ended at last. Olive Kirk rushed up and told her exultantly that they
had made a hundred dollars. "That's good," Rilla said mechanically. Then
she was away from them all—oh, thank God, she was away from them all
—Walter was waiting for her at the door. He put his arm through hers
silently and they went together down the moonlit road. The frogs were
singing in the marshes, the dim, ensilvered fields of home lay all around
them. The spring night was lovely and appealing. Rilla felt that its beauty
was an insult to her pain. She would hate moonlight for ever.

"You know?" said Walter.

"Yes. Irene told me," answered Rilla chokingly.

"We didn't want you to know till the evening was over. I knew when you
came out for the drill that you had heard. Little sister, I had to do it. I
couldn't live any longer on such terms with myself as I have been since the
Lusitania was sunk. When I pictured those dead women and children
floating about in that pitiless, ice-cold water—well, at first I just felt a sort
of nausea with life. I wanted to get out of the world where such a thing
could happen—shake its accursed dust from my feet for ever. Then I knew I
had to go."

"There are—plenty—without you."

"That isn't the point, Rilla-my-Rilla. I'm going for my own sake—to save
my soul alive. It will shrink to something small and mean and lifeless if I
don't go. That would be worse than blindness or mutilation or any of the
things I've feared."

"You may—be—killed," Rilla hated herself for saying it—she knew it
was a weak and cowardly thing to say—but she had rather gone to pieces
after the tension of the evening.

"'Comes he slow or comes he fast
It is but death who comes at last.'"

quoted Walter. "It's not death I fear—I told you that long ago. One can pay
too high a price for mere life, little sister. There's so much hideousness in
this war—I've got to go and help wipe it out of the world. I'm going to fight
for the beauty of life, Rilla-my-Rilla—that is my duty. There may be a
higher duty, perhaps—but that is mine. I owe life and Canada that, and I've
got to pay it. Rilla, tonight for the first time since Jem left I've got back my
self-respect. I could write poetry," Walter laughed. "I've never been able to
write a line since last August. Tonight I'm full of it. Little sister, be brave—
you were so plucky when Jem went."

"This—is—different," Rilla had to stop after every word to fight down a
wild outburst of sobs. "I loved—Jem—of course—but—when—he went—
away—we thought—the war—would soon—be over—and you are—
everything to me, Walter."

"You must be brave to help me, Rilla-my-Rilla. I'm exalted tonight—
drunk with the excitement of victory over myself—but there will be other
times when it won't be like this—I'll need your help then."

"When—do—you—go?" She must know the worst at once.

"Not for a week—then we go to Kingsport for training. I suppose we'll
go overseas about the middle of July—we don't know."

One week—only one week more with Walter! The eyes of youth did not
see how she was to go on living.

When they turned in at the Ingleside gate Walter stopped in the shadows
of the old pines and drew Rilla close to him.

"Rilla-my-Rilla, there were girls as sweet and pure as you in Belgium
and Flanders. You—even you—know what their fate was. We must make it
impossible for such things to happen again while the world lasts. You'll help
me, won't you?"

"I'll try, Walter," she said. "Oh, I will try."

As she clung to him with her face pressed against his shoulder she knew
that it had to be. She accepted the fact then and there. He must go—her
beautiful Walter with his beautiful soul and dreams and ideals. And she had
known all along that it would come sooner or later. She had seen it coming
to her—coming—coming—as one sees the shadow of a cloud drawing near
over a sunny field, swiftly and inescapably. Amid all her pain she was
conscious of an odd feeling of relief in some hidden part of her soul, where
a little dull, unacknowledged soreness had been lurking all winter. No one
—no one could ever call Walter a slacker now.

Rilla did not sleep that night. Perhaps no one at Ingleside did except
Jims. The body grows slowly and steadily, but the soul grows by leaps and
bounds. It may come to its full stature in an hour. From that night Rilla
Blythe's soul was the soul of a woman in its capacity for suffering, for
strength, for endurance.

When the bitter dawn came she rose and went to her window. Below her
was a big apple-tree, a great swelling cone of rosy blossom. Walter had
planted it years ago when he was a little boy. Beyond Rainbow Valley there
was a cloudy shore of morning with little ripples of sunrise breaking over it.
The far, cold beauty of a lingering star shone above it. Why, in this world of
springtime loveliness, must hearts break?

Rilla felt arms go about her lovingly, protectingly. It was mother—pale,
large-eyed mother.

"Oh, mother, how can you bear it?" she cried wildly. "Rilla, dear, I've
known for several days that Walter meant to go. I've had time to—to rebel
and grow reconciled. We must give him up. There is a Call greater and
more insistent than the call of our love—he has listened to it. We must not
add to the bitterness of his sacrifice."

"Our sacrifice is greater than his," cried Rilla passionately. "Our boys
give only themselves. We give them."

Before Mrs. Blythe could reply Susan stuck her head in at the door,
never troubling over such frills of etiquette as knocking. Her eyes were
suspiciously red but all she said was,

"Will I bring up your breakfast, Mrs. Dr. dear."

"No, no, Susan. We will all be down presently. Do you know—that
Walter has joined up."

"Yes, Mrs. Dr. dear. The doctor told me last night. I suppose the
Almighty has His own reasons for allowing such things. We must submit
and endeavour to look on the bright side. It may cure him of being a poet, at
least"—Susan still persisted in thinking that poets and tramps were tarred
with the same brush—"and that would be something. But thank God," she
muttered in a lower tone, "that Shirley is not old enough to go."

"Isn't that the same thing as thanking Him that some other woman's son
has to go in Shirley's place?" asked the doctor, pausing on the threshold.

"No, it is not, doctor dear," said Susan defiantly, as she picked up Jims,
who was opening his big dark eyes and stretching up his dimpled paws. "Do
not you put words in my mouth that I would never dream of uttering. I am a
plain woman and cannot argue with you, but I do not thank God that
anybody has to go. I only know that it seems they do have to go, unless we
all want to be Kaiserised—for I can assure you that the Monroe doctrine,
whatever it is, is nothing to tie to, with Woodrow Wilson behind it. The
Huns, Dr. dear, will never be brought to book by notes. And now,"
concluded Susan, tucking Jims in the crook of her gaunt arms and marching
downstairs, "having cried my cry and said my say I shall take a brace, and if
I cannot look pleasant I will look as pleasant as I can."

CHAPTER XV

UNTIL THE DAY BREAK

"The Germans have recaptured Premysl," said Susan despairingly,
looking up from her newspaper, "and now I suppose we will have to begin

calling it by that uncivilised name again. Cousin Sophia was in when the
mail came and when she heard the news she hove a sigh up from the depths
of her stomach, Mrs. Dr. dear, and said, 'Ah yes, and they will get Petrograd
next I have no doubt.' I said to her, 'My knowledge of geography is not so
profound as I wish it was but I have an idea that it is quite a walk from
Premysl to Petrograd.' Cousin Sophia sighed again and said, 'The Grand
Duke Nicholas is not the man I took him to be.' 'Do not let him know that,'
said I. 'It might hurt his feelings and he has likely enough to worry him as it
is. But you cannot cheer Cousin Sophia up, no matter how sarcastic you are,
Mrs. Dr. dear. She sighed for the third time and groaned out, 'But the
Russians are retreating fast,' and I said, 'Well, what of it? They have plenty
of room for retreating, have they not?' But all the same, Mrs. Dr. dear,
though I would never admit it to Cousin Sophia, I do not like the situation
on the eastern front."

Nobody else liked it either; but all summer the Russian retreat went on—
a long-drawn-out agony.

"I wonder if I shall ever again be able to await the coming of the mail
with feelings of composure—never to speak of pleasure," said Gertrude
Oliver. "The thought that haunts me night and day is—will the Germans
smash Russia completely and then hurl their eastern army, flushed with
victory, against the western front?"

"They will not, Miss Oliver dear," said Susan, assuming the role of
prophetess.

"In the first place, the Almighty will not allow it, in the second, Grand
Duke Nicholas, though he may have been a disappointment to us in some
respects, knows how to run away decently and in order, and that is a very
useful knowledge when Germans are chasing you. Norman Douglas
declares he is just luring them on and killing ten of them to one he loses.
But I am of the opinion he cannot help himself and is just doing the best he
can under the circumstances, the same as the rest of us. So do not go so far
afield to borrow trouble, Miss Oliver dear, when there is plenty of it already
camping on our very doorstep."

Walter had gone to Kingsport the first of June. Nan, Di and Faith had
gone also to do Red Cross work in their vacation. In mid-July Walter came
home for a week's leave before going overseas. Rilla had lived through the
days of his absence on the hope of that week, and now that it had come she
drank every minute of it thirstily, hating even the hours she had to spend in
sleep, they seemed such a waste of precious moments. In spite of its
sadness, it was a beautiful week, full of poignant, unforgettable hours, when
she and Walter had long walks and talks and silences together. He was all
her own and she knew that he found strength and comfort in her sympathy
and understanding. It was very wonderful to know she meant so much to
him—the knowledge helped her through moments that would otherwise
have been unendurable, and gave her power to smile—and even to laugh a
little. When Walter had gone she might indulge in the comfort of tears, but
not while he was here. She would not even let herself cry at night, lest her
eyes should betray her to him in the morning.

On his last evening at home they went together to Rainbow Valley and
sat down on the bank of the brook, under the White Lady, where the gay
revels of olden days had been held in the cloudless years. Rainbow Valley
was roofed over with a sunset of unusual splendour that night; a wonderful
grey dusk just touched with starlight followed it; and then came moonshine,
hinting, hiding, revealing, lighting up little dells and hollows here, leaving
others in dark, velvet shadow.

"When I am 'somewhere in France,'" said Walter, looking around him
with eager eyes on all the beauty his soul loved, "I shall remember these
still, dewy, moon-drenched places. The balsam of the fir-trees; the peace of
those white pools of moonshine; the 'strength of the hills'—what a beautiful
old Biblical phrase that is. Rilla! Look at those old hills around us—the
hills we looked up at as children, wondering what lay for us in the great
world beyond them. How calm and strong they are—how patient and
changeless—like the heart of a good woman. Rilla-my-Rilla, do you know
what you have been to me the past year? I want to tell you before I go. I
could not have lived through it if it had not been for you, little loving,
believing heart."

Rilla dared not try to speak. She slipped her hand into Walter's and
pressed it hard.

"And when I'm over there, Rilla, in that hell upon earth which men who
have forgotten God have made, it will be the thought of you that will help
me most. I know you'll be as plucky and patient as you have shown yourself
to be this past year—I'm not afraid for you. I know that no matter what
happens, you'll be Rilla-my-Rilla—no matter what happens."

Rilla repressed tear and sigh, but she could not repress a little shiver, and
Walter knew that he had said enough. After a moment of silence, in which
each made an unworded promise to each other, he said, "Now we won't be
sober any more. We'll look beyond the years—to the time when the war will
be over and Jem and Jerry and I will come marching home and we'll all be
happy again."

"We won't be—happy—in the same way," said Rilla.

"No, not in the same way. Nobody whom this war has touched will ever
be happy again in quite the same way. But it will be a better happiness, I
think, little sister—a happiness we've earned. We were very happy before
the war, weren't we? With a home like Ingleside, and a father and mother
like ours we couldn't help being happy. But that happiness was a gift from
life and love; it wasn't really ours—life could take it back at any time. It can
never take away the happiness we win for ourselves in the way of duty. I've
realised that since I went into khaki. In spite of my occasional funks, when I
fall to living over things beforehand, I've been happy since that night in
May. Rilla, be awfully good to mother while I'm away. It must be a horrible
thing to be a mother in this war—the mothers and sisters and wives and
sweethearts have the hardest times. Rilla, you beautiful little thing, are you
anybody's sweetheart? If you are, tell me before I go."

"No," said Rilla. Then, impelled by a wish to be absolutely frank with
Walter in this talk that might be the last they would ever have, she added,
blushing wildly in the moonlight, "but if—Kenneth Ford—wanted me to be
—"

"I see," said Walter. "And Ken's in khaki, too. Poor little girlie, it's a bit
hard for you all round. Well, I'm not leaving any girl to break her heart
about me—thank God for that."

Rilla glanced up at the Manse on the hill. She could see a light in Una
Meredith's window. She felt tempted to say something—then she knew she
must not. It was not her secret: and, anyway, she did not know—she only
suspected.

Walter looked about him lingeringly and lovingly. This spot had always
been so dear to him. What fun they all had had here lang syne. Phantoms of
memory seemed to pace the dappled paths and peep merrily through the
swinging boughs—Jem and Jerry, bare-legged, sunburned schoolboys,
fishing in the brook and frying trout over the old stone fireplace; Nan and
Di and Faith, in their dimpled, fresh-eyed childish beauty; Una the sweet
and shy, Carl, poring over ants and bugs, little slangy, sharp-tongued, good-
hearted Mary Vance—the old Walter that had been himself lying on the
grass reading poetry or wandering through palaces of fancy. They were all
there around him—he could see them almost as plainly as he saw Rilla—as
plainly as he had once seen the Pied Piper piping down the valley in a
vanished twilight. And they said to him, those gay little ghosts of other
days, "We were the children of yesterday, Walter—fight a good fight for the
children of to-day and to-morrow."

"Where are you, Walter," cried Rilla, laughing a little. "Come back—
come back."

Walter came back with a long breath. He stood up and looked about him
at the beautiful valley of moonlight, as if to impress on his mind and heart
every charm it possessed—the great dark plumes of the firs against the
silvery sky, the stately White Lady, the old magic of the dancing brook, the
faithful Tree Lovers, the beckoning, tricksy paths.

"I shall see it so in my dreams," he said, as he turned away.

They went back to Ingleside. Mr. and Mrs. Meredith were there, with
Gertrude Oliver, who had come from Lowbridge to say good-bye.
Everybody was quite cheerful and bright, but nobody said much about the

war being soon over, as they had said when Jem went away. They did not
talk about the war at all—and they thought of nothing else. At last they
gathered around the piano and sang the grand old hymn:
"Oh God, our help in ages past
Our hope for years to come.
Our shelter from the stormy blast
And our eternal home."

"We all come back to God in these days of soul-sifting," said Gertrude to
John Meredith. "There have been many days in the past when I didn't
believe in God—not as God—only as the impersonal Great First Cause of
the scientists. I believe in Him now—I have to—there's nothing else to fall
back on but God—humbly, starkly, unconditionally."

"'Our help in ages past'—'the same yesterday, to-day and for ever,'" said
the minister gently. "When we forget God—He remembers us."

There was no crowd at the Glen Station the next morning to see Walter
off. It was becoming a commonplace for a khaki clad boy to board that
early morning train after his last leave. Besides his own, only the Manse
folk were there, and Mary Vance. Mary had sent her Miller off the week
before, with a determined grin, and now considered herself entitled to give
expert opinion on how such partings should be conducted.

"The main thing is to smile and act as if nothing was happening," she
informed the Ingleside group. "The boys all hate the sob act like poison.
Miller told me I wasn't to come near the station if I couldn't keep from
bawling. So I got through with my crying beforehand, and at the last I said
to him, 'Good luck, Miller, and if you come back you'll find I haven't
changed any, and if you don't come back I'll always be proud you went, and
in any case don't fall in love with a French girl.' Miller swore he wouldn't,
but you never can tell about those fascinating foreign hussies. Anyhow, the
last sight he had of me I was smiling to my limit. Gee, all the rest of the day
my face felt as if it had been starched and ironed into a smile."

In spite of Mary's advice and example Mrs. Blythe, who had sent Jem off
with a smile, could not quite manage one for Walter. But at least no one
cried. Dog Monday came out of his lair in the shipping-shed and sat down

close to Walter, thumping his tail vigorously on the boards of the platform
whenever Walter spoke to him, and looking up with confident eyes, as if to
say, "I know you'll find Jem and bring him back to me."

"So long, old fellow," said Carl Meredith cheerfully, when the good-byes
had to be said. "Tell them over there to keep their spirits up—I am coming
along presently."

"Me too," said Shirley laconically, proffering a brown paw. Susan heard
him and her face turned very grey.

Una shook hands quietly, looking at him with wistful, sorrowful, dark-
blue eyes. But then Una's eyes had always been wistful. Walter bent his
handsome black head in its khaki cap and kissed her with the warm,
comradely kiss of a brother. He had never kissed her before, and for a
fleeting moment Una's face betrayed her, if anyone had noticed. But nobody
did; the conductor was shouting "all aboard"; everybody was trying to look
very cheerful. Walter turned to Rilla; she held his hands and looked up at
him. She would not see him again until the day broke and the shadows
vanished—and she knew not if that daybreak would be on this side of the
grave or beyond it.

"Good-bye," she said.

On her lips it lost all the bitterness it had won through the ages of parting
and bore instead all the sweetness of the old loves of all the women who
had ever loved and prayed for the beloved.

"Write me often and bring Jims up faithfully, according to the gospel of
Morgan," Walter said lightly, having said all his serious things the night
before in Rainbow Valley. But at the last moment he took her face between
his hands and looked deep into her gallant eyes. "God bless you, Rilla-my-
Rilla," he said softly and tenderly. After all it was not a hard thing to fight
for a land that bore daughters like this.

He stood on the rear platform and waved to them as the train pulled out.
Rilla was standing by herself, but Una Meredith came to her and the two

girls who loved him most stood together and held each other's cold hands as
the train rounded the curve of the wooded hill.

Rilla spent an hour in Rainbow Valley that morning about which she
never said a word to anyone; she did not even write in her diary about it;
when it was over she went home and made rompers for Jims. In the evening
she went to a Junior Red Cross committee meeting and was severely
businesslike.

"You would never suppose," said Irene Howard to Olive Kirk
afterwards, "that Walter had left for the front only this morning. But some
people really have no depth of feeling. I often wish I could take things as
lightly as Rilla Blythe."

CHAPTER XVI

REALISM AND ROMANCE

"Warsaw has fallen," said Dr. Blythe with a resigned air, as he brought
the mail in one warm August day.

Gertrude and Mrs. Blythe looked dismally at each other, and Rilla, who
was feeding Jims a Morganized diet from a carefully sterilized spoon, laid
the said spoon down on his tray, utterly regardless of germs, and said, "Oh,
dear me," in as tragic a tone as if the news had come as a thunderbolt
instead of being a foregone conclusion from the preceding week's
dispatches. They had thought they were quite resigned to Warsaw's fall but
now they knew they had, as always, hoped against hope.

"Now, let us take a brace," said Susan. "It is not the terrible thing we
have been thinking. I read a dispatch three columns long in the Montreal
Herald yesterday that proved that Warsaw was not important from a military
point of view at all. So let us take the military point of view, doctor dear."

"I read that dispatch, too, and it has encouraged me immensely," said
Gertrude. "I knew then and I know now that it was a lie from beginning to
end. But I am in that state of mind where even a lie is a comfort, providing
it is a cheerful lie."

"In that case, Miss Oliver dear, the German official reports ought to be
all you need," said Susan sarcastically. "I never read them now because they
make me so mad I cannot put my thoughts properly on my work after a
dose of them. Even this news about Warsaw has taken the edge off my
afternoon's plans. Misfortunes never come singly. I spoiled my baking of
bread today—and now Warsaw has fallen—and here is little Kitchener bent
on choking himself to death."

Jims was evidently trying to swallow his spoon, germs and all. Rilla
rescued him mechanically and was about to resume the operation of feeding
him when a casual remark of her father's sent such a shock and thrill over
her that for the second time she dropped that doomed spoon.

"Kenneth Ford is down at Martin West's over-harbour," the doctor was
saying. "His regiment was on its way to the front but was held up in
Kingsport for some reason, and Ken got leave of absence to come over to
the Island."

"I hope he will come up to see us," exclaimed Mrs. Blythe.

"He only has a day or two off, I believe," said the doctor absently.

Nobody noticed Rilla's flushed face and trembling hands. Even the most
thoughtful and watchful of parents do not see everything that goes on under
their very noses. Rilla made a third attempt to give the long-suffering Jims
his dinner, but all she could think of was the question—Would Ken come to
see her before he went away? She had not heard from him for a long while.
Had he forgotten her completely? If he did not come she would know that
he had. Perhaps there was even—some other girl back there in Toronto. Of
course there was. She was a little fool to be thinking about him at all. She
would not think about him. If he came, well and good. It would only be
courteous of him to make a farewell call at Ingleside where he had often
been a guest. If he did not come—well and good, too. It did not matter very

much. Nobody was going to fret. That was all settled comfortably—she was
quite indifferent—but meanwhile Jims was being fed with a haste and
recklessness that would have filled the soul of Morgan with horror. Jims
himself didn't like it, being a methodical baby, accustomed to swallowing
spoonfuls with a decent interval for breath between each. He protested, but
his protests availed him nothing. Rilla, as far as the care and feeding of
infants was concerned, was utterly demoralized.

Then the telephone-bell rang. There was nothing unusual about the
telephone ringing. It rang on an average every ten minutes at Ingleside. But
Rilla dropped Jims' spoon again—on the carpet this time—and flew to the
'phone as if life depended on her getting there before anybody else. Jims,
his patience exhausted, lifted up his voice and wept.

"Hello, is this Ingleside?"

"Yes."

"That you, Rilla?" "Yeth—yeth." Oh, why couldn't Jims stop howling for
just one little minute? Why didn't somebody come in and choke him?

"Know who's speaking?"

Oh, didn't she know! Wouldn't she know that voice anywhere—at any
time?

"It's Ken—isn't it?"

"Sure thing. I'm here for a look-in. Can I come up to Ingleside tonight
and see you?"

"Of courthe."

Had he used "you" in the singular or plural sense? Presently she would
wring Jims' neck—oh, what was Ken saying?

"See here, Rilla, can you arrange that there won't be more than a few
dozen people round? Understand? I can't make my meaning clearer over
this bally rural line. There are a dozen receivers down."

Did she understand! Yes, she understood.

"I'll try," she said.

"I'll be up about eight then. By-by."

Rilla hung up the 'phone and flew to Jims. But she did not wring that
injured infant's neck. Instead she snatched him bodily out of his chair,
crushed him against her face, kissed him rapturously on his milky mouth,
and danced wildly around the room with him in her arms. After this Jims
was relieved to find that she returned to sanity, gave him the rest of his
dinner properly, and tucked him away for his afternoon nap with the little
lullaby he loved best of all. She sewed at Red Cross shirts for the rest of the
afternoon and built a crystal castle of dreams, all a-quiver with rainbows.
Ken wanted to see her—to see her alone. That could be easily managed.
Shirley wouldn't bother them, father and mother were going to the Manse,
Miss Oliver never played gooseberry, and Jims always slept the clock round
from seven to seven. She would entertain Ken on the veranda—it would be
moonlight—she would wear her white georgette dress and do her hair up—
yes, she would—at least in a low knot at the nape of her neck. Mother
couldn't object to that, surely. Oh, how wonderful and romantic it would be!
Would Ken say anything—he must mean to say something or why should
he be so particular about seeing her alone? What if it rained—Susan had
been complaining about Mr. Hyde that morning! What if some officious
Junior Red called to discuss Belgians and shirts? Or, worst of all, what if
Fred Arnold dropped in? He did occasionally.

The evening came at last and was all that could be desired in an evening.
The doctor and his wife went to the Manse, Shirley and Miss Oliver went
they alone knew where, Susan went to the store for household supplies, and
Jims went to Dreamland. Rilla put on her georgette gown, knotted up her
hair and bound a little double string of pearls around it. Then she tucked a
cluster of pale pink baby roses at her belt. Would Ken ask her for a rose for
a keepsake? She knew that Jem had carried to the trenches in Flanders a
faded rose that Faith Meredith had kissed and given him the night before he
left.

Rilla looked very sweet when she met Ken in the mingled moonlight and
vine shadows of the big veranda. The hand she gave him was cold and she
was so desperately anxious not to lisp that her greeting was prim and
precise. How handsome and tall Kenneth looked in his lieutenant's uniform!
It made him seem older, too—so much so that Rilla felt rather foolish.
Hadn't it been the height of absurdity for her to suppose that this splendid
young officer had anything special to say to her, little Rilla Blythe of Glen
St. Mary? Likely she hadn't understood him after all—he had only meant
that he didn't want a mob of folks around making a fuss over him and trying
to lionize him, as they had probably done over-harbour. Yes, of course, that
was all he meant—and she, little idiot, had gone and vainly imagined that
he didn't want anybody but her. And he would think she had manoeuvred
everybody away so that they could be alone together, and he would laugh to
himself at her.

"This is better luck than I hoped for," said Ken, leaning back in his chair
and looking at her with very unconcealed admiration in his eloquent eyes.
"I was sure someone would be hanging about and it was just you I wanted
to see, Rilla-my-Rilla."

Rilla's dream castle flashed into the landscape again. This was
unmistakable enough certainly—not much doubt as to his meaning here.

"There aren't—so many of us—to poke around as there used to be," she
said softly.

"No, that's so," said Ken gently. "Jem and Walter and the girls away—it
makes a big blank, doesn't it? But—" he leaned forward until his dark curls
almost brushed her hair—"doesn't Fred Arnold try to fill the blank
occasionally. I've been told so."

At this moment, before Rilla could make any reply, Jims began to cry at
the top of his voice in the room whose open window was just above them—
Jims, who hardly ever cried in the evening. Moreover, he was crying, as
Rilla knew from experience, with a vim and energy that betokened that he
had been already whimpering softly unheard for some time and was
thoroughly exasperated. When Jims started in crying like that he made a
thorough job of it. Rilla knew that there was no use to sit still and pretend to

ignore him. He wouldn't stop; and conversation of any kind was out of the
question when such shrieks and howls were floating over your head.
Besides, she was afraid Kenneth would think she was utterly unfeeling if
she sat still and let a baby cry like that. He was not likely acquainted with
Morgan's invaluable volume.

She got up. "Jims has had a nightmare, I think. He sometimes has one
and he is always badly frightened by it. Excuse me for a moment."

Rilla flew upstairs, wishing quite frankly that soup tureens had never
been invented. But when Jims, at sight of her, lifted his little arms
entreatingly and swallowed several sobs, with tears rolling down his
cheeks, resentment went out of her heart. After all, the poor darling was
frightened. She picked him up gently and rocked him soothingly until his
sobs ceased and his eyes closed. Then she essayed to lay him down in his
crib. Jims opened his eyes and shrieked a protest. This performance was
repeated twice. Rilla grew desperate. She couldn't leave Ken down there
alone any longer—she had been away nearly half an hour already. With a
resigned air she marched downstairs, carrying Jims, and sat down on the
veranda. It was, no doubt, a ridiculous thing to sit and cuddle a contrary
war-baby when your best young man was making his farewell call, but
there was nothing else to be done.

Jims was supremely happy. He kicked his little pink-soled feet
rapturously out under his white nighty and gave one of his rare laughs. He
was beginning to be a very pretty baby; his golden hair curled in silken
ringlets all over his little round head and his eyes were beautiful.

"He's a decorative kiddy all right, isn't he?" said Ken.

"His looks are very well," said Rilla, bitterly, as if to imply that they
were much the best of him. Jims, being an astute infant, sensed trouble in
the atmosphere and realized that it was up to him to clear it away. He turned
his face up to Rilla, smiled adorably and said, clearly and beguilingly, "Will
—Will."

It was the very first time he had spoken a word or tried to speak. Rilla
was so delighted that she forgot her grudge against him. She forgave him

with a hug and kiss. Jims, understanding that he was restored to favour,
cuddled down against her just where a gleam of light from the lamp in the
living-room struck across his hair and turned it into a halo of gold against
her breast.

Kenneth sat very still and silent, looking at Rilla—at the delicate, girlish
silhouette of her, her long lashes, her dented lip, her adorable chin. In the
dim moonlight, as she sat with her head bent a little over Jims, the
lamplight glinting on her pearls until they glistened like a slender nimbus,
he thought she looked exactly like the Madonna that hung over his mother's
desk at home. He carried that picture of her in his heart to the horror of the
battlefields of France. He had had a strong fancy for Rilla Blythe ever since
the night of the Four Winds dance; but it was when he saw her there, with
little Jims in her arms, that he loved her and realized it. And all the while,
poor Rilla was sitting, disappointed and humiliated, feeling that her last
evening with Ken was spoiled and wondering why things always had to go
so contrarily outside of books. She felt too absurd to try to talk. Evidently
Ken was completely disgusted, too, since he was sitting there in such stony
silence.

Hope revived momentarily when Jims went so thoroughly asleep that
she thought it would be safe to lay him down on the couch in the living-
room. But when she came out again Susan was sitting on the veranda,
loosening her bonnet strings with the air of one who meant to stay where
she was for some time.

"Have you got your baby to sleep?" she asked kindly.

Your baby! Really, Susan might have more tact.

"Yes," said Rilla shortly.

Susan laid her parcels on the reed table, as one determined to do her
duty. She was very tired but she must help Rilla out. Here was Kenneth
Ford who had come to call on the family and they were all unfortunately
out, and "the poor child" had had to entertain him alone. But Susan had
come to her rescue—Susan would do her part no matter how tired she was.

"Dear me, how you have grown up," she said, looking at Ken's six feet
of khaki uniform without the least awe. Susan had grown used to khaki
now, and at sixty-four even a lieutenant's uniform is just clothes and nothing
else. "It is an amazing thing how fast children do grow up. Rilla here, now,
is almost fifteen."

"I'm going on seventeen, Susan," cried Rilla almost passionately. She
was a whole month past sixteen. It was intolerable of Susan.

"It seems just the other day that you were all babies," said Susan,
ignoring Rilla's protest. "You were really the prettiest baby I ever saw, Ken,
though your mother had an awful time trying to cure you of sucking your
thumb. Do you remember the day I spanked you?"

"No," said Ken.

"Oh well, I suppose you would be too young—you were only about four
and you were here with your mother and you insisted on teasing Nan until
she cried. I had tried several ways of stopping you but none availed, and I
saw that a spanking was the only thing that would serve. So I picked you up
and laid you across my knee and lambasted you well. You howled at the top
of your voice but you left Nan alone after that."

Rilla was writhing. Hadn't Susan any realization that she was addressing
an officer of the Canadian Army? Apparently she had not. Oh, what would
Ken think? "I suppose you do not remember the time your mother spanked
you either," continued Susan, who seemed to be bent on reviving tender
reminiscences that evening. "I shall never, no never, forget it. She was up
here one night with you when you were about three, and you and Walter
were playing out in the kitchen yard with a kitten. I had a big puncheon of
rainwater by the spout which I was reserving for making soap. And you and
Walter began quarrelling over the kitten. Walter was at one side of the
puncheon standing on a chair, holding the kitten, and you were standing on
a chair at the other side. You leaned across that puncheon and grabbed the
kitten and pulled. You were always a great hand for taking what you wanted
without too much ceremony. Walter held on tight and the poor kitten yelled
but you dragged Walter and the kitten half over and then you both lost your
balance and tumbled into that puncheon, kitten and all. If I had not been on

the spot you would both have been drowned. I flew to the rescue and hauled
you all three out before much harm was done, and your mother, who had
seen it all from the upstairs window, came down and picked you up,
dripping as you were, and gave you a beautiful spanking. Ah," said Susan
with a sigh, "those were happy old days at Ingleside."

"Must have been," said Ken. His voice sounded queer and stiff. Rilla
supposed he was hopelessly enraged. The truth was he dared not trust his
voice lest it betray his frantic desire to laugh.

"Rilla here, now," said Susan, looking affectionately at that unhappy
damsel, "never was much spanked. She was a real well-behaved child for
the most part. But her father did spank her once. She got two bottles of pills
out of his office and dared Alice Clow to see which of them could swallow
all the pills first, and if her father had not happened in the nick of time those
two children would have been corpses by night. As it was, they were both
sick enough shortly after. But the doctor spanked Rilla then and there and
he made such a thorough job of it that she never meddled with anything in
his office afterwards. We hear a great deal nowadays of something that is
called 'moral persuasion,' but in my opinion a good spanking and no
nagging afterwards is a much better thing."

Rilla wondered viciously whether Susan meant to relate all the family
spankings. But Susan had finished with the subject and branched off to
another cheerful one.

"I remember little Tod MacAllister over-harbour killed himself that very
way, eating up a whole box of fruitatives because he thought they were
candy. It was a very sad affair. He was," said Susan earnestly, "the very
cutest little corpse I ever laid my eyes on. It was very careless of his mother
to leave the fruitatives where he could get them, but she was well-known to
be a heedless creature. One day she found a nest of five eggs as she was
going across the fields to church with a brand new blue silk dress on. So she
put them in the pocket of her petticoat and when she got to church she
forgot all about them and sat down on them and her dress was ruined, not to
speak of the petticoat. Let me see—would not Tod be some relation of
yours? Your great grandmother West was a MacAllister. Her brother Amos
was a MacDonaldite in religion. I am told he used to take the jerks

something fearful. But you look more like your great grandfather West than
the MacAllisters. He died of a paralytic stroke quite early in life."

"Did you see anybody at the store?" asked Rilla desperately, in the faint
hope of directing Susan's conversation into more agreeable channels.

"Nobody except Mary Vance," said Susan, "and she was stepping round
as brisk as the Irishman's flea."

What terrible similes Susan used! Would Kenneth think she acquired
them from the family!

"To hear Mary talk about Miller Douglas you would think he was the
only Glen boy who had enlisted," Susan went on. "But of course she always
did brag and she has some good qualities I am willing to admit, though I did
not think so that time she chased Rilla here through the village with a dried
codfish till the poor child fell, heels over head, into the puddle before Carter
Flagg's store."

Rilla went cold all over with wrath and shame. Were there any more
disgraceful scenes in her past that Susan could rake up? As for Ken, he
could have howled over Susan's speeches, but he would not so insult the
duenna of his lady, so he sat with a preternaturally solemn face which
seemed to poor Rilla a haughty and offended one.

"I paid eleven cents for a bottle of ink tonight," complained Susan. "Ink
is twice as high as it was last year. Perhaps it is because Woodrow Wilson
has been writing so many notes. It must cost him considerable. My cousin
Sophia says Woodrow Wilson is not the man she expected him to be—but
then no man ever was. Being an old maid, I do not know much about men
and have never pretended to, but my cousin Sophia is very hard on them,
although she married two of them, which you might think was a fair share.
Albert Crawford's chimney blew down in that big gale we had last week,
and when Sophia heard the bricks clattering on the roof she thought it was a
Zeppelin raid and went into hysterics. And Mrs. Albert Crawford says that
of the two things she would have preferred the Zeppelin raid."

Rilla sat limply in her chair like one hypnotized. She knew Susan would
stop talking when she was ready to stop and that no earthly power could
make her stop any sooner. As a rule, she was very fond of Susan but just
now she hated her with a deadly hatred. It was ten o'clock. Ken would soon
have to go—the others would soon be home—and she had not even had a
chance to explain to Ken that Fred Arnold filled no blank in her life nor
ever could. Her rainbow castle lay in ruins round her.

Kenneth got up at last. He realized that Susan was there to stay as long
as he did, and it was a three mile walk to Martin West's over-harbour. He
wondered if Rilla had put Susan up to this, not wanting to be left alone with
him, lest he say something Fred Arnold's sweetheart did not want to hear.
Rilla got up, too, and walked silently the length of the veranda with him.
They stood there for a moment, Ken on the lower step. The step was half
sunk into the earth and mint grew thickly about and over its edge. Often
crushed by so many passing feet it gave out its essence freely, and the spicy
odour hung round them like a soundless, invisible benediction. Ken looked
up at Rilla, whose hair was shining in the moonlight and whose eyes were
pools of allurement. All at once he felt sure there was nothing in that gossip
about Fred Arnold.

"Rilla," he said in a sudden, intense whisper, "you are the sweetest
thing."

Rilla flushed and looked at Susan. Ken looked, too, and saw that Susan's
back was turned. He put his arm about Rilla and kissed her. It was the first
time Rilla had ever been kissed. She thought perhaps she ought to resent it
but she didn't. Instead, she glanced timidly into Kenneth's seeking eyes and
her glance was a kiss.

"Rilla-my-Rilla," said Ken, "will you promise that you won't let anyone
else kiss you until I come back?"

"Yes," said Rilla, trembling and thrilling.

Susan was turning round. Ken loosened his hold and stepped to the walk.

"Good-bye," he said casually. Rilla heard herself saying it just as
casually. She stood and watched him down the walk, out of the gate, and
down the road. When the fir wood hid him from her sight she suddenly said
"Oh," in a choked way and ran down to the gate, sweet blossomy things
catching at her skirts as she ran. Leaning over the gate she saw Kenneth
walking briskly down the road, over the bars of tree shadows and
moonlight, his tall, erect figure grey in the white radiance. As he reached
the turn he stopped and looked back and saw her standing amid the tall
white lilies by the gate. He waved his hand—she waved hers—he was gone
around the turn.

Rilla stood there for a little while, gazing across the fields of mist and
silver. She had heard her mother say that she loved turns in roads—they
were so provocative and alluring. Rilla thought she hated them. She had
seen Jem and Jerry vanish from her around a bend in the road—then Walter
—and now Ken. Brothers and playmate and sweetheart—they were all
gone, never, it might be, to return. Yet still the Piper piped and the dance of
death went on.

When Rilla walked slowly back to the house Susan was still sitting by
the veranda table and Susan was sniffing suspiciously.

"I have been thinking, Rilla dear, of the old days in the House of
Dreams, when Kenneth's mother and father were courting and Jem was a
little baby and you were not born or thought of. It was a very romantic
affair and she and your mother were such chums. To think I should have
lived to see her son going to the front. As if she had not had enough trouble
in her early life without this coming upon her! But we must take a brace and
see it through."

All Rilla's anger against Susan had evaporated. With Ken's kiss still
burning on her lips, and the wonderful significance of the promise he had
asked thrilling heart and soul, she could not be angry with anyone. She put
her slim white hand into Susan's brown, work-hardened one and gave it a
squeeze. Susan was a faithful old dear and would lay down her life for any
one of them.

"You are tired, Rilla dear, and had better go to bed," Susan said, patting
her hand. "I noticed you were too tired to talk tonight. I am glad I came
home in time to help you out. It is very tiresome trying to entertain young
men when you are not accustomed to it."

Rilla carried Jims upstairs and went to bed, but not before she had sat for
a long time at her window reconstructing her rainbow castle, with several
added domes and turrets.

"I wonder," she said to herself, "if I am, or am not, engaged to Kenneth
Ford."

CHAPTER XVII

THE WEEKS WEAR BY

Rilla read her first love letter in her Rainbow Valley fir-shadowed nook,
and a girl's first love letter, whatever blase, older people may think of it, is
an event of tremendous importance in the teens. After Kenneth's regiment
had left Kingsport there came a fortnight of dully-aching anxiety and when
the congregation sang in Church on Sunday evenings,

"Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea,"

Rilla's voice always failed her; for with the words came a horribly vivid
mind picture of a submarined ship sinking beneath pitiless waves amid the
struggles and cries of drowning men. Then word came that Kenneth's
regiment had arrived safely in England; and now, at last, here was his letter.
It began with something that made Rilla supremely happy for the moment
and ended with a paragraph that crimsoned her cheeks with the wonder and
thrill and delight of it. Between beginning and ending the letter was just
such a jolly, newsy epistle as Ken might have written to anyone; but for the
sake of that beginning and ending Rilla slept with the letter under her pillow
for weeks, sometimes waking in the night to slip her fingers under and just
touch it, and looked with secret pity on other girls whose sweethearts could
never have written them anything half so wonderful and exquisite. Kenneth
was not the son of a famous novelist for nothing. He "had a way" of
expressing things in a few poignant, significant words that seemed to
suggest far more than they uttered, and never grew stale or flat or foolish
with ever so many scores of readings. Rilla went home from Rainbow
Valley as if she flew rather than walked.

But such moments of uplift were rare that autumn. To be sure, there was
one day in September when great news came of a big Allied victory in the

west and Susan ran out to hoist the flag—the first time she had hoisted it
since the Russian line broke and the last time she was to hoist it for many
dismal moons.

"Likely the Big Push has begun at last, Mrs. Dr. dear," she exclaimed,
"and we will soon see the finish of the Huns. Our boys will be home by
Christmas now. Hurrah!"

Susan was ashamed of herself for hurrahing the minute she had done it,
and apologized meekly for such an outburst of juvenility. "But indeed, Mrs.
Dr. dear, this good news has gone to my head after this awful summer of
Russian slumps and Gallipoli setbacks."

"Good news!" said Miss Oliver bitterly. "I wonder if the women whose
men have been killed for it will call it good news. Just because our own
men are not on that part of the front we are rejoicing as if the victory had
cost no lives."

"Now, Miss Oliver dear, do not take that view of it," deprecated Susan.
"We have not had much to rejoice over of late and yet men were being
killed just the same. Do not let yourself slump like poor Cousin Sophia. She
said, when the word came, 'Ah, it is nothing but a rift in the clouds. We are
up this week but we will be down the next.' 'Well, Sophia Crawford,' said I,
—for I will never give in to her, Mrs. Dr. dear—'God himself cannot make
two hills without a hollow between them, as I have heard it said, but that is
no reason why we should not take the good of the hills when we are on
them.' But Cousin Sophia moaned on. 'Here is the Gallipolly expedition a
failure and the Grand Duke Nicholas sent off, and everyone knows the Czar
of Rooshia is a pro-German and the Allies have no ammunition and
Bulgaria is going against us. And the end is not yet, for England and France
must be punished for their deadly sins until they repent in sackcloth and
ashes.' 'I think myself,' I said, 'that they will do their repenting in khaki and
trench mud, and it seems to me that the Huns should have a few sins to
repent of also.' 'They are instruments in the hands of the Almighty, to purge
the garner,' said Sophia. And then I got mad, Mrs. Dr. dear, and told her I
did not and never would believe that the Almighty ever took such dirty
instruments in hand for any purpose whatever, and that I did not consider it
decent for her to be using the words of Holy Writ as glibly as she was doing

in ordinary conversation. She was not, I told her, a minister or even an
elder. And for the time being I squelched her, Mrs. Dr. dear. Cousin Sophia
has no spirit. She is very different from her niece, Mrs. Dean Crawford
over-harbour. You know the Dean Crawfords had five boys and now the
new baby is another boy. All the connection and especially Dean Crawford
were much disappointed because their hearts had been set on a girl; but
Mrs. Dean just laughed and said, 'Everywhere I went this summer I saw the
sign "MEN WANTED" staring me in the face. Do you think I could go and
have a girl under such circumstances?' There is spirit for you, Mrs. Dr. dear.
But Cousin Sophia would say the child was just so much more cannon
fodder."

Cousin Sophia had full range for her pessimism that gloomy autumn,
and even Susan, incorrigible old optimist as she was, was hard put to it for
cheer. When Bulgaria lined up with Germany Susan only remarked
scornfully, "One more nation anxious for a licking," but the Greek tangle
worried her beyond her powers of philosophy to endure calmly.

"Constantine of Greece has a German wife, Mrs. Dr. dear, and that fact
squelches hope. To think that I should have lived to care what kind of a wife
Constantine of Greece had! The miserable creature is under his wife's
thumb and that is a bad place for any man to be. I am an old maid and an
old maid has to be independent or she will be squashed out. But if I had
been a married woman, Mrs. Dr. dear, I would have been meek and humble.
It is my opinion that this Sophia of Greece is a minx."

Susan was furious when the news came that Venizelos had met with
defeat. "I could spank Constantine and skin him alive afterwards, that I
could," she exclaimed bitterly.

"Oh, Susan, I'm surprised at you," said the doctor, pulling a long face.
"Have you no regard for the proprieties? Skin him alive by all means but
omit the spanking."

"If he had been well spanked in his younger days he might have more
sense now," retorted Susan. "But I suppose princes are never spanked, more
is the pity. I see the Allies have sent him an ultimatum. I could tell them that
it will take more than ultimatums to skin a snake like Constantine. Perhaps

the Allied blockade will hammer sense into his head; but that will take some
time I am thinking, and in the meantime what is to become of poor Serbia?"

They saw what became of Serbia, and during the process Susan was
hardly to be lived with. In her exasperation she abused everything and
everybody except Kitchener, and she fell upon poor President Wilson tooth
and claw.

"If he had done his duty and gone into the war long ago we should not
have seen this mess in Serbia," she avowed.

"It would be a serious thing to plunge a great country like the United
States, with its mixed population, into the war, Susan," said the doctor, who
sometimes came to the defence of the President, not because he thought
Wilson needed it especially, but from an unholy love of baiting Susan.

"Maybe, doctor dear—maybe! But that makes me think of the old story
of the girl who told her grandmother she was going to be married. 'It is a
solemn thing to be married,' said the old lady. 'Yes, but it is a solemner thing
not to be,' said the girl. And I can testify to that out of my own experience,
doctor dear. And I think it is a solemner thing for the Yankees that they have
kept out of the war than it would have been if they had gone into it.
However, though I do not know much about them, I am of the opinion that
we will see them starting something yet, Woodrow Wilson or no Woodrow
Wilson, when they get it into their heads that this war is not a
correspondence school. They will not," said Susan, energetically waving a
saucepan with one hand and a soup ladle with the other, "be too proud to
fight then."

On a pale-yellow, windy evening in October Carl Meredith went away.
He had enlisted on his eighteenth birthday. John Meredith saw him off with
a set face. His two boys were gone—there was only little Bruce left now.
He loved Bruce and Bruce's mother dearly; but Jerry and Carl were the sons
of the bride of his youth and Carl was the only one of all his children who
had Cecilia's very eyes. As they looked lovingly out at him above Carl's
uniform the pale minister suddenly remembered the day when for the first
and last time he had tried to whip Carl for his prank with the eel. That was
the first time he had realised how much Carl's eyes were like Cecilia's. Now

he realised it again once more. Would he ever again see his dead wife's eyes
looking at him from his son's face? What a bonny, clean, handsome lad he
was! It was—hard—to see him go. John Meredith seemed to be looking at a
torn plain strewed with the bodies of "able-bodied men between the ages of
eighteen and forty-five." Only the other day Carl had been a little scrap of a
boy, hunting bugs in Rainbow Valley, taking lizards to bed with him, and
scandalizing the Glen by carrying frogs to Sunday School. It seemed hardly
—right—somehow that he should be an "able-bodied man" in khaki. Yet
John Meredith had said no word to dissuade him when Carl had told him he
must go.

Rilla felt Carl's going keenly. They had always been cronies and
playmates. He was only a little older than she was and they had been
children in Rainbow Valley together. She recalled all their old pranks and
escapades as she walked slowly home alone. The full moon peeped through
the scudding clouds with sudden floods of weird illumination, the telephone
wires sang a shrill weird song in the wind, and the tall spikes of withered,
grey-headed golden-rod in the fence corners swayed and beckoned wildly
to her like groups of old witches weaving unholy spells. On such a night as
this, long ago, Carl would come over to Ingleside and whistle her out to the
gate. "Let's go on a moon-spree, Rilla," he would say, and the two of them
would scamper off to Rainbow Valley. Rilla had never been afraid of his
beetles and bugs, though she drew a hard and fast line at snakes. They used
to talk together of almost everything and were teased about each other at
school; but one evening when they were about ten years of age they had
solemnly promised, by the old spring in Rainbow Valley, that they would
never marry each other. Alice Clow had "crossed out" their names on her
slate in school that day, and it came out that "both married." They did not
like the idea at all, hence the mutual vow in Rainbow Valley. There was
nothing like an ounce of prevention. Rilla laughed over the old memory—
and then sighed. That very day a dispatch from some London paper had
contained the cheerful announcement that "the present moment is the
darkest since the war began." It was dark enough, and Rilla wished
desperately that she could do something besides waiting and serving at
home, as day after day the Glen boys she had known went away. If she were
only a boy, speeding in khaki by Carl's side to the Western front! She had
wished that in a burst of romance when Jem had gone, without, perhaps,

really meaning it. She meant it now. There were moments when waiting at
home, in safety and comfort, seemed an unendurable thing.

The moon burst triumphantly through an especially dark cloud and
shadow and silver chased each other in waves over the Glen. Rilla
remembered one moonlit evening of childhood when she had said to her
mother, "The moon just looks like a sorry, sorry face." She thought it
looked like that still—an agonised, care-worn face, as though it looked
down on dreadful sights. What did it see on the Western front? In broken
Serbia? On shell-swept Gallipoli?

"I am tired," Miss Oliver had said that day, in a rare outburst of
impatience, "of this horrible rack of strained emotions, when every day
brings a new horror or the dread of it. No, don't look reproachfully at me,
Mrs. Blythe. There's nothing heroic about me today. I've slumped. I wish
England had left Belgium to her fate—I wish Canada had never sent a man
—I wish we'd tied our boys to our apron strings and not let one of them go.
Oh—I shall be ashamed of myself in half an hour—but at this very minute I
mean every word of it. Will the Allies never strike?"

"Patience is a tired mare but she jogs on," said Susan.

"While the steeds of Armageddon thunder, trampling over our hearts,"
retorted Miss Oliver. "Susan, tell me—don't you ever—didn't you ever—
take spells of feeling that you must scream—or swear—or smash something
—just because your torture reaches a point when it becomes unbearable?"

"I have never sworn or desired to swear, Miss Oliver dear, but I will
admit," said Susan, with the air of one determined to make a clean breast of
it once and for all, "that I have experienced occasions when it was a relief to
do considerable banging."

"Don't you think that is a kind of swearing, Susan? What is the
difference between slamming a door viciously and saying d——"

"Miss Oliver dear," interrupted Susan, desperately determined to save
Gertrude from herself, if human power could do it, "you are all tired out and
unstrung—and no wonder, teaching those obstreperous youngsters all day

and coming home to bad war news. But just you go upstairs and lie down
and I will bring you up a cup of hot tea and a bite of toast and very soon
you will not want to slam doors or swear."

"Susan, you're a good soul—a very pearl of Susans! But, Susan, it would
be such a relief—to say just one soft, low, little tiny d—-"

"I will bring you a hot-water bottle for the soles of your feet, also,"
interposed Susan resolutely, "and it would not be any relief to say that word
you are thinking of, Miss Oliver, and that you may tie to."

"Well, I'll try the hot-water bottle first," said Miss Oliver, repenting
herself on teasing Susan and vanishing upstairs, to Susan's intense relief.
Susan shook her head ominously as she filled the hot-water bottle. The war
was certainly relaxing the standards of behaviour woefully. Here was Miss
Oliver admittedly on the point of profanity.

"We must draw the blood from her brain," said Susan, "and if this bottle
is not effective I will see what can be done with a mustard plaster."

Gertrude rallied and carried on. Lord Kitchener went to Greece, whereat
Susan foretold that Constantine would soon experience a change of heart.
Lloyd George began to heckle the Allies regarding equipment and guns and
Susan said you would hear more of Lloyd George yet. The gallant Anzacs
withdrew from Gallipoli and Susan approved the step, with reservations.
The siege of Kut-El-Amara began and Susan pored over maps of
Mesopotamia and abused the Turks. Henry Ford started for Europe and
Susan flayed him with sarcasm. Sir John French was superseded by Sir
Douglas Haig and Susan dubiously opined that it was poor policy to swap
horses crossing a stream, "though, to be sure, Haig was a good name and
French had a foreign sound, say what you might." Not a move on the great
chess-board of king or bishop or pawn escaped Susan, who had once read
only Glen St. Mary notes. "There was a time," she said sorrowfully, "when I
did not care what happened outside of P.E. Island, and now a king cannot
have a toothache in Russia or China but it worries me. It may be broadening
to the mind, as the doctor said, but it is very painful to the feelings."

When Christmas came again Susan did not set any vacant places at the
festive board. Two empty chairs were too much even for Susan who had
thought in September that there would not be one.

"This is the first Christmas that Walter was not home," Rilla wrote in her
diary that night. "Jem used to be away for Christmases up in Avonlea, but
Walter never was. I had letters from Ken and him today. They are still in
England but expect to be in the trenches very soon. And then—but I
suppose we'll be able to endure it somehow. To me, the strangest of all the
strange things since 1914 is how we have all learned to accept things we
never thought we could—to go on with life as a matter of course. I know
that Jem and Jerry are in the trenches—that Ken and Walter will be soon—
that if one of them does not come back my heart will break—yet I go on
and work and plan—yes, and even enjoy life by times. There are moments
when we have real fun because, just for the moment, we don't think about
things and then—we remember—and the remembering is worse than
thinking of it all the time would have been.

"Today was dark and cloudy and tonight is wild enough, as Gertrude
says, to please any novelist in search of suitable matter for a murder or
elopement. The raindrops streaming over the panes look like tears running
down a face, and the wind is shrieking through the maple grove.

"This hasn't been a nice Christmas Day in any way. Nan had toothache
and Susan had red eyes, and assumed a weird and gruesome flippancy of
manner to deceive us into thinking she hadn't; and Jims had a bad cold all
day and I'm afraid of croup. He has had croup twice since October. The first
time I was nearly frightened to death, for father and mother were both away
—father always is away, it seems to me, when any of this household gets
sick. But Susan was cool as a fish and knew just what to do, and by
morning Jims was all right. That child is a cross between a duck and an
imp. He's a year and four months old, trots about everywhere, and says
quite a few words. He has the cutest little way of calling me "Willa-will." It
always brings back that dreadful, ridiculous, delightful night when Ken
came to say good-bye, and I was so furious and happy. Jims is pink and
white and big-eyed and curly-haired and every now and then I discover a
new dimple in him. I can never quite believe he is really the same creature

as that scrawny, yellow, ugly little changeling I brought home in the soup
tureen. Nobody has ever heard a word from Jim Anderson. If he never
comes back I shall keep Jims always. Everybody here worships and spoils
him—or would spoil him if Morgan and I didn't stand remorselessly in the
way. Susan says Jims is the cleverest child she ever saw and can recognize
Old Nick when he sees him—this because Jims threw poor Doc out of an
upstairs window one day. Doc turned into Mr. Hyde on his way down and
landed in a currant bush, spitting and swearing. I tried to console his inner
cat with a saucer of milk but he would have none of it, and remained Mr.
Hyde the rest of the day. Jims's latest exploit was to paint the cushion of the
big arm-chair in the sun parlour with molasses; and before anybody found it
out Mrs. Fred Clow came in on Red Cross business and sat down on it. Her
new silk dress was ruined and nobody could blame her for being vexed. But
she went into one of her tempers and said nasty things and gave me such
slams about 'spoiling' Jims that I nearly boiled over, too. But I kept the lid
on till she had waddled away and then I exploded.

"'The fat, clumsy, horrid old thing,' I said—and oh, what a satisfaction it
was to say it.

"'She has three sons at the front,' mother said rebukingly.

"'I suppose that covers all her shortcomings in manners,' I retorted. But I
was ashamed—for it is true that all her boys have gone and she was very
plucky and loyal about it too; and she is a perfect tower of strength in the
Red Cross. It's a little hard to remember all the heroines. Just the same, it
was her second new silk dress in one year and that when everybody is—or
should be—trying to 'save and serve.'

"I had to bring out my green velvet hat again lately and begin wearing it.
I hung on to my blue straw sailor as long as I could. How I hate the green
velvet hat! It is so elaborate and conspicuous. I don't see how I could ever
have liked it. But I vowed to wear it and wear it I will.

"Shirley and I went down to the station this morning to take Little Dog
Monday a bang-up Christmas dinner. Dog Monday waits and watches there
still, with just as much hope and confidence as ever. Sometimes he hangs
around the station house and talks to people and the rest of his time he sits

at his little kennel door and watches the track unwinkingly. We never try to
coax him home now: we know it is of no use. When Jem comes back,
Monday will come home with him; and if Jem—never comes back—
Monday will wait there for him as long as his dear dog heart goes on
beating.

"Fred Arnold was here last night. He was eighteen in November and is
going to enlist just as soon as his mother is over an operation she has to
have. He has been coming here very often lately and though I like him so
much it makes me uncomfortable, because I am afraid he is thinking that
perhaps I could care something for him. I can't tell him about Ken—
because, after all, what is there to tell? And yet I don't like to behave coldly
and distantly when he will be going away so soon. It is very perplexing. I
remember I used to think it would be such fun to have dozens of beaux—
and now I'm worried to death because two are too many.

"I am learning to cook. Susan is teaching me. I tried to learn long ago—
but no, let me be honest—Susan tried to teach me, which is a very different
thing. I never seemed to succeed with anything and I got discouraged. But
since the boys have gone away I wanted to be able to make cake and things
for them myself and so I started in again and this time I'm getting on
surprisingly well. Susan says it is all in the way I hold my mouth and father
says my subconscious mind is desirous of learning now, and I dare say
they're both right. Anyhow, I can make dandy short-bread and fruitcake. I
got ambitious last week and attempted cream puffs, but made an awful
failure of them. They came out of the oven flat as flukes. I thought maybe
the cream would fill them up again and make them plump but it didn't. I
think Susan was secretly pleased. She is past mistress in the art of making
cream puffs and it would break her heart if anyone else here could make
them as well. I wonder if Susan tampered—but no, I won't suspect her of
such a thing.

"Miranda Pryor spent an afternoon here a few days ago, helping me cut
out certain Red Cross garments known by the charming name of 'vermin
shirts.' Susan thinks that name is not quite decent, so I suggested she call
them 'cootie sarks,' which is old Highland Sandy's version of it. But she
shook her head and I heard her telling mother later that, in her opinion,

'cooties' and 'sarks' were not proper subjects for young girls to talk about.
She was especially horrified when Jem wrote in his last letter to mother,
'Tell Susan I had a fine cootie hunt this morning and caught fifty-three!'
Susan positively turned pea-green. 'Mrs. Dr. dear,' she said, 'when I was
young, if decent people were so unfortunate as to get—those insects—they
kept it a secret if possible. I do not want to be narrow-minded, Mrs. Dr.
dear, but I still think it is better not to mention such things.'

"Miranda grew confidential over our vermin shirts and told me all her
troubles. She is desperately unhappy. She is engaged to Joe Milgrave and
Joe joined up in October and has been training in Charlottetown ever since.
Her father was furious when he joined and forbade Miranda ever to have
any dealing or communication with him again. Poor Joe expects to go
overseas any day and wants Miranda to marry him before he goes, which
shows that there have been 'communications' in spite of Whiskers-on-the-
moon. Miranda wants to marry him but cannot, and she declares it will
break her heart.

"'Why don't you run away and marry him?' I said. It didn't go against my
conscience in the least to give her such advice. Joe Milgrave is a splendid
fellow and Mr. Pryor fairly beamed on him until the war broke out and I
know Mr. Pryor would forgive Miranda very quickly, once it was over and
he wanted his housekeeper back. But Miranda shook her silvery head
dolefully.

"'Joe wants me to but I can't. Mother's last words to me, as she lay on her
dying-bed, were, "Never, never run away, Miranda," and I promised.'

"Miranda's mother died two years ago, and it seems, according to
Miranda, that her mother and father actually ran away to be married
themselves. To picture Whiskers-on-the-moon as the hero of an elopement
is beyond my power. But such was the case and Mrs. Pryor at least lived to
repent it. She had a hard life of it with Mr. Pryor, and she thought it was a
punishment on her for running away. So she made Miranda promise she
would never, for any reason whatever, do it.

"Of course, you cannot urge a girl to break a promise made to a dying
mother, so I did not see what Miranda could do unless she got Joe to come

to the house when her father was away and marry her there. But Miranda
said that couldn't be managed. Her father seemed to suspect she might be up
to something of the sort and he never went away for long at a time, and, of
course, Joe couldn't get leave of absence at an hour's notice.

"'No, I shall just have to let Joe go, and he will be killed—I know he will
be killed—and my heart will break,' said Miranda, her tears running down
and copiously bedewing the vermin shirts!

"I am not writing like this for lack of any real sympathy with poor
Miranda. I've just got into the habit of giving things a comical twist if I can,
when I'm writing to Jem and Walter and Ken, to make them laugh. I really
felt sorry for Miranda who is as much in love with Joe as a china-blue girl
can be with anyone and who is dreadfully ashamed of her father's pro-
German sentiments. I think she understood that I did, for she said she had
wanted to tell me all about her worries because I had grown so sympathetic
this past year. I wonder if I have. I know I used to be a selfish, thoughtless
creature—how selfish and thoughtless I am ashamed to remember now, so I
can't be quite so bad as I was.

"I wish I could help Miranda. It would be very romantic to contrive a
war-wedding and I should dearly love to get the better of Whiskers-on-the-
moon. But at present the oracle has not spoken."

CHAPTER XVIII

A WAR-WEDDING

"I can tell you this Dr. dear," said Susan, pale with wrath, "that Germany
is getting to be perfectly ridiculous."

They were all in the big Ingleside kitchen. Susan was mixing biscuits for
supper. Mrs. Blythe was making shortbread for Jem, and Rilla was

compounding candy for Ken and Walter—it had once been "Walter and
Ken" in her thoughts but somehow, quite unconsciously, this had changed
until Ken's name came naturally first. Cousin Sophia was also there,
knitting. All the boys were going to be killed in the long run, so Cousin
Sophia felt in her bones, but they might better die with warm feet than cold
ones, so Cousin Sophia knitted faithfully and gloomily.

Into this peaceful scene erupted the doctor, wrathful and excited over the
burning of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa. And Susan became
automatically quite as wrathful and excited.

"What will those Huns do next?" she demanded. "Coming over here and
burning our Parliament building! Did anyone ever hear of such an outrage?"

"We don't know that the Germans are responsible for this," said the
doctor—much as if he felt quite sure they were. "Fires do start without their
agency sometimes. And Uncle Mark MacAllister's barn was burnt last
week. You can hardly accuse the Germans of that, Susan."

"Indeed, Dr. dear, I do not know." Susan nodded slowly and
portentously. "Whiskers-on-the-moon was there that very day. The fire
broke out half an hour after he was gone. So much is a fact—but I shall not
accuse a Presbyterian elder of burning anybody's barn until I have proof.
However, everybody knows, Dr. dear, that both Uncle Mark's boys have
enlisted, and that Uncle Mark himself makes speeches at all the recruiting
meetings. So no doubt Germany is anxious to get square with him."

"I could never speak at a recruiting meeting," said Cousin Sophia
solemnly. "I could never reconcile it to my conscience to ask another
woman's son to go, to murder and be murdered."

"Could you not?" said Susan. "Well, Sophia Crawford, I felt as if I could
ask anyone to go when I read last night that there were no children under
eight years of age left alive in Poland. Think of that, Sophia Crawford"—
Susan shook a floury finger at Sophia—"not—one—child—under—eight—
years—of—age!"

"I suppose the Germans has et 'em all," sighed Cousin Sophia.

"Well, no-o-o," said Susan reluctantly, as if she hated to admit that there
was any crime the Huns couldn't be accused of. "The Germans have not
turned cannibal yet—as far as I know. They have died of starvation and
exposure, the poor little creatures. There is murdering for you, Cousin
Sophia Crawford. The thought of it poisons every bite and sup I take."

"I see that Fred Carson of Lowbridge has been awarded a Distinguished
Conduct Medal," remarked the doctor, over his local paper.

"I heard that last week," said Susan. "He is a battalion runner and he did
something extra brave and daring. His letter, telling his folks about it, came
when his old Grandmother Carson was on her dying-bed. She had only a
few minutes more to live and the Episcopal minister, who was there, asked
her if she would not like him to pray. 'Oh yes, yes, you can pray,' she said
impatient-like—she was a Dean, Dr. dear, and the Deans were always high-
spirited—'you can pray, but for pity's sake pray low and don't disturb me. I
want to think over this splendid news and I have not much time left to do it.'
That was Almira Carson all over. Fred was the apple of her eye. She was
seventy-five years of age and had not a grey hair in her head, they tell me."

"By the way, that reminds me—I found a grey hair this morning—my
very first," said Mrs. Blythe.

"I have noticed that grey hair for some time, Mrs. Dr. dear, but I did not
speak of it. Thought I to myself, 'She has enough to bear.' But now that you
have discovered it let me remind you that grey hairs are honourable."

"I must be getting old, Gilbert." Mrs. Blythe laughed a trifle ruefully.
"People are beginning to tell me I look so young. They never tell you that
when you are young. But I shall not worry over my silver thread. I never
liked red hair. Gilbert, did I ever tell you of that time, years ago at Green
Gables, when I dyed my hair? Nobody but Marilla and I knew about it."

"Was that the reason you came out once with your hair shingled to the
bone?"

"Yes. I bought a bottle of dye from a German Jew pedlar. I fondly
expected it would turn my hair black—and it turned it green. So it had to be

cut off."

"You had a narrow escape, Mrs. Dr. dear," exclaimed Susan. "Of course
you were too young then to know what a German was. It was a special
mercy of Providence that it was only green dye and not poison."

"It seems hundreds of years since those Green Gables days," sighed Mrs.
Blythe. "They belonged to another world altogether. Life has been cut in
two by the chasm of war. What is ahead I don't know—but it can't be a bit
like the past. I wonder if those of us who have lived half our lives in the old
world will ever feel wholly at home in the new."

"Have you noticed," asked Miss Oliver, glancing up from her book,
"how everything written before the war seems so far away now, too? One
feels as if one was reading something as ancient as the Iliad. This poem of
Wordsworth's—the Senior class have it in their entrance work—I've been
glancing over it. Its classic calm and repose and the beauty of the lines seem
to belong to another planet, and to have as little to do with the present
world-welter as the evening star."

"The only thing that I find much comfort in reading nowadays is the
Bible," remarked Susan, whisking her biscuits into the oven. "There are so
many passages in it that seem to me exactly descriptive of the Huns. Old
Highland Sandy declares that there is no doubt that the Kaiser is the Anti-
Christ spoken of in Revelations, but I do not go as far as that. It would, in
my humble opinion, Mrs. Dr. dear, be too great an honour for him."

Early one morning, several days later, Miranda Pryor slipped up to
Ingleside, ostensibly to get some Red Cross sewing, but in reality to talk
over with sympathetic Rilla troubles that were past bearing alone. She
brought her dog with her—an over-fed, bandy-legged little animal very dear
to her heart because Joe Milgrave had given it to her when it was a puppy.
Mr. Pryor regarded all dogs with disfavour; but in those days he had looked
kindly upon Joe as a suitor for Miranda's hand and so he had allowed her to
keep the puppy. Miranda was so grateful that she endeavoured to please her
father by naming her dog after his political idol, the great Liberal chieftain,
Sir Wilfrid Laurier—though his title was soon abbreviated to Wilfy. Sir
Wilfrid grew and flourished and waxed fat; but Miranda spoiled him

absurdly and nobody else liked him. Rilla especially hated him because of
his detestable trick of lying flat on his back and entreating you with waving
paws to tickle his sleek stomach. When she saw that Miranda's pale eyes
bore unmistakable testimony of her having cried all night, Rilla asked her to
come up to her room, knowing Miranda had a tale of woe to tell, but she
ordered Sir Wilfrid to remain below.

"Oh, can't he come, too?" said Miranda wistfully. "Poor Wilfy won't be
any bother—and I wiped his paws so carefully before I brought him in. He
is always so lonesome in a strange place without me—and very soon he'll
be—all—I'll have left—to remind me—of Joe."

Rilla yielded, and Sir Wilfrid, with his tail curled at a saucy angle over
his brindled back, trotted triumphantly up the stairs before them.

"Oh, Rilla," sobbed Miranda, when they had reached sanctuary. "I'm so
unhappy. I can't begin to tell you how unhappy I am. Truly, my heart is
breaking."

Rilla sat down on the lounge beside her. Sir Wilfrid squatted on his
haunches before them, with his impertinent pink tongue stuck out, and
listened. "What is the trouble, Miranda?"

"Joe is coming home tonight on his last leave. I had a letter from him on
Saturday—he sends my letters in care of Bob Crawford, you know, because
of father—and, oh, Rilla, he will only have four days—he has to go away
Friday morning—and I may never see him again."

"Does he still want you to marry him?" asked Rilla.

"Oh, yes. He implored me in his letter to run away and be married. But I
cannot do that, Rilla, not even for Joe. My only comfort is that I will be able
to see him for a little while tomorrow afternoon. Father has to go to
Charlottetown on business. At least we will have one good farewell talk.
But oh—afterwards—why, Rilla, I know father won't even let me go to the
station Friday morning to see Joe off."

"Why in the world don't you and Joe get married tomorrow afternoon at
home?" demanded Rilla.

Miranda swallowed a sob in such amazement that she almost choked.

"Why—why—that is impossible, Rilla."

"Why?" briefly demanded the organizer of the Junior Red Cross and the
transporter of babies in soup tureens.

"Why—why—we never thought of such a thing—Joe hasn't a license—I
have no dress—I couldn't be married in black—I—I—we—you—you—"
Miranda lost herself altogether and Sir Wilfrid, seeing that she was in dire
distress threw back his head and emitted a melancholy yelp.

Rilla Blythe thought hard and rapidly for a few minutes. Then she said,
"Miranda, if you will put yourself into my hands I'll have you married to
Joe before four o'clock tomorrow afternoon."

"Oh, you couldn't."

"I can and I will. But you'll have to do exactly as I tell you."

"Oh—I—don't think—oh, father will kill me—"

"Nonsense. He'll be very angry I suppose. But are you more afraid of
your father's anger than you are of Joe's never coming back to you?"

"No," said Miranda, with sudden firmness, "I'm not."

"Will you do as I tell you then?"

"Yes, I will."

"Then get Joe on the long-distance at once and tell him to bring out a
license and ring tonight."

"Oh, I couldn't," wailed the aghast Miranda, "it—it would be so—so
indelicate."

Rilla shut her little white teeth together with a snap. "Heaven grant me
patience," she said under her breath. "I'll do it then," she said aloud, "and
meanwhile, you go home and make what preparations you can. When I
'phone down to you to come up and help me sew come at once."

As soon as Miranda, pallid, scared, but desperately resolved, had gone,
Rilla flew to the telephone and put in a long-distance call for Charlottetown.
She got through with such surprising quickness that she was convinced
Providence approved of her undertaking, but it was a good hour before she
could get in touch with Joe Milgrave at his camp. Meanwhile, she paced
impatiently about, and prayed that when she did get Joe there would be no
listeners on the line to carry news to Whiskers-on-the-moon.

"Is that you, Joe? Rilla Blythe is speaking—Rilla—Rilla—oh, never
mind. Listen to this. Before you come home tonight get a marriage license
—a marriage license—yes, a marriage license—and a wedding-ring. Did
you get that? And will you do it? Very well, be sure you do it—it is your
only chance."

Flushed with triumph—for her only fear was that she might not be able
to locate Joe in time—Rilla rang the Pryor ring. This time she had not such
good luck for she drew Whiskers-on-the-moon.

"Is that Miranda? Oh—Mr. Pryor! Well, Mr. Pryor, will you kindly ask
Miranda if she can come up this afternoon and help me with some sewing.
It is very important, or I would not trouble her. Oh—thank you."

Mr. Pryor had consented somewhat grumpily, but he had consented—he
did not want to offend Dr. Blythe, and he knew that if he refused to allow
Miranda to do any Red Cross work public opinion would make the Glen too
hot for comfort. Rilla went out to the kitchen, shut all the doors with a
mysterious expression which alarmed Susan, and then said solemnly,
"Susan can you make a wedding-cake this afternoon?"

"A wedding-cake!" Susan stared. Rilla had, without any warning,
brought her a war-baby once upon a time. Was she now, with equal
suddenness, going to produce a husband?

"Yes, a wedding-cake—a scrumptious wedding-cake, Susan—a
beautiful, plummy, eggy, citron-peely wedding-cake. And we must make
other things too. I'll help you in the morning. But I can't help you in the
afternoon for I have to make a wedding-dress and time is the essence of the
contract, Susan."

Susan felt that she was really too old to be subjected to such shocks.

"Who are you going to marry, Rilla?" she asked feebly.

"Susan, darling, I am not the happy bride. Miranda Pryor is going to
marry Joe Milgrave tomorrow afternoon while her father is away in town. A
war-wedding, Susan—isn't that thrilling and romantic? I never was so
excited in my life."

The excitement soon spread over Ingleside, infecting even Mrs. Blythe
and Susan.

"I'll go to work on that cake at once," vowed Susan, with a glance at the
clock. "Mrs. Dr. dear, will you pick over the fruit and beat up the eggs? If
you will I can have that cake ready for the oven by the evening. Tomorrow
morning we can make salads and other things. I will work all night if
necessary to get the better of Whiskers-on-the-moon."

Miranda arrived, tearful and breathless.

"We must fix over my white dress for you to wear," said Rilla. "It will fit
you very nicely with a little alteration."

To work went the two girls, ripping, fitting, basting, sewing for dear life.
By dint of unceasing effort they got the dress done by seven o'clock and
Miranda tried it on in Rilla's room.

"It's very pretty—but oh, if I could just have a veil," sighed Miranda.
"I've always dreamed of being married in a lovely white veil."

Some good fairy evidently waits on the wishes of war-brides. The door
opened and Mrs. Blythe came in, her arms full of a filmy burden.

"Miranda dear," she said, "I want you to wear my wedding-veil
tomorrow. It is twenty-four years since I was a bride at old Green Gables—
the happiest bride that ever was—and the wedding-veil of a happy bride
brings good luck, they say."

"Oh, how sweet of you, Mrs. Blythe," said Miranda, the ready tears
starting to her eyes.

The veil was tried on and draped. Susan dropped in to approve but dared
not linger.

"I've got that cake in the oven," she said, "and I am pursuing a policy of
watchful waiting. The evening news is that the Grand Duke has captured
Erzerum. That is a pill for the Turks. I wish I had a chance to tell the Czar
just what a mistake he made when he turned Nicholas down."

Susan disappeared downstairs to the kitchen, whence a dreadful thud and
a piercing shriek presently sounded. Everybody rushed to the kitchen—the
doctor and Miss Oliver, Mrs. Blythe, Rilla, Miranda in her wedding-veil.
Susan was sitting flatly in the middle of the kitchen floor with a dazed,
bewildered look on her face, while Doc, evidently in his Hyde incarnation,
was standing on the dresser, with his back up, his eyes blazing, and his tail
the size of three tails.

"Susan, what has happened?" cried Mrs. Blythe in alarm. "Did you fall?
Are you hurt?"

Susan picked herself up.

"No," she said grimly, "I am not hurt, though I am jarred all over. Do not
be alarmed. As for what has happened—I tried to kick that darned cat with
both feet, that is what happened."

Everybody shrieked with laughter. The doctor was quite helpless.

"Oh, Susan, Susan," he gasped. "That I should live to hear you swear."

"I am sorry," said Susan in real distress, "that I used such an expression
before two young girls. But I said that beast was darned, and darned it is. It
belongs to Old Nick."

"Do you expect it will vanish some of these days with a bang and the
odour of brimstone, Susan?"

"It will go to its own place in due time and that you may tie to," said
Susan dourly, shaking out her raddled bones and going to her oven. "I
suppose my plunking down like that has shaken my cake so that it will be as
heavy as lead."

But the cake was not heavy. It was all a bride's cake should be, and
Susan iced it beautifully. Next day she and Rilla worked all the forenoon,
making delicacies for the wedding-feast, and as soon as Miranda phoned up
that her father was safely off everything was packed in a big hamper and
taken down to the Pryor house. Joe soon arrived in his uniform and a state
of violent excitement, accompanied by his best man, Sergeant Malcolm
Crawford. There were quite a few guests, for all the Manse and Ingleside
folk were there, and a dozen or so of Joe's relatives, including his mother,
"Mrs. Dead Angus Milgrave," so called, cheerfully, to distinguish her from
another lady whose Angus was living. Mrs. Dead Angus wore a rather
disapproving expression, not caring over-much for this alliance with the
house of Whiskers-on-the-moon.

So Miranda Pryor was married to Private Joseph Milgrave on his last
leave. It should have been a romantic wedding but it was not. There were
too many factors working against romance, as even Rilla had to admit. In
the first place, Miranda, in spite of her dress and veil, was such a flat-faced,
commonplace, uninteresting little bride. In the second place, Joe cried
bitterly all through the ceremony, and this vexed Miranda unreasonably.
Long afterwards she told Rilla, "I just felt like saying to him then and there,
'If you feel so bad over having to marry me you don't have to.' But it was
just because he was thinking all the time of how soon he would have to
leave me."

In the third place, Jims, who was usually so well-behaved in public, took
a fit of shyness and contrariness combined and began to cry at the top of his

voice for "Willa." Nobody wanted to take him out, because everybody
wanted to see the marriage, so Rilla who was a bridesmaid, had to take him
and hold him during the ceremony.

In the fourth place, Sir Wilfrid Laurier took a fit.

Sir Wilfrid was entrenched in a corner of the room behind Miranda's
piano. During his seizure he made the weirdest, most unearthly noises. He
would begin with a series of choking, spasmodic sounds, continuing into a
gruesome gurgle, and ending up with a strangled howl. Nobody could hear
a word Mr. Meredith was saying, except now and then, when Sir Wilfrid
stopped for breath. Nobody looked at the bride except Susan, who never
dragged her fascinated eyes from Miranda's face—all the others were
gazing at the dog. Miranda had been trembling with nervousness but as
soon as Sir Wilfrid began his performance she forgot it. All that she could
think of was that her dear dog was dying and she could not go to him. She
never remembered a word of the ceremony.

Rilla, who in spite of Jims, had been trying her best to look rapt and
romantic, as beseemed a war bridesmaid, gave up the hopeless attempt, and
devoted her energies to choking down untimely merriment. She dared not
look at anybody in the room, especially Mrs. Dead Angus, for fear all her
suppressed mirth should suddenly explode in a most un-young-ladylike yell
of laughter.

But married they were, and then they had a wedding-supper in the
dining-room which was so lavish and bountiful that you would have
thought it was the product of a month's labour. Everybody had brought
something. Mrs. Dead Angus had brought a large apple-pie, which she
placed on a chair in the dining-room and then absently sat down on it.
Neither her temper nor her black silk wedding garment was improved
thereby, but the pie was never missed at the gay bridal feast. Mrs. Dead
Angus eventually took it home with her again. Whiskers-on-the-moon's
pacifist pig should not get it, anyhow.

That evening Mr. and Mrs. Joe, accompanied by the recovered Sir
Wilfrid, departed for the Four Winds Lighthouse, which was kept by Joe's
uncle and in which they meant to spend their brief honeymoon. Una

Meredith and Rilla and Susan washed the dishes, tidied up, left a cold
supper and Miranda's pitiful little note on the table for Mr. Pryor, and
walked home, while the mystic veil of dreamy, haunted winter twilight
wrapped itself over the Glen.

"I would really not have minded being a war-bride myself," remarked
Susan sentimentally.

But Rilla felt rather flat—perhaps as a reaction to all the excitement and
rush of the past thirty-six hours. She was disappointed somehow—the
whole affair had been so ludicrous, and Miranda and Joe so lachrymose and
commonplace.

"If Miranda hadn't given that wretched dog such an enormous dinner he
wouldn't have had that fit," she said crossly. "I warned her—but she said
she couldn't starve the poor dog—he would soon be all she had left, etc. I
could have shaken her."

"The best man was more excited than Joe was," said Susan. "He wished
Miranda many happy returns of the day. She did not look very happy, but
perhaps you could not expect that under the circumstances."

"Anyhow," thought Rilla, "I can write a perfectly killing account of it all
to the boys. How Jem will howl over Sir Wilfrid's part in it!"

But if Rilla was rather disappointed in the war wedding she found
nothing lacking on Friday morning when Miranda said good-bye to her
bridegroom at the Glen station. The dawn was white as a pearl, clear as a
diamond. Behind the station the balsamy copse of young firs was frost-
misted. The cold moon of dawn hung over the westering snow fields but the
golden fleeces of sunrise shone above the maples up at Ingleside. Joe took
his pale little bride in his arms and she lifted her face to his. Rilla choked
suddenly. It did not matter that Miranda was insignificant and commonplace
and flat-featured. It did not matter that she was the daughter of Whiskers-
on-the-moon. All that mattered was that rapt, sacrificial look in her eyes—
that ever-burning, sacred fire of devotion and loyalty and fine courage that
she was mutely promising Joe she and thousands of other women would
keep alive at home while their men held the Western front. Rilla walked

away, realising that she must not spy on such a moment. She went down to
the end of the platform where Sir Wilfrid and Dog Monday were sitting,
looking at each other.

Sir Wilfrid remarked condescendingly: "Why do you haunt this old shed
when you might lie on the hearthrug at Ingleside and live on the fat of the
land? Is it a pose? Or a fixed idea?"

Whereat Dog Monday, laconically: "I have a tryst to keep."

When the train had gone Rilla rejoined the little trembling Miranda.
"Well, he's gone," said Miranda, "and he may never come back—but I'm his
wife, and I'm going to be worthy of him. I'm going home."

"Don't you think you had better come with me now?" asked Rilla
doubtfully. Nobody knew yet how Mr. Pryor had taken the matter.

"No. If Joe can face the Huns I guess I can face father," said Miranda
daringly. "A soldier's wife can't be a coward. Come on, Wilfy. I'll go straight
home and meet the worst."

There was nothing very dreadful to face, however. Perhaps Mr. Pryor
had reflected that housekeepers were hard to get and that there were many
Milgrave homes open to Miranda—also, that there was such a thing as a
separation allowance. At all events, though he told her grumpily that she
had made a nice fool of herself, and would live to regret it, he said nothing
worse, and Mrs. Joe put on her apron and went to work as usual, while Sir
Wilfrid Laurier, who had a poor opinion of lighthouses for winter
residences, went to sleep in his pet nook behind the woodbox, a thankful
dog that he was done with war-weddings.

CHAPTER XIX

"THEY SHALL NOT PASS"

One cold grey morning in February Gertrude Oliver wakened with a
shiver, slipped into Rilla's room, and crept in beside her.

"Rilla—I'm frightened—frightened as a baby—I've had another of my
strange dreams. Something terrible is before us—I know."

"What was it?" asked Rilla.

"I was standing again on the veranda steps—just as I stood in that dream
on the night before the lighthouse dance, and in the sky a huge black,
menacing thunder cloud rolled up from the east. I could see its shadow
racing before it and when it enveloped me I shivered with icy cold. Then
the storm broke—and it was a dreadful storm—blinding flash after flash
and deafening peal after peal, driving torrents of rain. I turned in panic and
tried to run for shelter, and as I did so a man—a soldier in the uniform of a
French army officer—dashed up the steps and stood beside me on the
threshold of the door. His clothes were soaked with blood from a wound in
his breast, he seemed spent and exhausted; but his white face was set and
his eyes blazed in his hollow face. 'They shall not pass,' he said, in low,
passionate tones which I heard distinctly amid all the turmoil of the storm.
Then I awakened. Rilla, I'm frightened—the spring will not bring the Big
Push we've all been hoping for—instead it is going to bring some dreadful
blow to France. I am sure of it. The Germans will try to smash through
somewhere."

"But he told you that they would not pass," said Rilla, seriously. She
never laughed at Gertrude's dreams as the doctor did.

"I do not know if that was prophecy or desperation, Rilla, the horror of
that dream holds me yet in an icy grip. We shall need all our courage before
long."

Dr. Blythe did laugh at the breakfast table—but he never laughed at Miss
Oliver's dreams again; for that day brought news of the opening of the
Verdun offensive, and thereafter through all the beautiful weeks of spring
the Ingleside family, one and all, lived in a trance of dread. There were days
when they waited in despair for the end as foot by foot the Germans crept
nearer and nearer to the grim barrier of desperate France.

Susan's deeds were in her spotless kitchen at Ingleside, but her thoughts
were on the hills around Verdun. "Mrs. Dr. dear," she would stick her head
in at Mrs. Blythe's door the last thing at night to remark, "I do hope the
French have hung onto the Crow's Wood today," and she woke at dawn to
wonder if Dead Man's Hill—surely named by some prophet—was still held
by the "poyloos." Susan could have drawn a map of the country around
Verdun that would have satisfied a chief of staff.

"If the Germans capture Verdun the spirit of France will be broken,"
Miss Oliver said bitterly.

"But they will not capture it," staunchly said Susan, who could not eat
her dinner that day for fear lest they do that very thing. "In the first place,
you dreamed they would not—you dreamed the very thing the French are
saying before they ever said it—'they shall not pass.' I declare to you, Miss
Oliver, dear, when I read that in the paper, and remembered your dream, I
went cold all over with awe. It seemed to me like Biblical times when
people dreamed things like that quite frequently.

"I know—I know," said Gertrude, walking restlessly about. "I cling to a
persistent faith in my dream, too—but every time bad news comes it fails
me. Then I tell myself 'mere coincidence'—'subconscious memory' and so
forth."

"I do not see how any memory could remember a thing before it was
ever said at all," persisted Susan, "though of course I am not educated like
you and the doctor. I would rather not be, if it makes anything as simple as
that so hard to believe. But in any case we need not worry over Verdun,
even if the Huns get it. Joffre says it has no military significance."

"That old sop of comfort has been served up too often already when
reverses came," retorted Gertrude. "It has lost its power to charm."

"Was there ever a battle like this in the world before?" said Mr.
Meredith, one evening in mid-April.

"It's such a titanic thing we can't grasp it," said the doctor. "What were
the scraps of a few Homeric handfuls compared to this? The whole Trojan

war might be fought around a Verdun fort and a newspaper correspondent
would give it no more than a sentence. I am not in the confidence of the
occult powers"—the doctor threw Gertrude a twinkle—"but I have a hunch
that the fate of the whole war hangs on the issue of Verdun. As Susan and
Joffre say, it has no real military significance; but it has the tremendous
significance of an Idea. If Germany wins there she will win the war. If she
loses, the tide will set against her."

"Lose she will," said Mr. Meredith: emphatically. "The Idea cannot be
conquered. France is certainly very wonderful. It seems to me that in her I
see the white form of civilization making a determined stand against the
black powers of barbarism. I think our whole world realizes this and that is
why we all await the issue so breathlessly. It isn't merely the question of a
few forts changing hands or a few miles of blood-soaked ground lost and
won."

"I wonder," said Gertrude dreamily, "if some great blessing, great
enough for the price, will be the meed of all our pain? Is the agony in which
the world is shuddering the birth-pang of some wondrous new era? Or is it
merely a futile
struggle of ants
In the gleam of a million million of suns?

We think very lightly, Mr. Meredith, of a calamity which destroys an ant-
hill and half its inhabitants. Does the Power that runs the universe think us
of more importance than we think ants?"

"You forget," said Mr. Meredith, with a flash of his dark eyes, "that an
infinite Power must be infinitely little as well as infinitely great. We are
neither, therefore there are things too little as well as too great for us to
apprehend. To the infinitely little an ant is of as much importance as a
mastodon. We are witnessing the birth-pangs of a new era—but it will be
born a feeble, wailing life like everything else. I am not one of those who
expect a new heaven and a new earth as the immediate result of this war.
That is not the way God works. But work He does, Miss Oliver, and in the
end His purpose will be fulfilled."

"Sound and orthodox—sound and orthodox," muttered Susan
approvingly in the kitchen. Susan liked to see Miss Oliver sat upon by the
minister now and then. Susan was very fond of her but she thought Miss
Oliver liked saying heretical things to ministers far too well, and deserved
an occasional reminder that these matters were quite beyond her province.

In May Walter wrote home that he had been awarded a D.C. Medal. He
did not say what for, but the other boys took care that the Glen should know
the brave thing Walter had done. "In any war but this," wrote Jerry
Meredith, "it would have meant a V.C. But they can't make V.C.'s as
common as the brave things done every day here."

"He should have had the V.C.," said Susan, and was very indignant over
it. She was not quite sure who was to blame for his not getting it, but if it
were General Haig she began for the first time to entertain serious doubts as
to his fitness for being Commander-in-Chief.

Rilla was beside herself with delight. It was her dear Walter who had
done this thing—Walter, to whom someone had sent a white feather at
Redmond—it was Walter who had dashed back from the safety of the
trench to drag in a wounded comrade who had fallen on No-man's-land. Oh,
she could see his white beautiful face and wonderful eyes as he did it! What
a thing to be the sister of such a hero! And he hadn't thought it worth while
writing about. His letter was full of other things—little intimate things that
they two had known and loved together in the dear old cloudless days of a
century ago.

"I've been thinking of the daffodils in the garden at Ingleside," he wrote.
"By the time you get this they will be out, blowing there under that lovely
rosy sky. Are they really as bright and golden as ever, Rilla? It seems to me
that they must be dyed red with blood—like our poppies here. And every
whisper of spring will be falling as a violet in Rainbow Valley.

"There is a young moon tonight—a slender, silver, lovely thing hanging
over these pits of torment. Will you see it tonight over the maple grove?

"I'm enclosing a little scrap of verse, Rilla. I wrote it one evening in my
trench dug-out by the light of a bit of candle—or rather it came to me there

—I didn't feel as if I were writing it—something seemed to use me as an
instrument. I've had that feeling once or twice before, but very rarely and
never so strongly as this time. That was why I sent it over to the London
Spectator. It printed it and the copy came today. I hope you'll like it. It's the
only poem I've written since I came overseas."

The poem was a short, poignant little thing. In a month it had carried
Walter's name to every corner of the globe. Everywhere it was copied—in
metropolitan dailies and little village weeklies—in profound reviews and
"agony columns," in Red Cross appeals and Government recruiting
propaganda. Mothers and sisters wept over it, young lads thrilled to it, the
whole great heart of humanity caught it up as an epitome of all the pain and
hope and pity and purpose of the mighty conflict, crystallized in three brief
immortal verses. A Canadian lad in the Flanders trenches had written the
one great poem of the war. "The Piper," by Pte. Walter Blythe, was a classic
from its first printing.

Rilla copied it in her diary at the beginning of an entry in which she
poured out the story of the hard week that had just passed.

"It has been such a dreadful week," she wrote, "and even though it is
over and we know that it was all a mistake that does not seem to do away
with the bruises left by it. And yet it has in some ways been a very
wonderful week and I have had some glimpses of things I never realized
before—of how fine and brave people can be even in the midst of horrible
suffering. I am sure I could never be as splendid as Miss Oliver was.

"Just a week ago today she had a letter from Mr. Grant's mother in
Charlottetown. And it told her that a cable had just come saying that Major
Robert Grant had been killed in action a few days before.

"Oh, poor Gertrude! At first she was crushed. Then after just a day she
pulled herself together and went back to her school. She did not cry—I
never saw her shed a tear—but oh, her face and her eyes!

"'I must go on with my work,' she said. 'That is my duty just now.'

"I could never have risen to such a height.

"She never spoke bitterly except once, when Susan said something about
spring being here at last, and Gertrude said,

"'Can the spring really come this year?'

"Then she laughed—such a dreadful little laugh, just as one might laugh
in the face of death, I think, and said,

"'Observe my egotism. Because I, Gertrude Oliver, have lost a friend, it
is incredible that the spring can come as usual. The spring does not fail
because of the million agonies of others—but for mine—oh, can the
universe go on?'

"'Don't feel bitter with yourself, dear,' mother said gently. 'It is a very
natural thing to feel as if things couldn't go on just the same when some
great blow has changed the world for us. We all feel like that.'

"Then that horrid old Cousin Sophia of Susan's piped up. She was sitting
there, knitting and croaking like an old 'raven of bode and woe' as Walter
used to call her.

"'You ain't as bad off as some, Miss Oliver,' she said, 'and you shouldn't
take it so hard. There's some as has lost their husbands; that's a hard blow;
and there's some as has lost their sons. You haven't lost either husband or
son.'

"'No,' said Gertrude, more bitterly still. 'It's true I haven't lost a husband
—I have only lost the man who would have been my husband. I have lost
no son—only the sons and daughters who might have been born to me—
who will never be born to me now.'

"'It isn't ladylike to talk like that,' said Cousin Sophia in a shocked tone;
and then Gertrude laughed right out, so wildly that Cousin Sophia was
really frightened. And when poor tortured Gertrude, unable to endure it any
longer, hurried out of the room, Cousin Sophia asked mother if the blow
hadn't affected Miss Oliver's mind.

"'I suffered the loss of two good kind partners,' she said, 'but it did not
affect me like that.'

"I should think it wouldn't! Those poor men must have been thankful to
die.

"I heard Gertrude walking up and down her room most of the night. She
walked like that every night. But never so long as that night. And once I
heard her give a dreadful sudden little cry as if she had been stabbed. I
couldn't sleep for suffering with her; and I couldn't help her. I thought the
night would never end. But it did; and then 'joy came in the morning' as the
Bible says. Only it didn't come exactly in the morning but well along in the
afternoon. The telephone rang and I answered it. It was old Mrs. Grant
speaking from Charlottetown, and her news was that it was all a mistake—
Robert wasn't killed at all; he had only been slightly wounded in the arm
and was safe in the hospital out of harm's way for a time anyhow. They
hadn't learned yet how the mistake had happened but supposed there must
have been another Robert Grant.

"I hung up the telephone and flew to Rainbow Valley. I'm sure I did fly
—I can't remember my feet ever touching the ground. I met Gertrude on her
way home from school in the glade of spruces where we used to play, and I
just gasped out the news to her. I ought to have had more sense, of course.
But I was so crazy with joy and excitement that I never stopped to think.
Gertrude just dropped there among the golden young ferns as if she had
been shot. The fright it gave me ought to make me sensible—in this respect
at least—for the rest of my life. I thought I had killed her—I remembered
that her mother had died very suddenly from heart failure when quite a
young woman. It seemed years to me before I discovered that her heart was
still beating. A pretty time I had! I never saw anybody faint before, and I
knew there was nobody up at the house to help, because everybody else had
gone to the station to meet Di and Nan coming home from Redmond. But I
knew—theoretically—how people in a faint should be treated, and now I
know it practically. Luckily the brook was handy, and after I had worked
frantically over her for a while Gertrude came back to life. She never said
one word about my news and I didn't dare to refer to it again. I helped her
walk up through the maple grove and up to her room, and then she said,

'Rob—is—living,' as if the words were torn out of her, and flung herself on
her bed and cried and cried and cried. I never saw anyone cry so before. All
the tears that she hadn't shed all that week came then. She cried most of last
night, I think, but her face this morning looked as if she had seen a vision of
some kind, and we were all so happy that we were almost afraid.

"Di and Nan are home for a couple of weeks. Then they go back to Red
Cross work in the training camp at Kingsport. I envy them. Father says I'm
doing just as good work here, with Jims and my Junior Reds. But it lacks
the romance theirs must have.

"Kut has fallen. It was almost a relief when it did fall, we had been
dreading it so long. It crushed us flat for a day and then we picked up and
put it behind us. Cousin Sophia was as gloomy as usual and came over and
groaned that the British were losing everywhere.

"'They're good losers,' said Susan grimly. 'When they lose a thing they
keep on looking till they find it again! Anyhow, my king and country need
me now to cut potato sets for the back garden, so get you a knife and help
me, Sophia Crawford. It will divert your thoughts and keep you from
worrying over a campaign that you are not called upon to run.'

"Susan is an old brick, and the way she flattens out poor Cousin Sophia
is beautiful to behold.

"As for Verdun, the battle goes on and on, and we see-saw between hope
and fear. But I know that strange dream of Miss Oliver's foretold the victory
of France. 'They shall not pass.'"

CHAPTER XX

NORMAN DOUGLAS SPEAKS OUT IN MEETING

"Where are you wandering, Anne o' mine?" asked the doctor, who even
yet, after twenty-four years of marriage, occasionally addressed his wife
thus when nobody was about. Anne was sitting on the veranda steps, gazing
absently over the wonderful bridal world of spring blossom, Beyond the
white orchard was a copse of dark young firs and creamy wild cherries,
where the robins were whistling madly; for it was evening and the fire of
early stars was burning over the maple grove.

Anne came back with a little sigh.

"I was just taking relief from intolerable realities in a dream, Gilbert—a
dream that all our children were home again—and all small again—playing
in Rainbow Valley. It is always so silent now—but I was imagining I heard
clear voices and gay, childish sounds coming up as I used to. I could hear
Jem's whistle and Walter's yodel, and the twins' laughter, and for just a few
blessed minutes I forgot about the guns on the Western front, and had a little
false, sweet happiness."

The doctor did not answer. Sometimes his work tricked him into
forgetting for a few moments the Western front, but not often. There was a
good deal of grey now in his still thick curls that had not been there two
years ago. Yet he smiled down into the starry eyes he loved—the eyes that
had once been so full of laughter, and now seemed always full of unshed
tears.

Susan wandered by with a hoe in her hand and her second best bonnet on
her head.

"I have just finished reading a piece in the Enterprise which told of a
couple being married in an aeroplane. Do you think it would be legal,
doctor dear?" she inquired anxiously.

"I think so," said the doctor gravely.

"Well," said Susan dubiously, "it seems to me that a wedding is too
solemn for anything so giddy as an aeroplane. But nothing is the same as it
used to be. Well, it is half an hour yet before prayer-meeting time, so I am
going around to the kitchen garden to have a little evening hate with the

weeds. But all the time I am strafing them I will be thinking about this new
worry in the Trentino. I do not like this Austrian caper, Mrs. Dr. dear."

"Nor I," said Mrs. Blythe ruefully. "All the forenoon I preserved rhubarb
with my hands and waited for the war news with my soul. When it came I
shrivelled. Well, I suppose I must go and get ready for the prayer-meeting,
too."

Every village has its own little unwritten history, handed down from lip
to lip through the generations, of tragic, comic, and dramatic events. They
are told at weddings and festivals, and rehearsed around winter firesides.
And in these oral annals of Glen St. Mary the tale of the union prayer-
meeting held that night in the Methodist Church was destined to fill an
imperishable place.

The union prayer-meeting was Mr. Arnold's idea. The county battalion,
which had been training all winter in Charlottetown, was to leave shortly
for overseas. The Four Winds Harbour boys belonging to it from the Glen
and over-harbour and Harbour Head and Upper Glen were all home on their
last leave, and Mr. Arnold thought, properly enough, that it would be a
fitting thing to hold a union prayer-meeting for them before they went
away. Mr. Meredith having agreed, the meeting was announced to be held
in the Methodist Church. Glen prayer-meetings were not apt to be too well
attended, but on this particular evening the Methodist Church was crowded.
Everybody who could go was there. Even Miss Cornelia came—and it was
the first time in her life that Miss Cornelia had ever set foot inside a
Methodist Church. It took no less than a world conflict to bring that about.

"I used to hate Methodists," said Miss Cornelia calmly, when her
husband expressed surprise over her going, "but I don't hate them now.
There is no sense in hating Methodists when there is a Kaiser or a
Hindenburg in the world."

So Miss Cornelia went. Norman Douglas and his wife went too. And
Whiskers-on-the-moon strutted up the aisle to a front pew, as if he fully
realized what a distinction he conferred upon the building. People were
somewhat surprised that he should be there, since he usually avoided all
assemblages connected in any way with the war. But Mr. Meredith had said

that he hoped his session would be well represented, and Mr. Pryor had
evidently taken the request to heart. He wore his best black suit and white
tie, his thick, tight, iron-grey curls were neatly arranged, and his broad, red
round face looked, as Susan most uncharitably thought, more
"sanctimonious" than ever.

"The minute I saw that man coming into the Church, looking like that, I
felt that mischief was brewing, Mrs. Dr. dear," she said afterwards. "What
form it would take I could not tell, but I knew from face of him that he had
come there for no good."

The prayer-meeting opened conventionally and continued quietly. Mr.
Meredith spoke first with his usual eloquence and feeling. Mr. Arnold
followed with an address which even Miss Cornelia had to confess was
irreproachable in taste and subject-matter.

And then Mr. Arnold asked Mr. Pryor to lead in prayer.

Miss Cornelia had always averred that Mr. Arnold had no gumption.
Miss Cornelia was not apt to err on the side of charity in her judgment of
Methodist ministers, but in this case she did not greatly overshoot the mark.
The Rev. Mr. Arnold certainly did not have much of that desirable,
indefinable quality known as gumption, or he would never have asked
Whiskers-on-the-moon to lead in prayer at a khaki prayer-meeting. He
thought he was returning the compliment to Mr. Meredith, who, at the
conclusion of his address, had asked a Methodist deacon to lead.

Some people expected Mr. Pryor to refuse grumpily—and that would
have made enough scandal. But Mr. Pryor bounded briskly to his feet,
unctuously said, "Let us pray," and forthwith prayed. In a sonorous voice
which penetrated to every corner of the crowded building Mr. Pryor poured
forth a flood of fluent words, and was well on in his prayer before his dazed
and horrified audience awakened to the fact that they were listening to a
pacifist appeal of the rankest sort. Mr. Pryor had at least the courage of his
convictions; or perhaps, as people afterwards said, he thought he was safe
in a church and that it was an excellent chance to air certain opinions he
dared not voice elsewhere, for fear of being mobbed. He prayed that the
unholy war might cease—that the deluded armies being driven to slaughter

on the Western front might have their eyes opened to their iniquity and
repent while yet there was time—that the poor young men present in khaki,
who had been hounded into a path of murder and militarism, should yet be
rescued—

Mr. Pryor had got this far without let or hindrance; and so paralysed
were his hearers, and so deeply imbued with their born-and-bred conviction
that no disturbance must ever be made in a church, no matter what the
provocation, that it seemed likely that he would continue unchecked to the
end. But one man at least in that audience was not hampered by inherited or
acquired reverence for the sacred edifice. Norman Douglas was, as Susan
had often vowed crisply, nothing more or less than a "pagan." But he was a
rampantly patriotic pagan, and when the significance of what Mr. Pryor was
saying fully dawned on him, Norman Douglas suddenly went berserk. With
a positive roar he bounded to his feet in his side pew, facing the audience,
and shouted in tones of thunder:

"Stop—stop—STOP that abominable prayer! What an abominable
prayer!"

Every head in the church flew up. A boy in khaki at the back gave a faint
cheer. Mr. Meredith raised a deprecating hand, but Norman was past caring
for anything like that. Eluding his wife's restraining grasp, he gave one mad
spring over the front of the pew and caught the unfortunate Whiskers-on-
the-moon by his coat collar. Mr. Pryor had not "stopped" when so bidden,
but he stopped now, perforce, for Norman, his long red beard literally
bristling with fury, was shaking him until his bones fairly rattled, and
punctuating his shakes with a lurid assortment of abusive epithets.

"You blatant beast!"—shake—"You malignant carrion"—shake—"You
pig-headed varmint!"—shake—"you putrid pup"—shake—"you pestilential
parasite"—shake—"you—Hunnish scum"—shake—"you indecent reptile—
you—you—" Norman choked for a moment. Everybody believed that the
next thing he would say, church or no church, would be something that
would have to be spelt with asterisks; but at that moment Norman
encountered his wife's eye and he fell back with a thud on Holy Writ. "You
whited sepulchre!" he bellowed, with a final shake, and cast Whiskers-on-
the-moon from him with a vigour which impelled that unhappy pacifist to

the very verge of the choir entrance door. Mr. Pryor's once ruddy face was
ashen. But he turned at bay. "I'll have the law on you for this," he gasped.

"Do—do," roared Norman, making another rush. But Mr. Pryor was
gone. He had no desire to fall a second time into the hands of an avenging
militarist. Norman turned to the platform for one graceless, triumphant
moment.

"Don't look so flabbergasted, parsons," he boomed. "You couldn't do it—
nobody would expect it of the cloth—but somebody had to do it. You know
you're glad I threw him out—he couldn't be let go on yammering and
yodelling and yawping sedition and treason. Sedition and treason—
somebody had to deal with it. I was born for this hour—I've had my innings
in church at last. I can sit quiet for another sixty years now! Go ahead with
your meeting, parsons. I reckon you won't be troubled with any more
pacifist prayers."

But the spirit of devotion and reverence had fled. Both ministers realized
it and realized that the only thing to do was to close the meeting quietly and
let the excited people go. Mr. Meredith addressed a few earnest words to the
boys in khaki—which probably saved Mr. Pryor's windows from a second
onslaught—and Mr. Arnold pronounced an incongruous benediction, at
least he felt it was incongruous, for he could not at once banish from his
memory the sight of gigantic Norman Douglas shaking the fat, pompous
little Whiskers-on-the-moon as a huge mastiff might shake an overgrown
puppy. And he knew that the same picture was in everybody's mind.
Altogether the union prayer-meeting could hardly be called an unqualified
success. But it was remembered in Glen St. Mary when scores of orthodox
and undisturbed assemblies were totally forgotten.

"You will never, no, never, Mrs. Dr. dear, hear me call Norman Douglas
a pagan again," said Susan when she reached home. "If Ellen Douglas is not
a proud woman this night she should be."

"Norman Douglas did a wholly indefensible thing," said the doctor.
"Pryor should have been let severely alone until the meeting was over. Then
later on, his own minister and session should deal with him. That would
have been the proper procedure. Norman's performance was utterly

improper and scandalous and outrageous; but, by George,"—the doctor
threw back his head and chuckled, "by George, Anne-girl, it was
satisfying."

CHAPTER XXI

"LOVE AFFAIRS ARE HORRIBLE"

Ingleside
20th June 1916

"We have been so busy, and day after day has brought such exciting
news, good and bad, that I haven't had time and composure to write in my
diary for weeks. I like to keep it up regularly, for father says a diary of the
years of the war should be a very interesting thing to hand down to one's
children. The trouble is, I like to write a few personal things in this blessed
old book that might not be exactly what I'd want my children to read. I feel
that I shall be a far greater stickler for propriety in regard to them than I am
for myself!

"The first week in June was another dreadful one. The Austrians seemed
just on the point of overrunning Italy: and then came the first awful news of
the Battle of Jutland, which the Germans claimed as a great victory. Susan
was the only one who carried on. 'You need never tell me that the Kaiser
has defeated the British Navy,' she said, with a contemptuous sniff. 'It is all
a German lie and that you may tie to.' And when a couple of days later we
found out that she was right and that it had been a British victory instead of
a British defeat, we had to put up with a great many 'I told you so's,' but we
endured them very comfortably.

"It took Kitchener's death to finish Susan. For the first time I saw her
down and out. We all felt the shock of it but Susan plumbed the depths of
despair. The news came at night by 'phone but Susan wouldn't believe it

until she saw the Enterprise headline the next day. She did not cry or faint
or go into hysterics; but she forgot to put salt in the soup, and that is
something Susan never did in my recollection. Mother and Miss Oliver and
I cried but Susan looked at us in stony sarcasm and said, 'The Kaiser and his
six sons are all alive and thriving. So the world is not left wholly desolate.
Why cry, Mrs. Dr. dear?' Susan continued in this stony, hopeless condition
for twenty-four hours, and then Cousin Sophia appeared and began to
condole with her.

"'This is terrible news, ain't it, Susan? We might as well prepare for the
worst for it is bound to come. You said once—and well do I remember the
words, Susan Baker—that you had complete confidence in God and
Kitchener. Ah well, Susan Baker, there is only God left now.'

"Whereat Cousin Sophia put her handkerchief to her eyes pathetically as
if the world were indeed in terrible straits. As for Susan, Cousin Sophia was
the salvation of her. She came to life with a jerk.

"'Sophia Crawford, hold your peace!' she said sternly. 'You may be an
idiot but you need not be an irreverent idiot. It is no more than decent to be
weeping and wailing because the Almighty is the sole stay of the Allies
now. As for Kitchener, his death is a great loss and I do not dispute it. But
the outcome of this war does not depend on one man's life and now that the
Russians are coming on again you will soon see a change for the better.'

"Susan said this so energetically that she convinced herself and cheered
up immediately. But Cousin Sophia shook her head.

"'Albert's wife wants to call the baby after Brusiloff,' she said, 'but I told
her to wait and see what becomes of him first. Them Russians has such a
habit of petering out.'

"The Russians are doing splendidly, however, and they have saved Italy.
But even when the daily news of their sweeping advance comes we don't
feel like running up the flag as we used to do. As Gertrude says, Verdun has
slain all exultation. We would all feel more like rejoicing if the victories
were on the western front. 'When will the British strike?' Gertrude sighed
this morning. 'We have waited so long—so long.'

"Our greatest local event in recent weeks was the route march the county
battalion made through the county before it left for overseas. They marched
from Charlottetown to Lowbridge, then round the Harbour Head and
through the Upper Glen and so down to the St. Mary station. Everybody
turned out to see them, except old Aunt Fannie Clow, who is bedridden and
Mr. Pryor, who hadn't been seen out even in church since the night of the
Union Prayer Meeting the previous week.

"It was wonderful and heartbreaking to see that battalion marching past.
There were young men and middle-aged men in it. There was Laurie
McAllister from over-harbour who is only sixteen but swore he was
eighteen, so that he could enlist; and there was Angus Mackenzie, from the
Upper Glen who is fifty-five if he is a day and swore he was forty-four.
There were two South African veterans from Lowbridge, and the three
eighteen-year-old Baxter triplets from Harbour Head. Everybody cheered as
they went by, and they cheered Foster Booth, who is forty, walking side by
side with his son Charley who is twenty. Charley's mother died when he
was born, and when Charley enlisted Foster said he'd never yet let Charley
go anywhere he daren't go himself, and he didn't mean to begin with the
Flanders trenches. At the station Dog Monday nearly went out of his head.
He tore about and sent messages to Jem by them all. Mr. Meredith read an
address and Reta Crawford recited 'The Piper.' The soldiers cheered her like
mad and cried 'We'll follow—we'll follow—we won't break faith,' and I felt
so proud to think that it was my dear brother who had written such a
wonderful, heart-stirring thing. And then I looked at the khaki ranks and
wondered if those tall fellows in uniform could be the boys I've laughed
with and played with and danced with and teased all my life. Something
seems to have touched them and set them apart. They have heard the Piper's
call.

"Fred Arnold was in the battalion and I felt dreadfully about him, for I
realized that it was because of me that he was going away with such a
sorrowful expression. I couldn't help it but I felt as badly as if I could.

"The last evening of his leave Fred came up to Ingleside and told me he
loved me and asked me if I would promise to marry him some day, if he
ever came back. He was desperately in earnest and I felt more wretched

than I ever did in my life. I couldn't promise him that—why, even if there
was no question of Ken, I don't care for Fred that way and never could—but
it seemed so cruel and heartless to send him away to the front without any
hope of comfort. I cried like a baby; and yet—oh, I am afraid that there
must be something incurably frivolous about me, because, right in the
middle of it all, with me crying and Fred looking so wild and tragic, the
thought popped into my head that it would be an unendurable thing to see
that nose across from me at the breakfast table every morning of my life.
There, that is one of the entries I wouldn't want my descendants to read in
this journal. But it is the humiliating truth; and perhaps it's just as well that
thought did come or I might have been tricked by pity and remorse into
giving him some rash assurance. If Fred's nose were as handsome as his
eyes and mouth some such thing might have happened. And then what an
unthinkable predicament I should have been in!

"When poor Fred became convinced that I couldn't promise him, he
behaved beautifully—though that rather made things worse. If he had been
nasty about it I wouldn't have felt so heartbroken and remorseful—though
why I should feel remorseful I don't know, for I never encouraged Fred to
think I cared a bit about him. Yet feel remorseful I did—and do. If Fred
Arnold never comes back from overseas, this will haunt me all my life.

"Then Fred said if he couldn't take my love with him to the trenches at
least he wanted to feel that he had my friendship, and would I kiss him just
once in good-bye before he went—perhaps for ever?

"I don't know how I could ever had imagined that love affairs were
delightful, interesting things. They are horrible. I couldn't even give poor
heartbroken Fred one little kiss, because of my promise to Ken. It seemed
so brutal. I had to tell Fred that of course he would have my friendship, but
that I couldn't kiss him because I had promised somebody else I wouldn't.

"He said, 'It is—is it—Ken Ford?'

"I nodded. It seemed dreadful to have to tell it—it was such a sacred
little secret just between me and Ken.

"When Fred went away I came up here to my room and cried so long
and so bitterly that mother came up and insisted on knowing what was the
matter. I told her. She listened to my tale with an expression that clearly
said, 'Can it be possible that anyone has been wanting to marry this baby?'
But she was so nice and understanding and sympathetic, oh, just so race-of-
Josephy—that I felt indescribably comforted. Mothers are the dearest
things.

"'But oh, mother,' I sobbed, 'he wanted me to kiss him good-bye—and I
couldn't—and that hurt me worse than all the rest.'

"'Well, why didn't you kiss him?' asked mother coolly. 'Considering the
circumstances, I think you might have.'

"'But I couldn't, mother—I promised Ken when he went away that I
wouldn't kiss anybody else until he came back.'

"This was another high explosive for poor mother. She exclaimed, with
the queerest little catch in her voice, 'Rilla, are you engaged to Kenneth
Ford?'

"'I—don't—know,' I sobbed.

"'You—don't—know?' repeated mother.

"Then I had to tell her the whole story, too; and every time I tell it it
seems sillier and sillier to imagine that Ken meant anything serious. I felt
idiotic and ashamed by the time I got through.

"Mother sat a little while in silence. Then she came over, sat down
beside me, and took me in her arms.

"'Don't cry, dear little Rilla-my-Rilla. You have nothing to reproach
yourself with in regard to Fred; and if Leslie West's son asked you to keep
your lips for him, I think you may consider yourself engaged to him. But—
oh, my baby—my last little baby—I have lost you—the war has made a
woman of you too soon.'

"I shall never be too much of a woman to find comfort in mother's hugs.
Nevertheless, when I saw Fred marching by two days later in the parade,
my heart ached unbearably.

"But I'm glad mother thinks I'm really engaged to Ken!"

CHAPTER XXII

LITTLE DOG MONDAY KNOWS

"It is two years tonight since the dance at the light, when Jack Elliott
brought us news of the war. Do you remember, Miss Oliver?"

Cousin Sophia answered for Miss Oliver. "Oh, indeed, Rilla, I remember
that evening only too well, and you a-prancing down here to show off your
party clothes. Didn't I warn you that we could not tell what was before us?
Little did you think that night what was before you."

"Little did any of us think that," said Susan sharply, "not being gifted
with the power of prophecy. It does not require any great foresight, Sophia
Crawford, to tell a body that she will have some trouble before her life is
over. I could do as much myself."

"We all thought the war would be over in a few months then," said Rilla
wistfully. "When I look back it seems so ridiculous that we ever could have
supposed it."

"And now, two years later, it is no nearer the end than it was then," said
Miss Oliver gloomily.

Susan clicked her knitting-needles briskly.

"Now, Miss Oliver, dear, you know that is not a reasonable remark. You
know we are just two years nearer the end, whenever the end is appointed to

be."

"Albert read in a Montreal paper today that a war expert gives it as his
opinion that it will last five years more," was Cousin Sophia's cheerful
contribution.

"It can't," cried Rilla; then she added with a sigh, "Two years ago we
would have said 'It can't last two years.' But five more years of this!"

"If Rumania comes in, as I have strong hopes now of her doing, you will
see the end in five months instead of five years," said Susan.

"I've no faith in furriners," sighed Cousin Sophia.

"The French are foreigners," retorted Susan, "and look at Verdun. And
think of all the Somme victories this blessed summer. The Big Push is on
and the Russians are still going well. Why, General Haig says that the
German officers he has captured admit that they have lost the war."

"You can't believe a word the Germans say," protested Cousin Sophia.
"There is no sense in believing a thing just because you'd like to believe it,
Susan Baker. The British have lost millions of men at the Somme and how
far have they got? Look facts in the face, Susan Baker, look facts in the
face."

"They are wearing the Germans out and so long as that happens it does
not matter whether it is done a few miles east or a few miles west. I am
not," admitted Susan in tremendous humility, "I am not a military expert,
Sophia Crawford, but even I can see that, and so could you if you were not
determined to take a gloomy view of everything. The Huns have not got all
the cleverness in the world. Have you not heard the story of Alistair
MacCallum's son Roderick, from the Upper Glen? He is a prisoner in
Germany and his mother got a letter from him last week. He wrote that he
was being very kindly treated and that all the prisoners had plenty of food
and so on, till you would have supposed everything was lovely. But when
he signed his name, right in between Roderick and MacCallum, he wrote
two Gaelic words that meant 'all lies' and the German censor did not
understand Gaelic and thought it was all part of Roddy's name. So he let it

pass, never dreaming how he was diddled. Well, I am going to leave the war
to Haig for the rest of the day and make a frosting for my chocolate cake.
And when it is made I shall put it on the top shelf. The last one I made I left
it on the lower shelf and little Kitchener sneaked in and clawed all the icing
off and ate it. We had company for tea that night and when I went to get my
cake what a sight did I behold!"

"Has that pore orphan's father never been heerd from yet?" asked Cousin
Sophia.

"Yes, I had a letter from him in July," said Rilla. "He said that when he
got word of his wife's death and of my taking the baby—Mr. Meredith
wrote him, you know—he wrote right away, but as he never got any answer
he had begun to think his letter must have been lost."

"It took him two years to begin to think it," said Susan scornfully. "Some
people think very slow. Jim Anderson has not got a scratch, for all he has
been two years in the trenches. A fool for luck, as the old proverb says."

"He wrote very nicely about Jims and said he'd like to see him," said
Rilla. "So I wrote and told him all about the wee man, and sent him
snapshots. Jims will be two years old next week and he is a perfect duck."

"You didn't used to be very fond of babies," said Cousin Sophia.

"I'm not a bit fonder of babies in the abstract than ever I was," said Rilla,
frankly. "But I do love Jims, and I'm afraid I wasn't really half as glad as I
should have been when Jim Anderson's letter proved that he was safe and
sound."

"You wasn't hoping the man would be killed!" cried Cousin Sophia in
horrified accents.

"No—no—no! I just hoped he would go on forgetting about Jims, Mrs.
Crawford."

"And then your pa would have the expense of raising him," said Cousin
Sophia reprovingly. "You young creeturs are terrible thoughtless."

Jims himself ran in at this juncture, so rosy and curly and kissable, that
he extorted a qualified compliment even from Cousin Sophia.

"He's a reel healthy-looking child now, though mebbee his colour is a
mite too high—sorter consumptive looking, as you might say. I never
thought you'd raise him when I saw him the day after you brung him home.
I reely did not think it was in you and I told Albert's wife so when I got
home. Albert's wife says, says she, 'There's more in Rilla Blythe than you'd
think for, Aunt Sophia.' Them was her very words. 'More in Rilla Blythe
than you'd think for.' Albert's wife always had a good opinion of you."

Cousin Sophia sighed, as if to imply that Albert's wife stood alone in this
against the world. But Cousin Sophia really did not mean that. She was
quite fond of Rilla in her own melancholy way; but young creeturs had to
be kept down. If they were not kept down society would be demoralized.

"Do you remember your walk home from the light two years ago
tonight?" whispered Gertrude Oliver to Rilla, teasingly.

"I should think I do," smiled Rilla; and then her smile grew dreamy and
absent; she was remembering something else—that hour with Kenneth on
the sandshore. Where would Ken be tonight? And Jem and Jerry and Walter
and all the other boys who had danced and moonlighted on the old Four
Winds Point that evening of mirth and laughter—their last joyous
unclouded evening. In the filthy trenches of the Somme front, with the roar
of the guns and the groans of stricken men for the music of Ned Burr's
violin, and the flash of star shells for the silver sparkles on the old blue gulf.
Two of them were sleeping under the Flanders poppies—Alec Burr from
the Upper Glen, and Clark Manley of Lowbridge. Others were wounded in
the hospitals. But so far nothing had touched the manse and the Ingleside
boys. They seemed to bear charmed lives. Yet the suspense never grew any
easier to bear as the weeks and months of war went by.

"It isn't as if it were some sort of fever to which you might conclude they
were immune when they hadn't taken it for two years," sighed Rilla. "The
danger is just as great and just as real as it was the first day they went into
the trenches. I know this, and it tortures me every day. And yet I can't help
hoping that since they've come this far unhurt they'll come through. Oh,

Miss Oliver, what would it be like not to wake up in the morning feeling
afraid of the news the day would bring? I can't picture such a state of things
somehow. And two years ago this morning I woke wondering what
delightful gift the new day would give me. These are the two years I
thought would be filled with fun."

"Would you exchange them—now—for two years filled with fun?"

"No," said Rilla slowly. "I wouldn't. It's strange—isn't it?—They have
been two terrible years—and yet I have a queer feeling of thankfulness for
them—as if they had brought me something very precious, with all their
pain. I wouldn't want to go back and be the girl I was two years ago, not
even if I could. Not that I think I've made any wonderful progress—but I'm
not quite the selfish, frivolous little doll I was then. I suppose I had a soul
then, Miss Oliver—but I didn't know it. I know it now—and that is worth a
great deal—worth all the suffering of the past two years. And still"—Rilla
gave a little apologetic laugh, "I don't want to suffer any more—not even
for the sake of more soul growth. At the end of two more years I might look
back and be thankful for the development they had brought me, too; but I
don't want it now."

"We never do," said Miss Oliver. "That is why we are not left to choose
our own means and measure of development, I suppose. No matter how
much we value what our lessons have brought us we don't want to go on
with the bitter schooling. Well, let us hope for the best, as Susan says;
things are really going well now and if Rumania lines up, the end may come
with a suddenness that will surprise us all."

Rumania did come in—and Susan remarked approvingly that its king
and queen were the finest looking royal couple she had seen pictures of. So
the summer passed away. Early in September word came that the Canadians
had been shifted to the Somme front and anxiety grew tenser and deeper.
For the first time Mrs. Blythe's spirit failed her a little, and as the days of
suspense wore on the doctor began to look gravely at her, and veto this or
that special effort in Red Cross work.

"Oh, let me work—let me work, Gilbert," she entreated feverishly.
"While I'm working I don't think so much. If I'm idle I imagine everything

—rest is only torture for me. My two boys are on the frightful Somme front
—and Shirley pores day and night over aviation literature and says nothing.
But I see the purpose growing in his eyes. No, I cannot rest—don't ask it of
me, Gilbert."

But the doctor was inexorable.

"I can't let you kill yourself, Anne-girl," he said. "When the boys come
back I want a mother here to welcome them. Why, you're getting
transparent. It won't do—ask Susan there if it will do."

"Oh, if Susan and you are both banded together against me!" said Anne
helplessly.

One day the glorious news came that the Canadians had taken
Courcelette and Martenpuich, with many prisoners and guns. Susan ran up
the flag and said it was plain to be seen that Haig knew what soldiers to
pick for a hard job. The others dared not feel exultant. Who knew what
price had been paid?

Rilla woke that morning when the dawn was beginning to break and
went to her window to look out, her thick creamy eyelids heavy with sleep.
Just at dawn the world looks as it never looks at any other time. The air was
cold with dew and the orchard and grove and Rainbow Valley were full of
mystery and wonder. Over the eastern hill were golden deeps and silvery-
pink shallows. There was no wind, and Rilla heard distinctly a dog howling
in a melancholy way down in the direction of the station. Was it Dog
Monday? And if it were, why was he howling like that? Rilla shivered; the
sound had something boding and grievous in it. She remembered that Miss
Oliver said once, when they were coming home in the darkness and heard a
dog howl, "When a dog cries like that the Angel of Death is passing." Rilla
listened with a curdling fear at her heart. It was Dog Monday—she felt sure
of it. Whose dirge was he howling—to whose spirit was he sending that
anguished greeting and farewell?

Rilla went back to bed but she could not sleep. All day she watched and
waited in a dread of which she did not speak to anyone. She went down to
see Dog Monday and the station-master said, "That dog of yours howled

from midnight to sunrise something weird. I dunno what got into him. I got
up once and went out and hollered at him but he paid no 'tention to me. He
was sitting all alone in the moonlight out there at the end of the platform,
and every few minutes the poor lonely little beggar'd lift his nose and howl
as if his heart was breaking. He never did it afore—always slept in his
kennel real quiet and canny from train to train. But he sure had something
on his mind last night."

Dog Monday was lying in his kennel. He wagged his tail and licked
Rilla's hand. But he would not touch the food she brought for him.

"I'm afraid he's sick," she said anxiously. She hated to go away and leave
him. But no bad news came that day—nor the next—nor the next. Rilla's
fear lifted. Dog Monday howled no more and resumed his routine of train
meeting and watching. When five days had passed the Ingleside people
began to feel that they might be cheerful again. Rilla dashed about the
kitchen helping Susan with the breakfast and singing so sweetly and clearly
that Cousin Sophia across the road heard her and croaked out to Mrs.
Albert,

"'Sing before eating, cry before sleeping,' I've always heard."

But Rilla Blythe shed no tears before the nightfall. When her father, his
face grey and drawn and old, came to her that afternoon and told her that
Walter had been killed in action at Courcelette she crumpled up in a pitiful
little heap of merciful unconsciousness in his arms. Nor did she waken to
her pain for many hours.

CHAPTER XXIII

"AND SO, GOODNIGHT"

The fierce flame of agony had burned itself out and the grey dust of its
ashes was over all the world. Rilla's younger life recovered physically
sooner than her mother. For weeks Mrs. Blythe lay ill from grief and shock.
Rilla found it was possible to go on with existence, since existence had still
to be reckoned with. There was work to be done, for Susan could not do all.
For her mother's sake she had to put on calmness and endurance as a
garment in the day; but night after night she lay in her bed, weeping the
bitter rebellious tears of youth until at last tears were all wept out and the
little patient ache that was to be in her heart until she died took their place.

She clung to Miss Oliver, who knew what to say and what not to say. So
few people did. Kind, well-meaning callers and comforters gave Rilla some
terrible moments.

"You'll get over it in time," Mrs. William Reese said, cheerfully. Mrs.
Reese had three stalwart sons, not one of whom had gone to the front.

"It's such a blessing it was Walter who was taken and not Jem," said
Miss Sarah Clow. "Walter was a member of the church, and Jem wasn't. I've
told Mr. Meredith many a time that he should have spoken seriously to Jem
about it before he went away."

"Pore, pore Walter," sighed Mrs. Reese.

"Do not you come here calling him poor Walter," said Susan indignantly,
appearing in the kitchen door, much to the relief of Rilla, who felt that she
could endure no more just then. "He was not poor. He was richer than any
of you. It is you who stay at home and will not let your sons go who are
poor—poor and naked and mean and small—pisen poor, and so are your
sons, with all their prosperous farms and fat cattle and their souls no bigger
than a flea's—if as big."

"I came here to comfort the afflicted and not to be insulted," said Mrs.
Reese, taking her departure, unregretted by anyone. Then the fire went out
of Susan and she retreated to her kitchen, laid her faithful old head on the
table and wept bitterly for a time. Then she went to work and ironed Jims's
little rompers. Rilla scolded her gently for it when she herself came in to do
it.

"I am not going to have you kill yourself working for any war-baby,"
Susan said obstinately.

"Oh, I wish I could just keep on working all the time, Susan," cried poor
Rilla. "And I wish I didn't have to go to sleep. It is hideous to go to sleep
and forget it for a little while, and wake up and have it all rush over me
anew the next morning. Do people ever get used to things like this, Susan?
And oh, Susan, I can't get away from what Mrs. Reese said. Did Walter
suffer much—he was always so sensitive to pain. Oh, Susan, if I knew that
he didn't I think I could gather up a little courage and strength."

This merciful knowledge was given to Rilla. A letter came from Walter's
commanding officer, telling them that he had been killed instantly by a
bullet during a charge at Courcelette. The same day there was a letter for
Rilla from Walter himself.

Rilla carried it unopened to Rainbow Valley and read it there, in the spot
where she had had her last talk with him. It is a strange thing to read a letter
after the writer is dead—a bitter-sweet thing, in which pain and comfort are
strangely mingled. For the first time since the blow had fallen Rilla felt—a
different thing from tremulous hope and faith—that Walter, of the glorious
gift and the splendid ideals, still lived, with just the same gift and just the
same ideals. That could not be destroyed—these could suffer no eclipse.
The personality that had expressed itself in that last letter, written on the eve
of Courcelette, could not be snuffed out by a German bullet. It must carry
on, though the earthly link with things of earth were broken.

"We're going over the top tomorrow, Rilla-my-Rilla," wrote Walter. "I
wrote mother and Di yesterday, but somehow I feel as if I must write you
tonight. I hadn't intended to do any writing tonight—but I've got to. Do you
remember old Mrs. Tom Crawford over-harbour, who was always saying
that it was 'laid on her' to do such and such a thing? Well, that is just how I
feel. It's 'laid on me' to write you tonight—you, sister and chum of mine.
There are some things I want to say before—well, before tomorrow.

"You and Ingleside seem strangely near me tonight. It's the first time I've
felt this since I came. Always home has seemed so far away—so hopelessly
far away from this hideous welter of filth and blood. But tonight it is quite

close to me—it seems to me I can almost see you—hear you speak. And I
can see the moonlight shining white and still on the old hills of home. It has
seemed to me ever since I came here that it was impossible that there could
be calm gentle nights and unshattered moonlight anywhere in the world.
But tonight somehow, all the beautiful things I have always loved seem to
have become possible again—and this is good, and makes me feel a deep,
certain, exquisite happiness. It must be autumn at home now—the harbour
is a-dream and the old Glen hills blue with haze, and Rainbow Valley a
haunt of delight with wild asters blowing all over it—our old "farewell-
summers." I always liked that name better than 'aster'—it was a poem in
itself.

"Rilla, you know I've always had premonitions. You remember the Pied
Piper—but no, of course you wouldn't—you were too young. One evening
long ago when Nan and Di and Jem and the Merediths and I were together
in Rainbow Valley I had a queer vision or presentiment—whatever you like
to call it. Rilla, I saw the Piper coming down the Valley with a shadowy
host behind him. The others thought I was only pretending—but I saw him
for just one moment. And Rilla, last night I saw him again. I was doing
sentry-go and I saw him marching across No-man's-land from our trenches
to the German trenches—the same tall shadowy form, piping weirdly—and
behind him followed boys in khaki. Rilla, I tell you I saw him—it was no
fancy—no illusion. I heard his music, and then—he was gone. But I had
seen him—and I knew what it meant—I knew that I was among those who
followed him.

"Rilla, the Piper will pipe me 'west' tomorrow. I feel sure of this. And
Rilla, I'm not afraid. When you hear the news, remember that. I've won my
own freedom here—freedom from all fear. I shall never be afraid of
anything again—not of death—nor of life, if after all, I am to go on living.
And life, I think, would be the harder of the two to face—for it could never
be beautiful for me again. There would always be such horrible things to
remember—things that would make life ugly and painful always for me. I
could never forget them. But whether it's life or death, I'm not afraid, Rilla-
my-Rilla, and I am not sorry that I came. I'm satisfied. I'll never write the
poems I once dreamed of writing—but I've helped to make Canada safe for
the poets of the future—for the workers of the future—ay, and the dreamers,

too—for if no man dreams, there will be nothing for the workers to fulfil—
the future, not of Canada only but of the world—when the 'red rain' of
Langemarck and Verdun shall have brought forth a golden harvest—not in a
year or two, as some foolishly think, but a generation later, when the seed
sown now shall have had time to germinate and grow. Yes, I'm glad I came,
Rilla. It isn't only the fate of the little sea-born island I love that is in the
balance—nor of Canada nor of England. It's the fate of mankind. That is
what we're fighting for. And we shall win—never for a moment doubt that,
Rilla. For it isn't only the living who are fighting—the dead are fighting too.
Such an army cannot be defeated.

"Is there laughter in your face yet, Rilla? I hope so. The world will need
laughter and courage more than ever in the years that will come next. I don't
want to preach—this isn't any time for it. But I just want to say something
that may help you over the worst when you hear that I've gone 'west.' I've a
premonition about you, Rilla, as well as about myself. I think Ken will go
back to you—and that there are long years of happiness for you by-and-by.
And you will tell your children of the Idea we fought and died for—teach
them it must be lived for as well as died for, else the price paid for it will
have been given for nought. This will be part of your work, Rilla. And if
you—all you girls back in the homeland—do it, then we who don't come
back will know that you have not 'broken faith' with us.

"I meant to write to Una tonight, too, but I won't have time now. Read
this letter to her and tell her it's really meant for you both—you two dear,
fine loyal girls. Tomorrow, when we go over the top—I'll think of you both
—of your laughter, Rilla-my-Rilla, and the steadfastness in Una's blue eyes
—somehow I see those eyes very plainly tonight, too. Yes, you'll both keep
faith—I'm sure of that—you and Una. And so—goodnight. We go over the
top at dawn."

Rilla read her letter over many times. There was a new light on her pale
young face when she finally stood up, amid the asters Walter had loved,
with the sunshine of autumn around her. For the moment at least, she was
lifted above pain and loneliness.

"I will keep faith, Walter," she said steadily. "I will work—and teach—
and learn—and laugh, yes, I will even laugh—through all my years,

because of you and because of what you gave when you followed the call."

Rilla meant to keep Walter's letter as a a sacred treasure. But, seeing the
look on Una Meredith's face when Una had read it and held it back to her,
she thought of something. Could she do it? Oh, no, she could not give up
Walter's letter—his last letter. Surely it was not selfishness to keep it. A
copy would be such a soulless thing. But Una—Una had so little—and her
eyes were the eyes of a woman stricken to the heart, who yet must not cry
out or ask for sympathy.

"Una, would you like to have this letter—to keep?" she asked slowly.

"Yes—if you can give it to me," Una said dully.

"Then—you may have it," said Rilla hurriedly.

"Thank you," said Una. It was all she said, but there was something in
her voice which repaid Rilla for her bit of sacrifice.

Una took the letter and when Rilla had gone she pressed it against her
lonely lips. Una knew that love would never come into her life now—it was
buried for ever under the blood-stained soil "Somewhere in France." No one
but herself—and perhaps Rilla—knew it—would ever know it. She had no
right in the eyes of her world to grieve. She must hide and bear her long
pain as best she could—alone. But she, too, would keep faith.

CHAPTER XXIV

MARY IS JUST IN TIME

The autumn of 1916 was a bitter season for Ingleside. Mrs. Blythe's
return to health was slow, and sorrow and loneliness were in all hearts.
Every one tried to hide it from the others and "carry on" cheerfully. Rilla
laughed a good deal. Nobody at Ingleside was deceived by her laughter; it

came from her lips only, never from her heart. But outsiders said some
people got over trouble very easily, and Irene Howard remarked that she
was surprised to find how shallow Rilla Blythe really was. "Why, after all
her pose of being so devoted to Walter, she doesn't seem to mind his death
at all. Nobody has ever seen her shed a tear or heard her mention his name.
She has evidently quite forgotten him. Poor fellow—you'd really think his
family would feel it more. I spoke of him to Rilla at the last Junior Red
meeting—of how fine and brave and splendid he was—and I said life could
never be just the same to me again, now that Walter had gone—we were
such friends, you know—why I was the very first person he told about
having enlisted—and Rilla answered, as coolly and indifferently as if she
were speaking of an entire stranger, 'He was just one of many fine and
splendid boys who have given everything for their country.' Well, I wish I
could take things as calmly—but I'm not made like that. I'm so sensitive—
things hurt me terribly—I really never get over them. I asked Rilla right out
why she didn't put on mourning for Walter. She said her mother didn't wish
it. But every one is talking about it."

"Rilla doesn't wear colours—nothing but white," protested Betty Mead.

"White becomes her better than anything else," said Irene significantly.
"And we all know black doesn't suit her complexion at all. But of course
I'm not saying that is the reason she doesn't wear it. Only, it's funny. If my
brother had died I'd have gone into deep mourning. I wouldn't have had the
heart for anything else. I confess I'm disappointed in Rilla Blythe."

"I am not, then," cried Betty Meade, loyally, "I think Rilla is just a
wonderful girl. A few years ago I admit I did think she was rather too vain
and gigglesome; but now she is nothing of the sort. I don't think there is a
girl in the Glen who is so unselfish and plucky as Rilla, or who has done her
bit as thoroughly and patiently. Our Junior Red Cross would have gone on
the rocks a dozen times if it hadn't been for her tact and perseverance and
enthusiasm—you know that perfectly well, Irene."

"Why, I am not running Rilla down," said Irene, opening her eyes
widely. "It was only her lack of feeling I was criticizing. I suppose she can't
help it. Of course, she's a born manager—everyone knows that. She's very
fond of managing, too—and people like that are very necessary I admit. So

don't look at me as if I'd said something perfectly dreadful, Betty, please.
I'm quite willing to agree that Rilla Blythe is the embodiment of all the
virtues, if that will please you. And no doubt it is a virtue to be quite
unmoved by things that would crush most people."

Some of Irene's remarks were reported to Rilla; but they did not hurt her
as they would once have done. They didn't matter, that was all. Life was too
big to leave room for pettiness. She had a pact to keep and a work to do;
and through the long hard days and weeks of that disastrous autumn she
was faithful to her task. The war news was consistently bad, for Germany
marched from victory to victory over poor Rumania. "Foreigners—
foreigners," Susan muttered dubiously. "Russians or Rumanians or
whatever they may be, they are foreigners and you cannot tie to them. But
after Verdun I shall not give up hope. And can you tell me, Mrs. Dr. dear, if
the Dobruja is a river or a mountain range, or a condition of the
atmosphere?"

The Presidential election in the United States came off in November, and
Susan was red-hot over that—and quite apologetic for her excitement.

"I never thought I would live to see the day when I would be interested
in a Yankee election, Mrs. Dr. dear. It only goes to show we can never know
what we will come to in this world, and therefore we should not be proud."

Susan stayed up late on the evening of the eleventh, ostensibly to finish a
pair of socks. But she 'phoned down to Carter Flagg's store at intervals, and
when the first report came through that Hughes had been elected she stalked
solemnly upstairs to Mrs. Blythe's room and announced it in a thrilling
whisper from the foot of the bed.

"I thought if you were not asleep you would be interested in knowing it.
I believe it is for the best. Perhaps he will just fall to writing notes, too,
Mrs. Dr. dear, but I hope for better things. I never was very partial to
whiskers, but one cannot have everything."

When news came in the morning that after all Wilson was re-elected,
Susan tacked to catch another breeze of optimism.

"Well, better a fool you know than a fool you do not know, as the old
proverb has it," she remarked cheerfully. "Not that I hold Woodrow to be a
fool by any means, though by times you would not think he has the sense he
was born with. But he is a good letter writer at least, and we do not know if
the Hughes man is even that. All things being considered I commend the
Yankees. They have shown good sense and I do not mind admitting it.
Cousin Sophia wanted them to elect Roosevelt, and is much disgruntled
because they would not give him a chance. I had a hankering for him
myself, but we must believe that Providence over-rules these matters and be
satisfied—though what the Almighty means in this affair of Rumania I
cannot fathom—saying it with all reverence."

Susan fathomed it—or thought she did—when the Asquith ministry went
down and Lloyd George became Premier.

"Mrs. Dr. dear, Lloyd George is at the helm at last. I have been praying
for this for many a day. Now we shall soon see a blessed change. It took the
Rumanian disaster to bring it about, no less, and that is the meaning of it,
though I could not see it before. There will be no more shilly-shallying. I
consider that the war is as good as won, and that I shall tie to, whether
Bucharest falls or not."

Bucharest did fall—and Germany proposed peace negotiations. Whereat
Susan scornfully turned a deaf ear and absolutely refused to listen to such
proposals. When President Wilson sent his famous December peace note
Susan waxed violently sarcastic.

"Woodrow Wilson is going to make peace, I understand. First Henry
Ford had a try at it and now comes Wilson. But peace is not made with ink,
Woodrow, and that you may tie to," said Susan, apostrophizing the unlucky
President out of the kitchen window nearest the United States. "Lloyd
George's speech will tell the Kaiser what is what, and you may keep your
peace screeds at home and save postage."

"What a pity President Wilson can't hear you, Susan," said Rilla slyly.

"Indeed, Rilla dear, it is a pity that he has no one near him to give him
good advice, as it is clear he has not, in all those Democrats and

Republicans," retorted Susan. "I do not know the difference between them,
for the politics of the Yankees is a puzzle I cannot solve, study it as I may.
But as far as seeing through a grindstone goes, I am afraid—" Susan shook
her head dubiously, "that they are all tarred with the same brush."

"I am thankful Christmas is over," Rilla wrote in her diary during the last
week of a stormy December. "We had dreaded it so—the first Christmas
since Courcelette. But we had all the Merediths down for dinner and
nobody tried to be gay or cheerful. We were all just quiet and friendly, and
that helped. Then, too, I was so thankful that Jims had got better—so
thankful that I almost felt glad—almost but not quite. I wonder if I shall
ever feel really glad over anything again. It seems as if gladness were killed
in me—shot down by the same bullet that pierced Walter's heart. Perhaps
some day a new kind of gladness will be born in my soul—but the old kind
will never live again.

"Winter set in awfully early this year. Ten days before Christmas we had
a big snowstorm—at least we thought it big at the time. As it happened, it
was only a prelude to the real performance. It was fine the next day, and
Ingleside and Rainbow Valley were wonderful, with the trees all covered
with snow, and big drifts everywhere, carved into the most fantastic shapes
by the chisel of the northeast wind. Father and mother went up to Avonlea.
Father thought the change would do mother good, and they wanted to see
poor Aunt Diana, whose son Jock had been seriously wounded a short time
before. They left Susan and me to keep house, and father expected to be
back the next day. But he never got back for a week. That night it began to
storm again, and it stormed unbrokenly for four days. It was the worst and
longest storm that Prince Edward Island has known for years. Everything
was disorganized—the roads were completely choked up, the trains
blockaded, and the telephone wires put entirely out of commission.

"And then Jims took ill.

"He had a little cold when father and mother went away, and he kept
getting worse for a couple of days, but it didn't occur to me that there was
danger of anything serious. I never even took his temperature, and I can't
forgive myself, because it was sheer carelessness. The truth is I had
slumped just then. Mother was away, so I let myself go. All at once I was

tired of keeping up and pretending to be brave and cheerful, and I just gave
up for a few days and spent most of the time lying on my face on my bed,
crying. I neglected Jims—that is the hateful truth—I was cowardly and
false to what I promised Walter—and if Jims had died I could never have
forgiven myself.

"Then, the third night after father and mother went away, Jims suddenly
got worse—oh, so much worse—all at once. Susan and I were all alone.
Gertrude had been at Lowbridge when the storm began and had never got
back. At first we were not much alarmed. Jims has had several bouts of
croup and Susan and Morgan and I have always brought him through
without much trouble. But it wasn't very long before we were dreadfully
alarmed.

"'I never saw croup like this before,' said Susan.

"As for me, I knew, when it was too late, what kind of croup it was. I
knew it was not the ordinary croup—'false croup' as doctors call it—but the
'true croup'—and I knew that it was a deadly and dangerous thing. And
father was away and there was no doctor nearer than Lowbridge—and we
could not 'phone and neither horse nor man could get through the drifts that
night.

"Gallant little Jims put up a good fight for his life,—Susan and I tried
every remedy we could think of or find in father's books, but he continued
to grow worse. It was heart-rending to see and hear him. He gasped so
horribly for breath—the poor little soul—and his face turned a dreadful
bluish colour and had such an agonized expression, and he kept struggling
with his little hands, as if he were appealing to us to help him somehow. I
found myself thinking that the boys who had been gassed at the front must
have looked like that, and the thought haunted me amid all my dread and
misery over Jims. And all the time the fatal membrane in his wee throat
grew and thickened and he couldn't get it up.

"Oh, I was just wild! I never realized how dear Jims was to me until that
moment. And I felt so utterly helpless."

"And then Susan gave up. 'We cannot save him! Oh, if your father was
here—look at him, the poor little fellow! I know not what to do.'

"I looked at Jims and I thought he was dying. Susan was holding him up
in his crib to give him a better chance for breath, but it didn't seem as if he
could breathe at all. My little war-baby, with his dear ways and sweet
roguish face, was choking to death before my very eyes, and I couldn't help
him. I threw down the hot poultice I had ready in despair. Of what use was
it? Jims was dying, and it was my fault—I hadn't been careful enough!

"Just then—at eleven o'clock at night—the door bell rang. Such a ring—
it pealed all over the house above the roar of the storm. Susan couldn't go—
she dared not lay Jims down—so I rushed downstairs. In the hall I paused
just a minute—I was suddenly overcome by an absurd dread. I thought of a
weird story Gertrude had told me once. An aunt of hers was alone in a
house one night with her sick husband. She heard a knock at the door. And
when she went and opened it there was nothing there—nothing that could
be seen, at least. But when she opened the door a deadly cold wind blew in
and seemed to sweep past her right up the stairs, although it was a calm,
warm summer night outside. Immediately she heard a cry. She ran upstairs
—and her husband was dead. And she always believed, so Gertrude said,
that when she opened that door she let Death in.

"It was so ridiculous of me to feel so frightened. But I was distracted and
worn out, and I simply felt for a moment that I dared not open the door—
that death was waiting outside. Then I remembered that I had no time to
waste—must not be so foolish—I sprang forward and opened the door.

"Certainly a cold wind did blow in and filled the hall with a whirl of
snow. But there on the threshold stood a form of flesh and blood—Mary
Vance, coated from head to foot with snow—and she brought Life, not
Death, with her, though I didn't know that then. I just stared at her.

"'I haven't been turned out,' grinned Mary, as she stepped in and shut the
door. 'I came up to Carter Flagg's two days ago and I've been stormed-
stayed there ever since. But old Abbie Flagg got on my nerves at last, and
tonight I just made up my mind to come up here. I thought I could wade this

far, but I can tell you it was as much as a bargain. Once I thought I was
stuck for keeps. Ain't it an awful night?'

"I came to myself and knew I must hurry upstairs. I explained as quickly
as I could to Mary, and left her trying to brush the snow off. Upstairs I
found that Jims was over that paroxysm, but almost as soon as I got back to
the room he was in the grip of another. I couldn't do anything but moan and
cry—oh, how ashamed I am when I think of it; and yet what could I do—
we had tried everything we knew—and then all at once I heard Mary Vance
saying loudly behind me, 'Why, that child is dying!'

"I whirled around. Didn't I know he was dying—my little Jims! I could
have thrown Mary Vance out of the door or the window—anywhere—at
that moment. There she stood, cool and composed, looking down at my
baby, with those, weird white eyes of hers, as she might look at a choking
kitten. I had always disliked Mary Vance—and just then I hated her.

"'We have tried everything,' said poor Susan dully. 'It is not ordinary
croup.'

"'No, it's the dipthery croup,' said Mary briskly, snatching up an apron.
'And there's mighty little time to lose—but I know what to do. When I lived
over-harbour with Mrs. Wiley, years ago, Will Crawford's kid died of
dipthery croup, in spite of two doctors. And when old Aunt Christina
MacAllister heard of it—she was the one brought me round when I nearly
died of pneumonia you know—she was a wonder—no doctor was a patch
on her—they don't hatch her breed of cats nowadays, let me tell you—she
said she could have saved him with her grandmother's remedy if she'd been
there. She told Mrs. Wiley what it was and I've never forgot it. I've the
greatest memory ever—a thing just lies in the back of my head till the time
comes to use it. Got any sulphur in the house, Susan?'

"Yes, we had sulphur. Susan went down with Mary to get it, and I held
Jims. I hadn't any hope—not the least. Mary Vance might brag as she liked
—she was always bragging—but I didn't believe any grandmother's remedy
could save Jims now. Presently Mary came back. She had tied a piece of
thick flannel over her mouth and nose, and she carried Susan's old tin chip
pan, half full of burning coals.

"'You watch me,' she said boastfully. 'I've never done this, but it's kill or
cure that child is dying anyway.'

"She sprinkled a spoonful of sulphur over the coals; and then she picked
up Jims, turned him over, and held him face downward, right over those
choking, blinding fumes. I don't know why I didn't spring forward and
snatch him away. Susan says it was because it was fore-ordained that I
shouldn't, and I think she is right, because it did really seem that I was
powerless to move. Susan herself seemed transfixed, watching Mary from
the doorway. Jims writhed in those big, firm, capable hands of Mary—oh
yes, she is capable all right—and choked and wheezed—and choked and
wheezed—and I felt that he was being tortured to death—and then all at
once, after what seemed to me an hour, though it really wasn't long, he
coughed up the membrane that was killing him. Mary turned him over and
laid him back on his bed. He was white as marble and the tears were
pouring out of his brown eyes—but that awful livid look was gone from his
face and he could breathe quite easily.

"'Wasn't that some trick?' said Mary gaily. 'I hadn't any idea how it
would work, but I just took a chance. I'll smoke his throat out again once or
twice before morning, just to kill all the germs, but you'll see he'll be all
right now.'

"Jims went right to sleep—real sleep, not coma, as I feared at first. Mary
'smoked him,' as she called it, twice through the night, and at daylight his
throat was perfectly clear and his temperature was almost normal. When I
made sure of that I turned and looked at Mary Vance. She was sitting on the
lounge laying down the law to Susan on some subject about which Susan
must have known forty times as much as she did. But I didn't mind how
much law she laid down or how much she bragged. She had a right to brag
—she had dared to do what I would never have dared, and had saved Jims
from a horrible death. It didn't matter any more that she had once chased me
through the Glen with a codfish; it didn't matter that she had smeared
goose-grease all over my dream of romance the night of the lighthouse
dance; it didn't matter that she thought she knew more than anybody else
and always rubbed it in—I would never dislike Mary Vance again. I went
over to her and kissed her.