Rilla of Ingleside

green-mossed stone among the fern, propped her chin on her hands and stared unseeingly at the dazzling blue sky of the August afternoon-

x 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

women fail

en be fearl

rned 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

kle 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

e thought. "Oh, if we could only have those dear, monotonous, pleas

stance 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 m

father," said Jem. "Scores have joined u

not called him that for many years-not since the da

'm right-am I not,

ry pale, too, and his voice was

-if you feel t

, 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 Susa

in. "I must ring the manse.

and rushed from the room. Di followed her. Rilla turned to Walter for

nging the details of a picnic. "I thought you would-yes,

boy realize what he is saying? Does he mean that he is going to enlist as a soldier? You do not mean to

said Mrs. Blythe, cho

eyes that he had only once before seen filled with such imploring anguish as now. They both

rs are going-when he thinks it his duty-woul

Gilbert-I'll try to be brave after a while-just no

and Susan remained staring at each other across the deserted table. Rilla had not yet cried-she was too

ll he really g

diculous, that is wh

tears, gulped res

There now, dearie, do not you cry. Jem will go, most likely-but the war will be over lo

d that Lord Kitchener says the war will

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 c

. 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 mag

o do what

s daughter b

re a boy of course she would go, too

to feel glad that Walter hadn't got strong

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. Ther

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 sh

ing. 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

t 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

nk that is quite providential. He is his mother's only son and how dre

s head bent and his hands clasped behind him. When he saw Rilla he t

a, what are yo

"Even you-you're changed. A week ago we were all so happ

bouring stone and took Ril

as come to an end, Rilla. W

I forget for a little while what it really means and feel exci

!" said Wal

lter you-you don'

rald vistas of the valley, "no, I don't want to go. That's

"Why, anybody would be afraid to go.

ying! 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

piteously. She was sick with a new terror that Wal

know it. Everybody thinks I'm not strong yet-and I'm skulking behind that belief.

sobbed Rilla. "What would mother do? She's breaking he

e-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 t

r 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 wa

k Rilla might despise him-hurt him as much as if it had been Di. He realized suddenly how ve

ou do. You know what that verse of Shakespeare in the old Fi

fear subdues.' I don't do that. We ca

of how you fought D

rage isn't enough

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

it's supper-time, Rilla. You'd b

you, Walter. It's such a comfort to talk things over with someon

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 l

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

en he was excited. "I'd show the Kaiser a thing or two! Did I ever say there wasn't a hell? Of cours

upid Englishmen what was ahead of them. I told you, John Meredith, years ago what the Kaiser was up to but you wouldn't b

admit," said

aking her head, as if to intimate that if John Meredi

d's navy is ready,

at-blind as most of them were somebody

trouble over it," said Cousin Sophia pl

" said Susan. "But your ways of thinking are beyond me and always were. It is my opinion that th

hrough life, but she had nothing to buckler her against the thunderbolts of the week that had just passed. What had an honest, hard-working, Presbyt

ll it gets into line and the Kaiser will find that real war is a diff

t glare at me, Norman. Glaring won't make soldiers out of timothy stalks

Germany'll break her teeth on it. Don't you tell me one Britisher isn't a match for ten f

am told that he says England went into it just because she was jealous of Ger

hat precious relative of mine, Kitty Alec, holds forth to the same effect, I understand. Not before me, though-somehow, folks don't indulge in tha

aid Cousin Sophia, unclasping her pale hands from her lap and reclasping them

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 was

sed 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 punishme

that all his life and never could be made to see any reason why he shouldn't. "Now, never mind kicking

ble hour alone in his study on the night Jem and

hat a country whose sons are ready to lay down their lives in

e 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-

usan could never understand why fire did not descend from heaven upon Norman Douglas when he insulted min

ally a little tired of it. Now that she was relieved from her haunting fear that Walter would want to go it