rave-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