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."

Susa