ly 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 h