lting 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