blue
mixing-bowl that she brought from Green Gables when she was married.
That is no small calamity, in my opinion. But the thing to consider now
is how to get that can off Hyde's head."

"Don't you dast go touching it," exclaimed Cousin Sophia, galvanized
into animation. "It might be your death. Shut the kitchen up and send
for Albert."

"I am not in the habit of sending for Albert during family
difficulties," said Susan loftily. "That beast is in torment, and
whatever my opinion of him may be, I cannot endure to see him suffering
pain. You keep away, Rilla, for little Kitchener's sake, and I will see
what I can do."

Susan stalked undauntedly into the kitchen, seized an old storm coat of
the doctor's and after a wild pursuit and several fruitless dashes and
pounces, managed to throw it over the cat and can. Then she proceeded
to saw the can loose with a can-opener, while Rilla held the squirming
animal, rolled in the coat. Anything like Doc's shrieks while the
process was going on was never heard at Ingleside. Susan was in mortal
dread that the Albert Crawfords would hear it and conclude she was
torturing the creature to death. Doc was a wrathful and indignant cat
when he was freed. Evidently he thought the whole thing was a put-up
job to bring him low. He gave Susan a baleful glance by way of
gratitude and rushed out of the kitchen to take sanctuary in the jungle
of the sweet-briar hedge, where he sulked for the rest of the day.
Susan swept up her broken dishes grimly.

"The Huns themselves couldn't have worked more havoc here," she said
bitterly. "But when people will keep a Satanic animal like that, in
spite of all warnings, they cannot complain when their wedding bowls
get broken. Things have come to a pretty pass when an honest woman
cannot leave her kitchen for a few minutes without a fiend of a cat
rampaging through it with his head in a salmon can."

CHAPTER X

THE TROUBLES OF RILLA

October passed out and the dreary days of November and December dragged
by. The world shook with the thunder of contending armies; Antwerp
fell--Turkey declared war--gallant little Serbia gathered herself
together and struck a deadly blow at her oppressor; and in quiet,
hill-girdled Glen St. Mary, thousands of miles away, hearts beat with
hope and fear over the varying dispatches from day to day.

"A few months ago," said Miss Oliver, "we thought and talked in terms
of Glen St. Mary. Now, we think and talk in terms