of military tactics
and diplomatic intrigue."

There was just one great event every day--the coming of the mail. Even
Susan admitted that from the time the mail-courier's buggy rumbled over
the little bridge between the station and the village until the papers
were brought home and read, she could not work properly.

"I must take up my knitting then and knit hard till the papers come,
Mrs. Dr. dear. Knitting is something you can do, even when your heart
is going like a trip-hammer and the pit of your stomach feels all gone
and your thoughts are catawampus. Then when I see the headlines, be
they good or be they bad, I calm down and am able to go about my
business again. It is an unfortunate thing that the mail comes in just
when our dinner rush is on, and I think the Government could arrange
things better. But the drive on Calais has failed, as I felt perfectly
sure it would, and the Kaiser will not eat his Christmas dinner in
London this year. Do you know, Mrs. Dr. dear,"--Susan's voice lowered
as a token that she was going to impart a very shocking piece of
information,--"I have been told on good authority--or else you may be
sure I would not be repeating it when it concerns a minster--that the
Rev. Mr. Arnold goes to Charlottetown every week and takes a Turkish
bath for his rheumatism. The idea of him doing that when we are at war
with Turkey? One of his own deacons has always insisted that Mr.
Arnold's theology was not sound and I am beginning to believe that
there is some reason to fear it. Well, I must bestir myself this
afternoon and get little Jem's Christmas cake packed up for him. He
will enjoy it, if the blessed boy is not drowned in mud before that
time."

Jem was in camp on Salisbury Plain and was writing gay, cheery letters
home in spite of the mud. Walter was at Redmond and his letters to
Rilla were anything but cheerful. She never opened one without a dread
tugging at her heart that it would tell her he had enlisted. His
unhappiness made her unhappy. She wanted to put her arm round him and
comfort him, as she had done that day in Rainbow Valley. She hated
everybody who was responsible for Walter's unhappiness.

"He will go yet," she murmured miserably to herself one afternoon, as
she sat alone in Rainbow Valley, reading a letter from him, "he will go
yet--and if he does I just can't bear it."

Walter wrote that some one had sent him an envelope containing a white
feather.

"I deserved it, Rilla.