a young silver moon hanging over her, "A white birch is a
beautiful Pagan maiden who has never lost the Eden secret of being
naked and unashamed." Miss Oliver had said, "Put that into a poem,
Walter," and he had done so, and read it to them the next day--just a
short thing with goblin imagination in every line of it. Oh, how happy
they had been then!

Well--Rilla scrambled to her feet--time was up. Jims would soon be
awake--his lunch had to be prepared--his little slips had to be
ironed--there was a committee meeting of the Junior Reds that
night--there was her new knitting bag to finish--it would be the
handsomest bag in the Junior Society--handsomer even than Irene
Howard's--she must get home and get to work. She was busy these days
from morning till night. That little monkey of a Jims took so much
time. But he was growing--he was certainly growing. And there were
times when Rilla felt sure that it was not merely a pious hope but an
absolute fact that he was getting decidedly better looking. Sometimes
she felt quite proud of him; and sometimes she yearned to spank him.
But she never kissed him or wanted to kiss him.

"The Germans captured Lodz today," said Miss Oliver, one December
evening, when she, Mrs. Blythe, and Susan were busy sewing or knitting
in the cosy living-room. "This war is at least extending my knowledge
of geography. Schoolma'am though I am, three months ago I didn't know
there was such a place in the world such as Lodz. Had I heard it
mentioned I would have known nothing about it and cared as little. I
know all about it now--its size, its standing, its military
significance. Yesterday the news that the Germans have captured it in
their second rush to Warsaw made my heart sink into my boots. I woke up
in the night and worried over it. I don't wonder babies always cry when
they wake up in the night. Everything presses on my soul then and no
cloud has a silver lining."

"When I wake up in the night and cannot go to sleep again," remarked
Susan, who was knitting and reading at the same time, "I pass the
moments by torturing the Kaiser to death. Last night I fried him in
boiling oil and a great comfort it was to me, remembering those Belgian
babies."

"If the Kaiser were here and had a pain in his shoulder you'd be the
first to run for the liniment bottle to rub him down," laughed Miss
Oliver.

"Would I?" cried outraged Susan. "Would I, Miss Oliver? I would rub him
down with coal oil, Miss Oliver-