don't really think that our papers
ought to print such shocking things. The Enterprise is getting far too
sensational with its big headlines. Well, I must be getting home. No,
Anne dearie, it's no use asking me to stay to supper. Marshall has got
to thinking that if I'm not home for a meal it's not worth eating--just
like a man. So off I go. Merciful goodness, Anne dearie, what is the
matter with that cat? Is he having a fit?"--this, as Doc suddenly
bounded to the rug at Miss Cornelia's feet, laid back his ears, swore
at her, and then disappeared with one fierce leap through the window.

"Oh, no. He's merely turning into Mr. Hyde--which means that we shall
have rain or high wind before morning. Doc is as good as a barometer."

"Well, I am thankful he has gone on the rampage outside this time and
not into my kitchen," said Susan. "And I am going out to see about
supper. With such a crowd as we have at Ingleside now it behooves us to
think about our meals betimes."

CHAPTER II

DEW OF MORNING

Outside, the Ingleside lawn was full of golden pools of sunshine and
plots of alluring shadows. Rilla Blythe was swinging in the hammock
under the big Scotch pine, Gertrude Oliver sat at its roots beside her,
and Walter was stretched at full length on the grass, lost in a romance
of chivalry wherein old heroes and beauties of dead and gone centuries
lived vividly again for him.

Rilla was the "baby" of the Blythe family and was in a chronic state of
secret indignation because nobody believed she was grown up. She was so
nearly fifteen that she called herself that, and she was quite as tall
as Di and Nan; also, she was nearly as pretty as Susan believed her to
be. She had great, dreamy, hazel eyes, a milky skin dappled with little
golden freckles, and delicately arched eyebrows, giving her a demure,
questioning look which made people, especially lads in their teens,
want to answer it. Her hair was ripely, ruddily brown and a little dent
in her upper lip looked as if some good fairy had pressed it in with
her finger at Rilla's christening. Rilla, whose best friends could not
deny her share of vanity, thought her face would do very well, but
worried over her figure, and wished her mother could be prevailed upon
to let her wear longer dresses. She, who had been so plump and
roly-poly in the old Rainbow Valley days, was incredibly slim now, in
the arms-and-legs period. Jem and Shirley harrowed her soul by calling
her "Spider."