han go. I suppose I
should go--if Jem and Jerry can face the Huns surely I can face Irene
Howard, and swallow my pride to ask a favour of her for the good of the
Belgians. Just at present I feel that I cannot do it but for all that I
have a presentiment that after supper you'll see me meekly trotting
through Rainbow Valley on my way to the Upper Glen Road."

Rilla's presentiment proved correct. After supper she dressed herself
carefully in her blue, beaded crepe--for vanity is harder to quell than
pride and Irene always saw any flaw or shortcoming in another girl's
appearance. Besides, as Rilla had told her mother one day when she was
nine years old, "It is easier to behave nicely when you have your good
clothes on."

Rilla did her hair very becomingly and donned a long raincoat for fear
of a shower. But all the while her thoughts were concerned with the
coming distasteful interview, and she kept rehearsing mentally her part
in it. She wished it were over--she wished she had never tried to get
up a Belgian Relief concert--she wished she had not quarreled with
Irene. After all, disdainful silence would have been much more
effective in meeting the slur upon Walter. It was foolish and childish
to fly out as she had done--well, she would be wiser in the future, but
meanwhile a large and very unpalatable slice of humble pie had to be
eaten, and Rilla Blythe was no fonder of that wholesome article of diet
than the rest of us.

By sunset she was at the door of the Howard house--a pretentious abode,
with white scroll-work round the eaves and an eruption of bay-windows
on all its sides. Mrs. Howard, a plump, voluble dame, met Rilla
gushingly and left her in the parlour while she went to call Irene.
Rilla threw off her rain-coat and looked at herself critically in the
mirror over the mantel. Hair, hat, and dress were satisfactory--nothing
there for Miss Irene to make fun of. Rilla remembered how clever and
amusing she used to think Irene's biting little comments about other
girls. Well, it had come home to her now.

Presently, Irene skimmed down, elegantly gowned, with her pale,
straw-coloured hair done in the latest and most extreme fashion, and an
over-luscious atmosphere of perfume enveloping her.

"Why how do you do, Miss Blythe?" she said sweetly. "This is a very
unexpected pleasure."

Rilla had risen to take Irene's chilly finger-tips and now, as she sat
down again, she saw something that temporarily stunned her. Ire