r have, she
added, blushing wildly in the moonlight, "but if--Kenneth Ford--wanted
me to be--"

"I see," said Walter. "And Ken's in khaki, too. Poor little girlie,
it's a bit hard for you all round. Well, I'm not leaving any girl to
break her heart about me--thank God for that."

Rilla glanced up at the Manse on the hill. She could see a light in Una
Meredith's window. She felt tempted to say something--then she knew she
must not. It was not her secret: and, anyway, she did not know--she
only suspected.

Walter looked about him lingeringly and lovingly. This spot had always
been so dear to him. What fun they all had had here lang syne. Phantoms
of memory seemed to pace the dappled paths and peep merrily through the
swinging boughs--Jem and Jerry, bare-legged, sunburned schoolboys,
fishing in the brook and frying trout over the old stone fireplace; Nan
and Di and Faith, in their dimpled, fresh-eyed childish beauty; Una the
sweet and shy, Carl, poring over ants and bugs, little slangy,
sharp-tongued, good-hearted Mary Vance--the old Walter that had been
himself lying on the grass reading poetry or wandering through palaces
of fancy. They were all there around him--he could see them almost as
plainly as he saw Rilla--as plainly as he had once seen the Pied Piper
piping down the valley in a vanished twilight. And they said to him,
those gay little ghosts of other days, "We were the children of
yesterday, Walter--fight a good fight for the children of to-day and
to-morrow."

"Where are you, Walter," cried Rilla, laughing a little. "Come
back--come back."

Walter came back with a long breath. He stood up and looked about him
at the beautiful valley of moonlight, as if to impress on his mind and
heart every charm it possessed--the great dark plumes of the firs
against the silvery sky, the stately White Lady, the old magic of the
dancing brook, the faithful Tree Lovers, the beckoning, tricksy paths.

"I shall see it so in my dreams," he said, as he turned away.

They went back to Ingleside. Mr. and Mrs. Meredith were there, with
Gertrude Oliver, who had come from Lowbridge to say good-bye. Everybody
was quite cheerful and bright, but nobody said much about the war being
soon over, as they had said when Jem went away. They did not talk about
the war at all--and they thought of nothing else. At last they gathered
around the piano and sang the grand old hymn:

"Oh God, our help in ages past
Our hope for years to c