th wistful, sorrowful,
dark-blue eyes. But then Una's eyes had always been wistful. Walter
bent his handsome black head in its khaki cap and kissed her with the
warm, comradely kiss of a brother. He had never kissed her before, and
for a fleeting moment Una's face betrayed her, if anyone had noticed.
But nobody did; the conductor was shouting "all aboard"; everybody was
trying to look very cheerful. Walter turned to Rilla; she held his
hands and looked up at him. She would not see him again until the day
broke and the shadows vanished--and she knew not if that daybreak would
be on this side of the grave or beyond it.

"Good-bye," she said.

On her lips it lost all the bitterness it had won through the ages of
parting and bore instead all the sweetness of the old loves of all the
women who had ever loved and prayed for the beloved.

"Write me often and bring Jims up faithfully, according to the gospel
of Morgan," Walter said lightly, having said all his serious things the
night before in Rainbow Valley. But at the last moment he took her face
between his hands and looked deep into her gallant eyes. "God bless
you, Rilla-my-Rilla," he said softly and tenderly. After all it was not
a hard thing to fight for a land that bore daughters like this.

He stood on the rear platform and waved to them as the train pulled
out. Rilla was standing by herself, but Una Meredith came to her and
the two girls who loved him most stood together and held each other's
cold hands as the train rounded the curve of the wooded hill.

Rilla spent an hour in Rainbow Valley that morning about which she
never said a word to anyone; she did not even write in her diary about
it; when it was over she went home and made rompers for Jims. In the
evening she went to a Junior Red Cross committee meeting and was
severely businesslike.

"You would never suppose," said Irene Howard to Olive Kirk afterwards,
"that Walter had left for the front only this morning. But some people
really have no depth of feeling. I often wish I could take things as
lightly as Rilla Blythe."

CHAPTER XVI

REALISM AND ROMANCE

"Warsaw has fallen," said Dr. Blythe with a resigned air, as he brought
the mail in one warm August day.

Gertrude and Mrs. Blythe looked dismally at each other, and Rilla, who
was feeding Jims a Morganized diet from a carefully sterilized spoon,
laid the said spoon down on his tray, utterly regardless of germs, and
said, "Oh, dear me," in as