tragic a tone as if the news had come as a
thunderbolt instead of being a foregone conclusion from the preceding
week's dispatches. They had thought they were quite resigned to
Warsaw's fall but now they knew they had, as always, hoped against hope.

"Now, let us take a brace," said Susan. "It is not the terrible thing
we have been thinking. I read a dispatch three columns long in the
Montreal Herald yesterday that proved that Warsaw was not important
from a military point of view at all. So let us take the military point
of view, doctor dear."

"I read that dispatch, too, and it has encouraged me immensely," said
Gertrude. "I knew then and I know now that it was a lie from beginning
to end. But I am in that state of mind where even a lie is a comfort,
providing it is a cheerful lie."

"In that case, Miss Oliver dear, the German official reports ought to
be all you need," said Susan sarcastically. "I never read them now
because they make me so mad I cannot put my thoughts properly on my
work after a dose of them. Even this news about Warsaw has taken the
edge off my afternoon's plans. Misfortunes never come singly. I spoiled
my baking of bread today--and now Warsaw has fallen--and here is little
Kitchener bent on choking himself to death."

Jims was evidently trying to swallow his spoon, germs and all. Rilla
rescued him mechanically and was about to resume the operation of
feeding him when a casual remark of her father's sent such a shock and
thrill over her that for the second time she dropped that doomed spoon.

"Kenneth Ford is down at Martin West's over-harbour," the doctor was
saying. "His regiment was on its way to the front but was held up in
Kingsport for some reason, and Ken got leave of absence to come over to
the Island."

"I hope he will come up to see us," exclaimed Mrs. Blythe.

"He only has a day or two off, I believe," said the doctor absently.

Nobody noticed Rilla's flushed face and trembling hands. Even the most
thoughtful and watchful of parents do not see everything that goes on
under their very noses. Rilla made a third attempt to give the
long-suffering Jims his dinner, but all she could think of was the
question--Would Ken come to see her before he went away? She had not
heard from him for a long while. Had he forgotten her completely? If he
did not come she would know that he had. Perhaps there was even--some
other girl back there in Toronto. Of course there was. She was a little
fool t