where she was for some time.

"Have you got your baby to sleep?" she asked kindly.

Your baby! Really, Susan might have more tact.

"Yes," said Rilla shortly.

Susan laid her parcels on the reed table, as one determined to do her
duty. She was very tired but she must help Rilla out. Here was Kenneth
Ford who had come to call on the family and they were all unfortunately
out, and "the poor child" had had to entertain him alone. But Susan had
come to her rescue--Susan would do her part no matter how tired she was.

"Dear me, how you have grown up," she said, looking at Ken's six feet
of khaki uniform without the least awe. Susan had grown used to khaki
now, and at sixty-four even a lieutenant's uniform is just clothes and
nothing else. "It is an amazing thing how fast children do grow up.
Rilla here, now, is almost fifteen."

"I'm going on seventeen, Susan," cried Rilla almost passionately. She
was a whole month past sixteen. It was intolerable of Susan.

"It seems just the other day that you were all babies," said Susan,
ignoring Rilla's protest. "You were really the prettiest baby I ever
saw, Ken, though your mother had an awful time trying to cure you of
sucking your thumb. Do you remember the day I spanked you?"

"No," said Ken.

"Oh well, I suppose you would be too young--you were only about four
and you were here with your mother and you insisted on teasing Nan
until she cried. I had tried several ways of stopping you but none
availed, and I saw that a spanking was the only thing that would serve.
So I picked you up and laid you across my knee and lambasted you well.
You howled at the top of your voice but you left Nan alone after that."

Rilla was writhing. Hadn't Susan any realization that she was
addressing an officer of the Canadian Army? Apparently she had not. Oh,
what would Ken think? "I suppose you do not remember the time your
mother spanked you either," continued Susan, who seemed to be bent on
reviving tender reminiscences that evening. "I shall never, no never,
forget it. She was up here one night with you when you were about
three, and you and Walter were playing out in the kitchen yard with a
kitten. I had a big puncheon of rainwater by the spout which I was
reserving for making soap. And you and Walter began quarrelling over
the kitten. Walter was at one side of the puncheon standing on a chair,
holding the kitten, and you were standing on a chair at the other side.
You leaned across that