adian annals
of the Great War. "The British couldn't take it and the French couldn't
take it," said a German prisoner to his captors, "but you Canadians are
such fools that you don't know when a place can't be taken!"

So the "fools" took it--and paid the price.

Jerry Meredith was seriously wounded at Vimy Ridge--shot in the back,
the telegram said.

"Poor Nan," said Mrs. Blythe, when the news came. She thought of her
own happy girlhood at old Green Gables. There had been no tragedy like
this in it. How the girls of to-day had to suffer! When Nan came home
from Redmond two weeks later her face showed what those weeks had meant
to her. John Meredith, too, seemed to have grown old suddenly in them.
Faith did not come home; she was on her way across the Atlantic as a
V.A.D. Di had tried to wring from her father consent to her going also,
but had been told that for her mother's sake it could not be given. So
Di, after a flying visit home, went back to her Red Cross work in
Kingsport.

The mayflowers bloomed in the secret nooks of Rainbow Valley. Rilla was
watching for them. Jem had once taken his mother the earliest
mayflowers; Walter brought them to her when Jem was gone; last spring
Shirley had sought them out for her; now, Rilla thought she must take
the boys' place in this. But before she had discovered any, Bruce
Meredith came to Ingleside one twilight with his hands full of delicate
pink sprays. He stalked up the steps of the veranda and laid them on
Mrs. Blythe's lap.

"Because Shirley isn't here to bring them," he said in his funny, shy,
blunt way.

"And you thought of this, you darling," said Anne, her lips quivering,
as she looked at the stocky, black-browed little chap, standing before
her, with his hands thrust into his pockets.

"I wrote Jem to-day and told him not to worry 'bout you not getting
your mayflowers," said Bruce seriously, "'cause I'd see to that. And I
told him I would be ten pretty soon now, so it won't be very long
before I'll be eighteen, and then I'll go to help him fight, and maybe
let him come home for a rest while I took his place. I wrote Jerry,
too. Jerry's getting better, you know."

"Is he? Have you had any good news about him?"

"Yes. Mother had a letter to-day, and it said he was out of danger."

"Oh, thank God," murmured Mrs. Blythe, in a half-whisper.

Bruce looked at her curiously.

"That is what father said when mother told him. But when l said it the
other day whe