awford was compelled to admire her--and Cousin Sophia Crawford
admired few transient earthly things. Cousin Sophia and Susan had made
up, or ignored, their old feud since the former had come to live in the
Glen, and Cousin Sophia often came across in the evenings to make a
neighbourly call. Susan did not always welcome her rapturously for
Cousin Sophia was not what could be called an exhilarating companion.
"Some calls are visits and some are visitations, Mrs. Dr. dear," Susan
said once, and left it to be inferred that Cousin Sophia's were the
latter.

Cousin Sophia had a long, pale, wrinkled face, a long, thin nose, a
long, thin mouth, and very long, thin, pale hands, generally folded
resignedly on her black calico lap. Everything about her seemed long
and thin and pale. She looked mournfully upon Rilla Blythe and said
sadly,

"Is your hair all your own?"

"Of course it is," cried Rilla indignantly.

"Ah, well!" Cousin Sophia sighed. "It might be better for you if it
wasn't! Such a lot of hair takes from a person's strength. It's a sign
of consumption, I've heard, but I hope it won't turn out like that in
your case. I s'pose you'll all be dancing tonight--even the minister's
boys most likely. I s'pose his girls won't go that far. Ah, well, I
never held with dancing. I knew a girl once who dropped dead while she
was dancing. How any one could ever dance aga' after a judgment like
that I cannot comprehend."

"Did she ever dance again?" asked Rilla pertly.

"I told you she dropped dead. Of course she never danced again, poor
creature. She was a Kirke from Lowbridge. You ain't a-going off like
that with nothing on your bare neck, are you?"

"It's a hot evening," protested Rilla. "But I'll put on a scarf when we
go on the water."

"I knew of a boat load of young folks who went sailing on that harbour
forty years ago just such a night as this--just exactly such a night as
this," said Cousin Sophia lugubriously, "and they were upset and
drowned--every last one of them. I hope nothing like that'll happen to
you tonight. Do you ever try anything for the freckles? I used to find
plantain juice real good."

"You certainly should be a judge of freckles, Cousin Sophia," said
Susan, rushing to Rilla's defence. "You were more speckled than any
toad when you was a girl. Rilla's only come in summer but yours stayed
put, season in and season out; and you had not a ground colour like
hers behind them neither. You look real ni