t. She looked even crosser and more amazed than
the man, if that were possible. In the background was another woman--a
tiny old lady who must have been at least eighty. She was, in spite of
her tinyness, a very striking-looking personage; she was dressed in
unrelieved black, had snow-white hair, a dead-white face, and snapping,
vivid, coal-black eyes. She looked as amazed as the other two, but
Rilla realized that she didn't look cross.

Rilla also was realizing that something was wrong--fearfully wrong.
Then the man said, more gruffly than ever, "Come now. Who are you and
what business have you here?"

Rilla raised herself on one elbow, looking and feeling hopelessly
bewildered and foolish. She heard the old black-and-white lady in the
background chuckle to herself. "She must be real," Rilla thought. "I
can't be dreaming her." Aloud she gasped,

"Isn't this Theodore Brewster's place?"

"No," said the big woman, speaking for the first time, "this place
belongs to us. We bought it from the Brewsters last fall. They moved to
Greenvale. Our name is Chapley."

Poor Rilla fell back on her pillow, quite overcome.

"I beg your pardon," she said. "I--I--thought the Brewsters lived here.
Mrs. Brewster is a friend of mine. I am Rilla Blythe--Dr. Blythe's
daughter from Glen St. Mary. I--I was going to town with my--my--this
little boy--and he fell off the train--and I jumped off after him--and
nobody knew of it. I knew we couldn't get home last night and a storm
was coming up--so we came here and when we found nobody at
home--we--we--just got in through the window and--and--made ourselves
at home."

"So it seems," said the woman sarcastically.

"A likely story," said the man.

"We weren't born yesterday," added the woman.

Madam Black-and-White didn't say anything; but when the other two made
their pretty speeches she doubled up in a silent convulsion of mirth,
shaking her head from side to side and beating the air with her hands.

Rilla, stung by the disagreeable attitude of the Chapleys, regained her
self-possession and lost her temper. She sat up in bed and said in her
haughtiest voice, "I do not know when you were born, or where, but it
must have been somewhere where very peculiar manners were taught. If
you will have the decency to leave my room--er--this room--until I can
get up and dress I shall not transgress upon your hospitality"--Rilla
was killingly sarcastic--"any longer. And I shall pay you amply for the