er bonnet and her triumphant expression.

"Set right in, dears, and make a good breakfast," she said.

"I am not hungry," said Rilla almost pleadingly. "I don't think I can
eat anything. And it is time I was starting for the station. The
morning train will soon be along. Please excuse me and let us go--I'll
take a piece of bread and butter for Jims."

Mrs. Matilda Pitman shook a knitting-needle playfully at Rilla.

"Sit down and take your breakfast," she said. "Mrs. Matilda Pitman
commands you. Everybody obeys Mrs. Matilda Pitman--even Robert and
Amelia. You must obey her too."

Rilla did obey her. She sat down and, such was the influence of Mrs.
Matilda Pitman's mesmeric eye, she ate a tolerable breakfast. The
obedient Amelia never spoke; Mrs. Matilda Pitman did not speak either;
but she knitted furiously and chuckled. When Rilla had finished, Mrs.
Matilda Pitman rolled up her sock.

"Now you can go if you want to," she said, "but you don't have to go.
You can stay here as long as you want to and I'll make Amelia cook your
meals for you."

The independent Miss Blythe, whom a certain clique of Junior Red Cross
girls accused of being domineering and "bossy," was thoroughly cowed.

"Thank you," she said meekly, "but we must really go."

"Well, then," said Mrs. Matilda Pitman, throwing open the door, "your
conveyance is ready for you. I told Robert he must hitch up and drive
you to the station. I enjoy making Robert do things. It's almost the
only sport I have left. I'm over eighty and most things have lost their
flavour except bossing Robert."

Robert sat before the door on the front seat of a trim, double-seated,
rubber-tired buggy. He must have heard every word his mother-in-law
said but he gave no sign.

"I do wish," said Rilla, plucking up what little spirit she had left,
"that you would let me--oh--ah--" then she quailed again before Mrs.
Matilda Pitman's eye--"recompense you for--for--"

"Mrs. Matilda Pitman said before--and meant it--that she doesn't take
pay for entertaining strangers, nor let other people where she lives do
it, much as their natural meanness would like to do it. You go along to
town and don't forget to call the next time you come this way. Don't be
scared. Not that you are scared of much, I reckon, considering the way
you sassed Robert back this morning. I like your spunk. Most girls
nowadays are such timid, skeery creeturs. When I was a girl I wasn't
afraid of nothing nor nobody. M