st too beautiful--it belongs to youth
and dreamland and I'm half afraid of it."

"I feel as if I were part of it," said Rilla.

"Ah yes, you're young enough not to be afraid of perfect things. Well,
here we are at the House of Dreams. It seems lonely this summer. The
Fords didn't come?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Ford and Persis didn't. Kenneth did--but he stayed with
his mother's people over-harbour. We haven't seen a great deal of him
this summer. He's a little lame, so didn't go about very much."

"Lame? What happened to him?"

"He broke his ankle in a football game last fall and was laid up most
of the winter. He has limped a little ever since but it is getting
better all the time and he expects it will be all right before long. He
has been up to Ingleside only twice."

"Ethel Reese is simply crazy about him," said Mary Vance. "She hasn't
got the sense she was born with where he is concerned. He walked home
with her from the over-harbour church last prayer-meeting night and the
airs she has put on since would really make you weary of life. As if a
Toronto boy like Ken Ford would ever really think of a country girl
like Ethel!"

Rilla flushed. It did not matter to her if Kenneth Ford walked home
with Ethel Reese a dozen times--it did not! Nothing that he did
mattered to her. He was ages older than she was. He chummed with Nan
and Di and Faith, and looked upon her, Rilla, as a child whom he never
noticed except to tease. And she detested Ethel Reese and Ethel Reese
hated her--always had hated her since Walter had pummelled Dan so
notoriously in Rainbow Valley days; but why need she be thought beneath
Kenneth Ford's notice because she was a country girl, pray? As for Mary
Vance, she was getting to be an out-and-out gossip and thought of
nothing but who walked home with people!

There was a little pier on the harbour shore below the House of Dreams,
and two boats were moored there. One boat was skippered by Jem Blythe,
the other by Joe Milgrave, who knew all about boats and was nothing
loth to let Miranda Pryor see it. They raced down the harbour and Joe's
boat won. More boats were coming down from the Harbour Head and across
the harbour from the western side. Everywhere there was laughter. The
big white tower on Four Winds Point was overflowing with light, while
its revolving beacon flashed overhead. A family from Charlottetown,
relatives of the light's keeper, were summering at the light, and they
were giving the party