an't happen. We've given Prussianism its
mortal wound but it isn't dead yet and it isn't confined to Germany
either. It isn't enough to drive out the old spirit--we've got to bring
in the new.'

"I'm writing down those words of Jem's in my diary so that I can read
them over occasionally and get courage from them, when moods come when
I find it not so easy to 'keep faith.'"

Rilla closed her journal with a little sigh. Just then she was not
finding it easy to keep faith. All the rest seemed to have some special
aim or ambition about which to build up their lives--she had none. And
she was very lonely, horribly lonely. Jem had come back--but he was not
the laughing boy-brother who had gone away in 1914 and he belonged to
Faith. Walter would never come back. She had not even Jims left. All at
once her world seemed wide and empty--that is, it had seemed wide and
empty from the moment yesterday when she had read in a Montreal paper a
fortnight-old list of returned soldiers in which was the name of
Captain Kenneth Ford.

So Ken was home--and he had not even written her that he was coming. He
had been in Canada two weeks and she had not had a line from him. Of
course he had forgotten--if there was ever anything to forget--a
handclasp--a kiss--a look--a promise asked under the influence of a
passing emotion. It was all absurd--she had been a silly, romantic,
inexperienced goose. Well, she would be wiser in the future--very
wise--and very discreet--and very contemptuous of men and their ways.

"I suppose I'd better go with Una and take up Household Science too,"
she thought, as she stood by her window and looked down through a
delicate emerald tangle of young vines on Rainbow Valley, lying in a
wonderful lilac light of sunset. There did not seem anything very
attractive just then about Household Science, but, with a whole new
world waiting to be built, a girl must do something.

The door bell rang, Rilla turned reluctantly stairwards. She must
answer it--there was no one else in the house; but she hated the idea
of callers just then. She went downstairs slowly, and opened the front
door.

A man in khaki was standing on the steps--a tall fellow, with dark eyes
and hair, and a narrow white scar running across his brown cheek. Rilla
stared at him foolishly for a moment. Who was it?

She ought to know him--there was certainly something very familiar
about him--"Rilla-my-Rilla," he said.

"Ken," gasped Rilla. Of course, it