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 delicate babies. But you know what it means if you want it kept here, Rilla.”

“I’ve taken care of it for a fortnight—and it has gained half a pound,” cried Rilla. “I think we’d better wait until we hear from its father anyhow. He mightn’t want to have it sent to an orphan asylum, when he is fighting the battles of his country.”

The doctor and Mrs. Blythe exchanged amused, satisfied smiles behind Rilla’s back; and nothing more was said about Hopetown.

Then the smile faded from the doctor’s face; the Germans were twenty miles from Paris. Horrible tales were beginning to appear in the papers of deeds done in martyred Belgium. Life was very tense at Ingleside for the older people.

“We eat up the war news,” Gertrude Oliver told Mrs. Meredith, trying to laugh and failing. “We study the maps and nip the whole Hun army in a few well-directed strategic moves. But Papa Joffre hasn’t the benefit of our advice—and so Paris—must—fall.”

“Will they reach it—will not some mighty hand yet intervene?” murmured John Meredith.

“I teach school like one in a dream,” continued Gertrude; “then I come home and shut myself in my room and walk the floor. I am wearing a path right across Nan’s carpet. We are so horribly near this war. It means so much to us all.”

“Them Geman men are at Senlis. Nothing nor nobody can save Paris now,” wailed Cousin Sophia. Cousin Sophia had taken to reading the newspapers and had learned more about the geography of Northern France, if not about the pronunciation of French