Page:Rilla of Ingleside (1921).djvu/115

 perishing by inches with old Meg Conover. And I hope she doesn’t know that I nearly drowned you that first morning when Susan wasn’t there and I let you slip right out of my hands into the water. Why will you be so slippery? No, I don’t like you and I never will but for all that I’m going to make a decent, upstanding infant of you. You are going to get as fat as a self-respecting child should be, for one thing. I am not going to have people saying ‘what a puny little thing that baby of Rilla Blythe’s is,’ as old Mrs. Drew said at the senior Red Cross yesterday. If I can’t love you I mean to be proud of you at least.”

 

HE war will not be over before next spring now,” said Dr. Blythe, when it became apparent that the long battle of the Aisne had resulted in stalemate.

Rilla was murmuring “knit four, purl one” under her breath, and rocking the baby’s cradle with one foot. Morgan disapproved of cradles for babies but Susan did not, and it was worth while to make some slight sacrifice of principle to keep Susan in good humour. So a cradle had been substituted for Rilla’s old basket. She laid down her knitting for a moment and said, “Oh, how can we bear it so long?”—then picked up her sock and went on. The Rilla of two