Page:Rilla of Ingleside (1921).djvu/196

 fast children do grow up. Rilla here, now, is almost fifteen.”

“I’m going on seventeen, Susan,” cried Rilla almost passionately. She was a whole month past sixteen. It was intolerable of Susan.

“It seems just the other day that you were all babies,” said Susan, ignoring Rilla’s protest. “You were really the prettiest baby I ever saw, Ken, though your mother had an awful time trying to cure you of sucking your thumb. Do you remember the day I spanked you?”

“No,” said Ken.

“Oh well, I suppose you would be too young—you were only about four and you were here with your mother and you insisted on teasing Nan until she cried. I had tried several ways of stopping you but none availed and I saw that a spanking was the only thing that would serve. So I picked you up and laid you across my knee and lambasted you well. You howled at the top of your voice but you left Nan alone after that.”

Rilla was writhing. Hadn’t Susan any realization that she was addressing an officer of the Canadian Army? Apparently she had not. Oh, what would Ken think?

“I suppose you do not remember the time your mother spanked you either,” continued Susan, who seemed to be bent on reviving tender reminiscences that evening. “I shall never, no, never forget it. She was up here one night with you when you were about three and you and Walter were playing out in the kitchen yard with a kitten. I had a big puncheon of rainwater by the spout which I was reserving for mak-