Page:Rilla of Ingleside (1921).djvu/359

 puddles in the road. I won't have that new buggy splashed.”

As they drove away Jims threw kisses at Mrs. Matilda Pitman as long as he could see her, and Mrs. Matilda Pitman waved her sock back at him. Robert spoke no word, either good or bad, all the way to the station, but he remembered the puddles. When Rilla got out at the siding she thanked him courteously. The only response she got was a grunt as Robert turned his horse and started for home.

“Well”—Rilla drew a long breath—“I must try to get back into Rilla Blythe again. I’ve been somebody else these past few hours—I don’t know just who—some creation of that extraordinary old person’s. I believe she hypnotized me. What an adventure this will be to write the boys.”

And then she sighed. Bitter remembrance came that there were only Jerry and Carl and Shirley to write it to now. Jem—who would have appreciated Mrs. Matilda Pitman keenly—where was Jem?

 

August 4th, 1918

T is four years tonight since the dance at the lighthouse—four years of war. It seems like three times four. I was fifteen then. I am nineteen now. I expected that these past four years would be the most