Page:Rilla of Ingleside (1921).djvu/74

 on top of Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s apple-leaf spread. ‘The Almighty only knows where your master will be having to sleep before long, you poor dumb beast,’ she said as she put him quite gently out. But she never relents towards Doc. She says the minute he saw Jem in khaki he turned into Mr. Hyde then and there and she thinks that ought to be proof enough of what he really is. Susan is funny, but she is an old dear. Shirley says she is one half angel and the other half good cook. But then Shirley is the only one of us she never scolds.

“Faith Meredith is wonderful. I think she and Jem are really engaged now. She goes about with a shining light in her eyes, but her smiles are a little stiff and starched, just like mother’s. I wonder if I could be as brave as she is if I had a lover and he was going to the war. It is bad enough when it is your brother. Bruce Meredith cried all night, Mrs. Meredith says, when he heard Jem and Jerry were going. And he wanted to know if the ‘K. of K.’ his father talked about was the King of Kings. He is the dearest kiddy. I just love him—though I don’t really care much for children. I don’t like babies one bit—though when I say so people look at me as if I had said something perfectly shocking. Well, I don’t, and I’ve got to be honest about it. I don’t mind looking at a nice clean baby if somebody else holds it—but I wouldn’t touch it for anything and I don’t feel a single real spark of interest in it. Gertrude Oliver says she just feels the same. (She is the most honest person I know. She never pretends anything.) She says babies bore her until they are old enough to talk and