"He thinks I'm not grown up enough to understand," she had once lamented
rebelliously to Miss Oliver, "but I am! And I would never tell them to a
single soul--not even to you, Miss Oliver. I tell you all my own--I
just couldn't be happy if I had any secret from you, dearest--but I
would never betray his. I tell him everything--I even show him my
diary. And it hurts me dreadfully when he doesn't tell me things. He
shows me all his poems, though--they are marvellous, Miss Oliver. Oh, I
just live in the hope that some day I shall be to Walter what
Wordsworth's sister Dorothy was to him. Wordsworth never wrote anything
like Walter's poems--nor Tennyson, either."
"I wouldn't say just that. Both of them wrote a great deal of trash,"
said Miss Oliver dryly. Then, repenting, as she saw a hurt look in
Rilla's eye, she added hastily,
"But I believe Walter will be a great poet, too--some day--and you will
have more of his confidence as you grow older."
"When Walter was in the hospital with typhoid last year I was almost
crazy," sighed Rilla, a little importantly. "They never told me how ill
he really was until it was all over--father wouldn't let them. I'm glad
I didn't know--I couldn't have borne it. I cried myself to sleep every
night as it was. But sometimes," concluded Rilla bitterly--she liked to
speak bitterly now and then in imitation of Miss Oliver--"sometimes I
think Walter cares more for Dog Monday than he does for me.
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