Mr. Arnold
goes to Charlottetown every week and takes a Turkish bath for his
rheumatism. The idea of him doing that when we are at war with Turkey?
One of his own deacons has always insisted that Mr. Arnold's theology
was not sound and I am beginning to believe that there is some reason to
fear it. Well, I must bestir myself this afternoon and get little Jem's
Christmas cake packed up for him. He will enjoy it, if the blessed boy
is not drowned in mud before that time."
Jem was in camp on Salisbury Plain and was writing gay, cheery letters
home in spite of the mud. Walter was at Redmond and his letters to Rilla
were anything but cheerful. She never opened one without a dread tugging
at her heart that it would tell her he had enlisted. His unhappiness
made her unhappy. She wanted to put her arm round him and comfort him,
as she had done that day in Rainbow Valley. She hated everybody who was
responsible for Walter's unhappiness.
"He will go yet," she murmured miserably to herself one afternoon, as
she sat alone in Rainbow Valley, reading a letter from him, "he will go
yet--and if he does I just can't bear it."
Walter wrote that some one had sent him an envelope containing a white
feather.
"I deserved it, Rilla. I felt that I ought to put it on and wear it--
proclaiming myself to all Redmond the coward I know I am. The boys of my
year are going--going.
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