"I hate that hat already. But three years or the duration of the war, I
said, and three years or the duration of the war it shall be. I vowed
and I shall keep my vow, cost what it will.
"That is one of the 'catawampus' things. The other is that I have
quarrelled with Irene Howard--or she quarrelled with me--or, no, we
both quarrelled.
"The Junior Red Cross met here yesterday. The hour of meeting was
half-past two but Irene came at half-past one, because she got the
chance of a drive down from the Upper Glen. Irene hasn't been a bit nice
to me since the fuss about the eats; and besides I feel sure she resents
not being president. But I have been determined that things should go
smoothly, so I have never taken any notice, and when she came yesterday
she seemed so nice and sweet again that I hoped she had got over her
huffiness and we could be the chums we used to be.
"But as soon as we sat down Irene began to rub me the wrong way. I saw
her cast a look at my new knitting-bag. All the girls have always said
Irene was jealous-minded and I would never believe them before. But now
I feel that perhaps she is.
"The first thing she did was to pounce on Jims--Irene pretends to adore
babies--pick him out of his cradle and kiss him all over his face. Now,
Irene knows perfectly well that I don't like to have Jims kissed like
that. It is not hygienic. After she had worried him till he began to
fuss, she looked at me and gave quite a nasty little laugh but she said,
oh, so sweetly,
"'Why, Rilla, darling, you look as if you thought I was poisoning the
baby.
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