"
Rilla's presentiment proved correct. After supper she dressed herself
carefully in her blue, beaded crepe--for vanity is harder to quell than
pride and Irene always saw any flaw or shortcoming in another girl's
appearance. Besides, as Rilla had told her mother one day when she was
nine years old, "It is easier to behave nicely when you have your good
clothes on."
Rilla did her hair very becomingly and donned a long raincoat for fear
of a shower. But all the while her thoughts were concerned with the
coming distasteful interview, and she kept rehearsing mentally her part
in it. She wished it were over--she wished she had never tried to get
up a Belgian Relief concert--she wished she had not quarreled with
Irene. After all, disdainful silence would have been much more effective
in meeting the slur upon Walter. It was foolish and childish to fly out
as she had done--well, she would be wiser in the future, but meanwhile a
large and very unpalatable slice of humble pie had to be eaten, and
Rilla Blythe was no fonder of that wholesome article of diet than the
rest of us.
By sunset she was at the door of the Howard house--a pretentious abode,
with white scroll-work round the eaves and an eruption of bay-windows on
all its sides. Mrs. Howard, a plump, voluble dame, met Rilla gushingly
and left her in the parlour while she went to call Irene. Rilla threw
off her rain-coat and looked at herself critically in the mirror over
the mantel.
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