"Good-bye," she said.
On her lips it lost all the bitterness it had won through the ages of
parting and bore instead all the sweetness of the old loves of all the
women who had ever loved and prayed for the beloved.
"Write me often and bring Jims up faithfully, according to the gospel of
Morgan," Walter said lightly, having said all his serious things the
night before in Rainbow Valley. But at the last moment he took her face
between his hands and looked deep into her gallant eyes. "God bless you,
Rilla-my-Rilla," he said softly and tenderly. After all it was not a
hard thing to fight for a land that bore daughters like this.
He stood on the rear platform and waved to them as the train pulled out.
Rilla was standing by herself, but Una Meredith came to her and the two
girls who loved him most stood together and held each other's cold hands
as the train rounded the curve of the wooded hill.
Rilla spent an hour in Rainbow Valley that morning about which she never
said a word to anyone; she did not even write in her diary about it;
when it was over she went home and made rompers for Jims. In the evening
she went to a Junior Red Cross committee meeting and was severely
businesslike.
"You would never suppose," said Irene Howard to Olive Kirk afterwards,
"that Walter had left for the front only this morning. But some people
really have no depth of feeling.
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