I often wish I could take things as
lightly as Rilla Blythe."
CHAPTER XVI
REALISM AND ROMANCE
"Warsaw has fallen," said Dr. Blythe with a resigned air, as he brought
the mail in one warm August day.
Gertrude and Mrs. Blythe looked dismally at each other, and Rilla, who
was feeding Jims a Morganized diet from a carefully sterilized spoon,
laid the said spoon down on his tray, utterly regardless of germs, and
said, "Oh, dear me," in as tragic a tone as if the news had come as a
thunderbolt instead of being a foregone conclusion from the preceding
week's dispatches. They had thought they were quite resigned to Warsaw's
fall but now they knew they had, as always, hoped against hope.
"Now, let us take a brace," said Susan. "It is not the terrible thing we
have been thinking. I read a dispatch three columns long in the Montreal
Herald yesterday that proved that Warsaw was not important from a
military point of view at all. So let us take the military point of
view, doctor dear."
"I read that dispatch, too, and it has encouraged me immensely," said
Gertrude. "I knew then and I know now that it was a lie from beginning
to end. But I am in that state of mind where even a lie is a comfort,
providing it is a cheerful lie."
"In that case, Miss Oliver dear, the German official reports ought to be
all you need," said Susan sarcastically. "I never read them now because
they make me so mad I cannot put my thoughts properly on my work after a
dose of them.
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