"I wonder," she said to herself, "if I am, or am not, engaged to Kenneth
Ford."
CHAPTER XVII
THE WEEKS WEAR BY
Rilla read her first love letter in her Rainbow Valley fir-shadowed
nook, and a girl's first love letter, whatever blase, older people may
think of it, is an event of tremendous importance in the teens. After
Kenneth's regiment had left Kingsport there came a fortnight of
dully-aching anxiety and when the congregation sang in Church on Sunday
evenings,
"Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea,"
Rilla's voice always failed her; for with the words came a horribly
vivid mind picture of a submarined ship sinking beneath pitiless waves
amid the struggles and cries of drowning men. Then word came that
Kenneth's regiment had arrived safely in England; and now, at last, here
was his letter. It began with something that made Rilla supremely happy
for the moment and ended with a paragraph that crimsoned her cheeks with
the wonder and thrill and delight of it. Between beginning and ending
the letter was just such a jolly, newsy epistle as Ken might have
written to anyone; but for the sake of that beginning and ending Rilla
slept with the letter under her pillow for weeks, sometimes waking in
the night to slip her fingers under and just touch it, and looked with
secret pity on other girls whose sweethearts could never have written
them anything half so wonderful and exquisite.
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