She looked like a priestess performing some mystic, splendid rite.
"Germany and Austria are suing for peace," she said.
Rilla went crazy for a few minutes. She sprang up and danced around the
room, clapping her hands, laughing, crying.
"Sit down, child," said Mrs. Clow, who never got excited over anything,
and so had missed a tremendous amount of trouble and delight in her
journey through life.
"Oh," cried Rilla, "I have walked the floor for hours in despair and
anxiety in these past four years. Now let me walk in joy. It was worth
living long dreary years for this minute, and it would be worth living
them again just to look back to it. Susan, let's run up the flag--and
we must phone the news to every one in the Glen."
"Can we have as much sugar as we want to now?" asked Jims eagerly.
It was a never-to-be-forgotten afternoon. As the news spread excited
people ran about the village and dashed up to Ingleside. The Merediths
came over and stayed to supper and everybody talked and nobody listened.
Cousin Sophia tried to protest that Germany and Austria were not to be
trusted and it was all part of a plot, but nobody paid the least
attention to her.
"This Sunday makes up for that one in March," said Susan.
"I wonder," said Gertrude dreamily, apart to Rilla, "if things won't
seem rather flat and insipid when peace really comes. After being fed
for four years on horrors and fears, terrible reverses, amazing
victories, won't anything less be tame and uninteresting? How strange--
and blessed--and dull it will be not to dread the coming of the mail
every day.
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