Rilla of Ingleside | Page 4

satisfaction hovering about her like an aura; it was four o'clock and
Susan, who had been working incessantly since six that morning, felt
that she had fairly earned an hour of repose and gossip. Susan just then
was perfectly happy; everything had gone almost uncannily well in the
kitchen that day. Dr. Jekyll had not been Mr. Hyde and so had not
grated on her nerves; from where she sat she could see the pride of her
heart-- the bed of peonies of her own planting and culture, blooming as
no other peony plot in Glen St. Mary ever did or could bloom, with
peonies crimson, peonies silvery pink, peonies white as drifts of winter
snow. Susan had on a new black silk blouse, quite as elaborate as
anything Mrs. Marshall Elliott ever wore, and a white starched apron,
trimmed with complicated crocheted lace fully five inches wide, not to
mention insertion to match. Therefore Susan had all the comfortable
consciousness of a well-dressed woman as she opened her copy of the
Daily Enterprise and prepared to read the Glen "Notes" which, as Miss

Cornelia had just informed her, filled half a column of it and mentioned
almost everybody at Ingleside. There was a big, black headline on the
front page of the Enterprise, stating that some Archduke Ferdinand or
other had been assassinated at a place bearing the weird name of
Sarajevo, but Susan tarried not over uninteresting, immaterial stuff like
that; she was in quest of something really vital. Oh, here it was--
"Jottings from Glen St. Mary." Susan settled down keenly, reading each
one over aloud to extract all possible gratification from it. Mrs. Blythe
and her visitor, Miss Cornelia--alias Mrs. Marshall Elliott --were
chatting together near the open door that led to the veranda, through
which a cool, delicious breeze was blowing, bringing whiffs of
phantom perfume from the garden, and charming gay echoes from the
vine-hung corner where Rilla and Miss Oliver and Walter were
laughing and talking. Wherever Rilla Blythe was, there was laughter.
There was another occupant of the living-room, curled up on a couch,
who must not be overlooked, since he was a creature of marked
individuality, and, moreover, had the distinction of being the only
living thing whom Susan really hated. All cats are mysterious but Dr.
Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde--"Doc" for short-- was trebly so. He was a cat of
double personality--or else, as Susan vowed, he was possessed by the
devil. To begin with, there had been something uncanny about the very
dawn of his existence. Four years previously Rilla Blythe had had a
treasured darling of a kitten, white as snow, with a saucy black tip to its
tail, which she called Jack Frost. Susan disliked Jack Frost, though she
could not or would not give any valid reason therefor. "Take my word
for it, Mrs. Dr. dear," she was wont to say ominously, "that cat will
come to no good." "But why do you think so?" Mrs. Blythe would ask.
"I do not think--I know," was all the answer Susan would vouchsafe.
With the rest of the Ingleside folk Jack Frost was a favourite; he was so
very clean and well groomed, and never allowed a spot or stain to be
seen on his beautiful white suit; he had endearing ways of purring and
snuggling; he was scrupulously honest. And then a domestic tragedy
took place at Ingleside. Jack Frost had kittens! It would be vain to try to
picture Susan's triumph. Had she not always insisted that that cat would
turn out to be a delusion and a snare? Now they could see for
themselves! Rilla kept one of the kittens, a very pretty one, with
peculiarly sleek glossy fur of a dark yellow crossed by orange stripes,

and large, satiny, golden ears. She called it Goldie and the name
seemed appropriate enough to the little frolicsome creature which,
during its kittenhood, gave no indication of the sinister nature it really
possessed. Susan, of course, warned the family that no good could be
expected from any offspring of that diabolical Jack Frost; but Susan's
Cassandra-like croakings were unheeded. The Blythes had been so
accustomed to regard Jack Frost as a member of the male sex that they
could not get out of the habit. So they continually used the masculine
pronoun, although the result was ludicrous. Visitors used to be quite
electrified when Rilla referred casually to "Jack and his kitten," or told
Goldie sternly, "Go to your mother and get him to wash your fur." "It is
not decent, Mrs. Dr. dear," poor Susan would say bitterly. She herself
compromised by always referring to Jack as "it" or "the white beast,"
and one heart at least did not ache when "it" was accidentally poisoned
the following winter. In a