Rilla of Ingleside | Page 9

and wished her mother could be prevailed upon to let
her wear longer dresses. She, who had been so plump and roly-poly in
the old Rainbow Valley days, was incredibly slim now, in the
arms-and-legs period. Jem and Shirley harrowed her soul by calling her
"Spider." Yet she somehow escaped awkwardness. There was
something in her movements that made you think she never walked but
always danced. She had been much petted and was a wee bit spoiled,
but still the general opinion was that Rilla Blythe was a very sweet girl,
even if she were not so clever as Nan and Di.
Miss Oliver, who was going home that night for vacation, had boarded

for a year at Ingleside. The Blythes had taken her to please Rilla who
was fathoms deep in love with her teacher and was even willing to
share her room, since no other was available. Gertrude Oliver was
twenty-eight and life had been a struggle for her. She was a
striking-looking girl, with rather sad, almond-shaped brown eyes, a
clever, rather mocking mouth, and enormous masses of black hair
twisted about her head. She was not pretty but there was a certain
charm of interest and mystery in her face, and Rilla found her
fascinating. Even her occasional moods of gloom and cynicism had
allurement for Rilla. These moods came only when Miss Oliver was
tired. At all other times she was a stimulating companion, and the gay
set at Ingleside never remembered that she was so much older than
themselves. Walter and Rilla were her favourites and she was the
confidante of the secret wishes and aspirations of both. She knew that
Rilla longed to be "out"--to go to parties as Nan and Di did, and to have
dainty evening dresses and--yes, there is no mincing matters--beaux! In
the plural, at that! As for Walter, Miss Oliver knew that he had written
a sequence of sonnets "to Rosamond"--i.e., Faith Meredith--and that he
aimed at a Professorship of English literature in some big college. She
knew his passionate love of beauty and his equally passionate hatred of
ugliness; she knew his strength and his weakness.
Walter was, as ever, the handsomest of the Ingleside boys. Miss Oliver
found pleasure in looking at him for his good looks--he was so exactly
like what she would have liked her own son to be. Glossy black hair,
brilliant dark grey eyes, faultless features. And a poet to his fingertips!
That sonnet sequence was really a remarkable thing for a lad of twenty
to write. Miss Oliver was no partial critic and she knew that Walter
Blythe had a wonderful gift.
Rilla loved Walter with all her heart. He never teased her as Jem and
Shirley did. He never called her "Spider." His pet name for her was
"Rilla-my-Rilla"--a little pun on her real name, Marilla. She had been
named after Aunt Marilla of Green Gables, but Aunt Marilla had died
before Rilla was old enough to know her very well, and Rilla detested
the name as being horribly old-fashioned and prim. Why couldn't they
have called her by her first name, Bertha, which was beautiful and

dignified, instead of that silly "Rilla"? She did not mind Walter's
version, but nobody else was allowed to call her that, except Miss
Oliver now and then. "Rilla-my-Rilla" in Walter's musical voice
sounded very beautiful to her--like the lilt and ripple of some silvery
brook. She would have died for Walter if it would have done him any
good, so she told Miss Oliver. Rilla was as fond of italics as most girls
of fifteen are--and the bitterest drop in her cup was her suspicion that
he told Di more of his secrets than he told her.
"He thinks I'm not grown up enough to understand," she had once
lamented rebelliously to Miss Oliver, "but I am! And I would never tell
them to a single soul--not even to you, Miss Oliver. I tell you all my
own--I just couldn't be happy if I had any secret from you, dearest--but
I would never betray his. I tell him everything--I even show him my
diary. And it hurts me dreadfully when he doesn't tell me things. He
shows me all his poems, though--they are marvellous, Miss Oliver. Oh,
I just live in the hope that some day I shall be to Walter what
Wordsworth's sister Dorothy was to him. Wordsworth never wrote
anything like Walter's poems--nor Tennyson, either."
"I wouldn't say just that. Both of them wrote a great deal of trash," said
Miss Oliver dryly. Then, repenting, as she saw a hurt look in Rilla's eye,
she added hastily,
"But I believe Walter will be a great poet, too--some day--and you will
have more of his confidence as you grow older."
"When Walter was