Rilla of Ingleside by Lucy Maud Montgomery Read Free Book Online

ices and cake. Rilla looked about her and thought how lovely her first party had been. She would never forget it. The room re-echoed to laughter and jest. Beautiful young eyes sparkled and shone. From the pavilion outside came the lilt of the fiddle and the rhythmic steps of the dancers.
    There was a little disturbance among a group of boys crowded about the door; a young fellow pushed through and halted on the threshold, looking about him rather sombrely. It was Jack Elliott from over-harbour--a McGill medical student, a quiet chap not much addicted to social doings. He had been invited to the party but had not been expected to come since he had to go to Charlottetown that day and could not be back until late. Yet here he was--and he carried a folded paper in his hand.
    Gertrude Oliver looked at him from her corner and shivered again. She had enjoyed the party herself, after all, for she had foregathered with a Charlottetown acquaintance who, being a stranger and much older than most of the guests, felt himself rather out of it, and had been glad to fall in with this clever girl who could talk of world doings and outside events with the zest and vigour of a man. In the pleasure of his society she had forgotten some of her misgivings of the day. Now they suddenly returned to her. What news did Jack Elliott bring? Lines from an old poem flashed unbidden into her mind--"there was a sound of revelry by night"--"Hush! Hark! A deep sound strikes like a rising knell"--why should she think of that now? Why didn't Jack Elliott speak--if he had anything to tell? Why did he just stand there, glowering importantly?
    "Ask him--ask him," she said feverishly to Allan Daly. But somebody else had already asked him. The room grew very silent all at once. Outside the fiddler had stopped for a rest and there was silence there too. Afar off they heard the low moan of the gulf--the presage of a storm already on its way up the Atlantic. A girl's laugh drifted up from the rocks and died away as if frightened out of existence by the sudden stillness.
    "England declared war on Germany today," said Jack Elliott slowly. "The news came by wire just as I left town."
    "God help us," whispered Gertrude Oliver under her breath. "My dream-- my dream! The first wave has broken." She looked at Allan Daly and tried to smile.
    "Is this Armageddon?" she asked.
    "I am afraid so," he said gravely.
    A chorus of exclamations had arisen round them--light surprise and idle interest for the most part. Few there realized the import of the message --fewer still realized that it meant anything to them. Before long the dancing was on again and the hum of pleasure was as loud as ever. Gertrude and Allan Daly talked the news over in low, troubled tones. Walter Blythe had turned pale and left the room. Outside he met Jem, hurrying up the rock steps.
    "Have you heard the news, Jem?"
    "Yes. The Piper has come. Hurrah! I knew England wouldn't leave France in the lurch. I've been trying to get Captain Josiah to hoist the flag but he says it isn't the proper caper till sunrise. Jack says they'll be calling for volunteers tomorrow."
    "What a fuss to make over nothing," said Mary Vance disdainfully as Jem dashed off. She was sitting out with Miller Douglas on a lobster trap which was not only an unromantic but an uncomfortable seat. But Mary and Miller were both supremely happy on it. Miller Douglas was a big, strapping, uncouth lad, who thought Mary Vance's tongue uncommonly gifted and Mary Vance's white eyes stars of the first magnitude; and neither of them had the least inkling why Jem Blythe wanted to hoist the lighthouse flag. "What does it matter if there's going to be a war over there in Europe? I'm sure it doesn't concern us."
    Walter looked at her and had one of his odd visitations of prophecy.
    "Before this war is over," he said--or something said through his lips --"every man and woman and child in Canada will feel it--you, Mary, will feel it--feel it to your heart's core.