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302
RILLA OF INGLESIDE

the Union Government. Yet I have no vote, because my man at the front is only my sweetheart and not my husband!’

“As for Susan, when she reflects that she cannot vote, while a rank old pacifist like Mr. Pryor can—and will—her comments are sulphurous.

“I really feel sorry for the Elliots and Crawfords and MacAllisters over-harbour. They have always lined up in clearly divided camps of Liberal and Conservative, and now they are torn from their moorings—I know I’m mixing my metaphors dreadfully—and set hopelessly adrift. It will kill some of those old Grits to vote for Sir Robert Borden’s side—and yet they have to because they believe the time has come when we must have conscription. And some poor Conservatives who are against conscription must vote for Laurier, who always has been anathema to them. Some of them are taking it terribly hard. Others seem to be in much the same attitude as Mrs. Marshall Elliott has come to be regarding Church Union.

“She was up here last night. She doesn’t come as often as she used to. She is growing too old to walk this far—dear old ‘Miss Cornelia.’ I hate to think of her growing old—we have always loved her so and she has always been so good to us Ingleside young fry.

“She used to be so bitterly opposed to Church Union. But last night, when father told her it was practically decided, she said in a resigned tone.

“‘Well, in a world where everything is being rent and torn what matters one more rending and tearing? Anyhow, compared with Germans even Methodists seem attractive to me.’

“Our Junion R. C. goes on quite smoothly, in spite