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308
RILLA OF INGLESIDE

little sudden sentences I love so much. Sometimes I think he has forgotten all about the night he was here to say good-bye—and then there will be just a line or a word that makes me think he remembers and always will remember. For instance today’s letter hadn't a thing in it that mightn’t have been written to any girl, except that he signed himself ‘Your Kenneth,’ instead of ‘Yours, Kenneth,’ as he usually does. Now, did he leave that ‘s’ off intentionally or was it only carelessness? I shall lie awake half the night wondering. He is a captain now. I am glad and proud—and yet ‘Captain Ford’ sounds so horribly far away and high up. ‘Ken’ and ‘Captain Ford’ seem like two different persons. I may be practically engaged to Ken—mother’s opinion on that point is my stay and bulwark—but I can’t be to ‘Captain Ford!’

“And Jem is a lieutenant now—won his promotion on the field. He sent me a snap-shot, taken in his new uniform. He looked thin and old—old—my boy-brother Jem. I can’t forget mother’s face when I showed it to her. ‘That—my little Jem,—the baby of the old House of Dreams?’ was all she said.

“There was a letter from Faith, too. She is doing V. A. D. work in England and writes hopefully and brightly. I think she is almost happy—she saw Jem on his last leave and she is so near him she could go to him, if he were wounded. That means so much to her. Oh, if I were only with her! But my work is here at home. I know Walter wouldn’t have wanted me to leave mother and in everything I try to ‘keep faith’ with him, even to the little details of daily life. Walter died for Canada—I must live for her. That is what he asked me to do.”