Outside , the dawn came greyly in on wings of storm ; Captain Josiah , true to his word , ran up the Union Jack at the Four Winds Light and it streamed on the fierce wind against the clouded sky like a gallant unquenchable beacon . CHAPTER V `` THE SOUND OF A GOING '' Rilla ran down through the sunlit glory of the maple grove behind Ingleside , to her favourite nook in Rainbow Valley . She sat down on a green-mossed stone among the fern , propped her chin on her hands and stared unseeingly at the dazzling blue sky of the August afternoon -- so blue , so peaceful , so unchanged , just as it had arched over the valley in the mellow days of late summer ever since she could remember . She wanted to be alone -- to think things out -- to adjust herself , if it were possible , to the new world into which she seemed to have been transplanted with a suddenness and completeness that left her half bewildered as to her own identity . Was she -- could she be -- the same Rilla Blythe who had danced at Four Winds Light six days ago -- only six days ago ? It seemed to Rilla that she had lived as much in those six days as in all her previous life -- and if it be true that we should count time by heart-throbs she had . That evening , with its hopes and fears and triumphs and humiliations , seemed like ancient history now . Could she really ever have cried just because she had been forgotten and had to walk home with Mary Vance ? Ah , thought Rilla sadly , how trivial and absurd such a cause of tears now appeared to her . She could cry now with a right good will -- but she would not -- she must not . What was it mother had said , looking , with her white lips and stricken eyes , as Rilla had never seen her mother look before , `` When our women fail in courage , Shall our men be fearless still ? '' Yes , that was it . She must be brave -- like mother -- and Nan -- and Faith -- Faith , who had cried with flashing eyes , `` Oh , if I were only a man , to go too ! '' Only , when her eyes ached and her throat burned like this she had to hide herself in Rainbow Valley for a little , just to think things out and remember that she was n't a child any longer -- she was grown-up and women had to face things like this . But it was -- nice -- to get away alone now and then , where nobody could see her and where she need n't feel that people thought her a little coward if some tears came in spite of her . How sweet and woodsey the ferns smelled ! How softly the great feathery boughs of the firs waved and murmured over her ! How elfinly rang the bells of the `` Tree Lovers '' -- just a tinkle now and then as the breeze swept by ! How purple and elusive the haze where incense was being offered on many an altar of the hills ! How the maple leaves whitened in the wind until the grove seemed covered with pale silvery blossoms !
Everything was just the same XXXXX she had seen it hundreds of times ; and yet the whole face of the world seemed changed .
OF as because by if in on through to until