But tonight somehow , all the beautiful things I have always loved seem to have become possible again -- and this is good , and makes me feel a deep , certain , exquisite happiness . It must be autumn at home now -- the harbour is a-dream and the old Glen hills blue with haze , and Rainbow Valley a haunt of delight with wild asters blowing all over it -- our old `` farewell-summers . '' I always liked that name better than ` aster ' -- it was a poem in itself . `` Rilla , you know I 've always had premonitions . You remember the Pied Piper -- but no , of course you would n't -- you were too young . One evening long ago when Nan and Di and Jem and the Merediths and I were together in Rainbow Valley I had a queer vision or presentiment -- whatever you like to call it . Rilla , I saw the Piper coming down the Valley with a shadowy host behind him . The others thought I was only pretending -- but I saw him for just one moment . And Rilla , last night I saw him again . I was doing sentry-go and I saw him marching across No-man 's - land from our trenches to the German trenches -- the same tall shadowy form , piping weirdly -- and behind him followed boys in khaki . Rilla , I tell you I saw him -- it was no fancy -- no illusion . I heard his music , and then -- he was gone . But I had seen him -- and I knew what it meant -- I knew that I was among those who followed him . `` Rilla , the Piper will pipe me ` west ' tomorrow . I feel sure of this . And Rilla , I 'm not afraid . When you hear the news , remember that . I 've won my own freedom here -- freedom from all fear . I shall never be afraid of anything again -- not of death -- nor of life , if after all , I am to go on living . And life , I think , would be the harder of the two to face -- for it could never be beautiful for me again .
There would always be such horrible things XXXXX remember -- things that would make life ugly and painful always for me .
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