`` Oh , no . He 's merely turning into Mr. Hyde -- which means that we shall have rain or high wind before morning . Doc is as good as a barometer . '' `` Well , I am thankful he has gone on the rampage outside this time and not into my kitchen , '' said Susan . `` And I am going out to see about supper . With such a crowd as we have at Ingleside now it behooves us to think about our meals betimes . '' CHAPTER II DEW OF MORNING Outside , the Ingleside lawn was full of golden pools of sunshine and plots of alluring shadows . Rilla Blythe was swinging in the hammock under the big Scotch pine , Gertrude Oliver sat at its roots beside her , and Walter was stretched at full length on the grass , lost in a romance of chivalry wherein old heroes and beauties of dead and gone centuries lived vividly again for him . Rilla was the `` baby '' of the Blythe family and was in a chronic state of secret indignation because nobody believed she was grown up . She was so nearly fifteen that she called herself that , and she was quite as tall as Di and Nan ; also , she was nearly as pretty as Susan believed her to be . She had great , dreamy , hazel eyes , a milky skin dappled with little golden freckles , and delicately arched eyebrows , giving her a demure , questioning look which made people , especially lads in their teens , want to answer it . Her hair was ripely , ruddily brown and a little dent in her upper lip looked as if some good fairy had pressed it in with her finger at Rilla 's christening . Rilla , whose best friends could not deny her share of vanity , thought her face would do very well , but worried over her figure , and wished her mother could be prevailed upon to let her wear longer dresses . She , who had been so plump and roly-poly in the old Rainbow Valley days , was incredibly slim now , in the arms-and-legs period . Jem and Shirley harrowed her soul by calling her `` Spider . '' Yet she somehow escaped awkwardness . There was something in her movements that made you think she never walked but always danced . She had been much petted and was a wee bit spoiled , but still the general opinion was that Rilla Blythe was a very sweet girl , even if she were not so clever as Nan and Di . Miss Oliver , who was going home that night for vacation , had boarded for a year at Ingleside . The Blythes had taken her to please Rilla who was fathoms deep in love with her teacher and was even willing to share her room , since no other was available .
Gertrude Oliver was twenty-eight and life had been a struggle XXXXX her .
With as at before beside for of that to under