When Rilla walked slowly back to the house Susan was still sitting by the veranda table and Susan was sniffing suspiciously . `` I have been thinking , Rilla dear , of the old days in the House of Dreams , when Kenneth 's mother and father were courting and Jem was a little baby and you were not born or thought of . It was a very romantic affair and she and your mother were such chums . To think I should have lived to see her son going to the front . As if she had not had enough trouble in her early life without this coming upon her ! But we must take a brace and see it through . '' All Rilla 's anger against Susan had evaporated . With Ken 's kiss still burning on her lips , and the wonderful significance of the promise he had asked thrilling heart and soul , she could not be angry with anyone . She put her slim white hand into Susan 's brown , work-hardened one and gave it a squeeze . Susan was a faithful old dear and would lay down her life for any one of them . `` You are tired , Rilla dear , and had better go to bed , '' Susan said , patting her hand . `` I noticed you were too tired to talk tonight . I am glad I came home in time to help you out . It is very tiresome trying to entertain young men when you are not accustomed to it . '' Rilla carried Jims upstairs and went to bed , but not before she had sat for a long time at her window reconstructing her rainbow castle , with several added domes and turrets . `` I wonder , '' she said to herself , `` if I am , or am not , engaged to Kenneth Ford . '' CHAPTER XVII THE WEEKS WEAR BY Rilla read her first love letter in her Rainbow Valley fir-shadowed nook , and a girl 's first love letter , whatever blase , older people may think of it , is an event of tremendous importance in the teens . After Kenneth 's regiment had left Kingsport there came a fortnight of dully-aching anxiety and when the congregation sang in Church on Sunday evenings , `` Oh , hear us when we cry to Thee For those in peril on the sea , '' Rilla 's voice always failed her ; for with the words came a horribly vivid mind picture of a submarined ship sinking beneath pitiless waves amid the struggles and cries of drowning men . Then word came that Kenneth 's regiment had arrived safely in England ; and now , at last , here was his letter . It began with something that made Rilla supremely happy for the moment and ended with a paragraph that crimsoned her cheeks with the wonder and thrill and delight of it .
Between beginning and ending the letter was just such a jolly , newsy epistle as Ken might have written to anyone ; but XXXXX the sake of that beginning and ending Rilla slept with the letter under her pillow for weeks , sometimes waking in the night to slip her fingers under and just touch it , and looked with secret pity on other girls whose sweethearts could never have written them anything half so wonderful and exquisite .
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