The big white tower on Four Winds Point was overflowing with light , while its revolving beacon flashed overhead . A family from Charlottetown , relatives of the light 's keeper , were summering at the light , and they were giving the party to which all the young people of Four Winds and Glen St. Mary and over-harbour had been invited . As Jem 's boat swung in below the lighthouse Rilla desperately snatched off her shoes and donned her silver slippers behind Miss Oliver 's screening back . A glance had told her that the rock-cut steps climbing up to the light were lined with boys , and lighted by Chinese lanterns , and she was determined she would not walk up those steps in the heavy shoes her mother had insisted on her wearing for the road . The slippers pinched abominably , but nobody would have suspected it as Rilla tripped smilingly up the steps , her soft dark eyes glowing and questioning , her colour deepening richly on her round , creamy cheeks . The very minute she reached the top of the steps an over-harbour boy asked her to dance and the next moment they were in the pavilion that had been built seaward of the lighthouse for dances . It was a delightful spot , roofed over with fir-boughs and hung with lanterns . Beyond was the sea in a radiance that glowed and shimmered , to the left the moonlit crests and hollows of the sand-dunes , to the right the rocky shore with its inky shadows and its crystalline coves . Rilla and her partner swung in among the dancers ; she drew a long breath of delight ; what witching music Ned Burr of the Upper Glen was coaxing from his fiddle -- it was really like the magical pipes of the old tale which compelled all who heard them to dance . How cool and fresh the gulf breeze blew ; how white and wonderful the moonlight was over everything ! This was life -- enchanting life . Rilla felt as if her feet and her soul both had wings . CHAPTER IV THE PIPER PIPES Rilla 's first party was a triumph -- or so it seemed at first . She had so many partners that she had to split her dances . Her silver slippers seemed verily to dance of themselves and though they continued to pinch her toes and blister her heels that did not interfere with her enjoyment in the least . Ethel Reese gave her a bad ten minutes by beckoning her mysteriously out of the pavilion and whispering , with a Reese-like smirk , that her dress gaped behind and that there was a stain on the flounce . Rilla rushed miserably to the room in the lighthouse which was fitted up for a temporary ladies ' dressing-room , and discovered that the stain was merely a tiny grass smear and that the gap was equally tiny where a hook had pulled loose . Irene Howard fastened it up for her and gave her some over-sweet , condescending compliments . Rilla felt flattered by Irene 's condescension . She was an Upper Glen girl of nineteen who seemed to like the society of the younger girls -- spiteful friends said because she could queen it over them without rivalry .
But Rilla thought Irene quite wonderful and loved her XXXXX her patronage .
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