Something delightful and yearning and brooding seemed to have taken possession of her . She had never felt like this before . In a few minutes Jims was sound asleep ; and , as Rilla listened to his soft , regular breathing and felt the little body warm and contented against her , she realized that -- at last -- she loved her war-baby . `` He has got to be -- such -- a -- darling , '' she thought drowsily , as she drifted off to slumberland herself . In February Jem and Jerry and Robert Grant were in the trenches and a little more tension and dread was added to the Ingleside life . In March `` Yiprez , '' as Susan called it , had come to have a bitter significance . The daily list of casualties had begun to appear in the papers and no one at Ingleside ever answered the telephone without a horrible cold shrinking -- for it might be the station-master phoning up to say a telegram had come from overseas . No one at Ingleside ever got up in the morning without a sudden piercing wonder over what the day might bring . `` And I used to welcome the mornings so , '' thought Rilla . Yet the round of life and duty went steadily on and every week or so one of the Glen lads who had just the other day been a rollicking schoolboy went into khaki . `` It is bitter cold out tonight , Mrs. Dr. dear , '' said Susan , coming in out of the clear starlit crispness of the Canadian winter twilight . `` I wonder if the boys in the trenches are warm . '' `` How everything comes back to this war , '' cried Gertrude Oliver . `` We ca n't get away from it -- not even when we talk of the weather . I never go out these dark cold nights myself without thinking of the men in the trenches -- not only our men but everybody 's men . I would feel the same if there were nobody I knew at the front . When I snuggle down in my comfortable bed I am ashamed of being comfortable . It seems as if it were wicked of me to be so when many are not . '' `` I saw Mrs. Meredith down at the store , '' said Susan , `` and she tells me that they are really troubled over Bruce , he takes things so much to heart . He has cried himself to sleep for a week , over the starving Belgians .
` Oh , mother , ' he will say XXXXX her , so beseeching-like , ` surely the babies are never hungry -- oh , not the babies , mother !
before if into like of on out over to without