Glossy black hair , brilliant dark grey eyes , faultless features . And a poet to his fingertips ! That sonnet sequence was really a remarkable thing for a lad of twenty to write . Miss Oliver was no partial critic and she knew that Walter Blythe had a wonderful gift . Rilla loved Walter with all her heart . He never teased her as Jem and Shirley did . He never called her `` Spider . '' His pet name for her was `` Rilla-my-Rilla '' -- a little pun on her real name , Marilla . She had been named after Aunt Marilla of Green Gables , but Aunt Marilla had died before Rilla was old enough to know her very well , and Rilla detested the name as being horribly old-fashioned and prim . Why could n't they have called her by her first name , Bertha , which was beautiful and dignified , instead of that silly `` Rilla '' ? She did not mind Walter 's version , but nobody else was allowed to call her that , except Miss Oliver now and then . `` Rilla-my-Rilla '' in Walter 's musical voice sounded very beautiful to her -- like the lilt and ripple of some silvery brook . She would have died for Walter if it would have done him any good , so she told Miss Oliver . Rilla was as fond of italics as most girls of fifteen are -- and the bitterest drop in her cup was her suspicion that he told Di more of his secrets than he told her . `` He thinks I 'm not grown up enough to understand , '' she had once lamented rebelliously to Miss Oliver , `` but I am ! And I would never tell them to a single soul -- not even to you , Miss Oliver . I tell you all my own -- I just could n't be happy if I had any secret from you , dearest -- but I would never betray his . I tell him everything -- I even show him my diary . And it hurts me dreadfully when he does n't tell me things . He shows me all his poems , though -- they are marvellous , Miss Oliver .
Oh , I just live XXXXX the hope that some day I shall be to Walter what Wordsworth 's sister Dorothy was to him .
as but by if in like of on to with