Just then she was not finding it easy to keep faith . All the rest seemed to have some special aim or ambition about which to build up their lives -- she had none . And she was very lonely , horribly lonely . Jem had come back -- but he was not the laughing boy-brother who had gone away in 1914 and he belonged to Faith . Walter would never come back . She had not even Jims left . All at once her world seemed wide and empty -- that is , it had seemed wide and empty from the moment yesterday when she had read in a Montreal paper a fortnight-old list of returned soldiers in which was the name of Captain Kenneth Ford . So Ken was home -- and he had not even written her that he was coming . He had been in Canada two weeks and she had not had a line from him . Of course he had forgotten -- if there was ever anything to forget -- a handclasp -- a kiss -- a look -- a promise asked under the influence of a passing emotion . It was all absurd -- she had been a silly , romantic , inexperienced goose . Well , she would be wiser in the future -- very wise -- and very discreet -- and very contemptuous of men and their ways . `` I suppose I 'd better go with Una and take up Household Science too , '' she thought , as she stood by her window and looked down through a delicate emerald tangle of young vines on Rainbow Valley , lying in a wonderful lilac light of sunset . There did not seem anything very attractive just then about Household Science , but , with a whole new world waiting to be built , a girl must do something . The door bell rang , Rilla turned reluctantly stairwards . She must answer it -- there was no one else in the house ; but she hated the idea of callers just then . She went downstairs slowly , and opened the front door . A man in khaki was standing on the steps -- a tall fellow , with dark eyes and hair , and a narrow white scar running across his brown cheek . Rilla stared at him foolishly for a moment . Who was it ?
She ought to know him -- there was certainly something very familiar XXXXX him -- `` Rilla-my-Rilla , '' he said .
Of about at by if in on through to under