`` I am not writing like this for lack of any real sympathy with poor Miranda . I 've just got into the habit of giving things a comical twist if I can , when I 'm writing to Jem and Walter and Ken , to make them laugh . I really felt sorry for Miranda who is as much in love with Joe as a china-blue girl can be with anyone and who is dreadfully ashamed of her father 's pro-German sentiments . I think she understood that I did , for she said she had wanted to tell me all about her worries because I had grown so sympathetic this past year . I wonder if I have . I know I used to be a selfish , thoughtless creature -- how selfish and thoughtless I am ashamed to remember now , so I ca n't be quite so bad as I was . `` I wish I could help Miranda . It would be very romantic to contrive a war-wedding and I should dearly love to get the better of Whiskers-on-the-moon . But at present the oracle has not spoken . '' CHAPTER XVIII A WAR-WEDDING `` I can tell you this Dr. dear , '' said Susan , pale with wrath , `` that Germany is getting to be perfectly ridiculous . '' They were all in the big Ingleside kitchen . Susan was mixing biscuits for supper . Mrs. Blythe was making shortbread for Jem , and Rilla was compounding candy for Ken and Walter -- it had once been `` Walter and Ken '' in her thoughts but somehow , quite unconsciously , this had changed until Ken 's name came naturally first . Cousin Sophia was also there , knitting . All the boys were going to be killed in the long run , so Cousin Sophia felt in her bones , but they might better die with warm feet than cold ones , so Cousin Sophia knitted faithfully and gloomily . Into this peaceful scene erupted the doctor , wrathful and excited over the burning of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa . And Susan became automatically quite as wrathful and excited . `` What will those Huns do next ? '' she demanded . `` Coming over here and burning our Parliament building !
Did anyone ever hear XXXXX such an outrage ? ''
at for if into like of so than to until