But at the last moment he took her face between his hands and looked deep into her gallant eyes.

"God bless you, Rilla-my-Rilla," he said softly and tenderly.

After all it was not a hard thing to fight for a land that bore daughters like this.
He stood on the rear platform and waved to them as the train pulled out.

Rilla was standing by herself, but Una Meredith came to her and the two girls who loved him most stood together and held each other's cold hands as the train rounded the curve of the wooded hill.
Rilla spent an hour in Rainbow Valley that morning about which she never said a word to anyone; she did not even write in her diary about it; when it was over she went home and made rompers for Jims.

In the evening she went to a Junior Red Cross committee meeting and was severely businesslike.
"You would never suppose," said Irene Howard to Olive Kirk afterwards, "that Walter had left for the front only this morning.