At all other times she was a stimulating companion, and the gay set at Ingleside never remembered that she was so much older than themselves.

Walter and Rilla were her favourites and she was the confidante of the secret wishes and aspirations of both.

She knew that Rilla longed to be "out"-- to go to parties as Nan and Di did, and to have dainty evening dresses and--yes, there is no mincing matters--beaux! In the plural, at that! As for Walter, Miss Oliver knew that he had written a sequence of sonnets "to Rosamond"-- i.e., Faith Meredith--and that he aimed at a Professorship of English literature in some big college.

She knew his passionate love of beauty and his equally passionate hatred of ugliness; she knew his strength and his weakness.
Walter was, as ever, the handsomest of the Ingleside boys.

Miss Oliver found pleasure in looking at him for his good looks--he was so exactly like what she would have liked her own son to be.