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 couldn'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 couldn't be happy if I had any secret from you, dearest--but I would never betray his.