But that probably accrued to him from his possession of a laughing, velvety voice which no girl could hear without a heartbeat, and a dangerous way of listening as if she were saying something that he had longed all his life to hear.
"Is this Rilla-my-Rilla ?" he asked in a low tone.
"Yeth," said Rilla, and immediately wished she could throw herself headlong down the lighthouse rock or otherwise vanish from a jeering world.
Rilla had lisped in early childhood; but she had grown out of it.

Only on occasions of stress and strain did the tendency re-assert itself.
She hadn't lisped for a year; and now at this very moment, when she was so especially desirous of appearing grown up and sophisticated, she must go and lisp like a baby! It was too mortifying; she felt as if tears were going to come into her eyes; the next minute she would be--blubbering--yes, just blubbering--she wished Kenneth would go away--she wished he had never come.

The party was spoiled.

Everything had turned to dust and ashes.
And he had called her "Rilla-my-Rilla"-- not "Spider" or "Kid" or "Puss," as he had been used to call her when he took any notice whatever of her.

She did not at all resent his using Walter's pet name for her; it sounded beautifully in his low caressing tones, with just the faintest suggestion of emphasis on the "my." It would have been so nice if she had not made a fool of herself.