"No--nor any other fall. I don't want to. I never cared for all those
ologies and isms Nan and Di are so crazy about. And there's five of us
going to college already. Surely that's enough. There's bound to be one
dunce in every family. I'm quite willing to be a dunce if I can be a
pretty, popular, delightful one. I can't be clever. I have no talent at
all, and you can't imagine how comfortable it is. Nobody expects me to
do anything so I'm never pestered to do it. And I can't be a
housewifely, cookly creature, either. I hate sewing and dusting, and
when Susan couldn't teach me to make biscuits nobody could. Father says
I toil not neither do I spin. Therefore, I must be a lily of the field,"
concluded Rilla, with another laugh.

"You are too young to give up your studies altogether, Rilla."

"Oh, mother will put me through a course of reading next winter. It will
polish up her B.A. degree. Luckily I like reading. Don't look at me so
sorrowfully and so disapprovingly, dearest. I can't be sober and serious
--everything looks so rosy and rainbowy to me. Next month I'll be
fifteen--and next year sixteen--and the year after that seventeen.
Could anything be more enchanting?"

"Rap wood," said Gertrude Oliver, half laughingly, half seriously. "Rap
wood, Rilla-my-Rilla."



CHAPTER III

MOONLIT MIRTH