other boys! But words would not come, she could only listen and murmur
little commonplace sentences now and again. But perhaps her dreamy eyes
and her dented lip and her slender throat talked eloquently for her. At
any rate Kenneth seemed in no hurry to suggest going back and when they
did go back supper was in progress. He found a seat for her near the
window of the lighthouse kitchen and sat on the sill beside her while
she ate her ices and cake. Rilla looked about her and thought how lovely
her first party had been. She would never forget it. The room re-echoed
to laughter and jest. Beautiful young eyes sparkled and shone. From the
pavilion outside came the lilt of the fiddle and the rhythmic steps of
the dancers.

There was a little disturbance among a group of boys crowded about the
door; a young fellow pushed through and halted on the threshold, looking
about him rather sombrely. It was Jack Elliott from over-harbour--a
McGill medical student, a quiet chap not much addicted to social doings.
He had been invited to the party but had not been expected to come since
he had to go to Charlottetown that day and could not be back until late.
Yet here he was--and he carried a folded paper in his hand.

Gertrude Oliver looked at him from her corner and shivered again. She
had enjoyed the party herself, after all, for she had foregathered with
a Charlottetown acquaintance who, being a stranger and much older than
most of the guests, felt himself rather out of it, and had been glad to
fall in with this clever girl who could talk of world doings and outside
events with the zest and vigour of a man. In the pleasure of his society
she had forgotten some of her misgivings of the day. Now they suddenly
returned to her. What news did Jack Elliott bring? Lines from an old
poem flashed unbidden into her mind--"there was a sound of revelry by
night"--"Hush! Hark! A deep sound strikes like a rising knell"--why