Piper of his--she hadn't heard anything about him since their playdays
in Rainbow Valley--and now here he was bobbing up again. She didn't
like it, and that was the long and short of it.

"Aren't you painting it rather strong, Walter?" asked Harvey Crawford,
coming up just then. "This war won't last for years--it'll be over in a
month or two. England will just wipe Germany off the map in no time."

"Do you think a war for which Germany has been preparing for twenty
years will be over in a few weeks?" said Walter passionately. "This
isn't a paltry struggle in a Balkan corner, Harvey. It is a death
grapple. Germany comes to conquer or to die. And do you know what will
happen if she conquers? Canada will be a German colony."

"Well, I guess a few things will happen before that," said Harvey
shrugging his shoulders. "The British navy would have to be licked for
one; and for another, Miller here, now, and I, we'd raise a dust,
wouldn't we, Miller? No Germans need apply for this old country, eh?"

Harvey ran down the steps laughing.

"I declare, I think all you boys talk the craziest stuff," said Mary
Vance in disgust. She got up and dragged Miller off to the rock-shore.
It didn't happen often that they had a chance for a talk together; Mary
was determined that this one shouldn't be spoiled by Walter Blythe's
silly blather about Pipers and Germans and such like absurd things. They
left Walter standing alone on the rock steps, looking out over the
beauty of Four Winds with brooding eyes that saw it not.

The best of the evening was over for Rilla, too. Ever since Jack