and he was firing mad.

Poor Mrs. Johnnie Dunn, her home-coming was completely spoiled! She
got up early the next morning, and not even waiting to look over the
premises to see what damage Marthy and Trooper had done in her absence,
she hitched up her mare and drove over through all the mud and water to
Craig-Ellachie, and took in the Lindsays on her way back. There was
nothing lacking in the Grant Girls' welcome, and she was a little
comforted but also much disturbed. The Aunties showed her their
valentines, and Gavin's, but they laughed heartily over them, and Mrs.
Lindsay allowed the girls to display theirs, assuring her that she had
never believed her the sender. But it was beyond doubt that they had
all come from El Monte, and that the addresses had all been printed by
the same hand.

The Woman spread them out on the table before her and meditated.
"There's that young villain of a boy my sister has. He's another
Trooper all over again, and worse, 'cause he ain't got me to trim him
down. He'd be capable of doing it. But he couldn't. He doesn't know
even the names of folks here, unless Trooper--Trooper--" She stopped
and sat bolt upright.

"I'll bet," she said deliberately, while Christina fled from the room
that she might laugh aloud, "I'll bet every cent I make out o' milk
this Summer that Trooper and that other emissary of Satan is at the
bottom of this and you'll see I'll find out."

But the damage had been done. Poor Mrs. Johnnie Dunn had a very
harmless but very great desire to shine before her neighbours. She had
expected to return to Orchard Glen with a blare of trumpets and
astonish every one with her tales of California with geraniums in the
garden at Christmas, and bathing in the ocean in January, and oranges
everywhere for the picking, and a host of kindred wonders in which her
untravelled neighbour friends were to be instructed. And instead she
found the very name of California and El Monte were a byword and a
hissing in the mouths of the inhabitants of Orchard Glen, and had to
spend the first month after her return in voluble explanations and
denials.

CHAPTER VII

OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE

It seemed to Christina as if there had never been a summer that opened
so joyously. In the first place she was preparing to go West with
Allister when he came home in July, and she would not be very far from
the Mission Field where Neil had gone, and that was good fortune enough
in itself.