. She wondered if Sandy thought she
was too plain ever to have a suitor.

"Because you've always stayed around home doing the jobs that nobody
else wanted to do," declared Sandy.

Christina gave a relieved laugh. "Something will happen some day," she
promised. "Just see if it won't."

She repeated the promise to herself many times as she went bravely
about the kitchen and barnyard.

"Something will happen some day!" But she often added, "But, oh, my, I
do wish it would hurry up and happen soon."

And then something did happen; an event that vitally affected all
Christina's future. Something happened which made it unnecessary for
any one to go far afield for adventure, for it brought the busy world
of affairs, with its turmoil and sorrow and strife, right inside the
green walls of Orchard Glen. Away on the other side of the world giant
oppression suddenly arose to trample and slay, and freedom leaped up
into a death struggle, and her voice rang round the world, calling on
her sons to come to her aid.

It was as peaceful a summer evening as could be, even in Orchard Glen,
when the first faint echoes of that Call reached its quiet homes. The
day had been very hot, and evening had come with her cool mantle of
purple and gold, dew-spangled, and had spread it over the valley. Down
in the river pasture the boys were playing foot-ball, and a dull thud
came up the road like the distant boom of a cannon, could anything so
incongruous come into the mind on such a peaceful evening? The store
veranda had but few loungers, for the day had been a heavy one on the
farms and was not yet over. The orchards grew pink and then purple in
the evening light, the murmur of the water from the dam came up from
the mill.

And right into the midst of this calm and peace came the first note of
the Great Strife. To those who thought about it afterwards, it seemed
fitting that the news should have been brought by that warlike lady,
Mrs. Johnnie Dunn. She was returning from a second trip to town that
day, and though she liked to send her Ford whirling through the village
as a rebuke to idlers on the store veranda, this evening she slowed up
and stopped with a grinding of brakes.

"I say, Sam! Sam Holmes," she cried excitedly, ignoring the crowd on
the steps, "I've got some news that'll help spunk up some o' these lazy
lumps that's clutterin' up your front door here."

Trooper, who was one of the lumps, tried to efface himself b