ad
come up to Neil Lindsay in intellect, and that the world and the church
would hear of him one day.

Mary was the family beauty, all pink and white with glossy curls, and
Sandy was still Christina's chum and confidant, and the last was
Jimmie, hovering between boyhood and manhood. There was a plate set
for Grandpa Lindsay, who had not yet appeared. He was rarely quite in
time for the early farm breakfast, but he was always on the scene
before they separated, to conduct family worship. His bedroom was off
the winter kitchen, where the breakfast was laid, and they could hear
him moving about singing and talking to himself.

Mrs. Lindsay was a little woman with a sweet, strong face covered with
a network of wrinkles. Her hands were calloused and discoloured and
her back was bent with hard work, but her eyes were bright, and her
heart was still as young as her family.

"And it's nineteen you are to-day, hinny," she cried, looking at
Christina fondly.

Christina made a wry face. "Yes, isn't it awful? I don't want to be
so old."

"Hut, tut, old," laughed Uncle Neil. "Your mother and father were on
their way from the Old Country when she was nineteen, and Allister was
a baby."

Christina mentally decided that even crossing the ocean to a strange
country was not at all as bad as staying for nineteen years in the same
place, but she did not say so.

"Well, it's pretty nice to be nineteen, isn't it?" said Neil. "If it
wasn't seeding time John and I would take a day off and go on a picnic."

"I wish something would happen," said Christina recklessly, "something
awfully surprising."

"You might go out and hoe up that back field of corn," suggested Sandy.
"That would surprise John and me more than anything."

"But it wouldn't surprise me a bit and I'm the person concerned.
Nothing in the shape of work could possibly surprise me any more. It
would have to be a spree of some sort."

"Well," said Ellen, who was always sensible and practical, "be thankful
that nothing unpleasant is happening. Anybody would think you would
like the barn to burn down."

It was rather a noisy breakfast, for the Lindsays were a bright crowd
in spite of much hard work, and Christina and Sandy were always making
merry over something. They were just finishing when Grandpa came in
with his toddling step and his usual exclamation of pleased surprised,
"Eh, well, well, and you're all here!"

Christina ran for the ancient Bible that