l before she gave way and sank
down sobbing on the dusty grass of the roadside.

She went back to the desolate home, she must not linger over her grief
for she was needed there as comforter. Her mother had disappeared into
the sanctuary of her room where she was seeking strength from the
source that had never failed her in all life's trials and would hold
her up even in this great agony. Grandpa was sitting fumbling
helplessly with his hymn book and arguing with himself. She could hear
him whispering, "Be not far from me, O Lord, for trouble is near!" and
she patted his bowed white head gently as she passed. Uncle Neil had
fled to the barn, and Mitty was crying over the wash-tub in the shed.
Christina went furiously to work, as her refuge from tears. It would
never do to break down and be no use when Sandy was gone away to fight
for her!

But work would not last all day. It was finished in the evening and
Wallace came up in his usual gay spirits to report progress on his new
farm, where everything was running in the most up-to-date manner. But
Christina was too sad to even pretend to be interested. She could not
rejoice over a new gasoline engine that was to do all the work, when
Sandy and Neil were to be made part of the cruel engine of war. And
for the first time Wallace found her uninterested and consequently
uninteresting.

CHAPTER XII

"ALL THE BLUE BONNETS ARE OVER THE BORDER!"

One day early in the Winter, when the boys' English letters had begun
to arrive regularly, Auntie Elspie Grant came over the hills on her
snowshoes, to pay a visit of sympathy to Mrs. Lindsay. She brought a
bottle of the liniment they made every Fall from the herbs of the
Craig-Ellachie garden, a stone jar of their best raspberry cordial, a
pot of mincemeat, and a piece of Christmas cake.

She spent a long afternoon while they both knitted socks and read the
boys' letters and heard the latest news of Allister and Ellen and Mary
and discussed at great length the never-failing virtues of Gavin. John
drove the guest home in the cutter round by the road, for Mrs. Lindsay
could not bear the sight of Elspie walking away over the drifts, though
as a matter of fact, Elspie in her youthful spirits enjoyed it
immensely.

"Elspie Grant's worryin' about Gavin," said Mrs. Lindsay, when the
guest had gone and the early supper was being cleared away.

"What's the matter with him?" asked Christina with that feeling of self
cond