TED RING"

Jimmie came home from school on Friday evening bounding in full of news.

"Say, who do you s'pose's gone and enlisted from Orchard Glen now?" he
demanded indignantly of Christina, who was preparing supper in the
bright, warm kitchen.

"Mrs. Johnnie Dunn," suggested his sister. But Jimmie was in no mood
for a joke. Each new enlistment from the community was to him a
personal injury.

"More unlikely than that!" he growled, throwing his heavy bag of books
in the corner, and his wet mittens behind the stove, "it's Gavin Grant,
that's who it is."

Christina stopped in the operation of taking a pan of hot biscuits from
the oven. "Gavin Grant! Why! Are you sure, Jimmie?"

"Course I'm sure. I saw him in town to-day. He's joined the Blue
Bonnets, and they're going to Camp Borden, and I tell you it just makes
a fellow sick, that's what it does!"

Jimmie did not explain just why Gavin's joining the army should have
such an effect upon his health and Christina paid no heed to his
complaint. She was completely taken by surprise. If there was a young
man in Orchard Glen who had a good excuse for staying at home surely
that young man was Gavin. And yet he was going, when it would be so
easy to remain. She was not long left to wonder over him. Her mother
brought home the whole story of Gavin's struggle from his proud and
grief-stricken Aunts the very next day. Elspie Grant had come over to
offer sympathy when her sons left her for the battle-field and Mary
Lindsay could not rest until she had done the same for her old friend.
So as next day was Saturday, Jimmie took her over to Craig-Ellachie in
the cutter.

She came home filled with the story of the long time Gavin had been
yearning to go, but had remained silent for his Aunts' sake, how he was
making every preparation for their comfort in his absence, how brave he
was, and how proud they were of him, even though it was breaking their
three old hearts to see him go.

Christina listened to the recital in ever-deepening humiliation. She
remembered how she had been disgusted with Gavin when he fled from
before Piper Lauchie's wrath, and how full of admiration she had been
for Wallace Sutherland's courage. She had played the part of a silly
girl who could not see the character under the thin covering of
appearances. Her humiliation was not made lighter by the remembrance
that Wallace had given no smallest hint of a desire to enlist.

There was nothi