ate straits to get out
of it.

Wallace saw her evident distress and supposed she had heard of Gavin,
and was disturbed for his Aunts.

"Awful thing, this, for the poor old Grant Girls," he remarked,
sympathetically.

Christina stopped in the act of sitting down, and straightened herself
quickly, as though she had been struck a blow.

"What?" She uttered the word in a fearful whisper, but the young man
felt she was showing only the natural agitation she must feel,
remembering Jimmie and Neil.

"Didn't you hear? Gavin's killed," he said concisely.

Christina stood and looked at him stupidly. "What did you say?" she
asked in a dazed fashion.

"Gavin,--Gavin Grant," he repeated wonderingly, "he's been killed.
They just got the telegram to-night, and Mr. Sinclair and Uncle Peter
have gone to tell the poor old Aunts--" he stopped, struck by the look
in her face. She had turned perfectly white, even to her lips, and sat
down, slowly and dazedly. She picked up her knitting, looked at it a
moment, foolishly, and then laid it down with a bewildered air.

Wallace got up suddenly from the sofa. "Christine!" he cried in alarm.
"What's the matter? Don't--don't look like that! I didn't mean to
frighten you. Oh, Christina, was Gavin?--Oh, I didn't know! What does
it mean to you?" he cried in sharp dismay.

She looked at him with honest, stricken eyes. "It means everything to
me, Wallace," she said simply. "Everything in the world," telling the
bald truth, in this supreme moment, without an effort. And when she
had said it, a great billow of darkness came rolling across the room
and surged over her. She heard Wallace calling for her mother, heard
Uncle Neil run in from the kitchen, and then sank away into a great
silence and peace.

They tried to make her stay in bed the next day, but she insisted upon
going to see the Grant Girls with her mother. The fields were too wet
and soft to be crossed, so Christina drove Dolly in the old buck-board.
Craig-Ellachie was all sunshine, and the windows were alight with
blossoms, scarlet geraniums and great waxy begonias, pink and white and
crimson, were in every sunny nook and corner, and purple hyacinths and
pure white Easter lilies filled the old kitchen with fragrance. The
garden, too, showed signs of beauty, for already the first crocus had
pushed its brave little head through the brown earth of the flower beds.

But the Grant Girls had lost the Spring-time bloom of