was running the affair, would not listen to
her.

"When you want to eat, why eat and be done with it, says I," she
commanded. "But this mixing up of a concert and speeches with the food
and dirty dishes on a table, I just can't abide. And the idea is
nothing but some foolishness of them town trollops who don't know how
to do things right anyways."

So, when everything was arranged so perfectly, and the two choirs could
sing "O Canada" and "Keep the Home Fires Burning" without a flaw, and
sufficient sandwiches and cakes and pies had been promised to feed all
the Blue Bonnets had they been coming home, it was something of a shock
to everybody's nerves when the astounding intelligence was received
that the people of Algonquin were actually claiming Gavin as their own,
and were arranging a reception for him at Algonquin on the very same
day!

Fortunately Mrs. Johnnie Dunn discovered in time what Algonquin was up
to. The Woman was now the President of the Red Cross Society in name,
as well as in reality, as poor Mrs. Sutherland had withdrawn from all
social life since her bitter disappointment over Wallace. And while
she was attending a Red Cross meeting in Algonquin, Mrs. Johnnie made
her amazing discovery. She called her forces together immediately upon
her return home and told them all the deadly plot of the towns-people
in a red hot speech that was talked about for years afterwards.

It appeared that the Algonquin people, with their unfailing habit of
gobbling up everything that came near them, had calmly appropriated the
Victoria Cross hero as their own, just because the company of the Blue
Bonnets to which he belonged had drilled for a few months in their
town! And they had published all over the countryside that he was an
Algonquin boy. He was to be met at the station,--just as if he had
nobody belonging to him,--by the Mayor, and the Council, and a member
of Parliament, and what not. And there was to be a little girl all
dressed up fit to kill, who would hand him a bunch of flowers! To
Gavin Grant, who had all the Craig-Ellachie garden waiting for him!
And then he was to be taken up to the Town Hall and set down to a
banquet, with long speeches by all the preachers in the town, right in
the middle of the eating; one of those messed-up affairs where you sat
round amongst the dirty dishes and had speeches and singing all mixed
up with your meat and potatoes.

Yes, it was true,--every word of it! It was