tee could get near him, Gavin had fairly fallen off the car
platform, and at the same moment the three Aunties had tumbled from the
car where they were supposed to sit decorously, and the four were in
each other's arms, and the Grant Girls were crying over their battered
hero, as they had not cried even when they heard he was lying dead on
the battlefield of France. And Gavin, half-laughing, half-crying,
himself, was trying to gather the three of them into his one poor arm
which was needed so badly for his supporting stick!

And all Orchard Glen stood and looked on in dead silence, with a lump
in every throat and a mist in every eye, and everybody forgot entirely
that there was such a thing as a programme to be followed.

Finally, Mr. Sinclair and Dr. McGarry led the Aunties back to the car
and as Gavin climbed in he cried out, "Oh, Auntie Flora, I'm really
home. I smell the garden." And the Aunties took to crying harder than
ever.

Then all the mothers, who were weeping in sympathy, came and hugged and
kissed him, and shed tears over him, and all the rest left their
appointed places and crowded round the hero to get in a word of
welcome, and speakers and choir and everybody got all mixed up in
hopeless confusion.

Nobody noticed that the train had pulled out again, and that every one
on board (and who knew but half of them might be newspaper reporters?)
had seen the Orchard Glen had done nothing but stand and stare in
perfect silence when one of their boys came home bearing the Victoria
Cross, and what would the people of Algonquin say when they heard?

But nobody thought of all this just yet, not even The Woman, for she
too was crying over Gavin's empty sleeve, and thinking of the one who
would never come back. Every one was coming up to shake his hand now
and Gavin's eyes were wandering searchingly over the crowd, even when
Marmaduke and Tremendous K. and the minister were making him welcome.

And suddenly the restless, hungry look was replaced by a flash of
rapture, for Christina, all flushed and trembling, and looking more
beautiful than any one would have dreamed she could look, came forward,
hanging tightly to Sandy's arm. She forgot all about the crowd for
just a moment, when she took his one hand in both hers, and whispered,
"Oh, Gavin!" And he looked at her with his eyes shining and said with
equal incoherence, "Oh, Christine!"

They stood for a moment looking into each other's eyes, the world
bl