hat all his aches and pains might be at an end and
that the next morning he would waken "on the other side of Jordan, in
the sweet fields of Eden," and he liked to close the day with the
cheering words.

So Christina sang it with him to the very end and then tucked him into
his big feather bed. She left his door into the winter kitchen ajar so
that he could hear the singing, which they were sure to have. Then she
helped her mother air the spare room for Allister, and put a little
fire in the shiny box stove in the hall, for the May evening was chilly.

By the time she had finished all her little duties the house was full
of visitors. Mrs. Johnnie Dunn and "Marthy" were the first, the former
eager to retell the manner of her introduction of Allister to his
family.

The McKenzies, who lived on the next farm above, were all there, and
Bruce was helping Ellen carry chairs out to the veranda. The Browns, a
big family who lived just across the road from the Lindsays, were in
the kitchen, and young Mr. MacGillivray's horse was in the stable and
he himself was seated in the parlour talking to Uncle Neil, and looking
at Mary.

Then there was quite a little crowd coming up from the village, Tilly
Holmes and Joanna Falls, the blacksmith's handsome daughter, and Mr.
and Mrs. Martin, who owned the mill, people of some consequence in
Orchard Glen, for Mrs. Martin had been a school teacher before her
marriage. Then there was Burke Wright, who worked in the mill, and his
little wife; Trooper Tom Boyd and his chum Marmaduke, and even Mr.
Sinclair, the Presbyterian minister, and his wife, all come to do
honour to the long-absent son of Orchard Glen.

Christina joined Tilly Holmes and Bell Brown and some more girls of her
own age in a corner of the veranda and told them all about Allister's
sudden appearance, and how she had taken him for a stranger looking for
a place to board, and how he had promised to send her to the High
School next Fall and then to the University with Sandy!

The young folk bunched together in the semi-darkness of the veranda,
laughing and teasing, the older women gathered with Mrs. Lindsay in the
parlour, and the men collected about Allister in the greater freedom of
the kitchen, where coats could be laid aside and pipes taken out, and
they sat astride their chairs in the smoke and listened to him tell
about the prairies and the wheat crop of Alberta and the prices of real
estate.

It was just like a