, as if they
had been there all their lives.

Donald's happiness was of the deep and silent kind. Elspie did not
realize the extent of it. A freer-spoken, more demonstrative lover would
have found heartier response and more appreciation from her. But she was
a loyal, loving, contented little wife, and there could not have been
found in all Charlottetown a happier household, to the eye, than was
Donald's for the first three months after his marriage.

Then a cloud settled on it. For some inexplicable reason the blooming
Elspie, who had never had a day's illness in her life, drooped in the
first approach of the burden of motherhood. A strange presentiment also
seized her. After the first brief gladness at the thought of holding a
child of her own in her arms, she became overwhelmed with a melancholy
certainty of her own death.

"I'll never live to see it, Katie," she said again and again. "It'll be
your bairn, an' not mine. Ye'll never give it up, Katie?--promise me.
Ye'll take care of it all your life?--promise." And Katie, terrified by
her earnestness, promised everything she asked, all the while striving
to reassure her that her fears were needless.

No medicines did Elspie good; mind and body alike reacted on each other;
she failed hour by hour till the last; and when her time of trial came,
the sad presentiment fulfilled itself, and she died in giving birth to
her babe.

When Katie brought the child to the stunned and stricken Donald,
saying, "Will ye not look at him, Donald? it is as fine a man-child's
was ever seen," he pushed her away, saying in a hoarse whisper,--

"Never let me see its face. She said it was to be your bairn and not
hers. Take it and go. I'll never look on it."

Donald was out of his reason when he spoke these words, and for long
after. They bore with him tenderly and patiently, and did as they could
for the best; Katie, the wan and grief-stricken Katie, being the chief
adviser and planner of all.

Elspie's body was carried home and buried near the spruce grove, in a
little copse of young spruces which Donald pointed out. This was the
only wish he expressed about anything. Katie took the baby with her to
the old homestead. She dared not try to rear it without her mothers
help.

It was many months before Donald came to the farm. This seemed strange
to all except Katie. To her it seemed the most natural thing, and she
grew impatient with all who thought otherwise.

"I'd feel that way m