ping and this
sudden determination to live. "Don't be frightened. I'll make her
promise she won't tell."

"She might keep her word, an' she mightn't; an' if Susan an' Bella was
to find out I'd died because he never came back an' left me an old
maid, I couldn't rest in my grave. I jist couldn't! An' she might let
it out, Elsie, now mightn't she?"

Elsie paused a moment. She was about to reassure her, but checked
herself. Evidently soothing was not what the invalid needed.

"Yes, Arabella," she said honestly, "she might."

CHAPTER XI

THE COMING OF ROSALIE

Silvery soft by the forest side,
Wine-red, yellow and rose,
The Wizard of Autumn, faint-blue eyed,
Swinging his censer, goes.
--ABCHIBALD LAMPMAN.

As the tenth of October approached, there was but one subject of
interest in the township of Oro--the Elmbrook fall fair. "The show,"
it was called, the name indicating that there could be only one. It
was as much a social as an agricultural function. Oro was largely a
Scottish township, and on show day there was a gathering of the clans
from far and near. Old friends who never saw each other between fairs,
met on that day, and had a grand review, both in Gaelic and English, of
the year's doings, and the alien who did not "have" the former language
missed half the benefit of the institution.

On the evening before the fair, Gilbert was surprised by a visit from
Malcolm Cameron. The boy had left for college only two weeks before,
but, like many other sons of Oro, he had come back for "the show."

"Say," he began, balancing himself on the corner of the doctor's desk,
"I'm going to ask you a most awfully big favor."

"Ask away," said the other, smiling; "it's granted, if I can do it."

"Oh, say, you're the best chap in the country. Elsie would kill me if
she knew, but you won't let on, will you? I've got to take her to the
show in our single buggy. Jim's taking mother and Uncle Hughie in the
double rig, and all our truck has to come home in it, and you
know--well--Marjorie's going with her father and mother, and I might
drive her home if Elsie had some one to go with, and I thought--if you
hadn't made any other arrangements, I thought, perhaps----"

"That Miss Cameron might come home with me?" interposed Gilbert, coming
to his aid. "Why, I'd be delighted; that is, if she wouldn't mind."

"Oh, Elsie'd be tickled to death!" cried Elsie's brother, growing
reckless in his