bled. But Miss Arabella gazed at her in perfect faith,
feeling sure she was evolving some new style for the fashioning of the
blue silk gown.

"Elsie, my girl!" Old lady Cameron's soft voice, with its Highland
Scotch accent, came from the foot of the stairs. "The minister's jist
driving across the bridge. Come away down, and bring Arabella with
you."

Elsie went into the preparations for Arabella's elopement with
something of the feeling that she was assisting in a bank robbery. She
suffered from a very anxious conscience the day she took the blue silk
to Mrs. Munn. No need to tell that silent lady that the affair must be
kept a secret; Mrs. Munn guarded everything that came her way as if it
were a deadly crime in which she was implicated. She seemed not a whit
disturbed by the astonishing fact that Arabella was going to elope.
Such a method of getting married quite coincided with her general
belief that things should not be talked about. She asked no questions
concerning the prospective bridegroom, but promised to make the wedding
gown entirely on faith, and if Granny Long found out she was making
anything--well, she'd have to get a spy-glass as long as the sawmill
smokestack!

Elsie had expected some advice and help from the elder woman, and felt
disappointed and worried. The burden of the secret was beginning to
weigh on her. Suppose she was helping Arabella to take a step that
would end in life-long unhappiness!

She went slowly homeward, and sat down alone in her little room, sorely
perplexed. She was gazing with troubled eyes down the lane, when a
light came into them, and a little flush mounted to her cheek. A smart
horse and buggy had turned in at the gate, and was passing below her
window. The next moment Archie came up the stairs with a message. Dr.
Allen wanted to know if she would like a drive.

She came down the steps clad in a long, brown coat, and a little toque
with a coquettish bronze wing on it, the color of her hair. Dr. Allen
looked at her approvingly. He had no smallest notion of the details of
a woman's dress, but he knew that this one always seemed a wonderful
harmony of color.

They sped down the lane and out upon the open, smooth highway. The
roads were almost dry now, and in the dun-colored fields and the
purple-gray woods there was an air of expectancy, as though the earth
knew that a great change was near. It was a glorious, blustering
spring day. The wind was worki