as full of contrition for her late blame.

They strolled through the rose-tinted mists of the valley, the perfume
rising from the scented grasses and flowers at their feet. She looked
like a tall June flower herself, Gilbert thought, as she walked ahead
of him in the narrow pathway, slender and erect in her clinging white
gown, with her delicately poised head like a golden blossom on its
stem. As they left the violet-carpeted bank and crossed the white
stepping-stones, an oriole, swinging far up on the topmost branch of
the elm-tree, just where his golden wing caught the slant rays of the
setting sun, suddenly burst into joyous, bubbling song. The ringing
notes followed them even after they had climbed the hill and were
passing up the shadowy avenue of the orchard. And though they were
neither aware of it as yet, he was singing the opening strains of that
harmony that was some day to fill their united lives.

"_Oh, there's many a man o' the Ca----_"

Uncle Hughie came hobbling down the orchard path. His voice had an
unusually joyous ring, therefore he reached a tremendous altitude, and
the song ended abruptly in a husky shriek.

"Huh! huh! hoots! toots!" he was muttering to himself disgustedly, as
he came upon the pair. "Och! hoch! yes! yes! indeed and indeed!" he
remarked, with a significant smile that brought the color to Elsie's
cheeks. "And is the arm better, doctor?" he asked, stopping, and
patting the young man's injured member tenderly.

"Oh, yes; it's nothing. I'm in fine shape for the wedding to-morrow."

"Eh! eh! yes! yes!" The old man's face was alight with joy. "Eh! it
takes the Almighty to be managing things, indeed. But, mind ye this!
I would be finding out something about how He will be managing." His
voice sank to a mysterious whisper. "I would be rastlin' it out last
night, an' thinkin' how He'd been workin' an' turnin' an' twistin'
things for the good o' the poor McIntyre body, an' the poor bits o'
things Jake Sawyer adopted. I would be rastlin' it all out, an' mind
ye--listen to this--He wouldn't be doin' it by Himself." His eyes
shone like living amber. "Oh, no, indeed. He would be handing over
the job to folks--jist folks, mind ye! Eh! eh! wouldn't that be
wonderful? An' it will jist be because we are such poor potterin'
bodies, that we wouldn't be having the world patched up an' fixed right
long ago. Och! it would be a great thing, indeed, that we would be
having a h