In Orchard Glen
feeling that she, too, should raise a song of thanksgiving for all that had come to her on this wonderful day. So she joined Grandpa's shaking notes in 

 "Oh, thou, my soul, bless God the Lord; And all that in me is Be stirred up by His holy name To magnify and bless!" 

 And then they finished with every verse of the Hindmost Hymn. Though Grandpa never confessed it, he had a secret hope, every night, as he lay down to sleep, that 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! 


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