subject for commiseration, and every one agreed that it was just the way with all the Lindsays, there was no end to their luck. 

 The crowd gathered inside the hall, where a number of the boys were bunched in a corner preparing the programme with much anxiety. 

 After the business of the evening which was never very heavy, there was always a programme rendered by the boys and girls on alternate evenings. To-night was the boys' turn to perform, which always meant a great deal of fun for the girls. John Lindsay was President of the Society, and was down on the programme for a speech on Reciprocity, and there was to be a male chorus, both sure to be good numbers, for John had some fame as a political speaker, and the boys of Orchard Glen could always put up a fine chorus with Tremendous K. to beat time and Gavin Grant's splendid voice to hold them all to the right tune. 

 So the programme opened auspiciously with the chorus. The only trouble was the organist. Sam Henderson, a brother of Tremendous K., was the only young man in Orchard Glen who could play anything more complex than a mouth organ, and Sam always seemed to have too many fingers. And he pumped the air into the bellows so hard that the organ's gasps could be heard far above its strains. 

 Then three of the boys played a rousing trio on mouth organs, and young Willie Brown played a long piece on the violin. Tommy Holmes, Tilly's brother, who worked in Algonquin and came home week-ends, then gave a recitation, a comic selection which cheered everybody up after the wails of Willie's fiddle. 

 Tremendous K. sang a solo, a splendid roaring sea song that fairly made the roof rock, and then John delivered his speech and Christina sat and twisted her handkerchief and fidgeted every minute of it, in silent fear lest John make a mistake or anybody laugh at him. But John's speech was loudly applauded, though Tremendous K. said afterwards there was to be no politics brought into the Temperance Society, for Tremendous K. was not of the same political party as the President and was not going to run any risks of the liberals getting ahead. 

 When John had sat down there arose from the back of the hall among the young men a great deal of shoving and pushing and exhorting to "go to it," and Gavin Grant came forward very reluctant, very red in the face, and looking very scared, to sing his first formal solo in public. 

 Gavin was a tall fellow and well built, but his 

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