go to college, while she managed the farm at home. And she says now she is always glad she did it." 

 He stopped suddenly, embarrassed. It looked as if he had actually had the presumption to preach Christina a sermon. 

 But she did not seem to think so.  "And you, yourself," she said, "Mr. Sinclair always wants you to go to college, Gavin, and you know you would like to, wouldn't you?" 

 "I am in a very different position from any one like you or Sandy," said Gavin with a new note of sternness in his voice.  "It is not for me to choose whether I will go to college or not. But," he added hastily, "my Aunts would let me go if they could, you may be sure of that." 

 Christina's heart felt a sudden rush of sympathy. She guessed what Gavin must suffer, seeing this boy and that pass on, leaving him behind. 

 There was another long silence, which he broke.  "You will always do the kind thing," he whispered.  "You could not do anything else." 

 They had come to the big gate between the sentinel poplars, and Christina stopped. Mary and young MacGillivray were leaning on the little garden gate that led in from the lane, and Bruce and Ellen, who had long passed the hanging-over-the-gate stage of courtship, had gone indoors for something to eat. 

 "Oh, I'm afraid you're all wrong," she declared; "I—I don't want to a bit, but, you think I ought to let Sandy go, don't you?" 

 Gavin looked down at her in the dim starlight for a moment before he found courage to reply.  "You know so much better than I do," he said at last.  "And I am not the one to advise you, because,—because,——" 

 "Because what?" she asked wonderingly. 

 "Because I can't bear to think of you going away," burst out Gavin with desperate boldness. 

 Christina felt her cheeks grow hot under the sheltering darkness. She was speechless in her turn, and then afraid of what might follow this sudden outburst, she said confusedly, "I must go in now and think about it," and with a hurried good-night, she was gone. 

 She ran noiselessly up the lane, avoiding the lovers at the garden gate, and entered the back gate that opened from the barn-yard. She found Bruce and Ellen with John and her mother in the kitchen eating scones and drinking buttermilk. No one 

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