"And plenty more," put in Uncle Neil to the tune of "Oh wert thou in the cauld blast?"  "Gavin's mind is well stored. Mr. Sinclair says he reads Carlyle in the evenings with the Grant girls. I wonder if you could match that anywhere in this country?" 

 Christina felt self-accusing, remembering her superior feeling in Gavin's awkward presence. He had been very busy with the harvest and she had not seen him except at church for a long time. He had never attempted to walk home with her again, and she could not help wondering whether it was because he was shy, or because he did not care. Womanlike she would have given a good deal to know. 

 "I wish you would run over to Craig-Ellachie with that jar of black currants I promised the Grant Girls, Christina," said her mother. 

 "That's the seventeenth time you've been reminded of that," said Jimmie chidingly. 

 "I think John'll have to hitch up the team and take that jar over in the hay wagon," said Uncle Neil, "Christine doesn't seem to be able to manage it." 

 "She's shy about going to see Gavin," said John, looking at her with twinkling eyes over his paper. For John alone knew her guilty secret. She hastily promised to take the jar the very next day, and managed to get the conversation back to the Harebell, which in time showed its shy self and was set down in the essay. 

 It was nearly a week before Christina managed to get away on her difficult errand. She did not want to go, certainly, but she was afraid of attracting more comment from John and Uncle Neil by staying. 

 It was a golden September day when she went up over the hills with a basket of apples from their best tree, and the special jar of her mother's black currant jelly. The air was motionless, the sky a perfect soft unclouded blue, the hills were amber, the hollows amethyst. The branches of the orchard trees behind the village houses sagged, heavy with their harvest, and gay as orchards gotten up for a garden party, all hung with fairy lantern globes of yellow and red. The gardens were filled with ripened corn and great golden pumpkins. The wild asters along the fences glowed softly purple. 

 Christina stepped over the warm yellow stubble singing, and climbed the hill to the old berry patch, where the briars grew more riotously every year. Gavin's cows were straying through the green and yellow tangle on his side of the fence and a bell rang musically through the still aisles. The Wizard of 

 Prev. P 50/187 next