their farming costumes, old bits of past grandeur, a purple velvet skirt for Janet and a sacque of ancient brocaded silk on Flora, both accompanied by Gavin's cast off boots and wide straw hats. But the wearers received Christina in her trim blue skirt and white blouse, of the latest Algonquin style, with a high bred unconsciousness of clothes. 

 "Oh, I'm that glad you've come," cried Janet, shaking her fifteen-year-old ringlets from her big hat, "you've given us an excuse for a rest. We were jist doin' a bit of gardenin'. Weren't we, Flora?" she asked. 

 Auntie Flora's eyes twinkled, "Oh, yes, yes, jist gardenin'!" she declared, and the three Aunties burst out laughing, and Auntie Janet spread out her earth soiled hands with a comical gesture. 

 "We've been diggin' the potaties!" she whispered, her eyes dancing. "But if Gavie caught us at it, we'd catch it! So we jist keep tellin' him we've been gardenin' an' he never suspects, an' he can't see us from where he's ploughin'!" 

 "An' we'll be finished in another day if he doesn't find out!" cried Auntie Flora exultingly. 

 "Aye, but jist wait, you'll get yer pay for yer pranks when he does find out," admonished Auntie Elspie, like an indulgent mother threatening her mischievous children with a father's punishment. "Gavie jist won't let us put foot into the fields!" she added proudly. But the two younger ones laughed recklessly. They would be up sides with Gavie yet, for all his high-handed, bossy ways! 

 They washed their hands, changed their shoes and put away their big hats, and all three bustled about getting tea. Christina would have preferred to slip away before Gavin came in, but she well knew that no human being had ever come to Craig-Ellachie and left again without sitting down to eat, and knew it was no use to protest. 

 So she went out into the garden to help Flora gather a bouquet for the table, and her hostess broke off armfuls of every sort of flowers she admired, making a great sheaf to carry home to her mother. They put the glorious mass into a shining tin pail to await her departure. Then Christina ran about the kitchen and pantry, helping set the best blue dishes on the table, and they all laughed and joked and had such a time, as though all four had just turned nineteen last May. 

 "Did ye hear that Elspie has a fellow, Christina?" called Auntie Flora from the cellar whither she had gone to fetch the 

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