eyes were as blue as the strip of sky above her, and her cheeks were as pink as the apple blossoms. Mrs. Johnnie Dunn's judgment had not been reversed by the years, Christina was still a long way from being one of the Lindsay beauties. But she possessed an abundance of that loveliness that always accompanies youth and health and a merry heart. 

 She was not quite so gay as usual this morning. She felt that she ought to be grave and dignified, as befitted a person who was so old. It was no joke, this being nineteen, just next-door to twenty, when you wanted still to play with the dog or chase Sandy round the stack. Age makes one retrospective, too, and she was reflecting how far short she had come of attaining the great ambition born eight years ago in the raspberry patch. For here she was, on her nineteenth birthday, still milking cows and feeding calves, with not even a school teacher's certificate to her credit. 

 She had not failed to put forth every effort to attain, but somehow each high endeavour had turned out like the race for the quarter dollar in the berry patch; she was always just about to grasp the prize, when some unfortunate picker fell across her path with a spilled pail. 

 There was that day when she and Mary and Sandy were all ready to go to High School together. But Father died that summer, and it was decreed that the expense of three in the town could not be met. So Christina stayed, partly because the other two were older, but mostly because Mary cried bitterly at the suggestion that Christina go in her place. 

 Then there came a second chance when Sandy had graduated and started to teach school, but Grandpa took very ill and could not bear that she leave him. The third time proved the charm, for she did get away, and for a whole year spread her wings gloriously in Algonquin High School. She did wonders, too, taking two years' work in one, but the crops were poor the next year and Mary had to take her term at the Teachers' Training School, and the expense for two could not be met. 

 And so here she was at nineteen, burning to be up and away, and vowing to herself that not another year would pass over her head and find her still in Orchard Glen milking cows and feeding chickens. 

 The world about her did not seem to be in accord with her thoughts. It was full of joy and contentment with its beautiful lot. The robins in the gay orchard boughs were shouting that it was a glorious place to live in. Away up in the elm tree before 

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