the house an oriole was blowing his little golden trumpet, his flashing coat rivalling the row of scarlet and golden tulips that bordered the garden path. The little green lawn before the house sparkled under a diamond-spangled web. 

 From beyond the pink and white screen of the orchard came the happy sounds of the barnyard; the clatter of the bars as Sandy turned the cows into the back lane; Old Sport's bark; Jimmie's high voice scolding the calf that was trying to swallow the pail for breakfast; the squeal of hungry little pigs; the clatter of hens and many other voices making up the Barnyard Spring Song. 

 Christina's pet kitten, a tiny black blot on the pink and green, came daintily down the path to meet her, mindful of her two pails of warm milk. Sport, who had succeeded in putting the cows into their places, came bounding up in a fit of boisterous familiarity, and leaped at the little black ball with a gay, 

 "Woof! How are you this morning, you useless black mite?" 

 Two indignant green spots flamed up in the blackness and the mite itself turned into a fierce little bow, bent to shoot, and in a flash, bow quiver and all shot like lightning up the tree, spitting arrows in all directions. 

 Christina forgot all about her ambitions and laughed aloud, and Sport joined her, leaping around her and laughing silently in his own dog fashion with tongue and tail. It was very hard to remember that one was nineteen and had never been anywhere nor attained anything, impossible to remember when the orchard was aflame in the sunrise, and the oriole was shouting from the elm tree. Christina burst into song, just as spontaneously as the robins. 

 It was a very foolish song, too, one that Jimmie had brought home from Algonquin High School: 

 "Oh, Judy O'Toole, It's you that's the fool, For lavin' the county o' Cork. Oh, Judy O'Toole, It's you that's the fool, That iver ye came to New York!" 

 Ellen, her eldest sister, was frying the pork and potatoes for breakfast in the old summer kitchen. She looked through the door as the singer passed. 

 "Christine!" she called reprovingly.  "Whatever will that girl sing next?" 

 Uncle Neil, who was drying his hands on the roller towel at the door, laughed indulgently. 

 "It isn't jist the kind of a hymn that would do for prayer-meeting," he said.  "Hi, 

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