he went round the house,
putting wood in the stoves and seeing that Grandpa was kept warm, and
singing,

"Oh, I'm glad my heart's my ain yet,
And I'll keep it sae all my life,
Till some bonny laddie comes by
That has wits that can wile a guid wife!"

On Valentine's Day she brought home a whole armful of letters. There
was one for her from Allister, and she tore it open first, while Ellen
eagerly opened one she had received. Allister had enclosed a valentine
for Christina, a horrible picture of a tall, thin, frowsy woman
sweeping a house, and beneath an atrocious rhyme about the cross old
maid who always stayed at home and swept and scrubbed. Christina
remembered with glee that she had sent him one, quite as ugly, a fat
old farmer, mean and tight-fisted, growing rich out of his ill-gotten
gains. She read his letter, even before she took time to show the
valentine to Grandpa, and it sent her dancing through the house in a
way that alarmed her mother. For Allister's letter had, once more,
opened up the door into the big outside world.

"I have to go back East on business next Summer some time," he wrote,
"and I'm going to make you come back here for a visit. The rich
bachelors are as thick as gophers out here and I think I ought to do
something for them, even if I can't get a wife for myself. So I'm
going to get all the Orchard Glen girls out here, one by one, and I
think you'll do all right for a start. Campbell and his wife are on my
place now and they'll be fine folks for you to stay with...." There
was more about the details of her visit, but Christina could not read
it for very joy. She went flying around the kitchen waving the letter
over her head.

"Hurrah!" she cried, "I'm going out West! I'm going to Alberta! My
Valentine's sent for me!"

"What's all this?" cried Uncle Neil, coming in from the barn and
stamping the snow from his feet. "I hope you're not thinking about
going to-day, there's likely a blizzard on the prairies."

Christina flew at him, crying out incoherent bits from Allister's
letter, and then rushed into the sitting-room where her mother sat by
the stove.

"Be wise, Christina, be wise," warned her mother, after she had
rejoiced mildly with her, "I'm often feared for you, when I see you so
bent on the things of the world."

Christina pulled her high spirits down to a discreet level and went
back to the corner of the kitchen, where Grandpa sat in his old rocker,
to