e placed in a shining crown about her head, and
her freshly ironed white dress and her white canvas shoes were
immaculate. For her keen sense of a lack of beauty had taught her the
value of scrupulous neatness. She was studying her Sunday School
lesson, and her white gown and her bright head bent over the open Bible
on her lap, made her look not unlike a young saint at her meditations;
which was an entirely misleading picture, for Christina's mind was
rioting joyously across the University campus, far away from Orchard
Glen and Sabbath calm, even though her eyes were reading words such as
never man spake,

"Therefore, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or drink
... is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?"

"Are you really ready?" cried Sandy in admiring astonishment, as he
settled himself beside her in the hammock. "You never take half as
much time as the other girls to get dolled up!"

It was more than two months since Allister had gone back to the West,
and Neil had left for his summer Mission Field away out on the
prairies. July was marching over the hills, trailing the glory of her
clover-blossom gowns, her arms ladened with sweet-smelling hay. The
pink blossoms were blown from the orchard and instead the trees were
hung with a wealth of tiny green globes. Inside the house and about
the barnyard there were changes also, for Allister had been very
generous, especially to John, and his labours had been very much
lightened by machinery.

Christina sat with her fingers between the leaves of her Bible, her
thoughts far away on the shining road to success which she and Sandy
were so soon to take. For her the days could not move fast enough.

"My, but I wish I didn't have that year of High School to put in
first," she declared. "But then I suppose I wouldn't be satisfied if I
were a B. A. and you a Ph. D. But I'm going to study like a runaway
horse next winter," she added, growing incoherent in her joy, "and
maybe I'll catch up to you, Mr. Alexander Lindsay."

Sandy lay back in the hammock and gazed up at the festoons of little
green balls, hanging in the trees. He did not respond with his usual
readiness to his sister's nonsense. His gaiety seemed to have deserted
him lately.

"I don't see how you can help getting up on the barn and yelling for
joy, Sandy," she declared impatiently. "I know I would, every time I
think about going to college, if I were a boy. But I have