"Wouldn't it be awful," cried Mary aghast. "I can't remember when Bruce wasn't in love with Ellen and was coming here to see her. It would be an insult to the whole family!" she cried hotly.

Christina was not concerned about the family honour, but she was very much disturbed over Ellen. And then it was a heartbreaking thing to lose Bruce, too. He had always seemed like a brother, and it was almost as bad as if Neil or Sandy should become estranged.

Poor Ellen was striving hard to hide her hurt, and made heroic efforts to explain Bruce's changed manners. He was tired with all the unaccustomed work of the farm, he had to study at nights and that kept him at home. She was always ready with an excuse for his unaccustomed absence.

"Where's Bruce, Ellie?" asked her mother one Sunday evening when the usual crowd strolled in after the Methodist service.

"He's back at the gate with the boys, Mother," said Ellen with affected carelessness. "He'll likely be in later."

Bruce did come in later with John, but he did not stay late and went home when Annie and Katie left.

Of course Joanna did not fail to notice the change in Bruce and remark upon it. There was a little crowd at the Lindsays one evening to see Mary, when the McKenzie contingent entered without him.

"Where's your family doctor, Ellen?" Joanna inquired. "You'll have to look after your fellow better than you're doing!"

Ellen looked at her with quiet dignity, but her cheeks grew crimson.

"It's very good of you to be so interested in him, Joanna," she said.

"Course I'm interested in all my neighbours. Here's the whole McKenzie outfit, every one of them, but your particular one. Annie, you keep Bruce tied up as close as Ma Sutherland does her little boy. What have you done with him?"

Annie McKenzie was Ellen's close friend. She looked embarra.s.sed.

"He's tired. He's been working in the field all day and now he's got studying to do at night," she declared hurriedly.

"My! If you let him study that hard he ought to be a doctor about next Christmas! Maybe he's hurrying up so's he can get married a year or two sooner!"

Ellen's face grew pale, but Mary was there. Mary Lindsay had always been a match for Joanna in a quiet elusive way, and now from the vantage ground of a rather brilliant marriage Mary McGillivray was still more to be feared.

"Oh, Joanna," she said suavely, "a long piece of your hair is hanging down at the back. There's a looking-gla.s.s on the wall over there where Trooper's standing. Would you like to go and fix it?"

Joanna flounced away into the bed-room completely routed. There was something subtle about Mary that one could not combat.

Bruce dropped in late at the next practice that was held in the church.

He sat in the back seat and talked with the other boys during intermission, but his very presence seemed to make Ellen happy. She became radiant, and chatted and laughed gaily with the other girls, looking handsomer than she had for many a day.

When they started home, Christina, with an eye for Gavin, kept carefully in the crowd. But Gavin had turned and gone away at once with the other boys who were unattached. And with the perversity of a woman's mind Christina felt a little hurt. She wondered why he seemed to have stopped trying for her favour. Was it because he was discouraged, or because he did not care? She was so far from understanding Gavin that she did not guess that his pride was keeping him aloof.

Annie McKenzie and Ellen were ahead, and Christina found herself walking beside Bruce. This was not unusual, for Bruce had always been so much one of the family that he just as often walked with her or one of the boys as with Ellen. She was so happy that she was impelled to express her joy.

"It's so nice to see you at practice, Bruce," she said. "It's lonesome here when all the boys are away."

"Yes, it's good to be home again," said Bruce without enthusiasm. "But I think I've got the city fever rather badly. I just couldn't settle down in Orchard Glen, now that I've been away."

Christina sympathised. "I fancy I'll feel like that when I go away,"

she ventured.

"Yes, you will," he declared. "When you get away you realise how small and narrow everything in your life has been. It changes a person completely. Nothing seems the same." He spoke in tones of depression.

He was not at all the old Bruce who had been always kind and cheery, and almost as nice as John.

Christina experienced a feeling of dismay. "Nothing seems the same,"

weighed heavily upon her heart.

He came in for the evening lunch the Lindsay kitchen always furnished, but he went away when the rest left, and did not have a word with Ellen alone.

"What were you and Bruce talking about so seriously?" asked Ellen with forced lightness, as she and Christina put away the remains of the feast in the cellar.

"Oh, nothing much," said Christina confused. "About Toronto mostly.

He likes it awfully well there," and she hurried away into Grandpa's room to take her last look at him and see that he was comfortable, and avoided further questioning.

"Tell me all about him when you write next," Mary said when Hugh came as radiant and eager as on her wedding day to take her home.

Christina promised. "It wouldn't be so bad if everybody wasn't so interested," she said with a sigh. "It's Joanna; that's the worst part of it."

"This is such a narrow gossipy little place," complained the lady from the metropolis. "I'll be glad when you get away out West with Allister, Christine."

"But Ellen can't get away from it," said Christina, "and mother's been here nearly all her life and she's not narrow nor gossipy." For Christina was not quite so sure now that she really wanted to get away.

Ellen's undeniable trouble was taking away much of the joy of her sister's good fortune.

When the time came to write Mary, the news of Bruce was not encouraging. He came to the house very seldom, was almost melancholy and not at all his old self, and every one in the family noticed the change. Even Uncle Neil asked what was the matter between Ellen and Bruce, and he carefully avoided singing the "Standard on the Braes o'

Mar" in the evening, knowing that there would be no McKenzie's man coming over the hills as in the old joyous days.

And so June slipped away and Allister wrote that he would come about the middle of July and for Christina to be ready. She felt that she could no longer put off the evil day of telling Grandpa and one night as she helped him to bed resolved to prepare him.

"I've got something to tell you," she shouted as she gave him his hymn book and put back the curtain. "But there isn't time to-night. I'll tell you to-morrow."

"Eh, eh, that'll be fine," said Grandpa, who was always looking forward to good things. "Don't forget about it." And after she left, she heard him say,

"Eh, eh, but it's a fine bit la.s.sie. Eh, there's not such another--not such another!"

Christina felt a big lump choking her as she went upstairs to dress for practice.

Bruce appeared at practice again, and as the boys and girls paired off to go home, Christina noticed with great joy that he took his old place at Ellen's side and they walked away together.

Sandy had gone off with Margaret Sinclair again, and Christina joined herself to Burke Wright and Mitty, and later to Mrs. Johnnie Dunn. The Woman was still hot on the scent of the valentines and her remarks on the subject were highly amusing. They pa.s.sed Ellen and Bruce, and Christina noticed joyfully that they were walking very slowly and were in deep conversation. It was still more encouraging, as she slipped into the house alone, to see that they were standing at the gate very much absorbed.

Her mother was moving about the kitchen. No matter how late her children were in getting home she always lingered till all were safely in the house.

"Bruce and Ellen are hanging over the gate," whispered Christina excitedly. "They've taken about half an hour getting home."

"They'll be all right, then?" whispered her mother eagerly.

"Oh, yes," cried Christina joyfully. "I'll tell you all about it in the morning. You go away to bed now, mother, and I'll set the bread."

Her mother went slowly to her room, and Christina bustled about the kitchen. She had got out the bowl and the flour, when she heard Ellen's step on the old creaking veranda floor. The door opened and Christina turned with a word of gay raillery, but stopped suddenly.

Ellen stood in the doorway looking white and dazed, as though some one had given her a blow.

"Ellen!" cried Christina aghast. "What is the matter? Are you sick?"

Her sister did not seem to hear. She did not answer, but pa.s.sed the door and went on upstairs, slowly and stumbling, as though she were Grandpa's age!