"Oh, my! Wouldn't that be grand. It would be the very best—well, the second best thing in the world!"
"And what would be the very best?"
"To go to the University with Sandy next Fall!" she answered promptly.
"Well, I declare!" Allister laughed, "you've all been bitten by the education bug. Mr. Sinclair used to say that if father was to change the catechism, he'd have it read: 'Man's chief end is to glorify God and get a good education.'"
"Just what I believe exactly!" declared Christina, who was trembling with excitement.
"But girls go and get married, or ought to," said Allister practically.
"Well, I hope I will some day," confessed Christina. "I don't want to be an old maid like the Auntie Grants. But I want to go away from Orchard Glen first, and see what the world's like—and get a grand education and know heaps and do something great—oh, I don't know what, but just something like you read about in the papers!"
The cows were in the pasture by this time, and as Allister put up the bars he said,
"Let's set down here for a few minutes and settle this matter."
Christina perched herself at his side on the top of the low rail fence. The soft May mists were gathering in the valleys, the orchards shone pink in the sunset. Away down in the beaver meadow the frogs were tuning up for their first overture of evening, and a whippoorwill far up in the Slash had begun to sing his lonely song to the dark hillside. Allister looked about him and uttered a great sigh of contentment.