of memory of the old childish past, such as birthdays always
bring--something smote her with a sudden consciousness that life itself
was slipping away, and she was alone. No husband, no child, no home,
except as she earned each month, by fashioning bonnets and caps for the
Charlottetown women, money enough to pay the rent of the two small rooms
in which she slept, cooked, and plied her trade. Some tears rolled down
Katie's face as she sat before her looking-glass thinking these
unwelcome thoughts.

"I'll go to the Orwell Head picnic to-morrow," she said to herself.
"It's so near the old place perhaps Donald'll walk over home with me.
It's long since he's seen the farm, I'll be bound."

Now, Katie did not say to herself in so many words, "It will be like
old times when we were young, and it may be something will stir in
Donald's heart for me at the sight of the fields." Not only did she not
say this; she did not know that she thought it; but it was there, all
the same, a lurking, newly revived, vague, despairing sort of hope. And
because it was there she spent half the day retrimming a bonnet and
washing and ironing a gown to wear to the picnic; and after long and
anxious pondering of the matter, she deliberately took out of her best
box of artificial flowers a bunch of white heather, and added it to the
bonnet trimming. It did not look overmuch like heather, and it did not
suit the bonnet, of which Katie was dimly aware; but she wanted to say
to Donald, "See, I put a sprig of heather in my bonnet in honor of your
boat to-day." Simple little Katie!

It was a large and noisy picnic, of the very sort Donald most disliked,
and he kept himself out of sight until the last moment, just before they
swung round at Spruce Wharf. Then, as he stood on the upper deck giving