scrutinizingly in her face one day, seeking, as he was always doing, for
stray glimpses of resemblance to Elspie, saw this change, and
impulsively told her of it.

"But ye're growin' young, Katie--d'ye know it?--young and bonny, my
girl."

And Katie listened to the words with such sweet joy she feared her face
would tell too much, and put up her hands to hide it, crying: "Ah, ye're
tryin' to make me silly, you Donald, with such flatterin'. We're gettin'
old, Donald, you an' me," she added, with a guilty little undercurrent
of thought in her mind. "D'ye mind that I was thirty last month?"

"Ay," replied Donald, gloomily, his face darkening,--"ay; I mind, by the
same token, I'm forty. It's no need ye have to be callin' yersel' old.
But I'm old, an' no mistake." The thought, as Katie had put it, had been
gall and wormwood to him. If Katie thought him old, what must he seem to
Elspie!

It was early in June that Elspie had had the spinning-bee to which Katie
had brought the unwelcome Donald. The summer sped past, but a faster
summer than any reckoned on the calendar of months and days was speeding
in Elspie's heart. Such great love as Donald's reaches and warms its
object as inevitably as the heat of a fire warms those near it. Early in
June the spinning-bee, and before the last flax was pulled, early in
September, Elspie knew that she was restless till Donald came, glad when
he was by her side, and strangely sorry when he went away. Still, she
was not ready to admit to herself that it was anything more than her
natural liking for any pleasant friend who broke in on the lonely
monotony of the farm life.