"You'd better get up--the girl's gone," Lorne had stuck his head into his sister's room to announce, while yet the bells were ringing and the rifles of the local volunteers were spitting out the feu de joie.

"I've lit the fire an' swep' out the dining-room.

You tell mother.

Queen's Birthday, too--I guess Lobelia's about as mean as they're made!" And the Murchisons had descended to face the situation.

Lorne had by then done his part, and gone out into the chromatic possibilities of the day; but the sense of injury he had communicated to Advena in her bed remained and expanded.