And when the spring had advanced a little, the boat was got out, and then Alec could not go rowing in the _Bonnie Annie_ without thinking of its godmother, and inviting her to join them.

Indeed Curly would not have let him forget her if he had been so inclined; for he felt that she was a bond between him and Alec, and he loved Alec the more devotedly that the rift between their social positions had begun to show itself.

The devotion of the schoolboy to his superior in schoolboy arts had begun to change into something like the devotion of the clansman to his chief--not the worst folly the world has known--in fact not a folly at all, except it stop there: many enthusiasms are follies only because they are not greater enthusiasms.

And not unfrequently would an odd laugh of consciousness between Annie and Curly, unexpectedly meeting, reveal the fact that they were both watching for a peep or a word of Alec.
In due time the harvest came; and Annie could no more keep from haunting the harvest than the crane could keep from flying south when the summer is over.

She watched all the fields around Glamerton; she knew what response each made to the sun, and which would first be ripe for the reaping; and the very day that the sickle was put in, there was Annie to see and share in the joy.