The Back Hill was very silent and lovely in the evening. Far below her lay her home fields; she could see John and Sandy hauling in their last load of alfalfa, with Jimmie perched on the top. She opened the bars into the back pasture and the stately herd trooped in, according to precedence. Cherry stepped back meekly until Plum walked ahead, for the cows were all well bred and knew their place. And Plum's place was always at the head. She strolled in like some splendid duchess, her meeker sisters dropping behind. Christina laughed as she put up the bars. She always called Plum Mrs. Sutherland. She wondered if Wallace would be staying all Summer in Orchard Glen. She was thinking so much about him that she did not see some one coming up the opposite slope until a tall figure suddenly appeared on the other side of the fence. "Good evening, Christine," said Gavin Grant. "Good night, Gavin," called Christina. She was always just a little bit flustered in Gavin's presence. She was half afraid that he cared for her and just a little bit afraid that he did not care at all. "How is your haying?" she asked pleasantly. "Fine. I finished to-day. And I was just looking if these oats were ready. If the rain holds off I'll cut them to-morrow." "Did Auntie Janet help you?" asked Christina slyly. Gavin's dark eyes twinkled. "No, she didn't, but I had to give in and get Hughie Reid's boys to help me, or she would have. I'm afraid I can't manage her alone." Christina was wondering how many young men she knew on the farms about would be so careful of three old women as Gavin was of his Aunts. Tilly Holmes said that Mrs. Sutherland waited upon Wallace hand and foot. But then one could not believe half the gossip Tilly repeated. She pulled a plume of the flaming fire-weed, a bright monument to some splendid forest monarch that had perished in the flames. "I like this flower, even if it is only a weed," she said. Gavin smiled sympathetically. "I always like weeds best, but I daren't tell my Aunties that," he said. He was much more at his ease here up on the hills, and he looked very fine too, with the sleeves rolled back from his strong brown arms, and his bare head covered with thick wavy hair. If he wore the kind of clothes that Wallace Sutherland wore, Christina could not help thinking he would be quite as handsome. "I like weeds," he was saying, "though they do give a great deal of trouble. This bind weed now. It is such a plague but I feel sorry every time I destroy it." He pulled a long graceful branch with its exquisite pink blossoms and Christina put out her hand for it. And Gavin was emboldened to gather a little blossom of the blue jay and hand it to her shyly. He wanted to tell her that the fire-weed was like her cheeks and the blue jay like her eyes, but he could not. He knew Christina's ambition, and he was too proud to play the lover when he was not wanted.