.

"Emmy, I'm afraid you've overdone," she said with a start.

"No, I haven't," answered the girl without flinching; "it's been a
little hard yesterday and to-day, and I'm tired, that's all. Don't tell
Ben."

"Are you too tired to go to the church sociable this evening?" pursued
the mother anxiously.

"Yes, I believe I am."

"I saw Steve Elliott and 'Rene Burnham driving that way a few minutes
ago. I thought they was over at the camp." Mrs. Wickersham had resumed
her work and had her back toward her daughter.

"They weren't there to-day," said Em listlessly.

"Does she go with him much?"

There was a rising resentment in Mrs. Wickersham's voice. Em glanced at
her anxiously.

"I don't know," she faltered.

"I don't see how she can act so!" the older woman broke out indignantly.

The girl's face turned a dull white; she opened her lips to breathe.

"I used to think she liked Benny," Mrs. Wickersham went on, speaking in
a heated undertone. "I should think she'd be ashamed of herself."

Em's voice came back.

"I don't believe Ben cares, mother," she said soothingly.

"I don't care if he doesn't, she'd ought to," urged Mrs. Wickersham,
with maternal logic.

There was a sound of strained, ineffectual coughing in the front room.
Mrs. Wickersham left her work and hurried away. When she came back Em
was sitting on the doorstep with her forehead in her hands.

"Benny's got a notion he could drive over to the store to-morrow," her
mother began excitedly; "he's got something in his head. He thinks if
Joe Atkinson would bring their low buggy--I'm sure I don't know what to
say;" the poor woman's voice trembled with responsibility.

Em got up with a quick, decisive movement.

"Don't say anything, mother. If Ben wants to go, he's got to go. I'll
run over to Atkinson's right away."

Mrs. Wickersham caught her daughter's arm.

"No, no; not to-night. He said in the morning, he must be better, don't
you think so, Emmy?" she pleaded.

"Of course," said Em fiercely. Then she turned and fastened a loosened
hairpin in her mother's disordered hair. Even a caress wore its little
mask of duty with Em. "Of course he's better, mother," she said more
gently.

V.

It was Sunday, and the little valley was still with the stillness of
warm, drowsy, quiescent life. At noon, the narrow road stretching
between the shadowless barley-fields was haunted by slender, hurrying
spirals of dust, like phantoms tempted by the silenc