t, was simply the means of providing toys for
experimentation, and that she was being quietly but persistenly euchred
out of all that her heart cherished. Mr. Farnshaw valued the machinery he
was collecting about him, Mrs. Farnshaw valued the money, partly because
in one way and another it added to the family possessions, and also
because her husband having found out that he could obtain it through her
easier than by direct appeal, she could avoid unpleasantness with him by
insisting upon her daughter giving it to him; but Elizabeth's education
was valued by no one but Elizabeth, and unless she were to learn her
lesson quickly the time for an education to be obtained would have
passed.

"It's of no use for you to talk to me, ma," Elizabeth said the spring
after she was twenty years old, "I shall keep every cent I make this
summer. Pa gets into debt and won't let anybody help him out, and I am
going to go to Topeka this fall. I'm years older right now than the rest
of the scholars will be--not a single pupil that was there when I went
before will be there--and I'm going to go. I don't ever intend to pay the
interest on that old mortgage again--it's just pouring money into a
rat-hole!"

[Illustration: "'NOW LOOK HERE, LIZZIE, ... YOUR PA EXPECTS IT'"]

It was early morning and they were planting potatoes. Her mother stood
with her back turned toward the raw April wind as they talked, her old
nubia tied loosely about her head and neck, and her hands red with the
cold.

"Now look here, Lizzie"--Mrs. Farnshaw always refused to use the full
name--"your pa expects it."

"Of course he expects it; that's why he keeps adding to the mortgage; but
that don't make any difference. I'm going to Topeka this fall just the
same. I am not going to pay one dollar on the interest in May, and you can
tell pa if you like."

Mrs. Farnshaw was alarmed. Elizabeth had protested and tried to beg off
from the yearly stipend before, but never in that manner. The tone her
daughter had used frightened her and she quivered with an unacknowledged
fear. Her husband's wrath was the Sheol she fought daily to avoid. What
would become of them if the interest were not paid?

Added to Mrs. Farnshaw's personal desire to command her daughter's funds
there was the solid fear of her husband's estimate of her failure. She
could not look in his eye and tell him that she was unable to obtain their
daughter's consent. To live in the house with him after Lizzie