le girl, and you are to have it as you want it.
The only desire I have on earth is to do things for you."

Elizabeth shot a quick look of joy up to him. "No one but Aunt Susan has
ever wanted to do anything for me," she said, and opening her arms held
them out to him, crying, "Am I to be happy? John! John! do you love me,
really?"

And that was the burden of their conversation during the entire stay.

"It can't be possible, John," the happy girl said at one point. "I have
never known love--and--and I want it till I could die for it."

"Just so you don't die _of_ it, You'll be all right," John Hunter replied,
and went home from Nathan's, later, whistling a merry tune. He had not
known that love poured itself out with such abandonment. It was a new
feature of the little god's manoeuvring, but John doubted not that it was
the usual thing where a girl really cared for a man.

"I'll farm the whole place next year, and It'll be different from boarding
at the Chamberlains', where they don't have any napkins and the old man
sucks his coffee out of his saucer as if it hurt him. Mother 'll like her
too, after we get her away from that sort of thing and brush her up, and
get her into the Hunter ways," he told himself as he tied the pony in the
dark stall.

The next day was a dream to the young girl, who patiently watched the
clock and waited for the hour of visiting the new house again. "I have no
higher desire on earth than to do things for you," was the undercurrent of
her thoughts. She was to escape from the things which threatened at home.
Instead of always rendering services, which were seldom satisfactory after
she had sacrificed herself to them, she was to be served as well. Oh, the
glad thought! Not of service as such, but of the mutuality of it. She
loved John Hunter and he loved her. There was to be understanding between
them. That was the joy of it. To put her hand on the arm of one that
appreciated not only her but all that she aimed at, to open her heart to
him, to be one with him in aspiration, that was the point of value which
Elizabeth Farnshaw never doubted was to be the leading characteristic of
their life together.

Now that she was engaged, Elizabeth felt herself emancipated from home
authority. She would belong to herself hereafter. She would stay with Aunt
Susan till she had her sewing done for the winter at Topeka. She would go
to school only one year, just enough to polish up on social ideas and
matt