and
could not.

A week is a long time when anxiety governs the thoughts, and as Elizabeth
grew more lonely she crept into Aunt Susan's arms as well as into her
heart. It became her custom to creep up to the older woman after the lamps
were lighted and lay her head in her lap, while she would imprison one of
Aunt Susan's hands so as to be able to fondle it. The evidences of
affection became more and more a part of her thoughts now that the days
were slipping by without receiving those evidences from the one who had
educated her in them.

The last day of school arrived. John had told Elizabeth the week before
that he expected to take her and her trunk home, but not having seen him
nor had a word from him recently regarding the matter, a strange feeling
of disaster made the closing school exercises unreal and uninteresting.
After the children were gone, Elizabeth began the task of cleaning the
schoolroom and putting it in order. She set about the work slowly, making
it last as long as she could. School teaching had been pleasant work. It
had been the one free field of action life had ever granted her, the one
point where she had ever possessed herself and moved unquestioned. The
presence of John Hunter's mother in the community had made the teaching
seem a refuge to the young girl who was to live in the house with her.
Elizabeth had not understood that Mrs. Hunter was actually to live with
them till a short time before her arrival, and then had very nearly given
offence to her lover by an astonished exclamation of surprise. Perceiving
that she had done so she hastened to say that she would be very glad to
have his mother with them. As soon as Elizabeth had got away, and taken
time to think it out, she saw that she had lied. John also knew that it
was not exactly true, and was therefore more sensitive. It had been the
first point of real difference between them. There had been no discussion
of it. Elizabeth would have been glad to go to him and say that she wished
it, but she did not wish it and would not lie consciously. If it had to
be, she would make the best of it and make his mother as welcome as she
could, but with the instincts of all young things, the girl wanted to live
alone with her mate. The unnaturalness of having others thrust upon them
during that first year of married life jarred upon her, just as it has
jarred upon every bride who has been compelled to endure it since the
beginning of time. It made of the