le front room and talked enthusiastically of the pasture he
would have for surplus cattle when he had got the farm in running order.
No reference was made to Elizabeth's affairs with her family. John was
keenly appreciative of her joy in his presence, and the old relations were
renewed; in fact, the relations were on a better basis than they had been
for several days before John's absence. By a curious stroke of fate,
Luther was away from the house every time John Hunter called for over a
week. It whetted John's interest in the other man not to be able to see
him, and it added an element to the courtship which had threatened to
disappear. This other man on the scene made him apprehensive; he wanted
the centre of the stage for himself, and he became more ardent. Elizabeth
was courted with sweet manner, and all her wishes considered.

The summer was a happy one. Aside from a simple white dress to be married
in, and two calico dresses for house wear, Elizabeth put her own sewing
away and helped Aunt Susan repair her quilts and carpets which had
suffered badly in the cyclone. Two weeks had to be given up to the
plastering of the remodelled house, and all the furniture was revarnished
by their own hands. By the time all this was finished the girl felt a
personal possession in every article the house contained, and it had
indeed become a home to her. The home she had left was scarcely more than
a shadow in Elizabeth's mind. The work of remodelling and brightening up
Nathan's house was hastened because of the wedding, which they planned to
have take place there. Susan Hornby and Elizabeth had grown closer than
ever since the storm, when each had feared the loss of the other. They
worked and sewed together, skimping Nathan and Luther on the cooking till
the former threatened to turn cook in self-defence.

Mrs. Farnshaw had not come to help when the neighbours put up the
demolished house. The bridges had been out and no one had gone to warn her
that help was needed. When the news had arrived the omission had been
taken as an offence and no effort had been made to go at all. The last
week in September, however, Elizabeth's mother came to see her. The girl
was helping Susan Hornby put fresh straw under the rag carpet in the front
room. The straw was carefully spread and the carpet tacked along one side
of the room, and Elizabeth, hammer in hand, turned over from her knees to
a sitting position and surveyed her mother with a dull fe