ar at her heart;
she knew what her mother's presence meant. Mrs. Farnshaw resented the new
carpet, she resented Susan Hornby, she resented the comradeship she felt
existed between her daughter and this alien woman who was no relation to
her by the ties of blood. Ignoring Aunt Susan's courteous attempts to make
her feel welcome, she drove straight to the object of her visit and
demanded that Elizabeth come home to be married.

"I'm going to be married right here, ma," Elizabeth replied, twisting the
hammer around in the other hand and filled with apprehension. She knew her
mother's tendency to hold fast to foolish demands.

Mrs. Farnshaw's ready handkerchief went up to her eyes at once.

"Now look a' here, Lizzie, I ain't got no other girl, an' it's a pretty
how-de-do if I can't have my only daughter married from my own house."

Elizabeth fidgeted about, laying her hammer down and picking up a straw
that had pushed its way through the loose rags of the carpet on which she
sat. After a time she turned her eyes to Aunt Susan with a mute call for
help. Susan Hornby was decidedly uncomfortable.

"I thought of course you'd come home to be married," Mrs. Farnshaw
continued.

"You know pa 'd raise a fuss as soon as I appeared," her daughter
replied.

Mrs. Farnshaw brightened. She was strong on argument. Elizabeth's silence
had disconcerted her, but if she would talk--well, Mrs. Farnshaw began to
have hopes.

"You've been away all summer," she sobbed, returning to her handkerchief.

Elizabeth kept her eyes on Aunt Susan's face and did not reply again.
There was another silence.

Mrs. Farnshaw began to be desperate.

"Folks has talked an' talked," she said, "an' I let 'em, because I thought
when you come home for th' weddin' it'd put a stop t' their tongues.
You've been down here, an' you don't know how hard it's been."

Elizabeth had listened in a distressed silence and studied Susan Hornby's
face for signs of assistance.

"I guess they haven't talked----" she began at length, and then stopped
short at something in Aunt Susan's eye which confirmed her mother's
words.

"Oh, yes, they have," her mother hastened to say. "They say you ain't got
no proper pride, an' they say you've got too stuck up t' live to home any
longer, now that you're goin' t' marry rich, an' they say I can't make
your things good enough for you t' be married in, an'----"

Mrs. Farnshaw had voiced her greatest grievance--her neighbours critic