knew no restraint. He rained the
blows harder than ever and the girl finally caught the whip itself.
Catching the limber end desperately, she jerked it sidewise;
unconsciously, she had deflected her father's hand so that it struck her
head just below the ear. It stretched her senseless at his feet.

Josiah Farnshaw was aghast. With a gulping cry of alarm and pity, he
stooped to lift his unconscious daughter. He had not intended to do so
brutal a thing.

"Now look what you've gone an' done!"

Mrs. Farnshaw had watched Elizabeth go to him with something of prayer in
her heart. She knew the girl's intention was to be square about the
apology and she had strained every nerve to watch the encounter. At the
first blow she had started to the scene of action.

"I think you might have----"

The man's relenting mood vanished. He dropped the limp body and rose to
his full height.

"You damned fool," he exclaimed, "if you hadn't set this a goin' an' kept
it a goin' this wouldn't 'a' happened. Of all th' blasted, impossible
things it's t' have a snivelling she-devil always at your elbow. Keep your
hands off of me!" he cried, shaking himself loose from the detaining hand
she had laid on his arm. "I'm goin' t' git."

The boys had arrived by that time. They carried the girl to the well and
bathed her face and hands with fresh water, while the head of the house
strode down the road toward the north. Elizabeth was not seriously injured
and recovered consciousness as soon as the water touched her. Mrs.
Farnshaw left the task of resuscitation to her sons and looked after her
rapidly disappearing husband with eyes that longed for reconciliation.
Reconciliation for one thing or another had been the most driving
inspiration her twenty years of married life had known; it was her most
potent incentive. Cowed and broken, fear bound her fast to his footsteps.
Not even the daughter struggling to her feet at her side could detract her
attention from his receding form.

Elizabeth stood balancing herself dizzily for a moment before she began
really to see or grasp what was going on around her; then the full value
of the mishap broke upon her. All that Luther and Aunt Susan had hinted at
had befallen her in spite of every effort to avoid it.

But not even the calamity which had befallen them could stop their busy
fingers. The preparations for the wedding feast were a merciful feature of
the rest of the evening. The guests had been invited an