o had ever known them would
hear it. Elizabeth would be all the better as a wife if she did not start
out by running around too much. It did not occur to Mrs. Hunter, nor to
her son, that if the old acquaintances were to be taken away from
Elizabeth that in all justice she must be provided with new ones. In fact,
it did not occur to them at all that her opinions were of any value
whatever. Why should John explain his plans to her? Why, indeed?

As she went about her Saturday morning's work Elizabeth watched John and
his mother stroll down the path in the pasture, certain that she herself
was the subject of their conversation, and her eyes burned with unshed
tears. The intimacy between John and his mother seemed so much more firmly
established than the intimacy between John and herself that she was filled
with lonesomeness and a longing for Aunt Susan.

"To-morrow's Sunday and there'll be nothing to do. He'll have to take me
then. He was tired and upset by that horrid talk last night. Oh, why do I
have to be mixed up with things I can't help--and--and have him cross, and
everything?" She ended with a little shuddering cry, and buried her head
in the kitchen towel and gave up to the tears which, now that she was
alone, she could candidly shed. How she longed for Aunt Susan, and yet she
could not have talked to her of these things; but in spite of that she
wanted her.

* * * * *

"Will you go over to--to Mrs. Hornby's with us to-day?" she asked Mrs.
Hunter at the breakfast table the next morning.

"Why--yes--if you're going," Mrs. Hunter answered with a hesitant glance
at John.

The tone and the hesitancy struck Elizabeth. She looked at John as she had
seen the older woman do.

"Mother spoke yesterday of your going," John said quickly, "and I
said--well, I want to get some more cleaning done about that barn before
the man comes. There's plenty of time about that. Let them come here if
they want to see us."

"But I want to go," Elizabeth persisted. She had been accustomed to
dictating where John Hunter should take her. John himself had taught her
to do so.

"Well, there's plenty of time. I'm busy to-day, if it is Sunday," was all
that her husband thought it necessary to reply.

The hope that Aunt Susan would come to see her if she found that they were
not coming over helped Elizabeth to accept the brusque refusal better than
she otherwise would have done. John was cheer