ther which greeted her.

"You know my wife, Lizzie," he said with such a happy look in Sadie's
direction that Elizabeth's heart responded to the call for open
friendship. Luther never nursed suspicion.

"I should just say I did," Elizabeth replied warmly, extending her hand to
the little woman Luther was setting on her feet. Luther climbed promptly
into the high seat from which he had just lifted his wife and held his own
hand down to Elizabeth from there.

"It was mighty fine for you to send word for her t' come along."

And Elizabeth did not let him gather from any hint of expression or word
that so far from sending word for Sadie to spend the day with her, she had
not known till in these last ten minutes that either of them was expected.
John came and talked to Luther, mounting the spring-seat at his side to
ride to the field, but did not look at Elizabeth, though she looked at him
longingly and everything in her cried out for reconciliation and openness.
John had a way of ignoring her when explanations had to be made.

Luther's attitude toward his wife had influenced Elizabeth in Sadie's
favour as nothing else had ever been able to do. She began to feel less
hostile, and as they turned toward the house asked her interestedly how
she was "coming on" with her garden and chickens. This was common ground,
and Sadie warmed to the real welcome she was accorded. She stopped beside
Elizabeth's coops in the backyard and examined the little groups of
begging, downy balls with the animation of a true farmer's wife. Here was
something she knew as well as Elizabeth; in fact, when a count was made it
was discovered that Sadie's broods several times outnumbered those of the
neighbour she envied. It was an absorbing topic of conversation, and the
two women stood for some moments with the hungry little beggars clamouring
lustily about them. Suddenly they became conscious of the smell of burning
sugar.

"Oh, my goodness!" Elizabeth exclaimed, and ran to the kitchen, leaving
her guest to follow as she chose.

Hepsie had gone upstairs, and as Elizabeth opened the oven door a cloud of
smoke rolled out which nearly blinded her and set her to coughing.

Sadie followed her in and somehow her mood changed as she looked over the
well-kept kitchen. Something in the tidy order and tasty arrangement of
its shelves hurt. Sadie was not a natural housekeeper.

"Bet she just thinks she beat us all," she thought as she laid her bonnet
on th