y concerned about her disappointment, heard constant reference to
Mrs. Hornby's assistance at the time of the baby's coming, and knowing
that there would be discussion of their neglect to her in the
neighbourhood, joined authoritatively in Elizabeth's entreaty the next
time it was mentioned, thereby accomplishing through fear of gossip a
thing which no amount of coaxing on Elizabeth's part could ever have done,
and at last the trip was to be made.

Susan Hornby's home was so unchanged in the year that Elizabeth had been
gone that, but for the baby in her arms, she could hardly have realized
that she had been away. Aunt Susan sent her to the bedroom with the wraps
when they were taken off. It was the same little room the girl had
occupied for half that year, the same rag carpet, the same mended rocking
chair which had come to grief in the cyclone, and the knitted tidy which
the girl herself had made. With the hot tears running down her cheeks the
girl-mother threw herself upon the bed and buried her face in the baby's
wraps to stifle the cry she was afraid would escape her. In the sanctuary
of her girlhood's highest hopes, Elizabeth sobbed out her disappointments
and acknowledged to herself that life had tricked her into a sorry network
of doubts and unsettled mysteries. For the first time she sunk her pride
and let Susan think what she would of her prolonged absence, and went
openly to the kitchen to bathe her face in Nathan's familiar tin basin. A
sudden suspicion of John's reception at Nathan's hands made it possible to
go back to Aunt Susan with a smile on her lips.

Indeed, Elizabeth's suspicions were so far true that they were a
certainty. Nathan, by Luther's marriage to a woman the old man suspected
of every evil, had cut himself off from every friend. Nathan had been
thrown in upon himself and had pondered and nursed his suspicions of all
men, and of John Hunter in particular. He finished the milking without
offering to go into the house; and John, who had insisted upon coming at
night instead of on a Sunday, was obliged to stand around the cow stable
and wait, or go to the house alone. He chose the former course and was
made happy by the arrival of Jake, who had not known where his employer
was going when his team was hitched to the wagon.

"I've just been over to Luther's, Mrs. Hornby," Jake said when they
finally stood around Aunt Susan's fire. "Did you know Sadie was sick?
Luther's awful good to 'er, but I k