urning
the horses out and John had untied and led the team used for driving to
the pasture gate himself.

"I don't know whether I kin ketch 'em 'r not, but I'll try," he called
after her.

Elizabeth turned back hopefully, but John said

"Now look here, Elizabeth, those horses have been playing like mad for
half an hour, and you could no more catch them than you could fly."
Turning to Jake, "I'll take Mrs. Hunter next Sunday if she's just got to
go. A man wants to rest when Sunday comes," he added under his breath.

Jake Ransom watched Elizabeth drag her listless feet up the steps and shot
a look of disdain at the back of John Hunter as he followed her.

"You dirty cuss!" he exclaimed under his breath. "Lizzie's as good a woman
as th' is in this country, an' she don't git nothin' she wants. I bet I
see t' gittin' them horses ready next Sunday myself."

Going into her bedroom, Elizabeth Hunter laid off the finery of girlhood,
and with it her girlhood also.

"I'll never ask him again," she told herself, and put her hair back into
its woman's knot and went to the kitchen and began dinner.

* * * * *

Susan Hornby shaded her eyes with her hand, and looked up the road for the
fortieth time.

"The baby must be worse, Nate," she said to her husband when at last there
had to be a discussion of the matter.

Nathan Hornby followed her into the kitchen and helped to take up the
dinner which had been waiting over an hour. His head burned with
indignation, but there was something in Susan's defeat which brooked no
discussion on his side. They had come as near quarrelling over this
invitation as they had ever done about anything in their married life.

As they sat at the table eating their belated dinner, a lonely horseman
appeared coming down the road from the west.

"It's Jake! I wonder if he's going for the doctor?" Susan exclaimed. "You
never can tell what anybody has to contend with." And the meal was left to
cool unfinished as the old couple left the house and hailed the rider.

"I didn't hear nothin' about th' baby bein' worse," Jake was obliged to
answer when put under question.

He was so conscious that Elizabeth would not approve of the truth being
told that he stammered and made his listeners feel that something was left
untold. In fact, Jake's reticence was of the exact quality to add to the
distrust already aroused. He edged away at last and left Susan Hornby
lo