.

Elizabeth stirred dully and looked up, but did not speak. There was that
about her which made her unapproachable. She showed no resentment, no
anger, no emotion of any sort. She had come home from Nathan's house as
she was now. She had refused to go to the funeral, but she had had supper
ready when John and his mother had returned from the graveyard, and it had
been as orderly and as well cooked as usual, but she had not talked at the
meal, nor seemed to hear when she was spoken to, but there was evidently
no pouting. John had tried to explain, and she had given silent
opportunity, and when it had been finished had said, "Yes," in a hollow
voice, and had moved on about her work without looking up, but there had
been no apparent resentment.

Before bedtime that night the baby (who had gone to sleep while she had
nursed him when she had come home), awoke crying. She had taken him up and
had offered her breast, but it had turned away as if sickened, and had
continued to cry till, presently, it had doubled its little body together
with a sharp scream and vomited till its breath was nearly gone. There had
been a sour odour to the contents of its stomach that had struck terror to
their hearts, and before morning Doctor Morgan was at its side. He had
noted the leaden movements of the mother and calling John outside had
questioned him regarding her. John, troubled at her indifference to him
and the lifelessness of her attitude even toward the babe, had told him
all he knew--as he understood it.

"Of course she boarded with them two years ago," he had said in
concluding, "but I don't see that that needs to cut such a figure."

"Were your wife and Mrs. Hornby great friends?" Doctor Morgan asked,
studying John Hunter and puzzling over the evident mystery of the
situation.

"Ye-e-s-s!" with perplexed deliberation; "that is, she liked her better
than any of the rest of the neighbours around here. She wanted to go there
last Sunday and I thought the baby wasn't fit to take out. It looks now as
if I was right."

"Well, she's had a shock of some kind, and if you don't look out She'll be
down on our hands too. You'd better get a girl or let your mother do the
work for a couple of weeks," Doctor Morgan advised.

And John Hunter had looked faithfully for some one to take his wife's
place in the kitchen and had found what she had told him when Hepsie left
to be true. In many places where there was no excuse given and girls were