," she said in reply to his observation
that it might hold for days, "but I'm just so glad of a real chance for a
visit with you that I'm quite willing to bring cobs and keep fires."

"If that's true, why don't you come t' see us as you ought t', Lizzie?"
Luther said, looking her searchingly in the eye. "I never meddle in other
people's business, but you ain't th' stuck-up thing folks says you are.
Honest now, why don't you do as a neighbour should?"

Elizabeth Hunter's face flushed crimson and she leaned forward to tuck the
old coat, in which she had wrapped her feet, more closely about them while
she took time to get herself ready to answer the paralyzing question. The
longer she waited the harder it became to meet the kindly questioning eyes
bent upon her, and the more embarrassing it became to answer at all. She
fumbled and tucked and was almost at the point of tears when Jack, who was
asleep on a bed made on two chairs, began to fret. Seizing the welcome
means of escape, she got up and took the child, sitting down a little
farther away from Luther and hugging the baby as if he were a refuge from
threatened harm.

Luther felt the distance between them, but decided to force the issue. He
came about it from another quarter, but with inflexible determination.

"I hope Sadie got her kindling in before the storm began. It'll be awful
cold in th' mornin', and--I do wish I could 'a' got home. Sadie's fires
always go out."

"Your cobs are closer to the house than mine; Sadie 'll get along all
right."

"How do you know where our cobhouse is now, Lizzie? You ain't seen it for
over a year," Luther observed quietly. And when Elizabeth did not reply,
said with his eyes fastened on Jack's half-asleep face: "I wonder how
Janie is?"

Glad to talk of anything but herself and her own affairs, Elizabeth
answered with feverish readiness the last half of Luther's observation.

"You never told me what the baby's name was before. Isn't it sweet?"

"Do you know, Lizzie, that Sadie 'd most made 'er mind up t' call it after
you, if it was a girl, if you'd 'a' come t' be with 'er when it was born,
as you said you would?" Luther looked at her almost tenderly, and with a
yearning beyond words.

"After me? She didn't send for me when she was sick, Luther."

"No, but she would 'a', if you'd 'a' come as you ought t' 'a' done them
months when she wasn't goin' out." He looked at her penetratingly.

"I haven't been anywhere since Aunt Su