ide of life I battle with in almost every
home I go into. I'm almost glad you can't marry; It'll leave you where I
can respect you. Think of a woman having a child she don't want! and think
of a man respecting himself afterward! It destroys a woman's body, but the
men--well, it's the most damnable, soul-destroying thing in a man's life;
he's lost and don't even know it. Run along," he said after a pause, "or
I'll hold forth for another hour in an unprofessional way. It makes me
swear to see a pretty girl made old before she's twenty-five."

But Elizabeth Hunter was not to be an old woman before she was
twenty-five, for Elizabeth had Hepsie in the kitchen, she had learned to
protect herself by refusing to be oppressed about the work she did do, and
the weeks of rest that followed John's going were filled with the things
which rested and restored her. It was not long till she was as attractive
as she had ever been in all the years of her girlhood. Elizabeth was
barely twenty-three, and there was a good constitution back of her which
rest could set right; she was one of nature's favourites to whom colour
and spirits return quickly. Every charm of person she had was enhanced by
her present surroundings, for the brightness and freedom which came from
John's absence were the crowning things needed to complete her recovery.

Hugh Noland read to Elizabeth nightly, and in the daytime her comfort was
his first thought. The work of cooking for those shellers had been his
work as much as John's, but it had all fallen on her, fallen, according to
Doctor Morgan, at a time when a man shielded even the mare in his harness
from overwork. As he watched the colour come back to the girl's face day
by day he recognized that the miracle was brought about by rest. In the
return of Elizabeth's beauty there was a new element which Hugh Noland saw
but did not recognize as new: to the roundness of girlhood was added the
strength and experience of womanhood, to the mere physical charm of youth
the maturity and poise of the woman who has fought, if not conquered,
self.

John had set the example of late hours, and the two read throughout the
long, early summer evenings quite as much from habit as from inclination.
It had been the established custom of the house for so long that Hepsie
and the hired man accepted it as a matter of course. The men saw little of
it because one of the first things Hugh had done when he had returned from
Mitchell County