ome, and you know how contagious it is."

"Oh, Luther! Of course Luther knows all there is to know about anything,"
sneered her husband, to whom Luther was a sore point just now.

Elizabeth realized her mistake in mentioning Luther's name to John almost
before it was out of her mouth. John's instincts made him bluster and get
off the subject of business and on to that of personalities at once. She
did not reply to the taunt, but went quietly back to the point of
business.

"The price of corn," she said with perfect control, "will go way up after
this dry weather, but the price of beef doesn't always rise in proportion.
Besides that, this is a bad year to get tied up in the money market."

"We're going to have to do it all the same," John replied, spurred on by
the mention of Luther's name to compel her consent.

"But, we can't do it. Hugh especially directed in his letter that we must
not go into debt."

"I have not had the honour of seeing Hugh's letter to you, and therefore I
do not know," John returned. That was another sore point.

"So you didn't! Doctor Morgan read it to all the rest."

Elizabeth had forgotten that John had not heard the letter read, and rose
promptly and went for it. She laid it on the table at his elbow when she
returned saying:

"I had forgotten--you didn't hear it when the doctor read it that day."

John Hunter brushed it aside with his arm.

"I don't wish to see it, thank you."

The letter fell on the floor. Elizabeth stooped quickly and picked it up.

"You may do as you wish about that; I shall not consent to the mortgage
just the same," she said, her temper getting the better of her at last.
She turned to the bedroom to put the letter away.

"Now look here, Elizabeth!" John called after her.

Seeing the ineffectiveness of carrying on the conversation when they were
not face to face, John waited till she returned. When she was seated again
and had begun to rock the restless child once more, he began:

"We may as well understand each other right now as any time. If you're
going to run this place, I want to know it, and I'll step down and out."

John looked belligerent and waited for her to do her womanly duty and give
in. Elizabeth made no reply. John waited. He continued to wait for some
seconds.

"I shall not consent to a mortgage," was the quiet answer.

John Hunter flung himself out of the house.

It was a bad afternoon for John. The drizzle had hardly been enough to