ined, and for the first time Elizabeth heard the term
"lisle thread" used as against the common term of cotton for all things
not silk or woollen. The new cape was to have a wonderful metal fastener
called a clasp, and life ran like a silver stream the next two days as
they sewed on the new-fangled garment.

Oh, father! could you have but seen truly, how great would have been your
joy!

Each day Elizabeth watched the boys and girls come and go past Nathan
Hornby's house, and when the cape was finished she and Aunt Susan went
daily on shopping expeditions. It was the most wonderful week of her
fifteen years, and was well rounded out by going to church on Sunday and
for the first time listening to a choir, and seeing a window of softly
coloured glass. She almost wondered if she had been transported from the
body to the heaven of crowns and harps which her mother loved to
describe.

To heaven Elizabeth Farnshaw had gone in very truth, but it was the heaven
of adolescence and developing womanhood. In the short time she had been
observing the comings and goings of the boys and girls of their
neighbourhood one young man had begun to stand out from the rest.
Elizabeth was nearly sixteen, and when she saw _him_ now in a pew a few
seats ahead of her she made a little movement of astonishment.

Aunt Susan caught the sound of the indrawn breath and looked around
inquiringly, but Elizabeth, with eyes modestly down, studied her
gray-gloved hands and seemed unaware of her scrutiny. Happiness had been
Elizabeth Farnshaw's daily portion for weeks, but this was different. Here
was happiness of another sort, with other qualities, composed of more
compelling elements. The gamut of bliss had not all been run. Elizabeth
had progressed from Arcadia to Paradise and was invoicing her emotions.
She never shied around a subject, but looked all things in the face; and
she found this delightfully surprising world of emotions as entrancing as
the external one of mellow light, music, good clothes, and educational
prospects. The rest of the hour was a blissful dream, in which the only
thought was a wish for Luther and his stunted pony and the freedom of
grassy slopes where she could pour out her newfound joy. With each new
event of this life the loss of Luther was accentuated.

Nathan Hornby and his wife had no acquaintances in Topeka. They left the
church as soon as the service was over. The young girl went with them,
conscious that _he_ was be