John Hunter and Elizabeth Farnshaw rode away in the cool summer evening, wholly unconscious of the thoughts of others. The sun had dropped behind the low hills in front of them, and as they rode along, the light-floating clouds were dyed blazing tints of red and gold, as glowing and rosy as life itself appeared to the young pair. Elizabeth took off her hat and let the cool evening breeze blow through the waves of hair on her temples and about the smooth braids which, because of the heat of the prematurely hot summer day, had been wound about her head. Her eyes were dreamy and her manner detached as she let the pony wander a half length ahead of its companion, and she was unaware that John was not talking. She was just drinking in the freshness of the evening breeze and sky, scarcely conscious of any of her surroundings, glad as a kitten to be alive, and as unaware of self as a young animal should be.

John Hunter rode at her side, watching the soft curls on her round girlish neck, athrob and athrill with her presence, and trying to formulate the thing he had brought her out to say. It was not till they were turning into the lane beside the new house that his companion realized that he had been more than usually quiet.

“You are a Quaker to-night, evidently, and do not speak till the spirit moves, Mr. Hunter,” she said, facing about near the gateway and waiting for him to ride alongside.

The young man caught the cue. “I wish you would call me John. I’ve been intending to ask you for some time. I have a given name,” he added.

“Will you do the same?” she asked.

“Call myself John?” he replied.

They both laughed as if a great witticism had been perpetrated.

“No, call me by my given name.”

“Lizzie, Bess, Elizabeth, or Sis?” he asked, remembering the various nicknames of her family.

“You may call me whatever you choose,” she answered, drawing the pony up where they were to dismount.

John Hunter stepped to the ground and with his bridle rein over his arm came around to the left side of her pony. Laying one hand on its neck and the other on the hand that grasped its bridle, he looked up into her face earnestly and said:

“I would like to call you ‘Wife,’ if I may, Elizabeth,” and held up his arms quickly to help her from the saddle.

When she was on the ground before him he barred her way and stood, pulsing and insistent, waiting for her answer.

It was a full minute before either moved, she looking down at their feet, he looking at her and trying to be sure he could push his claims.

When Elizabeth did look up it was with her eyes brimming shyly over with happy tears, and without waiting for her answer in words, John Hunter gathered her into his arms and smothered her face in kisses.

Ten minutes later they tied the horses to the new hitching post and passed into the yard.

“It is to be your house and mine, dearie,” the young man said, and then looked down at her to see why she did not answer.

Elizabeth was walking toward the house which was to be hers, oblivious of time and place, almost unconscious of the man at her side, stunned by the unexpectedness of this precious gift of love which had just been offered her. As they stepped upon the little back porch, he said:

“I brought you over to ask your advice about the stairway; the carpenters want to leave one step in the sitting room. It’ll be back far enough from the chimney to be out of the way and it makes their calculations easier about the stairs somehow. What do you think?”

Elizabeth was altogether too new in the sense of possession to grasp the full significance of the question. John Hunter laughed at the look she turned upon him and said, with a large and benevolent wave of the hand, indicating the entire premises:

“The house is yours, little girl, and you are to have it as you want it. The only desire I have on earth is to do things for you.”

Elizabeth shot a quick look of joy up to him. “No one but Aunt Susan has ever wanted to do anything for me,” she said, and opening her arms held them out to him, crying, “Am I to be happy? John! John! do you love me, really?”

And that was the burden of their conversation during the entire stay.

“It can’t be possible, John,” the happy girl said at one point. “I have never known love—and—and I want it till I could die for it.”

“Just so you don’t die of it, You’ll be all right,” John Hunter replied, and went home from Nathan’s, later, whistling a merry tune. He had not known that love poured itself out with such abandonment. It was a new feature of the little god’s manoeuvring, but John doubted not that it was the usual thing where a girl really cared for a man.

“I’ll farm the whole place next year, and It’ll be different from boarding at the Chamberlains’, where they don’t have any napkins and the old man sucks his coffee out of his saucer as if it hurt him. Mother ’ll like her too, after we get her away from that sort of thing and brush her up, and get her into the Hunter ways,” he told himself as he tied the pony in the dark stall.

The next day was a dream to the young girl, who patiently watched the clock and waited for the hour of visiting the new house again. “I have no higher desire on earth than to do things for you,” was the undercurrent of her thoughts. She was to escape from the things which threatened at home. Instead of always rendering services, which were seldom satisfactory after she had sacrificed herself to them, she was to be served as well. Oh, the glad thought! Not of service as such, but of the mutuality of it. She loved John Hunter and he loved her. There was to be understanding between them. That was the joy of it. To put her hand on the arm of one that appreciated not only her but all that she aimed at, to open her heart to him, to be one with him in aspiration, that was the point of value which Elizabeth Farnshaw never doubted was to be the leading characteristic of their life together.

Now that she was engaged, Elizabeth felt herself emancipated from home authority. She would belong to herself hereafter. She would stay with Aunt Susan till she had her sewing done for the winter at Topeka. She would go to school only one year, just enough to polish up on social ideas and matters of dress. Elizabeth Farnshaw knew that both John Hunter and his mother were critical upon those accomplishments and her pride told her to prepare for the mother’s inspection. She knew that she was considered a country girl by those of superior advantages, and she was resolved to show what could be done in a year in the way of improvement; then she would come home and teach for money with which to buy her wedding outfit, and then they would be married. Two years and the certainty of graduation would have suited her better, but two years was a long time. The picture of John without her, and the home he was building for her, planted themselves in the foreground of her thoughts, and Elizabeth was unselfish. She would not make John Hunter wait. She would make that one year at Topeka equal to two in the intensity of its living. She would remain away the shortest possible length of time which was required for her preparation. Elizabeth was glad that John had his mother to keep house for him, because she did not want him to be lonesome while she was gone, though she did not doubt that he would come to Topeka many times while she was there. Her mind flew off in another direction at that, and she planned to send him word when there were good lectures to attend.

“John likes those things,” she thought, and was filled with a new joy at the prospect of their books, and lectures, and intellectual pursuits. Her plan of teaching in the high school was abandoned. It was better to be loved and have a home with John Hunter than to live in Topeka. The more Elizabeth thought of it the more she was convinced that her plan was complete. She was glad there was a month to spare before Mrs. Hunter came. John’s mother was the only warning finger on Elizabeth’s horizon. She had always been conscious of a note of anxiety in John Hunter’s voice and manner whenever he spoke of his mother coming to Kansas to live, and she found the anxiety had been transferred to her own mind when she began to consider her advent into the home John was building. She had gathered, more from his manner than anything definitely said, that his mother would not approve of much that she would be obliged to meet in the society about them, that she was a social arbiter in a class of women superior to these simple farmers’ wives, and that her whole life and thought were of a different and more desirable sort. When Elizabeth thought of Mrs. Hunter she unconsciously glanced down at herself, her simple print dress, her brown hands, and the heavy shoes which much walking made necessary, and wondered how she did really appear; and there was a distinct misgiving in everything where the older woman had to be considered.

John came early that evening. The carpenters had raised new questions about shelves and doors and Elizabeth must go over and decide those matters. They walked over, and it was late before all the simple arrangements could be decided upon. As they returned they walked close together in the centre of the deep road so as to avoid the dew-laden grass on either side. The open door of Nathan’s house gave out a hospitable light, but they were content to saunter slowly, listening to the harvest crickets which were already chirruping in the weeds about them, and looking at the lazy red disk of the moon just peeping above the eastern horizon.

“I shall write mother of our engagement to-night,” John said after a rather long silence.

“Oh, don’t,” the girl replied, awakened suddenly from a reverie of a different sort. “Let’s keep it a secret for a while. I haven’t told Aunt Susan yet, and I don’t want to tell her till I go to Topeka. Of course I’ll have to explain if you come down there to see me.”

“To Topeka?” John exclaimed in astonishment.

Elizabeth laughed merrily. “Why, yes,” she said. “Isn’t it like me to think you knew all about that? I’m going to Topeka to school this winter—and—and I hope You’ll come a lot. We’ll have awfully good times. Then I’ll teach another term and get my wedding clothes and get them made, and then, John Hunter, I am yours to have and to hold,” she ended happily.

“You don’t mean that you are going to school again now that you are going to get married?” John Hunter asked with such incredulity that Elizabeth laughed a little joyous laugh full of girlish amusement, full of love and anticipation.

“Why of course—why not? All the more because we are going to be married. I’ll want to brush up on lots of things before I have to live near your mother; and—and we’ll have awfully good times when you come to see me.”

“Oh, goodness!” John said irritably. “I’d counted on being married this fall. I simply can’t wait two years, and that is all there is about it.” Elizabeth argued easily at first, certain that it could be readily arranged, but John became more and more positive. At last she became worried.

The harvest crickets were forgotten as the young girl pressed closer to his side, explaining the necessity, pointing out that it was to be her last little fling at the education for which she had planned so long, her timidity where his mother was concerned, and her desire to enter the family upon equal social terms.

“It is all tomfoolery,” John answered with fixity of purpose. “You don’t need a thing that you haven’t already got—except,” he added slowly, “except what mother could help you to. But that isn’t the point. I shall need you. It’s time for me to get down to business and raise some money. Between building the house and going”—John hesitated—“and not applying myself as I should, I’m not making anything this summer. I want to get away from this—from here—some day, and I want to begin real work at once. Mother can help you in anything you don’t know; she’s up on all those things; and we’ve got to get down to business,” he repeated.

There was a tone of finality in it. Elizabeth recognized it, but her plans were made and she was not ready to give them up.

“I can’t go into your house, John, I simply cannot, without getting away and learning some things. When I become your wife I want to be a woman you are proud to take to your mother. I can’t have it otherwise.”

There was quiet while she waited for the answer to her assertion. Elizabeth thought he was formulating a reply. The silence lengthened, and still she waited. They were getting nearer the house and she moved more slowly, drawing on his arm to check his advance. At last, realizing that he did not intend to speak when they were just outside of the lighted doorstep, Elizabeth stopped and, facing around so that she could see him in the dim light, asked:

“What is it? What have I done to offend you?”

“Nothing, only it upsets every plan I have on earth. I tell you, it’s all foolishness; and besides, I need you. Now see here”—and he went on to show her how his mother knew all the things she was going to Topeka to learn, and to outline his schemes for the future.

Confused by his opposition, and not knowing just how to meet this first difference of opinion, Elizabeth listened and made no reply. It was her way to wait when disturbed until she saw her way clear. Elizabeth was sound and sturdy but not quick and resourceful when attacked. John talked on till he had finished his argument and then turned to the house again. When they arrived at the step he said a whispered good-bye and was gone before Elizabeth realized that he was not coming in with her.

Susan Hornby had risen from her chair, thinking that John was coming into the house, and when she saw that he did not she slipped her arm about the young girl and kissed her as she was passing.

“I’m going to bed, Aunt Susan,” Elizabeth said, and passed on to the door of her own room. Susan Hornby knew that something had gone wrong.

Saturday morning was spent by Elizabeth sewing on a dress she was anxious to finish before Mrs. Hunter came, and when there were only mornings and evenings in which to sew, and inexperience made much ripping necessary, the work did not progress rapidly. As she sewed she considered. No, she would not give up the year away at school. It was absolutely essential that she come into the Hunter family equipped and ready to assume the rÔle which a wife should play in it. She would be married without a whole new outfit of clothes, but the year at school was a necessity. Elizabeth’s pride revolted against being taught social customs by John Hunter’s mother. As she thought of the year he must spend alone, however, she was quite willing to give up teaching an extra year for the sake of the usual bridal finery. She resolved to tell him that. She would be married in the simplest thing she had if he wished.

Fate in the person of John Hunter himself took the settlement of the bride’s gown out of Elizabeth’s hands. Just before noon he stopped, on his way back from Colebyville, to give Susan Hornby the mail he had brought out from the post-office. Elizabeth followed him to the wagon when he went out.

“Well, I wrote mother. Can you be ready by October?” He spoke across the backs of the horses as he untied them, and was very busy with the straps.

Elizabeth Farnshaw’s face contracted visibly. He had taken advantage of her.

“How could you do it?” she asked indignantly.

“Why, I thought it was settled! I told you I couldn’t wait a whole year, much less two. I told you about getting Mitchell County land and getting down to cattle raising right off. You didn’t say anything.”

There was such righteous innocence in his voice that the sting of deception was drawn from her mind. The young girl made no reply, but leaned her head against the withers of the horse at her side and looked down at her foot to hide her tears. It was a blow. She was conscious that somehow there had been a lack of high principle in it. Her silence the night before had given some colour to the claim of it having been settled, but there had been a haste about this letter which was suspicious. Why could he not have stopped on the way to town as well as now on the way home?

The question which was forming in Elizabeth’s mind was cut short by feeling John’s arm stealing around her. She started and glanced at the house apprehensively.

“Oh, they can’t see us,” John said, glad to have that phase of the situation up for argument. “It wouldn’t matter if they did, since we are to be married so soon.” He added the last warily and watched to see its effect upon her.

“But I didn’t want it to be as soon as that,” the girl objected half-heartedly, making her usual mistake of laying the vital point of difference away to be settled in her own mind before she discussed it. Perhaps after all John had thought it was settled the night before; at any rate she would not speak of her suspicion till sure on that point.

John Hunter noticed that she did not refuse outright to consent to the early marriage and drew her complacently to him.

“I couldn’t wait that long, sweet. I want you and I want you now.”

He drew her close, in a firm, insistent grasp of his strong arm. Her resistance began to melt.

“I love you,” his voice said close to her ear. She felt his eyes seeking hers. His was the position of advantage. Elizabeth loved love, and she had never had it before. She had never been wanted for love’s sake. She wished to believe him. It came over her that she had wronged him by even the thought of an advantage having been taken of her. John’s arm was about her, he was pleading his love. Why be unpleasant about it? It was only a little thing. As she had said in her engagement hour, Elizabeth wanted love till she could die for it. She gave up, though something in her held back and was left hungry.

As John Hunter drove home to Liza Ann’s waiting dinner he said to himself:

“Gosh! but I’m glad I got that letter off. I knew I’d better do it this morning or she’d be hanging back. It worked better than I had any reason to expect. She’s going to be easy to manage. Mother ain’t able to cook for hired men. She’s never had it to do—and she don’t have to begin. This school business is all foolishness, anyhow.”

Elizabeth did not stand as usual and watch her lover drive toward home. Something in her wanted to run away, to cry out, to forget. She was torn by some indefinable thing; her confidence had received a shock. She went back to the house, but to sew was impossible now. She decided to go home, to walk. The long stretches of country road would give time and isolation in which to think. She announced her determination briefly as she passed through the kitchen, oblivious of Aunt Susan’s questioning eyes. Snatching up the large sunbonnet which was supposed to protect her from the browning effects of Kansas winds and sun, she told the older woman, who made no effort to disguise her astonishment at the sudden change, to tell John to come for her on the morrow, and set off toward the north.

Elizabeth knew that her father’s temper made her homegoing an unsafe procedure, but the tumult within her demanded that she get away from Susan Hornby and think her own thoughts unobserved.

But though the walk gave her time to think, Elizabeth was no nearer a decision when she sighted the Farnshaw cottonwoods than she had been when she started out. The sun burned her shoulders where the calico dress was thin, and she wiped her perspiring face as she stopped determinedly to come to some conclusion before she should encounter her mother.

“I suppose I ought to give up to him,” she said, watching a furry-legged bumblebee as it moved about over the face of a yellow rosin weed flower by the roadside. “I wouldn’t care if it weren’t for his mother. I’d like to get some of these country ways worked out of me before I have to see too much of her. She’ll never feel the same toward me if she has to tell me what to do and what not to do. If only he didn’t want me so badly. If only I could have one year away.”

The new house pleaded for John Hunter, the content of a home, life with the young man himself. Elizabeth had reasoned away her distrust of the means by which her consent had been gained, but her heart clung to the desire to appear well before Mrs. Hunter. Something warned her that she must enter that house on an equal footing with the older woman.

“Well, he wants me, and I ought to be glad he is in a hurry. I’ll do it. I ought to have insisted last night if I meant to hold out, and not have let him misunderstand me. If it weren’t for his mother, I wouldn’t care.”

Having decided to accept the terms offered her, Elizabeth sat down in the shade of a clump of weeds and pictured, as she rested, the home which was to be hers. Compared to those of the farmers’ wives about them, it was to be sumptuous. She thought of its size, its arrangement, and the man who was inviting her to share it with him, and a glad little thrill ran through her. When Elizabeth began to sum up her blessings she began to be ashamed of having suspected John Hunter of duplicity in writing the letter.

“He told me he had no higher desires on earth than to do things for me,” she said, springing up and starting home with a song in her heart.

Mrs. Farnshaw, called to the door by the barking of the dogs, exclaimed:

“What in this world brings you home at this time of day?” Mrs. Farnshaw’s hands were covered with the dough of her belated Saturday’s baking.

“Just had to come, mummie; just had to come,” Elizabeth cried, giving her mother a rapturous little hug.

Mrs. Farnshaw ducked her head to avoid the manoeuvre, saying petulantly:

“Look out! Can’t you see I’m in th’ flour up t’ my elbows.”

Elizabeth flicked her dress sleeve and laughed in merry derision.

“Kansas flour brushes off easily, ma,” she said, “and I’ve got something to tell you.”

The corners of Mrs. Farnshaw’s mouth twitched in a pleased effort to cover a smile.

Elizabeth was surprised at her own statement. She had not exactly intended to tell her mother at this time and could not understand herself in having put the idea forth, that she had come all the way home to tell something of importance. She sat down and leaned her elbows on the littered kitchen table too confused to speak for a moment. She had made the plunge; there was no other excuse for the trip that she could think of at that time, and, with a feeling that Aunt Susan had been defrauded of something distinctly belonging to her, Elizabeth broke the silence with the bald statement.

“Mr. Hunter and I are going to be married.”

“Well, Lizzie, that ain’t much news; we seen it comin’ weeks ago,” the mother replied with a laugh.

“You did? I don’t see how you knew,” the girl said, startled out of her confusion.

“What’s he been comin’ here so steady for?” Mrs. Farnshaw replied, scraping the side of her bread pan with a kitchen knife, and ready to enter into this delightful bit of argument. Lizzie was doing well for herself.

“Lots of girls have steady company and don’t get married either,” the girl replied hesitantly.

“Oh, yes, but this is different,” the mother said. “When’s it goin’ t’ be?”

“Some time in October,” Elizabeth said, her words dragging. She had consented, but the mere mention of the time made her shrink.

“Is th’ house done?” Mrs. Farnshaw asked, her mind, like her hands, filled with practical concerns.

“Almost,” Elizabeth returned as she rose to get the broom with which to sweep the ever dusty floor. “It’s ready to paint,” she added.

“Is it goin’ t’ be painted? Will it be white and have green shutters?”

Elizabeth laughed at the gratified pride in her mother’s tone.

“I don’t know, ma,” she said, looking for the shovel, which, when it could be located, served as a dustpan.

“Didn’t he ask you what colour to put on it?” the mother asked, fishing the shovel out of the rubbish collected behind the rusty cook stove. “Now look here, Lizzie,” she added with sudden suspicion, “don’t you go an’ spoil him right t’ begin with. You let him see that you want things your own way about th’ house. If you set your foot down now, You’ll have it easier all th’ way through. That’s where I made my mistake. I liked t’ give up t’ your pa at first an’ then—an’ then he got t’ thinkin’ I didn’t have no right t’ want anything my way.”

Mrs. Farnshaw filled the hungry stove with cobs and studied the subject dejectedly.

“I don’t get my way about nothin’. I can’t go t’ town t’ pick out a new dress that is bought with money I get from th’ eggs, even. He’ll manage most any way t’ get off t’ town so’s t’ keep me from knowin’ he’s goin’, an’ then make me send th’ eggs an’ butter by some one that’s goin’ by. He makes me stay home t’ watch something if he has t’ let me know he’s goin’ his self. I don’t own my house, nor my children, nor myself.”

The undercurrent of Elizabeth’s thoughts as she listened to the spiritless tale was, “but John’s so different from pa.”

“I reckon I’ll never have no help from you now,” Mrs. Farnshaw continued in the same whine.

The girl crossed the room and put her arms tenderly around her mother’s neck.

“I’ll live real near you, ma, and you can come and see me every few days. Don’t let’s spoil these last few weeks by worrying,” Elizabeth said, her eyes opened to the longing expressed.

Mrs. Farnshaw was heating the oven for baking, and broke away from the sympathetic clasp to refill the roaring stove.

“These cobs don’t last a minute,” she said, and then turned to Elizabeth again. “You’ll have th’ nicest house in th’ country. My! won’t it make th’ Cranes jealous?”

“They don’t count,” Elizabeth answered. “I believe you think more of John’s house than you do of him.”

“No, I don’t, but I’m glad t’ see you doin’ so well for yourself.”

As she finished speaking, Mr. Farnshaw came into the kitchen.

“Well, pa, how do you do?” Elizabeth said, turning toward him pleasantly. She wanted to tell him of her engagement, now that she had told her mother, and she wanted to be at peace with him.

Mr. Farnshaw mumbled a curt reply and, picking up the empty basket standing beside the stove, went out of the house, slamming the door behind him significantly.

“I wanted to tell him myself,” Elizabeth said with a half-shamed look in her mother’s direction. “I’m glad all men aren’t like that.”

“Well, he remembers that awful thing you said about partin’——” Mrs. Farnshaw began.

“But this isn’t any new thing in him, ma. He’s always been that way,” Elizabeth objected, determined not to let her mother start on that subject to-day.

“Oh, I know it! They all get that way if they’re let; think they own everything in sight. They get worse, too, as they get older. You do what I said an’ set your foot down about that house,” her mother replied, and turned to put a pan of bread in the oven.