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"Luther, could you get Hepsie back for me, if you told her Mother Hunter was gone and would not come back?" she asked, falling back into a whisper from sheer weakness. Luther bent to catch her words. Elizabeth's illness showed plainly in her pinched face this morning; he would have done anything she asked of him. "Of course," he answered cheerfully.
In fact, there was a peculiar swagger of independence which bordered upon insolence in most of the homes from which Kansas help must be drawn. Elizabeth knew that their dignity once insulted they could not be held to any contract. Mrs. Hunter went back to the kitchen and tried to redeem the mistakes she had made, but Hepsie would not be cajoled and the unpleasantness grew.
It would fall hardest on Jack; his future would be spoiled by the humiliation of having everybody think I was worse than I " Elizabeth could not finish her sentence for the pain on the face before her, and hid her face on the same pillow and cried out her grief and heartache till Hugh had to warn her that Hepsie might come in.
I've had my ups and downs as you'll have if you live to be most a hundred." "You've had some ups as well as downs," said Marjorie. "Yes, I've had some good times, but not many, not many." Marjorie answered indignantly: "I think you have good times now, you have a good home and everybody is kind to you." "Yes, but I can't see and Hepsie don't talk much."
Elizabeth took a couple of letters he was handing her and went into the sitting room to read them. John followed her in. "Be sure you make the pies," he said with an emphasis which showed he meant to have it remembered. "All right, dear." "You'd better cook the fruit to-night," he added. "All right. I'll tell Hepsie." "Better do it yourself," he cautioned. "She can do it.
Luther saw that the buggy was got ready for Elizabeth and Hepsie, and after they had gone talked to the men, telling them that Elizabeth had asked him to do so. He told them her offer was for them to stay on at the usual wage, or go now so that she could fill their places. After they had signified their willingness to remain in her employment, he took Jake aside and had a long talk with him.
"She wrote again and again," declared Hepsie, and he started, and such a frown came then, that she was quite frightened, though she repeated, "Indeed she did, and she loves you still." "Then," said he, "they never reached me! Some one has come between us. But never mind that now. I must go to your mother.
She spoke to Hepsie, who had heard the entire argument, as she passed through the kitchen, asking her to keep Jack for her, and walked through the barnyard, through the wet pasture, and on to her haunt in the willows, where she could think undisturbed. John was still standing in the harness room of the barn when he heard the door close behind Elizabeth, and saw her coming that way.
"My dearest of little girls," interrupted her mother, as they turned into Sunnycoombe Lane, where the snow lay crisply shining, and the trees were flecked with that dainty tracing of frozen white, "you look at me through glasses of love, and they have a knack of painting a person as fair as you wish that one to be. Supposing you give the rest of the world a little of their benefit, Hepsie mine!"
The next morning Hepsie came and asked for a few days off to get some needed sewing done. With Hugh's illness and the extra work of it she had let her own work drag till she felt that she could neglect it no longer. Elizabeth let her go, thinking guiltily that there would be less danger of the discovery she seemed to be ever fearing these days.
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