during the season of his courtship, served the girl of his
choice almost upon his knees. He made her feel that she could command his
services, his time, and himself. By his request he ceased to ask when he
could come again, but encouraged, even commanded, her to tell him when and
where she wished to be taken and to let him come to see her unannounced.
He paid tribute to her as if she had been a goddess and he her devotee.

Silas looked on and chuckled.

"Didn't take 'em long," he remarked to Liza Ann, and when as usual his
wife did not reply, he added: "Glad we're to have 'em for neighbours.
She's about th' liveliest meadow lark on these prairies, an' if she don't
sing on a fence post it's 'cause she ain't built that way, an' can't;
she's full enough to."

Susan Hornby looked on and had her misgivings. She saw the devotion the
young man poured out at her darling's feet, and she knew that it was the
fervour of the courting time in a man's life that made him abandon his own
interests and plans while he plumed himself and pursued his desired mate.
She saw the rapturous, dreamy look of love and mating time in Elizabeth's
eyes, and she knew that the inevitable had happened, but she was not
content. Premonitions which she sought to strangle shook her whenever the
pair wandered away on real or fictitious errands. She saw that no word of
love had yet been spoken, but every look cried it aloud and the day could
not be far distant.

Between corn planting and corn plowing the foundations of the new house
had been laid and work on it had progressed fitfully and whenever the
young man could find time to help the occasional mason who laid brick and
stone for simple foundations, and who had crops of his own to tend between
times. The work had progressed slowly, but at last the wall had been
finished and the carpenters had come to do their share. It gave excuse for
many trips in the evening twilight. They usually went on horseback, and
Silas's pony with Liza Ann's sidesaddle on its back had more business on
hand that month than in all the other years of its lazy existence.

Susan Hornby watched the pair ride away one evening the first week in
June. Nathan stood at her side on the doorstep.

"Of course he loves her; how could he help it? and yet----"

"And yet, what?" Nathan asked impatiently. "She wants him, an' he wants
her, an' you stand there lookin' as if that wasn't enough."

Susan Hornby turned to her husband with some un