“Lige,” she said softly, “do you love me still?”

“You know I do,” said Lige sadly.

That was all Sara wanted.  With a quick movement she nestled into his arms, and laid her warm, tear-wet cheek against his cold one.

When the amazing rumor that Sara was going to marry Lige Baxter, and go out West with him, circulated through the Andrews clan, hands were lifted and heads were shaken.  Mrs. Jonas puffed and panted up the hill to learn if it were true.  She found Mrs. Eben stitching for dear life on an “Irish Chain” quilt, while Sara was sewing the diamonds on another “Rising Star” with a martyr-like expression on her face.  Sara hated patchwork above everything else, but Mrs. Eben was mistress up to a certain point.

“You’ll have to make that quilt, Sara Andrews.  If you’re going to live out on those prairies, you’ll need piles of quilts, and you shall have them if I sew my fingers to the bone.  But you’ll have to help make them.”

And Sara had to.

When Mrs. Jonas came, Mrs. Eben sent Sara off to the post-office to get her out of the way.

“I suppose it’s true, this time?” said Mrs. Jonas.

“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Eben briskly.  “Sara is set on it.  There is no use trying to move her—­you know that—­so I’ve just concluded to make the best of it.  I’m no turn-coat.  Lige Baxter is Lige Baxter still, neither more nor less.  I’ve always said he’s a fine young man, and I say so still.  After all, he and Sara won’t be any poorer than Eben and I were when we started out.”

Mrs. Jonas heaved a sigh of relief.

“I’m real glad you take that view of it, Louisa.  I’m not displeased, either, although Mrs. Harmon would take my head off if she heard me say so.  I always liked Lige.  But I must say I’m amazed, too, after the way Sara used to rail at him.”

“Well, we might have expected it,” said Mrs. Eben sagely.  “It was always Sara’s way.  When any creature got sick or unfortunate she seemed to take it right into her heart.  So you may say Lige Baxter’s failure was a success after all.”

X. THE SON OF HIS MOTHER

Thyra Carewe was waiting for Chester to come home.  She sat by the west window of the kitchen, looking out into the gathering of the shadows with the expectant immovability that characterized her.  She never twitched or fidgeted.  Into whatever she did she put the whole force of her nature.  If it was sitting still, she sat still.

“A stone image would be twitchedly beside Thyra,” said Mrs. Cynthia White, her neighbor across the lane.  “It gets on my nerves, the way she sits at that window sometimes, with no more motion than a statue and her great eyes burning down the lane.  When I read the commandment, ’Thou shalt have no other gods before me,’ I declare I always think of Thyra.  She worships that son of hers far ahead of her Creator.  She’ll be punished for it yet.”