Mrs. Farnshaw had not come to help when the neighbours put up the demolished house. The bridges had been out and no one had gone to warn her that help was needed. When the news had arrived the omission had been taken as an offence and no effort had been made to go at all. The last week in September, however, Elizabeth's mother came to see her. The girl was helping Susan Hornby put fresh straw under the rag carpet in the front room. The straw was carefully spread and the carpet tacked along one side of the room, and Elizabeth, hammer in hand, turned over from her knees to a sitting position and surveyed her mother with a dull fear at her heart; she knew what her mother's presence meant. Mrs. Farnshaw resented the new carpet, she resented Susan Hornby, she resented the comradeship she felt existed between her daughter and this alien woman who was no relation to her by the ties of blood. Ignoring Aunt Susan's courteous attempts to make her feel welcome, she drove straight to the object of her visit and demanded that Elizabeth come home to be married. "I'm going to be married right here, ma," Elizabeth replied, twisting the hammer around in the other hand and filled with apprehension. She knew her mother's tendency to hold fast to foolish demands. Mrs. Farnshaw's ready handkerchief went up to her eyes at once. "Now look a' here, Lizzie, I ain't got no other girl, an' it's a pretty how-de-do if I can't have my only daughter married from my own house." Elizabeth fidgeted about, laying her hammer down and picking up a straw that had pushed its way through the loose rags of the carpet on which she sat. After a time she turned her eyes to Aunt Susan with a mute call for help. Susan Hornby was decidedly uncomfortable. "I thought of course you'd come home to be married," Mrs. Farnshaw continued. "You know pa 'd raise a fuss as soon as I appeared," her daughter replied. Mrs. Farnshaw brightened. She was strong on argument. Elizabeth's silence had disconcerted her, but if she would talk--well, Mrs. Farnshaw began to have hopes. "You've been away all summer," she sobbed, returning to her handkerchief. Elizabeth kept her eyes on Aunt Susan's face and did not reply again. There was another silence. Mrs. Farnshaw began to be desperate. "Folks has talked an' talked," she said, "an' I let 'em, because I thought when you come home for th' weddin' it'd put a stop t' their tongues. You've been down here, an' you don't know how hard it's been." Elizabeth had listened in a distressed silence and studied Susan Hornby's face for signs of assistance. "I guess they haven't talked----" she began at length, and then stopped short at something in Aunt Susan's eye which confirmed her mother's words.