It was arranged that Aunt Susan should stay with the young mother, who was too weak to turn her head on the pillow it lay upon, for as the old doctor had said she was a desperately sick girl. They had but just kept her with them. The presence of Aunt Susan was almost as delightful to Elizabeth Hunter as the head of the child on her arm. Weak and exhausted, she was permitted such rest as she had not known in all the days of her married life. The darkened room and the quiet of the next three days were such a mercy to her tired nerves that she would have been glad to lie there for ages. Doctor Morgan let Susan Hornby return to her home and husband at the end of the week, confident that with care, Hepsie could perform the little offices required, but he was to learn that country people have little judgment in serious cases of illness, and that the young mother's room would be filled with company when he came out the next day. Mr. and Mrs. Crane were the first to arrive on Sunday morning, and when John announced that they were driving up to the hitching post, Elizabeth begged weakly for him to say that she was too ill to see any one that day. John would have been glad to deliver that message, remembering the wedding day, but Sadie was with her mother, and John had found Luther a convenient neighbour of late. "We can't offend them," he said. "But I can't have them. Please, John--with my head aching already." "Don't speak so loud," John said warningly. Mrs. Farnshaw came and had to have her team tied to the barnyard fence. She walked to the house with the rest of the company, and even in their presence could not restrain her complaints because she had not been notified of her daughter's serious illness and the arrival of the child. Elizabeth's protest that they had been absorbed by that illness, and too busy to think of anything but the most urgent and immediate duties, did not quiet the objections, for Mrs. Farnshaw had the habit of weak insistence. Her mother's whine was never so hard to bear. "Where's Mr. Farnshaw?" Mr. Crane asked. "He's grandpa now." Elizabeth shrank into her pillows, and Mrs. Farnshaw bridled angrily. "He's busy," was her tart reply. "I should think he'd want t' see his grandson. Lizzie, you haven't showed me that boy," Mr. Crane insisted. And Elizabeth, weak and worn, had to draw the sleeping child from under the quilts at her side and show him off as if he had been a roll of butter at a country fair, while constant reference was made to one phase or another of the unpleasant things in her experience. Her colour deepened and her head thumped more and more violently, and by noon when they trooped out to the dining room, where Hepsie had a good dinner waiting, the girl-wife was worn out. She could not eat the food brought to her, but drank constantly, and was unable to get a snatch of sleep before the visitors assembled about her bed again.