"I'll come for you at five if I can get back. I'm going over to see about some calves at Warren's," John said as they went up the path. "Is that why you insisted that I bring the baby? You needn't have been afraid to tell me; you do as you please anyhow." "H-s-sh! Here comes Hansen," John Hunter said warningly, and turned back to the wagon, giving the child into Luther's arms at the door. Luther Hansen cuddled the child warmly to him and without waiting to go in the house raised the white shawl from its sleeping face for a peep at it. "We lost ours," he said simply. The house sheltered them from the wind, and Elizabeth stopped and looked up at him in astonishment. "You don't mean it? I--I didn't know you were expecting a child, Luther. I'm so sorry. I wish I'd known." The expression of sympathy escaped her unconsciously. Elizabeth would always want to know of Luther's joys and sorrows. A glad little light softened the pain in his face, and he looked at her with a steady gaze, discerning the feeling of sound friendship behind the words. "I believe you are," he said, expressing the confirmation of a thing he had never doubted. "I ain't askin' you any questions, Lizzie, I just know--that's all." With something like a glow about his heart, he opened the door of his simple dwelling. He had never doubted her, nor believed the nonsense he had heard about her, but he had just had his faith refreshed. He carried the baby to the one little bedroom of his house, scuffing a wooden rocking chair behind him across the rough floor. He established Elizabeth in it beside Sadie, and then placing the sleeping child in its mother's arms went back to the potato field, hurrying his work to finish before dark. He understood in a measure why this was Elizabeth's first visit to them, and he did not resent it. Luther never resented. He lived his own kindly, industrious life. If people did not like Sadie he accepted it as a fact, but not as a thing to be aggrieved about. He could wait for Sadie to grow, and others must wait also. In the meantime, Luther watched Elizabeth and desired growth for her; her smallest movement was of interest to him. Elizabeth as a mother was a new feature. He remembered the deft way she had nestled the baby to her as he had relinquished it a few moments before, and thought with a sigh, of the cowhide-covered trunk filled with little garments under the bed by which she sat. Not even Sadie knew what the loss of that first child meant to Luther. A new love for women's ways with babies grew up in him as he thought of Elizabeth's cuddling. In the house, Elizabeth was getting into touch with the young mother who was childless. Sadie, in spite of a determination not to do so, was warming to that touch reluctantly. After all, it was pleasant to be telling Elizabeth about it, and to have her asking as if she wanted to know.