"Can I make them see it--and see how?" she asked herself so many times that the wheels beneath her took up the refrain. "Gentle and loving and tolerant--gentle and loving and tolerant--gentle and loving and tolerant," they sang for miles as she sat with her young brow puckered into a deep frown. The realities of life were thrust into the foreground the moment Elizabeth arrived, and for new reasons she missed Luther. Mr. Farnshaw resented the new circular. "Is that th' damned fool kind of coat she was talkin' about?" he inquired as his daughter alighted from the farm wagon at the kitchen door that afternoon. "It ain't got no warmth," he added scornfully. "Th' ain' nothin' to it but looks, an' not much of that. What 'd y' you do with th' coat you had?" The old heartsickening contention had begun. "I've got it." "Well, you see that you wear it and don't go makin' a fool out of yourself around here. I'd 'a' kept my money if I'd 'a' knowed it was goin' t' be put into a thing that'd swell up in th' wind like a balloon." Mrs. Farnshaw saw the look that swept over Elizabeth's face and instinctively ranged herself on the side of the young girl. She saw with a woman's eyes the style in the garment and its importance in her daughter's appearance. When Elizabeth took it off her mother took it to the bedroom to put it away, remarking in a whisper that it made her look quite like a school-teacher ought to look. She was secretly glad that her daughter had it, since it was already paid for and she did not have to make it. It would be the most observed wrap in the schoolhouse the next Sunday if she could only persuade Elizabeth to go to meeting. The metal clasp had virtues all its own. "I think it's ever so much more stuck-up than if it had buttons," she whispered. The undertone rasped on Elizabeth's nerves. Aunt Susan never differed with Uncle Nate in undertones. "Let's get supper, ma," she said, to shake herself from threatened despondency. But though Elizabeth bustled energetically about the getting of that meal, the eating of it was not a very great success. Mr. Farnshaw discoursed upon the senselessness of prevailing styles, with the new cape plainly in mind, and Mrs. Farnshaw nudged her daughter's knee under the table whenever Elizabeth seemed inclined to defensive retorts. When Mr. Farnshaw had taken the milk pails on his arm and repaired to the corral, however, Mrs. Farnshaw turned from a belated churning and administered the caution in words: "Don't ever say anything back to your pa, Lizzie; he gets worse and worse all th' time." Elizabeth considered the subject for some minutes. The wear and tear of the discords of her mother's life she knew were far more responsible for her mother's broken health than anything she did in the way of hard work. It seemed a good time to begin the reforms upon which her heart was set.