“No, I didn’t. What do you want of that Swede?” Mrs. Farnshaw asked petulantly. “I should think——”
What she thought was never recorded in words, for Elizabeth was out of the house like a flash, calling to John Hunter as she ran down the road after him. It was a surprised John who took her message.
“Yes, I’ll tell him, but I don’t see what you want of that Swede—he always seems to cut such a figure in everything you do,” John said discontentedly.
“Well, just tell him that ma sends the invitation, will you?” was all Elizabeth could say.
It was John’s first contemptuous remark about Luther, and it disturbed her. They were to live closer to Luther Hansen than any other neighbour and it was essential that they be on friendly terms. She had hoped it might be that John would appreciate the good things in Luther which even his nationality could not spoil. Dear old Luther! In spite of the observation she had seemed to resent the night before, Elizabeth loved him—loved him all the more because she had been obliged to hurt him. It suddenly occurred to her that John might not deliver her message. She put the thought away from her instantly, saying aloud:
“He’d do anything he knew I wanted him to do,” and then was struck with the doubtful tone in which it was said.
“What did you say?” her mother asked, for Elizabeth had just entered the door.
“Nothing. I hate this wedding!”
“Well, now, I like that, after all I’ve done to give you a good time,” the mother said angrily.
“No, ma; you mean to give yourself a good time. You make me come home when I don’t want to, and you ask people I hate to have, and then you leave out the people I want most. It isn’t my wedding. I’m going to stand up and be married so as to get rid of it all, but John won’t have the minister I want, you won’t have the people I want, I’m most sure pa ’ll kick up some kind of a row about it—and—and I was so happy till you came and made me consent to it. What did you do it for?”