"Go away, Cousin Hannah, please," she said. "You can sleep with Ruth and I'll stay with Elizabeth."
Mrs. Pratt, glad enough to be relieved from sight of the misery she had caused, hurried away and the two sisters were alone together. Mary knew very little of what Cousin Hannah had seen fit to reveal, a child herself at the time, she had but vague remembrances of it, and indeed Elizabeth asked no questions--she only needed to be comforted, and this Mary did as best she could.
The next day but one was the wedding day, Mr. Bellamy was expected in the morning and they would probably have no other chance for private talk, but Mary urged Elizabeth to go to their mother for comfort when the wedding was over, and some time late in the night they both fell asleep.
In the days that followed the wedding, when everything was strange, and they were settling slowly back into the usual routine Elizabeth found no opportunity to speak with her mother of that trouble which had come now to haunt every waking hour, and even pursued her into dreams.
Mary and her euphoniously named Mr. Bellamy had gone on their way to Oklahoma, where the bridegroom owned a ranch. Cousin Hannah Pratt, having helped with the wedding sewing and the packing, had gone back to Emerald and her own overflowing boarding-house. Mrs. Spooner, the three girls, and old Jonah were left alone, face to face with the problem of getting along.
Everything had settled into the usual routine at the Silver Spur; Mrs. Spooner, rather weak from her neuralgia and the strain of the wedding, sat on the front porch in a big chair which Elizabeth had endeavored to make comfortable with rugs and pillows.
"Are you perfectly sure I can't do anything else for you, Mother?" she asked anxiously. "Mary always waited on you so beautifully, while--it seems to me I've never done one little thing for you, when you've done so much for me!"
A big tear slipped from the long lashes and splashed on Mrs. Spooner's little hand, fluttering among the cushions. In a minute the mother-arms had pulled the girl's head down to the mother-breast, the thin fingers patting the blond braids and the mother-voice crooning comfort into the crumpled little ear buried upon the maternal shoulder.
"Don't cry, daughter, Mother loves you just the same! Haven't you been our own since you were, O, such a wee baby! It was cruel of Cousin Hannah to tell you, but we won't let it make one bit of difference. You're ours and we are yours. A thing like that can't matter to people who love each other as we do."
"It--it doesn't matter, Mother," gasped Elizabeth, as she mopped her reddened eyes, "if I can just take Mary's place to you. I am going to try, my very level best."