“Little I fear twenty years!” she retorted. A light shone down the path from the house. Wully had opened the door, and shut it, and was coming towards them. She wished she could take him up in her arms and cuddle him against her neck, kissing him as she had done in her youth. She said quietly to him;
“You needn’t worry. It’s only Auntie Libby that’s upset her. There’s nothing ails her.”
He said anxiously;
“Honestly, mother?”
Wonder welled up within her as she looked at him. There he stood before her, demanding honesty of her, while for months he had been lying great fundamental lies about her very life, which was his honor. “Honestly?” indeed! But there he was before her, beautiful and unrealized, risen to new life in her great expectations for him. She said only;
“Honestly! There’s nothing wrang!”
CHAPTER X
BARBARA McNAIR had watched Wully and Chirstie driving away towards Wully’s home that afternoon after her arrival at the sty in the slough. It was raining then, and it rained for nearly six weeks. She stood looking after them till they were out of sight. Then she went to the other little window. There she shut her lips tightly—regarded what her eyes discovered, two bony cows, shivering, it seemed to her, in the blown rain, trying to find shelter from the wind by huddling against the haystack that was one side of the barn. The rain was gray and sullen, the prairies sodden and brown; the cows had trampled the ground between the house and the barn into mud, into which they sank knee deep. She stood contemplating. The rain continued blowing about in imprisoning drab veils. Finally she turned away, and sat down weakly. From where she sat, she saw the dripping cows shivering. She sat huddled down. She seemed trying to cuddle up against herself. Her hands, folded in her lap, seemed the only sight not terrifying that her eyes might consider.