had been run over. I couldn't think what else'd make you run off way here
without your coat. Come, get up, child, and go back to your work. It's
too bad you don't like to be kissed, but don't let that worry you. You'll
have lots worse than that to come up against. When you've lived as long as
I have and worked as hard, you'll be pleased to have some one admire you.
You better wash your face, and eat a bite of lunch, and hustle back. You
needn't be afraid. If he's fond of you, he won't bother about your running
away a little. He'll excuse you ef 'tis busy times, and not dock your pay
neither."

"Grandmother!" said Elizabeth. "Don't! I can never go back to that awful
place and that man. I would rather go back to Montana. I would rather be
dead."

"Hoity-toity!" said the easy-going grandmother, sitting down to her task,
for she perceived some wholesome discipline was necessary. "You can't talk
that way, Bess. You got to go to your work. We ain't got money to keep you
in idleness, and land knows where you'd get another place as good's this
one. Ef you stay home all day, you might make him awful mad; and then it
would be no use goin' back, and you might lose Lizzie her place too."

But, though the grandmother talked and argued and soothed by turns,
Elizabeth was firm. She would not go back. She would never go back. She
would go to Montana if her grandmother said any more about it.

With a sigh at last Mrs. Brady gave up. She had given up once before
nearly twenty years ago. Bessie, her oldest daughter, had a will like
that, and tastes far above her station. Mrs. Brady wondered where she got
them.