there was much that was fine
and forceful. Emma Byers's thoughtful forehead and intelligent eyes
would have revealed that in her. Her mother was dead. She kept house for
her father and brother. She was known as "that smart Byers girl." Her
butter and eggs and garden stuff brought higher prices at Commercial,
twelve miles away, than did any in the district. She was not a pretty
girl, according to the local standards, but there was about her, even at
twenty-two, a clear-headedness and a restful serenity that promised well
for Ben Westerveld's future happiness.

But Ben Westerveld's future was not to lie in Emma Byers's capable
hands. He knew that as soon as he saw Bella Huckins. Bella Huckins was
the daughter of old Red Front Huckins, who ran the saloon of that
cheerful name in Commercial. Bella had elected to teach school, not from
any bent toward learning, but because teaching appealed to her as being
a rather elegant occupation. The Huckins family was not elegant. In that
day a year or two of teaching in a country school took the place of the
present-day normal-school diploma. Bella had an eye on St. Louis, forty
miles from the town of Commercial. So she used the country school as a
step toward her ultimate goal, though she hated the country and dreaded
her apprenticeship.

"I'll get a beau," she said, "that'll take me driving and around. And
Saturdays and Sundays I can come to town."

* * * * *

The first time Ben Westerveld saw her she was coming down the road
toward him in her tight-fitting black alpaca dress. The sunset was
behind her. Her hair was very golden. In a day of tiny waists hers could
have been spanned by Ben Westerveld's two hands. He discovered that
later. Just now he thought he had never seen anything so fairylike and
dainty, though he did not put it that way. Ben was not glib of thought
or speech.

He knew at once that this was the new school-teacher. He had heard of
her coming, though at the time the conversation had interested him not
at all. Bella knew who he was, too. She had learned the name and history
of every eligible young man in the district two days after her arrival.
That was due partly to her own bold curiosity and partly to the fact
that she was boarding with the Widow Becker, the most notorious gossip
in the county. In Bella's mental list of the neighbourhood swains Ben
Westerveld already occupied a two-star position, top of column.

He felt his f