r anywhere. We will
never live where there are so many memories and associations to sadden
and hamper us, but go where the best opportunity offers, and as soon as
may be. My wife will be a pearl of great price," he added fondly, "and I
intend to provide a right setting for her!"

This was all said in a glow of love and joy, pride and ambition, as
Ivory paced up and down before the living-room fireplace while Waitstill
was hanging the freshly laundered curtains.

Ivory was right; Waitstill Baxter was, indeed, a jewel of a woman. She
had little knowledge, but much wisdom, and after all, knowledge stands
for the leaves on a tree and wisdom for the fruit. There was infinite
richness in the girl, a richness that had been growing and ripening
through the years that she thought so gray and wasted. The few books
she owned and loved had generally lain unopened, it is true, upon her
bedroom table, and she held herself as having far too little learning to
be a worthy companion for Ivory Boynton; but all the beauty and cheer
a comfort that could ever be pressed into the arid life of the Baxter
household had come from Waitstill's heart, and that heart had grown in
warmth and plenty year by year.

Those lonely tasks, too hard for a girl's hands, those unrewarded
drudgeries, those days of faithful labor in and out of doors, those
evenings of self-sacrifice over the mending-basket; the quiet avoidance
of all that might vex her father's crusty temper, her patience with his
miserly exactions; the hourly holding back of the hasty word,--all these
had played their part; all these had been somehow welded into a strong,
sunny, steady, life-wisdom, there is no better name for it; and so
she had unconsciously the best of all harvests to bring as dower to
a husband who was worthy of her. Ivory's strength called to hers and
answered it, just as his great need awoke such a power of helpfulness in
her as she did not know she possessed. She loved the man, but she loved
the task that beckoned her, too. The vision of it was like the breath
of wind from a hill-top, putting salt and savor into the new life that
opened before her.

These were quietly happy days at the farm, for Mrs. Boynton took a new,
if transient, hold upon life that deceived even the doctor. Rodman
was nearly as ardent a lover as Ivory, hovering about Waitstill and
exclaiming, "You never stay to supper and it's so lonesome evenings
without you! Will it never be time for you to co