intense and piteous
question--the question that every woman at the moment of surrender
asks sometimes with her lips, but always with her heart: "It is going
to be all right, isn't it? And you'll be good to me?"

"So help me God," said young Wesley Dean.

* * * * *

The farm lay high, as Wesley had said. Indeed, all the way from
Baltimore they had seemed to be going into the hills, those placidly
rounding friendly Maryland hills that rise so softly, so gradually
that the traveller is not conscious of ascent. The long straight road
dips across them gallantly, a silver band of travel to tie them to the
city, with little cities or towns pendent from it at wide intervals.
Trees edge it with a fringe of green; poor trees, maimed by the
trimmers' saws and shears into twisted caricatures of what a tree
should be, because the telegraph wires and telephone wires must pass,
and oaks and locusts, pines and maples, must be butchered of their
spreading branches to give them room.

It was along this highway that the motor bus, filled with passengers
and baggage and driven with considerably more haste than discretion,
carried the newly married pair. Annie's eyes grew wide at the wonder
and beauty of it. She was not at all afraid. She snuggled her hand
into Wes's and loved it--and loved him, too, with his look of pride
and joy in her. She was content to be silent and let him talk. Now and
then she looked at the little turquoise ring on her finger above the
shiny new wedding ring, and loved that, too, for he had chosen it at
once from the trayful offered them, blurting out that she must have it
because it matched her eyes.

"All this country out here's rich," he bragged, "but Fred'rick
County's far the richest land of all. Richest in the state. Maybe
richest in the whole United States, I dunno. And all the farms are
big. Great big farms--and great big teams to till 'em. People don't
use mules here s'much as they do over on the Eastern Shore. And
there's not any sand, like there is over there--in spots, that is."

"What's that man doing?" asked Annie alertly.

"Ploughin'. Say, didn't you ever see a man ploughin' before?" "Only in
the movies," said Annie, unabashed. "Do you ever plough?"

He laughed outright.

"Say, you're going to be some little farmer's wife. I can see that.
Yes'm, I plough a little now and then. It's like fancywork--awful
fascinating--and once you get started you don't want to