e no curtains nor
carpets nor hangings of any kind, but it was commodious and comfortable.

"What can a bachelor want with a place like this?" she asked.

"I don't know," answered Mrs. Hastings; "perhaps it's Harry's idea of
having everything proportionate. The Range is quite a big, and generally
a prosperous, farm. Besides, it's likely that he doesn't contemplate
remaining a bachelor forever. Indeed, Allen and I sometimes wonder how
he has escaped marriage for so long."

"Is 'escaped' the right word?" Agatha asked.

"It is," asserted Mrs. Hastings with a laugh. "You see, he's highly
eligible from our point of view, but at the same time he's apparently
invulnerable. I believe," she added dryly, "that's the right word, too."

The Swedish housekeeper appeared again and they talked with her until
she went to bring in the six o'clock supper. Soon after the table was
laid Wyllard and the men came in. Wyllard was attired as when Agatha had
last seen him, except that he had put on a coat. He led his guests to
the head of the long table, but the men--there were a number of
them--sat below, and evidently had no diffidence about addressing
question or comment to their employer.

The men ate with a voracious haste, but that appeared to be the custom
of the country, and Agatha could find no great fault with their manners
or conversation. The talk was, for the most part, quaintly witty, and
some of the men used what struck her as remarkably fitting and original
similes. Indeed, as the meal proceeded, she became curiously interested.

The windows were open wide, and a sweet, warm air swept into the barely
furnished room. The spaciousness of the room impressed her, and she was
pleased with the evident unity of these brown-faced, strong-armed toilers
with their leader. At the head of the table he sat, self-contained, but
courteous and responsive to all alike, and though they were in an
essentially democratic country, she felt that there was something almost
feudal in the relations between him and his men. She could not imagine
them to be confined to the mere exaction of so much labor and the
expectation of payment of wages due. She was pleased that he had not
changed his clothing.

So strong was Agatha's interest that she was surprised when the meal was
finished. Afterward, she and Mrs. Hastings talked with the housekeeper
for a while, and an hour had slipped away when Wyllard suggested that he
should show her the slough beyond