ning night shadows. The subdued tones of evening held all the
scene, save where a group of tall sunflowers stood up to catch the last
light of day full on their golden shields.

"We are here at last, Mrs. Aydelot. Welcome to our neighborhood!" Asher
said bravely as the team halted.

Virginia sat still on the wagon seat, taking in the view of sunset sky and
twilight prairie.

"This is our home," she murmured. "I'm glad we are here."

"I'm glad you are glad. I hope I haven't misrepresented it to you," her
husband responded, turning away that he might not see her face just then.

It was a strange place to call home, especially to one whose years had
been spent mainly in the pretty mountain-walled Virginia valleys where
cool brooks babbled over pebbly beds or splashed down in crystal
waterfalls; whose childhood home had been an old colonial house with
driveways, and pillared verandas, and jessamine-wreathed windows; with
soft carpets and cushioned chairs, and candelabra whose glittering
pendants reflected the light in prismatic tintings; and everywhere the
lazy ease of idle servants and unhurried lives.

The little sod house, nestled among sheltering sunflowers, stood on a
slight rise of ground. It contained one room with two windows, one looking
to the east and the other to the west, and a single door opening on the
south. Above this door was a smooth pine board bearing the inscription,
"Sunflower Inn," stained in rather artistic lettering. A low roof
extending over the doorway gave semblance to a porch which some scorched
vines had vainly tried to decorate. There was a rude seat made of a goods
box beside the doorway. Behind the house rose the low crest of a prairie
billow, hardly discernible on the level plains. Before it lay the endless
prairie across which ran the now half-dry, grass-choked stream. A few
stunted cottonwood trees followed its windings, and one little clump of
wild plum bushes bristled in a draw leading down to the shallow place of
the dry watercourse. All else was distance and vastness void of life and
utter loneliness.

Virginia Aydelot looked at the scene before her. Then she turned to her
husband with a smile on her young face, saying again,

"I am glad I am here."

There is one chord that every woman's voice touches some time, no matter
what her words may be. As Virginia spoke, Asher saw again the moonlight on
the white pillars of the south veranda of the old Aydelot farmhouse, and
his mot