her sitting in the shadows; and again he caught the tone of her
voice saying,

"Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength
be."

He leaped from the wagon seat and put up his arms to help his wife to the
ground.

"This is the end of the trail," he said gaily. "We have reached the inn
with 'The Sign of the Sunflower.' See the signboard Jim has put up for
us."

At that moment a big shepherd dog came bounding out of the weeds by the
river and leaped toward them with joyous yelps; a light shone through the
doorway, and a voice at once deep and pleasant to the ear, called out:

"Well, here you are, just as supper is ready. Present me to the bride,
Asher, and then I'll take the stock off your hands."

"Mrs. Aydelot, this is Mr. James Shirley, at present the leading artistic
house decorator as well as corn king of the Southwest. Allow me, Jim, to
present my wife. You two ought to like each other if each of you can stand
me."

They shook hands cordially, and each took the other's measure at a glance.
What Shirley saw was a small, well-dressed woman whose charm was a
positive force. It was not merely that she was well-bred and genial of
manner, nor that for many reasons she was pretty and would always be
pretty, even with gray hair and wrinkles. There was something back of all
this; something definite to build on; a self-reliance and unbreakable
determination without the spirit that antagonizes.

"A thoroughbred," was Shirley's mental comment. "The manners of a lady and
the will of a winner."

What Virginia saw was a big, broad-shouldered man, tanned to the very
limit of brownness, painfully clean shaven, and grotesquely clean in
dress; a white shirt, innocent of bluing in its laundry, a glistening
celluloid collar, a black necktie (the last two features evidently just
added to the toilet, and neither as yet set to their service), dark
pantaloons and freshly blacked shoes. But it was Shirley's face that
caught Virginia's eyes, for even with the tan it was a handsome face, with
regular features, and blue eyes seeing life deeply rather than broadly.
Just a hint of the artistic, however, took away from rather than added to
the otherwise manly expression. Clearly, Jim Shirley was a man that men
and women, too, must love if they cared for him at all.. And they couldn't
help caring for him. He had too much of the quality of eternal interest.

"I'm glad to meet you, and I bid you welcome to you