ardly.

"Are you perfectly satisfied down here? Did we do the right thing?"

His mother's eyes flashed, as of old.

"We did," she cried in her youthful voice. "It's real--it's absorbing.
And I'm very proud of myself."

"Proud? You?"

"Yes, proud!" she laughed. "Joe, when a woman reaches my age she has a
right to be proud if young folks seek her out and talk with her and make
her their confidante. It shows she's not a useless incumbrance, but
young!"

Joe sat up.

"Have they found you out? Do they come to you?"

"They do--especially the young wives with their troubles. All of them
troubled over their husbands and their children. We have the finest
talks together. They're a splendid lot!"

"Who's come, in particular?"

"Well, there's one who isn't married--one of the best of them."

"Not Sally Heffer!"

"The same!"

"I'm dinged!"

"That girl," said Joe's mother, "has all sorts of possibilities--and
she's brave and strong and true. Sally's a wonder! a new kind of woman!"

A new kind of woman! Joe remembered the phrase, and in the end admitted
that it was true. Sally was of the new breed; she represented the new
emancipation; the exodus of woman from the home to the battle-fields of
the world; the willingness to fight in the open, shoulder to shoulder
with men; the advance of a sex that now demanded a broader, freer life,
a new health, a home built up on comradeship and economic freedom. In
all of these things she contrasted sharply with Myra, and Joe always
thought of the two together.

But unconsciously Sally was always the fellow-worker--Myra--what Myra
meant he could feel but not explain; yet these crowded days left little
time for thoughts sweet but often intense with pain. He wrote to her
rarely--mere jottings of business and health; he rarely heard from her.
Her message was invariably the same--the richness and quiet of country
life, the depth and peace of rest, the hope that he was well and happy.
She never mentioned his paper--though she received every number--and
when Joe inquired once whether it came, she answered in a postscript:
"The paper? It's in every Monday's mail." This neglect irritated Joe,
and he would doubly enjoy Sally's heart-and-soul passion for _The
Nine-Tenths_.

Sally was growing into his working life, day by day. Her presence was
stimulating, refreshing. If he felt blue and discouraged, or dried up
and in want of inspiration, he merely called her over, and her quiet
talk,