hn, "but I know my wife
brought me out here, it was her capital that set me up, she has a hand
in all business, so why not say so on the signboard?"

Cedar Mountain had its fill of fun and there were many venerable jokes
about "wearing the pants" and others about a spelling of "hen-pecked."
"Wasn't it 'Hannah-pecked' now?" And some there were, even women, who
condemned the innovation as godless; but all of these hostile comments
died away when folk came to know the pair and realize how justly they
were represented on the signboard: "John and Hannah Higginbotham,
Insurance Agents."

CHAPTER XVII

Belle Makes a Decision and Jim Evades One

It was late on Wednesday afternoon. Belle was working at the sewing
machine in the back room of the Boyd home when there was a familiar
knock at the front door. She was not unprepared for it and yet she
dreaded this inevitable interview. Lowe had been pointedly cold for some
time. He had been to the house only once in the past month and he had
made it quite plain that Hartigan was the objectionable figure in the
horizon. Belle realized that their relations had come to a crisis. She
had not admitted frankly to herself what she would do when this talk
took place, but in her heart there was not the slightest doubt.

At the sound of his step and knock she went into the parlour, closing
the door into the rear room to insure some measure of privacy, and then
admitted Jack. His greeting had the obvious air of a man who has been
wronged. For a while, with characteristic obliquity, he talked of his
school work. Belle sewed meanwhile, asking occasional questions. After a
quarter of an hour of this the conversation languished. Belle was
determined that he should open the subject himself, and in the awkward
pause that ensued she busied herself basting up a lining for her frock.
At last, clearing his throat, Lowe began:

"Belle, I've got something else to say to you."

She looked at him squarely, the direct gaze of her clear, dark eyes in
striking contrast with his close-lidded, shifting glance. He went on:

"I think that you and the new preacher are going too far and it had
better stop now."

"Just what do you mean, Jack? What do you accuse me of, exactly?"

From the very beginning of their friendship he had always writhed under
the directness of her mental processes. He was ever for evasion,
indirection; she for frank, open dealing in all things. He tried to
retreat.

"I'm no