tired he had become in trying to stem the tide
of doubt alone. It warned her, too, that she had gone too close, for
he veered off sharply. Steve persisted in generalities, but he wanted
to talk.

"I have been wondering if that is not an old-fashioned attitude," he
said. "Women, they tell, us, have broadened since they usurped many
places in the business world once held by men. They are looking mighty
keen-eyed toward the vote now, and a share in the legislation of their
growing affairs, or at least so they explain. You have heard many men
say 'business is business.' Maybe you have watched quite a few
charming brides walk to the altar, and wondered if that wasn't their
sentiment, too."

She chose to be suddenly vexed with him.

"I do not like such humor, and of course you are joking. I have heard
Garrett Devereau talk in just such a strain too often to be amused by
it. And if you mean----"

"If I meant it, I was crying the baby," stated the man coldly, and Miss
Sarah knew that he was rebuking himself. "I could care for such a
girl--yes. But I doubt if I would marry a woman who had even the
smallest doubt. There are too many sharp places to be smoothed over,
without chancing that tragedy of discontent. It's merely habit that's
to blame again, that's all." He cast about for a parallel. "One does
not miss sugar so very much from a meal, until he knows he can't have
it. And then--well, Miss Sarah, I have many times talked peevishly,
for a man, because there was none to be had."

"We are talking of women. What about salt?" she inquired quickly.

"That is very indispensable, too, but----"

"Of the two which do you always take care shall not be missing from
your pack, whenever you turn into the woods?"

"I see where you are heading, but----"

"I do not like dissemblance, Stephen," she warned. "You know without
the salt of love the sugar of life can grow sickeningly cloying."

He did not win his argument, but defeat gave him far more happiness
than could have come from victory. Leaving her that night, he closed
his hand over her delicate fingers in a clasp which left her smiling in
wonder after he had gone. She watched horse and rider disappear into
the whiteness of the new winter till both were lost to her sight.

"Bless the boy," she murmured then. "Bless the boy!" And to Caleb,
her brother, when he came stamping in: "I surely must take a hand with
these children. They have been left to their