nd
a bench and a home-made rocking chair with a woven bottom of cowhide for
me. He'll buy a little bunch of yearlings with his savings and what he
can borrow and in the spring I'll herd them off the poison while he
breaks ground to put in a little crop of alfalfa. I'll get wrinkles at
the corners of my eyes from squinting in the sun and a weather-beaten
skin from riding in the wind and lines about my mouth from worrying over
paying interest on our loan.

"In the winter we'll be snowed up for weeks at a time and spend the
hours looking at the pictures in a mail order catalogue and threshing
the affairs of our acquaintances threadbare. Twice a year we'll go to
town in a second-hand Studebaker. I'll be dressed in the clothes I wore
before I was married and he'll wear overalls and boots with run-over
heels. A dollar will look a shade smaller than a full moon and I'll cry
for joy when I get a clothes-wringer or a washing machine for a
Christmas present. That," she concluded laconically, "is my finish."

Van Lennop did not smile, instead he shook his head gravely.

"No, Essie Tisdale, I can't just see you in any such setting as that."

"Why not? I've seen it happen to others."

"But," he spoke decisively, "you're different."

"Yes," she cried with a vehemence which sent the color flying under her
fair skin, "I _am_ different! If I wasn't I wouldn't mind. But I care
for things that the girls who have married like that do not care for,
and I can't help it. They save their money to buy useful things and I
spend all mine buying books. Perhaps it's wrong, for that may be the
reason of my shrinking from a life such as I've described since books
have taught me there's something else outside. Being different only
makes it all the harder."

"And yet," said Van Lennop, "I'm somehow glad you are. But what has
happened? Who has hurt you? Did something go wrong at this wonderful
dinner of which you told me? Were you not after all quite the prettiest
girl there?"

"I wasn't asked!"

Van Lennop's eyes widened.

"You were not? Why, I thought the belle of Crowheart was always asked."

"Not now; I'm a biscuit-shooter; I work--and--'Society must draw the
line somewhere.'"

"Who said that?" Amazement was in Van Lennop's tone.

"Mr. Symes said it to Mrs. Symes, Mrs. Symes said it to Mrs. Jackson,
Mrs. Jackson said it to Mrs. Tutts, Mrs. Tutts said it to me."

"Of whom?"

"Of me."

"But what society?" Van Lennop's face still w