s willing to accept for all reason the
cause of unhappiness at which he further hinted. "You see, doctor, an
incompatibility is a pretty hard thing to manage. You can't forgive it
like a real grievance. You have to try other things, and find out that
there are worse things, and then you come back to it and stand it. We're
talking Wyoming and cattle range, now, and Mrs. Maynard is all for the
new deal; it's going to make us healthy, wealthy, and wise. Well, I
suppose the air will be good for her, out there. You doctors are sending
lots of your patients our way, now." The gravity with which he always
assumed that Grace was a physician in full and regular practice would
have had its edge of satire, coming from another; but from him, if it
was ironical, it was also caressing, and she did not resent it. "I've
had some talk with your colleague, here, Dr. Mulbridge, and he seems to
think it will be the best thing for her. I suppose you agree with him?"

"Oh, yes," said Grace, "his opinion would be of great value. It wouldn't
be at all essential that I should agree with him:'

"Well, I don't know about that," said Maynard. "I reckon he thinks a
good deal of your agreeing with him. I've been talking with him about
settling out our way. We've got a magnificent country, and there's bound
to be plenty of sickness there, sooner or later. Why, doctor, it would
be a good opening for you! It 's just the place for you. You 're off
here in a corner, in New England, and you have n't got any sort of
scope; but at Cheyenne you'd have the whole field to yourself; there is
n't another lady doctor in Cheyenne. Now, you come out with us. Bring
your mother with you, and grow up with the country. Your mother
would like it. There's enough moral obliquity in Cheyenne to keep her
conscience in a state of healthful activity all the time. Yes, you'd get
along out there."

Grace laughed, and shook her head. It was part of the joke which life
seemed to be with Mr. Maynard that the inhabitants of New England were
all eager to escape from their native section, and that they ought to be
pitied and abetted in this desire. As soon as his wife's convalescence
released him from constant attendance upon her, he began an inspection
of the region from the compassionate point of view; the small, frugal
husbandry appealed to his commiseration, and he professed to have found
the use of canvas caps upon the haycocks intolerably pathetic. "Why,
I'm told," he said, "