sy, a piece of youthful ebony in
blue cottonade, was crossing leisurely on her way to the poultry yard;
unheeding the scorching sun-rays that she thought were sufficiently
parried by the pan of chick feed that she balanced adroitly on her
bushy black head.

At the front, the view at certain seasons would have been clear and
unbroken: to the station, the store, and out-lying hills. But now she
could see beyond the lawn only a quivering curtain of rich green which
the growing corn spread before the level landscape, and above whose
swaying heads appeared occasionally the top of an advancing white
sun-shade.

Therese was of a roundness of figure suggesting a future of excessive
fullness if not judiciously guarded; and she was fair, with a warm
whiteness that a passing thought could deepen into color. The waving
blonde hair, gathered in an abundant coil on top of her head, grew
away with a pretty sweep from the temples, the low forehead and nape
of the white neck that showed above a frill of soft lace. Her eyes
were blue, as certain gems are; that deep blue that lights, and glows,
and tells things of the soul. When David Hosmer presented himself,
they were intense only with expectancy and the color was in her cheek
like the blush in a shell.

He was a tall individual of perhaps forty; thin and sallow. His black
hair was streaked abundantly with grey, and his face marked with
premature lines; left there by care, no doubt, and, by a too close
attention to what men are pleased to call the main chances of life.

"A serious one," was Therese's first thought in looking at him. "A man
who has never learned to laugh or who has forgotten how." Though
plainly feeling the effects of the heat, he did not seem to appreciate
the relief offered by the grateful change into this shadowy, sweet
smelling, cool retreat; used as he was to ignore the comforting things
of life when presented to him as irrelevant to that dominant main
chance. He accepted under protest a glass of ice water from the
wide-eyed Betsy, and suffered a fan to be thrust into his hand,
seemingly to save his time or his timidity by its possibly unheeded
rejection.

"Lor'-zee folks," exclaimed the observant Betsy on re-entering the
kitchen, "dey'se a man in yonda, look like he gwine eat somebody up. I
was fur gittin' 'way quick me."

It can be readily imagined that Hosmer lost little time in preliminary
small talk. He introduced himself vaguely as from the West; then