ey found Pearl in a pink and white checked gingham house dress, with
her brown hair done up in the style known as a French roll, sewing
at a machine in the front room, and at once Mr. Cowan, who was the
dominant spirit of the party signalled to the others--"So far so
good." Miss Watson, even though the hour was early, was up, dressed
neatly--and at work. All of this was in the glance which Mr. Cowan
shot over to his colleagues.

Investigating still further, for Mr. Cowan knew the value of detail in
estimating human character; the general arrangement of the room won
his approval. It was comfortable, settled, serene--it looked like
home--it invited the visitor to come in and be at rest. A fire burned
in the heater, a bird sang in the kitchen, a cat lay on the lounge and
did not move when he sat down beside it, showing that its right of way
had not been disputed. Mr. Cowan saw it all.

After the introductions were over, Mr. Cowan put forth some questions
about her qualifications, and at each answer, his colleagues were
given to understand by a faint twitter of his eyes that Miss Watson
was still doing well.

"You're young of course," said Mr. Cowan, with the air of a man who
faces facts--but his natural generosity of spirit prompted him to add
"but you'll get over that, and anyway a girl is older in her ways than
a boy."

"We measure time by heart-beats," said Pearl, as she handed him a
flowered cushion to put behind his head, "not by figures on a dial."

She tossed it off easily, as if poetry were the language of every day
life to her.

Mr. Cowan shut one eye for the briefest space of time, and across the
room his two friends knew Miss Watson's chances were growing brighter
every minute. "My wife happened to be down at Chicken Hill the day you
spoke, and she said you sure did speak well, for a girl, and she
was hopin' you'd speak at our school some night--and we could get a
phonograph to liven things up a bit--I guess we're broad-minded enough
to listen to a woman."

Mr. Cowan's confidence in his companions was amply justified. They
nodded their heads approvingly, like men who are willing to try
anything once.

"Well, you see," Mr. Cowan went on, "we have a nice district, Miss
Watson. We're farmer people, of course, with the exception of the few
who live at the station; we're farmers but we're decent people--and
we're pretty well-to-do farmers--we have only one woman in the
district--that we sort of wish wasn't