ieved he had gone north into that great unknown land of fabled
riches. He had not been heard from for several years, and the people
of the neighborhood had often wondered what would be done with the
quarter-section, which was one of the best in the district, in case he
never came back. The Cowan's, who lives nearest, had planted one of
the fields, and used the land for the last two seasons. The Zinc's had
run their cattle in the pasture, and two of the other neighbors were
preparing to use the remaining portions of the farm, when there
arrived Mrs. Gray and her seven-year-old son to take possession.

It was Mr. Cowan who demanded to know by what right she came, and when
she had convinced him by showing him the deed of the farm, she came
back at him by demanding that he pay her the rent for the acres he had
used, which he did with a bad grace.

She had not been long in the neighborhood when there came to
demonstrate a new sewing machine a drooping-eyed, be-whiskered man,
in a slim buggy, drawn by a team of sorrel ponies. He claimed to have
known Mrs. Gray in that delightfully vague spot known as "down East,"
and when he found how eagerly any information regarding her was
received, he grew eloquent.

Mrs. Cowan departed from her hard and fast rule, and the rule of her
mother before her, and asked him to stay for dinner, and being an
honest man, in small matters at least, the agent did his best to pay
for his victuals. He told her all he knew--and then some, prefacing
and footnoting his story with the saving clause "Now this may be only
talk--but, anyway, it is what they said about her." He was not a
malicious man--he bore the woman, who was a stranger to him, no
grudge; but that day as he sat at dinner in the Cowan's big, bare
kitchen, he sent out the words which made life hard for the woman at
Purple Springs.

So much for the chivalry of the world and the kindly protection it
extends to women.

Vague rumors were circulated about her, veiled, indefinite
insinuations. The Ladies' Aid decided they would not ask her to join,
at least not until they saw how things were going. She might be all
right, but they said a church society must be careful.

The women watched each other to see who would go to see her first. She
came to church with her boy, to the little church on the river flat,
and the minister shook hands with her and told her he was glad to
see her. But the next week his wife, spending the afternoon at Mrs.
C