er all right that she might continue
her journey, as she understood it was not far.

"You have had a severe shaking up, Miss Wilton, but I don't think you
need to postpone your journey more than a few hours," was the doctor's
decision.

About noon, Rupert drove Miss Wilton's horse around to the front door
and delivered it to her. With a profusion of thanks, she drove away in
the direction of the chairman of the school trustees. Neither Nina nor
her mother had said anything about Rupert's being on the board. Mrs.
Ames had once seemed to broach the subject, but a look from Rupert was
enough to check her. When the school teacher disappeared down the road,
Rupert again shouldered his shovel, and this time the ugly hole where
the road crossed the canal was mended. That done, he returned home,
hitched a horse to his cart and drove to town.

III.

"Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain."--_Psalms 31:30._

Miss Virginia Wilton was engaged to teach the spring term of school at
the Dry Bench schoolhouse. Why that upland strip bordering the mountains
should be called "Dry Bench," Miss Wilton, at first, did not understand.
If there was a garden spot in this big, ofttimes barren Western country,
more beautiful than Dry Bench, she had in all her rambles failed to find
it. But when the secret of the big reservoir up in the hills came to her
knowledge, she wondered the more; and one member of the school board
from that moment rose to a higher place in her estimation; yes, went
past a long row of friends, up, shall it be said to the seat of honor?

Miss Wilton gave general satisfaction, and she was engaged for the next
school year.

For one whole year, the school teacher had passed the Ames farm twice
each day. She called often on Mrs. Ames, and Nina became her fast
friend. During those cool May mornings and afternoons, when the sky was
cloudless and the breeze came from the mountains, the young school
teacher passed up and down the road and fell to looking with pleasure on
the beautiful fields and orchards around her, and especially at the
Ames farm the central and most flourishing of them all. Perhaps it would
not be fair to analyze her thoughts too closely. She was yet young, only
twenty-two--Rupert's own age; yet Miss Wilton's experiences in this
world's school were greater than that of the simple young farmer's.

Had she designs on the Ames farm and its master? She had been in the
place a year only. How could suc