of him, he sat down upon the very log over
which the girl had fallen, and turned his face toward where the little
home of the girls, with its single twinkling light, was rapidly losing
itself in the deep of the gathering twilight.

He had no thought for the elder girl as he sat there. Her bolder
beauty had no attraction for him, her big, dark eyes, so full of
reliant spirit were scarcely the type he admired. She might be
everything a woman should be, strong, sympathetic, generous, big in
spirit, and of unusual courage; she might be all these and more, but,
even so, she was incomparable to the fair delight of Helen's bright,
inconsequent prettiness. No, serious-minded people did not appeal to
him, and, in his blundering way, he told himself that life itself was
far too serious to be taken seriously.

Now Helen was full to the brim of a flippant, girlish humor that
appealed to him monstrously. He felt that it was a man's place to
think seriously, if serious thought were needed. And he intended when
he married to do the thinking. His wife must be wholly delightful and
feminine, in fact, just as Helen was. Pretty, laughing, smartly
dressed, and always preferring to lean on his decisions rather than
indulge in the manufacture of wrinkles on her pretty forehead striving
to find them for herself.

He felt sure that Helen would make a perfect wife for a man like
himself. Particularly now, as she was used to the life of the valley.
And, furthermore, he felt that a wife such as she would be essential
to him, since he had definitely come to live as a rancher.

She certainly would be an ideal rancher's wife. He could picture her
quite well mounted upon a high-spirited prairie-bred horse, riding
over the plains, or round the fences, since that seemed necessary, at
his side. He would listen to her merry chatter as he inspected the
work that was going forward, while she, simply bubbling with the joy
of living, looked on with a perfect sense of humor for those things
which her more sober-minded sister would have regarded as matters only
for serious consideration.

Thus he went on dreaming, his eyes fixed upon the distant, lamp-lit
window, all utterly regardless of the fall of night, and the passing
of the hours. Nor was it until he suddenly awoke to the chill of the
falling dew that he remembered that he was on his way home to tell
Charlie of all his pleasant adventures.

Stirring with that swift impulse which always seemed to a