ing a housekeeper and helper had been consummated, he would
find that he was not dealing with a business partner in the abstract,
but a definite woman, who had already begun to exert over him her
natural influence. He had expected more or less constraint and that
some time must elapse before his wife would cease to be in a sense
company whom he, with conscious and deliberate effort, must entertain.
On the contrary she entertained and interested him, although she said
so little, and by some subtle power she unloosed his tongue and made it
easy for him to talk to her. In the most quiet and unobtrusive way,
she was not only making herself at home, but him also; she was very
subservient to his wishes, but not servilely so; she did not assert,
but only revealed her superiority, and after even so brief an
acquaintance he was ready to indorse Tom Watterly's view, "She's out of
the common run."

While all this was true, the farmer's heart was as untouched as that of
a child who simply and instinctively likes a person. He was still
quietly and unhesitatingly loyal to his former wife. Apart from his
involuntary favor, his shrewd, practical reason was definite enough in
its grounds of approval. Reason assured him that she promised to do and
to be just what he had married her for, but this might have been true
of a capable, yet disagreeable woman whom he could not like, to save
himself.

Both in regard to himself and Alida, Holcroft accepted the actual facts
with the gladness and much of the unquestioning simplicity of a child.
This rather risky experiment was turning out well, and for a time he
daily became more and more absorbed in his farm and its interests.
Alida quietly performed her household tasks and proved that she would
not need very much instruction to become a good butter maker. The
short spring of the North required that he should be busy early and
late to keep pace with the quickly passing seedtime. His hopefulness,
his freedom from household worries, prompted him to sow and plant
increased areas of land. In brief, he entered on just the
business-like honeymoon he had hoped for.

Alida was more than content with the conditions of her life. She saw
that Holcroft was not only satisfied, but also pleased with her, and
that was all she had expected and indeed all that thus far she had
wished or hoped. She had many sad hours; wounds like hers cannot heal
readily in a true, sensitive woman's heart. While she gai