n-in-the-Face and myself solemnly discussed man and his
make-up, over a three-pound box of Maillard's, and resolutely agreed
that we would surrender our hearts to no suitor over twenty-six and
marry no male who'd ever loved another woman--not, at least, unless
the situation had become compensatingly romanticized by the death of
any such lady preceding us in our loved one's favor. Little we knew of
men and ourselves and the humiliations with which life breaks the
spirit of arrogant youth! For even now, knowing what I know, I've been
doing my best to cooper together a case for my unstable old
Dinky-Dunk. I've been trying to keep the thought of poor dead Lady
Alicia out of my head. I've been wondering if there's any truth in
what Dinky-Dunk said, a few weeks ago, about a mere father being like
the male of the warrior-spider whom the female of the species stands
ready to dine upon, once she's assured of her progeny.

I suppose I _have_ given most of my time and attention to my children.
And it's as perilous, I suppose, to give your heart to a man and then
take it even partly away again as it is to give a trellis to a
rose-bush and then expect it to stand alone. My husband, too, has been
restless and dissatisfied with prairie life during the last year or
so, has been rocking in his own doldrums of inertia where the sight of
even the humblest ship--and the Wandering Sail in this case always
seemed to me as soft and shapeless as a boned squab-pigeon!--could
promptly elicit an answering signal.

But I strike a snag there, for Alsina has not been so boneless as I
anticipated. There was an unlooked-for intensity in her eyes and a
mild sort of tragedy in her voice when she came and told me that she
was going to another school in the Knee-Hill country and asked if I
could have her taken in to Buckhorn the next morning. Some one, of
course, had to go. There was one too many in this prairie home that
must always remain so like an island dotting the lonely wastes of a
lonely sea. And triangles, oddly enough, seem to flourish best in city
squares. But much as I wanted to talk to Alsina, I was compelled to
respect her reserve. I even told her that Dinkie would miss her a
great deal. She replied, with a choke in her voice, that he was a
wonderful child. That, of course, was music to the ears of his mother,
and my respect for the tremulous Miss Teeswater went up at least ten
degrees. But when she added, without meeting my eye, that she w