embarrassed. He was not looking for happiness but merely
for more of the physical comforts, and an escape from loneliness. He
was practical; he fancied he knew about what could be expected from
marriage, just as he knew exactly how many steers and hogs his farm
could support. This was a new idea--happiness. It had never entered into
his calculations. Life as he knew it was hard. There was no happiness in
those fields when burned by the hot August winds, the soil breaking into
cakes that left crevices which seemed to groan for water. That sky with
its clouds that gave no rain was a hard sky. The people he knew were
sometimes contented, but he could not remember ever having known any to
whom the word "happy" could be applied. His father and mother--they had
been a good husband and wife. But happy? They had been far too absorbed
in the bitter struggle for a livelihood to have time to think of
happiness. This had been equally true of the elder Malls, was true today
of Nellie and her husband. A man and a woman needed each other's help,
could make a more successful fight, go farther together than either
could alone. To Martin that was the whole matter in a nutshell, and
Rose's gentle question threw him into momentary confusion.

"I don't know," he answered uneasily. "We both like to make a success of
things and we'd have plenty to do with. We'd make a pretty good pulling
team."

Rose considered this thoughtfully. "Perhaps the people who work together
best are the happiest. But somehow I'd never pictured myself on a farm."

"Of course, I don't expect you to make up your mind right away," Martin
conceded. "It's something to study over. I'll come around to your place
tomorrow evening after I get the chores done up and we can talk some
more."

So far as Martin was concerned, the matter was clinched. He felt not the
slightest doubt but that it was merely a question of time before Rose
would consent to his proposition.

After he had left, she reviewed it a little sadly. It wasn't the kind
of marriage of which she had always dreamed. She realized that she was
capable of profound devotion, of responding with her whole being to
a deep love. But was it probable that this love would ever come? She
thought over the men of Fallon and its neighborhood. There were few as
handsome as Martin--not one with such generous plans. She knew her own
domestic talents. She was a born housekeeper and home-maker. It had been
a curious destiny that