ynne's disapproval vanished as he shook hands with the blooming young
matron and met her bright laughing eyes. She was a small imposing
creature and received him in quite the grand manner. Her accent of
America was as slight as Isabel's, and she used no slang. There was
about her something of the primness that characterizes American women in
the smaller towns, but her simple linen frock had been cut by a master,
and she looked so warm, so womanly, so hospitable as she welcomed Gwynne
to Rosewater, that he liked her more spontaneously than he had liked
anybody since he crossed the Atlantic, and was almost enthusiastic as he
rode on with Isabel.

"Anabel is a perfect dear," said his companion, whose eyes and cheeks
were still glowing, and who looked like a mere girl. "I am much fonder
of her than I am of Paula, although we haven't a thing in common. She
was domestic and wild about children before she was done with dolls. Of
course she married at once. When we were at the High School together she
regarded my ambition to be first as a standing joke, and has never read
anything heavier than a classic novel in her life. Why I am so fond of
her I can't say, unless it is that she is absolutely genuine, and that
counts more in the long-run than anything else. Besides, she was my
first friend when I came here as a little girl. Her mother--Mrs.
Leslie--belongs to one of the old San Francisco families, and had always
known my mother. I love her as much as ever, but I am bound to confess
that I have missed her little. I suppose complete happiness comes when
you miss nobody."

They rode on in silence, for the heat was increasing and the dust lay
thick on the road and swirled about their heads. There had been no rain
since March, and the sea that sent its daily fogs and breezes to cool
San Francisco and the towns about the bay was forty miles from
Rosewater.

"Never mind," said Isabel, as Gwynne mopped his brow for the third time
and ostentatiously rubbed his face. "The nights are cool and the hot
weather will soon moderate down into the mellowness of October. When the
rains come--well it is a toss up, which is worse--the dust or the mud."

"Heavens knows what we have swallowed," muttered Gwynne, who had served
on sanitary boards and heard much talk of germs. But Isabel only laughed
and told him to go to Anabel, who had a nostrum for every ill. A moment
later the road led up a hill-side, and at the summit she caught his
bridle and