the little dogs. Women ought to keep out of business affairs between
men."

And as she turned the last page, slipped it back into place and
promptly began at the beginning of the very first one, Rose Mary's
face was an exquisite study in what might have been entitled pure joy.
Her roses rioted up under her lashes, her rich lips curled like the
half-blown bud between the flower of her cheeks, and her eyes shone
like the two first stars mirrored in a woman's pool of life. Also it
is one of the mysteries of the drama why a woman will scan over and
over pages whose every letter is chiseled inches deep into her heart;
and exactly one-half hour later Rose Mary was still standing
motionless by her table, with the letter outspread in her hand.

And this was a very wonderful woman Old Harpeth had cradled in the
hollow of His hand, nurtured on the richness of the valley and
breathed into her with ever-perfumed breath the peace of faith--in God
and man, for to any but an elemental, natural, faith-inspired woman of
the fields would have come crushing, cruel, tearing doubts of the man
beyond the hills who said so little and yet so much. However, Rose
Mary was one of the order of fostering women whose arms are forever
outheld cradle-wise, and to whose breast is ever drawn in mother love
the child in the man of her choice, so her days since Everett's
hurried departure had been filled with love and longing, with faith
and prayers, but there had been not one shadow of doubt of him or his
love for her all half-spoken as he had left it.

And added to her full heart had been burdens that had made her hands
still fuller. She had gone on her way day by day pouring out the
richness of her life and strength where it was so sorely needed by her