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.