hills, and the vivid coloring brightened her eyes. She heard Manley enter
the kitchen, set down the pail of water, and come on to where she stood.

"I'd forgotten you said we could see the river from here," she told him,
smiling over her shoulder. "It's beautiful, isn't it? I don't suppose,
though, there's a boat within millions of miles."

"Oh, there's a boat down there. It leaks, though. I just use it for ducks,
close to shore. Admiring our view? Great, don't you think?"

Val clasped her hands before her and let her gaze travel again over the
sweep of rugged hills. "It's--wonderful. I thought I knew, but I see I
didn't. I feel very small, Manley; does one ever grow up to it?"

He seemed dimly to catch the note of utter desolation. "You'll get used to
all that," he assured her. "I thought I'd reached the jumping-off place, at
first. But now--you couldn't dog me outa the country."

He was slipping into the vernacular, and Val noticed it, and wondered dully
if she would ever do likewise. She had not yet admitted to herself that
Manley was different. She had told herself many times that it would take
weeks to wipe out the strangeness born of three years' separation. He was
the same, of course; everything else was new and--different. That was all.
He seemed intensely practical, and he seemed to feel that his love-making
had all been done by letter, and that nothing now remained save the
business of living. So, when he told her to rest, and that he would get
dinner and show her how a bachelor kept house, she let him go with no reply
save that vague, impersonal smile which Kent had encountered at the depot.

While he rattled things about in the kitchen, she stood still in the