"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 had driven her into a newspaper office, and at that very
moment, there lay on her desk, like a whisper from Fate, the
written offer from the rival paper to buy her out for fifteen
hundred dollars, giving herself a position on the consolidated
staff. She had been pondering over this proposal when Martin