"When did you experience a change of heart?"
"This morning at exactly two o'clock, I decided that there was nothing in it, that I wanted to be a solid citizen with a settled abiding place."
"Two o'clock! Why, that was when I reached Slippy——" With heightened color she tightened her rein and touched Bubbles with her heels. "I'll race you to the farmhouse," she called over her shoulder, a curious breathlessness in her voice. She kept the lead till they reached the gate of the farm, then Benson caught her horse by the bridle.
"The back of your head is attractive but I like your face better. Don't you want to hear the romantic story of Mrs. Simms before we get there? She's a Heart and Ringer."
"A—a what?"
It was no longer necessary to hold the bridle of the girl's horse. She forced him to a walk.
"Heart and Ringer. That is what they call the women who marry men who advertise in the matrimonial sheet, Heart and Ring."
"Really, Tommy! Did Mrs. Simms do that?"
"She did, and she got just what she paid for. Simms is a bounder but he's thrifty as the dickens and an A 1 workman. That's what caught Old Nick in the beginning. He'd have employed the devil himself had he those characteristics. But the man is ugly and insolent. How Steve puts up with him beats me. It is because of Mrs. Simms, I suppose. She is a fine woman and a corker in the dairy. She lived in Montana. She was the daughter of a miner who had made his pile and gone to farming. Montana got on her nerves, so when she saw Simms' 'ad' in Heart and Ring she corresponded with him and married him. I'll bet a hat Montana has looked like heaven to her ever since. That was one of their children who met Steve. I'd give my Kipling de luxe to know why."
He drew rein before the white farmhouse which hugged the ground like a mammoth brooding hen. In the field beyond was a spatter effect of snowy dairies and cow-barns. Black and white Holsteins, creamy Jerseys, Guernseys and a few Ayreshires grazed epicureanly in the lush pastures that climbed the foot-hills.