Virginia Aydelot looked at the scene before her. Then she turned to her husband with a smile on her young face, saying again,
“I am glad I am here.”
There is one chord that every woman’s voice touches some time, no matter what her words may be. As Virginia spoke, Asher saw again the moonlight on the white pillars of the south veranda of the old Aydelot farmhouse, and his mother sitting in the shadows; and again he caught the tone of her voice saying,
“Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be.”
He leaped from the wagon seat and put up his arms to help his wife to the ground.
“This is the end of the trail,” he said gaily. “We have 24 reached the inn with ’The Sign of the Sunflower.’ See the signboard Jim has put up for us.”
At that moment a big shepherd dog came bounding out of the weeds by the river and leaped toward them with joyous yelps; a light shone through the doorway, and a voice at once deep and pleasant to the ear, called out:
“Well, here you are, just as supper is ready. Present me to the bride, Asher, and then I’ll take the stock off your hands.”
“Mrs. Aydelot, this is Mr. James Shirley, at present the leading artistic house decorator as well as corn king of the Southwest. Allow me, Jim, to present my wife. You two ought to like each other if each of you can stand me.”
They shook hands cordially, and each took the other’s measure at a glance. What Shirley saw was a small, well-dressed woman whose charm was a positive force. It was not merely that she was well-bred and genial of manner, nor that for many reasons she was pretty and would always be pretty, even with gray hair and wrinkles. There was something back of all this; something definite to build on; a self-reliance and unbreakable determination without the spirit that antagonizes.