"You were always fond of the girls," Chester remarked as he smoked. "Well, out here in the country is no place for them." "No place for them! Huh, that’s _your_ idea, is it? Well, let me tell you, Chester, I saw on the road as I came on just now simply the prettiest, daintiest, and most graceful creature I ever laid my eyes on. I’ve seen them all, too, and, by George, she simply took the rag off the bush. Slender, beautifully formed, willowy, small feet and hands, high instep, big, dreamy eyes, and light-brown hair touched with gold. She came out of a farm-house, walking like a young queen, about half a mile back. I made Ike drive slowly and tried to get her to look at me, but she only raised her eyes once." "Virginia Hemingway," Chester said, coldly. "Yes, she’s pretty. There’s no doubt about that." "You know her, then?" said the drummer, eagerly. "Say, old man, introduce a fellow." Chester’s face hardened. The light of cordiality died out of his eyes. There was a significant twitching of his lips round his cigar. "I really don’t see how I could," he said, after an awkward pause, during which his eyes were averted. "You see, Masters, she’s quite young, and it happens that her mother—a lonely old widow—is rather suspicious of men in general, and I seem to have displeased her in some way. You see, all these folks, as a rule, go regularly to meeting, and as I don’t go often, why—" "Oh, I see," the drummer said. "But let me tell you, old chap, suspicious mother or what not, I’d see something of that little beauty if I lived here. Gee whiz! she’d make a Fifth Avenue dress and Easter hat ashamed of themselves anywhere but on her. Look here, Chester, I’ve always had a sneaking idea that sooner or later I’d be hit deep at first sight by some woman, and I’ll be hanged if I know but what that’s the matter with me right now. I’ve seen so many women, first and last, here and there, always in the giddy set, that I reckon if I ever marry I’d rather risk some pure-minded little country girl. Do you know, town girls simply know too much to be interesting. By George, I simply feel like I’d be perfectly happy with a little wife like the girl I saw this morning. I wish you could fix it so I could meet her this trip, or my next." "I—I simply can’t do it, Masters." There was a rising flush of vexation in the young planter’s face as he knocked the ashes from his cigar into a nail-keg on the floor. "I don’t know her well enough, in the first place, and then, in the next, as I said, her mother is awfully narrow and particular. She scarcely allows the girl out of sight; if you once saw old Jane Hemingway you’d not fancy making love before her eyes." "Well, I reckon Wilson knows the girl, doesn’t he?" the drummer said. Chester hesitated, a cold, steady gleam of the displeasure he was trying to hide flashed in his eyes.