Patrick Conroy had come from Sharon, Illinois, to perform the thankless task of starting a weekly newspaper in a town already undernourishing one. By sheer stubbornness he had at last established it. Twelve hundred subscribers, their little printing jobs, advertisers who bought liberal portions of space at ten cents an inch--all had enabled him to give his children a living that was a shade better than an existence. He had died less than a year ago, and Martin, like the rest of the community, had supposed the Fallon Independent would be sold or suspended. Instead, as quietly and matter-of-factly as she had filled her dead mother's place in the home while her brothers and sisters were growing up, Rose stepped into her father's business, took over the editorship and with a boy to do the typesetting and presswork, continued the paper without missing an issue. It even paid a little better than before, partly because it flattered Fallon's sense of Christian helpfulness to throw whatever it could in Rose's way, but chiefly because she made the Independent a livelier sheet with double the usual number of “Personals.” Yes, decidedly, Rose had force and push. Martin's mind was made up. He would drop into the Independent ostensibly to extend his subscription, but really to get on more intimate terms with the woman whom he had now firmly determined should become his wife. He drew a deep breath of relaxation and finished the glass of sweetness with that sense of self-conscious sheepishness which most men feel when they surrender to the sticky charms of an ice-cream soda. A few minutes later he stood beside Rose's worn desk. “How-do-you-do, once more, Miss Rose of Sharon. You're not the Bible's Rose of Sharon, are you?” he joshed a bit awkwardly. “If I were a rose of anywhere, I'd soon wilt in this stuffy little office of inky smells,” she answered pleasantly. “A rose would need petals of leather to get by here.” “A rose, by rights, belongs out of doors,”--Martin indicated the direction of his farm--“out there where the sun shines and there's no smells except the rich, healthy smells of nature.” A merry twinkle appeared in Rose's eyes. “Aren't roses out there”--and her gesture was in the same direction--“rather apt to be crowded down by the weeds?” “Not if there was a good strong man about--a man who wanted to cultivate the soil and give the rose a pretty place in which to bloom.” “Why, Martin,” Rose laughed lightly, “the way you're fixed out there with that shack, the only thing that ever blooms is a fine crop of rag-weeds.” At this gratuitous thrust a flood of crimson surged up Martin's magnificent, column-like throat and broke in hot waves over his cheeks. “Well, it's not going to be that way for long,” he announced evenly. “I'm going to plant a rose--a real rose there soon and everything is going to be right--garden, house and all.” “Is this your way of telling me you're going to be married?”