“I'm sure no advice of mine is needed; Miss Conklin has already made up her mind to gratify you. She likes to show the country to strangers,” he added bitterly. The girl flushed at the sarcasm, but her spirit was not subdued. “Wall, Mr. Barkman,” she retorted, with a smiling glance at the lawyer, “I guess I must give in; if Mr. Bancroft thinks I ought ter, there's no more to be said. I'm willin'.” An evening or two later, Barkman having gone into Wichita, Bancroft asked Loo to go out with him upon the stoop. For several minutes he stood in silence admiring the moonlit landscape; then he spoke as if to himself: “Not a cloud in the purple depths, no breath of air, no sound nor stir of life--peace absolute that mocks at man's cares and restlessness. Look, Loo, how the ivory light bathes the prairie and shimmers on the sea of corn, and makes of the little creek a ribband of silver.... “Yet you seem to prefer a great diamond gleaming in a white shirt-front, and a coarse, common face, and vulgar talk. “You,” and he turned to her, “whose beauty is like the beauty of nature itself, perfect and ineffable. When I think of you and that coarse brute together, I shall always remember this moonlight and the hateful zig-zagging snake-fence there that disfigures and defiles its beauty.” The girl looked up at him, only half understanding his rhapsody, but glowing with the hope called to life by his extravagant praise of her. “Why, George,” she said shyly, because wholly won, “I don't think no more of Lawyer Barkman than the moon thinks of the fence--an' I guess that's not much,” she added, with a little laugh of complete content. The common phrases of uneducated speech and the vulgar accent of what he thought her attempt at smart rejoinder offended him. Misunderstanding her literalness of mind, he moved away, and shortly afterwards re-entered the house. Of course Loo was dissatisfied with such incidents as these. When she saw Bancroft trying to draw Barkman out and throw contempt upon him, she never dreamed of objecting. But when he attacked her, she flew to her weapons. What had she done, what was she doing, to deserve his sneers? She only wished him to love her, and she felt indignantly that every time she teased him by going with Barkman, he was merciless, and whenever she abandoned herself to him, he drew back. She couldn't bear that; it was cruel of him. She loved him, yes; no one, she knew, would ever make him so good a wife as she would. No one ever could. Why, there was nothin' she wouldn't do for him willingly. She'd see after his comforts an' everythin'. She'd tidy all his papers an' fix up his things. And if he ever got ill, she'd jest wait on him day and night--so she would. She'd be the best wife to him that ever was.