"Practically alone--the nearest ranch was four miles from ours. Naturally, we saw few people, the most constant visitor at this time being a young man who owned the ranch next to ours, who, during the year, had ridden over to see us with increasing frequency. His name was Ralph Buckner, and he seemed to us to be a characteristic product of the West--with his large frame, bluff manners, and frank, open countenance. We all liked him, and the fact that he differed so much from the Eastern men I had known perhaps caused me to show a greater interest in him than I really felt. At all events, no girl was ever more genuinely surprised by an offer of marriage than I was, when it came unexpectedly one day, with that determination back of it to secure what he desired which was a part of the man himself. I did manage to collect my senses long enough to insist that I have time to think the matter over--for I had no idea of marrying him; but, much to my surprise, father approved the idea from the moment I told him of the proposal. Then it developed that Ralph had already approached him on the subject. Father, poor dear, thought only of my future and what he believed would be my happiness. It was so evident that I held in my hands the solution of his most serious problem that he never knew the misgivings I felt from the first. He could live on at the ranch for the present, busying himself with the work which kept him out-of-doors; then later, if he preferred, he could come and live with us." "Couldn't he see what a sacrifice it meant to you?" Alice asked. "No, dear; you must remember that, in his way, Ralph was an attractive fellow. He had been successful with his ranch; he was agreeable and intelligent; his Western boldness, as it seemed to me, was at times tempered with a certain gentleness hardly to be expected in a man of his nature; and, all in all, he was a man to whom any girl could at least give respect, and affection might come later. It meant settling down in the West for the rest of my life, but this was inevitable, anyway. I must forget the old friends and the old associations, and could I not do this better with a husband's help than alone? I asked myself a thousand questions and ended by deciding that I would marry him. "It was a short courtship--delay was a word not found in Ralph Buckner's vocabulary. We were married and began our life at his ranch, which, as I say, was near enough to my father so that we could be in frequent communication. He had been much concerned about me, having discovered more of my homesickness for the East than I had realized, so to see me well settled and apparently happy relieved him of a heavy load." "But you weren't happy even at first," Alice insisted. "How could you be?"