Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

“ Herries still chuckled.
Frances turned her puzzled gaze on Ethel. "I shouldn't wonder," nodded the girl, with indifferent placidity.
"Do you mean——?" asked the Missionary.
"Oh, Walt's easy, you know," explained Ethel. "He's known everywhere for a kind of mark. Anybody can get money out of him."
"Any woman, you mean," corrected Herries. "Men haven't found it so easy."
Frances dropped her sewing in her lap and sat staring meditatively before her, the puzzled expression deepening in her eyes. ”

“ She shrank back visibly now, and lifted one hand, palm outward, before her eyes. "Oh, don't remind me of that!" There was pain in her voice.
He laughed again. "Why not? What were your wits given you for but to use. That's where you're strong, when you use the methods that come natural to you. You'll never learn to handle any others properly, no matter how hard you try. And you'll never bring Evans and his wife together by preaching love and forgiveness. Pish!" He twisted his mouth awry. "Use your wits!"
Frances sat late that night, thinking. ”

“ It is hard to learn the lesson to wait, wait, until we are led."
"Poor Evans!" Herries twisted his mouth. "He's so used to being managed; he's no idea how to take care of himself. He's been swaddled too long."
"Ain't he got the nice, kind eyes, though?" said Ethel, straightening her bowed figure, which had been bent over the stove. At the request of Frances, she was preparing coffee and setting out some little cakes. "Kind of patient, dumb eyes, just like a dog's that gets a licking every now and then." ”

“ Always before she had lived in large cities where crowds meet and jostle and travel hither and thither in a series of erratic movements, their progress as purposeless and aimless to the onlooker as that of black ants crawling hurriedly to and fro. ”

“ He unrolls the goods with a quick jerk, then gathers it up in his hands, that the fabric may catch the light on its surfaces. His eyes are upon yours. If you show interest, he explains, cajoles. If he reads genuine indifference, he shrugs his shoulders and produces a more tempting vanity.
"Sick in bed," Herries repeated with unction. "Fool! He's helpless as a baby. He can't 'bach' any more than Campbell here."
Frances looked up quickly. ”

“ He had always been a popular man in the village, one who had unconsciously commanded respect, because he was steady-going and square; but he had not heeded the gratuitous advice of the legion who now claimed to have warned him against the unscrupulous Brown and his cut-throat lease, and consequently he reaped the somewhat barren sympathy bestowed upon the unsuccessful. This world's darlings are those who openly defy her and carry their point by reckless, spectacular daring ”

“ After a day or two at the Thorn House, he had taken the one-room cabin above that of Frances, and renewed his pre-marital experience of "baching," to the intense excitement of the village.
Zenith, it should be said, never narrowly confined itself to the proverbial nine days' wonder; regarding such definitely proscribed limitations as artificial and effete. One topic was always made to last until the next arose. To put it vulgarly, the art of spreading a small bit of butter over a large slice of bread was thoroughly understood and demonstrated ”

“ Ketch a man ever sayin' that he's in the wrong! Oh, of course, it was all right for you to sign up Brown's lease; any fool miner in the camp ought to have known the minute he put eyes on Brown that he might as well sell himself to the devil as sign one of his contracts. ”