Gurney, new to love and romance, scarcely knew how to take his good fortune, how to begin.

He told Stephanie of his home life in the wheat-fields of the Northwest, how his family had moved from Ohio when he was three, and how difficult were the labors he had always undergone.

He had stopped in his plowing many a day to stand under a tree and write a poem--such as it was--or to watch the birds or to wish he could go to college or to Chicago.

She looked at him with dreamy eyes, her dark skin turned a copper bronze in the moonlight, her black hair irradiated with a strange, luminous grayish blue.

Forbes Gurney, alive to beauty in all its forms, ventured finally to touch her hand--she of Knowles, Cross, and Cowperwood--and she thrilled from head to toe.