Her charm was largely physical, but she used it with caution.

One might indulge in banter, and Sadie had a ringing laugh that young men liked, but there were limits that few who knew her overstepped.

One or two had done so, but had been rebuked in a way they wished to forget.

Sadie had the tricks of an accomplished coquette, but something of the heart of a prude.
The settlement got indistinct, and crossing a low rise, they drove past a birch bluff where the twigs were breaking into tiny points of green.
Then they forded a creek and skirted a shallow lake, from which a flock of ducks rose and flew North in a straggling wedge.

Sandhills gleamed on the ridges, tall cranes stalked about the hollows, and when the team, laboring through the loose soil, crossed an elevation one could see the plain roll back into the far distance.