Your dad's goin' to run the railroad into Heart's Desire, and we'll all live happy ever after.

You come along just to see that your dad didn't get sun stroke, or Saint Vitus dance, or cerebrus meningittus, or something else.

I understood all that perfectly, ma'am.

And I understand too, perfectly, ma'am," he continued, tapping his pipe on a wagon wheel, "that back yonder in the States, somewhere, Dan Anderson knowed a 'face that was the fairest'; I reckon he allowed it was 'the fairest that e'er the sun shone on.' Now, I'm old and ugly, and I don't even know whether I'm a widower any or not; so I know, ma'am, you won't take no offence if I tell you it's a straight case of reasonin'; for _yore_ own face, ma'am,--and I ain't sayin' this with any sort of disrespect to any of my wives,--is about the fairest that Dan Anderson ever did or could see--or me either.

I don't reckon, ma'am, that he's lookin' for one that's any fairer." Constance Ellsworth turned squarely and gazed hard into the eyes of the man before her.