their friends.

Peter and Alix. Well, there was something rather pleasant in the
thought after all, if Alix didn't mind his ugliness and thinness.
Cherry thought about it all day. She had had no thought of money a
year or two ago; but she was more experienced now. And Peter was
rich.

Ordinarily she would have said that she was not going to change
for Peter's dinner; but this afternoon, without mentioning the
fact, she quietly got into one of her prettiest dresses; a dress
that had been made in the long-ago excitement of trousseau days.
Peter as a rather autocratic and critical neighbour was one thing;
as a possible brother-in-law he was another.

She came downstairs to find her father waiting, and they walked
away through the woods together. Alix had already gone up to
Peter's house to play tennis. They walked slowly through the
lovely aisles of the trees, crossing a road or two, climbing
steadily upward under great redwoods. The forest was thinning with
oaks and madrone trees, and they found the sunlight again high on
the crest of the ridge before a turn of the trail brought them in
view of Peter's bungalow. It was a shabby little place, all porch
and slope of rough brown roof, set in a wilderness of wild flowers
and overlooking long descending slopes of hillside that stretched
far away to the very bay and marshes at the ocean mouth.

To-night the spring sunshine streamed across it with broad
shadows, the mountains' rough crest stood against a wide expanse
of sunset sky. Cherry's skirt brushed the gold dust from masses