first time!"

Peter, edging smoothly about a wide blue puddle, nodded
sympathetically, but did not answer.

"I envy Alix--" Cherry said in idle mischief. She knew that the
subject was not a safe one, but was irresistibly impelled to
pursue it.

"Alix?" said Peter, after a silence long enough to make her feel
ashamed of herself.

"Yes. Her young man lives in Mill Valley, right near home!"
elucidated Cherry.

"Am I Alix's young man?" he asked, amused.

"Well, aren't you?"

"I don't know. I've never been any one's young man," said Peter.

"Whoever the woman who treated you meanly is--I hate her!" Cherry
began again. "Unless," she added, "unless she was very young, and
you never told her!"

This time he did not answer at all, and they spun along in utter
silence. But when they were nearing Sausalito, Cherry said almost
timidly:

"I think perhaps it would make her happy--and proud, to know that