Cherry was surprised at his attitude, but grateful more than
surprised.

"Not cross, Mart?" she asked.

"Not the least in the world!" he answered, lightly.

"Because I truly believe that we'd both be happier--" the woman
said, hesitatingly. Martin did not answer.

The next day she sat down to write her father. The house was
still. Red Creek was awakening in the heavenly October coolness,
children chattered on the way to school, the morning and evening
were crisp and sharp.

Cherry stared out at a field of stubble bathed in soft sunshine.
The hills to-day were only a shade deeper than the pale sky. Along
the road back of the house a lumber wagon rattled, the thin bay
horses galloping joyously in harness. Pink and white cosmos,
pallid on clouds of frail, bushy green, were banked in the shade
of the woodshed.

She meditated, with a troubled brow. Her letter was unexpectedly
hard to compose. She could not take a bright and simple tone,
asking her father to rejoice in her home-coming. Somehow the
matter persisted in growing heavy, and the words twisted
themselves about into ugly and selfish sounds. Cherry was young,
but even to her youth the phrases, the "misunderstood" and the
"uncongenial," the "friendly parting before any bitterness creeps
in," and the "free to decide our lives in some happier and wiser