"Well, we all were!" Alix confessed. "But it's just Anne's odd
little self-centred way," she added. "It was here, and she wanted
it. She belongs heart and soul to the Little family now, and she
is quite triumphant over being of so much help to Justin. They're
to build a house in Berkeley. Anne has it all worked out!" Alix
said, with amused distaste. "Well--I let Hong go, and as soon as I
can rent this house, I'm going to New York."

"Why New York, my dear girl?"

"Because I believe I can make a living there, singing and teaching
and generally struggling with life!" she answered, cheerfully.
"Cherry gets most of the money--they are always somewhat in debt,
and I imagine that the reason she is able to have a nice apartment
and a maid now is because she knows it is coming--and I get the
house, and enough money to keep me going--say, a year, in New
York."

"Do you want to go, Alix?" he said, affectionately.

"Yes, I think I do," she answered. But her eyes watered. "I do--in
a way," she added. "That is, I love my singing, and the thought of
making a success is delightful to me. But of course it means that
I give up everything else. I can't have home life, and--and the
valley--for years, four or five anyway, I'll have to give all that
up. And I'm twenty-seven, Peter. And I'd always rather hoped that
my music was going to be a domestic variety--"She stopped,
smiling, but he saw the pain in her eyes. "George Sewall most
kindly asked me to mother his small son--" she resumed, casually.