everything. There was order now, there was charming fussing and
dusting, there were flowers in bowls, and books set straight, and
there was just the different little angle to piano and desk and
chairs and tables that made the cabin a home at last. She wanted
bricks for a path; he had laughed at her fervent, "Do give me a
whole carload of bricks for Christmas, Peter!" She wanted bulbs to
pot. He had lazily suggested that they open the town house while
carpenters and painters remade the cabin, but she had protested
hotly, "Oh, do let's keep it just as it always was!"

Smiling, he gave her her way. She amused him day after day. He
watched her, marvelling at the miracle that was woman. He heard
her in the kitchen, interrogating the Chinese: "You show me
picture your little boy!" He heard her inveigling Antone, the old
Italian labourer, into confidences.

Tonight he watched her in great satisfaction; he liked to have her
here in his home, one of the pretty Stricklands, Peter Joyce's
wife. Nobody else was here, nobody else belonged here, they were
masters of their own lives. She quite captivated him by her
simplicity and frankness; she washed her masses of brown hair and
shook it loose in the sunshine, and she came in wet more than
once, and changed her shoes before the fire--just as she had years
ago, when she was a madcap little girl running wild through the
woods.

They had been talking of Cherry, as they often did. Alix's
favourite topic was her little sister; she had almost a maternal
pride and fondness where Cherry was concerned. Today she had been
house-cleaning, and had brought some treasures downstairs. She had