white, on her Uncle's arm, heard the old neighbours and friends
saying that little Anne Strickland had gone to her own home, and
had won the love of a fine man.

Downstairs, the doctor sat on, thinking, and his face was grave.
He was thinking of little Cherry's goodnight kiss, half an hour
ago. She had rested against his arm, and he had held her there,
but what had been the thoughts behind the blue eyes so near his
own? Perhaps Anne was right--perhaps Anne was right. But he
realized with a great rush of fear that some man had kissed Cherry
to-night, had held her against a tobacco-scented coat, and that
the girl was a woman, and an awakened woman at that. Cherry--
kissed a man! Her father's heart winced away from the thought.

Young Lloyd and Peter had walked home with her. But if Anne was
right in her maidenly suspicions of Lloyd's intentions, then it
must have been Peter who surprised little Cherry with a sudden
embrace. Lloyd had been hurrying for a train, too; the case looked
clear for Peter.

And as he came to his conclusions, a certain relief crept into the
old man's heart. Peter was an odd fellow; he was ten years too old
for the child. But Peter was a lover of books and gardens and
woods and music, after all, and Peter's father and this old man
musing by the fire had been "Lee" and "Paul" to each other since
boyhood. Peter might give Cherry a kiss as innocently as a
brother; in any case, Peter would wait for her, would be all
consideration and tenderness when he did win her.

"But I think perhaps she might go down to the San Jose school for