Immediately they gathered by the fallen rose vine, all talking and
disputing at once. Alix and the dogs added only noise to the
confusion; the men debated, measured, and doubted; Anne, busy with
household duties, came and went smilingly. About them stretched
the forest, wrapped in the summer morning stillness that is really
compounded of a thousand happy sounds. There was no fog now; warm
spokes of sunshine fell brightly into the dim, glowing heart of
the woods; bees and birds murmured on short journeys; aromatic
sweetness drifted on the air.

They had known a thousand such mornings, the doctor and his girls,
still, exquisite, happy, dedicated to some absurd undertaking.
They had built chicken pens, they had dammed or cleared the creek,
they had felled bay-trees, and lopped the lower branches of the
redwoods, they had built roaring bonfires, or painted the porch
floor, and many times they had roasted chops or potatoes at the
brick oven, and feasted royally in the open forest.

A light rope was tied; an experimental tug broke it like a string,
tumbling Alix violently in a sitting position, and precipitating
her father into a loamy bed. Anne, who was bargaining with a
Chinese fruit vendor frankly interested in their undertaking, had
called that she would help them in a second, when behind Alix, who
was still sitting on the ground, another voice offered help.

A young man had come into the doctor's garden; work was stopped
for a few minutes while they welcomed Martin Lloyd.

He was tall and fair, broad, but with not an ounce of extra
weight, with brown eyes always laughing, and a ready friendliness