all! Cherry, do you suppose they can see from our faces how happy
we are?" Little sentences that meant nothing when other lips spoke
them, but that his voice made immortal.

Looking up at him, she thought of the glorious days ahead. How
they would all wonder and exclaim; yes, and how the girls would
envy her! Little Cherry, just eighteen, going to be married, and
married to a man that Alix or Anne would have been only too glad
to win! A real man, from the outside world, a man of twenty-eight,
ten years older than she was. And how the letters and presents and
gowns and plans would begin to flutter through the bungalow--she
would be married in cafe-au-lait rajah cloth, as Miss Pinckney in
San Francisco was; she would be Mrs. Lloyd! She could chaperone
Alix and Anne--

There was a rending, slipping noise on the roof, a scream from
Martin, and shouts from the doctor and Peter. With a great sliding
and rushing of the refractory sprays, and with a horrifying
stumbling and falling, down came Martin, caught in a great rope of
the creeper, almost at her feet.

A time of great running and calling ensued. Cherry dropped on her
knees beside him, and had his head on her arm for a moment; then
her father took her place, and Alix, with an astonished look at
the younger girl's wet eyes, drew her sister away. Immediately
afterward Martin sat up, looked bewilderedly about from one face
to another, looked at his scratched wrist and said "Gee!" in a
thoughtful tone. Anne, coming out with sandwiches, joined in the
general laugh.