"You scared Cherry out of ten years' growth!" Alix reproached
Martin.

"I--I thought he might have hurt himself!" Cherry said, in the
softest of little-girl voices, and with her shy little head
hanging. Anne decided that it was becoming her clear duty to talk
to Cherry.

"My dear," she said, later that same afternoon, when by chance she
was alone with her little cousin, "don't you think perhaps it
would be a little more dignified to treat Mr. Lloyd with more
formality? He likes you, dear, of course. But a man wants to
respect as well as like a pretty girl, and I am afraid--Uncle has
noticed it!" she interrupted herself quickly, as Cherry tossed her
head scornfully. "He spoke of it last night, and Alix tells me
that you are calling Mr. Lloyd 'Martin!' Now, dearie, Martin Lloyd
is fully ten years---"

"Then Alix is a tattle-tale!" Cherry said childishly.

"I don't know about that," Anne said gently, although perhaps it
would have been more generous in her to add that Alix had made the
comment gleefully, and almost admiringly. "But that isn't
important. The point is that you are only a young girl--"

"I wish you would all mind your own royal business for about five
seconds!" Cherry said, rudely and impatiently. She was in her own
room, rummaging on the upper shelf of the closet for a certain
hat. She secured the hat now, and ran unceremoniously away from
her admonitor, to join Alix, Peter, and Martin for the daily