sauntering into the village at her cousin's side, and began for
the first time a faint criticism of Martin.

"What makes Dad mad," Alix opined, "is that Martin had it all
arranged before he asked him! Took advantage of Dad, in a way. I
don't think he would have felt so if they both were kids, but
after all, Martin's twenty-eight--" Her voice fell. "Anne," she
began, hesitatingly, "sometimes when Mrs. North says so gaily that
Martin was a TERROR in college, and kept his whole family
worrying, I feel sort of sorry for Cherry! She doesn't know as
much of life as we do," twenty-one-year-old Alix finished soberly.

"I know!" Anne said quickly, perhaps a little glad to find a point
where Cherry needed sympathy.

"I have a feeling that Dad thinks," Alix pursued, "that it was
just because it was Cherry's first beau-I mean that Cherry waked
up suddenly, don't you know? It was as if she said to herself,
'Why, I'm a woman! I can get kissed and get married and all the
rest of it!'--I'm expressing this beautifully," stumbled Mix.

"I often wonder Uncle Lee doesn't forbid it!" Anne said. She had
never had even a flitting thought of such a thing before, but she
spoke now as if the engagement had had her heartiest disapproval
from the first.

"Oh, no--why should he!" Alix remonstrated. "Martin may be the
best man in the world for her. I confess," the girl added frankly,
"I can't stand his aunt. I always used to like Mrs. North, too.
But lately, when she's begun to tell Cherry that he is