North giving Cherry a maternal kiss as she greeted her. Alix
thought that she had never seen her sister look so pretty; Cherry
was wearing a new dress, of golden-brown corduroy velvet, with a
deep collar and cuffs of old embroidery that had belonged to her
mother. Her silk stockings were brown, and her russet slippers
finished with square silver buckles. But it was at the lovely face
that Alix looked, the earnest, honest blue eyes, the peach-bloom
of the young cheeks, and the drooping crown of shining hair.

Somehow, a few days later, wedding plans were in the air, and they
were all taking it for granted that Cherry and Martin were to be
married almost immediately; in October, in fact. The doctor at
first persisted that the event must wait until April, but Martin's
reasonable impatience, and Cherry's plaintive "But why, Daddy?"
were too much for him. Why, indeed? Cherry's mother had been
married at eighteen, when that mother's husband was more than ten
years older than Martin Lloyd was now.

"Would ye let it go on, Peter, eh?" the doctor asked, somewhat
embarrassed, one evening when he and Peter were walking from the
train in the late September twilight.

"Lord, don't ask me!" Peter said, gruffly. "I think she's too
young to marry any one--but the mischief's done now! You can't
lock a girl in her room, and she's the sort of girl that wouldn't
be convinced by that sort of argument if you did!"

"I think I'll talk to her," her father decided. "Anything is
better than having her make a mistake. I think she'll listen to
me!" And a day or two later he called her into the study. It was a