But when at the end of the long day they reached the valley, and
when her father came innocently into the garden and stood staring
vaguely at her for a moment--for her visit, and the day of Alix's
return had been kept a secret--her first act was to burst into
tears. She clung to the fatherly shoulder as if she were a storm-
beaten bird safely home again, and although she immediately
laughed at herself, and told the sympathetically watching Peter
and Alix that she didn't know what was the matter with her, it was
only to interrupt the words with fresh tears.

Tears of joy, she told them, laughing at the moisture in her
father's eyes. Hanging on his arm, she went back into the old
sitting room again, under the banksia rose; went up the brown
stairway to the old, clean, woody-smelling bedroom. Her hat and
wraps went into the closet; she danced and exclaimed and exulted
over every familiar detail.

She and Alix ran downstairs before supper, and into the garden,
and Cherry drew deep, refreshing breaths of the cool air and
laughed over every bush and flower. Peter came out to join them,
her father came down, and she kissed him again; she could not be
close enough to him. She had a special joyous word for Hong; she
laughed and teased and questioned Anne, when Anne and Justin came
back from an afternoon concert in the city, with an interest and
enthusiasm most gratifying to both.

After dinner she had her old place on the arm of her father's
porch chair; Alix, with Buck's smooth head in her lap, sat on the