porch step beside Peter, and the lovers murmured from the darkness
of the hammock under the shadow of the rose vine. It was happy
talk in the sweet evening coolness; everybody seemed harmonious
and in sympathy to-night. Alix asked Peter's advice regarding her
White Minorcas and respectfully promised to act upon it, and
Cherry showed him a new side, an affectionate, little sisterly
deference and confidence quite different from her old childish
sulkiness and pretty caprice.

"Bedtime!" said her father presently, and she laughed in sheer
pleasure.

"Daddy--that sounds so nice again!"

"But you do look fagged and pale, little girl," he told her.
"You're to stay in bed in the morning."

"Oh, I'll be down!" she assured him. But she did not come down in
the morning, none the less. She was tired in soul and body, and
glad to let them spoil her again, glad to rest and sleep in the
heavenly peace and quiet of the old home.

Midsummer heat was upon the little valley, but here under the
redwoods there was always coolness; delicious odours of warm sap
and loamy sweetness drifted into Cherry's darkened room; the
morning was fresh and foggy, and the night before she had smiled
drowsily to stir from first sleep and find her father bending over
her, drawing up an extra blanket in the old way. All night long
she slept deeply and sweetly, as she had slept through all the
nights of childhood; it was ten o'clock when Alix came smiling in