"Well, I may have said something like that," Peter growled,
flushing. Alix laughed exultingly. "I tell you I loathe her!" he
added.

"Daddy, we have a lovely home!" Cherry said softly, her eyes
moving from the shabby books and the shabby rugs to Alix's piano
shining in the gloom of the far corner. It was all homelike and
pleasant, and somehow the atmosphere was newly inspiring to her;
she had felt that the talk at dinner, the old eager controversy
about books and singers and politics and science, was--well, not
brilliant, perhaps, but worth while. She was beginning to think
Peter extremely clever and only Alix's quick tongue a match for
him, and to feel that her father knew every book and had seen
every worthwhile play in the world.

Martin, whose deep dissatisfaction with conditions at the "Emmy
Younger Mine" Cherry well knew, had entered into a correspondence
some months before relative to a position at another mine that
seemed better to him, and instead of coming down for a day or two
at the time of Anne's wedding, as Cherry had hoped he might, wrote
her that the authorities at the Red Creek plant had "jumped at
him," and that he was closing up all his affairs at the "Emmy
Younger" and had arranged to ship all their household effects
direct to the new home. He knew nothing of Red Creek, except that
it was a small inland town in the San Joachim region, but Cherry's
delight at the thought of any alternative for the "Emmy Younger"
was a revelation to Alix. Martin told his wife generously that he
hoped she would stay with her father until the move was
accomplished, and Cherry, with a clear conscience, established
herself in her old room. She wrote constantly to her husband and