“I have a rope somewhere—­” the doctor ruminated.  “Where did I put that long rope—­what did I have it for, in the first place—­”

“You had it to guy the apple tree,” Alix reminded him.  “Don’t you remember you got a regular ship’s cable to tie that tree, and it never worked?  The tree that died after all—­”

“Ah, yes!” said her father, his attentive face brightening.  “Ah, yes!  Now where is that rope?” But even as Alix observed that she had seen it somewhere, and advanced a tentative guess as to the cellar, his eyes fell upon Cherry, and went from Cherry’s absorbed face—­for she was dreaming over her breakfast—­to Peter, and he wondered if Peter had kissed her.

“Come on, let’s get at it!” Alix exclaimed with relish.  She loved a struggle of any description, had prepared for this one with sleeves rolled to the elbows, and had put on heavy shoes and her briefest skirt.  “Come on, Sweetums,” she added, to the dog, who had somehow wormed his way into the dining room, and was beating the floor with an obsequious tail.  She caught his forepaws, and he whipped his beautiful tail between his legs, and looked about with agonized eyes while she dragged him through a clumsy dance.  “He’s the darlingest pup we ever had!” Alix stated to Cherry, who was departing for the upper regions and a complete costume.

“He needs a bath,” Anne observed coldly, and Peter’s abrupt shout of laughter made Alix flush angrily.

“Bring your cigarette out here, Peter,” the old doctor said, crossing the garden to look in the abandoned greenhouse for his rope.  “We’re in no hurry,” he said.  “We may as well wait until Lloyd comes along; the fellow’s arms are like flails.  You—–­” the old man opened a reluctant door, peered into a glassed space filled with muddy shelves and empty flower-pots and spiderwebs.  “It’s not here,” he stated.  Then he began again, “You brought Cherry home last night?” he asked.

“As a matter of fact, I didn’t,” Peter answered, in his quick, precise tones.  “I came with Lloyd and Cherry as far as the bridge, then I cut up the hill.  Why?” he added sharply.  “What’s up?”

“Nothing’s up,” Doctor Strickland said slowly.  “But I think that Lloyd admires—­or is beginning to admire—­her,” he said.

“Who—­Cherry!” Peter exclaimed, with distaste and incredulity in his tone.

“You don’t think so?” the doctor, looking at him wistfully, asked eagerly.

“Why, certainly not!” Peter said quickly.  “Certainly not,” he added, frowning, with his eyes narrowed, and his look fixed upon the vista of woodland.

“I had a fancy that he might have been putting notions into her head,” her father said, anxious to be reassured.

“But—­great Scott!” Peter said, his face very red, “she’s much younger than Anne and Alix—­”

“It doesn’t always go by that,” the doctor suggested.

“No, I know it doesn’t,” Peter answered in his quick, annoyed fashion.