Standing there in the doorway, she tasted the last bitter dregs of the dream.  It was all over.  Anne was at the age that sets twenty-five years as the definite boundary of spinsterhood.  She would be twenty-five in August.

Alix came in from her walk glowing, and full of a great discovery.

“Dad,” she said eagerly, taking her place at the supper table, “what do you think!  I’ll bet you a dollar that man is falling in love with our Cherry!”

Anne, at the head of the table, looked pained, but there was genuine apprehension in the doctor’s face.

“Where is your sister?” he asked.

“Down there by the gate,” Alix answered.  “They’re gazing soulfully into each other’s eyes, and all that!  Peter went home.  But cherry--with a beau!  Isn’t that the ultimate extension of the limit!  I’m crazy about it—­I think it’s great.  An engineer, Dad, and Mrs. North’s nephew, and he has a fine job in a mine somewhere,” she summarized enthusiastically, “you couldn’t ask anything better than that, could you?  Could you, Dad?  I love weddings!  This’ll be the third I’ve been to!”

“All this seems to have come up very suddenly,” the doctor said, dazedly, rumpling his gray hair with a fine old hand.  “I don’t imagine your sister is taking it as seriously as you and Anne seem inclined to—–­”

“Oh, does Anne think so!” Alix exclaimed.

“I think Cherry is one of the fortunate girls destined to drift along the surface of life,” Anne said, “and to accept wifehood quite simply.  I only wish I were that type—­”

“Oh, Nancy, what rot you talk every time you remember you had a year at college!” Alix said, lightly.  “Can’t you let the poor kid fall in love without yapping about types and biology and the cosmic urge—–­”

“Really, Alix, you use extraordinary language!” Anne remonstrated, glancing at her uncle with outraged dignity.  “And I am not aware that I spoke of biology or the cosmic urge!” But her tone was not as impersonal as her words, and she was flushed and even agitated.  “Shan’t we begin, Uncle Lee?” she asked, patiently.  “If Cherry is just down at the gate there, she’ll only be another minute—­”

She was interrupted by Cherry herself.  The girl came to the porch door, and as she hesitated there a minute, with her smiling eyes seeking her father’s face, they saw that by one firm, small hand she drew her lover beside her.  Martin Lloyd’s smiling face showed above hers in the lamplight.

“Dad!” said Cherry, with a childish breath.  “Dad!  I’ve brought Martin to supper!”

CHAPTER III

The three at the table did not move for perhaps twenty slow seconds.  Doctor Strickland, who had pushed back his chair, and whose hands were resting on the table before him, stared at them steadily.  Anne, with a quick little hiss of surprise, smiled faintly.  Alix, the unstilted, widened her eyes, and opened her mouth in unaffected astonishment.  For there was no mistaking Cherry’s tone.