Martin was a mining engineer:  he had been employed in a Nevada mine, but was visiting his cousin in the valley now before going to a new position in June.  In its informal fashion, Mill Valley had entertained him; he had tramped to the big forest five miles away with the Stricklands, and there had been a picnic to the mountain-top, everybody making the hard climb except Peter Joyce, who was a trifle lame, and perhaps a little lazy as well, and who usually rode an old horse, with the lunch in saddle-bags at each side.  Alix formulated her theories of platonic friendships on these walks; Anne dreamed a foolish, happy dream.  Girls did marry, men did take wives to themselves, dreamed Anne; it would be unspeakably sweet, but it would be no miracle!

And Anne, always busy and happy and helpful, was more so than ever, unpacking the delicious lunch, capably arranging for everybody’s comfort and pleasure, looking up with innocent surprise when Martin bent over her as she fussed and rearranged baskets.

“I thought you were gathering wood!”

“Did you, indeed?  Let the other fellows do that.  I shan’t be here forever, and I’m privileged.”

“Would you like me to give you something else to do?”

“No, ma’am, I’m quite happy, thank you!”

Not much in the words to remember, truly, but the tone and the look went straight to Anne’s close-guarded heart.  Every time she looked up at the mountain, rearing its dark crest above the little valley, they had come back to her.

That was all several weeks ago, now.  It was just after that mountain picnic that Cherry had come home; on a Sunday, as it chanced, that was her eighteenth birthday, and on which Martin and his aunt were coming to dinner.  Alix had marked the occasion by wearing a loose velvet gown in which she fancied herself; Anne had conscientiously decorated the table, had seen to it that there was ice-cream, and chicken, and all the accessories that make a Sunday dinner in the country a national institution.  Cherry had done nothing helpful.

On the contrary, she had disgraced herself and infuriated Hong by deciding to make fudge the last minute.  Hong had finally relegated her to the laundry, and it was from this limbo that Martin, laughing joyously, extricated her, when, sticky and repentant, she had called for help.  It was Martin who untied the checked brown apron, disentangling from the strings the silky gold tendrils that were blowing over Cherry’s white neck, and Martin who opened the door for her sugary fingers, and Martin who watched the flying little figure out of sight with a prolonged “Whew-w-w!” of utter astonishment.  The child was a beauty.

But if she was beautiful when flushed and cross and sticky, there was no word for her when she presently came demurely downstairs, her exquisite little red mouth still pouting, her bright head still drooping sulkily, but her wonderful eyes glinting mischief, and the dark, tumbled apron replaced by thin white ruffles that began at Cherry’s shoulders and ended above her ankles.  Soft, firm round chin, straight little nose, blue eyes ringed with babyish shadows; Martin found them all adorable, as was every inch of the slender, beautifully made little body, the brown warm hand, the clear, childish forehead, the square little foot in a shining slipper.