The house was shingled, low, framed in wide porches, smelling within and without of the sweet woods about it.  Here the Stricklands weathered the cold, damp winters, when the trees dripped and the creeks swelled, and here they watched the first emerald of spring breaking through the loam of a thousand autumns; here they hunted for iris and wild lilac in April, and hung Japanese lanterns through the long, warm summers.  It was a perfect life for the old man; it was only lately that he begun uneasily to suspect that they would some day want something more, that they would some day tire of empty forest and blowing mountain ridge, and go away from the shadow of Mt.  Tamalpais, and into the world.

Anne, now—­was she beginning to fancy this young Lloyd?  Doctor Strickland was surprised with the fervour with which he repudiated the thought.  Anne had been admired, she must go to her own home some day.  But her uncle hoped that it would be a neighbouring home; this young engineer, who had drifted already into a dozen different and distant places, was not the man for staid little Anne.  He was twenty-eight years old, but it was not the discrepancy in years that mattered.  The doctor had himself been twelve years older than his wife.  No, it was something less tangible—­

“What did you want to see Mr. Lloyd about to-morrow, Dad?” Cherry interrupted his thoughts to ask.

“The rose vine!” her father reminded her.

“You’ll never get that back on the roof!” Alix looked up to assure him discouragingly.  “I told you, when you were pruning it,” she added vivaciously, “that you were cutting too deep.  No—­you knew it all!  Now the first wind brings it down all over the place, and you get exactly what you deserve!”

Her tone was less harsh than her words; indeed, it was the tone he loved from her, that of a devoted but long-suffering mother.  She came to Cherry’s hassock, and dropped on it, and rested her untidy head against his knee.

“Anne aided and abetted me!” said the doctor meekly.

“To the extent of handing you your shears!” Anne said promptly.

“No, but really you know, Dad, you were a pig-headed little creature to do that!” Alix said musically.  “You might just as well cut it down at the roots and plant another double banksia.”

“I rather thought that Lloyd might have some idea of a tackle—­or a derrick or something—­” submitted her father vaguely.

“Well, if anybody can—­” Anne conceded, laughing.  “What did he say about coming over, Cherry?”

But Cherry had not been listening, and the conversation was reviewed for her benefit.  She remarked, between two rending yawns, that Mr. Lloyd was coming over to-morrow at ten o’clock, and Peter, too—­

“Peter won’t be much good!” Alix commented.  Cherry looked at her reproachfully.

“You’re awfully mean to Peter, lately!” she protested.  Her father gave her a shrewd look, with his good-night kiss, and immediately afterward both the younger girls dragged their way up to bed.