“Oh, Sis, that’s what I want!” Cherry answered Her lip trembled, and tears came into her eyes.  “You don’t know how homesick I’ve been,” she said, feeling it more and more every minute.  “I feel as if I’d never really drawn a full breath since I went away!”

“I can’t live in cities,” Alix said, simply.  “Peter has a house, you know, in the city,” she added, nodding toward the hilly silhouette of San Francisco, as the boat ploughed steadily past it.  “We were there one winter, and in a way it was pleasant.  It was easier, too.  But more than a year ago we came back to the valley, and I think it will be a long time before we want to leave it again!”

“I can’t get used to the idea of you and Peter—­married!” Cherry smiled.

“We’re well used to it,” Alix declared, smiling, too.  But a little sigh stabbed through the smile a second later.  Cherry’s exquisite eyes grew sympathetic; she suspected from the letter Alix had written that there would be no nursery needed in the mountain cabin for awhile, and she knew that to baby-loving Alix this would be a bitter cross.

“Well, you see I’ve not seen you since the month Daddy died!” Cherry reminded her.  They fell to talking of their father; drifted to Anne and Anne’s limitations and complacencies.  “And is it funny to you to be a rich man’s wife?” Cherry pursued.

“Peter’s not rich,” Alix answered, laughing.  “We have enough, and more than enough, and if I had ambitions about rugs and linen and furs, I could have them!  But unfortunately neither one of us is interested in those things.  I get a few new songs; Peter gets a few new books; we both get a catalogue and pick out plants, and that’s about the extent of our dissipation!  The things I want,” Alix finished, “can’t be bought for money!”

“I know!” Cherry said, a warm little hand quickly touching her sister’s.

“But to have you here, Cherry dearest!” Alix said, joyfully, “and to think of what it means to us both!  My dear, the walks and talks and fires and music and dinners—­”

“And duets,” Cherry said, with her old fresh laugh.  “Don’t forget ‘tu canta rio sul tuo liuto!’ and ’Oh, wert thou in the cauld, cauld blast!’”

“Oh, Cherry, how utterly delicious it is!” Alix said, gathering wraps and bags for the change from the boat to the train that would land them in twenty minutes at the little station in Mill Valley.

Sausalito, fragrant with acacia and rose blooms, rose steeply into the bright sunshine beyond the marshes skirting the bay glittering in light.  Cherry’s eager eyes missed nothing, and when they left the train at Mill Valley, and the mountain air enveloped them in a rush of its clear softness and purity, she was in ecstasies.  She welcomed the waiting red setter as a beloved friend, and leaned from the shabby motor car, delighted at every landmark.

“Alix—­the post office, and the blacksmith’s, and how the hill has been built up, each side of the steps!  And is that the Kelley’s—­ and the O’Shaughnessys’—­but look at the size of the trees!”