“You are like a boat just reaching harbour,” Alix said, sympathetically.  “Sails furled, anchor down, just resting.”

“I feel like one,” Cherry answered, lifting lazy blue eyes.  “A month of this will make me over!”

“A month!” the older sister echoed, indignantly, disappearing kitchenward on some errand.  Presently the supper table was laid at Cherry’s side, bees shot like bullets through the garden, birds settled for the night.  Supper was ready; still there was no haste, no stir, no apparent effort.

Alix came to her own porch chair for the long twilight.  She brought Cherry a fluffy shawl; they were almost silent, and as the last light faded from the hills, and the valleys were flooded with violet shadow, the mountain chill came down, and the stars and the valley lights began to prick the dark.

The sisters came in blinking, in the old way, and in the old way were amazed to see that the clock’s hands stood at ten.

“And I meant you to go early to bed!” Alix exclaimed, but Cherry with her good-night kiss answered gratefully: 

“Ah, but I feel that I am going to sleep to-night!  I’ve not been sleeping well—­”

“Haven’t?” Alix asked, in quick concern.

“Not lately!”

Cherry stumbled into the airy, dark, sweet little bedroom, and somehow undressed and crept between the cool sheets of the bed that stood near Alix’s on the wide sleeping porch.  Her last thought was for the heavenly redwoods so close to her; she slept, indeed, for almost twelve unbroken hours.

She came wandering out to the porch at eleven o’clock, the old, smiling, apologetic Cherry, with her skin dewy from a bath, and her corn-coloured hair freshly brushed, and her linen gown as pink as the Perkins rose that was blooming over her head.

“Oh, Sis, I do feel so deliciously lazy and happy and rested and—­ and everything!” said Cherry, as she settled herself at the porch table where service for one was spread.  “Oh, Alix—­apricots!  You remember everything,” she added, with a look all affectionate appreciation.  Alix, panting from exertions in the garden, dropped, trowel in hand, upon the upper step, to watch her smilingly.

“Cherry, you’re prettier than ever!” Alix said, eyeing the white hands so busy with blue china, and the bright head dappled with shade and sunshine coming through the green rose vine.

“Am I?” Cherry said, pleased.  “I thought myself that I looked nice this morning,” she added, innocently.  “But it is really because the air of this place agrees with me, it makes my skin feel right and my eyes feel right; it makes me feel normal and smoothed out somehow!” And Cherry looked down at the green and glitter of the valley, looked up past solemn files of redwoods at the mountain, cameo-cut this morning against a cloudless sky, and sighed a great sigh of content that seemed to go from her heels to the crown of her head.  “I have never been really well and really happy anywhere else!” she declared, out of deep peace and content.