“Perhaps nobody does it any more, but I should have done it,” Martin said briskly and seriously.  “Except that it all came over me with such a rush.  A week ago Cherry was only a most attractive child, to me.  I’d spoken to my aunt about her and had said that I envied the man that was some day to win her, and that was all!  Then the time came for me to get back to work—­and I found I couldn’t go!  I couldn’t leave her.  However, I expect to be back here some time in the fall, and I thought to myself that I’d see her then, and perhaps, then—­And then came last night, when I began to say good-byes, and—­it happened!  I know that you all hardly know me, and I know that Cherry is pretty young to settle down, but I think I can satisfy you, Doctor, that you give her into safe hands, and I believe she’ll never regret trusting me!”

He had gotten to his feet as he spoke, and was holding the back of his chair, looking anxiously and eagerly into the old man’s eyes.  His tone, in spite of his effort to keep it light, had taken on a depth and gravity quite new to his hearers, and as Cherry, sitting next him, and fired through all her girlish being by his eloquence, turned to lay a small, warm hand on his own, the tears came to his eyes.

“Well—­” said the doctor, touched himself, and in his gentlest tone, “well!  It had to come, perhaps, I can’t promise her to you very soon, Mr. Lloyd.  But if you both are willing to wait, and if time proves this to be the real feeling, I don’t believe you’ll find me hard on you!”

“That’s all I ask, sir!” Martin said, resuming his seat and his dinner.  And for the rest of the meal harmony and gaiety reigned.

Alix shot an occasional glance at Anne, who was flushed, but as usual busy and charming over the tea cups.  Alix knew that Anne was inwardly writhing; indeed she felt a sort of emotional shock herself.  Yesterday the mere talk of a lover for any one of them was delightfully thrilling and vague—­to-night Cherry was actually engaged!  The older girls’ romantic speculations were flat enough now; Cherry had the actual thing.

There was no jealousy in Alix’s heart, as there definitely was in Anne’s, of the man.  But Alix felt envious of the superior experience—­why, he would kiss Cherry!  No man had ever kissed Alix.  Cherry would be the admired and envied girl among all the girls; married at eighteen, it was so beautifully flattering and satisfying to be married young!

She looked at her father’s face, a troubled face to-night.  He was watching the lovers regretfully; he did not disguise it.  Their quick plans, the readiness with which they solved the tremendous problems to come, the light-heartedness with which they were hurrying toward the future—­had he and the older Charity been like that, twenty-five years ago, when they had had supper at her mother’s house, and told the great news?  He remembered himself, an eager, enthusiastic lover—­had he really given better promise then than this handsome young fellow was giving to-night?  He tried to remember the older Charity’s mother; what she had said, what expression her face had worn, and it seemed to him that he could dimly recall reluctance and pain and gravity in that long-ago look.