ton."

Geoffrey, coming in, found Peggy disconsolate on the pier.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"I can't find Anne. She said that after her hair dried she'd go for a
walk to Beulah's playhouse, and we were to have tea. Beulah was to bring
it."

"She has gone for a walk with some one else."

"Who?"

"Dr. Brooks. Let's go and look for her, Peggy, and when we find her we
will tell her what we think of her for running away."

The green stillness of the grove was very grateful after the glare of the
river. Geoffrey walked quickly, with the child's hand in his. He had a
feeling that if he did not walk quickly he would be too late.

He was not too late; he saw that at a glance. Richard had dallied in his
wooing. It had been so wonderful to be with her. Once when he had knelt
beside her to pick violets, the wind had blown across his face a soft
sweet strand of her hair. It was then that she had braided it, sitting on
a fallen log under a blossoming dogwood.

"It is so long," she had said with a touch of pride, "that it is a great
trouble to care for it. Cynthia Warfield had hair like mine."

"I don't believe that any one ever had hair like yours. It seems to me as
if every strand must have been made specially in some celestial shop, and
then the pattern destroyed."

How lovely she was when she blushed like that! How little and lovely and
wise and good. He liked little women. His mother was small, and he was
glad that both she and Anne had delicate hands and feet. He was aware
that this preference was old-fashioned, but it was, none the less, the
way he felt about it.

And now there broke upon the silence of the wood the sound of murmuring
voices. Peggy and Geoffrey Fox had invaded their Paradise!

"We thought," Peggy complained, "that we had lost you. Anne, you promised
about the tea."

"Oh, Peggy, I forgot."

"Beulah's gone with the basket and Eric, and we can't be late because
there are hot biscuits."

Hurrying toward the biscuits and their hotness, Anne ran ahead with
Peggy.

"How about the eyes?" Richard asked as he and Geoffrey followed.

"I've been on the water, and it is bad for them. But I'm not going to
worry. I am getting out of life more than I hoped--more than I dared
hope."

His voice had a high note of excitement. Richard glanced at him. For a
moment he wondered if Fox had been drinking.

But Geoffrey was intoxicated with the wine of his dreams. With a quick
gesture in which he seeme