The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1921-12-22
CHAPTER V-Continued.

CHAPTER N-Continued.
s.
81 had no idea Of all this !" the doc
tor confessed, amazed. "Tve seen the
young man-noticed him about. Well
-well-well! Anne, too"
In June came the bllssful hour In
which Anne, all bushes and smiles,
could come to her uncle with a duti-
full message from the respectfully
adoring Justin. Their friendship, said
Anne, had ripened into something
deeper.
"Justln wants to have a frank talk
with you, uncle" Anne said, "and
of course I'm not to go until you are
sure you can spare me and unless you
feel that you can trust him utterly"
Anne's engagement cups were
ranged on the table where Cherry's
had stood, and where Cherry had
talked of a coffee-colored rajah silk
Anne discussed the merits of "smart
but handsome blue tailormade."
The wedding was to be in Septem-
Der, not quite year after Cherry's
wedding. Alix wrote her sister pages
about it, always ending with the EN-
phatic declaration that Cherry must
come down for the wedding.
Cherry was homesick. She dreamed
continually of the cool, high valley,
the scented aisles of the deep forest.
the mountain rearing its rough sum
NIT to the pale blue Of summer skies
June passed; July passed; II was
hot at the Emmy Younger" August
came In on a furnace breath; Cherry
felt headachy, languid and half sick
all the time. Martin had said that
he could not possibly get away, even
for the week of Anne's wedding. but
Cherry began TO wonder If he would
let her go alone.
"If he doesn't, l shall be sick" she
fretted to herself, in certain burn
ing nOontime, toward the middle of
August. Martin, who had been play
Ing poker the night before, was sleep
ing late this morning. Coming home
at three o'clock dazed with close air
and cigar smoke, he had awakened
his wife to tell her that he would be
"dead" In the morning, and Cherry
had accordingly crept about her dress
Ing nolselessly, had darkened the bed
room and eaten her own breakfast
without the clatter of a dish. Now
ing In the noon heat. She was think
Ing, as II CHANGED, of the big forest
at home and Of certain day-just
one of their happy days !-only a year
| ago, when she had lain for a dreamy
hour on the soft forest floor, staring
up idly through the laced fanlike
branches, and she thought of her ia
| Their, with his mild voice and ready
smile; and some emotion, almost like
fear, came over her. For the first time
she asked herself, in honest bewilder-
ment, why she had married.
The heat deepened and strengthened
and increased as the burning day
wore on. Martin walked up, hot and
headachy, and having further dis
tressed himself with strong coffee and
eggs. departed into the dusty, motion
less furnace out-Of-doors. The far
brown hills shimmered and swan, the
Emmy Younger" looked its barest,
Its ugliest, Its least attractive self.
There was shadow in the door
way; she looked up surprised. For a
minute the tall figure in striped linen
and the smiling face under the flow
cry hat seemed those of q stranger.
Then Cherry cried out and laughed,
and in another instant was crying In
Alix's arms.
Alix cried, too, but IL was with a
great rush of pity and tenderness for
Cherry. Alix had not young love and
novelty to soften the outlines of the
Emmy Younger" and she felt, as she
frankly wrote later to her father, "at
last convinced that there is a hell ~
The heat and baroness and ugllness
Of the mine might have been over
looked. but this poor little house of
Cherry's, this wood stove draining
white ashes, this tin sink with it's
pump, and the bathroom with neither
faucets nor drain. almost bewildered
Alix with their discomfort.
Even more bewildering was the
change In Cherry. There was GER
tain hardening that impressed Alix at
once. There was weary sort of pa
thence, a disillusioned concession to
the drabness of married life.
But she allowed the younger sister
to see nothing of this Indeed, Cherry
so frightened under the stimulus of
Alix's companionship that Martin told
her that she was more like her old self
than she had been for months. JOY
ously she divided her responsibilities
with Aiix, explaining the difficulties
Of marketing and housekeeping. and
joyously Alix assumed them. Her vi
tally infected the whole household.
She gave them spirited accounts of
Anne's affair. Hes a nice little AGA
demic fellow she said Of Justin Lit
RE "If lie had q flatiron in each