THE TREE OF DREAMS.

Feilding Star, Volume I, Issue 281, 1 June 1907, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE TREE OF DREAMS.

m (By Robert W. Chambers.) (Conclusion.) 11. The next morning a pessimistic gas-fitter repaired Smith s range, that night it blew up again. Two days later it was again in commission, then remained quiescent for a week. After that the range worked fitfully, intimidating Smith until it had him so thoroughly cowed that he never attempted to light it except with the match inserted in the end of a broom-handle. Between the range and the cookery he was almost famished. However, it was a matter of too little importance to disturb him in his purpose; the days were full days indeed, no matter how empty he went. Hour after hour he sat cramped over the table, drawing impossible plans and elevations tor the completion of his model tenements. Hour after hour he tramped the hot streets in search of likely sites for further philanthropic operations. Almost every morning and evening he was sure to encounter his blueeyed neighbor on the landing or stairs; and, after a while, he began to spend a few minutes of the day in looking forward to these brief meetings. Matters were not going very well with his blue-eyed neighbor; but he didn't know it. Her work, always precarious and dependent on tbe whims of several underpaid people, was not sufficient to keep her very well nourished during the hot months of midsummer. She defaulted on the July payment for her small piano, and they took it away. The ittle desk went later; an armchair followed. Alone in her room, palely considering the why and wherefore of the disagreeable,- she invariably almost fell a prey to temptation; but, so far, the victory had remained with her. Temptation came when somebody refused her work or when somebody removed an article of furniture for non-payment of the instalment due, and the temptation confronted her in the shape of a packet of yellow manuscript. She was the author of the manuscript; it lay in a drawer of her table. Sometimes, when they frightened her by giving her no work or by lugging off a chair, she would sit down, white and desperate, and take out ncr manuscript and read it through. She knew where she could place it in an hour. She had been promised a permanent position on the strength of just such work. It was well done, of its Bort. It fairly bristled with double-leaded headlines; was yellow enough for the yellowist — a oeat, a "scoop," a story that would be copied in every newspaper of the country. The title of it was "A Millionaire in Disguise." The subject, Smith. She had only to show t to the city editor who had promised to take her on the first time she displayed any, ability. All she had to do waß to tuck the yellow sheet under he rarm and start down town, and that would end all this removing of furniture and scarcity of foodstuffs— all this sleeplessness, this perplexed dismay — all these heavy-hearted journeys to the office of the fashion papers where sometimes she was paid for her articles on domestic affairs and sometimes she was not. . After these experiences she usually returned to the temptation of her yellow manuscript, read it all through, wept a little, cast it from her into the table drawer once more, and buried her face in her dim hands. Later, she usually dried her eyes, huriedly gathered up her papers and portfolio, and, locking the door, on the outside, descended to the cellar. „ . In this profound crypt a small iron door and a few Btorts steps ascending permitted her access to the vacant tot which the janitor had forbidden Smith to enter. And here she was accustomed to sit in the long, rank crass tinder a big ailanthUß tree, writing for the fashion papers, to which she contributed such predigested pabulum as the weak-minded might assimilate. In this manner she paid for lodging, board, and almond cream. • , Meanwhile, she was growing shyer and more formal with Smith when they chanced to mest on stain or

landing. Beginning with the politely pleasant exchange of a few words concerning the initial episode whioh had excused their acquaintance, they had ventured on a little laughter at his expense — a shade less of the impersonal. But, little by little, the pretty, fearless gaze which he found so attractive changed to something more reserved anti lar less expressive, and yes, her untroubled voice with its wiauiagly careless sweetness, changed too. He noticed this. Sometimes he wondered if she was quite well. He had been aware from the first that she did not belong in her surroundings any more than he did, and at times he speculated on the subject, wondering what crumbling of her social and financial fabric had la I' (led her here on her owu sources, Btranded on the outer edges of things. One scorching day he had been drawing an elevation 7 for his tower, t which partook impartially of the i worst in both Manhattan, Gothic, and Chinese architecture — a new crinkle in his theory being that the ! poor had a right to the best in art, •and that they should have it in spite of Kerns. For an hour he had been trying to estimate the cost of such a masterpiece, and had grown cross and discouraged in the effort. He had been discounted by the monthly magazines; he had purchased one which contained an article on concrete construction, and, tired of his sweltering room, he put on his hat and pocketed the magazine, and he went out to seek a bit of shade in Central Park. As he pased his neighbour's door he glanced at it, a trifle wistfuly. He had not seen her now for nearly a week. He actually missed her, even though now she seldom seemed to have the leisure or inclination to chat with him. The last time, he reflected, that they had exchanged a dozen words, he had, lured by her receptively intelligent attitude, drifted into ay almost enthusiastic dissertation upou model lodgings for the poor. He had kept her standing before her door for almost half an hour, while he, forgetting everything except the subject and the acquiescence of his audience, had aired his theories with a warmth and brilliancy which later it astonished him to remember. Since that they had exchanged scarcely a word, and now, as he parsed her door, he locked wistfully.at it, thinking of his slender neighbour. And, thinking of her, he descended the stairs, and, still immersed in this agreeable reverie, he did not notice that he had passed the ground floor and was descending the stairs until he came to a stop in front of an iron door. This seemed unfamiliar. He took out his handkerchief to rub his glasses, looked around at the furnaces and coal hins, passed his hand over hi seyes, replaced the glasses, gazed at the iron door which was partly ajar, and caught a glimpse of g. wen grass outside. "I'll bet that's my vacant lot." he said aloud, and, opening the door, he ascended the stone steps into his own property. There was green grass everywhere; south and west a high board fence; north and east the brick, windowless, rearward cliffs of the tenements, in the middle of the lot an ailanthus tree in full foliage. And, under it, a young girl lying in the grass, her wide straw hat hanging from a leafy branch above. Even before he stirred in his tracks she sat up, instinctively looking across the grass at him. It was his duty to make his excuses and go. But, for almost the first time in his life, he deliberately neglected duty. "So this is where you come every day to work out-of-doors!" he exclaimed, smiling, as he halted beside her where she remained, seated in the grass, looking up at him. There was color in her face and in his, too. He had had absolutely no idea how pleasant it could be to meet his neighbour again after so many days — seven in number — but a great many all the same. Then he told her, laughingly, how he came to discover the cellar door that led to Paradise. "Paradise," he repeated; "for, you see, the Tree of Ten- Thousand Dreams is here. Did you know that the ailanthus tree is the Chinese Tree of Paradise — the fabled Tree of Dreams? Have you never heard of the Feng-Shui? Dragons live deep in the earth among the tree roots. You didn't know that, did you?" "No," she said smiling, "I didn't know that." He looked at her. Her manner was not very cordial, and he decided not to ask permission to seat himself just yet. But he had nothing in particular to say to her and he was very anxious to say it. "The Fung-Hwang also perches in the branches of the Dream Tree," he continued, for lack of a better topic; "it's an imperial as well as a celestial tree. Are you interested in Chinese mythology? If you are not, it's all right, because I am interested in anything you like." She looked up at the foliage above her. "It is a curious tree," she said. "In early June these branches were full of great olive and rose colored moths, enormous oiies flopping about at sunset like big, soft bats. In the daytime they hung- to the leaves and bark, wings wide^-such beautiful, such miraculous wings — set with silvery quarter-moons!" She raised both hands to the nape of her neck to smooth and secure her hair— a most fascinating gesture, he thought, watching her seated there in the grass, slim and graceful as the lovely lotus-bearing goddess, Kwan-Yin. "Silvery quarter-moons, sne repeated, "and now, look! The silver has changed into metal pendSnts!" She pointed upward where, among the foliage, shining, white cocoons swung from silk-wound stems, each wrapped in its single green leaf. "Wonderful fairy fruit your Tree of Dreams bears!" he said. "And how thickly it hangs! I don't know much about such things. I was inclined to be fond of all that until I read some modern Nature books. So I fell back on real myths again." She began to laugh and, meeting in her eyes all the old-time friendliness, he ventured to ask if he might seat himself. "Yes," she said gravely, "but I must be going." "Then I don't care to stay here," he said, unprepared to hear himself utter any such sentiment. His astonishment at himself overcame even the reaction which turned his face red. She, too, surprised, looked at him unconvinced. „.,„„ , "What have I to do with it?" she inquired. „ . "The fact is," he said impressively, as though the intelligence were well worth sharing with her, "I have been rather lonely." "Have you? 1 ' she asked. wide-eyed "So have I. But I usually am." "I wish you had said so!" "How could I? And to whom?" ■ They said nothing more for a while. The sunlight, .filtering through the Tree of Dreams, glimmered on her lair. Her eyes, darker in the shadow, dwelt tranquilly upon the waste of thick, tall grass which the languid breezes furrowed now and then. "Do you mind my offering you my friendship?" he asked at length; "for that's what I'm doing." "No, I don't mind" she replied listlessly. "Other men have done that." „ . 0 ,, "Will you accept — this timer "Shall I?" she asked, raising her clear eyes. "Shall I? I have been here two years— and I have made no friends. ' ' . , , , She folded her unnnged hands on her knees, examined them with calm inattention and said : "After a while, I suppose, a girl becomes partly stupefied under the strain of it all— -tne tension of self-respecting silence. Two years of self-suppression ! Even pickpockets receive a sentence more humane. Shall I try your remedy?" "It would be jolly to see # each other, now and then," he said, so pleasantly that she smiled at his simplicity. ■ , "What about the conventions?" she inquired, amused. "Still, after all, what has a girl to do with conventions who lives as I. liver Her problem is a great deal simpler than to bother with usages." There was a defiant smile hovering about eyes and lips— a hint of recklessness in the bright color ruing under .his gaze: "A girl can't live and flourish on silence." "You always hurry past me when we moot >r

"But surely you didn't expect me to invite you to a seat on the stairs, did you? 1 ' "I wish you had." "Then why didn't you invite meP" she asked with a gay audacity of the moment, she wag forgetting all except the pleasure of the moment and its pretence that the old order of things had returned. Sunshine and green grass and the sophisticated city breeze in the leaves above — youth, and ardent health, and one of her own kind to speak to after the arid silence she willfully forgot? What wonder that she dared to breathe and laugh again, drifting and relaxing in tho moment's merciful relief from a tension that had benumbed her to the verge of actual stupidity? Afterward, in her room, the relaxed strain tightened again. She realised their acquaintance was -only an episode— she knew hie advent here was but a caprice. But it was an interim that gave her a chance— a brief vacation in which she might breathe for a moment before the inevitable returned again to submerge her. And she meant to enjoy it with all her heart—^©very moment, every atom of sunshine, every bright second of respite frOm what she actually dared look forward to no longer. That first meeting under the ailanthus tree was only one of a sequence. At first, when he came sauntering across the grass, she politely laid aside her work — the dissertation on flounces and napkins and old mahogany and the care of infants, and what Heppelwhite knew about tablelegs, and why Sheraton is usually, saluted as Chippendale. Later, she continued her work unembarrassed as long as she was able to concentrate her mind under the agreeable little shock of pleasure which his advent always brought to her. "How did you find out all about such things?" he asked curiously, looking over her manuscripts with her shrugged permission. "All about what things?" "These — ah — crooked-legged tables and squatty chairs?" "I nad them — once." "I see," he said gravely. Then, with embarrassed hesitation, but very nicely: "There must have been a pretty bad smash up?" She nodded. "Ah — I'm awfully sorry. Hope it'g going to come out all rightsome day." "Thank you." But she continued to be brief and uncommunicative, never volunteering anything. In the days when she became accustomed to his coming to find her under the tree ; she ventured to continue her writing, merely gretin;* him with a nod of confidence and pleasure. And so he fell into the habit of bringing his own impossible plans and elevations to the vacant lot. And often, biting her pencil reflectively, she would cast sid« glanoes at him where he lay. flat in the grassy shade, drawing-board under his nose, patiently constructing lines and angles and Corinthian capitals and Romanesque backdoors. He was a very, very poor draftsman ; even she could see that. "I'm doing this for a man who means to build a big tower on this lot," he explained cheerfully. "I've a notion he will be delighted with this plan of mine." "Oh, is he going to cut .down your Tree of Dreams!" she exclaimed, raising her eyes in dismay. He looked up at the tree, then at her. "By Jovet it is a pity. isn't it?" he said, "after the jolly hours we have spent out here." "Perhaps he won't build his tower until after— after " "After what?" "After we— you and I have forgotten all about this tree " She hesitated. Then calmly — "and each other. Which, of course," she laughed, "means no tower at all!" He sat so long silent, preoccupied with his drawing, that she thought he had forgotten her rather foolish observations. But he hadn't; for he said in a troubled voice: "There's a way — a ! way of taking up big tree 3. I'll ask him to do it. I don't want it chopped down." "You're afraid of angering the dragon !" she said, laughing. "What use could such a man have for an old ailanthus tree? Besides, where could he plant it?" "There's a place I know of,", he said. I'll speak to him. . . . No ; it wouldn't do to have our Tree of Dreams cut down — " "It's not my tree," she said, looking down at her pencil; "it's yours." "It is yours," he insisted, "You found it, and I found you under it." "Oh, it's mine because I found it?" she mocked gayly, "and, I suppose, — I'm yours because you found me under it." Her tongue had run away that time. She checked her badinage, picked up her pencil with an admirable self-possession that admitted nothing, and scribbled away in calm insouciance. Only the heightened brilliancy of her cheeks could have undeceived the adept. Smith was no adept; besides, he was thinking of other matters. "Do you know'," he said suddenly, "that I am going away for about a week?" She congratulated him without raising her head from her writingpad. That was pure instinct, for the emotion she had detected in Smith's voice was perfectly apparent in his features. Smith gazed at her for a long time, during which she grew busier and busier with her pencil, and more oblivious of him. The intellectual processes of Smith were, at times, childlike in their circuitous simplicity. "Do you think I'm a good draftsman?" he asked. "I don't know; are you?" she asked, numbering a fresh sheet of her pad. "Why, you've seen my drawing!" he reminded her, a little hurt. "I think lam a good draftsman. I could probably earn about a hundred and twenty dollars a month." "You are very fortunate," she murmured, rubbing out a sentence. "A hundred and twenty dollars a month is enough for anybody to n-arry on," he continued. "Don't--you think so?' . „ , "It is probably sufficient," she. said carelessly. "Do you think it is?" "I haven't considered such matters very seriously," she said. t "It will be time when 1 am earning a hundred and twenty dollars a month. And I'm not likely to earn it if you coutinue to interrupt me. Smith turned red; presently he tucked his drawing-board under his arm and stood up. "I'm going," he said. "Goodby." . She nodded her adieux pleasantly, scarcely raising her head from her But when Smith had disappeared she straightened up with a quick,, indrawn breath and stared across the grasß at the blank, brick walls. After a long while she dropped her tired shoulders back against the tnmk of the Tree of Dreams, leclroing there inert, blue eyes brooding in vacancy! Meanwhile, Smith had locked up his room, gone home for the nrst time in two months, telephoned tor a stateroom on the -Westera Limited, and sent for Kerns, who presently arrived in an electric cab- - "I'm going to Illinois, earn Smith, "to-night." "The nation must know of this," insisted Kerns; "let me telegraph for fireworks." "There'll be fireworks," observed Smith— "fireworks to burn presently. I'm going to get married to a work-ing-girl." V "Oh, piffle!" said Kerns faintly; "let's go and sit on the third rail and talk it over." "Nob with you, idiot. 'Did you ever hear of Stanley Stevens, who tried to corner wheat? I think it s his daughter I'm going to marry. I'm going to Chicago to find out. Good Heavens, Kerns I It's the most! pitiful case, whoever she is! Its a case to stir the manhood in any man. I tell you it's got to be righted. I m thoroughly stirred up, and I won t stand any nonsense from you. Kerns looked at him. "Smith," he pleaded in sepulchral tones; "Smithy 1 For the sake of decency and of common-senae— — "

"Exactly," nodded Smith, picking up his hat and gloves; "for the sake or deoenoy ana of common-sense. Goqd-by, Tommy. And— ah I" indicating a parcel of papers on the desk, "just have an architect look over these sketches with a view to estimating the— ah — cost of construction. And find some good landscape gardener to figure up what it will cost to remove a big ailanthus tree from New York to the Berkshires. You can tell him I'll sue him if he injures the tree, but that I don't oare what it costs to move it." " Smith 1" faltered Kerns, appalled, "you're as mad as Hamlet!" "It's one of my ambitions to be madder," retorted Smith, going out and running nimbly downstairs. "Help!" observed Kerns feebly as the front door banged. And, as nobody responded, he sat down in the bachelor quarters of J. Abingdon Smith, a prey to melancholy amazement. When Smith had been gone a week Kerns wrote him. When he had been gone two weeks he telegraphed him. When the third week ended he telephoned him, and when the month was up he prepared to leave for Darkest Chicago: in fact, he was actually leaving his house, suit-case in hand, when Smith drove up in a hansom and gleefully waved his hand. Smith beckoned him to enter the cab. "I'm going home to put on my old clothes." he said. " It's all right, Tom. I've been collecting old furniture, tons of antique chairs and things. They were pretty widely scattered at a sale two years ago "What sale, in the name of sanity?" shouted Kerns. "Why, when Stanley Stevens had failed to corner wheat he shot his head off before they pounced on his effects. I managed to find most of the things. I've sent them to my place, Abingdon, and now I'm going to ask her to marry me." "Oh, are you?" "Certainly. And, Kerns, if she will have me it will be for my own sake. Do you know what she thinks. She thinks I'm a draftsman at thirty dollars a week. Isn't it delightful. Isn't it perfectly splendid?" "Dazzling," whispered Kerns, unable to utter another word. Smith's progress was certainly rapid.* When he arrived at the door of the tenement lodgings op fairly soared up the stain, flight on flight; until he came to the top. The door of his neighbor's room stood open, and he impulsively crossed the hallway, but there were only two men there moving out a table, and his slender ? blue-eyed neighbor was nowhere visible. "What's that for?" he inquired. " Is Miss Stevens moving?" "No, but her table is," said one of the men. Something about the proceeding kept Smith silent. He saw one of the men drop his end of the table, olose the door, lock it, and hang the key on a nail outside. "That isn't safe," said Smith. "I'll take charge of the key until Miss Stevens returns." ' He unhooked it, and, turning, let himself into his own room but left the door ajar. Two flights down the table drawer dropped out, dumping a pile of yellow manuscript on the stairs. "Glory!" panted one of the movers; "that's hers. Take it up and leave it with the guy in the glasses, Bill.' And so it happened that Smith, standing outside on his fire-escape for a breath of air, returned to find a mass of yellow manuscript littering his bed. Wonderingly, he picked up the first sheet, saw his own name in her handwriting, stared and sat down in astonishment to read. Suddenly his face burned fiery red, and, as long as he sat there, the deep colour remained throbbing, scorching him anew with every page he turned. After a long while he dropped the sheets and returned to the first page. It was dated in June, the day after his arrival. He was slowly beginning to understand the matter now. He was beginning to realize that this manuscript had been placed in hiß room' by mistake; that it had never been intended for him to read; that, if it had been written with a purpose, it had never been used for any purpose. Then he remembered the moving of her table. Clearly the men had found it and, as he had assumed possession of her key, no doubt they j had returned and flung the papers on his bed. ! "In that case." said Smith thoughtfully, "I think I'll go down to the ailanthus tree and see if, by any chance, she is there." I She was there, seated in a chair, very intent on her writing-pad. He was quite near her before she noticed him, and then she seemed dazed for a moment, rising and holding out her hand mechanically, looking at him in silence as he held her fingers imprisoned. "I did not think you would return," she said. "It is a month— at least " "At© you glad to ge© me?" "Of course," she said simply, reseating herself. "Have you been well?' ' "Yes: and you?" "Perfectly, thank you." He looked around at the long Kass withered in patches; at the ifless tree. "Do you remember our first encounter here?" he said. "Perfectly. Yu told me that there was a dragon under the tree, and a Chinese bird sat in its branches. That was in August, I think. This 18 November. Look up at the branches. All the leaves are gone. Only the silvery cocoons are hanging in clusters everywhere." And, bending slowly above her work again, "When are you, going to turn our Tree of Dreams into a tower of bricks ( But he only sat silent, smiling, watching her white fingers flying over the pad on her knees. "I wonder," she said carelessly, "how long you are going to stay here this time." "I wonder, too," he said. " Dpn't you know?" she asked, raising her eyes and laughing faint--7 "No, I don't. Besides, why should I leave this lodging-house? I like it." , _. "Can't you afford to leaye-^after all that lucrative tower-designing? He said, looking at her deliberately: "You know perfectly well that I can afford to.' \ . . , Something in the quiet voice and gaze of the man startled her, but only a delicate glow of rising color in her cheeks betrayed any Tack of self-possession. "I don't think I understand you," she said. . "I think you do," he insisted, seating, seating himself at her feet in the grass. She wrote a word or two on her pad, then looked down to meet his changed smile. A moment more, and she resumed her work m flushed C °"You° know who I am," he said , calmly. "I didn't think you did ' untSran hour ago. Shall I tell you what happened an hour ago/ She managed to meet -his .gaze without expression, but she did not answer. . , , "Then I will tell you what happened," he continued. . "Some men carried out a tablefrom your room. A few moments later me of the men deposited a lot of loose manuscript whicj he had, I suppose, found in the table drawer This all occurred while I was out on' the balcony. When \ returned to the room I found the papers on my bed. I could not avoid seeing my own name at the . head of this War newspaper, article. It w very cleverly written. fl^j M i Wave after wave of scarlet flooded ke "lTyou have known who I am all this time?" he nodded slowly. "Y-yes." ... "It was a good chance— a legitimate chance lor an article. You thought so, and you wrote it. The papers would have given it three columns and double, leads. . . • Why didn't you use it?" . The tears flashed in her eyes. I did not use it for the same reason that lam here with you now I Some things can be done, and some cannot. Go>d-bye." . "GoodiyeP", he repeated slowly. He stepped back; she pawed before him, halted, turned and spok«

again, steadying her pleasant voioe which broke deliriously in spite of her: "I did not mean to ridicule you. When I wrote that article I had known you only a day or two— and I was desperate— frightened — half-starred. The chance came, and I took it— or tried to. But I could not. I never could have. So— that is all.' "I know all that too," he mid. "I only thought I'd speak of it. I wanted to ask you something else She had halted. "Ask it," she said, exercising every atom of. self-command. "Won't you turn around?" "No. I— l cannot. What is it you wish, Mr Smith?" "Ah— about this tree. It's to be j™* «P, I believe. They've a method of doing it, you know. I— ah — * have considered arrangements." She made no movement. "Fact is," he ventured, "I've a sort of a oountry place in theßerkshires. Do you think that our tree would, do well in the Berkshires?" "I don't know, Mr Smith." „ ' ?h, I thought perhaps, you'd be likely to know." There was a pause of a full minute. "Is that all?" she asked, turning toward him with tear-flushed self-possession— but she had no idea that he was so close to her— no idea of what he was doing with her hands so suddenly imprisoned in his. "Can you stand such a-a- m-man as I am?" he stammered, the ancestral sentimental streak in the ascendancy. " Would you— ah— mind marrying me?" Her face was pale enough now. "Do you mean you love me?" she said, dazed. And the next moment she had released her hands, stepping toward the tree. ' PP^ "Y«s, I mean that," he repeated; "I love you." "But— but Ido not love you, Mr Smith " * "I— l know it. P-perhaps you could try. D-do you mind trying — a little- " He had followed her to the ailanthus. She retreated, facing him, and now stood backed up against the tree, her hands flat against the trunk behind her. "Couldn't you try?" he asked. "I love you — I love you dearly. I know you're, jrounger— l know you think me m-more or less of a " "I don't!" "I suppose I really haven't many brains," he said; "but yours are still intact." Her blue eyes filled and grew starry. .. 7 D «V? y, ou read that «rti*» article?" she asked unsteadily— "did youP" "Yes— in bits— before I knew you had not meant me to. .... I guess I am the sort of a Juan you make fun or Her eyes met his fairly for a moment, were lowered, then again raised. Something within them gave him courage, or perhaps the splendid rising color in her face, or perhaps the provocation of her moutu. And , he kissed her. She did not stir; her lips were stiffly unresponsive. But when, once more, he bent above her, she caught both his hands with a sob and met his lips with heart and soul, closing her wet eyes. "D-darling," said J. Abingdou Smith, bending his head over ners where it lay buried in his shoulder, "I don't mind being an ass— really • I don't " Her hands crushed his, signalling silence. "It isn't the funny things you wrote about me," he persisted; 'but I really am that sort of a man, And likely to continue. You don't care, da you, dear?" "W-when I love you!" she sODbed; "how can you say such things! D-do you think I'd marry an idiot?" He was discreetly silent for a while, then: "Anyway, I've found all your furniture, the bandy-legged chairs and things," he whispered . cheerfully. "They are waiting for you at — a — Abingdon— a place I nave in the country. Are you pleased?" She lifted her face and made an effort to speak. . * "Never-mind." he said, dizzy with happiness, "we'll talk it 'over to-mor-row. I think,'.' he added, "that I'll have the men here to-morrow to remove our tree. There's a splendid place for it on the lawn." She turned, her hands clasped in . his, and looked up at the Tree of Dreams. Then, very gently, she bent and laid her lipß against the bark.