the intellectual pleasure of teaching English to a sympathetic
native neighbor--Phyllis seemed unappreciative. She had hardly looked at
the inside of the cottage, when he had shown her through, and now was
staring at the outside in a blank sort of way.

The indoctrination courses had not, he reflected, reconciled her to the
frontiersman's necessarily simple mode of living--which was ironic,
considering that one of her original attractions for him had been her
apparent suitability for the pioneer life. She was a big girl, radiantly
healthy, even though a little green at the moment.

* * * * *

He just managed to keep his voice steady. "You don't like the house--is
that it?

"But I _do_ like it. Honestly I do." She touched his arm diffidently.
"Everything would be perfect if only--"

"If only what? Is it the curtains? I'm sorry if you don't like them. I
brought them all the way from Earth in case the planet turned out to be
habitable. I thought blue was your favorite color."

"Oh, it is, it is! I'm mad about the curtains."

Perhaps it wasn't the house that disappointed her; perhaps it was he
himself who hadn't lived up to dim memory and ardent expectation.

"If you want to know what _is_ bothering me--" she glanced up
apprehensively, lowering her voice as she did--"it's that tree. It's
stuck on you; I just know it is."

He laughed. "Now where did you get a preposterous idea like that, Phyl?
You've been on the planet exactly twenty-four hours and--"

"--and I have, in my luggage, one hundred and thirty-two ethergrams
talking about practically nothing but Magnolia this, Magnolia that. Oh,
I had my suspicions even before I landed, James. The only thing I didn't
suspect was that she was a _tree_!"

"What are you talking about, honey? Magnolia and I--we're just friends."

"Purely a platonic relationship, I assure you," the tree herself agreed.
It would have been silly for her to pretend not to have overheard, since
the two were still standing almost directly underneath her. "Purely
platonic."

"She's more like a sister to me," James tried to explain.

* * * * *

Phyllis stiffened. "Frankly, if I had imagined I was going to have a
tree for a sister-in-law, I would have thought before I married you,
James." Bursting into tears, she ran inside the cottage.

"Sorry," he said miserably to Magnolia. "It's a long trip out from Earth
and an uncomfortable