ard, off across the long grass and the
tomato vines. The front porch, to be sure, was dripping with crimson
ramblers that ought to be cut for the good of the vines; but never the
rose in the hand for Tillie! She caught up the kitchen shears and off
she dashed through grass and drenching dew. Snip, snip; the
short-stemmed sweet-briars, salmon-pink and golden-hearted, with their
unique and inimitable woody perfume, fell into her apron.

After she put the eggs and toast on the table, Tillie took last Sunday's
New York paper from the rack beside the cupboard and sat down, with it
for company. In the Sunday paper there was always a page about singers,
even in summer, and that week the musical page began with a sympathetic
account of Madame Kronborg's first performance of ISOLDE in London. At
the end of the notice, there was a short paragraph about her having sung
for the King at Buckingham Palace and having been presented with a jewel
by His Majesty.

Singing for the King; but Goodness! she was always doing things like
that! Tillie tossed her head. All through breakfast she kept sticking
her sharp nose down into the glass of sweet-briar, with the old
incredible lightness of heart, like a child's balloon tugging at its
string. She had always insisted, against all evidence, that life was
full of fairy tales, and it was! She had been feeling a little down,
perhaps, and Thea had answered her, from so far. From a common person,
now, if you were troubled, you might get a letter. But Thea almost never
wrote letters. She answered every one, friends and foes alike, in one
way, her own way, her only way. Once more Tillie has to remind herself
that it is all true, and is not something she has "made up." Like all
romancers, she is a little terrified at seeing one of her wildest
conceits admitted by the hardheaded world. If our dream comes true, we
are almost afraid to believe it; for that is the best of all good
fortune, and nothing better can happen to any of us.

When the people on Sylvester Street tire of Tillie's stories, she goes
over to the east part of town, where her legends are always welcome. The
humbler people of Moonstone still live there. The same little houses sit
under the cottonwoods; the men smoke their pipes in the front doorways,
and the women do their washing in the back yard. The older women
remember Thea, and how she used to come kicking her express wagon along
the sidewalk, steering by the tongue and holding Tho