left the room, "is the way he has made it live. All trees have it, of
course, but a cedar taught it to me first--the 'something' trees possess
that make them know I'm there when I stand close and watch. I suppose I
felt it then because I was in love, and love reveals life everywhere."
He glanced a moment at the Lebanon looming gaunt and somber through the
gathering dusk. A curious wistful expression danced a moment through his
eyes. "Yes, Sanderson has seen it as it is," he murmured, "solemnly
dreaming there its dim hidden life against the Forest edge, and as
different from that other tree in Kent as I am from--from the vicar,
say. It's quite a stranger, too. I don't know anything about it really.
That other cedar I loved; this old fellow I respect. Friendly
though--yes, on the whole quite friendly. He's painted the friendliness
right enough. He saw that. I'd like to know that man better," he added.
"I'd like to ask him how he saw so clearly that it stands there between
this cottage and the Forest--yet somehow more in sympathy with us than
with the mass of woods behind--a sort of go-between. _That_ I never
noticed before. I see it now--through his eyes. It stands there like a
sentinel--protective rather."

He turned away abruptly to look through the window. He saw the great
encircling mass of gloom that was the Forest, fringing their little
lawn. It pressed up closer in the darkness. The prim garden with its
formal beds of flowers seemed an impertinence almost--some little
colored insect that sought to settle on a sleeping monster--some gaudy
fly that danced impudently down the edge of a great river that could
engulf it with a toss of its smallest wave. That Forest with its
thousand years of growth and its deep spreading being was some such
slumbering monster, yes. Their cottage and garden stood too near its
running lip. When the winds were strong and lifted its shadowy skirts of
black and purple.... He loved this feeling of the Forest Personality; he