Rosa's mouthpiece for a moment, he is very rich."

"And old enough to be my father--but it isn't that. Age has nothing to
do with it, nor has congeniality--it is nothing in real life that comes
between, for I am fond of him and I don't mind his white hairs in the
least, but I can't give up my visions--my ideal hopes."

"Ah, Laura, Laura," sighed the old man, "the trouble is that you don't
live on the earth at all, but in a little hanging garden of the
imagination."

"And yet I want life," she said.

"We all want it, my child, until we've had it. At your age I wanted it,
too, for I had my dreams, though I was not a poet. But there are
precious few of us who are willing in youth to accept the world on its
own terms--we want to add our little poem to the universal prose of
things."

"But it is life itself that I want," repeated Laura.

"And so I wanted Rosa, my dear, every bit as much."

"Rosa!" There was a glow of surprise in the look she turned upon him.

"You find it hard to believe, but it is true nevertheless. I had my
golden dream like everyone else, and when Rosa loved me I told myself it
had all come true. Well, perhaps, in a measure it has, only, after all,
Rosa turned out to be more suited to real life than to poetic
moonshine."