bridal trees. These trees were no longer living; but they had
been when father was a boy, and every spring bedecked themselves
in blossom as delicately tinted as Elizabeth King's face when she
walked through the old south meadow in the morn of her life and
love.

When a son was born to Abraham and Elizabeth a tree was planted
in the orchard for him. They had fourteen children in all, and
each child had its "birth tree." Every family festival was
commemorated in like fashion, and every beloved visitor who spent
a night under their roof was expected to plant a tree in the
orchard. So it came to pass that every tree in it was a fair
green monument to some love or delight of the vanished years.
And each grandchild had its tree, there, also, set out by
grandfather when the tidings of its birth reached him; not always
an apple tree--perhaps it was a plum, or cherry or pear. But it
was always known by the name of the person for whom, or by whom,
it was planted; and Felix and I knew as much about "Aunt
Felicity's pears," and "Aunt Julia's cherries," and "Uncle Alec's
apples," and the "Rev. Mr. Scott's plums," as if we had been born
and bred among them.

And now we had come to the orchard; it was before us; we had only
to open that little whitewashed gate in the hedge and we might
find ourselves in its storied domain. But before we reached the
gate we glanced to our left, along the grassy, spruce-bordered
lane which led over to Uncle Roger's; and at the entrance of that
lane we saw a girl standing, with a gray cat at her feet. She
lifted her hand and beckoned blithely to us; and, the orchard
forgotten, we followed her summons. For we knew that this must