she unconsciously kept step.

Many of the trees were old and bent and twisted in fantastic shapes--
some were small and partly dead, but most were fit for some festival of
the gods; and as she went in and out among them, her feet making but
slight impression on the moist springy soil, grass-grown and sprinkled
with petals, pink and white, she stopped now and then and touched first
one and then the other, for a swift moment laid her cheek on the rough
bark as if to send a message to its heart.

From the shelter she drew out a rug, spread it close to her best-loved
tree, then sitting upon it leaned against the trunk, feet crossed and
hands clasped loosely behind her head. The chirp of sparrows and twitter
of small birds, the clear song of robin and the cat-bird's call fell
after a while unheeding on her ears, and the drowsy hum of insects was
lost in the dreaming that possessed her. From the garden of
old-fashioned flowers some distance off the soft breeze flung fragrance
faint and undefined, and for a while she was a child again--the child
who used to run away in the springtime and hide in the orchard, that she
might say her prayers before a shrine of unknown name.

Presently she sat upright and opened her portfolio. "And now to think it
is mine, Aunt Katherine, mine!" she began. "At last everything is ready,
everything is finished, and I am in my own home. I am still full of
wonder and unbelief, still not understanding how Tree Hill is my
property. The quaint old house is not degraded by its changes, and
already I love its every room, its every outlook; and if you and Uncle
Parke and the children do not soon come I shall be of all creatures the
most disappointed and indignant. I want you to see the beautiful things
Miss Gibbie has done. Of course, Yorkburg doesn't understand; doesn't