buildings; and there were beautiful trees and singing birds and broad
fields in her Yesterdays. Also there were dreams--such dreams as only
those who are very young or very wise dare to dream.

It may have been the firelight that did it; it may have been the
vision of her children who lived only in the life that she saw beyond
the old, old, open door: or perhaps it was the wedding finery that lay
over a nearby chair: or the familiar tick, tick, tick, of the clock in
the arms of the fat cupid who neglected his bow and arrows in a vain
attempt to do away with time--whatever it was that brought it about,
the woman dreamed again the dreams of childhood--dreamed them even as
she dreamed those first dreams of her womanhood.

And no one was there to tell her that the dreams of her girlhood and
of her womanhood were the same.

Again, on a long summer afternoon, as she kept house in a snug corner
of the vine shaded porch, she was really the mistress of a grand
mansion that was furnished with beautiful carpets and furniture, china
and silver, books and pictures. And in that mansion she received her
distinguished guests and entertained her friends with charming grace
and dignity, even as she set her tiny play table with dishes of
thimble size and served tea and cakes to her play lady friends. Again,
as she rocked her dollies to sleep beside the evening fire and tucked
them into their beds with a little mother kiss for each, there were
dreams of merry boys and girls who should some day call her mother.
And there were dreams of fine dresses and jewels the while she
stitched tiny garments for her newest child who had come to her with
no clothing at all, or fashioned a marvelous hat for another whose
features were but a smudge of paint and whose hair had been glued on