so many times that it was far past combing and a hat was a necessity
to hide the tangled mat. And sometimes she was a princess shut up in a
castle tower and a noble prince, who wore golden armor and rode a
great war horse, would come to woo her and she would ride away with
him through the deep forest followed by a long procession of lords and
ladies, of knights and squires and pages. Or, perhaps, she would be a
homeless girl in pitiful rags who, because of her great beauty, would
be stolen by gypsies and sold to a cruel king to be kept in a dungeon
until rescued by a brave soldier lover.

And, in her Yesterdays, the master of the dream home over which she
was mistress--the father of her dream children--the prince with whom
she rode away through the forest--the soldier lover who rescued her
from the dungeon--and the hero of many other adventures of which she
was the heroine--was always the same. Outside her dreams he was a
sturdy, brown cheeked, bare legged, little boy who lived next door.
But what a man is outside a woman's dreams counts for little after
all--even though that woman be a very small and dainty little woman
with a very large family of dolls.

The woman remembered so well their first meeting. It was at the upper
end of the garden near the strawberry beds and he was creeping toward
her on hands and knees through a hole in the hedge that separated the
two places. How she had jumped when she first caught sight of him! How
he had started and turned as if to escape when he saw her watching
him! How shyly they had approached each other with the first timid
offerings of friendship!

Many, many, times after that did he come to her through the opening in
the hedge. Many, many, times did she go to him. And he came in many