the kind that flits away to make you follow. I
can't fancy your doing that sort of a thing, Anne."

"No," quietly, "women like myself, Jimmie, go on expecting that things
will come to them--and when they don't come, we keep on--expecting. But
somehow we never seem to be able to reach out our hands to take--what we
might have."

He began to feel better. This was the wistful Anne of the old days.

"There has never been any one like you, Anne. It seems good to be here.
Women like Eve madden a man, but your kind are so--comfortable."

Always the old Jimmie! Wanting his ease! After he had left her she sat
looking out over the gate beyond the fields to the gold of the west.

When at last she went up to the house Uncle Rod had had his nap and was
in his big chair on the front porch.

"Jimmie and I are friends again," she told him.

He looked at her inquiringly. "Real friends?"

"Surface friends. He is coming again to tell me his troubles and get my
sympathy. Uncle Rod, what makes me so clear-eyed all of a sudden?"

He smoothed his beard. "My dear, 'the eyes of the hare are one thing, the
eyes of the owl another.' You are looking at life from a different point
of view. I knew that if you ever met a real man you'd know the difference
between him and Jimmie Ford."

She came over, and standing behind him, put her hands on his shoulders.
"I've found him, Uncle Rod."

"St. Michael?"

"Yes."

"Poor little girl."

"I am not poor, Uncle Rod. I am rich. It is enough to have known him."

The sunset was showing above the wooden gate. The cows had gone home. The
old fish swam lazily in the shadowed water.

Anne drew her low chair to the old man's side. "Uncle Rod, isn't it
queer, the difference between the things we ask for and the things we
get? To have a dream come true doesn't mean always that you must get what
you want, does it? For sometimes you get something that is more wonderful
than any dream. And now if you'll listen, and not look at me, I'll tell
you all about it, you darling dear."

* * * * *

It was in late August that Anne received the first proof sheets of
Geoffrey's book. "I want you to read it before any one else. It will be
dedicated to you and it is better than I dared believe--I could never
have written it without your help, your inspiration."

It was a great book. Anne, remembering the moment the plot had been
conceived on that quiet night by Peggy's bedside when s