"Adam called you Queen. You should have a palace--"

"If I am Queen, then you must be a King. I think it is a lovely palace.
What is that tree by the gate--all feathery pink?"

"A mimosa. Mr. Jefferson gave it to me. It is like you--it does not
belong on the Three-Notched Road. It should stand in a palace garden
with dim alleys, fountains, and orange groves." He ended in a deeper
tone, "Why not? One day we may plant a mimosa in such a garden, and
smile and say, 'Do you remember the tree--do you remember our wedding
day?' Who knows--who knows?"

"You shall stay in that palace all alone," said Jacqueline. "I like this
one best."

The house stood back from the road in its clump of pines. The coach
stopped, and Rand and Jacqueline, descending, crossed a strip of short
grass tufted with fennel and velvet mullein to the gate beneath the
mimosa, entered the gay little yard, and moved up the path to the larger
of the two porches. They were at home. On the porch to welcome them
they found the white man who worked on shares and oversaw the farm, Joab
and three other slaves of Rand's, Mammy Chloe, Hannah, and the negro men
who belonged to Jacqueline. These gave a noisy greeting. Rand put money
into the hands of the slaves and sent them away happy to the tumble-down
quarter behind the house. The white man took his leave, and Mammy Chloe
and Hannah retired to the kitchen, where supper was in preparation. Rand
and Jacqueline entered together the clean, bare rooms.

Later, when Hannah's supper had been praised and barely touched, the two
came again to the porch, and presently, hand in hand, moved down the
steps, and over the dry summer grass to the mimosa at the gate. Here
they turned, and in the gathering dusk looked back at the house, the
sleeping pines, and all the shadowy surrounding landscape.

"Hear the frogs in the marsh!" said Rand. "They are excited to-night.
They know I have brought a princess home."

"Listen to the cow-bells," she said. "I love to hear them, faint and far
like that. I love to think of you, a little barefoot boy, bringing home
the cows--and never, never dreaming once of me!"

"When could that have been?" he asked. "I have always dreamed of
you--even when 'twas pain to dream!--There is the first whip-poor-will.
_Whip-poor-will!_ Once it had the loneliest sound! The moon is growing
brighter. The dark has come."

"I love you, Lewis."

"Darling, darling! Listen! that is the night horn. The lights