having compassion on me said, 'Take no
notice of them! They don't know any better.'

"I begged him to explain to me why they were so amused, and he grew
very embarrassed and uncomfortable, and stammered--oh! so funnily,
'Well if you really wish to know--it's a bud, a baby white rose, and
it's clinging to your dress.'

"'A baby! A baby rose!' shrieked all the flowers.

"'And it means,' a bluebell said, stepping perkily out from amidst
its fellows, 'that your lover is coming--your lover with a
troll-le-loll-la--and--well, if you want to know more ask the
gooseberries, the gooseberries that hang on the bushes, or the parsley
that grows in the bed,'--and at that all the flowers and trees
shrieked with laughter--'Ta-ta-tra-la-la'--and with my ears full of
the rude laughter of the wood I awoke. What do you think of it? Isn't
it rather a quaint mixture of the--of the sacred--at least the
artistic--and the profane?"

"Quite so," said Miss Templeton with an amused chuckle, "but I
shouldn't ask for an interpretation of it if I were you."

"Not for an interpretation of the trees and flowers?" Gladys asked
innocently. "I'm sure trees and flowers have a special significance in
dreams."

"Very well then, my dear, ask Mrs. Sprat."

"What! ask the Vicar's wife!" Gladys ejaculated, "when I never go to
church."

"Certainly," Miss Templeton replied, laughing again, "Mrs. Sprat will
quite understand. And I've always been told she is very interested in
anything to do with the Occult. But hush! Here's your father. You'd
better not tell him your dream. He's tired to death, he says, of
hearing about your lovers, and agrees with me--there's no end to
them."

"Never mind what he says--his bark's worse then his bite," Gladys
rejoined, "he doesn't really care how many I have so long as they keep
within bounds, and I like them! Father!"

John Martin, who entered the room at that moment, went straight to his
daughter to be kissed.

"I wish you wouldn't always select that bald spot," he said testily,
"I don't want to be everlastingly reminded I'm losing my hair."

"Where do you want me to kiss you, then?" Gladys argued, "on the tip
of your nose? That's all very well for you, John Martin, but I prefer
the top of your head. But the poor dear looks worried, what is it?"

"I didn't have a very good night," her father replied, "I dreamed a
lot!" Gladys looked at Miss Templeton and laughed.

"Did you?" she said gently. "What a shame! I n