r, "Ah, he
is in sin, and has got his warning." And the neighbor would shudder at
the thought and whisper back, "Yes, poor soul, he has seen the Tree."

Such evidences as these have their weight; they are not to be put
aside with a wave of the hand. A thing that is backed by the cumulative
evidence of centuries naturally gets nearer and nearer to being proof
all the time; and if this continue and continue, it will some day become
authority--and authority is a bedded rock, and will abide.

In my long life I have seen several cases where the tree appeared
announcing a death which was still far away; but in none of these was
the person in a state of sin. No; the apparition was in these cases
only a special grace; in place of deferring the tidings of that soul's
redemption till the day of death, the apparition brought them long
before, and with them peace--peace that might no more be disturbed--the
eternal peace of God. I myself, old and broken, wait with serenity; for
I have seen the vision of the Tree. I have seen it, and am content.

Always, from the remotest times, when the children joined hands and
danced around the Fairy Tree they sang a song which was the Tree's song,
the song of L'Arbre fee de Bourlemont. They sang it to a quaint sweet
air--a solacing sweet air which has gone murmuring through my dreaming
spirit all my life when I was weary and troubled, resting me and
carrying me through night and distance home again. No stranger can know
or feel what that song has been, through the drifting centuries, to
exiled Children of the Tree, homeless and heavy of heart in countries
foreign to their speech and ways. You will think it a simple thing, that
song, and poor, perchance; but if you will remember what it was to
us, and what it brought before our eyes when it floated through our
memories, then you will respect it. And you will understand how the
water wells up in our eyes and makes all things dim, and our voices
break and we cannot sing the last lines:

"And when, in Exile wand'ring, we Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of
thee, Oh, rise upon our sight!"

And you will remember that Joan of Arc sang this song with us around the
Tree when she was a little child, and always loved it. And that hallows
it, yes, you will grant that:

L'ARBRE FEE DE BOURLEMONT

SONG OF THE CHILDREN

Now what has kept your leaves so green,
Arbre Fee de Bourlemont?

The children's tears! They brought each