ted with time and weather, and bit by bit
its sides were rebuilt with stone. And the cherry-tree Old Gerard
chopped down in a fury, and made firewood of it. But it too had served
its turn. For as every man's life (and perhaps, but you must answer for
this, every woman's life), awaits the hour of blossoming that makes it
immortal, so this tree passed in a single night from sterility to
immortality; and it mattered as little if its body were burned the next
day, as it would have mattered had Gerard and Thea gone down through
the waters that night instead of many years later, after a life-time of
great joy and delight.

Joyce: I am glad of that. There were moments when I feared it would not
be so.

Jennifer: I too. For how could it be otherwise, seeing that he was a
shepherd and she a lord's daughter?

Jessica: And when it was related how she was to wed the Rough Master of
Coates, my hopes were dashed entirely.

Jane: And when they beat Young Gerard I was perfectly certain he was
dead.

Joan: I rather fancied the tale would end happily, all the same.

Martin: I fancied so too. For though any of these accidents would have
marred the ending, love is a divinity above all accidents, and guards
his own with extraordinary obstinacy. Nothing could have thwarted him
of his way but one thing.

Five of the Milkmaids: Oh, what?

Martin: Had Thea been one of those who are not interested in the study
of men.

Nobody said anything in the Apple-Orchard.

Joscelyn: She need not have been condemned to unhappiness on that
account, singer. And what does the happiness or unhappiness of an idle
story weigh? Whether she wedded another, or whether they were parted by
whatever cause, such as her superior station, or even his death, it's
all one to me.

Jennifer: And me.

Jessica: And me.

Jane: And me.

Martin: The tale is judged. Let it go hang. For a cloud has dropped
over nine-tenths of the moon, like the eyelid of a girl who still peeps
through her lashes, but will soon fall asleep for weariness. I have
made her lids as heavy as yours with my poor story. Let us all sleep
and forget it.

So the girls lay down in the grass and slept. But Joyce went on
swinging. And every time she swayed past him she looked at Martin, and
her lips opened and shut again, nothing having escaped them but a very
little laughter. The tenth time this happened Martin said:

"What keeps your lashes open, Mistress Joyce, when your comrades' lie