and
end by putting a shining dream into a gray thing, such as age. And in
the end it is all one, and lovers will see to the last in each other
that which they loved at the first, since things are only what we dream
them to be, as you have of course also observed.

Joscelyn: We have observed nothing of the sort, and if we dreamed at
all we would dream of things exactly as they are, and never dream of
mistaking age for youth. But we do not dream. Women are not given to
dreams.

Martin: They are the fortunate sex. Men are such incurable dreamers
that they even dream women to be worse preys of the delusive habit than
themselves. But I trust you found my story sufficiently wide-awake to
keep you so.

Joscelyn: It did not make me yawn. Is this mill still to be found on
the Sidlesham marshes?

Martin: It is where it was. But what sort of gold it grinds now,
whether corn or dreams, or nothing, I cannot say. Yet such is the power
of what has been that I think, were the stones set in motion, any right
listener might hear what Helen and Peter once heard, and even more; for
they would hear the tale of those lovers' journeys over the changing
waters, and their return time and again to the unchanging plot of earth
that kept their secrets. Until in the end they were together delivered
up to the millstones which thresh the immortal grain from its mortal
husk. But this was after long years of gladness and a life kept young
by the child which each was always re-discovering in the other's heart.

Jennifer: Oh, I am glad they were glad. Do you know, I had begun to
think they would not be.

Jessica: It was exactly so with me. For suppose Peter had never
returned, or when he did she had found him dead in the tree?

Jane: And even after he returned and recovered, how nearly they were
removed from ever understanding each other!

Joan: Oh, no, Jane! once they came together there could be no doubt of
the understanding. As soon as Peter came back, I felt sure it would be
all right.

Joyce: And I too, all along, was convinced the tale must end happily.

Martin: Strange! so was I. For Love, in his daily labors, is as swift
in averting the nature of perils as he is deft in diverting the causes
of misunderstanding. I know in fact of but one thing that would have
foiled him.

Four of the Milkmaids: What then?

Martin: Had Helen not been given to dreams.

Not a word was said in the Apple-Orchard.

Joscelyn: It would have done her