"Well, you knew even then just how to do it," he returned with a bit of insinuation. "You would look up at the tallest, hardest tree to climb and see some high-hanging blossom which you coveted, and I immediately scaled the tree's height to lay the blossom at your feet." She laughed again and her cheeks this time flushed a rosy hue, unaccountably disconcerting to her. "But that, after all, was as it should have been," he went on after a moment, smiling. "We men need your bidding to send us to the heights, always." "I do not agree with you," she said, recovering her poise instantly; and summoning a girlish perversity, she led him straightway from sentiment to the substantial. "Each one must mount up in his own strength, like these splendid old trees, without prop or help, only the light from above to draw it upward," and a very demure look crossed her ever-changing face as she finished the little speech. "You are right," said Steve smiling and remembering Mrs. Polk's lesson from the giant beech so long ago. "And yet, after all, many things help the tree in its growth besides the light from above,--the sun. There are the winds and the rain, and"--he paused a moment,--"its mates. Don't you know a tree rarely stands alone unless man has cut down its companions. They like comradeship. I believe they are dependent upon it in ways we do not know." "How stupid of me to forget I was talking with a professor," said Nancy archly. "And worse still for me to forget that I was trying to enlighten the lady who initiated me into the world of books," replied he promptly, yielding to her mood. "Oh, how lovely that graceful, clinging vine is," she exclaimed, ignoring his retort and pointing up to a vine covered tree, while Steve thrust back into the secret place of his heart all the cherished memories which the old wood held for him, realizing decidedly that Nancy was no longer a shy, timid little girl ready to place her hand in his, but a young woman who would need to be wooed before she was won,--even though there were no Raymond. "What had he expected anyway?" he reiterated sternly. "That she would be waiting his coming, all ready for the plucking?" He straightened himself in the saddle. He had long since learned how to work and wait for things he wanted; he could do it again.