“And is there not abundance of poetry in every phase of the apple’s life, no matter when it falls?” said M. Dalibouze. “How many poems has the blight of the starry blossom given birth to? And the little green ball, who will count the odes that the school‐boy has sung to it, not in good hexameters perhaps, but in sound, heart poetry, full of zest and the gusto of youth, when all bitters are sweet? O mon Dieu! when I think of the days when a bright‐green apple was like honey in my mouth, I could be a poet myself! No _paté de foie gras_ ever tasted half so sweet as that forbidden fruit of my school‐days!” “Good for the forbidden fruit!” said Aline, amused at the professor’s sentiment over the reminiscence; “but that is only one view of the question: if the apples could speak, they would give us another.” “Would they?” said M. Dalibouze. “I’m not sure of that. If the apples discuss the point at all, believe me, they are agreed that whatever befalls them is the very best thing that could. We have no evidence of any created thing, vegetable, mineral, or animal, grumbling at its lot; that is reserved to man, discontent is man’s prerogative, he quarrels with himself, with his destiny, his neighbors, everything by turns. If we could but do like the apples, blossom, and grow, and fall, early or late, just as the wind and the gardener wished, we should be happy. Fancy an apple quarrelling with the sun in spring for not warming him as he does in August! It would be no more preposterous than it is for men to quarrel with their circumstances. The fruit of our lives have their seasons like the fruit of our gardens; the winter and snows and the sharp winds are just as necessary to both as the fire of the summer heat; all growth is gradual, and we must accept the process through which we are brought to maturity, just as the apples do. It is not the same for all of us; some are ripened under the warm vibrating sun, others resist it, and, like certain winter fruit, require the cold twilight days to mellow them. But it matters little what the process is, it is sure to be the right one if we wait for it and accept it.” “I wonder what stage of it I am in at the present moment,” said Aline. “I can’t say the sun has had much to do with it; the winds and the rain have been the busiest agents in my garden so far.” “Patience, mademoiselle!” said M. Dalibouze. “The sun will come in his own good time.” “You answer for that?” “I do.” Aline looked him straight in the face as she put the question like a challenge, and M. Dalibouze met the saucy bright eyes with a grave glance that had more of tenderness in it than she had ever seen there before. It flashed upon her for a moment that the sun might come to her through a less worthy medium than this kind, faithful, honorable man, and that she had been mayhap a fool to her own happiness in shutting the gate on him so contemptuously.