“You didn’t have to own it—to sit on it.” “Oh, yes I did! Owning it is half the sitting on it!” He threw himself on the ground beside her and looked up into the oak-tree, throwing back his head. Her puzzled eyes regarded him. “I should never think of coming out here to sit—if we didn’t own it—you know that.” “Hah! Just like a woman!” She pricked the needle through the muslin in her hand. “There was the fence,” she said. “Climb over!” He had taken a pipe from his pocket. She reached out her hand. “Not before dinner!” decisively. “You’ll spoil your appetite!” She captured the pipe. “Oh, very well!” He leaned against the tree and watched her. She was folding her sewing neatly. “I should never have climbed over!” She pinned the work together in a compact roll and nodded to him. “You could have gone round—” he said with a teasing note. “You know what I mean, Dick! I shouldn’t have wanted to sit under a tree that did not belong to us—and that belonged to the Martins or to the Suttons, or to anybody—and not in our own yard—nobody would!” “Funny idea!” said Dick slowly. “Same tree, same place, just Ours!” She smiled at him. “Help me up! It’s time for dinner.” He strolled across the grass beside her to the house, and helped set the table while she was in the kitchen. He did not smoke his pipe. She had laid it on a high shelf over the mantel as she came in. She had to climb on a chair to reach the mantel. Dick could have reached it with one lift of his hand. But he only eyed it, half-humorously, as he set out doilies and finger-bowls and counted spoons, and called out to the kitchen to know how many forks were needed. Not for worlds would he have taken down the pipe—not for a single whiff. He had a kind of savage pleasure in it—watching it up there—with its old familiar brown bowl turned to the wall.... Time had been when that pipe was his only friend.... He did not own a house and lot then—and an oak-tree.... He peeped out of the window at the tree, serene in the evening light.... Suddenly he saw a Chinese Coat—blue and gold, she had said it was; and the happiness in his face deepened. He whistled softly between his teeth as he arranged forks and spoons.... “Our forks and spoons!” he said—and laughed out. She came to the door. “What are you talking about?” “Nothing—my dear—nothing!” and she returned to the kitchen.