They were silent, thinking of the garden behind the old house in Rochester with walks outlined by shells and edged by long flower beds. The girl looked back on it with a detached interest as an unregretted feature of a past existence in which she had once played her part and that was cut from the present by a chasm never to be bridged. The man held it cherishingly as one of many lovely memories that stretched from this river bank in a strange land back through the years, a link in the long chain. "Wasn't it pretty!" she said dreamily, "with the line of hollyhocks against the red brick wall, and the big, bushy pine tree in the corner. Everything was bright except that tree." His eyes narrowed in wistful retrospect: "It was as if all the shadows in the garden had concentrated there--huddled together in one place so that the rest could be full of color and sunshine. And when Daddy John and I wanted to cut it down you wouldn't let us, cried and stamped, and so, of course, we gave it up. I actually believe you had a sentiment about that tree." "I suppose I had, though I don't know exactly what you mean by a sentiment. I loved it because I'd once had such a perfect time up there among the branches. The top had been cut off and a ring of boughs was left round the place, and it made the most comfortable seat, almost like a cradle. One day you went to New York and when you came back you brought me a box of candy. Do you remember it--burnt almonds and chocolate drops with a dog painted on the cover? Well, I wanted to get them at their very best, enjoy them as much as I could, so I climbed to the seat in the top of the pine and ate them there. I can remember distinctly how lovely it was. They tasted better than any candies I've ever had before or since, and I leaned back on the boughs, rocking and eating and looking at the clouds and feeling the wind swaying the trunk. I can shut my eyes and feel again the sense of being entirely happy, sort of limp and forgetful and _so_ contented. I don't know whether it was only the candies, or a combination of things that were just right that day and never combined the same way again. For I tried it often afterwards, with cake and fruit tart and other candies, but it was no good. But I couldn't have the tree cut down, for there was always a hope that I might get the combination right and have that perfectly delightful time once more." The doctor's laughter echoed between the banks, and hers fell in with it, though she had told her story with the utmost sedateness. "Was there ever such a materialist?" he chuckled. "It all rose from a box of New York candy, and I thought it was sentiment. Twenty-one years old and the same baby, only not quite so fat." "Well, it was the truth," she said defensively. "I suppose if I'd left the candy out it would have sounded better." "Don't leave the candy out. It was the candy and the truth that made it all Susan's."