"If you could only have one tree, which would you have?"

"Not oaks. Limes--no--birches. Which would you?"

He pondered. There were so many trees that were perfect. Birches and
limes, of course; but beeches and cypresses, and yews, and cedars, and
holm-oaks--almost, and plane-trees; then he said suddenly:

"Pines; I mean the big ones with reddish stems and branches pretty high
up."

"Why?"

Again he pondered. It was very important to explain exactly why; his
feelings about everything were concerned in this. And while he mused she
gazed at him, as if surprised to see anyone think so deeply. At last he
said:

"Because they're independent and dignified and never quite cold, and
their branches seem to brood, but chiefly because the ones I mean are
generally out of the common where you find them. You know--just one or
two, strong and dark, standing out against the sky."

"They're TOO dark."

It occurred to him suddenly that he had forgotten larches. They, of
course, could be heavenly, when you lay under them and looked up at the
sky, as he had that afternoon out there. Then he heard her say: