V. THE DREAM-CHILD

A man's heart--aye, and a woman's, too--should be light in the
spring. The spirit of resurrection is abroad, calling the life
of the world out of its wintry grave, knocking with radiant
fingers at the gates of its tomb. It stirs in human hearts, and
makes them glad with the old primal gladness they felt in
childhood. It quickens human souls, and brings them, if so they
will, so close to God that they may clasp hands with Him. It is
a time of wonder and renewed life, and a great outward and inward
rapture, as of a young angel softly clapping his hands for
creation's joy. At least, so it should be; and so it always had
been with me until the spring when the dream-child first came
into our lives.

That year I hated the spring--I, who had always loved it so. As
boy I had loved it, and as man. All the happiness that had ever
been mine, and it was much, had come to blossom in the
springtime. It was in the spring that Josephine and I had first
loved each other, or, at least, had first come into the full
knowledge that we loved. I think that we must have loved each
other all our lives, and that each succeeding spring was a word
in the revelation of that love, not to be understood until, in
the fullness of time, the whole sentence was written out in that
most beautiful of all beautiful springs.

How beautiful it was! And how beautiful she was! I suppose
every lover thinks that of his lass; otherwise he is a poor sort
of lover. But it was not only my eyes of love that made my dear
lovely. She was slim and lithe as a young, white-stemmed birch