“Anne! do you know what a sweet thing you are? No, of course you don’t know, and that’s what make you so delicious!”
Even while she thrilled from head to foot with an almost unbearable happiness, Anne remembered the price at which it was bought, and told herself that it was not too dear.
“I only know I’m happy,” she whispered. “But I’m afraid of waking up and finding it’s a dream.”
Again and again, through the years as they passed, her own words came back to her.
In the summer evenings at Dymfield, she thought of them. When she travelled, they often came to her as she stood before some picture in church or gallery. She thought of them sometimes at night, when on some Italian terrace she sat watching the sunset.
To-day she remembered them, as she walked home through the sunshine, and mounted the stately Spanish steps towards her apartment on the heights.
“Twenty years ago!” She repeated the words to herself in wonder.
“It was a beautiful dream, and thank God, I never waked.”