“Well,” cried my wife, “you have broken off abruptly.”
“One can’t help it,” quoth I, rubbing my eyes. “I cannot help waking any more than I can help going to sleep.”
“Well, this would be a very pretty little courtship if true.”
“Ah,” I said, “if I have described all that I saw in my dream, you may depend upon it it is true. But when I go to Southwood I will ask the Old Oak, for we are the greatest friends imaginable, and he tells me everything. He has known me ever since I was a child, and never sees me but he enters into conversation.”
“What about?”
“The past, present, and future—a very fruitful subject of conversation, I assure you.”
“Wide enough, certainly.”
“None too wide for a tree of his standing.”
“Ask him, dear, if Joe will marry this Polly Sweetlove.”
“He will not tell me that; he makes a special reservation in favour of lovers’ secrets. They would not confide their loves to his keeping so often as they do if he betrayed them. No, he’s a staunch old fellow in that respect, and the consequence is, that for centuries lovers have breathed their vows under his protecting branches.”