"Yes, indeed," returned the man. "I had no idea the tree would flourish in this climate."
"Mon Dieu!" was all the priest could say.
If Père Antoine loved the tree before, he worshipped it now. He watered it, and nurtured it, and could have clasped it in his arms. Here were Émile and Anglice and the child, all in one!
The years flew by, and the date-palm and the priest grew together,—only one became vigorous and the other feeble. Père Antoine had long passed the meridian of life. The tree was in its youth. It no longer stood in an isolated garden; for homely brick and wooden houses had clustered about Antoine's cottage. They looked down scowling on the humble thatched roof. The city was edging up, trying to crowd him off his land. But he clung to it, and wouldn't sell. Speculators piled gold on his door-step, and he laughed at them. Sometimes he was hungry, but he laughed none the less.
"Get thee behind me, Satan!" said the old priest's smile.
Père Antoine was very old now, scarcely able to walk; but he could sit under the pliant, caressing leaves of his tree, and there he sat until the grimmest of speculators came to him. But even in death Père Antoine was faithful to his trust. The owner of that land loses it, if he harms the date-tree.
And there it stands in the narrow, dingy street, a beautiful, dreamy stranger, an exquisite foreign lady whose grace is a joy to the eye, the incense of whose breath makes the air enamored. A precious boon is she to the wretched city; and when loyal men again walk those streets, may the hand wither that touches her ungently!
"Because it grew from the heart of little Anglice," said Miss Badeau, tenderly.
* * * * *