One Friday night with the April buds bursting into pink froth on the peach trees, and the April moon caught in the top of a Lombardy poplar, Grace arrived home unexpectedly.

“Well . . . well . . . it’s my baby.” Abbie was as delighted as she was surprised. Life was full of nice things.

Grace, too, was happy to see her mother. “And why do you think I came?” She was sparkling, vivacious.

“You’ve got a beau,” Abbie guessed right away. “You’re not . . . oh, Grace, . . . you’re not going to be married?”

“Oh, Mother.” Grace laughed light-heartedly. “You’re incorrigibly romantic, aren’t you? Heavens, no! How you would enjoy tying me down for life. No . . . it’s something about you.”

“About me?”

“Yes.” She seemed fairly exuding mystery and excitement.

“I never could guess, Grace.”

“You’re going abroad with me.”

“Oh, no.” Abbie was incredulous. “I don’t think I could, Grace. You don’t think I could, do you?”

“I certainly do. You know, Mother, I got to thinking about it in school and you are going, too. We’ll take it very slowly. You’re pretty well, you know, for a woman of your age. It just came to me as suddenly as a flash, . . . why couldn’t Mother go, too? I didn’t write it because I was too anxious to talk it over with you. You will have to decide right away on account of reservations.”

“My! My! Grace.” Abbie could not quite face the reality of the plan.

“Listen, Mother. How would you like to see the ‘green coast of Ireland’?”

“My! . . . My! . . .” In moments of great emotion Abbie’s words were few.

“And London Tower?”

Quite suddenly, to Abbie Deal, from somewhere out of the past there came a haunting melody. Its lilting notes wove in and out of the magical things Grace was saying. She could not quite catch its refrain, and the words, too, evaded her. In and out of her mind it danced with elfish glee, a little half-memory. Something about “having gold and having land.”

“And go to Scotland and look up the old Mackenzie estate?”

“My! . . . My! . . .” That old refrain,—what was it? It seemed to come to her out of the night.

“And Stratford-on-Avon with Ann Hathaway’s cottage? . . .”

“My! . . . My! . . .” Little half-memory, singing tantalizingly near her,—something that was “dreaming visions longingly.” It flickered ahead of her, a will-o’-the-wisp from out of the past, beckoning her to come and do this thing. She could not place it, could not catch it. Whether song or poem, story or scene, she was not sure. She only knew it was something that was mostly joyous, but a little sad.

Bewildered, incredulous, undecided, she went to bed.

“Will, what do you think?”

I think it would be fine.

All night she turned and tossed with the excitement and the responsibility of the decision. Once she got up and rubbed liniment on her knees. Toward morning she slept, but fitfully.