THE bronze turtle had seen many things in his time. There had been a century or two in old Japan, where the cherry blossoms had drifted over him, and the fogs from the sea, and where at all hours he had heard the bells of the temple.
Then one day he had found himself here in the pool with the sunshine hot upon him, and a stream of water rising up and splashing down again, so that he seemed to swim in it, and all about him were lily pads, and on the bank was a blaze of flowers, and a girl in white standing among them.
And the girl was saying, "Don't you love my old turtle, Louis?"
"I love you—"
They had come often together, these two. They had come one day when the pink lotus lilies starred the water, and the girl had said:
"All my life I have wanted a garden like this. To me it seems wonderful that this is my garden."
"It is wonderful that you are my wife, Elizabeth."
They had come at night sometimes, this Louis and Elizabeth, when the moon was reflected in the pool, and once the bronze turtle had heard the girl say:
