Upon entering Bag-End, Sam set the basket of apples down in a corner of the porch and, turning, pushed the round, green door firmly closed.  Then , with shuffling steps, he bustled down the hall to the kitchen.  Taking a loaf of bread and half of a small round cheese from the larder Sam set them out on the table.  Placing her basket on the wide windowsill, Ruby uncovered it and drew out a large bowl of still-steaming mushrooms. She set the bowl on the table, alongside the bread and cheese.  Sam brought plates and cutlery from the sideboard, and motioned his daughter to a chair.  "So how is young Farmer Maggot today, my dear?" Sam inquired, sniffing the scent of the mushrooms appreciatively.  "Toby's just fine, dad" Ruby assured her father. She had  married  Tobias, the grandson of Old Farmer Maggot, in the spring of last year and, together with the rest of the current Maggot clan, they lived and worked on the old farmstead.  The couple was expecting their first child next spring.

     "And how are Robin and Tolman getting on?  Behavin' themselves proper, I hope?" added Sam questioningly. His two youngest sons had moved in with their sister and her husband, and were working on the farm.  "Oh, they're doin' their share, dad, and no mistake", said their sister fondly.  Bringing over the heated kettle, she poured the boiling water into a plump, brown teapot which sat on the table, then returned the kettle to it's hook over the hearth.  Ruby sat in a chair across the table from Sam.  "You weren't working out in the garden all day, were you dad?", Ruby asked suspiciously.  "No, no, just doing a bit of this and a bit of that is all" replied Sam rather evasively. "I wanted to pick some of those apples as were ready."  Ruby smiled; "If you like, I'll take some down with me, and bring you a pie tomorrow."  She was staying the night down the Hill at New Row, where her older brother, Bilbo, lived in what had been the Gaffer's rebuilt hole. While Sam and Rosie's children had scattered, like so many dandelion seeds in the wind, to all corners of the Shire, from Buckland to Undertowers, Bilbo had remained on the Hill. He had also, as had his namesake, remained a bachelor (up to the present, at any rate). Ruby had left her pony and cart there and climbed the Hill to stretch her legs a little.  "I wouldn't mind it a bit!" Sam replied enthusiastically.  Dishing out the mushrooms onto two plates he said, "Now let's attend to these beauties before they get cold!"  They ate for a time with appreciative concentration.  When the plates were wiped clean with the last of the bread, Sam retrieved two brown mugs from a small cupboard and placed them on the table.  Ruby took up the teapot and filled the mugs with the steaming liquid.  In silent agreement father and daughter carried their mugs of tea into the sitting room, and settled into deep cozy chairs, one on either side of the small oval hearthrug before the fire.

     "Been feeling all right, dad?" asked Ruby solicitously.  "Now, don't you go worritin' about your old dad", said Sam cajolingly in a fair, though unconcious, imitation of his own Gaffer.  "If you're meanin' my little nap in the garden, why, I was just enjoyin' the sunshine a bit.  After all, I am used to makin' my bed on the ground on occasion", he reminded her, "and in worse places than the lovely soft grass of the garden at Bag-End!"  A thoughtful expression came over Sam's features just then, and his eyes seemed all at once focused on something beyond the confines of the cozy sitting room.  Ruby felt all at once alone somehow, as if her father had suddenly disappeared from the room.  he shivered involuntarily, and wrapped her hands tightly around her mug of tea for warmth.  A few moments passed; then Sam's voice broke the silence in a soft voice that Ruby had to strain to hear. 

     " I was havin' a lovely dream out under that tree", said Sam.  " I was walkin' under the golden trees of Lorien, and suddenly, there was the Lady", Sam continued in a voice touched with awe.   "Dressed all in silver and white, she was.  She smiled down at me, and put her hand on top of my head.  And then she spoke to me..."  Sam stopped speaking as his thoughts went back to his dream.  He suddenly realized what he had not thought strange about the dream before now; the Lady and he had not spoken with words.  Her voice had seemed to enter his mind, and Sam found he could answer the same way, and it was much easier so.  "Well met again, little lover of trees", Galadriel had said.  "Have you grown so quickly tired of your own garden, that you have come to walk in mine?" the Lady questioned gently.  "Oh, no your Ladyship!", Sam quickly replied.  "It's as lovely a place as you'd ever want to be in."  "Then why have you returned here?" Galadriel persisted.  " I don't rightly know myself", replied Sam.  " I don't even reckon how you and I've come to be here, or how I'm talkin' to you now" Sam puzzled.  " I recall you sailed away over the sea with Mr. Frodo a long time ago", he replied sadly.  She smiled at him then, and said, "Our thoughts have a way of taking us where we wish to be, though that place be far beyond our reach", she said kindly.  "Tell me what troubles you?"  

     "Well, your Ladyship," Sam ventured, "I've been plain lonely, and that's the truth.  My Rosie passed on, you know" Sam told her quietly.  She nodded gravely, eyes filled with sympathy.  "I reckon I've been feeling sort of left behind, so to speak," he thought, rather insightfully.  "And with my Rosie gone, you see, I can't help missin' Mr. Frodo too.  Rosie was always a comfort; she just seemed to know when things were botherin' me" Sam told his dream Lady shyly.  "And now you are here" said Galadriel thoughtfully.  "Perhaps you desire to take another journey?"  Sam looked up at Galadriel doubtfully.  "I'm not a young hobbit by any means to go traveling as I once did."   He hesitated ; " besides, where would I go?  The Road's too long to travel to Gondor and visit Strider again" Sam continued sadly.  "Only you can find what you seek; I can give only this in counsel," Galadriel told him.  "All you need do is make a beginning," she said gently.  "The end will be what it will be."  And with Galadriel's words still in his mind, he had come up out of the dream to find the sweet face of his youngest daughter gazing down at him with love. 

     Sam came out of his reverie, and turned his thoughts back to his beloved Ruby where she sat across from him, a searching expression on her lovely face. Sam sighed and said, "Well, my girl, that was quite a dream and no mistake!" Ruby eyed her father anxiously.  "Why don't you come down with me to Bilbo's?" she invited.  "We can all visit together in the kitchen while I get to work on those apple pies", Ruby cajoled.  Sam replied, "it's surely a tempting offer, but I've a mind to take myself off for a ha'pint at the Ivy Bush, and catch up on the latest doings of the Four Farthings."  "The latest gossip, you mean!" Ruby said; but she grinned.  "That sounds just the ticket, dad.  You go on ahead then.  I'll tidy up here and then fill my basket with them apples and go on down to New Row.  You'll have a fresh apple pie for your breakfast tomorrow", she promised.  Ruby shooed Sam out of the house amid protests, saying she'd do the clearing up tonight, and that was that!   Then she stood in the open doorway for awhile, and watched Sam's progress as he made his way down the Road.