The ring tree

Just off the Rue des Arbres on the Left Bank in Paris, there was a tiny boutique... a strange little shop that sold trinkets, and charms, and love tokens. When Fiona saw the ring tree she was enchanted, but puzzled. "What is it for?" she asked. "You hang your rings on it. An engagement ring, a dress ring, diamonds perhaps." So Fiona took the ring tree, and through all the eventful and exciting years that followed, she kept the little gilt ornament until, finally, she was able to hang the ring of the man she loved on the branches of the tree. The first time Charles hardy saw Fiona she was sixteen, very pale and slender, with blue eyes and unbelievably fair hair. To him she was a child, and yet she had and attraction, a charm of her own. They met in a Paris boulevard cafe... their friendship was brief, and then the years and events of the times separated them. Fiona met Jean, the sensitive, proud young Frenchman who was to play such an important part in her life. And it was many years before she met Charles Hardy again...