52 THE GARDEN, YOU, AND I 



course. A most soothing sort of person is this same 

 Man from Everywhere, and a special dispensation to any 

 woman whose husband's best friend he chances to be, 

 as in my case, for a man who is as well satisfied with 

 crackers, cheese, and ale as with your very best com- 

 pany spread, praises the daintiness of your guest cham- 

 ber, but sleeps equally sound in a hammock swung in 

 the Infant's attic play- room, is not to be met every day 

 in this age of finnickiness. Then again he has the gift 

 of saying the right thing at difficult moments, and 

 meaning it too, and though a born rover, has an almost 

 feminine sympathy for the little dilemmas of house- 

 keeping that are so vital to us and yet are of no moment 

 to the masculine mind. Yes, I do admire him im- 

 mensely, and only wish I saw an opportunity of marry- 

 ing him either into the family or the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood, for though he is nearly forty, he is neither a 

 misanthrope nor a woman hater, but rather seems to 

 have set himself a difficult ideal and had limited oppor- 

 tunities. Once, not long ago, I asked him why he did 

 not marry. 'Because,' he answered, 'I can only 

 marry a perfectly frank woman, and the few of that clan 

 I have met, since there has been anything in my pocket 

 to back my wish, have always been married!' 

 "' I have noticed that too,' said Bart, whom I did not 



