The Happy Garden 



beth is obstinate, I think I have a thing or two 

 in the garden that will settle her. 



This is the sort of thing that happens. I call 

 upon Jane to admire one of the most royal of my 

 beech-tree friends, a tree whom I am proud to 

 know, with an immense bole spreading into six 

 great trunks, reaching up to the heavens and 

 covered over with a green mantle, like the tree of 

 Jove. 



Jane cranes her neck and marvels, and at once 

 Elisabeth makes her shy and timid and afraid she 

 is doing the wrong thing by snapping : 



" When it is made into chairs and tables, I'll 

 admire it." 



The retort did not come to me until much later. 

 The gift of ready repartee so often seems to go 

 with a seemingly hard self-possession which is 

 foreign to me. What I should have said, and what 

 I hasten to say now is this : 



" But till then, as a tree, it is beautiful, and its 

 beauty is there to be enjoyed." 



However, I did not say it and went on, feeling 

 that I was getting the worst of it, and beginning 

 to hate the sight of Elisabeth's Liberty blouse, and 

 her stiff collar, and her tight hair, and her pince-nez 

 that were always falling from her rather large nose 

 to be fastened on again with much ferrety screw- 



108 



