The Happy Garden 



happy as one is permitted to be. We have all 

 admitted the slums in our souls and smashed the 

 idol of immaculate perfection which most of us 

 carry about with our indispensable luggage, and we 

 can be honest and jolly, and make brave and pre- 

 posterous plans, and waste no time in trying to 

 make life different from what it is. As it is, we 

 must accept it, and in the allotted span make as 

 beautiful a garden as possible. . . . 



It is odd how differently the same thing will 

 affect different people. 



Jane, having succumbed to the Garden Faith, 

 resigns herself to her conversion, and lies back in a 

 hammock, feeling really very comfortable, and 

 goes back to her dream of the King in his Counting- 

 house. 



Elisabeth, on the other hand, smashes her old 

 ideals, rushes into her new faith, and cannot rest 

 until she has begun to proselytise. 



" I must go ! " she says. 



" Not yet," say I. 



" Yes ! . . . " she says, and her eyes gleam. 

 " I must go up to town at once — at ONCE ! — to 

 tell everybody." 



She went. 



198 



