COMMUTER'S WIFE 17 



in America to ply his craft of landscape architect, for 

 which the time was ripe, and furnish the newly gen- 

 teel with manor houses, Italian gardens, and pleached 

 alleys all made to measure like a suit of clothes. 



When we were married, alack ! family matters 

 called Evan to England, so for two years we lived 

 away. One year was spent in travel, the other in a 

 quiet English country home, these two years being 

 divided by an illness of the kind where through sheer 

 weakness one loses gravity, and seems to float through 

 space seeking a footing either in heaven or earth and 

 finding neither. 



The English life was mildly pleasant ; the country 

 with its myriad touchstones, glorious. The rambling 

 stone house, garden, and pleasance in Somerset that 

 fell to Evan's portion, overflowed with such flowers 

 as would gather pilgrims for miles around any New 

 England village. Jasmine halfway to the eaves, 

 Marechal Neil roses and Gloire de Dijons firm as 

 cabbages, bushes of picotee pinks, begonias, Fuchsias 

 grown to trees, sweet violets carpeting the orchard, 

 and ivy making dignified haste to conceal everything 

 unsightly. Herbaceous beds rioting in colour, and all 

 to be had for the picking and the limited care of an 

 erratic old fellow who had been under-gardener once 

 on a great estate, but was climbing down in the world, 



