24 THE GARDEN OF A 



may be rarer, though no less deep or unselfish. In 

 fact, as I grow older and see other people's mothers, 

 I think there is less self-consciousness in the father 

 love. Who should know this love so well as I whose 

 mother went away when I was five years old? In 

 those years "Our Father Who art in Heaven " meant 

 my father beside my bed, who soothed me until 

 darkness bore no terrors. To one who has had 

 such a father, unbelief in God is impossible. 



Bluff could not keep in the background for long, 

 and capered about in such evident comprehension of 

 the whole situation that we were soon laughing, and 

 I told father that though this was the garden of 

 Eden, we were going to reverse the old order. 

 Adam and Eve, instead of being driven out soon 

 after their marriage, had come back from their wed- 

 ding trip to feast upon apples, especially those of 

 the tree of knowledge, and that we were going to 

 turn out the serpent and make it into the most 

 fascinating topsy-turvy garden possible, even the 

 Garden of a Commuter's Wife ! Also that we had 

 imported Martha Corkle, the sundial, and a beauti- 

 ful tall copy of the Pickering Walton's "Angler " ; 

 that we bought the last thing in a little book-shop in 

 Southampton for him. I shall remember that shop 

 a long time, for a smutty-nosed cat fresh from the 



