olds the hour-glass steady. Even
the children feel it: it is a half-jesting, half-serious plaint with
them that the goats, the donkeys, and the ponies to which they
successively transfer their affections can never secure immortal youth
by a yearly sojourn in that happy kingdom. I offered once to rebuild
our old bridge--to make it a drawbridge, even, and thus keep our
treasure safe, but after a long council it was rejected.

"It wouldn't be a really island, then, you see, Jerry dear," said my
Peggy (always deputed to bear an ultimatum to me) "and we like it
better an island--don't you?"

Of course it must be an island! It was marked out for an island when
first the waters were gathered up and the dry land appeared. I think
all the happy places are islands--I should like to make one of Italy.
I am convinced that when the Garden of Eden is definitely settled (and
Major Upgrove is trying to persuade me to come with him to find it--he
has a theory) it will be found to be a secret isle in some great
estuary or arm of that ageless Eastern river suspected by the major.
Surely that mysterious Apple (of whose powers Margarita was once so
sceptical) never grew on any vulgar, easily-to-be-come-at mainland!
No, it lurks to-day in its own island Paradise, and the angel with the
flaming sword cut the land apart from all common ground so that the
furrows smoked beneath it as the floods raced in. If we find it--the
major and I--shall we bring some apples back to Peggy? In truth, I am
none too sure. Why my darling's sex has been so eager for that Apple
is not yet entirely evident--though I am not too stupidly obstinate to
admit that it may be evident, one day. But the fact remains that Eve
certainly regretted it, and Adam, one would suppose, must have, for he
has been settling dressmaker's accounts ever since!

As to the position held by this father of mankind among the Bradley
children, by the way, volumes might be written. To suppose that
Barbara Jencks, their bond slave in all else, has remitted an atom of
her zeal in bringing them into the state of religious conviction
enjoyed by the Governour-General's family, would indicate the densest
ignorance of her character. And success has not been entirely lacking,
for my namesake delights in the battles of the Kings and Sue's sweet
life is a very Sermon on the Mount. But Lockwood still sacrifices to
Pan among the beehives and propitiates the Thunder God with favourite
kittens, and Roger