ng properly, head up, and not down
under the clothes, as I had once found her, and then to walk to and fro
under the budding stars for inspiration, leaving the pair to talk the
men's talk that is so good and nourishing for a married man like Bart,
no matter how much he cares for the Infant and me.

"Jumbled up as the garden is, the spring twilight veils all deficiencies
and releases persuasive odours from every corner, while the knoll, with
its gnarled trees outlined against the sky, appealed to me as never
before, a thing desirable and to be restored and preserved even at a
cost rather than obliterated.

"'Oh, Mrs. Evan, I wish I could tell you how _The Man's_ plan touches me
and seems made for me especially this spring. I seem fairly to have a
passion for home and the bit of earth about and sky above it that is all
our own. And unlike other times when I loved to have my friends come and
visit me, and share and return the hospitality of neighbours, I want to
be alone with myself and Bart, to spend long days under the sky and
trees and have nothing come between our real selves and God, not even
the ticking and dictation of a clock! There is so much that I want to
tell my husband just now, that cannot be put in words, and that he may
only read by intuition. When I was younger and first married, I did not
feel this need so much, but now life seems to take on so much deeper a
meaning! Do you understand? Ah, yes, I know you do! But I am wandering
from the point, just as I yearn to wander from all the stringencies of
life this summer.

"Evidently seeing me, the Rural Delivery man whistled from his cart,
instead of leaving the evening mail in its wren box, as usual. I went to
the gate rather reluctantly, I was so absorbed in garden dreams, took
the letters from the carrier, and, as the men were still sitting in the
dark, carried them up to the lamp in my own sitting room, little
realizing that even at that moment I was holding the key to the 'really
tangible plan' in my hand.

* * * * *

"_The next morning._ Two of the letters I received on Saturday night
would have been of great importance if we were still planning to go away
for a vacation, instead of hoping to stay at home for it. The first,
from mother, told me that she and my brother expect to spend the summer
in taking a journey, in which Alaska is to be the turning-point. She
begs us to go with them and offers to give me her right-ha