ul what a garden can do for a man when
he lets it have its way. Come, sit down here and bask, master. The
sunshine may be gone to-morrow. Let's just sit and think."

We sat and thought for a long while. Presently Abel said abruptly:

"You don't see the folks I see in this garden, master. You don't see
anybody but me and old Tamzine and Captain Kidd. I see all who used to
be here long ago. It was a lively place then. There were plenty of us
and we were as gay a set of youngsters as you'd find anywhere. We
tossed laughter backwards and forwards here like a ball. And now old
Tamzine and older Abel are all that are left."

He was silent a moment, looking at the phantoms of memory that paced
invisibly to me the dappled walks and peeped merrily through the
swinging boughs. Then he went on:

"Of all the folks I see here there are two that are more vivid and
real than all the rest, master. One is my sister Alice. She died
thirty years ago. She was very beautiful. You'd hardly believe that to
look at Tamzine and me, would you? But it is true. We always called
her Queen Alice--she was so stately and handsome. She had brown eyes
and red gold hair, just the colour of that nasturtium there. She was
father's favourite. The night she was born they didn't think my mother
would live. Father walked this garden all night. And just under that
old apple-tree he knelt at sunrise and thanked God when they came to
tell him that all was well.

"Alice was always a creature of joy. This old garden rang with her
laughter in those years. She seldom walked--she ran or danced. She
only lived twenty years, but nineteen of them were so happy I've never
pitied her over much. She had everything that makes life worth
living--laughter and love, and at the last sorrow. James Milburn was
her lover. It's thirty-one years since his ship sailed out of that
harbour and Alice waved him good-bye from this garden. He never came
back. His ship was never heard of again.

"When Alice gave up hope that it would be, she died of a broken heart.
They say there's no such thing; but nothing else ailed Alice. She
stood at yonder gate day after day and watched the harbour; and when
at last she gave up hope life went with it. I remember the day: she
had watched until sunset. Then she turned away from the gate. All the
unrest and despair had gone out of her eyes. There was a terrible
peace in them--the peace of the dead. 'He will never come back now,
Abel,' she said to m