lf know it," said Iris. "Oh, mustn't it have been nice to
be Adam and Eve!"

"Awfully slow," answered Max, making a fancy portrait on the margin of
his Milton.

"That's just what I should like," said Iris. "I'd rather things were
slow. I don't want them all to come huddling together. Fancy the whole
long day in a lovely, lovely, garden with no lessons to do, no clothes
to mend, and all your time to yourself."

"You'd get jolly well tired of it," said Max; "anyhow, I wish old Milton
hadn't written all this stuff about it."

Abandoning the argument, he clasped his rough head with both hands and
bent muttering over his task. The lines he had just repeated stayed in
Iris's mind like the sound of very peaceful music, and changed the
direction of her thoughts, for now they turned, as her long needle went
in and out of the grey sock, to her godmother's house and garden in the
country. It was called Paradise Court, and though Iris had not been
there since she was eight years old, she remembered it all perfectly; a
picture of it rose before her again, and in a moment she was far away
from Albert Street. She saw wide stretches of green lawn, with quiet
meadows beyond; snowy white blossoms in the orchard, radiant flowers in
the garden, borders, a row of royal purple flags with their sword-like
leaves, which had specially pleased her because their name was "Iris" as
well as her own. How happy she had been for those two or three days.
How the sun had shone, and the birds had sung, and what big bunches of
flowers she had picked in the fields. It was paradise, indeed. And she
had to live in Albert Street. With a sigh she turned her eyes from the
bright picture of her fancy, and glanced round the room she sat in. It
was very small, and had folding doors which could be opened into the
dining-room, and it was just as shabby and untidy as Max and Clement
could make it. The chief thing to be noticed about it was the number of
blots and splashes of ink; they were everywhere--on the walls, on the
deal table, on the mantel-piece, on the map of the world, on the
dog's-eared books, and on Max's stumpy finger-ends--there was hardly an
inch of space free from them. From the window you could see the narrow
straight piece of walled garden, one of many such, stretching along side
by side in even rows at the backs of the houses. They were all exactly
alike, in shape, in size, in griminess, and in the parched and sickly
look of the