some say, that when all the plants in the
garden of Eden were pulled up by the roots, one bush that the angels
planted was left growing, and it spread its seed over the whole earth,
and its name is love. I do not know which is right--perhaps both. There
are different species that go under the same name. There is a love that
begins in the head, and goes down to the heart, and grows slowly; but
it lasts till death, and asks less than it gives. There is another love,
that blots out wisdom, that is sweet with the sweetness of life and
bitter with the bitterness of death, lasting for an hour; but it is
worth having lived a whole life for that hour. I cannot tell, perhaps
the old monks were right when they tried to root love out; perhaps the
poets are right when they try to water it. It is a blood-red flower,
with the colour of sin; but there is always the scent of a god about
it."

Gregory would have made a remark; but she said, without noticing:

"There are as many kinds of loves as there are flowers; everlastings
that never wither; speedwells that wait for the wind to fan them out of
life; blood-red mountain-lilies that pour their voluptuous sweetness out
for one day, and lie in the dust at night. There is no flower has the
charm of all--the speedwell's purity, the everlasting's strength, the
mountain-lily's warmth; but who knows whether there is no love that
holds all--friendship, passion, worship?

"Such a love," she said, in her sweetest voice, "will fall on the
surface of strong, cold, selfish life as the sunlight falls on a torpid
winter world; there, where the trees are bare, and the ground frozen,
till it rings to the step like iron, and the water is solid, and the air
is sharp as a two-edged knife that cuts the unwary.

"But when its sun shines on it, through its whole dead crust a throbbing
yearning wakes: the trees feel him, and every knot and bud swell, aching
to open to him. The brown seeds, who have slept deep under the ground,
feel him, and he gives them strength, till they break through the frozen
earth, and lift two tiny, trembling green hands in love to him. And he
touches the water, till down to its depths it feels him and melts, and
it flows, and the things, strange sweet things that were locked up in
it, it sings as it runs, for love of him. Each plant tries to bear at
least one fragrant little flower for him; and the world that was dead
lives, and the heart that was dead and self-centred throbs, wi