At the Gate of Eden

The wind and I have been here alone to- gether and the wind is a good companion, but still I am glad to see you. It is an evening on which it is good to be alive and to wander in an orchard that is fine and white. Welcome, my friend.”

She clapped her hands, looking like a pleased child.

“ You are very quick to understand,” she wrote. “ That was just what I meant. Of course I did not think it in just those words, but that was the feeling of it. I felt that I was so glad I was alive, and that the apple blossoms and the white lilacs and the trees and I were all pleased together to see you come. You are quicker than Neil. He is almost always puzzled to understand my music, and I am puzzled to understand his. Sometimes it frightens me. It seems as if there were something in it trying to take hold of me —something I do not like and want to run away from.”

Somehow Eric did not like her refer- 107