THE STORY OF EVE.
THE STORY OF EVE.
Away back when Adam was a young man—now I know that Adam is rather an ancient subject, but you need not elevate your eyebrows in scorn, for you will be ancient yourself sometime—he found himself in Eden one day; he did not know why, but we do, don't we?
He was there because Eve was to come, and it was a foregone conclusion even in that early age that when she did appear she would want some one to hold her bouquet, open the door for her, button her gloves, tell her she was pretty and sweet and "I never saw a woman like you before," you know.
Her arrival was the greatest event the world has ever known, and the grandest preparations were made for it.
A blue sky arched gloriously over the earth, and sun, moon and stars flashed and circled into space, silvery rivers ran cool and slow through scented valleys, the trees threw cooling shadows on the fresh, damp grass, the birds sang in the rosy dawn, the flowers blushed in odorous silence and yet it was all incomplete, and Adam wandered restlessly around like a man who has lost his collar button.
But suddenly a great hush of expectancy fell upon the world. Not a bird fluttered its feathers, the flowers bowed their heads, the winds and the waters listening ceased their flowing and their blowing, the radiant moonshine mingled its light with the pale pink dawn and a million stars paled their eternal fires, as Eve, the first woman, stood in Eden.