"I think you are right," I said, "but somehow I feel I am right too in a way. One can't be saving souls all the time—one's own or other people's—and here, as you say, is Adam's work, the brown earth."
He laughed. "And here is Eve naming the flowers! I am sure Eve kept Adam to the digging while she picked the fruit."
"How men do love that old allegory! Personally I don't think they come out of it so well that they need quote it so often. However, as it gives them all the backbone, I feel quite absolved when I ask them to use it!"
The Young Man rose up. "Ah! if Eve had had the spirit of her daughters!"
"Here is a very large phlox, please dig that hole bigger," I interrupted, and as we carefully placed it in position, down the path came his Reverence and the Master.
"Oh!" I shouted, "come and see all my new arrivals; I am going to cut you out!"
The Master examined our work over his spectacles, and looked up and down the border critically, ending his survey with an unpromising "Humph."
Something was very wrong, evidently. My hopeful spirits sank.
"Have we been doing anything very ignorant? Don't you put plants straight into the earth? Will they all die?"