Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/292

 where to choose, as it is for every one of us since Adam's day, don't we have to pick and choose—even about the 'really great things'? Like, for example, how we are going to spend what remains, at our time of life, of our poor little hungry human lives?"

"No," Cornelia replied. "No; for me, there is no choice at all about those things. Everything is perfectly clear to me now. I am going to spend mine with Oliver. The reason why Oliver and I rasped so upon one another last spring was that we were too near together, with no point of contact but our miserable nerves. I have been learning this summer how to 'carry on' with Oliver. When we are together again in the fall, I shall not live with him, any more than I have for years. I shall live in my blessed mood—in my secret garden. And I shall be happy again, perfectly happy."

"And I?"

"You are an old dear!" she said. "A very dear old dear! Come now, let's go in." She seized my hand gayly, like a child, and opened the gate, and led me through the walled garden, damp with the spraying fountain, into the bright colorful patio, fragrant with the cedar-wood fire. The mah jongg game was still in progress but Father Blakewell