further ambitions for himself. He was fifty-eight, and quite satisfied to rise every morning with the same prospect before him: to rush to his office always a little late, to come back and spend the remaining hours of daylight in his little strip of garden. Perhaps John saw many changing wonders in the world of flowers he so carefully tended, saw life and romance in the flutter of the bee and the floating pollen of the blossoms; who knows if in his commonplace body there were not a poet's thoughts, which he could not utter or express. Anyway, he was content to find his pleasure in digging and planting and pruning.
He would leave his wife in the morning with a kiss, and 'Bless you, my girl,' and on his homecoming greet her by crying, 'Well, dear, and how have you been enjoying yourself?' At first she thought it pretty and sweet, but as the years went by it began to pall, and soon grew unbearable. Once she hinted he might try a new endearment, so he changed it to 'Bless you, little mother' after James arrived. Further than that he seemed unable to originate. His evening greeting he never changed, though once she tried to forestall him by remarking, with some
