in your thoughts."

"That is human nature, as you say," Julia said shortly, ignoring the
comment on her voice. "Human nature is a hateful, ugly thing; there is
no use in thinking about it."

"It has certainly fallen," Joost allowed; "but I have sometimes
thought perhaps, if it were not so, it would be a little--a very
little--monotonous."

"You would not find it dull," Julia told him. "I believe you would not
have got on very well in the Garden of Eden, except that, since all
the herbs grew after their own kind, there would be no opportunity to
hybridise them."

But the mystery of production and generation, even in the vegetable
world, was not a subject that modesty permitted Joost to discuss with
a girl. His manner showed it, to her impatient annoyance, as he
hastily introduced another aspect of man's first estate. "If we were
not fallen," he added, "we should have no opportunity to rise. That,
indeed, would be a loss; is it not the struggle which makes the grand
and fine characters which we admire?"

"I don't admire them," Julia returned; "I admire the people who are
born good, because they are a miracle."

He stopped to unfasten the gate; it did not occur to him that she was
thinking of himself.

"I cannot agree with you," he said, as they went up the drive