Van gave the waiter an order for a Manhattan and a Martini for herself, then turned to Evadne. "How times have changed: I can remember when you wouldn't even drink wine. Van shook her head in mock disapproval. "Or smoke, for that matter," she added as Evadne selected a cigarette

from the smart silver case she held toward her.

"Well--like you say, times have changed, Van. Who'd over think I'd be having cocktails with you here at The Embers' aftor all the se years?"

To

Evadne's trite phrases sounded strange to her own ears. cover the awkward pause while she thought frantically of what to say next, Evadne took a long sip Evadne took a long sip from her Manhattan. "And how did your flower garden turn out on Eden Heights?"

Evadne mentally damned herself for blurling out this last question. Probably Van had forgotten that last time Evadno had visted her.....when they had said goodbye. Van had been planting flowers, her grey head bent lovingly over the freshly-spaded earth, her fingers tenderly tucking in the new plants-to-bo.

"I won't say I wish I were dead," Evadne had whispered, dropping to her knees beside Van. "I just wish I'd never been born."

"You shouldn't feel that way just because I love some one else," Van had roplied. "Do you know how much older I am than you?"

"No, and I don't care!" Evadne's tears, long held in check had dropped up on the young leaves of the newly-planted flowers.

"You should take up gardening, Evadne, When the flowers take root and bloom they make you feel as if you were a part of God, for it is you who have planted them and made them grow. It gives you faith in the future."

But this was small consolation to Evadne, who never had found it in her heart to believe in a personal God.

But Evadne remembered the earthiness and the scratch of

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