himself in the garden was Eve
contented to smell the fragrance of the violets and bask in the
starlight of a new world? Oh no! She was quietly wandering around
searching for the Serpent, and when she found him she smiled upon him
and he thought the world grew brighter; then she laughed and his
subjugation was complete; and then the naughty creature, without
waiting for an introduction, led him to the famous apple tree, and
standing on her tip-toes, reached up her hands and said with a
soul-subduing little pout:

"See, I want that apple, but I can't reach it. Won't you please find a
club and knock it off for me?" and she looked out of the corner of her
eye and blushed divinely.

Now this Serpent represented, so it has always been believed, a very
shrewd person. He saw that this woman had no garments, and that after
she had eaten this fruit she would know better, and delight in clothes
ever after. So he gave her the apple.

Almost instantly after she had eaten some, not because she
particularly liked apples, or had any idea of their adaptability in
the way of pies, sauce or cider, but because she wanted to "be as gods
knowing good and evil," as the Serpent said she would. Discontent with
her wardrobe crept into her heart and ambition for something better
sprang to life.

[Illustration: "WHILE ADAM WAS IDLY, LAZILY SUNNING HIMSELF IN THE
GARDEN."]

In the distance stood Adam. With a thrill of rapture she beheld him,
her aroused soul flashed from her eyes and love was born, and she
ran toward him through the flowers, pausing on the river's brink to
rest, for weariness had touched her limbs.

She watched the waters running south out of the garden, and like one
coming out of a dim, sweet twilight into a blaze of glory she looked
and wondered "why" it ran that way, and lo! Thought blossomed like a
rose, and generosity laughed in the sunshine when she put the apple in
Adam's hand; and Adam, with the only woman in the world beside him,
and the first free lunch before him, forgot all about God and His
commands and "did eat," and the results prove that free lunches always
did demoralize men--and always will. And modesty blushed rosy red when
Adam put the apple to his lips, and invention and ingenuity, new-born,
rushed to the rescue, and they gathered the fig leaves.

Then memory like a demon whispered in her ear: "The day that ye eat
thereof ye shall surely die." She glanced at Adam and deadly fear
chilled the joyous bl