asked Eve. The question was an idle one and Adam did not trouble to answer it. Nor did Eve look for an answer. She now had other babes to cherish, and though she took pleasure in her sons when they chanced to visit her she did not yearn for them during their long absences. The idea that any harm could befall them was something quite alien to the life of Eden and could not, in the nature of things, have entered her head: the present moment was all her joy and all her care. Cain ’and Abel, still children though they were, had developed already a wandering habit. It was the more marked in Cain, the elder and more enterprising, perhaps because he had had so early to fend for himself; but Abel had learned independence from his brother, and much else besides. Cain was hardly entered on the adventure of adolescence when he first succeeded in persuading the goat to stand and be milked. But it was Abel who had chosen for their sleeping-place a natural terrace or plateau which, by good luck, was already to some extent sheltered from rain by the broad leaves and spreading branches of a great tree: nothing then remained—though this was a mighty labour—but to fetch sharp stones from the riverbed at low tide, and with the help of these implements ditch the place round, so making it the more secure from flood.
