“Even if the blooms are rare at this time of the year,” the baron went on, “you know what they say about roses?”

“What, Papa?”

“That the blossoms almost don’t even matter.”

“Why?”

“Because, for those who love, even the petals have fragrance.”

They both laughed. They had repeated this same conversation, each taking the other half of it, many times.

A silence fell as father and daughter began now to walk about the garden slowly together.

“We have some new blossoms with us in the house,” said the baron at length.

“Yes, I met them last evening.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you had seen them.”

“Heidi came for me to help the girls with the bath.”

“Are they near your own age?”

“Thirteen and fifteen, I think,” answered Sabina. “And there’s a younger boy and girl in the other family.”

“I see.”

Again they walked a while along the wet pathway, breathing deeply of the cold morning air.

“Every day it is all so fresh and new,” said Sabina at length.

“With new secrets of the Father’s life to reveal! And everywhere today are the Father’s tears—tears perhaps not of joy but of grief as he looks over his world,” added the baron thoughtfully. “Yet even in the midst of such misery as our country has brought to the world, the Father’s creativity cannot be stopped. Every leaf, every grain out in our fields in the summer, every bush and flower and tree—summer, winter, it matters not—they are all a little different today than what they were yesterday.”

“Do you suppose people are like that too, a little different every day than what they were the day before?”

“An intriguing question. Hmmm… we must ponder that one carefully! And why should it not be so? Every day the garden is new. Every day all of creation is new! Every day, it sometimes seems, our house of retreat has new inhabitants. So why should not man himself change every day as well?”

“Little wonder then that we do not tire of growing things,” said Sabina. “You have done it again, Papa! You have answered the question I did not even know was within me!”

“I was only thinking aloud to myself. Truly, I had never thought of it from quite this angle before.”

“I can tell from that look in your eye that you are not altogether through pondering it yet.”

“You are right, one more truth occurs to me. Not only does God continually make all things new, but he never makes the same thing over again. Imagine, Sabina, of all the roses ever to grow on the face of the earth, no blossom ever duplicates another. Every one uniquely its own!”

“Just like snowflakes.”

“It is beyond my comprehension to contemplate. Nor does he ever save anything. Just look at this glorious sunrise in the sky to the east just now.”