“Ah yes. Our friend Herr Asher in Berlin does Germans a valuable service with his translations. How do you find the Scot?”

“It is like no book I have ever read, Papa. I would dearly love to try to see if I could read it in the original.”

“I will see what Herr Buchmann can locate for us in his shop. It may be difficult. Foreign publications, especially of the sort of the Scotsman, are not so well thought of in some circles these days. But I will see what can be done, Sabina. I have a number of the English editions in the library, though I’m afraid this is not one of them.”

“Thank you, Papa.”

“What have you just been reading?”

Sabina found her father’s eyes and held them just a moment; then her lips parted in a knowing smile.

“I think I have discovered why you gave me this particular one of his books to read,” she said coyly.

“Do you insinuate I may have had some ulterior motive?” rejoined the baron, with an innocent expression but one that hinted of slyness around the edges of his smile.

“Papa, you knew very well I would find this passage.”

“I can’t imagine what you are talking about.”

“The day you handed me the book you went on and on about our Frühlingsgarten, and then about gardens in general. You told me the older the garden the better you liked it. I know you have not forgotten.”

The baron smiled. “Perhaps I do recall the conversation,” he said.

“I asked you why. You said because sometimes things were buried in older gardens lying dormant under the soil, awaiting a new time to show themselves to the eyes of men and women again. I said you made it sound as though the soil and the seeds and bulbs and roots could think for themselves and decide such things.”

“And I replied that my comment had primarily to do with truths rather than plants.”

“But then, since we were on the subject of gardens,” added Sabina, “you went on to say that though the things in the soil could not think, they were yet expressions of God’s mind, which never stops thinking of creative ways to reveal itself to those who can see it. You said that when God made seeds and soil and plants and trees, he put his own life within them that can never die and is always awaiting just the right opportunity to spring to life and flower again.”

The baron chuckled to himself. His daughter had bested him at his own clever game!

“You seem to recall the conversation with particular vividness,” he said.

“I remember everything you tell me about the garden, and growing things, Papa.” Her voice was earnest.

“I am glad, my daughter. All living things have much to tell us of their Maker.”

“Many of which you have told me.”