Adventure means saying Yes, and being careless; children say Yes to everything and are very careless indeed: even their No is usually a Yes, inverted or deferred. “I won’t play,” parsed by a psychologist, means “I’ll play when I’m ready.” The adventurous spirit accepts what offers regardless of consequences; he who hesitates and thinks is a mere Policeman who prevents adventure. Now, everything offers itself to children, because they rightly think that everything belongs to them. Life is conditionless, if only people would let them accept it as it is. “Don’t think; accept!” expresses the law of their swift and fluid being. They act on it. They take everything they can⁠—get. But it is the Policeman who adds the “get,” changing the whole significance of life with one ugly syllable. Each of the children possessed and treasured an adventure of its very own: an adventure-in-chief, private and particular, that could not possibly have happened to anybody else in the world. Grownups have these too, of course, whether they be kings, or married men, or private detectives. The child in us persists until the last hair and tooth fall out. Thus, Jinny, Jimbo and Maria⁠—three survivals in an age when education considers childhood a disease to be cured as hurriedly as possible⁠—took their adventure the instant that it came, and each was proud with a complete assurance of superiority that his or her particular one was unique. To no one else in the world could such a thing have happened, least of all to the other two. Each took it characteristically, according to his or her individual nature⁠—Jinny, with a sense of Romance called deathless; Jimbo, with a taste for Poetic Drama, a dash of the supernatural in it; and Maria, with a magnificent inactivity that ruled the world by waiting for things to happen, then claiming them as her own. Her masterly instinct for repose ran no risk of failure from misdirected energy. And to all three secrecy, of course, was essential: “Don’t never tell the others, Uncle! Promise faithfully now!” For, to every adventure Uncle Henry acted as audience, atmosphere and chorus. He watched whatever happened⁠—audience; believed in its reality⁠—atmosphere; and explained without explaining away⁠—chorus. He had the unusual faculty of being ten years young as well as forty years old, and a real adventure was not possible without him. The secrecy, of course, was not preserved for long; sooner or later the glory must be shared so that “the others” knew⁠—and envied. For only then was the joy complete, the splendour properly fulfilled. And so the old tired world went round and life grew more and more wonderful each day. For children are an epitome of life⁠—a self-creating universe. That week was memorable for several reasons. Daddy, overworked in an office, went for a change by sea to Scotland, taking Mother with him; Aunt Emily, in her black silk dress that crackled with disapproval, went to Tunbridge Wells⁠—an awful place in another century somewhere; and Uncle Henry was left behind to “take charge of ‘em,’”⁠—“em” being the children and himself. It was evidence of monumental trust and power, placing him in their imaginations even above the recognised Authorities. His sway was never for a moment questioned. “No lessons, then!” he had insisted as a condition of acceptance, and after much confabulation the point was yielded with reluctance. Maria claimed the victory, of course, by merely sitting still and affirming that her state of health was not satisfactory. Anyhow, it was to be a ten days’ holiday all round. They had the house and grounds entirely to themselves, and with the departure of the elders a sheet was pulled by someone off the world, a curtain rolled away, another drop-scene fell, the word No disappeared, they saw invisible things. Another reason, however, made the week memorable⁠—the daisies. It was extraordinary. The very day after the grownups left the daisies came. Like thousands of small white birds, with bright and steady eyes, they arrived and settled, thick and plentiful. They appeared in sheets and clouds upon the grass, all of their own accord and unexplained. In a night the lawns turned white. It seemed a prearranged invasion. Jinny, first awake that morning, looked out of her window to watch a squirrel playing, and noticed them. Then she told the others; and Maria, one eye above the blankets, ejaculated “Ah!” She claimed the daisies too. Now, whereas a single daisy has no smell and seems a common, unimportant thing, a bunch of several hundred holds all the perfume of the spring. No flowers lie closer to the soil or bring the smell of earth more sweetly to the mind; upon the lips and cheeks they are softer than a kitten’s fur, and lie against the skin like tired eyelids.