But when sin came into the world, darkness, cold and sadness came along, and Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden.

Snow began to fall and the sky turned gray, and when Eve sniffed the air, she no longer smelled roses and peonies, lilies and lilacs. She felt only the cold. She searched for those colors, the pinks and greens and blues. But snow was falling from that gray, gray sky, and everywhere she turned she saw billowing clouds rolling toward her.

"It will never be beautiful again," Eve said to Adam, and he put an arm around her shoulders and shook his head sadly.

"It seems the snow may never stop falling."

"Perhaps if you go walking, you'll find the blue sky," Eve said, "and the warm sunshine and fields of flowers."

"Perhaps," Adam said, and so he stood up and set off across the snowy land.

Eve stayed where she was, shivering in spite of the fur clothing God had provided for her and Adam when they left the Garden of Eden. Her eyes filled with tears, and soon those tears bathed her face.

Suddenly, she heard a sound she'd never before heard — like the beating of mighty wings — and she felt a wave wash over her, and though the snow kept falling, for one moment Eve felt some warmth again.

She looked up, but saw only the falling snow, and she began to weep again.

"Shhh," a voice whispered. "Don't cry."

Eve brushed her hand across her eyes and looked up again. "Who's there?" she asked. "Who speaks?" She saw no one, only a vast, empty field of white.

"It is I," the voice said, "an angel."

Eve turned her head this way and that, but she was blinded by the snow. "I don't believe you," Eve said. "Show yourself, please. I promise I will do as you wish."

"Close your eyes, Eve," the angel said, its voice like a song, like the memory of those long-ago days, the days of happiness and sunshine, of fragrance and warmth. Eve closed her eyes.

"Do you remember the way you were?" the angel asked. "Do you recall your time of innocence and tenderness? Do you remember the way you loved the world and all its beauty?"

"Yes," Eve said, and she smiled wistfully, for as she remembered, she felt as if the world were that way again. "I remember, and I regret that I did not cherish it enough. I did not understand."

"Open your eyes, Eve," the angel said, and she did, and then she saw the angel standing before her, and she wished with all her heart that she could be as pure, as good, as this angel.

The angel understood that Eve was sorry for her sins, and so he held out his arm, and in his hand he caught one snowflake. "You see this?" he asked.

Eve looked at the snowflake, amazed by its delicacy, its intricacy, the beauty of that single flake. "It's beautiful," she said, and the angel leaned over and breathed on the snowflake

and then let it fall to the ground. Eve gasped in delight, for as it hit the ground, it bloomed, the first flower of the new world.