;
geraniums, portulacas, nasturtiums, sunflowers and red-hot pokers burned
in one furnace of bloom. Red admiral butterflies soared lazily up and
down against the gray walls crumbling with heat, and from flower to
flower of the scarlet salvias zigzagged the hummingbird hawkmoths.
Granfa Champion, wiping with gaudy bandana his forehead, came out to
plant daffodil bulbs stored in the green shadows of a cool potting shed.

"Now, you know you mustn't go digging in this sun, Mr. Champion," said
reproving May.

"My cheeks are so hot as pies," declared Granfa.

"Do come and sit down with us," said Jenny.

"I believe I mustn't start tealing yet awhile," said the old man,
regretfully plunging his long Cornish spade into the baked earth, from
which insufficient stability the instrument fell with a thump on to the
path.

"Well, how are 'ee feeling, my dear?" asked Granfa, standing before
Jenny and mopping his splendid forehead. "None so frail, I hope?"

"She isn't feeling at all well. Not to-day," said May.

"That's bad," said Granfa. "That's poor news, that is."

"I feel frightened, Mr. Champion," said Jenny suddenly. Somehow this old
man recalled Mr. Vergoe, rousing old impulses of childish confidence and
revelation.

"Feeling frightened, are 'ee? That's bad."

"Supposing it wasn't a person at all?" said Jenny desperately. "You
know, like us?"

The old man considered for a moment this morbid fancy.

"That's a wisht old thought," he said at last, "and I don't see no call
for it at all. When I do teal a lily root, I don't expect to see a
broccolo come bursting up and annoying me."

"But it might," argued Jenny, determined not to be convinced out of all
misgiving.

"Don't encourage her, Mr. Champion," said May severely. "Tell her you
think she's silly."

Jenny buried her face in her hands and began to cry. Granfa looked at
her for a moment; then, advocating silence with his right forefinger,
with his left thumb he indicated to May by jabbing it rapidly backwards
over his shoulder that inside and upstairs to her bedroom was the best
place for Jenny.

So presently she was lying on the tapestried bed in the tempered
sunlight of her room, while through the house in whispers ran the news
that it might be any time now. Up from downstairs sounded the
restlessness of making ready. The sinking sun glowed in the heart of
every vivid Brussels rose and bathed the dusty floor with orange lights.
Jenny's great thought was th