Carlyon must have an artistic eye."

"I expect it was Elizabeth's idea," returned Cedric lazily; "she is
quite gone on poppies. She and David are rival gardeners, and have no
end of discussions. My word, to listen to them one would think they
were a later edition of Adam and Eve."

Now, why did Malcolm frown at this boyish speech, and drop the subject
hastily? But Cedric only stretched himself with a yawn and went on--

"It is my private opinion that David knows very little about it, except
what he gets from gardening books. But he is so full of hobbies, and so
energetic, and so determined not to be beaten, and takes such a lot of
trouble, that even Elizabeth is astonished at the results. She comes
down here and gives him ideas, and then he works them out, or he
potters about our place and talks to Johnson, and gets hints that way."

"I never saw such a fellow for picking other people's brains,"
continued Cedric enthusiastically. "Why, he got a splendid degree at
Oxford; I remember how surprised his own father was."

"Carlyon has a father then?" Though Malcolm was so lukewarm on the
subject of the young curate's merits, he felt some degree of curiosity
about him.

"To be sure he has," replied Cedric. "Carlyon senior is a dry, chippy
sort of little man, as meek as a mouse and as good as gold. He is
curate-in-charge of an iron church at Stokeley; it is in the Black
Country, you know--a regular inferno of a place--nothing but tall
chimneys and blasting furnaces, heaps of slag and rows of miners'
cottages. Stokeley town is a mile or two farther on; it is a beastly
sort of hole."

"It does not sound an inviting spot certainly."

"Well, it is not exactly a Garden of Eden," returned Cedric with a
grin. "But, as David says, it has its advantages, for one can wear out
one's old clothes quite comfortably. I believe there is really
beautiful country two or three miles away."

"I suppose Mr. Carlyon's mother is living too?" But here Cedric shook
his head.

"No, she died when David was a youngster--consumption, I believe--and
two or three of the children died too. But there is one daughter, Theo
they call her--for Theodora, I expect--and a precious uncomfortable
piece of goods she is."

Malcolm raised his eyebrows in a questioning manner, but Cedric needed
no encouragement to rattle on.

"She is a young woman with a mission--a sort of female Moody and Sankey
rolled in one--and she calls herself the Miner's Friend. Sh