melted
away; she looked down, demure and smiling, at the flowers in her lap.

"I deserve a good scolding," she said. "I don't deserve compliments, Mr.
Armadale--least of all from _you_."

"Oh, yes, you do!" cried the headlong Allan, getting briskly on
his legs. "Besides, it isn't a compliment; it's true. You are the
prettiest--I beg your pardon, Miss Milroy! _my_ tongue ran away with me
that time."

Among the heavy burdens that are laid on female human nature, perhaps
the heaviest, at the age of sixteen, is the burden of gravity. Miss
Milroy struggled, tittered, struggled again, and composed herself for
the time being.

The gardener, who still stood where he had stood from the first,
immovably waiting for his next opportunity, saw it now, and gently
pushed his personal interests into the first gap of silence that had
opened within his reach since Allan's appearance on the scene.

"I humbly bid you welcome to Thorpe Ambrose, sir," said Abraham Sage,
beginning obstinately with his little introductory speech for the second
time. "My name--"

Before he could deliver himself of his name, Miss Milroy looked
accidentally in the horticulturist's pertinacious face, and instantly
lost her hold on her gravity beyond recall. Allan, never backward in
following a boisterous example of any sort, joined in her laughter with
right goodwill. The wise man of the gardens showed no surprise, and took
no offense. He waited for another gap of silence, and walked in again
gently with his personal interests the moment the two young people
stopped to take breath.

"I have been employed in the grounds," proceeded Abraham Sage,
irrepressibly, "for more than forty years--"

"You shall be employed in the grounds for forty more, if you'll only
hold your tongue and take yourself off!" cried Allan, as soon as he
could speak.

"Thank you kindly, sir," said the gardener, with the utmost politeness,
but with no present signs either of holding his tongue or of taking
himself off.

"Well?" said Allan.

Abraham Sage carefully cleared his throat, and shifted his rake from
one hand to the other. He looked down the length of his own invaluable
implement, with a grave interest and attention, seeing, apparently, not
the long handle of a rake, but the long perspective of a vista, with a
supplementary personal interest established at the end of it. "When
more convenient, sir," resumed this immovable man, "I should wish
respectfully to speak to you