ones, like the
strange way the weeds have of appearing faster than the seeds?"

From the nonchalance of this question it will be seen that Sally herself
thought nothing of the fact that items concerning her garden should have
seemed of sufficient importance to go into the letters of a brother whose
time was ordinarily occupied with affairs much more momentous. The garden
was of overwhelming importance to Sally, why shouldn't it be interesting
to everybody? But there were two people in the company besides his sister
who glanced rather quickly at Donald Ferry. He, however, seemed to think
there could be no reason for anybody's minding what he might choose to
write about.

"Here were two girls," he said, from his position in the doorway,
where he stood leaning against the lintel, watching the process of tea
making, "writing long descriptions of all sorts of rural beauties
they had discovered in their travels about Germany and France--given
them as a reward for long study by a discerning aunt. They professed
special interest in gardens. Should I refrain from telling them about
the only one in sight, even though it couldn't be said to have reached
the show stage?"

"You certainly didn't refrain," said Miss Constance Carew, smiling at him
from her seat near Sally. "We were told that if we would spend the summer
here, one of our chief joys would be the old, box-bordered garden."

"So long as it helped to bring you, I don't regret it," said he,
returning the smile in a way which made those who observed decide at once
that these other two were old and familiar friends. Miss Carew, though
she was not precisely a pretty girl, was really beautiful when she
smiled, and had, at all times, an undeniable charm about her which came
from one knew not just what. She was rather tall but very graceful, and
her manner had about it an indefinable something which made one like to
watch her, admiring each move she made as something done just a little
differently from the way other people did it.

Sally poured her tea, and the three young men handed about the cups.
Everybody fell to talking at once. Max, who had had an approving eye
on Miss Janet Ferry from the first, and had decided that he should much
prefer her conversation to that of her more impressive friend, drew up
a chair beside her when his duties were over, and presently proved her
to be as blithely entertaining as her appearance had promised. She was
a small person in stature,