be home soon," said Eleanor, as we devoured certain
plates of oatmeal porridge, which Keziah had provided, and which I
tasted then for the first time. "I must get their gardens tidied up
before they come. Shall you mind helping me, Margery?"

The idea delighted me, and after breakfast we tied on our hats, rummaged
out some small tools from the porch, and made our way to the children's
gardens. They were at some little distance from the big flower-garden,
and the path that led to them was heavily shaded by shrubbery on one
side, and on the other by a hedge which, though "quickset" as a
foundation, was now a mass of honeysuckle and everlasting peas. The
scent was delicious.

From this we came out on an open space at the top of the kitchen garden,
where, under a wall overgrown with ivy, lay the children's gardens.

"What a wilderness!" was Eleanor's first exclamation, in a tone of
dismay, and then she added with increased vehemence, "He's taken away
the rhubarb-pot. What will Clement say?"

"What is it, dear?" I asked.

"It's the rhubarb-pot," Eleanor repeated. "You know Clement is always
having new fads every holidays, and he can't bear his things being
disturbed whilst he's at school. But how can I help it if I'm at school
too?"

"Of course you can't," said I, gladly seizing upon the only point in her
story that I could understand, to express my sympathy.

"And he got one of the rhubarb-pots last holidays," Eleanor continued.
"It was rather broken, and Thomas gave in to his having it then, so it's
very mean of him to have moved it now, and I shall tell him so. And
Clement painted church windows on it, and stuck it over a plant of ivy
at the top of the garden. He thought it would force the ivy, and he
expected it would grow big by the time he came home. He wanted it to
hang over the top, and look like a ruin. Oh, he will be so vexed!"

The ivy plant was alive, though the "ruin" had been removed by the
sacrilegious hands of Thomas. I suggested that we should build a ruin of
stones, and train the ivy over that, which idea was well received by
Eleanor; the more so that a broken wall at the top of the croft supplied
materials, and Stonehenge suggested itself as an easy, and certainly
respectable, model.

Meanwhile we decided to "do the weeding first," as being the least
agreeable business, and so set to work; I in a leisurely manner,
befitting the heat of the day, and Eleanor with her usual energy. She
toiled witho