ering flowers for my grandmother, and such exquisite
contrasts of colour I never saw combined by any other hand. Another
accomplishment of his was also connected with his love of plants.

"It's little enough a man can do about a house the best of times," said
Elspeth, "and the master's just as feckless as a bairn. But he makes a
fine sallet."

I shudder almost as I write the words. How little we thought that my
poor grandfather's one useful gift would have so fatal an ending!

But I must put it down in order. It was the end of many things. Of my
life at The Vine among them, and very nearly of my life in this world
altogether. My great-grandfather made delicious salads. I have heard him
say that he preferred our English habit of mixing ingredients to the
French one of dressing one vegetable by itself; but he said we did not
carry it far enough, we neglected so many useful herbs. And so his
salads were compounded not only of lettuce and cress, and so forth, but
of dandelion, sorrel, and half-a-dozen other field or garden plants.
Sometimes one flavour preponderated, sometimes another, and the sauce
was always good.

Now it is all over it seems to me that I must have been very stupid not
to have paid more attention to the strange flavour in the salad that
day. But I was thinking chiefly of the old lady, who was not very well
(Elspeth had an idea that she had had a very slight "stroke," but how
this was we cannot know now), whilst my grandfather was almost flightily
cheerful. I tasted the salad, and did not eat it, but I was the less
inclined to complain of it as they seemed perfectly satisfied.

Then my grandmother was taken ill. At first we thought it a development
of what we had noticed. Then Mr. Vandaleur became ill also, and we sent
Adolphe in haste for the doctor. At last we found out the truth. The
salad was full of young leaves of monk's-hood. Under what delusion my
poor grandfather had gathered them we never knew. Elspeth and I were
busy with the old lady, and he had made the salad without help from any
one.

From the first the doctor gave us little hope, and they sank rapidly.
Their priest, for whom Adolphe made a second expedition, did not arrive
in time; they were in separate rooms, and Elspeth and I flitted from one
to the other in sad attendance. The dear little old lady sank fast, and
died in the evening.

Then the doctor impressed on us the necessity of keeping her death from
my great-grandfather's kn