of strawberries, and laid out another half-acre in
currant and raspberry bushes. By this time, too, the cherry-trees were
beginning to yield. So by little and little, feeling sure of their lease,
they extended the business. William John, one winter, put up a brand-new
chimney, and bought three cows which he pastured up along in the meadow
behind the woods; and next spring the pair hung out a fresh board and
painted on it--_Furnace's Merry-Garden Tea-House. Patronised by the Naval
and Military. Teas, with Fruit and Cream, Sixpence per head_: and another
board which they hoisted in the mazzard-season, saying--_Sixpence at the
Gate, and eat so Much as you Mind to. All are Welcome_. With all this,
Aunt Barbree (as she came to be called) didn't neglect the cockles, which
were her native trade. In busy times she could afford to hire over one of
the Saltash fish-women--the Johnses or the Glanvilles; you'll have heard
of them, maybe?--to lend her a hand: but in anything like a slack season
she'd be down at low water, with her petticoat trussed over her knees,
raking cockles with her own hands. Yes, yes, a powerful, a remarkable
woman! and a pity it was (I've heard my mother say) to see such a healthy,
strong couple prospering in all they touched, and hauling in money
hand-over-fist, with neither chick nor child to leave it to.

Prosper they did, at any rate; and terrible popular the place became with
the Fleet and the Army, till by the year eighteen-nought-five--the same in
which Admiral Nelson fought the Battle of Trafalgar--there wasn't an
officer in either service that had ever found himself at Plymouth, but
could tell something of Merry-Garden and its teas, with their cockles and
cream and strawberries in June and mazzards in July month. By this time
the Furnaces had built a new landing-quay--the same to which your boat is
moored at this moment--and rigged up arbours and come-sit-by-me's in every
corner of the garden and under every plum-tree and laylock-bush: for
William John was extending his season by degrees, and had gone so far as
to set up a board in May-time by Admiral's Hard, down at Devonport, and on
it '_Officers of the United Services will Kindly take Notice that the Lay
locks in Merry-Garden are in Bloom. Cockles Warranted, and Cream from
best Channel Island Cows. Patronised also by the Nobility and Gentry of
Plymouth, Plymouth Dock, Saltash, and East Cornwall_.'

You may wonder that the Furnaces' su