r a pause. "But I'll tell you what we must do,
Betty: we must get the right sort of soil for them--just the sandy soil
they want. We'll go and consult Birchall; he is the oldest gardener in
the place, and knows something about everything. For that matter, we are
sure to get the sort of sand we require on this piece of waste
ground--our 'forest primeval,' as Olive calls it."

"Oh dear!" said Betty, dashing away the tears from her eyes, "you are
funny when you talk of a thing like that"--she waved her hand in the
direction of the uncultivated land--"as a 'forest primeval.' It is the
poorest, shabbiest bit of waste land I ever saw in my life."

"Let's walk across it," said Margaret. "Olive can't be back for a minute
or two."

"Why should we walk across it?"

"I want to show you where some heather grows. It is certainly not rich,
nor deep in color, nor beautiful, like yours; but it has grown in that
particular spot for two or three years. I am quite sure that Birchall
will say that the soil round that heather is the right sort of earth to
plant your Scotch heather in."

"Well, come, and let's be very quick," said Betty.

The girls walked across the bit of common. Margaret pointed out the
heather, which was certainly scanty and poor.

Betty looked at it with scorn. "I think," she said after a pause, "I
don't want to consult Birchall." Then she added after another pause, "I
think, on the whole, I'd much rather have no heather than plants like
those. You are very kind, Margaret; but there are some things that can't
be transplanted, just as there are some hearts--that break--yes,
break--if you take them from home. That poor heather--once, doubtless,
it was very flourishing; it is evidently dying now of a sort of
consumption. Let's come back to our plots of ground, please, Margaret."

They did so, and were there greeted by Olive, who had a large can of
cold water standing by her side, and was eagerly talking to Sylvia and
Hester. Betty marched first into the center plot of ground.

"I've got lots of water," said Olive in a cheerful tone, "so we'll do
the watering at once. Sylvia and Hester say that they must have a third
each of this canful; but of course we can get a second can if we want
it."

"No!" said Betty.

Sylvia, who was gazing with lack-lustre eyes at the fading heather, now
started and looked full at her sister. Hester, who always clung to
Sylvia in moments of emotion, caught her sister's hand and held it