e was very reserved, and would
let nobody make up to him until the miserable day when he and my brother
Joshua, and then my niece Mary, all got acquainted together.

"Before I go on to anything else, I must say first, that Mr. Carr was
what they call a botanist. Whenever it was fine, he was always out of
doors, gathering bits of leaves, which it seems he carried home in a
tin case, and dried, and kept by him. He hired a gardener for the bit
of ground round about Jay's Cottage; and the man told me once, that his
master knew more about flowers and how to grow them than anybody he ever
met with. Mr. Carr used to make little pictures, too, of flowers and
leaves set together in patterns. These things were thought very odd
amusements for a young man to take up with; but he was as fond of them
as others of his age might be hunting or shooting. He brought down many
books with him, and read a great deal; but from all that I heard, he
spent more time over his flowers and his botany than anything else.

"We had, at that time, the two best shops in Dibbledean. Joshua sold
hosiery, and I carried on a good dress-making and general millinery
business. Both our shops were under the same roof, with a partition wall
between. One day Mr. Carr came in Joshua's shop, and wanted something
which my brother had not got as ready to hand as the common things that
the townspeople generally bought. Joshua begged him to sit down for a
few minutes; but Mr. Carr (the parlor door at the bottom of the shop
being left open) happened to look into the garden, which he could see
very well through the window, and said that he would like to wait there,
and look at the flowers. Joshua was only too glad to have his garden
taken such notice of, by a gentleman who was a botanist; so he showed
his customer in there, and then went up into the warehouse to look for
what was wanted.

"My niece, Mary, worked in my part of the house, along with the other
young women. The room they used to be in looked into the garden; and
from the window my niece must have seen Mr. Carr, and must have slipped
down stairs (I not being in the way just then) to peep at the strange
gentleman--or, more likely, to make believe she was accidentally walking
in the garden, and so get noticed by him. All I know is, that when I
came up into the workroom and found she was not there, and looked out of
the window, I saw her, and Joshua, and Mr. Carr all standing together
on the grass plot, the st