y do both," said the doctor.

"Thanky, sir--thanky kindly, Miss," said the gardener, half-putting his
hat on twice so as to have it in the proper position for making a bow;
"which I'm the last man in the world, sir, to make complaints."

"Humph!" ejaculated the doctor.

"Serving you as I have now for over twenty year, and remembering
puffickly well, Miss, when you was only a pink bit of a baby, as like
one o' my tender carnations as could be, only more like a Count dee
Parish rose."

"Well, what's the matter, Daniel?" said the doctor hastily, for he
wanted to bring the old man's prosings to an end.

"Well, sir, heverythink, as you may say, is the matter. Look at me,
sir; I've suffered more in that garden than mortal man would believe!"

"Oh, have you!" said the doctor, taking off his glasses. "You don't
look so very bad, Daniel, for a man of sixty-five."

"Sixty-four and three-quarters, begging your pardon, sir; but I have
suffered. I've laid awake nights and nights thinking of what was best
for planting them borders with s'rubs, as is now a delight to the human
eye; and I've walked that garden hundreds o' nights with a lanthorn in
search o' slugs, as comes out o' they damp meadows in in counted
millions; and I've had my cares in thrips and red spider and green fly,
without saying a word about scale and them other blights as never had no
name. But never in my life--never in all my born days--never since I
was first made a gardener, have I suffered anythink like as I've
suffered along o' that there boy."

"Nonsense, Daniel! nonsense!" cried the doctor pettishly.

"Well, sir, I've served you faithful, and took such a pride in that
there garden as never was, and you may call it nonsense, sir, but when I
see things such as I see, I say it's time to speak."

"Why, you are always coming to me with some petty complaint, sir, about
that boy."

"Petty complaint, sir!" cried Dan'l indignantly. "Is Ribstons a petty
complaint--my chycest Ribstons, as I want for dessert at Christmas? And
is my Sturmer pippins a petty complaint--them as ought to succeed the
Ribstons in Febbery and March?"

"Why, what about them?" cried the doctor.

"Oh, nothing, sir; only as half the town's t'other side o' the river,
and my pippins is being shovelled over wholesale."

The doctor walked out into the hall and put on his hat, with Dan'l
following him; and, after a moment's hesitation, Helen took up a
sunshade, and went down the ga